love letter to our house: living room

Whoopsie!  I showed you the before and after versions of the outside of our house, then completely dropped the ball on the rest of it.  Moving will do that to you, apparently.

So I'd mentioned in passing that there was some orange shag carpet when The Awesome Husband closed on the house and first clutched the keys in his very own hands.  That doesn't fully convey the amount of 1960s-ness that had to be eradicated from the premises.   Not only was there orange shag carpet covering every square inch of the floor other than the kitchen and bathroom, but there was wall paneling everywhere.  And it covered up wallpaper.  Which covered more wallpaper.  

There were also some pretty sweet window treatments. 

We tackled the walls ourselves with some help from friends and family, and once we gave the orange shag the boot, we paid to have the hardwood floors refinished.  We could have given it the ol' college try, but it wouldn't have looked as good and it sure wouldn't have been done in a weekend.  Best $700 we ever spent.

And then, you know, we put furniture in it and stuff.  Take a look! 

Before 

During

After!

love letter to our house: exterior

As I mentioned recently, we're selling our house.

This means, among other things, that it's never looked as wonderful as it does now. The outside has been pressure washed and the landscaping was updated.  All the rooms have been re-done over the course of the past few years.  The living room wall paneling and orange shag carpet are long gone, and even the pink kitchen counter that hung on for a while has been revamped.  And of course we re-did the bathroom.  Oh, the bathroom...

So now's the time to post pictures of it, right?   One part show-off-our-hard-work, one part nothing-else-interesting-is-happening-to-me-right-now, and one part farewell-house-we've-loved-living-in.

First up, the exterior:

Before

After

Blueberry pie, coming up! In about ten years.

Our yard is the stuff of high hopes (pipe dreams?) and long term plans.

We'd like to have a deck.  And a place to store our kayak and canoe.  And a couple flower gardens that look purposeful rather than haphazard.  Maybe a better spot for the hammock so we can have it set up for the whole season.

While we're at it, one of these days we'll get around to trying to make grass grow where we want it to (the lawn) instead of where we don't (the vegetable garden).  Details.

One thing we've started -- and probably will be tackling for the next several years -- is creating a hedge along one side of the back yard made up of useful perennials.  We have raspberries there now, and the solitary blueberry bush in the picture above.  Maybe we'll move the asparagus plants over here too.  I don't know how well they handle transplanting, but actual soil with nutrients has got to be better than the sand pit where they live now.

Because clearly we don't have enough to do here... what are we missing?  What else would you have in your ideal back yard?

Refinishing that which I'd already refinished.

Two posts in two days! Will wonders never cease?

This is a project I've been sitting on for a few weeks, actually. "Sitting on" as in "I uploaded pictures from my camera to the computer, but I haven't had time to write up a post because July has been cuh-RAZY," and not as in actually sitting in a literal sense. Although, it is furniture, so I suppose I could.

We've had a nice enough couch and area rug in our living room for a while, up until recently accompanied by what I can only diplomatically refer to as an ottoman. Oh, the cube of faded blue cotton served The Awesome Husband well for years before I met him but it was beginning to look, shall we say... "out of place." (It does fit in much better now in the semi-finished basement, with the dart board and Pearl, the drum set we're foster-parenting.* It's a long story.)

So, clearly the ottoman has been put out to pasture. We replaced it with -- what else -- a coffee table that had been collecting dust in the basement, waiting for us to be sufficiently nudged into refinishing it. Doesn't everyone have random pieces of furniture collecting dust in the basement? No? Here's what it looked like before. Colorful, whimsical, great back in 2007; each of those little squares is a piece of a magazine page, chosen for color and visual interest. It's not the best photo, but you can get a better sense of it here:

It did look pretty interesting, but it's definitely not the right fit for today. (Also, wow, there is noooo reason for you to poke around and read other 2007 posts. Or at least, if you do, please don't laugh too hard at me. k, thanks.)

The Awesome Husband was kind enough to sand down the layers of polyurethane and paper and paint for me, so I could do a couple coats of primer:

I also got lots of splotches of primer on the driveway. Go me!

When I did the actual painting, splotches of paint on the driveway weren't a big deal because I astutely chose black paint. It's the look we decided we wanted, PLUS we had black paint leftover from this project.

And really, doesn't it look great (which is to say, not what you'd find in a college dorm room) all dolled up and at home in the living room?

Of course, this time of year it typically has some pet hair on it.

*I ordinarily hate the use of "parent" terminology when one is not actually talking about human children, but in this case I'm being sarcastic and somewhat at a loss for how else to say it: we don't own the drum set, but we're letting it live with us. Hmm. Perhaps could have just gone with that phrasing. Next time!

It's less ugly! Our bathroom before, during, and after.

I finally got around to taking some proper photos of the finished bathroom (and Mr. Fantastic lent his photographic eye to the endeavor as well). It proved to be a bit of a challenge to capture more than any one component in a frame, as the walls are about five feet away from each other, but hopefully you get the idea.

Here's what we started with:

Gorgeous, huh? Call us crazy, but we wanted something a little different. We did not, however, realize that we were bargaining for two months of various states of this:

I think -- and I can only say this now, mind you -- it was worth it.

It's going to look SO GOOD.

Some parts of the bathroom actually do look pretty good right now.  The floor tiles are in and grouted.  The new sink and its faucet have been installed.  The wall trim looks great with the paint we used. 

Showing you those things, though, would make the eventual after photos sort of anticlimactic.  In the meantime, I figure I won't give too much away with a picture of boring old wall tiles.  These guys are affixed to one of the three walls they're destined for, and not yet grouted.  So... yeah, it'll be a while for those Afters.

Small victories.

We may not have floor tiles installed... We may not have primer or paint on the walls (skim coat goes up today!)... We may not even have a sink set up...

But our eight guests on Christmas will be able to make the bathroom as dim or as bright as their hearts desire, thanks to our new dimmer switch.

We pull put all the stops around here.

Nice pipes.

That's where the Hated Sink used to be.  It's also where walls used to be.  Project "Make the Bathroom Less Ugly" has taken a turn for the ambitious.

Our original plan was to get the most aesthetic bang for our buck by doing the following:
- replacing the medicine cabinet, light fixture, and light switch
- tiling the floor
- removing the glossy, speckled wallboard (shudder) from about 60% of the wall space - the rest being passable tile - and painting the drywall underneath
- replacing the Hated Sink with a cute little pedestal number and a retro faucet
- finally putting up the new shower curtain and chrome curtain rings we got as gifts months ago.

And that was supposed to be the extent of it. 

But then... we realized that the wall tiles around the tub were set directly on the glossy, speckled wallboard (shudder), so that by removing the wallboard, we'll also be removing the tiles.  So we added wall tiles to the project.

And then... we realized that one of the bathroom shut off valves had corroded over time (three guesses how that became apparent).  So we added valve replacements to the project.

And then... we took down the glossy, speckled wallboard (shudder) and found that the lurking drywall was in bad condition.  So we added complete demolition and rebuilding of the walls to the project.

And by "we," I pretty much mean "the Best Husband in the Whole Wide World."  I'll help when we get to the priming and painting.

The Hated Sink

Alright, you guys.  I had three requests for pictures reflecting the Before status of Project "Make the Bathroom Less Ugly" and so I present to you The Hated Sink.  The rest of the Befores will be forthcoming, likely when I post the During and After photos.  (Can't wait for those Afters!)

Anyway, I despise this sink.  The back corners slope away from the basin, so water landing there either overflows to the floor (awesome) or simply stagnates (double awesome).  Hate.  And the vanity it sits on doesn't win it any points either.

I kind of want to Office-Space it after we replace it.  But I won't.

There's no turning back now.

Project "Make the Bathroom Less Ugly" is officially on.  We've purchased a sink. And, since we won't be having pieces of a pedestal sink collect dust in the basement, I guess this means we'll be moving from the theoretical to the practical pretty quickly.

The Fruits of our Procrastination

Mr. Terrific and I can count on one hand the number of weekends remaining to wrap up the planning of our wedding, and that's getting a little, shall we say, worrisome. We've got a lot done in advance, but there's still a list longer than we'd like of things left to tackle. So what did we do last weekend? We painted furniture. Of course. Isn't that what you'd do when faced with a major looming deadline?

We've had two dressers functioning in an unfinished state for way too long, and last weekend was clearly the time to remedy that. I forgot to take a proper "before" picture, but I suspect everyone knows what unfinished furniture looks like. Just in case, here's a picture of a similar piece:

photo credit: Mill Stores

We sanded. We primed. We primed again. We painted. We painted again. We oohed and ahhed at just how darn shiny and sleek the separate dresser frames and drawers looked as they dried in the driveway, and we crossed our fingers that the final look of the finished products would be as impressive as we hoped.

I, for one, am quite pleased:

Our neighbors like us again

To be fair, I don't think our next-door neighbors have ever actually disliked us. I don't think they can always hear us very well (remember, they're octegenarians), and I suspect they liked us *more* last summer when I was unemployed and available to mow their lawn when they asked at a moment's notice (you think I'm kidding, don't you?), but all kidding aside, no, the folks next door probably don't and have never hated us. In fact, I think they find us fairly amusing, with our ever-expanding vegetable garden, and our early morning bike ride last Saturday (I'd bet you anything that they noticed when we got home about 10 minutes after we left, all dolled up in our helmets and neon-ware), and our sensible approach to our household (see, e.g. use of clothesline, compost bin).

But if any thing could have created some resentment among the senior set one house over, it would have been this:



Granted, this photo was taken after all the old, loose paint no longer adhered to the wood was scraped off. Even when the lion's share of the surface appeared to be covered in paint still, we got a hint or two that oh, by the way, the fence is yours, and doesn't it look like it should be painted? Now, maybe it's really our fence, maybe it's really theirs -- I think that's pretty much beside the point. Mr. Terrific and I are infinitely more capable of prepping and painting (and man, it took longer than I thought it would) than any two eighty-somethings. Particularly the eighty-somethings in question.

And so, we painted. It took a couple nights after work and a solid weekend day, and now it looks like this:



Oh how they gushed when they saw the results a few days ago. It brightens up the whole place! I love the color! (Thanks, it's.... white.)

The best, though, was the comment received this evening.

Looks great... You gonna do a second coat?

Crafting minus yarn equals.... fabric!

Like I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I won't be posting any knitting updates for a good long while (unless I lose motivation on the mammoth secret project I need to finish and let my attention stray to some other diversionary project, which is entirely possible).

I do have a craft update, though: a fabric alphabet banner, given as a baby gift for a friend whose twins are thankfully not yet driving (yes, they're still babies -- I just took forever and a day to get this project finished). The letters were fashioned by a group of friends, and I affixed them to their backings and banner-ized the whole thing. Such a fun process.

And so, voila, the alphabet banner:

Must focus on the positive. Positive, positive, positive.

I've been grumpy lately, which in a big picture sort of way isn't like me, but in a past-several-months sort of way has become par for the course. I'm not going to get into the self-analysis of why I've been wearin' the crankypants, but I really want to get back to a more upbeat frame of mind... so instead of complaining about how long it's taking to have my attic renovated, I'm going to post pictures and focus on how much has been done in the last few weeks.

Turning point...

There's been enough progress with Attic Renovation 2008 at this point to get a better sense of what the room is going to look like when it's done. This is making it so much easier to deal with the chaos in the rest of my house. I mean, it's still really bothering me, but now I can focus more on the end result. Well, *right* now, at least. We'll see about tomorrow.

So here's what everything looks like today:

Rockin' ... Sheetrockin'

Attic Renovation 2008 continues! The sheetrocking has begun, so things are starting to take shape. The back of the sheetrock with the studs in front of it is what will be the side wall of the closet, and the ceiling is, well, the ceiling. With recessed lighting: yay.





I'm still not pleased about my house being discombobulated, but it'll be worth it soon. And I'd have pictures for you of those vintage closet doors, but I ran out of chemical paint stripper, so it'll have to wait.

All in all not the most exciting blog post ever, but that's ok. It's been sort of a mediocre day, so this fits in nicely.

Lots of pink and a big saw

Attic Renovation 2008 is really in gear now. In the morning, there were 6 or 7 giant bales of insulation ready to go. That's a heck of a lot of pink, there. And a solid reminder that hiring out this part of the project was a very, very, very smart thing to do.


By the time I got home from work, it was dark outside (and the electrical work needs to be inspected, so no lights yet), so the project pictures I took aren't the best. Even so, here's a shot of the workspace and the big saw. Sharp.

Soon-Soon-Soon!

One of the items from my "goals for 2008" post was renovating the Rustic Attic in the TeenyTiny house. And it's going to happen realllllly soon. (It's not that I'm so impressively on the ball as to have figured out the project in two weeks, by the way. The planning process started in 2007.)

The major elements (read: the stuff I'm hiring out) should be done before the end of January. While that's going on, I'm going to try my best to pick up the pace of my decision making process when it comes to paint colors, so I can get the walls painted (and thus get the whole thing finished) as soon as possible. And this hideousness will be gone, gone, gone:

Paint the town red...

... or at least a very small bathroom.

It needed to be done. Badly. The TeenyTinyBathroom was hideous. See?


Ew. That's a whole lot of wallpaper backing goin' on. When I moved in, there was actual wallpaper, so it didn't look *quite* this bad. Sadly, though, "in construction" status lasted for a looooong time.

But I've had a couple weeks off, and that combined with the knowledge that I'll have guests soon motivated me to paint the darn TeenyTinyBathroom once and for all. And by "motivated," I mean "instilled in me the fear of major embarassment."

I used a gallon of red paint I picked up a while ago at the ol' Housing and Building Materials Exchange for all of five bucks. And bonus, I didn't have to choose a color out of all the paint chip options at a regular store. (It would have taken hours. Seriously.) Besides, I figured if I hated it, big deal, it was only five bucks and few hours of time invested.

But I don't hate it! I lurrrve it! It came out wonderfully, and the bathroom is now ALL ONE COLOR! With no exposed plaster! Huzzah!




I *heart* my clawfoot tub. Even if it is only inches away from... oh, everything else in the room.