Category Archives: House

My Version of Productive

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Super amazing husband is on a roll. I have a new landscaped front yard. New stairs. A new deck, porch, and front entryway ALL MADE OF THE SAME DECK MATERIAL. The front of the house is gorgeous. He’s working on the rail tiles and then we can share some photos.

He also set up my office better. I have a nice chair and a dual monitor system rocking right now. All of a sudden, I’ve caught up on emails, texts, a giant to do list, I’m even listening to all the music I download and forget about.

It might not impress you much, but I hate that list that I would look at and ignore because it honestly isn’t that pressing. Knocking some of the little stuff out is doing me goooood. Suddenly, I want to write again. I have ideas. I miss blogging and want to be here instead of thinking “every time I go there I quit”. I have a cleared my email inbox. My computer is organized. My office is clean. My house is OCD clean. I’m freaking COOKING again, which I’d all but given up on.

We’ll see how long it lasts, but this is my kind of productive.

Have you made a change lately that you feel good about?

Basement

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Here are photos of a whole new floor for my laundry room!

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My Christmas Gift

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The holidays are already perfect, my family is here and we are having so much fun.

To top it all off, I’m getting the perfect gift:

Apparently (and fortunately) the whole wall was held together with dirt and toothpaste – making the demo process easy.

We’re about halfway done taking it apart after one night’s work and will probably finish the rest, wall it up, put in the fireplace and order stone soon! We can actually finally use the basement!

No Glamour In The Legwork

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The house sat around for a while not doing much while we moved things from the garage to the shed and spent time on the deck.

Then with the announcement we were going to have company for the holidays, we decided to get back to work.

MK has put trim around the sliding doors, dining room, and basement guest room to finally get the rest of the house matching. It was a tough project (of course) when we realized the old trim was basically covering a hole from the floor to walls and cold air was getting in. We should own stock in spray foam.

                                              

This doesn’t show it anymore, but under the trim and the nice paint is some GAUDY silver wallpaper with cobalt blue and maroon leaves all over it. Priceless to imagine what this place used to look like.

These pictures don’t look super gorgeous, but the new furnace we installed barely runs and the bills are way down, so we’re doing something right.

MK also hung some crazy styrofoam stuff in my laundry room, that we will eventually frame over, again not pretty, but no more cold air!

We’ve finally totally emptied the room we were using for storage, now to convert it into his office.

We also decorated for Christmas. If you are remotely OCD and hate clutter like me, Christmas can be stressful! I ended up removing tons of stuff we normally have just to make room for the decorations.

We just started to decorate the tree!

Oldentimes

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Look around here in the past. This used to be such a thrilling time of the year. I was moving around years ago on Halloweens, starting to write books for NaNoWriMo. Seeing people I know now taking on the challenge to write a novel in a month makes me nostalgic!

Things are still thrilling, just in a different way.

I gave up my goals again and again in favor of new opportunities.

I also kept them on the back burner.

As much as I try to bring my books to life, I scare myself. I second guess things. I give up on editing.

I’m sitting now with a perfect couple of chapters, written, rewritten, and crafted to the best of my ability.

I’m happy blogging, freelancing, and continuing to sit and wonder if I can lift a book into a reality of published work. And I still believe it can happen.

I spend time waiting for everything to fall into place. Besides relationships I need to work to improve, my life has never been better.  Our house is beautiful, if not fully updated. We’ve met wonderful new friends, and I am continuing to enjoy the perks of Ski Utah. My family and I have been able to spend more time together than ever. I quit drinking, and started two-a-day workouts to prepare for the ultimate ski season. The snow is starting to fly.

I’m so blessed!

Open Letter To My House

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House,

First off, let me say happy two year anniversary. Time with you has really flown by. I really hope you like your gift, that new water heater and furnace looks really nice.

Ya know, to be honest, the last two years have been a little nuts. You got new fireplaces, new doors, new windows, new trim. I painted literally 100% of you. You have some nice new things going on. You aren’t as drafty as you used to be. You have all new toilets, new tiling, gorgeous art, and a really nice owner that does so much for you, inside and out.

It would be really great if you took a little break. Stop having issues. That stunt you tried to pull with the garbage disposal, stuff like that is not going to fly. You have drained the bank account enough. So just chill out a bit, ok?

No more water pipes bursting. No one likes a house that is so needy and desperate for attention.

I’ve loved you as much as possible even though you are taking some of my best years and requiring a lot of work and attention. Time to love me back.

Re-purpose With Purpose

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There is nothing remodeling our home has taught me more important than this:

I can’t take it with me.

Some people throw so much money into their houses. If it’s your thing, cool. But it’s not mine.

What if we leave? What if we upgrade? What if we wished we had the money when some emergency comes up?

Keeping a budget in mind is one thing. I’m convinced women are the worst at

splurging…

and immediately forgetting the splurge…

and splurging again.

I’m committed to avoiding it.

So when MK and I priced out a new front door, it came out to roughly 2000$. I’d rather do ANYTHING else with that money than have to tell you every time you came over “Our new front door was 2000$”, which is, to me, the only way to get your money’s worth. And alienate your friends and house guests.

Not going to happen.

But the door was nasty:

 

I mean, there’s nothing green anywhere. Where did that come from??

Not only did I sand and paint, we (MK) rehung a whole new door frame – and converted it from IN-swinging to OUT-swinging. This is a super big deal – it gives us some coveted “mudroom” type space – a place to throw your ski gear right when you walk in! We’ll be getting a bench and coat rack to add a nice touch to the inside.

 

So much more space in there now!

Not many doors are out-swinging, but with today’s technology and break-in proof hinges there’s no reason they can’t be.

Of course the added cost came (IT ALWAYS DOES) when we realized our two stairs leading up to the door weren’t level, so MK replaced them. We hung new trim inside and out, and as it stands right now, some touch up paint is all we need to look brand new.

Point of my story: I know the door doesn’t look like it just came out of a catalog. But we saved at least 1900$, so that money can go to more important things. Surprises come out of no where, and it’s nice to not have wasted the money on something fixable so that we have it when something too big to handle (water heater, maybe?) craps out and we need the dough! Or maybe, we splurge elsewhere.

As long as it’s 10$ at a time – like maybe for a nice star and a glowing brass finish doorbell ringer. Maybe the accents will stand out more than a 2000$ door!

More Arts And Crafts

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Every little thing I work on has been kind of fun and funny, but I love what it does for the house. MK is doing all that super hard has-to-be-done stuff that you can’t really see, but that makes the house work.

I’m all for making things pretty.

Latest projects:

I painted some small pictures with colors from the house for the guest bathroom. Stencils blow.

I also made us a custom headboard. Showing people where you sleep is creepy. Oh well. The picture might not look like much, but that is plywood with 2″ thick foam ($) and then batting and then fabric. I decided against the insane criss cross pattern MK wanted and went more simple with my decorative design. Our master bedroom is starting to look pimped out!

If you have ever wanted to try this, google “Custom Headboard” and go nuts. It’s idiot proof- I did it!