Well, at least this is a pretty funny story.

As you may have noticed like Dadd did in the guest room, we pulled all the faceplates off to paint (duh). They were yucky pretty much every where. MK found the super sweet screwless kind but for sure thought the plugs had to match. So we had some electrical work to do.

This means that I read the Home Depot book and was then an expert. I knew we needed to test breakers. Things were going fine as we ran from room to room seeing what lights went off and checking the toaster and other random plugs and appliances. We were, in fact, almost done. MK said something I couldn’t hear about being glad something didn’t mess up anything when we were something something. Then I heard some swears. He had popped the breaker to the heater. He popped it back on, and nothing. Then I heard MK again. More expletives. No heat.

We opened the heater, which is powered by gas, and shut off the gas immediately. I started dry heaving and noticing how cool the air was getting. MK had more expletives. We started reading the Home Depot book. There is no page called “your friends have their parents in town and you will be sleeping at a hotel if you do not figure out how to get the heater back on it’s 12 degrees out”. MK was not very nice to me. (He doesn’t read this, so I can tell you point blank: If something happens to him in this house, it’s like I WILLED it. I keep getting the anger. Boo.)

I read what the heater said. “Turn the heat low, reset the electricity, reset the gas, crank the heat. Auto lights. Or you’re going to the hotel”. We did those things, since it was late Late Sunday, there’s no guy we can call. It didn’t work. I’m not sure how much time had passed, but it was starting to feel like hours. MK decided to hit the main breaker, change the wiring to a different breaker, and try again. Yikes. That was DEFINITELY not in the book.

HEAT! Glorious crazy heater that keeps me alive! I was totally impressed by MK’s call to action – I don’t think I knew you could BREAK a breaker…but whatever, it worked, and we were warm again! (The temperature on the thermostat didn’t even drop a degree, but I could feel a chill coming IN MY BONES).

Here’s a picture that is so boring, you can’t see anything. It’s a NON working heater:

And for those of you that have never had an insane gas powered heater, here’s a picture of the JETS that look like they could go airborne when they are working (it’s blurry but it’s four giant OPEN FLAMES ARGH – seeing how my house works makes it a little harder to sleep):

The kick to this is that it was LATE. And exhausting. And MK was not done. We were done testing breakers, sure. But it was TIME TO PUT ON THE NEW OUTLETS.

This is out of order but we also did the trim and finished the Utility Room. MK stole some of my pictures so I unveiled the guest room first. I think the funniest thing about the trim was that for the living room we literally pulled it off the wall, primed it, painted it, and stuck it back on. It’s a little loose but it worked. They don’t show you that on TV.

In reality, you have a room where you’ve trashed the trim, like our Utility Room. I’m not sure what else to call it, it’s a huge storage room really, the guy that lived here before us used it as an in-house work room. We cleaned it thoroughly and painted it. It’s nice enough to sleep in now. Not having an in-house work room meant that after a week of sitting in my dining room the trim had to be cut outside. Brr.

MK’s work space on the back deck was hilarious:

We sectioned out the new wood trim we’d picked out, measured it, found studs (well, I was in charge of finding them and I missed one, so we found MOST of the studs) and measured where to cut the wood. As I think I mentioned, I wouldn’t let MK spring the 400$ or whatever for the nail gun and air compressor after reading it’s perfectly do-able by hand. So we drilled holes, sunk nails, and realized the nails weren’t long enough. MK ran to the store for some enormous nails. We also realized that the room is right on the intersection of concrete becoming pier-and-beam so it was a little crooked. Oh well. We made the wood fit, put wood putty over the nail head holes, and filled the seams with sealer. It was hard work since the laundry main goes through the floor in one spot (hoping FIL can put my laundry IN this room when he visits):

But overall we think we did okay. As you can see the floor isn’t that great, so I decided to roll out a rug we weren’t going to use. Made the space much happier. There’s enough room that I’ve kind of been using the space as a workout room too, and it otherwise holds crap, paint, and the ironing board I hope I never have to look for.

It’s all cleaned and there’s nothing on the floor now but that’s another story…

You blog about what’s going on in your life, and I can’t not tell you all these house stories. I really hope you’re enjoying hearing about our misadventures (to borrow a friend’s term) as we learn about home ownership, whether you’ve been through all this before, are shaking your head in disbelief, or are taking notes on what NOT to do when it’s your turn.

Seriously, we could have a HGTV show. No host, (or I’d be the host, it’s my idea) where they film novices reading out of books, consulting the internet, and trying to keep a marriage together while taking on the projects. On the shows they have now there’s someone showing them what a patina is or giving them a 400$ air compressor and nail gun. That’s so not how it is in the real DIY world.

MK and I awoke Christmas Eve to the decision to paint the basement guest room – we have company coming! TB and I picked out a subtle yellow that I was certain would compliment the bed set. Problem is, when I started painting, I couldn’t tell what I had done. The paint was so light it matched the white on the walls at that point. Trying not to cry I finished the job and refused to paint a second coat since it dried a little darker and I was still grouchy. We rearranged some furniture and voila. The trim was acceptable except for one piece, MK was able to salvage a piece from the Utility Room and we were able to fit it exactly to the wall. You’d never know, but underneath is properly sealed. We need some wall art and MK is going to rehang the door so that it opens in the opposite direction just because (I’m lying the house is settling and it’ll be less noticeable that way HA) and that room will be ALL. DONE.

Of note in these pictures: That is my first teddy bear ever. My Dadd won it for me at the St. James Bazaar. The sheets are not that gaudy and shiny in person, it’s the flash. MIL gave those to us and I really like them, so be nice. Can you tell the paint is yellow? I’m thinking a giant wrought iron swirly thing over the bed headboard, thoughts? And finally, NOW ACCEPTING RESERVATIONS. 😉

Snippy and sybo guessed it! But really, it came from a lot of help from Snippy’s ideas.

We’re doing a green and burnt orange room. After visiting a design store that had the room as a bedroom, I wanted it to be the guest room, but the linens MIL gave us were so nice that we have to use those and make it match. Snippy went to the trouble of looking up colors and helping with ideas. She noticed a candle and holder (not shown) I have that are going to theme out the room. They’ll go in the center table I’m trying to choose. So the paint came out great in two coats, the second one which I managed to knock out all. by. myself. So I’m pretty proud. The room still isn’t done, we need to prime and paint the trim. Hopefully soon!