Of course we are on such a roll around here, we can’t stop. Finished a bathroom yesterday. Minus the towel rack, Home Depot didn’t have a single one in bronze. But it’s so much better than it was!
Woke up this lovely Christmas Eve, and started painting the guest room. Don’t want to lose momentum…
Somegosoftly wishes you all the best your holiday can bring, no matter what you may be doing!
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!
So here is another attempt at home improvement – the living room needs some brightening. No clue what would possess someone to paint it such a dark maroon color, that has got to go! Guess which color (if any) we picked to paint the upstairs living room?
Have you seen this blog? Have you read and reread this entire blog? I can’t do anything to our house because I’m too busy reading about theirs! And their wedding, and their baby…
Snippy introduced us all here in the comments, but in case you weren’t checking them out, I wanted to share with you the magic of this blog. You see, our house is old. I think I’ve mentioned that. But it has good bones. Drafty bones, but good bones. It was the first house I looked at and saw tons of potential. And we looked at so many houses. Ask Snippy. In Austin, things were different at the time and our price range, well, we virtually didn’t have one. Remember – banks were giving you all the money you wanted. Thankfully, we didn’t go that route. We put our stuff in storage and moved around for three amazing years. But we still looked at houses. New and old, big and small, ocean front and ski town. All that looking told me was that I wanted a house the made people happy to be in. Not uncomfortable, not anxious.
It took me until now to learn that almost has nothing to do with the house, and everything to do with what you do to the house. And that it doesn’t have to cost much at all. With each new shade of paint of decorative pillow, I’m making the house me (okay, us). And it can be fun. I apologize for complaining and relating a trip to Lowe’s to a root canal. This house is a blessing and not only can we take care of it, we can help it put it’s best foot forward. The plans will be fun. The ‘as is’ is temporary, and neither a budget nor a nail gun can stand in our way. We can do it!
For house projects two and three, we decided to paint the utility room and buy me some bookshelves.
What is a Utah utility room you wonder? Well, Mormons believe something like there will be an Apocalypse but they fail (this is my understanding only haha) and have to keep food for a year for each family member in their house. Some people have unfinished cold storage rooms in their house. Ours got finished and the previous owner used it is a warm workshop alternative to the garage. It’s as big as a 5th bedroom, but no windows. Someday we hope to have our laundry in it, so we wanted to paint it pretty.
MK went to the store, bought paint in 10 seconds, and got some brushes. We put newspaper down after cleaning the floor and pulling up the trim. The walls were white with patch marks showing that needed to be covered. MK basically picked a slightly darker shade of white. When we were done with coat one, we realized the texture on the walls made it really hard to get all the wall covered. So back to the store for coat number two can of paint, and paper to put down not of the news variety since the print made our feet and the floor black. Learn as you go.
Not sure why, but we’ve been made fun of for this second coat. I mean, it had to be done. Now our walls look nice and we could put all our storage crap in the room. Even thought we haven’t replaced the trim yet. Or the faceplates. Whatever. Next.
I am a nerd. Nerds have tons of books. I have no shelves. Solution: Ikea. We got two giant and super easy to assemble cases. That room needs to be painted but oh well, at least the books aren’t on the floor. Nerds hate the poor treatment of sacred books.
MK loves that instead of helping do stuff around the house I worked on this all day. Just kidding. We painted, then I did this. In about 4 minutes. Hope you like it. (And BTW, it’s all true…as in stuff we need/don’t have yet.)
THE TWELVE DAYS OF HOME-OWNING CHRISTMAS
On the twelfth day of Christmas our friends and family gave to me
(or, I went to Home Depot and bought with my hubb”y”):
Twelve screwless faceplates
Eleven dimming switches
Ten million feet of trimming
Nine times five sq.ft. of granite
Eight kitchen table chairs
Seven bronze doorknobs
Six bottle wine cooler
A FIVE-PIECE sectional sofa…
Four Ikea bookshelves
Three bathroom faucets
Two lazy susans
and a front door with a holiday wreath.
The house we bought is cozy and charming. It was built in 1979. There are some things that might be original.
Like the kitchen hardware. The wood isn’t super hip, but it is in great shape. So, house project the first.
New hardware. One hour and one hundred dollars to bring the kitchen from 1979 squarely into 1996 (pictured with the ‘charming’ non matching wood floor).
A few of the things we want to do are super easy and fun. Paint! Decorate! Hang pictures!
Then we get to talking – how about we move the washer and dryer? Let’s gut the master bath. This room needs to be bigger…Yikes.
We’re going to be picking our battles.
You know you’re becoming a grown up when personal items are not at the top of the list (they’re totally there – scarf, boots, hutch top for my desk – just not at the Tippy Top) I just want a place for my friends and family to eat…*puppy eyes*
So far, most people have gotten up, fed their family, dressed, gone to work, come back again, and been productive around the house. Got the mail, made dinner, talked on the phone. Surfed the net. You get the idea.
I, on the other hand, have been staring at this for 10 hours.
The only thing I’ve decided is that neither of them work, and we’re going to have to up the anty from bargain bin to custom order.
“You can do it, we can help?” Um, no. I don’t want to do it. I’m not that into it. I lived in other people’s furnished rentals with my perfect husband for over three years for a reason. Like I keep telling you, we’re trying not to be those guys, all wrapped up in this house and nothing else. Come on, we’ve gotta stay COOL. Here’s my pitch for your new set of commercials:
“You won’t be here all day” Commercial
Camera shows parents resignedly giving money and lists to cute babysitter who takes three kids and waves as parents get in car. Parents are then shown at Home Deopt, overwhelmed. Scene cuts to babysitter and kids having a blast at the park. Then to parents fighting. Home Depot guy shows up and gives them an idea that’s all ready to go, and they get home hours earlier.
Who wants to spend the weekend at Home Depot? Admit it – I know there are SOME of you out there. We’re just not in that club. We knew home ownership would change things. And we even thought at our OLD AGES we’d be happier to embark on this journey of house flipping. But no.
MK is doing better than I am. He sees tools and crap he’s never owned and his eyes light up. I on the other hand, am still in the camp that if you don’t just decide something, and paint it, and whatever, it’ll never get done. And who cares if the faucet is silver or bronze? Not me and probably not our guests.
So, Home Depot, stop acting like taking up my weekend is cool. Tell me you want me in and out. And tell my husband to get whatever he wants, he’s earned it. And then we can go to the park.
Cat Killfoil 