The Craft Room, and Another Big Change

I started this post two months ago, when I began working on the craft room.  I got a little distracted along the way, but we'll deal with why in a minute.   As you can see below, this room is red as fuck.  It's a gorgeous color, but very dark, and there's a whole lot of it in this big master bedroom-turned-craft room.

I started by finishing out all the baseboards, as in the rest of the house, and by cleaning, priming, and re-painting all the doors and trim.  The walls themselves are taking 2 coats of primer to cover up the red enough that it can be painted over. 

One wall of the room is textured with sand mixed into the red paint, just like the walls in the master bathroom walls ; except that on this wall, a sort of strié technique has been used to shape the sand texture into vertical  ridges. Just like in the bathroom, I wondered why??

While priming around one of the windows on this wall, I figured it out:  this wall is covered in wallpaper!  At some point, it was painted over (and over, and over - there are at least three different colors on top of it), and textured with the sand and dragging technique.

Hunter Green and burgundy, with gold.  Oh yeah! I thought. This house was built in 1984! Of course it's got plaid wallpaper. LOL.

I found wallpaper under the vanity in the master bath, too (blue with gold fleurs-de-lis)  - I bet it's all over the bathroom, under that sand texture. I can't believe I didn't put two and two together before.












So, I continue to chug along on this room.  It's about half primed now, and all of the trim and doors are finished;  It just needs a wall primed, and then paint on the whole thing. And while I've been working on repainting, I've also been  PACKING.

The Frost Is Off the Ground 

We're moving again.  My landlady-friend is selling the house.  Sylvan and I were supposed to spend 2017 preparing for a move to Oregon, but we both had a horrible year full of injuries and medical issues, and didn't get our shit together.  So we're looking for another rental house here in Austin. that isn't scary and that will accept 2 dogs and 5 cats.  And, of course, we're packing, and getting rid of as much as we can to facilitate a move into a smaller space, and eventually, a long move across the country.


I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of terrified.   But I'm pretty big on the idea of focusing on the tasks and items you can control, instead of worrying about the ones you can't.  We'll find a place; and in the meantime, I'm looking forward to not being anyone's live-in-handywoman anymore.  Projects are fun, right up until they're jobs.  Also, if I never have to repair any plumbing again, it'll be too soon.

So I'll keep you all updated on the usual house projects, the house search, and eventually, the new place!

BONUS CAT:  not supposed to be napping in houseplants

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Master Bathroom

Another room in the "Finally!!" category!  While on the surface this was just a re-paint job, this project involved the following challenges:

• sanding uneven wall texture to even it out
• finishing a ceiling that was stuck up by remodelers years ago but never completed
• adjusting two light fixtures that were hanging all sideways
• scraping, patching, caulking, sealing, priming, and painting baseboards and door trim
• cleaning doors and walls before priming and painting
• sanding and smoothing out cabinet doors which had built-up stenciled paint all over them
• patching walls where decals were removed, which ripped huge holes in the paint underneath
• glitter.  so much glitter.  glitter everywhere. 

First of all, this room is shaped really weirdly, and it's really hard to photograph!  

This is a fairly decent representation of the new wall color, though, and shows part of what my roomie and I call The Poop Cave.  

Still Life w/ Ladder & Wonky Art, 2017

The Poop Cave even has a window, so your neighbors can watch you poop!  Okay, not really - the glass is frosted, and there's a giant tree right outside.  

I've debated putting up a wee curtain here, but I think I'll cover the whole thing in hanging plants.  

Art + towel rack =   o_O

Look, Nan: flip-flops!

I'm not sure what to call the wall color.  I mixed it using Sherwin Williams' "Tradewinds" and Behr's "Fresh Thyme Green."  The result came out almost identical to SW's "Comfort Gray" (which is green!), except it's more on the minty side. 

It's actually precisely the same color as Baskin Robbins' Daiquiri Ice sherbet/sorbet, which pleases me to an unusual degree. 

Now for the BEFORE pictures! 

As always, I forgot to take before pictures, so these are mid-project.  

This is...purple as fuck.  The previous painter mixed sand into the purple paint to create a sandy texture, and then went over the walls with gold glitter. The sand was a neat effect - I'd seen the idea on tv, and always wondered how it felt in real life. 

You can also see the 1984 shell-sink molded vanity in a lovely shade of "was this beige once??"  It's super yellowy, and as far as I can tell, it's supposed to be (no amount of cleaning/bleaching/ scrubbing/scraping has changed it).  

I sanded every inch of these walls before cleaning and priming, to knock back some of the over-textured areas (I literally cut my elbow on the wall once, I'm not kidding) and balance them out a bit with the bare spots.  I could have scraped the walls completely clean and re-textured them from scratch, but...nuh-uh.  Do not want. So my entire life was covered in purple dust with gold glitter in it for like a week. 

The Poop Cave cabinet doors had been stenciled with silver acrylic paint.  It was a pretty effect, but the cabinets needed cleaning and repair, and updating.  I sanded the doors smooth to knock down the edges of the stenciling, and just painted over it.  

I also removed the knobs and patched the holes.  Again - neat effect having them in the center of the doors, but it was way too high to reach comfortably. 

This is what I mean by a weirdly-shaped bathroom.  If I remember correctly, it was actually a huge rectangle, once - if you imagine away the closets and take the walls back into a more regular shape, and add a tub and separate shower.  At one point, the room was remodeled, and the tub and shower were replaced with a single, HUGE, walk-in shower with a bench, and these two closets.  It's actually a fantastic space to use, as odd as it seems.  I love having a bathroom large enough to walk around in; and the closet duo means that we have a ridiculous amount of space in which to store various linens and craft stuff (the master bedroom is our craft room, just like at the old house).  

The only thing I don't like is where the bathroom door and the Poop Cave doors meet up. That's just a recipe for smacking yourself in the face, that is. It may not be everybody's first choice, but, I took the door off the Poop Cave.  It's safer, door-smacking-wise, and lets more light into the bathroom from the window during the day. 

I love the way this color looks with both the silver fixtures and brushed-gold frames and accessories.  

And the mirror, apparently, since I re-did this room like three weeks ago and still haven't wiped off that paint smear.  

The floor tile (and shower tile) is a warm, yellow-beige, just like the vanity.  

The only other consideration I bothered with in mixing the color was that it be something that coordinated with my roommate's gorgeous cotton shower curtain from World Market.  We both love the way this works. 

The only thing I don't have a pic of (because my phone just *cannot* for some reason) is the ceiling.  Yeah, it's just white.  But when this room was remodeled umpteen years ago, the ceiling was never finished. Not all the seams were taped, the joint between the ceiling boards and the wall boards wasn't sealed, and there were still grease-pen markings all over the ceiling from the workers who cut and installed it - arrows and measurements and such.  The bathroom itself took me about three days, but one of those days was just the ceiling:  cleaning, sealing, taping & floating, caulking, priming, painting.  I used to get so MAD while I was taking a shower, looking up at those measurements. Now it's fresh and white and smooth.  Ahhhh. 

There are plenty more things, both done and yet to do.  I'm hoping over the weekend that I can at least post about a couple of smaller projects I've been working on, if not have a new, huge one to show you (I have five days off, after all).  

IN the meantime, happy holidays, if holidays are your thing. 

Finally: The Kitchen

Finally, a post!  Hi, I'm Laura, and it has been 152 days since my last post. Life got a little weird there for a while, and I sure as heck wasn't working on the house.  But I'm back at it, and since (a) people always congregate in kitchen at parties, and (b) my roommate's 40th birthday party is this coming weekend, I painted the kitchen*:

Here's the "breakfast nook" side of the kitchen, after painting.  The color is Glidden's "Fresh Thyme Green," matched to a broken shard of a beloved bowl, which served as the color inspiration.

Here's the old color - kind of a baby-duck-yellow, which is pretty, but I'm not a yellow person at all.

The color was old, as well - the walls were covered in weird little scrapes and mars, years of grime and spatters, and over two dozen various holes and gouges in the walls that had to be filled.

The tile guys never finished out the baseboards in the house when they installed them, either; so every room in this house has started with filling and caulking in all the baseboards and trim, and priming and painting it all, too.

There was also this little section of a gold/ochre colored paint on one side of the kitchen window.

Hmm.

Eventually, I need to clean and repaint the soffits above the kitchen cabinets, too. I'd remove them entirely and open up the room, but the soffits above the stove and sink contain pipes!  Oh, well.

I absolutely love this color.  All of our kitchen accessories were already this color, so just by changing the wall color, the entire room is transformed and brought together.  I also LOVE the way it looks with all the different wood tones in the room.

This is Bob.  Bob almost got squished because I thought he was a drop of paint.

My favorite view of the kitchen:  The coffee bar on a metal baker's rack, and the Ikea cabinet given to me by a friend a couple of years ago (I traded her for my old cabinet, actually, and we're both better off!).





















* I wavered, for a while, over whether to tackle the kitchen or the master bathroom first.  I opted for the kitchen, since I know people will be cycling through it all evening.  But then the toilet in the guest bath broke.  I had to order a specialty part from The Internet, which was supposed to arrive last week, but now isn't going to show up until the day before the party.  Can I get it fixed in time, or will our guests have to use the ugly, cramped, dingy master bathroom in the crowded, crappy master bedroom (craft room) instead? 

The Fixer Upper

We move in two days, and I am not even stressed about it. I've finally reached the point where I've sat down and strapped myself in for the ride.  Whee!

 I've brought some before pictures of the house we're moving into this weekend:

The front entryway, in the process of being coated with paint primer.  Terra cotta tile on the floor, 90s sponge-paint job on the walls, in terra cotta over yellow.

Yay, a front door with windows! I've always wanted one of those!

The living room is enormous, with a 12' vaulted ceiling. The fireplace is gas (and needs to be refinished/restored).

The floors here are concrete, once painted blue with a darker blue rag/bag job over it. 

In the next few days (as we move in, hooray?) there's a contractor coming in to replace the flooring in the whole house with a wood-look ceramic tile, in a pale grayish-pine color.

Looking into the dining room from the living room.  There's laminate floor here and in the kitchen, which will also be replaced with the ceramic tile.

A yellow kitchen with a popcorn-encrusted soffit above the upper cabinets. 

The island will be removed by the tile guys; Sylvan and I plan to get a rolling work cart instead, that we can move around as needed.

The stove and fireplace are gas. I haven't cooked with gas since my last apartment, back in '03.  I LOVE cooking with gas!

The sink faucet, sprayer, and disposal were replaced just last week.

Looking through the dining room door at the other end of the kitchen, into a breakfast nook.

Sylvan's bedroom - it's Smurfy!

More painted concrete flooring and popcorn (there's popcorn throughout the house).

My bedroom, with peel-n-stick brick-look floor tile and a decorative wooden shelf across the top of one wall.

CAN you believe this window? I can't think of the name for this type of window (it's not a bay); but I LOVE it! The seat area is 16" wide, and some of the panes are covered with a decorative privacy film.  I can't wait to fill it with plants.

The ceiling fan in my room.  LMAO.  (This was a kid's room, once upon a time).

I am so happy that there are ceiling fans in every room. This is Texas.  The heat does NOT screw around, y'all.

The master bedroom, which will become a shared craft space for Sylvan and I, just like in our current/old house.

Red walls, clean but old carpeting, and some gold wall stenciling.

The master bathroom.  Lavender walls with gold glitter mixed into the paint, pretty vintage-y shell sinks with brand-new faucets...

...and a ginormous walk-in shower with a tiled bench and body sprays. Woohoo!

There are also two closets here, one on either side of the shower. Those will be great craft closets! (I wonder whose will fill up first. I bet it'll be mine - I'm a costumer. I have a LOT of fabric).















As you can see, there's a lot of work to be done here. The new flooring will be going in over the next few days, and we've already begun priming and painting - the whole house needs to be painted from top to bottom.  Those two things will make a huge difference; everything else is small stuff like replacing outlet covers and doorknobs.  Most of the fixtures and about half the appliances have been replaced in the past year, and everything works great.

The next couple of days is going to be all about moving, but after that's done and everybody's toothbrush and underwear are unpacked, I can get back to painting. It's already making a HUGE difference.  I can't wait to see what this house can become! :)