Bit By Bit

We're still deep in the throes of unpacking and trying to find places for things; but we've reached the point where along the way, some spaces are beginning to come together.

The "breakfast nook" area is now an open storage/pantry area.

It's not done yet, but it's a good start.

The yellow will be going away VERY soon.  We hates yellow, Precious! 

The baker's rack on the right side is now a coffee bar. 
It's so fun to use!  No more giant coffee machine taking up counter space.

This baker's rack originally had a wooden work surface on the top of it, which I chopped up and made into cutting boards, oh, six or seven years ago.  And guess what it needs now?  A wooden work top.  One of about a frillion items on my to-do list.

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The entryway is blue!  Or is it?  Maybe it's green.  No, no, definitely blue.  Wait...it's green!  WHAT COLOR IS THIS PAINT?! (Sherwin Williams' Comfort Gray:  for your Mood Hallway) 

Now, if I can just locate the box that has all the entry stuff in it...

Just for comparison's sake, here's a shot of the old paint job, in the process of being primed.  You can also see a bit of the old entry way tile in this pic. 

The gray wood-look ceramic tile in the pics above goes throughout the entire house.  I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but it definitely makes a good, neutral background for everything.



More soon!



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Speaking of Rugs...

So, I totally missed Bulk Item pickup last week.  Totally forgot about it.  I managed to throw my old kitchen sink out to the curb before the trucks started passing through, but that's about it.

But then, on the way home from work that day, I passed a pile that hadn't been there before, and on top of it was this:

DON'T JUDGE ME.  I know this whole picture looks like grandma's house.  The chair and the chaise are soon to be reupholstered in fabric FAR less grannyrific.  Just hang in there.

Look at the RUG.  That's a free, 9x11" area rug.  It's a cheap rug.  It's a thin rug.  But overall it's in great shape.  I don't know why someone chucked it to the curb, except that maybe they just got a new one, but it's perfect for my big living room, and looks fantastic.  (The Surya rug that I won last year is now in my guest room; and I'll be talking about that more later this week).  It needed some serious vacuuming, and I used the shampoo-er/steamer on this rug, too, and now it's fantastic-looking.

It's also a bit more wine-colored than it looks in the picture, which is kinda BRIGHT RED.

But anyway - yay!

So, more on the guest room, and about some more free furniture later this week!


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Upcoming Updates + Floor Fail

I haven't been around a in few weeks, as I've been busting my butt getting some costuming projects for people finished on time, all of which turned out to be more complicated and time-consuming than I'd originally planned.  Yay, scope creep!

Now that all that's finished, though, I have several small projects around the house lined up, and some painting to do - I'll be posting about those things in the next couple of weeks.  I LOVE "detoxing" from sewing projects by painting things in my house. Coming soon:

• A side table
• some more ceilings
• some gardening/yardwork
• accessories + cleanup
• Guest bathroom and bedroom

Meanwhile, I'm afraid I'm not at all pleased with the new flooring in the craft room.  The flooring in the rest of the house is a product from Lumber Liquidators - not Pergo brand, but one of the off-brands produced in the Pergo factory (same stuff, just without the Pergo label).  

The color is "Bolivian Teak" (now discontinued), and the floor was installed by my ex-husband and I in 2005.  The floor has lasted really well these past seven years.  The only problem I've had with the floors is that the T-moldings between rooms pops up when the weather changes drastically, mostly because they were originally installed incorrectly (hey, it was my first floor).  Aside from that, there's *one* wear spot developing under the computer desk where the chair slides around - it's only just appeared the past couple of months, and it took seven years for the first sign of wear to appear!  

The Ikea "TUNDRA"  flooring that Kress and I put into the craft room three months ago, however, has already begun deteriorating.  Boards are popping apart and leaving cracks in the flooring.  Edges and corners are chipping and peeling.  Granted, this floor gets a lot more wear than the floors in the rest of the house, from office chairs rolling around, ironing boards, and five cats who eat and poop in here (sometimes on the floor, argh) - but three months?  Really??   I am seriously unimpressed.  And I'm pretty disheartened at the idea of having to replace this floor in the next year once it gets so bad that I can't stand it anymore.  Damn it, Ikea!  

More soon. 

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Spring Cleaning?

I keep seeing these pop up on blogs this week, so I thought I'd do my own slightly-snarkier and personalized version.  Not to give YOU advice, just to mutter to myself "out loud" (as it were) and in public.

1.  Wash the dog.   I have three 50lb dogs.  YOU wash them if you want them clean.

Actually, Raven's on my to-do list for the back half of this month:  he's a hair farm, and I'm *done* trying to keep this dog clipped myself.  He's up for his shots, so as soon as he's got them all up-to-date, he's going to the store for a professional cut, I don't care how much I have to pay for it.  I'm sick of pulling burrs and dreadlocks out of this dog's fur.

2.  Clean the windows.  I DO actually "do windows", and usually I do it this time of year.  I didn't last year, though...or the year before.  Whoops.  They're a bit manky.  Someone gave me a really nifty car washing brush tool once that hooks up with the end of a garden hose - you can put soap or liquid wax into it if you want to, and the handle extends to like six feet.  Really nifty tool.  Do I wash my car, like, ever?  Nope.  But it's awesome on windows!

3.  Cobweb patrol!  Yeah, I admit it:  my house is crawling with cobs.

*ba-dump-CSH!* 

And I DO run the long-handled duster around the ceiling and doorways more than once a year, but MAN that crap builds up, with all the hairy animals that bring dust and other junk in from the backyard all day long.

4.  Deal with built-up piles of clutter.  Also something I actually do more than once a year - otherwise I'd live in a dumpster.  But I did just recently tidy up and re-organize the laundry room that I spent all that time and effort to sort-of re-model two years ago. (Yeesh, has it been that long?)

I'm also in the middle of cleaning up and re-organizing the garage, and dealing with half-finished projects out there.  The next step (a new wall o' shelves) is going to be a doozy, though. Stay tuned.

not my actual house,
thank goodness

5.  Wipe up built-up fingerprints on wall switches, hallway corners, and around doorknobs.

Yeah, it's probably time to do that, actually.  Just because most of my walls are painted gray doesn't mean that manky crap doesn't show.  Bleh.








Also on my Spring Cleaning list:

• take down all the draperies in the house and run them all through the washer.  I do this about twice a year, actually, for my allergies.  I don't use curtains I can't put into the washing machine for exactly this reason. 
• fireplace cleanup - already done, actually. 
• Bleach and re-seal the grout in the tiled areas of the house.  I used to do this every Spring, but I haven't in about three years.  It needs it, though.  

And some maintenance items that need to be dealt with soon, or else: 

• the deadbolt on the nifty new storm door I installed a few weeks ago is suddenly not working, for some reason.  I needed to take the cylinder out and take it to the hardware store to have it re-keyed anyway;  I'll have them look at it while I'm there.  
• Another door issue: the "temporary" gate I put up over a hallway door to keep the dogs out of "Catland" (where the food, water, and litterboxes live) has now been in place for nearly FOUR YEARS.  And it's falling apart, of course, because it was never meant to last this long or put up with the abuse it's gotten over the years.  It's time to get off my ass and put the real solution that I've always meant to get around to, into place.  
• Two years ago, I scrubbed, patched, and re-painted all of the baseboard trim in the entire house...except for the dining room.  Sigh.  
• Oh, and the guest bathroom, too, and the paint on the trim in there is yellowed and chipped.  It needs to be re-done, especially since I re-painted the room not long ago, which just made the old trim look even worse than it did. 

And the garden...oh, don't even get me started. 

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Guest Room Before & After!

Sweet Pea approves of ur makeover.

Holy cow, did Kress and I work our collective BUTT OFF yesterday!  The guest room went from a big empty space to a finished guest room in about 7 hours.  My back huuuuuuurts.  But it's done!

Not everything is as it should be, or will be in the "final," "finished" room; but the room's ready for an actual guest - who will be arriving next week.

Wanna see the room "before"?  Hope you're sitting down...

Before


Toldja!  Crammed full of music gear, a drum set, and 8-year-old carpet that was naaaaasty.  The drum set was sold, and the carpet removed - Kress suprised me last week by removing the carpet and readying the slab floor while I was at work.  Yay!

The white walls are really just primer'd white, from baseboard to ceiling fan.  Bo-ring.  One day there'll be a color in here...once I decide what that color is going to be.

a garage full of crap that was waiting to go into the room

After 

Bed and nightstand: free, from a friend.

Curtain, and the tablecloth over the wooden bookcase:  already had.

Wooden bookcase:  already had (actually, Kress' dad built that, a million years ago).

All of the bedding is new, from Kohl's - the only new pieces we bought for the room, aside from the flooring that we installed yesterday, which is the same flooring from Ikea that we used in the craft room.

Most of the artwork was already in the room;  I added the mirror, and one of the document frames.

The clock is the one from my sewing room.

While the room isn't finished, I do like the overall feel of it.  The comforter is polyester, and feels pretty gross.  It was a quick, cheap, "Oh, shit, we don't have a comforter" type thing.  It'll do for now, but I do plan on replacing it pretty much as soon as I can.

The closet doors are the blue ones that were once in the craft room, when I thought I wanted a blue closet, lol.

There's Sweet Pea on the bed again.  He and Rabi CLAIMED this bed pretty much the second it was set up and dressed - neither of them have left it since.

The more I look at this room, the more I really, really like it.  It's kind of random and homey.

Kress, hard at work on nailing the baseboards back on, after five hours of putting down the floor itself.

I'm pretty impressed with our materials estimation abilities, LOL.  We ended up with only half a box of planks left over - not much to store, and perfect for finishing out the thresholds in this room and the craft room (whenever we get around to that).

This room still has to double as a music room, which will require some creative furniture arrangement in the future;  but for now it's ready for company next week.
:)

Tiny crappy screwdriver:  not a nail set!
Whoops.  (My bad).








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+3 Vacuum Cleaner of Awesome

Introducing: Da Bomb

Seriously, this little blue thing for the WIN.  Got a new vacuum this week.  A canister, for the first time - I dunno where this thing's been all my life, but I'm pretty much never going back.  I can't even describe the filth that happens to my floors with eight four-legged animals running around the house;  this thing made sweeping twice, vacuuming twice, then mopping into...just vacuuming.  Once.  0_0



Other things going on in the Land of Me: 

• MAJOR preparations for Gulf Wars, a big honkin' SCA event in two weeks, that I'm actually pretty prepared for, except for the part where I'm going to be spending the next twelve days sewing like a woman possessed. 
• I got the HOA approval to hang the storm door (seriously, guys? a month?), so, next spare ten minutes I get that's not taken up by sewing is going to get devoted to spray-priming and -painting the door and mounting hardware to match the trim on the house, and getting it hung in place.  Can't wait!
• I'm also in the process of putting the flooring - and everything else! - into the guest room all in one fell swoop.  Gulf Wars is out of state, and so Kress' mom is coming to house-sit and dog-sit, so we're sprucing up the guest room for her.  We got an entirely new set of bedding and linens for the room from Kohl's recently;  and I've been gathering furniture from Craigslist and friends.  I can't wait to show you! 

More updates as soon as I can!

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It's Finished!!!

This is what a finished craft room looks like! 

YAY!

Back to its old, cluttered, workroom-looking self - but with organized shelves, an updated and brighter paint job, art, and a REAL FLOOR.

And a vacuum cleaner, for some reason.
Sorry about that.

I have to give props to Kress, who spent Friday afternoon while I was at work, re-installing all the baseboards and door trim as a surprise for me!  Wow!


And this picture was taken with A REAL CAMERA!  I haven't gotten a new one yet; I borrowed a friend's Saturday for a short trip out of town.

As always, I still have a bit of work to do.  The naked floor lamp by the window is my task lighting, which I can't sew without.  I'd like to replace it with something more attractive, and that I can position over the table where I need it.  Then there's the ceiling, which I still haven't decided about.  I also need to re-cover the taupe office chair!  The cover I made for it not 3 months ago got a big hole ripped in the front of the fabric somehow during all this business with the floor!  AUGH!

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Almost there...

Just need to get those baseboards back into place, patch a gap (oops), and then put the room back together!

:D


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First DIY of the New Year: Going With the Flo'

Hey, check it out:

This was Sunday morning, after about two hours' work, all by myself.  Once Kress got home from work and we worked on it together, we zinged out the rest of the floor in two hours total.

The flooring is done!  But I still have to clean up the baseboards (remove nails, caulk, etc.) and put them back up, so, "after" pics when I'm really done.  :)

In case anyone's wondering, this is Ikea's TUNDRA laminate flooring (this color's not on the website).  I thought it was that easy snap-together "click lock" stuff, but it's not - plain ol' tongue and groove. Whatevs.  The foam underlayment is generic stuff from the hardware store - same price as Ikea's, and Ikea was out of it the day I bought the laminate!

Also, Kress and I signed the concrete underneath the floor.  Little gift for the next owners of the house. :o)

To be continued...


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