Remodeling Project – Mostly Finished?

Thanks to the help of my parents, most of my spring remodeling project has been finished! And I have photos to prove it!

 

The walls have been painted. The blue always reminds me of the summer sky in the eastern part of the state – where it doesn’t rain for six months straight and the temperature actually goes above 70 in August.

I still haven’t installed shelves in the pantry, but I did move a shelving unit into it and it was filled about 30 minutes later. Space is at a premium around here.

The pocket door works wonderfully, and it’s sooo nice to have my dining space back without the shelving unit – with the door closed, you can’t even tell that there is a stockpile of pasta and soup lurking behind.

I haven’t painted the door yet. I haven’t figure out what to do with it yet. What can I say, I take a long time to make decisions on things like that. I have pondered a creamy white (the color reminds me so much of vanilla ice cream that it makes me hungry!) to match the cabinets or to make it a chalk board. Can’t decide.

 

Speaking of chalkboards… The former closet door in Lala’s room:

It’s already been used several times! Basically, the doorway measure one sheet of drywall (how convenient!). My contractor just screwed in the drywall and framed it out – no extensive taping required. It goes from 6 and half feet to the floor. It’s big enough to be shared by the two kids, without fighting. Always a huge plus. My contractor’s wife thought it was such a good idea when he told her about it, that he had to build one for his son after finishing mine… I warned him about the huge mess the chalkboard paint makes – I use the spray paint. It’s messy, but it makes such a good chalk surface.

Bringing in Spring – Simple Birdhouse Tutorial

April is nearly here! To celebrate our intermittent sunshine, Lala and I decided to get a little crafty and build ourselves a bird house!

First we got an empty half gallon milk carton. We have about a million of these as the cuddler is lactose intolerant, but for some reason manufacturers only sell in half gallon cartons. (PITA!)  I cut out out the front and approximately half of two sides. A “roof” is a good idea, to help keep the spring rains off of the seeds. It’s not perfect, but this is a simple bird house for those with the attention span of a three year old.

 

Lala inserted a left over shish kabob skewer through the bottom portion, so that the birds will have something to stand on while feasting on our yummy bird seed. Thin for little bird feet – hopefully the crows and seagulls won’t be able to get a good toe hold.

 

 

I poked a hold in the top, and Lala threaded a string through – FWIW, this is an important dexterity skill for kids. She was very proud of herself for doing this last step in our creation.

You can paint, just make sure to scrape off as much of the shiny coating as you can. Otherwise the paint won’t last more than a day. We did not bother to paint as the rain would have washed it off rather quickly and the dog probably would have eaten the paint chips from the ground. Our dog, while cute, is not the smartest. I also screwed the lid back on – no point in having a ‘roof’ if there is a hole in it.

 

Lala carefully filled the bottom with bird seed and I hung it outside of her bedroom window, so she would watch the birds.

I don’t know if we’ll actually get any birds, given that it’s spring and the dog goes crazy whenever a bird nears our yard, but given that the birds usually tease the dog by sitting just our of reach on a wire or fence post, they probably don’t give a hoot (see above).

Lala is just excited that it’s out there and it means there is something else to look at besides mud and rain puddles.

New Project

Spring time is the time to spruce up, make things anew and let the sun shine in! I have next week and I am planning to clean, declutter, paint, repair and weed up a storm. So, of course, that means starting a new project – because I might as well finish up a new one, while finishing the others. That makes sense right?

Ok, so my thinking might be a little off, but it works for me. Lala’s room was the original master bedroom. It has two closets. Lala does not need two closets. I do, however, desperately need storage space in the kitchen. For a mid-1950’s kitchen there is almost no storage space at all. Where did they put all those futuristic gadgets? The fine china that never got used? The canned goods for atomic attack?  Anyway, my kitchen feels cluttered and disorganized. A pantry would be fantastic!  I’m already planning out the shelving plan. 

First, the beadboard was removed from the dinning room by the contractor (I don’t do stuff requiring a circular saw)  - I really hope that brown stuff was some kind of glue… but really, in this town (where taste went to die) it’s entirely possible that someone thought it was cool color.

 

Also, please note the yummy wallpaper. I’ll bet it went perfectly with the dark brown hexagon tiles on the floor.  Actually, I find it really interesting to see the layers and wonder who was living here at the time. What were they thinking? I know it was in style – did someone put it up thinking “this is going to be soooo cute!” and fall in love with it?

 

 

Then the wall was removed. The pantry will have a pocket door (*squee!*), and that required much of the wall to be removed. Then we realized that probably the shelves from the closet would need something to hang on to that wasn’t the pocket door – yep, the whole wall had to come down to rebuild it to be able to hold the door and shelves and anything else I wanted.

Notice the cuddler helpfully attempting to electrocute himself. Luckily, not only were the wires capped, but they were also tucked into the wood and then wrapped heavily with electrical tape. My contractor has little kids too!

Everything was shimmed, screwed in place, wired, nailed, etc. all in preparation for the dry wall tomorrow. Hopefully, the contractor will be finished by Tuesday. Then I can start my painting and shelving.

Is it sad that I’m excited for a place to put canned goods? And the ice chest. A place to put the durned iced chest.

Bathroom Colors

I know that many people have a hard time choosing color – I know that I do. Originally, I thought I would paint the new bathroom with an aqua color; it would look fantastic with all the white. Unfortunately, what it did not look fantastic with was the blue glass tiles.

So, I have a bunch of new samples. I want something that leans toward a warm tone. It’s cold enough around here – warm colors at least will trick me into thinking I’m warm. However, I’m starting to lean towards the grey on the far right – it has a blue undertone, so I’m still wary.

The grey on the far left is a M*arth* Stew*rt sharkskin color with a green undertone. The yellowish one has brown undertones, as does the 3rd grey, but it’s so light, it’s almost white-ish.

 

Opinions?

Home Improvement

When I first bought my house, I had a punch list of things to do approximately two pages long. In fact, someone asked me why I would buy a house with such a list… why not just find a house with all those things already done. After having looked at about 100 houses and having viewed other since then, I’m pretty sure that my dream house either does not exist in this area or is just too far out of my price range. Either way, here I am.

The punch list is not only extensive, but it’s also expensive. And time consuming. Thus the reason that it’s only about a third crossed off. One major project this summer was to re-do the bathroom. All I can say about the old bathroom is purple toilet. That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? To say a bit of money, I did not have the contractor put up the wall-paper or paint. Paint is definitely in my skill set. And wall-paper can’t be that hard. I’m a teacher. I’m good with glue. Also, the wall-paper is white. Simple.

Cue six months later and I still haven’t finished the bathroom. What can I say? The school year started and I got busy. Toss in two small children and the idea of wall-paper sounds really scary. But I’ve slowly been working on it.  I started with scraping off the ‘texture’ off the wall.

The previous owners looooooved textured walls. Every wall in in the house was hosed down with those little dry wall nubbuals. Except the kitchen, thank heavens. Anyways, I heard all these horror stories from people who had attempted to de-texturized their walls. One person even said, I would probably have to re-drywall all the walls. Scary! Then I tried scraping it with a scraper-type tool. Came right off. *Sigh of relief” A little scraping and a lot of sanding and vacuuming and I was ready to go. By the way, I scraped in December. And then did nothing for another two months. I am not speedy.

I did experiment with a paint color in November, but I’m still undecided. Everyone who has come to house is required to give an opinion. Only one person voiced my concerns – why did I go with a green, if the accent tiles are deep blue? We’ve been friends since 1984, so I think she’s pretty honest. I’ll let you look at the photos and decide for yourself.

Yesterday, I had some free time and I decided that I would put up that wall-paper. It’s the paintable bead board wall paper that everyone was talking about last year. As soon as I saw it I knew that was a project within my skill set. Saws scare me (My kids aren’t old enough to dial 911). This wall-paper requires paste, which means it requires a child-free zone to cut, paste and book. Also, if you only have one bathroom, you need a time frame in which children will not be using it, because they WILL need to use the bathroom when you are in middle of putting up a sheet. Also, the paste directions are vague and require math unless you have enough time to do an entire large room. It takes a few minutes to thicken up – like instant oatmeal. Also, having a small paintbrush handy to paste those edges that might have missed, is a good idea.

As you can see the dominating color in the room is white. It’s a super small bathroom (I’ve seen half baths larger), so a few concessions had to be made to get that airy feel. First is the white on white – the floors are white with a hint of sand and light blue. The bath tile is while with small blue accent tile and of course, the white toilet. After five years of purple toilet, I would kiss it… you know… if it wasn’t a toilet. Oh, the sink is also white. There is no counter, because after trying to jerry-rig one for a couple years, I know it will just make the room feel claustrophobic.

You can see the wall color in the photo on the left, but I think it’s truer in the photo on the right. You can also see the blue accent tiles. Is it a good combination? Maybe I should go with a dove grey?

I’m trying to stay with warm tones, because it’s always cold here and there is not heat in the bathroom. I don’t, however, really want to try to discover a good browny/tan color. It took eight testers and a year to find the right shade for the living room.

What do you think?