Friday, January 25, 2013

Truth.

It's true that you're never done with a house ... but our original to-do list, written when we moved into this house, is now limited to about 30 things.  And, that's a good feeling.

In two years, we've managed to touch pretty much change every surface in and outside of this house.  We've weeded and landscaped, refinished & resurfaced some flooring, gutted bathrooms, updated piping, replaced roofing, stripped wallpaper, and now we can finally say that we've painted almost every inch of walls in this house!  (Only the closets and trim are left ... Although that's not to say one of the rooms won't be repainted in the near future.  I've changed my mind about the color of just one room since picking these original colors ... but more on that in a later post.  It's happening soon; I've already bought the paint!)

The hallway is finally DONE.  I've painted the nook and added the coat hooks.  There are guest hooks on the panel we added down the hallway as well.  The walls are painted and trim has been added, updated, and painted!
I really like it.
I like that we have a place for coats now.
I like that the warm wood makes it feel like more than just a hallway.
I like that helps tie the house together to feel like a coherent home vs. The original and The addition.









We also inherited a bed from my parents.  My mom found this bed is some rough shape; and back in the day, spend a chunk of time restoring it from a rusty metal horror to a newly refinished state.  And, while she had it painted green to match my brother's old room; we primed it and repainted it an oil-rubbed bronze to take on more of an original metal look.  And, it looks good.






I am not a fan of painted brick.  I think that it almost always looks better as original brick; even if it's not the traditional red brick.  (I feel this way about nice wood paneling also.)  We tried to strip the paint off of the brick fireplace when we fist moved it.  It did not work well; and with all of the other projects we had mounting up at that time, we decided that we couldn't spend the energy on that one.  I've always been kind of bummed about it.  So, I've been racking my brain as to what we could do to make it better, when I came across some pictures on Pinterest and decided to do this:


Just for reference, this was before:


Now, after ...




It looks amazing.  The trim still needs some caulk, and we're going to add trim to the bottom brick area too - so it all matches.  But, it really ties the fireplace into the room and makes the mantel and the stuff on the mantel pop.  And we've got some ideas in store for the brick fireplace, that will probably help that look so much better too ... but more on that when/if we get around to completing that project!

On a side note ... I bought hundreds of tulip bulbs back in October to plant in the front gardens.  But, the weather was so crazy here through December that I never got a chance to plant.  It would average 35 one week and 60 the next.  We were afraid if we planted they would start to grow and all die.  So, I waited and waited ... and one warm Saturday in January I was able to dig up the whole front garden and plant those bulbs!  Who would have thought ... but it seemed perfect.  The week after I planted it got cold again, they got some cool weather and water before the freeze came and now no squirrels can get them.  We'll see what pops up in April ... but here's to hoping! :)

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