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! :)

Merry Christmas!

 

 

We might be buying a new house.

Two Requirements.

1. Built after 1990.
2. Previous owners agree to be interviewed.

We had another huge weekend (a few weekends ago; it just took me this long to get over it and be able to write about it) ... but not without its troubles, to say the LEAST.  (I'm exaggerating though, in the scheme of things that have gone wrong with this house, these were not all in the top 5.)

Project #1
The ceiling fan in the LR.  It finally went up.  We ordered one from Home Depot and it came and the bracket fit just fine.  (However, we did have to run out and pick up some screws to mount it to the junction box.  And then we had it all put together, and had to take it all apart because one of the wires fell and was rubbing on the motor = totally annoying, and time wasted.)
Here is a recap of the ceiling fan fiasco:

• Bought AWESOME ceiling fan.
• Wasn't sure junction box could hold the weight of said ceiling fan.
• Cut hole in attic floor to see how junction box was connected.
• Not definitive.
• Attached junction box to stud using second screw.
• Still not sure it was rated for 50#.
• Took AWESOME fan back
• Bought new fan (not as awesome, mostly stupid)
• New ceiling fan bracket did not fit junction box.
• Ordered 3rd ceiling fan online (hugger model not offered in store in 50"+ widths; it is just a normal fan, not awesome or stupid.)
• Fan arrived & bracket fit! 
• Holla!
• Mounted ceiling fan.
• Turned on.
• Rubbing noise.
• We're dumb.
• Took blades off.
• Secured wires above bracket.
• Re-attached blades.
• YAY!!!!!

Project #2
We refinished the front door.  This too, was NOT without troubles.

Previous owners had to fill a hole cut for what we can only assume was an additional deadbolt below the handle.  They did fill it with a cut piece of wood (one, very small point for them).  So, when I started the project, I even said that at least this project was going to go smoothly because I had refinished plenty of furniture before and knew what I was doing.  I totally jinxed us.  The cut wood was not held in place by wood putty, but by regular, ole' spackle.  SERIOUSLY???  So, after I got the door stripped down best I could, I dug out the spackle around the wood and filled it with some stainable wood putty.  It worked pretty good, and we just call that area character.

But, I'll be honest.  The door?  It doesn't look great.  In the light, you can still see all of the paint that I couldn't get out of the wood grain.  In the dark of the evening, it looks pretty damn sweet though, and really transforms the room.  I stripped and sanded and stained it.  And, really just needed more time.  We can't just leave the door off the front of our house while we both head off to work ... so I only have limited chunks of time to devote to this project.  I'm going to have to scrape all of that paint out if I want to leave it stained ... but we had to put the door back up on the hinges ... so it's going to have to look like this for a while (probably till next Spring).  But I left off the poly, so it'll be easy to keep working on it over the next months ... chipping away at scraping the paint out a little at a time.  (I'm not worried, our door is under a descent porch, and behind a glass door all winter.)

BUT, it does look really good in the room with the wood door & fan ... completely changes the feel of the room.

Also, for our concerned family out there, we narrowly escaped burglars/crazies ALL weekend by just having a locked, screen door on the front of our house ... and we didn't tell you all about this project beforehand so you couldn't steal all of our sweet stuff. :)

Old Living Room w/white paint & white fan

New fan & refinished door

Project #3
A little story.

We originally discarded the ceiling fan in the guest bedroom because it was loud and ugly.  It was the SAME exact ceiling fan we had hanging in the LR (& also one in the Den).  I bought a new white one, but it was cheap and looked yellow-ish in the room; so I returned it.  Then I bought a nice black one, and I think that it would have looked great.  BUT, I instead decided that I wanted the expensive, AWESOME fan for the LR, so I returned the black one, and said we'll just move the LR fan to the guest bedroom so we can hang the AWESOME fan in the LR.  (See what we did there - took down the old fan & replaced with the SAME fan from another room.  Genius.)

So back to the story ... when Patrick was taking the old ceiling fan down in the bedroom (weeks before the LR ceiling fan fiasco), there was this crazy bracket and it was screwed in to a plastic junction box and the stud, and the screw heads broke off.  We tried extracting them, and screwing them in further ... but to no avail.  They were crazy stuck.  So, we tried just ripping it out.  In the process, we had to cut a larger hole in the ceiling.  We really just cut a lot of spackle out, because these people installed the junction box, and then just spackled all around it and up in there so it was stuck like a junction box in spackle cement.  And, we were told we shouldn't use a plastic junction box to hang a ceiling fan.  But finally (I mean after DAYS of working on this), we pried that box loose and ripped it right off the stud.  We both agreed, we are studs!
(Side note, the plastic junction box was imprinted with a phrase:  Safe for ceiling fans.  UGH.)
(Also, see above, the AWESOME fan never happened, and I feel a little jipped in this whole saga.)

Now, fast forward to hanging the new (same) ceiling fan.  We installed a new junction box, and then drywall taped and spackled up the ceiling hole we had made bigger (even though it was all going to be covered by the fan mount).  All that work, and we could have just used the previous bracket.  But, this fan doesn't make noise like the old one, and I bought a new globe for the light fixture, so it looks a little (little) less cheap.

I also painted a side table back there, and got some cool pulls to put on the drawers.  The room is coming together.

Moving on ...

Project #4
We painted the back hallway.  Patrick spent 2 days preparing these walls for painting.  Previous owners had wallpaper on the bottom half and the walls needed a lot of spackling and sanding.  We did the work, painted the trim, and painted the walls.  The paint didn't stick.

OMG, can we catch a break here?  We let the paint dry completely.

Then, Patrick peeled the areas that weren't sticking properly and went to the paint store.  It's definitely latex paint, nothing oil here.  So, he re-spackled and re-sanded those portions of the walls.  Then we primed with an oil-based primer, just to make sure it sticks.  Then we re-painted with our latex paint.  It looks good.

I did get to create my little coat rack area too, just in time for winter!  And it does will look good! ... But the paint is pealing in there too ... and we haven't have time or energy to fix it yet (peel paint, spackle, sand, re-paint, ugh).

What the hallway used to look like from the front of the house ...

What the hallway looks like now from the front of the house.

One Big Weekend!

Oh Boy.

We got a lot done this weekend.

It was awesome.

And it looks awesome.

We've been in the process of cleaning out the garage for about 1 1/2 years now.  With all the projects, it just kept filling up and getting messy over and over again.  Oh, the empty boxes.  So many cardboard boxes.  But, we finally cleaned it out a couple weekends ago, and then this weekend we put together shelves, hung racks and hooks, and Boy oh Boy ... it is nice out there.

Pulled EVERYTHING out and took the hose to the garage!

 

After the clean-out, we put everything back,
but still needed to buy hooks, racks, & shelves to organize.

 

All of the tables & bookshelf on the right side just need a coat of paint before they come back into the house ...
so there will be much less clutter ...
but it still looks pretty darn good and has plenty of room!

 

We finally had to buy a new refrigerator.  We're actually surprised that it lasted us this long ... and it's been freezing stuff for a long time - milk, beers, club soda.  So, we went out Labor Day weekend and found a great deal.  We didn't get the fanciest fridge, and decided to opt out of the ice maker upgrade (just means we'd have to put in a water line) ... but we did get a pretty great deal.  And, it looks really good.  And this one fits just perfectly in the area, so it looks more like the kitchen was built for it.  And, it runs so well.  And, leaving us with just the stove, counters, and sink to replace now!

AND, last, but CERTAINLY not least.  We hung the interior LR shutters!  WooHoo!!  I am so shutter-excited.  They look SO SO SO good.  It makes the room look brighter, more open, and bigger.  The paint on the walls looks crisper and lighter as well.  They just look so good!  I still have to add some hardware, latches, and knobs ... but those are just little details.  :)

Biggest (and only) problem ... now you can REALLY see that the trim needs painting!
Good thing that's my winter project.