Let there be [bathroom] light

Before:



After:



I'm pleased. We discussed getting a new medicine cabinet, but all those we looked at were chintzy or too big etc. Instead we replaced the mirror and clasps on the old one, cleaned it out, and painted it. I'm glad we did.

In other news I'm still not satisfied with the bedroom window treatments. I like the fabric, but not happy with the style of the panel. I'm going to get a new double rod and put sheers underneath, then add grommets at the top for some rings. I think that will please me more.

Well, I'm off to prime some beadboard and to visit with friends...not necessarily in that order!

Oh my it's February already.

I realized I never did post a picture of the bedroom after finished so here you go. Note my lovely birthday present from Gypsy Junk in the corner. It looks very sweet with the candle lit inside of it! I have yet to finish the curtains (they need hemming and I need to decide upon the tie back situation) but everything else is done and I think DH did a particularly good job on the baseboard. He gets better every room. He's talking about crown molding. :)

I painted the hallway as well since last I posted. There is no point posting pictures of that, because it's pretty much the same color it was before (off white) except eggshell instead of flat and nice and fresh. I still need to paint the doors, trim and baseboard there.

We've moved on in earnest to the bathroom, fully prepped, and painted and now being repainted. The first attempt was too hideous for words. Every time I went in there I half expected an alien to burst out of my chest. Tooooo yellow-green. But now we've moved on to a sage color and we're both excited. It's gonna look sweet. Some before, during and after pictures will follow in other posts.

On the resolution front I suppose I should keep my resolution to make monthly resolutions (doing fairly well on January's) and make one for February. My resolution for this month is to stretch at least 5-10 minutes every day.

Well - busy weekend ahead!

Endless Projects

So I have no pictures. Mostly because my home computer is acting up SO badly, that I can't seem to send them to myself at work for blogging purposes. I desperately need a new computer, which I think I just might order a new one this week. After all the warcraft expansion is released today, and I'm jonesing for some Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately with the way my computer is behaving I'm concerned that it won't be able to even run the new program. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed! I'm thinking of going through Dell again.

Hopefully the Lich King will not keep me too occupied to keep working on my endless projects! The bedroom trim is painted. I pulled the tape off this morning and it looks lovely. There are some touchups I need to do on the baseboards etc. Then I need to install some curtain rods to hang my makeshift curtains from until the fabric arrives for the new curtains. I'm thinking some type of roman shade or plantation blinds for under the curtains....but the windows seem to be an odd size and I'm getting concerned they may require a special order. The door replacements are outstanding, as are some questions about bedside lighting (i want sconces, but we need to think about a new bed)...but those things are small and can be done anytime. I'm just excited to have our clothes and furniture back in the bedroom again!!

Bathrooms are next. I've decided that rather then getting totally hung up on doing everything at once I'm just gonna paint shit. Our tiny master bath will take a day or two to paint but I'd been putting it off thinking that we should do a new floor and toilet at the same time. But those are things DH must do and he has lots of things on his list aside from these. So why should that stop me from painting??? I have the paint for the master bath already - using the same paint I've been using on all the trim in the house. It will be white. I do plan on scrubbing the shit out of the floor, and making a curtain to hit the underside of the corner sink, and I think I'll replace the medicine cabinet as well. Then when DH has time we'll go ahead and do tile, a new toilet and some more lighting.

The main hallway bathroom we are going to get into pretty quick. I have talked DH into removing the yucky shower doors and I have ordered a shower curtain ring from a Vintage Tub company online. It should be here in a week or so. We are going to pull out the crooked tile baseboard, install new baseboard, install wainscotting to the level of the sink's tile (chair level) with a little trim on top. The trim, vanity cabinet and wainscotting will all be painted white. The walls and ceiling will be painted a very light yellow-ish green. This was at DH's insistance. I wanted a vanilla cream color or something else. But he put his foot down on this one....he wants green dammit! New towel racks, toilet paper holder, lighting and a low flush toilet are also in order. Not sure about the medicine cabinet. I'm considering adding trim to the existing mirror instead. It's still quite serviceable otherwise. We also need to regrout everything...ugh. I've ordered some new shower curtains that I think will possible go with the new color scheme *fingers crossed*. And I need new bath rugs desperately, mine are getting funky.

Soooo much fun! I'm really on a mission to have the rest of the interior of the house painted by new years. I want it all off my to-do list!!

Progress in the bedroom

What's that?? Oh, honestly. You guys really do have one track minds!!! The progress I speak of is in regards to painting, silly!

Here is a "before picture of the bedroom - after I've removed most of the furniture. Please forgive the unmade state of the bed:

Here is a picture of the contrast of the primer against the dinginess of the 1958 paint job:

Here is what it looks like after the ceiling has been painted off white, and the walls a light grey color called "Portland Whitebed". The result is quite subtle. I almost wish I'd gone with the next darker color on the paint chip. But it's pleasant and cooling and DH really likes it. Regardless it is a huge improvement:

I still need to touch up the line where the walls meet the ceiling, and paint the trim. DH started installing new baseboard last night. YAY! I will be making new curtains for the windows, and the closet doors will be replaced either with curtains, or new doors. I really want Japanese style doors, but I've been pricing them and they are incrediblly expensive. I got one quote for....$1700!!! I don't think so! So it will probably be curtains.

Just to the right of the closet out of the picture is our teeny tiny "master bath". That will get a new door as well. But I'll get into that more in a seperate thread when I finally start on that room (which will be next).

One nice thing about the color of the walls is that its very neutral, it will be most conducive to a change in decor/linens should I desire one. I imagine Joe will be done with the baseboard by the weekend. I have extensive family plans over the weekend, so I figure over the next week the baseboard and trim will get painted and then we can finally move our furniture back in. It will be nice to have all our dressers etc. in one place again.

The pumpkin party at DH's parents was fun. I simply must show you a picture of their amazing garden. This is but a small snapshot. They are retired so have plenty of time to tend to it. Plus they get full sun allllllll day, and they've been working on their soil for 15 years. Amazing.

Well that's all for me today. This week is eternally slow. I should have pictures of baseboard for you next week.

Moving on...

The light seems to have changed this morning, I smell winter's approach. It's supposed to rain this weekend. And I am glad. I look forward to a weekend indoors. I have no costume planned for Samhain (Halloween, All Hallow's Eve...whatever your poison ;) and I suppose I'll just hand candy out to any trick-or-treater's that brave the rains. DH's band has a show on Saturday that I can't say I'm terribly excited about, but will probably attend. It is a costume party...whatever shall I do? My usual fall back of Ren Faire costume isn't what I have in mind. Maybe a witch?

DH's parents are holding their annual pumpkin drop party on Sunday, which I am excited for. His family is so nice (lucky me!) and his parents friends are quite friendly and fun to be around.

I primed our bedroom last night with mold resistant primer (if you recall we had a mold problem in there last winter). That stuff is pretty nasty. It smells unfortunately toxic. This weekend I plan on painting the ceiling and at least the first coat on the walls. Then I'll be painting the trim over the following week. Then DH can do the baseboards!! YAY!

I'm debating a bit on window treatments and a replacement for the closet doors. When shopping with the girls I found the cutest navy blue batik cotton with little bubbly circles on it. But it's 10 bucks a yard. I imagine I'll need about 10 yards, so that's 100 bucks. I think I'm gonna go there...buying curtains isn't any cheaper really. They didn't have enough...so perhaps I'll have to stop by and order it tomorrow.

Joe and I have also been debating about the kitchen curtains. We both agree that the kitchen needs more color, but we aren't sure about having the curtains be the red fabric that I found. It might be a little too dark. It's a pretty bright kitchen though, so it might work, but we'd have to see it in action before we actually decided. So here's what I'm gonna do...I'll buy the fabric with enough yardage for the curtains. If we hold it up to the window and decide it's too dark, then I'll make chair cushions out of the fabric and stick with white curtains. If we like, then I'll make the curtains and do something else for chair cushions. :D

Fun! Oh...I should go work and stuff.

Cheers...

Autumn Activities

I love this weather. Love it! The brisk mornings and hot afternoons are very satisfying to my senses. Now the painting is done I've turned to the yard in hopes of getting a few things done before the weather turns again. I've been seeking a birdbath, and finally I found one that pleases me. And I got it 10% off, because of a small chip it has on it's facade. It's stone, but is glazed so that it almost looks like metal that has aged so much that it has a dark rich patina to it. I love it. It looks distant and naked in this picture, but as I plant more and the yard grows over the years it will be more at home. The birds haven't discovered it yet, but I hear a Water Wiggler will do the trick.


After long thought about what to do about our dustbowl of a back yard "lawn" I decided to overseed it with this stuff called Enriolawn which is a mixture of hard fescue and drought tolerant perennial ground covers like clover. Supposedly once established you only have to water it a couple of times a month in the summer. We'll see how it goes.

Boy was it hard work! I thatched the lawn first (though I probably shoulda rotatilled it and started from scratch), then spread the seed, then mulched it with peat moss. The rich brown of the peat moss is actually a rather nice change from the hay-yellow. There is enough seed left over to overseed the front yard. We are ripping it out next year, but in the meantime this hopefully will green it up a little.

Speaking of the front yard, I also started working on removing the tan bark, turning the soil and planting in our flower bed. I got about half done with one of the big beds. More very hard work.

The part I did looks SO much better!! (forgive the shakiness of the picture, it was almost dark). I planted Lantana, Lavendar, Rosemary, Wormwood and Dwarf Periwinkle. All of which is drought tolerant. I also planted a good number of bulbs. I have a good many more to plant! I already look forward to their appearance in Spring.

I had planned to do some canning this weekend...namely apples, which are falling off the tree and the dogs are enjoying all the spoils. But I never got around to it. Maybe this week or next weekend I shall get to it. And the persimmons are looking very close to ready.



On other fronts, I finally got around to installing this light fixture which I've been carrying around with me for about 8 years. I bought it when I painted a bedroom in a rental house those many moons ago, but didn't have the heart to install it in someone elses house. It really was too small for a bedroom anyways. So DH kindly installed it for me in the hallway. Why this picture flipped sideways when I posted it is a mystery, but it does little to impact the prettiness of the fixture itself.

So anyhoo...the next couple of weeks will be taken up with finishing my fall gardening, and starting to work on our bedroom! I've already ripped out the baseboard (DH was groaning), washed the ceiling and about half the walls. I also have moved most of the furniture out. I did all that a couple of weeks ago, but now I'm ready to get moving. We'll finish washing it tonight and perhaps start priming over the next several weeknights.

Busy Busy Busy!

Progress

We've been working our little asses off prepping the house. We've finally finished the scraping and sanding which is the hardest work. So of course it finally cooled off today! I must say, DH is a mad dog! He barely takes breaks even when working in the hot sun. What a stud! I'm lucky to have such a hard workin' hubby. Today should be easier...caulking, patching and painting peel stop primer. A nice rest from the back breaking work of scraping and sanding peeling eaves!

So I decided since we won't be working as hard today, that I might as well add another project. We moved half the furniture out of our bedroom last night and I've already patched and sanded everything in there. I need to finish ripping out the baseboard, wash the walls, and then prime with mildew resistant primer (this is where we had the mold problems in the winter time!). I figure on doing that over the next couple of evenings, after which I can paint that room. So outside during the days, and bedroom at night. Projects! Once that's all done we'll only have the office, the hallway and the two little bathrooms to be painted and we'll be DONE painting! I wonder if I can finish it all in the next couple of months? That would be nice.

Okay, enough dallying...off to work!