Category: A Day in the Life

Do you know how happy this makes me? Carpet is the last thing we have to get done before we can move in.

We stuck with neutrals that aren’t  quite grey and they aren’t quite brown. Only one guy showed up to put the carpet in. It’s a big job to be done all by himself, but what do I know about carpeting. I just let him do his thing. He laid all of the pad down in a day (a whole, long day), and all of the carpet down the next day.

We paid for the upgraded pad. I’m not so sure we got it, but don’t know how to check. I wish I had gotten the floor gesso for the few spots where the subfloor has been gouged out, but I didn’t get that far. Every once in a while as I walk on the carpet, I can find a spot that dips in or bumps out. Se la vie I guess.

It’s just so nice to have it in!

We went with a plusher carpet in the master bedroom, because I really like plush stuff with lots of shag and Ranger likes the short stumpy stuff. He says it’s better to lay on. Our compromise was that he could have his stuff everywhere else if I could have it in the master suite. We know they could have put some sort of wedge in to make the carpet even (we’ve had plenty of time to research) but they swore they couldn’t when they got here. whatever. When it’s broken in, it wont looks so drastic. I hope. Also, the master stuff is much browner than it was supposed to be. I guess that’s what happens when you pick it out months before it arrives. I’ve got proof that it’s not just my eye, though. Here’s the sample piece.

it matches the other carpet and my grey wall better. I wish I could have gotten what I wanted, but at least I’ve got carpet in my house instead of at the store.

This is what happens when you unload the car, bring everything inside, and set the mailbox down so that you can install it later, only to be resigned to returning to the other house after dark. I ran over my brand new mailbox. Sad day. I ran and got another one, but I’m still not happy with the set-up. I’m not smart enough to figure out how to get the pieces together. The post is different than the mailbox, and they don’t go together well. Maybe I’ll get my husband to look at it SOMEtime in his busy schedule. I’m sure the mailman would appreciate not always having to deal with the entire mailbox falling in his lap every time he opens it.

We’ve got these little buggers all over our yard. I think it’s safe to say we may end up with some visitors at some point.

Anyone wanna guess what kind?

I confess, I’m pretty stoked with how this house is turning out. Even without power in the master bath. I’ve never been in a house I could totally make my own before! Never. And I’m loving the chance. Plus, who knew that I was so good at painting walls and ceilings and floors?

We painted the floors the other day, so they’d have time to dry. I don’t think they helped as much as I wish they had. To me, this house still smells “vacant.” Stale. Maybe it’s because there’s no stuff in it. I don’t know.

Believe it or not, it was the floors that ended up being the messiest. I’ve officially decided that oil-based paint is NOT the way to go, unless, like us, you’re trying to trap in odors. And if, like us, you have to use it, I highly recommend throwing everything away afterwards. I swear it took a whole day just to clean out the paint roller. And there’s no saving my shoes. or my pants.

But painting floors white is boring. Lets get to my awesome bragging, shall we?

First, on to proper attire for painting ceilings. It’s totally tacky, but did you know that baby shirts make great hair turbans? I wasn’t about to be pulling paint globs out of my hair, and this baby shirt was laying in my scrap fabric pile, so I ran with it. Worked great, actually. Just don’t go out in public with a baby shirt on your head. It’s weird.

Started with the girly’s room. I wanted to start with the most urgent, just in case it took longer than expected (since EVERYTHING else has), so we went with her ceiling, our ceiling, her wall, and our wall. There are other rooms I want to paint, but they can wait until after the big move. Taped her walls off, and started painting!

I wish the color had a bit more blue, but the kiddo loves it, and it’s not bad. I just wish it were a bit less green.

I don’t know why ALL of these pictures are in portrait. Sorry. I try to take landscape!

Anyway, I put her clouds up, and then went back to add detail (if I ever have to paint clouds again, I will focus on one whole cloud, details and all. going back and adding texture was not as smooth a process as I thought it would be in my head). I only added it to one, and it was a lot of work, so I decided to wait and ask the “commissioner” what she wanted before I put in all the work and she liked it better with the cartoony clouds.

I’m glad I waited. She liked the plain look better. That saved me a lot of extra work. So I just painted over the one I added detail to, and we moved on to my ceiling.

I wish I could capture the color better. It’s soooo pretty! Dusky greyish purple, called Diplomat on the little sample card I had. I taped off a chunk of my ceiling 15″ from the wall, and cut the corners at 45º angles, except for the wall with the door, there I followed the angle of the door. I’m going to come back in after we get settled and  add trim around the paint, so I wasn’t worried about little spillovers. It looks so fancy! You have got to understand that most of my life, houses have been functional, but rarely pretty. I feel like I’m joining the big world, now!

Can we say VERY purple? I think it’s way way too purple, but she loves it. And I don’t have to see it that often, since its the same wall as the door (I planned it that way on purpose. With such a bold color, you need it not to jump out at you until you’ve gone into her room).

She had been begging me for zebra stripes on her wall, along with purple and teal and red and green. I was woried it’d all be too busy, so I agreed to a color-on-color satin-on-matte zebra print. Crazy, but she’s still got all of her teenage years to enjoy the crazy, so I think it’ll be okay. And she’s stuck with purple zebra stripes her entire teen years, because it’s gonna be a pain to paint over.

I’m pretty proud of this wall. I’ve gotta go in and touch up where the ceiling meets the wall, but that can happen when we’re less harried trying to get everything ready to move in.

Oh, and FYI, the color reading machine at Lowe’s is way better than the human eye. We went in with two fabric samples that match what we picked out for her room. I handed the first sample to him, he made the color, and we were fine. Then he lost the code before he got to the satin, so I handed him the other sample, not thinking about it. To my eye, they were the same color. But the paint reader picked up a difference. So instead of color-on-color, the stripes are slightly, ever so slightly, more red. And a little lighter. It still looks good, though. And it looks like it is on purpose, so we’ll go with it.

I also painted my wall grey, but I didn’t get a picture of it. And I’m not taking a picture now. You’ll just have to see it when I brag about being all moved in.

But the Pièce de résistance, at least according to this zebra-fanatic kiddo, is a light switch cover. You wouldn’t believe the hug I got along with the jumping for joy and the “I love it, I love it, ILOVEIT!” that came from her room.

The silly thing is, it’s just decorative tape on the old light cover. I’ve had it for a while, and hand’t found the right project to make my foray into this whole “decorative tape” movement, so I actually did it on a whim. With that response, I might do it again.

Anyway, We’re getting the beginnings of carpet in right now, so the house is coming together nicely. I’m soooo ready to move in! I’m loving this house. Even with it’s setbacks (still no light in the master bath. Seriously, why didn’t our inspector say something?).

See that big ol’ piece of glass? No, not all the bugs and yuck (seriously, living in the country means a million more bugs!), that big chunk of glass in the middle there…

Well it should be right here…

But it’s not. So that means new windows! Yay! Lucky for us, they’re included in our loan. The contractors came out and installed them.

Now all we need is the carpet and we can move in! I’ve got some painting to do before they lay the carpet, though. I’d rather touch up a few scratches from the carpet than to spill paint on new floors!

You know how I said we fixed the toilets ourselves? Paid for and installed the parts ourselves…

Well, I go to fix up the place before carpet gets installed and this is what greets me:

Not only did he take the part that I paid for myself, he also clipped the chain on the toilet lever. Why? I have no idea.

It didn’t stop there. Someone also took the shower fixtures.

 And the light over the garage. And the hoses in the yard.

I know that most of it’s no big deal. The only thing that really bothers me is the toilet mechanics I installed myself. But it just seems petty. And technically, it’s illegal. If it wasn’t in the contract, it is supposed to stay.

It really frustrates me because we love this house, but it feels more and more like this seller (or someone else) is sabotaging it. I changed the locks, so we’ll see if that is the end of it. It’s just a shame that something we’re so excited about is getting numerous kinks because of such a dishonest someone.

Not letting that stop us, I have spent this last week scrubbing and disinfecting and mopping and more disinfecting. No one told me that they added bleach down the well (I still can’t figure out why if the tests came back in good standing), so I am also sporting fingernails broken clear down to the quick. They hurt. I’ve never been the type to bite my nails, so I have rarely had to deal with the pain of them that short. Not fun.

But it works out, because since this house has been vacant for a while, anyway, I’ve got to let the water run. Mostly because this is not appealing:

 While I was letting the water run, I got to play Rosie again. I have much more free-time than Ranger, with his work schedule, and it was kind of fun feeling all handy.

In the process of cleaning, we decided to add some contact-paper to the shelves. It was the only way to cover all of the previous owners’ stains. Seriously. Some things are just not going to be clean enough. We wanted a fresh layer.

I fixed this cracked joint under the kitchen sink,

 And pretty much every sink in this entire house. The guy must not have understood the concept of plumber’s tape (or putty). Every fixture leaked. I had to go buy myself a basin wrench. Among a million other purchases, lately. Lets just say Lowe’s knows me by name, now…

I re-fixed the toilet. But I didn’t have anything sharp to cut the new hose. It’s a good thing we just signed on a house and the letter-opener from the title company was still in my purse!

I put a light/lamp back in our bathroom…

To discover that there is no power…. none at all in the master bath. So the fan was a waste. I used a little multi-tester and we’ve discovered that there is power coming from the breaker (which is actually a huge bummer, because if there wasn’t it would have been an easy fix), but there is no power going to any of the bathroom fixtures. My dad (Mr. Handyman himself) says it’s probably just one outlet causing all of the others to short out, but it’s beyond Ranger and I. Time to call in a pro. Dang it.

The joys of being homeowners.

Tomorrow we get windows, though, and that will be exciting! Just a little bit longer. While they’re putting in windows, I get to paint.

Starting with the floors! Nothing like an old house, eh? The contractors we talked to recommended it for old houses. Especially houses in run-down conditions like ours is.

I’ve shown you all the work I’ve done, and glimpses of the house, and I’ve even shown you the yucky bugs! But I haven’t ever shown you the actual house! So here’s your virtual tour.

Here’s the front room. I’m trying to decide if I want the couch to face the wall, and then consign myself to a TV upstairs, or if I want it to look out to the window, and keep the TV in the basement. It’s a c-shaped couch, so it’s either got to go with one side against the wall, one side facing the window, and the chaise closest to the picture, or it’s got to go with the wall with an entertainment center, the wall opposite the window with a couch, then the other side of the couch and the back of the chaise closest to the picture. I think I’ve lost you. Here’s a paint diagram… It’s not nearly to scale… but it’ll give you an idea.

-or-

 

I can’t get to the measurements right now, so I can’t check to make sure, but I’m pretty sure that if I go with option 2, I’m going to have to pull out the extra piece in the sectional. Which is no problem, I’ll just have to figure out where to put it. When I get into the house, and when I actually get my measurements back from a packed computer, I’ll be able to figure out where it would fit, but I can’t make up my mind either way. What do you guys think?

In our house right now, the TV is in the basement. It’s nice because that way it doesn’t become the focal point of the home. I think too many times, when the TV is easy to get to, people use it too much as an escape. It’s always on. I don’t want that. But then again, if the TV is in a central location, it’s easier to keep tabs on what is being watched. It also means that when Ranger and I just want to watch a movie as a couple and not as a family (Dates don’t always have to be out of the house), we could easily have little eyes watching from any vantage point in the hallway. We don’t watch movies that are inappropriate, but sometimes we just want to watch movies we don’t have to explain to a 9-year-old. And most of these movies are watched when she’s SUPPOSED to be in bed. I don’t know if a TV going on the same floor will make too much noise.

I’m pretty sure Ranger would love to have the TV upstairs, but he’s a TV junkie. I don’t think he’d care if I demanded it downstairs, but I can’t make up my mind, and until then, it’s all pretty much up in the air.

Here’s the other side of the front room, with the entry way. Right now it’s cheap linoleum, but in my head, it’s either hardwood or laminate flooring (I was pretty set on the “laminate is cheap and tacky” mentality until I realized that hardwood flooring is NOT like it used to be and is pretty much identical to laminate but with twice the cost. Pressed wood does not count as hardwood. And then a woodworking contractor told me that laminate is not like it used to be either, and is now extremely durable and realistic, and he’d pick laminate over hardwood any day. Now I can’t decide). Eventually, whichever floor choice we go with will most likely extend all the way into the kitchen (the room to the left of the photo), but for now, carpet will fill the space. Our lender requires that contractors install everything that is tied to the loan, and carpet HAS to be tied to the loan or already present. If we wanted contractors to install any other flooring besides carpet, it’s an extra dollar per square foot. And the carpet can be moved to the downstairs hallway when we get that far. Until then, carpet wins.

You’ve seen the jimmy-rigged kitchen.

Here’s the laundry room that will eventually be part of the kitchen, too.

clearly, the mess on the floor won’t be staying.

Here’s the huge pantry that right now is connected to the laundry room (see why it’s got to go? It feels like it’s such a long walk to go through the laundry room to get to the pantry. I know it’s not any further, but it sure feels further going through a doorway.

Really, though, the pantry is the size of a small bathroom. You have got to admit, that’s pretty cool.

back through the kitchen, you get to the dining room. The dining room has a perfect niche for an inset china hutch. That’s one other thing I’m begging my hard-working husband to build. It also has glass doors onto the tiny deck, but it allows for a picturesque view and lots of light. The Dining room’s not that big, but it’s big enough for my large kitchen table, so I’m content. I’m just hoping it doesn’t become a junk collector like my current dining room does. I dream of dinners actually at a table like the olden-days. I think that’s important.

From the dining room, you go down a hall and there are the rooms and bathrooms.

This room is either going to be my sewing room/office or my brother’s bedroom. I would love for my brother to move downstairs (it’s currently unfinished) because when he’s not a student he works at a refinery. He comes home smelling like old nasty stale grease and leaves a black trail of footprints. As much as I love him, I don’t want ruined brand new carpet. Ranger doesn’t think it’s nice to stick him in the basement again, though, so we’ll have to see. I’d love for my crafts to not get stuck in the basement (and therefore ignored or forgotten). Priorities.

Check out the hanger set-up in the closet. Instead of a bar to hang clothes on, there are all these little hooks. I can’t make up my mind whether I think they’re pretty awesome or annoying. They’re unique, which makes them pretty cool, but they sure seem to limit how many clothes one could hang in a closet.

This will most likely end up the miss’s room. It seems a good fit. Pretty sure we’re going to paint one wall purple, and she’s pretty adamant about clouds on the ceiling. I don’t want them to be too dramatic, so they might end up subtle shades of the same hue. If the room ends up like it is in my head, it’ll be the coolest room I’ve ever gotten to create. I am hoping Ranger will have time between cupboards and china hutches to build a new bed. The one I found and love (and this kid loves too) retails for almost $4000! There’s no way I’m paying that much $$$! I’m half tempted to build it myself, but the things that require power tools usually end up crooked before I’m done with them… It might be a good time to overcome my fear, though.

The master bedroom has double doors. Tell me that’s not cool!

I know I want to paint my ceiling with crown molding that goes in about a foot from the wall and frames the top of the room, with a nice decorated piece surrounding the fan. I’m thinking a greyish purple. Something subtle enough to not distract, and grey enough that it’s still appropriate for a man to sleep there. And then I’m trying to decide if adding one grey wall is too much with the painted ceiling. What do you guys think?

Here’s a quick view of the master bath. There’s a closet and double sinks in the foreground, and behind the wall there’s a toilet and a shower. I want to take the door out and add a pocket door, so that the back room feels larger. Right now it feels pretty small back there, but it might be the rock slabs lining the shower, or the fact that it’s dark. I’d also love to take out the shower and put in a huge tub with a shower fixture. I relax with a bath, and right now the only tub in the house is a tiny one in the kid’s bathroom. Not ideal at all. I’m told that it’d be a shame, though because of how beautiful the rock shower is. It’ll stay for a while, I’m sure, since I have so many dream projects for this house, but I will probably keep dreaming of the tub I don’t have.

That’s the whole upstairs. Downstairs isn’t finished. And it probably won’t be for a while, with as many changes as I want to make upstairs. Never finish downstairs until upstairs is done.

At the bottom of the stairs, I’m probably going to put a few book cases. I have tons of books. They’ve gotta go somewhere.

Right now, this is a whole room just for the water heater. I think that’s silly. It will be a laundry room with a water heater, though, and that is MUCH less silly. I’m trying to decide if we should keep that window. It is in the way for where I want to re-build the deck outside, but if I take it out, there’s no windows on the whole corner of the house. I’m a fire-paranoid freak, and I don’t know if I like losing the only escape route.

There is another bedroom and a bathroom already framed in and plumbed downstairs, as well as a room perfect for cold storage (no windows and it’s on the same side of the house as the future laundry room), but the bedroom is going to need an egress installed. Then there’s a great-room.

We’re pretty sure we’re going to put a fireplace back here, since the only heat source currently is ceiling heat, and that was the dumbest invention ever. And we won’t keep the laminate under it (seriously, laminate under a fireplace!?!). Otherwise, I’m not quite sure how downstairs is going to work. Or what will end up where. Just because the walls are framed in doesn’t mean they have to stay the way they are, but we do have to stay semi-true to the structure, especially for any walls running length-wise through the house.

I’d love feedback. How should I arrange my couches in the front room? Is grey too much for behind the headboard in the master bedroom? Am I being too paranoid about windows in the corner of the house?