Room By Room
my new approach to fixing up my house

Remember back when we lived in the other house and after two years of being unhappy with our living room we we finally redid it? Do you remember what a HUGE difference it made? Since getting my new job I have slowly been picking up the pieces of mess that we have let accumulate for the last three years. This is an enormous task. One that I find daunting. It means going through things that I have put off, piles of junk; dusting furniture that hasn't been dusted for months at a time; sweeping and cleaning more often than whenever I don't feel like complete lethargic crap which is never...

The job is daunting. Today, maybe because my spirits are so high from the (for us) happy results of the election*, I had a break through thought: why do I keep trying to tackle ALL of the problems in my life at one time? Why do I keep putting every room in my house on the desperate to do list? The best progress is generally made one step at a time. Small steps. Little bites. Meaningful victories. I realized that I should pick one room to concentrate on at a time.

We've already lived in our farmhouse for seven months and although we've mostly unpacked everything, we have yet to find places for everything. We've painted nothing. And there isn't a single room in which I've really figured out where everything should go or done what I really want with them. Partly that's because every room in this house needs a lot of help.

So I'm starting here: the living room. It is a wonderfully open room with good light (thought not good enough for picture taking) and a nice hardwood floor. So what needs doing? For starters it needs to be repainted. I'm tired of painting rooms. I've painted so many now and I'm just tired of starting over but Philip isn't so I'm going to pick the color (with his help obviously, he's not hen pecked for crying out loud!) and he'll do the painting. What will I do?

For starters I need to tear down that ridiculous curly-cue mantel piece. The fireplace (sadly 100% non-functioning) is quite pretty actually with nice blue tiles. Or it would be if it wasn't for that weird woody growth on top. I'm going to rip it off. I truly hate it. I might be able to do something cool with it later on.

Here's a front view in case you want to keep looking at that strange detail.

The next thing I need to do is tear these blinds down. I'm about to say something really opinionated and five of you are probably going to feel like pummeling me for what I'm going to say...but try to keep in mind that what you do for your own house decorations is not for me to question....

I loathe vinyl and metal blinds. I really LOATHE them. They make bile rise in my throat. They are dark and the vertical ones are the very worst of the lot. They aren't nice covered in fabric either. They really depress me. My window is my view of the outside world. Like my eyes. I want them to be pretty. Or at least fun. Or stylish. Or all three of those things.

Then there's the furniture which must be redone. This is what scares me the most. I've never recovered furniture and I'm afraid of botching it. However, I can't afford to get them professionally done so I can either keep them as they are, which is depressing, or attempt it. The bones of my furniture are good. So it's worth trying.

This was the chair we read to max in ever since he was a baby. We romped on this chair, ate in this chair, and watched movies in this chair. This chair is wearing a lot of drool (not mine), spit up, yogurt, smooshed crackers, and even some kid pee. Wanna sit in it?

It's shredded.

Lastly, there's our very real Art Deco couch. It's been recovered before by the previous owners. We've had this couch for several years and the dog has done a real number on it. Now the cats are doing a number on it too.

The dog did this. She likes to root under the cushion for scraps of rawhide that she's buried in it for later. She has ripped it up good.

Here's the challenge: I don't have a lot of money to spend on anything. So any fabrics are going to have to come from my current stash. Some curtain or shade hardware can be purchased. The fabric for the chair and couch must also come from my stash.

I'm going to go hunting for fabric possibilities and paint chips in my treasure chest and come back here with the possibilities I find. Wish me luck!!!

*Although I'm really bummed that prop 8 passed. In better news we have the first ever half black president and also the first two muslim Americans were elected into governmental positions. All in all I'd say some great progress has been made.

The Blindness Of Proximity

It is truly amazing to me how blind a person (me) can be to the potential of her own home. Our living room has not worked well since the day we moved in. It presents a lot of challenges and we gave up early on trying to come up with a really comfortable and pretty arrangement. Mostly we gave up because a few months after moving here we were running our little store downtown which pretty much took every single drop of energy we had. The house floundered.

Of course, oatmeal and white are not colors that inspire my imagination and on some days they make me want to stab myself. This is why we ought to have ripped up the carpet and painted the house immediately. We should have known there was no way we could live with it. I see what we have achieved this week and if I was a masochistic person this would be a juicy moment to get busy hurting myself. Luckily, I don't go in for that kind of malarkey. All there is to do now is enjoy the phenomenal results.

These results, by the way, were not brought about by Philip and I and our amazing decorating skill. The color choices, the furniture, and the art are all ours, but the arrangement of our things is not always our strong point. We had to call in the professionals; my mom, and Angela. I have to admit that my feminine skills and talents took a couple of major hits yesterday. There are two things that have become very clear to me and there is not point in trying to hide it anymore:

I suck at spacial arrangements.

I would never, no matter how rich I was, let someone else pick my furniture, my lighting, my paint, my art, or my tchotchkes. No one can decorate my house better than I can and I take pleasure in it. Except that when I get furniture into a room I find it excessively difficult to figure out the most amenable way to arrange it all.

The other hit I took was to my stature as a capable modern do-it-all woman. I almost buffed Philip's foot off with the big buffing machine we rented to shine up our hardwood floors. It took only moments to confirm that I cannot control a buffing machine. Philip, on the other hand, took two minutes to figure it out and claim mastery over it.

Apparently I was wrong when I believed that if I could learn to use a circular saw (I did) that I could do anything.

It doesn't look that hefty or complicated. As a matter of fact, it isn't. It's super easy to operate, in theory. However, the slightest movement of the handle up or down will send the buffer careening either left or right at top speed. It takes the tiniest tightest control to keep it steady.

Chick was suspicious of the buffer and Max thought the whole thing was ridiculous and we should have left the room exactly as it was. Where did this child come from anyway? Did I really grow him myself? He also doesn't want to get rid of the dark 1970's wood paneling in his bedroom because he likes it. Who wants to keep dark wood paneling these days?

You can see the shine Philip achieved. Can you believe that someone would cover up such a gorgeous floor with wall to wall?

Now for the "Before" and "After"s.

Before:

After:

(We haven't put the family pictures and the art back up yet so it's a little bit bare.)

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Does anyone out there prefer the "before"s? I think the transformation is incredible. Remember last week when I was not feeling so good about my house? That's because I hadn't invited my mom and Angela over to work their crazy magic or done those things I knew I needed to do to let the energy loose in this house. It isn't just that it looks prettier now, or more like our style, it's that it flows better. Our house was experiencing energy constipation. (I'll bet you've never heard anyone use that word in relation to decorating before, huh? Just leave it to me to bring the crass into everything.)

Incidentally, some magic and change was worked in our dining room as well, but it isn't complete so I'm not going to share that until it is. I was excited this morning to wake up and see my living room; a place that actually reflects mine and Philip's taste and spirit. You can't underestimate how important that is for your daily life and mental health.

The Great Carpet Exorcism

Evil Incarnate. See that carpet padding? It's real rubber. Real rubber has a way of sticking to things, has good traction. So if you ever remove a huge piece of carpet and get the bright idea of rolling up the carpet and padding together in one big dirty ball? Don't do it. It's actually a very stupid idea. That wad of synthetic fiber wrapped in real rubber doesn't look all that large in this picture, yet it was almost impossible to budge the few inches we got it moved: from the living room out the front door.

Now, we tend to buy houses from people who go the extra mile with their carpet laying. This is a good thing if you love wall to wall and you like what's in your house when you buy it. Artisan work is a bitch to undo, however, and this carpeting was not only stuck in place with rubber padding and the usual carpet tacking, they also felt it wise to staple the carpet in place about every six inches of the parameter of the room. So not only did the carpet not want to budge because of its excellent traction and the fact that it weighed ten thousand pounds, but we had to be very careful not to impale ourselves on the six hundred staples.

I managed to be VERY careful until we made one final push of the damn uncooperative mound of filth and a staple caught my hand. At first it seemed like a little scrape. I put pressure on it immediately. But when I got to the bathroom I almost passed out when I saw that the injury was a two inch SLICE in my hand. It started bleeding a lot.

This is literally as far as we could get it. Right there in the middle of our path. We never did actually lift this bundle. We managed to get it out of the house by kind of rolling it. Kind of. It would take at least four burly full grown men with huge balls to move this piece of rug.*

Philip worked late into the night. I LOVE IT. I know it's bright. I LOVE THAT IT'S BRIGHT. He still has some areas to paint over where the paint was a little thin. But that's fine. I have to take up all the carpet tacking today. And all the staples. Then I have to clean the floor. Then if I'm very lucky I can borrow Angela's hand buffer and buff the wax finish out. Then tomorrow we can move stuff back in!

By the way, if anyone has a medium sized set of mounted antlers (without the animal head attached) that you don't want anymore-send them my way. I have a project in mind for them.

I was going to go take a shower but I don't want my bandage to get wet. I think I may have to take a bath instead. How luxurious. I never take baths because there doesn't seem to be enough hot water to fill the tub, and the tub itself is too shallow to be really satisfying. However, sometimes you have to overlook the little challenges and just enjoy yourself anyway. This will give me a chance to use some calming bath salts. Ohhh! And I get to play lots of loud music while I work today. All the Halloween tension is just drifting away.



*I had no idea just how dirty that sentence sounded until I just reread it. Oh my. That's really quite raunchy. Sorry. I hope no kids were reading.

Update: Yeah, the tub sucks. It's the original and there's value in that, in a way, for someone. But if it isn't a nice soak then I'll never use it. If a day ever comes when I can afford to, I will replace that tub with a taller one. And a water heater that can handle the burden of producing enough hot water for three people.

We Hate White

(on walls)

I have been in homes with white walls where I didn't hate it. Our friend Misa has a very different decorating aesthetic than we do and her white walls seem totally appropriate for her. In my own house they make me depressed. Everything feels cold and flat. So why haven't we painted our walls yet? Shall I recap the last year and a half for you?

Nah. Let's stick to the present. These are my before shots. I want you all to notice the oatmeal colored carpet too, because in just a little while I'm going to rip it out. There is always a little risk in pulling carpet up. We don't know if the hardwood floors underneath are hiding some terrible secret, like maybe there's some crazy hole in the middle of the floor that's been filled in with plywood.

The risk is worth it. Every dog that's come in my house has peed on it in all the same spots Chick peed on it when she was a puppy and we were trying to potty train her. I loath wall to wall carpeting in my own house. I know, you've all heard me say it before. Is all this repetition and the use of the word "hate" making your ears bleed? How about I spread some love? I LOVE hardwood floors with throw rugs. I LOVE color!

Ah, but the agony of choice!

My hunger for color on the walls is clouding my judgment. We tend to love green. So I think we're going to go with the green on the far left in the picture. We've painted every living room we've ever had green. We've always been so happy with it. It's warm and cozy, calm and pretty. Philip is going to do the actual painting tonight. I'm the pro carpet ripper and carpet tacking remover. Philip is the pro painter.

You know what else I have to do today? Make Max's costume and take pictures for a new header for my website redesign. Plus feed the chickens. Oh, and buy paint. And carve pumpkins with Max when he gets home.

I have found out that our Downtown Association is definitely putting on their Holiday Craft Fair this year. It runs for six weeks. What this means is that I have a chance to sell some of my things-make a little money, perhaps? Does anyone have a spell that can conceal from the public my MONEY-REPELLING-AURA? I just got a call back from the Health Food Store too. Isn't that ironic? The chance to sell my own goods is important and I'm not going to miss out on that which means I can't actually get a job until after the holidays. To be honest (and I doubt you'll be surprised) this has lifted some depression from my shoulders.

I also got a booth at the Crafty Wonderland craft show in December that I'm going to be sharing with Lisa E. The booth is tiny, so tiny that we can't both sit in it at the same time, but it's a great event to be included in.

All of a sudden I need to get busy making things to sell. I do have some merchandise all ready to go, but not enough. I'm not sad about it, just wondering how to fit it all in.

I knew that the first thing to do was to ignore everything to fix up the living room. Actually, this living room project is important because it's a good spot to photograph my aprons in, if only the walls were painted. I need a good spot for this because my studio is too cramped for taking pictures of anything but the small items.

So, I had better get my lazy ass moving, huh?! I hope to be able to show some "After" pictures tomorrow. At least of the wood floor. Hopefully of the walls too. We'll see.