We've hit a bit of a slow spot on the renovation. This summer, I've ended up working, which slows progress. Then there is the dissertation that demands attention.
We are determined, though, to do a few projects before summer is over. All involve a mad desperate trip that we made to IKEA last week. We now how a load of flat-pack shelving sitting around in the way.
Highest priority is painting my daughter's room. Her walls currently have the inexplicable wall treatment that you can see to the right. The lighter green goes about 3/4 of the way up the wall. Part of the wall paper border was gone by the time we bought the house (probably courtesy of the male college-aged renters who occupied the house before we moved in.)
We'll be painting her room Benjamin Moore's Montgomery White. The color looks pinkish online, but is much more creamy yellow in real life. Miss O is not thrilled about such a plain color, but I am looking for a neutral that I won't need to re-do in a few years as her tastes change. She is, after all, nine years old, which is heading toward that "tween" age, and no matter what she likes now, she won't like it in 3-4 years.
After we get her wall painted, we are going to install the Pax wardrobe that we bought at IKEA as a house for her American Girl dolls, similar to this one. When she gets older, if she tires of the doll house, we can buy doors and she can just use it for storage. *IF* we ever finish, I'll post pictures. :)
How can a front porch cause so many problems? We replaced the decking on the porch, because it was so ratty. Then the FHA inspector came and said that the paint had to go, because somewhere on there may be lead. So we have tried and tried to get the paint off. Now we have just taken the wood off. And have to do extreme cleanup.
It is hard to focus on the advantages of the new house at the moment.
Just finished up the master bath. I had it kind of botched, really, with two different shades of green and rough drywall. And the top two feet of the walls were siding that was peeling and not very nice. So I scraped peeling paint and textured the drywall. And filled rough spots. And primed, and painted.
I hurt.
And the ceiling is still peeling. We are just going to put up new bead board and be done with it. I cannot scrape and sand 100 square feet of ceiling. Just can't. I can already hardly breath from the sanding, etc. that we have already done. Mea has been a trooper, doing what work that she could and keeping me company when she couldn't.
The color is an awful pale apricot. It looks so... boring. But it is done. And it looks more "finished" than it did before. There is some fiddly bits around the shower to sort out, probably with caulk. I sort out a lot of things with caulk.
My closet is located inside my bathroom-- not the best plan, but it is an old house. Much of it does not appear to be planned. Anyway, now all the stuff that I pulled out on Tuesday has to go back in. And the house needs to be straighted up, because I have so not been picking up since I started on the latest round of paint. So there is laundry to be done and kid stuff to hide.
And a trip to the mother-in-law's to pack for.
Yes, gentle reader, my husband has scheduled a trip to see his mother. Neil Gaiman canceled his reading in Tulsa, so he figured that it couldn't get much worse, so we are packing up the minivan with all three kids and my husband's breathing machine and heading to southeast Missouri in the heat of the summer.
And tomorrow, I must finish the tile in the other bathroom. Todd finally put the cement board around the window so I can (did I mention that I started this job in April?), so I need to get that done. Why the push to finish up all my home improvement projects? My classes start on Monday. Only six hours this summer (as opposed to nine last summer-- that was insane). Oh, and I have an article to co-write in the next two weeks.
It is after midnight, so I suppose I should go to bed. So I guess I will.
I need to find the cord for my external hard drive. Then I need to go to Home Depot and get some paint so I can paint the inside of my closet and my bedroom. I have a scrap of wall paper that Walker excavated from the wall during the demolition that is has a beautiful dusky green background that I love.
This weekend, Dad came down and helped us with our project to finish the second bathroom. In the meantime, I worked on getting the closet ready. We removed everything from our closet. All the clothes, shelves, everything. Now what was in my closet has exploded all over my house. It kind of looks like I am having a garage sale in my living room. This will get better soon, I am sure. Todd has promised tonight to get the sheetrock and paneling that we need to finish out the closet so we can get hanging bars back up and have a closet again. And I may have a garage sale as well, next week.
I think I am going to go eat lunch now. Maybe better blood sugar will help my outlook on life.
Speaking of home improvement... http://www.raisetheranch.com/blog.html
With the construction finally being finished in my bathroom, I had to paint. And paint and paint. My bathroom walls and ceiling are now painted. I still have to paint the wall in my bedroom and paint the repaired drywall in the living room.
Then I get to do it all over again when we move.
