A Few Before and After Photos

My parents came to visit a few weeks back. I got a ton of work done in preparation for their visit and a ton done while they were here. First let's look at what the guest bedroom looked like on the day I got the keys.

The walls were light blue and filthy. The wall opposite of what you see here was dark brown--so dark it was almost black. And, of course, the ceiling was blue as well and there was no light fixture.

Here is a photo with the ceiling painted and brown walled primed during the phase when I was using the room for storage.

I really love that light.

 All that stuff had to come out so the room could be painted and so my parents could use it during their stay. Here is the room now.

I think maybe I need to get a second comforter...

The walls are Benjamin Moore Wyeth Blue. The velvet headboard and bench (Craigslist!) will go into my room once I reupholster them.  The baseboards have been scraped, sanded, primed and the shoe molding attached. I still need to throw a coat of paint on them.

Speaking of baseboards, let's take a look at just how bad they were. Here are some close ups from the kitchen.

Original

Scraped

Sanded

Primed

 It's a lot of work. After priming, the shoe molding was attached and then they were painted with oil paint. Here's a photo with the finished baseboards and a full-sized fridge I'm borrowing from P.

Up to now, I've been using this.

 P also got my stove top working and fixed the broken door! Remember this?

Behold!

The oven still doesn't work, but the burners do. Yippee! Now I need to order replacement knobs and a manual. New parts can still be purchased since these stoves have so many fans. Hopefully the manual will help me figure out how to fix the oven.

One of the things my dad did while he was here was get all the grout and glue off the kitchen counters. This is what they looked like before.

And now.

And finally I'll leave you with the living room. Here's the photo from when I took possession.

And now.

Next steps are to do the baseboards and then strip the paint from the two windows next to the fireplace. If anyone has suggestions for what I could use instead of the ugly brass fireplace screen, let me know.

Something's Amiss, But It's Not the Toilet

There is no longer a toilet in my living room! It is safely back in the bathroom, where it belongs. I finally finished sanding, priming, painting, and installing shoe molding on the baseboards in the bathroom so everything is back where it was and in working order.
 

Well, almost everything is back where it was. Here is the view from sitting on the not-in-the-living-room toilet.

The sink has built-in towel racks!

Let's take a closer look.

Do you see something that isn't quite right? When P and I went to rehang the sink, we were missing the chrome u-bend. It just disappeared. I don't know where it could possibly have gone. He happened to have a brass u-bend in his garage that fit, so on it went. The plan was to get a chrome one next time I went to Home Depot, but it's kind of growing on me. It makes me giggle. It doesn't match. Hee hee. Why is that funny? Maybe this never-ending project is getting to me because for some reason a gold u-bend on a chrome sink strikes me as sadly hilarious. I'm sure I'll replace it someday. Instead, the next time I went to Home Depot I bought a wall plate to hide the big hole where the pipe goes into the wall. I haven't installed it yet.

What else is left on the to-do list for the bathroom?

Level the tub so the water actually drains. It should be on a slight incline towards the drain, but instead it's on a slight incline the other way. Currently, after it's used, about 2-3 inches of water have to be scooped up the length of the tub and into the drain. The feet are adjustable, the bitch will be lifting one side of the heavy beast in order to adjust them.

Strip, sand, prime and paint the window and door trim and the medicine cabinet.

Wash out all the dust, then sand, prime and paint the top half of the cabinet. The top shelf, which had been sealed shut, is all nasty and moldy. I sprayed it with bleach a few times but the mold is still there. I'm hoping the can of Killz lives up to its name. I wonder if it was sealed because it was too high to reach and the mold developed later, or because someone else was too lazy to get rid of the mold.

Disgusting!

 I really, really don't like the cabinet at all. It is clearly not original to the house. It takes up a lot of space and crowds the sink and mirror on one side and the tub on the other. I had to take the door off the bottom so it could be usable at all. The sink prevents the door from opening. It was nailed shut when I bought the house. And on top of everything else, it's really ugly. I can't decide whether to remove the top door too for consistency, or leave it on to hide clutter. Eventually I'll rip it out the whole thing and replace it with a nice free-standing cabinet like this one from Restoration Hardware. But probably not that exact one...unless I win the lottery.

Simple, elegant, clean. No mold anywhere.

Mirror, Mirror on the Window Ledge and Laundry/Tool Room Redo

This is where the mirror in the master bath is supposed to be.

But for months, I have been using this hand mirror sitting on the window ledge to get ready in the morning.

But no longer!

Ignore the smudge.

I have made some other progress too! Remember this?

I liked the mauve, but it seemed a but dark for the palette. I decided to go with something a little lighter for the laundry room.

When I bought the place the back door frame had been kicked in during a break-in and was broken. The walls and ceiling were brown and the paper covering the sheet rock had been peeled away in place. The floor was filthy and the trim, shelves and baseboards needed to be painted.

Laundry room "before"

P fixed the frame right away and sprayed texture over the sheet rock where needed. I had the ceiling painted white, but since then it has been a place to keep tools, boxes and junk. The floor stayed filthy.

This is after I washed it once just to make sure this crud would come off. I really had to scrub to get it totally clean.

But then this weekend...

Roni wanted to know what's wrong with brown, but she helped me paint anyway.

So what's lighter that mauve and a perfect choice for a room to store tools? Pink, of course!

Benjamin Moore HC-59

The shelves have been painted white and will be hung shortly. Black and white storage bins were on clearance at Target so I cleared them out. I'm thinking the Olin rug from Crate and Barrell for the floor. It's on sale.

Trim and baseboards still to go, but there has been progress. Woot!

So here is the final color palette. I hope it looks happy and airy and not like a nursery. A nursery for my projects maybe, but not the other kind.

This is Why there is a Toilet in my Living Room

I had a bit of a breakdown yesterday. The fact that my parents are coming to visit in 3 weeks means I have just a few short work days left to get the house ready-ish before they get here. I don't think they realize that it's an active construction zone. I am pretty sure they are coming in part because my dad is a worrier and he wants to see the house. I hope it doesn't make him worry more. I got some very good advice from a friend (Miss N) who told me that I can't change whether or not my dad is going to worry. All I can do it tell him that I love my house, that it will eventually get done, that I am enjoying the process (most days), and then say, "Let's go see Austin!"

But in those few short work days, I will do what I can. Here's the list of to-dos before they arrive:

Finish painting the baseboards in the hall bath so the toilet, light fixture, and sink can be re-installed. The toilet tank has been sitting in my living room for months. It is not what I want my parents to see as soon as they walk into the house. Besides, I should really have a bathroom for them to use, so they don't have to walk through my bedroom to get to mine.

Finish painting the walls: prime and paint the living room, hallways, spare bedroom, and laundry room. The told me they'd buy me a washer and dryer for Christmas (yeah!) which I hope to pick up when they are here. They can't be installed until I get the laundry room painted. The spare bedroom needs to be done so they have somewhere to sleep. Ideally, I'd like to get all the baseboards done too, if for no other reason than I don't want them tripping over the 12' lengths of shoe molding that are sitting on the floor of the living/dining rooms. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Let's look at the progress on the bathroom so you can see why there is still a toilet in my living room. If you remember, the walls have been painted dove grey but there is still dark purple trim everywhere.

I sanded the baseboards and the lower half of the cabinet. I only did the bottom because the top half can be reached once the sink is in. But I was having a hard time getting the wood smooth, which was the goal--oil paint shows imperfections. The paint was super thick in places but lifting and peeling in others. I figured it would take way too long to get down to the bare wood with a palm sander.

I decided to purchase a non-toxic, biodegradable paint stripper I'd heard good things about on the blogs (soy-gel) and see if I could get down to the wood. I tested it on a short piece of molding next to the door. The stripper worked great, but I discovered that under all the paint, there was not one, but two layers of wood filler. I knew I wasn't going to be able to strip the wood down (in the bathroom) to where I could stain it because of all the imperfections, but who puts wood filler over such beautiful wood before painting?!? Now there is no way I'll ever be able to restore it--at least in the bathroom. I really hope that's not the case in other rooms. Anyhow, I decided it wasn't worth the effort to cover the floors with plastic, so the rest could be stripped. I went back to the palm sander with heavier sand paper. The bathroom is not very large but look at all the dust I made.

I am posting photos of dust. What is wrong with me?

After the baseboards get painted, shoe molding will need to be installed. But along the wall where the sink goes, there is a huge gap between the baseboards and the floor.

 It is so large that it would still be visible after the shoe molding is installed.

So P found a piece of wood that fit the hole and glued it in.

Then I primed everything.

Yesterday I got the first coat of oil paint on. I think I will do a second coat tonight. Then the shoe molding will be attached, and sink, light fixture and toilet can finally be put back. The upper cabinet, mirror and trim around the door and window will still need to be done, but at least there will be somewhere for my parents to pee and wash their hands.

I really do love my house. I think that once all the walls are painted, it won't look as scary to visitors. I'll leave you with the color palette I've chosen.

Blue: master bath, spare bedroom; Yellow: dining; Green: kitchen; Grey: hall bath;
White: living, halls, sewing room, master bedroom.

 All colors are from Benjamin Moore's historical colors collection. The only one here I haven't purchased yet is the mauve. I think I'll do the laundry room that color. It's the only red/pink in the collection. Everything else is too brick or too peach. Does it go with the other colors? What do you think? Maybe an orange/gold instead? Is this better?

Silly Sleeping Hat (Jester-Style)

I asked my mom what to get my dad for his birthday. She said he needed a sleeping hat. He usually wears thin flannel hats to bed alá Scrooge to keep his head warm. They look a little like santa hats. She then told me I should make it silly looking because that would be good for her.

I set out looking for patterns for silly sleeping hats and stumbled across this post on how to make a child's sleeping hat out of an old t-shirt. It looked sufficiently silly so I adapted the pattern for an adult. Mom told me the width a one of Dad's current hats and I enlarged the pattern proportionately.

To do this I had to actually enter the scary mess that is my sewing room.

Maybe I should paint the baseboards so I can put all this stuff away.

I decided to make the outside from a green, striped, ribbed fabric and the inside from yellow fuzzy fleece so it would be really warm. First I cut out the green fabric.

Then the yellow fleece.

I serged the sides and top of both fabrics, one at a time.

This is what your lap looks like after serging fuzzy fleece fabric.

Then I stuffed the yellow inside the green, turned the whole thing inside-out and serged the bottom leaving about a two-inch hole.

 

I sewed the ends of the ... uh ... ends? points? alien antennae? ears? together so that one wouldn't get stuck down inside the other once the hat was turned right-side-in.

After turning it right-side-in I hand sewed the hole closed.

I decided to stitch around the edge to keep the ends from rolling.

Ta-da--the finished product. It looks a little like a pair of baby's pants. The end can be folded up as much as you want to get a snugger fit.

The ends can be tied in knots like the original child's version. Then it really looks silly. When the ends are down, it looks more like a jester's hat.

Ack! Those are really unflattering. What's with the popeye arms?!? And my nose isn't really that long. No more self portraits!

Here is a shot of my dad actually wearing the hat. Mom promised it wasn't staged--he was actually wearing it on his own--no coaxing necessary. Yeah!

Yup, silly.