The hall project....

Too bad I had already removed the wallpaper border above the chair rail; it was a magnolia floral, and really set off the taupe and cream stripes of the wallpaper below the chair rail. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but just not our style. Chair rails seemed to go south somewhere in the 90's, and are too traditional for our tastes, anyway. I disliked the jarring feeling that accompanied the walk down the hall, when I "noticed" the chair rail there. There were so many reasons why it had to go, first and foremost, the Feng Shui aspect of it. I was dying to remove it, but Tim was adamant that it stay put. I compromised; I told him I would not bug him to remove or paint the paneling in the living room for a whole year.

Our hall runs down the center of our home, and for Feng Shui purposes, it really needed to be yellow. This is better for the health of the female occupant. I really could use any help I can get, whether medical or esoterical.




Here is the "after": I have since hung my beautiful collection of oil paintings of the French Quarter by a Chicago artist I discovered on Ebay. We changed out the hall light fixtures to something a bit more modern, and ditched the 80's country dome fixtures made to resemble cut glass. I am very unimpressed by the orange-y color of the woodwork that is all the same in this house. I intend to improve it, either by staining it a rich mahogany, or painting it.... something. I would like to get some nicer doors down the line; these look old and bland to me. I did this paint with Eddie Bauer paint in satin Pecan, then glazed over it lightly with a combination of mocha and ochre. It seems to have affected my health, already. I feel calm and subdued walking down the hall, now, and I'm glad the strobing effect of the vertical stripes no longer effect me.

Master bath makeover.... so far

The top photo is the before, before we bought the house; the second is the after.

I am planning to stain the rest of the woodwork in the Mahogany, frame out the vanity mirror with the demo'ed chair rail molding from the hall project, and add crown molding. And, of course, hang some art on the walls (not sure what in my stash I"ll use, yet). I replaced the old-fashioned cut glass knob pulls with satin nickel ones; did a venetian plaster treatment on the walls in a warm Tuscan yellow; refinished the worn and dated 80's vanity in an exotic Mahogany; hung new satin nickel towel rods, and finished by adding a toilet paper holder where it should have been all along (within easy reach), instead of having to reach around behind. We also replaced the cheap brass vanity bar with a beautiful satin nickel/frosted glass fixture (only $19.99! My bargaining prowess never rests!). Take a look:

There is more to be done, but there it is, thus far!

Painted Lady.....

I have to come up with a good name for my craft room..... something cute and perky, maybe? I absolutely love how the paint turned out! In reality, though, the green paint is more green on the walls; the flash captured the more yellow-gold hues.






This floor took 3 hours to scrape.... old paint, contact cement, and blobs of joint compound from texturing the walls covered the cement, making for one long night.



I am very proud of my cunningly good sense at finding sales and good deals everywhere. We saw this laminate flooring at Lowe's when it was 89 cents per square foot, and contemplated using it for the flooring (at the time, I wasn't sure that's what I wanted). When we were ready to purchase it, it was only 78 cents per square foot! I think that is an excellent deal for laminate flooring..... check it out:


Even the paint colors consisted largely of mistints that just happened to go beautifully with the pricier custom mixed colors.


This about sums up the entire DIY rennovating process:

Wallpaper Woes.......

After a frustrating two days spent peeling wallpaper an inch at a time from my bathroom walls, I have determined one important thing:



People who wallpaper over unprepared drywall are assholes.....


How hard would it be to prime first? Or, at the very least, ask someone before carelessly slapping something on the wall that involves glue? Jeez, man.... these people must think that whatever they choose to put on the wall is going to be embraced by everyone for all eternity, and that it will never go out of style.


This looks so gross and slummy...... I've seen nicer service station restrooms. I know now that ANYTHING I DO will be a dramatic improvement....LOL! And who in the hell hangs sheetrock backwards like that? Perhaps the other side had "issues".....

While in the peeling process, I dredged up the remanants of the previous wallpaper selection lurking shamelessly behind the toilet tank: a groovy foil floral pattern seen only in the classiest of bordellos and houses of ill repute. My photos would not capture the essence of this wallpaper well enough, but my 17 year old son thought it was the coolest thing he had ever seen; apparantly, he's never been in a bordello.

Poor old patio furniture........

After withstanding 3 years of brutal weather conditions, my poor wood patio furniture, which REALLY was once beautiful, looked more like something you'd throw away. I happened upon a $5.00 gallon mistint of deck stain in a beautiful chocolate brown color, and decided it was worth a shot. I sanded, then stained, and here's the result:


OOOH LA LA! Like BRAND NEW, again! It looks fabulous on our new deck!

The "Darth Vader" ceiling fans.....

So, how many of you have "Darth Vader" ceiling fans? We have inherited several like this one in our new home. My son discovered the "hidden meaning" of the gaudy gold design and begged me to never remove it (sorry, but I will be disappointing him very soon). Can you see Darth Vader's image in the fanblade? Look closely:


I guess this was the creation of a die-hard sci-fi fanatic. @@ Anyway, it's been things like this that we've been waiting to address. DB is more the type that will live with something in its present state, no matter how ugly, until the danged thing breaks..... I'm more the type that wants to live with things I love right NOW, or at least improve on the things I don't love until I can afford to replace them with something better. Truth be told, the fans can wait; There are clearly more pressing issues to address first.

The walls go in......

In the interim, my small contribution to MY craft room was to scrape off the dreaded popcorn ceiling. After that was done, DB removed the existing florescent lights and up went the sheet rock. Before he covered the beam, he got out his woodburner and carved a little message for me:
C'mon, everybody........... Awwwwwww.......... How sweeeeeeeet! I don't know who would ever want to de-construct this fantastic room once it's finished, but what a nice message they will get to see!

Doors of Opportunity......

After deconstruction, DB built a partial wall so that a door could be added. His mother just happened to have an exterior door "lying around" that she had replaced recently, so we snatched it up and saved some money! DB also put all new wiring, with extra outlets for plugging in crafting tools, and dual light/fan switches. I suppose his experience from building his own house from the ground up was good practice for all he's able to do by himself, today.

A "craft" room with a view......

I needed a way to look outside, right? Well, DB does it again! He added a window so I could have light, and a place to hook up an A/C when it gets really hot. Actually, the garage stays pretty cool most of the time, so I don't think I'll be needing the A/C much. With the additional insulation, I think I'll stay fairly comfy.

Surprise behind the paneling.....

A 7-up bottle, circa 1983, was found hidden behind the old crappy paneling that DB promptly removed, thanks to my protests. So, rather than toss it, we decided to add to it our collected bottles from this renovation project. DB has been enjoying Tona beer as of late, and my son has been enjoying his Japanese fruity sodas (inside the bottle neck is a marble.... don't ask me what it's for or what it does; probably just a gimmick to get parents to shell out $2.77 for a soda). So, we placed it back where it was found, and sheetrocked over it.

Traci gets a craft room......

What to do with wasted garage space? Turn it into a craft room! I love to craft, paint, scrapbook, and do photo editing. In the old house, I piled everything up all over the place because I didn't have a dedicated space for crafting. Before buying this house, we looked at a home that had a room in the garage where the owner would tinker with Hamm radios. I thought that would be a perfect craft room for me, but the price of the house was a bit steep for us. When we found this home and saw the makeshift benches and the partially closed-off 20'x7' area, we knew this had potential for being a great craft room! I could do a LOT more with 20 feet of continuous counter space, and the storage possibilities were fantastic. I'll be able to spread out and even leave works in progress out to finish later. And my DB would have the joy of walking into a clutter-free home every evening! Here he is, hard at work on the demo process:

Hello, NEW HOUSE!

Here is our new house, in a more wooded and quiet area..... or so we thought! This photo was taken in the winter, when we first saw it. It had a lake view and lots of natural light. Things sure are different in the summer.... the trees fill with leaves and blot out most of the light and lake view, but the upside is that it blocks the heat, too..... it's been nice payinglow utility bills during the summer! We finally got it after a very competitive bidding war. Our first night was just like camping.... We could hear the night insects as loudly as if we were sleeping outdoors! That took some getting used to. At night, our old neighborhood was very still and quiet. We have big plans, though, and look forward to making this home the shiny gem we know it can become.

Bubbye, old house!

Well, our old house is for sale and on the market. We did a few improvements to it (mostly paint and a new kitchen floor), but it was very livable as-is. This is a 10 year old house with relatively no problems to begin with; we just kind of put our personal touch on it. We needed something a bit larger, though, so we searched around until we found a nice sized, 30+ year old, nearly 2000 square foot home not too far from our old house, complete with 30+ year old issues, like popcorn ceilings, wallpaper, paneling, outdated decor, and some minor sagging issues.... pretty much what you'd expect for a 30+ year old house! OMG.... what were we THINKING?!