A chore no more

A week ago today our new carpet was installed, and during that entire week I have not vacuumed this carpet AT ALL! You cannot know how significant this is, so I'll tell you. The beige burber carpet we had previously showed e-ver-y-thing. Including the burnt iron mark courtesy of Alan. So I vacuumed a LOT, as in every other day I was dragging out that heavy Dyson.

I'm going to vacuum today, not because it looks like it needs it but because I know it needs it. I know Duke and Junior have collectively deposited a canister of hair and grass and dirt for the vacuum cleaner.

So it was a good decision, and my feetsies are happy about it, too.

And that's final. I think.

Okay, so we've decided to go with carpet. I understand the trend towards wood flooring, I really do. It's gorgeous. But like the tile, or at least the tile we chose, wood is expensive and would need to cover much more square footage than the carpet. If we thought we'd be in this house for years to come, we might go that route. It's hard to put thousands into a home you feel is short-term. And we still have a couple things that reeaaally need to be done to update our home (such as the vintage '70s appliances). Translation: more money needed.

But here was another deciding factor. We've been living with this hard surface floor for over a week now (since I already pulled up the old carpet), and honestly we DON'T LIKE IT. Alan and I are barefoot people. With a hard surface, there's apparently nowhere for the little specs of dust and debris to hide except on your feet. Ewww. We miss the soft, cozy feel of carpet. And besides that our furniture is sliding all over the place, particularly when our 60 lb dog dives into or pushes off from it.

I read everyone's suggestions from here and Facebook to Alan, and it was fun to get your opinion. But by Friday we'll have ordered our new, comfy, warrantied-from-cat puke-stains, frieze carpet!

Help

Our dilemma: we're either replacing the living room and den carpeting with new carpet or with tile. If we replace it with carpet, it's about $4,000 cheaper since we're only covering those two rooms. If we replace it with tile, we have to remove and replace the kitchen, living room, den, and hallway flooring (we think it would be weird to have a tile that's adjacent to a different tile in the kitchen and hallway - too many different hard surfaces).

The tile would update the house and likely be more appealing to future buyers. But it's friggin expensive.

The carpet would be cozier, quieter, and cheaper, but way harder to maintain and keep clean prior to moving someday.

We could be here another year or five years, who knows.

Going with carpet frees up money for other projects, like new appliances and a new (used) car for Alan.

Going with tile means our home is more attractive, and I don't have to cringe every time Junior pukes up yellow stuff.

I'm leaning towards the carpet; Alan's leaning towards the tile. But we're both no where near making a decision.

The old carpet is already pulled up, so we need to do something soon! Impart your wisdom upon us, please.

Filling the void

Alan left today for Houston until Thursday. I'm attempting to accomplish something while he's gone. I'm starting by pulling up the carpet in the den and living room, which will hopefully be replaced with porcelain tile by mid-August. If I'm not hating life too much after the carpet pull, the kitchen floor might come up, too. Plus I need to finish the painting I started weeks ago on the back porch. (Oops!) I'm also expecting to be dealing with the insurance company and auto repairs after Bailey's mishap last week, but hopefully I won't have to whip out my nasty side. And lastly, I hope to finish my book and throw some yard work in here and there.

I think it's only fitting with all this manual labor, that I claim this week to be a non make-up and hair-do week. I haven't been wearing make-up much this summer, but it remains to be seen if I can go that long without my flat iron.

Trash to Treasure

Before: White Trash



After: Country Cute

Thanks to my father-in-law, Leigh, who did most of it by himself while we were trekking around D.C.

Open, Sesame!

Over the previous holiday weekend, Alan and I decided to tackle a project together. The front door of our little guest house needed to be replaced, even though I really tried everything to keep that rustic, cottage-style door. It was so old and beat up with layers of peeling paint - so authentic looking for an old "cottage." But since there were so many holes in the door that you hardly needed to use the installed peep-hole, we finally trekked to the Depot and bought an unpainted door slab.

It took us over a span of two days to hang this new door - chiseling out the places for the hinges, trimming the door, drilling the holes for the door knobs, painting it, and finally hanging it in place. None of it was very easy, because half the time we spent figuring out which hand tool or power tool we should use for each piece of the project.

After all was said and done, we think we did a pretty decent job. But our hard work was to no avail, since the door frame was probably as old as the original door and had previously been drilled and chiseled and gouged into so much that we can't get the door lock to hold. So it looks like we have more work to do on the frame before we can call this project finished, but at least the new door is pretty. And the fact that Alan and I worked as a team on something very frustrating and were still friends afterwards, is an accomplishment in itself!

Raindrops on roses and...

Garage door openers on new garage doors! Yeah, that's what I'm talking 'bout. It's my new favorite thing. We all appreciate different things...it's all relative. So when you haven't had automatic garage doors for nearly a decade, it's a sweet thing. It feels like we've just given our house a facelift of sorts - a little pulling and peeling here, a little injection there.....aaaah, she looks 10 years younger:



Before:

We did stuff

I just sat here thinking about all the things we got done around the house this week. Daa-uhm. We did a lot. Of course we had a little help (okay, a LOT of help) with Alan's dad being here and being Mr. Project Man himself. I was about to list everything we did, but that list is so long that it gets more boring by the item. Let's just say, we "did work." And I just got through painting the guest house bathroom a little while ago, so a nice hot shower is calling my name.

By the way, my little Maltipoo friend, Toto, is gone and Junior and I are sad. But then I just watch this snippet from a Rob & Big episode and I'm happy again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbjGBMiYYlQ

Taking reservations

Thank goodness for my awesome camera that I bought around this time last year as a graduation present, because I took ONE picture so far this Christmas. One. I'm gonna tell myself that the reason I took one measly picture is because I was just having so much fun watching and experiencing the moment with the kids and Alan and family, that I didn't want to stop and mess with the camera. And although that might be pretty accurate, I wish I had more pictures to remember this Christmas.

Wednesday, Alan and Addison and I went to see "I Am Legend." (Stop reading now if you plan to see it.) Will Smith's an awesome actor, and the concept of the movie was cool and all, but just more sad than anything else. A number one rule in movies - NEVER kill the family dog. Ugh.

The past three days Alan and his dad have been working on the guest house - laying insulation underneath, adding baseboard trim to the interior, and next they'll hang a much needed door for the bathroom. Soon it'll be time for my part - painting. It's cool to see it all coming together. Time for visitors!

D means Done!

Guess I should post a couple pictures of the finished painting. The first one's the entry, and the second one's a corner where the kitchen, den and living room intersect. Sort of proves my obsession with colored walls. Note the plant stand that hasn't had a plant on it for two years. It's no coincidence that that's also how long we've had Hellcat.

I picked up the phrase "D means Done" from Alan. During college if I had a particularly hard project or test, Alan would always say this to remind me that finishing (passing) something is sometimes more important than the grade. And am I glad this is done!

I've been coloring

When we first got this house, just about every wall was white. After living in an apartment for several years with white walls, I couldn't wait to have color splashed everywhere. Maybe I went a little crazy with the red and gold and green, but I liked it. I decided to change it though, mostly because I grew tired of all the bold and wanted colors a little more subdued and soothing. So I primed and painted over the gold and some of the green in the den with a light neutral and then painted the white walls in the entry, hall, and open pantry the same neutral. Needless to say, I did a lot of painting the last two days. The point was to have a little more continuity throughout the house with the same color on many walls. The end result? The color looks different on every wall.

Almost forgot....this is Junior being helpful as I was rearranging pictures on the floor before deciding where to put them on the wall.

Mission Organization

While I'm patiently biding my time and ignoring the fact that I don't have a teaching job yet, I'm starting to get my teaching stuff organized. My closet has almost reached the point where it could be featured on one of those organizing shows. And although I take complete responsibility, I will say that buying a 40-year old home means you have very limited closet space, and my closet has to function as more than just a place to hang clothes. (Good thing my wardrobe rivals that of some homeless people, otherwise there wouldn't be room in the closet for textbooks, trade books, teaching supplies, photo albums, etc.) The first step this week was to get rid of the trunk being used as a nightstand so that I could actually open my closet doors all the way (see "before" below). I came up with a cheap and hopefully temporary replacement and am slowly but surely working on making better use of this space. I only hope I have the maturity to keep it neat once I get there.

Done

Wow, what a difference. The nasty industrial tile is gone along with its fragrant smell of mildew. In its place is a shiny new floor that's perfect for sliding across in your socks, Risky Business style. Trust me, I tried. Now all that's left is trim and baseboards, paint, blinds, new light fixtures, a mirror for the bath, and installation of the new toilet. Piece of cake. (And by the way, I've had several people ask if I'm going to paint the front door. NO! The flaky paint and worn look is part of the cottage look, and in this case it's authentic.)



Alan and I are staking claims to what the guest house will be used for when it's complete. You thought it was going to be a guest house? That's silly. For me, I see a yoga room and future storage for teachery stuff. Alan sees a bachelor pad, and went so far as to place the little fridge next to the futon couch for convenient beer placement. Again...pure silliness.

Getting Laid

Ha ha - gotcha. The guest house floor is being laid, that is.



These guys aren't exactly getting to rest on their holiday weekend.

Hidden treasures

Now that Alan's back in town, we're (mostly Alan) back to ridding our backyard of the piles of lumber, stone, and junk hiding on various sides of the guest house. Look at this cool stone we found at the bottom of the rock pile:



And then this little gem:



Even Junior put in a hard day's work:

Almost there

Yesterday after I put on a couple coats of the polyure-thane and let it dry, I was not pleased. It was still a very rough texture. So this morning I lightly sanded an area, and that appears to solve the problem. It won't be glossy smooth, but it'll be an interesting texture as opposed to a strange, rough texture. Then I'll apply another coat or two of polyurethane and will hopefully be done. It also seems that the sanding evens out any splotchy areas of paint. The bad news is that I've already taken off all the tape and plastic....and now I have to spray the polyurethane again. Joy.

Steps in the process

EDIT: I'm more nervous now, because I've sprayed the paint and it's a pretty rough texture. I've been assuming that the polyurethane will add a layer that'll tone down the roughness. If it doesn't...that might be weird. No turning back now!

Thought I would share how this project is going. The existing countertop was nasty - burn marks and other stains from who knows what. But rather than rip out the countertop and put in a new one, I'm going to paint the formica. This makes me nervous, so I'm trying to follow all directions and do it right. I filled in holes with wood putty (why were there holes?), sanded the top, cleaned it with ammonia, and have now primed it with two coats. The longest part was taping everything off in preparation for spraying the paint on tomorrow. If you look closely you can sort of see the new sink and faucet.



I'm using a spray texture paint that's supposed to have a stone look. After a couple coats of that, I can start putting on coats of polyurethane. If all goes well, I'll have a new countertop that only cost $27.

When you gotta go

Nice name.

Good times. Alan worked hard yesterday pulling tile, hauling away old lumber and clearing up what was becoming our own little junk yard behind the guest house. These are his "look how hard I work" jeans.

The Guest House, aka The Cottage, aka The Love Shack

Postings might be a little less frequent for a few days. We're pulling up tile in the guest house and then will be laying new flooring (that laminate wood-look stuff). We also hope to have the plumbers out Friday to put in a new toilet, sink, and faucet. Instead of replacing the countertop, which we discovered is actually a piece of kitchen countertop because of its measurements, I'm going to paint the existing formica. There's still a long list of things to do, including hanging new blinds, finishing the trimwork, and painting.

It's times like these that I wish we had a bunch of friends that would exchange back-breaking labor for steaks on the grill and beer. It's just Alan and I right now, and I'm proud to report that we haven't thrown a hammer or putty knife at each other yet. Yet.

The next step

It's time I guess. Gotta get a real job. Yesterday I finished the long-term job, and I'd like to bum out and do nothing today. But really, it's time to get serious. First things first though - I need to find out when my big honkin' sub check is going to arrive so that we can promptly write out a check for a new furnace. These things happen when you buy a 40-year old house. More bids coming today, but it's not going to be cheap.

The good news is that all my plants appear to have survived that wicked winter storm last weekend. And today....it's gonna look something like this:

Life is good again.