DEMO!!!

I love demolition. It's fun, and it means that there's a BIG change coming.

Yesterday, I tore part the ancient built-ins in the office. The previous owners had them installed in the early 80's as sewing room furniture. They weren't worth keeping, as they were not made with the best materials in the first place, and they were pulling away from the walls. The pieces were built on site, and consited of large, deep shelves on one end, a laminate run of countertop in the center that was entirely to low, with shallow drawers. On the other end was a tall closet that was used for various sewing projects and ironing.

I got to work bright and early in the morning, and even that early it was exceptionally hot and muggy, but there was no turning back- when the inspiration hits, I have to do it all the way!

Tearing out the old stuff was harder than I thought. Even though it appeared to be falling down on its own, it was was all held together pretty well.

I sawed:
I pulled:
I found these fabulous 70's artifacts: After about 300 trips up and down the cellar stairs, and out to the garage with all the debris, the room is clear, and looks huge!
I have a few ideas about what this room will look like. It will still be an office, but it needs to do double duty as a guest room, so we may do a daybed, or window seat/bed thing. I am having enough trouble deciding on colors roght now, buit I will try to sketch out a few things and see what works.
That's it for now, I will post pictures as we go!

Serious Lack of Landscaping

I love my house- hate my yard.
Ok, hate is a strong word. I strongly dislike my yard. I wish you could have seen what it looked like when we moved here...everything was overgrown, the front of the house was completely shrouded by ancient junipers, and rhododendrons. Juniper is my least favorite plant, that has a scent I can only describe as cat pee. I know- gross, right? Well, they were living right under our windows, so I wanted them gone.

Fortunately for us, we made fast friends with our neighbor Rob. Rob loved yard work. Especially yard work that involved demolition. Rob had a truck and a chain, and he offered to yank those suckers out for us.
It was nothing short of a thrill watching the guys attach the chain, get into that old truck and floor it. The tires spun! Mud was flying! I held my breath hoping the rear bumper of the truck would stay attached. Not only did it stay on, but it yanked out those God-forsaken bushes by the roots. I think 21 in all.

But now what to do? Yes,we had a blank canvas, but no vision.
The picture here, of the front of the house is completely barren, and continues to be even now, a season later.

We do have grass now, but like everything else, there's a story for that, too.

The yard had no grass, instead there was a layer of moss over the whole surface. It was neglected for so long, that we had to start over. That meant tilling, raking, planting new grass seed and watering like crazy. If anyone has ever done this, you know how bone-shatteringly tiring it can be. If not, you are extremely lucky and I'm insanely jealous.
The grass grew in beautifully, but it grew only because I didn't touch the seeds. That was my husband's territory. I have a cursed "brown thumb" and am not allowed to participate in anything that requires the growing of a plant.
That being said, you can see why I have nothing in the way of curb appeal going on here. I need some major help. I want something "clean" neat, nothing that's going to grow all crazy-tall and out of control. I want lighting, pretty mulch, flowers for all seasons....I need a gardener! ha ha.

The Silver Lining:
There is one very cool feature, that we need to focus on though. It's in our side yard and it's gorgeous. This area was a wet, yucky low-lying drainage area. My husband dug down, laid down plastic, and poured gravel to make a dry creek bed. Then he made about a gazillion trips with the wheelbarrow filled with all these big rocks, and hand placed them one by one. The rocks came from our neighbor's yard overhaul (thanks Rob and Betsy!)
I think this project took him about 2 months of weekends, and some nights after work. He lost about 20 lbs. in the process, too.
Neighbors driving by would slow down, and tell him it was "looking good" and "great job". I think so too.
It not only looks cool, it really does divert the rainwater into the drainage pipe way better. It used to collect in this one spot, and I guarantee mosquitoes were having raves in there.
He did an amazing job, and I know he will continue to tweak it this spring and summer, so stay tuned!

Nasty to Nice

We lived with this bathroom for almost a year before we tackled the re-do. Now, looking at these pictures, most people would say "that's not completely awful" ...oh, no these do not do justice to all the funky details, colors (green toilet?????) and (ew!) smells from almost 30 years of use. Look at those floors- if you had even one drink in you, that squiggly pattern seemed to move. Oh, and paneling. 70's luan paneling painted white- probably at the same time the walls took on that Pepto-Bismol color.

The kitchen was just finished, and my dear husband was taking a well deserved rest after all that work. I seem to remember him saying something about no new projects for a while.

My big problem is, I think I can tackle big projects by myself, so I start ripping stuff apart, and hit a snag that I need to be rescued from. Remember this, it comes into play later on.

My smaller problem is, if something doesn't look the way I want it to look, I loose sleep over it. I obsess about it. I want it fixed and yesterday.
This bathroom was next on the list .
On the hottest day of the summer, I grabbed a hammer and went to town on that paneling. The chair rail came off easily. On a roll, baby. I was happy, I had tunes playing and my son was the supervisor in his cute little Home Depot apron!
With the chair rail trim off so quickly, it was time for the paneling. I knew that was going to be a breeze- why not? Everything else up to this point had been.
I took my trusty hammer, pried out some nails and yanked-nothing. I stuck the hook part of the hammer between the wall and the panel and yanked---a 3x5 ish piece comes off. And then I see it. LIQUID NAIL construction adhesive.
It is like kryptonite to me and slows my progress down to a crawl. Now, most people might give up there but not me. I ran downstairs to the basement and grabbed the sawzall. I had no idea how to use this thing, all I know is that it looks like an electric knife on steroids. I know how to use an electric knife, this can't be much different.
After briefing my young child on calling 911 for emergency, my work began. With the first cut, I felt like a badass!! In record time, the paneling was off. Unfortunately, the liquid nail took half the drywall with it.
There was my snag. We had planned to just paint the walls, replace the vanity and trim and call it a day. Not with big chunks ripped out of my drywall. I cleaned up and waited for my husband to come home. I think I made him a fantastic meal that night to soften the blow.
We hashed out our options, and decided on replacing that paneling with .......more paneling. But nice bead board paneling. Not part of the plan, but in renovation you must be willing to compromise, right? meh.


This tub/shower combo used to be avocado green. Staying in budget, we had it sprayed (professionally) rather than replace the whole thing. What a huge difference! Doesn't it look brand spankin' new??

Right after we put the new floor down. This was something I helped on, but my husband really outdid himself. That floor fit like a glove. We love it, and everyone that comes here thinks it's tile. Nope vinyl- they have to bend down and touch it because they don't believe us.
Unfortunately, I didn't write down the paint or flooring information to share here, and my memory is horrible. But I can tell you that the cool curved shower-curtain rod came from Bed Bath & Beyond , and the HUGE vanity is Kraft Maid.

I'd say we got 80% of our original plan for this bathroom. We have champagne dreams on a beer budget, but somehow we make it work. I will never learn my lesson of biting off more than I can chew, but I thank God every day that I have a very patient and handy husband to bail me out when I get out of hand. He sleeps with one eye open for fear that I might start a project in the middle of the night or something. He knows me.

Once upon a time...

Someone told me I should document our home improvements for posterity, so here we go with the first-ever post!

A little history:
We bought this 1976 3-bedroom ranch in the summer of 2004. We moved from a more urban area to a very small town and love it. It's close enough to civilization , but our yard is described as "land" and the word acerage came up a few times, instead of square feet. Lots to mow, but we no longer look out our kitchen window to see our elderly next door neighbor in her kitchen window - in her nightgown. (ew)

Unfortunately, the new house was not move-in ready.
Well, no. If I was Mrs. Roper it would have been perfect. I'm talkin' original AH-VAH-CAADO green shag carpet in the family room. The 3 bedrooms all sported the shag in various 70's shades: bright lemon yellow , a nice dark brown, and in the master bedroom....orange. yeah, you heard me right. With orange, yellow and brown flowered wallpaper. sexay.
I have video to prove the hideousness that I will post at some point, but I want to get to the real problem. The Kitchen.


Small, dark, dirty, cramped... All bad kitchen words. Too bad I didn't get pictures of the Harvest Gold fridge and brown stove. It was retro. Not a good "let's sell it on E-bay"! type of retro, either. But scary.

You do get a glimpse of non-working brown stove hood here.

But, seeing as I refused to cook on the brown fire hazard, and I accidentally melted the door racks of the fridge in the dishwasher on the first day, we went out and got the pretty, shiny stainless. glee!!

We embarked on designing the kitchen, which is not easy but I could see myself doing this for a living- I felt like a HGTV designer and I was in my friggin GLORY!

I went to Home Depot with my plans and they drew everything up , ordered the cabinets and we waited...

Part 2 tomorrow, but I will leave you with this lovely sneak peek:

POOP!!! ew, ew, ew, ew,ew!!!!!!