It's A Two-fer!

I know, I know.. I'm terrible at updating. It's not that I don't have things for you, it's just that I like things to be perfect before I share them. So, today you get TWO finished projects! One by us, and one that's a shared victory between us and the contractor!

First up, our mailbox!

I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter...

This brilliant piece of nerdy art is courtesy of Carrie and our friend Giancarlo. While I lay in bed, horrendously hungover (whiskey bad..), they turned our plain white mailbox into this gem. I love it! The previous mailbox was black.. and missing a door. So we figured if we needed a new one, we might as well do it up!

Now for a more substantial project- we can move on to the bathroom! In case you've not had the opportunity to see the bathroom we inherited with this house, let me just share some pictures with you. That should help you understand why renovating the bathroom was an absolute must for me!

Is that faux marbling? Why, yes!

Even on the ceiling!

The vanity wasn't too offensive, but not our style..

Unfortunately, some of what made this as horrible as it was is not visible in these photos. All of the door and window trim was painted a flat brown. It almost looked like someone took tempra paint, and just slapped it on there. The best part though, was the bathtub. I kid you not, the tub was sealed, in more than one place, with DUCK TAPE. (Yep. It's actually duck, not duct.) I have to assume that at some point the caulking started to fail and instead of, you know, buying a tube of caulk- the previous owner thought that taping it up should do the trick. I SO wish I had a photo of it. It was... really scary.

At any rate, our original plan was to put in new walls and ceiling (because I COULD NOT live with that stuff), a new tub, and a new floor. Somehow though, the more I thought about it, the more I just wanted to change everything. So we did. New vanity, new toilet, new lights.. Also, the window felt too small. It seemed like, if we were taking the whole room apart anyway, why not enlarge the window and put in a new one?! Of course, doing all of that meant ripping the entire bathroom down to the studs and starting fresh.

That's our brand new tub!

Nothing like using the toilet in a shell of a room!

That will shortly be a closet!

Much to our surprise and delight, the contractor was even able to enlarge the size of the closet in the room. We thought we might lose it altogether, but some creative thinking solved that problem. Once he was finished putting the tub and window in, walls up and floor down, he moved on to the fixtures and the paint. I am happy to say that it came out beautifully. After we moved in, Carrie and I added the finer touches- matching towel and TP hangers, shower curtain, shelves, art and so on. Unfortunately, it's a small space, which makes it hard to photograph, so bear with me!

BEHOLD:

Carrie and I went on a special mission just for this shower curtain!

We still need a window treatment. 

Much better, right!? I know. Photos don't do the color justice, either. You lose the nuance of it- I believe it was called "Jamaica Bay", and it's actually an aqua sort of shade. Here are some more photos!

I wasn't sure about that fixture until it was up there.

I think the vanity inspired the room..

Extra storage and decor in one!

This mermaid was painted by the aforementioned Giancarlo!

Anyway! I hope you enjoyed the first big room reveal! We're very, very pleased. A word to the wise though- cleaning that floor is a pain in the ass! I do not recommend white grout! Still, it does look gorgeous, huh?

Outdoor Chairs!

Today, I'm doing a quick post about Carrie's latest awesome project.

A few weeks ago, she obsessively started trolling Craigslist ads for "C-spring chairs". I had no idea what she was talking about, just that she really wanted them. She finally found a few that weren't being sold for obscene amounts of money.

Yep. That is a toilet in the background. I swear it's not staying there.

Turns out they're a style of vintage (50's?) patio chair. You know what I think about them? UGLY. The shape is so-so, but the faded vintage look is just not what I'm looking for in patio furniture. That said, I've taken helm on a lot of projects, and she was really into this- so I wasn't going to get in the way of her creativity. She swore that sanded and painted, they would look awesome. So, we picked two of them up from a nice lady in Concord and brought them to the house.

Since this is her project, she got the fun (dirty) job of sanding those suckers down. I don't even want to tell you how gross that was. I stayed away from that dust.

Taken through our brand new slider!

After they were thoroughly sanded, we took a trip to Home Depot to find the right spray paint. We had to compromise, because the color we liked best didn't come in a gloss finish, and she really had it in her head that they would be shiny. So, we chose the closest thing we could find in a gloss and bought two cans.

Turns out, two cans is not enough for two chairs. We ended up going through three and part of a fourth, I think. Anyway- it turns out she was right. Sanded and painted, they look AMAZING.

So blue! The second one was still drying when I took this.

The ultimate plan is to find more- they don't have to match these, they just have to be C-spring. We'd like to have at least six, and each pair will get painted a bright color. Eventually, they'll live around the fire pit... that we haven't built yet. That will be another post, I guess!

Ombre Painting and Product Endorsement!

Things are chugging along at the house. We've learned some important lessons recently- the biggest of which is "you can not believe a contractor when they give you a timeline." Apparently it always takes longer than they say.

Still, we are making some progress with our projects. The kitchen is coming along, but I'm holding back any photos of that until we can do the big reveal. The bathroom is still a shell, but that should change over the coming week. All of our new appliances came in today- that was exciting! There was an awful lot of shiny to 'ooh' over this morning.

When we packed it in this evening, we had a few things solidly completed- I'm even going to share one of them with you!

First though, a totally unsolicited product endorsement!

Best Stuff EVER.

Floetrol is an additive for latex paint. You pour 8oz of this stuff into a gallon of paint, and it virtually eliminates brush and roller marks. We used it with the cabinet paint, and again on the project I'm about to showcase. I can not believe how well it works. I wish I'd known about it years ago. For $8.00/bottle, it's totally worth it if, like me, you're amateur painter and a perfectionist. I highly recommend it!

ANYWAY. One of the projects we've been working on is upcycling a dresser and nightstand we inherited from my Grandmother. My Grandmother was a terrific artist, and had hand painted these pieces- but we're not really into roses on lattice and hummingbirds. So, hopefully she's not glaring at us from the grave. Sorry Grandma!

I really liked the shape of the pieces, if not the paint, and I thought it would look really neat with an ombre treatment on the drawers. 

So first, we sanded down the old paint job, and used tack cloth to clean them off.

Dresser, after sanding.

Nightstand and drawers.

Nine drawers! Hooray!

Next we painted the bodies of both pieces a medium grey. I think it was called 'Down Pour', by Behr. We added the floetrol to the paint for this project, because I wanted it to come out smoothly. We got a quart of the grey, and I think we maybe used a third of it for two coats. We will have to find something else to use it on!

Grey!

Tarps are important. I am a messy painter.

We let those dry, and started on the drawers. We had purchased one quart of a dark purple color (Wild Iris, maybe?), and one quart of white. We painted all of the bottom row drawers the dark purple, including the bottom drawer for the nightstand.

See? Messy.

I have painting clothes for this reason.

While those were drying, I poured 4oz of the dark purple into a mixing container. Then, I attempted to pour 4oz of white into the same container, but... I think it got a little out of hand. The color I created wasn't really suitable for the second row, but it was pretty- so we decided to use it for the top row! We let all of those drawers dry, and worked on something else for a while. Then, we came back and put a second coat on all of those drawers. After that, I took the light purple I'd created, and added more of the dark purple to it until we got a middle tone. Thankfully, that worked! We painted all of the second row drawers faces the middle tone, let it dry and applied a second coat.

Behold, the finished product:

Gorgeous!

Yep. That's an orange wall.

I love it!

It's not perfect (there are drip marks in some obnoxious places), but I'm really pleased with my first attempt at really refinishing furniture. We probably should put something on it to protect the paint job, but it was either a satin or semigloss- both of which are finishes they suggest for cabinetry, so we'll see.

Hopefully the room will all come together when we're done!

Adventures in Renovations!

I'm getting flak for not posting enough, but that's only because there isn't anything to show! Nothing is done yet.

Still, I can update you on one of our most recent adventures.

In my first post, I mentioned that there was some truly ugly wallpaper happening.  It was hanging in our laundry room. Our laundry room does have the water heater exposed to the world, but dammit, that doesn't mean I'm not going to at least TRY to make it cute!

There it is, in all it's glory.

Stripping wallpaper seemed like something we could tackle. I know people do it all the time. Wainscoting can be painted (we're doing it in the kitchen).  The floor is being replaced. This is a room we can make something out of.

So, our second weekend in the house I decided I'd have a look at it. Come to find out- that is not wallpaper! I'm actually not sure what it was. Some sort of paneling. It was a little like masonite, but thinner. Very flexible, and attached in large sheets. Textured. UGLY.

"OK," I thought to myself. "No big deal. You just have to take it down. You've got a crowbar- go for it." The wainscoting presented a little bit of a problem, as we had intended to leave it, but after a quick conference with Carrie it was determined that it could all just come down. We'd get a fresh start!

Well.... perhaps 'fresh' is the wrong word.

Pretty!

That's a picture of what I found beneath all of the wall coverings. The brown spots are glue.  They went from floor to ceiling. Apparently they went for extra secure, because all of that stuff was also nailed in place. At first, that was all I saw (I started on the wall to the right of the photo) and I braced myself for a weekend of chiseling glue off the walls. Then I moved to the long wall and, lo and behold, mold.

At this point, once I'd exhausted my irritation by ripping down everything I could get, I realized we were going to be better off re-sheetrocking both walls.

That has since been halfway accomplished. The short wall (not pictured) is still just a frame. It's the ideal spot to bring through the new bathtub. We were lucky enough that the mold was just in the drywall, not the frame of the house itself, and was pretty old and dry. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the new sheetrock, but it is lovely and unblemished!

So, that was a fun discovery, but ultimately fixable one. Hopefully soon we'll actually finish one of our many projects and I'll be able to share it with you all!

First Weekend, First Crisis...

Well. First weekend as homeowners, and first crisis.

We had A LOT of rain over the last few days and the ground is still pretty frozen. We didn't really think anything of it, until we glanced out the window.... to see water coming up out of the lid to our septic tank.

Thankfully that water was clear, but it was running like a bubbler! Then we had the bright idea to poke our heads down into the crawl space beneath the house and, lo and behold, a foot of dirty water was staring at us.

After some walking around, splashing and mud- we came to the general conclusion that A) living on an incline is going to be problematic and B) something needed to be done. Very basic channels were made with feet and sticks (thanks Carrie!), and we headed off to lunch and brainstorm.

Basically we decided the following:

1. The amount of water running from the property across the road added to the snow melting on our property was enough to overwhelm the leach field. It was backing up (the septic inspection we had showed that the field was in very good shape) into the tank (which is mostly empty, as no one has been living there). All the rain and groundwater was just pushing up against the lid and bubbling out.

2. We have no idea where the water from under the house came from. It's not a full basement, so it's likely that it's the same runoff problem, but taking a different path.

3. We should probably get a sump pump, and also dig a real ditch to divert the water from over the leach field.

So, off to Home Depot we went (I feel like I should just start signing over our paychecks to them...). One shovel, a sump pump and some tubing later, we were back home. Of course, when we looked down in the crawl space again, all the water was gone! Ok- not ALL of it, but we went from about 10" to 4". We decided to keep the pump and set it up anyway. It just seems safer. We don't have it running yet, but we will.

Then Carrie went out to play in the mud while I went back to painting trim. About 20 minutes and some fun with a shovel later, she came back in. The water was now running adjacent to our leach field instead of into it. We're probably going to need to have a chat with the folks who live behind us, because we don't want to flood their property either. I'm hoping for some good old fashioned neighborhood cooperation. We'll see.

Anyway. We got less done than we'd have liked to today, but at least we got our first major crisis out of the way. Only marginal panic. The yard was even starting to look less marshy when we left!

Holy crap, we own a house!

I think in the back of our minds, we never really thought we'd get to this point. Owning a house was always the plan, of course- but this process took so long it began to feel like we were going to live forever in limbo!

Today, it finally happened. We closed on our very first home. It needs some work...

Still, it was amazing (and annoying- man do you have to sign a lot of paper)! It was joyous! We finished the signing, stopped at Home Depot and rushed over to spend the afternoon prettying up our new space...

... and then we started to notice the things we hadn't before. Nothing terrible, nothing life altering- just.. wow.. these projects are going to add up.

Our first fun discovery was that the seller had let the propane for the furnace run out. Thankfully there are no frozen pipes (and the water heater is electric), but we're still in the grips of winter here in New England, and it was COLD in there. We set up our account with the propane company pronto. Hopefully they'll deliver before the week is out.. it's a good thing we're not moving right in! We really wanted to be there though, so we decided to brave the cold for a few hours anyway to get some painting and poking around done.

The house has some major renovations being done by a contractor- when you get a rehab loan, anything covered by the loan has to be done by a licensed contractor. So, the bathroom rehab and some of the flooring will NOT be our problem to tackle- which is probably good, as there is plenty of small stuff!

Turns out, on top of the usual painting, beautifying and accessorizing, we'll also be learning about putting up trim (someone let dogs chew on the door frames), hanging doors (someone let dogs chew on the doors), fixing windows (hmmm... what a cute little porthole window.. wait.. why doesn't this close?), removing wallpaper (how did I not notice how incredibly ugly that is?) and cleaning stains out of carpet (please don't tell me what that was).

All those fun things (and probably more) are going to be dumped right into the mix with our mostly DIY kitchen redo (no, I am not going to install my own countertops, or run pipes for our appliances- we draw a line at things we don't know how to do and can't afford to get wrong), closet makeovers, painting projects, DIY furniture projects and the giant project of making the outside of this little house something someone would actually want to look at!

So: this is our little corner of the internet, where we're going to chronicle the projects as we go. Some will be bigger (time to read up on tiling a backsplash and painting cabinets) and some will be smaller (our soon to be adorable book loft), but they'll all be here for you to see, if you're so inclined. We aim to amuse and entertain.