Finally! Progress in the closet!!

Before I begin, I'd like to extend the warmest Mother's Day wishes to all the fantastic ladies out there! Kudos for a job well-done!!

And here we go...

It's been well over a month since I started visualizing and planning for my walk-in closet. I've been collecting treasures and bits and pieces that will all become part of the whole. And I know the speed at which I work; it's all or nothing. Needless to say, progress has been slow! Oddly enough, I still have to take care off all the other things in life, like working (so I can afford all my little treasures), feeding people, cleaning up after people, keeping said people in clean clothes, and when all goes well, sleeping a little bit.

But yesterday, it started coming together a little bit. After a little sweet talking to my brother, he agreed to come and help hubby move the office furniture out of my closet-to-be, down the skinny stairwell, around countless corners, and out to the garage for temporary storage. I really did have to do some sweet talking to both of them; when they moved it up there a few years ago, they told me they weren't going to move them again, and I agreed. Who is more delusional here? Me for agreeing never to move the offending pieces back out of the house, or them for thinking it would never happen? Seriously. They know me better than that.

And I didn't think to take any pictures of them working. Had I done so, I'm pretty sure the little conversation balloons would have magically appeared on their own. Full of colorful language. The desk is a monster. And weighs approximately the same as a Mack truck. The legs have to come off, the drawers have to come out, and it has to be tipped on end to make it around corners and down the stairwell. No easy feat. I'm pretty sure I owe my brother a batch of peanut butter cookies and my husband a steak dinner. But I now have room to work in there and the first of many projects is installed!

Dean helped here and there, cutting and sanding my reclaimed wood.

Because I wasn't as organized as I could have been - big surprise - cutting, sanding, and sealing the wood took several weeks. Partly because I still had to take care of other life chores and partly because I didn't have all the pieces ready to seal at the same time.

Proof that I really do everything in flip flops. I only coated my foot in polyurethane once.  It was a bitch to get it off, too. I didn't drag out the tool belt (yes, I actually have one), but my trusty tape measure followed me throughout the project.

Thank goodness for clamps. Everyone else bailed when I was ready to assemble.

Ready to assemble.

TA-DA!!! And there she is, with a small fraction of my clothes. I was dismayed to discover a wobble once all the pieces were attached and screwed in place. But it wasn't because I didn't measure right; I measured everything within spec to a gnat's ass. The old wood has some twists and bows. I can live with a bit of wobble, or put in some braces between the feet and uprights. 

All told, I have only about $30 in this for the casters and hanging rod. Not too bad since you can't buy a rolling clothes rack for anywhere near that. And that old wood looks absolutely beautiful with just a few coats of poly on it. I'm thinking I need to find an old glass door knob to install on the side so I have somewhere to put a hanger full of my belts. 

Now that I'm done with the first project, I'm really enthused to start the next. I picked up a 8-drawer dresser for Dean several years ago at a moving sale. I don't know what I was thinking at the time, as he doesn't know what the purpose of a dresser actually is. It's a very sturdy piece, but it's painted red, white, and blue. Not that I'm a painting professional, but the existing paint was poorly done. Every brush mark is visible and the paint has started to peel. I'll strip it down to the wood, give it a good sanding, and repaint with colors more suited to my taste. Maybe in a style such as this: 

I love this ombre finish, though the color is a little too bubble gum for me. 

I can't wait to get started!

Projects Past

Before I begin, I'd like to thank Enchanted Seashells and this post for inspiring my post today.

I've had to learn over the years to entertain myself. Having a husband in construction means he works long hours, sometimes out of town, and I'm left to my own devices. So, I've developed hobbies. One of my favorite activities is turning the old into something new again. I could spend days rummaging through thrift shops. I often wander my own house looking for something that needs new life. I scrounge through the scrap bins at work, looked for tossed out items that still have life in them. Basically, I drive my husband crazy because I have "stuff" stashed everywhere that is on it's way to a new and purposeful life. And, at any given time, I have numerous projects in some state of rehab. Some get done quickly, others get put on the back burner to be finished...eventually. As we speak, I've overtaken his garage to build a clothes rack out of reclaimed lumber I ferried home last summer. And I have the ingredients for four more projects crammed into my shed outside. As those are finished, there will be pictures posted. But for now, here are some of my favorite projects from the past.

Before

A couple summers ago, the owners of a local gas station retired and sold off everything they'd accumulated over the years. After the sale ended, I was invited down to rummage. These are a few of the things I came home with. Just look at all that potential!

After

A little cleaning, a little paint with no pattern whatsoever, and I have a porch full of pots. The great thing is they are portable and their locations changes every year. My favorite is the mop bucket. Don't mind the blue ribbon. That was a failed experiment of a way to keep the dogs from bailing off the porch THROUGH the flower beds. I don't want to put the money into anything permanent for that because the porch is on the rehab list and will be torn out and rebuilt. But that's another story. 

We have a wood stove and occasionally some rather large pieces make their way home with my guys. Last year, we decided to open up this side of the porch for easier access to the yard. But alas, we had no lumber to build steps. This was my solution. As my husband would rather I not operate the chainsaw for craft projects, I enlisted my oldest son. He cut ginormous slabs and notched them to fit together. I left them unfinished to dry and they are ready to be sealed this year. I love the natural look, but if I don't seal them they will eventually fall apart and become firewood. Now if only my husband had let me sand off that old fence wood he used to close that side of the porch. Maybe this year. 

I found this old glass jar languishing on a back shelf at the thrift store. I believe I paid about $.25 for it. It's large, like about a gallon. I have no idea what it was in its former life, but it is pretty. The glass on two sides is textured, though you can't see that in this picture. About all you CAN see is the dust. Eventually, as I root more cuttings, I will add them in to fill in the space. And by the looks of it, I need to spend an afternoon cleaning my plants. Dust. One of the nasty byproducts of living in farm country and having a wood stove. 

Before

I found this unfortunate little stool at the thrift store for $7. Scarred wood and the ugliest vinyl covering. 

After

Just 24 hours later, it has been transformed! A good sanding followed by a new coat of varnish, and a $.25 pillow case from the same thrift store, in colors that happen to coordinate in my living room. It usually sits near the aquarium and has become a favorite perch for the cats to stalk the fish. 

And now I'm off to work on current projects. Because I just can't get enough!!

Of Biceps and Bleach: My Awful Bathroom

I may have mentioned in the past that I hate my bathroom. If not, let me just say, I hate my bathroom. For those in need of clarification, I. HATE. MY. BATHROOM.

Yes, it's an old farm house, so bathrooms weren't architectural beauties back then. They merely had to be functional. So my bathroom is functional, and that's about it. Only it's not entirely functional. There is no exhaust fan. None. There is a window, but we'll get to that in a minute.

I'm totally in the minority in my house when it comes to showers. I'm the "get in, get it done, get out" type. Maybe once a month I will just stand in the hot water for a bit. Seriously. I get peeved if I have to stand in there long enough to shave my legs.

My guys, however, would stay in there all day of the hot water held out. Literally. I've gone in after one of their showers and walked into a man-made weather system, complete with precipitation. Water literally drips off the ceiling. Back to the window. Do you know what happens to wooden windows with that much humidity in the room? They swell. What happens when a window swells? That's right, they don't open. So the sage advice of opening a window when you don't have a fan doesn't work for me.

So little by little, drip by drip, cloud by cloud, my bathroom dies a slow and painful death. The stranglehold of mold and mildew begins.  Until I go in with bucket, scrubbies, bleach, and gloves and do battle. It's ugly work. It stinks. When I'm done, I'm usually hallucinating. All because I refuse to let my bathroom look like this.

In good news, a miracle happened and the window dried out enough to open. But I'm going to have to post an armed guard in there to prevent folks from closing it again. I'd like to keep it open until the snow flies next winter. 

And that's what my afternoon is going to be today. If you don't hear from me again, I'll be stretched out in the tub talking to unicorns and smoking a piece of carpet. Wait, I don't have any carpet...

The Never Ending Story

Back about six years ago, we bought the house we are living in. Six? Seven? I'm honestly not sure as I'm horrible with dates. I should ask my step-mom, she writes down EVERYTHING. She can tell you when our litter of kittens were born, when I had my tubes tied, when and why Dean got his first round of stitches, probably even when I last made meatloaf. But I digress.

We bought an old farmhouse. It has great bones. That's about all that doesn't need some work. I'm serious. The people who rented before we bought it had no respect for the house. AT ALL. The original and beautiful hardwood floors have paint on them. Actually, everything had paint on it when we first moved in. And not properly applied paint, in case you were wondering.

One of the bedrooms on the main floor was painted in the most nauseating shade of Pepto-Bismol pink. Complete with a badly painted castle on the wall. The other bedroom on the main floor had a black and white city skyline motif, complete with the Batman symbol. Upstairs, the smallest bedroom had virulent colored hand prints, signatures, senseless quotes, and what looked like Rorschach tests all over. The other room was a vomit-inducing shade of pink/purple/mauve, with lilac trim. Sense a theme here?

It was also filthy. Not your everyday filth either. I'm talking right up there with Hoarders filth. As in, we rented a dumpster and filled it three times. No they didn't take their shit with them. They up and left for parts unknown.

Anyway, the point of all this is...this house needs lots of work and TLC. I'm fairly certain when we finally get it all done, one of us will expire the very next day. It's really going to take that long. Why? Because we decided we're going to do all the work we possibly can ourselves. It's cheaper that way, and this stuff doesn't come cheap. And there's always something to buy that's more important than household cosmetics. Like buggies full of food and an endless supply of new shoes for the teenagers that insist on growing.

The first thing we did, after the massive clean-out and sterilization was to blitz through and paint everything white. I've now decided I despise white walls at a level that is unnatural and quite possibly unhealthy. They are boring. They are lifeless. And they show every speck of dirt, glob of dog slobber, smear of whatever is on my kid's hands that must always touch the walls, and every gut pile of every swatted fly and spider to ever have the misfortune of entering through the door that never gets shut. Yes, I scrub and clean, but it's like it's some sort of haunted house where whatever splotch of evil-induced blood is removed comes right back the next day. It gives me nightmares.

I have had a mental list of all the things I want to do to the house. Some of those lists even get written down. Then the list gets lost, and I forget all my great ideas. Last night, about 1:00 am (thank you insomnia) inspiration struck. I'll find an app, get it all written down and saved on my phone. Voila! I finally settled on Tasks+. One of the drawing points in the description was that it was intuitive. Pfft! If it's intuitive, shouldn't it know exactly what's in my head and transcribe it verbatim? Apparently not.

Anyway, I now have a nicely organized list of what I'd like to get accomplished this summer. Realistically, I'm going to have to quit the job that's going to pay for all this just to get it all done. It might be worth it to get rid of the harvest gold and avocado green linoleum that's still in my kitchen.

Motivation, where are you?

Towards the end of every year, I come up with grand plans of how the next year is going to be a life-altering experience for me. It revolves around that single dirty word...resolutions. Big ideas, lots of outlines and notes, and during the last couple years, tons of pins to various Pinterest boards.

I have all the usual things: quit smoking, exercise more, eat better, be more self-aware. I also have lots of projects. This will be the year I finally repaint my kitchen cupboards, paint my bedroom, tear the bathroom apart, take better care of my gardens, start all my seeds indoors.

Here it is, the 13th of January, and what have I accomplished so far? Not a damn thing. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

I just can't find my motivation.

Today's cloud ceiling: 4 Feet

(photo credit)

Occasionally, kind (and often misinformed) weatherpeople are nice enough to share the height of the weather ceiling. Useless information, unless you're a pilot, I guess.

Inside the house, however, the weather ceiling is important news.

Our bathroom lacks an exhaust vent. This time of year, at least we can open the window to help vent out some of the steam. Today, the steam line was clearly visible, right at the window sill level. Forget looking in the mirror until everyone is done and the bathroom has vented for 15 minutes.

Today's eyebrow plucking exercise was accomplished by sitting on the toilet holding the hand mirror. Plucking is difficult, at best, while suffering from the effects of a tad too much coffee.

When my bathroom grows up, it's going to have a vent. Something the size of a jet engine should do nicely.

It's not just for meals

The kitchen table that is. In fact, our kitchen table rarely sees us sitting for a meal. It's more likely to see homework, internet surfing, papers for filing or tossing, and this morning, I sat to put on my makeup. Just one of the side effects of having only one bathroom and a tight morning schedule.

Lord, in my next life, could I please have a house with more than one bathroom? I just don't think a vanity would go with the kitchen decor.

Was that the couch calling me?

I'm not really sure I can improve much on the silence right now.

It's almost noon and I'm still in my jammies. And I'm seriously thinking of heading to the couch for a movie. My luck, someone will drop in unexpectly. I just don't feel like being productive.

Yesterday, we started ripping apart our back yard. Mike brought home a mini-excavator from work. We He ripped out the sidewalk. We He stripped off a spot by the back door to be graveled for me to park. We He stripped off another section of grass weeds, which will be styled with walking stones and gravel. We He broke up the old sidewalk to create the walking stones. And we he sculpted the excess dirt into a mound where I can put future plantings.

Truly, our yard looks like shit. Well, not where we're making improvements, but everywhere else. The grass has never grown nicely since the day we moved in. We have no idea what the previous tenants did to it, other than completely neglect it. We've watered. We've fertilized. And still the weeds are all that really grow. The only reason I keep putting water on it is to try to save the trees. All of which somehow managed to survive the neglect from past years. Well, except the willow-type specimen that we had to take out last summer.

And with costs for everything going up, up, UP, eliminating some of the grass in favor of lower maintenance plants should benefit us in the long run. Getting there, however, will take a couple summers.

Somehow during all the work, I managed to get a nice sunburn. Nice, except that it looks like a patchwork quilt on my legs. Don't know how I managed that. White here, red there. It's attractive, I'm sure. And jeans are out for today.

And after a long and sweaty day of work, I was awake with the birds this morning. Just like clockwork, my eyes popped open at 7:00 am. I have fond memories of the days I could sleep in without even trying.

Hmmm, the rest of the crowd isn't moving too fast either. Maybe I'll trade my jammies for shorts and a tee and join them in front of the TV. I think I hear the couch calling my name.