I Have Molding!

My new scheme is working ... the dining room molding is finally done!!



(The last wall wasn't finished yet when I took this picture, but it is now - it's all up!)


Well, mostly done. I'm marking it 98% in my little status section in the side-bar, because technically I have a couple things to do - go around and dab paint over the nails, and patch the few little gaps with spackling and paint that. But it's going to be simple, and basically it's all up, so ... I have molding.

I cannot get over how awesome this looks. Better even than I expected. I'm incredibly impressed with it. The center squares weren't just an artsy touch - they were also practical.


I can't remember the details now (it's been so long since we first got the stuff to do this), but there was some issue with the length of the stock molding, and of the walls, that was creating some problem I didn't like ... but we discovered that using these squares, we could cut the stock molding exactly in half (which we did at the store), and that combined with the squares was the exact right length (with a little 1/4" trimming here or there) without having to piece the molding mid-wall.

But practical or not, I love the way they look. I intended to paint decorative compass roses on each one, but never got around to it when I decided the molding was going up today, or I was going to die attempting it. I figured I can do it later ... it'll be harder painting them on the wall, but not impossible. Hey ... if Michaelangelo could paint a ceiling ... .

The little corner pieces are a little funkier, not exactly how I envisioned things (also chosen so we didn't have to try to miter corners). You can't really see them well in the other pictures, but they are just decorative corner pieces with a fancy bit at the top (which is the little bit we left sticking up above the molding).


It seemed better in theory than in practice - as you can tell by this picture, they don't look so bad close up, but from the general view out in the room, they just kind of get lost and look a little weird. Probably they would have needed to be bigger to have looked proper.

But that's okay, I came up with a grand plan for them as well. Now that I'm getting into clay sculpture, I'm going to (eventually) sculpt ship figureheads for each corner - small, scaled to fit appropriately in that space - and cover those corner pieces with them. It'll look cool, and go perfectly with the 'seaside cottage' theme we're working on here.

The scheme that got me to this point was a rearrangement of the use of my time. Usually on Saturdays I sleep in (even if it's only 8:30 or 9:00, I don't set an alarm), then I sit around for several hours doing nothing (i.e., messing around online and drinking coffee), then I go to the grocery store, and usually run some errands, and by the time I get home for the day it's 2:00 or later and I'm tired, and band practice is in a few hours, and I don't feel like starting on a home project.

And rightly so, as this took far longer than I thought it would. About 4 hours. But consequently, nothing ever gets done.

I was sick to death of stuff not getting done, and devised a new plan. Now I get up really early Saturday morning - 6:00 a.m., the same time I get up during the week - and I get my ass out to the grocery store early (this morning, by 8:00). Then I'm home early enough to still have time to tackle my home improvement projects.

This is the only way I'll ever get anything done, because Saturday is the only day I have for these types of projects - I refuse to do this stuff on Sunday, Sunday is my R&R and "me" day - for sewing, clay, whatever fun and creative project I want to work on. It could be argued that doing this stuff is fun and creative too, but ... for some reason, despite how much I want to do these things, how much I enjoy fixing up the house, I still consider them 'work.' So, they don't fall into the proper category for Sunday. Sunday is a 'no work' day, just because everyone needs one of those a week.

But Saturday is also the only day I care to go to the grocery store, as I detest going on weeknights after work.

So ... starting my day earlier is the only way to fit them both in, but it worked like a charm this week. If I can keep this up, I should start making progress on more projects. I don't really mind the sacrifice of another couple hours of sleep or "sitting around" time because it came down to a matter of choices ... if I want to get these things done, I have to make them a priority, make time to do them, and just do it. If I want to sleep in and sit around for hours on Saturday morning, then ... nothing's going to get done. Can't have it both ways. So it's a worthwhile trade-off.

Next phase on the dining room: paint the dark wood paneling in the doorway to the kitchen and the 'tween' (that window between the kitchen and dining room) and replace the edge molding on those. And paint the ceiling. Then - or concurrently - I'll work on that stupid window between the dining room and the spare room, and put up the coat hook rack on the wall by the door.

House Projects Update

I'm finally getting psyched about house projects again. It's funny what random occurrences can trigger a new line of thought.

I was out with Tyler in the yard one day a couple months ago, and an elderly gentleman happened by on his morning walk. We'd run into him once before and stopped to chat, so he stopped to chat again. I remember he told me his name was Frank, well it was really Francesco, but he goes by Frank. Very nice old gent. And I remember we were talking about houses, and how much work they could be. While of course this was a great house, well maintained, there were all kinds of things we personally wanted to do to change it, and things needed updated.

He said he was going to tell me the same thing he'd told his son, when he bought a house - just focus on one thing at a time, and don't move on until you get that one thing done.

Well, it's kind of common sense, and in fact I'd said when we bought the house that's what I was going to do ... but somewhere along the way I'd lost sight of that goal, and had gotten overwhelmed with all the things that I wanted or needed to do, to the point of near paralysis and getting nothing done at all.

Frank's reminder got me thinking again, and I re-focused on that way of looking at things. I decided that's exactly what I was going to do. The dining room was bugging me the worst, and I decided that I wasn't going to think about any other room in the house until I got the dining room done - with a goal of having it done in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

It's worked out well, as I've made steady progress on this room (okay, maybe not quite as fast as I'd like, but ... all things considered, as well as can be expected). And what makes me happier is that I'm sticking to the plan - focusing on this and nothing else till I get it done, and being relentless in getting it done - rather than just letting it languish, as I had begun to do for too long. This serves the dual purpose of (a) actually getting something accomplished, and (b) no longer feeling so overwhelmed about the rest of the house, as when some other room starts to bug me, I just remind myself, "I'm working on the dining room now. Later I'll get to you, then you will be my sole focus."

This weekend and last night we finished up getting the supplies needed to complete the top molding (or moulding, as Home Despot spells it, but Dictionary.com approved my way as well, so I'm going with it - moulding looks funny to me). We'd decided to take advantage of some little tricks to avoid mitering anything, as while it's not impossible, it's kind of a pain in the arse I'd prefer to avoid, at least in this room (and I can't currently locate my dad's miter box, anyway). They sell little corner pieces that leave you straight edges to butt the molding up against.

But we discovered the strips of molding were 11' long, and our wall is - of course - 11' 3". I didn't want to buy extra or do a lot of math, much less patch pieces together any more than necessary, so we got clever. Greg found some square decorative bits that we'll use in the center of each wall, so again, only have to butt the molding up against a flat surface (and one 11' strip was sufficient for each wall).

As a bonus, they're cool looking, and it's something unusual and unique - always a plus with me. So I'm psyched. I'm going to do some special painting on these, but that'll remain a surprise till they're done. (Unfortunately that'll make it take longer, but it'll be a lot of fun, so I'm kind of excited about it).

I'm hoping to work on this during the week, not just weekends. Only having Saturdays for house projects has been another thing that has slowed me down more than I like, so I'm going to start trying to find time during the week to get a little done as well. The molding needs cut, primered and painted before it can be put up - the painting at least I can work on during the week. And of course the decorative little project mentioned above.

That'll be a major step in giving this room a more finished look. Next is baseboard, and painting the rest of the trim, fixing up the coat-hanging and shoe-storing area, and figuring out what to do with that stupid window thing into the spare room ... this.




To the left of that, between it and the door, I'm installing coat hooks, and underneath it I'm going to arrange an area for wet shoes and boots during the winter. But that thing ... I considered trying to patch it up to just make it a big solid wall, but it would be very tricky, and would never look quite right anyway - it would always look 'patched' - so I'm not sure I want to do that. Instead I'm trying to figure out a way to make use of it creatively. One idea I had was to line it with shelves and put little bins or baskets in it for gloves and hats during the winter - but it won't serve much purpose during the summer, so I'm unsure about that one.

And we need to get busy on the door issue if we're going to get anything done before winter, but I'm torn on that.

Of course, the banquette (booth seating thing I have in mind) is a major undertaking, and I'm not ready to tackle that yet. And it may well be that part doesn't get done by Thanksgiving - but that's okay, as we have other tables and chairs we can use, as long as the room overall looks decent. I have plans in mind for how to build my own banquette, instead of buying one (money's starting to get to be a bit of an issue, and they are ungodly expensive pre-made), but I need to sit down and do more work on that plan.

Anyway - progress ensues. And I'm already looking forward to the next area ... I'm still only focused on the dining room, but I'm starting to brainstorm ideas. I've decided to just move around the house in order, so my next stop is the hallway - currently a long, boring dark tunnel. At first I despaired of thinking of anything unique to do with that, but then inspiration struck. For starters, it's getting a two-toned paint job, dark color on the bottom, lighter on top, with a small decorative strip of molding (kind of like a chair rail, but not) along the dividing line. Better lighting. A few steampunk touches (why not? it's a great place to add that sort of thing in small doses). Shouldn't actually be too difficult at all ... except maybe stripping the wallpaper. Though I'm kind of encouraged, as the wallpaper all through the hallway and living room is starting to fall down on its own, which thrills me no end. I'm probably the only person on earth who smiles happily every time I see the peeling wallpaper. Because that means it's coming loose on it's own, which hopefully means it won't be such a bear to remove.

I know I'm probably dreaming - it'll come loose easily for another foot or so, then stick like hell everywhere else. Well, whatever - it's coming down, easy or difficult.

Technically the kitchen might be considered the next adjacent area, and there is a TON of stuff I want to do in there, but for some reason, I'm avoiding it. I think it's because most of what I want to do is going to be expensive, and it's the room that needs the least amount of stuff done to it, so it's not bugging me as bad as some of the other areas.

So, I'm psyched, the dining room's moving along, and here in about a month or so ought to be quite pleasant.

Before I go - Rhys, if you're reading this (or still awake after that boring blather), thanks for the reminder about the online meds - I'd actually forgotten about that. That might very well be a good option under the circumstances. You're like Wodehouse's Jeeves - always the perfect idea at the perfect time. :o)

More Dining Room Progress.

I did end up going back and getting a sample bottle of paint in the other trim color, the one I'd first picked out and then got nervous it was too dark. I should have followed my first intuition.

Before ...


After ...



Well, only the vertical strip is done; when I took this picture I hadn't done the top yet, or the door trim (that strip in the far right side of the picture). But I decided I liked the darker color much better, so I've since finished painting the entire window trim that color. I haven't done the door yet. Maybe after we install the door.

I also cleaned everything out of the dining room that didn't belong there, and ... ta-da ... fixed the dining room table! We now have a bonified dining room!


I'd always thought fixing the table was going to be something complex that I couldn't do myself. Ha. I crawled under it and looked today, and it's just a cross-piece that was loose in it's slot. I fixed it with some shims. It's probably not a thorough permanent fix, it'll probably become somewhat loose again, especially if we lean on the table a lot while eating (which I tend to do). But it'll work for now, and we're planning to replace the table soon anyway.

There's still lots to do, but ... even just having this much done has made a HUGE difference in here! I can't get over how much nicer it looks.

So, woo-hoo! A real place to eat meals. And it only took a year and 8 months.

Progress. Has. Ensued.

As I've said many times before, I'm so sick of nothing getting done around here. We've lived here a year and a half, and it just feels like nothing's getting done!

I know that's not entirely true. We've done a lot. But it doesn't feel like much, probably because I keep hopping from project to project without ever really finishing anything. It's a constant source of frustration (and undermines what progress we have made) that every room in the house is some degree of 'not done.' The dining room, the bedrooms, the living room - there isn't one room that's finished, comfortable and inviting.

I finally figured out that if I want these rooms to be 'done', I had to get busy, get motivated, and focus on just one room at a time - and keep focusing on that room until it was done, and ignore all the other projects clamoring for my attention.

My first choice was the dining room, which was the least done room in the house - and the one with, by far, the most issues. It's also a room I spend a whole lot of time in, as it's my main hang-out room on the first floor. And, I'm sick to death of having (allegedly) a dining room, but having no place to eat a meal, except at the island in the kitchen, or downstairs on the couch with my plate on a chair in front of me. I was finding it increasingly ridiculous to have a house this big, and no 'real' place to eat. (Why haven't we used the dining room? Because the table that's in there is broken - you can't put any weight on it or the top tilts annoyingly; it's just there because we never bothered to fix it or put it anywhere else).

I made up my mind that this room was going to be done (complete with nice table and seating accommodations) before the holidays. Before Thanksgiving.

So ... this weekend I dived seriously into the dining room.

Now, I'd come to a second realization about the house projects. One of the reasons nothing was getting finished was because there was so much to do that I'd get overwhelmed before I even started. So I made up my mind that I had to wrap my head around the idea of just doing one or two small things at a time, not getting overwhelmed, and slowly, by baby steps, it would all get done.

So it all started with just wanting to make some new curtains for the window. That's it ... just curtains. How hard can that be? I just decided that the place to start was by getting rid of the damned vertical blinds (which we couldn't close anymore anyway, because the credenza's in the way) and the crappy, dirty, plain vanilla valance that has been up there since we moved in. Just that. Just make new curtains.

Mushrooming ensued.

I decided to use a pattern for the curtains, because I wanted something a little 'special,' a little off the beaten path, and didn't trust my make-it-up-as-you-go-along abilities in that arena. Finding a pattern I liked proved to be challenging, but eventually I did.

That was Saturday. I was going to go ahead and buy the fabric the same day, but realized I had forgotten to bring a sample of the wall paint with me - and as it's an odd shade of green, I wanted to make sure that I bought fabric that went with it. I decided to go home, read over the pattern instructions so I could make sure I got everything I needed, and go back the next day with my paint sample.

Sunday I went fabric shopping. I wanted something unique. Well, I found it. But more on that in a minute.

I started the curtains on Sunday afternoon. This took most of the rest of that day.

But part-way through making the curtain, it dawned on me - oh crap, it won't do any good to put these beautiful new curtains up on that crappy wall. You see, when we painted the dining room before, we only painted three walls. The fourth wall - the outside wall, with the window and door, had a better quality paneling on it, it was actually kind of pretty (though dark). We thought we might toy with the idea of keeping that as paneling.

Some time ago I'd decided that wasn't going to work, as the room looked kind of stupid with three walls painted a light green, and one wall a very dark paneling. But I'd never gotten around to painting it. When I first thought about curtains, I initially only thought about curtains (baby steps, remember). So I never thought about the wall - until I found such pretty material, then started caring what the rest of the wall looked like.

So, I decided to paint the fourth wall before I put the curtains up. But then I realized I'd also have to paint the window trim for it to do any good - the trim in that room was also very, very dark wood grain - it isn't even all wood, some of it is plastic made to look like wood. Very tacky with my nice new curtains.

But we'd never picked out trim color yet, so we didn't have that paint.

Okay - so now, paint the fourth wall, and pick out trim color, and go to Home Despot and pick up the trim paint, and then paint the trim. And then finish the curtains.

Did I mention there was mushrooming?

But ... after working on the curtain for hours Sunday, then working on the dining room and finishing the curtain from about 8:00 a.m. till about 6:00 p.m. Monday, it turned out to be SO extremely worth it! I was astounded at how well things turned out.

Here's the overview shot. We still haven't replaced the door, but that's in the works. This picture doesn't really do the curtains justice.



They're even lined, and have this neat piping trim. I've never made lined curtains before, and never successfully used piping either, but this went really well.



I love this little detail, too, though it barely shows up in the photo - there's a place where I ran blue cord through two buttonholes sewn into the curtain, and gathered it up, and tied the cord - it's a nice little touch.



So now you can see why I was so pleased with the stuff I found. Although I would never have thought of "paisley" when thinking about the dining room curtains, this turned out perfect. The 'theme' of the dining room is 'beach house' - and the swirly-ness of the paisley makes me think of water or the ocean - perfectly appropriate. The colors are absolutely perfect for this room. Though there isn't a lot of green, what is there matches our odd-shade green walls. The fabric has a lot of blue and shades of beige in it, and those are two of the trim colors we'd been considering anyway. The lining fabric reminds me of sand. So the whole thing was just perfect.

When I first hung these up, I was amazed. I'd seen them come together, I knew how nice they looked - but somehow, hanging them up made it more than the sum of its parts. I was astounded at how great they looked. Heck, they look like professional-made curtains, with that trim and lining. Yeah, I'm kind of inordinately pleased with myself over this.

I am not entirely happy with the trim color we picked out, though. I had picked out something a little darker - almost the same color of the piping trim on the curtains - but got nervous it'd be too dark, so went a few shades lighter. Now I kind of wish I'd gotten the darker, and may very well go back and get that instead. While I want it to look 'beach-housy,' I didn't want it to look so pastel candy-coated.

I'd mentioned the door's in the works - we've picked out a new door, just have to get it and install it. It's got a full center glass panel, top to bottom - to let in more light, as this room's so dark. That's why I didn't bother painting the door (though I considered it) - I figured, why waste the time (when I'd already been working on this project for 10 hours today alone) when we're going to be replacing the door so soon.

Then we have to buy the top molding, paint that, and install it. Primer and paint the ceiling. There's still baseboard to pick out and get, and trim paint for that.

Then there's the really expensive component of this room - I want a banquette. It's sort of like booth seating, with benches with backs that go around one corner of the room, then a rectangle shaped table, with chairs on the other side. That's going to be the priciest thing in this renovation, but ... I decided it's far smarter in our case to buy it instead of trying to build it.

Lots to do before Thanksgiving, but I have faith.

The Last Weekend ...

I always love to do seasonal and holiday decorating ... or at least, I like the idea of doing it. I'm such a procrastinator that usually it's two days before, and I'm thinking "It would have been nice if I'd have ...".

In the new house, I'm determined to get over that. So I jumped on an idea this weekend that I'd been wanting to do for years, at the old house, and never got around to.


I also did a little fall decorating in the living room ... just a tad so far. I bought some faux fall decor at the craft store the other day, and created a little spontaneous arrangement in my kim chi pot.




I like it.

Yesterday I cooked the food for our vacation. Every year we rent a beach house. It does not come with a cook. We don't like to eat out at restaurants every night. Ergo, we need to provide our own food. The first year, with some misguided idea that it would just 'all work out,' we had almost nothing to eat all week, except junk food. I was not happy. Last year we went out after we got there and bought a bunch of groceries, but then we had to cook most evenings ... something that doesn't thrill me on vacation (who wants to drag themselves up from a gorgeous beach at 5:00 p.m., when the rum's just starting to settle nicely, and go inside and cook dinner?). And spent a lot more money than we needed to on a lot of food that ended up not getting eaten, anyway. This year, in my new Seal-A-Meal phase, I cooked up some stuff in advance and froze it. Then most nights I can just heat something up, and voila ... delicious, hot dinner without all the vacation effort.

I also cooked all of Tyler's food for the entire week plus a day or two after we come home, and froze that up in little individual serving portions.

Today will be laundry and packing. And painting the dining room, because I'm determined to get it done before we go. At least the walls ... we haven't picked our trim color yet, and I'm not rushing it. We have a little collage of choices we're thinking about ..



... but none of them have really jumped out and said "I'm it!" yet. I'm waiting till just the right color hits me.

It will. I have faith in my creative inspiration. It's often slow, but eventually, it gets me there. I think that I will definitely delay any decision till after vacation, because since the theme of this room is going to be 'beach house,' and we're going to the coast, I wouldn't be surprised if some particularly luscious color combination jumps out at me from somewhere on this trip ... a particularly nice sunset, an interesting shop, someone's boat, a random beach crab ... and I'll say, "Aha! That's the color we need!"

Finally - The Dining Room!

I finally got started painting the dining room Monday. I didn't get it done, but that's okay - just getting it started will give me the momentum to keep going till it is done.

Here's the wall I was working on Monday, before I started. That dark, dreary paneling had to go!


Two coats of primer.


And, first coat of paint.






It was very hard to get this to show up well in a picture, but it's a pale green ... I don't remember the name of this color, but it's very similar to a color I had my dad paint my bedroom walls when I was growing up, which was called "seafoam green" - so that gives you an idea.

I was very concerned about this color ... we thought and thought for weeks about what color we wanted, specifically what shade from the dozens of paint chip samples we'd picked up. We finally settled on this, but when it was mixed and the guy showed it to me, I was worried - it looked a little too "minty green" to me just then, almost like some type of 'candy green.'

But once it was on the wall, it looked much better. Actually, I'd have preferred something just a little 'greener' - more of a sagey-celery color, but this color is really good. It's actually got a tiny, tiny hint of a blue-green in it in certain light, which is also reminscent of the sea, so I'm happy.

It almost covered completely in one coat (it looks much better in person than in these pictures), but later we did notice some thin spots. We decided to wait till the whole dining room is done, then go back over all the walls with a quick second coat, just to even things up and cover those thin spots - I thought that sounded better than trying to spot touch-up. I waffled a long time about what paint to buy, too, and the salesguy talked us into the more expensive Valspar Premium, but it was worth it - it really was a dream to work with, went on very easy and smooth, and almost covered in one coat - probably would have covered in one coat if I hadn't been in kind of a hurry because I was axious to see how the whole wall looked, done - and the light is so bad in there, it's hard to see what you're doing. There was almost no paint smell, too. (and it wasn't *that* expensive - it was $20-something a gallon, whereas the cheaper stuff we were considering was something like $17 or $18 anyway; I'd heard of paints costing $40 a gallon or more, but this didn't).

Ironically, we bought 2 gallons of paint and only one of primer, and it's the primer we're looking likely to run out of, while I doubt we'll use anywhere near even one whole gallon of paint. We can't return it since it was custom tinted, so something, somewhere, is going to be seeing a lot of this green. That's okay ... it's a nice color, we'll find a use for it. (The Imaginarium comes immediately to mind).

The dark window-thing in the middle of the wall - that's tricky. It was probably originally an actual window (as this room used to be a porch) which was turned into a pass-through into the room next door, closed by two shutters. We're leaving it, mostly because I don't want to go to the expensive of having someone patch that big hole in the wall. We decided we'll leave the shutters as they are (they're actually a pretty wood) and paint the inside of the opening with one of our trim colors, then use that for something - I'd suggested putting shelves across it, and using it as a little knick-knack cubby or something.

Just this wall color alone isn't enough to 'fix' this room, but we have Plans. The room is going to have a 'beach house' theme, so this color is a great base for that. We're going to be deciding on trim and accent colors (I'm leaning toward a cream color, and either a melony or yellow contrast color). Eventually the carpet's going away, and we'll have some type of tile put in. New curtains, a new table and seating (I love this table, but we need a bigger one; this one will go live in the Imaginarium), add a little wall decor (some of which we already have, stuff we found this summer and knew would be perfect for this room), and the room will be done, and will look 175% better than it has since we moved in!

I'm psyched. This room needed the most work of any place in the house, so it's nice to be getting it done.

We're also having a guy in tonight to talk to us about the insulation issues upstairs (the house is an over-sized Cape Cod, so the Imaginarium has those half-walls and slanted ceilings, behind which there is no insulation to speak of; the upstairs was freezing last winter, and I'm determined to fix that before this winter).

So some significant progress is being made now on the more important things, and that makes me happy. Once we get the bigger stuff out of the way, we can settle into the fun little details.