put your feet up...relax...sit a spell

Looking for a good read?
try this.
I love a good before and after...who doesn't?
This is no extreme makeover junk...this is actual (do-able) renovation.
Enjoy!



you cant actually read the thing...but you can order it.
(or go buy it at the grocery store)
inspiration will cost you...

what did you do?!

So we have these beautiful doors. We break out the chemical strippers. A little stinky...brush, brush, brush....
All is going GREAT!
Sure we feel a mild burning sensation if we splash this on our skin but LOOK! it is melting all that paint. Melting...





The layers just peel off. There seems to be a varnish or something under the paint. It just bubbles up and slides off. Yippee!
Oh isn't it lovely?!





This seems to be a dark stain on the wood. It doesn't lift or sand off. That is ok by me. I like it!







That was 10 pm. We go to bed happy. I look forward to an easy day tomorrow. This is so easy.

Can you hear the snickering? The door is laughing...ever so softly...or maybe it is crying.

This is what I find on the other side of the door. That first layer just bubbles away. bubble, bubble, bubble. Then I begin to scrape. hmmm....this doesn't seem to be working. Must be this different stripper. Shouldn't have changed brands. Go back to Lowes...exchange for the other brand.
Scrape, scrape, scrape,...this is not wORKing. oh dear. is this the dreaded milk paint? what is that magic mixture...TSP, denatured alcohol, steel wool...oh I can't think....scrape, scrape, scrape....well at least the first layer came off. I wash it down with the steel wool. more stuff comes off. slowly but surely...it is coming off. except...what is this? this stange circular pattern. this strange circular pattern with the paint imbedded...yes imbedded in the grain.

somebody....long, long, ago took an orbital sander (did they have orbital sanders long, long ago??) and made perfect little horrendous circles all over this door. they managed to take off all that pretty varnish...(except on the detail trim...that slicked off like buttuh)...but every single stinkin flat surface...sanded...then painted...oh. what. a. pain...








much, much later we find this. this came after lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of sanding. we tried to be careful. maybe we did more damage....maybe. But I gotta tell you, it sure looks better. Of course it is lighter than the other side. We might try to match the stain...or maybe we won't. After all, who is going to look at both sides at the same time??


Then, long after we are gone...our great grandkids (yes, they will still be living in the family home because we NEVER want to do this again) can say..."what were they thinking??!!"

Look what we found!!

here you see doors. but you knew that didn't you?
No, I mean doors. Real, live, actual doors. Made of wood. Solid and true.
Lovely to behold.
Real, live, actual, solid, wood doors for $25 a piece.
That's right. For the price of a stupid hollow core wanna be wood door...

Architectural salvage. It is a beautiful thing!
If you have not tried this...you simply must.












This one...this is my favorite. I can already tell. It is so heavy...the paint peels back to reveal a dark reddish brown. It looks so yummy. Can't wait!

sometimes ugly is just ...ugly

Nuf said.

odds and ends...

sometimes you just shake your head and go...hmmhhh
then there are other times...

these actually aren't so bad at all. just a little quirky. a bit on the homely side.

maybe you don't agree. I wont judge you for it. Offer me enough money and I'll rip it out and sell it to you!! :-)


first on the auction block...lovely curly-que trim for the hall bath.
for the discriminating homeowner looking for that extra something special!

yummy!





ohhhh! Don't pass this one up folks. you will see the copies of this ceiling fan in all the best boutiques. This one is a real, actual, vintage model. coming at cha for this never seen before price. it's so out, its IN again!






wow-o! hold your socks on betsy! flame-tipped f0-candles top this lovely vintage lady. the crystals are plastic and oh! so durable. it hangs at a convenient head-thrashing five feet. take a good look. This one wont last long!






Are you tired of every-day English? Does random vernacular bore you to tears? Get ready! Now you can learn Scientific Russian... (and/or German) in only 835 easy lessons... what a deal!
But wait! If you act now we will throw in this handy-dandy book of chess. You will never find a deal like this again. Operators are standing by.



And finally....oh I am sorry folks, this little gem is no longer available to the public. We looked at it so long we actually learned to like it. It will be available for showing in our front entry hall from now til forever.
Why? you may ask...
because it is neutral, because it is interesting, because it is set in so much concrete that it would take a jack hammer to pull it up.
All that equals up to ... "oh honey! can we keep it?!" You BET!

eek! there's a spot on the floor!!

what comes after drywall?
A hu-gah-gous MESS...that's what!
It looked like a bag of plaster exploded in the house.
Evidently these guys are used to slappin things up fast and furious. Gloops and glops, blurbs and blobs, splats and splashes...




here's me trying not to freak out..."well they must have some system"...pollyanna to the end.


hope those stairs clean up. "oh - my - goodness!!"...I hope those stairs clean up! what a nightnmare.










these pictures simply do not do proper justice to the mess.
look closely at the floor...see that it is white...what you cannot see (yet unfortunately feel) is the sticky wet slippery goop that sends you sliding around like you were jumping on a cow patty,... coating the entire surface. YUK!





do I sound bitter? bet your bottom dollar! it totally grosses me out.

and yet...at the same time...I am amazed at how unafraid these mud-men must be. they wield their trowels with audacious flair. syrupy gloops of plaster sling unnoticed from their flying weapons of drywall containment. WHAP! SLAM! fling it now...sand it later...
step carefully and carry a large putty knife.

I have so much to learn!

ok, can you see this?

here is a verryyyy close up of the laminate we are considering for the counter tops in the kitchen.
mostly it is just black looking. I looked and looked in magazines for design inspiration...I discovered that dark countertops give the eye a place to "rest". If everything is close to the same shade you start to feel visually lost.this is the vinyl in consideration for the floor. it is kinda wacky. what I like is that there are no fake grout lines. I just hate that! I have been so sure that I did not want a grid pattern...square design...but then I thought..."hey, what if we installed it on the diagonal?" then when I went to the mannington website they actally have a 45 degree option on the create-a-room section.
hmmm....something to think about. the cabinets are a warm honey tone...very natural...with a darker rub to catch in the corners. very straight forward shaker lines.
I really hope this is going to work out. Everybody says "trust your instincts". I really hope they are right. I am getting nervous.

"you guys ROCK"

here are some upstairs shots of the fabulous sheetrock. nice eh?!

this would be the upstairs...master bedroom. standing in the bathroom doorway we see the sloping ceiling and at the end the doorway out into the office space.







stand in the middle of this bedroom and look to the right and see through the door to the bathroom.








standing in the bathroom doorway and looking a little to the right we see the double vanity. notice the beautiful mirrors flanked by the 3 light sconces.









look left and see the empty space that will be the linen closet above with the dirty clothes bin below.

the door to the right is the potty room.

the door next to that enters the shower. see the shower walls dont come all the way to the ceiling...thought that would let in more light and help distribute the steam...hope we didnt make a mistake there. it is hard for me to picture it all tiled up.

Lest you think that all this sheetrock was installed by fairies...here is one of the sheetrock crew. They were SO fast! They rocked the entire upstairs and the downstairs kitchen in one short afternoon. This is truly the place to say it..."you guys ROCK!"

here you see the bedroom doorway as you stand on the stairs. it is shocking how much light does NOT enter that bedroom. I really thought there would be more. I do like to sleep in a dark cave...just hope that isnt depressing in the morning.
We have been told that we do not want to put a big skylight on that southern roof slope...just too much heat. I am thinking seriously about a solar tube tho. Just have to wait and see.

look kids...real walls!

I spent all afternoon justa smilin....
sheetrock...smile...we have sheetrock







It seems so almost done!

I am chompin at the bit to get in there with my paint.

Now I just have to figure out what flooring to put on the kitchen floor. That is a major decision.







Cabinets are ordered...finally. Praying that there will be no snafoos there.
Countertops will be black speckled "granite sorta look" laminate. Really I would like soapstone but it is out of the immediate budget. I am surprised at how good the laminate looks. Doesnt necessarily look like granite but it has a good look for what it is. I am not ashamed of laminate but I am a bit leery of scratching the stuff.
Backsplash will eventually be tile. For now it is going to be beadboard. Triple coated with enamel for wipe-ability.
Back to the floor...thinking vinyl. Keep coming back to it. May have actually found one that I like. I need to see a bigger piece of it. It is a reddish brown leather look. Called rawhide or some such.
Do not want to do tile because I do not see any good coming out of having to clean jelly and/or hamburger helper out of the grout lines, no matter how good they are sealed.
Laminate gives me the shudders when I think about water getting underneath it causing it to buckle. (a real possibility in this house)
Linoleum...the real live old-time stuff sounds great! but I cant get a definitive answer on the care and keeping of the stuff. does it fade terribly? is it hard to install? is it expensive to install?
questions...questions...questions...
I just want a floor that is cheap, indestructable, easy to maintain, and fabulous looking...all at the same time. Is that too much to ask?

here on the left you see the door to the pantry and the space for the fridge...sheetrock...smile, smile, smile!

on the right you see the window with the torn out screen where they threw the scraps out...
NOT smiling.
big sigh...oh well, I will think about that tomorrow.

insulation and "other things"

notice anything different?
INSULATION! Thats right folks...the temperature just dropped by a significant amount in this little hacienda. (would have been interesting to have had a thermometer up here to record the difference.)
Now it is just hot. Oh my, it is a bit sticky up here...I am beginning to sweat...hot.
Before it was... my eyeballs are melting, do you smell burning hair?, grown men on the verge of crying if you made them go back up there, hotter than blue blazes HOT!
Insulation...a good thing.


Now on to the "other things"...
my son will now demonstate the proper use of the bathroom...in case anyone was wondering about that.


Here is Matthew sitting on the throne. In the throne ROOM I will point out. I asked specifically for a space that was not just closet size. I am all for cozy but I dont like that claustophobic feel at the very time when you need to ummmm....relax. Notice that there is room for a book case. I like to have an assortment of reading choices. It is just not fun to get caught in a bathroom with no reading material. You can only read the labels on the hairspray can so many times.
There will also be a light on a dimmer switch (so you dont blind yourself on your nighttime trips), a vent fan (for obvious reasons), and an a/c vent (for those times when you work up a sweat.) Dont even say that last comment grossed you out!...you know it's true.

Here is Matthew again. This time he demonstrates the proper technique for armpit irrigation. Listen to him sing!


Now we see him brush his teeth. If only he applied such dedication to the actual routine!

framing the attic

This is the view right at the top of the stairs. This space will be an office/sitting room area. It is approximately 13 feet across and 20 feet long. You see here one of a triple window set. That strange dark triangle on the back right side is where the roof juts out over the garage area.




Turn around and you would see the knee wall behind me...if you look "through" that wall you see allllll this space that we will have available for storage. Yeah! I personally think that I would like to have the access door covered by a bookcase. A "secret door" if you will. Dont you think that would be so FUN!?...maybe even with a trick handle where you move a book and it opens the door. I just giggle when I think of that. :-)


Look at the bottom left corner of the picture and you see the top of the stairs. That is where I was standing to take the first two photos. Now I am standing in the corner of the attic space approximately where the "bookcase"/ door will be. The office space is to my right and I look back at my bedroom. Notice that the doorway is large...it will be french doors with glass panels. (sorry, is that redundant?...for all I know maybe all french doors MEANS that it will have glass panels!)
Anyway, the angle on the doorway allows for more room to exit the stairs. If we brought the wall out square you would come to the top of the stairs and run into a corner. Chopping off that corner just felt like the right thing to do. The bedroom is rather large. 16x18 or something like that.
The hallway at the left of the bedroom allows access to the bathroom without going through the bedroom. See the framing for a linen/anything closet on the extreme left of the photo.

This shot is taken while standing in the doorway of the bedroom. The white pipe coming up through the middle of the floor is connected to the hot water heater downstairs. That will be eliminated very soon. Thankfully we have another place to put the water heater that lets it vent out through the eve space. At the end of the picture you see the walk in closet. Doorway to the closet is in the bathroom.



This is the HVAC unit for the upstairs. Evidently attic space in Texac gets pretty toasty so it needs some kinda big ole cooler to make it livable. I just hope the sucker is quiet because it is right by my bedroom. I am trusting "the guys" here when they say that this is the right monster for the job. Sometimes I wonder if they take my "woman questions" back to the shop and laugh with each other at the end of the day.
"does it make a lot of noise?" (snort)
"where is the filter?" (har har)
Dual unit, BTU, HP coils, 2.5 ton, air flow reduction, compressor, duct work....blah blah BLAH.
"does it cool? is it quiet? where do I change the stupid filter?!" This is all I want to know.

no-ones in the kitchen...not yet anyway

the kitchen...she is no more. I tried to put "he is no more" but it just didnt sound right. Somehow I resent that...kitchen being she. I am sure that there are many fine male chefs out there that agree. Try to say it..."the kitchen he is no more"...see it just doesnt feel right does it?
Well, the kitchen is gone. And I am happy. Forget what they say about living in a place for a while to see what it says to you. I didnt have to live there a day to hear mine screaming...
"PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY!" I had to do it immediately. To leave it suffering would have been just plain cruel. (of course I mean that in the shooting a horse with a broken leg kind of way)


Standing in the entry we look into the family room. The wall is gone. The wall is gone! We could leave it like this and it would look better than it did!




this is standing IN the kitchen. Looking toward the porch. Here you see the other side of that skeleton wall. Can I just say that I am very irritated at the PO for putting a doggy door in that beautiful door at the end of the kitchen....very irritated.















here I am standing at the doggy door looking north towards the living room. (you will have to take my word for it when I say "here I am" because you cant actually see me...but really it is me...or I as the case may be)















and here you see almost the same shot...now the skeleton wall is gone and the room has been taken back to the studs. electrical has been roughed in. the new timber you see is the new pantry and the frame to close in the fridge.

all greened up...

geta loada the size of them crepe myrtles. Yeowza!
I was so worried about them because they were not flowering. Now they are in full bud. Maybe the huge ones just take longer. Lets not make fun of them because they are slow bloomers. They obviously need our love and support.




Here again is the front of the house. Just showing you the shade. Lovely in the Texas heat!









This is the back yard. More shade. It is a mystery how we have such good grass in all this shade. Had to clean out the beds along the back fence...(or should I say had to pay for someone else to clean out the beds)...poison ivy...YUK!
Lemme tell you a little story about our poison ivy.
One Saturday I got brave and suited up to go poison ivy pullin. I had on two shirts (one long sleeved buttoned up completely lest a sneaky ivy strand try and rub some poison oil on my unsuspecting wrists. Under the buttoned cuffs I had long kitchen gloves pulled up high on my arms. Over the kitchen gloves were my garden gloves. I was all ready!
Thought I was gonna die. I pulled, and pulled, and pulled. Just when I thought I had it all in one section I would give a final tug on some teeny little sprig and three feet of vine would come with it. I would grab that vine and follow it back under the english ivy and unearth more, and more, and MORE. Oh my goodness does not even begin to cover it.
I am not a cussin woman but I gotta tell you that I was cursing that stuff. Genuinely cursing it. Telling it to die. Die! and never come back. Hope it worked.
Anyway...after all my hard work I figured out that the only way to get it all was to empty the entire bed. I tried that for a few hours...got a few feet cleared. Then called in the professional. He worked 4 days. WOW did he do a good job. I would have been fighting that stuff for years.
I realize that it is still going to be a battle. Evidently it is some tenacious stuff. But at least I feel like I have a good clean start! YEHAW!









Here is one of the Japanese maples. See me smiling?:-) There is another one over on the side. Gotta send in my brave knight (Sir Kendall the magnificent) to hack back the 40 year old hollys that are presently holding her hostage.












You thought I was kidding when I said we had huge pecan trees. That, folks, is a HUGE pecan tree. It is a huge ANY kind of tree. Kinda gives me shivers when I think of it loaded with pecans.
Hope they dont drop all at once. Those kids surely have their work cut out for them!! he he

did you say master SUITE?

well, here it is. the piece de resistance. (say that with a thick french accent...I have NO IDEA how to spell it...)
The attic. Well what was once the attic....and it is soon to be the master suite. That is a sweet word isnt it. Suite. Sweet!
This will be the office/sitting area. And the master bedroom. and the master bathroom.
The large master bathroom.
The oh my goodness I have so much room which is good because there are often FOUR extra little people standing in the bathroom while I am brushing my teeth master bathroom. AHHHHH!

I had my darling friend stand (with her even more darling baby)at the end so you could get a feel for the size of this place.

Amazing!

oh yeah, the stairway is right between the living room and the family room. It just looked like a closet door. I opened it and saw stairs....oh my....did I say amazing?

We will take down the stairway wall so that it is an open stairway on the family room side. Just wait...it will be great!

the hall of bedrooms....

If you go back to the entry...and stand so that you look into the family room...but instead turn to the left you enter the hall leading to the bedrooms.
Look to your right and see this LOOONNNGGG hallway. (actually, oops this is taken from the other end but you get the drift. it is way way long. 10 doors in all. YIPES!)





Go left and you enter the front bedroom...this picture shows it plain and boring. Not for long! This room is big enough to handle those two little boys and all their junk. It even has two closets! It is wayyy bigger than what they have now with 3 boys living in it. Hopefully we wont fill up all that extra space too quickly.





Next door way on the left is the bathroom. A long skinny room sandwiched between two bedrooms.
It may have to stay ugly for a while. Phase 2 and all that. Tho with our track record it will stay this way for a decade more. Minimal immediate changes will be getting RID of the curtains and nixxing the fru-fru country trim. No thankyouverymuch.
The tile is an ugly color but is in great shape. It is kind of a peachy-tanish could-be-neutral-if-you-squint-your-eyes color. That is way better than pepto-pink. We will paint the upper walls brown and try to tone it down a bit.





Next door down will be the big boy's room. It is smaller than the others but he is soooo excited to have his own space! Again...this is a very boring shot...soon it will be cool and fab!








At the end of the hall is the princess palace. With her own bathroom even. And a huge walk in closet. Can you imagine the delight she is trying desperately not to show? God is so good. He even provided her with a door/access to the porch so she can be close to her puppy.