Falling in love only to be (potentially) thumped in the head...

Wood floors are amazing.

Wood floors are beautiful.

Until you have to clean them every time someone comes into the rooms and breathes. Or even stands in the adjacent room and thinks about breathing.

Wood floors show everything. Which can be a plus and a minus. I'm not delusional in thinking that my house is cleaner than it really is (so...plus) but then I see how quickly dust and dirt accumulate and I am constantly wielding (or thinking about wielding) the Bona mop. That would be the minus if you didn't catch it.

Our living room needs a rug. I need something that where the majority of the foot traffic lays will hold just enough of that dirt to let me vacuum it up quickly. Speaking of which, I want a new vacuum (hint hint: birthday present, cough, Christmas present, cough, random August holiday present, cough cough).



The room also needs something to anchor it. All of our furniture is just currently floating in the space and nothing seems grounded. It's starting to feel more comfortable, but without a rug, the room still feels a little cold.

So, easy enough right? Go buy a rug.

I'm sorry, have we met? You want me to pick something for your house? Done. You want me to pick something for a multi-million dollar building and a corporate client. Done. You want me to pick out a chair (rug, paint color, tile, hardware, art) for my house? Laughable.

Also, this rug has got to be a big'en. So....expensive. So...stupid.

Paying for a floor covering to go on top of a floor? Who was the idiot that thought this was a good idea? I'm going to come up with a way to not have to put a floor covering on top of a floor (that isn't wall to wall carpet). In all my spare time. Don't hold your breath.

So in all this thinking about a rug I had pretty well decided it would be a while before I was willing to commit to anything or pay for anything. For as much as I like to shop, it turns out I kind of hate spending large amounts of money.

Tired of my rambling yet?

This weekend we are headed to Dallas to help my parents move into their interim apartment. They are moving from Wichita Falls and wanted to have a transition space before committing to buying a house. We are heading down Friday afternoon so we'll be ready to help move early Saturday morning. Which means....

We have a lot of stores to hit. We have a cabinet to pick up from IKEA for the kid's bath. And then a whole slew of other things that I just want to look at while at IKEA, West Elm, a fabric store, Wisteria, etc. So I can decide if I'm really going to shell out the dollars for some of these things. This morning as I was thinking about what we were going to look at, this rug clicked into my mind.

It's from IKEA. For the large size it's only $399.00 and based on all of the photos I've seen around the web, I think this might look really good in the living room. I hate the idea of buying a rug at IKEA, maybe because I think it's going to look cheap?

I'd also kind of sworn off using black on the interior my house. It's too stark for me. Residential designers argue that it holds it's own weight, that there should be a small amount of black in every room. While I see their point, I've just never loved having a black piece in some of the spaces. But in this particular living room, I've been toying with the idea of this gray/black/colorful look and think it might be alright.

Image Source

Image Source

The more I researched and fell in love with this rug, the more sure I was that I was going to buy it. But, alas, it's not sold online or in any of the IKEA stores in the US (at least that's what it says online). I guess we'll find out when we get there this weekend. I mean, come on. I can already see it sitting on my living room floor. Now so can you...

Ah, the power and joys of Photoshop. What would I do without it?

So keep your eyes open for me. I've found a couple of other alternatives (Crate and Barrel, etc.) but none have the disjointed line work like the ones above. Therefore, they aren't perfect. Nor are my Photoshop skills. That perspective angle is a joke.

And this concludes our first world whining post of the day. Thank you for stopping by.

The Progress Tour

Sorry for the delay on this post. We were having some internet trouble. And by internet trouble I mean, we hadn't hooked up the Ethernet in our house yet, at all, since we'd moved in. But, without too much front end rambling, here are the progress photos of our house. Taken one year and two weeks apart. For the original before pictures see this post.

The Exterior. This is the part of the house that looks the least done. It looks unfinished and sad but it looks better than before. This is the part of the house that in most pictures looks like we've moved backwards. But it's all still moving forwards slowly but surely. New trees, shrubs and flowers need to be planted. The trim on the house needs a paint job. We need downspouts and our gutters probably need to be lined. We need to replace all of the concrete (sidewalks, driveways, walkway, back door stairs). It'll get there one day. All you need is a little cash. Of which we have none. So be patient on the outside.

 

  

The new exterior sconces are not staying. The originals are in our basement, fully re-wired, cleaned and almost ready to be hung up. We need to fashion a plate for one of them, patina it and then get them reinstalled. You can throw this one up to just being lazy. But the new house numbers, and the removal of the screen door are all pluses in my book.

 

The side porch ceiling came down in order to insulate with foam the bottom side of our sitting room (right off of the master bedroom). A new ceiling went back in, along with crown, down lights and the original pendant. Caulking and painting have been on the to-do list for a couple of weeks now. We also plan to use the Behr Deckover product once we've patched the porch concrete so that all of the structural cut outs are no longer visible. Keeping my fingers crossed that the product works as well as they say it does.

Entry. This room still needs a lot of work. But we removed the two rotting closets on either side and opened it up. We will get it cleaned up, caulked, and then add a bench/hall tree and a console table. We rarely use this door but our mail comes in the side of the house into this space. 

The Foyer. Hello bubbled plaster and nasty nicotine covered wood and light fixtures. Glad to see you're gone. Still some work in this space but it already feels cleaner than before.

 

 

 The Dining Room. I surprisingly miss the molding in this room. All the crown molding for the entire house has yet to be put up. We will go back in every room, first floor receiving something large and extravagant, the second floor much more simple, the way the house was when we bought it. And I am even considering going back with some wall molding. It'll have be be slightly different than what was there originally based on the new layout but it might just happen.

The Kitchen. You guys, this kitchen. It was so unbelievably disgusting. The pictures just don't do it justice. The walls were lined in grease. The layers and layers of floors and the dead bugs were just almost too much. It was originally two rooms, a breakfast room and a tiny kitchen. We took out this wall and the cabinets and created a functional usable kitchen that won't have me looking for another house in five years time. Still a ton left to do in this room but we can cook, wash and refrigerate so the basics are there. We also opened the other side of the kitchen up to the other side of the house. We now have a full track instead of having to wrap all the way back around to the living room.

The Living Room. I told you I wasn't picking up or staging these photos. The living room is the first real proof of that. The room felt the least comfortable for the longest. It is starting to feel much more like home and I can't wait to finish this space out. 

 

The Bonus Room. We took out the non-original bookshelves, created an opening to the kitchen. We raised the floor to be level and removed the rotting, bubbled wood paneling. This room has a long way to go as well but it's new travel path alone makes the changes that we made worth it.

The Staircase. Not many changes here besides the new walls and a good cleaning. We still have 4-5 spindles that need to be replaced and the grate under the stairs needs to be fixed or replaced as well. Debating a runner for the stairs but haven't been able to commit. These things creak louder than you can image so it might be nice to have some sort of sound dampening cover. More to come for this space, maybe not right away, but at some point.

The Guest Bedroom. We removed the wallpaper, chair rail, bubbled plaster and door into the master bathroom. Not to mention the other upgrades the rest of the house got. Right now, the room is serving as our staging room for unpacked boxes and stuff we are not quite sure what to do with yet. 

The Master Bathroom. The original photos we took for the before tour cannot be replicated because we removed both doors from where the original pictures were taken. So until I can figure out a better way to snapshot the room, here is the difference in the vanity next to the bedroom door. I need to install the feet and the hardware today as well as re-adjust the doors on the cabinet. Not to mention just clean up my crap. This room originally had three entrance points. Three. It was walls and walls of doors. We're down to one door and while it is still small for a master bathroom, it's ours and living in an old house, that's a pretty unusual thing to be able to claim. So I'll gladly take small. 

The Master Bedroom. If only you knew what the progress photo looked like from the other side of the room you'd be shocked to see a week and a half's worth of laundry all over the floor. Hah. Oh the power of a camera angle. This room is starting to become my favorite with every little detail that gets checked off.

 

The Sitting Room. The fact that this room doesn't smell like cat pee anymore is about the only plus this room really needs to have. I'm sitting in here right now, right where that black door used to be, leading into the master bathroom, typing this post and am in love that this is just our (mine and Paul's) space. 

Addison's Bedroom. This room was practically impossible to take pictures of too. I took the before photos from vantage points that I can't get to anymore so I got as close as possible. Her room is moving along, but because she's in that funny stage between nursery and big girl room, I've yet to finish out the whole space. I am curious to see if I piece this one together or take the time to finish it out.

 

 

 Addison's/Guest Bathroom (Jack & Jill Style). This room was terrible functionally. There were two sinks, one of which was only ever hooked up. The other was there for decoration I guess? The toilet was in the middle of the room and there was a linen closet tucked in behind the bath/shower, unusable, due to the toilet being in front of it. We got ride of the full height linen closet, tucked the potty back into the alcove and will have a cabinet above it. We moved the sink to the wall where you enter and it fits perfectly between the two entrance doors.

Kid's Bedroom/Guest Room. Until we have another kid, this room is technically another guest room. Once we do have another, this will be the new nursery. A vast improvement considering the original was blue walls, blue trim, blue stained carpet. I mean anything would be a step in the right direction if you got away from that right? 

Stairs. Other than the new walls and a couple of thorough cleanings, this space didn't see much of a difference. Again, give it some time but I think some changes might be coming.

 

The Garage. Sitting exactly as it was before. But with cars in front of it, meaning some one's home!!! One day there is a good chance this whole thing might need to be replaced but for now it's home to some of our storage and a scary looking efficiency apartment. I'll spare you the nastiness.

 Stay tuned. We're obviously not done yet. 

The Worst of It

I've been taking a trip down memory lane as I prep the photos showing the before/current photos from July 2012 and July 2013. I'll be excited to do this every year.

But in strolling down that memory lane I found some photos that reminded me of just how bad of shape this house was in. I didn't even share these photos with you guys:

 

 

 

  

This is just giving me fuel to keep wanting to make progress! You'd think it would encourage me to take a break instead, but alas, there's just something in my/our blood that likes to improve.