nagging tasks

we spent all day yesterday working on house projects and i am officially exhausted. 

brandon finished building our compost bin (all with salvaged/re-purposed materials!) which is a big step in my recently established zealous goal of reducing our waste output. i have been inspired by the zero waste family to minimize the packaging we bring into our house and maximize our composting and recycling. we are far from perfect, but i am trying to think about my actions a bit more. so the compost bin is one major piece in reducing our garbage. and making supplemental material for my summer garden. (just thinking about summer gardening makes me so excited!)

i decided to tackle a task that has been nagging me for a bit: removing [nasty] paint from the hardware in our house. this sounds minor and easy. in fact, it was a whole day process and i still have three door hinge/handle sets to work on. the skin along my nail beds is torn up and cracking. my back aches and i am pretty sure my hands are going to be stuck in their current claw like form from all the required scrubbing. but the results are pretty cool (thank goodness!). i used a cheap-o crockpot to get the paint off and followed this tutorial. 

the latches in their purple-ish glory. be gone you nasty paint!

the hinges with a few of the screws removed. 

(i haven't taken pictures sans-paint yet because we got done last night about 8PM and the lighting was awful.) 

our house was built in 1928 and the doors and kitchen cupboards (along with their hardware) seem to be original. stripping the paint felt like an archaeological journey through the story of "this old house" as i learned the kitchen cabinets have previously been a pinkish Valentine's-Day-Card red, a pale country kitchen yellow, and are currently a purple-hinted grey. we plan to strip them down this summer and either stain or paint them. but we need longer and warmer days to tackle that DIY project.

somehow spending all day sunday (before family arrives this week) peeling paint off of the hardware seemed like a good idea. i am really glad i did it and happy with the outcome, but feel a little sheepish for my choice to do this non-urgent project when a few others should have been the priority. c'est la vie, right? there is a sweet reward in tackling a nagging task (which i learned here).

photos, finally.

here are some pictures of our living room, which is the most finished of all the rooms of our new house. although the warm yellow/gold might be a bit much for some people, i wake up every morning thrilled with the paint color we chose! (bee by sherwin williams, if anyone is interested.)

a while back, i recovered that teal chair
in the corner and i love how it turned out!

my favorite corner of our house right now.

i picked this print up in santa fe this fall and i am so glad i did!

the view from the kitchen sink.

the pass through in all its glory!
(still waiting on barstools and ignore that internet
cable running across the floor. we obviously have a
bit of work left to do--like paint the trim on the pass-through!)

now on to work on other rooms so we can share photos of them!

initiation situation

we have been properly initiated into the realm of diy homeownership. when we initially considered buying this house i knew that i wanted to open up the wall between the kitchen and living room by creating a pass-through/bar. my dad confirmed it would be "easy enough" so we proceeded with the plan one sunday morning, thinking it might take a day or two. 

this is what the wall looked like on that fateful sunday morning.

one of the first problems we encountered was the plaster (concrete) walls. what we thought would be an enjoyable (dare i say therapeutic?) demoing project resulted in the demolition of two sawzall blades and a heavy dusting of our entire house. and two sinus-infections. the house was built in 1928, so we hope the walls predate asbestos.

the death of the sawzall blade and all we had was a 4" hole to show for it!

the walls in our house also feature lath beneath the plaster, so the demoing didn't go nearly as quickly as hoped because even when we broke up the plaster, we still had these wood slats to remove. as we hammered away, through the gaps in the slats, i noticed a pipe right in the middle of the would-be bar. ugh! i was completely disheartened and thought the project was impossible. luckily brandon knew we were too far in to turn back. he also realized it was just a sewer vent pipe, so no water needed to flow through the pipe and he could handle re-routing it.

our pass-through, looking somewhat like the outline of the lower 48.

me, trying not to be totally dismayed
by the pipe in the middle of our bar.

as i suspect is the case with most diy remodel projects,
this simple pass-through led from one project
to tons of other small projects. 

hammering away from the kitchen side.

brandon totally impressed me with his know-how and expertise.
and his ever-growing list of "required tools."

we bought a counter top at the resource store to initiate this project.
while it was marked $10, we got it for $5!
this was the only cheap element of this project.

the upside of discovering the pipe in the middle of our wall was that we had to cut this pipe above the sink drain and found that the vent pipe was clogged. which explained why our sink was glug-glugging instead of draining properly. my dad suggested that this may have spared us from having future plumbing expenses, so it was nice to have an upside to the pipe predicament.

so gross! 

our entire house was covered in this dust,
in fact, i'm still finding it!

starting to look a whole lot more like a pass-through.

we enlisted the help of heath, who was far more confident than brandon or i.
perhaps because he has done his fair-share of diy renovations.
or perhaps because it isn't his house so he cares far less than us.

i went to albuquerque for a girls' weekend with kemi and sara. when i left the pass-through looked like the photo above. i felt awful leaving brandon with the unfinished mess on his hands. however, he pressed on and finished the project while i was away. i came back to this:

i LOVE it! it opens up the house and makes both rooms feel much larger. we have a fair amount of work  to do on the kitchen side of the pass-through, but we plan to replace the cabinet the sink is in, so i think we are going to live with it for a while. 

the living room is coming together, so i will share photos from that soon. however, when i sat down to put this post together it turned into a total kerfuffle where i thought i lost our 8,000+ photos in our iPhoto library. i managed to resolve the problem, but i am a bit tired of dealing with the computer at the moment. 

little changes here & there

a while back i blogged about a yard sale where we scored on a bunch of great {& random} things. one of the things we bought for 50 cents was large brass lamp. i told brandon to look past the ugly, giant shade & sassy brassy color & focus on the lines of the base. for 50 cents he was willing to "take the shot," as rob would say. we came home, cleaned her up, & immediately took the giant {2 1/2' diameter} shade to salvation army. 

we spent the rest of the day wandering the isles of rattle can paint at our local shops. brandon pulled out a caterpillar yellow--caterpillar as in CAT heavy machinery, not the fuzzy little critters. i wasn't so sure, but he was certain we need more color in our house. with some hesitation i agreed. 

now i LOVE it! spray painting is the easiest way to make something not-so-cool into something awesome! we found a greyish-brown shade & the lovely yellow lamp sits on top of our renovated blue end-table. they are great together! it looks better with the fabric basket my mom made us next to it, but i took this photo during advent so the basket was replaced with my little mexican nativity.

i have also done a few things in our bedroom. i have had this necklace tree for 5 years & although i like the look of it, it was tarnishing my jewelry & the tree was starting to fall over daily because the enamel wore off the base. i stopped wearing necklaces altogether just so i didn't have to deal with the carnage of it falling off the dresser. the red jewelry box was also something i loved, but the back broke & i was struggling to keep my earrings & bracelets from tangling. 

with a trip to bart's, our lovely indoor flea market, i found two frames, spray painted them, & filled one with cork board & the other with window screen. now i have a great way to display {& organize} my jewelry!

the other thing i have been up to is sewing! i sewed quite a few christmas gifts this year, but forgot to take photos of them before i sent them on their merry way. those of you who received handmade gifts from me, could you please snap a photo or two for me?

anyhow, i found some amazing fabric a while back & knew i wanted to make a bolster pillow for our bed with it. we have had the red thing going for a long time in our room, but i felt like we needed a few other colors. i added black piping to the pillow & it turned out great! i got together with my friend & neighbor for a sewing night when i made it. she totally doubted it would turn out right with the piping, but we were both pleasantly surprised. 

rowan dubbed this bedside lamp a "popcorn lamp"
while he was here this summer, so now i think
of him each time i turn that light off before bed.
an adorable godson is a great thing to think of as i go to sleep!

i also {finally!} made another black curtain for the second window in our room. i made the first one the week we moved in because there were no blinds on the window from our bedroom to the street. the second window opens to our sideyard & had {nasty} miniblinds. i couldn't take those gross slat blinds anymore so i made my classic twin-flat-sheet-$4-curtains. this requires i measure once, iron, & sew a straight line. it is so simple, easy, & cheap that i can't bring myself to fork over real money for real curtains. these will do for now!

we have done a few other things around here, but i don't have photos to share yet. it only took me four months to get around to taking photos of the revamped lamp! 

remixology

it seems that blogs these days are for showcasing how you salvage & remix old furniture to be more hip, more your own. being the late-to-catch-the-boat person that i am, i finally got around to refinishing a side-table/night-stand that i was never too fond of. almost all of our furniture {except for our dining room table & bookshelf} have been hand-me-downs or gifted to us. we are grateful for the generosity of our friends & family, but most of our furniture just seems so random & not, well, us.

the side-table in its original state. boring & bleh to those handles.
it was functional though, as it fit our printer, housed our small dvd collection,
& hid our printer supplies, but was beat-up & ugly.

i trusted the advice of young house love & put some good ol' elbow
grease into making this table new to us.

i wish i would have gone with the blue on the lower half of the
paint chip, but i was being cautious since this was my first project.
the paint name: "totally scientific". who has the job of
naming paint colors anyway? they are so random!

there's that elbow grease i was talking about.
i did every step of this project, with no help from brandon.
{except for when he showed me that i was using the sander wrong.
it would have been a miserable project if he didn't correct me.}

then...
this is what this corner of the room used to look like.
we love the central oregon painting, but it didn't really fit there.
i'll admit, we just hung it on an existing nail when we moved in.
isn't that design laziness at its worst?

& now...
this is the corner with the new blue table, a candle from ross & jordyn,
an awesome fabric basket my mom made for us, photos of our
godson rowan & my sister hogan, & a cheap DYI
knock-off of {expensive!} crate & barrel prints.
we have two more prints on the other side of the room,
above a matching nook.

seriously, i love these prints! i also love this corner of
the living room so much more!
i'm not terribly fond of the tall{& ugly} lamp in the corner
that was left behind by the previous renter,
but it works for now. i foresee a future project for a hanging light...

to keep the light blue from looking too much like it belonged in a nursery,
i roughed up the edges. the scuffs & scratches make it look totally better!
 plus, it keeps me from worrying about it getting dinged or scratched...
it will only add to the character right?

so there you have it: my first furniture refinishing project. all the rest of my furniture better watch out, because i am on a mission!

he's going to want some milk to go with it...

although it doesn't feel like summer here--and won't until july, i am told--i am enjoying my "summer break". i've got a constant list running in the back of my mind about all the projects i want to do this summer and delighting in the fact that no alarm clock has to be set.

today it hit me hard that procrastinating does not pay off. i always do this... start vacuuming, realize that i should really dust first, then think i should finish all the dishes in the sink so i can use it for mopping once i finish vacuuming, then realize that i really need to get dinner in the crockpot resulting in more dishes in the sink. three hours later all i have are unfinished projects surrounding me. oh, and a feeling of defeat. when it comes to accomplishing anything around the house, i feel like the mouse in "if you give a mouse a cookie"--one thing leads to another and at the end of the day all i have is a giant mess on my hands. 

this equation of procrastination + attention deficit = burnout. and i don't even have kids to make it more difficult. in my defense, i do have a dog who likes to bite at and "herd" the vacuum. but that is one thing i accomplished today: we made progress with harvey not being so darn mad at the vacuum. little pat on the back for me. or him really.

the one thing i am staying on top of is my thesis. i am bound and determined not to let this get out of hand. i have a 3" binder full-to-the-gills of journal articles i need to read, in alphabetical order, with a checklist of each article. of the 62 articles i have printed so far, i have read 6. so it is a start and a pace i am going to keep on. slow and steady is the name of this game. 

i am thinking i should make some curtains for the living room, which means a trip to the fabric store, where i might something to cover this computer chair with... 

our little laramie abode

i finally got around to taking the pictures of our house.  it is very comfortable, but when i look at it the photos, i realize how much my design eye is lacking.  oh well, we are happy and cozy.

a little art to tie us to the northwest.  the artist is from whidbey island--i treasure her work!

 

we love the light in the living room!

 

 

the intricacy of old houses makes me happy.  gotta dig having a place to put treasured pictures and precious rocks!

 

our sanctuary of a bedroom.

our kooky little kitchen.  surprisingly, i find having the fridge up on this shelf thing is very helpful!  i am using things in the crisper drawer way more often, which means we are actually eating our vegetables before they go bad!

we have the rest of the photos up in our picassa album, which you can link to here.

have house, will travel

i have been looking forward to our move and all that comes with this new chapter of graduate school and the pursuit of our goals.  never-the-less, i have had the nagging, snarky voice in the back of my head that frets about where we will live.  i was worried about housing and finding a home that wasn't right by the freeway or railroad tracks, a house that we could see ourselves in for two years, a place that had character (in a good way), and that let little harvey be there too. oh, and being close to campus was important to!  whew, that is a tall order, no wonder i was stressed!

well, brandon, being the regular hero that he is, found us a charming little house in laramie.  it might not look like much to others, but after living in a dilapidated cabin in jackson and a garage-turned-apartment here in bend, we have a whole different set of standards.  

beautiful hardwood floors throughout, great light, and special details only found in older homes--these are the things we love about the place.  do not worry dear reader about the single-pane, wood-frame windows and the impact they will have on our heating bill as all, that's right, all utilities are included!  

this funky little oven/fridge nook makes me giddy.  it is so random and unconventional, but i can't wait to put our magnets and pictures of rowan (& others) on the fridge so i can think of him and smile as i cook.

the other selling points: there is a basement apartment below (separate entrance) and the folks that live there own the mexican restaurant in town.  woohoo for free tamales!  the house on one side of us is owned by the people that have the yoga studio, and the other neighbors are the founders of wyoming public radio.  three of my favorite things surround us: mexican food, yoga, and NPR.  is this a slice of heaven right here, 7 walkable-blocks from campus?  i do think it is!

thank goodness for brandon, my house-finding hero!  we leave in two weeks and i am so happy to know where we are headed to.