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Friday, February 1, 2013

Because this is every girls dream closet...


Said no one. Ever. Yes a nice spacious closet complete with a beautiful pipe and cracked gnarly walls.  This may in fact be the real reason we bought the house. And actually this space is even BIGGER than when we bought the house.

You may recall this beautiful bedroom, a picture of beauty.

Why yes, that is grass cloth wall paper, thank you for noticing. And that big huge chest of drawers? Yeah, that would be hiding the "window" air conditioning unit that was WALLPAPER OVER. Yes, we are not using it anymore, why not cover it in wallpaper versus removing it. Wallpaper will do.

Obviously not much in this room was going to work for us. So instead of removing this wonderful wallpaper we just tore down the walls. And by we I mean we actually paid someone to do this because we were having our hardwood floors redone in 3 days and there is no way we could tackle it in that amount of time and maintain our full time jobs.

So smash, and down came all of the drywall. This actually worked out very well because it allowed us to do a few things:

  1. Remove the "window" AC unit (there is a whole house central air unit) and patch the wall
  2. Add additional insulation 
  3. Widen the closet
All of that for only $500 more than it would have cost to just remove the wallpaper. What a bargin.

I, of course, was initially totally against this. Why should we pay someone for something we are completely capable of doing ourselves. But alas the time crunch won out, and I was sick of sleeping on the floor of the will be office in a mess of all the clothes, dog, and whatever else.

So we were left with this beauty




You may notice that nice wall on the left there. That is just the start of our electrical problems. But more on that later, when were aren't discussing my dream closet.

What to do with that B-E-A-utiful pipe. We talked about boxing it in to look like a nice column. We talked about putting a shoe rack in front of it. I thought of taking a hammer to it. But all of these things A. lost room in the closet and since it's just so ginormous that didn't seem wise, B. Would take more time than it would ever be worth. So we decided to spray paint it black and call it a day. Personally, I was ready to just take the spray paint into the closet and have at it. But Dear Fiance thought that might cause to many fumes and make me nuttier than I already am. So while he removed it and spray painted it outside (amist 30mPh winds), I painted the inside. We went with ceiling white on the inside walls and a nice dark grey on the main back wall.


We put the pipe back in and started to assemble the closet.  The closet was custom designed from The Container Store. It seemed to be the best design to work around that beautiful awkward pipe. Plus they were having a 30% off sale, and really, who can resist a good sale!


Then we stack up the clothes.



Woooo, we now have like 7 less boxes scattered around our bedroom. This doesn't really hold all of our clothes, but it certainly hold our 'go to' items. Next, doors. Drywall for the missing section, a bed, oh and some molding would really help. But at least it no longer looks like this





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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Wedding, House and a whole lot of lists

A break from the house this weekend was welcomed need happened.  We have been working hard on getting the bedroom almost totally complete. But since we are technically 'living in sin', we decided to take a weekend and head to the Finger Lakes to plan our wedding!

Apparently, 8 months is not thought of to be sufficient time to plan a wedding. This I don't understand. With 8 months to go, we are about 8 - 12 months behind everyone else. Oops.

This, by the way, is pretty much the story of my life. Always waiting until the last minute to get something done. It's worked so far, it has gotten me here, why change anything now?!

Everyone keeps telling me to follow a list, but the lists on line put me way behind, and frankly this puts me in a place of panic, takes me away from the task at hand, and has me running in circles screaming that 8 months is not enough time to plan for one weekend. But alas, it's one weekend and with a few deep breaths, a couple of venting sessions and 10 steps away from lists that scream "YOU ARE SO BEHIND" I CAN do it!

Also on my mental to do list has been to create a to-do-list for the house. So here goes. A whole lot of lists.

Wedding

Basics

  • Select a date
  • Identify bridal party
  • Ask bridal party
  • Cross my fingers they accept
  • Send email to introduce bridesmaids
  • Guest list sort of
  • Create website
  • Registry
  • Engagement Photos
  • Hotel Blocks
    • Our hotel rooms
  • Addresses
    • Miller Family
    • Walker Family
    • Other family
    • Friends
    • Krys' peeps
  • Save the Dates
    • Designed
    • Printed
    • Addresses
    • Mailed
  • Honeymoon
  • Invitations
    • Designed
    • Printed
    • Addressed
    • Mailed
    • Tack down non RSVPers
  • Diet
    • Starve
    • Eat healthy
    • Cut out wine - reduce wine intake to two three days a week.
    • Work out
    • Go to the gym
    • Do yoga
  • Wedding bands
    • engrave wedding bands
  • Day of transportation
    • Limo Bus
    • Shuttle
  • Guest Book
  • Insurance
    • Rings
    • Apparently this should include gifts?!
  • CHANGE MY NAME
  • Thank you notes


Ceremony

  • Find a venue
  • Find an officiant
  • Flower girl
    • Dress
    • Flowers pedal
  • Wedding Dress
    • Make travel plans
    • Notify the ladies
    • Find stores
    • Make appointments
    • Find dress
    • Accessories
      • pretty things
      • Shoes
      • Girly things
      • Veil
  • Flowers
  • Photographer
  • Bridesmaid Dresses
  • Hair stylist
    • Find
    • Test
    • Appoint
  • Ceremony musician
    • Ask super talented nephew
    • Maybe super talented cousin(s)
  • Decorations
    • Ideas
    • Real life things
    • Organized
  • Programs
    • Imagined
    • Designed
    • Printed
  • Vows
  • Government allowance
    • aka licence 
  • Welcome bags
Reception
  • Find a venue
  • DJ
    • Find DJ Find a young DJ
    • Pick Songs

  • Lighting
  • Photobooth
  • Cake
    • Find Vendors
    • Price Vendors
    • Taste Vendors
      • Puke up calories
    • Book Vendor
  • Menu
  • Decorations
    • Ideas
    • Real life things
    • Organized
    • Table Numbers
    • Center pieces
    • Burlap runners
    • Lace table cloths
  • Music
  • Bathroom stuff
  • Seating Chart
  • Escort cards
  • Table
Rehearsal Dinner
  • Venue

And a whole lot of other things but I am getting over whelmed just thinking about this. 

If you made it though any of that I applaud you.

Now if you could let me know - HOW DID YOU DO IT?

I think I have to save the house list for tomorrow. My head is spinning more than a dreidel on Hanukkah.

Five things for this week:
  1. Email bridesmaids
  2. Research ceremony venue sites 
  3. Book dress shopping appointments
  4. Save the Dates - just everything
  5. Research photographers
Oh wait, those things require like 10 other things!

Excuse me while I go run around like a chicken with her head cut off. (I saw this on an Amish TV show [sounds real right] and they totally run around for a while once they have no brain attached. Freakish)

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

There has to be a before...before there is an after

I can easily become obsessed DIY blogs until I turn blue in the face, neglect everything else I have to do and fail to complete my own projects.  It's like reading a good book that you can't put down.  Watching someone else's projects unfold and being able to fast forward through the boring parts.  The creative writing (peanut, blood, brain cells, insert your own) in me always said "Self, why don't you write your own" but then I remind myself that I have a hard time committing to something.  But here we are.  And while no one is actually reading this blog at this point, I hope the future readers (because while I enjoy talking to myself, people start to look at you funny) will hold me to this pact I am making myself make and blog at least 2x a week. (I have also made a pact to go to the gym at least 3x a week.  Feel free to hold me to that too!)

Alas, I have moved 6-8 hours away (snow storm providing) from my friends and family and like 6 states away from my mother.  And it's time to tackle another house renovation.  The last time around I had the wonderful, amazing, and extremely appreciated help of my mother and the awesomeness of knowing a lot of contractors in the area.  Now... not so much.  Although it's not like I'm standing in the middle of the ocean, up shit's creek.  I now have the wonderful, amazing fiance who prior to this had never really had more than a drill.  The projects, both in scope and complexity that he has learned and completed in such a short amount of time continues to amaze me everyday.  He has really taken to the DIY.

Back in July we started the adventure of buying a home.  We looked at some real gems gnarly places until we picked this house.


A wonderful mid-centuryish house. Three bedrooms and 2 baths and built in 1958.  And NEVER updated - DIYers nightmare dream.

It has pretty bathrooms like this:

The Pink Overload


Please note: The sink inlay matches the tumbler , tooth brush holder, and more.

Oh, and incase you were worried - YES that wallpaper is on the ceiling too.  Specail. I know. But she's ours!


*No updates have been made to either bathroom.

More before pictures with a few after pictures later.