Sunday, January 29, 2012

The first holes

Please look past the clutter, but I am proud of myself for hanging my new curtains by myself. This pic is from my phone so it's a bit grainy. The colors are blue, rust and dark chocolate brown. I only made one extra hole and that was because the first one there was something like steel preventing the drill/screw going all the way in - so not my fault! It took my a long time...lots of measuring and I am very happy with the results. Now as I have had time to stare at them more I see a section that is higher than the others, but I am NOT taking them down to do anything about it!!!

Next comes more cleaning (I've moved back into the kitchen and found the cleaning products I need for the floors) and then hopefully next week beginning to think about pictures on the walls. I was disappointed that when I ran into the wall by mistake with a (I shouldn't have been trying to lift it by myself 'cuz it was too heavy) box, the smooth finish scraped off! So I'll have to figure out what I need to do to fix it-was hoping the walls would be a bit more resilient to wear and tear by not so much. :(

But at least I'm not staring at painters' paper that says "please do not remove paper from windows" hung up by Scotch blue tape anymore!!

Friday, January 20, 2012

A Work in Progress - Day 9 Pic



Houston, we have white cabinets! And blue walls! No more faux-finished-with-orange-and-black-paint-cabinets and dirty yellow walls! Hooray! :)



Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A Work in Progress - Day 7 pics

[I cannot for the life of me get blogger to put spaces between the paragraphs. Sorry.]


So when I first saw the "wet paint" sign, I figured, "eh, I'll just be careful" - I didn't want to 1) walk all the way up the alley and then all the way back down the street to get to the front of the house or 2) get back in the car and drive around to the front. However, as you can see, they partitioned off the kitchen with the plastic and gave me no choice. OK, so I guess I could have waded through the most toxic smell known to mankind and wet paint just to park in the carport and go through the back door but...yeah, I didn't.
I just keep reminding myself just how ugly those kitchen cabinets were and how much I've depised them ever since I saw them in July 2011. Faux finished/antiqued - look like someone took orange and black paint to make wood-like. WHY?!? It will be (and is from what I can see) sooooo much better white to match appliances.
So since I didn't know before I got home that I had no access to my kitchen, my gourmet meal of cereal was eaten without milk. I know you're jealous. Breakfast tomorrow will be surprisely similar since I can't get to the bread in the frig to make the typical PB&J toast.
On the plus side, the rest of the house that they painted I like and except for a few places they need to touch up, it looks pretty good. They made scratches in one of the tubs that irks me a bit, but what are you going to do. I hope I can scrub them away.
It will be a week tomorrow that they've been here. I don't know how people do major remodels. I am so ready to have my house back! :)

Saturday, January 14, 2012

A Work in Progress: Day 3 Pics












I'm sorry I can't figure out how to turn these pics. You can't tell, but the walls are now perfectly smooth. Paint is "practical beige" as I selected for everywhere but kitchen, where it will be "bluebell". They are painting the kitchen cabinets white but only primed one or two. I guess they were waiting for me to empty them because they'll be painting the inside of them as well, but no one told me so I hadn't emptied them! My painter's ESP must be malfunctioning! :)


The first pic is the guest (bigger) bath where they stashed all their stuff for the weekend. I told them no working this weekend as I wanted the house to myself. They finished the living room/dining room and as you can see, unwrapped the furniture and put it (roughly) back in place. There are some imperfections that I can see that I will need to point out to the head guy, but the good news is that I am happy with the color and I have my sofa and comfy chair back to enjoy for the weekend.


I am currently sitting here with all the doors propped open to air out the paint fumes. I'm glad it's not in the 90's or 100's, good call on my part doing this in January instead of July. What a mess everything is - thick layer of dust (in addition to normal dust that was there before the project) - on top of everything. No sense of cleaning now since they're not done. It will be worth it though to have smooth, freshly repaired and painted walls in my color, not the multi faceted ones of the former owner. It will really feel like home when I can hang pictures on the walls - which I will be able to do soon! :)









A Work in Progress: Day 1 and 2 Pics

Here are some pics of the progress (and mess!) the painters made on day 1. What my cell phone couldn't capture was the eye-stinging, throat-burning fumes of the wall re-finishing stuff. This house was built around 1970 and at the time textured (crow's foot is the term) walls were the "in" thing. Not so much any more. So I'm having them smoothed out. I had no idea what that entailed other than it would help resale value somewhere down the road.

Wednesday and Thursday nights I camped out in my bedroom with the patio door open to breathe some fresh air (my bedroom was not being refinished/painted because my Dad had already painted it). This is what the house looked like both Wed & Thurs nights when I got home from work.




























Wednesday, January 11, 2012

And so it begins...

...this morning Raul, the painter, and his brothers and other various male relatives, arrived to begin refinishing the walls and painting my house. I left a key with him, instructions, paint numbers, and my trust.

I have to admit I'm anxious to get through the next hour to get home and see what they've been up to. I can't say I like the idea of people being in my home when I'm not there, but I can't take time off work and they come highly recommended, so I need to trust them and trust the Lord to take care of me.

Progress pictures as they are available...

Monday, January 9, 2012

A Tale of Two Beiges...




So, now that I have my tax situation figured out for 2011, it's time that I can finally think about having the house painted. My plan is to have this done once, right, and so that when I get ready to sell this place in ten years, the paint will still look good. So except for my bedroom which is BRAVE PURPLE (Sherwin Williams' color name), the rest of the house is going to be a neutral color.


I simply cannot do white because I've lived in apartments the past 10 years and can't stand looking at white walls any more. My brother & sister in law in OH have a dark beige all throughout their house and I really like it. It's neutral yet not boring and with white trim, it looks very classy. So after picking up several paint swatches last week of beiges, I narrowed it down to two shades - "familiar beige" and "practical beige". What boring names! What does it say about me that I'm about to paint my house practical beige!? At least I have brave purple in one room to redeem me! :)


Friday night I went throughout all the rooms that will be painted the beige in question and painted a spot of each color. As you can see, they are nearly indistinguishable. You can't get a good sense from the walls/hall (top) picture due to the current wall (yuck) colors. But the one taken in the bathroom with the pale greyish blue walls you get the best sense of the new paint candidates. And while you can hardly tell them apart, I'm going with the bottom one, which is the practical beige.


Now, probably tomorrow, I'll call the painter and hopefully soon the fun will be started! He and his crew will be refinishing the walls, too (they have an outdated crow's foot texture on them and the painter told me for resale, flat smooth walls would be better), which will be nice. I'm sure it will increase the residue/dust to be cleaned afterwards, but it will be worth it.


Then I'll finally be able to hang things up on the wall and really start to settle in and feel even more at home. It has, after all, been more than 4 months, so I probably should finish unpacking at some point! :)