Beany's House Project.

[jbeany]

Bedroom is painted - now green, white, and a light cream with a tinge of pink.
 
Cat is painted - now black, white, and a tinge of soft green.

Hallway floor is unpainted - light hardwood with tinge of green paw prints.

The other cat managed to use her tail as a paint brush, but didn't get it on anything that was covered with plastic or newspaper.

Tomorrow, I need to scrub the floor on my hands and knees to get some carpet gunk off that won't mop up, but will scrub.  I'm trying to decide on a furniture layout now, before I start hanging artwork.

[jbeany]

And the endless projects continue....

The conclusion from both BIL and myself - the basement stairs are past fixing.  I had a carpenter come and look at them on Saturday.  He's getting back to me with an estimate to replace them properly.   Hopefully, the damage to my wallet isn't as bad a the current damage to the stringers.

So, I puttered on after the carpenter left.  Started on the living room, planning to wash the walls, paint the trim and the front door, and finish with scrubbing the floor before finally putting down my new rug.  Ha.  Scrubbing took massive chunks of plaster off the window frame.  Annoying, but this, at least, I can fix.  Right after I went and got more patching plaster, that is.  So I started on the front door.  It's old veneered wood.  It had gotten soaked, and the veneer had buckled, so I did my best to peel off the loose parts, and puttied over that.  Then I buzzed off to go shopping, still looking for a bedroom rug and stopping to get the plaster.

Sunday, I woke up just long enough to take pills and go back to bed.  Can't win 'em all - apparently, it was my day to feel lousy.  Guess I brought home more than plaster.  Lots of germs, no rug.

Today, the front door is sanded, the holes in the window frame are plastered, and I put together and hung a jewelry organizer.  It's already overloaded, mostly because I keep making more while I'm teaching my beading classes.  Maybe, just maybe, I have too much jewelry. 

Nah.   

[okarol]

Kittens look like they are very happy in their home. Love the picture above the bed. Hope you're feeling better. 

[MaryD]

How lucky you are to have such helpful kitlings!

[jbeany]

They help with everything!  Well, expect the living room window, when I started dropping chunks of plaster on their heads.   

[willowtreewren]

I'm so enjoying reading this, especially the ct antics!

And the pictures are great! 

Aleta

[jbeany]

Between the holiday and heat wave, I haven't gotten much done lately.  I did quite a bit on my front stoop.  I got the storm taken apart and spray painted the metal panel on the bottom, which had faded from brown to something that looked more like rust than paint.  Also spray painted the iron rails while I was at that.  Got the disintegrating threshold repaired, puttied and painted as well.  I even painted a new house number sign, since the old chip board house numbers were falling apart.  I caulked every screw and nail hole I could find in the siding. I lowered the mail box.  My 6'2" brother-in-law mounted it for me while he was here helping a while back.  He put it at a height easy for him to reach.  My 5'2" mail carrier couldn't get the out-going mail out of the bottom unless I left a step stool on the porch for her.     I  only need to install the new porch light and repair the spalling concrete now.  Should hopefully only be another day's worth of time there.

Inside - well, other than puttering in the basement cleaning and messing around running my tv antenna wire up to the first floor, it doesn't feel like I've done a darn thing.  I've been shopping for bargains, mostly.  I found an ugly canvas at the thrift store that I repainted into a bit of fun for my kitchen wall.  I used coupons for both the canvas drop cloth material and stuffing I need to make a cushion for my $9 thrift store papasan chair. After several attempts and returns, I finally found living room curtains that were both on sale and long enough for my giant living room window.  Not in the burgundy I wanted, but the dark brown will do, I think.  Hey, at $17 each for $70 curtains in the length I needed, it's going to do, regardless!  Also found an area rug on sale that might work in either the living room or the rec room.

So, today I finally got my butt in gear and started painting trim in the living room.    I've got the windows and the door trim coated in primer.  I should have all the trim done tomorrow, and hopefully get the living room scrubbed and put back together by Monday.  Can't wait to see what it looks like with curtains up and a rug down.  Maybe even artwork on the walls....

[MaryD]

It's looking really good.  I'm sure it's all that feline supervision!

[monrein]

I love following the progress of your house jbeany...and I really love those little shelves on the living room window...so great for displaying glass for example.

[jbeany]

They would be lovely with glass bottles, or plants, or small sculptures.  So far, I've opted for cats.

[MooseMom]

Oh my goodness, jbeany, this house is looking fantastic!  I mean, really...it is looking so cute!  I am so impressed.  I'm loving the pics...keep them coming.

[okarol]

Love the canvas! You are really amazing. I am so impressed at all that you've accomplished!

[kitkatz]

I love the kitchen art work.  You are so busy and doing a great job!

[jbeany]

More to-do projects stacking up today.  A friend got seven pallets in varying sizes and shapes for me and left them at my sister's - her place is on his way home from work.  My BIL dropped them off today.  When I'm ready to start working downstairs, I'm going to paint four pallets black, bolt them together, add casters, and turn them into a platform for a twin mattress to use as a lounging couch and guest bed.  One super-heavy one with a fabulously weathered coat of orange paint is getting cut in half, stacked together, and turned into a coffee table with the addition of block legs and casters.  With a little reconfiguring, one will be hung on the wall for a shelf.  The last one is going to be ripped down to repair slats on the others, and because it's built around chunks of 4x4 which will be the block feet for the coffee table.

Such a great barter - A roomful of furniture for a batch of cookies.  What a deal!

[MooseMom]

hahahahaha!  What brilliant ideas!  Oh, I can't wait to see the pics of THESE finished projects!

Do you have a yard/garden?  I don't remember...do you have any ideas in that regard?  Can we help you design your garden when you're done with the more important/necessary stuff inside the house?  I'd bet monrein would have some brilliant ideas!  Don't want to step all over your project, though!  Well, maybe just a little bit.  I wanna play!

[jbeany]

I have a rock garden.  Literally.  The only landscaping I have consists of plastic covered in small rocks, which lines the front and both sides of the house about 3 foot deep.  There is a nice, sturdy wood fence that runs up the driveway to the garage.  It has more small rocks along it, with some bigger rocks at intervals.  I do have horseshoe pits out back behind the garage, and my yard is nearly regulation width for a double set of pits.  I even found real metal horseshoes to play with, and have already hung a thrift-store find chalkboard out there for keeping score.

Personally, I can kill hen and chick succulents, so I'm glad my sister is good at gardening.  She's going to help me plant this fall - or at least help me plan it, with things that will require as little care as possible.  I'll take all the advice I can get from anyone with a green thumb, so when I get there, please, monrein, feel free to chime in!

Sis has already decided I'm getting some kind of flaming bushes for the front, since I'm going with deep squash orange for my door and shutters.  I'll nod and pay and dig holes where she tells me too.  It will look fabulous when she's done.  She's agreed with my choice of lots of lavender along the wooden fence, some tiger lilies 'cause those never die, and lily of the valley along the back of the house, where there is a 10 inch overhang from the foundation, making a dark little alcove that the lily of the valley should fill quickly.   I want ferns too, but not sure if it's shady enough along the fence.  There are some things planted and spreading along the back property line which she approved of and named, but I haven't a clue.  She said I'll be able to transplant some it up front.  Oh good, I can afford that.

Eventually, I want to plant more trees, too.  While I'm in a lovely tree-lined neighborhood and my back property line is solid trees, none of them are actually on my property.  The only tree I own is in front of the house on the other side of the sidewalk.  I want a big fluffy lilac bush to provide a screen between my backyard and the neighbor's driveway/car collection on the side of the house without the fence.  Until it grows, I plan to buy 3 or 4 doors at the salvage store and hinge them together into a giant screen.  That will be a project for next year, I think.   I also love red maples, so I want at least one of those, if not a pair.  I am aware I'm recreating the plantings I liked best at my grandmother's house, and my sister thinks it's funny since this house has so many design elements in common with Gram's.  As long as I'm skipping the sticky pine trees with cones to rake up and the crab apple that left little piles of skunk bait everywhere that Gram also had, I'm okay with that. 

Right now, I'm the one pathetic house on the block with no landscaping at all, but given the drought we're having, I'm in no rush to start planting things I have to remember to water anyhow.   

[jbeany]

The living room is finished!     I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees and got all the carpet-backing imprints up from the last owner's rug.  I rolled out my new rug and got all the furniture back in place.  The curtains and curtain rods are up, the windows are sparkling clean, and I've even got a little bit of artwork on the walls. 

Washing the windows was an adventure.  I've got an 8 foot wide, 6 foot tall window, that angles out at the top outside.  The 3 panels of 6 foot tall storm windows were filthy inside, and had to come off to be washed.  I had to climb up on the step ladder to reach the screws to loosen the them, and then try to get them pushed up to release them from the bottom ledge, and back to the ground without dropping them, when they were already at an angle because of the tilted window frame.  Putting them back was equally entertaining. 

My neighbor was highly entertained watching me.  He was going by in a car as I was wrestling one of the panels down.  I was focusing on what I was doing, so didn't realize he stopped in the middle of the road to watch.  When I got the last panel safely to the ground, he beeped the horn and hollered "Nice job!"  Gee, thanks, Brian.     At least the other window only involved climbing up on the step ladder to scrub it.

But, boy, were they both filthy, and wow, is it brighter in the living room now.  After all that, I really needed curtains to block the summer sun.  I got the curtain rods up, with a bit of finagling.  I bought a $20 rod at the discount store that was supposed to be big enough for the 8 foot window.  Well, apparently, it was at the discount store because of defective packaging.  What should have been 3 rods that notched together was two identical rods and one that slipped into the width of one of the other two.  Phooey.  I already had the smaller matching one up on the other window when I realized this.  Taking it back meant taking that one down as well, plus having to find another big enough, which was unlikely for that price.  Hmmm..... I realized if I could find a dowel that would slide into the center of the two identical rods, I could still use it. 

Oh, hey, how about the handle from mop I just broke.  I snapped off the cheap plastic end, but the handle is metal.  Yup, it fits perfectly, with just a little bit of electrical tape on the inside to keep it from sliding back and forth.  Tada!  I hack-sawed off the remaining plastic ends and wedged it all together.

Then all I had to do was sew the curtains.  For my huge windows, I needed extra long curtains.  I finally found some on sale that I liked ($17 for $70 panels - Score!), but only 5 panels left.  6 would have been easier, but cutting the fifth panel in half and sewing it to the panels for the big window was enough width.  So that was my project last night.  I hauled everything up to the craft room and set up the ironing board, dug the iron and the pins out of a packing box, and....realized the plugs don't fit in the ancient outlets upstairs.  Well, the sewing machine does - because it was my mother's and is nearly as old as the house.  So, I hauled the iron and ironing board downstairs and ran back and forth sewing and ironing all the panels.

Whew!  Tiebacks up, and it all looks lovely.  I dug out a set of prints to hang over the couch, just so the walls aren't bare for now.  I repotted a plant, bought a new one on sale for a bare corner, and it's all coming together.

Office next!  Or maybe the electrical  - this is getting annoying....

[MaryJoe]

   Wow, jbeany, your living room looks great!  The window washing doesn't sound or look like it was any fun at all.

[okarol]

You are amazing! It's taken me a month to hang new shelves in my breakfast room, but finally did it - was tricky standing on the counter and balancing the shelves on a pile of boxes so I could put the screws through the toggle anchors. I was thinking of you. It's so hard to do projects alone. Not impossible, but really hard! The shelves were from IKEA so not really heavy, just big.
Your curtains look great - your home is looking quite cozy! 

[MooseMom]

Wow wow wow!  I have a lightbulb in my kitchen that needs replacing.  You're just the woman for the job.  Please come to my house!

[gothiclovemonkey]

Im very impressed.
I had to comment on the green shag, my house I bought had green shag carpeting! I loved it but my son would find things in it, i felt it too unsafe for him. so I ripped it up, what a nightmarish thing to do by urself!

[jbeany]

Ripping up old carpet is the nastiest, dustiest job ever... bleah.  And do I really want to ask what kind of "things" he was finding?     Watermelon seeds, perhaps?  My family bought a house when I was in 6th grade, and I kept peeling watermelon seeds out of the shag carpet in my bedroom.  One of my schoolmates used to stay at the house - we had bought it from his grandparents.  He confessed that he and his cousin had seed spitting contests when they slept in that room, trying to bulls-eye one of the knots in the paneled wall.  Boys.... 

Today's triumph - electrical plugs and switches in the office.  My computer is FINALLY plugged into a socket in the same room it's actually in.  No more giant orange extension cord running through my hall.  My Better Homes and Garden electrical DIY manual states that changing a plug takes 10 to 15 minutes.  They neglect to mention the half hour per plug scraping paint from the screws and prying it off the wall where it has been slathered with paint half an inch thick.

Now on to the living room, after a water and food break.  That looks to be more interesting - since I had the breaker labeled "Bedroom and Living Room" off to do the office electrical - and all the living room lights and the fan were still on.  Pity my label maker is still packed away - I could use it for the breaker box.  Tape and marker will do for now, though. 

Onward!  (I'd yell "Charge!" but I don't want to tempt fate until the electrical work is done.)

[MooseMom]

Who cares about your stupid carpet!  What about my lightbulb!  LOL!

Oh, do be careful with the electrics!  We don't want a fried jbeany.

This thread has been so much fun, and I can't wait for more!  Thanks so much for giving us all such brilliant updates.

[jbeany]

So, how many Moosemoms does it take to change a lightbulb, anyhow? 

All the switches and outlets are changed in the living room - it only requires turning off 3 different breakers to cut the power to the one room.     I'm guessing the kitchen is the same, because the light was out but the fridge, stove, and micro were all still on.  But, I changed the switch in there while I was at it.  And the hallway, too.  Bleah, most of the grotty old plugs and grimy switches were disgusting.  Good thing they are cheap and relatively easy to change out - I wouldn't want to have to try to scrub the nasty, paint-covered things.

Tomorrow - I volunteer at the transplant games, but hopefully, I'll get some more done in the morning before I leave.

[okarol]

I look forward to your report from The Games!