keep calm

The last two days I was busy oiling and finishing the dresser for our living room, so there will not be a real post today. Hope I will be back on track on Friday. I am trying to make Keep Calm and Get Things Done my motto for the rest of the year. It feels so good to cross things off the list, especially when they have been on the to-do list for so long like the dresser. It took me two years to finish it. Actually it is not fully finished yet, I still have to polish the hardware and we have to carry it to its final location in the living room. There will be a post about the whole process and the new set up in the living room soon. Happy hump day everyone!

2013 - goals and ideas

So this is the time to talk about new years resolutions and goals for the year ahead but I didn’t think about making a list until now. My only resolution for this year is to go to the gym more regularly. Although have been paying my membership fees I haven't been there in two months. Shame on me! It is not about loosing weight but to stay fit & healthy and my body deserves being taken care of. Most of all I would like to accomplish some goals that I set for myself this year and of course I will blog about my progress or the lack thereof. Without further ado, here is my list of goals:

around the house:

-redo the yard (back & front)

-paint our stairs

-paint doors on first floor (5 total) & install door handles & matching hinges

-paint upstairs window frames (8 total)

around the blog:

-be more structured & incorporate more regular columns

-post 3-5 times a week

-finally get my menu bar under the header

-add an about page

Those are the main goals and they are hopefully attainable. I didn't want to publish a list that sets me up for failure. I also wrote a list of everything that I like to get done around the house eventually a while back and that list is 4 pages long. Plus a list of all the furniture pieces in the basement that are waiting to receive some love and attention. Some pieces are already halfway done, so maybe I'll get a motivational push and finish the rest. The only thing I know is that I want to enjoy the coming year and not feel overwhelmed by the things I set out to do...

Did you set goals for yourself this year? Are you swearing off any vices? Not that any of you has one ;)

unfinished business

Two weeks ago Leena from Onshore challenged her readers to share four of their unfinished projects. Here are mine and we will see if I can finish one of the projects this weekend. On the first picture you can see an old lamp shade I had and pink rope, I have an idea of what I want to do with it but am not ready to share it just yet. The yarn on the second photo is left over from a little diy project that I did a while ago but haven't shared on the blog yet and I want to use the leftovers to try myself on friendship bracelets, never made one so far but I am up for the challenge. I will be using the chartreuse boucle fabric on the chair on the left in my upcoming upholstery class. I liked the class so much I am taking it again. Yay! It starts in October and of course I will be showing the process of how the chair transforms again. The chair on the right needs reupholstering too, as well as refinishing of the wood frame. I rescued it and its two brothers from the street last year. It is a great looking chair but definitely needs some love. Not sure about what fabric to use yet. Maybe go bold on one chair and create a pair with the remaining ones? Any suggestions?

What are you guys up to this weekend? Do you have any unfinished business to work on? Whatever you do have a great weekend!

 

 

to-do for the weekend

The weekend is here again and I finally want to finish the vestibule. I started working on it in the spring of last year and it has been in this half finished state for way too long. Two weekends ago I already painted the interior side of the door white, it still had the primed finish that the door came with. My parents are coming for a visit in mid September and this gives me a push to finish up projects like this before they arrive. We have used upcoming visits from friends and family before as deadlines for getting projects done on previous occasions. Last year it was painting P's office so my sister and her boyfriends had a nice room to sleep in. 

Here is a list of things I want to accomplish this weekend:

- paint door frame around exterior door

- prep other door frame for painting (maybe paint as well)

- install new flooring in the vestibule

- call or email contractors for estimates how much having the old wood door stripped would cost

  us (I wanted to do it myself but do not feel like it right now)

What are your plans this weekend? Will it be all fun or a working weekend like mine? 

another one bites the dust

On Saturday we (actually I didn't do any of the work, it was P and R working) tore down the existing ceiling in the basement below our kitchen. Turns out above the wood planks were tons of dirt which blew very fine dust into every room in our house even though I taped the basement door shut and the openings to the kitchen. The dust was worst in the kitchen but it traveled everywhere in the house so we spend our Saturday and our Sunday morning cleaning. When I first saw the mess in the kitchen I had a little bit of a melt down but now that everything is back to normal I'm happy again, although all muscles in my body are sore. And I thought that this would be a relaxing weekend...

You may wonder why did we tore down the ceiling in our basement. The answer is that we added insulation underneath the kitchen floor because the basement below gets very cold in the winter and therefore the floor gets very cold as well. We will see if the kitchen stays warmer once it really gets cold here, so far the weather has been pretty balmy.

With the house there is regularly work waiting for us and inevitably renovating is not always a pretty sight ;)

happy thanksgiving!

I know I'm three days behind. Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!

On Wednesday I started to unpack the remaining boxes that were sitting in our "office" and I couldn't stop throwing out old stuff that I didn't need for years and going through my huge collection of magazines, ripping out interesting articles/pictures I thought were worth saving. I'm a little bit of a pack rat and always think I can use stuff later but once in a while I get in a mood to organize things and then I can't stop until everything is in order. Also my work space needs a major overhaul because it is not creative chaos it is just a cluttered desk.

The space already looks so much better after four days of work. Hopefully by next weekend I can give you an update on my new and improved work area...

to-do list revistited

Tomorrow my family will fly in and I got almost everything done from my to-do list. Hooray! There is only one thing left which is upholstering the Plycraft chair. The upholstery foam I need to finish it has not been delivered yet.

Below you can see pictures how the temporary guest room turned out. It will become P's office sometime after our guests leave. At first this room only had one really low sitting window which was actually a self made window out of plexiglass and some wood strips. It was pretty dark and drafty in that room, that's why it became our storage room.

First we swapped the window for a casement window. It looked already so much better.

When we started working on the roof we made the decision to add a skylight window as well. Big improvement!

Then it was just a couple of layers of paint. We still had a can of Horizon (OC-53) by Benjamin Moore left that we used in the hallway. And of course painting the baseboards and window frames. The sloped ceiling was painted the same color as the walls to make the room look bigger. It's much easier on the eyes in my opinion than painting it the same color as the ceiling which is white in our case.

You might recognize the little side tables and the chair from our reading nook. The bed actually consists of two Lycksele chair beds that friends gave us when they moved back to Germany.

to-do list

My parents will be visiting us in a little over two weeks and they will also bring my sister and her boyfriend with them. Meaning we will need a second (makeshift) guestroom. Which means it's time to say goodbye to our "dump room" where we stored the remaining unpacked boxes (yes, there are still some after a year) and some leftover furniture and doors.

My to-do list before the family arrives is:

-clear out dump room ✓
-spackle walls ✓
-sand walls ✓
-prep room for painting
-paint walls
-paint trims and window frames
-clean ceiling fan
-sell/give away unwanted stuff on craigslist - last piece has been picked up a little over an hour ago ✓
-make room look nice for my sister and her boyfriend
-upholster Plycraft chair

I just love to cross stuff off my to-do list!

While clearing out the room I found a bag that had Stolmen written on it. Stolmen is a wardrobe system from Ikea in case you're wondering. Turns out it's the long missing mounting fixtures for our wardrobe which we already replaced with new ones. But unfortunately we had to replace them with white pieces because they had discontinued the silver hardware. Now we can make it all match again. Yay!

new (old) dresser

I discovered this dresser on craigslist last week. P picked it up after work one night and it is sitting in our basement right now. The paint was already pretty beat up so I decided to strip one corner to be able to see if there would be some nice wood under the coat of paint. It was and because the paint was coming off so easily I started stripping the whole dresser. I am nowhere near finished but it's a good start.

The rest of the weekend was really productive and we got a lot of things done:

*painted the front door (not quite finished - will update soon)
*put up our new house numbers
*hung the new mailbox
*checked out our local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores for a desk, sadly didn't find anything
*prepped all door frames, baseboards and window frames in the upper hallway for paint

to-do list frustrations

My weekend-to do list was way too ambitious, which left me frustrated because I couldn't cross off much. But I started some smaller projects that will be finished within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully...

Took the picture Sunday when we were in Williamsburg to grab some food and beer...

it's miller time

Finally some progress on my February to-do list

- finish fireplace - almost there, cast iron fireplace door is spray painted, still needs to be put in place
- cover panel for island and finish painting trim in kitchen - done!
- prepare the hallway to get painted - first floor hallway is done, we even painted the baseboards and most of the doorframes already, second floor hallway, most baseboards have been caulked
- assemble bekväm step stool and decided what color to paint or stain it - decision on color has been made

I addition to above mentioned items I also cleared the area around the workbench in the basement in order to be able to actually work on it. The beer stickers I already noticed a while back because they are prominently displayed above the work area. While sweeping under the workbench I found numerous hooks for fishing, doe urine (yuck) and a bullet. It's like being on one of those crime shows where I get to puzzle all the clues together who lived in this house before us...

presidents day weekend to-do list

In anticipation of the upcoming three day weekend and all the little projects we could cross off our list we already bought the supplies we need last weekend.We got numerous bottles of caulk, a piece of plywood cut to size to become the kitchen island cover panel, oil based primer and a can of black behandla glazing paint from Ikea for Bekväm. Hopefully we will finish all the little things in the kitchen like the cover panel for the island, painting the trim, crown moulding, window and door frames. We also want to prep the hallway so it can be painted one of these days.

To get a head start I already taped off the baseboards and window/door frames in the kitchen yesterday so Peter can paint them. I will paint the crown moulding and do not need to tape the edges off. Also I cleared out an (still unfinished after 1.5 years) cabinet that is standing in the kitchen and was used a dumping ground for all kinds of stuff. It will be stored it in the basement until I come around painting it.

Let the weekend begin...

revisting january's to-do list

This was my January to-do list

- finish the fireplace
- cover panel for kitchen island
- prepare the hallway to get painted
- assemble Bekväm step stool and decide on what color to paint or stain it

and I got exactly nothing done!

I have worked on the fireplace door though. It's almost ready to be spray painted. Already got the spray paint and primer. But I have organized our office which was a dumping ground for all kind of stuff and now you can almost recognize it as habitable which wasn't even on the list but the mess drove me insane.

Well that leaves me with my to-do list for February

- finish the fireplace
- cover panel for kitchen island and finish painting trim in kitchen
- prepare the hallway to get painted
- assemble Bekväm step stool and decide on what color to paint or stain it