Spiffing things up

I think I am just going to turn this into a picture blog…hahaha.  I have lots of pictures to share, but nothing cute to say.  The last three months we have spiffed up a few rooms including updating Alex’s room. Taking him from toddler to little boy room. I also brought down an iron bed we had in the attic for Lillian. For some unknown reason, she has always hated her little twin size platform bed.  I got it because it was low to the ground and she could get in and out of it easily. Anyway, she loves her new full size “big girl bed”.

I updated the front porch by putting new plants in the boxes and making spring wreaths. I am not a pastel gal, so I used turquoise and brown/burlap (Thanks Steven for the suggestion!). I also made a wreath for the back porch.

Back Porch

I bought some gerbera daisies and impatiens a couple weeks back, but I didn’t pay attention to the weather and the late frost got them, so I had to toss them out and buy more.  I went to Fads and Frames and bought some gorgeous ferns! Fads and Frames, hands down, has the best plants in town. I also bought more daisies.  In the next few weeks, when it warms up enough, I am going to landscape the rest of the front yard. I can’t wait!

I went to Ikea a week or two back and bought a tall skinny cabinet for the bathroom. I have had trouble with storage in that tiny bathroom. This cabinet worked out great! It looks so clean and streamlined in there now.

I also bought 3 sets of curtains for my gables.  Sometimes I like to leave the lights on upstairs. At night, you can see into our messy attic. So, we put the curtains up last week. I think they make the window look a little more “finished”.

And…….that’s it!  I have called several paint contractors. Only one showed up to quote me. I got tired of scraping and painting, so I was going to hire someone to finish painting the last two back walls of the house. After receiving estimates between $15 and $20k, I decided that I am not that desperate. So, I put an airless paint sprayer in my cart at Home Depot and am going to put some scaffolding on reserve at the local tool rental place and get to work painting again.

The absolute LAST two things we have to do on the house are: Paint the back walls and fix some of the bricks crumbling in a few areas around the skirt of the house. After calling 8 brick contractors over the past month, I actually had someone show up this morning!!!!  I was excited. Now, let’s see if he comes back with a bid. That is always the hardest part. Getting someone interested in your project.  So, I will be back to report whether or not that happens.  You can see the bricks in the above picture around the electrical box that I have stacked up to keep the cats out. I have about 5 places like this that need to be repaired. The man I talked to today is going to give me two quotes. 1) to fix the 5 brick holes; 2) to re-point ALL of the bricks around the entire perimeter of the house.

So, there is your little update on progress of the house.

Andrea

Back Porch Finished

Remember this??????

It now looks like this!!!!!!!! TA DA!!!!!!!!!

AFTER:

The porch rail was built by Steven out of leftovers from the front porch boards that we cut down last year.  We have a pile of them!  I really like the pattern. The 4×4 posts were leftover from our fence project from almost 2 years ago.  We only bought the post anchors, the solar caps (which are really neat by the way) and the pocket hole jig to mount it.  Our back rail cost a grand total of….drumroll….$40!  Woot woot! The rail we took down was not the original rail and it was rotted in many places. Instead of trying to match the back porch to the front porch, we decided to update it and give it a more modern deck look.  I love it!

To see the evolution of the back porch, you can click here, after that it looked like this: click here

Mesh Wreath

Now that my back porch has been completely redone, I am chomping at the bit to decorate. Spring has passed and Summer is about to be gone, so I set to working on Fall decor. Yesterday, I tried my hand at a mesh wreath. It was super easy to make. In fact, I was so pleased, I installed it on the back porch. Soon, I will finish the front porch ones and put them out and make all my neighbors think I’m crazy for decorating for Fall so early! They haven’t seen my pumpkin flag yet…hehe

Here is a tutorial if you are interested in making one. How to make a mesh wreath

***Update: I finished my other two as well.

Back Porch, just needs a rail

We still need to build and install a rail, but I was able to stain and finish most of the porch work.

Back porch deck down

I am so happy with the progress on the back porch today! Here is what has been completed today. Steven has a pattern for a rail he would like to build, so he will be working on and building the rail in the upcoming weeks. Plus, after our carpenter is finished Thursday, I will pressure wash and start painting the ceilings, columns and siding under the porch. In about 3 weeks, after the boards have cured, I’m going to stain the deck. Super excited!!!!

I’m going to see if I can talk my hubby into building me one more planter for the back and, while he is at it, turning the 100+ year old cypress boards they took up, into a long bench. One can always hope, right! .

Coming soon: new back porch!

My back porch is being worked on by a wonderful, wonderful carpenter! If anyone needs any precise work done, I have a number for you!

Yesterday the column and brick wall that was sagging was mortared and restored. Today, they are taking off the porch boards, putting down traditional deck boards and repairing a column. After they are all finished, I will take another picture. Then I’m off to pressure wash, stain, prime and paint for the final ta-da picture!!!!!

Projects – 2008 in Review

I was sitting around trying to think about what we did all year.  It seems like 2008 was a slow year for us as far as the DIY scene was concerned.  In the early part of the year, around March, we spent a lot of time getting construction bids and filling out mountains of paperwork for our construction loan, only for the subprime mortgage crisis to hit and, in the end, we ended up scratching the whole deal.  I had to go back through my pictures to see what exactly we DID accomplish this year.  I was glad to find proof that our year was not wasted.  Here is a pictorial review of our year:

January:

Finished the rent house (Hallelujah!) and took our three year old employee to Chuck-E-Cheese.  Hey, we had to pay her somehow for all that painting she did!

February:

We celebrated our five year anniversary

March:

My birthday!  Ahem….anyway.  In 8 hours, I cleaned, primed and put two coats of paint on the living room walls.  It wouldn’t have taken me 8 hours normally except that I: 1) painted alone; 2) pushed a very heavy 10 foot ladder around the room 8 times while I painted the middle and top of the room …twice! I have 13 feet ceilings.  [is it 13 foot, or 13 feet?]

April:

In April, I redid an ugly 80’s dresser for Vivian’s room and, for storage, we revamped an old shelf my brother made many years ago by adding crown moulding to it and painting it.

May:

We took down the ugly drop ceiling in the attic.   We also painted the Master Bedroom.

June:

I sanded, repainted and recovered an old chair I bought for $5.00 at a junk store.  I also managed to tick off the entire Ratcliff family and get called a potstirrer.   Hahaha….that’s definitely a new one for me!

July:

I started this blog. Yay!  I pulled a metal tray on wheels out of the garbage and remade it into a plant stand for my porch.  Click here for the details and pictures.  Even my husband could not believe I wanted something this ugly.  But it turned out well.

My new plant stand

August:

We went to the Philippines.  What a life changing experience!  Click here to see more photos of the trip.  In case you cannot figure out who I am, I am the very white girl in the middle!

handumanan

September:

Vivian’s Birthday.   Hurricane Gustav hit Cenla.  That was very interesting.  It took us about a month to recover and get all of the debris cleared and everything back to normal.  I can’t complain though, we did not endure anything like New Orleans did.  Click the link above to see pictures of that fun.

October:

Was definitely not a project month.  I was caught up watching the media and reading the news regarding  local and national politics.  I did get a call from the Louisiana Historic Preservation Office in Baton Rouge telling me that they want to put my street on the National Register.  Which reminds me…..I need to give her a call.  That nomination is supposed to be sent to Washington in April.  I am definitely going to help make sure that happens!

Precious!

November:

I repainted and reappointed the guest room and stripped a fireplace mantel.

December:

We worked on the attic/loft area so we can add another bathroom upstairs.  Steven put up two porch lights in the back.  Steven stripped a door and a transom down to the bare wood.  We also stripped some paint in the hall that was caked on to the wainscoting.  Click here for December’s project pictures.

I guess all in all it was not a bad year.  We did not get as much as we wanted accomplished.  We didn’t nearly come close to the amount of work we did in 2007.  Oh well, put it on the list!  It will get done eventually!

Andrea

Fix one problem — create three more

I guess it is just the Murphy’s Law of old houses, or any house for that matter, that when you fix one thing, you create three more different problems.  Case in point would be our back porch light.  I guess you really can’t call it a porch light.  It is (or should I say was) a light bulb hanging from a chain.  This light bulb has been an eyesore the two years we have lived here.  Why did we not get to it sooner?  If you are asking me this question, you do not own an old house!  🙂  I have a short “needs to be done NOW” list and a longer list named “Eyesores”.  Unfortunately, the light bulb was on the Eyesore list, so it did not get top priority.  Now that we have the HVAC unit replaced, almost the entire interior of the house de-wallpapered and painted, and other misc. items updated, this week we were able to concentrate on some of the lesser priorities like back porch lights and hanging curtain rods. 

Anyway, back to the problem.  We thought that this would be an easy job.  Just take down the old fixture and put up the new, right?  HAHAHAHAHA!  I am not sure of all of the specifics (I am definitely not the family electrician, Steven is and I was not asking questions!), but I was sent back to Lowes to get more supplies while Steven worked on the wiring.  We were only going to put up one light because we were not sure if the wiring in the other chain was working or not.  But, since I was back at Lowes, I decided to go ahead and buy the matching lantern.  Since we were going to have to rewire one, we (I guess I really mean “I”, because there really was no “we” to this decision when I made it standing in the aisle at Lowes) might as well do both.  As I was standing there, my cell phone rang, it was Steven, he said to go ahead and pick up the second light.  I told him I was looking at it in my buggy. Great minds think alike, huh?  So there is the “we” part. 

When I got home, I brought the lantern in the house.  My four year old must have overheard some fussing from Steven while I was gone because when I sat the light down on the table, she found it humorous.  She laughed all the way out the back door to inform her daddy that mama bought another light and he was going to have to put TWO of them up!  Little skunk! 😀

After it was all said and done, I have two nice lanterns lighting up  my back porch tonight.  In fact, I turned them on early tonight just so everyone can pass by and envy them!  Happy New Year!

Click here  to see the entire set.

PS: Since I don’t understand it all completely, I left all of the glorious rewiring details out.  Needless to say, it will be a long time before I add another project to the “Honey-Do-List”. 😀