Simple Redecorating

Since I don't have any big projects going on (the bathroom is still in early planning stages and the kitchen is only an idea), it wasn't hard for Danielle to talk me into doing a little something to make the living room a bit nicer.

So now the living room has new curtains. Thank you, Bed Bath and Beyond. Curtain rods from Lowes.





It's easy to focus on what we haven't figured out and forget about what we've done. What we know:

- Travertine in place of the existing ceramic tile around the fireplace - coming this spring.
- Stone in the bathroom... more travertine? Either on the floor or the shower surround? Some of the distributors online have great prices.
- Walls will may be some kind of plaster finish, either tan or blue?
- New bathroom countertop, but not sure what material...
- Still not sure about the cabinets but would like to get new doors for the hamper to match.
- Luckily we won't need to move utilities which is great news to us.

2010 is shaping up to be a huge year for us once we figure out the details behind all of these changes.

Project Updates

A few updates on the projects going on...

The Roof:
Insurance is covering it!!! This is the most awesome thing that could have happened. I've chosen a roofing company and they're starting the work on Wednesday. The one little snag is that the insurance company got the wrong roofing material type on their paperwork - 20 year / 3-tab vs. the 30 year / dimensional stuff that I have. It should be a simple fix because they're hugely different in appearance. While they're doing the work they're going to be installing a ridge vent, covering up the existing turbines (too close to the ridge vent) and adding an exhaust outlet for the shower/tub combo on the second floor. Also fixing the bad flashing around the chimney and doing tons of other small things. This couldn't have turned out any better.

The front door:
Glass guy was here a couple of weeks ago. Left his samples behind so I could show the different materials to Danielle. The guy does good work and had a stack of work orders an inch thick. I'm waiting to get to the top of the list. This is taking forever. NOT happy with the slow progress here.

The flooring project:
I've decided to go ahead with the flooring work ahead of changing out the fireplace surround and all that other work. It's still taking me a while to figure the design for that out, but I know I want to do the flooring. Might as well go ahead and do that while I figure out the fireplace surround. The plan right now is to raise the fireplace up 6in or so and I have a concept for what this should look like, but am not sure how to build the structure supporting the new mantle. Also unsure of the color, so maybe by doing the flooring first that'll help push me through the rest of this. I can just undercut the bottom 3/4 inch of the existing mantle and some of the grout from below the bottom row of tiles to install the wood. That's no big deal.

The big question about the flooring is where the material comes from. I can't remember if my aunt said something about being able to acquire the stuff at a discount or if that was something else. She's on vacation somewhere right now so I'm waiting for her to get back home and get onto her email account...

So right now I have one thing that's moving forward and two more that I want nothing more than to finish. Hopefully they'll come along in the next two weeks or so.

Everything done earlier is still holding up well - the trees are handling the drought pretty well (drop irrigation line) and I'll probably have to put another coat of stain on the pergola because the sun is intense. But surprisingly, the trees seem to be growing a bit or at least looking healthier now.

Side note - the reason why I didn't do anything last weekend is right here:


This is what the front of a Volvo looks like when you take it apart to overhaul and convert the air conditioning. It blows cold - 25 degrees at the vent :)

December 2008

Loads of updates!

The simple stuff first... my parents were nice enough to give me an extra digital dimmer they had lying around in their garage. That was really cool.

I also ordered a bunch of furniture from Motif in Austin, and it came in way ahead of schedule. So now the living room / family room are getting closer to being set up even though there's still a lot of work left to do. Also picked up a desk for the office so we can ditch the tiny sub-laptop sized thing Elle had and my green 1970s office chair.







I decided to go ahead and do some work with the trees in the front yard. I walk around the neighborhood a lot and there are all kinds of different houses, with different landscaping things going on and then there's this place... They say that winter is the right time to do this sort of work, and I've already started on the HOA paperwork and looked into different places that sell trees. Apparently these things are sold in much bigger sizes than I thought they were. At this point I have a budget and know what I'm looking for, so I'll just get the biggest and healthiest ones I can get.

And the hard stuff... summer cooling bills were nuts, so I decided to try and do something about it. The biggest problems were the fact that it seems really humid most of the time, the main bedroom is always warmer than the rest of the house thanks to some big windows that face due south, and the attic is an oven. Right now I'm working on the attic, and it looks like the best way to keep it from getting so hot is to install a radiant barrier. Since it's not hot out it's the best time of the year to get started with it. Guess I'll find out if it did anything once summer rolls around again.

I also started another project (ok fine, in late November). Not on purpose... it was raining outside and I got out the scrub brush to try and clean up the weathered, gray cedar wood the pergola is made of. The little spot I started cleaning up came out really nice, but you can't just have a clean spot and leave the rest alone... I borrowed my dad's power washer and it took care of blasting all the gray stuff and algae in a couple of afternoons. I'm about halfway through staining the wood at this point. I'm using Sikkens brand stain. It's not cheap, but this is enough of a hassle so that I don't want to have to do it again anytime soon.

Here's what it looked like before. The wood is gray and nasty.


After cleaning the wood, with a little stain. I'm surprised the wood came out this clear after being exposed to the elements for 3 or 4 years.


It's going to take forever to stain the whole thing...

August 2008

Another backdated post, but I'm getting caught up...

I've been working on a few things, but it's mostly small stuff. The easiest was the new garage door remote to replace the one that wasn't there when I moved in. Speaking of garage stuff, I sold the Porsche. There are three cars trying to share two spaces in the garage, and I really didn't drive it much anymore so might as well sell the car. Sad to see it go, but I've moved on to bigger and better things.

I got to do an emergency plumbing repair when I walked out of the office and started heading downstairs when what's this...? Water's dripping out of the cabinet in the upstairs bathroom. I close the shutoff and mop up the mess, and try to figure out what's going on because I didn't touch anything. When the previous owners replaced the fixtures in the upstairs bathrooms they kinked the line that runs from the shutoff to the faucet and today just happened to be the day that it finally decided to let go. A couple of trips to the Lowes that's around the corner 5 minutes before closing time and I've got it taken care of.

Since I'm slowly scaling up the projects I wanted to do something that I've already done before in another place I lived - replacing the old school toggle light switches with the new, wider ones. It's pretty easy to do. Just turn the switch on, run back and forth down to the breaker panel to try and find out if you guessed the right one, and remove and replace the switch now that the power is off. All you need to know is how to operate a screwdriver. I put in dimmers where there are dimmers already, nothing fancy at this point. Also did GFCI outlets because that was an item on the inspection report. The house was built just before January 1, 1993 and they weren't required yet at the time.

I've decided to try and do something about the trees in the front yard. They grow like crazy - these Vitex things and look like they've been cut on a bunch of times. I'm not sure if they're exactly trees or giant bushes, but if I can't do something with them I'm going to have to get them out of here and go with actual trees.

Kind of on a tangent, I'm starting to think about what kind of furniture would go good in the living room. The stuff in there now will go into the formal living room someday. No idea what to get yet, but I want something modern. Still plenty of time to think about it while I save up.

This is the living room right now






This is the front living room where everything will go once I get new furniture in a few months. It'll just have to look empty for a while...