I’m wrapping up the worst of the house, meaning almost all of the walls and ceilings are repaired and painted, and floors refinished painstakingly by hand.
I am an experienced fixer-upper, but I still don’t understand the darkest secrets in the universe of home improvement.
Such as:
I never could predict just how much hard wax oil I needed to use per floor, and ended up paying in shipping small cans what would have cost for the large can.
The smallest room used the most paint.
Despite its trendiness, I like yellow and grey. And that yellow door is the living room color – the living room is the largest room, yet took the least amount of paint…
And we still haven’t figured out which room is for what – this room will probably be N’s office, though it may be my “studio” but it is a really tight space – the other wall is pretty much the right margin of the pic – but it has the best natural light.
We did end up covering the knotty pine paneling in one of the rooms, and the room is much better for it, though it will stay in the living room for now.
And though I’ve previously held an unyielding “choose paint colors for the middle of an ungodly dreary winter” stance (meaning only warm tones on all walls) I went outside of my comfort zone and painted cooler hues in these last few rooms and I really like them. The color of the smallest room, above with the yellow door, even has the terribly depressing name of “November rain.” But I would prefer rain in November to some icy slop.
Every time I sand wall patches or floors, despite how well I meticulously seal up the room, I’m blown away about how much dust still escapes and ends up in rooms on the opposite side of the house.
And I hate the fact that I now have to do a thorough furniture-moving, rug-lifting deep clean because I just did that, and everything is fresh and new but now looks like dusty hell.
What is left?
A full-bathroom re-do (more thoughts on that soon) that will either be a placeholder just-work-with-what-we-have-and-slap-several-coats-of-paint-on-everything for now, or a reexamination of the budget to see if we can contract some of the work out – it’s not a major job, but the floor is the worst part of that room and it’s a major pain in the ass.
Improving the “finished” basement that really isn’t. It needs a floor and a new/improved ceiling* and is ripe with the shit version of paneling which we will likely paint, but again, the budget and our energy levels will play a huge role in its outcome.
It’s got some snazzy vintage fixtures though.
(And sadly, I don’t think those are our fingerprints and dust – we haven’t touched the things…)
Improving the yard – we need a bigger garden with better deer fencing and possibly pooch fencing, and some attempts at landscaping.
And then 89, 783, 2311+ weekend projects – tiling the kitchen backsplash, painting closet doors, stripping room doors, installing some thresholds, touching up paint, touching up paint, oh, and touching up paint, building shelving, insulating random little places, hemming more curtains, etc., etc., etc…
etc., etc., etc….
(And maybe I should add ironing curtains to the list too…)
*Anyone have ideas for improving a drop ceiling on the cheap? It’s got those large rectangular panels, so I can’t just replace them with something interesting like record sleeves… cover with fabric or textured paper? Paint? The current panels are stained Styrofoam and I don’t know what stained them or continues to stain them, I want to get rid of them but hate to toss them in a landfill, and the new ones are only marginally better and more than I want to spend…
ASTITCHMATISM 