Curtain Shuffle

I was anxious to get some curtains up in our main living space almost as soon as we moved in. It would give the appearance of being finished and "grown-up",I rationalized, even if it wasn't!

We inherited all the window trimmings from our homes previous owners. Here is a shot of our waaay BEFORE living room view...


Although we knew the hand-made, pull-cord curtains wouldn't make the cut, Spencer wanted to salvage the existing curtain rod if possible. I picked up these long, white satin panels at Super Linens for $12 a pop. It was too simple. The rod was also too big and made pulling the curtains open and shut with ease an impossibility. Plus, I couldn't help think that the tie back look was more "country living" than the "modern comfort" look I was hoping for...


So I moved those pearly whites into the master bedroom and hung 'em high and wide to make our corner windows look more...awesome.


So back to the drawing board. Erna had given me the heads up that Wal-mart had a nice and affordable curtain selection. After about 45minutes of going back and forth on my opinion, I settled on 2 french blue satin floor panels from Better Homes and Gardens and 4 beige textured sheer panels. I also nabbed up-not one, BUT TWO new curtain rods for the LR. One no-fuss, no-see for the sheer panels and another decorative rod for the Lined blue curtains. TK came over to help us install, and while relived to get them off the back off the couch...I was less than impressed.


The beige just seemed dirty, or washed out. I packed 'em up and trucked it back to WM the next day (gotta love a no questions return policy!) I bought the same sheers in a pure white. Third times a charm, because this combo certainly charmed me enough to pronounce this project DONE!


We have a few more things to hang in the Living/Dining space (and thanks to TK, another turn of touch up painting-more on that later) before I'm ready to turn my focus on to the master bedroom and bathroom...

Into the closet

I mentioned this before, but our house came equipped with crazy closets. Pretty much every closet is lined with a different INSANE wallpaper. No muted colors, no subtle strips. Just wild, awesome, dated decadence.

I thought I would share them today, as I'm feeling a little less than inspired and stressed that we plan to officially move this Wednesday. Even though I don't think we're ready. Walls still need painting, the bathroom is a mess and we haven't packed anything but books and nicknack's.

here's the tour...

The patriotic eagle that protects our spare bedroom...


Pretty blue flowers that grow in the office...


That 70's Show in the master...


Wild Western Store Front in the coat closet...

Yippe-ay-kayee!

Erna suggested we wallpaper over them with something neutral, but I think it's sort of a nice "SURPRISE! remember me? I'm an old house!" hello every time you reach to grab a coat or glue gun. We asked Mrs. O'Kramer about it during our settlement and she informed us her husband had painted the closets so terribly she wallpapered over all of it. How exactly do you mess up painting a closet...the world will never know...

Spencer's Suggestion

The other day Spencer, covered in dust, looked at me and told me he had a post suggestion:

"If you have ugly old bathroom tile, just try to live with it."

And I agree. Our bathroom came full of greenish fixtures-some are easy fixes. New toilet: check. A shower curtain that hangs past the tub: instantly hidden. Slap some stratamax on the floor: goodbye jolly green giant style checkers. But the tile? Well we had reserved ourselves to just live with it...

But we got cocky. Maybe it was because the swing doors had come off so easily, or because the wallpaper had so wonderfully flaked away. Erna said it would be no problem at all (why we listened to her, I have no idea...she's never removed 50 year-old tile!) So we watched a few online tutorial, asked the experts at Lowes and armed ourselves with a grout saw and hammer.

The tile came off easily enough...the problem is SO DID THE DRYWALL.

So I repeat on behalf of my beau:

If you have old weird tile. Live with it. As long as you can.

So Hard to do the Right Thing

UPDATE: MY LOGICAL LAZINESS HAS BEEN COMPROMISED

It was settled. We would paint the entire top floor of our new split-level and leave the downstairs unfinished. The logical was: "We'll wait to paint until we know what to do with it" The lazy was: "I don't want to paint the whole house yet!" But now I know we must...because it's the right thing to do. why?

Floors.

Last night I went over flooring options with Erna, my soon-to-be sister-in-law and current carpet diva. The plan is to install stratamax over the current icky kitchen vinyl:


and over the color-confused main bath:


Now, I knew when we first saw our house, before it was our house, that the downstairs flooring would need to be redone in order for it to ever become our home. The floor was a shoddy combo of commercial grade, stained office carpet and ancient blue-green vinyl sticky tile (which I'm not against...but these where ugly and everywhere...see


So now I have a new logical, which I'm not happy about: Paint the whole darn thing. Because I know for a FACT how awful I am at keeping paint off the floor. I'm good at painting, but I do it with an air of perpetual poutyness. I hate second coats. I hate taping and cutting in and all that boring stuff. Poor me right? (there's sarcasm there-I'm infinitely blessed to have a home to call my own that I love so dearly. But I can still bitch about it) So it's settled. The whole downstairs gets it, pre-carpet install. But it doesn't stop there.

For about 100 bucks more we can rip out the matching commercial grade berber that currently resides in the soon-to-be guest bedroom. Ok, lets do it, it's yucky for sure! But that means that room must now be painted first (it's current hue is primer-over-teal). Ok. But what about the last room. The Lilac Room:

Her walls are purple, her carpet is emerald and her curtains are stuffed with tissue paper...

She would be a pretty pastel purple pimple on our otherwise smooth and beachy color palate. So she'll get it sooner than expected too.

Bah Humbug! I'm off to conjure up some volunteers...