Duct Tape Crafter

I now have the kitchen done, including the majority of the hall from the kitchen to the garage. I’m not sure if my estimation was off or Chuck’s measurements but I ended up two boxes short of my linoleum squares. As I worked, it became apparent I was going to be short therefore; I left the closets uncompleted until I have time to go back to Lowes’.

Here is a picture of my garden window, now painted white. I realize many people like garden windows, at one time I thought I wanted one also, but after having one now for the last five years I want it GONE! I really hate it! It sits back so far that I can’t reach the back of it, not even to open the side windows without a step stool. This area seems to be the first place bugs like to buzz around then die! In addition, the slanted area outside always gets so dirty that I hate looking at it, and to clean it I have to climb a ladder outside! See I like my house clean, but I like the easiest way to keep it clean. It is apparent to me that a garden window is not an area to keep clean easily, therefore it will be gone. In case you haven’t guessed from these comments I also really detest knick-knacks too, I find the dust collectors, and a PITB to clean.

To the left of my garden window / sink area is the area where the stove / oven was originally. We have moved it in preparation of punching through the wall, opening a hallway into the kitchen. With our remodel, this portion of the kitchen will be a true galley style kitchen. I have painted the walls in here the same color as the dining room and the hallway, the color is called Bermuda Sand. I didn’t get a good picture of my lower cabinets, therefore no one can see my beautiful Kitchen Aid dishwasher Chuck bought me when I was visiting friends in Kansas a couple of months ago.

Our wonderful side-by-side refrigerator. I say wonderful very tongue in-cheek. I never wanted a side-by frig, but Chuck thought it would be great to have the ice and water dispenser at the front. The side-by turned out just as I feared when I always looked at them in the past, not enough refrigerator area for me. I’m not sure if there will be a good refrigerator at all for me these days. Looking at new refrigerators I found all of them smaller on the frig portion and larger in the freezer portion. I’ve asked about this at stores, to see if I’m losing the last of my mind / memory, as the frig portion sure seemed bigger in the past. I was told that yes, over the years the frig portion has been reduced and the freezer portion increased in size. The reason is not surprising; as we have become a nation of wanting dinners quickly the frozen food industry has hit it big. With all those quick frozen meals we need the freezer space for them, so more freezer space in the new refrigerators. Alas, though that means we also are buying less fresh produce, the healthy stuff for us! That is the hardest part for me, I love fresh vegetables and fruits, add a few leftovers and condiments and my frig portion of the refrigerator is overflowing! It just means I have to go to the store more than I like to retrieve milk, fruit, and vegetables. Pssst, the other thing I detest doing is SHOPPING! All sorts of shopping, I am not a mall hound either!

Here is where we have moved the store / oven, under the pass-through window. When the real remodel is done, I want this wall reduced to a half wall, with a breakfast bar on the dining side. I also want the cabinets turned around to be on the same side as the stove opposed to the wall they are presently on. I personally like these cabinets, would like to have more made for the completed remodel. These cabinets are obviously handmade, simple pine, and are very basic. These cabinets are very reminiscent of what one would find in older houses, and exactly what I remember my grandfather making.

Here I thought I show the new floor I have been laying in the kitchen and hallway. These are simple linoleum squares sold at Lowes’ with a look of stone. I wouldn’t dare put real stone down in the house, but I like the linoleum squares! This is such very different from the two different type of sheet linoleum that was in here and the hallway.

I didn’t get new pictures of the dining room, but Chuck hung the new light fixture and I put new curtains up! I’m taking the next few days off from house renewal work. I am so sore, aching in joints and muscles I never knew existed, and I am really swollen; I not sure why I am reacting this way, maybe it is just age. I can remember plenty of days working on our houses without the swelling, and aching I have now. I’ll bring it all up to the doctor on my next visit which maybe soon. I have realized I have corporal tunnel in my right hand, at some points it is bad enough the pain radiates down to my elbow. I hate getting old!!!

As part of the quick fix house changes, I had mentioned we decided to turn the old beauty shop into a bedroom. This consisted of removing the beauty shop sink, cabinets, and tables. Once all the fixtures were removed then came the removal of the carpet and linoleum. Since there was no drywall or plaster behind the paneling, I didn’t attempt any removal of it. I did complete minor repairs with drywall mud, just the simply tub stuff. When you originally stepped into the room you were visually assaulted by all the different paneling styles. Seriously, the people that previously owned this house are nice people but the visual assault of the décor in every room pained me. This particular room had paneling of a hunting scene, looked like duck hunting, then two different types of floral paneling, then was fake stonewall paneling, then was the wood paneling, just too many visual mixes. To top off the décor all the doors and wood trim was painted a medium brown color, similar to the color of dirt. To adjust the whole room without removing any of the paneling I applied two coats of Kilz Primer to all the walls, ceiling, doors, and trim. My next round was two coats of white satin paint on the ceiling, doors, and trim. In addition, the final painting round was two coats of my main color, a soft moss green, on all the paneling walls. I used linoleum squares to apply new linoleum to the entry area, then in the bathroom (previously the bathroom was carpeted, yuck, anyone ever clean the ‘man mess’ around the toilet bowl? Can you imagine what is on carpet in the bathroom around the toilet from the ‘man mess’ that you can’t really clean?). Lastly, we Chuck laid carpet in the remainder of the room – this was our first experience at laying carpet! Now we’ve moved our bedroom furniture out into the old beauty shop, to be our bedroom right now. Chuck is still working out of part of the room, since he does have a real job. This room will be re-done later, all paneling removed! This room is half of a 2-car garage converted; we plan to use the rest of the 2-car garage to have a real master suite. OHHH the dreams of the completed house, the actuality is the amount of time it will take to accomplish these dreams.

Here are a few pictures.

Once entering the room our bed is behind the door. This door I haven’t finished painting, because Chuck didn’t plan ahead decided to use a door we already had, and didn’t hang it until I was done with all the painting, and the carpet was laid. Looking to the far right of the picture is the edge of his desk, which sits at a lower level then the rest of the room. The lower level is the entry area of the old beauty shop where the new linoleum is. The wall the bed is against was the duck-hunting scene prior to my painting. If one looks closely, the area by Chuck’s desk was the stonewall paneling.

Across from the bed is the armoire holding the TV, DVD player, and VCR. We don’t have satellite out here yet as Chuck still needs to run the cable for it out here. On my side though I have blinds for the room and haven’t gotten them hung yet – good thing we don’t have any close neighbors can only imagine what they might see. This wall was still duck hunting prior to my painting.

This is a picture of the small room I talked about in a prior post. Originally, this was the tanning room of the beauty shop; right now, it houses my dresser, giving me a little dressing room. We originally thought we’d work on our master bedroom suite area after completing the bathroom / living room remodel; but Chuck is contemplating taking on the old master bedroom / kitchen / dining room area next. If we take out the old master bedroom then this little room has to become our closet! Right now, we are still using the closets in the old master bedroom. I can re-arrange and adapt this easily. I believe we have plenty of room for my dresser in the main part of the room, and then will put poles and shelves in this room for the closest if needed. On the walls going into this room again you can see the stonewall paneling. Inside this room were two walls with real wood paneling, then two walls of a floral pattern.

As crazy as it sounds this is my favorite thing about moving our room out here! I have a bathroom off my bedroom again! It is only a half bath right now, but since my bladder is the size of a pea at night this makes my nightly interruption a close jaunt! Of course, it is on my side of the bed, a quick hop out then right back to bed! I had never lived in a house since I was a kid that I didn’t have a bathroom right off my bedroom. The bathroom had floral paneling, different floral than anywhere else in the room; and the carpet has now been replaced with linoleum. I also purchased a cabinet to hold vanity items, a new medicine cabinet, and pretty new hardware for the décor.

As a final close, a picture here is our new carpet! It was a remnant of course, nothing too expensive in this to be disposed of area. On a side note, we didn’t move our head and foot board of our bed. As we complete each room in the real remodel, I have declared it is necessary to purchase new furniture.

Yes, I finished the dining room, except for the decorating part! I want new curtains, and then need to figure out what I want on the walls. I still thinking about the curtains, part of me wants to make them (sew!) with this fabric

I found this fabric at Fabric.com, it would go with my whole latte, java, coffee theme I wanted. Then I think maybe I just want brown curtains, use other items to give me a coffee house theme. In the end, the verdict is still out! If I don’t decide before they run out of the fabric then the decision will be made for me

Here is my dining room all painted:

I laid new dark brown runner rug down the steps, I sure wasn’t going to leave them all white! The only thing left in here for the time being is that darn blue ceiling fan. I have a new light fixture just waiting on the ‘man of the house’ to do the lights. I have new lights for several of the rooms, according to Chuck he is going to take a day to do them all at one time. I also spent most of one day working on the hardwood floor.

When we do the dining room right I want to do these hardwood floors different. At that point, I’ll sand them down, touch up the stain, and then use a polyurethane varnish (4 times) over them to seal them with a shine! Nevertheless, at the time being I used the old-fashioned paste wax on them. It took me several hours to clean the floors good, rub the wax on, and wait for the wax to dry, then arm-strength buff the floors. I just want to make sure these floors are taken care of; I love the old original hardwood of these. As so many people lay the laminate wood floors these days I can relish in these oak tongue-in-grove real wood floors. I think they are so preeettty.

I got two coats of primer on the small room off the old beauty shop/ Chuck’s office/ soon to be our bedroom. I haven’t been able to get out there to paint the trim and real wall colors because Chuck is deep into the real job work this week! He is covering for his boss so is acting manager for the next 2 weeks, which means lots of phone time and phone conference calls. With him being on the phone non-stop I really didn’t want to bother him with the ladder and noise, we don’t want a cranky Chuck I’m hoping to get that small room painted this weekend. In the next 2 days, I see some house cleaning and yard mowing in my future. My plan is house cleaning Thursday, and yard mowing on Friday, with some checkbook work and bill paying in-between there! We also are hoping to make the fair in the next 2 days in the evening. Then Chuck has two fairs to work with the reserve this next week, and we have my orientation into the Phi Theta Kappa (2-year college honor society). I think we will be busy! Oh yeah, my birthday is next week too! I’ll keep plugging away on the house, and post more as I go!

I painted today, 2^nd coat on the dining room, so all painting in the dining room is done! I need to put in the runner rug, and wax the floor. I also want to do something for the windows, and other décor items.

We have another room, for the previous owners the area was a beauty shop, for the last 5 years DH has used the room for an office. This room though was large, and was becoming DH’s messy collection room With all the ideas on my side of doing some easy fixes for the house, DH had one too! He wanted to separate his work area from his play / free time computer. To do that we need a home office, which would be wonderful for me too; right now my computer sits by the TV, which doesn’t make the most efficient for homework! We decided the answer would be to transform the old beauty shop into our master bedroom, with an area for DH to have a desk and his office laptop. We would make our old master bedroom into our home office, placing his personal time computer & desk along with my computer & desk in that room. There is enough space in the room to include a sewing area! We had already cleaned up and painted most of the room, the half bath, but for whatever reason DH didn’t clean out the small back room. This weekend he finally got the back room cleaned out, so today I scrubbed the walls, they are ready to prime and paint! According to DH, he’ll put up the new lights next weekend in this area plus the dining room. I don’t think he has realized that the carpet might need to put down in the old beauty shop – our new master bedroom! At least here I’ll have a bathroom off my room again This actually puts us in the right direction. The old beauty shop was a conversion in the garage; we plan to convert the rest of the 2-car garage, add it to this section, and turn it into a master suite. We know that the old beauty shop area in the end will be gutted, see nothing like living in construction zones! I’ll add more pictures as I get more done!

On a personal note, T’s coach pitch softball team took Grand Champs last weekend, this week they were in the parade for the local fair!

In addition, my personal assist is getting bigger every day! Isn’t he cute!

Although we have so much more to do on our old farm house that consist of actual tear apart and replace, there are some rooms we just want to look better until we get there. Seriously this is one of those areas that will be completely torn apart, but is on the list as next to the last area. We put the dining room as next to last because it ties so heavily into the kitchen, which will take some complete re-configuration, plus all the money for the new cabinets, counters, etc. For the last 5 years (omg we’ve have seriously been here 5 years and have completed so little on this house – at least to me!), some of these areas have been wallpapered. And not just wallpapered, but wallpapered over paneling! All this wallpaper & paneling seem pretty common in this area of Indiana as some sort of quick fix in these old houses, going over the old plaster walls. Anyway my quick fixes are to give us something better to look at for a while longer, and are the less expensive options. As of Friday this is what my dining room looked like:

That is 2 coats of primer on everything except the oak hardwood floor, and 2 coats of white satin on all the trim & ceiling! I painted it all. The steps need to be replaced as they weren’t made with the quality wood to be stained & shown. Even the acoustic ceiling tiles have been painted! This is what I have been working on while not sewing, gardening, or canning . Saturday, (yesterday) I put on the 1st coat of the beige color on the main walls, today will be my 2^nd coat. Last night we went to dinner then stopped by Lowe’s, I have new runner rug for the steps, and a new light fixture for the room! I’ll put a nice paste wax on the floor too. As soon as I get the painting done I’ll update another picture.