Kerry'd Away

Hello! Long time, no see! I haven’t had internet at home, but I’ve been getting a lot done. lol With the help of my sister I have managed to get most of the totes that I had in my spare bedroom unpacked. Lots of stuff got thrown out and others are being donated. After all, I’m only one person. How many juice glasses could I possibly need??

Just because I enjoy showing the transition I’m going to show you the living room as it looked before the paint went on the walls:

To be a little dramatic I will skip the middle pictures and take you immediately to my most recent ones.

If you scroll back up to the first ‘Before’ picture my curio cabinet sits about where that paper bag is sitting against the wall. The room looks so much bigger without anything in it. Wow. I just noticed that my poor music shelf appears to be bowing underneath the weight of my books. Oops. lol

That is Chester in the picture. She is currently perched on a gift that I have to give my best friend, Pauline. I’ve asked Chester what she was going to do when that was no longer there. She looked at me and told me that I would just have to wrap up another box for her to sit on. *sigh* She’s such a spoiled cat! In this picture you can also see the wine rack that Jay made me. Isn’t it gorgeous??

I didn’t know what I was going to do with my grandma’s curio cabinet, but I had a slight idea. Well, as I was going through a tote yesterday, looking for something else, I stumbled upon some of my Lincoln memorabilia. That took the high spot of honor. I had also managed to collect a few sets of wine glasses (guess it’s a good thing Jay made me a wine rack!), so those went in there, too. Here’s a close up look:

It’s not the best picture, but it does give you an idea. No, Betsy Ross doesn’t exactly fit in with the Civil War theme on the second shelf, but I have a soft spot for her since I was born on Flag Day. Actually, I have a soft spot for anything patriotic, but I don’t have a whole lot of patriotic stuff. I’m not much of a knick-knack person because then that requires dusting. I hate dusting. I would rather clean a bathroom than dust, but there are some things that I just can’t resist and so I have some dusting to do. Oh well.

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve posted on here. Or, maybe the fact that I’m addicted to the internet and haven’t had any access at home is what makes it feel like that. I will get internet access at my house on the 27th, but until then I have to steal time online when I can. I have been driving around town until I found an unsecured wireless connection that I could get onto. If this post suddenly ends it’s because the cops have come to chase me off. 😉

I moved in last Saturday and I have finally managed to get my kitchen under control. I didn’t do a lot in this room. I’ve basically just cleaned it and put my stuff in there. That doesn’t sound like much, but when there’s an inch-deep layer of dust and dog hair that’s a lot of work that had to be done.

Here is what it looked like when you first walked into the kitchen before:

Obviously this was when I was working on the house and this was the base of operations. It really drove me crazy to have everything all piled up and crazy like this. I have finally managed to get it somewhat under control.

No, it doesn’t look very different. Yes, the washer and dryer are still in the kitchen. We’re trying to stop the leak into the basement so that I can move the machines downstairs. Where the water is leaking in is exactly where the washer and dryer belong, so it will probably be spring before I can move them out and get to work on the kitchen. I have managed to make it my own a little bit. Here’s a shot of my counter:

Isn’t the snowman cute? That was a house warming gift from Jay’s mom. It’s one of the few festive pieces that I have displayed in my house right now. I’m too busy trying to get things unpacked to worry about Christmas decorations. Yes, the ‘GF’ on my toaster stands for gluten free. When I was at my parents’ that’s how I had to let people know not to use my toaster.

The entry way before and after:

And finally the view from the Living room:

Again, not a lot of change. The livingroom, though, has shrunk. It’s amazing how small it feels when there’s furniture in there.

The drapes are still in really good shape so I just washed them to remove the dust and animal fur. The litter box will eventually go in the basement once Chester is no longer afraid to go down there. *sigh*

If you’re wondering, the white ‘sticks’ in the picture are actually Bob’s eyebrow whiskers. It took me a minute to realize what they were. I was sitting on the loveseat and Bob feels that if I’m sitting then he needs to be on my lap. You’ll see pictures of that later. When my dad moved the piano in he told me that if I moved again he was NOT moving the piano. *Sigh* I guess that I should take up playing the flute or something. 😉

Isn’t Bob cute? This is his permanent position lately. He has become the Velcro Kitty. He’s not spoiled or anything.

Nope… not at all. lol Chester wanted a chance to get into the picture, too.

Finally I can say that it looks like I’ve been doing something at my house. I’ve been working there every night after I get out of my paid job. I’ve done a lot, but you couldn’t tell that I had done anything. It was starting to get rather discouraging. The paint has finally started to go up on the walls and the house is starting to look finished. Not all of the rooms are done, but enough are so that I can move in on Saturday.

I bought a vanity and sink this past weekend so my dad stopped by on Monday to help me install it. It’s so nice having a big sink in there! Just to show the difference, here was the bathroom when I first got the house:

Here is what it looks like now:

Not much of a difference, is there? 😉

The living room now has two coats of paint on it. The first one was a bit splotchy, so I did it again. I haven’t painted the trim, but it’s amazing what a difference a coat of paint will do.

Before

After

A shot of the front window in the living room

Then I decided that I was going to paint my bedroom blue. I picked out a color and put it on the wall, and BOY! Is it blue!! The picture really doesn’t show the true color. Think of how blue the caribbean ocean is, and that is close. lol

Before

After

Is that blue or what?? When I was painting I had to laugh because I had blue paint all over my hands and it looked like I had been murdering smurfs or something. lol My intention is to eventually do a ragging technique in white over the top of it to tone it down a little, but I won’t have time for that this week. It will have to wait.

A couple more before and after pictures of the bedroom

The last room that has been painted is my second bedroom. This is the guest room and also where I will be stashing my stitching supplies. It will have a white metal daybed in it.

Before

After

More before and after pictures of the guest bedroom (please excuse the drop cloths…)

I really like that shade of green. It’s calming and soothing… for when I need to get away from the Smurf Blue in my bedroom. 😉

Moving day is Saturday so I have been trying to pack my things, and even enlisting my mom’s help with that, but it seems endless. Even Bob has been helping.

LOL!

Lately I feel like I’ve been treading water when it comes to my house. I have done a lot there, but I can’t really tell (except for the floors). After I saw how beautiful my hardwood floors turned out, it made me realize just how much I hated my bathroom floor. Okay, so I hated the bathroom altogether. This is what it looked like:

The floor was gross. The walls were pink. The bathroom sink and vanity were tiny. The shower curtain over the window…. I hated all of it. I decided that I didn’t want to live with it like it was and since I had some time I would just redo it before moving in. I am going to keep the toilet and tub as is, I just wanted to replace the floor, paint the walls, and get a new vanity and sink. I asked my dad to help me with parts of the remodel.

We turned the water off, removed the sink, and put the toilet into the tub for safe keeping. Then I spent Monday night tearing out the old tiles.

The black is the adhesive for the old tiles, and the spots are where I filled in the nail holes with wood filler. The tiles came up easily enough, though the first one was upset that I was disturbing it so it decided to get some revenge. A piece of it tore into my thumb and now that’s a bit sore. Oh well, it’s not a true do-it-yourself project unless you have a scar to show for it, right? 😉

Here’s a close up of the floor:

I used up the last of my vacation time at work to take Tuesday afternoon off so that my dad and I could install the linoleum that I bought on Saturday. When I had been in Erie with Jay we had stopped at a couple of carpeting places. I was looking for linoleum that didn’t have any kind of pattern to it. This way my dad and I wouldn’t have to work harder to make sure that the pattern lined up correctly. I knew that if it didn’t then it would drive me crazy to look at for the rest of the time that I lived in the house. Little things get to me like that. lol. The only vinyl that the first place had was the ugliest thing! I looked at it and asked Jay, “Is it just me, or does that look like a skinned pig?” It was a mottled pinkish-whitish piece with a bit of red and brown veining. It wasn’t pretty. He looked at it and replied, “I’m not sure what a skinned pig looks like, but I imagine that it would look something close to that.” Luckily at the second place I found exactly what I had been looking for.

It’s kind of a tannish-yellow with marbling running through it. It’s quite nice in person. So Tuesday afternoon my dad and I laid the vinyl flooring. It turned out pretty nice!

The new flooring alone makes a big difference, doesn’t it? I stopped for the paint after we finished putting the linoleum down. I decided to go with a warm white (it’s called Sandbar White) because I wanted the bathroom to look bright and clean. Also, I can change the look of the bathroom just by changing out some accessories. Tonight after work I painted the ceiling, walls, and the trim. I haven’t re-installed the trim, but it has been washed and repainted as well. What do you think?

The walls turned out to be almost the color of french vanilla ice cream. With the pink walls beneath, though, it gives it kind of a pinkish cast. It doesn’t really show up well in this picture. I did learn a couple things tonight. 1) I get bored very easily with painting. 2) Even though it’s not art class, I still suck at painting. lol I wanted to try to show the contrast between the wall and the floor (again, the trim will be installed later):

Do you like it? Is it too white? Too plain? I haven’t quite made up my mind on it yet. I’m not going to repaint it, though. It’s definitely done. lol