This is probably what we’ll end up doing in the room. Somewhat boring tile floors that are readily available at the hardware store here in town, with grey or black grout (we learned our lesson with bright white grout in the upstairs bath, that no matter how clean it is, it shows EVERY FLAW and EVERY SPECK OF EVERYTHING, cripes), shallow pedestal and toilet, corner shower stall, and white walls. We’re going simple on the lighting fixture, and there will be a little nook alongside the shower where I want to hang bare pine board shelving for towels and toilet paper. We’ll also need a hook for the hand towel (I love this octopus one), and I’d like to go with a wooden bathmat to carry over the shelving theme. Cute, but a little boring.

If I had my choice, I’d go with a nice punch of color on the floor, like these vivid Mexican cement tiles in a bold graphical pattern. Sigh. Kevin will veto, I’m sure of it.

Also, I’d like to do a large, interestingly-framed mirror that’ll run the length of the space behind the sink and toilet, so I’d better start junk shopping for one. Brand new will be outrageous.

In the meantime, here you go:

And all of it has sat around gathering dust since then, 10 days ago. Ten days of laziness! Okay, so the ten days weren’t totally lazy. We had a scooter get-together last weekend, Kevin’s been working hard getting a friend’s Vespa on the road, and I had a very important concert to attend (Simon Joyner, John Vanderslice, and The Mountain Goats were all outstanding). Also, yesterday there was the death of a beloved pet of mine who still lived at my parents’ house, which led to another night of lying around doing nothing. I think that one is excused.

Other than that, however, we’ve got one big excuse for everything: we’re BROKE as a JOKE. Seriously, after paying 6 months’ worth of property taxes and paying down our debt, we have no money left over. What does that mean? It’s time to put some sweat equity in our little abode. Since the weather is going to be halfway nice, I’m enforcing the following to-do list:

• Pick exterior paint colors (main color and trim)
• Price replacement of storm windows and doors, which are now on clearance
• Tear out plants around the outside of the house that we don’t want to keep (there are many)
• Clean up yard debris like leaves, pine needles, etc
• Take measurements of back patio and price wood for building pergola

I may add a few items to this list, like sewing up a window curtain for the bathroom or prepping the wall for paint, but for now, since Easter is on Sunday and we don’t get Monday off, I’m trying not to be overly ambitious. We’ll see. I promise to update with pictures over the weekend!

Not those kinds of plans, you dirty birds! Improvement plans. Painting plans. Decorating plans. Well, the painting might wait until the weekend, so that the room has time to air out before we try to sleep in it again, but the paint will be purchased, at least.

To buy
Valspar’s Filtered Shade
Valspar’s Bleached Slate
(2) Poster frames in unfinished wood
(3) Pleated or cellular shades in white, 31″ wide
White curtains (or bed sheets)
Curtain hardware
This kit, possibly, for an interesting pop of color

I should probably also buy some paint and curtain hardware for the bathroom while I’m out. That room needs to get finished up, and if we’ve got all of the supplies on hand, we won’t have any excuses not to do it. Right? RIGHT?

Edit: The colors in those links don’t appear to go very well together, but they look a lot better in the palette from Valspar’s site below. I’ve added in the approximate color in my bedspread, along with the flat black of the bed frame to see the contrast, and I really love it. Let’s hope it looks good!

Fabric	Wall color

Why is it that they’re always out of the fabrics I like the best? Boo, hiss. We’ll have to stop by Home Ec Workshop to see if they’ve got any cute fabrics before I go crazy and order a bunch online.

We spent too much time last night, browsing at Bed Bath & Beyond and discussing what kind of look we want for the room. Originally, I had it in my mind that I’d like the walls above the tile to be some sort of misty grey or blue-grey, to give a serene counterbalance to the stark white of the tiles, floor, and fixtures. This, of course, sort of requires that the shower curtain either incorporates one of these colors, or at least complements them. By the end of the night, I felt a little desperate, and while we were at Sears returning some Christmas gifts, we impulse-purchased a black and clear checkered curtain that I’m not very keen on. Kevin pushed for it, and we bought some soft grey hand towels and a bath rug to go with them, but when he hung the curtain later last night, he agreed with me that it wasn’t right.

The room definitely needs color. For a day I was really into this one from Target, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s not quite right for the room. Plus, Kevin didn’t like it. Surprise, surprise.

I’m thinking that I might just need to find some good fabric and make a cute curtain myself. That might be the best option.

As far as window curtains go, I’m not terribly keen on cafe curtains, and was instead considering doing a single panel statically affixed to the top edge of the window, with a hook on one side so that it could be pulled to the side to let light in when the room isn’t in use. I was overruled on that, so maybe some Emma Jeffs window film? I rather like her Clover design, which might also appeal to Kevin’s Irish heritage obsession.

I’m definitely going to have regular updates from now on, now that we’re in the new house and internet is hooked up, but for now, let’s do a photo dump. Enjoy!

The toilet was made on Kevin's birthday

Testing out a prospective overhead light for the bathroom

Coming together

Installing the toilet

Testing out the new sink

Since the craft room is the least "necessary" room, it's the first casualty to the moving hurricane

Oh, bright white paint, how I love thee.

With all of the pictures, you’re welcome to click on them and see the complete set on my Flickr. Right now, it looks like a hurricane hit the house, so I’ll be updating as we get things organized and figured out.

Sunday, Kevin worked his ass off for another 12 hours, this time mostly by himself, to get the rest of the wall tiles up and the hex tiles laid on the floor. He didn’t finish the last of it until about 3am, and since the Mastick needs 24 hours to cure before grouting, we’re going to have to put off that part of the process until tomorrow. I’m secretly glad, because Kevin needs the break. My poor dear barely slept last night after we got home, although I did treat him to a backrub before bed. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do something productive tonight but still let him take it easy. I’ve got some angst to share, but first, pictures:

While Kevin and Mark worked tiling over the weekend, I sort of haphazardly flitted from bedroom to bedroom, trying to get painting done and not really accomplishing much of anything. I did manage to get everything but the corners and trim painted in the master bedroom, I got the first coat of paint on the trim in the guest bedroom, and I painted the trim in my craft room (Valspar actually changed the name of the paint I picked out in the previous post to “Swiss Coffee”, so it ended up matching the Behr paint name exactly! Weird.). That might sound like a lot, but it’s really not, and I feel really bad about it.

I have two reasons for not getting much accomplished: 1) I had a blinding headache for several hours on Sunday, making it almost impossible to look upwards or bend over or do just about anything, and this could be attributed to any number of factors, including breathing in too many paint fumes (It’s too cold to open windows, so our ventilation sucks right now); and 2) I really fucking hate painting. I love picking out paint colors, but when it comes down to it, painting is a series of crappy little monotonous detail jobs that I hate. I have no idea how to overcome this to get the job done. At around 9pm on Sunday, Kevin’s brother Kris came over and got to work spackling, painting, and helping Kevin lay the floor tiles. Meanwhile, I gave up on painting and completely scrubbed out our new fridge and cleaned up the kitchen and living room, which I found really enjoyable. The kitchen looks like crap, but at least it’s clean!

On the docket for the rest of this week: grout bathroom, install bathroom fixtures, paint living room, paint hallway, paint stairwell, finish painting master bedroom, finish painting craft room, finish painting guest bedroom, paint bathroom, MOVE. After that, we’ve got the rest of the month to clean the old rental house and get ourselves situated. Oh, and fit Christmas and NYE in there, as well. Busy times.

Any advice on just getting over the paint roadblock? Or should I leave that to the boys and figure out other things to accomplish?

I think we’re both getting a little punch-drunk about all the work that we’ve already done, as well as all of the stuff that we still need to do. We cleaned an ocean of garbage and ruined non-garbage out of the house, gutted the basement and upstairs bathroom, made countless trips to the dump, and helped his dad move out of the house, and now that we’re officially at least halfway to the move-in line, we’re starting to poop out a little. Our deadline for having things livable enough to move in is January 1st, which is only 13 days away. Less than a full two weeks. That’s kinda scary.

Kevin has almost finished prepping the bathroom for tile, which was probably the hardest part of the job. Between punching holes in concrete board and sanding everything flat, it’s almost ready to go, and tiling will take place for most of the day on Saturday, with grouting to be done on Sunday. Here are some progress photos:

Last night, while the ice storm raged, we both worked on painting the guest bedroom, a room I unfortunately forgot to take “before” pictures of. It looked a little like a cave, with dark brown shaggy carpet, dark blue walls, and oddly pink windows. We’re going bright white for now as a fresh start, and it’ll probably be rethought near the end of our renovations (sorry, guests!). Here’s what it looked like after two coats of “high hide white” paint last night:

Tonight will be all about finishing the prep on the bathroom, slapping another coat of white on the bedroom if it’s cured enough, cleaning out our new fridge, and washing and prepping the living room to be painted. Maybe with a trip to Lowe’s thrown in there for good measure.

On Friday, AmeriClean came in and cleaned both our HVAC ducts and our carpets. Because of the nature of our HVAC system, we actually had a greater than normal number of ducts to be cleaned. We also had our living room, hallway, and three bedrooms with all closets cleaned. The jobs were done by two different workers, and both actually used the word “gross” to describe their respective jobs to do at our house. Yikes. The company was able to cut us a 10% deal on cleaning our carpets since the house was vacant (usually the fee includes the worker moving your furniture around to clean the carpets), so the total for both jobs that day was $497. That kinda seems like a lot, but the difference it has made in the smell and air quality is pretty profound, so we figure it was well worth the cost. Eventually, we’ll be tearing up all of the carpeting, and we’ll probably continue to get the ducts cleaned once every few years.

Some of the concreteboard hung for the tub surround

The craft room

This is what this room used to look like. Progress!

New 50s lamp on a tension rod from Artifacts

Table lamps from Artifacts

On the docket for tonight after work will be finishing hanging the concreteboard in the tub surround, starting to tile, and continuing to prime the walls for painting.