All Walled Up & Nowhere to Go + New Appliance Adventures

I certainly hope you all have had time to recover from my last entry. Don't we all wish renovating could be prettier? I really enjoyed reading and very much appreciated all the comments and encouragement. Thank you all!

Well, our current project has been walling up the doorway between the dining room and the laundry room. Back when the house was first built in 77, the laundry room was originally a very tiny kitchen that you entered from a doorless entry in the hallway. You had access to the dining area from another doorless entry at the other side of the "kitchen". When the previous owners remodeled and added on to the house, they converted their tiny kitchen into the current laundry room (their washer and dryer was once in the bathroom as we discovered when we gutted it) and beyond the dining area, built a bigger kitchen, a sunroom, the garage and an unfinished bonus suite and bathroom above the garage. They probably almost doubled the size of the house, fortunately for us:)

But there really is no need for us to access the laundry room from the dining area. The only reason would be because the storage shelves in laundry room have served as our pantry area for years. It would be a little awkward to continue walking through the living room to access our "pantry" via the hallway everytime we cooked a meal. But we plan on building or buying a stand alone pantry for the kitchen to resolve that issue.

In my last entry, you saw a sneak peak of some of the work involved in walling up the doorway. Mainly you just saw the mess, lol...I'll post more project pics as we finish up. It hasn't been very hard so far - removing the folding doors and framing, adding studs, putting up drywall...

Here is where we are right now. The wall is ready to be taped and mudded...and guess who is going to do it? Yours truly! A friend of ours who has a lot of experience with drywall was going to help us, but like hubs, he stays really busy and between them, it's been hard to schedule time to get it done. I'm chomping it to bits to finish the wall so that we can paint, add crown moulding, and paint the ceiling. We're so close! Then we can move on to something else for a change.

Hubs isn't so sure that I can mud the joints and make them look seamless with the rest of the wall, but I think I can do it. We'll just have to wait and see:) So I did a little prepwork today. When the house was first built, the contractors didn't cut the old drywall nice and straight for the doorway framing, so when we butted our nice straight new drywall up against it, there was quite a gap between the two pieces near the top. I had to use a special compound that dries really hard to fill in that gap and a couple of other spaces. Tomorrow, I'll give the joints a little sanding and then start taping and mudding. It's going to take two or three thin coats I do believe.

Oh, do you see my paint colors in the photos? The bottom shade is the primer, the middle shade was my original paint choice, and the top shade is what we'll be going with instead. It's kind of hard to see, but it's kind of a warmer limier-but-not-too-limey green. It will go above white beadboard, which I can't wait to install:)

I don't think I've shared photos of our new washer and dryer yet, so here they are! We LOVE them! Everybody loves doing laundry now. I promise you, for the first few days, hubs would rush home from work and do laundry. I was sure to leave him some things to wash because I can't imagine how disappointed he'd be if I hogged all the dirty laundry for myself. Before our new washer and dryer, we dreaded doing laundry. Our old washer was so loud and "active" , plus we had to run the dryer through two cycles or more before the clothes would dry. Sometimes, if we put clothes in the dryer and forgot about them before we had a chance to run the dryer the second time, the clothes would get stinky and we'd have to wash them all over again. What a pain! I'm really looking forward to remodeling the laundry room someday, too. But for right now, I'm mighty pleased with just having a new washer and dryer!

And did you know that Hubs totally surprised me and had a new dishwasher delivered, too? Our old dishwasher needed a replacement part and we've just been handwashing for the last 3 or 4 months. I've hinted at wanting a new dishwasher to match the other appliances, but I knew we really didn't *have* to have one. So this was a very happy surprise to be sure! BUT, we're having a few issues with it already, unfortunately.

When the Home Depot guys installed it (or I should say, the people Home Depot hired to intall it), they didn't push the black plastic trim (where you bolt the dishwasher to the cabinetry) back far enough and on the right side near the top. The result is that the trim sticks out a quarter of an inch beyond the cabinetry. It looks bad! What is more, when they put the screw in, they didn't screw it straight but at an angle near the surface, which caused the wood to buckle and crack. The plastic trim also cracked and is sticking out. They sent someone else out to look at it and he said they needed to replace the trim and that he'd be back the next day to it. Next day, he called hubs in the late afternoon to say he was on his way but he never showed. And he didn't come the next day or the next either. It has now been more than a week since the dishwasher was (badly) installed. Plus no word on what is going to be done about the damaged wood.

We're also not happy with the way the dishwasher looks at the bottom. It just looks so raw and unfinished like something should cover those holes. Our old diswasher had a panel there but we were told this is how our new one is suppose to look. I'm supposing they were designed like this with the idea that a kickplate or something would be installed across the screw holes or maybe this model is for more of a custom built-in area? I don't know. Hubs and I are both perplexed. Oh, and also, the hard plastic backing on the control panel keeps peeling/popping up. It just won't lay flat. I told hubs we should just try and get Home Depot to replace the whole thing. He snapped all these photos you've seen here to take to the management in person - so we'll see how that goes. I feel bad for Hubs because the dishwasher was his special surprise for me and now we're having so many problems with it.

We got the girls' hardwood flooring ordered and now just need the time to go and pick it up...and we've ordered all the pine doors for the house from South Eastern Salvage - YAY!

I hope you all are doing well!

Well, Hello, Mr. Tax Refund... We've Been Expecting You!"

"It's so good to see you again! But tell me, how long are you planning on sticking around? Every year it seems that just as soon as you get here, you disappear just as quickly as you arrive? Why is that?"

Every renovator out there knows the answer to that question. In our household, anyway, our tax refund money is spoken for a whole year in advance. Last year, we bought flooring for the kitchen, living room, and hallway - and pine planks for some of the ceilings. We really wanted to get a new washer and dryer as ours are very, very old and cantankerous. Our washer literally tries to escape from the laundry room every time we use it. Seriously. One morning I'm going to wake up and find it eating breakfast in the kitchen. But...our refund budget didn't allow us to buy a replacement washer and dryer last year. You can bet, though, that it was at the top of our list year!

Though I've been really excited about getting a new washer and dryer, I was less than excited about actually shopping for a set. Because our old set is so...old, anything - anything at all will suit me just fine. As long as it's extra large capacity and front loading and stays put, I really don't care what we buy. Hubs, however, being the great researcher and comparison shopper he is, put a lot of time and energy into finding just the right washer and dryer at just the right price. He really knew better than to try and take me comparison shopping with him. All the numbers, the models, the features just totally overwhelmed me. Like a moth to light, I was only interested and drawn to the shiny and colorful models (figures). I nearly swooned after seeing the Wild Cherry LG washer and dryer. *drool* I just wanted to hug that washer and dryer in all it's red and chrome goodness. But even I knew that paying an extra $300-$400 for a color other than white just wasn't making practical use of our tight budget. I told hubs to just buy whatever he wanted. He ordered a white GE and it will be delivered on Saturday - yee haw! Our old washer is going to a bachelor friend. His current washer has gone through a form of appliance menopause (it no longer has a spin cycle), which means he has to wring out his clothes before putting them into the dryer - ugh!

The rest of our tax money this year will go to buying solid wood interior doors, oil-rubbed bronze knobs, and hardwood flooring for the kids' rooms. I was really hoping we'd have enough to go ahead and get the flooring for our masterbedroom, too, but it may have to wait until next year.

For any of you that live in the South East, it may be worth your time to take a trip to Southeastern Salvage Home Emporium in Chattanooga, Birmingham, Chesapeake, Cincinnati, Mobile, or Shreveport. They have the best products and prices for home building and renovating materials. At Lowes or Home Depot, we were looking at paying between $165 - $200 per solid pine six panel wood door. At South Eastern Salvage, we'll custom order our doors and they'll make them for us out of solid Brazilian Pine - for $98 any size! They come with hinges that match the oil-rubbed bronze finish knobs I want to use. To get that particular finish at Lowes or Home Depot, we would have been charged extra. Their oil-rubbed bronze door knobs are from $4 to $12 each and you just can't beat that! So we're pretty excited about this resource. We bought our porcelian tile for the bathroom there a while back and saved heaps of money.

I promise that the next entry I make will be the one about our "Ugly House Vignettes". You may want to skip it if you're especially sensitive to such disturbing viewing material, lol. It sure ain't gonna be pretty.

By the way, the Carl Larsson painting at the top called "An Evening by the Lamp". I love it because it pictures a small space packed with homey furniture, especially the extra large coffee table filled with newspapers, books, and other things. That's the way our coffee table stays, it seems! The next painting is called "Cottage in the Snow". Just lovely!

Off to work on some craft projects now!

Beautiful Reproduction Tins, Boxes, and Labels on Ebay

For a solid week now, our entire family has been battling the flu. It sure hasn't been pretty. I felt relatively ok yesterday and had my hands full taking care of the family. Oddly enough, I wasn't exhausted come bedtime. So I decided to spend some time perusing Ebay for inspiration and special finds.

One Ebay store that I discovered that I just have to share with you is called
Andy and Me Country Treasures. Oh my! They have so many sweet things that if I could only choose one thing to buy, I couldn't do it. This is the place to go if your looking for those beautiful old-fashioned cans (tins) and boxes. Their items are all new, but are reproductions of those artful pieces of long ago. They also carry items like reproduction vintage metal signs and other country accessories (some are a bit too country for me). There are items for the laundry room and bath like soap, starch, and detergent boxes, kitchen things like food cans, spice tins, cereal boxes, etc., and other items like old-time tonic bottles and medicine tins. Too many to name! Like all Ebay stores, their items are organized into categories so that you can quickly find what you are looking for. These are the kinds of things that I'd love to openly display for that true vintage and old-fashioned look:) Let me know if you find anything there you just love! Oh, and check out these colorful herb nesting boxes! They are small, but they'd sure look sweet displayed in the kitchen somewhere.

I haven't bought anything from Andy and Me (yet!) but I did buy a Classic Vintage Labels CD. There are over 900 different labels that can be printed out and used however I like, so I'm looking forward to having fun with that!



You can find either new blank tins or just take the label off a food can in your pantry and with a little spray adhesive, add a pretty vintage label...How nifty is that?! Also, you can buy some bars of white ivory soap (or make your own by grating and melting unscented ivory and adding your own essential oils) and print out a vintage soap label to wrap around it and display...buy clear bottles, blank paper mache craft boxes, plates - anything, really, and add these beautiful labels for a whole new look. If this sounds fun to you, then just do a search on Ebay for vintage labels cd, victorian cd, food crate labels or vintage labels.


Hmmm...I think I'll go have some soup now:)