Fixing Up the House - Fun Stuff

This has been the greatest vacation in a long time. Not only am I not working or going to school, but I get to do my favorite thing every day: fix stuff. If I had nothing else to do, I would spend my time with my tools fixing things up (car, house, yard, whatever) and that's exactly what I've been able to do every day for the last month. If I had a nickel for every trip we've made to Home Depot, I'd be rich. Good thing HD is about 3 minutes away.

^ First little part to test color v Whole wall

The whole wall, with the velvet texturing, done. Remind me to never texture a huge wall again when it requires you to do the second coat with a 3" brush!

So, here are some things that have kept me/us busy. First, I finally finished the big wall in the main room. We also got the entertainment center. Too bad one of the glass doors was cracked (being shipped now), so it is missing. Also, we haven't decorated, so it looks pretty bare, we know.

Front door, notice the "body work."

Front door, after body work, just needs the locks.

Next, all of the doors that go outside in the house were totally thrashed. I guess when the window panes were put in 14 years ago they were probably white plastic, but they had faded to a miserable yellow and the weatherstrip (sealant) had gooped out, collected dirt, and was looking nasty on all of them. Most people with money would have just bought new doors, but I decided that I could revive some of my long-lost auto body working skills and restore the doors. Seemed easy enough, just replace Bondo with wood putty, and instead of spraying $400/gallon paint, just roll on $40/gallon paint. I must say I'm pretty happy with the results.

A back door with awesome locks and WHITE panes. No more cruddy, goopy dirt in every crevice and no more 14-years worth of dirty hand marks.

We found some really cheap but good-looking (that's becoming kind of a theme with this house...) antiqued-brass door knobs and deadbolts that look nice and actually work, unlike the old ones.

Restoring these doors was not small feat, mind you. The back ones have an integrated window that we took completely apart and spent an entire day (each!) scraping, pressure-washing, and GooGone-ing. I wish we had taken "before" pics, but you can watch the original video of the house and keep an eye out for the hideousity of the old doors. Believe us, they were bad.

Here's the videos of the "before" when we first saw this house. Look closely and you'll see the yellow window panes, dirty doors, atrocious southwestern fixtures, and lack of color on the walls.

Front entry chandelier. This brand and style we found at Home Depot was our favorite style, and just happened to be the least expensive of all! So we used this brand for all of the fixtures in every room.

Our big fan in our main room. It cost more than some of the other fans, but it fit our style, is quiet, and moves air really well. Kinda the center-piece of the house when you walk in.

Mini chandelier in the eating nook. Same brand as all the other stuff, antique iron finish and antique ivory glass.

And, a fiver in the office.

Here's the old stuff. Ehhh, sorry, I just vomited a little in my mouth.

So, I think I'm ready to begin my foray into landscaping as I attack the South 40. The back yard is horrifically done-up in a prison-style all-cement motif. We have no idea what the previous owners were thinking by taking the effort to bring in dirt and erect a 3 foot raised platform occupying roughly 30% of the back yard and nullifying any shot at having grass in a reasonable location.

You'll also see Bri's wonderfully thriving tomato plants up there. One of them we actually brought in a plastic cup with us in the moving truck. It was almost dying then just last week decided that it wanted to get huge.

We'll post some video when everything is coming along a little further. Also, I just realized that when I actually start doing ortho surgeries I'm still going to be doing my favorite vacation thing: fixing stuff with tools. I love it!