New Year's Resolutions: Halfway Point

Well, half of 2008 is gone (yikes!), and I'm wondering if I'll ever accomplish any goals I set for myself. Here are my house resolutions:

1. Finish office, master bedroom, and little front bedroom.
2. Find and install a "new" front door
3. Finish the stairway

Here is what I've accomplished:

1. Last pieces of paneling removed from office, little front bedroom (nursery!) done except for floor refinishing.
2. New front door found! Carpenter AWOL.
3. I've vacuumed the stairway several times and removed 1 nail. No progress.
4. New laminate floor in the kitchen after ripping out the unsanitary carpet.
5. Gotten rid of 90% of unnecessary junk in the house. I'm pretty proud of this one :)
6. Begun restoration of 1941 Chambers stove. I've thoroughly cleaned everything and replaced the service cabinet door and floor, plus gotten the parts for natural gas conversion. I'm waiting for hubby to remove 5 stripped screws from the chrome top. Once that's done, we can send it to be rechromed, and then we're ready for reassembly!
7. Edged the flowerbed with brick pavers.
8. Agonized over how little I accomplish.

On the personal goals:

1. Create a vegetable garden and grow carrots, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and maybe broccoli.
2. Learn to can my own veggies, sauces, and meats.
3. Increase our food storage to a 3 month supply.
4. Take at least 6 backpacking/camping trips (to keep my sanity)

And my progress:

1. Veggie garden created and planted. Everything but peas eaten by moles and rabbits...
2. No canning.
3. Begun adding to our food storage, but I'd still say that we only have maybe a month's worth. It doesn't help that food is so freakin' expensive right now.
4. No camping due to bad weather on my days off. I'm supposed to go this weekend, but of course, thunderstorms are predicted. I did take one hiking trip in February, but I stayed in a hotel overnight and not my tent.
5. Gained 5 lbs. *sob*

So that's my year so far. I guess it's not too bad, but I always feel that I don't accomplish enough. At least the living room is finished, though, so I can look at it and know what I'm capable of. That room is my refuge and my inspiration. Just sitting in it makes me feel happy. Someday, I hope I'll feel that way in every room of this house.

Please kick me in the a$$!

A couple of weeks ago we found the perfect door/window headers at the local ReStore. They match our originals perfectly, and they are in great shape. They need to be stripped (doesn't everything??), but for $7 each, who cares? I'm going to save myself the hassle and take them with the next batch of stuff to go to the wonderful wood stripper. I'm planning on taking all the upstairs doors (3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 closet), some baseboards and cap, and the window trim. If I'm lucky, it'll come in under $200, but it's much better than doing it myself at this point. I'm so sick of stripping paint I could scream. Thankfully, this should be the only trip for the upstairs, and then we just have the dining room to go. Holy crap, the end of wood refinishing is in sight!!

Since we got rid of most of the junk clogging the office last week, I'm starting to gear up to finish the wallpaper removal and make the final push to finishing the upstairs. Once I get off my dead ass (okay, so not completely... I've been busy outside working on the yard and garden, since the weather's been nice), the wallpaper should be gone in a matter of hours. There isn't much left, just a sort of ring around the top of the room where I couldn't reach without a ladder or chair. Then we'll expand the original closet door to double its width to make the closet accessible, which might cost $75 in materials. Skimcoating the walls and filling in the hall closet door opening with drywall will be hired out to a friend and cost maybe $200. The only other costs will be new paint and the floor sander rental. Maybe I could rent a cheerleader while i'm at it, since staying motivated seems to be my biggest challenge.

Getting over myself

At the beginning of July I started attending the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, which is basically boot camp for cops. This involved a switch to day shift, a 4-on, 3-off schedule, and travelling to and from Indianapolis each week. Needless to say, this has been a big source of stress and a big adjustment. Not that I'd been making much progress on the house anyways...

In the few weeks that I've been at the academy, I've learned quite a bit about motivation and dedication. I've been pushed beyond the physical limits of what I thought I could do. And even though this is just the beginning, I also have a new confidence in myself and a realization that I can push through the times when I don't want to keep going any longer.

I'm really going to try to apply this to the house. It's to the point where the living room upsets me, since I know it should be done by now and I just can't seem to find the initiative to get moving again. I'm pissed at the house, pissed at my lack of motivation, and pissed that I've let it go this long without really trying. I've never really accomplished anything difficult in my life until now. Looking back, it doesn't seem like I really had to try every hard to accomplish whatever I wanted to do. I don't mean that to sound arrogant, but I've been blessed with having everything I've ever really wanted. That's not to say I haven't had to work for it, or work towards it, but there haven't been any major setbacks or huge obstacles to overcome.

But right now the only obstacle in my way is me. And, like I have at the academy, I need to get over myself and get to where I want to be. I can make all the excuses I want, but none of them mean a damned thing. I'm the only thing keeping me from finishing my projects. Not time, not the weather, not work. Me.

It stops now.

Color Conundrum

One of the reasons that the living room has been progressing so slowly is because we haven't been able to decide what to do as far as a rug and a sofa. We've looked at LOTS of both, and nothing ever felt quite right. We both like the copper red/hubbard squash gold combination, but I just don't think we can live with it. It's an odd feeling, especially since we were both so enthusiastic about the color choices to begin with. But our brave choice has been dragging us down. We're just not comfortable with it.

I realized it last week after a discussion with one of my coworkers. I was looking through a magazine, and I commented that I should have painted the livng room green. Two days later, I had a mini-meltdown on the phone with my mom, and I realized Shayne and I needed to have a talk about where we wanted to go with the living room. Since then, I've looked at numerous pictures of red rooms and realized that none of them feel homey to me. Many of them are very nice and well-decorated, but it's just not us. I looked through pictures on OldHouses.com (the archives are like old house porn), and saved pictures of rooms that I liked and that felt comfortable to me, without regard to color. Without exception, every room that I picked had light walls with either a cream-colored or leather sofa. The majority of them had gold or tan walls, with one being green. Red is used as an accent, but not the predominant color. Here are the photos I came up with (All but one of the photos have links to their respective owners):

The bottom 2 photos are by far my favorites. The second-to-last photo just feels like home to me. The warm, creamy tan walls set off the woodwork beautifully, and the floors are about the same color as those in the Prairie Box. The last photo has walls that look like the "hubbard squash" paint we used for the area above the picture rail and the upstairs hallway. It's lighter and brighter, but still feels very warm and inviting to me. Both colors would allow the woorwork and any wood furnishings to stand out. With the red walls, they just blend in.

Acting on the advice of people wiser than us (thanks Mom!), we are going to pick out a rug that we like, without regard to whether it will go with our current color scheme. Since it will be the focal point of the room, it's important that we like it. The wall color will be chosen to compliment the rug, our wood furniture, and the wood trim. And hopefully, by doing things in the right order this time, we'll have a room we can live in.

Step One: Remove Head From Sphincter

As much as I don't like to admit it, I think I've been somewhat depressed lately. I can come up with all of the excuses that I want, but the point is that all I've been doing is moping around for the past few months wishing that the house was perfect and didn't need any work. There's been some sporadic activity (I got the basement storage area cleaned and organized, we attacked and reformed a few flower beds in the yard, I reorganized the kitchen, etc), but I've really lost track of where I'm going. This morning, I looked at the living room and thought, "I really like this room. It gets great light all day, year-round, and the floors are beautiful. Why am I not working on finishing it?" And I coulnd't come up with a better answer than laziness and an odd lack of motivation. Maybe I thought if I ignored it long enough, it would finish itself...?


So, I'm finally pulling my head out of my ass. Remember this picture?

That's where I need to be.

Friday morning, Shayne and I are going to go to Lowe's to find a stain for the living room woodwork. The amber shellac looked WAY too orange, and even the garnet isn't the color I want. I'm still going to use shellac, but as a finish coat over the stain. I'm trying to match it to the inside of the closet door in the front bedroom, but if I can get close, I'll be happy.

I need to have the living room done by Christmas. I promised myself I could decorate this year. All I need to do is stain/shellac the trim and put it back up. Not a big project. Not a difficult project. Not even a time consuming one.

I think I need a cheerleader. Or maybe a Marine drill instructor...

On account of the heat wave, my mom and I decided to skip the camping trip this weekend. Carting around a backpack full of gear in 90+ degree weather really just doesn't sound like that much fun. Since I've been home for the past 2 days, I've accomplished almost one thing: one living room window is halfway stripped. Citristrip and Soy-Gel work wonders on multiple layers of lead-based paint, but they don't do jack on 2 layers of latex paint on unvarnished wood. Hmpf. I scraped the top layer of paint off with a plastic scraper, then used steel wool and water to rub off the second layer. This might not sound too bad, but it took over 45 minutes to almost finish 1 window. The citristrip just causes the paint to smear, exactly like on the stairway where the shellac was worn off. Not cool. I can't use any harsher chemicals on the windoes, since they are the modern-ish double-paned type. If the seal is broken, which I'm afraid would happen with a "real" paint stripping chemical, then the window clouds up and looks ugly.

Tomorrow I'm going to take the baseboards and door frames out to the garage and start sanding. I'm tired of not making any progress, and I'm getting anxious to move on from the living room. I promised Shayne that I'd only tear up one room at a time, which stinks. Right now, I'd be more than happy to be stripping wallpaper or tearing up carpet. In fact, I could probably get away with ripping up carpet, since we only have 1 room upstairs that still has it... Hmm...

I wonder where the steamer is...?

The Master Plan Version 2.0

After weighing the pros and cons of different approaches, we've decided to complete our work on the downstairs before tackling the upstairs. As much as we desperately wanted to re-do the bathroom, the HVAC problem is really too important to ignore for another 3 years. Granted, we can live without air conditioning; our house was bult without it, and people survived for millenia before central heating and cooling. But since we have it, we might as well have it working properly.

So here's an outline of the new, improved Master Plan. Once the living room is complete (refinish woodowrk and floors, should be done in about 1 month), we will move on to the dining room. This room should be mostly cosmetic. We'll tear down the paneling and ceiling tiles, remove the laminate floor, and skimcoat the walls and ceiling. The woodwork in this room is minimal. We have 1 pair of windows, 2 doorways with original trim, and maybe 35 feet of baseboard. The woorwork will all be stripped and refinished. The current large doorway between the kitchen and dining room will either be completely walled over or shrunk to a normal-sized doorway. I already have unfinished replacement woodwork for that. Inside the newly-rebuilt wall will be a duct to heat and cool the upstairs office. We're tentatively planning for board-and-batten paneling 4' or 4.5' high around the entire room. The pine cabinet we bought a few months ago will be built into the corner. A new light fixture and outlet covers should finish things off.

The kitchen is next. The wallpaper, ceiling tiles, and cupboards all have to go, as do the 2 layers of carpet and "sub" floor. Hopefully the pine under all those layers will be serviceable. We'll also be removing the soffits, which should be interesting. The walls and ceiling will be repaired and skimcoated, and the original cupboards will be restored and brought back in. A couple of new units might have to be fabricated, but the should be easy to match since the originals are just plywood housing with solid pine doors. We'll either build or purchase a new countertop, depending on the material we deicde on. I'd like to rearrange the refrigerator and stove, but I can't seem to find a good layout. The chimney sits right where I wish the stove was, so that's an unsolvable problem. I'd also like an antique stove, but there doesn't seem to be room for one. Regardless, "new" appliances are in the future. The dining room and kitchen floors will be refinished at the same time, which will complete work on the downstairs.

Ideally, I'd like to be done 2 years from now. You can all laugh at me in 5 years when we're still plugging away... :)