Tuesday, February 2, 2010

This Isn't Your Ordinary Decorator Blog

You won't be seeing cute pictures of my home anytime soon -well except for the nursery. Post to come soon on that one.

I live in chaos, but I've been inspired through the numerous decorating blogs out there I have become addicted to reading late at night when I have spare time. I've decided creating a blog of my own will be satisfying as I document my journey towards a beautiful home. I am convinced if I can do it, anyone can. Maybe it'll inspire a few readers along the way if anyone happens to stop by and read a post. I'm convinced that I'm never going to be wealthy and I certainly won't have any long lost relatives leaving me a fortune in their will. Therefore, I've been on a mission. A mission to figure out exactly what to do with this house I live in to make it a welcoming home. I've scoured blogs and decorator books for ideas. I've nearly driven my husband nuts with questions.

I think I'm finally ready to begin the process. But first, I'll have to let you know what exactly is wrong with this house. This is just the short list.

Before I begin my list, I notice that in all these blogs the female authors usually gives their husbands a cute little name like Mr. Marvelous or Mr. Wonderful. I love him dearly, but my name for him will have to be Mr. Buzzkill. He's pretty pestimistic as far as any plans go to use creativity and ingenuity to get a room looking great on a very skinny budget. I hope to change his mind as progress unfolds. I'll keep you posted on that one. LOL.

These pictures are just the tip of the iceburg, folks.



We recently tore down a wall in our tiny kitchen when I told Mr. Buzzkill I could no longer stand the lack of counterspace. There was a cabinet on that wall too. I kind of wish I hadn't had him tear it down just yet. I better not tell him that though. Our plan is to either purchase some RTA cabinets, IKEA cabinets, or we are heavily considering refacing these cabinet boxes we already have and adding in new stock cabinets as needed. Then, we'll paint them all white. Oh yes, we will definitely be ordering new doors from somewhere.



You'll see here I talked my husband into buying this old armoire which I love. My idea was to use it as a pantry. Nope, that was a bad idea. It's noisy to open so I can't open it when the baby is napping. Also even though I added shelving, it's just very hard to find the food for which I am searching while cooking meals. It's deep and dark in this cabinet. We are considering tearing down the closet in the bathroom and using this to hold towels and toiletries or we may use it as a larger dresser- the one we have now barely has enough storage.



I begged my husband to let me pull up the old nasty Berber carpet he had put in before I knew him. He did that because the previous owner let her dog pee all over the place. Apparently urine stains are NOT easy to get out or disguise. I tried some of the darkest stains possible. Then I experimented with lots of other paint as well. It's an embarrassment. My husband wants to buy engineered hardwoods, but I'm fighting to stay on a budget and I think we should paint all the orignal hardwoods in the house white or light creme. We could easily touch it up until our daughter is older and we no longer have a Great Dane visiting upstairs from time to time. I don't want new engineered hardwoods getting dinged. I might just sneak out and paint this while he's at work and I'm supposed to be contracting here at home.



Our house is a wreck from moving furniture back and forth when we pulled up the carpet. We currently have laminate countertops. We are hoping to make our own concrete ones during the big renovation. Mr. Buzzkill is for trying that at least. You can see I have this corner where the fridge is that keeps me from being able to use many of the cabinets back under the microwave. I have to reach back there and identify things by feel only. My wrist is killing me by the time we are done. I do have some plans for this corner though. Big ones to come in more posts on the kitchen project.



Here is where my dear husband attempted to square up the door because the screen wasn't closing properly. Well, now the door doesn't close, but the screen does. Agghhhhh!

OK, enough for now. I am getting sort of down just looking at all this. I also have to pick up my daughter, Ella, from daycare. She is so happy with the indoor swing I installed in the explosed ceiling joist that we had after tearing down the drywall around it. At least one great thing came from that premature demo of the wall. I can push her in her swing while I'm cooking and cleaning in the kitchen.