Project House Update: Little Bits of Progress

While we didn't finish any project entirely this weekend, a lot of progress was made!

First of all, in the never-ending fireplace, grout. Grout. Grout is done. I repeat, we grouted.

 

And, after all the tossing and turning I did over the grout color, it's actually an amazing match.

The next step will be laying out the dark slate tile on the vertical surface of the fireplace. When we did the previous bottom strip, we ran into a lot of problems because we tried to take it slowly. However, since the geometry will be much trickier this time, we will probably have to take it slowly, have a detailed plan that we update as we go, and fix our mistakes afterward. I'll go into more detail when we get going on it.

Another project that got a couple steps closer to completion was the hole I made in the bathroom. When we last left it, it looked like this:

 

You know how I originally said that I wanted to do this one on my own? Well, I went to the mall with my mom and my sister and by the time I got home, Dan had already taken it into his hands to work on it. First, he mounted a crossbeam for mounting a toilet paper holder and cut back the drywall to expose the studs. Second, he installed the new piece of drywall. Lastly, he taped and mudded the gaps.

The next step is definitely mine, though. Texturing the patch to make it match the rest of the wall. There probably won't be much progress in the next couple of weeks as my schedule is about to go completely insane, so every little bit counts.

Project House Update: The North Star

Look at this beautiful upgrade that, like everything I do, should have been simple, but ended up remarkably complicated.

In the triangular wall space in our raftered great room, I wanted to hang a mirror. Originally, I found the round one shown below at Target that fit the space well. The only problem? Since it was a flat-faced mirror, all it managed to reflect was the brown brown brown of the wood beams above it.

After months of living with a perfectly lovely round mirror, I found a second, better mirror at Target. I had a coupon so it was clearly meant to be.

Turns out, there was one flaw I didn't anticipate: hanging it. For the space, I really like the orientation shown in the picture above, with the points on the vertical and horizontal axes. However, the hanging bracket only allowed you to hang it so that the pair of tips pointed up.

Since Dan agreed with me, he decided to alter the bracket to hang at the correct angle. And while he was at it, he modified it so that it could pick up the same mounting positions as the old mirror, so we wouldn't need to put any new holes in the wall.

I feel bad, thrusting all these unintentional projects on Dan, but he did do a remarkable job welding the tabs in the proper spots on the bracket.

Although it turns out this mirror too only reflects the ceiling, it's a better fit for the space. It's a little bit Southwestern while being vintage-y at the same time.

You know, why actually work on the big important house projects when you can waste an evening doing math and welding two tabs onto a mirror? One day we'll make some progress on all the bathroom redesigns we're dreaming of.

"Sleep" Photo Challenge

As much as I like the idea of participating in these photo challenges, this month's subject sucks. I guess 'sleep' isn't that bad of a subject when you have a baby who can sleep through anything, but seriously? I tried to take pictures of my cats, but two problems. One, my cats never sleep in cute or convenient places. It's always under the bed or in a balled up old towel. Two, my camera shutter is loud. Incredibly loud. Too loud for any normal creature to sleep through.

So, being pretty uninspired, here's my 'sleep' picture.

It's my stuffed giraffe that I cuddle with in my torn up bed after I wake up. A fairly uneventful subject, but it stayed still long enough for me to play with focus and point of view. It's kind of a cop out, but my only other idea was to take some sort of "My baby caught me sleeping" selfie.

If my camera weren't so heavy, I would have totally gone that route.

And if you'd like to see last month's entry for "Spring", click here.

The Farmer in the Desert

The farmer down the street from me just reopened its vegetable stand last weekend. I repeat, in case the absurdity of this situation has escaped you, my house, in the boonies of the Tucson desert, is just a stone's throw away from a farm.

That's so weird to me.

Anyway, this particular vegetable stand sells seasonal fruits, vegetables, and flowers every Saturday morning until the Fall. And, it has become my summer challenge.

In an attempt to both get dressed before noon on Saturday mornings and cook healthier meals, every week this season, I will go to the stand and buy some sort of produce. 

I have a feeling it will force me to learn how to cook a wider variety of vegetables than just peppers, onions, and potatoes. That being said, last Saturday all I walked away with was onions and potatoes. Although I did use the onion in a new macaroni and cheese recipe and tried a new way to cook potatoes {Sidenote: I burned my thumb in the process so potatoes are now dead to me}.

Tomato season is coming soon so I'm going to make some kick-ass marinara.

Top Ten Running Songs

I've been running more lately and the only thing that makes it bearable is my playlist. However, it isn't full enough, so I am constantly looking for more good songs to round it out. This list is for anyone else also looking for some random songs to add to theirs.  

Take from this what you will, but according to my iTunes, these are the top ten songs I listen to when running.

1. "Fell in Love with a Girl" by the White Stripes
2. "Shark in the Water" by V V Brown
3. "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore
4. "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas
5. "C'Mon" by Ke$ha
6. "Pork and Beans" by Weezer
7. "Kung Fu" by Ash
8. "Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol
9. "Feel Again" by OneRepublic
10. "Seven Nation Army (Remix)" by The Glitch Mob. 

Looking at the list, most of these songs were found from movies or TV or even commercials. And if you haven't seen the video that accompanies "Kung Fu", it is hilarious and awesome and I highly recommend it.

Project House Update: Hole in the Wall

On Friday, my boss let us go early for the long weekend. I had a bit of energy pent up and decided to do something with it. And since my skills are limited when it comes to being productive, I became destructive instead.

Here is a lovely shot of the little toilet room in our master bathroom before.

For some reason, I absolutely abhor that toilet paper caddy. The chrome monstrosity is built-in between the studs and meant to also house magazines. It was stuck in my brain and there was no possible fix-up. It wasn't as simple as a coat of white spray paint.

So, four types of screw drivers and a box cutter later, it was free. Seriously, though, people need to learn not to paint things like this in.

For right now, there is a gaping hole in our bathroom. At least it is enclosed by studs so I can't lose a cat in the wall.

It should be pretty simple to patch it back up. I'll just need to:

1. Cut the drywall back to expose the studs. 
2. Fill the cavity with insulation, which we picked up over the weekend.
3. Cut a new piece of drywall to size.
4. Space it to the proper height and mount it to the studs.
5. Tape and mud it. Texturize the patch so it matches the surrounding drywall.

In case you didn't notice, I said, "I'll". Don't tell Dan, but I want to do this one myself. In the grand scheme of projects in this house, I don't do much, so it would be nice if I could at least clean up the mess I made.

I did create a temporary solution. For now, the toilet paper sits in the the kitchen cart I assembled and wheeled in there.

This is the best way to get stuff done on the house, right? Just rip things out in boredom and force yourself to come up with some sort of solution? What's the worst that could happen?

Project House Update: Mid-Century Modest

Going back through my past posts a few days ago, I realized I never gave an update on where our awesome mid-century modern find at an estate sale ended up.

For a few weeks, it continued to impede our entryway. However, it must have really been bothering Dan because I came home from work one day and it was gone. All on his lonesome, he moved it through the house and lodged it in the den.

{Sidenote: I'd show you much better the room as a whole looks with it in it, but all the junk that was around it was shoved just out of frame for these pics.}

Of course, I came through and styled it up a bit. Add some lanterns and candles I found at Target on clearance, cut down one of Star Wars posters and properly framed it, and rounded it out with my weapon of choice.

There's not much in it right now, just some loose, unimportant papers. I'm sure that over time, it will collect more stuff, mainly as we try to frantically clean before company.

One day, it will probably land in a future kid's room, but for now, I like its home.

Fan of Friday: Week of 5/23/2014

This week, I am LOVING 'Supernatural'!

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The show burst into my life a couple years ago, I think around season seven. I watched the episodes online as they aired and I never felt like I was missing out on the backstory because, for the most part, each episode is basically 'Find the evil thing, kill the evil thing."

However, last summer, since the shows that air are pretty much crap, I ordered season one and decided to start from the beginning. It seemed like something Dan and I could do together. It could be our show. It took us a long time to get through season one, but by fall, we'd made it and I forced him to order us all the remaining DVDs since they were on Black Friday clearance.

Again, progress was slow until about a week ago when Dan told me he isn't as into it as I am and I am free to watch them alone. I have since torn through about 25 episodes alone.

So, right now, I haven't seen Seasons 3 through 6. Apparently all the stuff in the middle where people keep dying and getting sent to Hell and losing souls and yada yada yada. No spoilers, ok? Also, I haven't seen the last couple of episodes of the current season, so again, No Spoilers!

Random tangent: you can totally use 'Supernatural' to bond with preteen girls. At a mentoring lunch with a bunch of middle school girls, the only topic of conversation I could keep going was about 'Supernatural' and it's crazy fandom. One of the girls even told me I reminded her of the character Charlie.

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And you know I have a sweet spot in my heart for Felicia Day, so I was incredibly flattered.

Why didn't we have shows and crazy fandoms like this when I was a preteen girl?

Project House Update: No More Tile to Cut

And now, after a longggg eight months, look at this beauty. It is gorgeous and flawless and I am SOOOOOOO incredibly proud of Dan for pulling this off.

Have you ever seen such a ravishing fireplace hearth? I love every single inch of it.

Dan developed a great system for the crazy cuts by creating a stencil for the tile by making a rubbing of the area to be filled with a piece of printer paper and a crayon. Once he figured that out, he was flying through the cuts.

Don't worry about the back edge being a little rough. It will be covered by the tiles we place on the surface of the fireplace.

We would have made even more progress on it, but you would be amazed how hard it has been to find the right color grout. It took a couple of weekends to find a tile shop that carried a grout that isn't brown based. With the popularity of this color marble, who would have thought there was only one gray grout in existence?

Also, Dan became distracted by finishing the surrounding drywall before grouting. In yet another little fun series of surprises, when we removed the baseboards in the room, we found that there was no drywall under the window. The window that is directly adjacent to the fireplace. It took another weekend detour, but he patched that up, too.

So, we've been scrubbing the tiles in preparation for grouting and investigating the possibility of swapping out the window. It's amazing how easily we can be distracted. Although, the idea having this room completely, 100% finished when we do actually finish is incredibly appealing.

Is it possible for this house to never get finished? I think I'm in my head too much. Let's just go back to looking at the shiny, pretty tiles. Gawd, so pretty...

Project House Update: It's the Little Things

While we have actually been making progress on the never-ending fireplace, I'll write up a full-post on that later in the week. For now, here's a couple of small upgrades we've made recently. {Sidenote: there were originally three upgrades, but one of them went a little sideways and I am currently embarrassed by it and trying to figure out how to make it still work.}

First of all, do you know how obnoxious woodpeckers are at six o'clock in the morning? We didn't until Dan finally got around to adding a chimney cover to the fireplace in our bedroom. Then, every morning, half an hour before my alarm was set to go off, CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG! I gave Dan three days to come up with a solution before I did.

When that deadline came and went, I ordered this guy (Sorry, the picture is a little blurry):

It's solar powered so its head creepily swivels. I should have taken a video of it. It seems to work well, but it is haunting and incredibly unnatural.

Also, after many years of living with a hodge-podge of dishes, we finally upgraded to a real, full set. Our dishes went from this:

To this:

It's just a plain white set of Corelle plates. There wouldn't have been any other style of plate that Dan and I could have agreed on. Also, I'm trying to curb my crazy by buying more neutrals.

And finally, this is kind of an upgrade, I suppose. Dan and I went to see 'Godzilla' this weekend (really good, by the by) and when doing laundry, we realized I have a Godzilla shirt. I bought it at a thrift store years ago and I just sleep in it since it's too big for my. It did, however, look really good on Dan.

I call that an upgrade. Looks much better on him than me.