Adventures in Remuddling

Last week, we turned the dining room, and our lives, upside down.

Continue reading “Dining Room Renovation” »

After priming, Tig painted the dining room. I helped with the trim during the weekend. I went with the usual Devine Vanilla for the walls and Devine Icing for the trim.

Then, in a stroke of genius, we decided to rewire the circuit prior to hanging the crystal chandelier (after we had already painted).

Continue reading “Dining Room Renovation Cont’d” »

Well, the dining room and butler’s pantry has been cleaned up. Here’s the end result.

There’s my uber-handy husband in the background (the pepto bismol pink kitchen from the previous owners), making dinner.

Continue reading “Dining Room Finished (for now)” »

A few years ago, we inherited a large mirror from our neighbor.  It had a small chip on one side, but the price was right (free).  At the time I was taking a woodworking class at a local community college.  The first assignment was a wooden frame.  While everyone else made small picture frames, I decided to make my first woodworking project (since Jr High Shop class) around this mirror, which measured around 3′ x 2′.   The frame is made from Honduran mahogany and finished in natural Danish oil.

It’s finally found a suitable home.

This is the light fixture we inherited in the front hallway. It has all the qualities I do not like in a light: pull chain, brass, octagonal.

Continue reading “Another Pull Chain Light Down” »

Lighting is not something I know a lot about (neither is home renovating, but as witnessed here, I’m always willing to learn). Before buying our home, I was happy to have compact fluorescent light bulbs everywhere. Not only was it the environmentally friendly thing to do, it definitely kept our energy bill down. But a recently, we’ve made a few exceptions in rooms where ambiance was more important.

Continue reading “Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget” »

I’ve been a fan of AT for the past couple of years. Recently, I picked up Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan’s book Apartment Therapy: the Eight Week Home Cure from the library.

Continue reading “Starting the Cure” »

Over the years, I’ve become interested in natural cleaning products. Care2.com, for example, has a whole section on Healthy Home, with non-toxic cleaning recipes. When the Cure suggested looking into earth-friendly cleaning products, I was interested in integrating this into our lives.

Unfortunately, we have a few challenges on this front.

For one, we inherited a lot of toxic cleaners from the previous owners.

Continue reading “Week One - Cleaners & Boundaries” »

 Assignment - buy fresh flowers for the house.

I set myself a $10 budget per week for 8 weeks, just as a trial.  It is awfully nice to come home to a vase of flowers, especially when the weather has been awful lately.

Assignment: make a complete list of home repairs.

No, this is not the complete list.  There’s another section for the building, common areas as well as landscaping.  I would venture to say that an old house’s repairs/renovations list grows faster than, say, the list of an apartment or condo.