Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged bathroom, Do One Thing, liquid soap, postaday2011, redecorating, soap dispenser, Target on March 5, 2011| 3 Comments »
The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.
Day 63: I feel weird that purchasing a soap dispenser at Target makes me so happy, but I’m also sort of glad that something so simple and inexpensive can make my day. It’s complicated.
Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged barking dog, bathroom, Do One Thing, garage, garage organization, glass pebbles, husband, postaday2011, recipes, redecorating, remodeling, vase, wall hanging on March 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.
Day 62: I think we all saw this coming. I decided that, indeed, I hated the vase/glass pebble look I put together recently. The brown pebbles seemed to be the biggest part of the problem, so I ditched them (hopefully, some lucky shopper at the New Leash on Life Market Place has more love for brown than I do) and replaced most of them with some clear pebbles that were hanging out in the garage. It’s still not one of My Favorite Things, but it’s definitely making me happier.
Previously:
Day 56: Planned to move a small shelving unit to a more effective place in the garage. Got hit in the head with an errant surfboard. Yes, a surfboard.
Day 57: Got the husband to help me pick a spot for the wall hanging, since he’s the one who brought it home as part of a package deal when he bought a Volkswagen bus. We didn’t get to hang it, however, since the neighbor’s dog barked from literally 7 a.m. until we fled the house at around 2 to seek peace and quiet in the movie theater.
Day 58: Hung the toilet paper roller AND the towel holder in the downstairs bathroom. Epic.
Day 59: Tossed a pile of recipes that I had cut out from newspapers and magazines. It seems like all people who like to cook have one of these piles of recipes that they go through a couple of times a year, yet never manage to pull anything out and actually make it. Not anymore. They’re in the recycling guy’s hands now.
Day 60: Swept out the garage, or at least the parts I could get to with a broom.
Day 61: Nada. I did schoolwork and worried about my mom and her sick dog.
Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged art, bathroom, Canvas on Demand, cats, Christmas, Do One Thing, Groupon, husband, paperwork, piano bench, plumbing, postaday2011, remodeling, storage on February 24, 2011| 1 Comment »
The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.
Day 51: Still recovering, but I did manage to help the husband a little as he hooked up the drain pipe in the downstairs bathroom.
Day 52: The problem with hidden, built-in storage is that you store stuff in it and then forget all about it. Sometime before Christmas, I had stashed some paperwork in the piano bench while doing a quick pre-guest pickup in the living room. I remembered the paperwork only last week, when I went crazy trying to find a form that, oddly, I hadn’t seen since before Christmas. Today, I got most of the stash out of the bench and filed it away upstairs.
Day 53: I have a unique wall hanging that I’ll write more about later, but today I did an epic amount of research on the best way to hang it, since right now it’s just a folded piece of fabric in the closet. I’ve come to a final decision, and it doesn’t involve going back to the seamstress that made me feel bad for not knowing what kind of seam allowance I wanted.
Day 54: Admittedly, I spent what little organizational time I had today coloring paper balloon cutouts for a failed cat photo shoot.
Day 55: I finally redeemed a Groupon I purchased in December for a 16-by-20-inch gallery wrap from Canvas on Demand. I had narrowed my choices down to two photographs when I discovered that the site offered personalized customer service interaction that helped me choose the winner. Now I’ve got two weeks to decide where to hang it.
Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged bathroom, challenge, Do One Thing, door hinges, home repair, New Year's resolution, postaday2011, resolutions on February 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.
Day 32: I fixed a bathroom door that was sticking by tightening and loosening hinges in a procedure that can only be described as haphazard.
And effective.
Posted in Do One Thing, Home, Uncategorized, tagged bathroom, bathroom accessories, bifold closet doors, challenge, cleaning closets, decluttering, Do One Thing, faucet, New Year's resolution, photo scanning, photograph, postaday2011, redecorate, remodeling, resolutions, Rubbermaid boxes, Scancafe, shredding, sorting photographs, thrift store, toilet paper holder, towel ring on January 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.
Day 18: Put a blazer into the thrift store box. It’s a well-made wool blazer, but its cut is simply out of style and I don’t know when it’ll come back in style. I’m no fashionista, but in addition to being outdated, it’s also a little big for me.
Day 19: Manhandled my office bifold closet door to obtain the big Rubbermaid box filled with more photographs that I need to send to ScanCafe. Spent another 10 minutes trying to figure out how to repair the bifold closet doors so they both actually open and close. I hate those closet doors.
Day 20: Shredded documents like an Enron accountant, only with less desperation.
Day 21: Really started to dig into the photo box retrieved on Day 19. Remembered why every time I start to sort through this box, I quickly put the top back on and put it back in the closet. It contains everything from old photographs of family members I don’t remember to vacation photos from the late 1990s.
Day 22: I actually made headway on the box of photos, sorting out duplicates and choosing the best copies to send off for scanning.
Day 23: Finally bought the faucet, toilet paper holder and towel ring to go in the remodeled downstairs bathroom. This is why people buy new houses.
Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged bathroom, challenge, contractors, countertop, decluttering, Do One Thing, faucets, granite, home, home improvement, New Year's resolution, postaday2011, remodeling, resolutions, shelves, vanity on January 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.
Day 4 saw the decluttering of one small shelf. Baby steps, people.
Part of Day 5 was spent waiting on the contractors to install a granite countertop in the downstairs bathroom, and the rest of it was spent obsessing about said installation and trying to pick out a faucet. Home improvement: It counts.
Posted in Home, Photographs, tagged bathroom, decorating, home, Huntsville, mirror, pastels, remodeling, renovation, stripes, wallpaper on June 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I found this today behind the giant bathroom mirror I’m replacing. Who wallpapers an entire half bathroom with pastel-striped wallpaper? I don’t care if it WAS the ’80s. The room has a VERY high ceiling and that is a LOT OF STRIPES.
And the renovator who hung a mirror over it instead of taking it down with the rest? Let’s never meet in a dark alley.
Posted in Home, Photographs, tagged awkward, bathroom, beige, color, decor, decorating, design, dilemma, glass tile, home, homebuyers, house, paint, photograph, plumbing, redecorating, renovation, renovations, shower, tiles on October 21, 2009| 5 Comments »
I’ve toured a couple dozen brand new bathrooms over the past couple of weeks. The Huntsville/Madison County Builders Association’s Parade of Homes gives renovating rubberneckers carte blanche to take a look at the latest and greatest in home design and decor, without that awkward “We’re not really looking to buy a house” moment that invariably occurs during the average Sunday open house.
I currently have a deconstructed master bathroom awaiting further action, so I need inspiration. If only beige inspired me, I’d be in business.
The color: Every Bathroom in Town Beige. Nice tiles, and excellent installation, but so incredibly beige.
There seems to be an “offend no one” movement in the home decor business, with beige being the No. 1 non-offending element. I’ve never purchased a brand new house, so I’ve never had the opportunity to turn up my nose at walls that are just the wrong hue of olive, or kitchen cabinets that are too shiny. With any house over, say, 10 years old, you’re pretty sure you’re going to be redecorating anyway.
Which brings me to the tile dilemma.
I like color. Lots and lots of color. Tile is reasonably permanent – it’s not like paint, which can and should be changed on a whim. So I stand the chance of picking out something that will offend the delicate sensibilities of some beige-loving potential buyer down the road.
But in the end, how much of my decor should be dictated by some imaginary future buyer, especially when I have no idea how long I’ll be living in this house? Do I have to live with beige because it’ll make it easy to sell the house in three years? Five? Ten?
I’m looking at glass tiles now. They shimmer in the light, and the color spectrum is endless. I found two bathrooms on the tour that featured some fantastic examples of glass tile use.
Still working the beige tiles, but a glass-tile design in the middle really gives it some flair.
These blue circular tiles are more vibrant than they appear in this photograph.
There are plumbing and window-installation problems to be solved before I have to worry about the final tile decision, so I have plenty of time to stew over it. It’s going to be one heck of a shower when it’s all done, whatever the final color scheme turns out to be.
Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Home, Photographs, tagged bathroom, bathtub, budget, cats, decorating, design, HGTV, home, leaks, photograph, plumbing, remodeling, renovation, tiles, zombies on October 12, 2009| 1 Comment »
It’s just not proper homeownership without holes in the floor and exposed plumbing.
Like zombies, renovation projects take on a life of their own.
Window leak + crappy bathtub = tear out the tub to fix leak. We were going to replace it anyway.
Ah, but the floor tiles should go down first to line up properly with the base of the new supershower. And if we’re picking out tile for the floor AND the shower, shouldn’t we be thinking about what the new countertop is going to be made of? And if we’re getting new countertops, we’ll have to have the cabinets refinished.
What? We’re not sure we have cabinet refinishing in the budget anymore?
HGTV, you magnificent bastard. We’re going to have a proper chat one day.
Entirely Adequate 