So many updates! So little time!

I have been doing so much work that I have not had time to blog it!

So I will jump right in to the latest non painting project!

To start my kitchen overhaul without a ton of money I chose to refinish the countertops and add a backsplash.

Here is the before look: a great style if you like unsealed wood and orange wood.

As you can see it is a solid wood construction, and the surface is...destroyed. Plus, no one needs that much orange wood... ever. 

My original plan was to keep the backsplash and stain it also. That plan ended when I started trying to actually get it stripped and stained.  

The stripper goo worked well. but the nooks and crannies were pretty much impossible. 

After what felt like hours of sanding and attempting to stain, I basically created a huge mess. It was bad. 

I will add photos of the disaster if I have any.

So since that staining was a disaster the plan changed...

I had to remove the wood backsplash. On the plus side, removing this means I get 3 more inches of counterop depth.

The downside was that the backsplash was WAY TOO WELL CONSTrUCTED!!!!!

First there was 50 year old high quality hardwood. It ain't called hardwood for nuthin!

Then, the backsplash was attached with hidden 4 inch screws that were drilled into a vertical hole into the countertop, then hidden with a dowel.


 

This started a one month long saga.

Trying to drill the dowels out filled the hole with sawdust and then the screw could not be removed. So started the buying of tools. First I tried a multitool thingy, the hardwood just laughed at me, it barely could scratch the surface... Dremel was too small to get deep enough.

So then I got a jigsaw. I figured I would probably need it at some point anyway for something else, so I made the $40 investment. 

After some practice I found that I could jigsaw down on either side of the hole and then pry the wood out. Since the saw dust did not go in the hole, I could use a long screwdriver to start the screw loosening then finish with the power drill. Only one screw got so stripped I had to get all crazy hulk on.. 

Once the back was removed...   we are fast forwarding like 2 moneth at this point...

There is beautiful 1970s wall paper, a couple of mummified cockroaches and a ton of glue residue to be seen... 

Then started the painful process of removing the 12 foot span behind the sink... I will spare you the pictures of my hell...

Sigh.

Today I went to my favorite local hardware store to get shims and a handsaw to use when installing new toilet in the Air Bnb.

I asked where the shims are, no problem, guy shows me the display.

Then I ask for handsaws, he points and starts asking questions about how I will use it, I say I am replacing one I lost and just needed to know where they are. This begins 3-5 minutes of two men explaining to me how saws work and completely ignoring me when I say "I know what I need, thanks!"  They grab things off the shelf and stand between me and the shelf, refusing to leave me alone to shop for myself or look at the selection. One man went into detail about how bigger teeth make a rougher and is faster....   Because apparently me saying I am replacing a saw means I am completely stupid and have no idea how saws work at all.

As the two of them waved things in front of me explaining how they work ($8 handsaws, remember?) I turned away and said I will buy this somewhere else.

I have no doubt that as I walked away they both called me a bitch and proclaimed that they were trying to help. None whatsoever.

And neither would ever, even for a second have talked to any male over the age of 8 like that.

It is like the time last year a man told my I have to turn the screwdriver to make the screw go in.

Hardware stores can be just as bad as car dealerships...

Women and Home Improvement: Size

Genetically women are usually a bit smaller than men, we have a little less muscle mass. Does that make us somehow less able to do most home improvement projects? Nope.

I struggle a bit with bags of concrete and boxes of tile. They are heavy and awkward and I hate them. Does that stop me from building a fence or tiling a room? NOPE!

There are many ways to get around this that do not involve spending a ton of money.

The first trick is learning how to move heavy things without hurting yourself. Many many tools exist to help with this. They have the added benefit of reducing chances of injury. The first investment to make is good handtrucks and dollies and carts. You don't need a lot. I have this baby and it does 90% of what I need.

It works vertically and horizontally and can hold hundreds of pounds. It can move large furniture or appliances or a big pile of concrete bags.

A dolly, which is just the flat 4 wheel cart is also a key tool. You do not need to pick up a whole couch or other large heavy thing to use it, all you have to do is tip it and roll it underneath, Having a pair usually helps greatly. Wheels are amazing in making jobs easier with no need to prove you can lift any great weights.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/a-tip-i-learned-from-a-pro-about-moving-heavy-furniture-176175


The second trick is hiring muscle. Paying a little extra for delivery or hiring a strong young person for a short time to haul things can be completely worth it! Sometimes it is worth the cost to save some time, stress and injury.

I also prefer the 40 pound bags of concrete to the 80, because I can lift them. I have yet to find a task that was too heavy for me as long as I have my stash of helpful wheeled tools.

As I already addressed with the drill in the last post, there is nothing wrong with needing slightly smaller tools to fit your hand.

So don't let anyone treat you like you are too little or weak to do what you need. There is no shame in rolling your tile to the room you need or even opening the box and moving the tile 5 at a time instead of with a whole box.

As a side note, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that TVs are no longer giant 100 pound horrors. Having to get something off a higher surface DID require muscle, and I hated it!

Skipping a few steps

I admit, I have been so busy doing the renovations that I have not been showing them to you. I promise I will go back and visit the different projects!

So I have decided to go ahead and show you the almost end result of phase 1 because in the next couple of days it will be available to rent as an Air BnB!

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/17573041

See images. Tell me what you think!

Women and Home improvement: Education

I HATE using a saw. Hate it. It is almost crippling.

Is this a girl thing? sort of.

It is also a family thing. My paternal grandfather lost most of his fingers on a saw in the 1930s. The danger has been real for us our whole lives. That blade starts spinning and I freak out with pictures of severed fingers flying around in my head.

My mother was not afraid of saws, her family had all their fingers... but she never forced me to learn because I was afraid and refused.

So my fear kept me from learning how to use this important tool. I have gradually forced myself to learn a trim saw and even a chain saw, though my imagination goes wild when I use them.

Where am I going with this? Before I get into the gender issues, some things are just personal taste. I love building wood things, I HATE using a saw. I get around my issues as best I can by making the guys at the hardware store cut my lumber or work with the standard sizes :) It does sometimes cause issues though, projects get delayed or cost more due to my fear.

None of us can do all things all the time, regardless of gender. I also have zero interest in fixing my own car or doing my own taxes. I love cooking and making sparkly jewelry. All people are different!

So let's get back on topic, and that topic is that women are crippled by not being taught to play with and later use tools the same way boys are taught. They start practicing those motor skills, the righty tighty, lefty loosey from toddlerhood. They get the muscle memory started from the very beginning. They played with daddy's wrench, felt it click into the wider setting, pushed it back into the narrow one.  They held their hammer at the end of the handle to get more power out of each hit, and to have confidence when they swung it and hit that nail hard, practicing getting nails in with as few hits as possible, and getting those hits straight. They got to bend nails and strip screws in order to learn. They knew the clickety click of a socket wrench.

Most girls do not seem to have had these experiences. I see a lack of self confidence in how women hold their tools, surprise from women that I do know how. We tap tap holding our hammer at the top of the handle, we are fidgety when trying to drill a screw in, we hesitate at the thought of drilling holes in our $10,000 cabinets even though we really really want those handles installed. Nails and screws end up crooked or stripped. Tools get dropped, fingers smooshed with a hammer. I know because I did these things. I would hand my tools to a man to do a job on the assumption he should know better than me... something that is not always true. We get so scared of failure that we do not try. After all we have decades of being trained to hand all that stuff over to the boys because they like it and we don't! right?

Nope. Most girls don't even know if they would like these things because they have never been able to learn enough skills to see.

In the last decade I have learned that I love painting, tiling, and general building of things out of concrete, bricks or wood.

(I admit that my own life was not so strict along gender lines, I was lucky that way, but it was still there, still encouraged in certain directions by friends and family towards the creative crafty side of things, not the rough, dirty, hardware side) My mom was self taught and she tried to teach me, both of us had big gaps in our skills. I will say we were both good at painting though!)

Outside of the muscle memory, we do not learn the vocabulary. To this day I do not know the names of different wrenches and pliers and have never had the time to make a study of it. I basically make up my own names (flippy sink wrench, giant grabby wrench, little lockey wrench). This makes things difficult when shopping online or trying to be taken seriously at a hardware store. I constantly have to remind myself that when I am stuck on something there is probably a tool that does the thing, I just do not know about it because I have not seen it or held it in my hand (which creates a more meaningful memory). I constantly have to fight the urge to reinvent the wheel and force myself to do research into tools that most men probably already know about.

I am neither a super woman who knows all the things, nor am I a helpless little girl who has to be rescued. We all struggle with being a little bit of both. I will say that I would like to see more women out there in the spotlight not just decorating or making flea market furniture pretty, but digging in and getting dirty like http://www.diynetwork.com/shows/rehab-addict


What is the solution to this?

I have found the internet to be incredible. I can usually find answers without having to risk being called darlin' or sweety by a salesman or sold extra crap I do not actually need. A month ago I spent hours researching dremel bits, this week I learned how to remove and repair/replace my shower valve that was leaking.

Google is your friend. Googling "how to change a drill bit" gives many choices for instructions. There is no shame in googling "how to hammer a nail" You may find some tricks that make simple tasks easier. (Seriously girls, do NOT hold your hammer near the top except for the first hit to hold the nail in place, and even that is debateable. Practice getting a good self confident straight hit with your hand at the end of the handle)

Here is a nice tutorial that is, of course, very manly: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/29/how-to-use-a-hammer/

Or here are some nice tutorials from Bob Vila:

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/978-how-to-use-a-hammer/#.WKy3UzsrLIU

Remember, there are NO stupid questions. None.

We girls need practice. We need lots of hands on messy, nail bending wood splitting, battery wasting practice. Take a scrap piece of wood, some drill bits, an assortment of screws and just try all the things. Get your muscles used to the feel and your hands used to holding things in place while using the drill. predrill holes and see how that differs from using self driving screws. Strip some screws. Try phillips head and star bit and see which you prefer. Next thing you know you can remove your cabinet doors or replace handles with ease and comfort and self confidence. Practice on scrap and it becomes far less intimidating.

Include your children! All children should learn these life skills. Let them see you mess up and learn from mistakes.

But it is okay to make big strong men haul the boxes of tile. Those things really suck/

Worried about making mistakes?

When I fixed my shower valve this week I reminded myself what the worst case was. If it didn't work I would have to call a plumber, which is what I would have done if I didn't fix it myself. Living with the water cut off would be the worst part. Calculate the realistic risks involved. I never had to do that, the repair went well. In fact I don't really know what I did, I took the valve out, squiggled it, replaced it. figured out the handle was replaced upside down... fixed it, and voila. no more drippy shower, no money spent. Know what gave me the confidence? I watched the plumber do this repair a year ago and asked him all the questions, then I watched some you tube videos. It helped that I have an extensive collection of bits for My Precious  (see below)

Real risk:

Note to everyone: There are very real risks. Start slow. Try to anticipate what could fall, puncture, break, spark, flood, etc.

Get pets out of the way. Make sure kids are safe and won't have anything fall on them or stab them. Do not leave nails or screws in driveways or carports.

Trying to do electrical work without studying or being sure the power is off? DON'T DO IT. That is risk of death. Same thing with heights and other genuinely risky things, learn those things from pros and be incredibly over cautious. As demonstrated in my opening story, bad things can happen to good people.

Also as a side note: My house that I am renovating was built by that very grandfather who lost his fingers. His fiance at the time married him and would later be my grandmother. He became an architect and was very successful. Funny how things work isn't it?

Some thoughts on gender

I have noticed some tendencies when I talk about renovating my house that have got me thinking. People seem pretty universally surprised when I tell them I am renovating a house and blogging it when they meet me in person. I am a 42 year old woman, 5 feet 1 inch tall. No one would be shocked that I changed a sink out by myself if I was a man, no one would be impressed. I am proud of learning new skills, but very sad that women are not taught these things from the beginning alongside their brothers. (As a side note, people are shocked when men are good at cooking and baby care, and that is the other side of the same coin)

I admit I am a little unusual, my mother did a lot of home improvement on her own, some good, some not so good. I was trained in art handling, including the moving of large sculptures in my mid 20s. In doing so I broke through some mental, sociological and physical barriers.  My whole life men did the heavy lifting. That is what we know as girls, we hand the jar to our dad or brother to open. We let them mow the lawn and fix the sink. When they fix the car or build a deck our fathers taught our brothers how to use the tools, how to cut the wood. For centuries that is just how it was.  It is not surprising that we have internalized these tendencies, all of us.

So there are issues related to gender I wish to address in my next few blog posts:

Education: Most women are not taught how to use tools, we are not taught the vocabulary to know what to look for.
Size: We do tend to be smaller, less muscular, but 99% of home repair does not require brute strength.
Expectations: Women are treated differently, talked to differently. This is a barrier to learning.
Our own minds: The other factors take away our self confidence in the ability to do the things. We get tired of fighting.  


As I mostly know my own experiences, I will mostly address those. And I want people to know that while there is a great deal of frustration, and some people have really pissed me off, I do not in anyway think all people are sexist or that there is some huge conspiracy. Socialization starts early and is very very powerful. It is in our media, our families, our language and our own minds. These stereotypes and tendencies date back centuries and cross continents. There are always exceptions, there are always heroes and villains to any story. There are women who are master carpenters, men who can barely change a light bulb.  

My wish is to address these things and the roots of it and help people find confidence to learn more, to do more. I would like people to ask questions and frankly be impressed anytime someone learns new skills and accomplishes new things.

However, I am mostly addressing women, because we start from far behind men in learning to fix things, replace things, upgrade things. As a result we spend far more on repairs, get tricked into buying useless crap, get ripped off by contractors or designers. 

What started me on this path? My kitchen faucet exploded. Poof! It started spraying water all over and I had NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. I think I might have been able to shut off the water but was lost after that step, I had no idea what happened and I called a plumber.  $400 later there was a new faucet.

Later I was at Home Depot and saw that the faucet I paid $400 for was a $50 faucet. I lost $350 because I did not know how to do a VERY simple repair. And I ended up replacing that faucet because it was awful and I wanted a nice one (10 years later I still have the nice one by the way, I brought it to my new house with me and installed it myself.)

Anyone who wants to learn some basics can save themselves thousands of dollars.

And if you are like me you hope you can afford to pay people to do the tedious work in the future, but until that winning lottery ticket comes in, I plan to keep learning and saving on these little things. 

Back to the bedroom

After ripping out the stinky shag, painting the walls and trim, removing the old no longer stuck down tile, I decided to also paint the back bedroom floor.

I plan to add real tie at some point, but for now this creates a nice clean color floor that is useable and easy to clean... for all of about $40.

Removal of the old vinyl left a stained messy concrete floor. After much scrubbing...it still looked like this. 

So cleaning, more cleaning, and more cleaning prepared it for paint. 

On the left you can see where the holes left from the carpet installation were filled in with concrete patching. 

And VOILA! The mostly finished result!

Let's Talk Toilets! :

Twice now I have had a toilet do this horrible thing. It works just fine but for whatever reason, likely a manufacturing flaw, the inside loses its enamel and turns brown. Of course this is the worst, your toilet looks embarrassingly poop stained and friends mock you and everyone thinks you are really gross no matter how much you swear you bleached it!

I searched more for some ideas. And thanks to my friend Tom I did better googling and tried something new!

Here is the before: horrific isn't it?

Have no fear! There was hope! 

First thing I did was empty the toilet. Turn off the water, flush it, dry it, let it dry some more, block the little hole at the front that kept dribbling water back in... 

Then I used a spray on all surface primer and let it dry for a day. 

 https://smile.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-272479-Zinsser-Bulls-Primer/dp/B00L20TRW4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1485226460&sr=8-5&keywords=spray+primer

Then I sprayed Appliance Enamel. 

https://smile.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-7881830-Appliance-Enamel-12-Ounce/dp/B0009XB40I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485226378&sr=8-1&keywords=appliance+epoxy

It did not take much, follow the directions, you can use newspaper to keep it in the center.  I was careful not to give too sharp a line around the edges by spraying too much. It does smell!

 Also remember that multiple thin coats are best!

Let it dry between coats and for a day after the last coat (I think I did three total)

Once the water is back in you cannot see the very slight variation of white. Not even a little, and hopefully noone will be putting their face in there examining it closely...

So fast forward to now, it has been about 2 months. Is it great? weellllllllll, I have mixed feelings.  When I clean it there is some flaking. It is a bit upsetting. But, it is still far better than before. I don't think there is a permanent fix, but it is certainly an improvement until I save up new toilet money to get the Kohler dual Flush I bought last time this happened. .

Slightly off topic

This has nothing to do with mid century design, this is just my call out to two AMAZING products I have discovered in my bathroom renovations. They save SO MUCH MONEY!

First is something I got a few months ago in order to get rid of all the junk and make my house more houseguest friendly.

https://smile.amazon.com/Three-Chamber-Shower-Dispenser-White/dp/B000FGCW0K/ref=sr_1_4?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1483890239&sr=1-4&keywords=shampoo+dispenser

The new silicon adhesive for these things is amazing. Just make sure to read and follow all the directions.


Here is the other. This ugly but perfect showerhead! Siroflex is my new love. My new favorite brand.

I wish I was kidding when I say that I have had 3, yes three showerheads get broken in my house this year. I am so incredibly fed up with these big monstrosities with 20 crappy settings and no water pressure in any of them.

This has one perfect pressured spray. No need for all that other crap.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B014YJSJZU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If either of these companies want me to promote their products, I will happily do so anywhere. 

Holiday delays! New Camera!

Don't worry my friends, I have not vanished! There was a delay in pretty much everything due to houseguests and holidays.


When last we left off the bathroom was just about done and the backroom had a gallon of paint on the floor.

Sigh.

The bathroom has had one more change... CAULK. Please my dear friends, always remember to keep you walls caulked. Grout is not caulk and caulk is not grout. Grout is not actually fully waterproof. Caulk all your corners and edges every few years to keep water out of the walls! I could not see a trace of any caulk ever on my shower... not good.

But back to the back room. I did finish painting the endless trim...    It looks great. It took forever, but it got DONE! I enjoyed the entire series of Felicity while doing it... Apparently I missed the last two seasons the first time it aired!

Then came the floors. 

In order to deal with the floor, I had to clear out space in my workshop. In order to clear out space in the workshop I had to tackle a project. Painting and sealing the floor. I had some oops paint in a couple of colors so I mixed them together! 

This was a bare unsealed concrete. Something spilled and it would just soak right in. You can imagine how awesome that is when an angry cat is accidentally trapped in there for about 36 hours. Yes, that happened. I didn't do it! :) 

SO painting concrete is one of my favorite jobs ever. Not the prep, the painting! just pour and roll!

But first... prep. Sweep, mop, sweep, mop. There is no such thing as it being too clean. Use TSP. It is a cheap degreaser that helps the paint grip on. I did not photograph the cleaning. I assume all my readers know how to mop. If not, please ask me what you need to know! i won't judge. No really. We all start somewhere. 

see how much prettier that is? 

Word of Caution:


Pay attention to where you start rolling. Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT put your cell phone on a counter then paint 10 feet of floor starting in that corner.

That little blue speck on top of the toolbox might be my phone. Maybe. 

But look how pretty that floor is!!  

Due to bucket sizes the workshop floor is two slightly different shades of blue...   But this is a workshop, floor being sealed is the priority. And now it is. :D 

Bathroom: The Final Frontier

After poking, looking, thinking and using the sink.

I realized it was about 2-3 inches too tall. 

So I got new legs for it thanks to Amazon Prime for 10 bucks. 

After disconnecting the sink again removing it all, putting on the new legs and reinstalling it is AMAZEBALLS

Other than some delay with spackle...wait for spackle to dry... more spackle...repeat. for like 7 days...   It is done!! Ok, it still needs some double coat in a couple spots. BUT IT IS 99% done! 

So back to the rest of the space... 

Bathroom Part Deux

In blog world this bathroom magically renovated in a single day!

In the real world this took about 2 weeks (I do have a job as well... )

By the shower the wall had some water damage, so I scraped out all the gross old plaster and started the process of gradually filling it back up.

Meanwhile I ripped out the old vanity. And I ripped out the ceramic towel bars, and the toilet paper holder that was right where your knees need to go AND that could not hold a double roll. That was so annoying!

I had a hard time deciding about it, I like that vanity, but the countertop and backsplash had water damage. Once I ripped it out I found out the vanity had a lot of gross mold and damage as well on the back. So replacing it was the best choice.

Here you can see where the bathroom used to have a hanging sink. I had thought about going with pedestal one, but that ugly plumbing was way too ugly. 

I cannot express the feeling of relief that the floor tile went entirely to the walls, sometimes it doesn't... 

Of course, before you do anything TURN OFF THE WATER. Very important. I did do this. I remembered. Nothing exploded.



For months I have been trying also to find a suitable replacement. The space is wide but very shallow and I had a hard time finding anything I liked that was also shallow enough at the big box stores at the low price I wanted. Then, like a lightbulb I remembered to check Ikea. They had this cool sink with a couple of little shelves and a very inexpensive cabinet to fit it. Of course this took hours of wandering the store and picking and choosing to decide. They have a lot of details and choices...   They also had a $25 coupon which essentially got me a free faucet!

I hit a small glitch here. Namely the sink was not fitting under the mirror and was jutting out from the cabinet. 

I thought through a bunch of solutions... then realized the solution was SO EASY. 

What was it?  

See you tomorrow! 

Bathroom!!!

Due to the humidity here I have had to have multiple projects running at the same time. Namely, because things have to dry and it takes forever.

So lets move to the bathroom while the sewing room dries...

Due to my lack of a decent camera (long story, I was supposed to be getting one as a gift months ago... I am still waiting.) I have very few pictures of the before.

Let's just say, it wasn't purely offensive, but not good either.

So, when my grandfather built the house he put in a classic tile mosaic that is still in great shape. It is a sort of pink/orange color with some brown. It is an odd color but I like it.

Over the years when repairs and updates were needed there were numerous attempts to match it.

Listen close to design 101. NEVER TRY TO MATCH IT!  It is almost never possible to do this well. It just doesn't work. So what I have is one bathroom with baby vomit tan tile and another with a pale pink that is just enough off from the floor that it makes me twitchy.

This back bathroom is the baby vomit tan.

To add to this, 5 years ago, another attempt was made to match... by painting the walls in baby diarrhea tan. It is a similar tan, but slightly different.

The cabinet is not so bad except the sink is sinking which is letting water go into the back of the cabinet and the walls by the shower have some water damage... from Dog knows where. 

So I started the funnest part of any renovation, tearing out all the crap. 

Behind the laminate was the old wallpaper. That was the wallpaper I remember being up for my entire life. So bad...yet so familiar and homey to me. 

Behind the wallpaper we have the layers of the 1940s and 1950s  and some fun water damage! 

I love this. Apparently there has always been some sort of shelf over the toilet... and Pop Pop got lazy when painting..

See you next time for the changes!

Trim horrible trim...

So the thing about wood trim is that you want it to have solid cover, but you can't just roll it with the big roller.

You can do a lot with the foam rollers to get a nice coating on the flat parts, but it all still has to be painted all over, including against the wall. This room has SO MUCH TRIM!!! So I gave in, used a roll of blue tape. 

Despite using a paint with primer in it the trim needs a good four coats to get a really good cover. This has taken a week so far. Granted I took a couple days off in there to do the bathroom... but still. 

Also, after trying to get the closet doors off to paint them with a paint sprayer, I decided that for now I will just leave them off entirely. In order to get them down I had to remove the track, the old school rollers just would not come out no matter how much I googled and tried. 

Which means I also have to paint the interiors of the closets at some point... 

Sigh. So much to paint in such a small room!!! 

The highlight of this week was accidentally knocking over an entire gallon of primer. 

Yeah, I did that! 

This, my friends, is why you ALWAYS do the floors LAST!!! Thanks dog I have old sticky tile that I am not keeping...   

Once I scooped up as much of the paint as I could I used the floor like a paint pan and painted another coat on everything. 

Since the can was bent I had to find new storage for it. The green paint in the rest of the room was almost gone so I made my usual Mason jar of touch up paint and put the primer in the green can. Since it is just primer that little bit of tint won't matter much in the future and I refuse to waste paint! 

What was next?   Wood Paneling!!

As is typical in many mid century homes, my house has an assortment of wood paneled walls. I am starting with the back of the house, the cheapest of paneling, the smallest of rooms.

Called the Sewing Room, it was an addition made for my grandmother. It also served as a guest room. As a kid it was my favorite because it was the quietest, darkest and also the warmest. Mee Maw blasted the AC. I always froze in this house. In that room I only needed like 3 blankets to sleep comfortably. Back there I could read in peace, pretend to be asleep when feeling introverted, and generally get some peace in a house full of people. I have great memories of that room.

However, I also like some color and find the wood overwhelming and outdated.

So here is the paneling, complete with wood trim, wood doors...  But it does have a fantastic light fixture, a white sphere that photographs poorly when lit.

I got super lucky and found a gallon of tinted primer in a nice green shade. I am horrible at making color decisions, so I like letting the magical cans of oops paint save me money and narrow my options. 

It took 2 coats of paint and luckily I seem to have enough, hopefully with a little left to have a mason jar of touch up paint for future spots. 

The hardest part was getting all down in the nooks and crannies of the paneling. The fluffy roller was fine in big areas where I could have it filled well and press hard. For the top and bottom I had to literally go into the cracks with a little flat craft brush. 

There was so much trim that this room is taking a lot longer than most. I totally brain farted and forgot to prime it.... so it is taking many coats. Lesson learned. Primer purchased. Time wasted... 

But here we go! Here are some images of the process as it comes together. 

A note about the door. Yes, I painted the glass. I HATE blue tape. It serves some purposes, don't get me wrong, but I am cheap as hell and I hate how paint bleeds under it (I know the trick to that, but it doesn't work on glass so well)

Did I mention now cheap I am? That tape is $5 a roll!! F that! 

Back to the glass. I love glass, it is the easiest! 5 minutes with a razor blade and that paint is gone with a sharp line, looking perfect. Voila! 

I haven't done it yet, still have to finish the trim... but first, I will move to the bathroom for a few days. 

Cast of characters.

Before I get into the room I started this renovation with I will introduce you to the cast of characters that will likely be in most images.

1. Monkey

Monkey is a rescued Pomeranian Chihuahua mix who has the curiosity of a cat and the brains of...well... a dog.

He pees on things, pouts, like to be underfoot and chases the cats.

2. Draco

Draco is a big dumb deaf cat. He is super pretty, seems to travel with his own backlighting, and likes to break things because they make pretty pictures on the floor.

3. Kesha Koshkovna

Named long before the singer hit the charts! Her name means Kitty, Daughter of Cat.
She is a 15 year old teeny 4 pound grumpy smelly old lady.

4. Fluffernutter.

She has big round eyes and is scared of everything. Rescued the same time as Draco, but infinitely more intelligent.

Okay, back to the real stuff.


These four characters made the shag carpet STINK!!!!!    Seriously, Monkey and Kesha in particular are EVIL. So evil.

So glad that stench is GONE.

Underneath all the horror is a very well laid floor of....

asbestos tile!

Luckily as a Realtor I am already well educated in asbestos. Namely, it will not hurt you unless you mess with it. That is the key. Leave it alone! Luckily it is stable, strong and well attached and can have other floor simply put right on top of it.

Eventually I want to tile over it. For now, I simply do not have the time and money, so I am using some vinyl tile I already have stashed in the back and will put some nice rugs down.

Or I may go ahead and invest in the cement board and ceramic tile as originally planned..

Have I mentioned I am a Libra who is ADD and has a hard time with decisions?

Let's Get This Party Started!!

Hi and welcome!

So here is a little background to my new adventure.

In the late 1940's my grandfather, Henry Walton, bought a double lot in the suburbs of Orlando.  Those suburbs are now in the heart of Colonialtown, 4 blocks from Mills 50, and in an amazing in town neighborhood. On this lot on an empty street he started building his new home. He was an architect, so he knew what he was doing :) .

Over the years the house grew as his business grew, rooms were added, porches became more rooms, walls of shrubbery were carefully cultivated...  And wood paneling was installed...everywhere.

So, 3 decades after he died, and 5 years after my grandmother died the house was on the brink of leaving the family. I decided to turn my world upside down and leap into the unknown and buy the house (with my brother and Dad as my partners in non-crime) and bring it into the present.

Now, the journey begins as I dig into 70 years of family history, wallpaper, wood paneling, carpet funk, and a few surprises I want to document the adventure and help others envision the possibilities with the own mid-century time capsules.

My hope is that I can modernize, clean, repair and update this space while still retaining the mid-century modern charm. I wish to cling to the quality craftsmanship, but shed the damaged, broken and outdated decor that increases energy bills, allergies, and water damage.

And so it begins:

REMOVE THE SHAG CARPET!!!

50 year old carpet has no charm. What it has is extreme funky smell, allergens and fills the room with despair and sadness.

So without delay, what did I do first you ask? I can't find my before pictures, but here it is with an old lady cat.

I had been DREADING this process. The smell I expected, but more than anything I thought I would have to do tedious cutting to get it in small enough pieces to get in my trash can. Luckily old carpet apparently turned to disgusting dirt powder. The backing just ripped like paper! It was glorious!!  It took about an hour to pull it up and get it outside, along with the powdery plastic padding underneath. I scraped and swept that up and found....  another floor!

And for my next entry I will examine the wonders I found underneath it...