Yard Sale SCORE

Stopped by the library this afternoon, and this vanity caught my eye when we passed by a yard sale on the way out. We ended up getting it, along with a matching four drawer bureau. (Not pictured, as it's in the garage awaiting stripping and re-finishing. The vanity will have the same future, but I had immediate need for it inside.)

Underneath that horrible paint, they're nice, solid cherry pieces from the mid-20th century.

Bradbury & Bradbury | Art Deco Wallpaper | Volute Wallpaper in Platinum

Bradbury & Bradbury | Art Deco Wallpaper | Volute Wallpaper in Platinum

Loving this one, too.

Bradbury & Bradbury | Atomic Age | Googieland

Bradbury & Bradbury | Atomic Age | Googieland

This is almost exactly the sort of wallpaper I've been trying to find for the pink bathroom.

Halfway Bedroomish

You probably don't remember the last time I wrote about the master bedroom. It looked like this before we moved in:



. . . D:


Now it looks like this:







It even has . . .



. . . a FLOOR.

Hey, Emory!



Yes?

What's that you're lying on?

This? This is my favorite wrestling rug!

No, not that. That strange, shiny, floor-like material underneath the rug.





Gee, I don't know. I've never seen a 'floor' before . . .



. . . and it's not nearly as interesting as my rug.


Ah, well. Emory might not be excited, but I am! The Dread House kitchen - one of the dreadest rooms of all - has a floor, albeit a temporary one.

M is very fiscally responsible and likes to do things on a cash-only basis as much as possible, so the permanent hardwood floors (along with a new heating system that has to be put in at the same time) are still on some distant horizon. And I just couldn't take it anymore: that dark, stained concrete that mocked all attempts to clean it, that rough, snaggy surface that assaulted the eyes as much as it assaulted bare feet, and worst of all, that mysterious black stain that extended four feet across the kitchen floor. So I decided I had to do something that would make it livable for me, a very visual person, until that someday comes. The answer: those oft-decried peel and stick tiles. Yes, I've replaced the black stain on the floor with a black stain on my soul. But the kitchen, at least, is now a bright, pleasant place to be.


(Apologies if the contrast/brightness is off in the pictures. My laptop died and the desktop monitor has serious display issues.)

New Address!

Note: I've changed the URL for the blog. The new and improved address is http://thedreadhouse.blogspot.com/. Makes more sense, doesn't it? 

I hate this house. 

Well, we haven't posted in a while but not for lack of incidents. Mostly it's because my day job has taken all my time and energy so the only things going on have been the things going wrong.

We've had plumbing that wouldn't drain - even after running the auger through it, and feeding it digestive microbes for a week; the oven went into overdrive, wherein the only way to stop it on it's quest to reach the surface temperature of the sun was cutting the power at the breaker.

I'm in the process of working out what to plant this year, after last year's experiments. The ollas worked well for the small areas they covered, so I'll probably be getting many more of those as I convert the patches of grass to garden.

It's been very cold this winter, so thankfully we got the first phase of the attic insulation in before the cold arrived. We still have about two thirds of the attic to cover, but while the cotton insulation is so much easier to work with than the fiberglass, it's also more expensive, so that's going to have to be done in stages.

Here we have the original insulation, as it extends under the attic "floor" (the boards around the trapdoor), I think it is as old as the house...

... that's actually one of the deeper areas. We're supposed to have R38 in this area - I'm not sure what thin, dirty fiberglass-and-mouse-dropping, insulation counts as, but that's not it.

The insulation arrives...

... there were nine of these blocks, each containing eight pieces. The trapdoor was big enough to carry two up at a time. It took a while to get them all up into the attic. There's some irony in the recycled denim, ecofriendly insulation coming in non-recyclable plastic wraps.

Several hours of lifting later, we have a pile in the attic.



Installing the new insulation wasn't bad. Removing the dirty old stuff first was a lot less fun. Almost to the point where I was seriously considering paying someone else to do it.



Those three little strips were two hours of hot, unpleasant work, in a face mask and long sleeves to keep the fiberglass dust out. Next time I do it while it's grey and cold out - the attic gets warm even in late autumn if there's any sun.

Linen Closet Makeover

A small but satisfying project.

The linen closet, like the rest of the closets in the house, was wallpapered with an ancient used-to-be-taupe patterned paper. Why anyone would wallpaper closets is beyond me, but there they were. The bedroom closets were stripped via hours of work with spray bottles of vinegar and scrapers.

Not so the hallway closet. The thought of spending hours in a narrow 2x2 space, inhaling vinegar and spiders was too torturous. Thus, fully aware of my crime against proper home-improvement technique, I painted over the wallpaper.

Before:

After:

The color is 'May Apple', and the shelves (not present in photos) are presently being given a new coat of white.