Never has so much been made of something so little

Okay so nobody stopped me.

As often happens in renovations and or restorations one thing leads to another. After FINALLY finishing the floor in my hallway I realized that the baseboards (in fact all of the trim), the walls, the doors and the ceiling needed sprucing up.

This is a modest 1925 bungalow with a tiny hallway and the dang thing has seven (as in 7) doorways. That's a lot of trim to repair from all of the twin accoutrements over the years (not to mention the twins themselves).

I have always been a fan of older homes. There is no love lost between me and the new suburban home. However, carrying a child in each arm tends to make a new (and insane) mother wish for wide open spaces. Doorways became my enemy. I had to dip one baby through and then the other. (Prior to that there was the problem of the nine month pregnant with twins body - but that's another story.)

Consequently strollers, cozy coups, baby walkers - all have violated my formerly pristine white trim. There were divots in the paint for goddsakes.

I resigned myself to stripping the baseboards and repairing the rest. Given that there is 85 years worth of paint on that trim one would proceed with caution. I started scraping the baseboards but that decorative baseboard cap was taking a gouging at my hands. So I pulled it all off.

That is some seriously thick paint. It looks like a Krispy Kreme on steroids!

Or maybe a petit four.

I adjusted one corner of the baseboards where the floor dips a good 1-1/2" in a 30" span. I considered having the trim dip stripped - then thought about the toxins - then I thought about stripping myself with chemicals - then thought about the toxins and the lead - then thought about replacing it and then thought about the trees and the trash.

Then I decided to stop thinking - it is too hard for me to figure out and too small of a room to get so het up about.

So the baseboards are painted, the divots are repaired and all of the trim is painted.

What's next? Skim coating the plaster walls that look like H-E-double toothpicks.

Where did I get this chutzpah - this insane drive?

(These kahoonas?)

Why can't it be used for the common good instead of just saving old houses? (My old house, to wit.)

It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it.

Somebody stop me!

I cannot believe that this soon after finishing this I decided to

tackle that pesky hallway floor.

Gapetto and I moved into this cute little house almost 12 years ago.

Just prior to moving in I had some ceiling dry walled (over the old

plaster - a move I have come to regret - but that is for another blog)

and the floors refinished. Because I like making things incredibly

complex I had the floor guys leave the hallway floor bare as in no

finish as in buck-nekkid. You see I do custom floor designs,

admittedly pretty much exclusively for me, and I had some amazing

ideas for that floor.

Well weeks turned to months and months turned to years and guess

what?I never did do that effing floor. Thank goodness my mother-out-

law had replaced the thin sheet of plastic with some sensible (ugly)

but durable outdoor carpet of the brown variety to protect all that

nekkidness.

In the meantime Ihad done a pretty funky floor in my kitchen just a

few steps away.

Pretty much negating any of the ideas I'd had for the hall.

So.

My kids did not return to school UNTIL TODAY. Luckily

Grammy and Poppy took them up to the lake for a few

VERY cold days so I decided to finally tackle that dern floor.

I decided on a simple inlaid mahogany look. Done with

stains - not mahogany. (Remember? Champagne taste -

beer budget?) It turned out amazing. In fact The Husband

Understudy stopped by and thought I had laid the whole

floor with a mix of woods! Woot! Woot!

Now I have to strip the dang baseboards sand and paint

and replace the toe mold and then the walls will need

patching and the ceiling should really be painted and

then there's the den wall and the ceiling that has some a water damage

and I wanted to build that window seat with the book shelves all around

it and........................................................................

The Big Reveal

Because I LOVE beautiful houses and have somewhat limited resources for said houses I have learned to renovate.

Yes, I even painted my dorm room - I was one of those.

I have ripped out kitchens, tiled floors and counters and tub decks, landscaped, finished floors - you name it. This project may have gotten the best of me. It took months and months and it grew and grew.

But here is the finished bathroom - looks just like the day it was finished back in 1925.

And the dining room...

As often happens in renovations one thing led to another and now I find I need to pull all of the painted toe molding and scrape and repaint all of the baseboards and replace the toe moulding with the finished oak variety - it makes my rooms look brand new.

Luckily, like childbirth - the results tend to outweigh and blur the pain.

Oy, my aching back.

A Rose by any other name...

The Bunny Rabbit came home last week with a very red and

swollen cheek - it looked exactly like he had been slapped - HARD.

I asked him what happened.

'Nothing'.

I felt his cheek. It was hot - feverishly hot.

I felt his forehead.

Cool as a cucumber.

He had been developing a rash on the rest of his yummy body

which did not itch. Now this boy is as white as they come.

A rash on his Irish complexion looks like Scarlet Fever.

Armed with this information I began searching the web.

Lemme see 'rash on face and body'

Nope.

'no itch rash'

um, wait!

'rash like slapped cheek on boy'

Eureka!

The Fifth Disease otherwise known as Slapped-Cheek Disease.

Are you kidding me?

These doctors/scientists are (hopefully) some of our most brilliant minds.

They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for their education.

We entrust our very lives with them and, most importantly, our children's lives.

And all they can effing come up with is Fifth Disease?

or

Slapped Cheek Disease?

What is up with that?

Once upon a time I was in Savannah GA for a wedding and was eating some animal Crackers from the gift basket in my room. My very sore tooth simply crumbled apart.

I was waiting for the white hot lightning strike to my nerve and lo and behold my tooth felt better. Which was a relief as I had a wedding to attend in a city that was not my own on a Saturday. Unless there was a dentist in attendance I would have been S. O. L.

When I returned home I went in to see my dentist and was told I had Cracked Tooth Syndrome.

That's right.

Cracked Tooth Syndrome.

Oh. Come. On. People!

Does years of schooling just kill the creative side of the brain?

Are their jobs so demanding that they don't have any imagination left?

Can they even make up a bedtime story for their little munchins?

Or lie about why all of the cookies are gone?

Now I know that I am a designer so I may have set my expectations a little high but just check out how the other half lives. [The other half being all of the Right Brain people such as myself.]

We may not be able to make a diagnosis but we can come up with some fairly spectacular names if given half a chance [and perhaps several margaritas].

Let us consider paint color names - the pinnacle of creativity in naming [and perhaps alcoholism].

Let's see there is:

Not Enough Chocolate Syrup Mom - who doesn't know exactly what that is? And yet it is totally creative.

Atomic Vomit Green - a Nickelodeon inspired green - who doesn't want to tell the neighbors THAT name?

Then there is Ralph Lauren's Brazilian Ruby which apparently is referring to a certain sensitive skin area color after a certain procedure is performed.

So I wonder... Ralph - are you running hardwoods?

My very favorites are the totally ambiguous ones that could be any freaking color:

Grandma's Refrigerator - guess that would depend on your or her age, or if they are talking about the insides or the outsides. This happens to be yellow.

Inheritance - which is NOT the color of money.

Japanese Maze, Fragrant Cloud [I imagine some foul green colored cartoon cloud coming right out of someone's arse], Precocious, Forever Young, Simply Irresistible, Urban Legend, Leap of Faith [who would use this color?], Temptation, Marry Me, and Beautiful In My Eyes [clearly hideous in anyone elses].

Kind of tells a life story doesn't it?

There is even a paint game test because, really, I ask you - who knows what color the Martian Sky is unless you've been there?

Or your margarita pitcher is empty.

Omigosh July is gone

and I haven't blogged much at all.

If you're wondering what I've been doing - I have been nesting.

It's not what you think - those days are long gone - I just get a

hankering to nest every now and again and apparently July

was the month to begin.

I have been on a refreshing/repairing/repainting initiative

around the house. What a mess 11 years of double strollers,

double bikes, double trouble can do to a home.

So, first the 1925 guest bathroom - all of the fixtures are

original and very odd sizes - basically this room is about

2 feet too narrow. What's a gal to do?

Resurface! I had the tub and cool old sink resurfaced

(it is not in place yet in this photo). I spent DAYS patching,

sanding, patching, sanding, patching, sanding the old plaster

walls to get them flat. And then papered them with some cool

reproduction William Morris-esque wallpaper I found on eBay.

Dang if that room doesn't look like the day after the room

was finished in 1925 - I LOVE it! We built a frame around the

inset mirror and I painted the ceiling I had previously papered

a lovely plum color. New light and Bam! Bob's your uncle!

(or at least my bathroom looks pretty cool...)

Now I am on a roll (wallpaper that is) I loved the results

sooo much I decided to do the same to the dining room.

When we first attacked that dining room 10 years ago I

was so sick of the project when we finished I didn't think

I could eat in there much less work on it again. We put

up all that wood work. Yup - all of it. I went around that

room so many times I was dizzy!

Again with the patching, sanding, patching, sanding, patching,

sanding the old plaster walls to get them flat.

'Honey, eventually you just have to stop.'

That Gapetto - sometimes he is a veritable sage.

It is not finished yet but I put the paper up and it looks divine!

It is the same pattern as the bathroom but different palette.

I let you know if I ever finish.

In the meantime, the cleaning lady is on hold and the house is

in an insane state of disarray.

Sounds like life to me!