This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

So this actually happened a few months ago. But it's so fucking ridiculous that I have to share. 

The Monkey was in the bathroom for a VERY LONG TIME. 

And this is the reason. I have no idea how on Earth she pulled down the blinds. Kids do weird shit all the time. Really, they do!

Because these blinds suck I went ahead and called a company to give me a quote for cordless blinds because I don't want my children hanging themselves on blinds. It happens. It's a real thing with kids - parents are literally on suicide watch for every moment that their child is awake until the children can make common sense decisions for themselves. I don't actually know when the worry ends, I don't think it does. 

Back to cordless blinds. 

$200 per window. AND THAT WAS WITH A DISCOUNT. 

I just about SHAT MYSELF when I got the quote.

Bimmer Man said no. I still waver back and forth between calling other places too but I'm pretty sure the company that I called is the cheapest in the Twin Cities.

Maybe I'll just wait for them to crash down on Bimmer when he's on the pot. Because those windows on the neighbor's house...those are their living room windows. 

Baby's Room Update

It's coming along. We've got more "things" and furniture - Bimmer Man did an awesome job putting together the changing table and dresser (both are from Ikea).

But still... no artwork. Yesterday I was at Home Goods and found a cutout with a bird and bright paper but it just didn't fit. I don't know what to do. You can see in the corner by the window a poster - it's a Moulin Rouge print that I think will go on that wall. Le sigh. Having no artwork is sad, isn't it?

Here's the awesome dresser with the old curtains. I've got one curtain made and another ready to go (I think I'm going to make a tutorial on curtain-making. It's really easy: Pin, hem, fold the edges, keep sewing and then hang).

Bimmer Man also switched out the old ugly light fixture in here for this one with clouds on it. It's from Ikea.

So... everything is coming along slowly but surely. My baby shower which my awesome friends (Kathy and Andrea) are throwing is next weekend and I'm really excited to see everyone!

The Neverending Basement

 Here's the debris left from some demo. Bimmer Man still isn't quite complete with demo (however, if he waits about 12 weeks, I'll be able to help). The carpet still needs to be pulled up and the dry bar (shown in another picture below) needs to be pulled out.

 Along the far wall there used to be 3 useless closets. Two had hanging bars and the one had only one shelf. In a basement you need more shelves and less hanging bars. We need a bit more specialized storage as well (now I'm going to have to think of toys, crap, never thought I'd be saying that for awhile). BUT on this wall we're going to mount a flat screen television. Ideally, I'd love to have the components on the opposite wall (so mounted in the shop on the other side of the wall) so no cords are showing with a wireless feature for it and then hidden speakers. I'm not sure if that will work, but we'll have to talk about it. If we don't do the components on the opposite wall, then we'll have to do a wall cabinet of sorts. Hello, Ikea. Also, the door will be closed off. No need for two doors going into the shop (plus that means that I can get storage shelving for the shop so everything won't be piled on the floor. YES!).

 Here's the dry bar. The reason it's being ripped out: It's useless. There's no electrical outlet back there for a mini-fridge, there's no water hook-ups to even think about putting in a small sink. It's basically storage that's hidden in the corner that doesn't work for us. So the paneling will be coming down, the bar will be ripped out and in its place will become a closet (complete with a door). In the closet, I'll put shelves for toys, crap, etc... It will be much needed.

 Now, back to the laundry room for a bit. We have some repairs to do. When the new washing machine came, it didn't fit in the door - why? Because the furnace is partially blocking the door which is now hidden by the curtain. There needs to be some sort of door to the laundry room. I'd love a pocket door so that you don't have to worry about an open door at the bottom of the stairs and you can block out sound for the future movie watching nights of the washing machine/dryer/furnace/water softener/etc... We'll see how expensive the pocket door is, otherwise it may just end up being folding doors. Have to look into the cost.

 Now, here's another problem. It's the laundry chute!!! I LOVE THE LAUNDRY CHUTE. Not only will it be nice when our child(ren?) get older, but I have a feeling that Bimmer Man doesn't like it. I think I may need to convince him otherwise. How do I go about doing that? Not only will we NOT need laundry baskets in the bedrooms on the first floor (which are small to begin with) but it will be so much easier for this child and future children to keep their rooms clean. And to get laundry to the basement without breaking my back or hauling clothes through the house to throw down the basement stairs.

Phew. Basement update over with. Any questions?

Baby Room Update

 Yes, we're having a girl and yes, we're painting the room blue. At this point (day of the posting), we've finished painting and we've got more furniture together but I still wanted to share some in-progress photos.

 Let me just say this: I HATE PAINTING WINDOWS. I accidentally forgot to keep one open so Bimmer Man had to use an exacto knife to cut it loose. Oops. The windows are new enough that you just push in the sides and they flip into the house to clean - but I'm not strong enough to do that so I had to play the "window shuffle" and keep flip flopping them up and down to paint. Whatever... I did it. I still need to do some touch-ups and get the semi-gloss onto the windows but that can be done this Spring/Summer. It's getting too cold to keep the windows open.

 Bimmer Man picked out the paint color - it's Innocence by Benjamin Moore (but I got it color matched at Home Depot - they do the best job!).

And here's the AWESOME rug. Yup, you get just a peek!

Now onto picking out artwork and new curtains - I'm leaning towards a chevron pattern for the curtains - maybe in the red/rust color in the rug. I keep having to push "neutral" out of my mind - it's a girl and I just keep thinking "Holy crap, what if she comes out a he? WE'VE ALREADY GOT PINK CLOTHES!!!"

Happy Thursday!

Updated Entryway

Before:

After:

Added Bonus:

Instead of painting the inside of the door white, I was too lazy. And my sander was at my mother-in-law's house to help her with her kitchen. So I organized instead. There's now room for my boots at the bottom AND there's extra space for more shoes. SCORE!

Finally! Master Bedroom Update

 Ignore the dog crate. That's where it stays when we have foster dogs. And where Rusty sleeps so you know... I can't exactly get rid of that yet! Plus it's nice to see pictures of how people really live anyway. So enjoy the mess!

 The opposite side of the room. To the left would be a dresser and a television... Um, not really design worthy.

And a tall shot. You can see that the ceiling slants.

Now for the problem - we've got black out curtains right now but I think what I want to do is get a double curtain rod, hang the black out curtains and then do something fun for the room. OR I could get brown blinds with fun curtains. I have no idea what sort of fabric I would want though.

Paint is Benjamin Moore Ashley Grey.
Striped duvet is from Amazon for $32.

Closet Inspiration

Check out this link to Maillardville Manor and their newly organized closet.

So there was this light bulb that went off in my head and I've decided that I am an idiot.

I always thought that closet interiors should match the color of the room that it is in. And now... I can break out of the box.

SWEET!

But I think I'll just take paint from the extra paint down in the basement and go from there.

(Ok, ok, you know me, I will just go to Home Depot and look at paint anyway)

Dining Room & Kitchen Updates

Meh, you don't need to see 10,000 pictures of a small 10 x 12 room. Here's two new pics of the bookshelf I got for the dining room from Ikea. It was $75. Cheap and it fits. Frankly, I needed something to store my cookbooks and other random crap from the kitchen.

At Ikea I saw that the back had been cut so it would fit over the trim - however, our trim is old and original so it's really tall. And unfortunately the cut out isn't big enough, but that's fine. I've come to think of furniture quirks as "homey" and "comfortable" and "non-catalog" for our house. It doesn't look too bad - I wanted something more natural and shorter but now that it's been there for a week, I like how tall it is.

And of course, I filled it with crap the moment I moved it into place. (Please note: we do not have children hence the reason why the liquor bottles are on a lower shelf) I have more cookbooks that I will cram in at some point but I'm liking the less cluttered look. Oh wait, if you don't like clutter don't look at the basket filled with crap.

New rug for the kitchen - I decided that I'm too lazy to buy a rug from Ikea and paint it in a chevron pattern, instead I found this at Pier 1 Imports for $40. Bimmer Man likes it and he doesn't really say too much decor-wise unless it involves a BMW or a Ferrari so... I'm going to have to add in more pattern to the rest of the house.

I'm Back

After a stressful week, I'm totally back.

The 20 year old washing machine died on me and now we have a new HE washing machine. It's pretty cool. Nope, it's cooler than cool. It's AWESOME. I had almost the whole laundry pile done (we have serious laundry piles, I only do laundry when I run out of underwear) in about 5 loads instead of 15. AWESOME.

However, I had to do some serious damage to the door frame to the laundry room to get the washing machine into the laundry room. Some person living in the house before us decided to get a new furnace. Well, the furnace partially blocks the door. I don't know how they did NOT notice that and say, "Dude, installation guy, we're going to need new appliances so fix it!" And now we're dealing with the fallout of a previous owner's decision.

Live and learn, right?

And so you will all be learning with me when I decide that it's time for me to fix the door frame. I broke it, so I'm going to have to fix it.

At least I have safety glasses.

Master Bedroom Color

Remember my inspiration bedroom photo?

And this one:

(From my Pinterest)
Ugh, and here's another one:

Well, I think I found a paint sample that I just might have to try out:

I think I'm off to Home Depot to get a small sample.

But I'm awful too because I haven't even finished painting the master bathroom yet. GAH. I need to learn to FINISH projects before I start another one!

Ok, goal planning:

1. Finish the trim in the master bathroom.
2. Paint the master bathroom a lighter blue than the "Rainfall" by Martha Stewart in the hallway.
3. Buy paint sample for master bedroom
4. Paint master bedroom
5. FINISH PROJECTS

Take A Tour of My Second Floor

So you know how I've been saying I've been busy? Well, let's see why. I'm painting upstairs and I might need some opinions, so please comment if you want to.

The new water softener will be installed this weekend. Hopefully. (Bimmer, you reading this?)

This is how Rusty chews on a Nylabone. And yes, he's lost 2 lbs, so he's not as fat as he was 2 weeks ago.

Decker, checking out Rusty and will try and get him to play.

The painting we got at the State Fair. It's pretty cool, right?

Now... onto the meat of this post. Here's the stairs going up. The living room is to the left, the dining room is to the right.

Now, shall I paint these walls too? The one with the window and the walls on both sides of the stairs? Yes? No?

Here's the closet at the top of the stairs and the new paint color. I will show you the old paint color in just a minute. The trim is now white, the walls are Martha Stewart Rainfall.

Nice blue and calm. Now - the stairs going down are to the left, and straight ahead is a dressing room and then the master bath. Closets are on the right.

Another one, Decker had to jump in the photo.

Here's the dressing room. Bimmer's dresser is to the left, crate is to the right, skylight to the right, master bedroom to the left, bathroom straight ahead. Disregard the mess. I didn't get it all cleaned up before Decker came. Also, should I paint that wall that's white now? Opinions please...

AHA!!! THere's that awful green. It makes me feel super jittery and a little unsettled. The blue is little and more calming. The green is just not great. Oh, well, I'm getting rid of it. This view is from standing in the bathroom and looking back at the dressing room and closets.

Here's a better look down the hallway and back to the stairs. That light fixture is awful too. That will be replace eventually.

Here's the new hook from Restoration Hardware for bathrobes and towels. I'm also painting the trim in the bathroom white. Brighter and easier to clean. Plus I just like white trim.

And old door knob on the bathroom closet.

The door knob that Bimmer Man pulled out of his closet door.

And the new knobs that are now on the closet doors. Awesome, right?

I wish I had before pictures, but I don't. Sorry. Too ugly to even think about!