However, I ran into a small snag. The pre-cut oak panels I used before are 5.5″ high, which was fine on the other stairs because I covered up the open space with 3/4″ shoe molding. Those risers are only 6.5″ high — you do the math. You’d think the builder of our house would have used the same freaking sized rizer, but NO. Silly me; I assumed they were the same. The risers going down were at least 7″!! What the hell?? 5.5 + .75 + .75 = 7 So the boards weren’t going to work the same way as the 6.5″ steps.

Long story short, I created some skinny shims that I could lay the molding on and filled the small gaps with wood putty. It’s certainly not my proudest home improvement moment. I used to complain to high heaven about the weird things the previous homeowner use to do (um 3″ nails??), and now I’m turning into that homeowner. Hey, whatever works, just do it. :) I’m just glad I don’t have to listen to Mike nag me to do it already… and it looks pretty good too!

Living Room (or Den as I continue to call it)

• touch up walls
• paint trim
• cut wood for stairs
• urethane panels for stairs
• nail up panels and trim
• get chair
• attach mantel permanently
• new couch
• get rid of bar armoire
• install some kind of shelving/ cabinets behind bar
• bannister
• accessories
• new fireplace

Dining Room

• break open passthrough to kitchen
• adjust wiring
• finish old electrical project
• get rid of coffee table
• create a room divider
• figure out what to do with that awkward open space (if anything)
• hang artwork
• cut/measure/urethane and hang trim
• bench (Dad is making)
• new curtains
• paint
• possible display shelves for corners

Sitting Room

• new curtains
• create photo montage above piano
• hang other art

I only listed three rooms here that currently relate to House 2.0, so you can imagine how the rest of the list goes on and on. Actually the two longest room lists are the living room and dining room, so it’s not that bad really. Notice the two items with strikethroughs? I just got around to doing that today; so there will be a blog post to follow-up on that little adventure when I’m all done tomorrow. (There is no sarcasm in that comment whatsoever.)

This is my first time doing something like this for my whole house and frankly, I’m surprised it took me so long. I like the idea of keeping all the possible and even impossible projects in one place. That way I can refer back, modify, add, subtract — all the while keeping a perspective on the “someday/maybes” so I can actually make them realities. Do you make crazy all-inclusive lists to keep your ideas organized?

We installed the mantel! and I am in LOVE!! The warmth and rustic quality to the wood really make that wall pop. Plus, we purchased a print by Patty Baker (a somewhat local NY artist) from Art.com. It’s one of my favorite things about the room. Oh yeah, and there’s a crazy gold clock that I bought at the Goodwill for $6. I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to hang it to the left of the print.

The dining room chairs came back from the upholsterer and I love them. My dad is supposedly making me a long bench so that we can have some more seating and mix things up a bit. Also, we sold the old chairs — regrettably for less than I wanted, but they are out of our lives forever. Woo!

I realize I haven’t shared any pictures of the old dining room/new sitting room since we set up the furniture in there. The reason is probably because the room is constantly littered with Gabriel’s toys. I’m playing with the idea of eventually repainting this room. While I loved the Behr “Minced Ginger” color in there when it was our dining room, I’m just not digging it now that we have the neutral colored lounge chairs. Perhaps something more dramatic… but what? Since we have an open floor plan, I don’t want the new color to clash with the rest of the main level. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

My friend Bill (the handyman guy who hung my drywall), was desperately trying to find something for me via his Mennonite connections, but wasn’t coming up with anything. So good ol’ Craigslist came through for me with the barn wood and for $40 (less than 1/10th the cost of the reclaimed wood place I looked into). I know it doesn’t look like much, but trust me: she’s a beaut! Here are the pics from my phone of Bill and I going to pick it up. I had visions of that big 15′ beam javelining off the top of Bill’s car, but it made it to my house safely.

Yeah, that’s a bird’s nest on Bill’s dashboard; he’s a strange dude.

So it’s been sitting in my garage drying out for the past few weeks. I’ve been skeptical about how it would actually turn out, but on Thursday I applied some crazy biodegradable wood cleaner called “UltraMean” and it cleaned up really nicely — no more gray. I wish I had taken pictures of this step, but I was just so excited about how it was looking that I forgot. Then I brushed on some boiled linseed oil, and this is the result.

The green is some kind of fungus that I couldn’t clean off in a few areas, but I kind of like the coloration it gives the wood. I have no idea what kind of wood this is, although my best educated guess is that it’s oak or walnut. Anyone out there a wood expert? Please tell me what it is! Now the next step is trimming it and getting that bad boy up in my living room!

I’m a little bummed about this because they were the first pieces of new furniture I ever bought and paid for with my own money. But we certainly couldn’t hang on to them for sentimental reasons… so they went up on Craigslist. Man, I WISH Craigslist had been around back in my college days! Anyway, yesterday they were purchased, and away they went. *sigh* I’ll miss them. I mean, they moved with us into our house, they’ve been around for every important event for the past 9 years. But they’re just couches… so I’ll get over it.

A crappy picture of the couches the day they were delivered in 2002.

Here’s the room in all her painted glory:

Before glazing

After glazing

There’s going to be crown molding and a new mantel there at some point… when? Lord only knows, but the raw paint edging won’t be seen — it’ll be hidden. I think it looks pretty neat. I have to say that the glazing step was probably the hardest part. It took me at least an hour to get it just the way I liked it.

And then, I peeled off the masking tape and to my dismay, it pulled off a couple of big patches of the paint behind it! ACK!!! So irritating. :( I think I may have neglected to really wipe down the walls well after sanding. Poo.

Funny story about the bedroom paint: Mike and I had just bought our house and we wanted to personalize our bedroom right away — before we even moved in. For some ungodly reason, I picked a muted yellow color — something like a mustard. I think it was Behr: Honey Beige (although I’m not sure). I thought it would be sophisticated… Then our friend Dave came over to help us move. He took one look at our bedroom and proclaimed, “Oh MAN!! We are so PAINTING THIS ROOM!!” I didn’t repaint for a few years, even though was never really happy with the original choice. When I finally got around to repainting, I chose a much brighter hue and I love it.

Since I’ve done so much painting, one kind stands out above all the rest. Sherwin Williams: Duration! It’s the best. I love the way it goes on and covers in 1 – 2 coats. I love that it’s washable. I really love that it’s low-VOC. On a side note: I tried the SW: Harmony, no-VOC paint, in Gabriel’s room. And despite the no-VOC label, I found that it has a much stronger aroma when wet, and it’s not as durable as the Duration. Duration WINS! Only downside is that it’s kinda expensive. However, since I’m a “Sherwin Williams preferred customer” I’m always getting coupons. And don’t you bet that I proudly displayed my 30% off coupon when I bought all the den paint. Boo ya!

So I’ve been a busy beaver with the painting down there. Here’s the new paint color scheme for the den. When it’s all done, I’ll post some finished pictures. (Probably tonight, yay!) The clock is ticking because the carpet gets installed on Thursday… NO PRESSURE or anything! Yikes. Next up: empty the office.

Drywall is up and spackled (thanks to my friend, Bill) and I’ve started a little priming. The one thing that we really can’t do anything about for a long while is our fireplace. The stupid thing is ancient and a chimney guy told us it was unusable and unsafe — probably due to the ungodly amount of silicone caulk that the previous homeowners pumped into the thing just to seal up the drafts. I mean, they must have emptied an entire tube on it. It’s ridiculous. So it sits like a black turd at the end of the living room until we’ve got the bones to get a new insert.

My dad had the genius suggestion to simply spray paint it so that it didn’t look so dingy. So we bought some matt black Rustoleum. I didn’t bother with the high-temp grill paint because we are never going to use it, so who cares. Here it is yesterday, pre-spray. Note the drop cloth and mask boards. The handles are yellow because I masked them too.

Then, I opened a window and put in a fan to circulate the fumes and started spraying (wearing a mask, of course). Unfortunately, the can was somewhat defective. I couldn’t get out an even stream. It sprayed nothing but air for a while, and then a burst of paint. It coated the fireplace, but it didn’t coat evenly. I’m going to have to get another can. Despite that, I think it looks pretty good. Definitely an improvement.

Then I realized my fatal mistake. I moved the drop cloth and saw that the overspray had been blown a good 5 feet from the fireplace. It must have been because of the fan in the window! Good thing we’re replacing the carpet. Whoopsies. :) LOL!!

Then, on one of the many trips to Lowes, Mike discovered Bagster. You may have seen the Bagster commercials, hence, this would not be news to you. But since we don’t watch TV, that marketing was lost on us. Purchase the bag for 25 bucks, fill it with your debris, go online and schedule the pickup ($85). If you’ve got Waste Management in your area, you probably have access to this awesome resource. You may think this is a total rip-off like my buddy Bill who said, “I’ll take that garbage away for a fraction of the price!” LOL Well, if you don’t have access to someone like Bill with trash connections, this is the perfect solution. :)

We figured we’d get the most bang for the buck by chopping down the dying yew bush in the back yard. It was something we had intended to do for a LONG time, but didn’t want to tackle it because the trash guys require you to bundle your yard debris. Ugh, no thanks! So we filled that sucker up…

You can’t even see the paneling beneath that giant bush and Spring clean-up debris! HA! I had a tiny worry that the bag was TOO full, but they took it all. PHEW! The verdict: I’d totally do it again if I had the need to dispose of a lot of stuff (the Bill method of disposal seems a little shady, at best).

Once the tear-out was all done and the room was gutted down to the bare studs, we moved on to running new electric, replacing the existing electrical boxes, and putting up insulation. Remember that yellow jacket nest I feared was behind the wall?? Well, it turned out that the nest was in the floor above, and all we had to deal with was a few dusty remnants of the aforementioned nest. Phew! Here are the pics of those endeavors…

Woo!! That wasn’t too bad – all things considered. :) Then, my buddy Bill came out today to work on the drywall. While not beyond our skill level, we decided to pay someone to do the drywall work considering it would take Mike and I a month of Sundays to actually finish. We’d rather have it done sooner than later so the new carpet can be installed.