But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let me give you the tour.
Let’s start in the front room. Originally two lovely shades of yellow (with
a third on the fan-textured ceiling), the front room was divided from the brown
dining room by a DIY wall with one of the aforementioned "hand finished wall treatments." In what would be a recurring theme, I started by
removing things—the extra railing, an extraneous pair of half-columns, and the
first of several sets of speakers. I
waffled back and forth over the color, but finally went with a warm off-white
with white trim. The dividing wall was
redone in teal. Eventually I’d like to
replace the poorly done ceiling and have a light installed instead of a defunct
speaker, but for now it’s good enough and perfectly functional.
Before:
On to the kitchen.
Another
room, another shade of brown.
With brown
trim.
And cabinets with an oddly chalky
wash.
And a brown ceiling.
I picked a brighter shade of brown and redid
the cabinets in a dark satin espresso.
Because I’m a square, I continued the white trim.
This was one of the longest projects.
A few days after we moved in, I was so stressed
out I decided to try and do everything at once and took apart the
cabinets.
It took months to get
everything sanded, stained, and reinstalled, meaning we spent the summer with the
kitchen in chaotic pieces.
Yes, I
regretted it.
A lot.
And then it was done and I was very happy.
Before:
After:
The living room is untouched for right now. The blue-gray is actually a nice color. Rather, it would be if there was any light in the room. Since the windows were boarded over to make shelves when the addition was built, the room is pretty dark. Eventually it will be painted the same off white as the front room.
Why, yes, the mantle is three inches short and off center. Try unseeing that. Or the random phlegm-colored trim around the door behind it.
The downstairs bathroom was fairly straightforward, which
was nice.
We took it a darker blue,
installed a shelf, and painted the randomly beige trim white.
Nothing exciting, though I got to learn how
to take mirrors off the wall and paint behind them.
I also got to teach the girls how to change
the flapper in the toilet, so, you know, life skills.
The staircase and upstairs hallway took forever because I’m
short and the ceilings are very, very tall.
Thanks to the continuing brown theme, it felt very dark and narrow.
There were matching columns at the top and bottom of the stairs. The handmade detailing in the hallway was slightly
wonky and the detailed paneling turned out to be wallpaper striped in beige and
dusty blue. I tried just painting over the
paper, but that was too easy; naturally my idiot cats shredded them and the
paper ultimately had to be removed. I
repaired holes and textured (something I’ve gotten to be quite good at). The columns
were removed and the brown was painted over with the same off white as downstairs. The hallway feels twice as wide. Now I just need to fix the holes in the trim
where the columns used to be…once I find a piece that matches.
Before:
Those columns...as Si Robertson would say, "They gone."
The girls were conscripted--I mean, got to help out.
The bedrooms were the first rooms we painted during the
month we waited for our household goods to arrive. They were fairly simple. The
biggest issues were uneven and unnecessary railings and…interesting…paint choices
with clashing accent walls. The railings were removed and the walls prepped, exposing multiple strata of questionable color choices. It made it much easier to let the girls pick
their paint.
(Even the 3 and 6 year old’s
choice was better than the original yellow and maroon in their room.)
Bedroom 1
"Maid's Room"... or Bedroom 3, if you're not pretentious.
It's hard to see the difference because they picked a color similar to the original, but there were multiple colors of trim, including the phlegm-colored doorway. I'm also pretty sure this used to be part of the garage since there is a step down from the hallway and the window looks like it was installed after the house was finished judging by the paint/plaster outside.
Bedroom 4
The yellow was acceptable. The dark olive green accent wall you can't see was not.
This is actually the prettiest peach, and when the sunset light hits it this room *GLOWS*.
The master suite was the worst offender, between the mustard
and olive colored bedroom, unnecessary railing, and lime green bathroom.
As of this writing, the closet is still two
shades of lime, but that’s on the to-do list.
Decisions were made. Shockingly, there were no injuries. Also, it's hard to tell, but the ceiling was brown. I don't know why.
After:
A little more of a spa feel.
One of the few remaining unpainted rooms is the upstairs family room. The green is actually kind of pleasant. My only concern is that, due to certain structural details about the house, I'm not convinced that this floor was originally part of the house...which wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't seen the rest of the previous handyman's work. Still, it's had our workout equipment in it for almost a year and nothing's crashed through, so everything's fine. Probably.
There is a scene in
The Birdcage where one of the
characters is trying to redecorate his flamboyant parents' home.
His rule is "Don't add, just
subtract." I’ve repeated that phrase over and over again over the last
year, and never more so than with the bar.
The piece de resistance of the house, the bar is an approximately hexagonal-ish addition built onto the back of the
house.
Like the rest of the house,
nothing is level or even.
I'm pretty
sure by this point the previous owner had lost his level, said "I am Spartacus," and eyeballed everything.
The seams were rough, the ceiling is pieces
of plywood held together with random decorative molding and drywall.
I also have suspicions that the bar itself is partially made from a bedframe. Wires for a defunct sound system dangle
intermittently in corners.
Small bills of various international denominations are epoxied onto the bar counter. The room
wasn't even painted a uniform shade of yellow, and the ceiling was black to hide all its builder's sins.
For those with a discerning eye, yes, that is palm tree wallpaper behind the
bar and fake ivy twined around the railing.
Before:
Another child at work, this one pulling nails.
So. Much. Texturing. However, by this point I actually knew what I was doing so it didn't take too long. A couple Great Courses lectures on the Medici, and the whole room was ready to paint.
We’ve removed one of the dividing walls, the fake wood panel,
ceiling and chair railing (none of which matched on any given wall), textured
everything, and painted the whole room a more sedate greige.
Like most of the colors we ultimately chose, we had to find the line between "I like it" and "this won't scare off buyers when we sell it." The brick stays because I have no idea what’s
behind it.
I've also patched holes and
painted the ceiling white.
I’m not 100%
happy, but it’s so much better than it was that I have to leave well enough alone.
The floors are just fine…except for the dark wood that takes
up most of the first floor. As far as I can tell, it’s laminate.
This didn’t stop the owner from dumping
gallons of epoxy sealer on it.
Why does
this matter?
10 months ago I wouldn’t
have been able to tell you the answer, but now I can.
Laminate is already sealed.
Therefore, any extra sealer sits ON the
boards instead of absorbing and bonding to the surface.
This means that the floor, which was mirror-glossy
when we moved in, was shredded by simple daily use into a leprous, peeling mess
within about a week.
Fun, right?
At least it’s slowly coming off.
I’d try my luck with a chemical stripper or
solvent, but between the chance it might do something dastardly to the laminate
and the risk of bringing something toxic around my busy zoo, I’d rather just be
patient and peel it when I can.
Before, first day in the house:
Now:
We do clean it and it looks better (briefly, anyway). The sections where the epoxy is mostly gone actually look nice.
The outside has been mostly Rick’s domain. It was a basic neglected desert back yard,
full of gravel, stickers, and a slapdash gazebo. He cut down the two diseased hedges in the front
(which also gave us back a good chunk of our driveway). In the back, we’ve finished the established
brick beds and added new ones. Over the
last year Rick has planted honeysuckle, jasmine, peaches, fig and pomegranate trees, red oleander,
bougainvillea, several types of berries, a grape and a chaste tree. We had good success with a limited garden
this year and put in a new wooden bed as well.
All of this is possible because we chose desert or drought friendly
plants, but also because of Rick’s jerry-rigged gray-water system. Thanks to some strategically placed tubs and
portable pumps, we can use our bath and laundry water to green up our little
corner of the desert.
Before:
After:
I didn't have many good pictures of the fruit trees, but they looked pretty good. These are *two* pumpkin plants.
I’ve been in charge of the outdoor painting.
For some unknown reason, when the addition
was built the owner didn’t color match it to the house.
Instead, he opted to paint it green.
I patched the stucco and repainted it so now
it looks a little more cohesive.
As for the gazebo, I’ve tasked the kids with sanding off the
intermittent white paint, and I’ve been slowly painting it all the same darker
shade of brown. It’s just nice to see
some progress.
Before:
It's hard to tell from the glare and maybe it's just my monitor, but the building is actually a dusty green.
After:
One of the biggest outdoor changes was the removal of the
cement bench.
It was okay, but between
it being oddly low to the ground and also being studded with river rocks it
wasn’t very comfortable or practical.
The
table also sloped.
Rick took care of
most of it, but I got to finish the last quarter or so; then the girls and I
loaded the chunks of concrete into Rick’s truck and took a field trip to the dump.
The plan for the empty space is, for now
at least, to plant wildflowers for our pollinator friends.
Before:
Looks nice. Not functional or comfortable.
After:
Not the best picture, but this post needs to get finished. You get the idea, and can also see some of the finished brickwork.
After all of that, there is still a surprising amount to do. My bedroom closet, the living
room, and the kitchen ceiling (still brown) need to be painted. There are several rooms and doorways where the trim is
incongruously mushroom-beige. The tilework on the front posts needs to be
finished, since the previous owner decided to call it a day half-way through. The
gazebo is still in progress. The addition needs to be touched up and the shed is
looking a little rough, too. As if that's not enough, the list
keeps growing—for example, I hadn’t *planned* on redoing the girls’ upstairs
bathroom; I was just going to switch out broken hardware. Then Rick “helped” me remove a stuck fixture (the screws were tight and completely stripped).
The aftermath.
Me, as he walks away, proud that he has helped.
After I patch the hole, I’ll get to buy some more paint. The girls are pushing for pink. I'm pretty sure we are going to go another direction.
Now where'd I leave that spackle...
