Category: At Home

Minor but Important

This Saturday we conquered 3 minor but important home improvement projects, two of which safeguarded us against fire hazard and one of which made the dining room better.

Speaking of the dining room. Big stuff going on in there this week. You’ll see.

So, first we did the easy thing.  Until now, the light in the dining room has just been a bulb hanging from a chain. Very depressing. I’d been thinking about getting a paper lantern shade at World Market, but seeing how I haven’t been to World market in months (and even then it was in Kansas City, not closer Wichita) that plan was looking dimmer and dimmer by the day (pun intended). So, plan A went out the window when I saw this nice shade at Target. We just unscrewed the bulb and hung this upside down and screwed the bulb back in. Easy peasy. Not perfect but better than a bare bulb (for another 12+months).

I love the natural fiber look.

Second, we eliminated a fire hazard in our laundry room. I am ashamed to say that we have had the washer and dryer for over 6 months and never addressed this problem. After vacuuming 6 months of lint out from the walls/floors/everything behind the dryer, we installed what I refer to as an elephant trunk:

Nice hole in the wall, right? Not my fault--the place came that way.

We got a fancy one from Lowe’s that goes into a vented container, since it’s impossible to vent to the outdoors. So we’ll just have to remember to empty the container once in a while. The hose leads to what we refer to as “the furnace room” because it’s a weird little room in the hallway of our building with the furnace in it. Which brings me to the next project.

Until Saturday, the furnace room didn’t have a door. Which meant that the whole hallway could hear whether our furnace was running or not (this used to come in handy actually, before it was repaired). There was a door IN the room, just not attached to anything. So we bought some hinges and tried to hang a door. It doesn’t close without being forced, but there’s a door attached now and it’s being held shut by a door stop, so we still count it as a win.

Have any visually unimpressive but necessary projects you haven’t gotten to yet?

My Bathroom

As promised, I photographed my weird, weird bathroom. Enjoy.

These images just might make you forget about the cold and get in the mood for spring–more specifically–Easter. You shall see why in a moment.

From the door, standing next to/in front of the sink.

As you may have noticed, I have three different pastel tiles working together here, not to mention the weird black and white smaller tile which is inset right next to the tub, around 4’x2′. At the top of the yellow tile (about 5 feet from the floor) there is a green border piece which matches the tub. Additionally, although it might look slightly dingy (if you’re used to seeing brand new remodeled bathrooms on home design blogs) I can assure you this is freshly cleaned.

Now, if you were seated on the throne, you’d see the sink (mirror above it–I didn’t take a photo of it because I couldn’t get a shot of it without me in the picture).

There are a few subtle details that make me feel more sunny about this otherwise quite decrepit bathroom. The green ceramic/tile(?) built-in niches are some of my favorites: There are 2 above the sink, one in the tub to hold soap, and another is a toilet paper dispenser.

Another cool thing is the vintage mirror–I don’t know exactly how old it is but the shape and style are decidedly art deco. Here’s a detail from the top of the mirror:

My last (but possibly most favorite) detail is the shower curtain rod. Clearly, the shower was added in during a remodel of the old room. The curtain is attached to the wall in 2 places and to the ceiling at the bend. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the copper color:

So, what do you think? Questions, comments, recommendations? I have a question for you: in which decade do you think this room? It seems old but I’m not sure how old… Obviously the sink and toilet hutch are new… basically I am curious about WHEN somebody picked those tile colors! I’m not even going to try to imagine WHO…

Snow Day!

Apparently adults DO get snow days! Yesterday, after my grumpy truck post, I got a call from work telling me not to come in. Our lunch party had cancelled and nobody was expected to go out into the nasty weather (5 degrees Fahrenheit and nasty, strong winds). So I enjoyed an unexpected day at home! You know how you have those things you should do, but never get around to? I did some of those things!!

With this unexpected free time I:

  • Did 2 loads of laundry (all caught up!)
  • Played CityVille on Facebook (guilty pleasure/obsession)
  • Thoroughly cleaned the dining room (okay, thorough is a relative term)
  • Thoroughly cleaned the bedroom (this one is true)
  • Spilled chicken noodle soup all over the kitchen (how do they allow me to work at a restauraunt?) and subsequently
  • Cleaned the kitchen
  • Transferred my makeup to a new makeup bag
  • Cleaned my makeup brushes
  • Repainted the nasty inside of a kitchen cabinet (photos sometime)

All of this [more or less] by the time I would have been coming home from work.

After all of that, I rearranged the room as you saw yesterday. I’m pretty sure that this is more than I accomplish in most weeks.