Powder Room--check

Trim so far...

I've done 10 doorway trim-outs and the molding between them in the downstairs hallways.

There is still plenty of caulking and painting to do.

I've also done one window and my first ever window sill, which I'm pretty excited about. :)

The Mirror

The bathroom mirror is a wall to wall mirror attached by a couple of mirror clips. I thought it needed a little dressing up.

I framed it out with some MDF. I had to cut some notches to make room for the clips on the top (sorry, no pictures of that), and then I glued the frame onto the mirror with gorilla glue. Is that how it's done? I don't know, but that's how I did it. The mirror and the frame are now one.

I painted it black so that it would match the newly painted cabinet below. However, I forgot the little detail about the backside of the frame reflecting in the mirror. Oops.

No worries. I have lots of cove molding hanging around from the door trim. So I painted up a few front AND back and trimmed out the frame.

Ahhhh. Better. I still need to do a little touch up paint, but I'm calling this mirror done.

Trim inspiration (trimspiration)

I like Parenthood (the show). I'm especially in love with Adam and Kristina Braverman's craftsman home, and I've been trying to enlarge pictures of their trim (scroll down) on my computer screen so I can copy it. heh heh.

I also came across a beautiful house here in my town that was recently on the market. Gorgeous craftsman detail.

Here is the link from Hooked on Houses to see the rest of that beauty.

I played around with three different styles of trim, and this is what I came up with:

Simple, too much of an overhang, but not enough like my dream trim. I love the style, but wanted it to look more like the Braverman's house. Sigh.

Getting closer, but too chopped off at the ends. Too bad it didn't satisfy me, because it would have been fewer cuts than the style I ultimately chose, which is this:

The cove molding near the top makes it more work because of the miter cuts, but it's worth it, I think.

The powder room debacle

I'm in over my head.  I'm in the process of changing out all the baseboards, door & window trim in my house.  I'm doing it all myself--EEK!!!

The kitchen makeover is what started it all.  We got new countertops, and decided to go ahead and get a slab for the nearby bathroom as well.  Then I painted the cabinet in the bathroom to match the granite, which made the rest of the bathroom look outdated.

When the new light fixture went in, it left a big hole because it didn't match up with the old light fixture. 

Instead of fixing the drywall, I got the bright idea that I should panel the whole back wall (which also led to framing out the mirror). 

During the paneling process I made it down to the baseboards, but they looked so silly by the new paneling that I decided to change them out.  We've talked about changing out our baseboards & trim for a long time, but it's one of those things that keeps getting pushed off because there are always other more important things to fix.  Anyway, I installed nice chunky baseboard in the bathroom, but when I got to the door, it stuck out too far, b/c the door trim isn't chunky.  So I ripped that off and installed chunky trim around that door.  And of course, you can just trim out one side of a door and not trim out the other side, which now brings me out into the hallway where there are a lot of doors.  You can't have one door looking one style and all the other ones looking a different style.  So those had to get redone. 

This is the before picture, btw. The bathroom is the last door on the left with all the trim ripped off.

Note the lower cabinets of my kitchen on the right. That's primer. It's still not painted. I've decided I'm going to paint all the kitchen cabinets myself because I don't already have enough stuff going on. HA!

If it sounds like I "just did" this and "just did" that, that'd be wrong. There was some hyperventilating and heart palpitating involved.  Where does it end?  Well, it doesn't end until the whole house gets done.  It's a good thing we are planning to live here a good long time, because it's going to take me a good long time to get this done.

Downstairs Powder Room (before)

A few pictures of the downstairs powder room. These were taken a few months ago, but it's still a work in progress. I'll post more soon....

Couch to 5K. Check.

I did it. Today I completed my couch to 5K program! Too bad I'm at home all by myself w/no one to celebrate with...which is why I'm celebrating here [jumping up and down on the bed in glee]. YAY!!!

Kitchen Update

The kitchen has been slow-going. Our job is a small job for our handyman, so he fits us in when he can. That's been working out well. I'd rather pay as we go (as we've been doing) than hand over a big lump sum. It's less of a shock to the system.

We're not even close to the big reveal yet, but we do have the countertops, backsplash, appliances and trim in (mostly). We still have a baseboards, paint, and drawer pulls left to go....

Here are some pictures I took yesterday.  This time of year here in Blusterville we get sunlight once every three days for about 10 minutes. Waiting for good conditions to take pictures is futile. 

I Miss Summer

It's the second week of school, and I'm still homesick for summer. I miss our days at the yurt where the pace is slower and casual, where you can wake up with the sun and feel inner calm. If there's one thing I detest about the school year, it's that school starts so early in the day. From the second you wake up, there's rushing through breakfast, rushing through getting dressed, rushing out the door in a race to beat the school bell. Not my favorite. Not what I want for my kids. Argh.

At the yurt, there's sleeping in.

There's basketball while you're waiting for breakfast.



There's time for goofing around during breakfast.


There's poker in your pajamas.

Dishes are washed by hand, outside, and left to dry in the sun.

There's plenty of work to be done.

And when you need a break, you go down to the beach and find some friends.

Posing

Hey! So now that the kids are in school I finally have some time on my hands to devote to getting this old bod back in shape. I'm doing the Couch to 5K training program. This is the one I'm using. The thing I love about it is that it doesn't focus on distance. It's all time based. My day one workout was "walk for 5 minutes, run for 2 minutes, walk for 5 minutes." Not too daunting, right?--even for someone like me who has allowed herself to get out of shape for the last 5 years. Even though I had some energy left after that workout, I said to myself, "Self, that is all the program called for, so that is all you need to do." Day two said to relax. So even though I felt like working out, I chose not to, because the program forbids it. See? I love this program. So anyway, I'm now on day four, and the program said that I'm to relax, so I did. I went shopping and got myself some gear, because, what's the point of running if you can't look cute doing it, right? Of course none of these clothes match my running shoes, so I had order some that match.

Another runnerly thing I did was to buy some black nail polish. I understand women runners like to camouflage beaten-up post-race toes by making all of them look bruised.

I'm such a poser/poseur.

Look at my fake bruised toes cute dog!