Input?

Okay; here's my problem....

I want to post other stuff on my blog other then just house stuff; such as ideas about the house and maybe even just updates. I, however, feel that this blog must strictly be house renovating related. How do I do the cross over into normal blogging? Actually; I feel super lame just having a few photos and saying "this, this, and this happened". =/ Everyone else has such cool blogs with more info then just their house on them.

Truth be told; I want to be a cool blogger too!

I started a coupon blog too; it's real lame. It has 198 coupons that I clipped and listed; they cost $1.00 (over all, not per coupon, but per bundle). The idea is that people will buy more then just one coupon. But I like clipping coupons, I just don't really use them because I tend to be sort of boring in my grocery shopping, lol.

Does anyone out there use coupons? Would anyone be interested in seeing that blog?

I absolutely love love love reading all the blogs I have added to my blogger and even the ones I haven't! From debt to finance to DIY and house renovating to coupons and all those goodies.

Perhaps I'm hopeless....I really want to post FOOD on here too, food that I have cooked (and looks presentable)!!

New Year!!

First and foremost, I started a debt blog over at.... www.oweisus.blogspot.com; check it out, lend some advice or tidbits (who wouldn't need advice? I know I sure do! ANY info about debt is GOOD info!)

I also have some super awesome pictures coming...

Alright, so they aren't super awesome, but they are worth reading. We have been doing a lot to our living room and we finally got to buy drywall!!!

Hubby also made the new bathroom 9 inches bigger. I tried to convince him to make it even bigger and that, really, we would do just fine with a small living room. He didn't go for it.

Stay tuned!!

How To Decorate For Christmas!

Here at Seven Stars we sort of live in a state of disaster. Not a little disaster, but full blown state of emergency, alert somebody with loud obnoxious sirens, wee ooo wee woo; that kind of disaster.

Because our living room looks like the after math of a really sad construction site, it was impossible [and pointless] to go out, buy a tree, and do the Christmas thing. After all, I'm a paranoid weirdo and the front curtains must be kept close 24/7, no arguing. I think I'm scared my neighbors might see that humans live here...or something like that.

So I was tidying up the dinning room turned office that has never seen a dinner table since we moved in, and I felt a little of that Christmas spirit. Yup, 11 days before Christmas and I start to decorate. Go me!

I had bought this little fluffy pre lit fake Christmas tree when I was younger; since all teenagers need fake Christmas trees?

However, in our first year here, our sweet loving terrorizing dog [JoJo] thought it would be a wonderful idea to chew the lights off the tree. So I dug out this flattened mangled chewed up lights tree, took all the lights off, fluffed it back up...and....we have Christmas!

 Sure, it doesn't look like much, but it actually is quit pretty. The little gold Birdie was from my husbands office Christmas party center piece last year and I had bought the little velvet bows, having absolutely no idea what I was going to do with them.

Above the windows, where there should be a curtain rod, but isn't, are more bows and some special ornaments.

I'm still searching for more ways to sneak Christmas into our house! 

The Walls; They Crumble

Ron and I have been having a hard time with our house. We have had absolutely no clue what we wanted to do. At first we just wanted a bathroom put in; so we started that. Then we just wanted the bedroom above it done; so we started that. Then our mold issue blew up and we thought of every plan under the sun in which to tear our house down and rebuild; but we don't have the money. We finally settled it this past Saturday night. We would gut the living room and the bed room above it. The bathroom/living room are directly under the bedroom. That is one half of the house. Then we would do the foyer and steps if we needed that done in order to deal with the living room. 

So on Sunday we decided that we were going to start the living room. We started on the wall with the double windows and tore out all the dry wall, the baseboards, and the window frames. No insulation under those walls. Then we moved onto the interior wall; two layers of drywall!! TWO! Why two?! Who needs two?! We finished those two walls in about 2 to 3 hours. He parked his truck outside the front windows, we opened the windows and threw the dry wall out of the windows as we went. 

Second Wall

Drywall, Plaster, Dry Wall. 

Under the ceiling

Wood flooring underneath!

First wall coming down!

Rub a Dub Dub

Our bathroom...we have two! Well, technically we have three. As it stands; we are a three bathroom, two bedroom, cap cod home. We also sleep in our living room and never venture upstairs. We also will be living in our house for one year come this November. We don't own a couch or a dinner table; we don't even have house guests, but we do have plenty of serving ware and glasses! We have an oven that burns things; a stove that clicks annoyingly when turned on; a microwave that is plugged into an outside wall; from the inside. Our front door leads to no where, our closets are in the weirdest spots ever, and we have no shower. But we have three bathrooms.

Our house came with two bathrooms; one full and one half. The upstairs bathroom has a bath tub, this bath tub has a half wall. This half wall leaves absolutely no room for a shower.

See, no shower. 

The water also always came out rusty/iron colored and was in general, very gross. It also filled up the bathtub to a very pretty shade of blue. Why the bathtub water was blue; is beyond me! (Funny story, left two cats alone while at work. They plugged up the bathtub, played with the knobs, came home to a bathtub a half inch away from over flowing and a very steamy room.)

The second bathroom has a toilet; a vanity, a sink, and is about the size of a very small closet. My husband has always asked if he could sit on the vanity and pee into the toilet, I have yet to let him. What he does while I am not home; no clue, not my problem. The bathroom also has no ventilation; well it does, sort of. There IS a fan, but it is under a wash cloth that is taped to the wall and I've never had the nerve to untape it. For two reason; number 1 being I'm scared and assume that something will magically harm me and number 2; there is a wasp nest in there somewhere which actually confirms fear number 1. The only good thing about this small bathroom...you can wash your hands while doing your busy. Kill two birds with one stone. Granted, you'll have to wash them again, but hey, it's the easiness that counts.

World's smallest bathroom. 

And then we got the brilliant idea to turn the old pantry;

"Pantry"

Which wasn't very pantry-esque. Upon ripping off the paneling; the husband found a few interesting aspects to this "pantry". On the left side of this photo there is paneling, behind that paneling are studs, directly nailed to those studs are more paneling which makes up the one wall of our living room. Why? You might ask. Because there is also a door way in these studs that leads to the living room. Instead of putting up drywall; they paneled it and called it a day. Interesting note number 2 is when the carpet and such was ripped up; the floor told a story of how this "pantry" used to be a....BATHROOM! 

Our idea to turn a pantry into a bathroom wasn't so far fetched once we knew what had been there before. So the room was taken down to it's bare bones;

A window was taken out (not the one pictured; that one is staying), bath tub walls/supports/dohickies were being built, light switches were being put in, and insulation was going up as well.

At this point; both sides of the bath tub are framed out; the piping is in for the hot/cold/shower head, the bath tub is bought, the recessed lights are in, the fan is in.

And then, like all great things; it too came to an end. We sort of, kind of, ran out of money! So now we wait!

The next steps are to fit the bath tub, cut out for the piping, buy a toilet, pick out a vanity and cabinets, build a cabinet to get to all the plumbing, lay tile, and make it look like a real bathroom.

I have high hopes for this; I found a lovely stone tile and I want to do a color scheme of greens, browns, and whites.

Let's Get The Party Started

It's been a little while since I last wrote, when I left off Ron was laying the floor in our sun room, that beautiful cherry floating floor. The desk and credenza were brought in, the papazan chair was brought in, and I was ready to decorate.

Except for one problem; there were wasps; and lots of them! They were in there bugging Ron when we was laying floor, they were in there when I was at work, and even when I couldn't see them, I knew they were there. The idea was to be able to let the door open to the dinning room sometimes; well that was just not going to happen with wasps flying around. The last thing I wanted was to step on one, though my dog and cat are great wasper's; new word, you like?

Fun fact for the evening; dried wasp carcasses sound like fire crackers when you step on them. Even more amusing? They cause the stepper to jump in the air and freak out; I hate wasps.

Problem number two arrived when the heart of summer set in; 99 degree days make a room encased in windows just a tad hot. And by a tad, I mean sweat off a few pounds in a half hour hot. And if that actually worked; I would stay out there! But alas, it doesn't and I knew that if I put the printer or anything else mildly expensive it would more than likely  blow up. Not cool. Not happening.

And so it sat.

I got the bright idea to paint the door, on the inside of the sun room, because I had not seen any sign of wasps in awhile and I figured I would deal with the heat problem. We went down to the local grocery store/hardware store, because living in the boonies means picking up tools and paint with your chicken.

The door BEFORE painting

Now the door is not in the best of shape and the molding around the door is not straight, in fact, the more I painted the door the more I realized how hard they tried to make it look straight. I wanted to laugh because I could only imagine what all took place when this door was being put in. Granted, it was built in 1940 by a husband/father, probably handcrafted with love and the height of their proudest moments for him.

They already had paint on the thin as sliced deli ham windows, but I figured I would not add to it and that I would simply tape it off with electric green painters tape. I had to have that color, I would not let Ron have a choice in the matter; the tape was going to be green; bright green.

And so I taped. I hate taping around things; I don't hate it, I loathe it. If I could just paint over everything; I would. This is the one perk to our house, we have no stained wood trim, it is all painted; this house was meant for a painter like me.

In Progress

Isn't the color pretty? Even Ron loves the color; he has admitted, though not happily, that we should consider using it else where in the house when the time comes. Points for me! I was going to paint around the inside frame, so I didn't care if it got a little messy. Remember, at this point, this was going to be an office. My office.

And so our door sits. Tape and all.

Why? Well, I'll tell you why...

My office sort of decided it was lonely out there; all hot and unused. So it crept inside to the dinning room and made itself a home right there in the corner. It invited the credenza in and asked the printer come chill out. Everything that used to be in that corner is now out in the sun room.

Why the change? That's another blog post!

 

Sun Room Turned Office

For all intensive purposes the sun room is supposed to be my baby or project; as you might say.
Ron had finished up the floor in there, aside from putting the molding pieces around the edges, since we did not have them and they weren't super important. It'd be different if it was the living room or kitchen or what have you.

See? Isn't that floor beautiful?!

Then my parents brought up my desk and credenza. Don't they match just beautifully? 

My Dad got it at his work. Same with the chair. 

That vase is to keep away those flying buggers! I have wasps in there up the wazoo and they refuse to drown in this sugar water. They'll leave their little carcasses all over my new floor though. Jerks. I guess they win though, because I refuse to go in there until they stop invading.

The ugliest light on earth.

This light will eventually go away; I am not really sure what I want to put in its place. I was thinking something that hangs down a little?

The ugliest wall on earth. Ever.

You see that little box right there? The one with the mysterious plug plugged in? I've often contemplated unplugging that while Ron's using the microwave; as it is what powers it! They drilled a hole through the outside wall (the sun room used to be a porch) and plugged it in! I still giggle to myself every time I look at it because it is the most ridiculous thing. I plan on painting the wall. I was thinking either a pale blue with bright white trim or something. 

Ninja is checking out the room, he's not allowed in it really. I was thinking a Welcome mat might be in order; just for cuteness. Realistically, the chair will get shoved in the corner.