a dream and my inspiration

Dreaming of my dressing room lately.  I really want to get working on it again.  I have been creating a Pinterest board for inspiration of the things I have been dreaming of putting in there.  Luckily I think I have most of the things to pull this off.

I haven't gone too crazy since I think I really know where I want to go with the room but here is what I have posted so far:

Simple vanity stool and a braided rug

I believe I have a vanity stool around the house somewhere that just needs a little pick-me-up. Little cleaning and a reupholstered seat will go a long way. The braided rug will probably be the hardest for me. Hopefully I can find one that I like and is within a price I'm willing to pay.

Closet shelving and 1920's Pin-up photos

The closet shelving will likely be the most expensive thing we will have to install. I want to get something nice but don't want to spend thousands of dollars.  Hopefully we can find what we need in a decent price range.  I also love 1920's or earlier pin-up photos.  Put them in some vintage frames and hang randomly around the room. {swoon}

Vintage inspired wallpaper and Art Deco vanity

This is pretty easy.. I've seen some really beautiful vintage inspired wallpaper at Lowe's or Home Depot so that is easily done and not too expensive.  I only plan on wallpapering the one wall where there won't be any closet shelving.  As for the art deco vanity.. Check!  Eric's mom gave me a beautiful vanity when we moved into our house and it has been patiently sitting downstairs waiting for a room to move into and be used.  (can't wait!!)

Door knobs as functional art and a beautiful chandelier

Well.. Check & Check!   I have been slowly collecting old door knobs that I like over the years.  I don't have very many but that is okay. This is something that I can add as I find ones I like.  I want to use them to hang scarves, necklaces or pieces of art from in the room.  Also I came across an old chandelier similar to the one in the picture, but a little more simple, in the basement when we moved in. It just needs a good cleaning and possibly some rewiring. I'm also super excited to bring that chandelier back to life and give it a new home in the dressing room.

Hopefully I can pull this off and it doesn't look awkward when put together.
Now if only I could get Eric to install the rest of the insulation and get working on some new windows and drywall!!  (hint, HINT!)

< demo > complete < /demo >

we finished taking down the walls!  demo is complete!



Here is eric preparing to take down the last of the remaining wall..



not exactly sure what we were listening to.. but apparently it had some awesome air guitar





As we were taking down the last bit we found another relic on the wall..



Perhaps this one isn't as old as the other...  :)

Here we go!





And it's done!!







HI RUDY!


Now we need to do some electrical work as we need to add a couple of outlets.

I will also be calling about some windows for the room.

And then there is this...



Not sure what this is from.. but i will need to call a plumber to have them check it out and see if it can be cut and put back together below the floor.

after admiring our work.. if you stand in the corner by the two outside walls and look down it feels like you are standing on a floating floor..



Just a bit freaky....

maybe i'm weird.. but lathe & plaster can be pretty at times..



we got all this done on saturday.. sunday we worked on cleaning up the dust trail from carrying all the mess out of the house.   It was such a beautiful day so we also spent some time with erics lovely mom and jerry and had funhouse pizza for dinner.  This evening eric and I and all 5 of our pet kids climbed onto the couch and watched a couple of episodes of Dr. Who.. wish i had a picture of that.  Eric, me, 2 dogs & 3 cats on the couch.  This weekend was a success.

once we get more done on the room i'll give you an update!

now off to bed for me and the fam..

signing off..   -d

Annihilation

We were in demo mode again tonight.  However tonight we started on the real messy stuff.. Lathe & Plaster.  Otherwise known as dusty.as.shit.and.a.pain.in.my.ass.

But i think it went well.  It really isn't all that hard to take down and Eric can take down large sections of the walls really fast.. but i can't clean it up faster then he can take it down. So i gave up and left a mess for this weekend when we can bring the lawnmower with the trailer to haul down to the dumpster.

Some photos of the progress...

Assessing the job at hand..  otherwise known as taking a break


Eric Smash!


The mess


Where we left it for the night


rubble..


I mentioned in the last post about the ceiling being wallpapered.. but what i didn't mention was the weird placement of the light fixture in there..


Never mind the wires hanging from the ceiling.. i think that went to the motion sensors that used to be in the living room directly beneath the room.  We didn't use them (we have cats and dogs) so we removed them from downstairs but never took the awkward wiring out from this room.

At this point i think i'm going to leave the ceiling in place and i might just leave the electrical in the ceiling where it is too.  I have a chandelier i am putting in this room so i might just do the decorative chain/cord and hook in order to get the light in the middle of the room.  Only time will tell.

We got the most part of 1 1/2 walls done.  We should have the room completely gutted by this weekend!!  And we can thank tonights fast work of ripping down the walls to THE ANNIHILATOR by Dead on Tools.



This tool is pretty awesome..
And it has a skull on it!  So you know.. that makes it work better.



Your parting gift for this evening isn't a picture of one of my pets.. but of my fantastic face:



Hot!

meaning it's time to go take a Hot! shower and go the heck to bed.
over and out...

Demolition (wo)Man!

Here we go again!  Another project to add to the list.. 

Remember that front porch project?

  You can read about it here:  Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

umm.. yeah.. that still isn't done..

I never even wrote about the bathroom!  Which we have mostly done but the front of the tub is still unfinished.. window needs to be painted, along with the shelving unit and doors.  Not to mention we already have repairs that need to be done..  faucet needs replacing already and breaker blew on the light fixtures above the sink.. Oh Joy!

Anyway.. i can spend all day listing all the stuff that we have and have not started yet.. but i'm not going to as that makes my head and my wallet hurt.

What i do want to talk about is the little bedroom off the office.  I call it the dressing room.

This room will become a very large closet!  I'm super excited about it as we have a 4 bedroom house 1 1/2 bath, eat in kitchen, formal dining room (we use as a library), living room and entry way and 2... wait... lets do that again..  ONE.. TWO.. closets!!  

One in the office which is for Erics stuff.. 

The other in the room we are currently using as our bedroom which we use for our clothes and other storage.  I have a rubbermaid tub with my shoes in it.. not fun finding shoes when you are in a hurry which is me 99.999% of the time.

So we are now working on the Spare Oom..  (tell me you got that reference?) (wait.. who am i talking to.. does anyone read this blog??   .....   ..)

Isn't she lovely

a little passive agressive are we?  

An old relic from the days when Eric's family lived here.  His uncle wrote that on the wall.

Can you see the light?  that is the front porch you can see through that hole.

So tonight we began working on it.  I took one wall down to the studs and Eric removed the molding around the windows.  The wall i worked on tonight was particle board which was easy to remove.  The other three walls are lathe and plaster.. it's gonna get messy!

After looking at the windows once the molding was removed I think i'm going to look into vinyl windows.  Yeah they won't match the rest of the house.. but i figure one room at a time is better than leaving these since i can't afford to do them all at once!

If you look closely at the window you can see the old pulley mechanism.

Isn't the wallpaper devine!  What you probably can't tell by these photos is that the ceiling is papered also.  We haven't decided if we are taking the ceiling down yet.  only time will tell.

The list for tomorrow is removal of the trash we now have all over the floor.. or i should say.. figuring out how we are going to remove all this down our steep narrow stairs.  

Fortunately we rented a dumpster for Erics rental 2 houses down so we have a place to put this trash but getting it there might be an adventure on it's own.

Then we work on the lathe & plaster walls!

I'll try and keep you posted on the progress!

On a side note..   I still need to write a post about T & B's wedding cake that i made!  I'm pretty darn proud of myself for that one so i'll try and get something done soon.  

Also.. apparently it's time to upgrade my flickr account to pro..  granted it's not really expensive but i was hoping to wait it out a bit longer.. no such luck.  

One more pic for the road:

Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl.  She turned 12 today!

I think she's not interested...

Day 3: Front Porch Project

Well it has been a long time since we have been able to work on the Front Porch Project.  Last time we worked on it was in November!  Way too long!
You can see day 1 here and day 2 here.

Here it is almost 7 months later are we are only now just getting back to it.  We have had many excuses to not be working on it.. I say excuses because it's mostly because we are lazy and haven't done it.. but other reasons include the weather and money.. but really.. we were just lazy.  So now we are getting back to it and our goal is to have it done soon so that we can actually enjoy it this summer/fall.   Let's hope we can pull it off!

So back to it.. This weekend we worked on fixing the roof line.  It had fallen/sagged/drooped.. a few inches on the right side of the peak.
You can kind of see it here


Here it is from the outside


The roof line on the right side dropped about almost 4 inches..

Now i don't have any pictures of the process of jacking it back into place as it was a bit nerve-racking.

We used a 2x6 and a 2x4 screwed together to reach the top of the peak to about 5 inches above the floor.  We then placed a car jack under the boards and slowly jacked up the roof line.  Eric then secured the right side of the roof up with more screws and then i placed the 2x4 which you see below under the right  side of the peak.  We then released the jack and removed the long board and i then screwed in the new 2x4 to help hold the roof line up in place.





You can really see the difference in that last picture.

I had really hoped for rain on Sunday to see if we had any leaking. You would figure the one time I really want rain and it doesn't. A day or two before we had an 80% chance.. well.. i'll just have to wait.

We did buy some roofing caulk and as soon as I can I will climb up on the roof and put new caulking along the edge where the roof meets the house and hopefully seal it up real tight.

Next we need to bring in a header to go along the top of the brick wall and we are thinking we will add another board at the peak to make it a bit stronger. Then we will replace some of the joists and add a few more to support the new ceiling.

Previously:
$7 (spray paint)

adding:
$39 New battery for the cordless drill
$12 Caulking

Total: $58

Hopefully I'll have more to update you on sooner rather than later!

I'll leave you with a picture of my Poe dog.. he'll be turning 1 soon!!

Day 2: Front Porch Project

So why is it that every time I want to start a "little" project.. where I think it I could get it done quickly it always ends up a "BIG" project and more time and money has to be spent? I blame Bob..

Bob is Eric's grandpa whose house we are living in now.

So this weekend we spent more time on the front porch project.
After looking at options for insulation and looking at the ceiling some more it was decided that the ceiling had to come down. So that was this weekends project. And whooboy it was a dirty one!

Remember the ceiling...  ?

So much dust, dirt, debris and other stuff fell on our heads. We went through 4 or 5 face masks so we didn't breath in too much of that crap.

Husband working on removing the last board from the ceiling

This is how it turned out!  Not too bad i suppose... 

Then we started to survey the damage.

Ugg.. well this will obviously need to be replaced..  The cross beam is completely rotted and we will be putting a new one in.

old water damage

We found somethings nest.....

A nest.. fortunately already vacated.

The bone? we found in the nest!  Looks like a rib bone.. of what I have no clue!

So things we will be working on next...

Replacing that rotted beam.  Adding more as the beams are like 3 feet apart!  So we will add more for the support of the new ceiling.   Jacking up the roof....  So I don't have a picture and I will try to take one before we start working on it.. but the roof is sagging at the peak by 4 or 5 inches so we are going to jack it back up so it's level and add more supports so it doesn't start to sag again.
Then install the insulation and hang the new ceiling!

not much.. not much at all...

Hopefully the temperatures don't drop to much too soon so that we can get this work done before it gets too cold and before I need to paint.. but there are always space heaters!

Till next time!

Total: still only $7 but that is going to change pretty quickly!