Alright. No one is more aware than I am that there hasn't been an update on
"Operation Fix this Fucking House" in, oh...seven years or so (give or take seven years). I'd like to say that we've spent this vast amount of time tweaking and polishing and such and such for our big final reveal where I could rub your noses in the fact that we made this old hag of a house our bitch, but yeah- not so much. I am still LeBitch of the Casa, and we still aren't done. Can I get a FFUUUUCCCKKKK?!?!?
The funny (insert maniacal, shrill laughter here) thing is, the main reason we started the whole renovation/redecoration thingy is because of one room in particular: the "old" bathroom. I can't wait to show you pictures of this sorry excuse of a shitter in all of its flesh-tone tiles with diarrhea-brown trimmed glory, but that will have to wait for a (long) while, as this also happens to be the ONLY FREAKING ROOM WE HAVEN'T EVEN FREAKING STARTED YET. Yes, I still have the ugliest bathroom on the planet in my home. You will believe. Trust me. You will believe.
But...that will have to wait for now. I'm close to being able to show you the dining room, but I have to wait for a day that isn't raining or 900% humidity so that I can finally paint a couple of things. Yes, two of those "things" are actually living pets, but hey- I like to color-coordinate.
Yes, I can wait while you call the local ASPCA to report me...
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Okay then.
Moving on...
I realized today that the living room has been pretty much done for a while now, I was just kind of thinking that I'd wait until it felt
perfect, but then I remembered that "perfect" for me is a fluctuating thing, and with my ADD and OCD and TNT (Dy-no-mite!), well, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and wave the white flag. It's as done as it's gonna be, and I may as well take a picture or two on the one day that there seems to be no dog puke or drool on at least 80% of the furniture, and since there aren't any pet hair tumbleweeds blowing through or embarrassing magazines left out (What? I read
Juggs and
Ferret Monthly for the articles! Really!)- then today is the day.
First, you need to know what we started with, from the beginning.
Once upon a time, a very, very broke couple bought a very, very old house because they loved it, and because it was cheap. Dirt cheap. Not being wise in the ways of minor things like "updated to code electrical stuff", "plumbing stuff", and ""what's that funny smell?" stuff, they were elated to find a home to call their own where they would never again have to be oppressed by the white walls of apartment living. Unfortunately, the lovely couple did not know that plaster walls come with a whole nutha' level of frustration when it comes to painting them, especially when the plaster walls were put in around 1906 and are particularly porous:
Ugh.
The charming couple also knew that there were pristine, original, honey-colored maple floors underneath the 40+ year old carpeting (Oh sweet Jeebus- the smell! Think: Old lady+cabbage+mildew+cabbage farts), but they had no idea of how much work it would take to unearth said floors. Turns out, the 40+ year-old red rubber foam underneath the nastyass carpeting had pretty much fused to the floor. Like cement. And, to complicate matters, the wood underneath was in such beautiful shape that the shockingly attractive couple didn't want to use any chemicals or metal scrapers that might have damaged the finish. Fourteen plastic scrapers, much alcohol and several breakdowns later, the astonishingly witty couple was done.
Yes, it was as fun as you think it would be:
As our beloved couple were still in their 20's when they painted/decorated, and since they were still no joke broke, they made the room "theirs" with a mishmash of hand-me-down furniture, thrift store booty, lots of gold paint, and one zebra-striped rug that they were given as a gift. You can't see it here, but for a long time they also had a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Ahh...youth.
This is an old picture, but as there doesn't seem to be any "whole room" shots of the old living room, this will at least give you an idea of the overall "theme" of the space. Think: Old Vegas meets IKEA meets your Grandma's parlor:
And with that, our wonderfully eloquent and well-mannered couple rode off into the sunset. Well, they drove their VW to the convenience store for slurpees and nachos, anyways. The End. Well, the end of me writing in fairy-tale form, anyways. I can't keep up with shit like that.
Again, moving on...
Phase 2 of the living room project started with the purchase of a couch, and we built (read:
I built) the rest of the room around it. This pic is the new couch, the new coffee table, the old paint job and curtains, and Rug #1 that was promptly returned, such was it's fugliness:
Here we are, once again prepping the goddamn plaster walls for painting. Yeah, I'd like to say that we got all of this done really fast and only had to live in crack-den squalor for a day or two, but who am I kidding? It looked like this for over a week:
And finally...it's done (for a few years anyways).
I'm not really an "old Victorianesque house" sort of gal, so in changing things up, I wanted to modernize the overall look of the joint while still keeping the basic "bones" intact. I have beautiful wood floors and windows with simple, clean lines, and I really didn't want to mess with that.
I like to think that I achieved my goal, for the most part. It's still "us", but the more grown-up version of "us", still with a sense of humor and a bit o'whimsy:
The curtains are blue cotton velvet, which works well year-round. If they were darker I wouldn't think so, but the light color makes the fabric seem not so heavy. The rug is a shag I ordered online- I love the crap out of this rug, but I'm pretty sure that vacuuming it counts as hard-core cardio. I worked up a shocking amount of sweat last time I did it- like, sweaty underboob and all. Yes, I'm a tender, delicate flower- tell me something I don't know.
This pic has one of the many IKEA items that we had to buy in it (the cabinet), being that we were on a miniscule budget and have all sorts of strange, useless spaces throughout the Casa that needed filling (that's what SHE said!). The lamp was from lamps.com, and it looks super duper neato when it's lit up:
Yes, we still have the Sonny Chiba "Street Fighter" poster- I like to think of it as "timelessly elegant". The end table was a Craigslist find from a fabulously fabulous gay boy in Minneapolis. The lamp base was a vintage store find that I approached like a drunk, horny girl at closing time- I know I shouldn't take it home because it's kind of ugly, but I'm incapable of saying no to it in my state, and it
does have a certain charm...
The only art on the walls in this room (other than Sonny) is a grouping of three photos, all purchased through various peepos on the internets. The top one was from
Sandy (who actually gave it to me when I jokingly said I wanted an 11x14 when I saw the picture on his blog. I guess I'm glad that my ill-timed and awkward sense of humor works to my advantage sometimes.) The middle one was purchased from someone off of this
awesome MN website (thanks again for keeping it,
Sornie!). And the bottom one was purchased through bloggess extrordinaire, Ms. Campbell at
Jurgen Nation. I like how they all are kind of sort of dreamy, spooky landscapes.
Close up of the coffee table, a solid slab of old marble, bought off Craigslist from a little old lady in St. Louis Park. The slab is seriously, no-joke heavy. I like how it brings a little bit of nature into a fairly crisp room:
A closer look in the corner- you can see better here how I toned down from the old diamond pattern on the walls and painted subtle stripes instead:
Closeup of the lamp, just because I love the texture.
So, yeah. That's it for today's installment of
"OFtFH":
updated.
Tune in six months from now when I can maybe, possibly, probably not show you yet another finished room. My prediction: by the time we finish the last room, we'll have to start all over again because 20 years will have passed and shit will be falling apart. Good times.
We'll finish today off with a treat- an "amuse bouche after the fact", if you will.
Cat on a stick. Yum.
Happy whateverdaythisisimonvacationdammit, my plaster-covered shaggy rugs. Happy whatever.