Wednesday, May 25, 2011

It's a wrap!

After living at the Duckling for a solid 2 weeks now, we've learned that




  • you can live with half-finished paint jobs


  • you can live with having to zigzag through boxes everywhere


  • the world does not come crashing down if your house doesn't look like it should be featured on houzz.com


  • bicycles in your entry hall still leave enough space to move comfortably


  • it takes the cat this long to get used to the new house (outside, however, is a totally different story)


  • living in the house you're renovating doesn't necessarily mean you will renovate it faster and complete more projects than when you had to drive over every day


  • Drywall dust can and will be everywhere


  • we don't want to live without our water and ice dispenser on our fridge


  • having a functioning laundry room is heaven

We're surrounded by half-finished projects and, now that the initial excitement over finally really living at our Duckling house is starting to wear off, they are beginning to irk me just a little bit. I've been flitting back and fro between a couple of projects, doing a little here and there before something else would catch my eye and attention and guess what?

That ain't gonna work!

Aside from "Do whatever you want" Sunday, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to tackle our house project and make it family visit-able is to tackle one room after another and finish it! No more bouncing around. No more dawdling. No more scraping paint here and there.
Just pick a room and finish it.
Rinse and repeat.

So I went and finished the little half bath downstairs. Yay me!

Here's what was needed to take our little half bath from blah to ta-dah



[Smallest, most awkward to photograph half bath - yes, the outside of the door frame needs to be painted but that's part of the library to-do-list]





  • Separate half bath from laundry room with new drywall


  • remove old wall closet


  • remove old sink


  • re-plumb


  • re-wire


  • Paint walls ("Cloudy Morning")


  • trim out


  • paint trim


  • paint door


  • paint threshold


  • add light fixture


  • new sink and faucet from Vintage tub & bath


  • add small frame-less mirror (Target, $17.99)


  • little shelves (Family Dollar, $5)


  • add window treatment


  • add stripey rug (Fred's, $4.99)


[The other half of the half bath]





  • add basket for toilet paper and extra towels (on hand)


  • hang art (a gift from a very talented friend who is an actual artist


  • accessorize shelves (items on hand)


That's a lot of steps for a room that's all of 3ft wide and 6ft long ... (aside from our closets, it is the smallest room in the house).

So are we really really finished? Well, for now we are.

At some point we'd like to knock out the ol' tile and replace it with simple painted drywall for a clean look on the walls (right now it's tiled halfway up) and either try a wood style Allure flooring on the floor or a pretty slate tile on the floor. And I think the light fixture needs a little help.



The cut glass dome isn't too bad - it actually works well with the vintage charm we have going on in there - but the bright shiny new brass is not my 'thang' and doesn't go with the chrome of the faucet soooo ... I'm thinking silver spraypaint. What do you think?



The husband starts to twitch nervously every time I let the word "spray paint" slip ...

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