HOUSE #3

I figured the best way to restart blogging was to let you in on what exactly I've been doing for the past year and a half (other than slowly going insane).

I started my new job in Durham the first week in August 2009.

Reid and I promptly put the house in Winston Salem up for sale, and because it was sure to fly off the market in a matter of mere days, I moved in temporarily with my brother in Durham.

Yes. That’s correct. I was a grown-ass married lady living with her brother.

Here's what a typical evening looked like:


I cracked after one month.

We decided that our Winston house wasn’t going anywhere and we needed a better solution for living in Durham. So Reid and I signed a three month lease (hahahaha!) for this *delightful* one bedroom apartment.


Fun Factoid: it took exactly four seconds for our ninety pound dog to cover all 700 sq ft of this beauty with dog fur.

Finally after seven, seemingly endless months in the world’s largest dog hair dumping grounds/apartment. We sold our Winston house.

And because we learned nothing from our travails, we bought another one.

This brings my grand total of houses owned to three. And here she is:


Before continuing I would like to point out the excellent picture taking skills of Google Street View. Didn't they do an amazing job of capturing whatever random car that is?

Anywhoodle, In the course of this elaborate housing transition process I have asked myself many questions:

What is wrong with us?

Is the lifetime accumulation of paint fumes making us crazy?

Are we House Hoarders?

Did we both simultaneously fall down and whack our noggins thus triggering the house buying glands in our brains to kick into overdrive?

I’m not 100% sure.

What I do know is that it took us less than two weeks before we started in on the projects. And so the cycle continues….

I'm Baaaaaack...

I don't even know who I'm telling "I'm back" to considering I only wrote three blog posts before completely abandoning this bad boy for a year and half.

But after 18 months of vowing to resurrect my nonexistent blogging career, I am finally going to be creating new posts.

So prepare yourselves (all zero of you) for the most (or least) amazing updates you've ever read.

Before and After: Living Room

The Before: More lovely lilac paint and a little bit of a country traditional bent. Oh yeah, and no furniture.



The After: The walls got a hit of flat paint, Gentle Rain from Behr. Gray is the new beige in my book.


And the flat part was VERY important since our walls are plaster and have lots of blemishes.


We ripped out the cornices and added the uber-long curtains hung a good five inches above the top of the windows. I sewed them myself to get ones long enough and wish they were just an eensy bit longer...oh well.



And Reid's favorite part--the TV.

Believe it or not this baby actually made the room. There was no other place to put the TV except on this wall in order to get the couch in as well. And with the fireplace there anyway it was the obvious place for it. My dad built the frame around it with molding to make it look a little more meant to be. Figuring out how to hide the wires without destroying the 85 year old plaster walls however was not so easy...



This is my version of a family portrait. The frames were a dollar each at Salvation Army and I cut out the silhouettes myself out of colored paper. Reid think his looks like Clay Aiken.


No comment.



Here's one last parting look. The papers on the coffee table are actually our sales brochures from the realtor. One more showing today, so hopefully we'll be saying goodbye soon!

Before and After, Before It's Gone

One of the reasons I started this little house blogging project is because my house is now for sale. And during the worst real estate market of the century, no less! (A new job will make you do stupid things.)

Anyway, in the process of getting it ready to show, I started to realize just how much work I had done over the past two years. (And by "I", I mean myself, my now-hubby Reid, my parents, his parents, and anyone else I could trick into holding a paint brush or hammer.)

Over the past 24+ months we slowly but surely overhauled every room, starting with only a few pieces of hand-me-down furniture. And because I am cheap as all get out, not a single item or stick of furniture cost over $300. Seriously.

So I thought what better way to kick things off than by seeing how far the whole shebang has come.

Without further ado, here’s the first room.

MASTER BEDROOM, UPSTAIRS

The Before: A perfect dentist’s office complete with metal vertical blinds!
It’s hard to tell from here, but the walls are actually covered in textured wallpaper and painted a chalky shade of lilac. They were then covered over with a good layer of cobwebs and grime.


And the after! First the walls got a coat of spa blue paint. Then the vertical blinds made friends with the trash collector, and were replaced with 2-inch faux wood plantation blinds from Lowe’s. To frame the bed I sewed up a pair of chocolate brown panels, then added the opposing nightstands, and matching end lamps ($80 for the pair at Marshalls).

The headboard is actually a solid old school door that I scored for $5.00 at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I covered it in unbleached cotton canvas and added the nailhead trim to finish it off.

Let's Get Started

Over the past five years, thanks to my glorious and tumultuous career in advertising, I have lived in three apartments, owned two houses, and am in the process of moving on to my third.

(See here’s the sale sign for proof. If you would like to buy it, I will be happy to take all of your money.)

Along the way, I have had to figure out how to make all of these very different places feel like home--without a lot of money, without any actual skills and without injuring myself.

I have learned A LOT in this grand process: Spray paint is the eighth wonder of the world, there is no such thing as too many tools, and never agree to hold the backend when moving heavy furniture.

But one realization in particular has made the biggest impact:

I will never, ever, ever be finished.

So this blog, like my life and my home(s), is a work in progress. I can’t promise it will be perfect, but I’m sure there will be some happy accidents along the way.