On to the Next Home Improvement Project

The work on our fixer-upper home is never done. There's always some large or small project lying in wait, irritating us on a daily basis until we get fed up enough to fix it. Mike has a lot less patience (or maybe it's less laziness) with these need-to-do's than I have. He also enjoys them as hobby projects in a way I do not, even though they make him crazy. I swear the longer we live in Massachusetts the more he resembles Norm Abram from This Old House. No-ahm Abrahm and his meh-zhud drawrings.

In fact, Mike is already hard at work on his next big project. Our bedroom is the only room in the house that never got painted when we moved in. It's been primed, but then we finally just gave up a while back and removed the painter's tape from the trim after letting it rot there for a couple of years to no practical end. The former owners removed the doors and most of the original hardwood window and door trim and replaced it, inexplicably, with some horrible, orangey 1970's era garbage.

The closet doors/trim when we moved in - and Maggie, age 2

Part of what was stalling us was our indecision about what to do about that trim: go to all the effort of sanding and painting it white? Leave it as is, even though it's ugly and the rest of the trim in the house is white? Replace it with reproduction trim and doors to match the rest of the house and then paint?

After we did our bathroom remodel, which involved replacing the trim and door in that room, we decided that we really should put our efforts and cash toward replacing the all the 70's trim to match. The bathroom looks so much lovelier (see: old bathroom door vs. new bathroom door) with the new/old white woodwork that it seemed defeating have to work so hard to sand and paint this uggo-buggo stuff.

The uggo-buggo window and radiator cover

So Mike has been super industrious and is nearly done replacing all the woodwork in our bedroom. The only thing he has left (I think) is the radiator cover, and we need to find some new hardware for closet doors, which will be the only thing left to sand and paint.

New/old window trim

The biggest, worst, most-harrowing part of the project was replacing the door, which he did by himself. I don't even know how he ever managed to do it and get it to hang straight. I was downstairs the whole time hanging out with the girls because otherwise we'd probably be divorced right now.

Old door, no door, a view of the new closet trim

The only original door left in the house, complete with crystal knob, goes to the attic.

What a Difference a Door Makes

3% Less Ugly!

 

Our big plan is to prime and paint everything our good old Polar Bear White (Behr, if you're trolling for paint colors) except for the wall behind our bed which will be... dun, dun, dun... River Blue (Benjamin Moore). Remember my old friend River Blue from the repainting the shingles escapade? I decided it looked a little too circus tent for the outside of the house, but I'm feeling like it will be the perfect shade of peacock for our room.

 

I'll probably find out I hate it as soon as we get it painted on the wall.

 

Mike, who is crazy or a glutton for punishment - or actually, he is a little obsessed with the smell of sawdust - is going to make our headboard just like this one we found in a Lowe's project ideas magazine (except painted white):

 

 

 ...and I already bought these bedlinens that I found at Target:

 



We have black, kind of mod beside tables, which we'll keep. I will need to find some new lamps, and eventually our dressers will need to be replaced. They are old, super fuggly, and completely mismatched in style and color. And we really could use a rug or two and some kind of artwork on the walls. All in good time...

***

I have this one last thought to add: if you are not married and you are looking for a soul mate, partner-in-crime, and lifelong companion, I do highly recommend finding one with some mad handyman skills. Mike was an Eagle Scout, so he can make a flotation device out of his pants. He's an IT professional, so he knows what to do when our computer starts acting all flaky, and I've never set up my own cell phone before. But his passion for cutting things with saws and his dexterity with a pneumatic nail gun really top everything else. His romance on the side with his shop vac provides such an improvement on MY day-to-day quality of living, that I vow to never stand between them. I really should volunteer to do the painting. Ugh. Maybe I'll just butter him up with a homemade carrot cake instead. He deserves it.