Not Home for the Holidays: Christmas 2014 Edition

Fueled by this spectacular breakfast (3.5 slices of applewood smoked bacon, scrambled eggs with green onion, spinach, one slice of muenster and crumbled syrah-soaked toscana cheese and a sourdough English muffin) I unleashed Christmas on our house today. 

I got going on the living room yesterday and put up the mantle garland, which actually looks kind of blah in this picture. (The red walls though, wow. That is why we painted this room red.) Oh well, plenty of time for more pictures later this month!

Entry console with the very wrinkled scarf runner and festive ornaments. Since we're not doing a tree this year (that's the sixth year out of eight we've been married and haven't had a tree, usually due to travel, but twice due to moving) I put ornaments all over everything else. Most cabinet knobs have something, as do a few windows and some random hooks that are...around.

I just got these acorns into this hurricane and got my two pieces of fall decor in place, so I don't exactly want to give them up so soon. So, I Christmased it with an ornament. (See, ornaments everywhere!)

The pumpkin stays put, at least for a little while. This little vignette is in the dining room.

I know last year I called this the "Christmas kitchen" but this year it really is. I am feeling more clever than I should for thinking of putting rigid foam insulation on top of the cabinets so I could put stuff up there. (The crown sticks up a few inches, so things hide behind it and are too low to really see without any boost.)

That little wood sign is kind of kitchy and says "don't get your tinsel in a tangle" -- a good reminder from the elves at TJ Maxx ;) There are also some great pinecone balls with sparkle up there... Think I need some more up-close pictures.

Command strip kept me from putting a hole in the fridge panel, so the wreath can come down in two months without requiring a patch job.

I am most proud of the garland on top of the fridge. Placing it involved me, Todd, an extension cord, two coat hangers, one of my long clamps and miraculously no pinched fingers. The cord is very snugly run down from the top of the cabinets, down the side of the fridge and into the outlet in the back of the pantry cab. I then put it on a timer, so the lights switch on and off automatically (this is one of my favorite tricks for Christmas lights that always seem to be plugged into inaccessible spots).

Bonus: the insulation rigid foam insulation I used to boost the top-of-cabinet decor above the crown molding has a shiny foil side, so it helps reflect the little lights even more! (The crown is nailed to the top of the cabs, so everything hides behind it unless it's on top of something. In this case, I cut up a 4x8' sheet of foam insulation, which is very light so it doesn't put a bunch more weight up there.)

I finally got a rug for the entry. That's the good news.

It's also good news that it looks this cute for the holidays.

Not good news: the door only opens this far with the rug in place. Thank you, non-level floors. I'm working on a solution for this, but it involves swapping out the door threshold and removing the sweep (the rubber thing on the bottom of the door that insulates). This is not exactly the sort of project I want to be experimental with.

This "rug" was just a piece of gray low-pile commercial carpet I ordered from Home Depot. I'm eventually going to paint a pattern on it so it doesn't look like a piece of low-pile, high-traffic commercial carpet, but for now it's just that. It looks pretty good, considering I haven't even added any binding to it yet.

Back to the dining room for an awful picture of my pirate nutcracker camping out on top of the china hutch... (We still don't have a working light fixture in the dining room, so it gets really dark.)

And another bad picture of a lovely garland on top of the cabinet in the living room. Exciting side note: I ordered glass shelves for this (finally) so I'll be able to start using it and not just piling fragile things in there.

And there you have it. Christmas 2014 at Casa McShoe.

Update: the pictures were bothering me, knowing you couldn't enjoy the full Christmasy awesomeness, so here are some better ones! 

No Christmas is complete without a bowl of ornaments...

 

Or two pictures of said bowl.

Ornaments everywhere. Except on a tree. 

And the tops of the kitchen cabs, up closer...

Stairs and other projects

Following the kitchen remodel, I was kind of over house stuff for a while. We've worked on a number of projects, including, but likely not limited to:

• mudding Todd's office
• plotting a plumbing project
• finishing the upstairs bathroom and guest room for friends to come visit
• priming and painting the entry
• priming and painting trim
• priming the bar counter wall
• finding, sanding, staining and waxing the bar counter
• a failed doorknob replacement attempt
• priming the stair risers
• adding kitchen hardware
• cleaning and organizing the garage

I just haven't been feeling like writing it all down. So here's a bunch of pictures. First, some befores of the stairs. They were a rather terrible shade of brown, which I have disliked since the glee of removing the green carpet wore off. That was nearly five years ago. This is the first flight.

 And the second flight.

 Wait, here's a before-before. This stuff was like antique carpeting. Dreadful.

And here's a sort-of after. The risers are just primed, but I think it's a massive improvement. Flight one...

 And flight two. Still to be done: paint risers, finish mudding paneling, paint paneling white so it looks like drywall, paint baluster and spindles. Probably glossy black.

 This is the entry, which I primed and painted last week. Good to have that done. I found that lamp at a thrift store (I dislike them more every time I visit one. The lady told me if the lamp didn't work I had a week to return it, and I thought to myself that I would pay the $4 it cost me again just to not have to go back there). I'd planned on busting it up and using the parts, but then I decided I kind of liked it so instead painted it. It really needs a new shade, but its mod shape is working for me right now. Not working for me: the pile of shoes. Hopefully I can figure out a solution to that.

 Oh, this is an exciting one. After scrubbing to remove dried wood glue from errantly placed corbels and patching tears left in the wood veneer from said corbels, I primed the bar counter wall today. This was before I went to work.

 And after. Still needs to be painted, but it's been a long week. I just laid the counter on top, which I hope doesn't sit in place for weeks on end. I want to finish it one night this week.

 Here's the view from above. The wood is just beautiful.

 Down there at the end is a leftover tuft of moss from my little moss-gathering stop on my way back from Bend yesterday. I love moss. I think it's so interesting and verdant and natural and it has such great texture. So I bagged a bunch yesterday near Union Creek and made some moss balls yesterday. I tried to take pictures, but the low light in the dining room (down to one bulb out of three in that awful fixture in the dining room) was thwarting my efforts. They are enchanting and foresty and fascinating. I have one in a terrarium and the other under a cloche and I just love them.

 In the last couple months, I've continued to mess with the styling of these shelves in the downstairs bathroom. I added that green glass bottle in the lower right corner, found at TJ Maxx, and put fake leaves from Michael's in to balance it.

 The bottle is recycled blown glass and it's all irregularly shaped. Normally not what I go in for, but I really like this.

 Heading back upstairs again, we cleared out the hallway a few weekends ago in preparation for some of our friends from Bend to visit for the weekend. I either can't find or don't have befores, but it was awful. You had to hold onto the railing and sort of scoot by sideways.

 Also prior to Kristan and Brian's arrival last weekend, I finally added a transition to the bathroom and patched in the little bit of floor that was missing. Points if you can identify the patched piece. I was going to finish the wood with some poly or something, but I kind of love how it looks against the slate just raw and aged, so I'll probably leave it for a while. I salvaged as much wood as I could when we redid upstairs, so I have a small stockpile if I need to replace it again.

 Here's the guest room. It looks a lot cozier in person, though it is definitely still miscellaneous furniture purgatory. The chair and ottoman in the corner are pieces I snagged a long time ago with intentions of reupholstering. The ottoman will get it this summer. Its twin is downstairs in the living room.

You may also notice the door in the corner. I was eying the space one day, trying to figure out how on earth I was going to make something to close off the attic. Then I grabbed a tape measure and sure enough, it was about 28.5" wide. Just wide enough for me to violently wedge a 28" door into the space, after I sawed off the bottom 30 inches. It was my first door installation, and it totally works!

 One more of the stairs...

 And I found this sign when I was cleaning out the attic a few weeks ago. "This room CONDEMNED by order of the management." Never was a sign so fitting.

Lastly, I will leave you with this. This is a load of old/extra building materials we took over to Habitat. There was a 20' section of pipe, so we had to flag it. The only red thing around was an old oven mitt, which I rubberbanded onto the pipe, and away we went. Watching peoples' faces was priceless as we drove there.

Closing the door (or not)

After a ridiculous amount of monkeying around, we now have a new red door on our house. It looks really nice from the street (and I cleaned up the junk heap right after I took the pictures...not the best sequencing) but we are still having issues with it. I think our Kwikset lock is defective (or I'm defective, but I've successfully installed three other locks and deadbolts, so I don't think that's the case) so I'm not sure what we're going to do about that. I can tell you what I'm not going to do though--go back to Pacific Door and Sash. Here's my review of them: I don't think they know what they're doing. They're really nice guys, and good customer service is very important. But it's not just being nice. It's actually providing SERVICE, as in, doing things right. Three times they have screwed up, and at some point, you just start to wonder if anybody over there has a clue what they're doing.

More on the door: Trevor trimmed the sides with a fluted molding and the top with crown, something that I think is called "dentil" which is sort of fitting because it looks like teeth, a bit. You can google it if you want to. It's dark out. It looks really nice, but now I think the arch/porch looks even more out of place than it did. We aren't sure what to do about it; it was an addition by the last owner, and while it's functional to have a covered front step, it's not in keeping with the character of a Cape Cod, and the rustic/country style is definitely not right. Add it to the list...

Anyway, I think I will go see Charlie, our buddy at Home Depot, and see if he can help. He's like our personal shopper; we walk in the door and Charlie takes us around the store to round up what we need. Love it.

January 11 update

Here's a little recap on what we've accomplished this week.  It was a pretty productive week, especially the last three days of it.

Today I also cleaned out the fireplace, which was a delightful task.  I sucked out half a shop vac's worth of old brick, leaves, ash, rocks, and (proving that the old codger did burn his garbage as the neighbors alleged) some plastic-y foil wrappers.  Then I noticed the hole in the back of the fireplace, and, putting two and two together, went outside and opened the little door at the base of the chimney.  I dug somewhere between five and eight gallons of ash and cinders out of the tunnel between the fireplace and the door.  It just kept coming.  Gary (the chimney guy) and I agreed that it was a minor miracle that this place hadn't burned down, given the old man's negligence.

Demolition Barbie: Sledgehammer and Crowbar Included!

Remember how I mentioned a few days ago that we were going to redo the bathroom? Well, it's underway. Here's a little video of what it looked like before (that's right, there's a....um...next step. Not an after. Yet.)



Sorry that it's sideways. I couldn't really get the right angle landscape...It's totally good for you to bend your neck like that. Ask any chiropractor....

Later that afternoon, my hands were throbbing from holding a hammer for so long and kept pinching together like crabs with muscle spasms. And this is what I'd accomplished:

Basically, I eat 2x4s and plaster for lunch. Cat, be sure to mention to your chauvinist friend that I am rather handy with a sledge hammer.

While I was at work smashing the bathroom to bits and throwing it out the window, Trevor the Great was in the next room over, ripping out the old sliding glass door that closed crooked and was so dirty it wouldn't get clean. (That's a special kind of dirty, for those who don't know. Specifically, this kind of dirty doesn't respond to any cleaning efforts, regardless of the quantity or variety of chemicals used.)

Before:




Again, sorry for the rotation. I kind of suck at this. Be sure to notice Trevor making a war-face as he attacks the frame of the door. We discovered flashing on the door (and by "we" I mean "he," because my understanding of flashing has little to do with siding and whatnot) and he had to use his Sawzall (excellent tool, by the way) to saw around the frame of the door. He was less than pleased about the situation. But nevertheless, the door was gone before lunchtime. And before dinner, this is how it looked:

I put the deadbolt and the knob on today, and it's not trimmed out in the picture either.  I'll take another shot tomorrow.  It's kind of dark out now.  I'm not wildly in love with how it looks, but it's definitely an improvement over the semi-translucent door that was there.  This has actual light shining through.

While I was installing the deadbolt (tricky thing, and the directions were just pictures.  Not helpful, Kwikset!) Todd and Adam worked on cleaning the gutters and getting rid of the satellite dishes (two...who needs two?) on the roof.  We took the plastic covering off the fireplace (which was up while Gary was banging around in the chimney.  We didn't really want a bunch of ash in the living room) and I vacuumed out the firebox, opened the little door on the outside of the chimney, and shoveled out another four gallons or so of ash.

Fast forward to a few hours later, and you find me, sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace.  Now, I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it kind of is.  This is the first time I've sat around and done something other than scheme for the next project or make a list of stuff to get from Home Depot.  It's starting to become home!

I'll sign off tonight with one more video.  This is a definitely outdated tour of the inside of the house, before the floors were even done.  I'll post a more current one soon, but here's a "before":