The Dining Room

I've eaten in my dining room, maybe, three times since moving in over a month ago. I feel like I've been awkwardly avoiding the room, like an unappreciated but necessary roommate.

Until this weekend, the dining room has been basically used as a.) a passageway to the kitchen, b.) a storage place for my sewing equipment and c.) a last full-length mirror checkpoint before leaving the house.

I usually eat out in the fresh air or on the couch while "studying" (ie. watching Netflix), so I've been torn on how to use this space.

I was tempted to turn it into an office/library, but I figure every home needs a table. Every woman (or dude) with a sewing machine also needs a table. And, I can't expect my house guests to all be "couch eaters". (But, if you are... welcome!)

Besides, my younger sister had so generously donated to me an entire free dining set. So, dining room it is!

New addition to the blog: Unrequested cat photobombs with every pic!

I'm not gonna lie, and it's no family secret, that this set has seen better days. It was my brother-in-law's childhood eating place. It saw my sister through her newlywed years, motherhood, and even survived a most unusual fire. (Yes, fire! A strange freak accident involving sunlight and a perfectly/poorly-placed mirror.)

It's not something I'd pick out for myself at the store... but the best DIY projects usually aren't. It's sturdy, solid, and without the leaf, transforms into a perfectly compact round table that's just the right fit.

Now, what do I do with it?! Pinterest plus my imagination had a billion ideas and it took me forever to settle on just one.

First, I had planned to paint the top black, the legs white, and then do the chairs in a bolder hue that would compliment the Disney wall.

But, the white base ended up looking way too stark against my white walls.

Enter, Home Decor's Wood Tint product in walnut. I had bought this out of curiosity and figured I could use it as back up, since I wasn't really sure what I wanted out of this project. Good thing I did, because I ended up loving the results!

Wood Tint is designed to work right on top of chalk paint. This is a miracle product for lazies like me who are vehemently opposed to stripping and sanding before refinishing. Since, I didn't like the result of the white and black chalk paint combo, I simply brushed the Wood Tint right over top of the dried paint and the brush strokes gave it a pretty realistic look of stained wood grain.

I also painted a layer of it on top of the black table top to give more depth to the flat chalky look. Sealed with a clear coat, for protection, and voila! All on one work night. No sanding or stripping required!

My arsenal.

Now what about those chairs?!  It took me almost another week to finally decide on a color.

I wanted something that was fun, but not too juvenile. Something that matched the artwork, but didn't clash with the exposed living room's palette. I settled on either an apple or olive green. (Krylon's "Ivy Leaf" being the final winner.)

Although, I love the ease of chalk paint, I let Pinterest persuade me into thinking that chairs are easier sprayed than brushed.

Fume management 101: If it's a must, at least try to be cute about it.

I hate spray paint (if graffiti's not involved) but fell victim to viral peer pressure. I hate the smell. I hate the mess. And, I especially hate this:

The spray paint "tent".

Apparently, one of my neighbor agrees with me on this, because two chairs in, I received a note on my front door inquiring about the smell. I ended up having to finish the job at my parent's house. Chalk paint wouldn't have done this to me! 

Spray paint tips: 1.) Invest a few dollars in the nozzle. It made spraying so much easier
and I didn't end up with "spray paint fingers". 2.) Remove the cat. 3.) If you don't have a
well-ventilated workspace (or even if you think you do!) spray outdoors. Your neighbors
will thank you. 4.) Chair-painting goes alot smoother working from the legs up. "But paint drips
downward!" Trust me. I did two each way and the Pinterest bloggers are right!

I can still taste the fumes today. Slightly helping me out with neighborly relations is the cinnamon candle I've left endlessly burning right next to the shared wall.

But, in the end... Lookee here!

I really do love how it finally came together!

My favorite thing about this room: Still the Disney wall. But, also the other this 'n thats I found to go with it that make me nostalgic for childhood vacations. And, the chair color still has me swooning! (Or, it may just be the fumes.)

What this room will be used for: Hopefully, not just this.

What I'd still like to do with this space: I'm on the lookout for a long dresser or other such object I can pretend is a buffet, but will secretly be hiding all my sewing stuff. The little left-over dresser pictured below just ain't cuttin' it!

I Ache!

Spoiler alert! The living room is partially done.

There's not an inch of my body that hasn't been aching in the past week!

I creak, I pop and I grunt like an 80-year-old man with every movement. I moan every time I rise from a chair and my joints mimic rust each time I sit back down. My skin feels like sandpaper and looks even worse!

Good news is, it's because moving day happened 8 days ago. Yay!!!

Bad news, my pale skin managed to bump into every box, piece of furniture and appliance that made its way up those three flights of stairs.

Lest ye forget...

I've got cuts in places I don't remember scraping and so many bruises that, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the shower, I look like a breathing Rorschach test! I was worried, for a split second, that the veins in my hands were showing signs of cardio distress... only to realize it was remnants of teal paint.

Then there was all the squatting, bending and reaching involved with painting the bedroom as well as various pieces of old furniture that just didn't look up to snuff in the new place.

Oh well. I ache, therefore I mortgage.

In other moving news... I sleep like a baby in the new place!

I credit it to the open door wall, providing a pleasant summer's breeze. The calming shade of Salzburg Blue (Benjamin Moore #755. Two thumbs up!). The luxe caress of brand new bedding.

The only time I haven't slept like a baby here is when the neighbor's infant decides to change the definition of that phrase.

I should count my blessings, though. If you must share a bedroom wall with a crying baby, thank my lucky stars this one's not a screamer. His (Her?) cry is more of the "Coo... coo... wa-ah.. [sigh]" variety. The real entertainment starts when its Middle-Eastern father appears to sing it back to sleep.

I may learn a foreign tongue, if for no other reason than to decipher the soothing phrases that lull the little one back to slumberland. Is it an immigrant's lullaby, passed down through his ancestors? Or, is he just gently threatening the babe with sweetly sung consequences of being awake at such an hour? (♫"Little one, don't you know, I wake in four hours to earn you food to eat? ♪ Shush your mouth, close your eyes, and just...)

Reason Two to become bilingual: To get a better grasp on what he and his wife are bickering about at equally late hours. If I must hear it, at least grant me the ability to pick sides!

After a good night's sleep, on the weekends, I always enjoy my breakfast in (one of the few completely finished rooms) my Florida Room. A routine I pictured even back in the house-hunting phase.

I woke up like this. Sorry you had to find out!

A toasted Eggo tastes extra filling out there while I spy on the neighbors and watch birds commit unintentional suicide one-by-one as they fly into my floor-to-ceiling windows. (I swear, its like the Hale Bopp cult of sparrows around here!)

Then, it's always back to the boxes and their reciprocal paper cuts. It may ache for a short while, but it's no death-by-plexiglass!

Slowly but surely, this condo is becoming a home. [Insert smiley emoticon that Blogger's template doesn't support.]

The Interim: Apartment Life

The house hunt continues.

Or... make that condo hunt.

My realtor and I have come to the conclusion that my small budget will go further in a condominium living situation rather than in a traditional home.

His line is that a condo offers "more bang for its buck". (My realtor may possibly be related to Ned Flanders.) And, my argument agrees that---while the month-to-month out of pocket would be higher---the condos that we've looked at so far are definitely in much better condition than the houses (ie. possible crime scenes) that are listed at the same price point.

Further proving my point is the fact that none of the houses and their beautiful yards had a lawn mower, a snow blower, and a husband to employ use of such devices bundled into the titles. So, a condo it is!

In the past week, I've had one condo showing sponsored by a drunk homeowner who shamelessly insisted on being present. Well, he was mostly present in the bush he fell into on the way up the two flights of stairs... and then later on the couch on which he slumped sideways while spouting out numbers that made no sense mathematically to the sober.

Not the guy.

If there was ever a time and a place for obnoxious Google Glass, this showing was the appropriate setting! Since I didn't have a spy cam at the ready, this picture I found online can paint a somewhat accurate picture of my experience. Except my guy manage to hit the bush completely dead center. None of this sloppy half-miss stuff I found on Google. (Whose search engine, by the way, had an alarmingly varied amount of "drunk in bush" images to choose from. Although, half of which were just pictures of former president George W. and Laura Bush, for some reason.)

The showing was co-hosted by the drunkard's wife/girlfriend who was under the influence of a greater than or equal to substance of choice. She traipsed through piles of dirty laundry while trying to persuade my mother to take off her shoes to "feel how soft the carpeting is!" Unless the place is actually carpeted in the six inches of used socks, tees and undies... I could not even tell you the color or texture of the actual flooring. (There was, however, beige Berber wall-to-wall carpet in the full bath for some strange reason.)

Needless to say, I'm still searching.

In the interim, my parents and I have holed up in a short-term apartment rental that has been a crash course in shared-wall living for all of us. This crash course being a necessary one, though, seeing that the final landing pad for all of us will be our own respective condos and/or townhouses.

Here's a short list of lessons learned so far:

• On move-in day, as we carried the first load into the apartment, the neighbor kids decided to climb into our U-haul to peruse what kind of neat stuff we own. Lesson learned: We no longer have a private driveway. Your belongings are not your belongings until you play a good defense at your vehicle and a speedy offense to relocate them indoors.
• Two weeks in and I'm still swearing there's a raccoon on the roof. Lesson learned: We're on the bottom level of three stories. Those are your neighbors.
• No matter how cautious you are with setting the water temperature in the shower, it will not remain constant. Lesson learned: You now share a water heater and pipes. Every cleansing risks burn or frostbite.
• There are train tracks that run behind our apartment complex. I'm not used to living near trains. The first night, I thought, "How nostalgically American!" Now, they're just unnecessary alarms clocks at ungodly hours. Lesson learned: At least they keep away from my morning and evening commute!
• Our apartment community is a very large one. Every cluster of buildings seems to have its own large decorative rock. Each large decorative rock seems to have assigned to it one fifty-something-year-old alcoholic. They sit on their designated rock each evening, with that night's six-pack disassembled around their feet. Sometimes they even visit each others' rocks, which is kind of sweet. Lesson learned: You can't pick your neighbors, so be grateful when they're nice ones.
• I have never before had to share a washer and dryer with anyone that I wasn't related to. This is also the first time in my life that I've had to scrape up quarters to do so. I must have become jaded somewhere along the line, because I'm convinced that everybody's trying to steal my clothing. I've even taken to counting my panties after every wash to be sure there's no perverts lurking around the shared laundry room. Lesson learned: When you purchase your underwear in packs of four, nobody's probably interested in them.
• As I mentioned, we're on the lower level of three stories. Our apartment is 50% submerged below ground. A neighbor kid was running along the side of our building and "fell down" right next to my bedroom window. He laid there moving his head in vain at every angle trying to peep down into the apartment-issued horizontal blinds that I don't completely trust, while I sat on the bed staring back at him in disbelief. Lesson learned: Get undressed only in the windowless bathroom.
• Everything I do, I must do from my bed. These are very close quarters that only a bed and a long dresser fit into.  My bed is now my seat, my dinner table, my bill paying station, my reading nook, my couch, my dressing area, my hair-doing station, my laundry table and, oh yeah, I sleep there too. Lesson learned: I'm sure glad I have a bed! Or I'd be seatless, tableless, nookless, couchless and sleepless too.

Here's to more adventures in making it work! *clink*

House Hunting: Part II

My house-hunting adventure continued today with the first slew of showings with my new realtor. (New realtor = the one who actually called me back and whom has this whole fancy email thing figured out.)

House 1: This house is very near to the home we had lived in for the last 13 years and on a street that is a part of our regular evening walking route. It had a nice front porch, a quaint and easily maintainable backyard, and a friendly black kitty next door that I would be likely to catnap and call as my own (only until the neighbor woke up and realized it was missing, of course.) 

The inside of the house wasn't so much of a treat. Musty smelling, wallpaper in every bedroom (even in places where wallpaper doesn't belong. Hint: Wallpaper was designed for walls, yo) absolutely no appliances, makeshift closet rods made from leftover plumbing, and the piece de resistance... wood paneling in all of the common spaces. 

Now I realize that real wood paneling can be easily painted to look like beadboard or wainscoting. But, this home had this this flimsy thin faux wood walling that someone had, not so cleverly, cut out little hidden "doors" in. What? I know this makes no sense. But, imagine following along the wall to discover a piece of packaging tape, masking or duct tape (Believe me, the tape came in an abundance of variety.) You notice a rectangular cut-out along the wall and give the tape a tug. Like a little trap door, the thin paneling would give way to reveal either a surprise "Oh. A fuse box!" or the deception of one, "Oh, a bed of splinters!"

I think I jumped the gun, though, on the piece de resistance. This was actually the fact that we never did find the furnace. We found the water heater, the hookups for where a washer and dryer should be, the air conditioning unit outside, but never a furnace. My realtor was still looking for it along the home's perimeter when we tried to let him off the hook, "It's a 'no' to this property, so there's no need to find it." He couldn't give up the game though, "Okay. But, I still want to find it. It's got to be here somewhere!"

Condo 1: The only condo we toured today was located in a dream location. Right in the downtown area of my own hometown, but in a complex I'd hadn't considered due to its extremely cramped parking situation. 

There was a subletter who hadn't vacated the premises prior to our arrival, but who was kind enough to shirtlessly take to the bedroom to iron his laundry while we had a look around. (He wasn't so kind, however, as to turn off the internet porn he'd left up on the screen of his laptop on the dining room table. But, if you ask my mom, "I thought he was just studying to be a doctor." I'll let you folks decide for yourselves.)

It was a one bedroom unit (I had been looking for two) but the one room was ample enough in size and closet space to make up for it. The layout was well appointed and the picture window in the living room had a lovely view of the courtyard space below.

The downside? The parking, as mentioned before. At least one nosy elderly neighbor who was not at all shy about hanging out in the hallway and gawking at us a we toured the rest of the building. And, worst of all, horror upon horror, NO CATS ALLOWED! Come on, people! I'm turning 40. I'm unmarried. I've earned at least one cat in life!

It remains on the maybe list.

House 2: We actually started out this afternoon in the property that I'd referred to in my last post as the home in the meth-y neighborhood. But, for the purpose of good writing and suspense, I decided to save the "best" for last.

I'd recently re-nicknamed this one the "rapey woods" home because there's a wooded ravine behind the property. This intrigued me with the thought of wildlife but, instead, alarmed some in the family with its imminent threat of rapey danger. (Upon further research, I also learned that there is a registered sex offender living, ummmmmm, as the closest neighbor to the right!) But, it's newly renovated and miraculously in my price range. Let's take a look!

The yard was beautiful, fenced in, and the woods dropped off almost immediately into the Rouge River; giving any rapist worth his salt a great challenge to attack me from the property's rear. But, that's where the fun ended. 

Upon opening the front door we were immediately hit with the strong scent of mold. Then, when taking a first glance around, I realized that "newly renovated" was really the listing agent's code that they had newly acquired skills in the the art of Photoshop.

The gorgeous original hardwood floors pictured online, in reality, had the smoothness and consistency of a highway rumble strip. Their appearance, in person, gave the impression that a former owner at one time had strapped two pairs of ice skates on the family dog, let go, and said, "Let's just see what happens."

Now, I am not a flooring snob! I am fine with carpet. I am fine with tile. I am fine with laminate "hardwood". It's just that when sinking my savings into a home, it would simply be nice to walk across my own living room without the fear of splinters and sea-sickness.

I am also not an appliance snob. But, let's just say that the stainless steel refrigerator's freezer had a stain in it which could have possibly been left behind from a severed head. Moving out of the kitchen...

The bedrooms were okay, but with the really weird closets of a house built in the 1920's. (By the way, this house was built in the 1920's.)  The bathroom was standard. The smell of mold was STRONG throughout the entire upstairs and had already cemented a "no" vote in my mind. But, since we're here, why not check out the basement?  What harm could come from checking out the basement?

Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp... down the stairs we go. Looking up, yes, there is obvious water damage to this home. And, the copper plumbing did not have one inch that wasn't covered in rust.

It's still a "no" vote, but I possess a curious mind. Let's open the washer and dryer. Well, I think that severed head may have also taken a run through these.

Turn around. Ooh, a pet spider.

Turn around again. Ooh, a mysterious room that was probably used for storing beets and raw potatoes back in the day.

What's behind this door? 

The best I can describe what was behind this door is, if you've ever watched season one of Bate's Motel, it's the room where the kidnapped Asian sex slave was being held in Officer Shelby's basement. 

There could be no other explanation for this room other than to hold a kidnap victim hostage. 

Then when you walk into the room, there's another door that leads to another hostage room. The first room even had a wire for cable TV hanging down from the ceiling. Presumably, this was the "good hostage" room that you're allowed to watch TV in. When you're a "bad hostage" you get led through the labyrinth to the bad hostage room.

What house needs TWO hostage rooms in the basement?! (Maybe even three, if the room by the basement steps isn't really for storing beets!) These rooms also had excessive water damage to the point where the floor was coming apart. Presumably due to water torture or the rinsing of the severed head. 

I had squealed in horror when I opened the second hidden room's door. My realtor scurried over to ask me what I think. I said, "Well, if I ever decide to take up serial killing, I've found a place to stow the bodies." He laughed and actually agreed. Therefore, he is still my realtor.

There's a sex offender next door, two to three torture rooms in the basement and the likelihood that a severed head has frequented every appliance in the joint. This home is also not for me. NO LIST!

I realize that living by myself might eventually become lonely, but I'll take loneliness over being visited by the souls of those who passed here any day!

We're going back to the drawing board and praying for new listings this week. Home shopping on a tight budget may not be easy, but it is certainly entertaining!

Now if you'll excuse me, I had to go wash the mold spores out of my sinuses. They're giving me a headache.