The Chair, Step 1

So, as I was loading the chair into the back of the van (and Bob reluctantly came to my aid), I realized that one of the legs was, I thought, loose.

That would have been nice.

One of the legs is, in fact, barely attached. As a result, I don't even know if the chair I rescued is comfortable; you can't even sit on it without it collapsing. At least you fall forward-- I hate falling backward.

Bob wanted to glue the thing for me (less an act of chivalry than a self-protective measure, since I've never glued wood before in my life), but alas, he was headed out of town and did not have the time to do it. But he did give me a pointer or two. Namely, put the thing together, clamp it, and make sure you know what you're doing -- THEN unclamp, glue, and reclamp.

So I pulled back the upholstery to reveal the injury, put the thing back together (this involved a mallet), located the clamps, and secured them. Then I put the chair up on its feet, only to discover that the newly clamped leg is about a half-inch lower than its three siblings. Ta-da! The wingback chair is now a rocking chair!

Ugh.

I think I know the problem, but I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to tackle it yet tonight.

Meanwhile, this is the only thing I've done to the chair, other than look at upholstery fabrics at the store, which was totally cart-before-horse of me. And the clock keeps on ticking.

36 days.

Tick Tick Tick...

Nope, not my biological clock.

But the countdown Bob & I agreed on for a chair I picked up off a curb. 45 days. If I don't have the chair presentable in 45 days, it's going back out to the curb.

Questions: Am I skilled enough to reupholster something? (I've never reupholstered anything in my life.)

Will I have the time to get this done in 45 days?

Should I just totally make it mine, or should I run upholstery & stain ideas past Bob?

Is this piece of furniture even worth it?

It has sweet lines, and we could use more soft chairs, either in the sunroom, or the foyer, or both.

Am I crazy?

Bob thinks so. I may be. But at least there's an end to the craziness. 45 days, one way or the other.

Life at our House

I was reassembling a table that I wanted to reposition in the foyer, and Caroline was cracking me up, so I grabbed the ol' iPhone to record it for your viewing pleasure.

I'm really sorry about my cold. I think it's annoying to hear other people cough, so, again, sorry.

And, I promise, I try to keep clothes on my kids, but they really prefer to be buck nekkid. I've had her put her clothes back on at least three times so far today. Our children are indecent.



My favorite part is how she switched her delivery technique when I told her to talk like she's 3 1/2.

Enjoy.

Crunch Time

So we've asked our priest to come bless our house tomorrow. And then, we decided to make it a house blessing/open house. We've invited people from church, people we work with (or in my case, used to work with), former neighbors, other friends, etc.

I really thought that hosting such an event might give us added motivation to finish some projects. And it did -- just not the ones I was hoping for.

I tried and tried to find a rug for the foyer. Without a rug, it really feels unfinished. And it is. Actually, it's unstarted. While my parents were here, we went to TJ Maxx (thanks for the tip, Allison!) and found two rugs I liked. I bought them and brought them home, knowing I could return them if Bob didn't like them. And he didn't. But he was willing to live with them if a) we agreed they were temporary, and b) I liked them. So we agreed to live with them. But then, all through the night, the rugs kept coming into my dreams, and I was stewing over them, and finally I realized that I wasn't as wild about them as I'd thought. You know how sometimes something you didn't like grows on you? (Awkward sentence, I know.) Well, I experienced the opposite effect with these rugs. They shrank on me, if you will.

Sorry to talk so much about rugs. There are so many things more important than rugs, and yet, in my Project Coziness, I'd like to get this "right." And no, I don't mean to imply that there's one rug that's right for my foyer. One of many, I'm sure, I just need to find them.

I fell for this PB Kids rug. I really like it, and Bob likes it, too. And if we decided it was too bold for the foyer, it would be a great kids' room rug.

Cute, right? Except then I discovered that the rug is not one even height. It's textured.

So that rug's out. It's just not the one for us.

Anyway, so we won't have a soft rug in the foyer tomorrow night, but we will (drumroll, please) have a bath/shower that's no longer missing a tile! Thank you, Bob. I don't know how long that tile has been missing, but it was missing when we moved in (13 months ago), and hallelujah, Bob fixed it last night. The tile doesn't totally match (it's a slightly different shade of white), but I told Bob that what might be an eyesore to other people is beautiful to me.

Other projects to finish before tomorrow night at 8 (and if you're local, you're invited!) include installing some kind of lock on the downstairs bathroom door. It freaks me out when there's no lock on the bathroom door ... except in my own house, of course. But for everyone else, I'd like for them to not be worried that someone might walk in on them. Because that's never fun.

Kitchen progress: there hasn't been any. I did fill two holes with a product called Great Stuff. (Should I be in marketing? Because even I could replicate that thought process. What should we call this stuff? It's really great stuff. Oh, I know, let's call it Great Stuff!) And I did do some sanding. But there's a lot more to this kitchen project, so even though Bob's in Chicago today, I'm not going to surprise him with any more house projects when he comes home.

I did set up a table and chairs in the foyer, and I can't make up my mind about it. Does it look good? Bad? Weird? I think Bob's leaning toward weird. But I don't like having an empty room for people to walk into, especially when we have some furniture to work with in the basement and attic. So, there's a table & chairs in there.

Is this too weird? Is it okay? I don't know.

Nesting

I confess, given the name of my blog, this post title makes me laugh. Not LOL, mind you, but an in-my-head chuckle.

Lately, I've been nesting. Pretty hard-core, get the house in shape, nesting. And I'm not pregnant. I think it's just that we've been living in "transition" since the fall of 2007, when we bought the first of two big old houses in need of work. The first one had been seriously neglected, and we undertook to fix or replace (mostly replace) the systems of the house (heating, cooling, electrical, etc.). We realized, though, that the scope of it was beyond us ... and by that, I mean WAY beyond us. So we sold it and bought another big house that needed work. This one hadn't been "let go" like the last one, but I would say it had been "lived hard in", if that makes sense. Some of the woodwork is beat up, there were broken windows, no hot water knob in the bathtub, a tile missing in the bath/shower, a hole in the kitchen floor that had been awkwardly (and not permanently) patched, a patchwork kitchen, etc. However, it was a lot cheaper (a LOT), and, despite all the work it needed, more move-in-ready than the last one.

And we like it so much better. Seriously. We love this place.

For just over two years, we've been working on our houses, thinking we'd wait to "decorate" until things were a little more settled. It seems clear, now, that we're not going to have all projects done, or feel settled, for a long time. So now I'm trying to make it as cozy and homey as I can, with what we have, or with what I can acquire cheaply. Or both.


My first goal in Project Coziness is the foyer (or "reception hall" as it's called on the blueprints). Right now, there's an Oriental runner in there that's totally wrong for the space. (It's 30"x81" in a 12'x12' room.) There are two tables, one awkwardly displaced by Christmas tree #2, which really should come down tomorrow, and the other awkwardly displaced by Christmas tree #1, which should, well, really come down tomorrow. And there's a weird light fixture that we don't like and don't think is original to the house and think should be replaced. (And I'm the queen of run-ons tonight.)


Project Coziness: Foyer
I'd like to include-

• a soft rug (not sisal, preferably wool) that is more appropriately sized for the space

Maybe a traditional Arts & Crafts-y one like the one at left, maybe not.

• a chandelier, either appropriate for a 1910-ish Arts and Crafts style four-square, or something funky/modern
• a pulpit. Weird, I know, but I'm married to a former pastor, and the daughter of an Anglican priest. Some friends of ours have a beautiful old oak pulpit that they no longer have room for, and they offered it to us. I have visions of standing in it and preaching to my husband.
• A chair, or maybe just a place to sit while taking off shoes?

I'd like to do this for under $300. I'm thinking that should be pretty hard to do. A rug alone would cost more than that, so I'll have to be creative/hit up Goodwill/surf Craigslist/check garage sales. I'm open to suggestions.

Coziness on a Wintry Night

New Year's Resolution

I hereby resolve to post on my blog more frequently than every three months. Happy 2010!

In other news, we celebrated our first Christmas in our current house (we had moved in by Christmas 2008, but we spent the actual day in TN with my parents), and it was great fun. I got up at the crack of dawn ... well, actually, before the crack of dawn, to make cinnamon rolls, and Bob got up when they were almost done baking so that he could build a fire in the fireplace.


We had two Christmas trees this year, about ten feet away from each other. A little silly, maybe, but tree #2 was on clearance, and I really wanted one of the trees to be visible from the street. I love white Christmas lights, and I enjoyed making the house look festive: icicle lights on the front porch, wreaths with red bows & white lights on the dormer windows of the attic, and two Christmas trees. (Note to self: try to take a good picture of the house in the evening when it's all lit up.) (Yes, the house is still fully decorated for Christmas. As fun as decorating is, un-decorating is not so much.)


House progress? Well, when we moved in, just over a year ago, three of the four windows on the landing of the stairs were broken. And now ... they have new glass, and Bob installed them this past weekend. Hallelujah! Who lives with broken windows for a year? Well, apparently we do.


We also, apparently, are the sort of people who live with holes in the wall, and gaping holes in the ceilings. And a bedroom door that's missing the panel right at eye level. It's funny -- these defects are glaringly obvious, yet when you live with them for a while (like, a year), you start to forget they're there. Until people come over, and then you start hitting yourself in the head and thinking, good grief, why haven't we dealt with these things yet? Oh yes ... because these things cost money. While there seems to be no limit to my imagination of things we could do to our home, there are distinct limits to what we can pay to do to our home, at least for now.




I feel obligated to post these embarrassing pictures of my home, since I received some really nice comments about how the house looks on Facebook. Here's the way it really looks.