The things I have done, and the things I have left undone

So it's official: my last day of work until 11 August was on Friday so I'm on vacation, wooohoooo!

Last summer after my vacation started I was all about the home improvement projects, the crowning jewel of which was my bathroom ceiling's makeover. It was covered in that popcorn stuff, and was molded on the part above the shower, eeewwww :( All attempts at cleaning the mold had failed miserably, so my only choice was to re-do the whole thing. You can read more about the saga here http://tallulahhouse.blogspot.com/2007/07/ohhhh-pain.html and here http://tallulahhouse.blogspot.com/2007/07/bathroom-ceiling-project-finished.html , if you're so inclined.

So my plans for this summer (I began plotting them last fall) included adding crown molding-- painted a glossy black to complement the colour scheme-- to the bathroom; patching, sanding, and painting the kitchen ceiling; and painting our bedroom (sorry, sweetie, but I'm tired of the lavender).

Well... after Liam made his presence known (http://tallulahhouse.blogspot.com/2008/03/surprise.html), my plans obviously had to change, as being on ladders, etc, is not so much a good idea when one is seven months along.

So I've scaled back. Here's is my revised to-do list:

*Finish the nursery. I know, I know, it ought to have been finished quite a while back, but between converting it from my sitting room to packing up some of my things to make room for Liam's, the whole process has taken longer than expected.

*Re-organize the pantry. Honestly, it's out of control! Everytime I walk in there the clutter freaks me out and I run out again. However, it's just going to keep bothering me (and getting worse) until I fix it, so fix it I shall!

*Continue to de-clutter. This is an ongoing project. Funnily enough, I just finished Judith Levine's book Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping (overall, I enjoyed it, although it did feel at times that the author was trying too hard to prove her left wing cred). Many times I found myself saying, "Yeah, that's absolutely true. Right on! I'm not shopping anymore!"
Of course, in the middle of the book, my friend Frances and I headed up to the Premium Outlets in Dawsonville and, well... Let's just put it this way: I got a lot of Christmas shopping done ;)

*Clean the hardwood floors. This is the iffiest of my projects, as I don't find it as easy to get up and down as I used to. Chris and I sweep and vacuum on a regular basis, of course, but as we all know the only way to properly clean a floor is on your hands and knees with a cloth and cleaner.

That's it. It's certainly not as ambitious as last year, but if I get them all done I'll be quite proud of myself.

What projects are YOU working on?
Kimberley

Kitchen corners

Hi there, friends and neighbors!

One of my favourite parts of blogs are the pictures. I get so inspired by seeing what cool stuff other folks are doing in their homes (and being jealous over their vintage finds and family heirlooms!). Now I'm not saying that any of my pics will inspire you, but its great to join in the fun of sharing :)

Tallulah's kitchen has been one of the hardest rooms to decorate because:

• it's a galley kitchen, not my favourite style though it has grown on me
• hunter green countertops-- I didn't want hunter green *sniff*
• it ran the risk of feeling more like a hallway than a kitchen

In my war with the hunter green countertops, I painted the walls three times before I decided that the countertops were going to keep winning every time :) I surrendered and painted the walls white, which I really like, though you should have SEEN the number of paint chips at which I looked. I didn't want a cold, blue-white, and ended up with a warm, creamy white that I really like. I ultimately embraced the white and green, but added purple as an accent colour-- nothing crazy, just little touches of here and there. But enough chatter!

Here are a few corners of my kitchen:

The window, with a bit of the sink thrown in (who can identify the things on the sill?)




To the right of the window:




A closeup of the Treat Jar, revered by the canine denizens of Tallulah House. Its importance entitles it to a pedestal of Jadeite ;)




A painting I bought several years ago, entitled "Louisiana Irises"




Both my husband and are of Irish extraction, and we got a kick out of this plaque, a wedding present from one of my aunts:




The plaque and my aprons (at which some people snicker disbelievingly: "You wear APRONS??" "Yep," I reply, "after I ruined a couple of shirts with olive oil I got smart. Hmmm, I guess you don't do much cooking, eh?")




A view of a counter that holds my silver (such a horrible way to display it!), a stack of my favourite platters and sugar bowl, and an aloe plant:




A closeup of the sugar bowl and one of my favourite spoons:




The view out of the kitchen door:




I know that it's wrong to love an inanimate object... I know it's wrong, but I do anyway!! This is Happy, my Francis!Francis! espresso maker. Happy was a birthday present from Chris, for which I am still thanking him two years later :)



Hope you enjoyed having a look around the kitchen at Tallulah House!
Kimberley

Good morning! Giddy with the excitement of having the problem with the camera resolved, I'm posting more pics. These are of the yard project upon which Chris and I have been working for the last few months. I feel compelled to explain that there was a LOT of deferred maintenance on Tallulah that we had to catch up on and so the yard really suffered from indifference. Oh, the grass was always cut and there were flowers growing in the window boxes, but that was it.

When we first moved in there were azaleas growing everywhere. Well, Chris and I don't really like azaleas (I know, I know: its the South. We're all supposed to adore azaleas-- just call us aberrations!), so I did kind of a dumb thing. Are you ready for this?

I ripped them all out and gave them away.

Yep, without a coherent plan or any thought of how much HARD WORK preparing the beds would be I just dug up all of the azaleas, leaving a huge Pit of Doom in front of Tallulah. She must have been so ashamed! I gamely went to work out there, tilling the concrete-like soil (which I could only do for about 5 minutes at a time before I had to stop and rest), and amending the soil with Mr. Natural , and planting ALL THE WRONG THINGS.

*sigh*

Yes, because it was autumn by the time I got the beds ready most of the leaves had fallen and it looked really sunny there. So I chose all sun plants... and quickly had to make changes when the leaves grew back. Yes, I can be dumb that way :) A-hem. Well, enough about that. *squirms uncomfortably*

In any event, we finally got the time and resources to begin working on the yard. I convinced Chris that raised beds were the way to go, we ordered pallet-loads of stone and dumptruck loads of soil, and Chris got to work building them. My dear husband says that if we were super heroes we'd be known as Vision Woman and Detail Man because I always see exactly how things should be and he sees how to make it happen :) I call that teamwork, people!

Below are some pics of what we've accomplished over the last few months.

A shot of the yard from below. All of that dirt was necessary to build up the sloping yard.

A closer shot of the raised beds, which shows you how its constructed.




A view from the front porch




A closeup of one of the beds-- we still had bald spots that needed filling



A closeup of one of the window boxes




A closeup of one of the urns in front of the steps



A closer view of the rose garden-- Chris has since added a set of fence rails for Bob Marley, the big lump of a rose bush near the back




Closeup of Bob Marley. He grew from a cutting of one of my grandmother's rosebushes... and grew... and grew



Another view of the raised beds




We're planning to add a curved cobblestone path between the two raised beds, which will lead to my car. Our goal is to do that in September-- we actually suckered some of our friends into helping us, muwahahahaha! I'll post pics of it when its finished.

Have a great day,
Kimberley

Three cheers for Eddie!

Hooray, huzzay, woot for Eddie :) He's a tech genius at work who figured out what was going wrong with the recalcitrant camera, and retrieved the pictures. Thank you, Eddie!

So, now I can show you pictures of things I've mentioned before and also show you more of Tallulah House (TH is now preening-- she loves being shown off!)

I'll start with the Hardiplank project, because its the most major thing (visible thing anyway) we've done. Tallulah was built in 1949 as a wooden frame house. At a later date, asbestos siding was put over the original structure-- yes, asbestos: nasty stuff when it breaks, and this added a considerable cost to the whole project as we had to hire a company just to remove it and dispose of it properly. Even later on, someone put vinyl siding over the asbestos siding. This was done badly, as, apparently, so was the asbestos siding. The result of poor installation was that water made its way to the original frame structure and began rotting it.

Chris and I knew that there was rot, but we had NO IDEA how much rot was involved. When we finally found out the extent of it, we were absolutely horrified. The good news is that all of the rot was ripped out and new boards put in place, new flashing was put in place around the windows and new gutters were installed. Ain't no water gettin' in no way ;) Plus, Hardiplank comes with a 50-year guarantee, so if anything happens to it the company will fix it.

So, here are some pictures:

Tallulah House about a year after we bought her (the only changes we'd made at that point were adding the window boxes and putting in new bushes); we did the Hardiplank project during year three.




Examples of the rot:








A wall where they fixed the rot-- the lighter wood is the newest:




The moisture barrier that was put on after the rot was fixed:



Tallulah's new spacesuit (the insulation wrap):

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The day when Tallulah looked like a crack house:




The whole front door frame was rotted out and had to be replaced. Here's a pic of somewhere in the middle of the process:

The last day of the project, after Tallulah was painted. I honestly tried to consider other colours, but Tallulah wanted to be yellow!

I hope you've enjoyed these photos :) I'm going to do a separate post about the front yard.

Kimberley

Parting is such sweet sorrow-- or-- I have to say goodbye to the summer

So, I have to run into work tomorrow to do an orientation. It'll only take about an hour, but this is always the signal that my vacation is almost over *cry*

I do have Friday to look forward to, though: Frances and I are going junking :) Oh, and Saturday I'm attending a life coaching seminar, which I feel a little silly about admitting, but I think it'll be really interesting, so there! I mean, how often do you have time to sit down and really think about what you want out of life? And not only that, but a facilitator is there to ask pointed questions and help you move around familiar roadblocks... Oh, and of course its all about me, me, me so what's not to like ;) I'll let you know how it goes.

With the end of my vacation in sight, its time to review the project list I made back in July and see what's been "done and what we have left undone", as we say in the Episcopal Church. Those items in italics (and bold, to make the list of what I accomplished look larger, ha ha ha!) are the ones I finished:

• scrape the bathroom ceiling (it has that stomp stuff on it that mildews and that you CANNOT clean, no matter how hard you try or what you use), and then paint it with anti-mildew paint
• patch and paint the bathroom walls
• refinish the armoire in the dining room to match the dining room table
• paint the kitchen ceiling
• paint the bathroom and computer room doors
• paint the moulding around the front door that was *supposed* to have been done before last year's Halloween party
• buy more plants for the raised beds
• make a cover for the chandelier's cord

Ok, so I didn't get the armoire refinished. I confess that the thought of unloading it (its full of china, linens, etc) and hauling it out to the deck was a little overwhelming after it took me a week of somewhat exhaustive labour to finish the bathroom project (items 1 & 2).

I didn't paint the kitchen ceiling. Again, after a week of being on a ladder-- scraping, sanding, and painting-- I was not so eager to do it again in the kitchen.

I have an even better excuse for not getting the doors painted! Before I went up to visit my parents for a week, Chris said that HE would paint the doors (pass the blame, Kimberley!) because he doesn't want me doing anything that might damage his precious Baldwin doorknobs.

Well, Chris got busy with other things and didn't get to the doors (I tell you, the man loves those doorknobs-- he's completely paranoid about their safety and I think that was the REAL reason they didn't get painted!)

I do think that I can get the trim around the front door painted on Friday morning, though, so then I can feel smug about getting over half of the projects on the list done, huzzah!

Additionally, I did get the fence painted and plants bought for the holders I painted to go on it. They're not hung yet, but my excuse for that is that the heat index has been over 100 degrees this week. Its been truly miserable out there-- like running into a wall every time you open the door and step into the humidity.

So I guess that I'm pleased with my progress overall. Its also been soooo nice to sleep late (my usual time to rise and shine-- well, more like stumble and glower-- is 5:30am), sit around and read with a pot of tea for an embarrassing amount of time, and not have to leave Tallulah House unless I wanted to... or until we ran out of food :)

Farewell, summer vacation. I miss you already.
Kimberley

Bathroom ceiling project finished!

Huzzah, hooray, three cheers, etc :)

The end result is clean and lovely, which is exactly what I wanted. It makes the past few days of standing on the ladder whilst muddy plaster rained down on me, of holding the Mr. Toad-like sander-- think his Wild Ride-- above my head for hours, being covered to the eyelashes in plaster dust, and the seemingly endless round of patching, sanding and painting (I ended up doing two coats of primer and two coats of paint) completely worth it.

Also worth it are the various injuries I sustained, confirming my theory that Tallulah House occasionally demands blood sacrifices... or that I'm a klutz :) All that remains is to re-hang the shelves and towel hooks, which I'll do today. I plan to go back and do some re-caulking, as well, but prefer to think of that as a separate project, so that I can say I'm done with this one!

In other news, I've finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! Never fear, I won't give anything away: I'll just say that it was really good and is a satisfying ending to the series. Chris and I went to a Grand Hallows Ball event at our local Borders bookstore on Friday night, and it was fun. Chris kept asking all week if I was going to dress up, and I kept saying, "no", but then changed my mind at the last minute ;) We ran into one of my colleagues there and she took some photos, which I'll post for your amusement when she e-mails them.

My plans for the book (namely, staying up all night reading it) were all thrown off-kilter by the fact that I didn't get the bathroom finished Friday afternoon. Things just kept getting delayed: the spackle didn't dry as quickly as I thought it would, the two coats of primer took longer to dry, I had to do some sanding, and then! just when I started to get the first coat of paint on, I opened the can to discover that it had separated. I called the hardware store up the street to ask if they had a paint shaker and they did, so I called Chris and asked him to stop by the house after work and take it up there to have it shaken. I would have done it myself, but the prospect of stopping to get cleaned up was too much for me :) Anyhoo, I finished the first top coat around 7:30 and stopped to get cleaned up to go out. Chris fully expected me to be unable to resist temptation and dive right into the book, but I knew that there was no way I could enjoy it if all of that mess was still waiting for me. So, I went to bed around 2am, got up the next morning and got the last coat of paint on, and then proceeded to scrub the tile, bathtub, and floor, and clean up all of the mess. I took a bath, went and got us a pizza from Fellini's, came home, started reading and didn't re-surface until I was done (well, I did stop to iron the bathroom curtains and get those re-hung). Good times!

So today I'm bound for the grocery store and Target to pick up everything we've run out of over the last week. When I'm involved in a project, civilisation can just go hang, obviously ;)

Ohhhh, the pain!

Welcome to the continuing adventures of the bathroom ceiling. By working hard all day yesterday (and also because the bathroom is hobbitt-sized), I managed to not only get all of the popcorn stuff off, but also to get it sanded.

Yes, the sanding *sigh*

I started out using a Black and Decker Mega Mouse sander (my husband's), but quickly realised that that wasn't going to work, mainly because the dang thing is so heavy and hard for me to control. So I searched out my Mouse sander (muuuuuch smaller)-- would have preferred my orbital, but couldn't find it due to the wretched state of the attic (our mutually agreed-upon project for this winter)-- and that was much better. Of course, keep in mind that I was standing on a ladder the whole time with the sander over my head. I am incredibly sore today and actually had to get up in the middle of the night to take some Aleve: Kimberley = wimp :)

Today I got out the spackle and took care of some cracks in the ceiling-- nothing major, just cracks due to settling, thank goodness! I was actually pleased by the condition of the whole ceiling. You know how it is when you begin a house project: you THINK everything will be fine, but there's a little, Gollum-like voice whispering that you'll discover something horrible! ..... Um, maybe Gollum just talks to me, then? In any event, the ceiling was in great shape, and I got the cracks taken care of. Around 7pm today (yes, I started out waiting for the spackle to dry, then had to go pick up my veggies, then started talking to one of my awesome neighbors...), I started priming the walls and ceiling. There was some drippage that I'll need to sand off once it dries, but on Friday I'll apply the first (and hopefully only) coat of paint.

I'm taking tomorrow off from the bathroom project, as I've been invited to lunch at a friend's house and have convinced myself that there's no way I could get any work done and still get cleaned up in time for lunch :) I had meant to come diligently home right after and get to work, but another friend called me up and asked me to go shopping with her for her house. Now, what kind of friend would I be if I said no???

I'll leave you with this quote, which I like very much. I believe that its original context had to do with wikis, but I feel its just a good general rule of thumb: "All of us know more than one of us".

Hope your rest of the week is great!

Bathroom Ceiling project, cont'd.

So after I got back from Home Depot (oh, and Whole Foods, 'cause there wasn't much of anything to eat in Tallulah House), I made us some lunch and got started with the ceiling. Here's the recipe for the yummy sandwiches we had:

1. Take one freshly baked (err, bought, but still) baguette and slice off two pieces, however long you want your sandwiches to be; ours are usually about 6 inches.
2. Slice your pieces in half, and then scoop out the bottom slices. This is a good way to "anchor" your sandwich fixings, and also eliminates some unnecessary calories that you'll never miss anyway.
3. Spread some chevre on your "bread canoe"-- I like Sweetgrass Dairy's because it is oh, so delicious, and they're a Georgia (and therefore more local) company.
4. Spoon out sun dried tomatoes (use the finely chopped kind, so that you don't accidently pull out an entire tomato and spill olive oil down your chin-- so embarrassing... not that that's ever happened to me) onto the bread.
5. Add finely chopped, fresh basil (again, whole leaves will lead to the sort of incident described above; plus, chopping the basil releases more of the taste and fragrance)
6. If you're not a vegetarian, add some organic turkey or chicken. I don't recommend beef because it would overwhelm the mild flavors of the other ingredients. I don't recommend pork at all, ever, because its bad for the environment.
7. Enjoy your delicious sandwich!

So, on to the scraping.

I took down the shelves and doodads, the fancy towel, etc, to get them out of the dust. I then moved my ladder in and started scraping... it went slowly. Finally I remembered reading that you can lightly wet the popcorn stuff to make it easier. Whew, what a difference that made! (I know now that there was a reason I never got around to mixing up my garlic mosquito repellant in the sprayer thingie :) )

In spite of wetting it, it was still slow going and MESSY! It was also disgusting to see mildew underneath the popcorn, ugh. Though I am hippy-crunchy girl and use environmentally-friendly products whenever possible, I will confess that it gave me enormous satisfaction to purchase primer and paint with mildewcides in them! Never again will I be forced to watch the inexorable march of mold and mildew across the bathroom ceiling, never again!!

I am going to wear goggles and a respirator today, just in case I'm messing with lead-based paint, which in a house of Tallulah's age means I most likely am.

I couldn't help but think yesterday, as my arm was aching from scraping and I was thinking unkind thoughts about whomever had put in the popcorn ceiling, what some future owner of Tallulah House might be cursing me for one day-- you know, Chris and I do some project that we think is just FABULOUS and one day someone's going, "Why in the world did they do THAT?"

:)

My vacation is almost here!

Yippee, tomorrow is my last day at work for a few weeks! People keep asking me if I'm going on a trip and I just keep thinking if they only knew what my house projects list looks like that they wouldn't bother, lol. Come on, all you old-house people know what I'm talking about!

So, here's what that list looks like:

• scrape the bathroom ceiling (it has that stomp stuff on it that mildews and that you CANNOT clean, no matter how hard you try or what you use), and then paint it with anti-mildew paint
• patch and paint the bathroom walls
• refinish the armoire in the dining room to match the dining room table
• paint the kitchen ceiling
• paint the bathroom and computer room doors
• paint the moulding around the front door that was *supposed* to have been done before last year's Halloween party
• buy more plants for the raised beds
• make a cover for the chandelier's cord

I'm just a little too depressed to go on, so I'll stop there ;) Actually, I like doing these projects, especially when I have vacation time and don't have to get up at 5:30am in order to get into Atlanta traffic. I just seize the opportunity to morph into DIY girl/domestic goddess, complete with ratty overalls and head kerchief! I actually got into a routine last summer that I enjoyed: I'd roll out of bed fairly early and head straight out do some gardening. Around 9:30, I'd stop and take a shower, get Happy the espresso maker to make me a rich, black cup of coffee (which, oddly, is the perfect accompaniment to the egg salad sandwich I'd scarf down-- who knew?) and watch "Country Style" on HGTV. Sometimes that would lead to a nap-- shamelessly encouraged by the dogs-- and then I'd do house chores. Is it pathetic that I REALLY liked that? lol Its just such a different routine from the rest of the year and its nice to revel in it.

Speaking of reveling, I'm looking forward to the Scott Antiques Market in August! I'll report in on whether or not I found some treasures :)

Whew!

Blog building is hard work-- at least if you're as indecisive as I am about appearance :) I've changed the poor thing's template and colours so many times its poor head is spinning, I'm sure. I know that *mine* is!

I want this blog to reflect the feeling of Tallulah House, which is frequently described as warm and happy by visitors. I'll probably keep on obsessing about the colours for a while, so don't be surprised if you see some changes. I'm also trying to get Chris, my PhotoShop wizard husband, to make a cool banner for the top of the blog. *hint, hint, honey*

In other, less-colour-obsessed news, I did my second veggie pickup on Wednesday and we are now awash in wonderful, fresh, organic vegetables! Last night I made roasted fingerling potatoes with garlic and onions, and a raw zucchini and squash salad. It was drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice, as well as sea salt and a bit of parmesan cheese. Delicious! All this bounty is from Riverview Farms, just outside of Atlanta. I joined their CSA (community supported agriculture) out of extreme guilt of the amount of fossil fuels that are used to ship food from all over the world. I'm making an effort to only eat things that are from within 100 miles of me (ala Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, or Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally) and I'm dragging Chris along with me :) I'd encourage everyone to give it a try!

Happy summer feasting!