Planning for Spring...

You may have noticed I have put my shop on "vacation." Unfortunately for me,  I am not laying on a beach somewhere warm and sunny, I am just trying to catch up on a backlog of orders.  My goal has been to deliver under 8 weeks, but to be honest, it's more like 10 right now, which is a long time!   I am an impatient person, so I understand how annoying that must be for my customers!  I'll probably reopen next Monday, and I do plan on having a sample sale at that time as well. Finally!

Yesterday Dan & I started talking about doing more planning for some changes around the house, which has gotten me excited about something again!  We have a list of things that have to be done and a list of things that we would like to do.

Our "Have To" list consists of fixing our chimney, and at the same time, seeing about having a gas fireplace insert installed into our wood burning fireplace.  Our chimney is currently on a bit of a perilous angle.  I am really excited about a gas fireplace.

Our "garage", and I use that term loosely, is desperately in need of a bulldozer.  I've been a little afraid of even thinking about this project because the whole thing needs to be rebuilt.  Last night we looked at some prefabricated garages, and they are totally realistically priced for us! I was so happy.  Our "garage" really looks like it's ready to fall down at any minute, so getting it fixed would be really wonderful.  Depending on the cost of the chimney, we might try to do it this summer.

Scary, huh?

I'm not sure if this is a "have" or a "like," but our main entry way, stairway, and upper hall are all finished in this bizarre, tiki-style wood paneling   I actually don't hate it. When people come here for the first time, they always walk right up to a wall, touch it, and say "wow... I've never seen paneling quite like this before." I don't know if they are just trying to hide their horror, or what... The problem I have with the paneling is there is virtually no insulation behind it.  I guess folks back in the day weren't so concerned about their heating bills.  So, I would like to take it down and drywall.  The thing I dread is it is lathe and plaster underneath, which makes a real mess when you take it down... We discovered that when we changed our side door.

Our "High Gloss" Paneling

As for the likes, I want to give a go at painting our bathroom tile & harvest gold tub.  Anyone ever done this before? My parents have painted their tub, and it looks awesome, but I'm not sure about painting tile.  I've read a few blogs where people have done it. While it's not the worst bathroom in the world, it's still pretty ugly.  I also want to replace the vanity and re-tile the floor.

Harvest Gold Bathroom

My biggest "like" involves removing the wall between our kitchen & living room, adding a kitchen island for more counter and cupboard space, changing our counter tops (there are currently 2 styles of counter tops in our kitchen! oh the joys of purchasing a rental house...) and putting the dark wood flooring throughout the remainder of the main area of the house.

I'm still really happy with our house and I think out of all of the houses we looked at in our modest price range, we got the most value for this one.  It still has a some issues, but so far it hasn't been anything we can't handle!

Over the next few weeks Dan and I are also going to do some changing around on the main area of our house.  I currently have my sewing room set up on our dining room, which worked for a bit but now that I am working from home I really feel a need to have a space I can go into in the morning and leave in the evening.  So, we are going to make a combined sewing room / art studio that Dan and I can both use.  I hope to do that soon, because as hard as I try to keep my sewing area neat, it can be really challenging, and I find it really stressful staring at the mess.

So, I am very excited about the next few things we will be doing to the house.  It's been really fun to see it go from a gross old house to something kind of cute, and it's probably been one of the most fulfilling feelings, fixing it up ourselves.