J-Hiccup: Days 2 and 5

As established in my first post on this topic, I will not be adhering religiously to the assignments of the January Cure (also referred to as the January Happiness Cure Project, or "J-Hiccup") so there will be some skipping around and some items that are ignored altogether. But I'm doing stuff! Here is proof.

The assignment for Day 2 was to set up an outbox, which I have renamed Limbo. I also went an extra step and put a Donations box right next to the Limbo box, because I think I'll be ready to send a lot of things away for sure, without the need for the intermediate step. You'll see that the Limbo box was also once a "Recycle" box...

... which was used during my great paper purge and consolidation a few weeks ago. (This is the before photo, just to be clear.) Now Eric's files and my files are merged and streamlined and living happily in two neat boxes. That feels good. 

Day 5's assignment was to pick a project from your initial list to tackle this month. I said I would clean out the little bedroom and I DID.

Yeah... this is embarrassing. This room was a random catchall for junk that somehow didn't make it to the basement. Which includes a pile of costume dresses on the floor. I do not feel the need to explain my costume dress collection to anyone; I'm just a little sheepish that they are on the floor here.  

Here is a random pile of electrical cords, a broken roller shade, a window screen... you know, just stuff that's nice to keep around for ambiance. 

After. There is no longer a dire risk of tripping on the way to the ironing board. Those boxes in the corner are the limbo and donation boxes from the top of the post. 

I left our remaining art to be hung in this corner because I plan to actually do that soon, so this stuff didn't need to be banished to the basement. Also note my prom and homecoming dresses hanging in the closet- part of a massive delivery of stuff my parents brought to our house to get it out of theirs. I guess I could probably move those into storage downstairs as well, or better still, put them in the donation box. 

J-Hiccup progress! More to come.

The January Happiness Cure Project (J-Hiccup): Day 1

I have not fallen off the wagon already since my last post; fear not. Day 1 of the January Cure on Apartment Therapy asks you to go through your place and make a list "noting each area or item that needs a good cleaning, a de-cluttering or a re-organization." I went a little beyond that and also wrote down some more serious long-term project goals, as well as things that I would still like to acquire for the space (kind of the opposite of de-cluttering, but whatever).

This list is probably not going to be that fascinating to anyone who isn't yours truly, but I want to put it down here to refer back to from time to time. So here it is. I'm going to put an asterisk next to any item that will take less than an hour and less than $50 to achieve- the low-hanging fruit! 

Whole House:

Refinish floors and trim

Fix jammed windows

Oil woodwork

Clean louvered doors (I would asterisk this except there are eight and it's going to take longer than an hour. Louvers!)

Entryway:

Swap credenza for bench with storage bins underneath

Deep clean tile & grout

*Dust light fixture

*Hang art

Get shredder for inside closet

*Organize shelves inside closet

*Get tape residue off door

Install screen door

Living room:

Get area rugs for couch and dining areas

Swap out electrical outlets that have been painted

*Hang art

Get bigger dining table

*Declutter bookcase

Get more plants

Screen Porch:

Paint

Remove carpet and assess floor underneath (possibly paint that too)

Replace screens

*Install door closer

Get outdoor drapes

Replace exterior awning cover thing

Master bedroom:
*Touch up paint
*Remove old wallpaper swatch exposed by new thermostat
*Paint vent covers
Swap out electrical outlets that have been painted
*Touch up white paint by ceiling fan
*Get new bedskirt
Get new area rug
*Get shelf organizers in closet
Paint fun color/wallpaper inside closet?

En suite: 
*Touch up paint
*Hang art
*Unstick door to medicine cabinet
Add storage of some sort
Deep clean and repair grout 
*Touch up with caulk along tile/wall seams outside shower
Repair shower floor

Add window treatment

Hallway linen closet:
*Organize shelves; add bins & dividers
Paint

Hallway:
Remove wallpaper
Paint
*Hang art

Hall bath:

Raise hand shower and do something to walls above bath to make it a full shower (either the janky way or the hard way)
Remove wallpaper
Paint walls
Paint vanity inside and out
Add pulls to vanity
Deep clean and repair grout
*Move countertop items to storage inside cabinet doors

Replace window treatment

Little bedroom:
Remove wallpaper
Paint
Organize/purge boxes and consolidate downstairs
*Replace curtains (probably need a new rod, but we already have the curtains)

Guest bedroom:
Paint
Curtains: dye?, remove tab tops, hang more evenly
Add blackout shade behind curtains
*Fix cable cord in floor situation
*Touch up wood stain on top of nightstand
*Clean out dresser
*Add small upholstered chair from downstairs
*Get and hang art

Kitchen: 
Install backsplash
Get curtains
Get area rugs
*Hang art
Get plants
*Touch up paint (walls and vent covers)
Whitewash brick on fireplace?
*Remove mirror inside pantry door and add better storage on back of door
Figure out pot lid storage
Paint/wallpaper inside pantry
*Add shelf organizers/bins in pantry
Get drawer organizers
Get chair for desk

Get upholstered cushion for bench

Re-cover vintage chair cushions

Rec room:
Replace ceiling
Install flooring
Replace trim
Get curtains
Replace door to outside
*Figure out random "stuff" situation in back of room

Paint dresser

Mount TV to wall

*Install door closer

"Salon":
Everything (make it a real bedroom)

Prison bathroom: 
Everything (make it a real bathroom)

Storage area:
Purge, organize, label boxes
Organize workshop area
Get new ceiling lights & wire together to switch at door

Laundry room: 
Paint refrigerator
Get new ceiling lights & wire together to switch at door
Paint floor & walls
Move hanging shelves away from metal lockers
Purge & organize hanging shelves

That is the list, as of today. I am ignoring most of the exterior stuff because it is January and I can't think about that right now. The good news is that I started this list last week and I've actually done a few things already. That's right; we finished the basement over the weekend! JUST KIDDING THAT IS A LIE. So there you go, that is your Day 1 update of the January Cure and today is January 17th, just in case you're keeping track at home. 

The January Happiness Cure Project

The combination of the new year and the kitchen being largely done has motivated me to make an attempt to get my act together re: "housekeeping." When we were living in the condo, we did a decent job of using Chorebuster to divide the household tasks and do them on a somewhat regular basis. When I say "a decent job," I mean that I would print out the cleaning schedule and post it on the memo board, where Eric and I would both basically ignore it except for maybe one day a month. As sketchy as that is, it was a far better system that what we've had since moving into the house- the "put clutter in the spare bedroom and close the door; only clean bathrooms when guests are coming over; don't even attempt to organize the living area because it is bursting with kitchen junk" system. So. Let's put those days behind us. 

I've looked to a combination of resources in my attempt to turn over a new leaf. I bought The Happiness Project, which I'm only a chapter into but seems like I'll probably refer to here and there. I pinned a bunch of ideas on my cleaning board on Pinterest. And I signed up for the January Cure on Apartment Therapy. Basically, I'm surrounding myself with cues and tips to stop being a slob. Hopefully this immersion will be enough to help me form new habits and set up the right kind of systems to sustain them. I'm counting last weekend a big success because I hung our memo board above the desk and also installed bins for shoes, hats and gloves by the garage door. 

This weekend I'm planning to play catch-up on the January Cure. With modifications, because some of this stuff is like COME ON. Let me sketch out a list for myself: 

Day 1: Make a list of projects, room by room. I will do this. I love me a list. 

Day 2: Set up your "outbox," which is basically Limbo for items that may or may not be clutter. Solid idea. I will do this. 

Day 3/First weekend: Buy flowers, clean your floors, buy green cleaners. Well, too late for flowers now. The floors... umm... we're buying a Roomba soon; I might ignore this for now. Green cleaners: I think we're actually covered on this! Win. 

Day 4: Sit in an unfamiliar spot in your house for 10 minutes and question every choice you've made in life. Well, something like that. Whatever. I'm not going to do this; we only moved in six months ago. 

Day 5: Pick one project from your list from Day 1 to tackle this month. I haven't even made my list yet but I already know what I'm going to choose: Clearing out the little bedroom. It doesn't make sense that we're using it to store boxes when we're also storing boxes downstairs. I'ma consolidate the boxes in the basement. This is my weekend project. In addition to the other weekend projects. I can do it all. I'M SO EXCITED.

Day 6: Frame a piece of artwork. I am actually going to ADD to this task and get around to hanging up some art that's been sitting in the little bedroom since we moved. 

Day 7: Plan a party for early February to show off your clean house. I actually talked about this with Eric last night, though the motivation was more along the lines of having our friends over to ice skate on the creek than "lalala, party in my clean house." Regardless, we could set a date. 

Day 8/Second weekend: Buy flowers again, clean and declutter your kitchen, try a new recipe. I get a bye on ALL of these because a) the contractor GAVE us flowers yesterday, b) my kitchen IS decluttered; we only just started using it, and c) trying new recipes is my middle name, my forte, my RAISON D’ÊTRE, and I probably would have done this even without some dopey website telling me to.

Okay, so my free time this weekend is spoken for! I'll try to post updates as I work through the list. This will be fun, gang. List-making, organizing, system-establishing... fun.  

Painted and Nearly Finished Kitchen, Eh Meh Geh

I promised an "update soon" about painting the kitchen and that was two weeks ago. What is wrong with me? Actually, this isn't a good reason but let me just get it out: I keep forgetting to take photos on the weekends, and when I think to do it after work on a weekday it's already dark outside, and then I don't want to do it because everything is better in natural light. But here's what; I'm just going to make a new policy declaration: I will take photos whenever it occurs to me now. No one is coming here for my beautiful photography skills, and it is winter in Minnesota and it's dark outside more often than not. TRUTH.

So here we go. First, pics showing the state of things before painting, but after the contractor's stuff was mostly completed. I believe that you haven't yet seen the crown molding, the vent hood, the pendant above the sink and the chandelier above the table, and our new desk and bench. BLAMMO. 

Desk, bench, and chandelier. You know how I said that there's a law that if you have a bay window, you have to build in a bench? There's also a law that if you have a mid-century home, you need a Sputnik chandelier. And I'm a very law-abiding citizen here.   

Here you can see the crown molding and the pendant over the sink that matches the two over the island. I was amazed at how the molding made everything look so much more like it belonged. Oh, you can also see the vent hood from far away here. See how it's hard to see the scalloped edge? The vent liner our contractor found didn't quite nest up inside of the vintage hood the way we thought it would, so the visual was very stainless-on-stainless. I wasn't really thrilled with that, since the scallop was the whole visual point of keeping that hood. They came up with a good solution though- keep reading.

So those are the before paint photos. We chose a yellow color (Behr Banana Cream) for the paint, and used the same color on both the ceiling and the walls. I had read that choosing the right shade of yellow could be tricky, and that what looked normal on a swatch could look neon once you actually got it on the walls. I even tracked down a sample of Hawthorne Yellow from Benjamin Moore, which has a bit of a cult following in the design community. But in the end, we agreed that Banana Cream was the one. Something that helped me realize it was right was the fact that on the Banana Cream page of my paint fan deck, the chips became browner as you looked down the page, instead of brighter or deeper yellow. I figured this would improve our odds of avoiding the screaming neon yellow experience I'd read about. 

So here you go, back to the night shots. Banana Cream a-go-go. 

Painting the ceiling and walls the same color ended up being a key decision because we avoided having to hire a professional to come in and paint above the stairway where a ladder wouldn't reach. With the freedom to just slop into that corner without worrying about getting on the ceiling, I could do it myself with a roller on an extension pole. I also used painter's tape to stick a paint brush on the extension pole for the corner parts where the roller wouldn't reach. It totally worked! 

See the new bulletin boards? They're metal with little holes in them, so you can use both tacks and magnets. I also moved our new clock to its official place above the desk.

Separate topic: What to do with the brick? It never bothered me before, but something about how it looks next to the new wall color makes me think "Country Kitchen," which is not my vibe. I can definitely remove that brassy part above the fireplace and paint it black, but I'm still undecided about whether I should whitewash the brick. I may waffle on it for a long time, but you gotta be sure with brick; there's no going back.

Hard truth about painting a large ceiling: I have not figured out how to avoid roller marks. I had the same problem in the living room, so this time I reviewed this article beforehand and tried to work quickly to keep a wet edge, but a ceiling is big, yo. I think I did better than in the living room, but it's by no means perfect. And you know what? I decided I can live with it. Do you remember that episode of My So-Called Life when Graham hangs the wallpaper and Patty notices a bubble and Graham is like, "That bubble is part of our lives now"? Yeah. I've made peace with it. Roller marks are part of my life now. 

A better view of the Sputnik chandelier, complete with cool shadows on the ceiling. 

Here's a close shot of the vent hood solution: the contractor installed black glass along the edge of the liner. Now the scallop pops again, and since there's black on the stove it actually coordinates. Lemonade from lemons. 

Oh my god, look who discovered the panoramic feature on her camera. 

I'm not quite ready to declare the whole project done because I still need to make curtains and install the backsplash, but the vital functional pieces are all here, glory hallelujah.