Busy day prepping for the House Warming Party!

What a busy day! I've swept, mopped and vacuumed everything...again. Yesterday my grandma came to clean out my messy sink for me and left her green scrubber and barkeeper's friend for me to clean out the bathtub today. Check it out---you can see where I had started scrubbing and the difference it had already made.
And finally, the finished product. It still isn't perfect, but I'm getting closer and closer to actually taking a bath in it!

In more artistic news, I'm putting the finishing touches on my bedroom. I found this lamp at the trailer house. It was a rusty old gold so I spray painted it white to go with the room. The lamp shade was in rough shape and I haven't had time to run to Forks to find a new one, so the scarf will do for now. I painted these four pictures for my old apartment--we had a huge empty wall that they fit perfectly on. I was planning on making a big white headboard out of hard foam with cloth covering it, but I thought this would work nicely too (since I don't have any big walls to put this on). I like it for now, but I'm going to need some better pillows to go with it! I'm also on the search for a lamp to put on the right side of the bed. Wish me luck at my House Warming party and I hope to see you there!

More Kitchen Photos

So....the fridge. I painted this odd design on it which isn't that great (I think I'll redo it later this week) but it's better than the basic blue with scratched out words... I'm glad to finally have a clean kitchen (meaning no more tools and paint supplies) and I'm able to use it! Kelsey and I baked today, and even though I didn't have any ingredients, we were close to successful!

Finally, a Kitchen!

I finally finished painting the kitchen!! I'm so relieved that this is finally done that I don't even know what else to say. I did two coats of the green and then nailed on the chair rail. There were a few hiccups (like me stepping on the freshly painted chair rail) but I made it through! You can see my lovely new Ikea dish dryer, the hand embroidered dish towel from my grandma, and the microwave from my Mom. I'm so fortunate to have such great family and friends to help me with this move! I'm so excited for my house warming party a week from today! Now I just need to clean and put everything in it's rightful place to be ready for the big day!

Clumsy, but Successful!

I have had such a clumsy day. I used a step stool to reach the top cupboard and banged my knee on the counter. I walked in the front door and the screen door hit my heel. I walk outside and step in a puddle. I hit my fingers about three times when putting a nail in the wall. So obviously today is a great day to use my uncle's saw to cut the chair rail, right?

Well luckily I didn't kill myself! I went outside into the heat (you'll notice my camera fogged up because it's so humid out. Yuck.) and tried to figure out how to turn the saw on... Well apparently there's a super safety feature on it so you have to use one hand to hold the safety notch and the other to pull the power trigger. But then there's the cover over the blade which has to be pushed back when cutting something, so I either need three hands or something to hold the chair rail up when I cut it. So I put the chair rail on my cement back steps and use one foot to hold it in place. With my two hands I power the saw and slice through the wood! Great success! The edges look kind of rough, but I'll sand them up and it should be fine. I'm obviously not a carpenter, but I AM creative! So if anyone needs me to cut something, I might just be able to do that for you :)

Clean Basement = Happy Renter

Charles Lippert and Ward Hoge are my two new favorite people. And for good reason! They have worked hard the past two days to clean out my nasty, icky basement. Below are pictures of the various areas. One door (the first photo) leads to a room with an old fuel tank. Charles is in the other doorway, which leads into the backyard. The stairs are broken and the area had been previously used as a garbage.... So there was a lot of work to do. I don't have before pictures because I was too grossed out to go down there for anything but laundry. For the record, I grew up on a farm but have never called myself a "farm girl". Sorry dirty, grimy stuff, you're not for me. Now this area is all cleaned out. The mushrooms are still around, but I'm working on that. We (Charles, Ward and I) have talked about what to do with the bathroom, but there aren't any solid plans yet. It wouldn't take much to get this place in good shape, which I'm excited about!






In other news, I finally got around to hanging the picture frames that Mom got me for Christmas! I filled the frame set with photos from Europe. There's enough pictures around here of me that I figured this would be a nice change. This is now the area right by the front door. Below is a closer shot of the photo collage.
Below is a photo of where I put the TV stand (I haven't purchased a TV yet...) and the Ikea cord I hung above it. I decided to display my Voice Recital posters. If you missed them, they're silly photos of me with handwritten "WED 7:30" on each one to let people know when my Recital was. Although they weren't the most informative or normal, I think they were fun and original. I found them in the move and thought they'd be fun to hang there until I get Christmas Cards!

Chair Fail

Today I painted my TV stand! I'm glad to finally have my living room furniture matching. Retro but cute, right?

I also painted the lower half of the kitchen white, so all I have left to do is install and paint the chair rail, then paint the upper half green! Easier said than done. I removed the chair rail that was in the Trailer House (why not save some $$ if I can) and took out all of the nails. I sanded the edges and and started to cut the rough side off of one of them with a hand saw....this proved to be more difficult than I had hoped for. I guess I'll wait until I find a friend with a table saw to cut those to the right lengths.... That's all for now! I'll finish painting the kitchen on Thursday and hopefully print off some pictures so I can hang my new frames.

Shrooms....

It's been a while since I wrote, but last week was busy with the Fourth holiday and a trip to the cities (and Ikea!!). I must have bought about half of the store, but here are some of my favorite finds: To the left, a mirror! It's about as tall as me and two and half feet wide. All for $35! To the right, a bowl with round things... The table came from our "Trailer House Collection". After relatives are done with various furniture it goes into the Trailer House for storage until someone wants it. The coffee table and end table were my Great Aunt Clarice's. They were a blonde wood color so I decided to paint them a clean white to go with my shabby chic look. I also found these white candlesticks. I think these will go great on my dining room table.

I've decided to paint the kitchen a light green, with the bottom being white (I'm also installing a chair rail). My mom and I decided to share paint, so I need to wait for her to paint the bathroom before I can paint the kitchen. I'm sure it will work out in the long run, but right now it's kind of a pain because I want to get it done! So I'm thinking the clean white will go well with the light pistachio color we chose.

My bathroom is finally clean and organized. Just when I was feeling it was good to go (until I'm ready to redo the walls of course) I found a mushroom growing in the shower. Seriously. It's just a little guy right now, but I need to do something to fix it. After my shower I went downstairs to check on my laundry. It was then I noticed there was a pretty bad leak under the shower. There was also a field of mushrooms growing on the ceiling underneath the shower....it's times like this I'm really glad I'm renting! I called the landlord and we're hoping to find some sort of solution. Until then, bleach is going to be a friend of mine. Speaking of good friends, my friend Nick is going to help me clean out the nasty basement soon! What a great guy. I, personally, didn't want to clean the basement because the thought of doing so scares me. I have a horrible fear of bugs, damp basements, darkness, mice, really everything that the basement IS. Freak-outs may be at an all-time high tonight so wish me luck!

Tweed!

I've made quite a bit of progress since our last chat! I got the electricity and internet put to my name (but I won't get service until Tuesday, hence the lack of contact). I moved in most of my things and the bedroom is starting to look like home! I've slept in my new house for two nights now.

Last night my sister Kelsey and I painted the living room. I was so thankful for her help. It goes by so much faster with two people. The whole living room is paneling and each ridge needs to be painted with a brush to ensure it's all one color...ugh. I'm just thankful that it's done now! However, I've noticed that a lot of the trim still has the blue paint from the previous tenants...any advice on how to fix it? The owners asked me not to paint any of the wood trim because it's all original to the house (and I wouldn't paint it anyways), but it looks horrible to have this blue paint all over it. Oh well, I don't think I have the motivation to scrape each trim, and I don't know that I want to paint it tan either....we'll see. I also moved in my new (old) couch. It's a hide-a-bed, so it was extremely heavy, but hopefully worth it! I love the color on the tweed, below. The couch right now, however, is in pieces because I was cleaning out the bed and shampooing the fabric. I'm excited to get it all set up though!


I also purchased a rug for the living room and a new showerhead! The old one was spraying every which way. This one is much more pleasant. I've been dreaming about a showerhead like this for years (the rain style) and I'm so happy to finally have it! One thing that wasn't included in my dream shower was a view. Yes, there's a window in the shower. Luckily, it's towards the back of the house and my view is of fields. But it's surprisingly pleasant to shower and have a nice view! You should try it sometime. To the right is my shower view. Besides the propane tank and broken blinds, it's not so bad!

This brings me to my next point...the blue fridge! Walking by it everyday just drives me nuts, so I'm going to have to do something soon. I think I'll paint over it with acrylics....I'm thinking something "Starry Night"-esque??? If you guys have any ideas for me I'd love to hear them! For now, I'm on to scrub the living room floors and then pick out a color for the kitchen. I'm torn between red or a light green....

Move In Ready??

I'm almost "move-in ready"! Today, I finished painting the bedroom. I covered the walls with one coat of Lyndhurt Timber, then noticed some weird shapes forming on the only wall I hadn't primed (it was already white, so I didn't think I needed to). Although the shapes weren't there with the white paint, they started to show through the one coat of tan paint. I noticed some mountains, an I <3 U, and other words I couldn't make out. I had heard that the previous renters painted sayings on one of the walls, but I had no idea they would show through when I painted!! Luckily, they disappeared with a second coat. Here's the finished bedroom!!

My grandma Yvonne (my dad's mom) was nice enough to come and clean out my kitchen cupboards for me. I'm so thankful she did, because I probably wouldn't of had the ambition to do it myself. She mixed a bit of Murphy Oil with water and scrubbed each cupboard, inside and out. It took her the whole time I was painting the bedroom, but that just shows how good of a job she does. I should hire her to do the floors later ;) Below is a photo of the mess I currently have in the living room. Notice the primed wall on the far side--this will hopefully be painted tan by tomorrow!

My friend Nick was kind enough to lend me his carpet shampooer, so I finished shampooing the carpet in the bedroom late tonight. This should be dry by tomorrow so I can move my bed in and start getting my bedroom ready for sleeping! I'd like to be able to sleep there by the end of the week so I'll be more motivated to finish the rest of the house. Updates tomorrow!

There's paint EVERYWHERE!!

Today I started painting. I picked up some Kilz Primer and Valspar paint in Lyndhurst Timber (http://www.valsparpaint.com/en/explore-colors/color-selector/#3). I've never painted a room before, let alone a whole house. When I was growing up my room had thick wood paneling (not the kind you can just paint over). You would run your hand over the wall and get a splinter. Paneling makes me wonder, why did people ever think this was a good idea? But I suppose in thirty years they'll be saying the same thing about my generation!

I taped off all of the bedroom and started priming over that crazy blue color. It didn't cover easily, but I got 'er done! Apparently there was paneling under the blue paint, and if you haven't painted over paneling before, I wouldn't suggest it. You need to take a brush and paint in each groove of the paneling, or the color underneath won't be covered. Ugh! It took quite a while, but I got the whole bedroom primed, along with the burgundy wall in the living room and the blue wall in the kitchen. My mother was nice enough to come and help me with some taping in the living room which helped things to go a bit faster, but like I said earlier, I'd really like to do this myself--a life journey of sorts.

The pictures weren't too clear earlier (my apologies), but you might have been able to see that the living room already has a few tan walls along with one burgundy wall. Both my mom and grandma (who just had to stop by) mentioned that they're about the same color. Well, just to prove them wrong I opened the can and smeared the new color over the old. It's a few shades lighter and I really think it's going to brighten up the room and make it appear much larger. They agreed once they saw them side by side. The bedroom and living room are well on their way to being a new, boring but lovable, tan! My work continues on Tuesday, as tomorrow I need to help a friend move, and then work all night. I just keep thinking of how nice it's going to be when it's all done and I can have my very first house warming party! Keep your eye out for an invite!

Dumpster Runs

So today (June 24), I started removing all of the junk from the house, loaded it into a pickup (I made about three trips), and dumped it in a big burning pile. A friend of mine who works at the Fertilizer Plant in town was kind enough to let me use that as a place to throw all the old furniture!

I've decided that this is something I really want to do myself, as nice as help would be. So I managed to pick up and move almost all of the furniture myself. At one point I was trying to throw a recliner into the back of the pickup and got stuck in an odd position. If i let it go, it would've landed on my foot, so I was just standing there awkwardly...waiting. Luckily, a few kids rode by on a golf cart and I hollered for help. Thanks Bryce!! He gave me the extra push I needed to get it into the pickup bed.

I also bleached the bathroom, swept all of the floors, removed carpeting that was left around the edges of the hardwood floor (I know, really?), and wet-swiffered the floors. This is all I really wanted to do before I started painting, since I'll need to re-clean the floors afterwards. After I few hours I was exhausted, cut and bruised from moving all that stupid stuff. Next comes paint!!

So...this is it?

I recently decided to rent a small, one bedroom house in my hometown of Aneta, ND. Yes...a one bedroom house. It seems like a silly decision, but it's all I really need and there aren't a whole lot of options around here. I walked into the house knowing that the old tenant had left some stuff and hadn't cleaned much up. Well...I might have bitten off more than I can chew! Good thing I'm an HGTV addict.

The photo above is from the kitchen, which is the first thing I saw. It's hard not to notice the Coors Light decor. Good thing I'm a Coors girl! Just kidding, that was the first thing to go! Once I removed the Coors Light boxes I found that the fridge had been painted blue from it's original Harvest Gold....oh boy. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that yet, but you'll know when I do! You'll also notice the garbage on the floor. What you don't see is the rotting food in the fridge, and the ceiling border of matching Coors Light boxes. See what I mean when I said I had my work cut out for me?



Above is the view from the kitchen into the living room. There was some furniture left behind...which I don't think I'll keep. However, the hardwood floors are beautiful, and I'm really excited to polish those up. I also love the big windows and window sill. All of the wood trim is original to the house and I love the look of that. I'm definitely not going to paint over that....the walls, however....





To the right is a corner of the bedroom. You'll notice the beautiful blue paint that appears on quite a few of the walls. I'll need primer to paint over that before I can paint the walls my desired color...a nice, neutral tan. Call me bland, but I'd rather be bland than hate my wall color in a few weeks. Plus I don't really know what furniture I'll be using yet so I don't want anything to clash!





Above is my first view of the bathroom....I know, what am I thinking!? The good news is that it isn't mold on the wall, it's just the wall falling apart!! Haha...oh boy. So for now I'm just cleaning it....bleaching it...so that I can use it. I'm still trying to figure out a more permanent solution. Also, I'm only renting the house so I don't want to make too many changes. The good news, though, is that any money I put into the house comes out of my rent, so either way I'll be spending the money. The question is whether I want to put in the labor as well...





So follow me as I try to fix up a house as best I can! I'm only one person...more specifically, one person without experience in home care, maintenance, building, etc. So, HGTV, if you're reading this, please help!! :)