Friday, November 18, 2016

The Meters

Do you ever hear a song on a commercial that just makes you smile? Perhaps its something you remember from your teens and it makes you feel young again. In my case it was a song I had never heard before but had a great beat.

So I did a little Googling after hearing this song on a Google Pixel Commercial and found this song. You gotta hear it. 70's funk was around when I was in grade school and oblivious to stuff unless it was on TV. (I remember watching my dad watch Soul Train on TV! That's some groovy shit.)

Anyway give it a listen. It's fun.




And you can listen to this one too...it's considered classic funk apparently (at least according to Wikipedia)




And apparently my listening limit is 2 funk songs in a row. Give me a little Adam Ant from the 80's and I can listen to all his albums all day!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

ORC Update - Windowsill and Light Fixture

I'm just checking in with an update on my outstanding One Room Challenge tasks. I want to get the room DONE with no lingering to do tasks, even if they weren't part of my initial One Room Challenge scope of work. This will be the ONLY room in my condo completely done. I'm very excited by that prospect!

If you remember in week 4 I discovered water damage to my windowsill but couldn't get the handyman out to fix it prior to reveal day. As a reminder here is what it looked like once we scraped up the spackle hiding this mess. It was in both corners of the little bay window.


I had the handyman (Pepe) out yesterday and he was able to fix the damage.  Apparently the wood isn't rotten but there is water damage to the many layers of paint in that area. He nailed in the one loose board and applied Bondo and smoothed out all the bumps. Boy is that stuff stinky! With quite of bit of sanding it's now ready for primer and paint. I'll take care of that when I'm off of work for Thanksgiving next week. Luckily there was no other issues in the window area!



Pepe also installed my pretty light fixture. He ran into trouble as the do-hicky that you screw to the ceiling that the light then hangs from was too small for the hole in the ceiling. The joys of old house living. A trip to the hardware store and it was fixed. It was a bit of a pain for him to install all the crystals. Look how nice the light looks! Sparkly!!




The light is this one from Overstock for $165. I like it so much I will probably put it in my bedroom when I redo that room (maybe for the Spring One Room Challenge in April!)

ORC Outstanding Items (did you notice that my list is growing longer not shorter?! Sigh.)

Fix window sill
Wash windows
Caulk around window
Prime / paint window sill
Paint closet doors
Install light fixture
Hem curtains
Sew ball fringe on curtains
Finish pink globe DIY
Purchase / hang mirror between desk and window
Add Wink clock above mirror
Sand / paint radiator covers




Friday, November 11, 2016

ORC Week 6 - Reveal Day

Today is the big day! It's week 6 of the One Room Challenge by Calling it Home -- Reveal Day!! The challenge was to make over a room in 6 short weeks and blog about the process. Go here to see the other guest participants rooms!

You can view my initial plan here: 


I made over my son's former bedroom into my home office. The before pictures are after a quick refresh right after he moved out. It looked ok but didn't function well. The requirements were storage, a lighter brighter feminine space, display space for rotating art, and easier to access book storage.

Here are the before's:







After several plan changes and a few set backs here are the afters:












I'm very happy with my progress. The room isn't completely done. I still have the rotten windowsill and light fixture to repair/replace. The radiator covers need to be sanded and painted and replaced. The drapes need to be hemmed and the black ball trim attached. I have a 1/2 completed globe diy in process. And I need something between the desk and the window. Whew! Seems like a lot, but a lot was done to this room. I'm a slow decorator so a 6 week challenge was HARD for me. Progress not perfection, right?!

I'll go more into the status and details over the remaining to-do's, a cost breakdown, a resource list and how we made the giant bulletin board in the coming weeks.

I'd like to thank Forrest and Kris for all their help in getting this room done. We all know if it was left up to just me I would be on my 8,384th plan and paint would never get up on the walls. Also thanks to Linda at Calling it Home for organizing this wild ride.

Be sure to check out the rest of the ORC Guest Participants!

Thursday, November 3, 2016

ORC - Week 5 - I'm Never Going to Finish!

Welcome back to Week 5 of the One Room Challenge where I am making over my home office in 6 weeks and blogging all the details. You can check out all the other guest participants here.

I'm in a mad scramble to finish as much of the room in the next week as possible. Once I get paint on the walls I can move in the furniture waiting in my living room. It looks like the repair work on the rotten windowsill found last week and the installation of the new light fixture I decided to add at the last minute can't be scheduled until after the reveal next week. Whomp whomp!!

All the plaster is patched and the ceiling has 2 coats of paint and the trim is painted. The gray paint goes up today! I know it doesn't really look it, but a lot of work has gone into getting the room to this point!


We cleaned up all the old caulk and damage where the radiator covers were caulked to the walls. The covers are a hot mess...65 years of layers and layers of gloppy, peeling paint. The thought of either sanding or stripping the paint, priming and repainting is daunting. Especially considering that the whole condo needs to be done eventually. It becomes even more of a challenge when you realize my 3rd floor condo doesn't have a backyard or basement or garage where I can easily do projects like this.

I decided to explore replacing the covers. Mine are from the 1950's so an exact replacement is impossible. There are a bunch of replacement companies and products out there. I found an inexpensive option at Home Depot. They have a polymer cover to retrofit my baseboards from Neat Heat. It is $54 for a 6' length. I ordered a sample and a couple of connector pieces and received them yesterday. It fits great! I just removed the existing cover and slide on the new one using the existing hangers nailed to the wall. These are for hot water heat not electric. They will melt with electric heat baseboards. You can see the difference in this picture. The old one is on the left. The new replacement cover is on the right. You can't really see the messy layers of paint but trust me they are there!


The cover doesn't dent, scratch, yellow or off gas. It's paintable but I will leave it white. My small room will cost about $300 but it has either radiators or the return on 3 walls. I think not having to deal with the paint encrusted covers and upgrading my entire room in minutes is worth the expense. I'm placing an order for the remaining pieces needed today. Shipping of the sample was super fast. Fingers crossed the order comes in time for reveal day!

Alrighty...enough gabbing. I've got a bunch of stuff to do! Check back next Thursday for the big reveal!

Fix rotten window sill (scheduled for after the reveal. Bummer)
Replace ceiling fan with sparkly light fixture (scheduled for after the reveal)
Rent a rug cleaner / clean rugs 
Scrape caulk / fix plaster by the radiators (completed)
Order replacement radiator covers (today)
Install replacement radiator covers (hopefully I receive them by next Thursday!)
Paint the ceiling (done)
Paint the trim (done)
Paint the room gray (today!)
Change out the desk, add storage (purchased ready to be installed)
Make a giant bulletin board (waiting for the walls to be painted)
Make Rosettes (not sure I'm going to use them)
Sell the futon (sold!)
Purchase Kallax shelves from Ikea (put together, waiting in the living room)
Return shelves for over the desk to Ikea
Hang curtain rod (waiting for the walls to be painted)
Make drapes (waiting for the curtain rod to be hung because math)
Add a surprise design element --brooch mannequin (completed)
Hang large chandelier print (waiting for the walls to be painted)
Zhush up the place!

Check Out all my ORC Posts
Week 1  2  3  4  6