House Fixin'

Howdy! I'm glad you're here.  

This post probably contains run-on sentences, sentence fragments, 

affiliate links, and unnecessary ellipses.  If none of that bothers you, let's be friends.

Interview question eight:

"Speaking of the house, how much work have you done? How much more do you plan to do? Where do you get the biggest bang for your buck? Any ideas that have ended up in the "fail" category?"

Lucky for all of you (and by "you" of course I mean "me" because I already did all that hunt and paste work.  Boomshakalaka), I sort of answered this the other day, so I'll start with a few of the same before and after post links:


living room before/after
stairway and hall
den and playroom 
garden tour in May of some year
dining room reveal
kitchen after the renovation  but before we laid the floor
a picture of the kitchen with the new floor (one year later)
the laundry room.
The small upstairs bedroom (which has no link because it has no post and maybe I should finally get around to that one...)

The only outdoor improvement we've made is that we built a permanent chicken coop and fully enclosed run during October and November.  Maybe someday I should blog about that?  Anyway, here's a bit of it in process:

Plus there's lots more over on IG since I took my blogging break ( #borobiahomestead for outdoor pics and #newhouse14 for some of indoor fix-it-stuff ), which you can look at on a desktop even if you don't have an Instagram account.

Plaaaaaaaaaaaaanning!  We are always in the middle of something.  Al. Ways. It's how I tamp my urge to troll Zillow and Realtor dot com. Okay, that's a lie. I still troll Zillow and Realtor dot com.  Can't stop, won't stop.

Right now I'm about halfway finished painting the large bedroom upstairs which the four big girls share.  It is slow going as per my patent-pending renovations with kids system, but I think I might just finish sometime before Helen gets her driver's license. 

We also have got to tackle our bedroom someday (which is a sickly shade of greenish tan and makes me look like I just got slapped with 16 dead fishes when my face is framed against it) but not before I spruce up the downstairs (main) (tiny) (added many years later in the space between the walls that separate the kitchen from the basement stairs) bathroom.  Luckily the floor is nice (newish tile) and it's in working condition, so everything is gonna be cosmetic.  Yay!  My favorite!

Which brings me to the next part of your question, about the most bang for our buck.  I would say that cheap cosmetic fixes are huge.  Patching and painting banged up trim.  Caulking the spaces between trim and walls, trim and ceiling, door frame and wall (goodbye gaping spaces! You are now named Felicia! [up there in the link to the laundry room post, you can see what I mean with my thirteen thousand ceiling photos]).  And painting.  Painting painting painting.  Paint all the things.  Also, we're always going for a timeless look that matches the style of the home in the things that are difficult to change, and hitting on some trends only with accessories and stuff that can be easily updated or removed altogether. 

Oh!  Window treatments!  Bare windows or plastic blinds are fine. Don't get me wrong- it is totally a luxury to be able to care about this kind of thing.  But if you have that luxury, I highly recommend putting some drapes up to frame your windows.  Hang your curtain rod higher and wider than your window frames and you will LOVE the difference you see in your room.

Maybe soon I can post about the boys' room which has been finished since probably February of '16.  Possibly.  We'll see.  It could happen.

Posting for the 12 days of Christmas...
12 in 2016 (a photo year in review)
Stuff That Makes My Life Better
Where did all these children come from?!?!
Homeschooling High School
I Dream of Houses
Dollah Dolla Billz
Wood Shed, Wood Box, Wood Stove: heating with wood in Michigan
"Tra-diiiiiiiiiiiition!"
Tiny everyday, every day, miracles