bohemian hellhole

The William Morris Project, Week 6

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This is week six of the Pancakes & French Fries William Morris Project, happening every thursday in 2012.

**What you are about to read is highly non-linear, and will not make sense in outline form. Consider yourself aware, and don't complain later if you think 'that made no sense at all!'.**

I swear last Thursday was yesterday. The week has slipped beneath me like the floor of a haunted house...and I'm Shaggy, trying to escape. Sometimes I really believe that time is relative, and that while some days are longer than others, some people have shorter hours. Other times I think it must all be very scientifically precise, and it's just me who is inconsistent, or an unreliable steward of the time I have. {I will hold back any Lord of the Rings quotes here, even though I don't want to...} Looking back I would say I spent most of my time 'tinkering'. Not really inspired by any one project, but irritated that I couldn't just do everything at once. On Sunday I reupholstered this chair.

Sewing has been on my list of things to do since we packed up shop and moved south, and it was quite satisfying. The sound of scissors being placed on a table, cutting material, or snipping thread is so nostalgic. It never changes. Sewing always sounds and smells the same. My sewing machine remained on the table for all of Monday, because I was sure I would do all my fabric related projects at once. It didn't happen, so I made myself put it away.

Out of sight, out of mind is a real and tangible war I am waging.

I don't want to see everything all the time, but I do want to be able to find it.

To remember where I put it.

To be able to put it away again easily.

To have it look nice where it is stored.

When I put away the sewing machine, I was greeted by my linen closet. Say hello!

Nice right? I can't even fit a pillowcase in there, let alone a sewing machine. The linens could not remain this way. I have tried stuffing those dumb blankets in that mess so many times, only to shut the door and hear it 'pop' open again as I turn my back.  I started taking everything out.

It was never ending, like Mary Poppin's bag {in which I might add, she always carries a tape measure!}. The blankets and sheets filled my whole sofa and a chair. There was a roll of wallpaper, my camera bag, board games, drum sticks, vacuum parts, things to be mended, raw material, curtains, table runners, scarves, and plenty of other things that were tossed.
What went back in the linen closet was strictly linens. Bedspreads, spare blankets, sheets, pillowcases and one set of curtains. Everything else went where it belonged, or into the donation bag. Sheets and pillowcases are easy to find, and easy to store. Extra blankets are handy when guests spend the night, or someone gets cold. I will no longer duck as drumsticks rain out of the mess while I extract a fitted sheet.
On to the lower cabinet. When putting away my sewing machine, I realized that my 'most organized' cupboard was really a mess. The board games that were thinned with force when we moved were jumbled about in a heap of yes, more linens. All of it went on to the table for sorting.

Super Master Mind is a game from my childhood. Well, I actually didn't play it for most of my childhood because I was certain that it was an adults only kind of game. Look at that guys' face. He was up to something, probably inappropriate for grade school me. I got over it eventually, and kept the game.
Most of the games fit in the basket, and there are now only games on that shelf.

Monday I opened up the sink cabinet and decided to clean it out as well. Last week Jules wrote about storage, and using items on hand even if they aren't amazingly pretty or even what you had hoped for. This kept coming up in my mind as I pondered what to do about the garbage area of the kitchen. My desk is at the end of the room, where up until Monday we had deposited all our recycling into a bag. This sounds innocent enough, but the bag would inevitably overflow, spilling milk cartons and cereal boxes around my chair. Under the sink was even worse. We were left with very strange rubbermaid pull out bins by the previous owners. I have left them alone, because I didn't really care enough to do anything about them. The one under the sink was smack in the middle of the cabinet, so to throw something away without it falling promptly out of the bin you had to open both doors of the cupboard. Plus, we didn't actually have a garbage can. We had a cardboard box. It was leftover from moving. It was generally the right size and shape, but when a sink leaks onto a cardboard garbage can, eventually it will turn to mush. I kept putting this off because I wanted to buy a new garbage can that would fit just perfectly in the space. I wanted it to be a neutral color, not bright blue or bright green. Does color really matter? It's for GARBAGE.  As I was standing there staring everything that wasn't right, I remembered Jules' post. Should not having the perfect garbage can stop me from having a functional garbage can? One that wouldn't mold? No. Once I picked up two bins from the side of the road in Seattle. They were advertised on craigslist. I used one for dog food and one for rice. Since we aren't having rice and beans night at our house currently,  I don't buy restaurant sized rice bags anymore. This meant that one of the bins was free for another job. I realized if I removed the lid, it was the exact dimensions of the garbage can that was needed. Done. I also had a funny stack-able storage tray destined for the goodwill. That made a wonderful base for my paper recycling bag. {just in case something leaked out, I could wipe out the bin, and not worry about the wood cabinet getting nasty.} Neither of these things are beautiful. They are however beautifully functional. The food waste bin provided by the City of Portland made it's way down there too. I had been boycotting it due to it's poor design and all around bad looks, but let's face it. Banana peels on the counter in an old yogurt container do not look good. Ever. Function won again. Throwing things away has never been more pleasing. My desk area is trash free, the counter is no longer home to coffee grounds and egg shells, and the garbage can is not decomposing.

The cleaning supplies and bucket got moved to the bathroom, except the dishwasher detergent. That now resides in the cupboard next to the dishwasher. Amazing..{I forgot to mention that there was an extra layer of wood under there, which seems to be a spare length of formica counter top. I will be using it to help replace the missing cabinet next to the stove, since it matches the rest of the kitchen counters.}

  Making Dutch Babies, Alice

 

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7

The William Morris Project, Week 5

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This is week five of the Pancakes & French Fries William Morris Project, happening every thursday in 2012.

{When I eat Starbursts, I always do it in the same order. I eat the red ones first, then pink, then after waiting a while because I am sad there are no more red and pink, I will eat the orange. Finally, much later, I'll get to the yellow. The list is the same way for me. I am picking off the things that seem easy, or fun to do, in stages. I always enjoy the yellow Starbursts, but I never start with them. In the same way, I will paint each room upstairs long before I set foot in the basement. Once I am down there, it will be fun, I just can't bring myself to start with it.}

Last week I:

Patched the holes in the living room walls

Painted the living room walls

Cleaned the fireplace bricks

I removed the fireplace screen, and can't bring myself to put it back

Painted the hallway

Implemented a silverware drawer organizer

I am still mid-purge in my office corner, but I have made lots of progress

Created a better system for storing my millions of pens and pencils

And this is what I documented:

Part I

We moved into this house in late November.  Three days later, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for close to 20 people. There wasn't time to do all the little things around the house {like unpack everything} that needed to be done.  I just kind of ran around hanging art up and putting things in drawers or closets without any real plan. Life set in, and most of those things I did in the first three days are still the same. Case in point: the silverware drawer.  Our old kitchen had built in dividers in the silverware drawer, deep and wide. I took them for granted. When I went to Target the week after we moved in to buy a some sort of organizer or tray, I was sorely disappointed by the options available. There were plastic trays with really low scoops out of each section, allowing {in my mind} the forks and spoons to intermingle at will.  There were $30 modular bamboo things that slid all over themselves {I couldn't imagine them holding still, with any use at all}.  There were also wire basket things that would certainly allow all the knives to escape, and the forks to poke through just enough to get stuck. None of them met my standards of what I believed a silverware organizer should be. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond, and found the same selection, at a higher price. So I quit looking. For nearly 3 months we have foraged through the heap of spoons, forks , knives, and other stuff for an eating utensil that would do. A few days ago while at a thrift store, I spotted this:

The bottom was a bit flimsy {and probably ought to have some fun backing instead of apartment white}, but it was all wood. The compartments were smaller than what I had imagined, but they weren't spoon shaped. It was $3. I bought it. It only took a few minutes to turn a jumbled mess into order.

In the photo above you can see the little forks sneaking their handles under the divider. A  thin block of wood under the middle of the organizer fixed that problem. The next issue was that the drawer was bigger than the tray, and I knew that opening and closing it one time would shake the whole thing loose and it would be all wonky the next time I went to grab a knife. The solution was simple, I cut two short pieces of quarter round trim to fit in the top left and bottom right corners of the drawer. They hold the tray still without getting in the way, or requiring some sort of fastener.

All done. No creeping fork handles, no crooked silverware tray, no heap of unidentifiable utensils.

Part II

The Secret Life of Plants has probably affected me too much, because I have had unspeakable guilt when I {rarely} have to give up on a plant. I will think about all the experiments that the Philodendrons underwent, and how they were afraid of being harmed. Anthropomorphism is not something I would proudly declare as something I subscribe to, but practically speaking, I have a tendency to give plants and animals more than their share of human qualities. Last week my father in law brought these two plants to me, in pretty bad shape. He had been storing them for me since we moved in August, and I realized only couple weeks ago that they had been in a windowless garage the whole time. I was happy to have them back, and happy that he cared enough to store them for me this whole time. I watered them, put them in the window, watered them some more, cut back their dead parts, and waited. They shriveled up. The rubber plant that I was so excited about last summer went from 5 feet tall to 12 inches of wilted mush. While I was painting the living room, I kept moved their pots aside at one point, only to discover they were leaking onto the floor. There were moldy circles where they had been sitting. I thought to myself, am I intentionally keeping mold and dead plants in my home? Will I continue to keep these very unsightly plants around out of guilt? No. I marched them out to the yard waste bin right then, and immediately felt better. I left the pots outside, where they are looking forward to housing some rosemary on each side of my front steps.

Trying to find my superglue, Alice

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7

The William Morris Project, Week 4

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This is week four of the Pancakes & French Fries William Morris Project, happening every thursday in 2012.

Last week I knocked out quite a few items on my list for 2012. {13 to be exact} This is what I finished this week:

Replaced all the remaining switch plates and outlet covers

Removed the super gross shower door track that was caulked on to our tub. The doors have long been gone.

Replaced the ceiling fan in bedroom #2 with a the light from bedroom #1

Replaced the light in bedroom #1 with a new fancy light

Removed ALL of the wallpaper in the kitchen

Added a shelf above the refrigerator for my radio

Took down the Christmas lights {before January was over-the last possible time that is still reasonable}

Began downsizing the junk in my office corner, but I got overwhelmed and started crying halfway through, so it's not done yet. But hey, I started! Now at least I have more than a tiny corner of the desk available for my computer.

{In my defense, I couldn't keep up with last weeks pace because I was in Seattle all weekend.}

The kitchen here was lovingly wallpapered with a 'Tea' themed border. When I began scraping it off, I realized that the Tea paper was put on over some pretty great vintage rose and ivy wallpaper. 

If that had still been there, I might have left it alone, but there was no saving it. The rose wallpaper was so strongly glued on to the wall that it kept pulling the top layer of sheetrock off as I scraped, leaving behind big dents and chunky places. It took forever. My arms ached, I got sweaty, it was annoying. Eventually, with the aid of some wallpaper stripper, I got through all of it. After the walls were dry again, I skim coated everything with joint compound to even out the craters and scrapes. Once that was dry, I wet sanded it with a kitchen sponge because I hate the mess of drywall dust, especially in a room devoted to food preparation. Now that the skim coat is finished, if you squint, you can pretend the walls are all painted off white.

I love finding little pieces of history while doing projects, it's like getting to know the house. During the removal process, I found the word 'paper' scrawled in cursive along the wall, in two places. I kept hoping to uncover a secret panel harboring someone's money stash, but it didn't happen. {Thanks Nancy Drew}
The wall was also originally painted pink, a discovery that made me quite happy.


{Here's the little shelf I put up over the fridge. The cord is so long, that it just ended up in a big wad behind the radio when it was on the counter. Plus, it kept getting covered in mail, or hidden behind dishes. This way, it has it's own little house.}

Replacing the switch plates in the kitchen was an added bonus because someone had very carefully wallpapered those too. With Tea paper.

I am glad to be done with all of that dusty blue nonsense. What do you think of the lights? Keep them? Replace them? If so, with what? I'd love some ideas!

Listening to the 'College' Pandora station, Alice

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7

The William Morris Project, Week 3

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This is week three of the Pancakes & French Fries William Morris Project, happening every thursday in 2012.

 

Well, I finally made my list of things I would like to get done in 2012 during the William Morris Project. It seems like each time I cross something off, I add at least one more on. Some of the items may never get done, ever; and some of them I should be able to do in my sleep. Regardless, they are all mixed in together, and I am working through them in no particular order. So far I think I am up to 29 things crossed off the list that includes over 150 items.

This last week I managed to:

Fix a giant crack in the living room ceiling

Patch holes and paint the dining room

Fix a gap in the floorboard

Paint bedroom #2

Purge closet items and books in bedroom #2

Organize the closet shelves in bedroom #2

Replace the sink strainers {the ones that came with the house neither plugged nor drained...annoying}

Remove terrible built in shelves in the entrance to the kitchen

Trim out the archway into the kitchen from the dining room to match the rest of the house

Fix the cabinet above the refrigerator so that the bottom doesn't fall out

Remove one walls worth of wallpaper border in the kitchen.

Put up a kitchen towel hook

Repair a lamp that has been in pieces for like 9 years

{Perhaps the list helped? Maybe it made me neurotic.}

Most of these items were not documented.

This is what happened to the terrible kitchen shelves. Here they are as we found them while touring the house for the first time.

The day we moved in I took off the contact paper. Since then I have been glaring at them, cursing their ability to harbor junk. It was just so easy to put things on them that really belonged somewhere else. It wouldn't seem that bad until one day I would realize there was a huge pile of household cast offs hanging out in a very conspicuous spot. How can things like that go unnoticed? What is my problem? I still haven't figured it out. But I decided to take action against the shelves the second I got the 'OK'. This happened to be in the evening, while the kitchen was a complete disaster from a wallpaper removal project. I tend to take the same approach to all endeavours as I do when hanging wallpaper.  Whenever there are at least ten other things that need my attention more, I take on a messy project. The following photographs prove this with their un-biased counter top depiction.

One board at a time, I took them down. I had to break off the long nails that stuck out from the wall, and then counter sink them into the wood again. The top and wall pieces I left there, since they were part of my trim plan. I used all the wood I removed to trim the archway out. {this is a personal issue, I really hate un-trimmed doorways. They remind me of cheap construction, or bad apartments I've lived in. Maybe that's the same thing.} The goal was to make this opening to look like all the other door frames in the house. Using the wood that was removed in the process resulted in trim that looked like it had always been there.

The casing trim I found in the garage, and since there was a need for something along the wall, I cut a little piece of shoe molding to fit along the top trim and the linoleum backsplash. I had to whittle it with my Victorinox. {I didn't even cut my hand, which would have been normal}

After it was all said and done, there are still some things I would like to tweak, like for example, sand the whole thing down to bare wood and re-stain it so that the color isn't blotchy...but that's not on the list for this year. it is finished to this point, and I am so happy with how open and simple it is now. Before there was so much visual noise. {the wallpaper didn't help}

{pictures taken at night=dark and grainy photographs} These images really showcase the awful hardware in the kitchen, as well as the before/after wallpaper border look. The floors look amazing too! Wow, more to add to the list.

Wishing it was warm, Alice

 

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7

The William Morris Project, Week 2

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This is week two of the Pancakes & French Fries William Morris Project, happening every thursday in 2012.

Before we moved into this house, I swore I would take down the Venetian blinds immediately. They were badly installed, poorly functioning, ugly plastic strips. Why would I ever keep such a thing around? Function. Soon after moving in, it was Christmas, and purchasing something to replace them with seemed rather selfish when I could be buying gifts. Then it it was New Years, then my birthday, you get the idea. One thing led to another and I still had plastic car wash noodles in my window. I thought about them quite a bit, thinking about what could replace them. {this is where I start over thinking} The window ends about 3 inches from the front door, making curtains or drapes fairly impractical. When parted, they would just be right in the way of anyone coming in the door. Plus, it sounded tidier to have them up and away when open.

So I looked and looked for something that would fit. Bamboo blinds have always been my standby favorite, but it was looking like they would have to be custom, since the two side windows were a scrawny 17" wide. I was literally in tears pricing things out, going back to a regular curtain rod out of desperation only to find it wouldn't really be any cheaper, and the rod would likely be a piece of junk. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to check Overstock. {never having shopped there before, I supposed it to be full of things like micro-suede storage ottomans and terrible bakers racks. I am sure they have those as well...} Success! They had bamboo roman shades in pretty much every incriment of size, in the exact color that I was looking for, and instead of about $95 per 17" shade, I found these for $17 each. The middle one was around $35, and since they always have $3 shipping, I only ended up paying about $70 for the whole window. That was amazing. {and useful!} The worst part was waiting for them to arrive!

When the FedEx truck finally did deliver my package, I immediately set to work. I was so excited to put the new blinds up that only removed the 'noodles' of the old ones to begin with.

Remember last week when I warned you about the baggie of awful fasteners? Here they are. I threw them out. On the right you will see I opted for a 1.5" gold screw, since I was going to be attaching the brackets directly into wood. They could be a bit shorter.  Next I removed the wing nut and washer from each bracket, and without measuring {why bother when you can eyeball?} I just screwed 'em in!

One down, two to go! Here is the stack of old venetian slat things on my floor. They are currently stuffed up in the rafters of the storage room, because it was easier than dealing with them right away. I'll get there, someday!

You can see the track below, still hanging on for dear life...but doesn't the window seem friendlier?

When I did remove the track, I found an extra set of giant holes, probably left behind from an earlier set of traverse drapes, and some globby spackle. Nice!

There seems to be a tiny issue where I can see the metal bracket on just one side of the middle blind, which I think I can fix with a little bit of shimming between the blinds and the wood mounting bar.

Since I had thrown away the fastener baggie, I had no cord hook things to hang the extra cord on when the blinds are up. I stole some little brass cup hooks from our kitchen cupboards, since I don't use them {and actually scrape my hands on them quite often when using that particular shelf} All in all, it took me about 45 minutes to put the new blinds up, and take the old ones down.

Drinking Vitamin D Emergen-C, Alice

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7

The William Morris Project, Week 1

Jules of Pancakes & French Fries is doing a William Morris Project every Thursday during 2012. She did this last October and I got really excited after reading through all her posts to start purging and 'projecting' based on the same standard: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Naturally when she announced a weekly challenge in 2012, and invited others to join her, I started planning. There are so many things to do, it can seem overwhelming sometimes, so I just started somewhere. Anywhere. It ended up being my bedroom.

{Before images are supposed to be messy right?}

The first thing I did was paint. I do not believe dirty beige paint covered with other peoples fingerprints to be beautiful, nor do I know it to be useful. I also believe that having a bedroom that is restful and a place of retreat is very handy. {Especially when it's looks good!} So, armed with paint chips and a Lowe's gift card, I went paint shopping. The color ended up being an off the shelf Valspar color called Blue Sea Salt, not what I was planning, but it turned out great. It almost looks like nothing happened at all, but the whole room feels calm and clean, and the color is neutral without being totally sterile.

{Those teeth are actually earrings I got for Christmas, purchased at Reading Frenzy. Just in case you were wondering if I normally keep molars on my dresser.}

I used a brush, and ended up only going through about a third of a gallon when the whole room was done. Granted, it's not a huge room, but still...

Next up, dealing with the dresser top, which ends up a cesspool of household castoffs, and the tangled mess of wires hanging down from my cracked TV. Oh, and something in the windows {which are difficult right? Small, high on the wall, floor length curtains would look funny, plus they might just get in the way...still pondering ideas}.

 Researching re-upholstery techniques, Alice

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3
Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Week 7