One thing that was very apparent to us when we moved into our home 11 years ago was that Carol Brady must have been the interior designer.
Pumpkin orange kitchen countertops. Avocado-colored dishwasher (the kind you hook up to the kitchen sink). Yellow drapes in the living room affixed to these huge cornices that stood a foot out from the window, to give the illusion of depth. Carpet: brown and avocado. Back porch: teal green. Overall house color: barn brown with white accents.
The first thing we axed was the kitchen. I, having an appreciation of color, but deathly afraid to USE something so permanent in decorating - went with a whitish grey formica countertop, a white linoleum floor with flecks of blue and grey, got a black dishwasher.
Over time, we lost the teal porch and brown house (now it's Cape Cod grey, thank you. More neutral colors...) - the yellow drapes were replaced with a soft green tab curtains with one of those beige sheers you toss over the curtain rail (I am SO not a decorator, so forgive my imprecision!)
Each bedroom has been recarpeted and repainted. (Except D's, but his turn is coming soon once I have an extra $700 for carpet.) The master bath has been renovated - fixing the tub enclosure where the idiots who built the house used regular DRYWALL instead of greenboard, thereby creating a serious water problem... the subfloor had to be replaced, because I didn't want a crop of mushrooms in the bathroom anymore...
And we replaced the western fence back in June/July.
So we are chipping away at fixing "what was wrong" with the house.
But a major aspect of the 60's and 70's houses was what went on their ceilings: "popcorn" texture. GADS, if ever there were a dust collector, that is it. There is simply no way to clean it. And if you bump the ceiling, little kernels of the stuff drop all over you. And it might have asbestos in it. Joy.
Plain and simple, it had to go. We had already removed it from each of the bedrooms by using a squirt bottle, a large putty knife, and a handy dustpan.......but now, how to do the vast areas remaining: living room, dining room, and hallways?
Clearly, this was not the time to be timid. Bold steps were taken. Abandoning the wimpy squirt bottle, we grabbed the GARDEN HOSE! (insert "Tim-the-Toolman Taylor" auh auh auh sounds here). I taped plastic over my piano, the hutch, the filing cabinets, and the bookcases; A. spread out a big painter's dropcloth over the floor, and, with the nozzle setting on "mist" - he went to town, hosing down the ceilings. Then, once the popcorn was soft, he scraped it off. And scraped, and scraped. He was on a roll, but even so, it took from Monday - Wednesday to get it all done.
There are 5 or 6 garbage bags full of scraped-off popcorn sitting outside next to the trash now! It looks so much better now that it's gone.
However. Now we have to retexture said ceilings! The GOAL was to do that on Friday and Saturday. However, A. being a pastor and all, he's got to get ready for Sunday. And on Monday and Tuesday, I'm getting ready for Lora's wedding reception, baking cakes to feed 200.
Originally I had left the plastic up, thinking I'd just have to leave it up for texturing anyway, but last night I kept waking up, heart pounding, thinking about that stupid popcorn. I vacuumed and vacuumed in my dream, but popcorn still kept dropping on that BROWN carpet (another thing that will be replaced as soon as we are able!) Most of our furniture has been moved; the house is in a general state of destruction/construction - no wonder I was having nightmares!
So, first thing this morning, I went around the house and took down all the plastic. I couldn't face leaving it up until next Wednesday. I felt trapped in my own house with all that stuff up. Stress level down now!
So now, to make white chocolate seashells and coral for Lora's wedding cake! Reception Tuesday night; texture ceilings Wednesday... then PAINTING Thursday-Saturday!! w00t.
And this time I resolve to be BOLD in my use of color!! No more off-whites, beiges, or pale eggshells for me. I WILL USE COLOR!!
...but will someone please help me!
Knock-knock
2 weeks ago
5 comments:
Oh what "fun"! :)
Something I've learned from where I work--don't go too dark in your color choices. If you want a darker color, pick a base color and an accent color, and paint one wall an accent color. The wall you see when you walk in your front door would be a great wall for an accent color.
Have fun picking out colors!
Oh, and some companies sell little paint samples that you can buy and paint a small area to see the effect in your room. I've not used those, but they seem like such a great idea!
Oh my word, Mrs. Blythe, I bet your husband and mine could trade some stories. I do the VERY SAME THING! I'm so glad you're back from the lakes!
Tammy, that's exactly what my friend Audra said. Good advice! I'm trying to find a color that goes with my seagreen chair, and my blue and white checked couches. The chair is the only piece of furniture I've ever chosen for myself, so I picked out the color. The blue and white checked couch I would NEVER choose, but... it was given to us. So there it is. Seafoam green, and blue.
Andy wants warm colors, because it's so grey here from November - March.
So what do you think? Brown or yellow? or a warm (tan) grey?
I am SO BAD AT THIS. *sigh*
Rebecca, I'd go postal if I had to make the scones. That's why I LOVED being the cashier that one day I worked the spring fair!
I've had dreams like those too.Yuck.
We have the ucky popocorn that I want DESPERATELY to go,but aaron thinks we will let loose the asbestos.
We have all colors--I recommend a yellow because it really brightens up the gray days. You have to be careful because true yellow is tooooooo flourescent. We've had good luck with a butter yellow.
Our study is blood red. i loveit! The living room is khaki and the dining room is sage. Same colors as our Tustin house! I picked all the same colors. We are remodeling the kids bathroom and It will be a dark blue. Kids room are green (joel) and brown/blue (micah)
From DianaBarry:
I LOVE color. Now to look at my house, it's all in white, offwhite, or some type of eggshell color. I finally got bold this past year and painted my bedroom a lovely sea greenish color (I can't remember exactly which green it was - it was the one sample I had in my hand and I went to the Home Depot guy and said, "Please sir, May I have more?") The trim is white though, but very classy looking. I have a lovely flower border around the top of the room that adds blue and purple colors in. I am extremely dense when it comes to decorating. I pretty much leave that to Loyd.
So now's probably not a good time to tell you how we took that pop-corn stuff down??? So let me tell you anyway. We gave Danny an electric hand sander and he sanded the whole ceiling. His arm hurt but it was done in about 2 hrs (he did one bedroom). The ceiling is pretty cool looking because it's not completely smooth. It has a pretty cool texture look with the new offwhite coat of paint.
One thing you need to understand about me and computers - just because I work on a computer does not mean ZIP. It's just like saying everyone that owns a Bible knows what's in it. Hmmmmmmm
So how would I go about starting one of these blog things?
Diane-Look up there ^ at the top right of the page on the silver bar: "Get Your Own Blog."
It's rather easy, which accounts for all the idiots with blogs these days ;) (self-deprecating humor here)
I bet the dust in your house was UNBELIEVABLE after Danny did that!
Crystal----I refuse to think about asbestos (unless it's the middle of the night and I'm dreaming freaky dreams) :) Actually, Audra's husband is a contractor, and he's the one who said "Just hose the stupid stuff down. As long as you keep it wet it's not a problem." He thinks OSHA is just being paranoid.
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