Happy Birthday Home!

It's officially been one year of homeownership for me.
Wowzas! Time sure flies when you're spending money  cursing appliances  painting everything  craigslist hunting having FUN.

A quick list of things I've tackled in the past year, things in progress, and things to come:

Done
Paint - living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom #1, bathroom #1, master bedroom, spare bedroom, front hall, front door, tile glazing.
Replace - dishwasher, stove.

Apparently the original dishwasher made me drink heavily and be wobbly.

Flooring - Redid main bathroom tile floor, remove carpet from porch (yuck)
Install - wainscoting, 3 sets of built in wall shelves, high heel storage, 2 sets of built in closet shelving
Refinish - 3 dressers, 1 bed, 1 entertainment center dresser, 2 tables, 2 shelves, 1 couch, 1 fan
Restore - 2 shelves, 1 trunk, 2 doors
Reupholster - 5 chairs
Build - kitchen island, plant stand, screen frames on porches, pallet table
Done - lots of little projects

storage boxes

Free/Cheap items - 2 trunks, 1 entertainment center, 1 big shelf, 2 dining room tables, 1 secretary-turned-bar, 1 wine rack, 3 dining room chairs, 3 couches (1 skinned), 2 love seats, 3 wooden arm chairs, 3 easy chairs (2 skinned), 2 ottomans, 2 lamps, 1 old science table, 1 sewing table, closet shelving, 1 big speaker, 1 cat tree, 1 side table, 2 lockers, 1 massage chair (later sold), 1 teachers desk (also sold), 1 first aid kit, several baskets/boxes/storage solutions, several canvases, and one dog (found and returned to owners).
Buy - too much (I'd like to thank Home Depot, Ikea, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and TjMAXX for this honor)

In progress
Organizing - 2nd bedroom/office needs to get organized. Built in wall shelves/extending floating shelves need to be leveled so I can put things on them. Storage boxes have been obtained but need recovered or painted.
Flooring - There is a HUGE beige wool rug I picked up for free off craigslist draped across a training prop at the firehouse. It's been scrubbed, and is hopefully dry enough for me to retrieve. It had a LOT of stains on it, and looked pretty good when I was done scrubbing, but was dark, so I'll see how it looks. If it is splotchy still, I'll probably dye it.

pin

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A quilt - From a haul of free decorator fabric samples I picked up recently. Because I'm insane.
Christmas presents - Materials have arrived for a big batch of bath products I'll be making for presents this year. Made two AWFUL batches of bath bombs last night, but the third one came out much better after I ditched the essential oils. They are just too smelly for my taste.

Orange, Honey & Shea Butter Bath Bomb Squares

Speaker - Partial deconstruction has happened. Repair is commencing. The BF tested out the speaker part and found it to be really good, so the shelf idea has gone away and now it will be a speaker again after some fixes and and reconstruction.
Grandmother's Trunk - It has been stripped of the old moldy interior, scrubbed, and replacement sides made. The humpback lid has proved challenging so I have to figure out how to reupholster it successfully with just a little bit of fabric left.

Porches - Winterizing furniture and figuring out what plants to keep vs. live and let die. Floating shelves need to be built inside for those plants which get to stay. Screening needs redone on both porches since I discovered I did it ever so slightly, but importantly, really wrong. Booooo
Other winterizing - Assembling warm weather stuff to move to my storage unit: coolers, portable grill, plant items, saw horses that live in my coat closet so I can actually get to coats, etc.
Backsplash - Started ~8 months ago. Abandoned/forgotten about 7 months ago. I just need to get a couple small cuts around the outlets done and I can cross this one off. Easier said than done, clearly.
Walls - I still have wall projects half completed, mirrors, and framed items that need to find homes.
Cleaning - HA!

To do's
Seating updates - Making slipcovers for both love seats, dying the white couch cushion covers grey.
Walls - Walls in the 2nd bathroom need art'd up. Walls in my bedroom need worked on. Bedroom TV needs to get mounted.
Windows - Make galvanized pipe curtain rods for dining and bedroom. The cheap-o ORB painted curtain rods I put up a year ago to be able to change clothes have fulfilled their purpose but now crash down on occasion.

ala this pin

Furniture - Bed will probably get rotated in my room. Would like to build some under-bed storage and find a better home for the other furniture in there. Grandmother's antique sewing table needs refinished. Dining room table to be concrete-topped. Find a better home for a random but epically comfy mushroom chair chilling in a corner of my bedroom. Find a home for the new (to me) trunk and grandmother's old trunk.
Refinish - A small old fan, similar to one I've already done, is up on deck. One antique wooden side chair is also waiting for some love. An old filing cabinet compliments of my grandparents needs some restore a finish.
Random stuff - figuring out what to do with all the trunks, antique doors, pillows, etc. I'd also like to do a clothes purge because I never get rid of anything (even when it has every reason to go: stain/fit/falling apart), and my drawers runneth over.

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So, just a couple of things on the lists, and I'm sure there's several things missing that will pop into my head at random times over the next week. Filling up gas? Perfect time to remember a random rug someone gave me. Eating lunch? Bam, there's a memory of refinishing a nightstand. And so on.

First thing I will be doing after work today though is having some girlfriends over. Hope they like breakfast for dinner; as the only things in my fridge are eggs, croissants, cheese, Oj, and fruit.
Oh and booze, you can't forget the booze.

Goooood boooy.

-Lindsay

Recent Projects - from the Land Where Nothing Ever Gets Finished

As is pretty clear: new posts have been MIA lately.
I blame a lack of time, a bad habit of not finishing projects, and my constant failing to take some damn pictures of the things I do get done!

Below are a few of the projects I've been working on recently, in no particular order.
As I get my $h!+ together and finish them up, I'll post a rundown on each.

• Mounted my TV on the wall.
- Getting rid of the massive entertainment center and putting the tv up on the wall has totally changed the living room.

Makes my living room hotel-sexy.

• Worked on screening in the back porches.
- Started on this in the spring, and when it got hot outside I got lazy. 
- Came back to it his week and discovered a roadblock I'll have to overcome with a bit of rework. But, progress is being made.

Patio progress. Catio creation.

• Reupholstered 3 old office chairs for use in the dining room.
- Related pattern (chevrons) and color (pinks!).

$5 each, and now all sassy.

- And made a bunch of coordinating pillows.

Modeled by the glamour-puss.
Meee-ooow

• Customized and hung a new dining room light.
- Changed my original plan from this post, but the result is close.

Real pictures to follow.

• Refinished a mid-century modern dresser and converted it into an entertainment center.
- Waited forever for the right piece to come along, and am trying to keep it classic enough to do Don Draper proud.

This was an exercise in patience and high # sandpaper.
I cant' wait to be finished and show you more. It's crazy gorgeous.

• Picked up a couch and two chairs from Craigslist and skinned them for their leather.
- Then washed and conditioned the heck out of it.
- Then made a purse out of said leather.

Lots of oiling. And shooing away cats who wanted to lick up ze oil.

• Received a used OTR microwave from the BF's parents to replace my broken one.
- Pictured below is die kaputt maschine. Mounting is in progress for the new-to-me zapper.

Best looking appliance when I moved in: only one that totally didn't work.
'Best' being SUPER relative.

• Mounted my grandfather's antique tools.
- For display and ease of use.
- Progress has gone at the same (snail's) pace as setting up the office/second bedroom.

Aaah. Love, love, love this project.
More to come!

• Relined an antique humpback trunk from my grandmother.
- Removed the old lining and blitz cleaned 40 years of dried mold. During which; the house smelled kind of good, in a granny's-basement sort of way.

Creative fabric manipulation 101.

• Played florist and created all the flowers for a friend's event.
- Tons of happy flowers to honor the passing of her beloved aunt.

10 arrangements, 2 Xl altar pieces, and a 24' broken heart.

• Found and shined up some old silver pieces.
- Sunday afternoon thrift store browsing.
- $20 in my pocket got me both of these AND a bangin smoothie. #winning

A good deal + a little elbow grease = not-so-shabby chic accent pieces.

• Turned a retired firefighter coat into a throw pillow cover.
- Will be a wedding present for a fellow firefighter, made from his old coat.

The most ridiculously complicated 'easy' project ever.

• Made a fuse box cover.
- Out of leftover paint chips from picking my wall colors.

For an ugly eye-level fuse box.

• And spent some quality time with my favorite furry guy.
- Like all good animals, anytime his person is on the floor for more than 10 seconds(dining room chair upholstering, in this case); it means PLAYTIME NOW.

He managed to get himself stuck in a bag handle and dealt with it by flopping over and looking cute.
Good call, actually.

One of these days I will find the missing hardware, cut the last piece, install the whatever, take a picture, or write a post about each of these projects. In the meantime, they are already improving The Cabindo, half-finished states and all. 

At the end of a recent post, John from Young House Love touched on being content with a home in-progress. I'm accepting that more and more, and it helps that most of my big projects are to the point that I don't have multiple construction zones 24/7. Home feels like home when I get there, rather than a to-do list. Theres still plenty to tackle, but I'll get there eventually.
My wallet surely appreciates the lul. Though it feels too long since I've last seen my buddy Mary at the Home Depot paint counter.....

-Lindsay