Slip 'n slide

Molly had her first ever swim lesson this morning. Of the five kids she was probably the oldest, but also probably the least familiar with water. Whatever. I decided not to let this reflect on my parenting. Molly is the type of kid who starts screaming bloody murder and you run across the house and into the bathroom where you, irresponsible parent that you are, have let your 4- and 5-year-olds play in the tub and oh. Jackson got an eensy weensy drop of water on Molly's face. OH THE TRAUMA.

So I wasn't really expecting it to go super well to begin with, but I was honestly too stressed about GOING to swim lessons to think about the actual lesson. I feel very new at the Y, I don't know how things work, I'm not always sure where to park or when to arrive and I made Molly take a shower before she got in the pool like all the Firm Signage demanded even though it was clear none of the OTHER kids' mothers made them do this. My ultimate plan is to drop Jack at school, go to the Y, stick the kids in the play area while I run, then get them both out for Molly's lesson at 10. But Emma is the clingiest whiniest baby EVER right now and I WAS JUST STRESSED OUT, OKAY! So getting us all there, on time, in the appropriate clothing, in the right place, without having done anything embarrassing or stupid? I WAS ALREADY WINNING. 

Molly was game for everything though. I was so proud of her. I mean, this could be the kid who refused to get in the water without me. But she got right in with the others and ALMOST put her face in the water when all the other kids did. I mean, this was progress. Then the instructor had them stand on the side of the pool and jump in (with him right there of course) AND SHE DID IT. YOU GUYS MY KID JUMPED IN THE POOL. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. 

Aaaaand she IMMEDIATELY burst into panicky tears, fuh-reaking out all over the place, UGH. Water got up her nose! Ack! Ack! And I couldn't put Emma down to deal with her because then I had TWO screaming children. So I'm kind of hovering over the edge of the pool, hoping I don't drop Emma in, trying to calm Molly down, trying to act like it's No Big Thang in front of the other moms even though I seriously just wanted to hand one of them my baby and take myself out for a latte. The other moms were actually super nice and encouraging. I suppose Molly is not the only drama queen in our family. 

EVENTUALLY I coaxed her to at least stand NEAR the other kids in the water for the last 10 minutes of the lesson, but jeez. I may have to resort to bribery next time. Have Phillip take her on the weekends or something. I don't blame her, though. I don't know how to swim, nor do I have any interest because I AM AFRAID OF WATER. I just understand that it would be better if Molly were NOT like me in this particular instance. 

Jack will have his first lesson Thursday night with Phillip as his chaperone. I expect that to go much better. Jack is a smidge more daring, plus he likes to show off. Peer pressure!

As for the DECK SLIDE...

Okay people, the thing about slides is: 99% of the slides you see on HomeDepot.com or whatever are made for 5 foot decks. It might say "Ten Foot Slide" but that just means the slide is 10 feet long. It does not mean the slide is made for a 10 foot deck. SO. The majority of slides I've looked at online are made for 5 foot or 7 foot decks. I've got an 8. The difference in price between a 7 foot platform heigh slide and an 8 foot is, oh, $1500. I DON'T KNOW WHY. I can find a gajillion 7 foot slides for $500ish and the 8 footers start at, like, $2000. With tax and shipping. Is ridiculous. I KNOW. 

So my contractor was telling me that I can either purchase a slide that costs more than the stairs, or they can build the slide deck a foot down from the actual deck and pay $750 extra (7 foot slide plus tax and shipping) - it's just that the actual deck stairs project will cost more. 

Anyway, I did some googling and I found one single solitary option under-$1K for an 8 foot slide, a slide that comes in pieces and you can order as many extensions as you want. Enough extensions for an 8 foot deck comes to about $800. I also found a seven foot slide on Amazon for $500ish, which would work nice because we have an Amazon credit card and points to burn, making it even cheaper. I emailed those options. I haven't heard back, but I'm supposing one of those will work. My contractor's first thought for where to purchase a slide was Rainbow, which I already know is the priciest swingset out there. All those $100ish slides you see are for 5 foot decks. I know. 

Of course, we could do away with the slide altogether except NOPE! I am in it. I feel the same way I did about the fireplace. It's a lot of money for something that isn't necessarily going to increase the value of our house, but it will improve the USE of our house SO MUCH. Like, remodeling the kitchen would be super duper nice? And remodeling the bathroom would be even better? And make our house a lot nicer? But not to the extent that deck stairs (AND A SLIDE) will make my children more inclined to play outside in the backyard this summer which is infinitely more helpful for a SAHM's quality of life, yes? 

SLIDE! SLIDE! Stay tuned! 

 

Housey stuff

Phillip and I are suffering from a bit of... well, I'm not really sure what you'd call it. Whatever you develop when you've gone overboard in your consumption of HGTV. 

It started with the deck. Well, really, it started with buying the HOUSE, but the deck is the first big tangible fix/upgrade/change since we took out the weirdo fireplace the week before we moved in. There are a ton of things we want to do with our house, but deck stairs is the best combination of affordable/doable/most needed. And then I went and added that slide. (Phillip: still not sold. I mean, he's sold because I HATH DECREED IT SO, but, you know, he's still raising an eyebrow whenever I mention it. LOSE THE EYEBROW, PHILLIP.) Anyway, it's meant a lot of Pinterest browsing and contractor researching and all that housey stuff. 

THEN my sister, the one who got married last summer, went and bought a brand new super huge house and duuuudes, that's pretty exciting. I keep getting jealous, then I remember that this house is a good 50 minutes away from my beloved city and I feel better. But THEN I remember it's within walking distance of the best babysitter in the universe, that babysitter being MY MOTHER and I get jealous all over again. But whatever! It's fabulous! Yay my sister! It's finally finished and I got to take the grand tour today and that just puts you in the housey mood too. WALK IN PANTRY, people. Swoon. 

But the biggest thing? Phillip discovered HGTV. Now, I've known about HGTV for a while, but it's never really been all that interesting to me. I tried to develop an affinity for HGTV back when Emily Cassee was creating her House Hunters drinking game, but I couldn't get into it. But now? NOW? Maybe it's the fact that I learned how to paint things these last two years. Maybe it's the kitchen with the laminate cupboards and hateful tile grout counters. Maybe it's knowing we're here for a long time. I DON'T KNOW. But suddenly Phillip and I cannot get enough. It's actually quite embarrassing. 

Our favorite show is Property Brothers. I think it's called Property Brothers? It features these two impossibly good-looking brothers - one is a realtor and the other renovates houses. They find people (preferably a young, obnoxious, entitled couple) a fixer upper and turn it into their dream house. We think this show is amazing. We think the renovations brother is a GOD. We cannot stand the idiot whiners who end up on this show because DO THEY NOT REALIZE WHAT THESE BROTHERS CAN DO?! They should just pick the cheapest house in the best neighborhood and thank their lucky stars they landed on this show. 

Anyway, it makes us talk entirely too much about our own house and what we want to do to it. (Phillip comes up with these super random things, like wanting to replace the window in the garage with one that opesn, so the flies can fly out instead of getting stuck in the corners and dying. Yes. My ideas are more along the lines of "remodel the bathroom!") Just today we covered how we'll split the upstairs bathroom into two, whether or not we should open up the kitchen by knocking out the counter peninsula, and how exactly we would pay for all of this. In rather excruciating detail. 

Today my sister was all "I have to buy a refrigerator today! Lame! I'm never going to buy anything fun again!" And I'm all, "WHAT IS NOT FUN ABOUT BUYING A REFRIGERATOR?!?!?!?" Because I am OLD and UNFUN and ADDICTED TO HGTV.

I'm tempted to post a bazillion Kitchen Inspiration pictures, but Phillip is yelling from the bedroom saying another episode is on. Must go. Chat later. 

Garden thievery

About two weeks ago I planted dozens of tiny seedlings in my freshly dug garden. Jack and Molly and I started four different kinds of tomatoes, snap peas, beans, squash, zucchini, and lettuce in little peat pots inside the house and I ohsocarefully transplanted all of them into the garden. 

After one week I noticed that every single cherry tomato plant was missing. Peat pot and all. 

Last night when I got home from Sacramento I went to check on what was left of the garden and noticed that nearly all the other seedlings had disappeared as well. Whatever's stealing them - raccoons? squirrels? the handful of mangy cats constantly trespassing in my yard? - is not a fan of snap peas or beans. Those are pretty much the only plants left - that have a chance of surviving, anyway. I'm annoyed. (UNDERSTATEMENT.) I angrily put up the bamboo stakes and string trellis for the pea and bean vines this morning, though I half expect to walk out there tomorrow and see that those are gone as well. I'll have to go buy actual plants now and, I don't know, create some sort of varmint repelling force field. GAH. 

And then, because I spent the last several days in Elizabeth's ready-for-television (literally) backyard, I stood around staring at MY yard and mentally noting every single stupid thing I want to change or get rid of and this is what finally propelled me upstairs to pester a few contractors. I emailed a few a while back, but just because email is MY preferred method of communication doesn't mean contractors necessarily CHECK their email addresses. Even if they've posted them on their geocities style website. But I have two coming to visit now. The one who came last year and gave me an estimate and a new guy I found on Yelp. And I am not entirely sure how they'll respond when I say, "AND I want to put in a SLIDE." The correct response is, of course, "AWESOMESAUCE." 

Phillip is only mildy interested in this slide thing. I think he thinks it's going to cost another kajillion dollars and look ridiculous, but I think it will only cost around a frillion dollars and who CARES if it looks ridiculous. It would be SO COOL. And something our kids would enjoy for a long time, I think. Take the stairs or slide down? ALWAYS SLIDE. We also always talk about "resale value" for things we want to do, even though I am not moving out of this house, ever. I mean, maybe if we somehow pile up a kajillion dollars and I could buy a house with a view of the Sound, then okay, MAYBE I would move. But until then? Nope! (Although, let's face it, you can add another $5K of value to a house with a slide off the deck, amiright? OBVS.)

I have the tiniest bit of hope for my yard this year. One thing I've really been working on, honestly, is not getting all bent out of shape about how much work there is to do and how it needs to get done NOW. Like, my yard is just horrifying. It really is. All the work I put into it last year was for naught - everything is all grown over again, even worse. The first summer we lived here I was pregnant, and last summer I couldn't do anything because a certain baby was not mobile (and oh yeah, my husband was always gone.) But THIS summer... okay, so my baby is only quasi-mobile, but I have PLANS. Things WILL get done. But not all of it, and that will be okay. The stairs are a priority. Once those are in I can figure out what exactly needs to happen in the backyard, what I can save, what I need to rip out. I'm considering hiring a nice lawn service to do the massive weeding required in the front and mulching it all over. I'll plant some flowers. I might grow some snap peas. But I don't have to dig out the evil lavender bush or figure out what to do with the [many] overgrown flower beds or deal with the three (three!) dead trees. We will be here a long time. No rush. 

I have visions of sitting on my deck with a frosty drink and a good book, watching the big kids clamber up the stairs and hurl themselves down the slide, keeping an eye on the baby "painting" on the deck with water, totally ignoring the fact that I have to make dinner. Doesn't that sound like a good summer? That sounds so NICE. 

Summer. Ha. At this moment everyone in my family is sick, I feel like I'm about to lose my voice, I'm wearing pink fuzzy socks, jeans, and a sweater coat. Can't really start talking about summer in my town until, oh, the end of August. 

Pie in the sky

Jack went back to school today. And instead of calling Children's Hospital to make appointments, I started digging in my backyard. 

Yard Plans 2013 (in no specific order)

1. Expand garden, plant seedlings before all the roots intertwine in their little plastic greenhouse. Need soil, fertilizer, ten tons of MiracleGro. 

2. Get bamboo stakes and netting for beans and snap peas. 

3. Buy a few pavers or tiles or whatever to create a little path through the garden. Actual Garden Design can be saved until 2014. 

4. Plant raspberry bush and blueberry bush in the raised bed in the backyard.

5. BUILD FREAKING STAIRS OFF THE DECK ALREADY. Note: find a contractor!

6. Dig out the absolutely ginormous lavender monstrosity. (2014: create a little patio in its place?)

7. Cut down little dead trees. Rent chainsaw? Call tree people? 

8. Dig out weeds/grass from the not-grass area in the front yard, cover with bark. Or get a lawn service to do this. Because I've already dug it out once and that obviously got us nowhere. 

9. Find shade-friendly plants for front yard.

10. Plant dahlia bulbs. Where? Uhhhh... 

11. After stairs are built, figure out what to do with the flower bed and vines and peonies and rosemary, but save that for 2014 because DUDE, just getting the stairs built will be a miracle. 

12. Develop arm muscles/upper body strength via new million dollar idea: Power Gardening: Dig and Weed Your Way To Definition!

Dare I say we were PRODUCTIVE this weekend?!

Sometimes we don't have any plans for the weekend, no one to visit, nothing to do, and that's when Phillip and I look at each other and say, "FINE, LET'S FINISH THE STUPID [insert house project here]." And we're in bad moods about it too, because as nice as finishing house projects is, neither of us are what you would call "handy" and it takes forever and the kids get in the way and we disagree and that's why we probably shouldn't start them in the first place. 

But anyway. There was no small amount of shock when we finally built the ultra cheapo but uber functional bedside tables I picked up at Fred Meyer six weeks ago. 

AMAAAAAAAZING!

I bought two of these on sale, rushed home, opened the box and saw that 1) it was missing the little bag of hardware and 2) the instructional diagram was about one hundred times more impossible than Ikea instructional diagrams. So I boxed it back up, shoved it in a corner, forgot about it, lost the receipt, yeah. Until this weekend when Jack and Molly were headed to a playdate RIGHT NEXT to Fred Meyer and I started to feel guilty. They let me exchange it without giving me a hard time, probably because they knew what a PITA it was going to be to put those suckers together. 

But I think they look nice! At least they are a huge improvement over the pine TV tray-type tables we were using as nightstands. Haaaa, classy. Also, that's probably as uncluttered and un-dusty as the top of that table is ever going to be. I clean up for the internet. 

The PLAN for our bedroom is to get rid of the giant red couch and get a KING SIZE BED. OH YES. I HATH DECREED IT SO. This bed is Phillip's from the College Days and the some of the slats are broken and it's all chipped and unhappy. I want to get maybe a [king size!] black upholstered bed and add a few more pieces of supah fancy white Hemnes bedroom furniture. We have the tall dresser right now, but I'm batting my eyelashes at the long one. 

Okay, but we put the nighstands together while we waited for the PAINT to dry on the WALL HOOK TRIM. 

Did I not tell you I started a pre-K? 

Phillip bought that piece of trim eons ago and I bought the hooks eons ago, but we left everything in the garage. AS WE ARE WONT TO DO. Anyway, I made a stink about it starting yesterday and we finally got it up this afternoon. We had to mark up a lot of area with pencil, drive to a friend's house to cut the trim, get out the trim paint YET AGAIN, but it was fairly easy for us House Novices. We even managed to screw it into a few studs, totally on accident. Woo!

I still need to get a few things for the entry way walls, but otherwise it's done. No more paint or furniture or rugs. I'm quite happy with it too. All the storage choices are working out, there are decidedly fewer shoes strewn about and I'm hoping the same for coats now that the hooks are up. AND the bench is almost always available for sitting and shoe taking off/putting on. Goals: accomplished! 

I thought my next project would be Emma's room. Hers is the other bedroom on the main floor besides ours, it has huge windows and great light, high ceilings, and a Pergo floor (the only part of the house that does, curiously enough. OH THE QUESTIONS I HAVE.) I *think* I want to paint this room a darker gray (the grays I chose for the hallway and my bedroom could also be described as a "sort of dirty white?") with a lot of bright white and hot pink accents. Eventually it will be Phillip's office OR, if he feels like it, at some point I could switch out Jack for Emma, the girls would be downstairs, Jack would be upstairs and we'd keep the larger bedroom (and attached bathroom) downstairs for the office/guest room. I don't know. If I think about it too much I get all STRESSED which is RIDICULOUS because YEARS! We have YEARS! BUT WHATEVER. I think a real gray would not be too dark at all for that room and would easily accomodate Baby Girl decor, Grade School Boy decor, or Husband's Office junk. 

However! Pulling that off is overwhelming. I paint while the baby sleeps, but how do I paint if the baby is sleeping in the room I want to paint? HMMM? Maybe I should wait until she's not in the crib anymore? All the baby furniture - basically a super stained upholstered rocking chair and a much abused and half-broken Ikea dresser/changing table - needs to go at some point. Maybe I should just wait and do a Toddler Girl room? MAYBE I AM JUST COMING UP WITH LAZY EXCUSES?

In the meantime I am plotting a Pinterest-Approved Gallery Wall:

Tres boring.

This is where I used to have a shorter brown hallway table and 3 canvas frames over which I stapled obnoxiously bright and flowery fabric. It... worked? It was something? I guess. Turns out that table looks awesome in the entry way and functions much better down there. I went and bought the table I originally and always wanted for that space - the super narrow Chloe foyer table at World Market. Tis awesome. In the corner I stuck my Goodwill chair that I painted coral back when I wanted a desk and coral accents in my bedroom. (This was pre-red couch.) But all over that wall, which is quite... expansive (bad picture, but it goes up pretty high) will be FRAMED THINGS. Of all shapes/sizes. Mostly white frames, but with a few dark brown, and lots of (obvs) yellow and aqua in the pictures. I have photos, prints, Etsy printables, and artwork that isn't necessarily working in other parts of the house. I have a lot of frames already and I hope to just spray paint them white to save money. I started gathering them all up (you can see them stacked under the table) and I'm hoping to get started on that this week. I have MANY large blank expansive wall spaces in this house, but this is the only one that I really feel could pull off a large-scale gallery wall, sort of asymmetrical and not-strictly-matching, but Highly Organized. At least, that's how it looks in my head. WE SHALL SEE. 

(Oh, by the way, this is at the top of the stairs - entry way below, living room to the left, Emma's room to the right, taken from the dining room. The kids like to run laps around the stairwell. I have a weird house.) 

The Aquaway

I want you to know that I just wasted several hours of my life searching my phone and computer (and Facebook profiles and blog posts) for Before Pictures and I only found TWO. I am BEYOND IRRITATED by this. I really really wish we had somehow 1) found a way and 2) thought it IMPORTANT enough to keep the pictures of the listing from when we BOUGHT the house. Those would be worth it for the minty green living room alone. ALAS, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THOSE ARE. 

Here's the entry way before I painted it the first time, last November or December (I can't remember.) 

You can't really tell (OBVS) but the walls were kind of a yellow green color. There's a Crayola name for it, but it's not lighting up in my brain right now. MUCH of the house was this yellow green color, pastel and kind of sickly. Not my favorite. Or even close. WAIT. Now I'm wondering if these are pictures I took while the new paint was DRYING?! GAH GAH GAH

WHATEVER. And then here is the entry way AFTER I painted it Boring Cream (which was really the only color I could think of, at the time) but before I painted the doors white.

Not HORRIBLE but definitely not awesome. And I knew that as soon as I was done painting. But, you know, I had a TWO-MONTH-OLD, I wasn't going to paint the stupid entry way AGAIN. 

(The bench, which is awesome, is from World Market. The sconces are the cheapest ones at Lowe's. The coat rack is from my parents' house in Italy. The basket on top was originally full of cheese and chocolate and bread and given to me at the hospital after I had Emma. The pictures on the wall are of my old street in Italy, a street map of Venice, and random Chinese scenes we collected on our trip. Also artwork from that famed and noted artist Jackson Cheung.)

Fast forward to the summer: I painted every single stupid door in my house (except bedroom closets) white. I would find my picture of the Door Painting Assembly Line on my deck from the summer, but I already wasted too much time on the entry way. Anyway, that was an improvement. I didn't do a spectacular job or anything, but the doors are seriously nothing special and looked a lot better. I did not, however, paint the edges. I was tired and had stopped caring. SUE ME. 

Fast forward to THIS past Christmas: I knew I wanted a COLOR. Hence the AQUA ANGST. (I love it. So there.) I thought it would look awesome with the white. So I painted all the trim in the entry way, plus the first stair railing, THEN I painted it a COLOR.

TA-DA! 

Old bench from World Market, white Hemnes shoe cabinet from Ikea, coat tree from Ikea, rug from TJ Maxx, pillows from World Market (I bought them to go on my couch last year and didn't like them, they've lived on a shelf since then), white mirror from Target. 

This is not really how it was supposed to be arranged - I wanted the shoe cabinet in the hallway, a chair on either side of the coat tree, but the shoe cabinet was a little too wide for the hallway and it didn't fit (if we also wanted seating) on the wall underneath the sconce in the corner. So. It's where it is. It's also screwed into the wall, per Ikea's instructions. It's nice to have a little shelf there (that's the door to the garage) and I'm looking for pictures to put above it. I wanted the white mirror there, but they are two different whites (THE HORROR) and the mirror was actually too high to be useful (for me, anyway.) 

As for the BENCH... Phillip was all, "just put it in front of the window!" Which works, but it BUGS ME. I would prefer two chairs that are sort of angled towards each other. What do you think? The bench just barely fits on the wall where the door opens. By which I mean the door opens wide enough to use, but hits the bench. So I don't know. I like the bench and I like as much seating as possible (we are a no-shoes-in-the-house house), but obvs it has to LOOK RIGHT. This doesn't look quite right to me. 

And the RUG. BAH. I really really like the colors and pattern of this rug and it was cheap so it's staying. But putting anything on the floor is a huge pain in the butt. I've told you about our Pine Needle Issue before. We sweep constantly (okay, we sweep before people come over) and any rug or floor covering is going to get in the way, never stay in place, be filthy, etc. BUT it looks COLD and BARE without a rug. Anyway, this one is terrible, it's slippery, it doesn't stay in place, it's too small for the space, BUT I like the patter and the colors, it looks okay if I shove it in front of the furniture and not pretend it's a rug for the whole floor, and it's easy to shake out. So. It stays for now. 

The last things I need to do are buy faceplates for the light switches (the old ones were cream - unacceptable) and put up the white trim and hooks on the wall in the last picture. We've purchased these things, we just haven't put them up yet. Of course. That's where the kids will hang their coats and backpacks and other assorted annoying junk. 

I wasn't sure I would like the coat tree. I REALLY LIKE THE COAT TREE. We are also actually using the coat closet. I KNOW. 

I knew I would like the shoe cabinet. Phillip has been anti-this shoe cabinet for YEARS. Who knows why! But we've sort of exhausted all of HIS preferred options, and in the last several days I've heard him marvel once or twice, "All the shoes are put away!" It's kind of a weird piece of furniture, but it looks clean and it's easy for the kids to use. Infinitely better than the shoes in the bench or the metal rack we keep hidden in a hallway. 

So there it is, internet, The Aquaway TM Emily Cassee. I need thoughts re: chairs vs. bench, if chairs then WHAT chairs, what to put above the shoe cabinet, rugs. GO. 

P.S. if you look VERY CLOSELY you can tell that I finally painted the edges of the doors (the ones you see in the entry way, anyway) and I painted them AQUA. HA.

On my favorite color of wall being Aqua

The Spirit moved me, so this afternoon I started painting. Again. 

For my birthday, in JULY, friends gave me a Groupon for paint (lots of it) and I JUST acquired the paint a few days ago, right before the Groupon expired. Long ago I decided on what I THOUGHT was a muted aqua for my entry way. I know way back I was all "NAVY!" but then I came to my senses. Okay, right now some of you are thinking "aqua is not coming to your senses" but LEST YOU FORGOT, aqua blue, that bright baby cheerful blue, is my favorite color and never ever fails to make me feel that "...aaaahhhh...peaceful" feeling. You can have your red and your taupe and your dark gray and your sage, the aqua is mine. 

It occurred to me, as I stood inspecting my entry way and ignoring my children, that I really needed to finish painting the trim. At the end of the summer I painted every door in my house a bright white and when I painted the front door I also painted the thick white trim around it and the window. I just, ah, didn't paint the rest. I WAS TIRED. So today I thought, "That didn't take long! I'll just paint the trim real quick!"

So I did that. 

While I waited for the first coat to dry I dragged one of my Groupon paint cans into the house, wedged the top open, took a paint brush and painted a giant aqua stripe on one of my boring cream walls. And it was very AQUA. And I was DELIGHTED. 

But now, Internet. NOW I have finished painting the trim (on the side of the entry way I plan to do first - I learned the FIRST time I painted my entry way that I should maybe do this project in stages so I don't drive the other residents of the house insane) and taped the ceiling and cut in just about everywhere I need to cut in, the aqua is... AQUA. Like, same as my off-the-kitchen family-ish room. Also known as MY FAVORITE but also DUDE. Kinda... AQUA for the entry way. I'm not entirely sure what the first impression of my house is going to be. "Does a child live here?" "Is this a preschool?" "Am I inside a toothpaste tube?" 

I really did think this was a MUTED even GRAYISH aqua. You know, a GROWN UP color. I've learned, now, that I do not like neutrals. I don't like creams and browns and taupes, I like BLUE and YELLOW and RED. Those are the colors that make me happy to be in my space. But I've ALSO learned that OTHER PEOPLE think those colors should be reserved for BABY ROOMS. I was honestly shooting for ADULT, here.

So I am feeling a smidge nervous about this paint, you guys. I mean, I think if I didn't already HAVE an aqua room I'd be all, "DEAL WITH IT, SUCKAS" but because I DO already have my "colorful" room, this one is maybe "overkill"? "A poor design choice"? "Too much"?

The PLAN is to interrupt a lot of that aqua with white framed mirrors, strips of MDF or plywood painted white with coat hooks running along the walls, a colorful cover for my entry way bench pad, and possibly painting the bench white. (Do not want to do this. Blargh.) The floor is gray tile. The doors are white. White/aqua is MY FAVORITE. STOP CARING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO PREFER TAUPE. 

No seriously, why have I written an entire blog post worrying about what PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIVE HERE are going to think of my BLUE PAINT? LET US MULL. 

I think... ok, so this is my SPACE. I don't have an office - this dining room where my computer lives at least 85% of the time is my office. And I like to decorate and I like to surround myself with things that are cheery (to ME) and YES, this house and the paint colors and furniture choices within reflect my personality. I think. Maybe? I am not terribly sophisticated (AQUA), I am not a perfectionist (SCUFFS EVERYWHERE, CARPET HOLE), and I don't dig dark, heavy, solid, matching, muted, neutral stuff. I mean, I have, at points, but I generally tend towards Light, Colorful, Airy, Windows, Maybe I Should Live On A Beach. I think. I gravitate towards the aqua, people, and if you think aqua walls are lame then obvs you think *I* am lame. SOB!

Except. For God's sake. I am thirty-freaking-three years old and if there is ANYTHING lovely and fabulous about being In Your Thirties it's that you are delightedly aware of caring a smidge less of what people think of you than when you were In Your Twenties. In my twenties I would have written an angsty blog post about PAINT and asked you what you THOUGHT and I would have taken EVERY BIT OF ADVICE, even if it was conflicting, which meant I would do NOTHING, because OH THE HORROR OF NOT EVERYONE THINKING MY ENTRY WAY IS THE CUTEST. 

But because I am writing this In My Thirties, I am going ahead and painting my walls a nice aqua (Martha Stewart's Artesian Well, btw) and all you aqua look-down-your-nose-ers can hang. OH YEAH. 

Break on through to the other side

So you know how I was all, "I'm gonna paint my entry way!" and you were all, "All right dude, but make sure you paint those doors first," and then I was all, "I'm not going to paint my entry way when it's SUNNY outside!" and then you (or maybe my friend Pancakes) was all, "Hmm, what about this OTHER blue, and yes, you DEFINITELY need to paint your doors, and happy birthday, here is a Groupon for paint!"

ARE YOU CAUGHT UP? 

I don't know why I got it in my head that I needed to paint doors this weekend, but when I get something in my head IT IS FIRMLY LODGED IN THERE. Also! It turned out that I was NOT going to spend all day Saturday at a volleyball tournament like I thought (perhaps I should check my calendar once in a while!) and ALSO it turned out that Jack and Molly were going to spend Saturday through Monday (that would be TOMORROW) with Phillip's parents. Free and clear weekend + firmly lodged idea + 80 degree forecast = opportune weekend for door painting. 

I didn't think it was going to be EASY, Internet. I have painted enough things to know that even though I have painted enough things, there is always something that is a drag. I also didn't think it was going to be quick. I DID think it would be relatively painless (which is sort of different from easy) and CHEAP. I was going through the neatly labeled cans of paint in our garage (I swear, we bought this house from clones of Phillip's neatly labeling parents) and one of them was an almost-full gallon of trim paint. Which is sort of what I was thinking I would need for painting doors. A-HA!

So! Here I had an almost-gallon of paint. In addition I already had, in my not-so-neatly-labeled box o' painting supplies: brushes, rollers, tape, paint trays, and half a gallon of primer. I thought I would need another gallon of both paint and primer, but then, THEN I WAS SET! Right? 

Okay so all the above was the In Theory part of the post. I will now give you the In Practice part. 

I took off the three interior doors in the entry way and laid them out flat (propped on paint sample jars) in the garage. In doing so I realized that 1) these doors are TRULY HIDEOUSLY CRAPPY and 2) NONE of them are the same width. I went around measuring every door in my house and I swear to you, NONE OF THE DOORS ARE THE SAME WIDTH. 

They're just hollow core wood doors, I'm sure they've been hanging here since the house was built in 1988, they are bruised and marked up and if they were ever finished, like with a stain or varnish or SOMETHING, they are not ANYMORE. Out of all the doors I painted, the only one I really needed to sand/degloss was Emma's door. Why that one was shiny I have no clue. 

Oh, so that part was easy. I had some deglosser left over from my cabinet painting project and I just rubbed that stuff on and no problemo. Then I rolled on the first coat of primer and DUUUUUDE. It was like the door just sucked up all the primer with a straw. It was like maybe I'd SPILLED a bit of primer and then carelessly rubbed it in. So. TWO coats of primer. 

In the meantime I was deglossing and priming the back of the garage door and the entry way closet, which I'd chosen to leave on the hinges. I only had to do one side, so it wasn't a big deal, and I just taped up the hardware and the wall edges. But that was enough to make me happy I'd Done Things The Right Way and taken the other doors off the hinges. SO MUCH EASIER to paint when the surface is horizontal and nothing's in the way. 

Anyway, this was taking forever because it was taking forever to DRY. I was going crazy. Seriously. Those firmly lodged ideas are not known for their patience. So of course I didn't wait long enough in between coats and the doors I hung today are a bit tacky still BUT OH WELL THEY ARE PAINTED THE END. 

Today! TODAY the firmly lodged idea reminded me that I had one day left to paint the rest of the doors and if THIS is how I was going to do it I was never going to get it done. So around 7:30 in the morning I was on my deck preparing a Door Painting Assembly Line. 

Also I needed to buy more paint. OBVS. In the morning I sent Phillip for another can of Kilz. In the afternoon I drove to the suburbs, the location of my Paint Groupon, for another can of trim paint. AND IT WAS CLOOOOOOOOOOSED!!!

Maybe I was a TEEEEENY BIT IRRITATED, Internet. This paint store is about 20 minutes away. Do you know how many paint stores are within 2 minutes of my house? I was feeling very foot stompy about this, and also confused because I still only had ONE DAY to finish those doors and now I had to buy a totally different kind of paint. 

Okay, so here is where Elizabeth is going to cluck her tongue and shake her head. I just went to Home Depot and bought Behr semi-gloss interior paint. In white. I didn't even tint it. OH YES I DID. I did not even BOTHER going to the fancy pants paint store and asking the fancy pants paint store employees what sort of fancy pants paint should go on my doors. I was ALREADY a smidge (a mile) overbudget!

So do I regret it? 

I have one more coat to do on my last 7 doors. It hasn't fully dried so I'm not ENTIRELY sure, but it appears the finish is less smooth and glossy than the three doors from yesterday (Parker Paint). I also ROLLED it on, which I know is not super kosher, but I knew that going into it. (If I brush painted 10 doors plus 2 outer doors plus one closet I WOULD HAVE GONE INSANE. Also, I'd probably only be on my third door.) So. It could be better, is what I'm saying. They are not perfectly smooth, glossy, and blemish free. 

THAT SAID. Did I mention that these were the crappiest doors in the universe? Like, BEYOND CRAPPY. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before. So it's kind of like I still have crappy doors, but now they are WHITE crappy doors and this is a trillion percent improvement. They look really good and the only person who even REMOTELY cares about the finish on those doors is me. And you know what principle I fully embraced on this project? DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT! DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT!

I'm going to slowly change out the brass knobs and handles for silver ones. (Expensive!) And one day I would REALLY like to put trim around the doors. We have awesome thick white trim around all the windows but NOTHING around the doors and it really looks undone to me. But that's a DIY project I have no idea how to do, so that's for another day. 

So it wasn't painless, it was more expensive than I planned, and waiting for the doors to dry PLUS flipping them over to do the other side is a royal pain in the butt. But it wasn't HARD, either. I'm not sure I would say it was easy, but the actual painting of the doors was the easiest part. (Not that you WANT to do nine hundred coats because your doors are sponges, but at least it was EASY TO DO.)

Jack and Molly come home tomorrow afternoon and everything needs to be painted. I might not have enough paint to do finish the front door tonight, but all the interior doors will be in their places, waiting for Phillip to help me hang them tomorrow night before he leaves on a business trip Tuesday morning aaaauuuuugggghhhh

THUS CONCLUDES A BLOG POST ENTIRELY ABOUT PAINT I AM SO SORRY

P.S. do you know how many BUGS died in my paint? That I thought were specks of dirt? And brushed off? Except it SMEARED? OMGGGG

 

Entry Way Mood Board

I present for you, my Entry Way. 

From the stairs going up to the main level of the house. (That's the front door.)

That other door is the door to the garage.

We are a no shoes house. Which is a problem.

This is the hallway to the back of the house - the first door is to a bedroom/office and the second is a bathroom. Featured: Jack Artwork.

So. Yeah. I should probably note that I already DID this entry way. I painted and switched out the sconces last December. The paint was originally a yellowish green (kind of what the stairwell paint looks like in the picture, but is actually Pleasantly Pale Yellow aka The Color Of The Upstairs in real life.) The sconces were these white plastic half moon things. The new ones were the least offensive (and also cheapest) ones I found at Lowe's. Anyway. Slight improvement, but I AM UNHAPPY. 

The paint... I don't know. I couldn't do a gray, because the tile floor is straight up Blah Gray. The whole lower level of the house is pretty dark (on account of a dumb layout and the house facing north and lack of downstairs windows and also being totally surrounded by TREES) and I didn't think I could do a dark color. I didn't want to do anything that would look bad with the yellow stairwell. Except the cream I eventually chose TOTALLY looks yuck with the yellow stairwell. It's boring. I AM BORED. 

So I am thinking...

TA-DA

This is fabric left over from my fabric covered canvas "art" upstairs. I love it so. Bright, busy, multi-colored, YES. So it's kind of hard to tell in this picture I think, but the swirly parts are a dark blue. Not dark enough to be navy, but definitely dark and blue and I kind of want that to be my new entry way wall color. OH YES. 

It's dark. But... I HATE the light color! It doesn't look right. For a while it looked nice with the rug I had in the entry way, but I had to get rid of the rug because it 1) never stayed and 2) was just a giant pine needle trap. (Remember: TREES.) So I'm going to TRY a dark color. It's only paint. I am no longer afraid of paint. 

Besides, I'm going to lighten it up with a lot of white. Please to see:

 

Source: jennasuedesign.blogspot.com via Maggie on Pinterest

 

I love love love that white strip of molding (trim?) (am DIY novice!) along the wall, with the hooks. I think that would look awesome in my entry way. I can't do the board and batten thing, on account of having a house that is not a board and batten type of house. The bench/overhead coat hanger thingy is not working for me. But I LOVE this idea and I love how I could line that whole back wall that goes towards the playroom with hooks. Storage! That looks cute! I envision lining each major wall with a thick piece of white trim with nicely spaced hooks. 

(I love that dark gray, don't you? I think it would look putrid with my gray tile. SIGH.)

I would also add a lot of other white stuff.

This mirror is from Crate & Barrel, but I'm thinking of the much cheaper Target version (that I can't find online.)

Bench. I bought this bench from World Market when I redid the entry way in December. I like it okay. I would rather have a white bench, though, with a cushion covered in some sort of happy print. I might paint this (BLARGH), I might sell it on Craigslist and find something else. I thought it would be great for shoe storage, but it's not. Phillip's shoes are too big, the kids' shoes are too small, plus we have TOO MANY SHOES. I've been throwing some in a basket (you can arrange the shelves any way you like) but other people have a very difficult time putting their shoes back in the basket. Right now we have a hideous shoe shelf hidden in the bedroom hallway. I feel that this is a problem that cannot be solved. 

I've pinned a tutorial on how to make a corner bench out of stock cabinets, but HA HA HA.

Anyway. I am worried the paint is too dark. I am worried my attempts at putting up trim/hooks will look amateur and stupid. But I feel like this is a relatively cheap way to totally redo this space and I want to see how it goes. Eventually, if it looked right, I'd paint all the doors white (I want to do this through the whole house) and maybe find another rug, (although the pine needle issue is as insurmountable as the shoe issue.)

All right, time to ogle swimmers.

 

 

And now it's Me vs. the Squirrels

Sucked it up and planted my stupid garden today. Two weeks ago (ie: the last time it was sunny) I dug a rectangle out of the overgrown lawn in what I have determined is the sunniest part of the yard. Today I dug out a bigger rectangle, then I scavenged some of those ugly scalloped edger bricks from random parts of the yard and blocked it off. This was so it would look less like a random hole in the lawn. It helped, a little. 

Then I dumped two bags of potting soil on top of the existing dirt and mixed it all up with a rake. If that was pointless and/or stupid, don't tell me, I felt like I was Priming My Soil. 

THEN I walked around my front and backyards looking for some kind of trellis for my pole beans. The chunk of dug out yard happens to be right up against the house, so I just needed something to prop against the wall. And the outside of the house, much like the inside of the house, is full of Random Items Left By The Previous Owners. Like an entire shed full of garden tools. Anyway, there are a ton of overgrown never-pruned vines all over this yard and I picked the ugliest one and stole its trellis. I propped that sucker against the house and planted my pole beans beneath it. 

At that point I had to make a decision: plant ALL the tomato plants or just the ones that DIDN'T appear to have a leaf-eating disease. What happened? They've all been sitting on the deck for a week and I've watered them and placed them in the sun, but three out of the five look like I should just toss them in the yard waste bin. I decided to only plant the good ones (which happen to be the cherry tomato plants.) (Which happen to be the only ones that ever turn out for me anyway.) 

I also planted zucchini and cucumbers. If I had one of my previous gardens I would also have lettuce and snap peas and various vegetables that would die before anything really grew: squashes, melons, peppers, eggplant, that one time I tried to grow a pumpkin and it never turned orange. (The kids were super impressed with that one, let me tell you.) 

Anyway, I'll tiptoe out there tomorrow morning and see if anything's left. I regularly see cats and raccoons visit my backyard and I'm pretty sure the fir tree houses an entire colony of squirrels. I'm just going to call this a practice year. I'm going to be living here for years and years. I will have plenty of other summers to attempt the Best Garden Ever. 

In the meantime I have some sort of itchy nasty rash all over my forearm and, I swear, about three dozen miniscule slivers in my right ring fingertip. Something went awry with my gardening gloves, but still - what is in the dirt that makes my arm so itchy? And just THAT arm? And how in the WORLD did I get so many slivers in my finger? I thought at first it was just dirty and I needed to scrub a little harder, but then I looked closer and NO, those are ITTY BITTY SLIVERS OWWWWIEEEE. 

I suppose I should be doing one of my various stationery-related tasks for my sister's wedding (in less than a month) (HOLY CATS) OR I should be figuring out my Blathering plane tickets (HAVE YOU?) OR I should be folding laundry OR doing something quasi-productive but no, I see that there are new episodes of Drop Dead Diva on Netflix. 

Just wanted to update you on the Garden Decision. I know you were anxious. ALSO: here's an update on yesterday's "do I wake a sleeping baby?" post. EJ woke up, entirely her own, at exactly 10pm. Perhaps she read the blog? She sucked down a bottle, played while I window shopped on the internet, and easily went back to bed at 11pm. And then woke up at 4:30am. I am never going to sleep all night again, am I.