Keep your britches on.

Remember how I was going to post about my New York trip and Comic Con?

Ok, it was supposed to happen over the weekend, but I got a little over-ambitious on Saturday and Sunday and decided to paint my fireplace instead.

Before

After

Now that is a beautiful thing, is it not? I would say that is well worth skipping a post about New York and Comic Con. I mean, I can post anytime for all two of my rabid readers, but I can't get my fireplace painted at just any time.

I'm actually going to have real company from the town in less than a week, so I've got to make sure that the house is looking its best, right?

Speaking of, I finally purchased the last items for my bathroom. Once those are in (should be this Thursday), the room will be complete. And if I say so myself, it's going to look super fetch.

Want some New York and Comic Con stories? Well . . . you'll have to wait just a bit longer! It's late and I need to get some sleep if I'm going to be able to deal with the crazies tomorrow--it's spirit week, which means something has snapped in the kids' brains and they're all acting like they're infected with the 28 Days Later virus--but not the 28 Weeks Later virus because as far as I can tell no one has gouged out a classmate's eyes with his thumbs.

Yet.

Bathroom remodel so far . . .

The work on my house is a slow process!

Here are some photos of the recent bathroom remodel, which is not finished yet. Also, the pictures are not retouched at all. Frankly, I don't have the energy to Photoshop them at the moment.

There you go folks. That's where my bathroom is now. I still need a beautiful shower curtain to complete the look, as well as a full set of fluffy, white towels. I won't accept anything else!

And to close, here's a rare picture of me, taken this evening in my new football hoodie. It's currently my favorite thing to wear. Bring on the cold weather! I want to live in this thing!

Love it.

The House In Order

My goodness. It's hard to believe that I've been here in Ashland for almost a week.

I've been feeling quite at home here. Yesterday marked the completion of my home organization and decoration. I never thought I would have enough things to fill a home, and while it's not packed, it's definitely not too bare.

Now, I'm going to post a lot of pictures. After the pictures you will find some more musings about the move and about living alone. If you have already seen the pictures, feel free to scroll past them and onto more musings. I promise, I'm going to try to make them entertaining. You might even find a shark attack.

Here's my home:

Let me tell you, people. You are welcome. You have no idea how long that took to upload.

Anyway.

It.

Is.

AWESOME . . .

to live alone. For reals. I adored being with roommates. Seriously. The ladies I've lived with have made my life so rich and so full, and they've become my best friends in the world. But I've discovered that I really love living alone.

I think it's the control freak in me. I can control every aspect of my house that a person can control. If the house is messy, I don't freak out. Why? Because it's my mess, I know how it started, and I know when it's going to be fixed. Fantastic.

This poses some major issues if I get married someday. And have kids. Oh man. It'll take an amazing man with tons of patience and sensitivity to work around my ridiculous controlling nature.

ALSO. You know what I've discovered?

I am definitely not meant to have a garden. In order to take care of the plants that currently reside in my yard I have to water them nightly. And I do this, but you want to know my favorite part of the process? Watering the fence and watching the wood change from dry to wet. Forget about the plants.

I think I'll just have to budget in order to have someone take care of my yard for me. Or just do it as a chore like some people do cleaning or take out trash.

Want to see something that made me laugh really hard? If you like politics, chances are you'll like this. If you like Obama or if you hate Obama, chances are you will like this. I think it's one of the best openings SNL had all year.



Ah, funny, funny.

Not Much In This Neck of the Woods

Well, it's been a few days since my last post, but I, for one, can't think of much to write at the moment.

Things are rolling along with the house. I've set a closing date and we've got closing costs estimated (which are a lot less than we'd anticipated, so that's a huge plus). I've been thinking more and more about the house and what I'd like to do with it. Here are a few:

1) Walls. OK. So, I'm not sure what the rest of you all might think, but I'm of the opinion that wallpaper is evil. You heard me. Not just annoying, but pure evil. It sticks to the walls, creates a lot of unnecessary patching and repairing and work after it's down, and it covers a wall in pastel flowers. Straight from Satan, I tell you. 

So what does one do with wallpaper? Well, usually, one just takes it down, does the extra scraping and repairing, and paints the bare walls with gorgeous paint. My walls are covered in lathe and plaster. Don't know what that is? Take a look here. This means that taking down the wallpaper would expose a lot of crumbling wall that could never be painted. So I need to decide whether or not to do one of these three things (in order of expense): 

1)Tear down the wallpaper and then put up sheet rock and then paint over the new walls. 2)Tear down the wallpaper and then put up texture on the walls and then paint over the texture. 3)Paint over the wallpaper. I'm learning toward painting the wallpaper. I know it's kind of a cheap thing to do, but isn't that the point? 

2) Shower. The shower has sliding metal doors, which are pretty ugly and make the room feel smaller than it needs. It might be a little bit of work to take them down, but that might be one of the first things I'd like to do. I can just unscrew them and rip them off of the walls, patch up the tiles and the tub, and then install a shower rod and beautiful curtain. I am very partial to this one from Target. But I also love this Michael Kors curtain. Then I'll need to take care of the walls. With my pastel pink tile I'm thinking that a rich grey or a warm, chocolate brown would look good. Any votes?

3) Floors. Apparently underneath all of the carpet at the front of the house are the original hard wood floors. Can you believe it? Floors over a hundred years old? What character they would have! I would love to take a weekend, rent a sander, strip the floors, stain and then varnish them. The house would be amazing with a rich, oak color on the floors. Though I do like darker wood, the oak color would match the original wood that's located in the rest of the house. 

4) Fireplace. I need to get the fireplace cleaned out and inspected so that I can start using it. Also, the brick on the front is a bit of an eyesore. If I had my choice, I'd paint the brick a neutral grey color. Well, maybe even a very light sand color. I do love the color grey, though. I might even build up a stoop on the fireplace, remove the trim, and add a large mantle. Or maybe I'd leave the trim on the fireplace and change the color of the grate. So many things to do to it, but it's mostly cosmetic. I have to admit, however, that I do love the look of painted brick. Some brick looks very beautiful naturally, but some looks better painted.

5) Paneling. In the picture above you can also see the wood paneling on the walls in the living room. This would probably be the last thing I would take care of, for it's not in bad shape and it looks fine, as it is. I've researched different ways to take care of it, so it seems that I have two options. I could fill in the seams on the paneling and paint over it as is, or I could take it down and put up sheet rock or texture. I'm not sure which is best, really.

So many options! The first two I'd like to do sometime during the fall semester. I might attempt the third one over Christmas break, or I might even wait until summer. The fourth and fifth options would happen if I really wanted to put some elbow grease into the house. 

Is it strange that I want to take down the shower doors just for those beautiful shower curtains? I love shower curtains. 

My Future Home . . . Hopefully

Well, folks, as long as closing on the house goes well and the bank decides that it will let me get a mortgage, it looks like I am going to be buying this house:

I mean, look at it. It's all stone. And that porch! It's a real porch. And it faces East, so no annoying hot, late nights trying to chill on the porch. Oh, and here's something that comes with the porch:

A swing. Heck yeah! And here are some things that I hope to see on my porch in the future:

Loving friends. And maybe a cat. Someday. Not right away, though. So, you walk up to the house and enter through a front door that looks like this:

Sorry about the awful blurriness and the glare from the flash. Hopefully someday I'll have a real camera to use. But in the meantime, can you see how solid the wood is? You see how pretty those dark hinges are? These are the original doors. And the house was built in 1900. I love that. 


So then you turn around and see the living room:

Very brown, huh? The entire room is covered in wood paneling. Not my favorite thing. So hopefully I'll be able to find a way to change that. And no, my couch will not by that bright fuchsia color. The carpet isn't bad at all, but maybe next summer I could pull it up and reveal some original wood flooring (which is said to be there . . .). 


And then you notice something lovely off to the left:

Fireplace! I can't wait to have a fire in that!


Now we turn directly behind us and find the kitchen:

Again, sorry for the blurred quality. But as you can see, the cabinets are very solid and very nice. And very original. How cool! And there is a lot of good counter space for all the baking I intend to start doing. 


The rest of the house was nice too, but I won't post those pictures here, because they still contain personal items of the woman who currently owns the house. 


So now we've wandered around inside. Let's go out the kitchen door and check out the rest of the yard:

What a good place for grilling and chilling! Or grillin' and chillin'. Either way is cool with me. Then you turn around and!

Cat! She said this cat adopted her house and comes with it. I'm not sure if she's joking or not. But I'm OK with it if she isn't. He's an outdoor cat and only comes to the house for meals. Or to flirt with new people, apparently. 


Then you walk to the edge of the backyard and see the back of the house:

And to help me keep up with all that landscaping and gardening:

My own gardening shed! Looks like I'm going to have to start working on that green thumb . . .

The house is so well kept on the outside! No weeds anywhere!


And finally, one of the best parts of the house . . .

It comes with its own peach tree!


Guess I'll have to start liking peaches, too. 


I'm OK with that!