You guys. Something completely amazing happened today. Something I thought would never ever happen. My garage got cleaned out. The garage that I’ve longed to park my car in for so many years. The garage I assumed was destined to look like this forever.

From the moment we moved into this house in 2002, the garage has been full of crap. And it’s only gotten worse over the years as people in Thom’s family have passed away and their things have been passed down to us. I’ve cried many a frustrated tear over the state of this garage. I got very angry at my husband, whom in 12+ months of unemployment never could find the time to clear out the garage. We’ve tried cleaning it together, only to get frustrated and give up after a few hours. It’s very overwhelming for two people to tackle. Especially when one of those two people is a weak gal like myself.

Yesterday I had a bit of a breaking point. I was laid off from my job of nine years on Thursday. And the worry and stress and my emotions got the better of me yesterday when I had what I like to call one of my “come to Jesus talks” with Thom. This is where I cry and vent and tell him about all of the things I wish he would do around the house without me having to nag him to do. And the clearing out of the garage was one of these things. It’s a conversation we’ve had many times which always gets us pretty much nowhere. Well this time, I wasn’t going to let it get me nowhere.

So instead of waking up today to spend a few hours in the garage trying to make a dent, I decided to try something else. My husband is very popular, as is evidenced by his 900 facebook friends. So I took matters into my own hands and pleaded to the masses. Come and help us clean out our garage and you can keep whatever you want from the get rid of pile. And oh boy was that a big pile.

Six people showed up to help us around noon. It was the most random bunch of people and I had only ever met one of them. But by golly they busted their asses helping us. I couldn’t be more grateful to them. They all walked away with some form of treasure. Some more than others. One guy who hauled off every bag of trash we had merely did it to be nice. He took nothing and wouldn’t even let me pay him cash. And oh was there trash. So much trash.

Almost every item from the garage was put into the driveway and then only what we wanted to keep was brought back in. Or should I say only what Thom wanted to keep. I think the deep freeze was the only item in the garage I actually cared about keeping. So now I have a half empty garage that I can park my car in. We are experiencing a very mild winter right now, but you can bet the next time we get snow I will be so freaking happy to not have to scrape ice off my windshield.

Let me just stop for a moment and give thanks to this mild Oklahoma winter we are having. And also say a prayer that it doesn’t mean that we will have another summer of 110 degree days for 60 days straight.

For a short moment today, my garage looked like this.

But now that things have been moved back in and I have parked my car in there it looks like this.

Thom still has some things to go through if he wants his side of the garage to be spacious enough to set up screen press equipment, but hot damn! Just look at that garage. You’ve come a long way baby.

You better never go back to looking like that ever again.

Next up? Project make the damn squirrels in the attic go away forever. This should be fun.

Last night I made a pair of curtains for my kitchen. I found some material at Joann that looked almost just like my beloved Dwell studio napkins (and the reverse side of the quilt on my bed). I snatched up a few yards and some iron on hem and went to town.

How pretty is this pattern? See how well it matches my napkins?

I could post a how to, but you really just hem each edge with the easy to use iron on tape. Then for your top tab, make sure it’s big enough for your curtain rod to go through.

I’ll be making another pair for the other window in the kitchen. And I should probably go ahead and make some for the main bath and guest room in the house. I used almost an entire roll of hem making just the one pair though. And these are short curtains. So buy extra hem if you’re making long curtains.

How many rooms have I redone in this house so far? Six. Except that I haven’t finished any of the rooms. For whatever reason, I have left unfinished projects in every room. I haven’t painted the ceiling in five of the rooms. I haven’t hung or rehung things, I haven’t painted any brick yet. I have four windows that need proper curtains. And I’m already plotting the redo of the craft room. Starting with the name. I will no longer refer to this room as the craft room. Henceforth it shall be known as the spare room. Because I can’t tell you the last time something was actually crafted in that room. I buy all this crap and then I use it non stop for six weeks and then it dies a horrible death of neglect.

So yeah, I don’t finish projects. Instead I spend lots of free time pinning awesome photos and ideas on Pinterest. Things that inspire me, but not enough to actually get off my butt and do them. Save for the occasional new recipe.

So yeah, just like many other aspects of my life, my rooms go unfinished. It’s so sad.

It seems like for every improvement I make to the house, it only adds to the list of things I still need to do. While it can be frustrating, I just need to remember that this is what happens when you wait until you’ve been in a house eight years before you decide to make any improvements to it. Also, Pinterest is still knocking my socks off and filling my head with so many brilliant ideas. My wallet can’t keep up.

And while I’m still not done with the living room, I can’t help but let my mind wander over to the laundry room. And what kinds of things I could do in there. I’m really dreading all the work it will take just to get this room ready to paint. You see, the laundry room is where the dog door is. And it’s also attached to a large cedar closet that is known as the puppy room. This is where the dogs eat and sleep and spend the majority of their inside the house time. And so that means that it’s dirty all the time.

I don’t take many photos of this room, apparently. Since I can only seem to find ones with tiny puppies in them. Puppies that are 5 years old now.

I painted the door leading into the laundry room this lovely blue. And I changed the doorknob. This door stays closed pretty much all the time so that I don’t have to look at the dirty room. I’d love to be able to let my dogs have free range of the house, but I simply cannot trust them. Ever since we got new carpet three years ago, I can’t bring myself to let them back on it. If you could see what they did to the previous carpet, you’d understand. Oh wait… you can. Let me show you it.

Yeah, so I’m sure you can see why I’m so protective of my carpet now. And maybe you’re judging me just a little bit less for sequestering my dogs in the non carpeted portions of the house. I thought so.

I’ve never been one to care for a fancy washer and dryer. I’ve always just been pretty happy to have one at all. I’ll never forget how much I hated lugging all of our clothes to the laundromat back when Thom and I lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment on Riverside that was cute and charming but lacked all sorts of modern conveniences. Like laundry and a dishwasher. And central air.

And while I’m still not in any big hurry to upgrade my washer and dryer, it would be pretty cool to have a front loading washer so that I could fashion some sort of folding shelf on top. Although who am I kidding? I hate folding clothes and I hang up everything except for socks, underwear, and sleepwear.

There is enough room between the dryer and the wall that I could put in a sink though. Which would come in really handy since the dogs are drinking a lot more water these days. And it would be nice to have a place to soak clothes since we just love getting food all over them. There are some great cabinets in there already that would be even better if I were tall enough to reach into them without a stool. And the door in there has a nice window so it lets in good light. The room really does have some great potential. If I can somehow get it cleaned up and manage to keep it clean.

Here’s a couple of inspiration photos I have pinned up on my Pinterest laundry room board.

I am thinking about branching out a little bit with regards to the wall color. No one really sees this room so I could afford to go a little bit bolder if I wanted to. Even though I love a good cool light blue, maybe it’s time I went for something in the pink/coral family. Or maybe a bold grassy green. Is there a color out there that’s conducive to making hyper barky dogs less hyper and barky? If so, I’m all ears.

I thought I’d show off a few new photos of some updates I’ve made. First, my sister’s bed. She’s selling it to me and it’s awesome. It goes up to my waist so I have to really climb into it at night, but it’s so wonderful. So the previous bed and cabinet went into the guest room. Here’s what the master looks like now.

I put one of my IKEA tables in place of the cabinet so that I could have a vanity area for putting on my makeup in the mornings. I also got rid of my existing nightstand and am now using my jewelry cabinet instead. I’m very happy with how it looks in there now. So lovely.

I also bought some new hardware on ebay for the kitchen. It’s the hardware I wanted all along but couldn’t afford. I got lucky and ended up getting them for a dollar a piece. They run about six dollars each at Home Depot.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

We hung the rest of the curtains in the living room. We still haven’t decided what color to paint the brick. All of your suggestions were great. Except now Thom thinks we should paint the brick the same color blue as the curtains. Which wasn’t even one of the choices I gave him. He was bound to start caring about paint colors at some point I suppose.

I also made these nachos.

It doesn’t have anything to do with home improvements. They were just really good and I was wishing I had some more right now. I also blogged about them over at Partially Motivated.

So you all know that I’m in the midst of a living room makeover. We’ve gotten a good chunk of the room done and I’m so sick of painting. Wood paneling is not fun to paint. Now it’s time to paint the brick. One end of the room has a brick wall between the built ins that the tv sits in front of. The other end of the room sits the fireplace. Which wraps around and creates a brick wall in the kitchen.

The problem I have now is that I don’t know what color to paint the brick. I’m not even sure if all the brick has to be painted the same color. Maybe I paint the brick wall one color and the fireplace another. I just don’t know. Do I go lighter or darker? Or something in the middle? So I’m asking for opinions. I want the fireplace to match both the kitchen and the living room so that makes me think I should lean towards a light cream color. But then when I look at the brick between the built ins, I can’t decide if I should go ahead and paint the brick the same color as the built ins to further brighten the room. Or if I should go ahead and paint it darker to make the built ins pop. And if I go darker, how much darker? These are the things that keep me up at night.

And since I suppose it would be cruel of me to ask for your help without showing you what I’ve done so far… here’s a photo of what the room currently looks like.

Ignore the fact that only half of my new curtains have been hung. Focus on the built ins and the brick. And help me decide. The color on the walls is Wheat Bread by Behr. The color of the built ins is Hazelnut Cream by Behr. The blue back paneling is some unknown color I bought off the oops shelf at Wal-Mart. And the trim work is Powdered Snow by Behr.

I’m too lazy to put up a poll so just tell me in the comments what you think I should do. Pretty please.

I currently have paint in my hair. I’ve shampooed twice now and it’s still there. Turns out white highlights are not that fetching on me.

I’m very excited about all of the wonderful things going on in my living room right now. I’m also stressed out about it as it is taking me forever to get all the painting done. I keep changing my mind about colors. We primed all the paneling and trim on Sunday. And then when I went to start painting the walls on Monday, I realized the paint color was almost the exact shade of the trim color. Which is to say that it was just a darker shade of white. I was not happy. When paint costs around $30/gallon, making mistakes is not something I enjoy.

So I ran back to Home Depot to buy another gallon of paint in a darker color. And then when I got home, I shut my middle finger in my car door. I’ve never done this before and so the first ten seconds I just sort of stood there in shock not knowing what to do. I tried to pull it out but since half the door closed on half of my finger, I couldn’t. So I had to unzip my purse and fish my keys back out with one hand so I could unlock my door. I ended up dropping the gallon of paint, but only a small amount spilled. My finger came out ok and it’s not broken. It’s pretty sore, but it hasn’t kept me from being able to paint. Which is good since while I’m left handed, it seems I favor my right hand when painting.

I’m really itching to show you guys some progress pictures, but I’m going to wait. I want the reveal to be spectacular, since I have a feeling this room might turn out to be the best one so far. Although it will be pretty hard to top the awesomeness that is my kitchen and its new appliances.

I’m taking a few days off work next week to hopefully get all the brick painted. I’ll be painting brick while my sister is in the Bahamas. It’s a cruel cruel world I tell ya.

For now I will leave you with some terrible before pictures and a few things that I’m totally coveting right now for the room.

LOVE these curtains from Crate and Barrel

I would love to put down a carpet similar to this in there. But even at that low cost per square foot, we’d still be looking almost a grand after installation. Ouch.

A painting similar to this one from Young House Love. I see a project in my future.

So it’s come time for us to make some decisions regarding paint color for our living room/dining room/home office room that I’ll be referring to as the den from here on out.

It’s dark and cluttered and way too many shades of brown. Which is probably why I went so bold with my new tv stand.

Except that color is nowhere in my inspiration piece.

Oopsie!

That’s ok. I’m going to make it work. In the meantime, I’m drowning in a billion paint samples all in the beige/latte/off-whitish family.

And yes, we’re painting the brick. Despite all the naysayers.

It’s so unlike me to start and finish a project in one weekend. I was just really motivated this time. Also I was really tired of looking at this old tv stand that we’ve had for 11 years now.

I’d been looking here and there for a piece that was similar to this one that my friend Malissa has in her living room. (done by her)

Friday, on Craigslist, I found this piece for $50. I snatched it up right away.

I opted not to copycat my friend and paint mine the same color, even though I really wanted to. Instead, I went with another bold color choice.

Plum Wine by Martha Stewart.

I used one coat of primer and three coats of paint. I even primed and painted the existing knobs. (for now until I find some other knobs I love more)

I’m sorry the final photo is so dark. By the time we got all of the electronics hooked back up it was late. And can I just say that unhooking and rehooking up all the wires and gadgets was the hardest part. We still haven’t quite figured out why the dvd player isn’t showing up.

Hopefully I can get started on painting the rest of the room soon. That way the tv stand will blend in better.

For those of you who were interested in reading about how I painted my kitchen cabinets, you can read about it over at Partially Motivated today.

It wasn’t near as hard as I thought it would be.