Sticker shock

Despite their supposed edibility, I always find a partially consumed apple sticker a little disconcerting. 

Furniture shuffle

Always on the prowl for 1950’s freebies Jonathan came across a 1950’s Westinghouse entertainment center listed on Modern Phoenix for, you guessed it, free.  I can’t say this prize find was at the top of my list, but a good relationship requires compromise right : )

For two weeks this very large piece of furniture complete with mounted television set, radio tuner, speakers and record player sat randomly in our living room. Dealing with sleeping in our guest room during our master bedroom modification, plus random excess furniture taking up our living room and the chaos that was becoming our backroom was steadily eroding my sanity.  Despite both of us working excessively long hours and keeping up with dog/kitty routines, it was time to take action and gain control of our house again.

Finishing up the bedroom was first. It took several days of construction, but we managed to complete our bajillion step IKEA bed and headboard in just under a week. Overall, the master bedroom renovation included painting the entire room, removing the temporary carpeting we’d put down the day we moved in to avoid dealing with floor issues, mounting a new ceiling fan (which is still causing some grief), constructing a bed and headboard, custom cutting and mounting new blinds, and rearranging some existing furniture.  We also bought and mounted some cute little bed side lamps and will finish up our bedside shelves sometime this week/weekend. Moving back into the master not only relieved a little stress of living out of several wild rooms, but also allowed me to lower the slightly too high mattress in the guest bed and clean out our stuff, once again opening it for guest use and cat lounging.

On to the living room/kitchen.  Our plan required many a furniture move, but resulted in a lovely kitchen and living room improvement. Growing tired of the large and somewhat overwhelming white shelving unit we removed it from the kitchen and sold it on Craigslist. We also moved the white table out of the kitchen into the back room (which will serve as my desk/crafting area), and are attempting to sell the kitchen chairs.  We then moved the wood table with two of its chairs back into the kitchen from its storage space in the backroom, and moved the buffet that had served as the TV stand in the living room into the kitchen, thus tying the wood table in with the room a little better.  The kitchen looks much better with all of the changes and not only feels more inviting but corresponds better with the feel of the rest of the house.  Live, purchase and learn I suppose.

As for the living room, the original plan was to move the 1950’s Westinghouse unit toward the back corner and buy/build a small cabinet mounted on hairpin legs to hold the TV plus its peripherals. But, as per the norm, after some failed shopping trips and an initial move of the Westinghouse unit into the corner our plans needed to be changed. The Westinghouse unit was far too large for its intended location so we moved it to where the buffet used to sit and set the TV on top. True, the TV now sits a little higher than I’d initially wanted, but overall the changes enhance the look of the living room. Removing the buffet, which spanned nearly ¾ of the wall, opened up the wall and will allow for a new plant as well as a spot to hang art purchased last April.

 We will eventually mount a shelf in the kitchen for Jonathan’s aspiring collection of “kitchen collectables” and a chotchkie or two, but taping a nail into our pristine walls requires some meditative breathing and serious planning. Moving furniture is one thing, but disrupting perfectly smooth, professionally coated walls is another.  I never realized what the big deal was when I wanted to hang stuff on walls I didn’t own but now that we’ve paid to refinish them I’ve become pretty anti the random hanging of items

                                                                                                 

Carl the tiki approves!

         

 We finished our Sunday by cleaning up the backroom, which continues to progress towards becoming a usable room, but is not on the top of the list of projects to be completed any time soon.  I’ll admit defeat in our goal of rocking the front yard by the end of July, but seeing that we’re inside a lot more than outside during the summer, interior projects won out in the budget. Despite a little end of the weekend exhaustion we are really proud of our changes and happy with the outcome.  

Bustin out!

For about a month or two now I’ve known my running shoes were on their last legs.  I had originally intended to retire them back in May after the Bay to Breakers run seeing that they had plenty of miles on them, and were over a year old, but due to budgeting and laziness I never made my way to the running store.

This past Saturday proved to be the breaking point when I realized I had literally run through my shoes!  

Despite having to purchase a shoe size larger than some people’s first born child my new shoes are quite wonderful and made for a lovely run this morning.