Tie it all together

Window treatments are currently the bane of my existence. I have 9 windows and 4 doors in my house that all need a window treatment of some sort, and I am totally stuck as to what to do with my doors. I want some sort of window covering or shade that looks pretty, but is also functional. I need to be able to close it so I can have my privacy when necessary, but I want to be able to easily open it to look outside! I have these awful transparent curtain-things on the door windows now, but they came with the house so they are dingy and torn up. They need to go, along with the roller shades that I also inherited when I signed the papers and got the keys. I just really have NO CLUE what goes on a window for a door!

One room was fairly easy. The office has a door I have no intention of ever using, since it goes out to the same porch the dining room door goes to. So I put the same curtains over it that are on the window in the office, so it looks like 2 windows instead of a window and a door. Plus, my neighbor can look directly into the office, so I'm glad to have them covered up.

The living room. This door completely shows any visitors to the front porch why this house is considered a shotgun- you can see straight through the office and dining room and into the kitchen. Yikes. I'm not a fan of the entire neighborhood being able to see inside my house, so I currently have it covered up with one of my extra curtains from my apartment that didn't get used in the house. Doesn't look nice, since the curtain is black and the living room is a sage green. Oops. The curtains in that room are IKEA Merete curtains in a brownish/olive green color. Not exactly an easy color to match... but I am pretty certain I can't put the same curtains on the door either!

The dining room has these pretty grey Woolrich curtains from Target that I think are perfect. However, they don't make a valance or anything else in the same fabric... and that means I'd have to match it as well, or find something coordinating.

The kitchen is a little bit easier, cause it's got red curtains. Of course, they are discontinued curtains from Linens-n-Things that I bought before the store closed. This room also has a door, and while privacy isn't as big of an issue, I would rather not have to look outside in the dark and not really be able to see out while everybody else can see in!

I've been having trouble deciding if I need curtains for these windows, or shades, or blinds. I have no idea. I've looked it up online, and there are no examples of doors with windows with any type of window treatment except those ugly panel curtains that wouldn't work anyway!

When I looked at Making It Lovely's blog, I noticed her Window Treatments section. I saw these beautiful tie up shades she made herself and fell in love. Of course, then I got busy and kind of forgot about them, until this weekend when I found another example of some awesome tie up shades.



So when I went poking around the internet, I found a couple of cute shades that are similar to what I think I'd like. Of course, they aren't long enough, so I'd probably have to make my own!




Wonder if I could convince my mother to make me some? I found her a great tutorial online that she could use! :-) I totally don't sew. I wish I did.

However, for the rest of the windows? While I have curtains, I need blinds of some sort. Unfortunately, 4 windows are 84" long so finding ready made blinds for any type of decent price is absolutely unheard of. :-( I guess I'll have to come up with some cute creative idea for those as well... Any ideas you have will definitely be considered!

Step 2, Part 2: Adding color!

My friend Shanon trying to clean off the green paint roller... this color is Sherwin Williams Haven.


My mom edging around the baseboards


The original green in the living room


Shanon painting the wall in the living room


The NEW green in the living room... though I liked the Haven, this color was a little more what I was thinking... this color is Sherwin Williams Clary Sage. Much calmer and more appropriate for a living room!


We like to state the obvious...


Red walls in the dining room... this color is Sherwin Williams Antique Red. I love it!
(The red on the door is from my little sister. I told her to paint BY the door and she thought I meant to paint the door! Good thing I was planning on chipping all the paint off anyway!)


I swear, this is a waste of space... the area between the exterior door and the office. The thing at the top is the broken doorbell.


The blue walls in the bedroom... this color is Sherwin Williams Open Seas. It's not quite this bright. I think it's actually very calming.


I really do...


The blue walls in the office... this color is Sherwin Williams Reflecting Pool...


The other corner of the office where the desk will go


You may recognize this color... this is Sherwin Williams Haven, the original living room color. We had an entire gallon and a half left over (lesson learned: mix paint as you need it!) so we used it in the laundry room! (please ignore the toaster oven and microwave on the dryer... the counter is still not in the kitchen!)


The bathroom... this color is not quite accurate. It's definitely more sedated than that! This color is Sherwin Williams Meditative (are you noticing a theme!?)


Blue paint in the bathroom... gotta love the dirty light switches, which are found ALL OVER THE HOUSE. I wonder how it's possible to get light switches and plugs that dirty, but apparently it's possible. I have all the parts purchased to replace 7 or so light switches and approximately 25 electrical outlets with clean white ones, once my dad teaches me how! This is about the color of the bathroom.


Unfortunately, the kitchen is still not painted. Somehow, I managed to do something to my knee, and standing and bending my leg is difficult and painful... so climbing a ladder to paint the kitchen is out. I've been trying to recruit some help, but nobody seems interested in edging my kitchen... I hope I can get it done soon, but I haven't figured out what is wrong with my knee! :-(

I made a list of things I still have to do for the house... wow, I am NEVER going to get all this finished! I might have a chance in hell if my knee would finally heal... but I'm not holding my breath...

Step 2... part 1

As you may recall in Step 1, the biggest two problems in my house were dirt (I really, really believe these people didn't own soap!) and the overwhelming smell of stale cigarette smoke from 27 years of heavy smokers living in the place. Step 1 was to remove the carpet (and subsequently refinish the hardwood floors to a beautiful reddish color that makes my heart jump each time I look at it!)

Step 2 proved to be just as difficult... we had to paint every single paint-able surface in the entire house. You might think that might not be so bad, but you would be wrong. I thought refinishing the floors would be the hard part, but painting 6 rooms with dirty, nasty walls is just as hard!

The first step of step 2: removing the dirt.

Just in case you forgot how disgusting the place really was...
The dining room, which was easily the most disgusting room in the house due to the smoke and tar EVERYWHERE. It was gross. Even the curtain was gray!


One of the light switches. How do you get LIGHT SWITCHES dirty? Every single one has to be replaced because they are impossible to clean...


The office... formerly the kids room...


The walls in the bathroom. GROSS. Luckily, this came right off with bleach!


The ceilings... can you see all the dust and dirt? The ceiling under the light is BROWN.


We began in the living room, washing down the walls first with vinegar and water and then in some areas with beach, just to try to get some of the stains out. I tried to remove from of the dust and dirt from the ceilings as well, without much luck. The water was dirty, and so were the walls...

Then we began to primer. Almost every room needed 2 coats of Kilz primer, and the ceilings got a coat as well. That was the worst! 9 foot high popcorn ceilings are hell to paint when you are only 5 feet tall! Even with a long pole, I was still standing on the tips of my toes and barely reaching. We had paint EVERYWHERE- in our hair, on our hands, on our clothes, on our faces... I really think I could have done without that experience. When my dad finally made his way down to help, he managed to paint the ceilings in 4/6 rooms in less than an hour. I wanted to kill him.

However, just a coat or two of primer made SUCH a difference in the house! I was amazed, and disgusted at the same time!

The corner of the bedroom, after 1 coat of primer... it desperately needed 2...


My poor mother, attempting to put a coat of primer on the ceiling in the bedroom...


The living room, with 1 coat of primer... it was probably the cleanest room in the house.


The front door... I am absolutely disgusted by how white the walls are and how dirty yellow the door and trim are...


The rest of the living room, including the front window. The ONLY reason the windows are white is because the appraiser required the previous occupants to repaint around the windows due to the chipping paint. I wish he wouldn't have...


The dining room got gray primer, as the walls were going to be a dark color. If I hadn't already bought the paint, they may have stayed gray cause I LOVED the gray walls!






As of the writing of this post, 4/6 rooms are completely painted and finished. 1 room is 95% done, and 1 room doesn't even have a coat of primer... which I am hoping I can change this weekend, but am not looking forward to...

Since this post is so long, I'm going to break it into 2 posts... so stay tuned for step 2, part 2: adding color!!! :-) It was definitely my favorite part of painting!

Finding "the one"

When I began looking for a house, I looked at every single house in my price range in my target area... and even a little bit out of my target area. I put in an offer on a house that was outbid by $10,000, and hadn't found anything that I was even slightly interested in that I would be able to buy. One house I looked at before buying my house had water in the basement... in the finished basement. I wasn't going to be able to afford to rip out the entire basement and refinish it, so I decided to pass up the house. I was feeling discouraged, when I got an email from my agent about a house that had just come on the market that day. It was an estate, and as is. I saw the pictures of the outside, and though I wasn't too impressed, I was feeling depressed and was willing to look at ANYTHING in the hope that it might be "the one."

I met my agent at the house that same night after work, and had one of my friends from work and her boyfriend meet me there so I could get their opinion on the house. Obviously, from first glance, it needed some updating, but I thought it had some serious potential.

These are the pictures I took the second time I went to come see the house. My parents drove down to see the place after I looked at it with my friends from work, and they loved the 2 car garage and the fireplace like I did.

Here is the house! You can see the length of the house. It's a shotgun style house. My mom, dad, sister and selling agent are in the picture.


Another shot of just the front of the house. This place has absolutely no curb appeal!


This is the back of the two car garage! Unfortunately, the door didn't close and there is a panel of glass missing...


This is the back of the house. The windows you see are the windows in the kitchen. I really hate the bricks and wood that outline the back porch!


Besides the front of the house, this was my first glance of the house... not very impressive, I must say! I love that the drawer front is held on with electrical tape!


The other side of the kitchen. It's really a shame you can't see the ripped linoleum under the table.


One of the chairs is broken... we discovered this another day. :-)


Personally, I despise the icky brown tile color in this bathroom, but the worst part was that nasty vent going across the shower!!! Who does that?


Underneath the large white square is the drying rack full of their underwear! They are showing the house, but they hang their underwear in the bathroom for the world to see? Maybe it's a new kind of staging!


This is the room they used as a living room, right off the kitchen.


This is the bedroom. I especially love the different paint colors on the wall and the beautiful curtain on the window. :-)


Bedroom #2. I just LOVE that the closet doors are falling off! We couldn't even get the closet open without the doors falling off any of them.


The other side of the second bedroom. Love the dirty walls!


This is what they used as another bedroom, but is actually the living room. I really hate when people do that in shotgun style homes! I really love the curtains... lol.


This is, hands down, the best part of the house! I am shocked that it is so nice looking when the rest of the house is such a mess!


Even though we all agreed that the place was a MESS, we thought it had a lot of potential! And the two car garage (with automatic opener) was definitely a huge plus! After my parents came to see the house, I treated them to some ice cream and they helped me make a decision about putting in an offer. I put in an offer that night, and another buyer had put in an offer as well. However, mine must have been better, because by 4pm the next day, I had an answer from the seller! I was a homeowner! That's when the real work began!