Word of The Day-Anxiety

Main Entry: anx·i·ety
Pronunciation: \aŋ-ˈzī-ə-tē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural anx·i·eties
Etymology: Latin anxietas, from anxius
Date: circa 1525

1 a : painful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind usually over an impending or anticipated ill b : fearful concern or interest c : a cause of anxiety2 : an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one's capacity to cope with it

Example: Deciding to paint the front door and shutters of your house a deep, dark red, then having to wait all day at work while it's being painted before you can see if it looks snappy and modern or horribly wrong like the neighbor's front door.

The Inner Sanctum

Since my last three posts have been about food, I thought I should move onto a different topic, lest you think I’ve developed a tapeworm. Today we’re going to delve into remodeling or as I like to call it, Hula Plucks Herself Bald. We are currently on Week 10, yes 10, of this project. I know this by counting the winkles on my forehead.

We’re far enough along that real progress is being made. In fact, we hope to have all of the big stuff done and the house emptied of workers by the time we leave for vacation next Friday. And I am dropping to my knees in prayer as I say that. If all goes well, we could have the appliances delivered on the 19th, but let’s not talk about it ‘cause that tends to jinx things. (I know, Mia-two weeks, right?) Everything takes “two weeks”.

I should start by explaining why we decided to do so much work on the house. After all, it’s fairly new and is a fine home. However, there were some basic things that HAD to be done such as painting and replacing all of the dirty worn out carpeting. There were also some important roofing, window and exterior door repairs. We knew we could live in the home only if it looked somewhat different than it did when Sissy lived there. We wanted it to be lighter and brighter, so that called for some cosmetic changes. We also wanted it to have certain amenities since we hope to live the rest of our lives in that house. In other words, we wanted it to include the items we’ve always dreamed about and to be accessible in our old age. That amounted to quite a bit of work that we believe will make us comfortable there and significantly increases the value of the home. If we survive the remodeling.

Things are starting to look noticeably different around the house, but there is too much to cover in one post, so I thought we’d focus only on one room today, the master bathroom. It’s one of the rooms I’m most excited about. But before we get knee deep into that, can I just get one teeny tiny thing off my chest? GREAT GERTIE HAVE YOU PRICED AREA RUGS LATELY AND WHO CAN AFFORD THOSE THINGS?!!!!! Okay, back to the bathroom. This is where we started.

And here’s what we wanted to achieve.
The orange wall color had to go. It made the windowless bathroom really dark and was an unsettling color. Whenever I looked at this room, all I saw was brass, brass, and brass. In fact, the whole house is covered in brass, and I have made it my personal mission to wipe out all traces of that gold. We wanted better lighting and needed a new toilet which you can’t see because it sits behind that short wall on the left. The beige countertops were stained and didn’t really match the bright white tile and tub or the earthy floor tile.
I love the floor tile, and it’s staying.
It desperately needed to be cleaned and resealed, though.

There was shiny white tile around the tub that made it sit like some kind of white elephant in the corner, especially when the shower curtain was pulled and hid the white shower. Hubby and I wanted to replace the shower-tub unit with a walk-in tiled shower that we could more easily step into when we’re old and creaky. It would also make the shower roomier for Hubby, who is 6’4”.

The work in that room started with the removal of the popcorn ceiling, which created quite the mess.
That living room mirror you see in the shower has floated from room to room this summer as we try to protect it from various work hazards. I can’t explain the coat rack.

While this was going on I spent a fair amount of time trying to pick a blue for the walls that would be soothing and coordinate with the blue in the floor tile.
Despite the many attempts you see there, I failed miserably, so please ignore the hideous blue you’re about to see in the next photos. It is not staying. In fact, it’s being covered with a few coats of Cottage Cream as I write this.

In the weeks that followed, we got new countertops and faucets.
And the big work on the shower and tub began. The tub moved around alot.
One day I stopped in and it was sitting in the bedroom.

As of this week, it all started to come together. The tub is much better, I think. (Ignore the blue! Ignore the blue!)
And the shower will be beautiful when the clear glass doors are installed. Those are ordered and will be here in, you guessed it, two weeks.

Most importantly, Hubby got his new toilet. He very proudly picked out the Grand Champion model with the oval seat. It can allegedly flush a bucket of golf balls. He’s very excited about the flushing capability. Men. He’s also very exciting about the light/exhaust fan that will sit over the toilet. When the electrician asked why in the world we would spend $150 on the Cadillac of exhaust fans, I had to explain how it would greatly improve the, ahem, lighting for reading purposes in that corner. Like I said, we tried to add the items we’ve always dreamed about, and that was high on Hubby’s list. Let’s just leave it at that.

The next time I show you pictures of this room, it should be finished. And that should be in less than…..two weeks.

Things Hula Likes

1. Smooth, brown hardwood flooring that brings nature inside.
2. Tumbled tile that adds warmth to a room.
3. Pretty pendant lights that make a great accent. (And yes, I will be removing the tags and dust eventually.)
4. Electricians who don’t freak when they’ve just finished the job but you call them anyway the next day to say, “Hey, about these cool pendant lights I bought on a whim at Lowes last night. They sure would look great over the snack bar.”
5. Teenage daughters who go to the Homecoming dance with her buddy and dance the night away with friends when the boy in her life turns out recently to be a real doo doo head.

17 Quart Samples, 7 Weeks and 1 Doctor's Office Visit Later

When we first started this remodeling project eight holy mother of Sponge Bob weeks ago, I never dreamed it would take this long get everything finished. But keeping carpenters, electricians, painters, masons, window hangers and toilet setter uppers lined up and on schedule is an ordeal that just has to play itself out. As my friend, Mia, joked at the doctor’s office last week, everybody you hire says their job will take “two weeks”. It doesn’t matter if it’s hanging cabinets or fixing a light switch. How long will it take? Two weeks. Two weeks becomes three. Three becomes four…and you get the picture. We’re probably about two thirds of the way through this project, but we’re making real progress. In fact, I don’t want to get carried away, but GREAT GERTIE I HAVE A TILED KITCHEN BACK SPLASH! (Pictures coming soon to a blog near you.) While I whine about how long some of this takes, I have to be honest and admit that at least one aspect of the work has been slowed by….me. Yes, me. The lashing with the wet noodle begins now.

Weeks ago I made a comment on this very blog about being swift in my choices for all of the materials for the remodeling. Remember how I bragged about being sure and decisive? And I was decisive. Flooring? The man dropped off samples, I examined them in every room and by the next day I gave him my selection. Granite? I spent twenty minutes in the granite yard looking at each piece and made a choice with confidence. Tile? Not a problem. Ten minutes. Grout? Easy cheesy. Light fixtures? An hour in Home Depot and my cart was full. Another thirty minutes in Lowes and I had all of my ceiling fans. See, decisive. Except for one thing. Paint. And that has been a boil on my backside for seven, yes I said seven, weeks.

When I wrote recently about how paint keeps me up at night, I was not joking. I haven’t had this much trouble making a decision since I went prom dress shopping in 1982. I know some people say, “Oh, it’s just paint. If it doesn’t look good, paint over it.” Well, I’m paying a pretty penny for this painting and frankly, I don’t need them rolling on any more coats than I have the funds for. Also, I can’t stand to live in a house with wall colors I don’t like. Call me quirky, but it makes me uncomfortable to live with certain colors. So this decision is big. Really big, and I’m afraid of screwing it up.

When this project began we hired our painter right away, even though he wasn’t going to start for a while. We’ve used him before, and he’s great. Knowing that he uses only Sherwin-Williams paint, I went to the local Sherwin-Williams store and grabbed a sample card of every color. From the beginning I knew I wanted two things: lighter and brighter and shades of yellow, green, red and blue. While the old colors in the home were beautiful, they were dark. Very dark browns and oranges. In order for us to live there, the house needed to have a brighter, happier feel than when Sissy lived there. The very first time I sifted through those cards, I came across one that had the exact look I wanted, a pale creamy yellow foyer leading into a living room that was a slightly darker shade of gold. I put it in the keeper pile and started planning other items around those two colors. I bought a quart sample of each, along with two similar shades for comparison and rolled them on various walls of the house to see what they looked like, and I made a bad mistake. I second guessed myself. Neither shade seemed quite perfect enough, so I bought more samples and rolled those on the wall. And more and more, seeking the perfect shade of gold until I had so many that nothing looked right. I was also buying samples of blues, reds and greens for other rooms, so before you know it I had seventeen quart samples of various shades sitting on the kitchen counter. Seventeen! Paint store clerk Jason started laughing at me openly when I would walk into the store and would ask, “Have you picked a color YET?” Now, I have taken leadership classes, have been a manager for years and worked in fast paced environments where I had to make decisions about high risks or big expenses quickly. I can evaluate and act fast. I do it all of the time. But this stinkin’ paint thing just paralyzed me. I was about to throw my hands into the air when Hubby called me at work one morning to tell me he had found THE gold. He had taken Papa T. to the audiologist, and Hubby swore that the gold on Dr. Tony’s walls was the exact shade I was looking for. So the next day, which was a Saturday, we drove to his office and peered into the doors and windows, checking out the paint. And I hollered Eureka! It WAS the right color. It was beautiful and exactly how I had pictured it in my mind. On the following Monday, I called Dr. Tony’s, and the sweet receptionist opened up their last can of paint in the back closet and smeared some of it onto a piece of white cardboard so I could take it to Sherwin-Williams for a match.

Jason was almost as excited as I was. He mixed it up and gave it a special name, just for me, Butter Cream.
“This is IT!” I declared to him and rushed home to roll it onto the walls. Which I did. I put it in the living room, and the kitchen and the bedroom and sang the songs of angels while I did it. Then I went home to sleep and dream of butter. And when I came back the next day I sat on the floor and screamed because the paint looked like C-R-A-P. Crap, crap, crap. Orangey, dark shinola. Butt ugly, my baby pooped carrots shinola. It just didn’t look the same in my house as it did at Dr. Tony’s.

The next day the painter called and asked for my paint colors because he was ready to start. I gave him the ceiling and trim colors, the green for the dining room and the red for the guest bathroom. I begged for a little more time on the yellow/cream thing. He agreed and started with the dining room. The green was perfect. It was just the shade I wanted.
And I felt a little better.

The red was fine, too. (It's not this bright in real life.)

Just what I wanted and I felt some relief. As a last ditch effort I tried two more shades of yellow, but they were too…well….yellow. As I eyeballed all the colors on the living room wall, sweating over the fact that I needed to HURRY UP AND MAKE A DECISION BECAUSE YOU’RE OUT OF TIME DANG IT I noticed something. Two colors suddenly seemed right. You guessed it. The first two colors I started out with. So I sheepishly called the painter and told him to get some Cottage Cream and White Raisin and get to rollin’, and he said, “Coooool.”

His crew starts at 5am. Yes, I said 5am. At least we’re not living in this house while he’s painting it. We were when he painted for us the first time, and staggering to the front door at 4:45am in a tea stained robe to let him in every morning was painful. He does a great job though, so we lived with the early start time. Anyhoo, his crew was well underway by the time I headed to work on the day they started painting the living room. I drove past the house and tried not to look. I swore I wouldn’t worry about and that I would drive straight to work. Then I circled the blocked and pulled into the drive. I hesitantly walked through the back door, peeked around the corner and breathed a great sigh of relief. It was lovely. Beautiful. Just like I wanted it. Buttery and creamy.
And just a little darker in the living room. Much better than before.

I heard angels singing. I walked on air out the door and spent the next two weeks admiring the lovely golden and green and red walls of the new house. And we all lived happily ever after.

Until this week. When Hubby called and said that coat of blue they had finally gotten around to putting on the master bathroom liked like C-R-A-P. I thought he was joking. Then I went home. And sat in the floor and pulled out a chunk of hair. Because it looks like blue muck. Poo poo muck. Which means I’ll be back at Sherwin-Williams this weekend for yet another sample or two. You know, if they had those little cards you punched every time you made a purchase there, I’d be getting something free by now.

The Thing That Keeps Me Awake At Night

I love color. I love paint. I just don’t like picking paint colors. It terrifies me to spend a lot of money on paint and then put it on the wall only to find that it’s not the right color. Then I have to live with butt ugly walls until I can afford to paint again. I will labor over a paint choice longer than Palestine and Israel will argue over peace. Ask me to pick a rug. No problem. Done. A new sink? Easy. How about tile? Easy cheesy. Paint? I’d rather you poke toothpicks under my fingernails.

The problem is there are too many choices. For days, I’ve agonized and fantasized about different colors. I know I want light. I know I want warm. I just don’t know how warm or how bright. I’ve narrowed it down to various shades of yellow, green, red and blue. In other words, half the spectrum. Hubby would be happy if we painted everything white. That would satisfy his sense of order and symmetry. I hate white walls. For the first fifteen years of our marriage we had white walls. I finally successfully integrated some beige and yellow into our home four years ago, and I refuse to go back.

See these cans?

These are all of the quart samples I’ve tried so far. The helpful Sherwin-Williams clerk, Jason, and I are on a first name basis. And when another clerk pulled my account up the other day for yet ANOTHER sample purchase, he said, “You sure are doin’ a LOT of samplin’ mam”. Well, yes I am hot young man in white pants. Thank you for noticing and please carry this box of cans to the car.

I’ve rolled samples on every wall, and every night I stand in front of them and hold the same deliberations in my head.

Jersey Cream or Cottage Cream? Jersey Cream or Cottage Cream?

In the master bathroom, I THINK it’s Aqua-Sphere and not Tranquil Aqua. But I'm not sure.It definitely needs to match the tile and this print.
Because…well, because that tile is staying and I want to hang that print over the tub.

I want the guest bathroom to be red…really red. I just don’t know if it should be Salute or Show Stopper. Both of them made me look as if I had cut off my fingers and was bleeding to death while painting the other night.

The dining room will be the green I picture in my head but just haven’t found in a can yet.
And the spare bedroom will be leftover blue or green from the bathroom or dining room. But I don’t know which one!
The most torturous decision of all involves the kitchen and living room. I want gold in there. I’ve tried Humble Gold and White Raisin, but neither one seems quite right. Help is on the way, though. Hubby called me this morning while sitting in the waiting room of the audiologist with Papa T. to tell me, “Hey, Doctor Tony’s walls are the color of gold you’re looking for. I got the paint mix from the lady who works here. You might want to stop by and look at it. Oh, and check out the glossy white on his baseboards. I think you’re gonna like it.”

So tomorrow my friends, I’m going to Dr. Tony’s to ogle his baseboards. And hopefully, the color will be something I can ask for at Sherwin-Williams and get that nice young man with the big biceps to load up in my car. Wouldn’t that be dreamy?

This is What Teen Angel's College Fund Looks Like

1600 square feet of hardwood, waiting to be laid. That explosion you just heard was the sound of my wallet blowing up.

What Would Scarlett Do?

I’ve had this disease before. You know, the one where you feel like you’ll throw up if you have to step foot in Lowes one more freakin’ time in the same week. The disease that leaves you begging God to please let this remodeling hell end soon. I’ve suffered through it before. Swore I’d never do it again. And yet, here I am again. Knee deep in more home improvements. However, this time is THE last time we remodel. I mean it. As God is my witness I will never remodel again.

As frustrating as the last three weeks have been, we’ve actually made some progress. The ceilings are finished. Hallelujah, amen. Seeing a good excuse to buy a big piece of equipment, Hubby bought the Bad Bad Leroy Brown shop vac at Lowes and sucked up three-quarters of the dust. There is more to go, but we can walk through the house without risking mesothelioma now. The new garage door has been installed. The roof is fixed, new toilets are in place and all of the old carpeting is gone. We also ripped up the old hardwood in the foyer to make for the new wood, and when I say “we” I mean the band of angels known as the roofers who wanted to earn some extra money and a seat next to St Peter. Yesterday Hubby picked up the hardwood and stacked all 1600 square feet of it in the house so it can settle into the house’s temperature and humidity and not buckle when it’s laid. I can thank the price of hardwood for that sporadic twinge I feel in my colon.

The big news is that we finally hired a contractor for the kitchen and bathroom work after spending three weeks getting various estimates. We were getting frustrated because the estimates were all coming in very high. As Hubby’s granny used to say, they wanted three prices for everything. The last guy we talked to was someone I liked immediately. He wasn’t a bragger. He just told us what he could do and how he would do it. He took all kinds of measurements at the house Thursday, and Saturday we went to his granite yard and picked out granite for the countertops so he could put together the estimate. As we sat across his lovely granite top desk watching him scratch numbers I held my breath that his wouldn’t want three prices, too. He didn’t. In fact, he was 30-percent cheaper than the other folks and I wanted to kiss him on the spot. Instead, Hubby and I exchanged glances and almost bumped heads running to the car to get the checkbook for the deposit. When we wrapped up with him I did the GREAT GERTIE I’M GETTING GRANITE COUNTERTOPS dance all the way to the van. It was soon dampened by the realization that we had to go back to Lowes to order faucets so the contractor would not get held up by late arriving spigots. It was the second time we studied faucets. I’m tired of looking at faucets. As beautiful as they are, I’m over the faucets. So much so that when Hubby called from Lowes this morning with the news that the plumbing guy said the two Brand A faucets I picked Saturday wouldn’t hold up because they have too much plastic inside them and that I needed to pick Brand B, I put my head between my feet and started saying the serenity prayer. And if you think I’m kidding, you’re mistaken. After fifteen minutes of him describing faucets and me trying to guess what they looked like, I finally hopped on the internet, had him shout out item numbers and I viewed them on the web until I found something I liked. And then I took a Motrin. I swear if I have to look at one more faucet my eyes will cross. Anyway, we’re done with faucets. I think. And we have everything in place for the contractor to being. Did I mention I’M GETTING GRANITE COUNTERTOPS?!! So I did.

Did mention I’M GETTING STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES?!! That was the other big decision of the weekend, and it’s hard to put into words how much I love the appliances I picked out, specifically the stove. I have eyeballed that stove in Lowes for months, ever since I stumbled upon it by accident one night while searching for a rug. No matter what I’m in there for, I habitually fondle the appliances and on this particular night, there before me in all its glory sat the GE Café stainless steel five burner gas stove that costs as much as my first car. I talked to it. I touched it. I whispered sweet nothings into its ear and wished upon a star that one day I would take it home. That dream lay dormant until we decided to buy this house but reared its lovely head when it became obvious I’d need a new stove. I looked at other stoves, but after surfing appliance porn on the internet and checking out other models in other stores I kept coming back to that same stove. So we bought it. And my life is complete.

It makes all of this remodeling mess a little more bearable, but I can’t wait for it to be over. And if Hubby ever mentions remodeling again, I will tell him that frankly, I don’t give a d*@m.

The Big Finish

So far this remodeling has taught me one thing. I watch waaay too much HGTV. A couple of episodes of Divine Design, and I think I can single handedly tile a tub and pour a sidewalk. Blindfolded. With a book of matches and a Boy Scout knife. It gives me too much confidence and too many ideas. That’s how we got into the drywall mess.

The new house had that crumbly popcorn finish on the ceilings. We hated the finish, and since I had seen on TV where you can scrape that stuff off, I thought it would be great to have it done before we painted and put down new flooring. Now, I hadn’t really watched them do it on TV. I had only seen them describe how it’s done. I figured it couldn’t be too bad, and when the drywall expert said it would be no problem and shot me a great price I told him to go forth and get to scrapin’. Since several people have asked me about it and seemed interested in it (there are a lot of you out there who hate the popcorn finish), I thought I’d show you what it’s like.

Let me be clear, the drywall man said it would be messy. Really messy. I never dreamed how messy it would be. Basically, they spray water on the ceiling, let it sit there until it softens to just the right point and then scrape it all off. They started last Monday and within two hours Hubby called me exclaiming, “Holy *#@$! That mess is everywhere! It’s in the yard. It’s on the steps. It’s everywhere!” Now Hubby has the Chicken Little gene, so he and I play this dance all of the time. He gets excited about something, and I tell him everything will be okay. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat until everything works out alright, and he moves onto the next crisis. So that morning I reassured him everything would be fine then went home seven hours later and went, “Holy #@$#! That mess is everywhere!” And I mean everywhere.

It falls in big clumps onto the floor.
And anything that isn’t covered up.
Where it sits and dries. This small section of hardwood in the foyer was getting replaced anyway, otherwise I’d be crying right now.
We left the carpet down on purpose so we could haul out most of this mess with the carpet when we got ready to pull it out. (It’s being replaced by wood.) By day two we were panicked about whether or not the red rosin paper would stain the kitchen and bathroom tile and whether the drywall mud would come out of the grout. The drywall man said to relax. We didn’t.

By day three it had started to dry enough that the clumps could be swept into piles. Meanwhile, the workers started smoothing out the ceilings and sanding the new mud.
The job was supposed to take three days. On the third day, we were told it was a trickier job than they had expected and that it would take at least two more days. We worried more. Eventually, it started looking better, especially when they finally started cleaning up the mess.
We could tell the tile was going to be fine, and I quit poking at it and checking it every time I walked by it.

The drywall guys cleaned it up per our agreement, meaning the Hula-gen’s would do some of the cleaning in order to get the good price. They were finally out of there by 10am Saturday.

We still have a lot of cleaning up to do before we can move onto the next project, and we will be dealing with dust for weeks. It covers everything, and the walls will have to be washed down more than once before we can paint.

Bottom line-I’m glad we did it. I’m glad I didn’t know just how messy it would be; otherwise I would have been too scared to try it. I like the ceilings much better now, and for a small investment we made an improvement that will increase the value of the home. HOWEVER, I would never EVER attempt it on a house that wasn’t empty and wasn’t getting new paint and floors. It’s just too messy and would be too difficult in a home filled with furniture. There are also a fair amount of fumes during the first couple of days, and you would not want to live with that. It’s done. We can move onto the next project, but right now I’m waiting for a little rain to wash away all of those pieces of popcorn littering the yard and the steps. And for the next call from Chicken Little.

Something this big Should Have Four Wheels and an Automatic Transmission

The thing about working when your husband is retired is that you often get news from home via the phone. Every day Hubby keeps me fully informed with regular updates from the home front. My phone rings off and on with news that, “Mama passed her kidney stone” or “We’re on our way to the emergency room with Daddy” and the ever popular, “The dog threw up in the middle of the bed again.” It removes me a tad from the chaos since I can usually only offer a thought, opinion or word of encouragement, hang up and leave them to deal with the immediate emergency. That’s not always a bad thing.

Since we started this house remodeling/purchase/moving mess my phone rings off the wall. The first remodeling project began his morning. First up? Scraping the popcorn finish off the ceilings. It seems we’re not the only ones who hate that popcorn stuff, since several folks have expressed an interest in how successful we are in getting rid of it. I’ll post more about it later, but let’s just say within two hours of them beginning Hubby called with the news that, “Holy *@#$! That mess is everywhere!!”

In the last two weeks he’s called me several times ranting and raving about sky high estimates on flooring and bathroom installations, and the difficulty in finding a good carpenter, and I’ve managed to listen sympathetically, knowing that it would eventually work out, and we would find the right product and the right person at the right price. The call that struck fear in my heart, however, came Saturday. I was cleaning the pool and I picked up the phone to hear him on the other end with the dreaded words, “I found the chair.”
“The chair?”
“THE chair!”
“Oh. THE chair.”
“Wait ‘til you see it.”
Feebly, “I can hardly wait.”

From the very beginning of this project Hubby has said I can do whatever I want with the interior decorating as long as it fits within our budget and that he wants a say in only three things: the mattress, the toilet and his recliner for the living room. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think those are areas where his opinion is important. We haven’t gotten to the mattress yet, but I let him pick the toilet on his own. After all, he spends more time on it than I do, and he’s a big guy with long legs. Off the shelf of Lowes, after much thought and comparison, he chose the Grand Champion model that allegedly has the power to flush a bucket of golf balls. Fine. I’ll learn how to dangle my fanny over that big oval bowl in a way that keeps me from falling in.

And I was willing to keep my mouth shut about the chair. He’s a recliner guy, and his chair is very important to him. It’s the other seat he spends a lot of time on. But then I went to a furniture store with him and discovered that his taste in furniture is nothing close to mine. I like classic styles with simple lines. He likes..well…let’s just say he likes the stuff you found in the Florida condos you rented in the 1980’s. Our first visit to a furniture store had him pointing at numerous sofas and dining room tables with a big, “What about THIS?!” and me wrinkling my nose and trying to find ways to get him to the car. He picked one chair that had me quivering over its faux leather upholstery. Picture the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie’s dad wants to put his leg lamp in the window and Ralphie’s mom is nervously saying, “I don’t know.” That was us. Miles apart in our tastes we are. I’ve decided that if the preacher had plopped us down in the middle of a furniture store with a small budget prior to our wedding nineteen years ago and told us to negotiate the purchase of six large pieces of furniture we would have never made it down the aisle. Heck, we would have never made it out of the store alive. So you can see why I was more than a little concerned when he called me to tell me about THE chair.

When we got to the store I was somewhat surprised by the style. It’s okay. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it will do. HOWEVER, it is huge. Really huge. From this post forward it shall be referred to as the Big Ass Chair (BAC for short). You can see why.

My feet did not touch the floor when I sat in it. I looked like Edith Ann from Laugh-In, and I wasn’t stout enough to make it recline. Hubby had to push it back. It’s not really a recliner; it’s a twin bed for the living room. It is the mother of all recliners. It’s truly a man’s chair. And his heart is set on it. And I want him to be happy. So I will go along with his choice. And I will try to figure out how to make that red sofa-loveseat combo I have my heart set on work with that thing. All I can say is thank goodness no one will see the mattress we pick out. Oh, and remind me to tell you one day about the round dining room table he picked out because it would be great to play poker around with the boys. Aye, yi, yi.

Allow me to Introduce you to my new Source of Chaos

Ever since we made the decision two weeks ago to sell our house and buy Sissy’s house, our lives have been a blur of remodeling plans. Hubby spends most of his day on the phone and a smaller portion of his day ripping up carpeting and doing any kind of prep work that will save us money on the overall bill. Every night I run home from work to meet with a contractor of some sort. In the last seven days we’ve met with an electrician, a carpenter, a drywall finisher, a painter, two flooring vendors, a roofer, a bathroom contractor and the water softener repairman. I’ve had to post a calendar on the refrigerator so we can write in their names and all of these appointments to keep from getting them confused. My life is a sea of names, numbers and samplesThe house is a wonderful home, but there are some things we want to do to it before we move in, and we’d like to get everything done before we go on vacation in early October. We’re under no pressure to move right away, but we’d like to get the work done as soon as possible in case our house sells and we have to move out quickly. I’ll pause while you chuckle over the notion of our home selling fast during this housing slump. Oh well, you never know. We might get lucky. I’m trying to be decisive and not flip flop around on the dozens of decisions that have to be made about colors, sizes and products. For instance, I’ve already chosen the paint colors and carry those with me wherever I go in case I run into a furniture sale or end up in Lowe's unexpectedly. I also carry my camera which contains pictures of the house. Do not ask how many pictures I took in the furniture stores the other day. It’s a little embarrassing how much I admire a well built sofa and the legs on dining room tables. My appliance envy is even more embarrassing. I’ve also discovered that I watch WAY too much HGTV.

As with anything, our dreams are bigger than our budget, so we’ve broken down our list into three areas: things that must be done, things we’d really like to do and things that would be nice if there’s any money left. Our plan is to grow old in this home, so we’re trying to make sure the bathrooms and other rooms will accommodate us if we become disabled in any way. Under the category of things that need to be done? Some improvements to the roof, replacement of two toilets, new paint and new flooring. Let’s take a look around, shall we?

There is hardwood in the foyer, but I want to add it to the rest of the house so this wood will come out and be replaced with Turlington 3” by Bruce in Woodstock (see, decisive!) that will also cover everything but the kitchen and bathrooms. That horrible brass lighting fixture is going too.
Thanks to my HGTV habit I knew all about scraping the popcorn finish off of ceilings so that messy job starts next week. While my husband will thank me later, I suspect he’ll want to choke me by about the middle of that nasty project.

The living room needs paint. The fireplace is too big and in an awkward place. It’s getting replaced with a smaller corner unit that will be easier to arrange furniture around.

The kitchen? Ah, the kitchen. All forty feet of counter top must go, and it will likely take most of Teen Angel’s college fund to buy it. For months I’ve been wondering why the people who built the house put in such cheap counter tops. Then we measured them, and I realized why. Needless to day, I doubt we’ll go with granite.

Oh, and I’m getting new appliances, baby! Stainless steel makes my toes positively tingle. If I stand in the appliance aisle at Lowe's and ogle at the stoves anymore they’re going to ban me from that place. If we can afford it, we will also add a tile back splash on both sides of the kitchen.

The master bedroom needs only paint. We’re getting off cheaply in here.The master bathroom could be another story. We’d like to rip out that shower tub unit and replace it with a walk-in shower with a glass door. That’s expensive. However, it’s something that would really improve our day to day living in that home and is pretty high on our priority list. I’d also like to get rid of that white tile around the other tub, but that’s much lower on the list.

The other bathroom just needs paint. See that dark faux painting stuff? It actually looks better in person than in this picture, but I don’t like it, and it’s going to go.

There are other things like doorknobs, cabinet pulls and lighting fixtures that we’d like to replace, but those are all little things we’ll consider as we get down to the wire. The roof work begins Thursday. The garage door gets replaced this week, too. The toilets have been purchased and will be set as soon as I make up my mind about the bathroom shower issue that could alter the color of one of the toilets. And my painter is ready to go as soon as we get the floors, counter tops and bathroom taken care of. Only 226 more decisions to make!