Over the weekend I took some time to work on one of my favorite things: Other peoples projects.
And, trust me, I know I’ve got enough of my own to be working on — there’s forty-eight square feet of chalkboard rightinmyface every time I walk into my house just to remind me– but for some reason it’s so much more fun to work on projects when they belong to someone else.
Particularly when there’s beer involved.
One of my best friends, Erin, bought her very own house a few months ago. You may remember a certain housewarming gift/bucket-of-tools I got her for the occasion, and dammed if she hasn’t already used every single tool I packed into that thing and then asked me what she needed to buy first… a table saw or miter saw.
Excuse me for a minute while I get a little misty-eyed.
Also? Miter saw. Definitely.
I’d ask you to imagine the general state of things a few months after purchasing a fixer-upper as your first home, but most of you have been right where Erin is right now: with half your shit still packed in boxes, one bathroom torn out, fifteen projects scattered around the house in varying degrees of completion, and really ugly light switches.
It can be overwhelming.
E has also racked up nearly a decade’s worth of good-friend points as I worked on my own houses, and there’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t help her do now that she’s got a house of her own. So, after I completed my own little form of house-therapy, I called her up to see what I could do at her place that would make her feel better about her progress and she was all, THESE LIGHT SWITCHES MUST GO.
Yes. Yes they must.
On my way to her place, I stopped at the hardware store and picked up an extra set of the critical tools on my gotta-have list for electrical work to add to her toolbox.
(I mean, that’s my toolbox, but you get the point.)
Then we did exactly what you’d expect a couple of single home-owning ladies to do on a Sunday afternoon…
Drank craft beer and did some electrical work.
If there’s any better way to end a weekend, I sure as hell don’t know what it is.
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Finishing the lighting in the living room and replacing the door in the bedroom are high on the list
Painting the spackling spots that have been there for nearly a year…
Fixing the 6 inch spot in my ceiling where there was a leak. It’s been there for 6 months.
My kitchen floors! We redid the counters, added some new cabinets, new hardware, new light switches and outlets, and a pretty glass tile backsplash. But we never redid the floors..? And I hate them. They’re blue, hard, roll out laminate with the blue and white dutch designs on them. And they have the most atrocious perma-dirt caked into them. Ack, kitchen!
Hanging a third wall cabinet in my laundry room. Hung two last week and was amazed at the difference they made in terms of polish and functionality. Wish I had done it when I bought the house two years ago.
Yummmm. Miter saw (swoon). A display case to put on the wall that my husband pounded a bunch of holes in to hang all these dinky little shelves. The shelves are gone – the holes remain…. Come to think of it – maybe I just will build it this weekend. Or at least fill the holes. (Lots of wiggle room there.)
New lighting in the living room
A new doorbell would go a long way toward improving our front entrance. The one that came with the house was a cutesy bunny glued to a round basket weave thing.
A new railing (and newel post and balusters) is topping my project list. That or a new front door. Our foyer is looking kind of sad right now!
Refinishing the front door. The stain is way past its expiration date!!!
Finishing the odds and ends in my kitchen. I haven’t had baseboard molding since last thanksgiving, and the cold blasts right through that space, plus – i’ve got a list of things that need to be completed, finish a cabinet, paint said cabinet, set the nails in the door trim as I’ve been too lazy once it all went up. 😀 I just need the kick in the pants to finish this room.
I am a visual person so I can’t wait to get all the walls and trim painted in our new house!
The floor in my kitchen would make a big difference in my project list. It needs to be done to make the room look complete.
I need to build a desk into my guest room closet… which means I also need it to be spring so I can cut and stain wood in my yard. Soon enough!!
Finishing the drywall in the basement so I can paint and then install my keezer and tap system. I need my homebrew on tap so I can work on more projects.
Convert the back hall coat closet to an efficient coat closet with a seat and space for the litter box to hide! Thanks, Kit! You reminded me I need to change my switchplates, too, now that hall is painted lol
I’m in the planning stage of giving my bathroom vanity a facelift. It’s a built-in thingy between two walls, so redoing the front will be much easier than buying something that will fit in there just right. It currently has no drawers, just two doors, so I’ll be making those myself.
Oh, my first thought was, ‘That’s so easy!’ Except that it’s not because my house is also in a state of many half-finished projects. Right now, I’d love for someone to help me sand/recut/whatever the frick I need to do to make my beautiful new door knobs fit into my closet doors. I just need to shave the existing holes a bit, I think. And, then I need to purchase all new hinges to replace all of my golden ones. But, for now, all doors are partially painted and knobless…you know because taking all door knobs off at once seems to be a great idea. In my brain they will be beautiful though.
A better shoe storage/drop zone system for the hall. We don’t really have the space for a true mudroom and that is just sad.
Thanks, Kit, for the reminder! Light switches were low on my list, but now… now they look like I should switch them ((see what I did there?)
Agh, right now I need to totally bring the electrical in my basement down from the ceilings. There are ZERO plugs down there and I’ve just been running extension cords to things. I need to get on that shit.
And fast.
I just need to move the table in the dining room to the basement to use as a craft table & move the kitchen table into the dining room. Such a simple step holding up a half dozen kitchen projects.
Basement is so dang cold right now I don’t even want to do laundry every week.
Go Away Cold Weather !!!!!!
Buy and install an entry way light. Bought my bank-owned house last summer, and previous owners took the light. So I not only have the light hole with wires dangling out, but they also had a medallion up there so there’s a big, round shiney circle slightly lighter color than the rest of the ceiling ceiling. Loveliness.
Paint. Everywhere.
I really wish we would finish painting and fixing the paint we’ve already done. I have a bathroom that was wallpapered poorly, so every time you shower it comes unglued in most places. Then i have a bedroom that never got painted, and the crown molding was never caulked before we moved in, so it’s just a total eyesore. Ugh. The random half-assness in my house drives me nuts.
Replace a couple of the infamous “boob” lights that the builder installed in our front entryway… I look at those things every single day and keep thinking to myself — they have got to go! A Lowe’s gift card would go a long way to motivating me to finally go out and purchase a couple of decent replacements. PS I still LOVE your blog — it’s my number one place to go each and every morning for a little DIYDiva entertainment : -)
Painting my master bedroom! I’ve bought a new bed, curtains, and a few pieces of furniture but for some reason can’t settle on a paint color…mostly bc it’s a huuuuge room and I know it’ll be a bit of an investment. A Lowe’s gift card would really help me take the plunge….into some beautiful gray wall paint!
I’m about to move in to a new apartment and it needs to be painted…peach sponge painting must go to make this place feel like my home!
…”with half your shit still packed in boxes, one bathroom torn out, fifteen projects scattered around the house in varying degrees of completion, and really ugly light switches.”
YES YES YES. You nailed it right on the head! (see what I did there… construction comedy. nice) Other than drowning in really fugly light switches, I’d really like to finish trimming out a window and a patio door. And as much as I love the D-grade pine planks that serve as our stair treads right now, those babies have GOT TO GO.
Cool! That’s a clever way of looking at it!
Paint, paint, and more paint… 🙂 Love your blog!
We’ve been working on things as we go along, once I finish up putting a closet kit in my son’s room, we’re going to work on the redoing the bathroom… but we’re going to do it in phases… first, replace the dry wall, then add the new sink, then tile the shower and last, replace the ceiling… I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like when we’re finished! We decided a nice arctic grey for the walls with light blue accents (rugs and in blue glass tile trim surrounded by plain white tiles) It should look really great when we’re done! (hopefully)
I have had materials in my garage to redo my kitchen countertops for going on 3 years 🙁
Correcting the paint mistakes made in my living room. I was pregnant and nesting and the living room HAD to be repainted. lol I didn’t want to stand on a ladder for obvious reasons, so I used an extension rod to reach where the walls meet the ceiling. Now every time I walk into the living room, my eyes immediately zoom in on the areas that I “over-painted”.
I just finished installing a new outlet in my dining room which was the “little” project that was holding up the room remodel, since it needed to be done before I could start installing wainscoting. Of course, now that it’s done, I guess the next step towards progress is to finish removing the wallpaper – which has been 80% done for 15 months now.
I would probably put the $50 towards purchase of a staple gun to finally in the runner on our stairs. 🙂
A couple gallons of paint could go a long way.
Our backyard is a MUD PIT. Grass seed or sod is a must when the weather turns around (will it ever?!?!)
Knocking down the wall between master closet and spare room closet (in addition to framing and drywalling the old door space) so I can finally have a walk in and place to put all my clothes/shoes.
Painting the walls in my basement. Definitely.
Um, does taking down the Christmas tree count? No? How about clearing out all of the junk in the basement, then building some nice shelves to organize what’s left? That’s what we need to do. Bonus: Then it wouldn’t be so difficult to move the Christmas tree back downstairs. 🙂
Must rip up the linoleum tiles in the hallway….
Getting some new lights in my kitchen would be a huge jump start.
I so badly want to finish the drywall where we moved a light switch in our bathroom. The half-assed patch has been there for 4 months! 🙁
There is a certain wall between the kitchen and the dining room that needs to go away… Two boxes of contractor’s bags, a sledgehammer, and a potential snow day means this might happen sooner rather than later. (Or we might just stay warm and drink beer!)
Little projects = spackling and sanding the wall where previous homeowners attached a smoke detector, and replacing the butt-ugly light fixture at the top of my stairs.
We actually used our wedding money to replace ALL the lightswitches/outlets/data ports/strange gaping electrical junction boxes that no one bothered to cover?!?? It makes SUCH a difference!!! Plus not feeling like you’re going to electrocute yourself attempting to plug in the toaster? Major bonus.
HOWEVER! The project I would like to tackle next is a mini master-bedroom makeover for my parents when they are out of town 🙂 They moved in to their house 3 years ago, and haven’t had any time to get rid of the (god-awful yellow sponge painted) wall color, or finish skim coating the drywall from where they had to replace a door…I’d like to surprise them with a fresh start 🙂
Replacing the broken fan in the bathroom, definitely!
Patching the hole in my bedroom ceiling where some water damage happened…3 years ago.
If my ceiling ever gets processed through customs, I think that would be my choice…to get the ceiling done in our never-ending dormer project! And to drink my favorite Canadian craft beer, Blanche de Chambly! Cheers.
Freshening my living room with paint from the yellow/beige/white builder’s basic color it is now (complete with burnished spots — thanks, magic eraser and cheap paint). With that face lift I’ll finally put things up on the walls. Weee!
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