Home Improvement Holiday

Since I wasn't going anywhere for Christmas, I decided I might as well use the time to get some things done. So this past week I've painted the bathroom, organized the garage, and even bought (and put together) a bed frame to get the mattress off the floor.




the garage - before

The garage was officially a Christmas present from my brother. A present I suspect my dad had a lot to do with.  (My father has been over here three times to measure the garage and sketch out potential layouts since I bought the house.)  It needed to be done. I don't have a lot of stuff, but what I did have was just accumulating in piles along the walls, since I didn't have anywhere to put it.




the garage - after. It doesn't look like much, but it's really a big improvement

Now I have pegboard on the back wall, the pile of leftover bricks has been moved out of the way, and it looks more like a garage and less like an abandoned prop room. The nicest part about this was I didn't really have to do anything beyond move bricks and sweep up sawdust. My father and brother did the rest. My kind of project.

 

The other big project was repainting the master bath. I've been planning to change the color since I bought the house. It was a muddy brown, really, really dark and way too much. Last month I got a bunch of paint chips from the home improvement store, taped them to the walls, and decided on a color I liked. Four days ago, I bought a gallon of "Sigh" (a very pale blue) and painted one wall.

 

I hated it. It looked like breath mints.

 

Still, I was going to get this done. My backup plan was to paint it the same color as the bedroom: beige - boring but bearable.  I bought a gallon of that and covered up the breath mint wall. It worked. 

 

So I've spent the last three days working on the bathroom. It's more complicated than it sounds because it has three doors, a shower stall, a window, a vaulted ceiling and lots of little corners that have to be taped off before painting. And have you ever tried manipulating an eight foot stepladder in a shower stall?  

 

Dad helped the day before yesterday, but it needs another coat before it's done. So I'm hoping I can bribe him into coming over and finishing the job. I've got everything I can reach, but I need someone tall to get the last two and half feet.

 

Then, I can put the towel racks back up, put the ladder back in the garage, rinse out the paint brushes, sweep the floor, wash the shower stall and collapse on the sofa with champagne, Chinese food and the feeling of a job well done.

 

Happy New Year!