Adventures in Low Popcorn Ceilings and Awkward 100-year-old Angles

My handsome, handy hubby. < 3

Last weekend Hubby and I tackled lots around the house. Specifically, lots of overdue, lingering and necessary things.

Most pressing was replacing our thermostat interface. The old one that came with the house was completely stuck on the programs that the sellers had set it to, which didn't really work for us. And I tell you no matter what we did, that thing was like, "BAH HA HA I DO WHAT I WANT!" Sigh.

And so we decided to take on our first electrical project without any help. Well, I mean, we had the instructions that came with the new thermostat, but aside from that, it was just us and the possibility of electrocution/explosion. Since I'm writing this, obviously neither of those things happened.

It was all very simple and straightforward, aside from trying to work with tiny wires in an iiiity biiity space. But the old bisque-hued unit came off with no trouble, and aside from having to quickly paint the newly expanse of wall, it was about a 30-minute process.

I'm old and sad and didn't work very efficiently.

I'm new and shiny and gladly do all things you need me to!

Now we have a lovely and modern white unit that lights up, and is very very very user friendly as far as programming! Ahhhh. It's the little things.

Speaking of little things, I completed three long-overdue curtain hangings as well. The main success was hanging thermal-lined curtains across our sliding glass door to the deck. We had never replaced the weird bamboo slidey-panels that came with the house. But we're slowly and surely trying to mitigate air leakage around the house as best we can short of a total gut-and-re-insulate job. And so down the bamboo came and up the thermals went. I'll have to go back and spackle the holes from where we removed the old track system, but that's easy.

Before.

After. No matter what I do, this photo will not turn rightside-up. Sigh.

And now that we have a real curtain rod and the little rings with clips, we can change up the curtains any time we like. We will probably choose something lined, but a bit lighter, for the summer. Thankfully, the back of the house never gets direct sunlight, so we're not worried about baking, but we do want to keep the outside air outside and the inside air inside!

Lastly, I finally finally finally found and put up curtains in the guest room! This was put on hold for a few reasons, the main one being, well, my laziness. We've had only a handful of overnight guests since moving in, so the push hasn't been all that great to git er done. But it's beginning to bother me that it's the last largely unfinished space. Curtains have made it feel much more homey. Delaying this install as well was finding the danged curtains I wanted! Target never had them in stock until just recently. In fact, when I went to buy the curtain rod for the back door, I checked, just out of habit, and blammo! There they were! Whoo hoo!

Here's my battle station. PS: I HATE ironing. Ugh.

The guest room presented a very unique challenge, though, in that the window across from the bed has basically no edge and sort of runs straight into the mirrored closet doors--see below. So after scratching my head for a while, I figured I'd just have to cheat the curtain rod inside the frame a bit. Once the curtain was draped, you'd hardly notice. Thankfully, this worked out just fine.

Cheating the curtain rod inside a bit.

The real adventure was hanging the rod over the bed window. Low ceilings...ahem, low popcorn ceilings, meant while standing on the bed to measure, mark, drill, and hang my hair was ever getting stuck to the damned popcorn. I looked like Don King by the time I was done, my ponytail now teased out like I was going to a 60s disco. Sadly for you, but good for me, I didn't take any selfies of that look. (Sorry, Mom.)

Looks much more welcoming that just a stark, naked window.

I'm getting the itch to finish up the guest room, or at least make more strides in that direction: painting the walls, getting a real night stand situation in there, and maybe even an enclosed bureau for additional (and behind-closed-doors!) storage, and hanging some shelves and more thoughtful wall art.

Other things I'd love to address over the next year is getting a "grown up" bed frame--at the moment, it's just the metal frame that holds the box spring and mattress but offers no decorative elements. We also may look into a new mattress soon. Ours is just not comfortable anymore. And of course, there are other small-ish things like painting the kitchen and laundry room, perhaps adding shelves or something in the bathroom, and hanging the rest of our photographs around the house. First up, however, will be replacing the bathroom sink faucet--it's been leaking, and let's just say the leak hasn't been getting better. So that's our current priority.

Until next time...