Don't Settle For Boring: Customize Your Belongings!

The renovation of our powder room, which almost killed us in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, was largely completed before the holidays, but we're still putting on some finishing touches. Yesterday we added vintage shelf paper to the front of this boring, utilitarian cabinet from IKEA. We bought it knowing that we'd never leave it white. I found the paper on Etsy and we finally got around to affixing it with spray adhesive. Now I love it! You don't ever have to settle for leaving furniture (or clothing or shoes or anything else) the way you find it. Customize it! Find the right adhesive for your project, whether it's for fabric or rhinestones or food safe or heavy duty, and make it uniquely yours!

Customized cabinet - just add shelf paper!

Powder Room Redo: Hell Doesn't Have Tequila Shots

I admit that I reached a point today where I didn't know whether or not I could go on. Everything to do with our powder room redo is taking five times longer than it should, if there is a roadblock to hit, we hit it, and it's all becoming a bit too much. This is all on top of our work on the show and Paul's job, which he really needs to do if he wants to continue being employed. Also, I now have a nasty headcold. I hit rock bottom. However, there was a point when I was trowling cement over the floor when Paul brought me a tequila shot. He also plugged his phone in and played Devo. Between Devo and the tequila, I realized that it could be worse. Not much worse as far as the house goes, but worse in general. Tomorrow we'll have tile on the floor and probably a couple of walls, too. Eventually this will all be behind us. Our episodes will get shot, we'll have Thanksgiving - life will go on, although it doesn't feel like it at the moment. Right now all I want to do is mix up a cocktail, watch the worst classic TV I can possibly find and forget we ever took this on!

Always trowling mortar...

Next stop: tile!

I Can't Handle All This Improvement

If you thought our powder room looked bad last week, with exposed wallboard and holes in the walls, wait until you see it today:

Lovely, isn't it? Paul and the electrician opened up walls and ceiling for our new fixtures and it rained insulation. It was so messy I was coughing two rooms away! The good news is that we DO have power in there now. The bad news is that none of the fixtures are actually in place yet, so we don't currently have lights. SOON, I hope!

Progress

Slow, slow progress.

Our breakfast nook is painted!

Breakfast nook: painted!

Paul is currently assembling the new "pantry" that will live in there. IKEA calls it a shelving system, but with the new fabric I purchased today (70% off at Jo-Ann Fabrics - make sure you're on their list for coupons and be sure to give them your phone number, so they can text them to you), it will be a mid-century modern fantasy, particularly when Paul installs our new light fixture!

He works so hard.

Lest you think I've been idle since finishing the paint in the breakfast nook, I've been helping to patch walls and I think the holes may finally be covered. Paul made a fascinating discovery today: a former rodent's nest (RIP - he excavated the remains) inside one of the walls that had been feathered with a hot pink feather boa. I don't remember any pink boas disappearing, but I have so many that who can tell? UGH. However one might feel about rodents (I'm not a fan), this one was definitely a kindred spirit!

Our Lives Are So Glamorous

The powder room and breakfast nook here at the Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en are in the awkward, "ugly duckling" stage of their development, but they will be gorgeous swans when they're done. At this point that date seems far off, but the good news is that I finally got a coat of paint on the walls of the nook! The paint prep was a six hour nightmare and the priming wasn't much better, but there is light at the end of the tunnel! Another coat and we should be in business  to hang our new shelves and put together our new "pantry" (IKEA didn't consider it a pantry, but we do!)! Here is the first coat. It looks more green than it is in this shot, but you get the idea:

Breakfast nook. Can't wait to have our kitchen back!

The prep for the painting was so awful that, when I was at Lowe's buying the paint, when the woman asked me if I wanted Valspar's "Signature" paint, or the more premium "Reserve" line, and explained that they claim the Reserve gives better coverage, I went for it. Best $10 I've ever spent. That paint went on like a dream! Thank you, Valspar Reserve!

In other news, the powder room looks distressingly like it did last week, but work IS getting done in there. I patched some walls today and Paul has been cutting out bad sections of wall and floor and adding new. This is the dirty, unrewarding part of the project, but we'll be glad we bothered when our walls don't cave in.

Mudding walls. It's good to learn a trade.

Should I be worried?