The house

Pending guests forced me to actually undertake cleaning of the house. One dead mouse and the dust bunnies are gone, as are most of the spider webs, though they have a way of eluding notice and/or being rebuilt in no time flat! But with cleaning comes seeing close up the peeling paint, the spot on the ceiling where water must have come in once (hopefully before the metal roof) and the fact that most of the non-paneled walls were last painted in 1987 and there are cracks in some walls and in the trim paint.  How do I know this? - My aunt had this wonderful book that tells everything that was done to her house starting from 1955, when done, who did it and what it cost. Of course the house is much older than this, so there are still many mysteries! 

 I decided to start out small with my redecorating - Brother John put down some new vinyl flooring in the upstairs bathroom last fall. To the right, you can see a little of the trim I painted, the new flooring and the old flooring - yes, there's still a piece of it under the pink hallway carpet.  Most people including me didn't know what flooring was in there as there. There used to be a very old green wall-to-wall bathroom rug on top of this flooring. That rug was falling apart and could no longer be cleaned so I had to remove it last year. There is actually an unfinished hardwood floor under the old linoleum, but John felt we needed to cover that since it's a bathroom afterall. He's so practical!  This new vinyl floor is sort of padded - feels good to stand on and didn't need to be glued down, so no damage to the wood floor. To replace floor, he had to take out the trim and put it back. So I said I'd paint the trim. This bathroom is built in the eaves of the house (see picture to the left)  and so there is maybe a 3 foot section of the room in which one can stand.  Much of trim painting had to be done with my right hand - not easy for someone who is a lefty! I am now even more convinced not to take on painting much else in this house myself.

So last night got an estimate to do some painting and some redoing of some other walls (more on that another day). Mid August the painters will come to do a few rooms. Then I will have to decide if doing more. But I did finish the trim painting and now trying to decide if I can paint over the faux tile (pink - think Pepto Bismol) and make it look a little better!

This guest room will be the first room to be painted by a professional, but not until August when many of this years' guess will already be gone. Yes, that's also pink.. think it needs some updating?