The Foyer

First of all--we have a foyer. Oh my goodness. Second, we have to get it looking presentable. The foyer is one of the few places in the house without any water damage on the walls and/or ceiling. Therefore, it will be the first place to get a coat of paint, but that's just the beginning. There are a few variables in this foyer update: 1) paint color for the walls, 2) new light fixture, 3) new front door, 4) new doorbell, and 5) how to paint and/or refinish the stairs. I'm liking a few paint colors for the walls right now.
The greens are my favorites. Something about that copper color sticks with me, even though it wouldn't be a usual choice for me. I tend to go for cooler colors (as in "not warm," not as in "not lame").

The Upstairs Bathroom

Welcome to our upstairs bathroom. One of our first big DIY projects was to remount the toilet with a new wax ring. Since neither of us is very handy, we both thought we were likely to fail at this.

(Yes, that's contact paper on top of the subway tile. What kind of twisted mind would do that??)

So, to the right is a picture of the toilet area before adding the wax ring. At this point, we were doing alright. We had cleaned that thing like crazy and were ready to put the toilet back on.



Success! The toilet is now mounted and usable. And the bathroom is clean-ish and actually looks pretty okay. Toilet mission accomplished. Next step will be paint. More on that soon.

Let There Be (Normal) Light...Please

The lighting fixtures in our house are...tragic. They are ugly, hung stupidly low in some cases, and require odd sizes and shapes of light bulbs. Whoever decorated this joint made some seriously bad choices. The question now is, How soon can we replace all this ugliness without spending too much money? As it is so often, I believe the answer will be Ikea.


I bought the Knappa (above) a couple of weekends ago. Everyone seems to have this light, but I like it too much to let that bother me. I don't know where it's going to go, but it's sitting on a chair in the dining room right now.

These are some of my other Ikea options (above). Anything is better than what we've got, and these choices aren't too bad. Of course, my expensive taste has my eye on more expensive fixtures, too. Oh, Schoolhouse Electric (below), I love you.

It begins

This red carpet is perhaps the least welcoming thing I've ever seen. Our first days in our new house were spent removing it--an amazingly rewarding activity.