The one thing we’re going to splurge on for our new house is a bed! Mentally I may feel like I’m still in college but my back does not. We’ve had several different beds and mattrasses, most of them thrifted, and now we’re going to buy one that’s truly comfortable. Might not even mean expensive, maybe we’ll prefer the cheapest bed in the store! But we’re going to a local, family owned business and not to the thrift store this time.
We temporarily live in a trailer now and it’s actually quite cosy. It looks dated but everything is in working order and it’s cleverly designed.
Yes, you can turn the seats the deep way, or the shallow way. And you can change them per section. So we had them set up (facing the couch, looking left to right:) deep, shallow, deep + extra seat to make chaise, with one extra as the coffee table.
If you want to configure MORE than 2 seats in the ‘deep’ way, you would need a single different piece. I cannot remember if it’s just the back pillow, or the back pillow + one shorter arm/back piece.
We went to one of the ‘showrooms’ to double check seeing the fabric in person, and sit on the sofa. It wasn’t really what I’d call a showroom. It was a kiosk with delusions of grandeur in a mall. Sort of like a chunk of a shipping container, with a 2 seat section in the window up front, that you couldn’t sit on, then in the main part, where you could walk inside, there was another few segments of couch, so you could test the regular foam, vs the down fill. They also had large fabric swatches of all their in stock fabrics, and small swatches you could take home.
First, let me congratulate everyone on their reno projects! And congratulations to @MistressJennie on her new home! I love these kinds of projects and seeing people’s projects come together! It’s wonderful to be in a position to make your home how it will work better for you.
Second, ooooo! I think I’m going to like this thread! I have a couple of house-y projects I would like to tackle this year and it will be fun to have a place to share the progress and the results. When we moved to rural Montana from Portland, Oregon, I kept a blog about the change from city life to mountain living including all the DIY projects in the house. When I was almost done posting about replacing the floors on the 2nd story (Euro 1st story) I got a bit burnt out - on the blog and on the renovating. Then we realized a local person of questionable trust was researching us online - I decided that I wasn’t going to post tons and tons of details about the inside of our house anymore. Of course, this is online and all that, but… for reasons, I think I will feel comfortable sharing some things.
ANYWAY, I was commissioned ot make another t-shirt quilt (soccer jerseys this time) which is not a thing I particularly enjoy doing, so I am using it as a “carrot.” I will make the quilt in February and as a reward I will allow myself to refurbish our stairwell! The stairwell and upstairs hallway are the only rooms that I have not painted since moving here. First I would like to retextured/skimcoat the stairwell walls. I have the appropriate ladder/plank and tools to do this. While I’m “up there” I want to replace the light fixture (also in the hall). That will include some craftyness with repainting part of the existing fixture, replacing the glass. I also have plans for building out a “cabinet of curiosities” on the wall(s) that will be viewed from the top of the stairs and as you decend. I have already purchased a new outlet and will run a plug-in (vs hotwired) line to a long power strip - think work bench style rather than under-desk style - so I can have electric things “in” the “cabinet.” It will be interesting to work on now that TheMisterT WFH at the dining table. I will need to work around his meetings, but it will be nice to have a bipedal creature here while I am up on a scaffold above the stairs.
Yikes! That’s creeptacular. I’m sorry that happened to you dear. I totally want to see your whole house, but that’s because we get amazing little glimpses here and there, and I’m in love with how much you’ve made it your own. But I’d never show up without an invitation. And a baked good. And wine…
On Deadster, I had to change my username, because my previous one contained my first & last name, and a student at the university I was teaching at found me there, looked me up on the campus directory, then showed up in my office (while a class was being taught in my shop) to tell me that she was starting a craft club on campus, and had ALREADY signed me up as the faculty advisor. She was graciously allowing me to pick from two possible nights for meetings, where I was expected to teach all student members multiple crafts every week. When I told her no, and that after teaching college students for low pay all day, I was not about to teach for free at night, she flipped out and started yelling in my shop (while that class was still taking place). She declared that I shouldn’t be sharing my crafting online, if I wasn’t willing to show everyone how to make all the things whenever they wanted.
Ugh. How embarrassing that must’ve been. Mostly for her in the long run, but [shiver].
I’ve had creepier stalking-like situations. We believe this person was just sort of doing “recon” and know they have certain compromised capacities such that they are unable to be all that covert.
Ooh, I’ve been working on making my attic into accessible storage space so I can move the far too many boxes of fabric into somewhere that’s not either living space or the damp basement.
The original house was built in 1929, & we added onto the back in 2011 so there’s the original tiny attic space and a decent sized bit where they raised the roofline that’s so far only accessible by climbing thru the hole my husband made in the craft room ceiling to insulate the original space. Unfortunately there was an issue with the ridgeline of the new roof early on that led to just enough leaking that the paper backing of the fiberglass insulation they put up on the new roof gave out, so I have been working on this intermittently for a couple weeks and only just got to doing floor joists because I had to start with protective gear & re-containing the fiberglass. (It’s er, currently stapled back up on joists with landscape fabric. But not shedding on anybody’s skin or eyes or lungs, so success!)
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(Linda -2024 Choose Projects that You Want to Do :us:)
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Dang…I sure do admire the DIYers! I put in all of the canned lights in our basement drop ceiling and have painted mostly, but nothing major like some of you with your mega power tools and stuff! WOW!
I don’t ever plan to own another house so anything I do to a rental is for looks only.
I’m mostly doing this myself because right now it’s easier just to figure it out than it is to deal with finding and hiring someone and then having them in my house.
Maybe its because we’ve done so much work on this place that we rent, I’m the opposite. I want to buy a place. Its always been just out of reach because we prioritized work (equipment) and travel. Am I going to stop renovating this store to be more comfortable? Nope. But I want a place I can go crazy with and not make what ever I do removable.
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(Linda -2024 Choose Projects that You Want to Do :us:)
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We really have no immediate heirs so I don’t want any of the nieces or nephews to have to sell a house. I also don’t want the maintenance. With our rental now, they take care of everything and all we pay is for lawn mowing during the summer. Plus, if one of us had to go into any kind of nursing care, the other can move into an apartment or condo. Life priorities change.
Our landlords are pretty lenient in what we can do inside…we can paint and we can do any changes he approves of. He has replaced all of the bathroom and kitchen faucets and fridge as well and will be putting in new hardwood floors in the kitchen. About 80% of our population rents…many of the homes have been in families for generations and it is their “retirement” income. Yeah, we risk not having our lease renewed and of course, the rent goes up each year, but for us, the cost of freedom and not being tied to the area is worth it.
We also have nephews with real estate properties that we could rent someday and be closer to them (Portland might be our next move!)…in the meantime, I am enjoying watching people here improve their space and make it their own! Especially crafting areas!
I can’t wait to get to the furniture-buying stage. Congrats on the new sofa!
This week, we got: new windows, the first bit of framing for the bar, water to the bar, plumbing to the where the radiators will be, electrical wiring/switches/boxes run, half the new lights, lighting in the storage section moved, and some more prep for drywall.
I also have paint colors to pick out, but I think I want to wait until after I clean off the brick and have flooring in to make that decision. It’ll be some shade of beige, I’m sure.
I think you forgot to mention the part where you shouldn’t lay down on the cushions in the middle of your floor mid-way through unboxing, else you won’t want to get up. So comfy, don’t want to move
We we’re pushing so hard to get it put together, because we only had a handful of weekends to get the entire house ready to sell, so we didn’t lay on it on the floor. (Seriously, we had 5 weeks between deciding to sell and listing it.) We also had to put the rug from Ruggable together the same day. LOL
We went to buy a kitchen yesterday. We’re in a hurry, we’ve been looking around for quite some time and we’ve found the perfect supplier. Family business with their own factory, affordable.
But their sales guy, arghh! He really rubbed me the wrong way. For some reason I think he got the idea that I’m a dominant woman trying to impose my weird interior ideas on that poor Mr. Imma. In reality Mr. Imma does not have any issues standing up for himself at all and happens to like the same weird stuff as I do. We showed him some pictures of what we liked, and when we got to the sample drawing stage he used the colour scheme we picked and our door handles etc but he completely disregarded the cabinet shapes we showed and was weirdly stubborn about. I think because he thought that’s what Mr. Imma wanted.
Then when I asked if the kitchen could be set up for a left-handed person (only required one minor change) he asked me if I couldn’t just start using my right hand, when I said no he asked if I had a disability. Then he said he hadn’t had a request like that in all his 30 years of selling kitchens. At that point I didn’t feel comfortable anymore to disclose that yes, on top of being left handed, I also had a minor stroke 10 years ago that did cause some challenges with motor skills (no one notices in daily life but it took me ages to learn to drive, for example).
Then when a name was needed for the quote, we decided to put it in Mr. Imma’s name he said seeing “Mr and Mrs Imma” in writing may inspire me to finally want to become Mrs. Imma. Not sure if he thought we were unmarried and meant marriage or if he was annoyed I’m one of those crazy feminists for keeping my name. (Actually legally we both have a double name. And our system for renovation quotes is that the person on the quote is responsible for dealing with that company).
I would have walked away. But this company can give us exactly what we need at a good price, and this guy is just an employee, not an owner. Maybe we should go back and request a different salesperson.
I didn’t get to speak with Mr.Imma about it yet, he had to rush to a different appointment right after. I think he was flabbergasted, but as a man I don’t think he always realises that “weird” behaviour we experience is often related to ideas people have about women and men and their typical roles in society. And we are not a typical couple, looking typically masculine and feminine but both behaving rather similar. We can both lead the conversation, talk about planning and budget, etc.
In our country, “saying it like it is” and laddish behaviour are still very common. I think we are an odd couple to some people. I felt like the kitchen guy wanted to put me in my place. Complaining would confirm to him I’m difficult but it may indeed also be useful information for the owners.
I grew up experiencing a lot of prejudice against lefthanded people, my family tried to make me righthanded for years, and I was often called difficult because of it. My family totally thought lefthandedness was a choice. I hadn’t really heard much prejudice since I became an adult so I thought we left those ideas in the 20th century. Well, not this guy! What a stupid thing to make a fuss about.
