Master bedroom/Guest room makeover

We called this the Nebraska Room.  It is our master bedroom until we finish the basement.  When we were house hunting in Kearney, almost every house had a Nebraska room. Go Huskers!

Why is there green carpeting in the closet?  Who knows. The office/sewing room we did last week had red carpet in the closet.  When painting the drawers in this room, there was a kelly green layer on them, as well as white, and a gray -blue.  So the carpet is probably from the kelly green era.

Luckily this room just needed a paint job. It took a couple coats of primer to cover the red and black.

 

And while I really like my staircase and landing, and wide upstairs hallway, the queen boxspring would not fit up the stairs.  We've been camping out with the mattress on the floor for two weeks now. Since this will eventually be a guest room, we decided to not invest in split box springs. So, in order to fit the current box spring up the stairs, we had to cut some of the wood frame on the underside and fold it like a taco.

Our taco box spring.

We weighted it down with boxes to help flatten it back out.

 Allen screwed some plates and wood braces next to the cut pieces. Then he stapled the dust cover fabric back down.

Here is the finished room.  This color is called Sundance.  It is brighter than I expected, but nice and sunny. I also thought it would look more orange than yellow. Allen calls it a school bus yellow, and that seems pretty accurate. Obviously we need some new bedding to go with it. Sorry Huskers, I like it much better this way.

Kearney Art in the Park

Yesterday I had a booth at Kearney's Art in the Park. I really enjoyed myself and met lots of people and artists in the community.  Here are some shots of my booth.  I had hoped to finish some new pieces before the show, but between moving and fixing up the house, there has not been time. I met two artists that are on the committee for the Grand Island Arts in the Park, which is next Sunday, and they were so nice and said I could participate next week.  I think I may need to take a breath and relax a bit next week.  I may change my mind though, who knows?

Allen starts work next week, so I will have a bit more time to work on new art, since he won't be here to help paint and do house fix-it things. Art making has been on hold for over a month now, and I am really looking forward to getting back to it.

Laundry Room update

The last few days, Allen and I worked on fixing up the laundry/storage room. The laundry hookups were originally in a mud room off the kitchen. I wanted to use that room for additional kitchen storage and a recycling area. Plus, I just didn't want to look at the washer and dryer all the time when I walk around the house. This storage room was directly below the mudroom so it was easy to get the plumbing and electrical moved down here. Eventually the master bedroom will be in the basement, so this location will be more convenient than on the first floor.  The dryer vent from the original mudroom setup went through this room and there was quite a bit of lint in here, not to mention years of dirt since this room looked unused. It took Allen hours of sweeping and sponging to get it clean.

We painted the walls (wood and concrete) with primer, and then glossy white paint.  We painted the floor with tan concrete paint, and the ceiling with primer and ceiling paint. We did take out a few of the shelves, as they weren't very tall (maybe 14"H) and didn't fit much.  This way I have a place to store some of my studio supplies until the basement renovation is done, as well as linens, suitcases, etc.

 

The original chimney is exposed in this room (next to the wood pillar).  I don't see any sign of a fireplace.  I keep joking with Allen about stripping the paint off the brick. We had done that in our last house, where there was exposed brick in the basement. It had taken days.  So every now and then this week, I'll say "I changed my mind, I think we should strip the paint off the bricks." Allen doesn't find it funny...

I am not sure about my new fancy washing machine.  I have only done a couple of loads, but need to try out some of the other settings. The dryer is great though, fast compared to my old one.

Office/sewing room update

Previously called the office/sewing room, we temporarily called it the mold room. 

I removed the wood trim around the top and started to remove the wallpaper.  It looks like the wood trim is still up in the picture because the wall was painted burgundy previously.  I started pulling off the textured wallpaper. Things were looking pretty good until I got to the exterior wall.

They loved their textured wallpaper:

Prior to tearing down the wallpaper.

They even put textured wallpaper on the ceilings. It's bubbling in this room, so it's coming down.

As I was tearing down the yellow paper on the exterior wall,  blackish brown gunk started showing up on the exterior wall.

It appears to be between layers of wallpaper, not on the plaster wall itself.  Allen got a mold test kit and it seems to either be dead mold, or more likely dirt. When sprayed with wallpaper remover, it runs down the wall like dirt.

The yellow layer of wallpaper came up pretty easy, but the older layers required more tools and chemicals. My guess is that there are two layers under the yellow, a floral one, and a barfy pink one. One of them was painted over, which makes the removal much more difficult.

The previous owners had removed some parts of the previous layers, but not all of it.  So in this picture you can see painted plaster (where there was no paper), and bare plaster (where we removed paper that was painted).

After Priming:

Finished Room!

Now I can move in my office desk and sewing table, fabrics, etc.  So glad I have a room of my own to work in!

Addicted to roving

Before moving to Kearney, NE from Louisville, CO, I had to stock up on wool roving for my felting projects.   Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins in Boulder, CO has a fantastic selection of roving (corriedale and merino) at very reasonable prices, as well as quite a few white options (My white shown here was $1.05 an ounce).

This was my last stop before hitting the road for Nebraska. I splurged on a hand colored braid, but thought it would make a nice felted Nebraska cornfield. I can order from them and they will ship it to me, which is a great option.  I haven't found a place nearby for roving. You would think there are sheep somewhere in Nebraska, right?

Kitchen cleaning

These pictures all kind of look the same, but cleaning the kitchen, especially the floor, was a new level of gross. Here is the before picture, look at the dust on the ceiling fan. The floor was even worse.

Here are the "after" shots. It doesn't look much different. It was nice to  be able to unpack some boxes. I plan to put a dark stain on the cabinets, but it is very low on the list of priorities. The flooring will need to be changed eventually.  I am hoping there might be hardwood under the linoleum.

Bathroom in the new house

I never posted a picture of the large first floor bathroom.  It is a huge room, but looks small since it's so dark.  The last people that decorated loved their textured wallpaper.  It is in many rooms (and on many ceilings).  The real estate agent thought it was to disguise the cracks and variances in the plaster walls, but I think they just liked the look.  The major drag is they would wallpaper before putting up the trim (wainscoting, and base and crown molding), so I have to cut the wallpaper adjacent to the trim with an Xacto knife before removing it.

Who doesn't want peacock light fixtures (aside from me)? I plan to have the tub turned 90 degrees so I can wall mount a hook for the shower sprayer, as well as provide more space next to the toilet.  I don't know why these are so cramped in such a large room.  This is going to be a a bit of a big job, because the flooring needs to be changed out as well. It is currently linoleum with nasty permanent stains. I think we will go with those large rectangular tiles that are popular now.  We will have to move all the fixtures out (including the heavy claw foot tub), get the floors done, then move them back in.  The pedestal sink is very wobbly so we will change that to a cabinet as well. Once the tub is moved, this will be a much more functional space. Right now, the only "normal" shower is the one in the basement.