Workin' for the Weekend

Before: Dresser I found in my parents' garage
Plan to paint it black and add new knobs to go in office

We didn’t have too much on the agenda this weekend, so we were able to focus on some projects. Saturday morning, I dragged Jord to John Deere Seeding Group Family Day. He saw my cube and the factory, met a couple people and we were out of there in 45 minutes. Then we picked up the mirror that was being repaired for the dresser I’m going to refinish. Now that I have all the supplies, I really need to start painting that thing. Jord, my mom and I spent a couple hours at Carpenter’s house – the intent was to meet his wife and discuss the curtains that I’d like her to make for the living room, dining room, kitchen and office. After introductions and a tour of their home, we didn’t broach the subject until it was time to leave so we didn’t get into specifics. After further discussion, my mom and I think it may be more cost effective to just buy some curtains I have found online for the living and dining rooms. Once you add the cost of fabric (not to mention trying to find the right fabric) and the price she’ll charge, it might not make sense to go custom. Plus she’s a busy lady and I’m not sure how long it will take. We needed curtains weeks ago, not only for privacy but to protect the floors. I have something very specific in mind for each room and, since I haven’t found anything, it’s just been easier to move it to the bottom of the list and focus on other things.

So we got home and were ready to hang pictures – the goal of the day. We didn’t have a lot to work with, so it’s all spread around the house. We’ll just add as we find things. We started in the hallway of all places, and after about five hours, we finished up with the office. It was a team effort! Although Jord isn’t exactly thrilled with the placement of everything, it certainly makes the house feel more homey.

 

Collage of pictures in the office

On Sunday, I started my housework at 7:30am. I work better in the morning, so it’s best if I just get up and at it. I began with scraping, which became the theme of the day. Jord had painted some storm windows and my task was to scrape the excess and dried paint from the window panes before he switched them out with the screens. Once that was done, I cleaned out this little cubby in the basement and filled it with excess candles, vases and decorations. Now everything is within arm’s reach! At that point it was about 11:00 and I decided to join Jord outside to get some things accomplished in the yard. I didn’t quite make it to yard work – instead, I scraped the exteriors of all the windows, a project that I’d think the painters would have done. I found that some of the windows are so old that they’re falling apart. The house has a mixture of old and new windows, so we may be replacing five windows – one in each bathroom, one in the dining room, and the two that line the sides of the large picture window that we already ordered. We would have ordered them all at once had we known that they were in such poor condition. If they’re installed before the end of the year we’ll qualify for a tax credit.

Basement cubby for excess decor items

At about 3:00pm we cleaned up and ran some errands – dropped a load of cardboard at the recycling center, delivered some items to Goodwill, hit up Target, stopped at Sears for Friends & Family – then had a lovely dinner at Jord’s mom’s house. A nice end to the weekend and start of another work week!