Thursday, January 29, 2015

Grass is always greener...

... when there isn't any. Thats right, we finally got rid of the grass (cloth) wallpaper in our hall and now I'm no longer dreaming whats on the other side.

Its here and its gorgeous!






The grass cloth was one of the least offensive wallpapers in the house, which is why it survived so long, but after the rest of the house looked so fresh, new and white, it was an obvious relic. 

So off came the wallpaper (rather easily, I might add) and we began to plan the board-and-batten replacement. Actually, its batten. The 'board' is just wall. I'm sure in the days of plaster walls, it was all but impossible to create a flat, smooth surface but drywall works beautifully. And, actually, the battens weren't that hard either. 

We had to work with the original baseboard molding, which was high and quite beautiful in its own right, but didn't obviously lend itself to the very straight battens. So Bill came up with a piece of molding that would meet it, and create a flat surface for the vertical battens to butt up against. The battens themselves were just math - figuring out the spacing on each wall and then buying the right amount from Home Depot. 

Then came adding the horizontal molding of our choosing, which for us included a picture rail on one of the walls. Right now, its only got the one, but I plan on adding a few overlapping pieces.

Bill worked a few days on adding a second light down the hall. Not sure what the electrician was thinking when he did these homes. Only one light at the top of the stairs and if the bathroom and bedroom doors are closed at the end of the hall (which would make sense!), you can't see a damn thing, which would be annoying in its own right but the linen closet is also at the end of the hall and with no light I can't figure out if I'm grabbing toilet paper or a pillow! So in went a matching, mint light!

We are very happy with the hall. So many projects in our home were done quickly, out of necessity. We had 30 more walls of wallpaper to remove and 30 more walls to paint. And that was just the walls! But now that we are not facing a home's worth of work, we can take more time on our projects. The hall took a couple weekends and night trips to Home Depot but we painted with expertise, planned and planned before purchasing a single batten, and even spackled, sanded, and caulked before painting to get a beautifully integrated piece. 

We are very happy with it and it sure is a refreshing change from yellowed wallpaper! 

Even the new lady is pleased enough to use it as a modeling backdrop...


(How's my lighting? Does my coat look nice?) 



Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Family Round Here

Its growing. 
Nope, nope, not that news yet. This baby is much furrier (well, I hope) than our future human babies will be. 


Meet Lana


She has one ear up, one down, permanently 


She's a super cuddler and melts into your lap 


She gets along (pretty) well with her big brother


She sleeps pretty well


Plays really well 


And is a good companion to our Oxy...

 which is why we opened our home to her. For a while, we thought Oxford could use with a bit more socialization. Every time we introduced him to a new dog, he would lunge to attack and then come back over for a good ol' game of tag. By then, the other pup was less than fond of Oxford playtime. 

So we started our search for an in-house puppy playmate and soon came across our gal Lana. 
They work really well together, actually, play well together, respect one another 90% of the time, and keep each other in check (Oxford actually pushes her if she takes too long to 'sit' at mention of a treat, and Lana comes to our rescue if Oxy snaps at us for taking away a found Kleenex). 

We're very happy with this little lady and are glad to call her a McEwan!