Painting Solid Pine Doors White

The previous owners of our house decided to paint all the molding in the house white when they listed it for sale but for some reason never decided to do the same for the doors.  Various contractors and my husband have tried to convince me that this is a new trend and I should love it but I just don't.  I like the look of clean white doors.  Anjay did not like the thought of changing them at all because they are solid wood doors and newer houses didn't have that.  He was completely against painting them (like he was the orange fireplace and we all love how that turned out).  I got a quote anyways because 5 panel doors are my favorite but it would have been over $3000!!!  In the end we had them all sanded down and painted.  The process has taken WEEKS to do which is much longer than I think anyone anticipated and the contractors still have 3 left.  But at the end of the day, it looks phenomenal.  We changed out the hardware to complete the look.  What do you think?

Modern Spiral Stairs

Here is the complete process for the back set of spiral stairs from start to finish. This is the first project of many to be completed on this phase of the renovation.

Before the project started there was nothing functionally wrong with the stairs.  They just looked off from the rest of the renovations we had done to our great room (family room, kitchen, and loft/kids playroom)

 

They had to take off the spindles because they said that there wouldn't be a good way to stain the whole thing otherwise.  When they first stained it, it looked really dark so they had to sand it down and do it again.

 

They custom made over 150 white spindles but unfortunately when they started going up there were a couple of problems.  I was concerned it was going to look like a wall due to the fact that the size of the spindles were increasing x2 because of the spacing of the wholes on the steps.  They said that they had to use the same holes otherwise the banister would have to be replaced.  It turned out to be what I feared and on top of it, since the custom spindles were made by hand, they did not all look the same and had some quality issues.

 

They took them down and we brainstormed for solutions to fix the problems.  I decided to use a thin piece of wood over the holes so we could space them out however we wanted to.  I also determined that the custom spindles were making it too busy so we used a pattern of 2 plain square spindles and 1 custom one. 

 

In the end, it looks perfect! I am so excited to walk into my family room and see how much more modern the stairs now look.  Thrilled!

Thats Just My Face

I was watching this week's episode of The Bachelor and one of the girls, Amanda, looked like she was about to knock someone out.  All the girls were saying what a bitch she was even though she was saying nothing.  The second that the bachelor walked in, her face lit up and she became a completely different person.  Now maybe she really is a two timing bitch, I have no idea we are only 2 episodes in, but maybe the girls are just reading her all wrong like everyone does with me.

A few months ago, I was at my friends 30th birthday party having a decent time, nothing too amazing, nothing too boring, just a good time.  When the night was slowing down for me, I headed towards the exit and had to wait for the elevator.  A stranger walks by me, looks at me for a split second, and asks me why I am so mad?  Considering I was not at all mad, I had no idea how to even answer.  Now this is not the first time I have been told that I need to smile more or been asked why I am so grumpy but never when I was actually having a good time.  Fast forward to New Years weekend and I am hanging out with Anjay's cousin, and sister-in-law, etc having a really good time catching up.  While in between conversations, the waiter comes up to me and tells me "You look like you're not having a good time anymore."  Again while being perfectly content, people think I am miserable.  Appearantly I need to get a face lift because even my own brother has told me that he doesn't enjoy hanging out with me because I look miserable.  My new response for people and that bold waiter who tell me how they think I am feeling, "thats just my face".  

So next time you are hanging out with me, please just remember that even if I look really pissed off, I am smiling on the inside :)

Am I Really that Hard to Please?

I feel horrible about making my contractors redo work.  The first time is when they started to restain the railing and steps.  I happen to peak in after they had a small portion of it done, they asked me what I thought and my initial reaction was that it was too dark.  They told me that this is the color I had asked for "espresso" and that it is the same paint that was used in the sample even though the sample looked quite a bit lighter.  I told them that it must be through the application because even the two samples both used the same color but one was quite darker because it was 2 coats.  They assured me that it was only one coat so it is as light as it can be.  I let them convince me for the moment but felt unsettled about it and had to keep coming back in to see if I would like it anymore.  At the end, I told them I was dissappointed with how it turned out.  They finally listened and started coming up with options.  They ended up having to sand it all down again and this time diluted the stain a bit to make it lighter.  All in all 4 guys, 4 hours = 16 man hours

Next came the spindles, in the original contract they put in 1 3/4 in square spindles.  Then I asked if we could so something a bit more interesting.  They decided to do try something custom.  The custom one sample came out nice so I said go for it.  They spent 1 day custting the spindles to size, 1 day routing it, 1 day installing and it just did not look right.  It looked way to busy and way too close together.  They said they had to put them back in the same spot as the old ones, but since the size was much bigger, the open flowing space ceased to exist.  Not to mention a lot of the custom spindles were badly damaged.  I decided to go to Home Depot and see what was available and got some thinner plain ones.  They pulled down all the ones they put up and in the end we are going with a cobination of home depot and custom ones.  At the end of the day, they are only charging me $350 more and have been super nice about it but I still feel horrible.  I don't mean to cause extra work for people, or even make the project be so delayed but I am putting a lot of money into it so I want it to be perfect.    I feel happy about my choice but am still feeling unsettled.  Crossing my fingers it all turns out well....

Stepping Up - Before Pictures

We are underway into the 3rd phase of the reno to our home.  1st phase was kitchen, laundry room, powder room, and foyer.  2nd was roof.  3rd is both set of stairs, office book case, wood floors and doors.  There is a 4th and 5th planned too but we won't go into it now.  First up, the back spiral staircase.  We do get a number of compliments on the cool factor that the stairs offer but also some scared moms of little ones falling through as we did when we first moved in.    My big grief is I really hate all the red oak wood!

They have already removed the spindles and refinished the banister and steps.  I will post after pictures as soon as they are done.  We are going with espresso rails steps and posts and white custom spindles.  In the front of the house, they are completely redoing the newel posts, spindles and railing.  



 

 

 

Honest to a Fault

My brain is so full of thoughts and information that I have decided to start a blog to do a data dump so to speak. Writing a blog can be tricky business. There are a number of things I really shouldn't write about. The things that come to mind are:

• My husband- who asks me why I updated my status on Facebook
• My family-which would make for amazingly entertaining and unbelievable stories but the fallback would be too great
• My friends - who may actually be bored one day and read the blog
• My actual thoughts - One of the primary reasons I fear getting drunk

Other than that, I'm an open book but I am told that I am honest to a fault, a trait that Jennifer Garner listed when determining her ideal child in "The Odd Life of Timothy Green". When I heard those words for the first time, I knew that was the perfect way to describe my personality. It's the reason my husband choose me and also the reason we fight. My closest friends explain to me that it takes a strong person to endure the raw truth as people don't always want to hear that their butt looks big in those jeans. They also tell me that now that they know me they know that the questions I ask are truly out of curiosity but some people take them as insults. I have tried to be conscious of this fault of mine but to no avail. Five minutes after meeting someone new or even talking to a sales person in a store, they see right past the curtain and I am doomed.

I have tried to determine the root of my honesty and I know some of it is learned from my father. There was also a very distinct day that I can pinpoint in high school that triggered a change in me. I was sitting in the cafeteria during a break period eavesdropping on the a group of the popular girls sitting near me. Eight of them in total, all looking perfectly groomed in their Abercrombie and Fitch corduroy skirts, white blouses, sweater vests, and platform shoes (I went to a prep school in Lake Forest). After 15 minutes of them all gossipping and having a grand old time, 2 had to head back to class. The 6 remaining girls ripped the 2 to pieces the second they were beyond earshot. I empathised with  these 2 girls who walked away and knew nothing about what their "friends" were saying about them. I was determined from that moment on that if didn't particularly like someone, I would not pretend otherwise.  Retrospect tells me what a bad decision that was! I also decided that I would always treat someone they way I wanted to be treated. Which sounds good, but has some unintended consequences.

Being honest to a fault isn't my only personality flaw. Since you are getting to know me, I might as well put some of them out on the table. The first on the list being one of those unintended consequences.

• Too high expectations - I expect people to treat me the way I treat them which is unlikely
• Serious - I have a hard time just cutting loose and having fun
• Jealous/Needy - I am not good at sharing things, people, or ideas
• Refusal to let dead dogs lie - I feel compelled to discuss things even if I knew bringing it up can potentially make the situation worse and don't feel right again until my perspective is heard
• Too controlling- I have a need to have control on all aspects of my life. 
• Have many pet peeves - like someone making you wait
• Too sensitive - I am hurt pretty easily

They say the 1st step is acknowledgement but I have been on this step for the last 6 years and have made very little progress towards the next. 6 years ago I became a mother and figured out that it was time to grow up and just get over it. 

I am not all bad though. There are a number of things that I have to be proud of, which will be the future content of this blog.

• 2 beautiful, smart, well mannered little girls
• A 80% of the time wonderful marriage
• A successful career as an Project Manager and Business Analyst
• Being someone that people can depend on to get things done and be there when you need me
• Always following through
• Putting my family first
• A beautiful home and an eye for design

That's me in a nutshell, the good, bad and ugly. Now if you still decide to read my blog, I will try my best to stick to the bottom 7 topics, specifically the first and the last one which will be a lot less depressing to read about than this one.  Here is to a bright positive future together...until I have such a juicy story that I can not resist the temptation but to write....