Apartment Therapy Cure Week One: Creating Your Vision
Well, week one of the AT Cure is almost over and I'm already behind. Pretty typical. I did clean the house yesterday (not thoroughly but I'll get into that later) and I think I've sat just about everywhere there is to sit here. Since we're in an old house that we knew needed work when we got it, our list of repairs is way beyond what could conceivably be accomplished in eight weeks. Yeah the door on the upstairs linen closet doesn't close all the way, but when you consider everything else that needs to be done around that house, that doesn't even come close to making the list. Repairs that I'd like to get done (and conceivably could get done) in 8 weeks would be:
Finish installing the dishwasher (it's been been months since we got it)
Install the curtain rods in the Living room
Fix broken doorbell
Get estimate to fix leaky radiators (and fix them if affordable)
While this is going on we will still be working on our dining room so I may not accomplish as much as I'd like in the rest of the house. The plasterer came yesterday and fixed the holes in the ceiling and we are finishing the rest of the spackling today. Tomorrow we will be sanding which is why I didn't bother to clean thoroughly. No matter how well I had cleaned, it would be covered in dust tomorrow.
My office "before" shot. The office currently looks like this because our dining room looks like this:
I had tidied up the office a few weeks ago, but once we started the dining room and had to move the dining table into the office it all went downhill.
The vision:
There are some rooms in this house that I have a pretty specific vision for (look at my flickr faves and you'll see a definite theme in kitchen photos) but then there are others I have no strong ideas for (my office). In general, I'd like to be able to entertain more and having a dining room will certainly help and I'd like to have a place for doing crafts that is inspiring, not stress inducing.
There are certain elements of my taste that are fairly fickle and other parts that are more constant. Overall I'd like the house to be flexible so that I can mix things up a bit, especially when I find cool stuff at yard sales. I don't want each room to be so rigidly matched and "decorated" that it either looks like a magazine photo or that I can't move a chair from one room into another when I find a new one because it "doesn't go." My taste is a mix of both vintage (early 20th century art nouveau, deco, retro 40's style and MCM), and some more modern design. I'm not into things that are especially girly (a little girly is okay), but I don't do hard edged minimalism either. Anything semi permanent to permanent I want to keep true to the house (1915 bungalow) and have more fun with the more temporal items like furniture and art.
Yikes, that makes it sound pretty complicated. Well I guess that my challenge for next eight weeks.
Finish installing the dishwasher (it's been been months since we got it)
Install the curtain rods in the Living room
Fix broken doorbell
Get estimate to fix leaky radiators (and fix them if affordable)
While this is going on we will still be working on our dining room so I may not accomplish as much as I'd like in the rest of the house. The plasterer came yesterday and fixed the holes in the ceiling and we are finishing the rest of the spackling today. Tomorrow we will be sanding which is why I didn't bother to clean thoroughly. No matter how well I had cleaned, it would be covered in dust tomorrow.
My office "before" shot. The office currently looks like this because our dining room looks like this:
I had tidied up the office a few weeks ago, but once we started the dining room and had to move the dining table into the office it all went downhill.The vision:
There are some rooms in this house that I have a pretty specific vision for (look at my flickr faves and you'll see a definite theme in kitchen photos) but then there are others I have no strong ideas for (my office). In general, I'd like to be able to entertain more and having a dining room will certainly help and I'd like to have a place for doing crafts that is inspiring, not stress inducing.
There are certain elements of my taste that are fairly fickle and other parts that are more constant. Overall I'd like the house to be flexible so that I can mix things up a bit, especially when I find cool stuff at yard sales. I don't want each room to be so rigidly matched and "decorated" that it either looks like a magazine photo or that I can't move a chair from one room into another when I find a new one because it "doesn't go." My taste is a mix of both vintage (early 20th century art nouveau, deco, retro 40's style and MCM), and some more modern design. I'm not into things that are especially girly (a little girly is okay), but I don't do hard edged minimalism either. Anything semi permanent to permanent I want to keep true to the house (1915 bungalow) and have more fun with the more temporal items like furniture and art.
Yikes, that makes it sound pretty complicated. Well I guess that my challenge for next eight weeks.
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