Renovation, Remodel, or Update?

Ah, yes, I have a blog.  I haven't been blogging.  But you know that.  Again I give my apologies and hope to do better in the future.  I seem to go in spurts. 

But this time a I have very, very good reason for my absence.  We have been super busy working on our house.  Yes, the purple carpet is up in all the rooms except the girls' bedrooms and ours.  It'll go a bit later but it's going.  That's the important thing.  I'm not sure if what we're doing qualifies as a renovation, remodel, or simply an update.  It might be all three.  I'm thinking a renovation involves moving stationary things such as walls and doors.  We have that.  A remodel must be replacing existing stationary things such as wall texture, flooring, etc.  We have that.  An update is bringing your home from the 1990s into the current decade such as lighting fixtures and cabinet hardware.  We have that as well.  Of course, these are definitions a la Shelly, but seeing that I am a 44 1/2 year old, it makes me very, very wise. 

I'll be blogging about our changes going on.  I will warn you, however, that I will be keeping it very real around here.  You'll know when I mess up.  I get a lot of ideas from fellow bloggers.  I use their instructions.  It often does not turn out as expected.  It's probably me, I'll admit that.  HOWEVER, as many times as I've done things, I know that all these people couldn't have possibly done it correctly the first time.  That's the problem.  You watch HGTV all day and watch these professionals do it and you think it is so easy.  Then you try it. 

Fiasco. 

So, you'll be getting updates on our updates (I'm so witty!!).  But I'll be sharing our faux paus and my renegade ways.  My partner in crime will be Doug. My husband is great a doing a lot of things: electrical, moving 2x4s, sawing a log in half, but he is not allowed to caulk or do anything that requires fine motor skills. I'll admit right up front now that I am very independent, so waiting on my husband to come home a fix something isn't my cup of tea, so I will often improvise a solution so I can get on with the task at hand.  Case in point today:  There are quarters glued into the door jamb of the hall bath.  Yes, if you demo our home, take care with the bathroom door--you could be $1 richer.  We moved the door and used the existing door jamb.  The door opened a different way, so we had to install the door knob face plate thingy (really technical I know).  To make a long story short, I used 4 quarters to fill the circular hole from the drill bit and then applied wood filler on top so I could stain it.  I could have waited on Doug to come home and tell me what to do (he'd said something like 'just caulk it'--his standard answer for anything with a hole), or I could have run to JoAnns and purchased these wooden disks that would have been perfect for the hole.  But all that would have cost me time and I have too many projects going on to waste time, so I improvised. 

I'll warn you ahead of time, I'm not the best with pictures.  I have been taking pictures along the way, but I often forget until I get in the middle of a project.  But with my superior linguistic skills, I'll give you a picture with words.  You're captivated already aren't you!!

For you do-it-yourselfer's out there: one word of caution.  Read labels.  I about killed myself this afternoon.  Doug picked me up another can of orange peel texture spray.  It was different than the one I had previously used the day before.  It said oil-based on the can.  Andrei was taking a nap, so I closed the bathroom door and began my skillful spray on technique.  Within a minute my nose hairs were burning.  I opened up the bathroom window and inhaled.  Then I about peed in my pants when Tiger Lily jumped up at me and barked.  I literally had to go outside and just breathe some good ole fresh clean Texas air for a few minutes.  Then I read the can.  It's like all over it: USE IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA. 

No kidding.