Operation Home

This post begins as an ode to thrift stores. Oh, how I missed them. From the time that we found our new home and put in an offer until one mere week ago, I hadn’t allowed myself to step foot in one. I figured it was just more stuff to move if I found something. And I started getting twitchy. Nervous. Grabby.

I missed the hunt.

I missed the finds.

I missed the awesome 80’s slow-rock at Goodwill. (Yes, I’m that weirdo who sings along with the mad tunes as I troll the aisles. …I mean, come on… it’s WILSON PHILLIPS! Don’t tell me that you don’t pop into Goodwill strictly for a good WP fix.)

Anyways, I couldn’t wait to reestablish myself as Resident Thriftie of this establishment. And NOW, I have some specific items in mind to find (which, despite my recent thrift store visits, I have not yet found. So, it’s ON.)

For example, we decided to use Drex as a buffet in the dining area rather than our dresser in the bedroom…

(Please ignore the floor sliders under Drex… He ways a TON and I couldn’t get them out. And also, I forgot they were there until I looked at this picture just now. Go me.)

So anyways, now we need a new dresser for our bedroom. I know, I know… If you read about the PROFOUND struggle that I overcame to find a mid-century dresser the first time around you think I’m crazy. Well, I’ll have you know that I AM crazy. It’s a sickness of the MCM variety. I.just.cant.help.it. I’m seriously craving another mid-century modern dresser to fill the dumping ground that is our bedroom. Can’t you just see it?? …Isn’t it grand?? I’m hoping that the hunt is a little less taxing than last time and much quicker… I mean, poor Joey is living out of garbage bags. Garbage bags, I tell ya!! (In all fairness, I suggested that he use Drex in the bedroom until we found something else, to which he stated (and I quote) “I would rather live out of garbage bags than move that heavy {insert choice word here} again.” So, really, maybe it’s not that big a deal (tohim).)

Now, let’s hop back to the dining area once again….

This space really excites me because it’s the one (and only) space that I know exactly what I want to do. For example, the dining table will be painted white, then I’ll find a neutral, natural fiber rug (like jute or sisal) that’s large enough to accommodate the table and chairs. We’re very lucky as Joey’s parents had these patterned Ikea chairs and gave them to us when they bought new ones. Score. Our Ikea Lack floating shelves will be hung above Drex and I plan to hang a pair of floaty white curtains alongside the picture window (with bamboo roman shades between them?? I’m trying to come up with a window covering option for night that doesn’t obscure the view during the day).

You can see that I’ve put zero effort into styling the built-ins. Part of this was lack of time due to the many time-suck-must-do-tasks that have come up recently, the other part is that I want to paint the built-ins white before spending time making them pretty accessory-wise.

Getting back to my thrift store wish list, we’re also in search of a different media cabinet for the living space….

My cute little media unit from the last house didn’t work in here, so it’s in the foyer now. It was just too small to be a media cabinet now that the TV rests above it. We needed something larger to ground the TV. You may recognize the cabinets that I revamped for the foyer of our last house standing in. The TV stand between them was original to the set… I just need to paint it white if it stays. I’m just not sold on it staying. I’m on the hunt for some type of mid-century shelving unit or storage cabinet to replace it with, so that I can move these white cabinets to the atrium area of our bedroom. So, I’m searching for something cool. It might be a dresser. It might be shelves. It just depends on what I find. It needs to be something relatively narrow, but wide enough to accomodate the equipment. The world is my media-unit-oyster at this point. So, we’ll see.

The rest of the living room currently looks like this….

(Lucas, ‘er, Leonardo, requested a cameo… Icouldntresist.)

I haven’t officially hung any art yet. I’ve just been leaning things against the walls to get an idea of where I want them. As for window treatments, I’m kind of stuck on what to do for the sliders. I tried hanging a pair of white curtains the other day and it just looked silly. The fireplace is way too close to make curtain panels an option. I took them down almost immediately. I was thinking maybe bamboo roman shades hung high, but then the color is tricky as I don’t want them to compete with the fireplace. Hmmmm…. Only time will tell, I suppose.

And lastly, here is the wet bar as it is now…

I just accessorized a wee bit, though I’m still noodling with it. As I mentioned in this post, this area will be completely transformed once we’re done with it. Since there’s no lighting on this side of the room, I hung an inexpensive plug-in sconce from Ikea. Because the side view of the mounting bracket wasn’t super attractive…

I simply wrapped it with a bit of burlap ribbon….

Problem solved.

So, that’s where we’re at with the living/dining space after 1.5 weeks of officially living here. I still have a lot of work to do decor-wise, but at least we have our furniture in place and the spaces are functional for the most part. Our spare room is currently stacked with boxes of decor that are just screaming to be unpacked. You seriously can’t walk in there right now. I’ll get to it soon enough, I’m sure. And, of course, I’ll update ya’ll as we go.

So, does anybody have any window treatment suggestions for slider doors?? Any words of wisdom?

No, really. I’m serious. Everywhere.

So, y’all may have read about the flood we had before we moved in. Since then, we’ve been up to our ears in tasks devoted to water. Ya see, a few days after the flood was resolved, we came back to the house, only to discover this in our master closet….

See that dark spot?? Water.

Fortunately, a roofer was already coming that day to give an estimate, so I showed him the spot and he climbed on the roof to inspect. Turns out, the fireplace was missing flashing where it met the roof. This meant that when it rained, the water ran down the roof, smacked into the fireplace, and dripped down into the house rather than being diverted around the fireplace by the flashing.

We scheduled for him to fix the issue the soonest he could fit us in… Which was one week later on Friday. Or so we thought. On Friday, he called and said that he needed to reschedule for the following week. And wouldn’t ya know… Friday night, it rained. Aaaaand the water spot returned, right on schedule.

So, Joey went up into the attic to locate the leak and place a bowl to catch the water….

He said he was simply locating the water spot with the screwdriver. Other individuals may say, “You tell that spot who’s boss, hottie.”. (Okay. So, it was me. I said that. And I added the “hottie”. But, only because it’s accurate.)

Anyways, while he was tending to the roof leak, I started cleaning the shower for the first time. I didn’t take any pics because, well… I was “just cleaning the shower” and didn’t expect to be blogging about it.

Dontchya just love it when a “just” turns into two days of work and the entire house reeking of bleach??

Spoiler alert: that’s what happened.

Ya see, as I cleaned the shower I was wholly able to appreciate the sheer amount of mildew in the space. It was insane. The ceiling of the shower looked solid black in most places, where it should’ve been black tile with white grout. In fact, mildew was on every plane of the shower. And it was having a party. Boozin’ it up on all the moisture. Lushes.

So, I doused the shower with bathroom mildew remover. Which did NOTHING. And I mean nothing. Not.a.dent.

Later that day, I decided to just take the plunge and do it. I threw on some old clothes, covered my hair with an old T-shirt, threw on my respirator and scrubbed EVERY SINGLE grout line with 100% bleach on a sponge (Side note: Did you know that if sponges are allowed to sit in bleach too long, they turn into a sticky pile of mush? They do. They totally do. Now you know.). Two sponges later, the bleach worked like a charm. Even the worst of the grody areas morphed into nice, white grout lines. It was brilliant.

Unfortunately, during this time, I also discovered quite a few areas of missing or cracked grout lines which were allowing water to seep in.

So, I whipped out the waterproof silicone caulk and patched each and every vulnerable spot (still no pictures, sorry… but the basic technique was, squirt silicone caulk into grout line, smooth it with my finger, and then buff the tiles to remove any remaining residue. It was amazing how the silicone blended right in with the grout.). The next day, I got to here…

The threshold of the shower door. Riddled with mildew. So gross. I started by removing all traces of moldy silicone with a razor…

…and the threshold came right up… Which left this…

Even grosser. Ick. So, I once again donned my sexy respirator face…..

…removed the adhesive backing from the threshold and then bleached the heck out of it and the surrounding tile….

Which, again, left the grout lines sparkling white. Once everything was dry, I recaulked with clear silicone, which left this…

SO much better. I hadn’t gotten to completely scrubbing the soap scum off that back tile tile yet, so just ignore that. Once I was done, I was left with this…

Like new, right? Still outrageously ugly (and coffin-like… seriously, doesn’t the shower resemble a coffin? My aunt pointed that out and it was completely spot-on), but now it’s mildew freeeeeee!!!!

And just to completely divulge the series of water-related events, here’s what Joey was doing while I finishing up with the shower….

Replacing the leaky washer spigots that apparently have been very slowly dripping into the wall. More water. Jeepers. I’ll never understand why one would allow moisture-related issues to persist in a home. It’s just no bueno. He did a great job though. We now have shiny, new water spigots (please excuse the dark phone pic)….

I still need to paint the walls…. so add this room to my list, since (again), no touch up paint was left for us. But I’ll take dry to perfectly painted any day.

Oh yeah, and then there was this…

The areas of the covered porch that Joey had to patch due to mold growing around the leaky skylight (which mysteriously was not visible during our home inspection. Riddle me that.). We still need to caulk and paint, which should happen soon.

Um, then, we ran the dishwasher…

And it leaked too due to a worn out seal. Oy. It was a small leak, but still. Small can lead to big if not tended to. So, I siliconed the gap in the seal and all was well with the world (Ithink).

In any case, despite these issues, we really are loving our new house. I swear. We really are. It’s cozy and just so US. It’s amazing how it felt like home almost immediately. It’s just completely taken us by surprise that we’ve experienced all of these moisture issues so soon after taking possession. It makes us wonder how long these problems persisted prior to us buying the home. We’re doing the best we can to knock ’em out one by one and are learning a lot (to say the least). Aside from that, we’re slowly getting settled in and I can’t wait to show you progress pics. They’re coming soon! As are some fun decorating posts (finally)… It’s been way too long. I have so much pent up creative energy just waiting to get it’s decorating on. 🙂