Pink Lady

I was going to hem the curtain, but I kind of like how it pools.  This room got full of stuff quickly...  I might just leave it alone until she gets here!

I could not resist the local "Texas Lady" t-shirt for her.  I doubt pink is her first choice, but this one was waaaaaaaay cuter than the white one.

Guest Room is Almost Ready

Almost ready for Jinna!!! 

Guest Room Makeover Part Deux

I think this looks like a designer lamp.  I completely found it by accident at Home Depot.  The three metal wall hangings came from Target Home.  On sale!  Less than $30.  What is crazy is that the pattern in the metal and the pattern in the lampshade are almost identical.  It looks like I did it on purpose.  This is rare because, quite honestly, as much as I would like to plan a room and purchase for it, I usually just fall in love with certain individual pieces and then put them together and hope it works. 

My friend Jinna is coming to stay for four days this month, so I am scrambling to make the space nice for her.  This room was completely empty except for a footstool and steamer, so I am getting together as many pieces as possible to make it look finished and comfortable. 

Still to Do:

Drag in the blow-up bed

Cover the bed in the silky brown coverlet and king shams

Bring in bedside table and alarm clock

Bring in a chair

Steam the curtains

Guest Room Makeover Part One

I found this great lamp at Home Depot (on sale, of course).  It's gun metal gray and when you flick the switch the shade is translucent and has a cool pattern that shines through.  I love this curtain.  I only used one super-long panel on a tension rod.  Tension rods are so easy to use and they don't do any wall damage to the rental.  This panel and tension rod came from Target.  It's faux dupioni silk, and it's pretty convincing.  When you are ready to move out, you pop it out and take it with you to your next place!

Girly Desk Set-Up

How to be super girly:

Hang your Tiffany necklace off of your lamp finial so that you will always see it when you wake up

Shop the mirror section at Target for final clearance

Buy white writing desk from Target online when they have free shipping so you don't have to contend with it while small children watch you wrestle it out of your cart and into your trunk in the parking lot

Buy turquoise boxes from Tuesday Morning for less than $6 each

Set your small Venetian glass clock on the desk even though it stopped working 3 years ago

Hang free sheers that you found in your mother's garage

I Heart Turquoise

I love turquoise!  Turquoise IS the color of the season.  I got these shams for a smoking $11 (you try to find euro shams for less than $30 bucks a piece!) from a lady at work who sells stuff from every home-based business you can think of.  The embroidered turquoise pillow came from a boutique shop in St. Louis 10 years ago.  I've always loved it!  This year it gets center stage.

Progress on the Ugliest-Bathroom-In-the-World!

The fresh white curtain rod is hung, the fresh paint looks clean and unobtrusive, and the pretty translucent white shower curtain is up!

Still to Do:

Put neutral wallpaper over the center panels of the cabinets

Remove cabinet hardware and spray paint white

Give the floor a good scrub to remove paint flecks

Hang towel ring near sink

Paint ugly brass light fixture

etc.

Getting There

I sanded, I spackled, I primed for about 6 hours straight.  And today I painted.  For hours.  wow.  I had no idea this project would take so long.  I got paint everywhere.  But it is latex paint so it came up pretty easily with a sponge.  It looks so much better than that crusty old wallpaper.  I'm not finished yet, though.  I now have a leaky toilet from removing the tank to paint behind it.  I'm headed to Home Depot now.

Ugly Cabinets That I Am Afraid to Change

OK, so I take liberties with my lease when it comes to improvements. I'm painting the bathroom, for example. However, no one in their right mind would say I should "preserve" the hideous, soiled, drooping wallpaper from 1982. And I chose a clean neutral for the walls, so who could complain. But now I'm turning my attention to the elephant in the room. Those wooden monstrosities some might call cabinets. I don't know what to do. If I owned the place I would sand them, paint them white, and attach lovely turquoise crystal knobs. I read a blog about putting fabric over the cabinet doors. To be honest, it didn't really look that good. It looked like someone had a weird idea to draw attention to a cabinet with some ugly fabric. So I think the only safe route is contact paper. I found one in turquoise and white. I think I'm going to put it over the middle panel and paint the hardware the same Informal Ivory as the walls. But I'm getting ahead of myself here; I need to finish priming first. Lord my load is heavy.

Local Austin Furniture Diva

This local chick transforms some seriously icky stuff into beautiful furniture: http://www.gussiedupfurnishings.com/index.html

She had great before & after pictures!

I Primed, Therefore I Am

I primed tonight. I got a special Behr primer that is made for sealing drywall. I can't paint straight over drywall. It will sort of soak in and look stupid and I'll try to do 3 coats to fix it. Nah, think I'll just do it right the hard way and use a good primer first. Here is a pic of my primed (and slightly less hideous) bathroom.

Status of the Wallpaper

I threw all that hideous wallpaper away. So I had to spackle (I had never done this) because bits of the sad, sad, untextured drywall underneath the wallpaper was not perfectly smooth. So I spackled with a 4" plastic putty knife. I squished that stuff all around and didn't worry too much about making a mess because I knew I'd have to wait 5 hours and then sand it. I spackled on Sunday, sanded on Monday, vacuumed & started priming on Monday. I am so exhausted. I don't know how people have the stamina to do big rehab projects over a weekend. They must have adolescent children they enslave. That's what my mom had me for. Here is a picture of my spackling job.

Oh. My. God. Most Hideous Bathroom EVER

The upstairs bathroom in my place was DISGUSTING. And it's pretty roomy, too. Oh Lord. I won't go into the grossness. Just know I had yellow latex gloves and lots of 409 going on in there. This is the 1982 wallpaper. Yes, that is the color. And yes, those are 2 non-matching towel bars. Had to GO.

My biggest fear was that I would be taking a shower and the wallpaper would finally give up, peel down, and touch me while I was naked.

Yes, that is a bathtub full of wallpaper. Soooooo satisfying.

This is Rodney

This is Rodney the JRT. He is my mascot.

How I Ended Up in the Slums

I moved to Austin from California in July. I have worked in real estate for a little over five years. So basically, I made lots of money in California and then rapidly lost my house, my car, and my dignity when the market collapsed. Now I work for a cool start-up company in Austin where I deal with rehab properties all day, every day. I earn slightly more than a high-school dropout.

No matter, I still have Rodney The JRT. I found Rodney, or rather he found me, when I was showing a house in LA. I pulled up to the curb, opened my door, and he jumped in. My clients and I shooed him away, so he just jumped in one of the other car doors. The rest is history. I LOVE this dog. If I had to pick between my house, my car, or Rodney, I would choose the dog every time.

One day I was at work in Austin and I thought, hey, I'm almost 30, maybe I should move out of my mom's house! So I started searching craigslist for an apartment, or duplex, or something under 850 a month that had running water, electric, and a little patch of grass for Rodney to pee on. I looked for hours and hours and hours and... the only place that fit that description was one of the townhouses across the parking lot from my office. LOL. Right in front of my face.

So I went to look at it, and it was obvious right away that the owner had not touched it since 1982 (I looked up when the place was built -- 1982). She lived 2 hours away and she had been habitually renting it out to UT students the entire time. She was desperate to cover her mortgage, so a deal was struck. The place was a DUMP, but I knew I could make it look nice. Well, really, I knew if my mom helped me we could make it look nice. This blog is about making my sadly neglected townhouse look a little better, a little cleaner, and a lot hipper.