Maybe I picked up another burl wood table off of Craigslist. Maybe its a small one that is a perfect match of the other small burl table chilling in the bedroom. Maybe they are going to be nightstands, who knows! What of it?

Maybe I spent my only day off this week picking up said table from a lady on houseboat. Maybe because “Gary” sucks.

Yeah Gary. I’m giving it to you. HARD.

I’m not even sure how to start explaining this whole mess. Let us just say it is in progress and leave it at that.

Hey look! Remember when our garage doors were awful? Yeah, I sure do.

Original to the house, they haven’t been taken care of at all over the years. Peeling paint, giant holes, ghetto closures, warped wood…pretty much every horrible thing possible. They were in rough shape.

Now that most of the exterior painting is almost complete it was time to address the garage doors. We can’t afford new garage doors right now, but we could afford about $50 worth of materials to patch them up and paint them black. Behr Ultra Pure Black for the curious (in a semi-gloss).

First thing first. The Boy removed all the hardware, extra nails and broken bits of rotted wood. He sanded down the paint and patched all the damaged nooks and crannies. Seems like sixty years can fuck a door up.

All that white. That’s the exterior wood filler. Each door needed a couple of coats of patching and some major sanding work.

He got the first coat of black on the right door to see how it looked and then it was time to patch up all the wood edging (which was equally as damaged).

Here it is about halfway through. One door done, the other ready for paint. The trim was also getting patched up.

BEFORE

AFTER

The doors are painted and the trim is patched and ready for more of the white paint we’ve used on the entire house. Six five gallon buckets of it so far.

Bam! Sort of done. Almost.

There is still a bit of touch-up and a couple of spots that need paint. The Boy sort of gave up after he stepped in the five gallon bucket of paint while climbing down the ladder.

Yeah.

Seriously.

Like up to his calf in white paint.

Ruined his flip flop and everything.

Gotta say the painted doors are much better than the before though. All that boring prep work was really vital to get the shiny black looking killer. Now I’m thinking we don’t need to replace the doors after all. You know what I can’t wait for? I can’t wait till we are done with exterior projects and all the ugly tools and buckets and STUFF that accumulates can go away forever. I can’t remember a time when the exterior was clean and truly free of clutter or weeds or ugly crap just scattered everywhere. One day. I hope. Before this house kills us.

Oh my.

I just checked and the last time I went thrifting was in May – and come on that didn’t even really count. I mean I went to one estate sale and one thrift store on the way home which is pretty much like not going at all, you know, like dog years are to human years – two months not thrifting is like two years to me. Damn you crazy day job schedule!

On the way home from a botched trip of fun I made The Boy stop at my favorite Salvation Army in hopes of beating some traffic. I blame him. He found this painting of Captain Seaman or whatnot and pointed it out to me. Even though a moratorium was placed on buying any new art, I just couldn’t resist.

Look at that wee little child molester mustache and the lazy eye. Classic.

In order to show off Captain Cool Guy’s installation here is a sneaky peek at how the master bedroom is shaping up. The new dresser is chillaxing, waiting for an oily rub down and the bed is in some desperate need of attention. Still have a lot to do, but hopefully it turns out all right.

Anyone have a source for a perfect light gray duvet? That is super affordable and awesomely simple. Speaking of, why are bed linens so fugly and expensive!?

I picked up a vintage Danish dresser off a lady out in the desert. It was weird. Craigslist is weird sometimes.

I drove a good two hours after work in about 120 degree heat to get to her place in Indio. When I got out to her dismal place the piece was WAY MORE damaged than her posting or pictures alluded to. Chips, missing veneer, scratches, water damaged – pretty much the gamut of shit that can go wrong with furniture. Originally I had talked her down to $100 via email when it was clear that the listing had been languishing on CL for some time, but when I arrived and saw what kind of shape the dresser was in I was like I will give you forty bucks and you should thank me.

We argued. She gave me a sob story about her divorce after 30 years and her ten kids. I sweated in the UNBEARABLE heat. She talked me up, I talked her down and finally we arrived at  a price under a $100 but over $40. Pretty much I didn’t want to have wasted my time driving all the way out there.

I’m going to fix it up as much as I can and have it live in the master bedroom. Since we got rid of almost everything in there at the big sale this is one of the first steps for the big redecoration of the master bedroom – yet again.

Hopefully by the end of summer we can pull it together. I’ve got some projects brewing…

My friend Maya recently left the West Coast (like a traitor!) to live on the East Coast with her brilliant husband and new puppy Mika. For the past few months they have been fixing up their first home out in the wilderness of the New York coast – seriously – it’s like in the woods only a minute or so from the ocean. I’m so jealous…delicious cooling and refreshing ocean…

They just moved in a few weeks ago and are starting to settle in. Maya sent me some pics of the house from her iphone so that I could see some progress – which is a bad idea when I have a whole website dedicated to house crap.

My dream Bumling light! In brass no less…

The house is not completely finished and like us they still have a bunch of DIY projects to go, but I’m thinking this is a fucking amazing start. Knowing Maya I’m positive that she will keep futzing with things so I am preserving this moment digitally since I can’t be out there to see it in the flesh.

I can’t wait to come out and spend some time futzing around on the East Coast and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to photograph the crap out of the house and share all the changes as they settle in and fix up even more of the place.

Maya. I swear. Soon. (When work isn’t so crazy)

Sorry about putting your house on the internet.

I know it’s a bit premature (since the side yard is nowhere close to being ready to install the pool) but we went ahead and got ourselves a 10 foot galvanized livestock tank.

We were planning on restoring and painting the garage doors on my single day off this week, but since it’s been a 100 plus degrees for some time I think my brain may have got a little fried from being overworked, overstressed and totally overheated. Pretty much I just said fuck it, there is no way we sanding and painting garage doors in this heat and we aren’t driving two hours to the beach and I need to swim RIGHT NOW.

We went over to the local tack and feed store to pick out a tank and I was super disappointed to see that the 8 foot galvanized tanks were gone. The owner informed us that there was no chance of getting another shipment in for months and months and months…shit.

I had recently gotten a couple quotes from BH Tanks to have a custom tank made like this one; at about $1,300 – $1,500 it was out of our budget. We settled on this 10 foot biggie and at about $500 it was a little bigger and more expensive than we originally planned. We had to go home and remeasure the side yard to make sure it would fit – and with the yard at 16 feet wide the 10 footer is going to be a better fit.

Until we get the side yard cleaned out and ready to go, plumb out the tank and order our salt water pump and filter we are just going ahead and filling that bitch up. Total ghetto Hemet style our above ground pool out on the back patio. No filter, no chemicals, just an old fashioned cowboy style dipping trough. When the water gets too filthy to stand we are draining the tank into our sad and overheated grapefruit tree.

The Boy even went more ghetto style and brought in a folding plastic chair to sit in while in the pool. Classy.

I must have spent three hours soaking and swimming around in there and it was AWESOME. SO AWESOME. Seriously worth every penny – that’s how happy I was. I haven’t been that elated or relaxed in a long time – the Boy got his TV and I got me a pool. Now at least when we are doing projects outside in the 100 plus degree heat we can jump in the tank for a little cool down and get back to work.

I’m betting that we can get the side yard going since, big announcement, the long arduous battle that has been the exterior painting is ALMOST DONE. So close. So very close.

The last major window treatment that needed to be handled is handled. Against all advice I cheaped out and got the Enje roller shade from Ikea. And I’m glad – GLAD.

Besides the window trim needing a bit of a paint touch up you can barely tell the difference. Gotta say I am quite happy with those Enjes. Just wish they made them in wider sizes…

We have been holding off on replacing the two jacked up front living room mini blinds for a couple of years since I knew I wanted something a little shear there. Once the slat screen was built it afforded us enough privacy to allow for the shearer roller shades which in turn let in more light and keep the place feeling bright.

Feels good to have it done…finally. No more crap mini blinds to try and hide in photos!

With all our new found sale cash The Boy and I have been discussing how best to spend it. One HUGE item that is in desperate need of a fix up is the back bathroom/laundry room. It’s the last big interior project at the house and I’m hoping with a little over $3,000 and a lot of kindness and help from our friends/family (who remodel bathrooms for a living) we can whip this thing into less ugly and more functional shape.

Wonder what it looks like right now? Brace yourself. Check it out HERE.

One potential hurtle is the laundry hook-ups and current plumbing. In order to keep costs down, we want to keep everything installed as closely to the current plumbing as possible. So that means…

-The shower needs to stay in that area for the drain and fixtures.

-The dryer needs to go as close to that weird exterior door as possible to reach the 220vlt (which will need to be shortened and dropped down through the attic and INSIDE the house instead of how it’s run through the door frame now). We also need to figure out a way to vent the dryer…

-The electrical, drain and two sets of hot and cold facets are located underneath the window. The sink and washing machine therefore need to be installed in that area.

-The electrical panel needs to be flipped into the toilet “poopicle” closet.

Another way for us to keep costs down is to keep our current dryer and buy a new washer (our vintage washing monster from the 80’s is getting GROSS). Squeezing both the washer and dryer in that area doesn’t leave a lot of room for a sink (remember – it’s already plumbed for a sink in that space) so we need to build a custom cabinet and install a tiny bar sink. I love this simple Lagan one from Ikea, and at only $26.98 it seems to fit in the space and the budget. Combine it with a simple modern faucet and you got a sink to fit in an impossibly small area! I’ve been going a little crazy trying to wedge everything in that space, but I have all my measurements figured out correctly (finally) and it looks like it will fit.

Underneath the sink we would need to build a simple custom cabinet to hide all the plumbing and store cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper, soap and other ugly laundry room stuff.

Oh, and another way to keep costs down is to stick with the VCT floors that are already there instead of replacing them with something else.

For the shower we would need to completely gut the original corner shower structure and storage closet next to it to expand the space and make it functional (since it totally isn’t now). This is where the bulk of the budget would go…

I want to build a little half wall to divide the shower fixtures from the sink and then install a glass door to help stop water spray and leakage on the VCT floor. A glass door would also help let some light into that dark shower corner. I think it would also be great to have a little bench so that – for once – I could shave my legs in comfort.

Hopefully we could do a simple rain shower head with a simple/modern shower control. The drain wouldn’t have to be moved, which is a plus, but we would have to slightly adjust the plumbing for the shower head and control.

The shower and back splash behind the sink / laundry would get tiled in super simple white ceramic subway tile in either a vertical pattern or stacked in a grid (instead of the offset pattern in this sketch-up version). I would probably just go with that cheapo white subway Daltile or American Olean from Lowes in order to save some $$$. Hopefully we could install a little inset shelf area on the wall to put shampoo, soap and other shower things.

We would also need to buy an exterior door, but I guess that could wait if we totally run out of funds.

The big thing for us to watch out for (and if you came out to the house for the sale, you saw it first hand) is that we CANNOT over improve for our neighborhood. In reality, we already have – but – trying to make this laundry/bathroom actually functional and aesthetically pleasing on a tiny budget is going to be a huge challenge. We can’t just gut and redo everything, so we need to be smart with our cash, work with what is already there and keep it simple enough to fit with the style of the rest of the house. My dream would be to totally gut it and lay it out better than than this, but this project is going to be a compromise from the start. I want to be able to do laundry in that room without being a gymnast and take a shower without having to duck down the whole time and be frightened of the flesh eating disease I might be contracting from the disgusting beige tile that won’t get clean.

I haven’t really been to the beach in years. YEARS. Tiny violins in the distance…

During the summertime my day job just totally takes over. I have one day a week off during the span of the summer season and this year I picked Wednesday. On that single day I pack as many errands as I can to try and keep up with my crappy life. I don’t really see friends, I don’t thrift, I don’t relax and I don’t see my family for a few solid months.

This Wednesday we went to Ikea to pick up stuff for the bedroom and The Boy and I saw Rampage Jackson shopping around (I was too scared to take a picture – he could crush my face with his fist!). Afterward we drove some more to pick up a pair of Craigslist chairs (which turned out to be VERY disappointing) and then we ended up near enough to the beach that it seemed like a fun thing to stop by and take a walk (although, we were way overdressed).

This crazy seagull totally tried to dive bomb me (sorry for the crap iphone pics) but the waves were pretty sweet as the sun set. I did get my feet wet and was so desperate to go for a swim.

I’m hardcore dreaming about a beach vacation right now…and having some more time to work on the house. My priorities are all out of whack.

Enjoy the weekend homies. I’m waiting for Wednesday.

Speaking of new giant things bought for the den – we took the plunge awhile ago and got a flat screen. Finally…after much debate. And the death of our TV.

How bourgeoisie.

It’s a Sony Bravia. It’s 40 inches. We got it at Best Buy.

I’m not like a tech person, but it seems to work fine. Better than our old hunk of crap. It still needs a wall mounting thing and the cables need to get cleaned up – maybe we need a new credenza to hide all the boxes and ugly things. Like Jill and TK’s great credenza.

Ugh, the whole thing feels kind of ridiculously middle class to me, but seriously I don’t even think they make TV’s that aren’t flat now. Somehow I feel like “that guy”, you know, the one that’s too invested in television or something. I do love me some TV time tough. I want to make it better with that Netflix box! How do I get Netflix to my TV? Cheaply. Oh, and not with an ugly cable.