The Foyer - Before & After

We finally finished our foyer. It took over three years but it's done! It's just a tiny little space but it's been a major design conundrum for us since day one. The lighting is weird and the walls needed a lot of work.

Here we are in the foyer when we came to the house on our real estate viewing:

Blurry. That's because it was in the olden days.

Here it is on the day that we closed on the house:

Yep, the flooring was two different colors. Don't even get me started!

Here you'll see the Mister running from the camera.  This is back when he had energy - as most of us do pre-restoration.
The wall sconce made me sad.  That's the original doorbell but I just don't know why they hung it over the heating vent. Cray-cray.    Wanna see more of that ceiling light fixture?

Le sigh. I wanted to love that light. I really and truly did.

But even in the daytime, it made our foyer look like a spook house. 

Or a whore house. You pick. 

The walls in the foyer were painted over wallpaper. And not just any wallpaper but fuzzy, flocked wallpaper. It made for an interesting scene. We painted over it but the texture of it drove me absolutely mad. One day, I got the wild idea that I should try and peel it all off. 

Um, as you'll see. Boy was the Mister surprised when he came home!

Even Pip got in on the action.

As you can see, the wallpaper was once pink and green flowers. We also learned during the restoration that all of the trim in our house used to be dark green like the leaves on the flowers. Fancy! (and I'm glad that we weren't the ones that had to cover it with primer)

The walls stayed peeled as you see below - and what we liked to call "historic" for about two years!

I know. I know. I'm mortified now that it took us so long but as you may know, sometimes house repairs don't go as planned. This is what people saw when they came into our front door. Super classy! 

This Spring, we decided to bite the bullet and finally finish it all. We had a drywall guy come in and sand and re-plaster both the foyer and the hall. What a freakin' mess! I swear that Hell must be covered in drywall dust. After much clean-up and weeks and weeks of trying to pick colors (I'll spare you the details and the photos of dozens of paint swatches), we decided on one. We were almost done with the whole thing when I exclaimed to the Mister over dinner, "One more wall to paint and we'll finally be finished with the entire house!" We were as pleased as punch. 

And the Gods laughed. Within a couple of days,  the house flooded and the many months of the kitchen repair ordeal started. I'm pretty sure that I jinxed us. So today, I realized that I have never stopped to appreciate the "after" of it all. You know how that goes sometimes? We just zoom on to the next thing that needs to be done? So here it is. The after!

I know. It's hard to tell anything from photos of a foyer that is too small to photograph. But I thought that I should give it it's due. We found that massive landscape in the darkest corner of an estate sale house basement and purchased it before we even measured it. It had me at "knotty pine frame". We figured that "Sure! It will fit in the car!" but ha! it didn't. We ended up having to tie it to the roof and drive home at a turtle's pace. It's hard to tell here but that thing is about as big as my car. Thank God it even fit on the wall. The furniture piece is a Paul McCobb and the Mister inherited it from his late uncle. We got the 50's ceiling light for a quarter at a junk shop in my hometown. That horse clock was a birthday gift from my Mom. I've always wanted one!

We replaced the hall lights that made me sad with a pair of vintage lights that we found on eBay. I tried to take photos of them for you....but to me, taking photos of lights while they're lit is like trying to get blood from a turnip. And I'm a quitter. There! I said it.

We painted the hall yellow to separate the spaces. There was a lot of debate on the whole "one color? two colors?" issue but in the end, we went for it. We still have the old doorbell but are planning to do some work to it to make it fit in better. Mr. Kitten Pants likes to reach up and swat the chimes, sending the rest of the nervous Nellies hiding for cover under the bed. 

The attached hall was all white before and peeling. At last, it's a nice place to hang my collection of anonymous portraits. I won't go into the details now but I think that this hall is haunted. I once heard a medium say that when we bring home things belonging to other people, they carry residual energy - so we need to be careful. I'm pretty sure that one of these portraits has some serious residual energy!

It would also be a safe bet to say that this looooong hall gets some epic kitty cat raceway action! 

I was getting ready to say something about how we are NOW finished with the restoration but I know that it would be a fool's bet to even go there! Let's just say that home ownership is always a work in progress. An evolution, if you will.

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

The Day That Hollywood Came Calling

As I've mentioned a couple of times lately, I've been recovering from a monster of a wisdom tooth removal surgery. Never in my life have I been through anything like it. Thank God for pain meds and various branches of the Real Housewives franchise. And for a husband who has been doling out mashed potatoes and ice cream like a true pusha' man. A lot of the time, due to the swelling, I haven't been able to talk and since the force of the surgery left me with bruising around my eyes, I've looked like a cross between this:

And this:

And this:

 

One day last week when I was at the height of the "oh my face!" madness, I was at home drugged out of my mind and napping. The doorbell started ringing and as I was in no shape for chit-chat, I chose to ignore it. Though, in my neighborhood, "ignoring" means peeking out from behind the drapes, hoping to get a description of the person who more than likely is about to kick in your back door and run off with your TV.  The strange thing was the the man who was ringing the bell didn't leave or kick in my back door. He stayed and stayed and walked around the house and then sat in the driveway in his car for about ten minutes. I was thoroughly creeped out. I texted the Mister just in case I was later found abducted (because the kidnapping market is really hot for broke, drooling women these days)  and sat on the edge of the bed until the car finally drove away.  Super creepy.

Later that evening, Mister Kitsch came home and solved the mystery of the strange lurker. It was Hollywood!

Well, a representative at least. Do any of you watch the ABC show "Nashville" on Wednesday nights? I sure do. I can't say that it's "Masterpiece Theater" material but not since the days of two-fisting Cheez-it's with my Granny while watching "The Young and The Restless" have I enjoyed a soap opera so much. Anyway, the door knocker had left a letter on our back door saying that the show was looking for a house to shoot as one of the character's parents' houses - a "middle class home in Austin, Texas" to be exact - and they would like to come take photos of our house so that it could be considered as a location for the show.

Hello! Okay, I was freaking out! There were going to be stars in our house! And how cool would it be for our house to become a star too? I tried not to let my mind wander to the stacks of delicious bagels that would be on the craft service food tables - or the tour buses full of screaming fans who would consequentially pay good money to ride past our house from that day forth. "Will we need to install a security gate?" I wondered before telling myself that if we did, it would have gold music notes inset in it just like Little Jimmy Dickens'.

The Mister called the man who left the letter (who turned out to be the location scout) and he said that he'd been out driving around and had really liked our house. They set up a time the next morning for him to come out and take photos and check out the place. Now, I wanted it to happen. I'm talking...really, really wanted it to happen.  I jumped up out of the bed and started cleaning. And I roped the Mister into cleaning too. My mouth was throbbing and I was sweating blue blazes and my body was screaming, "lay down!" but noooooo....I did what anyone in my position would do. I cleaned and rearranged for hours. And so did the poor Mister who had just worked all day. We were frenzied with excitement and cleaning product fumes. The Mister implored of me to go back to bed but noooooo....instead he got to listen to me bleat-groan out, "It's gonna be just like Southfork!" and "I wonder if any characters will have fake sex in our bedroom? Oh no...they wouldn't do that in their parents' house, right?"

The next morning, we got up at six and got the show on the road again, with me nitpicking everything in the house (which involves shoving way too much stuff into already bulging closets) and the Mister outside doing yard work by seven. I mean, who does that? Poor guy - he doesn't even watch the show but he was so sweet to help me realize my newly-hatched dream of having "Nashville" shot in our house. The location scout was to show up at ten o'clock and around nine, I jumped in the shower and as I got dressed, I was literally sweating like I was in a sauna. My body was revolting and my mouth hurt so bad that I was fighting back tears.  

I was yelping at the Mister to hide everything cat related because "you just know that those stars are allergic to cats! It could blow it for us! We can not let them know that we have cats!!" He was lugging cat trees and scritchety-scratch posts and litter boxes to the garage. The cats were going bonkers trying to figure it all out as I scooped up the rogue fuzzy mice and hid them in vases, my shoes...anywhere that cameras couldn't go. The kitties  couldn't find their food or their water or a pot to piss in. We were now living on a sound stage and that was how it was going to be!

And then it happened. The phone rang. We were a mere thirty minutes away from possible real estate greatness when the location scout informed the Mister that there had been a script change during the night. They no longer needed a parents' house in Texas.

Just like that - kaput. fizzle. fail. They did but now they didn't. Just like that.

When the Mister told me, I slumped against the wall and moaned. He said that the scout noted that since he really liked our house, he would like to come out at another time and shoot it for his book just in case another project came up. As I tightened up my soggy ponytail and looked around at our house which was now cleaner than it had been in years, I could only force out, "but....BUT!....nooooooo...uhhh...it's clean nowwwwww...uhhh" while making a limp Vanna White hand gesture in the direction of a piece of freshly dusted furniture.

In the end, we decided to call the scout back and see if he could still come that day to take photos for his book. I was a little mortified when the Mister told him, "Look...we were up all night cleaning...we'd love if you could come while it's clean..." Sure, I was mortified but it was the truth - and nothing brings out the truth like unnecessary late-night drape vacuuming.  He ended up coming later in the day to take the photos. He was a really nice guy and in the end, it was fun to meet him and to learn more about the location process. And as my luck goes, Mr. Kitten Pants followed him around and was in most every shot. Maybe the old ranch will end up in a show or movie one day. Or maybe not. But we do appreciate how clean our floors are now and will never forget the day that Hollywood came calling....and eventually gave us the ding-dong ditch.

Until next time,

x's and o's,

Eartha

Nothing to Worry About

I saw this video late in the middle of last night while tossing and turning and cursing my post-dental-surgery mouth full of woe.

When I woke up this morning, I worried that it had only been a dream...but fortunately, it was proven to be real - and about three years old. I'm nothing if not current.




One of these days, I'm going to make it to Japan and get a big dose of the rockabilly subculture firsthand. The Mister has always wanted to live there. Maybe one day...
I hope that y'all are doing good. I'm still packing chipmunk cheeks and misery. 
Until next time, x's and o's, Eartha

The Dental Dance

I got my poor old wisdom teeth ripped willy-nilly from my skull today.

Ohhhhhhhhh Ugggggh. Blarrrrrgh.

I hope that my Vicodin fueled dreams are much like this dental dance:


Note: This video's audio was recorded low so after you click on the video, if the volume is too low, just slide that handy bar to the right of the speaker icon at the bottom left.

Until next time,
x's and ohhhhhh's,
Eartha