This tour lasts for about a week and is spectacular. Now you might ask why I am shamefaced. Well, I am a horrible housekeeper. I am not saying that to be modest, I really am a horrible housekeeper. I will do anything else. The house I am living in is not really my house, it's my parents home. Several years ago, I sold my house and moved in with my parents when it became apparent that their failing health necessitated a little closer looking after. So for many years, I just didn't put any effort into the home because it was not mine. Now that my father has passed away, my mother has almost no interest in the home at all. This had led to a rapid decline. My shamefaced-ness comes from the fact that the house could be absolutely gorgeous if I would just put some effort into it. But there is always something, anything, else that I would rather do. Now I do have a bit of excuse. Okay, it's not a great excuse but it's not such a bad excuse either. As I mentioned, the house isn't mine and everything in it is old from the furniture to the flooring. Well recently, okay yesterday, my brother began ripping out the old, nasty carpet in preparation for laminate flooring to be installed. I think the rip out was a little precipitous because I do not have the funds yet for the new flooring, but I came home and he had already begun at my mother's request. A few months ago, I had repainted the living room, dining room, foyer, hallway and three of the four bedrooms. No, my bedroom was not one of the ones repainted. Why you might ask? Well I despise the furniture in that room. My mother bought it when I was thirteen. No it is not cute teenage girl furniture. It is 18th century dark wood Americana furniture that my mother liked. I have never liked the furniture. I cannot express how much I hate this furniture. The bad thing about the stuff is that it is too big to go into any other bedroom and it would break my mothers heart if she knew how badly I want to get rid of this stuff. The bedroom is not a small room it is about 10 x 12, so as far as bedrooms go not to bad a size. The bed and dresser take up 90% of the space. It is just awful. So, no it did not get painted, because I couldn't stand the aggravation of moving that big ass ugly furniture around while I tried to paint the room.
But I have digressed. As I mentioned I was looking at the Tour of Homes and kept thinking "Man these homes are truly beautiful". So I have decided that I just need to embrace the idea that the house I live in is my home. Now anyone who has a mother knows that this does not mean that I can do anything I want. But I think I could try harder. With this said, I am going to begin making over one room at a time.
I will start with the Florida room. This is the easiest for me to tackle because my mother doesn't really consider this her space. A couple of years ago, my sister was visiting and she made over part of into a playroom for my grandchildren. I still like this idea, but I think I want to make some more changes. The room is a mess right now, mainly because it has my craft supplies all other place. It also has a big desk that was brought in years ago for my father. I kind of don't want the desk anymore but know that I will not be able to get rid of it without upsetting my mother. So I'm thinking of doing a paint treatment. But before I do that I really need to handle the mess. I started working towards this a couple of weekends ago, but then used the excuse last weekend of not feeling well to abandon that job (remember I will use any excuse to get out of housekeeping).
So this is My Design (stolen from Hannibal) which shall be accomplished over weekends:
- Finish organizing the craft supplies. Okay really, 10% is craft supplies, 10% is sewing supplies and the other 80% is cross stitch supplies. Yes, I have a problem. I really should just open up an Etsy or an eBay and redistribute my stash.
- Do a test job on painting by repainting an old bamboo coffee table. I know some might gasp, not the beautiful bamboo. But this stuff has been around for at least 25 years. I say paint it, maybe I will like it again. If not, oh well, I didn't like it before either.
- Paint the desk. This will be hard because my mother will not like the idea. She has a thing about wood being wood, but I'm hoping that since it's not really a good piece of furniture, she won't care.
- Window treatments. Right now they are these bamboo things which are okay but kind of dreary. I'm thinking I might first try and paint them white. I mean how bad can it be. They can't look worse can they?
- The flooring is cement. I'm actually okay with that. Part of it was painted with chalkboard paint for the grandkids but they never really used it. I think I am going to just paint over it with a pretty cement paint of some future choosing and then maybe polyurethane over it. I have to go through my Pinterest because I am almost certain that I pinned a beautiful cement floor treatment DIY.
- Part of the room has an antique single bed. I would kind of like to move it somewhere else, but the last time we moved it into the Florida room I realized that this antique bed truly can't take much more moving around and really there isn't another room that it would work well in. The bed is pretty and no I don't want to paint it. It kind of reminds me of Little House on the Prairie. My mother made a beautiful yo-yo quilt which is hidden away in some cupboard. I am going to find it and display it on this bed. I also have some yo-yos that have not been used and I might just try my hand at covering a standard pillow sham in the yo-yos to compliment it.
Well, I think for a start that is not a bad list and if I get it all done. I will have made this first room beautiful. What room would I do next? It is tempting to say the living room, but I think it will be the dining room. The table and chairs in that room have been destroyed by people and pets. They scream out paint me, make me different. Again, while it is against mom's credo, the furniture is already a loss, so really what could it hurt.
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