our little house | progression part 5

Small things are happening around here and it feels so good! Over the weekend my stepdad helped me cut AND bullnose AND spraypaint white our final tile piece for the kitchen, thank goodness!!! Definitely a DIY job, but it's going to look great and I really don't think anyone will be able to tell (also way better than what we were going to do-just leave a top piece originally cut, no bullnose at all since they discontinued that corner piece in the tile line). He also gave instructions on how to adhere and grout the rest. Since it's just a small area and it's not on a floor or anything, he suggested just using silicone to adhere it (instead of buying a tub for 20$ that we would use a tiny bit of and throw away) and then grouting. Luckily the tile guy left the grout so we didn't even have to buy anything! Hopefully the grout is still good, I plan on doing it tonight, so fingers crossed! We also ordered blinds for the bedrooms and attic eeek! 6 windows for 300, not too bad I hope! We ordered from Blinds.com and they should come tomorrow. I'm so excited. I went to Ikea on Sunday and somehow spend $200...WHAT. I have no idea how that happened, but I got some really good stuff.


to do
- hang travel collage in basement - we ended up hanging these in the office instead! I'm not crazy about them aesthetically, but it brings j a lot of joy to his office and I of course LOVE the sentiment and tradition!
- replace shelf in office with table - done and we think we just want to put a little bench or something, we're not quite sure yet
- buy and replace new outlet covers for kitchen
- fix outlet and cover by sink
- cut  tile for kitchen backsplash
- and re-grout corner of kitchen backsplash
- curtains for basement windows
- organize attic
- replace closet curtains in attic
- set up garage work shop
- organize garage
- figure out previous owners stuff to throw out (they left paint and tile and crap)
- put doors on basement water meter closet
- fix uneven fridge
- fix uneven cabinet doors in kitchen (tried so hard to do this, made it a tiny bit better, but gave up for now)
- new door knob for hall closet
- order blinds for office and bedroom
- new curtain rods in attic and bedroom ( I bought these from Ikea over the weekend and just need to install)
- hang blinds
- new curtains for attic and bedroom and office. or maybe switch bedroom and office? (not sure what I want here, maybe just sheer?)
- tighten bathroom shelves and hooks
- motion sensor light for back door
- clean rain gutters in spring
- make table for behind couch
- paint dining room and living room doors (not sure about this quite yet)
- hang shelves in laundry room
- organize cabinet in basement by garage
- plant flowers in front flower boxes
- pillows for living room

to do - need help!
- fix leaky pipe in basement
- replace final kitchen outlet behind fridge(something I don't get but my dad says we need to do)
- figure out how to turn our water on hotter

to do - future!
- build patio (working on designs for this! I will post them below!)
- figure out deck possibility? (getting quotes for this in the next weeks!)




Something I am SO excited about right now is the backyard! We have gone back and forth on this SO many times. But now that it's almost spring, I think we're getting our heads in the game and making some decisions. The first thing is the deck. We weren't sure about it, how big to go, how small. But so far we have decided on the size that was originally there (about 100sq ft) and putting stairs to go down to a patio. This is a modest house with not much footprint left over to finish. That being said we really don't want to put more into this house than it calls for. And I think a deck is definitely something we should be careful with. We don't want to go deck broke after all! So we're going with a medium easy option and hoping that it won't be a crazy expensive task. It's hard to do research on it, but we're hoping the price for the deck will be under 5 grand (please please please). And then from there we (mostly I let's be real. I take this kinda shit and run sprint with it) want to build our own retaining wall for the stupid hill in our yard and a patio. At first I wanted a huge patio with a built in fire pit, but after thinking and advice seeking, I think resale would be best to keep the patio medium sized to keep some of the yard and just use the portable bonfire pit that the sellers left for us. And then my dream is to put up a couple fence posts for cozy factor instead of a whole fence (again too much of an investment and since we have a driveway leading to the house, who knows what the cost of a door would be). A deck will give us way more joy than a fence too. So here's my favorite ideas/inspiration right now!

I hope to ask the contractors how much they would charge for a patio and retaining wall too just in case it's not as much as we expect. Depending on how much those fence posts are, we might add a few to many. Once I budget it out, we will have a better idea. My mom thinks we should do stone steps leading to the patio from the stairs, but at this point I think that since we're doing all the work to put pavers in, we might as well do that area too. I guess it all depends on what the plan for the deck actually will look like in the space.

For now I'm just really excited and REALLY curious what the contractors will say!!