La Casa
Now There Are Two
Not one, but two pairs of longhorns in our house now. Hanging on the wall and everything. As a reminder, here is the first set, proudly displayed over our TV – right in the middle of the living room.
Yes, I’m insane – but they keep my Texan happy 1,300 miles from home. This pair was a house-warming gift from his parents.
The second pair has been here for a while but it finally made its way onto the wall today. We’ve been stepping over them in the hallway floor since Christmas.
If you’ve visited our home in the past four months and used the guest bathroom you’ve seen all of this laying right outside the door – and probably wondered why these people just leave stuff laying in their hallway. Well it was meant to be motivation to hang them up quickly but it didn’t really phase us apparently.
Interesting story on the new longhorns. When we picked up our Christmas tree this year from Christ the King Church a man there noticed the longhorn sticker on Chad’s car and commented about how he spent some time in Texas in med school or residency or something. This started the conversation that went something along the lines of “I’ve got these cool old horns from the 70′s up in my attic. I know my wife would love to get rid of them!”
You don’t have to guess whose wife got ‘em.
The man was really nice though and gave them to Chad for free, which is great because that’s the only way he was getting them, and even brought them to him at the hospital. How could we not hang them up?
So here’s the small hallway transformation:
In case you’re curious about all those items hanging under the longhorns – the small wooden frame is a picture from the front porch of a conference center in Black Mountain, NC, which is where Chad and I first met. The needlepoint Texas map was stitched by Chad’s Great Grandmother who passed away recently (we miss you Mezie!) our living room arrowheads also come from her, and the duck was a $4.00 antique store find on our trip to Cape Cod last year. We don’t normally get into souvenirs so this was our attempt at one. I liked him and he was inexpensive and very “Cape Cod” in my view.
It’s very rustic but this is our new hallway set up for now. Of course we had to keep our one honeymoon souvenir in the mix, which were a little “dead” bride and groom from Mexico.
Doesn’t it feel great to check something off the list – no matter how small?
To Garage or Not Garage?
W-a-a-y back when we mentioned to you that we were planning on enclosing our existing carport into a garage. And that’s the last you ever heard from us on the matter. Even after having about three different companies give us an estimate.
The initial reason? Security of course. Also, it’s not too large of an expense considering we already have the cement pad, half bricked walls, framing and a roof. And not to mention a bunch of junk to conceal.
Thus, our garage-wanting wheels are spinning again. Based on estimates we’ve received, we’re thinking it would mean about two grand to save for in between now and the summer. Just so you know, we’re ambitious but we would not try to hang a garage door on our own. We considered putting up the walls ourselves and allow a pro to come behind us with a door and siding. In the end, we discovered that this would not save us much money at all and would only cost us much needed sanity and happy marriage points.
But two grand isn’t exactly pocket change. So here are some thoughts on the situation:
- Chad is great at eating peanut butter and jelly for lunch. I am great at eating Jersey Mikes, but can stop for a few months.
- Previously mentioned junk and Craigslist. A beautiful combination.
- We’ve found out that our homeowners insurance and auto insurance companies will give us a rate discount for having a garage. Which means we could easily offset some of our costs. By the way we think that’s pretty standard for most insurance companies around here, but if you’re across the pond we’d recommend checking with your own company like RAC to be sure if a discount is available. That’s right – we’ve got exotic readers.
- Barton and Lucy have both offered to get jobs if necessary to offset costs, but we will also consider corporate sponsors.
- An easy to add garage could add resale value to our casa in the event we ever sell it. Would you pay more for a home with a garage?
Thoughts? Reservations? Suggestions for garage door installation people? Job offers for Barton and Lucy?
Some Lights Came Down, Others Went Up
The return of our living room corner space is much appreciated even though it was a bit sad to take the Christmas tree down this weekend. You’ll remember that Lucy was really enjoying having an extra wicker chair at the dining room table to nap under.
Things are back to normal now.
Not without a little bit of a mess of course.
After all was packed away and swept up, we missed the twinkle lights so much that we decided to take the action outside – just in time for new years.
These guys are commonly known as our Cinco de Mayo lights because that’s when they made their first appearance in the backyard of Casa de Whited. Since then they’ve been taken down due to some bad weather and broken bulbs.
But now they are back.
We basically string heavy duty wire from our house to three different trees in our backyard, via eye-bolts like these. Chad drilled holes in the trees from a ladder and screwed the bolts directly into the trees. Then we run the wire through, clamping the excess at the end of our light strands.
The lights came from Tar-jay and the have little built in clips so they attach to the wire very easily. The wire is important if you’re planning to leave your yard lights up for a few days or even longer. The wire keeps your light strands from sagging, falling, swaying, etc.
During the day the lights look a little trailer park but at night they look mucho bueno.
Like a classy trailer park.
Pleased.
Shedding Some Light – On Everything
This weekend was the weekend for new lights around the casa. Whenever someone has asked “what’d you guys do this weekend.” The answer was “installed some lights, that’s about it.” These were much needed repairs, but just a good example of those frustrating, mundane home maintenance items that none of us want to pay for or complete. Alas, they must be done and therefore we must tell you about them.
Let me just say that as I wrote this, Barton was passed out in my lap – snoring very loudly. Just thought you might like to know that. Lucy stayed awake in order to watch the end of the Biggest Loser.
So, now that you have an image of our house on any given Tuesday night, back to those lights.
About three weeks ago one of our fairly new kitchen track lights started on a downward spiral. One week one light blew, and a new bulb did not fix the problem. Six days later number two of three lights did the same. Finally this weekend the third died. Bad track light.
So back to Home Depot we went and amazingly enough they let us exchange the $59.99 fixture no questions asked. It was obviously defective so we feel okay about the whole transaction.
Especially me, since I didn’t have to climb up on the ladder to reinstall the track.
Don’t think I got off so easy though.
Yeppers. That’s me in the attic. Don’t mind the messy closet. Now that we have a new light and can see all the mayhem it will be cleaned up. We just need more weekends.
Are you wondering how I ended up in the attic? Ever since we moved in our closet light has been touch and go. Again, not the bulbs. But when the man of the house took this light down, he discovered that the previous fixture was installed with those little butterfly drywall anchors and they came off in the ceiling. Still with me? They are the same do dads we used to hang our lantern in the bathroom if you need a visual.
Somehow we decided it was easier to hoist me into the attic to retrieve the lost anchors, since the access door was right there – instead of driving to True Value for new ones.
Our attic is nice, not to shabby up there. Our new closet light is just so-so. We obviously didn’t break the bank on this one, spending about $24.99 also at the Depot.
But it works.
Anyone else out there battling random home maintenance this weekend?
Make Your Room Look 10 Years Younger
Now! With white spray paint!
Do you expect anything less from us, spray paint it White-ds?
Here’s what we’re talking about. Old HVAC air vents. Luckily ours are in the wall, cut out of the baseboards, otherwise we’d probably be buying a new unit on account of all the dog hair. But that’s another issue altogether.
This fur trap had our room looking a little less 2011 and way more 1951. They probably didn’t have Krylon back then. Wait did they even have HVAC back then? Hmmm… Wikipedia is not giving me a definitive answer.
Either way it looks like it’s been around that long, you can see the age on the vent cover especially well after we unscrewed it from the wall which was pretty easy. It had a patina, but not a cool aged patina like, say our door knobs.
Nope, these air vents are past their patina prime.
Thankfully there are only two of them that were left in this condition, both located in our ignored-by-the-previous-owners office. Besides just being unattractive, the grunge was also holding back our freshly painted office walls, so action had to be taken. This action involved the use of an old Prego jar.
We often use random household items, mostly things rescued from the recycling bin, to prop up our painting projects. Like this Dr. Pepper can from our tin painting project last week.
If you’re ready to tackle your own air vents just remember to use a spray primer before your spray paint for optimal results and go slowly painting in two coats if needed. This way your paint doesn’t glob up in the vent slots.
Once it has had plenty of time to dry, 24 hours for us, just reattach it to the wall. Oh, and don’t forget to make your screws match if possible. We spray painted those too.
Something small for sure, but it made a big impact in this room. Plus it probably saved us about twenty bucks. Maybe more, something tells me these dinosaur air vents are no longer a standard size and replacements would be tougher to find than expected.
In the end our 60-year-old casa is looking at most 50 now, maybe even 49. Who needs Botox when you have spray paint? Ladies you agree with me right?
The only problem now is that the black dog hair is a lot more obvious when it’s stuck to them. You win some you clean lose some.
Check out other simple D.I.Y. tricks and ideas by visiting our projects page here. Have you guys done any small yet valuable projects around your home lately? We’d love to see what you’ve been up to, we are always in need of some new Reader Shout-Out material.
More Hallway Photos
Recently we’ve gotton a few requests for more images of our hallway, including the door numbers we painted on ourselves, the light that was recently switched out and a $20 rug from Habitat’s ReStore.
We aim to please.
These are also linked up on our Home Tour page here.
P.S. If anyone is interested in our old light seen here, give us a shout – it’s yours if you’re interested otherwise it will be ReStore’s this weekend.
