Christmas-ing the house

Here's my dark-as-a-cave living room with our newly decorated Christmas tree! This is our first live one yet.
Our kitty, BooBoo is apparently not such a Christmas fan... She's doing that cat thing where she stares at the door expecting it to open any second. Magically.
The tree, closer up.
My vintage ornaments in a little dish in the book nook. These are the guys that I would be especially said if they broke.
My hodge podge collection of Christmas dishes! These are from my mom, part of my Christmas gift. They are all thrifted, and all adorable. The white is Termocrisa, a Mexican version of fire-king that was only around for a little while during the mid-century period. These are really cute. I had found some on eBay that I wanted, but just couldn't bring myself to follow through based on price and shipping, and then my mom found these at the thrift store! I'm hoping after Christmas I can find some leftovers around for better prices and round out my set for next year. Roxanne has already had hot chocolate out of one of the mugs. Perfect.
This is a vintage Swedish wall-hanging I found at a nearby Value Village. It was forty cents, and I love it.
This little set was my Grandma's. I remember it so fondly from her house. She always has the most wonderful Christmas decorations.
Christmas clutter. Festive! I put mini-ornaments on our plant. The Noel sign is another thrift store find I made recently. I think it was under two dollars, and I just love the graphics on it. The Coke Santa was my mom's, but his Coke bottle has disappeared somehow. Sorry Mom.
The stocking on the far left is mine from when I was little. My grandma made it for me. Now we use it for Roxanne.
Sorry, it was dark when I took these. And this is better than the flash version. Trust me.

Missed it...

Here's the tiny, badly lit photo from the Craigslist ad. This stupid ad went up November 23, and somehow, someone bought it last night as me and Justin were trying to decide how we could swing the $150 price tag. Yes. $150. Are you throwing up in your mouth? I am. It is brown tweed, and the seller promised it was clean, never in a smoking home, and it had belonged to her parents. There was apparently a broken leg somewhere, but I'm sure I could have fixed it. Look how each piece just has one long cushion! Perfect! And the tufted back??? How will I ever get over missing this? I really am disappointed. This would have been so perfect in our little living room.

At least I can tell myself that tweed sometimes makes you itchy.

Um, let's be honest. It would have been worth the itch.

School Crunch

Sorry. In case anyone has noticed, I've been an absentee blogger. I'm working on my final papers for the semester, so I'll be done on Thursday.

In the mean time, I am having heart palpitations over the couch OF MY DREAMS that I found for a fantastic price. A fantastic price that is still too much for me and my broke husband. I asked him to see if he could somehow find a little extra in the budget for us to get it, but it's kind of like trying to get water out of a rock (guys, Christmas presents don't come cheap). If we don't get it, I'll post about it so anyone else can. Well, anyone in Atlanta. Of course, someone else might scoop us anyways... Just trust me. You'd die if you saw it. Like I am. Sigh.

A visit from the thrift fairy (a.k.a., Nana)

So, my mom came down last night for a visit and brought lots of vintage goodies from her recent thrifting endeavors (yes, I come by this naturally). They are my early Christmas presents, and I couldn't be happier. I'm not including everything in this post, but I'll update soon. I also need to update on some estate sale finds we made last Saturday, but I don't have any photos at the moment, so it will wait.
I'm really starting to like the living room. I think it's heading in the right direction... Roxanne likes it, too. It's the perfect venue for arranging her "guys" and having elaborate story lines for their activities. Right here, they are having a party. But anyways, new things in the room include the rug under the coffee table. My mom picked it up for $6, and I think it adds a nice texture to the room, and grounds the table. I'm not 200% sold on it yet, but I think it's a keeper.
Another view of the rug/table/couch trifecta.
Curtain/rug interaction can be seen here. I kind of like the contrast.
Thrifted Christmas items on the credenza. Love the plastic holly with flocked bears. My mom found it. So cute. The yellow planter I found a few months ago. It's lovely, and stamped "Italy" on the bottom.
Closer view.
This is one of my favorite things she found. It's a Dansk crystal angel. I'm not usually a fan of crystal, but this is just lovely. She picked it up for a cool $4, and it's listed on Replacements for over $100. It's part of a nativity set, which of course, now I'm obsessed with collecting. I'm just planning to keep an eye on eBay and thrift shops to see if any of it comes up for cheap. I can't afford the Replacements prices.
And of course, this Coronet Super 12. I love love love it. What English nerd wouldn't? It looks so pretty with the wall color, too. I love the shape of the keys. I don't think I'll be typing any novels on it soon, but it's fun to look at.

Now we can walk through the living room pantsless again

Not that we do things like that. But just in case. I stayed up way too late to finish last night. Worth it! Ask me this afternoon when I'm trying to keep my eyes open... and I'm pretty sure I'll still think it was worth it. But that maybe I should keep working on my time management skills.

I used a foam roller this time, as the tutorial I used suggested. It helped the paint go on using less, so the stripes aren't as "crunchy" as with the first two panels. But they are still splotchy when the light comes through. I've decided I don't care.

UGLY bathroom (complete with ugly photos)

OK. I am about to seriously overshare... Our bathroom is really really horrible. I've taken really horrible photos of it to prove it's horribleness. And for the record, we do clean in here regularly, but it's kind of a lost cause... You finish cleaning, and it just still looks icky.
Justin and I have pipe dreams of making changes in there, but absolutely no budget for it. I'm really wondering if I could DIY the tiling... Is it that hard? I would love to have penny tiles on the floor, and just some nice clean white ones on the walls, with maybe some small black and white tile detailing around the top. I'd go with a dark grout so it didn't look filthy all the time. I'd rip out those cabinets and put in open shelving with bins. And I don't know what I'd do about the tub/shower, but it would be awesome. Honest. These are the cabinets of doom. And all of our bathroom things. You're jealous right now, aren't you? You want all of your house guests to see all of your cheapy bath products (although Justin uses some really fancy hair product in his hair. We could keep that out. It makes us seem cultured.). Who wouldn't?
I'm not asking for a jaccuzzi, but this tub is so shallow, it barely covers our littlest. And it was painted badly at some point, so it's peely. And see that gross rubber stuff someone put on the bathtub/tile edge? It's not really properly placed anymore, and it's all sticky and black. I need to at least replace that, but it's one of those "eh, I'll do it when I replace the tile in the FAR DISTANT FUTURE" things. Ew. Also, note the cracked/badly repaired tile in the tub surround. We didn't do it.
Other things we didn't do: put that stupid rubber stuff around the top of the shower tiles so that the wall paint is peeling around it. And goodness knows what kinds of disgusting are going on behind it...
I'm not going to tell you about how this towel rack got broken. But it wasn't me. And I'm not being sarcastic. It really wasn't. If it were, I'd tell you all about whatever ridiculous thing I was doing to cause it. I try to keep my shameless over-sharing confined to my own hijinx.
This light is so high class. The bulbs are so blinding that we can't have them all in at the same time.
See that outlet? It doesn't work. When I want to take the time to blow dry and/or flat-iron my bangs, I have to do so in the bedroom, crouched in front of my tiny make-up compact mirror.
This Bruegal print is above the toilet. Justin hates it, but Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" is my favorite poem. And it's covering the badly patched holes where we ripped out a very unsteady 1980's medicine cabinet that put fear in your heart any time you sat on the toilet.
We've also got some of this. Old grout. Not holding up well.

The main issue is that I'm just not sure where to get started. How much does it cost to DIY bathroom tiling? In a teensy bathroom? I mean, ours is TEENSY. The sink is fine, and the toilet is fine. Not much charm, but totally functional. And I'd leave the tub indefinitely. It's not a huge concern, it's just that it's really the worst tub to take a bath in since it's so shallow, and the sliding, wavy glass door thing gets sludgey hours after cleaning. Charming. I just think this bathroom would look so so so much better with just some little changes. But I'm still stumped. Eh. We've only been here a year. We're not miracle workers. Ideas are very very welcome. I know about the panelling over tiled walls thing, but I just don't think that flies in a 1950's ranch. I'm also interested in whether anyone has tried tiling over an existing tile floor. Reading the internets makes me think that some people think it's the worst idea ever while others think it's stupid to not tile over the existing floor. I'm going to ask Santa for a tile cutter...

For inspiration photos, I'm looking at Retro Renovation. Googling "1950's bathroom" leads to a lot of heart-breaking images of people taking perfectly wonderful 1950's bathrooms and making them look like they came from a contemporary house. Blergh.
Here's one of my favorites. You should definitely look at the full article. It's such a pretty bathroom. Thank goodness for Pam and Retro Renovation. There is no other website like that. It's such a huge resource for homeowners like me and Justin.
This spread from Apartment Therapy is so so so wonderful. I want to move into either bathroom. In useful terms, I love the tile in the image on the left. I'd totally do that in my bathroom.
I want to marry this bathroom. I actually even love the floor. That tile combo is amazing. And it looks smart, but not necessarily a billion dollars...

Yeah, it's going to be a while, unless I learn some DIY tiling skills during the Christmas break. Which would actually be completely amazing. And it could certainly be worse. Everything is functional, and there are no really horrific areas of damage. But this is the only bathroom we really use, so it would really be nice to give it a face lift. I don't want to fix it up right before we sell it (not that we will be selling it any time soon). I want to fix it up so we can enjoy it. That's the whole point, right?

DIY Chevron Curtains

I know. Chevron is very very popular. But I've been in love with it for a long time and looking for a way to work it into my house. We wanted to get a Chevron rug for Justin's office in the basement. IKEA and West Elm both have lovely options. But budget-wise, not so much. So with me and Justin getting more and more sick of our brown curtains in the living room, I saw opportunity... I mean, they are pretty curtains, but we wanted a roller blind, like we put in the dining room. The window in the living room is too big though, so instead of the cheap IKEA roller in the dining room, we'd have to order a custom blind, with the cheapest option being around $160 (eBay). I know, we could use 3 blinds, but with the size of the mounting brackets, there would be goofy gaps in between the roller blinds. Ew.

ANYWAYS, I googled "chevron curtains," and found mainly things that were crazy expensive and beautiful. Then, I found some blogs with DIY tutorials on sewing or painting chevron curtains. We had six white panels in our bedroom that we have been wanting to get rid of, so we bought super cheap (and NOT permanent) paper blinds from Wal-Mart. They are OK, and at least get some of that fabric out of the bedroom, but they are just cheap looking. The positive is that they literally just stick up to the window casing. That's a huge positive considering we have metal casings and it's INSANELY hard to drill into them to hang anything. Back to the curtains... I found this blog entry about doing a huge chevron print, and me and Justin were both in love. I pretty much just stole her tutorial to make my curtains. I used the super dark blue color from Justin's room in the basement for the stripes. I love these but they are a PAIN to make. And I have to make two more. Fortunately, we have two more of the same white panels. But I think I'll need a new tarp. Boo. Also, there are some splotchy parts of these curtains that you can see when the sun shines through them. I'm not sure how much I like that... I definitely had a few booboos with splattered paint, etc., but you can't see them unless you are close up. And let's remember, this was a free project. It only cost me the $15 we spent for the new paper blinds for the bedroom. And a lot of time. So happy with the result though. The room looks so much brighter. There was simply too much brown in there.
Here's the before. Yes, the living room is a MESS. I'm not ashamed. Well, a little ashamed. We have a toddler...
Here's my math. Ya'll, I'm an English major. Yipes.
Here's a during shot. Painters tape!
Another "during."

During the day, all done! See, I need two more panels. It'll wait. And if you click the photo and make it big, you can see the splotches. I'm not sure if they are bothering me or not.
At night, it's more forgiving. Phew.
Backed up, with more context. Sorry, I know this room is messy. I should have cleaned it up. Now you know how we usually live... Although, there isn't usually a tarp under the coffee table. Or a can of paint by the couch. So yeah. The room feels great! No more poo panels!