Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Ping Pong Effect

In keeping true to our form we have begun numerous projects this spring. We’re better than previous years but we still have a lot going on all at once. We’ve been really trying to focus in and finish projects but sometimes it is so hard. We’ll start one project and then we’ll get so excited about another we’ll divert our attention to that one. It’s like the ping pong effect. We just bounce around. It can be productive sometimes and VERY counter productive the rest of the time.

Sometimes we will bounce from projects if we’re running low on money or if it becomes difficult to complete something because Alec’s sleeping or fussy or what not, and we go onto another one. Winter is another factor as well. So, there are a lot of factors.
Factors and Excuses.

Our focus this spring has been to finish off some of the existing projects in Unfinished Limbo-Land. Some of them are so small…just finishing touches. But when you have a bunch of them they add up to A LOT. In the last 2 months we have completed a bunch of little things but sadly there are still tons left.

The whole upstairs has been all consuming and exhausting for the past 3 years. Sometimes we feel like it will never be completed and when we start to feel this way we tend to divert to different projects. Sometimes just doing a different project for awhile gives us a much needed break from the upstairs and when we go back to it we have a renewed spirit. Another way to help us rejuvenate and get us back into working upstairs is that we look at pictures of how it was when we moved in and it reminds us that we have done an insane amount of work up there and that every day we move closer to completion.

When we first moved in the upstairs was completely unfinished except for Alec’s room. And over the course of past 3 years we have framed out and built a 2nd bedroom with 2 closets, a reading nook, doors, dry walled, painted, replaced light fixtures, and began building in 2 sets of bookcases. We also created a linen closet, put in all new windows upstairs (We hired a window company to do those) and put a door on the attic. And yet it is still a mess up there and there is still so much left to do. Grrrr…

The upstairs has many projects currently going and in need of attention…but we’ve taken a “break” (Read: Ping Ponged) to the bathroom.

We’ve decided to do a simple re-do of the bathroom. Our bathroom is insanely small. Don’t get me wrong…I love our bungalow. This is just unfortunately one of the intrinsic aspects of an old bungalow from the 20’s and we just have to deal with it. So we decided it was time to get rid of this big clunky 70’s cheesy looking sink and give the entire bathroom a quick overhall.

We found a cool sink that we just installed. It looks very classy and simple and goes with the old bungalow stylea as well as makes it seem more open. I will try to upload photos of it as well. We also plan to tear out this crazy gun cabinet looking thing above our toilet. It’s was put there for storage and I’m sure they were intending for it to look like an old bungalow feature but I kid you not, it looks like a gun cabinet. We’re hoping that removing it will open up the space more in there as well. We just sanded down the ceiling and repainted and we hope to replace all the nasty shiny cheap hardware with nice classic looking oil rubbed bronze accessories that we hope will give it a classic look.

So...we shall continue in our haphazard ways of working on the upstairs, the bathroom and any other project that inspires us and slowly move towards a construction free home!
We are crazy aren't we?