This Full House Archive

Tag: diy

Garth and the Amazing Technicolor Dream House

Garth (not his real name) and I have been planning to paint our house for a long while, however, like most of our DIY projects (see also: all of them), preparing for one thing…leads to eleven more unplanned projects…which need to be addressed, first…before we can even begin thinking about starting on…ummmmm…wait, what WERE we talking about, again?

[blows bangs out of eyes, looks down at hands, picks at chipped fingernail polish]

OH YEAH! Painting the house. Right. So, it doesn't help that one of us is more of a…let's just sit back and wait…perhaps think about this a little more, rationally…type person. While the other one of us is all…ohhhhhhhh, let's just throw caution to the wind and get'r done, already…DAMMIT!!!

Guess which one of us is which. Go ahead. I'll wait.

[taps foot, counts one Mississippi, two Mississippi]

IT'S ME!!! I am so NOT a good sit back and just wait-er.

Autumn is the perfect time to paint the house: look at all the pretty colors!

Loooong…boooooring…even more convoluted than usual…story short…we're to the point where we HAVE to paint the house and, well, Garth (not his real name) had some scheduled time off, last week…sooooo, PERFECT TIMING!!!…besides, we've been prepping for this moment for a very looooong…well…hang on…let me show you.

Back of the house, color swatches circa at least two kids still in diapers ago (I think)!

We were leaning towards the second color from the left. Some sort of Sante Fe terra cotta, I think. Then our parents got sick. My parents moved. Brother gets married, invites all 6 of us to be in the wedding party. And then "Maybe next year" turned into "Meh…the house doesn't look THAT bad, right?!?"

Front of the house, circa at least one kid in high school ago (maybe).

Actually, you can't see the color, not anymore. It was a lovely barn red, but my husband HATED IT and covered it with our newest selections.

Oh wait, I lied. Here's a small section he missed.

5 years later…I have to agree with him…ICK!!! So, he sent me to Home Depot with the following instructions: pick 3 of your favorite colors (see pic above the blood red) and then we'll just eenie-meenie-minee-moe-it!

This right here, my friends? Is just all sorts of sexy. After 20+ years, dozens of snow storms, Nor'easters and 2 major hurricanes, the house is getting a fresh coat of paint. The old girl is smiling and looking good, already — house, too 🙂

After a week of prepping the house for painting…for real…Garth (not his real name) completed the garage-side of the house, thinking we could let it set overnight and THEN decide if we really, really like it.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards the smokey plum.

Aaaaand, then it rained…and rained…and I'm all like…MOTHEREFFER!!!…meh, I've waited THIS long, what's another couple of days…or twenty more…right?!? RIGHT?!?

[sound of crickets, chirping]

One could ONLY dream. Besides, at this rate, we could simply continue testing color combinations and have the house painted in…[does the math]…another 30 years…give or take a high school graduation…yo!

©2003 -2014 This Full House with a fan page on Facebook, a way for you to subscribe to receive This Full House blog post by Email and everything!

November 3, 2014
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear GarthNHRN.
My husband, Garth (not his real name) has a lot of stuff on his plate at work. So, When it comes to taking care of the stuff here in the house, the kids and I have this one unspoken rule: if it is NOT broken, don't try to fix it. And if it is broken, then for the LOVE of all the things that mom let's YOU get away with, do NOT tell your father.

Because, more often than not, I was the one who probably broke it AND that is precisely when the "unspoken" part of the rule would come into play.

Long story, short (seriously, I love you guys THAT much!) we've done A LOT of this, lately:

Even longer story, short (this is the part where you begin to understand exactly WHY my husband does NOT allow me to use his real name and then start to feel VERY thankful that you do NOT have to live with me, you're welcome!): our house phone hasn't been working right (like in, not at all) since forever.

The phone line shows in use, although it is not, so incoming calls are not getting through to the phone (it rings through for the caller, the phone does not ring on our end), but the calls ARE showing up on our caller i.d., which seems to be working fine on our television, judging by the kids hollering THE NAME of whoever happens to be calling at the time, because of course.

"GRANDMA'S CALLING!!!!!"

Fun times, my friends. Aaaaaanyway. The phone guy was here last week and declared our phone lines #FUBAR, because OF COURSE! And, after seeing signs of an on-going renovation (although longtime readers will already know that it's been going on for the last 20 years, but whatever), he insisted that we could probably save the $100 bucks and just have Garth (not his real name) fix it.

Which, in my mind, I'm hearing as:
- We could save some money.
- Instead of bleed money.
- Because, quite frankly, with another kid looking at colleges AND taking into consideration the laws of #FUBAR…dude…we are ALL bled out.
- But, we could actually save some money.
- And maybe my husband will feel good about having fixed something, himself.
- Oh, and we could save some money.
So then, GarthNHRN surprised me by taking the day off from work on Friday…to do just that…okay, maybe not. Still. It was super-great timing on his part, RIGHT?!?

And then, I decided to do a speed clean, while he showered, because I am super-efficient like that AND a dazzlingly-clean floor helps to distract people from noticing all the sheetrock (feel free to use that tip, btw!) until I noticed the loose tile behind the door and then found the hole in the floor.

We took in some water damage during Hurricane Irene (and then the house took another hit during Superstorm Sandy), but what we didn't realize is the sub-flooring had gotten squishy in sections by the door and, well, #FUBAR!!!

Aaaaand, it took ALL my strength NOT to enforce the "unspoken" rule and show my husband.

He took it better than I thought, although I could almost hear his brain screech to a halt and see the hair that hadn't already turned gray…go white…so, I enforced the "one thing at a time" rule and we decided to focus on fixing the phone line…because #FUBAR!!!

We then headed to our home away from home…Home Depot.

"I need to get a new staple gun, because you broke mine."

Actually, NO!!! I broke my husband's electric staple gun, but that was YEARS ago!!! And I know…FOR A FACT…that he decided to replace it with a non-electrical staple gun…after I nearly electrocuted myself…by accident.

Pro-Dork Tip: metal screening and electric do NOT mix.

I actually said that…OUT LOUD…to the amusement of a couple of contractors and such…and if you ARE a contractor, you really should be shopping with us at Home Depot (or Lowes, we're easy) because, #FUBAR!!!

And then GarthNHRN reached for the non-electrical staple gun.

"It used to look like this one!"

But, I still insisted it couldn't have been me who broke it, because I couldn't even squeeze the trigger handle hard enough on THIS one to use it…aaaaaaaaand…oh, wait.

[eyes go wide]

Here's another Pro-Dork Tip: using a hammer on a staple gun, to help bang the trigger handle down on the staple gun, WILL break the staple gun.

Right. So. If anyone needs me, I'll be waiting for ANOTHER repairman…in the floor behind the front door…most likely.

[cue Walter, laughing]

And for those of you too young to understand the reference to the blog title, here ya' go:

Oh, and just so you know, GarthNHRN was able to fix the phone line, 6 hours and $150 later…stupid phone guy, dumbass squishy floors.

©2003 -2014 This Full House with a fan page on Facebook, a way for you to subscribe to receive This Full House blog post by Email and everything!
March 10, 2014
I have faith in my husband’s DIY abilities, enough for the both of us!

I was 5 months pregnant with our first when we moved into our house and, 20 years later, my husband Garth (not his real name) and I still lovingly refer to it as, "our starter home."

So, yeah, we're REAL slooooooooooooow starters.

We've grown comfortable with our surroundings and often times describe our home as being decorated in Early American Garage Sale, having inherited nearly everything we own.

It's okay, because each piece of furniture has its own story, my favorite being the dining room trestle table and benches: they belonged to my mother-in-law, she raised 5 kids and shoo'd numerous springer spaniels from off of it…enough said.

I love EVERYTHING about the fact that many of the pieces we've adopted have survived the test of time: except for the light fixture in the dining room, I even had a REAL hard time trying to find a picture of it…until realizing JUST NOW that it is in my blog's header…DERP!!!

Thing is, the dining room is in the original part of the house (around 100 years-old) so there is no electricity in the ceiling and finding ceiling fixtures that do not require hard-wiring, but are in the low or less than three figures, has been near to impossible.

So, I cashed in a gift card, bought us a brand new light fixture and insisted that Garth (not his real name) is handy-enough to turn a hard-wired light fixture into a totally hang-able (for lack of a better word) chandelier.

TAH-DAHHHH, I love being right: our brand new, picked it my ownself, dining room light that I love more than bacon.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Imma ponder Garth (not his real name)'s talent with kitchen ceilings!

©2003 -2013 This Full House with a fan page on Facebook and everything!

I'm NaBloPoMo-ing it, feel free to check out what I've NaBloPoMo-ed, so far (PHEW!) and let me know how I'm doing (I mean, 30 posts, in 30 days, really?!?) when you have time, of course!

November 5, 2013