Land o' plinth-y

The next step in the girls' room is to do the door and window casings. Our house might be considered a Victorian, but it's not really a pure style. The original mouldings and millwork are mostly gone, but we have just enough remaining to be able to approximate what was here before the gut job. The door and window casings are more of a simplified neoclassical design than Victorian - i.e. this:

source

rather than this:

source

Most of the components are available, but I had to make my own plinth blocks. Fortunately they are the simpler neoclassical style with no routed profile, so it only took a few cuts to make. I couldn't really find a good tutorial for the process (everything I found just said to use thicker lumber, which I don't have access to), so I had to figure it out myself. A few passes through the table saw, some gluing and clamping, a little wood filler, and a couple of nails yielded this:

Now that they're in place, I can work on the baseboards. Getting close to finishing this room!

Coincidence or kismet?

I spent an entire afternoon on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor in what will be the girls' bedroom. As I cleaned I realized that the color of the floor matches the wall color very closely. Coincidence or kismet?

New year's resolutions

Does putting your list of resolutions on paper and making them public increase accountability? We'll see. Here are a few goals. 

1. Cook more/eat out less. Already I'm not doing so hot with this one. We had a bad leak in our bathroom tub faucet, so for a couple of weeks we've had the water turned off to the whole house. Cooking and washing dishes when you had to go back and forth from the basement was a pain. As luck would have it, I couldn't find the replacement parts locally and had to wait for them in the mail. But I fixed it and am miraculously keeping up with dirty dishes.

2. Sticking to the lists. I mentioned before that I'm a compulsive list-maker. I've got a notebook dedicated to weekly construction to-do lists. The tasks are small and manageable, which I've found helps me from feeling like I'm getting absolutely nothing done. Additionally, every third week's list is lighter so I can catch up on anything I didn't finish from the previous two weeks. 

3. Finish the second floor. That means everything on the construction list, plus a few more things I haven't added to it yet. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be making this resolution again next year.

4. Read more. I like settling in with a book in the evening after the kids are asleep, but dragging two little kids to the library by myself to obtain books is a hassle. I'll have to make Tom come home on time once or twice a month to take advantage of the library's extended evening hours.

5. Be more patient. I know I lose my cool too easily, especially with Clara. I know I'm going to blink and she will be all grown up, so I'm trying to breathe and enjoy all that energy she's got. Hopefully putting her in her own room where nothing is off-limits will help channel that energy into playing with toys rather than destroying my things.

What are you trying to accomplish this year?

While we were in Houston for Christmas, I headed out to Anthropologie with a couple of my sisters to check out their hardware. Luck was on my side and everything I got was on clearance to begin with, and all clearance items were an additional 50% off. I bought 6 melon cabinet knobs ($1.50 each), 1 doorknob ($5), and 5 iron hooks ($1.50 each), bringing my grand total to under $23 including tax. Paying full price is for suckers!

Taken with my new camera. Thanks MOM!

And because I'm impatient I wanted to see what the knobs would look like on the dresser-turned-vanity (which is currently still a dresser). The top drawers had 2 knobs each originally, but I filled and sanded the holes and will just put one knob in the middle (the old knob layout required 8 knobs, but the store only had 6 matching pink ones on clearance). I also stained the top with a walnut stain and will be applying a Waterlox finish soon.

 

Now to decide what color to paint the rest of it. At the rate we're going, I've got 10 years to decide, so there's no great rush.

DOA

After a long trip to Houston and back, my ol' computer decided to take a vacation of its own. I haven't been able to update, but now that my wonderful hubby fixed the problem, I've got some posts in the works to share all that's been going on in the weeks since I last posted. Merry Christmas and happy new year and all that stuff.

Once upon a time

I've been feeling pretty crummy the past couple of days. Weak, headache-y, sore, chills even when I'm bundled up enough to sweat... Not fun. I just confirmed I have a fever of 101.7, so I'm trying to rest as much as I can with an 18-month- and 2-month-old. Here's some other happenings since I last checked in.

The tree hasn't been touched since the last time I mentioned it. I'll finish the ornaments someday. And maybe even get another strand of lights for the last 10" of the top.

Bedtime story. "Once upon a time [Clara turns page] The end."

 Roses in December? I love this rosebush!

So sleepy and so chubby. And so cute!

Ceiling fan installed in the girls' bedroom. Tom wired the switch for it.

That's all, folks.

Christmas decorating

Instead of working on the girls' room, during naps I've been trying to get our Christmas tree done. I don't know how my parents pulled this off every year for 30 years and lived to tell about it. Day three and I've only just  now finished the lights. Of course I don't just wrap the lights in a spiral on the outermost parts of the branches - I run the lights down the length of the branches all the way to the trunk. I think my compulsion to do it this way is my mom's fault. "It's better this way." Yeah, she's right. It is. If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to leave the lights on it and have a pre-lit tree next year.

I  don't think I ever mentioned the tree before. We bought it last year at Big Lots after Christmas. It was originally $60, clearanced at 90% off. BUT, I also had a 20% off coupon, so I paid less than $5 for a 7' tree. It's not the nicest fake tree out there, but for 5 bucks I can live with it. My ornaments were also post-Christmas clearance items, though I think only 75% off.

I haven't finished decorating, so I haven't tried to get a good picture (it's going to be difficult since it's in front of a window in a tight spot), but here's a sneak peek:

I might have to go out on the porch roof to get a good photo.