Planning a few small home improvements

With end of year approaching, I started decluttering around the house again.  It only seems to make sense to declutter the house twice a year because stuff just accumulates over time and without some interference my house could get a little out of control.

I'm also working on a couple projects around the house to make my life a bit easier.  My main floor master bedroom has really served as a junk room and dog room for the last few years because it was so uncomfortable to begin with.  When I first moved into the house years ago I was quite inexperienced with home furnishing and spent a lot of money buying very uncomfortable furniture and mattress etc.  I finally decided that the expensive things that I can't use are really not an asset to my life so I'm planning to purchase new ones to replace them.  That lead to thoughts of redoing the whole room altogether.  For now things that need to be done in the master bedroom that's somewhat urgent,

1. Refinish hardwood floors. 2. Order new window panel. 3. Declutter bedroom drawers and closet. 4. Order new window seat cushions.

The one item that has to be done before everything else is actually getting a new HVAC system into the house.  Being super procrastinator on house maintenance stuff, I somehow survived the whole last winter without proper heating and over the summer a somewhat working AC unit.  This year with temperature dropping slightly I'm just not dealing with it and constantly having a minor cold from the house being a bit too cold.  I figure winter time is probably a better time than summer to have this done and there's nothing I can do about it.

Another super big item on my to do list is to empty out my garage and workshop completely for a studio conversion project that I've been slowly planning.  The space needs to be freed up within the next couple of months or so in order to make proper plans... on top of that, I think living a clutter free life is just good Fengshui!

Home maintenance always seems never ending and so expensive, but I'm grateful to have my own place to live in.  I'm kind of excited to make some positive changes in my home and looking forward to have some fun with the new design!


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I'm perpetually a bit behind on household chores no matter how much I try, but the last few days I am somewhat caught up with a little help from my cleaning lady and I have been working hard to get things more organized.  I'm honestly terrible at house keeping but I always make an effort and do what I can because I enjoy a nice and organized home just as much as everyone else, obviously not everyone has the same talent for everything but making an effort counts!

Yesterday I called in my handyman to help fix a few things around the house, I had a long list of things for him to do but he had to go buy some supplies and we will just have to get all things finished next week!  For now he changed out a couple of light bulbs that have been burnt out in the hallway but require a ladder to access, installed my mini chandelier that I've had for about a year, and finally helped me strapped the three book cases to the wall in case of earthquake!  I've wanted to strap the bookcase down for eight years, and never got around to do it, this is the kind of thing that make me question my ability to survive in this world, but at last it got done!

He also has to replace a broken leaky kitchen faucet, fix a bathroom handle, change out a crusty shower head... that's another thing that I have tolerated for years and years and it suddenly occurred to me that there's no reason to suffer through awful shower head when you can probably buy a cheap one from the hardware store and have it changed out.  It's just one of those things that seems like only grown ups do but now come to think of it I am a grown up after all and since no kind stranger have knocked on my door offering to fix things for me I will just have to call my handyman to do it!

A girl can go without a man in her life, but a good handyman is rather indispensable!

Finally a little relaxation at the end of day, sometimes when I'm too wired and can't relax when it comes to bedtime, a hot bath is always the best thing!  I believe the saying goes, when you're in hot water, enjoy it! 

I finally got around to get this antique mirror installed on the wall.  My tiny attic bedroom is really coming together nicely!  This year I got the second floor painted a very light shade of pink and decluttered a lot of junk that was doing nothing but taking up space.  I found this vintage vanity from a antique mall and the mirror came from a local antique store.  That plus a small leather arm chair and the bed was all I had space for, but I'm so happy to be surrounded by pretty and useful things, changing up the decor really brought a very different relaxing energy into this part of the house.

4th of July went by rather uneventfully except the few earthquakes that shook me up a little.  It just hit me that I was not prepared for any kind of small emergency at all.  So first chance I got yesterday I stopped by the hardware store and bought a bunch of stuff, extra batteries, flashlight, fire extinguisher, gloves, etc.  I also stocked up on dog food and water and bought tv and furniture straps to secure them to the wall.  I'm going to work on making a small emergency kit for the car and for my dogs as well for the coming week or so.  This stuff takes some time so I will just have to get to a bit at a time.  

I spent last evening securing the tv with safety straps and putting museum putty under delicate porcelain decors.  My handyman will have to help me with securing the bookcase and installing the fire extinguishers on the wall among a few other things, it does feel good to take some safety precautions around the house.  

I've been looking at online pictures for some creative home renovation ideas.  The last time I did anything to the house was over three years ago, and I'm really looking forward to do something creative with the house again.  There is actually a large amount of work that still needs to be done.  Some of them include three bathrooms that badly needed renovation, a new kitchen, exterior paint, repairing the badly cracked drive way, and probably a complete rebuilt of the garage at the different spot of the backyard.

 The tv room in my 1923 cottage was originally a tiny bedroom.  Over time the previous owners pushed the ceilings and walls further out to make the room bigger, but the ceiling had low beams and weird layout.  And since there's no definition between the kitchen and tv room, this part of the house just looks like a huge long hallway.  This is probably the most heavily used room in my house and I'm never quite comfortable in it.  Lately I've been thinking about some renovation ideas like reconfiguring the ceiling and windows to make the look more consistently "vintage."  Or doing some kind of wall beam to make this open space a bit more defined.

Anyhow, lots of ideas and not enough time and energy to get it done, but a girl can dream right?

I really like the little round window idea.  I have a couple of half round windows from the 90s that I was never too fond of, and I would love to replace with round shaped windows or somehow tweak the framing to make it look more vintage.

The frame work of this bedroom is pretty much what I want my tv room to look like, albeit my room is not nearly as wide, but I think I can achieve that vaulted ceiling look complete with vintage chandeliers.

Anyhow, my renovation plan probably won't happen for quite sometime, but having some ideas is a good start!