Ahhh, the sweet smell of..wait..is that formaldehyde I smell??
Carpet's in. It looks pretty good. The only part we're not totally happy with is the living room.
Did I ever tell you about the living room? We have a sunken living room, and the carpet goes one foot up the wall, presumably because that's the only way to have the chair rail at the same height in that room as it is in the other rooms, or maybe because the butt ass ugly wallpaper crap the former owner put on the bottom of the wall wasn't long enough to go from chair rail to floor because of the extra foot of wall. Anyway, putting carpet a foot up the wall in sunken living rooms is apparently a common thing.
It looked okay with the old carpet, but I wanted to get rid of it and just redo the walls and everything at one time. TH said we should leave it up there for now because A) we didn't know what would be revealed when the carpet was pulled off the wall and B) we eventually want to get rid of the paneling in there and put up sheet rock.
We didn't pull the carpet off the wall because it was glued. The installers had to do it. TH said when they pulled it off, the wall underneath was nothing but boards nailed in. Boards of random shapes, sizes, and colors. It's unclear whether they're nailed on top of paneling, or what. Anyway, they just put carpet over it, but the new carpet doesn't look right like that. Okay, I realize that I'm complaining that carpet doesn't look good on the wall, but like I said, this is supposedly a fairly common practice. But apparently not all types of carpet are suitable for this. It just looks...odd. We'll get used to it.
The carpet in the rest of the house looks really good, and it's making me even more eager to get rid of the old decor on the walls. If I could get rid of the maroon and teal circa 1990 crap and get some neutral colors on the walls and a couple of nice lamps, it might start to look like grown ups live here. The living room's gonna require lots of work. It'll be a hell of a project, and even though I would like to get it done before we start procreating, I dare not press TH about it right now. He was here all day with the installers (whose lack of attention to detail undoubtedly drove him up a wall, no pun intended) and when I walked in from work, he looked like he was ready to shoot someone. Or himself. Or both. Which is not really good because the guns are all out of their usual hiding spots right now, and within sight and reach.
If we ever buy another house, which I can only hope we eventually do, I can think of a few things that I will NOT settle for.
Our next house will not have/be:
old carpet
outdated decor on the walls
wall paper of any sort
linoleum anywhere (there's linoleum in both of the bathrooms, and it sucks)
paneling
sunken living room
strange closet doors
brown trim
trim that has paint drops on it because stupid ass rednecks screwed it up
rednecks across (or down) the street
biggest house on the street
in a neighborhood
giant pile of abandoned debris in the back yard
jacked up landscaping
textured ceilings
outdated lighting fixtures
only one possible place to put the t.v.
weird foot-high brick ledge in the living room
wood burning stove/heater in living room (Either put a real fireplace in, or just leave the idea alone.)
old garage door
That's right. I want new carpet, freshly painted neutral walls, white trim, normal closet doors, and updated everything. I also want all new appliances. And no neighbors. So I basically want to build a new house in the country.
I think we should stop spending money on toys and start saving for our mansion on a hill.
Did I ever tell you about the living room? We have a sunken living room, and the carpet goes one foot up the wall, presumably because that's the only way to have the chair rail at the same height in that room as it is in the other rooms, or maybe because the butt ass ugly wallpaper crap the former owner put on the bottom of the wall wasn't long enough to go from chair rail to floor because of the extra foot of wall. Anyway, putting carpet a foot up the wall in sunken living rooms is apparently a common thing.
It looked okay with the old carpet, but I wanted to get rid of it and just redo the walls and everything at one time. TH said we should leave it up there for now because A) we didn't know what would be revealed when the carpet was pulled off the wall and B) we eventually want to get rid of the paneling in there and put up sheet rock.
We didn't pull the carpet off the wall because it was glued. The installers had to do it. TH said when they pulled it off, the wall underneath was nothing but boards nailed in. Boards of random shapes, sizes, and colors. It's unclear whether they're nailed on top of paneling, or what. Anyway, they just put carpet over it, but the new carpet doesn't look right like that. Okay, I realize that I'm complaining that carpet doesn't look good on the wall, but like I said, this is supposedly a fairly common practice. But apparently not all types of carpet are suitable for this. It just looks...odd. We'll get used to it.
The carpet in the rest of the house looks really good, and it's making me even more eager to get rid of the old decor on the walls. If I could get rid of the maroon and teal circa 1990 crap and get some neutral colors on the walls and a couple of nice lamps, it might start to look like grown ups live here. The living room's gonna require lots of work. It'll be a hell of a project, and even though I would like to get it done before we start procreating, I dare not press TH about it right now. He was here all day with the installers (whose lack of attention to detail undoubtedly drove him up a wall, no pun intended) and when I walked in from work, he looked like he was ready to shoot someone. Or himself. Or both. Which is not really good because the guns are all out of their usual hiding spots right now, and within sight and reach.
If we ever buy another house, which I can only hope we eventually do, I can think of a few things that I will NOT settle for.
Our next house will not have/be:
old carpet
outdated decor on the walls
wall paper of any sort
linoleum anywhere (there's linoleum in both of the bathrooms, and it sucks)
paneling
sunken living room
strange closet doors
brown trim
trim that has paint drops on it because stupid ass rednecks screwed it up
rednecks across (or down) the street
biggest house on the street
in a neighborhood
giant pile of abandoned debris in the back yard
jacked up landscaping
textured ceilings
outdated lighting fixtures
only one possible place to put the t.v.
weird foot-high brick ledge in the living room
wood burning stove/heater in living room (Either put a real fireplace in, or just leave the idea alone.)
old garage door
That's right. I want new carpet, freshly painted neutral walls, white trim, normal closet doors, and updated everything. I also want all new appliances. And no neighbors. So I basically want to build a new house in the country.
I think we should stop spending money on toys and start saving for our mansion on a hill.
Labels: this house is trying to kill me
In my house, which was built in the 50's, I think, there is wallpaper covering the walls AND the ceiling. It is this old, cream-colored brocade-looking paper. Whoever installed it didn't know shit about doing it, because my walls have ripples. When we bought the house, we were going to replace the carpet. Underneath the old carpet, we found that at some point, some previous owner had GLUED indoor-outdoor carpet to WOOD FLOORS! My bedrooms and the hall way have great wood floors, and I would love to hire someone to scrape up all the old glue and restore the wood floors in the living room. That, along with completely renovating the kitchen.
One good thing about my old house, though, is that I can put anything on the walls, anywhere I choose and not have to worry about finding the stud in the wall. Underneath the paneling is solid lumber. I can put anything I want, any place I want. That, and I have a built-in, pull-down ironing board. It's cool. And, an antique Hot Point stove with a deep well in it. We've lived in the house since 1984, and that sucker has never missed a lick.
That's my house stories for ya.
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:25 PM
The wood floors would be worth restoring, in my opinion. Do you live in Vicksburg, or did you tell me you once lived there?
The longer we have this house, the more weird things we find. I guess it's that way with all houses. I shouldn't complain. I grew up in a really small, old Jim Walters home, which is one tiny step up from a trailer. (My folks still live there.) It does have cool wood floors though.
Posted by
Mommy Needs a Xanax |
7:24 PM
I live in Philadelphia - home of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians - and their two great big casinos, which I avoid. And, of course, our other claims to fame - the FAIR, which I also avoid, and the '64 civil rights murders.
Speaking of weird things in old houses, in my kitchen, I have an old pencil sharpener mounted on one wall, and an old Coca Cola bottle opener mounted on the frame of the back door. My light fixtures are antiques - the ones in the dining room and bedrooms are glass and hang from little chains on three sides. The doorknob on the bathroom is an old glass one.
You talked about neighbors - my favorite neighbors are just south of us - we live close to the city cemetery. If those neighbors start getting rowdy, we're moving. I've never lived in a Jim Walter home, but I HAVE lived in a trailer park - for the first eight years I was married. There was a tornado that came through when my daughter was just over one year old. There seems to be something about tornadoes that loves trailer parks - maybe all that metal attracts them, I don't know - but after that, I cried every time a cloud came up until we got out of that thing. Our trailer was hardly damaged at all, but most had a lot of damage, and several in the park were totally destroyed. I did pull out a piece of pinestraw from the side of the trailer that looked like the wind had just screwed it right into the metal - it was the weirdest thing. We were in it when it hit - you really have no time to react. By the time you realize something is happening, it's over. It's something I hope never to experience again.
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:20 PM