Category: home improvement

The Dusty And The Scenic

KarenLeave a comment

I made a lot of progress on the garage over the long weekend! I finished mudding and then sanded and even started with primer in one corner. My dad told me about “dust control” drywall compound and it was definitely worth the extra money: It’s still dusty but the particulates want to fall to the ground faster, so at least it’s not floating in the air.

My walls aren’t the smoothest in the world but they’re also not the most textured either. I can tell I got better!
Wet mud on all the drywall seams in a long garage wall

A close up of mudded and sanded walls in a corner of a garage

A built in shelf in a corner of a garage. The walls are covered with primer.

 

I took a little break from everything to go on a hike Friday afternoon up Big Cottonwood. The clouds were doing the most and it was just lovely.

Big white clouds above a mountain lake, reflected in the water

An alpine meadow with white flowers, with mountains in the background and white clouds above

Mountains seen through a grove of aspen trees, with a blue sky and whtie puffy clouds

Tuesday House Project

Karen

All of my house projects follow the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie  model: If the second storage shelf doesn’t fit back in the new basement closet and barely fits in the garage, you think about wall shelving. If you’re going to put wall shelving in the garage, you think you should probably paint the walls first. If you want to paint the walls, you’re going to need to mud and sand and prime them. And before you can do any of that, you have to take everything OFF the shelves so you can get to the walls.

So here we are:
A garage interior with raw drywall and piles of stuff covered by drop cloths

I roped my dad into coming up and giving me a lesson in applying mud over the weekend. Turns out there are a lot of similar skills between finishing drywall and getting a smooth layer of frosting on a cake, and I’m not great at either!A corner of the garage with drywall mud applied

 

But I’m done watering my friend’s garden after today so I can get in the garage and spend some time very gradually improving for the rest of the week. Because as we all know, “Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”

Doing Things In Rooms

Karen

I got a long weekend and did all sorts of house things: Painted the old office, visualized what a 6-foot felt board would look like in my new office, and even did some sewing in the new basement (!). Who needs to leave the house?

A bare white room with a dropcloth-covered table of painting supplies in it

A desk and filing cabinet against a white wall with an orange coach along the other wall. Above the desk a 6x3 foot rectangle is taped out in blue tape.

A white fluffy rug has a cutting mat, pieces of fabric, and pillow forms on it.

Tuesday Project Roundup: A Paper Project

Karen

I pulled out the book board and papers and made a tissue box cover for the new bathroom over the weekend:
a paper covered square tissue box cover. The paper has botanical-illustration style oranges and leaves on it in rows.

It had been a while since I worked with the thinner Italian papers vs. the forgiving Japanese ones but we made it work. And we have some nice pops of orange in there now:
A green bathroom vanity with the tissue box cover and a piece of orange art glass on it.

And! We finally got shower glass last week, so everything is DONE-done now:
A tiled shower with a black stool in it and a solid glass door

Projects That Are Almost Invisible

Karen

The fresh snowy white paint down in the new sewing lair made me realize how dingy the rest of the white paint in the house is. I guess it makes sense–I closed 15 years ago tomorrow (!)–but if we’re going to sell in a few years, we’ll need to paint anyway, and why not enjoy new paint until then?

So I started with the old sewing room because it was still empty. I prepped over the week and knocked it all out Sunday and ended up with a room that…looks the same in photos!

Before:

 

After:

Up close, though, it looks really good. There was a weird ghosting coming through at the roof line from the 2x4s (you can see it above the window in the before) and some blocking primer and paint fixed that, along with 15 years worth of scuffs and dings and nail holes.

It looks SO good that I’ve realized I’m going to have to do the whole house, not just a few rooms. It’s good to have projects, I guess.

Decorating Instead Of Sewing

Karen

I’ve been hanging pictures and drilling cabinets for hardware instead of sewing (or even knitting) but the new Luxury Sewing Lair in the basement is all set up!

This is what you see when you walk in. I need to make machine covers (the fabric is just draped here) and I’m waiting for a tabletop ironing board to arrive to go on that far left desk. (My regular ironing board is huge and I don’t need it unless I’m ironing lengths of fabric, so that’s going to stay in the closet.)
Three long white desks against a wall with two curtained windows in it. The desks have three sewing machines on them.

On the other side of the room, we have the thing that gave me the idea to finish the basement in the first place: I wanted a guest room. Sure, I ended up making a Luxury Sewing Lair instead but I still wanted the ability to turn this into a space for guests. So there’s an ensuite bathroom down here and that blue chaise opens like a book into a queen bed. (Still need to make some throw pillow covers.)
A navy blue chaise lounge with a white coffee table on wheels in front of it. There is a fluffy white rug on the floor.

And on the far end of the room, there’s fabric storage and the record player. I’m debating adding a TV over there, too, but the decorating budget is maxed out for a while.
Long green cabinet pushed against a white wall. There is art and a fabric covered pinboard on the wall in green and blue print.

I love this space, though. Other than the chaise and the doors to the cabinets, I had all the other furniture pieces; they just got shuffled around the house. I can wheel the little coffee table out of the way and cut stuff out on a nice thick rug and generally luxuriate in a room I dreamed about when I bought the house 15 years ago.

How’s The Basement Coming Along?

Karen

I’m slowly getting things moved downstairs. Mid-move I had a real moment of regret about my plans for the space (“I already HAD a sewing room, what am I even doing??”) but now that it’s a little more set up, I’m extremely pleased. This will be the fancy sewing lair I dreamed about when I bought the house, uh, fifteen years ago!

A large room with a long table with 3 sewing mahchines on it against one wall. A long green cabinet is against the other wall and there is a fluffy white rug.

A desk drawer is pulled out. It's filled with thread in rainbow order.

A cabinet with green doors stands open. It is filled with folded fabric.

I still need to: move more things, make a new ironing board cover, make a new fabric-covered pinboard, get more drawer organizers, hang art, and figure out the lamps I want to use, but the fabric fits in the cabinet (whew) and the sewing machines are all down there. We’re getting close!

The Tides Of STUFF

Karen

I started getting things put back into the basement over the weekend and … the second storage shelf we’d moved up to the garage doesn’t fit back in the closet. (Well, it physically fits but it would block access to either the door or the first shelf, so it functionally doesn’t. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I measured.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So half the things I’d already moved downstairs got brought back upstairs and that second shelf will continue to live in the garage. Meanwhile, we hauled the two IKEA cabinets down there and I put the new legs and doors on, and I got a little excited again. A long low cabinet with green-gray doors against a white wall. Two turquoise lamps are on it and a fluffy white rug is in the foreground.

I’m going to fill that cabinet with vinyl records FABRIC! As soon as I carry it all down two flights of stairs. (•́ ᴖ •̀)

It’s Done!

Karen

Terrible things are happening in America* but the basement is officially FINISHED, professionally cleaned, and inspected. It took just 12 weeks including holidays (!!) and I love it. If I were rich I’d hire EVERY home improvement project out to the pros.

Here are the befores: An unfinished basement from the corner of the room. The insulation and furnace are exposed.

An unfinished stairwell leading into the basement. Various pantry items are stacked on the stair ledge.

And here are the afters:
The same angle of the same basement, but now there are clean white walls, a bathroom, doors over the furnace, and wood-look flooring

The same shot of the stairwell but with finished white walls, lighting, and wood-look stairs

I need to get everything we put in the garage moved back into the new closet before I move in furniture, but I did put some rugs down already. (Gotta protect the new floor!)

The basement room with a shaggy white and black rug in it

A bathroom with a green vanity, a leopard rug, and white walls

 

 

 

*I saw this post this morning and couldn’t agree more. Screenshot of a post that says, Thanks for the free 7-day trial of 2026 I'd like to unsubscribe from whatever the hell this

Basement Progress

Karen

We’re in the last few weeks of this project, which feels simultaneously like no time has passed and like October was about a year ago. But the floors went down this week! A dusty vinyl "wood" floor in a basement room. A bathroom with a tiled shower opens off of it.

 

We’re not staying in this house forever so I didn’t go for custom stair treads. Just gonna keep reminding myself of that…
Looking up stairs covered in wood-look vinyl plank flooring.

My BFFs the tile guys are coming back today to finish the shower curb. Their snacks are ready, lol. A bowl of chips and snacks sits on top of the stand pipe for the toilet in a bathroom.