I have been on quite a hiatus. Sorry, I blame it on al-al-al-al-cohol. Just kidding, I blame it on buying a fixer-upper that required an immediate fix as soon as we moved in. The house we just purchased in Florida (The Oriole – all of my houses have to have names, after all they are my babies) had wall-to-wall carpet. In addition to that they had a dog who used the carpet as his personal toilet. That required immediate action – operation remove carpet. Look at that living room (below), it is swimming in carpet, yuck. I won’t even describe the smell of removing the carpet. I’ll keep that little nugget to myself.
There was carpet at the front door so as soon as you entered the house, you were on carpet. That’s crazy! On top of that we had a ton of rain the past couple weeks which exposed water seeping into the house through the back door threshold. So every time it rained that carpet would get soaked with water; that is so gross.
Once the carpet was gone it felt like we lived in a warehouse.
I’m not sure what this looks like to you but it is extremely stressful. How can anyone comfortably live in this scenario?! The only way to remedy was to get to work ASAP. We created a plan – wood look tile floors ASAP, in a herringbone pattern. LOLOLOLOLOL…the remodeling gods were laughing at us. Why didn’t someone stop us from making this insane decision??!! 2 weeks into this project and we have gone through 5 1/2 bags of mortar, 1 1/2 bags of grout, god knows how many cases of tile, and only half of the room is complete. We are officially stuck in remodeling HELL!!!!! People, this is a public service announcement…DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME UNLESS YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL. I am hating life right now!!!!! Did I mention we are only halfway done with one room???? Here are our time lapse photos.
Notice I started the time lapse photos and then said, “screw it. This sucks. Here is our halfway point.” Ok, half of the room is tiled. By Thanksgiving, maybe the whole room will be tiled (tears are streaming down my face). Ok, snap out of it; get it together gurl, positive thoughts….we’ll be back at it trying to get the rest of the room tiled. Wish me luck!
This house is the largest house we have ever owned at 1659 sq ft. I get it; this house is certainly not big by many peoples standards but we have always loved old, historic homes (which are traditionally small). I say all of this to say I am woefully understocked on furniture. I need to purchase a new dining room set, 2 living room chairs, and a king size headboard/bed. In the meantime I purchased this cute little gem of a chair.
OMG, this little puppy is so comfortable! I am totally loving the 70s vibe it’s giving me. Another purchase I recently made is this wall art (yeah, that isn’t paint, its yarn). Ok, honestly, are you throwing up in your mouth?? I am totally loving the vintage feel of this!
In a couple weeks we are going to take the truck to Atlanta for a shopping spree. I am so deprived here in Tallahassee, FL. I am so spoiled by my options in the DC area for furniture/accessories etc.!
On a final side note, I have only taken 32 hours of leave this year. People, it is October and I have only taken off 4 days this entire year, WTF! I need a vacation sooooo bad. I literally have 590 hours of annual leave on the books and I can roll all of it over to next year. We’re talking about going back to New Orleans but touring some of the mansions outside the city or going to Birmingham, Alabama. This is certainly a departure from France, Belize, and Argentina, LOL. Times have certainly changed….
Spotswood House 