As of summer 2017:
Kitchen
The kitchen is a greasy place. Filled with cooking odors that can linger, and grime. And, it's hard to clean grime off of painted surfaces, so I really needed a backsplash.
However, I still don't have the time and money for the quality of backsplash I really want, and I am not certain what would be right for the room in the end- so I went for a vinyl backsplash. It can be taken down when I get the chance to do real tile or stone.
In addition to the vinyl backsplash, I also got a steel backsplash for the stove (which is also new and already has needed repairs, four months in).
An idea of BEFORE (note the different paints, primer, and purple water resistant drywall over an old back door)
After:
After the backsplash, I painted the kitchen. It was pretty bad- half of it had remnants of the light green color of the old den, half was white, and a lot of it was drywall, spackle, and primer. No matter what color, it would be nice to have the room be all one color.
I got a sample of Valspar's Electro Chill. But the sample I got from Ace Hardware actually *wasn't* Electro Chill, it was off slightly. I *liked* the sample color, so embarked on an adventure of trying to get the sample color matched. Finally, after a week of wasted hours at store counters, Lowe's (Thank you Eric and Sherry!), finally matched my color. BUT, they could not get the color to work in the gallon buckets, and had to give me 16! separate sample sized containers of the paint. Sigh.
(Confession: When I actually painted the room, I wondered if maybe I should have gone with the real Electro Chill color, because it was slightly darker. Oh well, Charles loves the color)
The kitchen is not entirely done. There are still some rough spots here and there. But it does feel more finished, more intentional, now. I like it a lot more. The bright, light, airiness of it is a joy. It feels bigger too, with all the wall color unified. And the white cabinets, with the black counters, and gray backsplash really work with the wall color for me.
Downstairs Bathroom
This room was completely demolished by the contractor during our renovations. It was roughly put together and left unpainted and unfinished.
I painted it (Valspar, My Mona) a pink/lilac color. I purchased PVC wainscoting and chair rail kit, and white faux tin ceiling tiles that match the pantry (they are going way up in price, btw). We installed those recently.
I need to add edging to the floors and along the outside edge of the subway tiles for the shower and the window wall, put up crown molding to finish the ceiling, and maybe paint the window borders white. But for now, I feel this is an improvement to the drywall, spackle, and ugly, chipping, yellowing ceiling.
And a quick note as to why I thought of doing those ceiling tiles. The ceiling was in bad shape, is really high, and needs to be scrapped extensively, repatched, and reprimed. Or I could just cover that all with ceiling tiles that match the rest of the house.
"Wait, the rest of the house?" You say? Yes, I have plans. During renovations, when we bought the house, the ceiling of the room that was the former owner's bedroom (he squatted in three rooms of an otherwise empty house) was completely exposed. Yes, just joists, old smoke stains, and leaking, damaged plumbing (you can see the room in the ones I added to the real estate first photos).
So when we fixed the plumbing for two bathrooms in that ceiling, I decided I needed to avoid putting up costly drywall if anything leaked. So I looked at wainscoting, but it comes in large sheets and is cumbersome. Then I decided on 20x20 stryrofoam faux tin tiles. I put up furring strips, then glued the tiles to the strips. It looks great, they were about $4.50 a piece, and I bought an extra box, so if we have to tear some down to get to a leak (which will come through easily for easy discovery), and replace them without need of extra equipment.
So the kitchen is almost finished. I need to paint the trim- door frames, windows frames, baseboards. I'm going to use bright white. I'd also like to do bright white built ins for the long wall at the back of the kitchen (where the hallway from the pantry that had no ceiling, to the downstairs bathroom, past the study and kitchen, which were demolished to make one big kitchen).
The wainscoting was not cut perfectly straight in some places, the walls are very, very out of plumb and downright wavy (welcome to old homes), and Charles put screws right through the chair rails instead of discretely tacking them in place. But hey, we basically have a nicer bathroom that looks like it is trying to be finished.
Backyard
We put up a trellis for the vines and shrubs I want to grow between my yard and the neighbor. This is step one of a several step process. I put the trellis up at the top edge of the downslope. I intend to back fill that slope and add a versalock wall (with drainage system) to get my whole property back. Right now we've lost about 300 feet of space to the subsidence of the yard into the downhill yard of the neighbor (remember, this was a property that had been empty for years and was supposed to be condemned, then was sold right after we bought our house, some cosmetic work done, and rented to two families with children and smokers before we moved in, we were considering purchasing the property and demolishing it, to make their backyard our own).
I only have a night time pic of this, I don't know why. I will add a picture with the plants in as soon as I have enough to show what I am planning.
In an ongoing attempt to create more privacy and block cigarette smoke from our chainsmoking neighbors and folks walking down the alley- I put up a black felt, pocket wall garden on the alley side fence. I also installed a portable rain barrel, and am in the process of setting up a solar drip irrigation system.
And, I also filled a 7 lb canvas bag with dirt and planted a food garden. Although the weather was not with me, too much rain and coolness early on, followed by very dry, hot weather, we have still gotten many tomatoes, some cucumbers (mishapened, but still tasty), and soon, sweet peppers. I also have more jalapenos from my indoor garden). It is really nice to be able to go out my kitchen door and pick fresh mint for tea, and herbs like dill, chives, cilantro, etc., straight from the wall.
You can see the mint just growing over the yard in the next pic:
Some of the veggies from the garden:
