Saturday, June 6

Welcome to the Unfinished Project Zone

Thanks to some of the kickass comment's on yesterday's post, it has come to my attention that we are not the only ones who seem to be really good at ignoring household projects. In fact, we aren't even close to the worst. LOVE THAT! It rocks to get a little perspective because it makes this list seem a little less embarrassing. This is the Unfinished Projects that Just Now Got Done because We're Moving List.

#1--The interior doors. I've mentioned before that the interior doors that came with our townhouse were about as attractive as Brad Garrett after three days without a shower. We bought replacement doors at least five years ago and then promptly used them as Wall Hiders in the garage. Where they sat. And sat. And sat. They finally got installed a few weeks ago. I would make some sort of excuse for that, but there isn't a valid one in all of the kindgom that would truly explain away that level of ignorance.

#2--The teeny tiny grout job. When we bought this place, it came complete with some spectacular 80's retro posts acting as faux room dividers between the master bedroom and walk-through closet area. They were so dead sexy that the ink wasn't even dry on the paperwork before I walked up to that room and smashed those stupid posts to smithereens. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to cover the gaping hole on the ledge where once there were posts, but I finally decided to make a little shelf with some broken pieces of marble tile. The little project turned out splendidly, except for the part where it took me EIGHT YEARS to grout the tile. The grout was in the basement the whole time, I just apparently was too cool to actually mix the grout and put it to use. EIGHT YEARS.



#3--The moulding drama. I have a thing for moulding. A really, really serious thing. I LURVE good moulding, and I LURVE to have lots and lots and lots of it. The key to my happiness was to put up chair rail, crown moulding, and even to replace the fugly baseboards that were cramping the floor's style. All great ideas. Ignore the fat blob of a cat in this photo, and check out how loverly those baseboards look these days. It only took us seven years after we decided to switch them out to actually get it done .



#4--The thresholds. Near the front door were two little spots where the wood floors met the tile floors. Toghether, they looked awful because the floor installers didn't seem to have the right kind of wood to fill that tiny gap. We tripped on what was there. We broke what was there. We nearly died because of what was there. It finally got fixed up all nice and purdy this week.



#5--The world's most unnecessary faucet. For years the faucet in the walk-through closet area sat broken. For years we forgot to fix it. For years it threatened to mess up the whole house if anyone accidentally turned it on. For years we didn't care. It cost a whopping $12 to finally replace it, and less than an hour. Whoops.



OK, confess. What is sitting around your house just not getting done?

26 comments:

  1. Since we bought our house in 2005... I have yet to finish painting the 2nd flr hall. every room in the 1st and 2nd floor is repainted. My husband has a shed form our old place still disassembled in the back yard, maybe this year it will get rebuilt. those are my two worst offenses that i can thin of at 130am

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  2. This is so sad. All those little things that you could have been enjoying for years. YEARS.

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  3. My house is a renovators delight. Stuff currently not getting done?

    -The huge holes in the dining room floor. We need to tear out the floor and concrete it. We've known about the holes for 12 months now.

    -All the windows need new putty.

    -The bathroom is the laundry and the water pump is inside the bathroom cabinet. It needs moving outside.

    and on and on and on.

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  4. DUDE, we had one of those 80s room dividers between our kitchen & dining room. THE DAY WE MOVED IN, my friend and I took a hammer to the whole thing. It was awesome.

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  5. It took us 5 years to repair the dining room and livingroom ceiling. There was a slow leak that stained half of both ceilings with rusted spreading puddles. When we finally got it done (this past summer) The morons that we had for contractors drilled a hole in the main water valve putting in a new ceiling. Imagine my surprise the next day cleaning up the dust that ensued and having water dripping down soaking me from my brand new ceiling. So down it came again. So waiting 5 years is an understatement to having to have it done twice in less than 3 days. (Hugs)Indigo

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  6. I don't feel so bad now! In our last move we left everything undone til a few months before we put the house on the market. Then we busted our butts to get it all finished. Turned out it was so homey & cute that I almost hated leaving.
    Thankfully both our Dads are in to woodworking etc... so they jumped right in when we moved into our 1940's farmhouse last year and fixed a lot of things but they're a LOT more motivated than we are. Older people seem to be full of energy! They also hung everything up that we have except Big D did put up the curtain rods in sissy's room. we have some sort of aversion to hanging things and they have aversions to seeing blank walls so nothing gets done unless they're here to help.

    I have a ton of painting to do and I still don't have curtain rods or curtains in our room & Bubby's room. My office which we use as the entry is this horrible, flat hunter green and it's been cut in with white primer for about 4 months how so it's hunter green with streaky white edges around everything.
    There's only so many times you can used the excuse "we're painting our office" when people come over if 4 months later it's still not done.
    We've got multiple thresholds to fix too. One has no cover and one actually has one of those hideous, 4" metal ones with a tread print! It's like something you'd use in a garage - maybe. I don't know who on earth would think that was a good idea.

    We've also got a bathroom downstairs with a bathtub in it right in front of the door that's filled from top to bottom with clear glass panels. Smart, right? The solution the previous owners came up with was stick on fake stained glass. Hid-e-ous. Have I changed it though? No.

    What bugs me most is the terrible, old fashioned looking antenna on the roof. Now we have a satellite on one side and a freakish spiky monstrosity on the other side. It also has this black cord that dangles almost to the ground. Beautiful. The home is a two story so we'd have to buy a $300 ladder to get up there and it down. We've got to fork it over though because the gutters need cleaning.

    Can't wait to see pics of your new place! Congrats again...

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  7. I don't think this space is big enough.

    For starters, years ago my boys were throwing things at each other and put a huge dent in the livingroom wall.
    The dent/hole sat like that for 2 or three years.
    Last year I finally had a plasterer come over the fix hole. Now instead of a big dent my lovely green livingroom had a huge white plaster mark.
    Yes, it's the first thing you see whem you come into the house.

    Then there are the cannister lights that burn out and I never replace untill all 8 go out in my kichen. And then I think, Gee never realized it was so bright in here!

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  8. Like you, we have interior doors keeping the garage attractive.

    Kitchen backsplash - we took down the yellow melamine sheeting and found Liquid Nails. Then we left it alone. In 2004.

    I have mulched flowerbeds surrounding the house with no flowers in them. Also hanging baskets of petunias that never sprouted. Probably because I bought the seeds three years ago, found them in March, and planted them. So the baskets hang, full of dirt and no flowers.

    The crown moulding is hung in the living room, but it's still white. The rest of our trim is "A Touch of Spice." Looks odd.

    That's all, I think.

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  9. we just bought a house in the burgh, in the city, and it needs just so much renovation. We aren't at the point right now where we are ignoring things or "not doing them" but every time we concentrate on one thing it seems like we should concentrate on something else...it's very taxing.

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  10. Oh, Lord...where do I even begin? Console yourself with the fact that you don't own a fixer upper like me. I have been working on the master bedroom for almost a year now. We've updated the wiring, drywalled over the plaster on walls and ceilings, stripped the window trim and doors...and it's still not done. It's getting there. Another month or so. However, it's preventing me from doing anything with the 8 other rooms in my house. And the staircase, and the outside of the house, and the yard...all of which need MAJOR work. So your broken faucet? Nothing to be ashamed of.

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  11. I forgot to mention that we had to rip down paneling and suspended ceiling and tear up carpet before we could start all the above work.

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  12. We have a fixer-upper we not-so-fondly call The Money Pit. It is infamous in the neighborhood. Everyone knows our ugly little brick house with a concrete block basement addition, a front yard what won't grow grass, concrete block sitting in the driveway waiting to become a porch (or maybe jack up someone's Z28, I'm not sure). There are no bedrooms. The kitchen is tiny and on a cracked, crumbling foundation. Our current project is the basement bathroom. We'll get there. It's been 4-1/2 years and counting...

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  13. The biggest thing for me is the chair rail that was supposed to go up in Griffin's bedroom...instead, it's a nice strip of the former colour - "country rose" in between the chocolate brown on the bottom and the light beige on the top. It makes me think of neopolitan ice cream, every time I'm in there!

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  14. In our 110 year old house the list is endless. The roof over the sunporch needs to be replaced. It's leaking. The dining has hideous wood paneling and desperately needs painting. The attic door doesn't shut all the way because of the old house settling thing. And oh the caulk this place needs.

    I could go on and on.

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  15. Arrange the office so I can work from it. Clean out the back rooms of the basement (attacked today). Take out the bushes out front (started today). Redo the upstairs bathroom. Move the rock-a-bench to the back porch where I'll actually sit on it. Do something with our mini-pond so it stops killing small animals...

    shave the dog...

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  16. We bought our house 5 years ago. It had Pepto pink tile in the bathroom (bathroom finally got remodeled last fall), pink kitchen walls (still pink), and the following November (nearly 4 years ago now!) the J pipe in the plumbing in the basement rusted through. We replaced the pipe ourselves, BUT THE CONCRETE FLOOR IS STILL NOT REPLACED.

    *sigh* We're paying a mortgage on a house we haven't lived in full-time since December 2007. Good thing we didn't overbuy a house and can afford that and our rent. Oh, did I mention our house is in OHIO and we live in PA???????

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  17. My husband and next door neighbor started a renovation on my bathroom 14 months ago. All that was left was cleaning up the drywall mud, moving a lightswitch, attaching the drain plug and caulking the counter to the vanity.

    All of that is still sitting there unfinished. I painted so it wasn't completely undone...but it seriously needs done. Hubs keeps saying "I gotta finish that bathroom."

    Gee...ya THINK?

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  18. Oh HAHAHA - how much time do you have? If we don't count the projects from when we first moved in 10 years ago and only focus on the stuff from the addition, we have door and window moldings that aren't installed or painted, also have messed-up thresholds, baseboard in the family room that is 80% finished (80% seems to be mr b's "magic number"), closets without shelves or doors, no railing on the basement stairs, an entire room of replastering, finishing cutting through the new doorway into our bedroom and installing the trim and door, 700 things not worth mentioning and oh - did I mention the giant stack of bamboo floor to catch the "old" half of the house with the new?

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  19. I'm laughing so hard right now that I think my eyes might EsPloaD! Sometimes it takes so long to finish a big project, we have to hire a contractor to finish it. Note our second renovated bath. "Finished" 2 years ago. Still need to have the contractor replace two of fixtures....they don't match the others. He even has the replacements, just hasn't come to do it.

    My projects? Here's the worst and smallest of them all. Doorbell by side door, the wires are sticking out of the siding. Trim around window on stairs needs refinished. The list goes on and on....

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  20. Do you really want my list. I'll give it to you just so you can feel better about your list. All of our thresholds for the new laminate wood floors we put down last year need to be put in. All of the quarter round that covers the edges of said floors needs to be done. All of the outside doors still need deadlocks. All of the interior doors need painted and new knobs. Our bedrooms have no closet doors becuase they are sitting in the garage. One of our bedrooms has no ceiling light, instead there is a hole with wires hanging out in the ceiling. None of our outlets have outlet covers, they are all sitting next to the outlets waiting to get scewed on. There is still painters tape on the ceiling in our bedroom (we are too afraid to take it down for fear of ruining the ceiling). The garage door needs painted. I need to finish painting the outdoor lights (I should have just bought new ones, although the new ones would probably still be sitting in the garage). The house numbers need to be hung up. I think I'll stop there for fear of burning your eyes from reading the insanity. And this is only the list of the "small" things, we'll ignore the fact that we need a new fence, roof, and driveway.
    I hope I could make your day a little brighter :)

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  21. We are about the biggest procrastinators on the planet, so we've got a houseful of unfinished stuff. I think I have one properly functioning sink in the entire house. Sure the other ones work, but not necessarily the way you'd want them to. They either spray all over when you turn them on, drip unless you have them turned off just right, or the drains are slow. And that is just the beginning. . .

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  22. More projects than you can possibly comprehend:
    Re-insulate the house
    Replace front door (has a rusted thru spot)
    Replace front porch
    Strip paint in downstairs bath, replace sink, toilet, light, and mirror.
    Paint ceilings.
    Paint baseboards.
    Replace stairs carpeting (the Hound masticated carpet is still there)
    Put coverplates on outlets that are partly hidden by furniture.
    Put a backsplash on the kitchen (we have the tile, but not done anything with it)
    Figure out what the living room light switch goes to.
    Replace HVAC system
    Drywall under stairs
    Bring chimney up to code
    And much much more

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  23. I think I told you most of mine already. Oh - We do have a five light ceiling fan fixture in our dining room that has had one bulb burned out for a year. We can see well enough without it, so I guess we're saving electricity...Yeah, that's it!

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  24. Wow, I feel better; I bought my first home two years ago and the boyfriend decided it would look great if we "opened up the living room" and cut out the staircase. Yeah, it looks great; but then he just STOPPED....nothing has changed since we moved in.........we need baseboards in the living room and dining room, both rooms need finishing, the fireplace needs tiles, the entryway needs tiles.....big old house in Larryville.....so much needs done!

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  25. The laundry. The dinner dishes from last night. The beds aren't made....um...wait a minute.

    Did you mean PROJECTS? Oh. My bad.

    There aren't shelves up in the big faux shelve/alcove entertainment area-thing. It's one big hole in the middle of the wall with a blob of electronics piled into it.

    The walls? They aren't painted. (Except for the living room and kitchen, which we painted FIVE YEARS after we moved in.) It's one big pasture of white in my house.

    I bought shelves for the girls room so long ago that I can't remember when they were purchased (years. At least three or four years).

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  26. Ooh, where to begin with this one? The unfinished crown moulding for the kitchen cabinets? (It'll look SO good when it's done, too.) The teeny tiny towel locker in the kids bath that we need to put shelves in, but instead put a piece of plywood over to cover the hole? The lack of shelving in our bath closet? The bedroom doors that need painted on the OTHER side because my mom decided to help one day, but they're upstairs so who really cares? Or maybe the door jambs that just need nailed down because they're simply sitting there waiting to be kicked out of place once again?

    Why are we homeowners again?

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