THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
Alice.com
Today, my mom sent me an email, directing me to Alice.com. I know it's not house-related, but penny-pinching is a peripheral hobby of many old-house-people, as we need to use those precious pennies to buy great hardware, reclaimed flooring, or beautiful drapes.
You sign up with your name, email, zip code and birthday. Shipping on orders of coupons is free! It's very cool- I highly recommend it!
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2009
So much for the tiles.
The tiles did NOT clean up well (I took pictures, but haven't uploaded them yet). They are still dirty, still ugly. The grout, too, is still in bad shape. We've decided to replace them, so now I am in pursuit of the right sized tiles, that are attractive. I have no sense of what makes an attractive tile, so I'm still doing some online research (which consists of google-imaging and blog surfing).
In the mean time, I've found great drapery hardware, at jcpenny.com! I feel I've exhausted other possibilities, in an effort to assure myself the best possible deal for the best looking rods, that I can find. I've picked out a few rod sets with a glass finish. I think they'll look great with our 1923 house. To go with these new rods, I picked up a few sets of drapes and sheers at Ikea. I picked white sheers in a few different styles, and some thick drapes. Pictures will be coming when I have them all in place!
It's so fun to finally start turning this house into a home :-D
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2009
In the Beginning
I love reading blogs about other people's adventures in old houses, so I'm starting my own. Rather than living vicariously through the blogs of others', I will now attempt to give someone else the chance to live out their home improvement dreams through this blog.
Brief background- we moved in during the summer of 2008, but were busy planning our wedding. Now, married, with a dog, we'll be tackling our projects around the house. Later, I'll post a few pictures of the minor things we took care of in the first year.
Today, I've been cleaning up the tiles around the hearth. Our brick fire place is surrounded by a quarry tile (4x4) hearth. The tiles are unusual in that they have some color "smudged" on. I'm not sure if this is a stain someone applied in situ, or some other treatment. Anyway, the tiles, especially near the mouth of the fire place, are pretty dirty, with a lot of thick, black, waxy build-up. My clean-up efforts include chemical strippers, a heat gun+scraper combo, and finally, steam+scraper+towel combo. The grout is dirty and chipped, and I'll just have to regrout when the tiles are clean. The grout scrapes out very easily.
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