11/01/12: White stairs, finally . . .

Way back in July, we ripped out the carpet on the stairs and second-floor hallway, refinished the hardwoods underneath, and stripped the flaking paint from the stair risers. Well, it wasn't until recently that we got around to repainting those risers. We'd been living with stained, nasty looking wood for months (not to mention plaster patching all over the stairway walls):

Notice the quarter round, waiting to be reattached. (I ripped it out to insert some shims between the stairs to stop some insanely sharp creaking.)

 May I present Our New Stairs and Stairway Walls:

Notice Michael's expert quarter round cutting and installation skills.

 

11/01/12: Living Room. Finished.

We've finished painting quite a few rooms lately here at Mont d'Or Manor, the worst of which was the huge living room. Here again is the before view (with the mousey tan walls and our plaster patching everywhere):

We never liked the tan much; it clashed with the stained glass and the dark fireplace mantel. So, we redid it in Benjamin Moore's White Dove:

And now we have this:

09/27/12: New Kitchen Cabinet Hardware

We were growing tired of trying to pry our kitchen drawers open from the edges---they were completely handleless when we moved in:

Riddle me this: how do I get you open?

???

And here's the old cabinet hardware. A little too 'spurs and jangles' for me:

 So, we drilled new holes for the drawers and replaced the handles on all the cabinets:

Welcome to the 21st century, Handles.

09/03/12: Headboard

In case any of you were wondering how the $25 Craigslist headboard I painted back in June turned out, here it is:

9/03/12: Save time for pickling

 So, not home improvement per se, but pickling was a fun diversion from home improvement!

Beets, shishito peppers, and red onions

09/03/12: Light fixtures galore!

Dining room chandelier

Bedroom ceiling fan, finally!

09/01/12: $2 light fixture

We wanted a small oil-rubbed bronze light fixture for the guest bedroom, but we were having trouble finding something suitable. Here's what we were dealing with before:

Granted, this looks much worse than it would if it had its glass shade and were properly affixed to the ceiling. But anyway. Went down to Construction Junction, a used building materials store, and found a small silver fixture for $1 and a small school-house shaped glass shade to go with it, also for $1. Set up shop in the backyard with my oil-rubbed bronze spray paint and went to work:

  
Attached the new shade and affixed to the ceiling using the hardware from the previous fixture:

All for $2 (not including cost of the spray paint, which I plan to use on everything from now on . . .).

Here's a picture of the guest bedroom, now that we've got the bedding on and the light fixture installed: