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Ode to Craigslist

Published October 26, 2011 bling blog , home improvements 6 Comments

When I was in high school, my favorite poet was Keats. I was drawn to his poetry because, well, mostly because I could understand it. And I think I thought there was something terribly romantic about being an English poet, dying in your mid-20s of tuberculosis and then being buried in Italy. Times have changed. Well, maybe not, but I’ve certainly changed. Now my go-to poet is more Yeats than Keats and I get more excited about couches than Grecian urns. And while Italy still makes me weak in the knees, being buried there is not something I like to think about.

All of this leads me (rather circuitously if, really, at all) to my love affair with Craigslist. Let’s leave aside all of the creeptacular and sinister parts of the website and concentrate, instead, on all that is good and golden about the free service for the greater good. I am talking about the “for sale” section of the site. I admit it makes me a smidge sad when I think about how much damage Craigslist has done to the classified ad revenue stream of the local paper, but the service it offers is so much better, it’s hard to feel too bad about it. It’s not like, say, the guilt I have felt when I have used Netflix over Video Station. Netflix offers convenience, but it’s hard to argue Video Station doesn’t have an excellent product – a vast selection and sometimes a very knowledgeable staff. Craigslist, however, offers things the ad section in the paper can’t. For one, it’s free. This makes it one million times more accessible and gives its consumers a million more available products than any pay service. What used to be a piece of furniture you would give away to St. Vinny’s to unload or, heaven forbid! the curb, has now become available for anyone perusing the web to purchase. For two, it’s updated constantly so there is no waiting to see what tomorrow’s edition will bring. For three, and I suppose this relates to the gratis nature of the site, the seller can put up multiple pictures of the product so that the buyer can see just what it is that is being pitched. Genius. Anyway, the site is pretty much the greatest and it has really helped me out in a couple of ways.

See, I can get a bit neurotic. I know that this is probably a shock to most of you and I probably should have suggested you sit down before unloading such a heavy revelation on you. I apologize. But it is true: I can get a little nutty. This manifests itself most regularly when it comes to organization or, my personal dread, having too much stuff. Where this really can come to a head, though, is when I insist on redoing a particular part of our condo – whether it be a closet or the basement. You see, I will decide that new things must be brought in to combat the old and that means, you guessed it, the old must go. As I have gotten older, however, I have fewer and fewer pieces of furniture that I feel comfortable just discarding. Gone are my cardboard-like end tables and mouse-eaten couches. What’s left has been mostly nice things, even if they are not necessarily my taste. So I would feel guilty if I dumped them off somewhere or tossed them in the trash, but I really can’t stand having them taking up my precious square footage. This would be a problem were it not for the bright, shiny knight of Craig and his List. See, with Craigslist, all I have to do is take a few snapshots of the whatever-it-is, upload the pics to the site, write a description, set a price and voila! I am in business.

And that’s just what happened recently. After redoing our basement, we ended up with the following ‘extra’ pieces of stuff: a treadmill, two end tables (one from Pottery Barn, one from This End Up circa 1989) and the cool mid-century sofa you may recall from this blog. The treadmill and two end tables sold within a day or two of me putting them up on the site. The sofa, however, took longer. My first attempt yielded a lot of inquiries, but no takers. I put the ad up again, a few weeks later. This time, a nice young woman came to look at it, but decided it wouldn’t fit in the space she had in mind for it. I waited a month or two and then I tried the ad again. You see, although Craigslist keeps your ad up for 45 days (if you want it to), once a few days pass, it gets buried on page 6 or 10 or 12 of the “for sale – furniture” list, so you might as well just take down the old ad and put up a new one. It’s free, after all. So that’s what I did. On Sunday afternoon. On Monday evening, a cute young couple came to look at the couch and said they were very interested. On Tuesday evening, the fella came back with his dad-in-law, gave us $100 and took the couch. Easy as pie. And it made me happy. I really loved that couch and I could tell that the couple that bought it loved it, too. They got a cool couch and we got $100 & more space in the condo. So, everyone was a winner. And now basement is clear of clutter!

Well, that’s not really true. But thanks to Craigslist, it’s one step closer to making me neuroses-free.

Renovations

Published September 15, 2011 home improvements , tv! 12 Comments

So, I’ve been a little distracted with personal stuff as of late and, frankly, had nothing to say to warrant a blog post. Although both of those things are still true, I’m going to write something down anyway.

Has anyone watched the show Property Brothers on HGTV? I think new episodes may air on Saturday nights, but I keep catching the back-to-back episodes that air at 11 pm and midnight. [I’ve had some trouble sleeping lately.] I really like the premise of the show — two guys (brothers) operate in tandem to get a family the house of their “dreams.” Ok, that premise sounds pretty lame. Let me try again. One of the brothers is a real estate agent of some sort and the other is a contractor/ carpenter/ designer/ handyman/ visionary. I’ll leave it to you to evaluate the more useful of the two. The family, the brothers’ clients, come to them dreaming big. I’m not sure in what city this show takes place, but it’s not Madison. Or any city in Wisconsin. The brothers show the family an amazing house; a house with all of the bells and whistles that makes the family swoon. The family is totally enamoured (and also either good actors or completely in the dark about the whole point of the show) and ready to move in. The catch! The house is way above their budget. What do I mean? Well, the perfect house that they now love is, say, $1.2 million whereas their budget hovers around a *paltry* $700k. Boo! What to do? Property brothers to the rescue! You see, they can find this family a run-down, trashed, diamond in the rough for under budget and then use the “savings” to renovate to get the kids their dream house afterall. Genius! Or, that’s the idea. The problem, from where I sit (or rather lay, as I am in bed at this point, trying to get comfortable and maneuver around Gracie, who has recently decided that her favorite spot to sleep is smack in the middle of the bed) is that this is not what happens. I keep watching the show, waiting for this promise to be realized, but alas, I keep waiting.

What really happens is the family is shown two pretty run-down, ridiculous houses that are, from my financial vantage point, crazy expensive. The houses are in almost comically bad shape. They look like a tornado blew through them right before squatters took over. In fact, in one episode last night, as the group was touring a potential house to buy, the group stumbled upon someone sleeping in one of the bedrooms. That was odd. Anyway, after viewing two of these houses, the family is given a choice, which seems to routinely look something like this: Buy House A for, say, $550k and have $150k to do this amazingly beautiful renovation that will completely change the house into a magazine-worthy abode. Or buy House B for about $650k, which will leave $50k to still do amazing work. In my admittedly limited views of the show, the family always opts for the more expensive home so that I’m instantly disappointed that the reno will be of a much smaller scale. I realize a $50k renovation still sounds substantial, but when compared to three times that much? No contest for me — I’d much rather see the grander plan come true. But, no dice. So, that’s the second major wrinkle in the show (the first for me, in case I wasn’t clear earlier, is that these folks are getting a run-down house for over a half of a million dollars. I know location is everything, but it’s hard for me to contemplate paying that much for a tornado-damaged pit).

And here comes Wrinkle 3. Brother Real Estate is not quite the magician the show could use. He invariably tells the family he thinks he can get the house for a price that is not insignificantly lower than the price the couple ends up forking over. Thus, that already smaller reno budget is reduced again. Boo.

So now we’re about half-way into the hour-long show and we have a crappy house that people have spent a lot of money on. At this point, the buyers need to decide how their going to cut corners. Brother Carpenter/Designer/Contractor has some of tricks up his sleeves here, but they really aren’t anything newsworthy (laminate instead of hardwood, cast-off tiles for the fireplace or bathroom, using the couple’s older furniture) so it’s not very interesting. In one of the episodes last night, the couple’s reno budget had trickled down to $30k, so they were faced with the choice of redoing the kitchen or redoing the “upstairs” of the house, which entailed remaking two kids’ rooms, a guest room and a smallish bathroom. They chose the latter and while the decorating was nice, it was just a few bedrooms and a bathroom. It’s not something that I would think of hiring people to spend a lot of money on. Especially if I could have a spectacular kitchen instead. I was, as I think is now clear, disappointed.

My overall assessment is this should be a much better show than it is. I worry I will continue to waste time on it in the hopes that someone, someday chooses House A and I get to see a top-to-bottom overhaul of a whole house. Dreamy sigh.

Moving on

Published June 8, 2011 home improvements , local 4 Comments

I know, the last story wasn’t very interesting. I thought it was, but it turns out I was wrong. I apologize. At the risk of telling an even less interesting story, this is the short story of what I did in between work and tonight’s stormy book club.

This is a flower pot that sits on our front stoop and has been looking like this since the last of the snow receded.

Please note the sad alliums, discarded after I insisted they were the cause of a weird fly infiltration. I think they were wrongly convicted. Anyway, this is what I brought to show the flower pot what was in store for it.

Here come the zinnias! I weeded the old dirt and tossed some out just for fun and in went the new plants! I watered them like crazy, something I learned from Master Gardener Gwen, and here is the result.

Now, I realize it’s far from perfect (especially with all of that dirt on the concrete), but I think we can all agree that it’s a radical improvement. If you want real tips on gardening in southern Wisconsin, check out Gwen’s great blog.

Romantic weekend

Published May 22, 2011 home improvements 11 Comments

Because Aaron and I are so in love, we spent this weekend doing home improvement projects I had sent my mind upon. Or, rather, we spent Saturday on projects and I spent Sunday recovering from Saturday. We decided a few months ago to replace the toilet on the main floor. The old toilet was impossible to get truly clean and Madison is offering $100 to any household that replaces an old toilet with a new, low-flow toilet. We were promised this project would be easier than it turned out to be. Although the new toilet is in place and there has (knock on wood) been no leaking thus far, it is the second toilet we bought yesterday. The first was both too big (ie the door couldn’t close once it was installed — not good for a prude like me) and not a low-flow toilet, as it had said it was on the box. Plus, the initial installation led to water coming out of a light fixture in the basement. Oops. Turns out that wax ring really doesn’t like to be moved. But, after an evening return trip to Home Depot, a new toilet and my assistance in reading the directions (strangely absent in the previous box) we are in the business of having a new, environmentally-better, clean toilet. Of course, the door still can’t close when the toilet seat is down, but we’re saving that issue for another day.

The other project of the weekend was my insistence, inspired by a recent Real Simple article (subscription given to me by my lovely mother-in-law), to reinvent the coat closet in our condo. I think of the closet as large for a coat closet, approximately 48″ wide and 24″ deep, but according to virtually any closet organizing system, it is apparently the smallest closet any closet artist contemplates. Undeterred, we spent a significant time in the woefully understocked closet section at Home Depot. Despite what it may seem like, I am not in love with Home Depot. Frankly, I wish we had a large, local hardware store. Or a Lowe’s. In any event, yes, we shopped at Home Depot and bought lots of metal accoutrements to remake this closet.

Before closet

Ok, so in my haste to remake my world, I forgot to take pictures of the closet with all of the coats and crap in it, but you get the idea. Aside from one hanging organizer, the closet was the same as it was when I moved in in 2005. There was the high shelf, as you can see, a closet rod, as you can also see, and two of those white wall-mounted organizer things. And, with the addition of the hanging organizer from Ikea I added, that was the closet. So, I decided that I first needed a little more wow in the closet. Taking my cue from the Real Simple article, I ordered self-adhesive wallpaper. Although the pattern choices were few, they were really great. Because the closet is on wall painted a lemon yellow, that meets a wall painted grey, I opted for a darker grey wallpaper with a lemon yellow tree-bird pattern.

Wallpaper

Now, this wallpaper was not nearly as easy to install as the company — tempaper designs — makes it seem. At least not for me. But, because I was installing it in a closet that was going to contain a million things, I figured the bumps I couldn’t get out would not be really visible. I really do recommend these papers. They are gorgeous and look so amazing. This is my first experience with any kind of wallpaper and I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

Next up, the installation of all of the crap. This is where things got even harder. We bought these screw-anchor things that are meant to be used so that you can hang heavier items without having to drill holes and without having to find studs in which to drill holes. Genius. But they really weren’t working for us. I don’t really know what the problem was, but it seemed as though the holes in the anchors were not large enough for the screws to fit through. Hmm. Anyway, after total frustration and the use of two different types of these screw-anchor things and me asking Aaron for help, the base structure of the closet organizer was finally affixed to the wall. Then I added the shelves and the drawers. I filled the shelves and the drawers. I added the cubby boxes from the Ikea organizer and filled them with bike lights, tennis balls and camera equipment. My purses are upright and in cubby boxes. All of our scarves, hats and mittens are in sliding drawers. Spring coats and an umbrella hang from the high shelf.

After closet

I realize it might look a little chaotic, but it really doesn’t feel chaotic. I want to redo all of my closets now.

After closet

Drawers and shelf

It really feels much more calm, contained and useful. I know I could swap out all of the winter items and store them in the basement, but I like minimizing how much I need to change things around with the seasons, if I can. In Wisconsin, we know winter can come at a minute’s notice, so having a toasty scarf nearby makes sense to me.

After closet

Bamboo-you

Published February 4, 2011 bling blog , home improvements 6 Comments
Tags: bamboo floors, DIY art

It’s time for the big reveal! After ripping out the carpet in our bedroom, I sat in front of the computer day after day trying to decide how to proceed. Should we put in hardwood? Should we put in bamboo? Should we put in linoleum? Should we put in carpet? Should we do it ourselves or leave it to the professionals? Should we do the entire first floor (about 950 square feet) or just the bedroom (about 175 square feet)? Should we buy from a big box store or a local place? Argh. The possibilities seemed daunting.

After just days, though, of having to stare at that nasty vinyl tile, and after almost six years of living with that dreaded carpet, we pulled the trigger and went to the locally-owned Eco-friendly Flooring, which has a little showroom on East Main Street. We could not be happier with the flooring. We chose a very light-colored bamboo and had the shopowner’s husband install it for us. All in all, the total cost was about $1100. We were told it was a day’s work, but it ended up taking three due to a late arrival on the first day and a sick kid on the second. Still, I would choose this option again in a heartbeat. I am so happy with how it turned out. I think it is just beautiful. I hope you like it, too.

Bedroom before

Bedroom after

Ok, you can’t see the floors that were there, but you can see the amazing job Aaron did on the bedroom walls. I love the color! It’s Sherwin Williams Hyper Blue. Here’s a better shot of the floors.

Bamboo floors

Floors

I also want to note that for some time now, I have wanted to buy some Picasso prints. Specifically, the ink drawings he did of animals. I have been enamored of The Dog or Dog for some time now, but haven’t been able to get myself to commit. Why? Because I can sometimes be cheap. Weird, I know. So I got it into my head that I would just do some of these drawings myself and that’s what I did tonight. For under $5, I bought two enormous sheets of paper and a black Marvy marker, and for just under $60 I bought three black frames with thick white mattes from Target. I cut the paper, drew my animals in pencil and went over them in marker. I stuck the paper in the frame and voila! Three framed “Picasso”s for $65. Actually, it was even less because I used only one of the large sheets of paper.