The Writing on the Wall

I've read on other house blogs where the owners have found cool things that the PO's left behind. I was hoping with all the wall paper we removed that I would find a cool, secret message from the past. Last month when I removed wall paper from our bedroom, I found this:

It says "Van Dike." I did some very easy internet research (i.e. I googled a few terms) but came up with nothing. So at this point I really have no idea what this means. I was thinking it was either someone who helped build the house or the person who put up the wall paper. I'm 95% sure that the paper in this room was original.

In the next room I found this on the wall:

This one said "Papered in 6/92." Both of these scribblings are gone b/c they were done in pencil and I had to get the glue off the walls. And the pencil came off as well.

So maybe I didn't find a buried treasure or anything...but still a little piece of our home's history. And by my standards...that's pretty cool!

One box, two box, three box, four

The other day I was making dinner, or doing something that required very little attention. And I allowed myself to daydream about how darn good our living room and dining rooms are going to look once we get the floors finished and slap some paint on these walls. (I seem to daydream a lot around this house. I think it keeps me out of therapy). Anyway, this led me to thinking about how much of our square footage we will gain back once the walls are finished.
We've got boxes. Many, many...uh, many boxes of goods that we have bought in anticipation of "one day." I thought it would be interesting, I guess, to take an inventory of just how many boxes we have piled up randomly around the house. So here goes:

2 ceiling fans for the guest bedroom and our bedroom

1 flush ceiling light for the stairs that lead to the back door

8 shelves in various sizes for the living room wedding wall and the guest room

3 black wrought iron candle holders for the guest room

2 oil-rubbed bronze candle holders for a yet-to-be determined room

6 glass wall vases

2 ceiling pendant lights for the living room

2 wall sconces for our bedroom

2 candle pillar holders

1 very cool luggage stand for the guest bedroom

4 oil-rubbed bronze coat hooks (these sound small but they aren't)

6 or so various kitchen appliances that were wedding and christmas gifts but we have no where to store them once they are opened so there they sit...unused (but they will be one day!)

various little boxes/shipping bags of supplies for the electrical/structured wiring projects

We also have:

5 new rolled up rugs

1 oil-rubbed bronze coat rack waiting to be assembled

countless empty and filled frames to be hung on the walls

tons of CDs, DVDs, and books

office and craft supplies sitting on the office floor while we work on the walls

I'm really not painting a pretty mental picture of our house, am I?

My point is that our house will seem so much bigger once we get the walls painted!! Since I know we all like pictures on this post and I'm not about to post a picture of all of our boxes sitting around, I decided to post our future paint colors. Since all of the boxes being removed hinges on the painting of the walls.

Just so you don't think I'm sitting around messing with our paint for no reason (the paint cans are another thing taking up basement space, by the way) I did this board for a housewarming thing we had so very long ago. The only colors that have changed are the living room color and the office. The living room color is still up for debate. The office color is going to be the blue color that is on the board.

Kitchen Reality

I know you all have been holding your collective breath and waiting for pictures of our current kitchen. The kitchen we have to live with every day of our lives. I'm so dramatic - it really isn't as bad as it could be. These pictures are from about a year ago. I finally got to a point where I couldn't stand looking at the brady bunch type wall paper and tore it all down. So aside from all the wall paper being down the kitchen looks exactly the same. And I may or may not have over-estimated the dimensions in my previous post. I actually have no idea.

The picture above is the back of the kitchen, I guess you would say. That door leads to our back door and to our basement and built-in pantries (made out of beadboard so I love it!) Notice how I was in the middle of taking down the paper. Can you see why? So the white wall on the left is what the whole kitchen looks like now. When we reno the kitchen we're thinking of putting the stove/oven where the fridge is now. The pic above is taken from the same place but just moved to the right. This space is pretty small and this is what the entire kitchen now consists of.

The above picture is shown in the pic above this one as well. But this is a different angle. You are able to see the end of our cabinets and counter tops and the actual kitchen space. If you look carefully you can see, on the far right, the door that leads to the dining/living rooms. Right behind the stove is the breakfast nook. So in the reno we're planning on taking out the wall that the you're looking at in this pic to open the kitchen up a bit. Because right now the breakfast nook is only used for the dog. Oh and it is where I dry my hair. Long story. And not interesting at all.

This final picture above is the breakfast nook. You can see the door to the living/dining room in the far right of the pic. When we tear out that wall we're going to loose all of our arcs. Which is very sad but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. We plan on staying in this house for-ev-er so we have to make it livable. So I'm not sure if this post was interesting or not but at least you get an idea of what we are dealing with here. And why dreaming of my future new kitchen really helps me pull through the days when I want to take a knife to the 1970s linoleum floors.