quote of the week

"Old houses mended, cost little less than new before they're ended."

~Colley Cibber

amen! and because i'm jobless right now, this quote best explains why i have nothing house-related to blog about presently.

don't let this happen to you

it was still too damn hot to do anything on the house on sunday but we had no choice. look at the weeds in one of our newly planted beds! i mean - where are the plants? where are the weeds? who in the hell really knows? the decent amount of rain we've received this summer is not only a boon to our friends, the plants, but to our enemies, the weeds, as well.





















so on sunday we bought some cheapo mulch and went at the weeding. omg. i'm waaay too old to be hunched over for five hours pulling weeds. my back & legs are feelin' it today. i bet the neighbors are happy though. looks better.

weekend scavengers

saturday was just too damn hot to do anything on the house. instead we went to a new salvage store called reclaimed located on the lovely near-eastside of indy. chad bought the cottage doors below for a house owned by historic landmarks.

after that we visited one of my favorite places to go wander on a lazy day, midland arts & antiques. i am in love with this picnic table set. i would've lobbied for its purchase had it not already been sold.

i love ... no, hate ... no, love ... pottery barn

i have a love/hate relationship with pottery barn.

on the one hand their stuff is pretty cool and i really like wandering around their store, dreaming of the days when we might have fresh paint on our walls, stylish throw rugs on our shiny wood floors and furniture that didn't see my college apartment days. on the other hand, in my humble opinion, the quality of their items (poor) does not adequately reflect their pricing (overpriced). and it bothers me to buy their items because i feel like i would rather find actual & authentic antique products instead of some reproduction stuff photographed in catalogues passed out to thousands of middle class homes across the country. in other words, i'd rather be a little more unique than buy all my home decor at PB. plus, isn't it fun to hunt & gather in antique stores?

shoot! with all of my soap box spew out of the way i'll reluctantly divulge that my admitted love/hate mentality does not stop me from drooling at the mouth when i get a new PB catalogue. man! what is my problem? i guess it is like house porn or something.


anyways, last night i went to listen to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in a neighborhood park. the summer weather was perfect, the music was fabulous & relaxing, i had a glass of wine and slowly perused my brand new PB catalog - fresh out of the mail lady's hands yesterday afternoon. here are some things that i think are really, really cool but will never buy:

this is the "edison" chandelier. you know, because the bulbs are old-timey like when edison first made the light bulb. those PB copy editors. they are creative.

i'm totally stuck on the idea of having our living room furniture reflect a slight industrial look. i have no idea why. i think it is cool.

this picture? in the catalogue they say that it has quotes about books in the background of the canvas. one of my favorite things in the whole world is reading. just the image of books makes me content.

quote of the week

"i'm sorry but we're going to have to ask you to sign this resignation letter."

i've been a little delinquent in my posts here at irvington bungalow. partly because nothing is happening here & partly because i've been away in florida. and the explanation behind both of those excuses is that i was recently "let go" from my job working for the still relatively new mayor of indianapolis. hence, the fab quote of the week.

the basic gist of the story goes like this: i was hired on as a mayor's neighborhood liaison for our former democratic mayor last year. events unfolded, he was not re-elected last fall and since that time, my colleagues and i have been preparing for the changing of the guard (so-to-speak; you know, we've been waiting for the new administration to fire us and bring in his own people). that day came two weeks ago on monday. the first week i spent still in shock. the second week i spent in florida. still in shock but at least in shock catching up on some reading on the beach.

but now...i have arrived back in irvington. ready to really start looking for something else while trying to figure out how we can still pay for our several projects already in the works and those being planned (i.e. the bathroom remodel).

my job as a liaison was sometimes fun, sometimes stressful, always interesting. i had the unique opportunity of working where i live. i went to neighborhood meetings and got to meet some of the best people i have ever met in my life. case in point. one of my irvington neighborhood groups sent me this bunch of flowers above and a card that the entire organization signed. this was so sweet and a much needed boost to my spirits. thanks to all of the people who made my job wonderful!

quote of the week

"uh, no offense or anything but i just don't see how you live like that."

this was something that someone actually said to me. a family member. at the time i replied with something like: "oh well, it's not that bad. i just think of the end product. and, really, i mean, uh...after a while you just really start to NOT notice the boxes, and dust, and un-organization."

looking back, i don't think this was my best defense and/or answer. however, i'm not sure what i should have said. actually this comment makes me giggle because it is not an uncommon thing to hear in the home renovation process, especially from this person. it didn't hurt my feelings but it did make me come home, look around and ask myself: "my God! how DO i live like this??!!"

one day (hopefully sooner rather than later) i'll come home, look around and say: "it was all worth it."

won't i????

adventures in tile & other bathroom decisions

last week we ventured to two stores in order to help through this process of picking out fixtures and tile for our bathroom remodel. the first was Economy Plumbing in downtown indy. joe helped us and he was so nice. we picked out a few fixtures and he priced them for us. he recommended a few high-end lines but also mentioned that one can't go wrong with delta faucets (good to know). currently we're considering this chrome fixture for our pedestal sink. the only difference is we would like to have the cross handles.

ahhh...now on to the tile. over the weekend we went to Architectural Brick & Tile. omg. if you love house remodeling and tiles and flooring you would LOVE this place. beeeautiful tiles everywhere. lots of eye candy. however they closed at 3 and we arrived around 1:45 so we only had time to get down to business...no perusing for the fun of it. our lovely sales gal, kristina, priced three lines for us: meredith, irongate, and sonoma stellar.

so we're probably going to get either the one in the upper left hand corner or the one directly below it. the ones in the top row are from my current tile nemesis mission tile west. but the ones in the middle are considerably more expensive and have almost the exact same colors. so...decisions, decisions.

and to add on to that - grout choices!! pretty excited about this. we're not doing white grout. that's just too boring for us. the colors with the arrows are the ones we're considering.

what about the floor? definitely black, white and then some other color. here are the current choices:

i could have made three different posts out of this one. oh well. so excited about the colors we've narrowed it down to at this point. in my mind's eye it is all beautiful and relaxing in there. can't wait to see it live and in person.

attic work progresses

before ... after ...

we were planning on finishing up the old insulation removal in the attic over the 4th holiday weekend. however the weather was so amenable on sunday that we decided to get up there and take care of it over this past weekend. although it was only in the high 70s outside, up in the dusty attic it probably was in the upper 80s. still we really couldn't have asked for better conditions given that it was the end of june in the midwest. as you can see from the 'before and afters' above, we're finished removing all the old insulation. YEAH!! what a great feeling. this took about four hours.

next steps - shop vac the bays and then install the ventilation stuff (sorry not technical, need chad for further explanation and official terms). then have the new insulation foamed in. so close!!!