Thick and Lumpy

Our house is old. It was built in the 1920s. We love it, but sometimes it hits me that we bought a 90 year old house. Yowza!

Really, it was just what we were looking for. "Character" was the #1 item on our "must have" list when house hunting. And although that's the kind of thing that's hard to define, we had a great realtor who totally understood us and what we were looking for.

Kate was the one who spied the For Sale sign on our gem. And when we walked through the door, we were immediately enamoured. We LOVED the hardwood floors and original moldings. We were smitten with the French doors leading to the den. And the built-in in the dining room sent us over the edge. "Where do we sign?!?!"

It's funny, looking back, to see what we DIDN'T notice. Like the lack of coat closet and linen closet. Or that every wall in the house, save those in the bathrooms, is textured. Or that other than the 4 favorite features that drew us in (hardwood floors, original moldings, French doors, and dining room built-in), the ENTIRE house is coated in thick paint. Seriously, the whole thing. The doorknobs are painted, for goodness sake. Thick and lumpy. That is the current paint scheme of our house.

What may be even more surprising is that we've lived with it all for 2 years. We painted one room before moving in (our bedroom) and then packed up the painting supplies. Little by little, we kept noticing things that drove us crazy. ("Oh, hey, we can see into our basement from the living room because there is no quarter round molding." "Look at that, some of the woodwork on the 1st floor is painted...the color of wood." "That awesome graphic wallpaper that my sister got for me won't work on textured walls!")

But recently, it's come to my attention that I can no longer stand this:

The kitchen. It's dingy. The cabinets are cheap. The wall color is gross. And the paint is so thick around the windows and doors that nothing seems to have corners or right angles anymore.

I decided that something needs to be done. And, thank goodness, Kate is on board. We're not talking a major renovation here. All of our appliances are fairly new and in good working order (knock on wood.) And although the cabinets are cheap, now is not the time to replace them. (Although, we have some ideas on how to spruce them up.) Sure the laminate floor is obviously inferior to the hardwoods laying next to it in the dining room, but even it is staying for now. I'd call what we have planned more of a facelift.

I'm hoping in the end it will look like this.

(source)

A girl can dream, right? Bahahahaha!