Thursday 27 September 2012

Let the Games Begin!

Well, its the end of day one. There are still some boxes sitting unpacked, but overall, things are looking much more livable then they did this morning (though I'm sitting in the living room, and that stucco irks me. I. want. it. dead.). Of course, day one in Our New House (!) wouldn't have been complete without a project of some kind!

Here's how it went. Derek and I were sitting in our bedroom.
I said, "Hey Derek, I wish we could take off that closet door and replace it with a curtain."
Derek: "Hey, that'd be a good idea. Why don't you?"
Chana: "Because we're poor and we can't buy a curtain."
Derek: "That doesn't mean you can't take the door off..."



 And so, I promptly decided that we would! And then promptly remembered that we'd left the toolbox at the apartment. So, off Derek and I went - to get the toolbox and anything else still at the apartment that could fit into our little hatchback (his name is Maverick, so I might just call him that from now on). It turned out that there was a lot more stuff at the apartment than we'd realized, so even though we filled up the car completely (and by completely, I mean completely. There was literally no more space in the car. You couldn't see out the back. I had a lamp on my lap. There was a toolbox by my feet. COMPLETELY FULL) there's probably still another load waiting at the apartment for us to pick up. And then once its gone, we still have to clean the apartment. Have I mentioned how much I'm not looking forward to that? Because I'm not. I already cleaned this house from top to bottom (with help from my friend Anja, of course) on Tuesday. And I have class tomorrow... gonna be a long day.

But back to the real reason for writing this: Closet Curtains! That's a technical term, I'm pretty sure. Now, I'm not the first home owner/blogger (though I am a NEW home owner!) to hang up some curtains in lieu of a closet door. You can check out some other examples hereherehere, or here.

Some people have doubts about using fabric as a door (and if you're using it as your front door, and you live in Manitoba, I'd have to agree that it's a terrible idea), but for a closet, it'd probably work. I think one thing that's important is getting nice looking fabric, because cheap material looks cheap - simply put. I'm leaning toward burlap, because I think it'll definitely give our room the very natural/beachy feeling that I'm leaning toward for the whole house (check out some awesome burlap curtains here or here).

But back to my story. So, like I said, our plan of taking off the door today got a bit derailed by moving more stuff to the house, after which Derek took a nap and I made us supper - some delicious pizza, which I am very proud of. First time I've ever made pizza on my own! Then we watched a Star Trek episode... cause we're nerds like that. And then, when 8 or 8:30 rolled around, I remembered my grand plan! So, I grabbed my box of tools, figured out what screw driver fit what part of the door, and went to work. You have to remember that this is the first time I've ever taken a bi-fold door off a door frame, so I wasn't really sure what I was doing. I just hoped that I wouldn't destroy the house I could get it off easily. Derek helped with the process and in the end, our bedroom closet ended up both in one piece, and without a door. Woo! First house mission accomplished.

Look at that. I like it better already! Can't wait to make some burlap curtains. And by make, I mean buy. Because I don't have a sewing machine - and I don't sew, even if I did have one.


And because no demo project is complete without its quirks, check out this pretty thing that lay beneath the bottom of the door's holder-thing (also a technical term). I'm not sure what we're going to do about that, so I guess it might just hang out there until we replace the floors... Any suggestions? Anyone? Feel free to comment!


2 comments:

  1. Good to make the house your own home right away, while you've got the energy. Our upstairs walls-and-flooring plans got delayed - again. By the way, is the stucco in the living room on the wall or ceiling? I have a story for both ...

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    1. I'd love to hear the story! Its actually stucco on the ceiling. :)

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