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Remodel & decorate in Mid Century Style

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Home / What to Collect / reader open threads

“Finish What You Started”: Week #2 weigh-in

pam kueber - Updated: October 15, 2011

Retro Renovation stopped publishing in 2021; these stories remain for historical information, as potential continued resources, and for archival purposes.

Kate's green front doorIn week #1 of our project procrastinators group therapy, “it was a beautiful weekend in the Electric City so Kate painted her front door,” she reported. Pretty! The side door to my garage is all chippy, but despite Kate’s inspiration, I did not get to it. In fact, it was a lousy week for me in terms of house projects. I cleaned out three drawers in my dresser, though. Found like 26 single socks. Astro got a spiffy haircut. And I relaunched the Forum. But I was a slacker, too, in too many ways. Help! Inspiration needed! What project(s) did you complete in Week #2 of our challenge. Leave a comment and you can upload a photo, too –>

What project(s) did you complete in Week #2?
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13 comments

Comments

  1. Windylou says

    October 22, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    I just wanted to let you know that your post got me moving! I realize it’s not Monday, but I’ve just finished a project, and I know y’all will appreciate it here on this thread!

    Here’s the link to the upholstery project I completed today! One more step toward finishing my sewing room!

    http://windylou.typepad.com/windy_mayes_photo/2011/10/beginner-chair-upholstery-im-lovin-it-.html

  2. Audrey says

    October 21, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Well…I personally didn’t do anything, other than write a check. I got my antique pine floors restored. I do the final walk through at lunch today. I can FINALLY start moving stuff in. Yeah! Project for this weekend: Finish the prep work and paint AT LEAST one of the nine rooms that need to be painted.
    Next week the electrician comes to hang the 50s and 60s light fixtures I’ve been collecting from ebay. They are tacky and colorful and I love them. I’ll send photos.

  3. Dulcie says

    October 17, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    I did the project I put off during week #1. My dining room is now a uniform lime green, no more harvest gold corner. I also did the stairwell as high as I could reach without having to us a ladder or rigging up a scaffolding. So the bottom half is lime green and the top part is still Mamie Eisenhower pink with a overlay of plaster cracks and spider webs.

  4. Kate B says

    October 17, 2011 at 1:16 pm

    Don’t feel bad Pam- I had a bit of an off week too. My best accomplishment this weekend was cleaning and reorganizing my kitchen cabinets and countertops. In finding places to store new acquisitions, I’d created a huge jumbled mess in my cabinets and displaced a bunch of singleton pieces/ weirdly shaped items to no man’s land on top of the fridge. (I love you, martini glasses, but you take up the space of an entire service for four!) So that’s all cleared- I can’t say that the solutions I came up with were great, but it was really nice to wake up to a kitchen that didn’t look like it was climbing its own walls. Unfortunately, I also thought of another four or five things to add to my to-do list, like finding a solution for stale-drawer-smell and making a toaster-oven cozy to match my curtains. Two steps forward…

    • pam kueber says

      October 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm

      Gold star. Organizing kitchen cabinets is pretty big. I need to do some of that, too. Thanks for the reminder. NOT. 😉

  5. nina462 says

    October 17, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Well, I’ve got replacement lamps for the 3 bedrooms and 2 hallway lights a few weeks ago – I’ve now got a person to install them for me. Does that count? I would do them & am hoping he’ll let me and just supervise and tell me what I’m doing right or wrong – that way I’ll learn.

  6. clampers says

    October 17, 2011 at 10:09 am

    Installed nice new 1″ horizontal blinds on all the windows upstairs (12), and also installed new traverse rods and hung new pinch-pleat drapes on seven of them…whadda job! It looks great though! Love pinch pleats!

    Here’s the rodand here are thedrapesin case anyone cares.

    • pam kueber says

      October 17, 2011 at 10:12 am

      Gold star, clampers!

  7. Stacey says

    October 16, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    We finally put the grout in the tile of our kitchen backsplash. I’m still painting the rest of my Truman-Era Kitchen (ugh painting). It’s not picture ready yet, but progress is being made! Just thinking of this weekly post and my in-laws coming for a visit in three weeks is inspiration for me.

  8. Elaine says

    October 16, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    I’m here at the Florida time capsule house and find a lot has been accomplished in my absence. My personal to do list includes tackling about 20 years worth of smoke stain on the bathroom grout, cleaning out more junk in the garage, figuring out how to re-install the wonderful rooster weather vane that was taken down when the new roof went up, and acquiring whatever is needed to get him put back up.

    So far, from the garage I have free-cycled two nice mid-60s wall sconces that I will never use. The lady who picked them up is totally into mid-century and was ecstatic to get them. I told her to come here and check out the blog.

    Electrical things were repaired and the master bath build was started while I was gone. Decisions are waiting on placement of the shower and choices of tile. We have the blue toilet, but the matching sink got broken. The shower is going to be all tiled. Washer and dryer will be in there and are white.

  9. Tahnee Lee says

    October 16, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    This is awesome, Pam! Every year for Lent, my husband and I give up procrastination by planning out 40 projects to tackle in the 40 days of Lent. Now we are not overly religious people, it’s just a nice way to get a lot off our LONG list of house projects. If you’d like to read more, go to http://tleeblogs.blogspot.com/search/label/40%20days%2040%20projects

    I’m going back to your week one post and starting a new list for this fall, we always have so much to do!!…or at least create so much for ourselves to do 😉

  10. denise says

    October 16, 2011 at 8:39 am

    Every time I walk in my front door I look at it and grunt. It was banged up, the white was put on before I bought the house, it was making me cranky. I had planned to paint it all summer and I was feeling that the warmer weather was limited, so, inspired by Kate painting her front door, I got out the brushes, mixed a color I was thinking of and voila! a newly painted front door and storm door.

    With a wake, funeral and family in from Wisconsin for the last half of the week, that’s all I accomplished, but I smile now when I am at the door either coming or going.

    • Kate B says

      October 17, 2011 at 3:21 pm

      Denise- I absolutely love your door! I wish I had had the guts to do something brighter than “Dark Meadow” green. This will serve as inspiration when I get around to spiffing up the enclosed breezeway between my house and garage. Unfortunately, that is toward the bottom of the list- especially with winter coming!

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