What fun/unusual home improvement have you done recently?

margecat

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Nothing major here, (for once!), but something I've always wanted to do:

I made a small book nook area on my upstairs landing.  I adore books and reading, and it seems like we're always dragging books to every room!  Last year, I found a petite, shallow vintage/antique cherrywood bookcase at a flea market for $10. It fits perfectly against a short wall on the landing.  I leave the top shelf open for seasonal decor; and my wall clock hangs above that.  Across from the bookcase, I stuck a faux-suede stoage ottoman/cube, with a cushion on the seat, and a pillow for the back.  I happened to have all of this lying around; it's mainly experiemental to see if I can fit something a little more comfy and bigger in that tiny area.  You can't really curl up on it!  It does look pretty, though. Strangely, I've never seen the cats lay on it. Weird. I'd really like to buy a longer, more cushy faux-leather storage ottoman, but I know the pusses will claw that to shreds. I can't have vinyl, leather, or faux leather anything. 

I was inspired by a home-keeping blog (now defunct) years ago. The woman had a big Victorian house, and I noticed she had a square, 18th C. game table under the window, flanked by 2 chairs on her landing. What a fun place for the kids to play. 

I love to have plenty of cozy spots to curl up with a book in my house. With plenty of soft throw blankets, of course--and plenty of willing felines to curl up with.
 

nurseangel

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Oh, I would love to have a reading area.  I wish I had a window seat.  Since it's gotten too cold for me to sit outside in the gazebo, I mostly read in bed.

We haven't done any fun projects around the house lately.  We put up new blinds, but that wasn't any fun at all.  
 
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MoochNNoodles

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Oh that's so cool!  I always wanted a little place to go hide and read!  Still do actually!  This house doesn't really have anywhere that I could do that.

DH is still working on installing the chair rail and door casings around our kitchen and living room areas.  The doorways are almost done. He just has to paint the one.  Then there are several areas needing to finish the chair rail.  Then some touch ups with paint and we should be done!  It's been A LOT more work than I anticipated!  I'm glad we didn't shoot to do crown molding at the same time.  I'd LOVE to have that up too; but it's not a good time of year for DH and our bank account could stand the break. 

The next project is the nursery and painting the hallway/foyer and bathrooms!  Maybe someday we will get to do our own bedroom!  Oh; part of the nursery project is turning a corner of my dining area into an office.  I need to find a desk first.
 

pollyanna

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Right here! :)
Wow, this sounds so cosy! :)

We have recently made a huge home improvement, not so unusual though, except for fact that we haven't done it ages ago! :lol:

We just bought our first diswasher!!!!! :)

I have never had a dishwasher, we have lived in this apartment for allmost 14 years and since the kitchen is so tiny, there is no place for a dishwasher. As the apartment is so small, we did not expect to be still living here with more than one small child. Now we have 2 children and the "washing up dishes" was taking more and more time and still there was always plenty to wash.

We decited to take the half of a cupboard that is behind the kitchen door, that was used for Tupperware, sandwich grill, waffle iron and such. In such small kitchen, every inch counts, but some of the things, like the waffle iron, that is not used every day, must go to the storage room in between use.

We bought the "slim" kind of dishwasher (45 cm....I guess that is 18 inches...) and it sticks a little bit further out from the wall than the cupboard, so the door can't be opened 100%, but allmost.

Neddles to say, I LOVE the dishwasher and find the sacrifices completely worth it! :D
 

ducman69

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Wired the whole home with gigabit ethernet behind a crazy fast switch.  Real pain since I realized half way in that my walls have horizontal studs requiring a special tool and some wiring finesse.  Wesley and Buttercup were NOT fans of having the attic ladder down, drilling, hammering, and other related scary noises going on, that's for sure! 


But network speed is mind-blowing since all my computers now have SSDs or fast RAID storage arrays as the only bottleneck.   Muahahah!
 
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3catsn1dog

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This year we finished all but two Windows for the house. After Wednesday and my Dr appt we will start planning the remodel of the spare room. It will eventually get all new paint, molding, carpet, and a closet remodel. All for bean who won't even be omnitel for atleast 3 mths after its born lol.

Now where.to hide litter boxes lol.
 

Winchester

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Your reading nook sounds wonderful.....I would love to have a place where I could hide and read for awhile. I just tend to use our bed, while Rick is in the living room watching football games.

We're still working in the basement. That remodel is like the remodel that never ends. Family room, laundry room, Rick's work room, and a small gym-type room. We have a bi-level....under the stairs, we've put in a pull-out type pantry for me to store canned goods and canning things. It actually turned out better than we thought it would. And because we have a ton of Christmas things stored in the basement, Rick made a huge closet against one of the walls. We still need the doors for that closet....we're looking for roller-type doors; that way we can just roll the door out of the way when we need to get inside one of the areas.

After the basement is finished (if it ever gets finished.....it seems to be a constantly ongoing thing), we're looking at crown moulding for the living room, hallway, and kitchen areas. No chair rails...our house isn't really the type for chair rails. But we do want to install crown moulding. Still haven't gotten around to painting the living room. We'd like to tear out all the floor moulding and baseboards and install new.

I'd still really love to have a new kitchen, but we just don't see that happening any time soon. And that's OK, I guess.
 

momofmany

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I am the queen of home improvement projects. Since I left my job in October, I finished the following:

- Finished staining new doors (and frames) for the house. Got 7 out of 8 installed.
- Sanded, stained and varnished 1500 feet of floor trim. I'll start the install this weekend.
- Got the balance of the popcorn off my bathroom ceiling. I'll be repairing the drywall today and will start painting next week.
- Priced new fixtures for our bathroom. The original 1972 cultured marble vanity tops are cracked and need replacing. Bought wood to replace the vanity cabinet doors and got those cut to size (those are also cracked). The shower stall is cracked and the bathtub has deep scratches. It needs to be gutted and rebuilt, but we can't afford a complete remodel, so I'm just going to resurface what I can and replace what I can't.
- Refinished an antique chair, including reupholstering the seat
- Refinished an antique sewing machine
- Refinished the top of an antique dresser
- Cleaned and sealed the exterior deck

That's just work in progress.

Last year I gutted and remodeled another bathroom. It had a small shower stall, and I knocked out the wall behind the stall and stole some space from a walk in closet (the closet was in a spare bedroom). It now has a cultured marble tub (got a screaming deal on the tub), glass subway tile, new vanity (custom made by a friend and I finished it), marble vanity top, porcelain floor tile, new toilet, and new towel bars. That bathroom was in worse shape than the one I'm working on right now. I did hire out someone for the plumbing (I don't sweat pipes) and the drywall (too impatient to make it smooth).

On my very long to do list and most of it is in the basement (DH's man cave): Remove the popcorn from the basement ceiling, repair and paint. Rerun all of the stereo/audio wiring into the ceiling while it is open. Install new flood lights. Install new drywall in the section of my basement that got trashed from a broken water pipe (DH will do the finishing on it). Finish tiling the bar front (mostly done, just have the foot rest to do and grout it). Fix or replace the doors on the bar (they don't hang right). I might resurface the top of the bar. Paint a mural on one of the walls (in a Chicago Bears theme) and paint the rest of the room. Replace the toilet in the bathroom (did the rest of the room a few years ago). Install new insulation in the crawl space (under the bedrooms and off the basement). I also need to paint the inside of the garage and the outside of our shed. The good news is that I already have most of the materials to finish the basement - only need to buy the drwall for the ceiling.

That should keep me busy for a while. :nod:
 
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