Dad's Alaska House

So by now I've been back home for exactly one week, and I'm ready to get started on posting all about the upgrades I made to my dad's house in Alaska. I traveled up there specifically to work on his house and of course spend time with him. I got a LOT done. The goal was to improve the quality of my dad's life through his home with a focus on comfort, cleanliness/tidiness, functionality, and personal details.

You might be thinking, "Why the heck doesn't your dad just do it himself?" And the answer is that he probably could if he really tried, but he works a lot and I LOVE to do this stuff, so it seemed like a good solution for me to just help him out.

I had a LOT of plans that went awry during the process. I even made mood boards for the rooms in his house (bathroom, living room, kitchen), but I didn't really use them AT ALL. I had planned to order things for him ahead of time and I have them waiting, but that didn't really work out. Really, only two things were ordered ahead of time by my dad himself - his dishwasher and a new bedroom suite (bed, nightstand, dresser/mirror) he picked out. Anyway you know what they say about the best laid plans and all that. Actually, I have no idea what people say because I forget. But I think it's something about them not working out. Mine sure didn't.

BUT, it ended up being OK. I worked with what I had in Fairbanks, Alaska, which was basically a huge grocery store/home goods store owned by Kroger, Fred Meyer, along with Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe's. I hate to say it because I am a serious Target follower, but Walmart had a lot of key pieces that I really needed and for incredible prices.

When I first got to my dad's house, I began with a decluttering attempt. Um, yeah. I got really discouraged about two drawers in in the kitchen. Really. Discouraged. So then I moved on to greener snowier pastures  (it snowed almost everyday I was there!) and started working on light fixtures and curtains. But don't worry, I got to the clutter later on. I tried to follow a "plan" with all of my prrrrrrojects, but I ended up just having projects strewn everywhere. Including outside in the -5 F weather. Brrr.

Before I get to the nitty gritty details in later posts about each specific project, here's a list of what I accomplished overall:

• Picked out and "supervised" the installation of a new kitchen faucet and dishwasher
• Remade all of the wall lights on the main level including new glass shades and a new coat of paint
• Replaced all other glass shades in the house
• Installed three entirely new Edison-style ceiling light fixtures in the living room and kitchen
• Decluttered the master bedroom closet and kitchen (Grammie organized the kitchen)
• Cleaned and organized the fridge/freezer
• Picked out new tabletop appliances & drinking glasses & teapot for the kitchen
• Created a reading nook in the upstairs including a side table, lamp, and recliner
• Put together new bookshelves for the upstairs (Grammie organized the comics & books)
• Convinced my dad to bring home a vintage comic rack & moved it upstairs (Grammie filled it with comics!)
• Cleaned
• Put up curtains in the entry, master bathroom, living room, master bedroom, and guest bedroom including curtain rods (Grammie helped immensely in this department)
• New shower curtains/rugs in master bathroom and guest bathroom
• New toothbrush holder in guest bathroom
• Constructed (put together) side table and new entertainment center for living room
• Table lamp for living room
• Framed & hung three posters that my dad already owned
• Framed & hung multiple pictures (Grammie brought one for him of my brother and myself!)
• Put together a bench for the arctic entry
• Threw away a ton of garbage (old clothes, linens, etc)
• New pillows/linens for the master bedroom and guest bedroom
• New pet food/water bowls
• "Supervised" the moving in of the new master bedroom suite & moved the old suite to the guest bedroom
• New lamp for guest room
• Cleaned the car

Bottom line: I had a ton of fun with my dad. I also got to see my Grammie (my mom's mom), my friend Amber (and meet her little baby, Micah!), Nanae, and some other friends in Fairbanks. What an awesome and, well, freezing cold trip!

I hope I remembered everything. Over the next few days (weeks?) I will be posting about these projects in detail with pictures!

Airbnb

I have my first airbnb guest this week, and I am super excited. So far March has been crazy with two trips to Florida, a trip to Alaska, and of course work and school!

I've never used airbnb as a host or a guest, so this should be a learning experience. I'm rushing to get everything ready in time. Soon I will resume the regular posting of my projects including all of the fun stuff I took care of at my dad's house.

I hope April is just as fun. With finals (meaning the end of the semester!) and my birrrrthhhday it certainly should be! Ok so finals won't be exactly fun, but wrapping up the semester will be. I can't wait for the two week break before the summer semester begins.

Ok, Now I'm Really Back

I took an impromptu trip to Florida over the weekend. So, now I'm back for real. Maybe. I think. All of this traveling has been fun, but I am looking forward to being back home again for awhile.

I am Back!

I'm back from Alaska and finished with all of my renovations and decorating at my dad's house. After a week straight of working, I'm so so so tired! One of my favorite moments was standing outside of the house waiting for my dad to move a load of empty boxes out of the way so we could maneuver a huge reading chair inside and up the stairs. Meanwhile I'm freezing and he's trying to get all of my Projects out of the way (spray painted lamps, etc) and I start yelling, "My projects! My prrrrrrrrrojeeeectsssss! Don't mess up my projects!" and we both just fell over laughing. My "projects" were evvvvvverywhere at that point. It was absolute chaos, but it had to get worse before it could get better. I'm going to post all of my Projects over the next week or two. Stay tuned!

Dishwasher Blues in Stainless Steel Hues

Did you ever read the Berenstain Bears? Remember Too Tall?

He always wore a purple cap and a striped shirt. Here he is with his gang trying to convince Brother Bear to do something awful, probably steal a watermelon or something. I guess he was 'too tall' in height, but he was also too much of a bully. Kind of like the dishwasher that's currently downstairs being Too Tall to fit into the space its designated to rest in. Not cool, dishwasher. Not cool! Stop being such a bully. Meet the Bosch bully:

 

Let's hope the Too Tall plauging my own life decides to play nice.

Alaska Update

I've been slowly gathering supplies for renovations at my dad's house. So far I've picked up the following:

• Level, which is really important for things like hanging curtain rods
• Curtains for the living room
• Curtains for the guest room
• Curtain rods for the guest room
• Curtain rods for the living room
• New bed linens for both bedrooms including:
• mattress pads
• sheets
• pillow x 2
• bedspread (only for the guest room; my dad already had one)
• Corded drill for hanging curtain rods and other tasks
• New light fixtures for the living room (except the big one that goes over the dining room table)
• New shower curtain and liner for both bathrooms
• Feng Shui book for my dad (he hasn't read it yet)
• Electricity tester for changing out light fixtures
• Probably other stuff that I can't think of right now

I need to return some sconces that I bought for a fixture I'm spray painting and I also need to return one curtain rod for the guest bedroom that was too short.

Yesterday we tried to remove the old dishwasher and failed because we couldn't get the water to turn completely off. We turned off the water to the entire house and we even turned off the water under the sink, but the water still gushed out when we removed the dishwasher connection. Most likely the little knob under the sink is broken. So a plumber is coming out today to install the new Bosch dishwasher:

and new Delta Windemere kitchen faucet:

The kitchen faucet is oil-rubbed bronze (hi, mom). I helped my dad pick out that faucet because it has a detached sprayer. Everyone I know who has a sprayer that is connected to the faucet itself complains of it breaking.

One thing I'm wondering is about the 'other' hole in the sink top. It WAS used for a little filtered water dispenser, but the dispenser is broken. However, it's still stuck in that hole. Can we get a replacement? It didn't come with the faucet. What if we don't want it there anymore? Can we just buy something to cover up the hole? I'm going to try to research this today. We'll see how it goes.

Live from Alaska!

I am hard at work today at my dad's house. After flying all night, I arrived in Alaska at 3:00 am (7:00 am my time). I got about 4-5 hours of sleep and have been working nonstop since. A lot of the initial work involves planning, but I've already made one trip to Lowe's. Here is a list of the big stuff I need to work on, prioritized:

- Buy an electrical tester thingy so I can work with wires without being electrocuted
- Move old bedroom furniture to guest room to prepare for new furniture delivery
- Remove old dishwasher and install new (to be honest I'm afraid to do this so a plumber may be called) Water scares me a lot more than electricity. The reason being is that if a light doesn't turn on...so what? If plumbing leaks, well, major emergency!
- Clean. There's a lot of stuff to be done, but mostly this involves hauling trash into town to the dumpster and vacuuming.
- Determine if I am going to be able to spray paint the brass light fixtures (they're wall sconces) oil rubbed bronze and replace the sconce shades (they're sort of flower-ish right now). If not, new fixtures will have to be purchased and installed.
- Pick out and purchase a new light fixture for over the dining room table. It's a very important light as far as the feel and design of the entire main floor and wouldn't be improved much by a spray paint color change.
- Declutter. I'm going one "drawer" at a time. (The idea is to break it up into small sections - they might not really be drawers.)
- Tons of other stuff

So far I've picked up the spray paint and a few glass light shades to try out. Along with hand soap for the kitchen sink. Hey, you gotta start somewhere.

More later with pictures, of course!