7 Updates In 2 Months, Lesson Learned: Give Yourself A Deadline

Welcome to the 905th Metamorphosis Monday! I’m back at the Dollhouse. The weather for the drive up was perfect! Beatrice and Agatha were so good during the trip; they are such great little travelers. I stopped every couple of hours to let them get out of their carrier so they could potty, eat, drink, and roam around inside the car. After roaming around in the car and checking everything out, I always felt bad when I had to put them back in their carrier since they LOVED lying on top of the carrier and all the other things they found inside my SUV. They are the most chill cats I’ve ever seen!

When we arrived at the house, both Agatha and Beatrice immediately recognized where they were when I brought them inside. They ran up and down the stairs exploring all the rooms from top to bottom, checking out all their favorite spots. You would think we had never left. My grandsons have already been over twice to hang out and play with them, including this morning. It was such a great reunion!

During the two months (April and May) that I was back home in Georgia, knowing my time there would be limited since I planned to head back to the Dollhouse for summer, I felt tremendous pressure to get as much done as I possibly could. In today’s post, I’m sharing a quick summary of 7 fairly major projects/updates I was able to get done while in Georgia.

Project 1: Forever, I have wanted to replace the large wicker dining set here in the breakfast room. It was purchased many, many years ago, well before I added on the screened porch. It was my sneaky way of getting some white wicker into my life. Once I added on the porch and filled it with wicker, the wicker in the breakfast room felt redundant. Plus, the oversized wicker chairs always made that dining set feel a bit too large for the breakfast bay area.

 

The wicker dining set now resides in the sunroom here at the Dollhouse, and just days after arriving back in Georgia, this dining set was delivered.

 

It fits great here, and I’m looking forward to someday having the seats recovered in a pretty fabric that works in this room.

 

Project 2: I’ve been fighting an ongoing battle with the garage ceiling for 3 years now! Ever since it was repainted during a garage renovation a few years back, the ceiling has been periodically flaking off.

 

The company that painted my garage has attempted to fix it twice. A previous repair is visible in this photo below on the right where the stamp they used didn’t quite match. The repaired spots usually last, but every few months, new places continued to appear. Argh!.

 

The owner of the painting company finally suggested we redo the entire garage ceiling, scraping and making the ceiling completely smooth in the process. I much prefer smooth ceilings over textured ones, so that sounded great to me. It took some doing, but we finally found a time that worked for both our schedules. The entire ceiling was completely redone and made smooth. They did a great job!

 

I’m really hoping this is the final solution and the one that lasts.

 

Project 3: Over the years, I’ve purchased a bunch of these white storage cabinets. I love the cabinets, but the shelves that come with each cabinet are terrible!

 

Each shelf is supposed to hold up to 35 lbs, but they never come close to holding anything without sagging terribly.

 

On this trip home, I replaced a total of 16 shelves. I replaced six shelves (those that are removable) in two of the cabinets here in the basement.

 

And I replaced another 10 sagging shelves here in the garage.

 

The replacement shelves that I purchased from Home Depot are much denser and slightly thicker. I still have 3 in one more cabinet that could use replacing, although they aren’t sagging enough yet that it’s really noticeable. So I stopped at replacing 16 for now.

 

Project 4: I’ve really enjoyed having a Ring floodlight above my garage here at the Dollhouse.

 

Before, there was a very old, rusted floodlight mounted here on the back of the house, and it looked terrible. I can’t do anything about the electrical service running up the wall without spending thousands to have that relocated or placed underground, but at least the rusted floodlight (and its wiring) that used to be running up the wall are gone.

 

These ring floodlights are motion-activated and work great!

 

On this trip back to Georgia, I added three new Ring floodlights to the Georgia house: one at the garage, one over the deck, and one under the deck just outside the basement/terrace level. I’ve really enjoyed having those and have found them to be super helpful!

 

Project 5: Another project that has been bugging me for the past few years was the gradual and progressive rusting of the Hunter ceiling fans here on the porch. Though outdoor-rated, they’ve been hanging on the porch for 16 years, so they were finally showing their age. They still worked fine, so I hated to change them out, but I just couldn’t take their appearance any longer. Plus, the seals around the screws on each blade had dried out and crumbled away.

 

The new fans look great, and I love their wicker-style design. Since they are controlled by Lutron switches at the wall, we tucked one of the chains up and left just the chain that operates the light hanging down. I never use overhead lighting, so that should work well.

 

So glad to have that update completed and to no longer see badly rusted fans when I’m out on the porch.

 

Project 6: Several years ago, I purchased two outdoor lamps for the screened porch—a floor lamp and another lamp for this table below.

 

The floor lamp was in a corner behind the porch swing, and both it and the table lamp began deteriorating around the same time. The vertical sections that run up and down the shade, and the twisted section that runs along the very bottom of the shade, became brittle and began literally falling off whenever the lamp was touched or cleaned. I long ago discarded the floor lamp; it was designed in such a way that a new shade could not be added.

 

I came across this outdoor table lamp on eBay for a fantastic price—much less than it had sold for when it was available at Home Depot. I purchased two so if/when this one starts to deteriorate, I’ll have a replacement.

 

The spare one is currently in the storage/utility room in the basement. I leave it on full-time so the kitties can easily find their litter box when they come downstairs at night.

 

Project 7: Not exactly a project but an update that was unplanned and became necessary after one of the kittens somehow ripped a large hole in the Ralph Lauren comforter I use here on my guest room bed.

 

I had no idea if I could find a replacement, but I lucked out on eBay.

 

The Ralph Lauren replacement comforter actually matches the pillow shams and the bedskirt exactly, so problem solved!

 

It was a very busy two months, but I feel like I got so much accomplished. I worked on a few smaller projects around the house, but those were the most important things I managed to get done during the months of April and May. One thing I learned from this: If you have projects around your home that you’ve been putting off and that you would really like to get done, give yourself a deadline! It feels so good to get those old projects that you’ve been putting off, finally done. You will thank yourself over and over in the future!

Metamorphosis Monday: Metamorphosis Monday is a party that’s all about Before and Afters. Please link up your Before and After projects, like DIY projects, room makeovers, craft projects, and even recipes. Please do not link up Table Settings; save those for our Tablescape Thursday party on Thursday. If you are participating in Met Monday, link your post to the party using the “permalink” to your MM post and not your general blog address. To get your permalink, click on the name of your post, then copy and paste the address (that shows in the address bar at the top of your blog) into the “URL” box for InLinkz when prompted.