The last few months in review - part 1

Since I haven't posted here in eons, here's a brief synopsis of the last few months at Bungalow 4865.

1. Had fancy energy-saving blinds installed in the living room and dining room.

I had been wanting to replace the yucky, yellowed broken blinds for a long time, and ended up getting new blinds in December. We chose Hunter Douglas's Duette Architella honeycomb shades. They definitely weren't cheap, but did qualify for an energy-saving tax credit on my 2010 federal taxes, which was pretty cool. We opted for the top-down, bottom-up lift control system, which gives the blinds a super neat, streamlined look without hardware or cords. As part of the tax credit, they had to be professionally installed, but that was fine with me, since I seem to have issues with the whole "measure twice, cut once" thing.

Since it was a fairly cold winter overall, it has been difficult to measure the actual savings in heating costs. But when Adam measured inside and outside the closed blinds with an infrared thermometer, it was about a 12 degree difference, which is huge. It made sitting by the living room window noticeably much more pleasant - when the wind blows hard in the winter, we could usually feel a pretty nasty draft on the back of our necks. So we're pretty happy with them overall, even though Adam's a little disappointed that I didn't opt for the remote controlled lifting system.

2. Painted in the living room and dining room.

Before the blinds were installed, we painted both rooms and did considerable patching. After much discussion and color sampling, we went with two complimentary beige/taupe/khaki shades from Behr. We also painted all the trim and molding a much brighter white. I'm very happy with how it turned out - especially the way it looks against the crisp white trim.

3. Finished patching the ceiling in the basement bathroom, painted the walls, and added some new hardware.

Drywalling upside down proved to be pretty challenging, but it managed to come out pretty well. We also took the opportunity to paint the ceiling with a couple of coats of mildew-resistant paint. Prior to painting the walls, we also used the same mildew-resistant stuff as a primer. The color was a light brown (heh - sensing a theme here?) and looks really nice with the shower curtain. Yes, the entire bathroom design is based on a shower curtain I purchased from Target that I am sure is no longer in production and will eventually need to be tossed.

The bathroom facelift also gave me the opportunity to try my hand at some electrical work. I purchased the new sconces on either side of the mirrored cabinet and installed them, which involved relocating the holes for the previous fixtures. This was straightforward enough, meaning no one got electrocuted and no major damage was done to the house. Of course, nothing's ever easy at Bungalow 4865 - the walls are not at 90 degree angles so it took some effort to get the sconces to lay flush against the wall. There were also some issues with the walls, which may or may not have involved drilling into conduit in an attempt to hang a towel rack, but we abandoned that and moved it to a new location.