Hey look! Another thing on your newsfeed related to COVID-19. Our hope is that this will hopefully be a little bit more fun to read, and maybe lighten the mood a ‘lil bit.

Our governor likes to yell “fix the damn roads!” a lot, but we’ve been yelling “fix (or finish) the damn…” a lot lately. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but we do have quite a few projects and things we’re hoping to get done around here. And now seems like a perfect time to get these things done.

It’s been a helluva week. What started as a normal week back to school turned into figuring out how to teach remotely from home after our governor ordered all schools to close until April 6. Even though we have a list of things we’d like to get done in this time, we are still trying to do our best to practice social distancing — but if the price of flights to Maui drops low enough, see ya later.) And let’s be honest, nothing tests a fresh marriage like being quarantined in a house together for three weeks (and the potential for even longer.) I can see Laryssa having to reminder herself “I am happy he is home. I am happy he is home.” after a few days. I can be overbearing. So, we’ll see how this goes.

So while we’re working from home these next few weeks, we’re making a giant list of shit to get done around here. We can’t lie; we’re the king and queen of unfinished DYI projects. So without further ado, here’s what we’ll (hopefully) be crossing off our honey-do to-do list in the next few weeks.

FINISH THE DAMN OFFICE.

If you’re new here, we decided to rip apart our office two weeks before our wedding. We just celebrated our six month anniversary, and, well, it’s still not done. We’ve made a ton of progress, but there’s still a lot more to do, so here’s the short list of what we still needs to get done before we can cross this one off:

• Finish patching and sanding the white accent wall.
• Install extra thick crown molding and baseboards (don’t you just love the gap in between the accent wall and the ceiling? Sucks for the next guy who hates what we did in here.)
• Trim out the double window, closet doorway, doors, etc.
• Put a final coat of poly on our hardwood floors.
• Build a giant desk big enough for both of us.
• Bring in and build other furniture pieces, like a chair, a table for plants in front of the double window, something for the closet, etc.
• Buy a rug.
• Potentially see about having the set of french doors we scored on Facebook Marketplace last year installed leading into the living room (but we’re not about to attempt that ourselves.)

As a refresher, here’s where this room started when we moved in last year:

FIX THE DAMN TRIM.

We’d like to think this is a very specific statement about a very specific spot in our house, but, well, not quite. We’ve got a lot of trim problems here at the Beck Street House. First, let’s start in the dining room.

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We installed this tried-and-failed trim about a month after we moved in. Let’s not sugarcoat this; we hated it the moment we put it up, and we’ve been staring at it’s uneven cuts and it’s wood filler patches ever since. The ceiling in here is also slightly angled (it’s a flat roof), and the bulky trim around the door and windows only accentuate it. This shit’s gotta go. Instead of replacing it with different window trim, we’re hoping for a more minimal look by covering the walls with vertical shiplap (something like this) with minimal trim around the windows and door. This project will also include covering or removing the barn wood wainscoting and painting the floorboard heaters in here as well. And someday, we’re hoping to build a new dining room table and matching benches for this room so we can say goodbye to our first-apartment grade piece of crap we found at thrift stores. And then that light… and then the floors…

Moving onto the living room…

Our to do list for the living room trim should be a lot easier than the dining room trim. We need to finish filling holes, sanding, caulking, and painting the baseboards and crown molding in here. Okay, maybe it won’t be easier. And we’ll probably cuss a bit too. We’re by no means finish carpenters, and, well, our first shot at crown molding has a few blemishes.

ORDER THE DAMN PAINT.

‘Tis the season to order things online that you could normally buy in store, including paint! I saw an ad on Facebook a few days ago (perfect timing there, Behr) about ordering paint online and having it shipped directly to you. We’ve looked at these services before, but the prices are usually pretty high. However, a gallon of paint through Behr Express is only a few dollars more than buying a gallon in store, so we’re hoping to try it out during our three week sabbatical. Wanna take a guess at which nasty wallpaper is coming down next?

CLEAN THE DAMN HOUSE

Okay, this makes us sound like we’re pigs around here; we promise we’re not. Our house is generally pretty clean (minus the white dog hairs – sorry.) While we’re working remotely, we want to tackle some of a spring cleaning tasks like going through our closets and dressers, deep cleaning our garage and woodshop, and start working on outside chores like cleaning out our gutters and garden beds. We actually spent a good amount of time yesterday going through our clothes and making a box of things to donate. Also, we tried the Marie Kondo folding method the last time we went through our dressers. For Laryssa, it’s going really well. For Alan? Not so much.

And if somehow everything on our list gets done, we’d really like to sneak in a quick project related to our linen closet on our main floor. Right now, it’s a disaster. It only has a few shelves and a few hooks, but we have a million towels, craft supplies, and other things we store in there. So it’s more like a linen-ish closet. We’re hoping to follow Young House Love’s tutorial to build more shelves to get the most out of this itty bitty closet.

UPDATE THE DAMN BLOG

Not only are we hoping to write more content and publish on our blog more, but we’re also hoping to upgrade our WordPress plan, look at potentially changing to a new WordPress theme, and updating our tabs at the top of our website as well. Which, we just realized, probably means nothing to you.

So circling back, just like our girl Gretch is gonna fix this damn roads, we’re gonna fix the damn things around here. We’ll report back.

Stay safe out there.

A+L