No smoking, please.

The USPS has been pretty good about realizing that we now live at Tara, as most of our mail arrives where it should and we no longer get mail intended for the previous residents. Every now and then, however, we get a piece of mail addressed to one Uri Snellbaker. Seriously. I cannot make this stuff up.

That someone actually named their child Uri Snellbaker is news enough, but the mail sent to Mr. Snellbaker is nothing to sneeze at. We don’t get Uri’s credit card bills or juicy love letters, nor do we get catalogues, high school reunion updates, or temple newsletters. Camel, Virginia Slims, and Marlboro seem to be the only ones who think Uri resides at Tara.

We don’t need Angela Lansbury to clue us in on the fact that Mr. Snellbaker liked a smoke.

But, with apologizes to Ayn Rand,

Who is Uri Snellbaker?

Loving some good gossip, I like to imagine that ol’ Uri was Mrs. Hershey’s lover. (The plot thickens!) Perhaps he was a tobacco tycoon who stole Mrs. Hershey’s heart sometime in the 80s and continued to be her on-again/off-again smoky sweetheart through the next two decades. Maybe he was her brother (boring!) who came to live with her as he endured treatment for emphysema. Maybe he lived next door, but didn’t want his wife to know he smoked, so he had his smoking literature sent to Mrs. Hershey’s? That last one’s too far-fetched, and the second option is boring, so we’re going to go with the juiciest story.

Uri Snellbaker was Mrs. Hershey’s smokin’ suitor, her cigarette courter, her burning beau, her puffing paramour, and her smoldering steady (love thesaurus.com!).

Unfortunately, I didn’t arrive at this conclusion solely as a result of the USPS. No, rather when we bought Tara, it smelled like an ashtray. Being pregnant and hormonal, I told Rhett that if there was one thing I was allowed to pitch a fit about, it was the smell. When the house was made livable, I told him, I was not moving in unless the smell was gone.

I know that fifty years ago no one knew how terrible cigarettes were, and I’ve seen enough Mad Men to realize that times have changed. But seriously. In 2010, a house shouldn’t smell like a bar.

Before we moved in, the smell of cigarettes poured out of every crevice, and as my mother-in-law washed walls her water became quickly tinted with yellow as the decades of smoke began to be freed from the house. Washing the walls and shelves, refinishing the floors, painting the walls, ceilings, and trims didn’t entirely get rid of the stench, and to date our painters have used over 35 gallons of Kilz on the ceilings alone. If this is what smoking does to the inside of a house, I don’t even want to think about what it does to the inside of a body.

As with any home, the smoking stench has mainly subsided and the house has started to smell like us rather than the local bar.

However, every now and then in certain sections of the house I can smell the faint lingering odor of cigarettes. Perhaps because it is Halloween or perhaps because I am a bit of a romantic, I imagine that it is nothing more than Uri coming for his mail.

Of course you need another hole in your chimney!

Remember when I told you I got a fab new pair of boots this fall? Well I did. And they’re every bit as fabulous as you might imagine them to be. Love. Love. Love.

Rhett, being heterosexual, chose not to indulge himself this fall with fashion but rather with a brand new TV for the den. I think he expected me to balk at the idea of buying *another* TV for the house, given the fact that we had- wait, I’m counting- SIX at the bungalow, but the only TV in this house is in our bedroom. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m not a TV watcher (okay, except for Mad Men, American Pickers, and the occasional Real Housewives cat fight) and I go to bed at 9pm…so Rhett was basically without his daily dose of Hometime and Holmes on Homes. Knowing I wanted to keep my marriage happy, I said “Sure, go get a nice TV for the den.”

And he came home with a 52” behemoth. We can now see the pores on Mike Rowe’s face.

Anyways, his big idea was to mount the TV above the fireplace. Our den, now that we knocked out a wall, is basically half of a huge room that is kitchen, breakfast area, and den combined. With a TV the size of Kansas, we don’t have to miss a minute of Jersey Housewives (no she didn’t!) when one of us wants to go into the kitchen for ice cream. Theoretically, a giant TV is a great idea.

Mounting it is…another thing.

In order to mount the TV, Rhett first spent the better part of a Sunday afternoon removing a brick from the fireplace. As a mother of two, there’s a certain part of me that cringes as I sit outside on the deck and peer through the glass at my husband as he hacks apart our chimney. I don’t like to see my house being demolished as I hear, “Calm down, I’m not doing this to the foundation!” Rhett told me that he “thought” there was a cavity behind the first row of bricks through which he could run cable and electricity. Fortunately, he was right.

From the attic, Rhett was able to run both cable and electricity and create the outlets you see in the above picture. Next he installed a TV mount and, with the help of his trusty assistant (cough, cough), the TV was lifted onto the mount.

We have yet to determine whether lighting a fire in the fireplace will have any effect on the TV, but I assume Rhett’s position on this matter is to cross that bridge when we get there. Don’t be surprised if we invest in a DVD of a crackling fire and entertain with the ambiance of a cozy fire up on the big screen. Kidding. Rhett, I’m sure, will rig a way to make the fireplace and TV live together in harmony, and that will have to be another blog entry.

To his credit, the TV is a great size for the wall. With chocolate brown brick, the TV even blends in a bit and isn’t near as obtrusive as I thought it would be. I wouldn’t say we watch more TV, but when we do want to watch a show it’s a bit like going to the movies (pass the popcorn). Rhett loves his new toy, and I love that it is no longer sitting in the middle of the den. My only worry is that I am now spoiled and can barely discern the characters on the teeny TV in our bedroom (“Is that Will or Grace?”).

I’m thankful Rhett chose an indulgence that’s beneficial to the whole family. Unfortunately, I’m the only one who benefits from a pair of size 7.5 boots, but I do believe that they make me a better wife and mother.

Seeing Stars.

When we gutted the main bathroom, we left one thing- the light on the ceiling. Isn’t she a beauty? This is one of Tara’s unexpected treasures. Most of the lighting in the house was downright horrendous (and cheap!) but this piece adds just the right touch of whimsy. I love the delicate gold leaves and the playful stars. It’s retro without trying too hard.

There’s just one problem, of course. Apparently fifty years ago they didn’t take hot showers, because there’s no exhaust fan in the main bathroom. Bummer. As the resident expert on all things practical, Rhett says we’ve got to replace it with an exhaust fan/light combination thingy (I’m sure I’ll write about installing that when the time comes).

For now it still lives in the bathroom until it is moved (and cleaned) ever-so-carefully into the laundry room (no need for an exhaust fan in there!). Either way, I’m sure I’ll still love looking up and seeing stars.

What's my line? I'm happy cleaning windows (thanks, Van Morrison).

All you know at this point of the woman who lived here before us was that she once made 4 loaves of banana bread for our neighbors because her oven was falling apart. Not only do I respect that she MADE four different loaves for them to be sure one was edible, but that she TOLD them she did this and presented them with ALL FOUR. I would have tasted each one and then cleverly arranged slices from the good loaf on a plate, never telling them of my baking trials and tribulations. Or I wouldn’t have baked them anything to begin with (flowers, a bottle of wine…there are other neighborly gifts). But what can I say, old Mrs. Hershey was apparently not ashamed of her baking.

Perhaps, rest her soul, she wasn’t ashamed of much as she aged. We can infer this from a number of things- from the smell that lingered in the house of her habitual chain smoking, the stains on the hardwoods in all the rooms from either plants or pets, and from the windows she had let get so dirty I was afraid to come within a foot of them.

Dead bugs, years and years of pollen, dirt and who knows what else had clouded the windows to such a point that I don’t think I noticed a difference after the painters removed the paper from the windows after they painted the trim. I couldn’t see out of them with the paper on or with it off.

I remember vividly sitting in my friend Margie’s living room one night after we bought Tara and staring at her windows, realizing that THIS is how windows should look. Yes, this was during a Bible study and no, I have no idea what was being talked about around me (Jesus?). All I remember is getting in the car with Rhett and saying, “We’ve GOT to do something about the windows at Tara!”

I got an estimate the next day from a small local window cleaner who said he’d do the whole house for a bargain. When he and another man came to clean the next day and left 9 hours later, I had a guilty feeling I should have tacked on another few hundred dollars to their fee. “Mam,” he said. “I’ve been in the business over 20 years and these are the dirtiest I’ve ever seen.”

Yep.

If Mrs. Hershey stopped by the house tomorrow, I have no doubt that she would be impressed with the new clarity of windows. I hope I’d have some banana bread to offer her as well.

Damn Yankees.

Did I tell you we were considering keeping the original cabinets in the kitchen and just painting them? They are heavy, solid, nice cabinets…but they are also old, dirty, and dingy. Trying to reuse them would have been a great way to save some cash, but since we were redoing everything else in the kitchen (i.e. gutting every inch) we decided to start fresh with brand new cabinets, too.

Choosing cabinetry is tough, and of all the decisions we’ve made in the past few months this was the most frustrating. You need to know that in order for me to relive the horror of this summer’s cabinet catastrophe I have had to write this entry with a bowl of peanut butter M&Ms by my side.

It was THAT awful.

For the master bath in our old house, we used a local cabinet maker and they did an outstanding job. Naturally, we sought them out again for our kitchen. Advice- find a good local cabinet maker. Don’t know of one? Ask your contractor. The one we like- Maxwell Cabinets- has been family owned and operated for the past 60 years and they’re fantastic to deal with. We have always really enjoyed working with them. Butttt…they can be a little slow. And with a baby on the way and a house that wasn’t livable, this summer was no time to be slow. The other issue? Price. We were really trying to save a little green on this project so we were forcing ourselves to look exclusively at their least expensive line- a line which didn’t give us the color we wanted (chocolate brown) or anything nearly close. *sigh* So we chose the big guys at Home Depot instead.

Big mistake, but we didn’t know it yet. This is when the whole thing went to ‘pot. Get it? Depot? ‘Pot? Pot? (I’m can be clever even when I am reliving moments from Hell.)

When we went to the ‘pot, we found the style we wanted, the color we wanted, and the price we wanted- and they promised we could have it all in 14 days!

You know when your mother tells you that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is?

Cue your mother.

See, when you get your cabinets from a place like Home Depot, you’re not really getting them from Home Depot, but from a third party vendor. When the third party vendor decides to mess up your order, oh, say, FIVE times and to not give Home Depot or you a straight answer on anything (Will our cabinets arrive today? Who knows! Consult the Magic 8 ball!) you can only shake your fist at the person on the other end of the phone above the Mason Dixon line.

Damn Yankees.

Our order didn’t arrive in full until about 6 weeks later, and the things wrong with the small shipments they sent us along the way ranged from insignificant scratches to the truly ridiculous (Who packs these shipments? Monkeys?). Seriously- there were huge gashes (holes the size of my fist) in the sides of the cabinet boxes, doors that didn’t match (did the packer even LOOK at the cabinet before he put his quality control sticker on it?), doors that we didn’t order (um, thanks for the extra doors, guys!), and an extra base thrown in just for kicks (maybe they figured if they just threw cabinets at us some were bound to work?).

I need more M&Ms.

I have to say, though- the people at Home Depot in customer service were outstanding. Not only did they ultimately refund some of our money, they were a pleasure to work with the whole way through, completely professional, and deeply apologetic. And to my knowledge they don’t work with that cabinet vendor anymore.
And the good news is that in the end we got what we initially requested (perhaps they had someone with a third-grade education read over our order?) and the cabinets looks great. You’ll hear more about them, but our two favorite workers, Freddie and Ceasar, did a fabulous job installing the cabinets and we’re very pleased with our new kitchen.

Maybe it wasn’t a full-blown assault on Tara by Yankees in uniform, but one thing is sure:

As God is my witness, I will never work with a third party vendor again.

Last year's Christmas card...

Just because we don't love traditional posed pictures doesn't mean we don't love each other.

Pictures, please.

While rearranging furniture (again) this past weekend, Rhett noted, ever so subtly, that there are rooms in this house really could belong to anyone. In fact, there is nothing uniquely “us” about the front room, the living room. The furniture is subtle and classic. The placement is formal, but not too formal. The colors are beautiful, but not overwhelming. Yep, this room could belong in nearly anyone’s house.

What to do? Grabbing a sharpie and writing “Scarlett and Rhett’s house!” in bold all over the walls would be a quick fix. So would slapping a coat of fire engine red on one wall (Ha! I’ll show you what’s unique!) But…Rhett’s not big on quick change or deviating from the traditional, so those ideas were axed.

Instead, I chose to hang some family photographs this weekend. I’ve got my eye on doing a picture gallery down the main hall, so I needed something different (and large!) for the living room space. Luckily, we brought with us some super cool early 1900s windows from our previous bungalow (we did leave windows for the current owners, I promise) and we both loved the idea of using the heavy windows as architectural art in our new house. But how was I going to get pictures in there? And what pictures should I use?

Confession: Rhett and I don’t have a wedding album. Not that we didn’t love our wedding (we did!) and not that we didn’t have a photographer (he was there- promise!), but we both loathe posed pictures, generally. Rhett’s a little better about them than I am, but unless we’re making a game face with my 85 year-old grandmother, I would choose a candid over a posed shot any day. (Does anyone actually like posing for group photos?) In fact, our Christmas card from last year was intentionally done to look like it was out of a photo booth- see above. We just goofed off and our friend Micah snapped away. So fun!

Anyways, we had a lot of great pictures from the big day, but I just never got inspired to put them in some book that would sit on our coffee table and gather dust. And who needs a fuzzy, angelic shot of me staring into the great unknown? Bleh. Here’s the thing though, the photographer did do a good job, and we have a bunch of great pics- both candid and posed. And we got married in an old milking barn in East Tennessee (I was barefoot!) so what better to display our wedding pictures but in some vintage windows with peeling paint!

I scurried to the fabric store and snagged 3 yards of industrial burlap for 2$ a yard. I am loving burlap right now and have really no idea why. But when you find what you’re loving at 2$ a yard do you ask questions? Heck no! We then ordered the pictures in varying sizes- 8x10, 5x7, and 4x6- and all in black and white and got them from Costco for under 20 bucks. I picked up some thick poster board for 4.59 a sheet at Walgreens and a few hours later our once-generic living room had some personal details. Okay, Rhett hasn’t hung the windows yet, but they are sitting in the living room.

If you’re considering this for your own house (I’m so happy I inspired someone!) we’ve got plenty of extra windows (really- we did leave the current owners of our old house some windows…they’re just plastic. Kidding!)But seriously- we have about 12 more sitting in our attic. Anyway, here’s what you need to know before getting started on this project. Getting the pictures aligned correctly on the burlap was pretty tricky, but with some glue and a few prayers, it worked well. If industrial burlap is too rustic for your taste, ask the fabric store employees for more options (the guys at my store had about 4 variations), but do know that the nicer variations are a bit more expensive. As for the pictures, find a bunch that you like and don’t be afraid to order way more than you need- you’ll want to play around with them so have plenty. Also, you’re going to need a putty knife and some Glazier points (dudes at Home Depot can help you out) to secure the poster board to the windows. As far as order, I’d measure the poster board first, then fit the burlap around it and seal it on (glue gun? Stapler? I used masking tape!) and then finally fix the pictures to the burlap. We could only find thick BLACK poster board, but with the shadow behind the frame, black worked better than white. So if you have a choice, choose black.

Now that it’s all done, I can’t stop walking through the living room. Turns out we needed some (wedding) pictures up on the walls after all, even if some of them are posed.

Kidding around, take 1

Here’s a shot of our oldest daughter’s room before the renovation. Kids rooms are easy and a lot of fun, basically because anything goes. The phrase “anything goes” would describe her personality, too.

This room was one of the first to get completed- the tiniest clients can have the biggest opinions, and to avoid having her cry nightly for our old house we had to give her the coolest room possible. So we did.

The room has a lot of natural light (which this photo doesn’t show…my bad.) We painted the walls, ceiling, trim, and closet, tore up the carpet in favor of refinishing the hardwood floors underneath, gutted the electrical (including the disgusting ceiling fan) and at the end of the day…

Kidding around, take 2

…we got THIS!

Fresh coats of paint can work wonders, and combined with super cool vintage furniture, mismatched fabrics (blackout polka dot curtains with airplane finials!), retro art (a surfboard bulletin board and a “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster) and toys that are usually all over the place, this room has it all. Note the super cool swing/hammock/leaf chair made by my friend Maggie- our daughter would sleep in it if we let her.

She was out of town when it was finished, so she came home to her dream room. “I’m never leaving!” she proclaimed. So much for sending her to her room if she misbehaves…that’s exactly where she wants to be!