When we first walked through this house all I saw was potential around every corner. That may be due in part to how fast the houses in the area we searched in were being snapped up by other buyers. In fact, there were at least two houses we saw online and really liked, but before we could even go look at them they'd been sold. Houses went on the market in the morning and were gone by 5 p.m. Ryan and I knew that we had to be ready to say, "We want it!" and pull the trigger when we saw a house we could picture ourselves in.
Maybe it's because I've watched too many episodes of Fixer Upper, but when I saw the wood paneling in the living room and the wallpaper in the bathroom and dining room, I saw what it could be. We started fixing it up in the kitchen by painting it a mint green color. Once we'd finished and I surveyed the work we'd done, all I could think about was mint chocolate chip ice cream. The trim and the cabinets in the kitchen are all a dark wood stain, and resting against the backdrop of a refreshing mint green, it looks exactly like my favorite flavor of ice cream.
The worst part of fixing up our house was getting the wallpaper down. That stuff is horrible. Hands-down. The. Worst. With the help of both our families we got the wallpaper and all the glue underneath removed. For those of you taking wallpaper down: make sure you scrape and scrub that wall clean of glue, especially in a bathroom. If any glue remains on the wall and you paint over it the heat and water vapor from the shower can reactivate the glue. This means, you'll have to start all over again by sanding, scraping, scrubbing, and then painting, again. Just a tip to keep in mind for your own home improvement projects on older homes.
We bought the house in August 2017 just a week before I went back into school and started my first semester of teaching. Because of the short timeline, we only focused our energies on the main areas: the kitchen and the bedroom. We painted the bedroom, bathroom, dining room, and kitchen over the past year, but never had time to tackle the wood paneled living room. Last week we began working on the wood paneling in the living room. Using an electric sander, I roughed up the surface of the wood so it would take the paint better. Upon consulting a Lowe's paint employee we learned we needed oil-based primer for the paneling. Now, I don't have a ton of experience painting or any experience using oil-based paint/primer, but man is it messy and hard to clean up. I had oil-based paint splatters stuck to my skin for days. It requires much more intensive clean-up than latex paint. Thankfully, my mom has used it before, so she had some helpful hints (and helped with the manual labor even after long days at work.) She and my sweet mother-in-law helped paint the room.
A fun fact for you: Our hearth stretches the length of the room going under two windows on either side. Because of the hearth underneath the windows I couldn't get up to the ceiling without a ladder. The problem is it's not safe to set a ladder up on the uneven surface of the hearth, especially when you're working on it by yourself with no one else in the house. My mother-in-law is also shorter than me, so the only person involved in the project who's tall enough to reach the ceiling is my mom. My mother-in-law and I painted the rest of the room and then when we got to those two spots, we just had to wait for someone tall to come over and help.
After two days full of painting from start to finish, we had painted the entire living room! And Ryan had to put Icy-Hot on my back which refused to relax. Ryan helped me rearrange the furniture while it was all pushed to the center of the room. It really looks like a completely different room, and the light color makes it so much brighter. I love sitting in here looking at the grooves you can still see in the wood.
Now, on to the reason why we had to finish the living room by Thursday evening, Friday morning at the latest. Ryan and I both grew up with dogs. We've wanted to get a dog ever since we got married, but we wanted to start with a lower maintenance animal, aka. cats. Dogs need much more attention than cats and as a newly married couple figuring out how to live with each other and be married, we wanted to start small. The subject of adopting a dog was brought up AT LEAST once a day for a couple of weeks until we finally decided to just do it. Ryan would sit next to me in bed and suddenly exclaim loudly how cute this dog or that dog was. However, I knew that it would be impossible to paint the living room with a new dog, so it had to be done before we went to look at them.
When we finally got to go we went to the Humane Society of Memphis at Shelby Farms. Walking in the building, straight ahead was a long line of windows that looked down into the kennels of dogs. Through the doors of those kennels you could see back into the others, young and old. We first met a Labrador mix, named Popeye, who was six months old. He was a sweetie. A little rambunctious, but a very sweet pup. There were also two puppy pit mixes, both two months old, we wanted to meet before making a decision.
They brought both puppies into a room for us to just sit and hang out with them for a little bit. While we got to know them a little, we watched one sniff out a good spot to poop, and we watched the other one go eat the poop. I know. Gross. Right after that, he walked over and licked my leg and got a tiny amount of dog poop on it. Yuck.
We chose the one that pooped on the floor. At the shelter they called him Damien, but to go along with our unintentional food themed names for animals, we renamed him Oreo. It was hard to leave him there that evening, but they had to check us out and make sure our kitties were up-to-date on their vaccinations with our vet. Then, we just had to wait. They told us we if all went well we could take him home Saturday, but if they had trouble getting in touch with our vet it wouldn't be until Wednesday (they're closed Monday and Tuesday.) So, we waited for a call.
They finally called Saturday close to lunch time and we went to pick him up. Oreo sat in my lap the entire ride in the care and cuddled up next to me. Ryan and I drove out to our parent's house to let them meet the new pup before getting home to meet the cats. It was the sweetest ride in the car I've ever had with him snuggling up to me and falling asleep draped across my arms and legs. We were surprised that Custard handled meeting Oreo rather well. He kept his distance for a few days, but will now comfortably walk into the room and even lay down to sleep in front of Oreo. Pumpkin was a different story. I held Oreo back with a leash so he couldn't run up to the cats and scare them. Ryan held Pumpkin as he walked into the room. She took one look at Oreo, started squirming in Ryan's arms, and bolted from the room back to the guest bedroom where she hid under the bed.
Pumpkin had both Ryan and I concerned, although, I will say Ryan was much more concerned than I was at first. I knew this was a fairly normal reaction, but Ryan pointed out that she may not be eating as the food he refills daily seemed to be left alone. She stayed firmly rooted under the bed for about two days. We moved their food to the guest bedroom, so they (Pumpkin) could eat where she felt safe. Ryan and I went in several times and coaxed her out from under the bed only to have her crawl and squeeze herself back under right after. Slowly but surely she came out for longer lengths of time, even if that was still in the room sitting on the top of the bed. Pumpkin's been coming out of the room altogether to sneakily slink into the living room past Oreo, hoping to be invisible. This morning she stayed out in the open even after we took Oreo out to go to the bathroom at 6:15 a.m. and walked right past him on the recliner. I was so proud of her. I really wish she could understand my adoration.
Since coming home with us, Oreo has been learning that going to the bathroom outside earns him a treat. He still has an accident once in a while, but he's gotten so much better. Now we just need him to come tell us when he needs to go. We've learned that he can't stand to be alone (at night or any other time of day.) He sleeps in the bed with us at night and it absolutely breaks our hearts every time we have to put him in the kennel to leave the house. Oreo has already stolen our hearts, and we're so happy all of our fur babies are getting along and doing well.
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