design on a dime

I think our budget for this project has neared $1,000. Yikes. There's lots more to do, but most of it will have to wait until we can afford to do it how we want it.

What we still have to do:

• paint. i've got everything I need to do this except the time. hopefully next weekend will be when we finish the painting.
• fixture. i bought the cheapest light i could find, and i still like it. if i finish the ceiling paint tonight then i can get the new light fixture up! i guess because the old light fixture was so hideously hideous that installation of a new one will be a milestone for me.
  
• the fireplace. i wish i could find a digital copy of the fireplace "before, before" picture. before we even spent a night in the house, mother-in-law knocked out the old one because she was afraid it was going to fall on top of someone. So we spent a really long time with basically a hole in the wall. now it's finally under construction to become the fireplace it always wanted to be, and we should be finished with this part in two weeks tops. once we cover the brick with the tiles, we just have to wait for the crap to dry before we put on the grout.
  
• baseboard molding. not a biggie, we'll do that soon.
• replacement windows. we've done many of the other windows in the house, so these will be our last few. maybe we'll ask Santa for windows.
• new front door. i've been wanting a new front door since the day we moved in, but it's totally aesthetic. we don't use the door for coming and going so as long as the current one locks, there's no need to replace it. and, i'm totally not going to put in a stock door. i know exactly what kind of door i want, and of course, they don't really sell it anywhere. not anywhere i've found yet. I think we'll definitely ask Santa for a new door.
• window treatments. i have been flipping through countless magazines trying to figure out what type of curtains i want. finally i came up with the perfect solution. i drew a sketch of the room. i drew on the curtains i thought i wanted, but they looked too formal. so i kept erasing and drawing new curtains until i came up with what looked best. so now i know style, i just have to choose fabric. ugh.
• furniture. like the door, i have specific ideas in my head of what furniture i want and where it should go. but when i checked at the salvation army they didn't have it. the room will probably not be furniture-less, it will just be a mish-mosh. and i'll have to learn how to make a slipcover soon.

i think the pictures will have to go in another post.
Pictures.