I am in the process of redoing my house. As you might imagine, it’s a slow process for a variety of reasons. There is, of course, the money factor. I’d very much like to rip the roof off of my squat little cottage and have the whole thing lifted up. When it comes to the exterior structure of my home, I basically want to copy a picture I ripped out of Cottage Living. Being that I don’t want to take out a home equity loan, it’ll be a while before that happens.

Then there’s time and motivation. My approach to DIY is pretty frenetic — I spend a lot of time thinking about a project until I can see the final result in my head before I do anything. I’ll talk it over with The Beard until he gets my vision so I can be sure he’s on board. He doesn’t always appreciate what I’m picturing in my head until my projects are halfway finished, but he trusts me.

But once I start a project, just try to hold me back! Finishing what I’ve started becomes really important to me because I have trouble concentrating on other things when there’s a partially-done project staring me in the face. For example, when we moved into our house, I had to at least get the bedroom in order before I could go to sleep. It didn’t matter that I was utterly exhausted and midnight had come and gone.

My newest obsession revolves around my formerly nasty space that I call a vestibule and The Beard calls a mudroom. Picture peeling paint, shoddily applied paint, random nails being used as hooks, and a huge warped hook board. All in all, the space was BLEAH. Long story short, I wagered that the nice vertical wood I saw peeking out from under the hook board went all the way up, and my brain started envisioning a white country-style entryway with black cast iron hardware.

Luckily, I was right, because I went right ahead and pried the stupid hook board off the wall over The Beard’s gentle objections. Then I pried out all of the useless nails and filled them up with wood putty, scraped and sanded until I was practically falling over, primed every nook and cranny, and laid down one coat of lovely white paint. I will be laying down a second (and possibly a third coat) today. Boy, are my arms tired.

The only thing I’ve already done today is buy a bunch of cast iron hooks. While searching for said hooks, I found Stag Lane Primitives.

If you like old stuff — sometimes extremely pointless old stuff — you’ll probably like it as much as I do. I’ve found my source for the random assortment of antiques and faux antiques that will sit on the shelves of my vestibule/mudroom, and that makes me very, very happy.

Every manufacturer of everything everywhere has hits and misses. Now I’m cool with Kohler — The Beard and I just basically fell into imposed brand loyalty because all of the faucets and sinks in the house are Kohlers. That’s all right, though, because everything (thankfully!) is to my liking. It would pain me to have to have to replace perfectly functional fixtures.

Yet, as in all things, there is balance in the house of Kohler. For every win, there is a loss. For every extreme, there is something that can be defined as squarely middle of the road.

The good:

Kohler’s Crimson Topaz reminds me of the time I spent living in Costa Rica, if only because my mother’s friend’s sink was full of flowers, just like this one. I suppose it’s not in keeping with everyone’s tastes, but it’s quite in line with mine…provided it’s housed in a bathroom otherwise devoid of devoid of girly stuff.

The bad(ish):

I almost like this…I want to like it, but I just can’t get past the fact that the Kohler Tellieur looks like it belongs in a restaurant bathroom. Or maybe I’m just not modern and/or hip enough to appreciate it?

The (seriously) ugly:

You know your personal style is pretty firmly established when you’re seriously considering theKohler Zanzibar sink. I have to admit that I do love animal prints, but if your home has enough of them to warrant this sink then you and I need to have a serious talk.