Here’s what it looks like:

Raised panel wainscoting (via)

Flat panel wainscoting (via)

Overlay panel wainscoting (via)

Board and batten wainscoting (via)

Beadboard wainscoting (via)

Combination wainscoting (via)

Other wainscoting (via)

As it stands right now, there’s no room to add a sink, even one of those tiny corner sinks. What we’d like to do someday is expand the room, finish the walls properly, and add something like this:

Inspiration provided by Kristen Buckingham. I think something like this could really cheer up my sad basement half bath (which as I said is currently a quarter bath). I’ve thought about scrapping the project altogether as rather ambitious, but really, it would be nice to have somewhere to wash one’s hands after using the facilities instead of having to pop back upstairs to use the kitchen sink.

Maybe not places exactly like this, as those lovely little bungalows are in Wells-Next-The-Sea, a seaport situated on the North Norfolk coast in England. I’m sure Wells-Next-The-Sea is quite picturesque just now with all those pretty colors, but I can’t imagine that it’s at all warm, which makes it less than inviting in my mind. Summer (or at the very least springtime) cannot come quickly enough, in my opinion.

(Photo by russelljsmith)

All right, so by the time Paloma actually has a proper nursery (hey, she was early) she’ll probably be extremely embarrassed to hear me even saying the word. For now, she spends most of her time in my black-and-red themed home office — the space that will eventually become her room. And we’ll probably keep that theme. But until that dream becomes a reality, I can fantasize all I want about building the perfect nursery from the ground up… or letting ducduc do it for me.

2. The color gray:

Cool, somber, elegant. What’s not to like? Don’t think gray is too dark for small spaces. It’s not. A lighter gray can actually make a small space look bigger!

3. Houzz

The Washington Post calls it “the Flickr of design idea sites,” which isn’t too bad of a description. You can search through thousands of photos of interiors by professional designers and save the ones that inspire you in your online idea book… Which means yours truly can finally toss out some of the magazine clippings she’s been sitting on for ages.

4. Hanging things up:

With the baby underfoot or attached to me at all times, I don’t get much done around the house anymore. Projects like tiling the mudroom or tackling the bare upstairs room have been put on the back burner for the time being. Just about the only thing I can do is affix things to the walls. Hanging things up makes me feel like I’m actually doing something to add a little zest to my living spaces, and I heartily recommend it to those with a desire for change but not a lot of free time.

Okay, I’m playing the weather up just a tad, but I do sometimes wonder how a sunbird like me ended up living in an area where snowblowers are de rigueur. I can legitimately blame The Beard for that one, because he adamantly refused to move down to Florida where it’s nice and warm all year round. Now I find myself tethered to a house we vowed we will keep until our future children have moved out. Then, perhaps, we’ll move to Costa Rica where it’s nice and HOT all year round.

Before that happens, I get to do things like winterize the house. Yes, it’s still summer if you live where I live, but up until about five minutes ago, I was entirely unaware one is supposed to prepare one’s dwelling for cold weather. It’s never too early to learn about these things, right?

So what are we homeowners supposed to be doing when autumn rolls around? Here are just a few of the things you should be checking:

THE ROOF: Look for leaks around eaves, vents, skylights, and chimneys. While you’re up there, have a peek at the gutters, the downspouts, and the attic, if you have one. Repair and clean as necessary. Better yet, get down off the roof, call a pro, and enjoy the last of Indian Summer with a nice mojito.

YOUR HEATING SYSTEM: It wouldn’t do to have the burner peter out on a cold winter’s night, so vacuum baseboards or register grills, check the thermostat, change your furnace filter, oil the motorized bits, bleed the valves, and if it’s been a while, have a HVAC guy come in and inspect everything. Obviously, some of these recommendations apply to certain furnaces and not others, so do only that which applies to you.

DOORS AND WINDOWS: Do you feel a draft? Look for flattened weather stripping, and replace it. Seal any holes around windows with caulk, replace broken windows, and cover basement windows with plastic shields. Swap out screens for glass in exterior doors, and put in those pesky storm windows if you have ‘em.

PROTECT YOUR PLUMBING: Frozen pipes suck bad, so trust me when I say it pays to give them a little love before the mercury plunges too far. Have a look at the lines you can see, and ensure they’re cozy all season long by wrapping them in pipe jackets or fiberglass insulation.

Naturally, that’s not all you should be doing. Nothing’s *that* easy! Check out the winterizing how-tos at Paradoxpro and About.com to find out just how much work goes into homeownership. While you do that, I’ll be here daydreaming about living in a tropical clime…which of course are associated with a whole different set of problems.

For the curious among you, Dutch doors were originally used — and still are used — to keep farm animals in farmhouses while keeping wild animals out of farmhouses. They originated in the Netherlands, but it’s not hard to see why they became popular elsewhere! With a Dutch door, you can let light and air in, but toddlers and pets cannot escape.

Plus, they’re tremendously inviting. I’m imagining myself chatting with a neighbor or the mailman over the bottom half of my pretty new door. In this fantasy, I’m also wearing one of my aprons and the ::incredibly clean:: kitchen smells of freshly baked pie, but I’m no domestic goddess, so make of it what you will.

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.

On one hand, this was a pain — neighbors are more neighborly when they don’t have to look at a rough and tumble yard every time they step outside, and yard work isn’t exactly the idyllic activity that back-to-nature guidebooks would have you believe it is. On the other hand, the scrappy lawn and overgrown flora gave me and The Beard the perfect excuse to drop wads of cash at various garden supply shops.

Long story short, that’s how we found ourselves pricing shrubberies, learning about plant food, and placing an order for the delivery of what seemed at the time like a reasonable amount of mulch. The mulch was to arrive in the afternoon of the day following our foray into the land of bushes and trees.

I was pretending to work on various projects on the day in question when I heard the unmistakable sound of a largish truck backing into my driveway. After peeking out of the living room window I came to an inescapable conclusion: Two cubic yards is a lot of mulch…especially when it is sitting smack dab in the middle of one’s driveway.

We chose an organic mulch made of things like bark, wood chips, leaves, pine needles, or grass clippings, but we could have opted for an inorganic mulch made of fabric, plastic, rocks, foil, or ground rubber. According to the Clemson Extension:

Mulching is a very important practice for establishing new plantings, because it helps to conserve moisture in the root ball of the new plant until the roots have grown out into the surrounding soil. The growth rate and health of trees and shrubs increases when there is no competition for water and nutrients from weeds. Mulch also helps to prevent tree trunk injury by mowers and trimmers. Newly planted trees require a circle of mulch 3 to 4 feet in diameter. Maintain this for five years.

Mulch entire beds of shrubs, trees, annuals, herbaceous perennials and ground covers. How often mulch needs to be replenished depends on the mulching material. Grass clippings and leaves decompose very fast and need to be replenished frequently. Inorganic mulches such as gravel and pebbles rarely need replenishing. As the plants grow and fill in the bed areas, less and less mulch is needed.

So there you have it — more than I ever knew (or wanted to know) about mulching before I ended up with a patch of dirt of my very own. I’m off to move the mulch away from my house, as it can act like a landbridge that lets subterranean termites cross areas treated with anti-bug goo. Now if I could only get this $@#$! wheelbarrow assembled before all of my fragrant mulch is spread throughout the neighborhood via the wind, things will be golden.

For the most part, the improvements they suggest will cost you. Replace all your radiators with an underfloor heating system? Knock out tatty tiles and replace them with slabs of marble? Um, right. I’ll be sure to do that when the economy bounces back, but for now I’m married…and not willingly…to the DIY ideology.

That being the case, I pulled five of the less expensive tips out of the piece. If you’re in the same boat as me, they may help you freshen up your home without spending a bundle.

1. First impressions count, so update your front door with paint:

Glossy black looks great on grand, stucco buildings, but rather forbidding next to red-brick or on a smaller house or cottage where soft greys work well. Blue was voted most appealing in a survey of buyers, but whatever the colour, a trick used by high-end decorators to achieve the best finish is to use several coats of paint thinned with white spirit.

2. Give your kitchen a mini-facelift with new knobs:

Standard sized, plain round knobs emphasise the mass-produced look of cupboards. Replacing them with unusual handles will add interest and character. Aim for texture, and avoid bright lacquered brass; it looks tacky and wears badly.

3. Enjoy regular seasonal refreshment without breaking the bank:

Replace cosy throws on sofas with light-coloured linen or ticking (for a classic New England beach house look, you might even invest in fitted linen-mix loose covers that are put on just for the summer and can be thrown in the washing machine when dirty). Even cushion covers can change: find pretty faded linen floral ones or make your own.

4. Learn to use that old sewing machine collecting dust in your basement:

With a little imagination, you can transform antique linens into unusual curtains, blinds, sofa and armchair slipcovers, cushion covers, upholstered seats or linen bags. Vintage white and cream linen is perfect for spring and summer soft furnishings.

5. Check your gutters…seriously, yucky gutters make a house look bad:

Most gutter problems are not caused by leaves, however, but by leaking joints. Plastic guttering has a high coefficient of thermal movement, and this constant expansion and contraction can push adjacent sections apart. Maneuver them back into place, and check that the supporting brackets are lined up correctly so that it doesn’t happen again.

And yet, wallpaper is just too, too classy. It’s got all of the patterns, colors, and textures you just can’t get from paint. I want to redo my little cottage in all of the wallpapers below!

As always, click on the pics to find out where they come from and how you can get them. Having never bought wallpaper, I’m hard pressed to tell you how much these papers cost. Goodness forbid a company actually put, um, prices on its web site. Of course, perhaps you are like me and simply enjoy the virtual window shopping!