St. Helens is a small town, full of friendly people, has an amazing laid-back vibe, and there are tons of fun little hole-in-the-wall businesses and gorgeous trails to explore.  If my living room feels too small – I dunno.  Maybe I it’s a sign I need to spend less time in it.

Now, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m against doing big projects on the house, or that renovation projects are bad.  I’m all for buying a house that needs a little work.  I fact, I have to say that some of the best money we’ve ever spent was the $1,000 we spent on our chain link fence.

Would our living room look a million times more spacious with that gorgeous, soft grey, “L” shaped sectional I saw over at Fred Meyers?  Absolutely.

Would I end up eating my children or skinning my dogs when they inevitably tramped mud or spilled apple juice on it?  Absolutely.

So, fancy furniture will have to wait.  It’s not worth the headache, you know?

I am, however, a big fan of painting.  It’s amazing how much new paint can really change the feel of a room.  I especially love bright, happy colors.  Orange.  Red.  Yellow.  Maroon.  Teal.  The brighter they are, the happier they are.

The Bean?  The Bean’s more of a black/white, and occasionally a nice, muted grey kind of a guy.

Sometimes I feel like we’re literally living out Fool Rush In.  Have you seen that movie?  You know the scene when Salma Hayek’s family comes and paints their boring, dull, ugly house all those happy colors for a wedding present?

This used to be a point of contention between The Bean and I, but somewhere  along the way we figured out the perfect compromise between The Bean’s fascination with boring colors and my fascination with gaudy colors.  The Bean gets to pick the nice, mellow paint colors, and after we’ve made our house all boring neutral looking, I get to splatter the walls with happiness.

And honestly?  It looks a million times better this way.  I’m no interior design expert, but one thing I have learned is that bright things look less garish on sedately-painted walls.

Speaking of paint, I’m going to repaint the whole downstairs.  The current paint colors aren’t that bad, although the ceiling is painted a lovely “1980s smoke-stained yellow”.  One of the previous owners did start painting the ceiling white, and it looks great…. But I guess they got bored halfway through the project and gave up.

Of course, I can sympathize.

I’ve mentioned before, but I’m horrible at choosing paint colors, so I’ve pretty much abdicated that responsibility up to The Bean.  My only requirements are:

1. It must be at least a shade or two brighter than the “flesh” colors that our house came with.  It really makes a difference on those grey, rainy days.
2. It must be a scrubbable paint.  Whoever painted before us put flat paint on un-textured walls…. which means I can’t give my boys damp sponges and order them to scrub walls as punishment for bad behavior.  Washing the walls is my favorite punishment for bad behavior – it’s as boring as standing in the corner, but it actually accomplishes something useful.

I plan on attacking the downstairs with our new paint scheme some time in February. I actually put the project off last summer because I knew that by February I’m usually hungry for something bright and cheerful to look forward to, so a painting project will give me something to occupy my time while I wait around for longer days, warmer weather, and less mud.

In addition to the tiny projects we’re doing to make our house nicer, we usually have one or two “big” projects we try to get done each year.  The first of this year’s “big” projects was accomplished over Christmas break… which, I guess, technically makes it last year’s project, but whatever.

We finally, FINALLY, ripped out the totally useless built-in…. uh….display case? Floating shelves?  Weird bookshelf area?  I have no idea what it actually was designed for – all I know is that the shelves didn’t fit books, they didn’t fit dishes, and  I constantly bumped my head on them.

This house actually has less storage than my first studio apartment, so it may seem odd to remove shelves, but the Bean Family motto for 2015 is:

I mean it.  We are really trying to live that this year.  For instance:  You know how I’m always complaining about how much I hate doing laundry?  

I don’t know when exactly when my new mindset clicked, but it did.  Maybe it wasn’t that our house didn’t have enough storage.  Maybe it was just that we had too much stuff.  We are not a fancy family, hosting fancy dinner parties and scouring interior design magazines. I mean, there is literally a pile of cat puke under a tupperware bowl in my laundry room.  Fancy is not who I am, or who I strive to be, so how much crap do I really need?

So…. instead of renovating this house to fit my dreams, I think I’m kind of renovating my dreams to fit this house.  It’s not that I’m giving up anything – I’m just altering the landscape as I remember the whole reason we chose St. Helens in the first place.  If clutter-free is important to me, maybe I don’t need to dream of a house with better storage and better closets.  Maybe I just need to get rid of some crap.

In addition to getting rid of clutter, I’m trying to figure out how to make everything in my life actually useful.  For instance: my upstairs office is everything I dreamed it would be – clean, quiet, peaceful:

The walls are not as yellow as they show on the right – 

my cell phone’s panorama mode and I are NOT friends

The fridge is currently just sitting in the laundry room – fridges are much bigger than you think, and it’s the only place it really fits (one of the joys of a century-old house.)  

We also want to tear down the looks-only plaster wall (where we just tore down that bookcase thingie) and replace the useless under-stairs-Harry-Potter closet with  a little reading area by the kitchen.

We want to rip out the entire kitchen  and replace it with USEFUL cabinets. I’m really looking forward to this, because when we do it we’re going to create a little drop-down barstool eating area….. and that space can then used as part of the living room.

We also want to put laminate down instead of the old-style wood flooring.  The idea of having 1916 flooring is just so much cooler than it actually is.  Not only is it painted over with funky-looking paint which would cost thousands upon thousands to strip and refinish, it has so many cracks and holes that whenever you spill water in the kitchen, it actually drips through all the way down to  the basement floor beneath it.

We want to build a deck in our giant, “useless” backyard.

And on that deck there will be a with a REAL fire pit area we can enjoy during the rainy season most of the year.

With short ceilings (only 7 feet) it will never be totally inviting, but we can at least make it functional.  I want to line the walls with storage cabinets, and maybe hang a punching bag and get some workout equipment.   

We’re also planning on framing-in and creating a downstairs office for The Bean, although how he’s going to get any accounting work done with us galloping around overhead, I have no idea.

We want to repaint the porch floor.

We want to stain and epoxy the basement floor. 

We want to repaint the house trim, and put window boxes under the windows, and, and and…

We want to… We want to… We want to….

We want to have Friday night movie nights with our boys.

We want summer camping trips. 

We want to visit the coast, and bring chicken soup to sick friends, and teach the boys how to swim, and take the dogs on long hikes in the Oregon forests.  We want to ride horses, and fly kites.

We want to buy an old car and fix it up in our basement and sell it for money.

We want to enjoy this house as a home which brings us joy, instead of letting it become a never-ending series of DIY projects that leave me exhausted and snapping at my children. 

So…. We take it one small project  at a time.  So what if we’re roasting marshmallows in an asymmetrical hole I dug in the ground with a shovel, rather than the gorgeous fireplace on the deck of my dreams?  We’re roasting marshmallows, and we’re inviting friends over, and we’re making memories. 

And maybe it feels like forever before I’ll ever have my dream pantry, but when a friend needed a place to stay this past summer, I was able to open my home and give her a place to crash.

And you know what?   If another friend knocked on my door this evening and wanted to stay the night, my home would be open to them, too, cat vomit and all.   

I think that’s my favorite part of all about owning my own home – it’s being able to share, and give back to others, even if my home or my life isn’t perfect.  And maybe I’m not as carefree and adventurous as I was in my youth, but there’s something nice about being stable enough to help support others when they need a hand.