Football first, then house stuff

Before I start bahblahblahing about my house and telling you embarrassing stories about nearly dying during 2 am stumbles down evil stairways, I need to get this off my chest.

My man, my boyfriend Clay is just … *swoon* I mean, a sack, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery in a single play? Yeah. And then he winked. At me.

Is it wrong that I’m considering joining Twitter just so I can follow him? Don’t answer that.

When I bought my house last year one I couldn’t stop gushing about how I loved everything about it. To anyone who would listen, and sometimes to people who had no choice. The gardens (oh my god, the gardens!!) The paint colors! The kitchen! I was oozing love and was probably nothing short of really annoying.

Cut to six months later and the bliss is still there (we’re still in our honeymoon phase, my house and I) but it has faded a bit. I’ve started to see things that I didn’t notice right away. Hey, was that crack always there?

I also started to rethink the placement of certain rooms. Important rooms. Rooms like my bedroom.

When I moved in, I picked the room at the top of these stairs as my bedroom. (That picture is from when I was looking at the house. I do not have those pictures on the wall.)

It was great up there in the summer – nice and cool, very airy, a nice cross breeze – but in the winter it can get downright frigid up there.

Not to mention that I can’t even tell you how many times I have fallen down those evil stairs in the middle of the night when I get to pee. A conservative estimate, however, would be at least 10. At least.

I briefly contemplated carpeting the stairs, but then I remembered how much I HATE vacuuming and how I don’t ever have to do it right now because my whole house has hardwood floors, and that killed that idea.

Clearly, the next best option was to re-arrange three rooms. Yeah. THREE.

First, I moved my desk into the little unused “reading nook” room at the bottom of the stairs. This space is perfect for the office and besides, I never used it (or my office for that matter) anyway.

Then, I painted what used to be my office, realizing the whole time that one of the things I loved most about the house when I bought it was that I wouldn’t have to paint anything.

And I didn’t have to. I wanted to. And I’m glad I did, because I love the new color!

It was annoying to paint it, sure, but that summer that I spent painting houses when I was in college gave me mad painting skills, and I needed to do a little brushing up. (Pun intended.)

The tricky part was moving the bed and the dresser from upstairs down that evil stairway without falling or further injuring myself. Luckily I conned my friend into helping me move it, because there is no way I could have done it on my own.

I told her it would probably take 20 minutes. It took an hour. Whoops.

Obviously, I didn’t remember how hard it was to move it up there.

Which makes sense because I wasn’t the one to move it, my dad and my brother did. And then they mysteriously disappeared for an hour and I only just last week learned that they went to a bar for a couple drinks afterwards.

I get it now.

So now the room that was once my bedroom is going to become my at-home gym. Because why pay $35 a month for a gym membership when all I do there is ride the stationary bike?

I’ve got my road bike and bike trainer up there, some dvds (P90X, Insanity, P90X2, some Rodney Yee yoga, and even some Jillian Michaels), a pull-up bar, some dumbells, and a kettlebell.

I’m really excited to start using it when my gym membership expires at the end of the month. I just need to set everything up. Soon. Or, you know, in a few weeks.

The last thing I changed was my pantry/back entrance. (I’m almost done yammering about my house, I promise.)

The other thing my house is lacking is closets. In the entire house, there are only two, plus this “pantry” in the entryway. It isn’t a big deal in the summer, but now that I don’t leave the house without at least eleven layers, it is rather cumbersome when I get home.

So, I took two doors off their hinges and installed some hooks, added a couple plastic bins for hats/mittens/random things, and hung an over-the-door rack on the other side for scarves.

It’s still tight quarters when you walk in, but at least I don’t have to walk across the kitchen in snowy shoes to put down my hat and my kitchen chairs aren’t covered in a stack of winter jackets.

Hey, when you live in Wisconsin, one jacket (or even ten) isn’t going to cut it. You need options, kids.

I also whipped up that polka dot curtain and hung it, super ghetto style, on a curtain rod to cover all the garbage that is stored on top of my pantry. I’ll save you saga about how and why I had to hang it ghetto-style, but it involves me, tools, and swearing. Lots of swearing.

And hey! I made those curtains. On Jan 2nd. Want to see what else I have made on my 2013 Make Something Every Day Challenge? Click on the tab at the top that says 2013: Today I Made.

What have you made this year? Feel free to link to some pictures or a recipe you made. I’m always looking for ideas!

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