What to Do? What to Do?

Chris and I always hit this point in projects. We're about 95% done, just a few more steps to go and we have a hard time finishing things up. I don't really know what happens to us. You'd think we'd be really excited to move on, and we are, but for some reason we don't get really excited to FINISH. Those finishing steps always take us FOREVER. That's how it took us two years to actually finish the kitchen (getting that back splash and trim up took us just a little bit longer than we anticipated). So, naturally, now that the front room is ever so close to getting finished - the table to build, tile fireplace to fix, and some weight storage to build - we've started thinking about what projects we'd like to work on next :)

One would think that we should FINALLY start working on the bathroom

This was on our list last year, but the patio got us too excited. Add in the fact that we have nearly all the materials already purchased, you would think that would motivate us even more

And maybe we'd get started on finishing the laundry room?

Especially considering we started work on this room in early 2009, shortly after we moved in (oh yeah, and we've had the flooring for this room for over two years...)

But of course, in true Meryl and Chris fashion, our minds are elsewhere

The TV Room. We've been staring at that ceiling for faaaaarrrr too long

I'm also pretty tired of explaining why there are 14 different paint samples on the wall. Okay. I exaggerated. There are only 10.

However, there's one hiccup with this room: we're a little apprehensive about building the cabinet/hutch thingy in that alcove that the TV sits in. We've got awesome ideas for a pull-out drawer for our record player, cool glass front doors, great storage for all the components, etc. However, building that thing will be quite the undertaking. And although we've been getting great experience building the cabinet for my dad and Wendy, our picture frames and the sports ticket table, this will definitely be an advanced project, so we'd like to get a little more experience first.

Insert the laundry room

And bathroom again

Confusing you say? Well here's the plan:

1. We'll start with the TV room, but we won't do everything. We'll remove the popcorn ceiling, refinish the floors (oh yes, more of that), and paint. We may also get the couch recovered at this time (our couch was originally Chris' great grandmother's and it is built to last and we love how long it is). We will however hold off on building a new coffee table (fun storage) and the large cabinet/hutch thing in the alcove till we get that extra experience.

2. Next, we'll do some rough ins in the bathroom. We'll fix the structure. And we'll build the wall between the bathroom and laundry room (there used to be a door between the two, but we've got plans to adjust the floor plan). And in case you'd like to remember, here's what the bathroom looked like when we moved in

Tasty.

3. Then we'll move to the laundry room. We'll finally install the flooring we've had for over 2 years (after we level the floor of course), but the really fun part? We've got lots of plans for building totally awesome storage and fun features into the laundry room. We've been looking through organizing catalogs to see what cool features we can incorporate and Chris even came up with a FUCKING AMAZING idea of having a laundry chute/cabinet that goes from the bathroom (the bottom row of built in cubbies in the below drawing) into the laundry room which I am TOTALLY excited for (seriously, my OCD brain can barely handle the excitement)

(click to make bigger)

4. After that we'll move back to the bathroom to finish things off: of course there will be lots of tiling as we have plans to tile our beveled subway tile 5ft. up the walls and to the ceiling in the shower (because we want to make ourselves go insane).

5. And then lastly, we'll finally move back to the TV room and finish it off by building the cabinet/hutch after we've gotten more experience from all the laundry and bathroom cabinet building.

So there you have it. Our crazy, confusing and schizophrenic plan for our next projects. Let's see how well we stick to it.