One Space At A Time

Bentley and I are in the process of painting the inside of his entire house and doing small upgrades/remodeling. He has lived here a while but has not changed anything for many reasons: caretaker for Bebe; which lead to limited $, time, motivation, energy, etc. Now he is like a machine and is we are going space by space to do what is reasonable with the limitations we have: limited $, time, energy, etc.

This is the foyer and we didn't think to take before pictures until we had already removed a ton of weird molding, applique, and hooks. But you can get an idea.

Before



After. I love the light. Before it had a gold base and he painted it a dark brown/black. The glass is super heavy so here is your warning when you walk in to wear a hard hat just in case we didn't reattach it properly.

The color is Butter Cookie. It's hard to see in a picture but it's a warm yellow and you can see hint of peach. We love it and are going to paint the foyer, hallways, and living room this color.


I won't go into the mix of style and taste the original owners had. It's not that it's an ugly chandelier but it's a ranch house and this is just one of 3 chandeliers in the house. Let me know if you want them because they are free.





We replaced them and this is what the hallway got. Cheap and simple. We both lean toward the arts and crafts style and will be mixing it with other styles here and there. It's already a big difference and now he is really motivated to keep going.




The flip side to these projects is something difficult so we are taking that part slow. We started with the bathroom his mom used for the 3+ years she lived with him. We have painted it Ripe Wheat but haven't finished putting up the mirror and just finished mopping so I don't have pictures yet for that. Painting and cleaning is the easy part. The hard part is going through Bebe's things. It has been over a year and he has not been ready and I have not pushed at all. Now that we are working on the house, it has to be done. I started it and told him I would just throw out what was obvious and leave a basket for him to sort.

I had no problems with the colostomy bag supplies but then I opened a small box with her handkerchief and make-up and all I could do was sob. Of course Bentley hears me and thinks I have cut myself on something or... something and is almost yelling, "What's wrong with you!!" When I could finally talk he just sulked off - "That's why I don't want to do this!!!". When it was his turn and he did good. There are still 2 rooms that have her things in them and we'll get to them eventually. The plan is to do the same again. Sort and keep what he wants to keep now. I remind him we can box it all up and he can let more of it go later or never. She didn't have many things and left most of her possessions at her old house with her other son.

It's hard when you are making changes and cleaning out but throw this on top of it and it's even more emotional. Like I said, we are taking it one space at a time and at this pace we'll have the whole house done just in time for spring.