Oh yeah that was me..........

That said we don't need to worry about how the house looks and is decorated, just the bones of it. I am either really stupid and unable to learn from experience (I mean this is our 3rd house, one of which was 85yrs old) or an eternal optimist.

Yesterday after sizing up the job painting our bathroom is going to be, I went to work scraping off the old chipping paint. The good news is I discovered drywall under the 4 coats of paint, not plaster. This means it is probably not original to the house (a lot of it is plaster) and hence probably not lead based paint. The bad news....The really bad texturing job of the previous people has to either be replicated in the areas I scrapped so I can just paint over it or, sanded down so I can start over with a new texture (or my preference NO TEXTURE). I'm thinking this will be a "mini" redo of my bath. In the future, I have big plans of redoing the mirrors , possibly redoing all the tile (there is ALOT of a strange blue/grey/purple tile). Change out and placement of the lighting fixtures and adding in an exhaust fan. I think this time it will stop with just trying to redo the bad texturing in the areas that need it and re-sealing the grout lines with a colored grout sealer (not a big job according to my BIL).

I've decided the whole house will probably be done in 2 stages, if we live here long enough. Here is our list

PHASE I - The bandaid effect.

Painting the faux wood paneling, and the ugly ceilings tile in the Living room
Ripping off the wall paper and re doing our bed room
Moving the washer and dryer out of #2's room and back into the basement before we move him to a toddler bed soon.
Painting the faux wood paneling in #2's room sometime before we have a #3
Decorating #1's room incorporating the faux brick paneling into the design (train tunnel anyone?) before moving #2 in with him.
Removing the Faux rock paneling in the basement (aka, craft room). Making sure there is no mold behind it, re-sloping and tileing the floor. Possibly add in a futon or something to make it into a guest room


PHASE II - for when the kids are a little older and we have a little more money (haha)

Get a natural gas line put in, change out furnace, stove, water heater, dryer, etc.
Rip out the carpet in the living room/toy room and redo the hardwood that's underneath.
Rip out the paneling in the living room, fix the cracked plaster walls our neighbor says is underneath, paint and find molding for the floor board that will match the woodwork in the rest of our house.
Gut the kitchen and start over trying to reuse the old tile backsplash I love and the cabinet's that while old looking match the style and wood used in the rest of the house.
Pull the faux wood paneling off the walls in the family room and replace with drywall.
Gut the bathroom....Start over, hopefully with a jucuzzi tub. At least change the tile and re-color the tub/shower inset thingy, mirrors, etc.
Remove paneling from both the boy's rooms and redo.

My new rules for future houses??? NO weird hard to replicate TEXTURE on the walls/ceiling, and NO PANELING!!!