Pink Friday

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I know a lot of people get a huge thrill out of shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, but honestly, I'd rather spend the day with my head under the sink. 

I'm painting each restored plaster "tile" to look like vintage ceramic. 

It may sound like a foolish project. More than one person has asked me why I'm going to all this trouble. And my answer comes down to three things. 

First, Robb and I are interested in restoring our little old home. We're not interested in ripping out vintage details, and replacing them with modern equivalents. We want to maintain as much of the historic character of this house as we possibly can. 

Second, we both feel that restoring an old home is much more ecologically gentle than embarking on new construction. If we can use what already exists, we're happy. We don't want to fill the landfill with the carcass of a gutted home. 

And thirdly, we're not made out of money. We could never afford to pay someone to do the work we're doing. Contractors have to get a job done as quickly and cheaply as possible, if they want to make a profit. Robb and I can do a lot of the work on our house ourselves, and we can spend the time to do things as perfectly as possible. 

There are plenty of jobs we're not qualified to do (repairing our crumbling driveway, upgrading our antique furnace, and dealing with our failing linoleum).  And we're saving money to pay for those future jobs by doing a lot of other work ourselves.