That’s right! A Dragonslayer. A Knight-In-Shining-Armor!

YOU are the hero that will save your home from a plain, pale, dull, ugly, and boring fate! A future devoid of color. A future where the Princess (or Prince, if your house is a he) wears no Crown Molding.

In your tireless dedication to your quest, you scour the internet in search of the tools, weapons, and magic potions that will, in the end, win the day!

You Rock!

This is more of a home improvement blog. I was given orders a long time ago to stay away from the “decorator-ey” stuff. I guess somebody was scared I’d take over!

But, despite my efforts at hiding my feminine side, sometimes I just have to run with it! Like now…

Check out this GOURDjus flower arrangement!

Isn’t that cool! Talk about eco-friendly! I never even knew there were “Swan Gourds”. I was never in that crowd. But I like railings, and so does this Gourd, so we’re hanging out. Ha. Made myself chuckle.

Not all Gourd decorating should be publicized. Some is just painful. Check this out:

Gourd help me! This is just too much for me. Maybe this is why I can’t be an official member of the Fab 5 (there could be other reasons). I just don’t have the eye. All I see here is a horrible, heart-wrenching, display of butchered architecture! I’d bet my pink toolbelt that there were decent years left in those balusters.

But, when they died, they got to sit next to Gourd!

For more gourds, see this BHG.com article and for some beautiful white pumpkin decor, check out Kim’s post on Forever…Wherever!!!.

What? Lots of guys take that quiz… right?

I read about this at The Inspired Room and I had to see for myself. A quiz that says it can TELL ME what my style is. We’ll see. But first, I have to admit that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the questions.

Question #1

You’re running late and only have 10 minutes until guests arrive. What might you do?

(a) Give the house a quick sniff, and light some scented candles. Or, spritz a bit of perfume or room fragrance. – If I give the house a “quick sniff” something is wrong for sure! Leaks of some sort are guaranteed. So no, not (a).
(b) Head for the kitchen looking for tasty snacks that can be whipped up in an instant, and set some out on a tray. – I might have picked this if I could remove the words between “snacks” and “out”. Since I couldn’t, not (b) either.
(c) Think drinks – making sure you have glasses, mixers and ice for cocktails. – I try not to make the drinks the focal point. I have a neon sign for that! – So not (c)…
(d) Dim the lights to create a little ambiance, and perhaps set out a few candles. - Maybe I misunderstood … where is this party? I went with this one.

There was no option for sitting on the couch and yelling out calming words of reassurance to my wife that the house is fine!

Question #2

Pick a sofa. UH! How am I supposed to pick a sofa without seeing the rest of the room? I had to picture a really cool room and go from there. It was really tropical. So it needed a really cool, really tropical, sectional!

Question #3

Pick out some flowers! I can get into that! It said go with the ones that make me happy. And I don’t think I’m giving them away, so I was like “just listen to your heart, man”. And I picked the colorful ones.

Question #4

If your home were a handbag, what would it be? ??? What kind of question is that?

(a) A bag in a great color or with some handcrafted embroidery or beading. - Uh, no.
(b) A vintage designer bag in pristine condition. - I almost went with this one, then I thought that in HOUSE talk that would mean no remodeling, so no. Not vintage…remodeled.
(c) The perfect shoulder bag! Wear it with anything, and take it everywhere. - I went with this one, because I have a really cool leather backpack that I can throw over my shoulder and go. It’s been all over with me, even Down Under!
(d) A leather clutch with a striking geometric design by a hip, young designer. - Everyone knows that if you made the clutch out of leather that the truck wouldn’t go! This one is obviously a trick.

Question #5

5. If your relationship to color were a romance, you’d describe your feelings as:

(a) Running scared for the hills!
(b) Wanting to commit, but always feeling unsure.
(c) Ready to make a permanent commitment.
(d) Interested, but taking it slowly and carefully.

I’m a little lost on the analogy, but (and I’m reaching here) I’m ready to commit to color. I LOVE color. (c) it is!

Question #6

A wonderful evening at home might involve: – This one was tough.

(a) Setting a beautiful table and having some friends over for a lively dinner. - When this says “beautiful table”, it’s referring to my beautiful handcrafted Maple one-of-a-kind dining table, right? That sounds nice.
(b) Luxuriating in the tub with fantastic-smelling bath oils and a good book. - Here’s the issue. The book ALWAYS gets wet. If any of you do this, I would like to know how you keep the book dry! Moving on…
(c) Climbing into a beautifully made bed, with crisp, fresh-smelling linens, to curl up with a book or watch a movie. - Doesn’t sound bad either…
(d) Relaxing outside with a glass of wine, watching the evening light fade surrounded by the scent of flowers. - When the evening light fades away around here it’s a spectacular sunset over the Harbor, so this one sounds nice too.
(e) Cooking, eating, chatting and kicking back with your family in the kitchen. - Looks like they saved the best for last. I went with this one!

Question #7

Choose the room that would make you happiest!

I couldn’t resist the beams. If not for the beams, it would have been Room #1. I fall hard for cool beams.

Question #8

Pick the furnishings you like best…

Lesser of four evils… still evil. Yuk.

Questions #9 and #10

I can’t show you all my answers. That would be cheating! You have to take the test yourself.

The Result

Well I’ll be. It pretty well nailed it! How’d they do that?

My Happy Colors

In our old house…STILL FOR SALE!!! … we have walls in at least three of these colors, maybe four, and I think we have a sofa in one of the others. Freaky! (I gave it away when I picked the flowers!)

If you try it out or already have, I’d love to know if the quiz figured you all out too!

If not, and you want to start on knowing what it takes to make your house YOU and AUTHENTIC then maybe you want to try it!

Happy Remodeling!

Excuse me, maam, would you care to join me for the Round-Up?  (Well it’s already started… going on May 1st – 3rd, click here)

That’s funny!

But there is some real serious stuff behind this! So when you stop laughing, read on…

I want you all to have a chance to show off your work! So many readers have sent me pictures and emails with links to blog posts showing off some great remodeling projects! I want to make sure I see every single one of them and I want to give you the chance to show the world!

So here’s the deal! Get your posts ready, take pictures of your remodeling and home-improvement projects no matter how small or large they are! All types and sizes of work are welcome at this Par-tay! Anything that you’ve done to improve your home qualifies, no matter the outcome!

We’re going to build-up to this over the next couple of weeks. I’ll be announcing some of the prizes we’ll be giving away and I’ll be giving you some ideas for projects you can do between now and then! If my little picture is any indication, it will be fun! Yeeeee Haaaaw!

At the stroke of midnight, as the month of April comes to a close, I’ll let Mr. Linky out for a run around the blog and you’ll all have a chance to link-up! I’m doing this on a Friday and I’ll leave it up all weekend so that we all have time to see everyone’s project!

Millions of people per day see blogs, so you’ll get lots of traffic.

Spread The Word

The more people that show up for this Rodeo the better so tell all your friends, tweet your twits, face your books, and, if you’re as crazy as I am…stick one of these on your blog…

200 Pixels Square

Copy and past this code for 200 pix:
<a href=”http://www.remodelingguy.net/?p=893″ mce_href=”http://www.remodelingguy.net/?p=893″ target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo217/tlayton_2009/Spring-Round-Up-200pix.jpg” mce_src=”http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo217/tlayton_2009/Spring-Round-Up-200pix.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Ready for the Round Up?”></a>

And If you prefer “understated” … 125 x 125

Copy and paste this code for 125 pix:
<a href=”http://www.remodelingguy.net/?p=893″ mce_href=”http://www.remodelingguy.net/?p=893″ target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo217/tlayton_2009/Spring-Round-Up-125pix.jpg” mce_src=”http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo217/tlayton_2009/Spring-Round-Up-125pix.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Ready for the Round Up?”></a>

Okay pardners, I’m countin’ on ya!  You gonna join me?

I’ve never been too interested in my hair. At least not as much as some guys I know. I keep what hair I haven’t sacrificed to the construction business cut short.

So I’m immune to the dreaded Bad Hair Day. But it turns out you can’t get around these things quite so easily. Things just go wrong, good hair or no.

Take my day for example. It’s a Bad Chair Day, which is just as bad, and could have been worse. You’d be hard pressed to imagine the contorted position from which I write, I’m in a three legged chair, if that tells you anything. I bet you can, however, grasp the resigned attitude that would possess a man to write in a chair which has just so violently and unexpectedly failed him.

It’s been a writers block kind of day, another wicked scourge to which I thought I was immune. I’ve just not been able to get in the groove. Every time I start to make some headway, I hit a wall. So I figured I just needed a change of scenery, that’s all. A new venue would fix the problem for sure. So grabbed the laptop and headed outside.

I have choices outside. From my twisted perch I can see twelve solid chairs and stools. A dozen good places to sit. I picked lucky number thirteen and sat down. I’m still shocked at the coincidence that happened then. Right as I sat in the chair…at the extact moment in which I transferred my considerable body weight to the chair… one of the legs gave out. Bad timing.

So in a moment my loving family will be sad to have missed, I dropped back in a slow motion descent the 18 – 20″ (a good height for seats) to the ground. I’m not sure what happened next. I swear I would have taken the hit for the MacBook. I can’t imagine that my instincts would have had me drop it in order to avail myself of my arms and hands to break the fall, but people do funny things. Somehow the computer ended up on the ground. But it works! Whew!

Lucky for me, an extremely well constructed low rail was behind the chair. It was built solidly by a “wood magician” and the striking blow of the chair and myself budged it not.

So here I sit. I reached over and grabbed the computer from the now much closer ground, resigned myself to that just being the way of things today and proceeded to write my post.

That’s Why Blogs Are The Future

This experience clearly illustrates why blogs are the wave of the future. It’s obvious, just think about it.

How many people at the big Home Improvement networks are you going to get to know like this? Who do you know at the big national magazine that is going to be willing to share the truth about a bad chair day with you?

I’m serious.

Blogs offer everyone the opportunity to find information from, and form relationships with, people that they actually know well enough to like. In a virtual kind of way, I can be your “friend who is a contractor”. That is something really new and incredibly useful!

I actually feel like I know the authors of the blogs I read frequently. Even the more serious ones who rarely “let their hair down” show enough of themselves through writing on a regular basis that I can develop, over time, a deeper level of understanding of the information given because I know the source.

I encourage you to interact on this blog. I love going to your blogs and looking at the pictures of your work and giving my two cents or words of encouragement. I welcome questions and I try to get to all of them…If I missed yours, please ask me again, I didn’t neglect to answer you on purpose, I just haven’t mastered my system yet!

I can always be reached by email at tim@remodelingguy.net

Well, If I stay in this crazy pose much longer I think I’ll need a Chiropractor. I wonder if there is a Chiropractor blog? Bummer about my chair. I liked this one, that’s why I picked it!

So, friend, how is/was your day?

I know you only come here for the home remodeling ideas, and the pretty pictures.  One or two of you might think I’m funny (you’re my favorite) and maybe that has some draw to it.   But I still feel inadequate…like I’m just not good enough for you.  I must have more I can offer….

I KNOW…. I CAN COOK!

Now will you subscribe to my blog?

No Pressure.

Maybe if my parents had given me a dresser like this one, things would have turned out differently!