101 Things Update - Around the House

Here are a couple house projects from my 101 Things in 2013 list.

9. Towel hooks in the bathroom.

Home Depot was running a sale on items like this, so we were able to get a really nice one (with a gift card we got for our wedding).  Caleb hung it while I was in Virginia visiting some cousins (so please ignore the part where it's slightly off-center).

It's so pretty.  (Here's the link to it, in case you're interested in getting one for yourself.)  We wanted something with plenty of room for future children's towels, and this certainly has it.  

If you read the reviews, you'll notice that everyone loves it, but a few people mention something about the box it gets shipped in messing up some of the edges.  This is true.  It is not in stock in the stores - only their warehouse - so they have to ship it to the store.  For some reason, instead of just getting a bigger box, they put it crosswise in a small one, meaning that some of the edges will probably be a bit 'bruised'.  It's not a huge deal - you can hardly notice.  We might end up painting that bit so you can't tell at all, but there's fair warning if that sort of thing bothers you.  

But it holds a lot!  This is with our shower towels, our beach towels, and our swimsuits after a recent pool day.

15. Try stripping fireplace.

Can I tell you how glad I am that I made that say 'try' instead of 'do'?  This is a ridiculous project.  We borrowed a heat gun from a friend.  This took a long time and tons of effort, but at least it got the paint up.  But it also made a pretty gross smell (and my husband is allergic to gross smells - not kidding, actually).

Then we bought a low-odor paint stripper (no such thing, by the way).  After putting on several coats, the paint would only smear around, like this:

And it stunk worse than the heat gun mess.  Boo.

That's a very frustrating project.  We've kind of set it aside for now, leaving it like this:

(It's modern, right?)

But we also have a mess:

So that's that.  Any ideas on how to get that off without (1) completely redoing our budget for the next 5 years and (2) making a huge stink?

Love and Wire Brushes,

Leah Joy