Home Improvements

So as a way of trying to distract myself from the factory of sadness stress and woe that is my life, I want to do something. (Or take a trip to escape for a while. But that involves time and extra money, two things that are lacking so not going to happen.) So by "something," I mean I want to make improvements and add character to my suburbia hoa-nazi regulated house. And I actually have the mindset and skills to do this due to my half degree in interior design. I can visualize and imagine and figure out how things will look and make it work.

Part of the not doing anything (but paint) is that I can't decide what I actually want to do. Yellow walls? Red walls? Subway tile? Pressed tin back splash? Bead board? With dark brown walls? Subway tile? Glass tile? Glass subway tile? With yellow walls? So. Many. Options. But one thing I've been wanting to do is since moving to Charlotte is have a kitchen back splash. So the other day we went to Home Depot and Lowes to see if they had any tile that we liked, and their selection is pretty limited. Once again, see: half degree in interior design. So I know that what they have on the shelves is not even remotely close to a wide tile selection. So to get the look that I'm thinking (for the moment), we'll probably have to special order. At the very least I need a sample just so I can get a better idea of what I'm dealing with. Which is fine.

My husband however, did not go to design school and lacks the skill to visualize a space and the skill of seeing a small sample (or picture. Or drawing. Seriously, I sketched an area of our house to get a basic idea of where I wanted a color and he couldn't visualize it. And this has nothing to do with my drawing skills either.) and figuring out how it will look in a larger scale. But that's ok because not everyone has that particular skill and if they did then there would be no need for designers in the first place. And I know that if he sees all the options he'll get really overwhelmed  just quit. (Which is why with wedding planning I did a lot of research on my own he had no idea about and then would present him with 3-4 choices.) In theory he's fine with going along with my ideas, he even likes most of them. But not before he asks a lot of questions in trying to do something outside his skill set. (Research, his skill set. Diy, my skill set) And he's very hesitant to do anything to the house without knowing what the finished product will look like and that he's sure he'll like it. Because you really don't want to redo something, I get it. But he can't really visualize something so he won't know if he'll like it until he sees the finished project...

At this rate and with the amount of extra money we have it looks like I'm not distracting myself with too much home improvement either. Sigh. Maybe I'll just read a book.