Ahhh... So Peaceful.

So friends, the house updating just keeps going and this past update was one of my favs! This past Monday and Tuesday, I have been painting our master bedroom and let's just say it is the best before and after by far! I must apologize though because about a 1/3 way through the process I realized I didn't have any good before pics of the room.. Oops… so I snapped a few of the unpainted (& messy) side of the room. I guess better than none right?

SO this is sorta what the room looked like before- minus the whole mirror on the bed thing, the bed & dresser pulled out in the middle of the room,  and the overall state of chaos. I promise our bedroom doesn't normally look this disheveled on a day to day basis.... wait, actually let's back up even further, here is our room the day we closed on the house:

And here it is moving day:

Now let's actually look at it after the wood floors  were installed, and post move-in day, but mid-painting shall we say:

Each stage has been actually quite the improvement and let's just say this last was totally worth all the little 'hiccups' along the way. What hiccups are those? Well, to start as I was sitting on a stool bending over to trim around one of the socket covers that wouldn't come off I realized I was probably putting my head right into the freshly painted wall above me. YUP! I did… I looked at the wall and saw all these crazy squiggles from where my hair had brushed it and knew I was in for a fun look in the mirror. This is what I saw:

Let's just say I wasn't really hoping to add to my ever increasing grays so quickly- so I went ahead and washed that janx pronto.

Moving on, once I got to a good stopping point I had to leave to go to the grocery store to make my friend Dana  a meal I signed up to take since she & her husband just had their first baby boy a little over a week ago! I wrapped up my brush, roller, and paint pan and left not thinking twice about any of it.

When I got home, our cat Pepper (oh yah I haven't introduced Pepper- another time) greeted me looking VERY guilty and sorry. I didn't know why though…. yet.  After putting away the groceries I went to the bedroom just to look at how the paint was drying. It was there I saw these:

  

yes friends those are paint paw prints. Peps somehow found a way to stick her foot in the 95% covered paint pan. Why? I have no idea. I managed to paint the entire living/dining room without her even being remotely curious, but not this time. Fortunately, since we have laminate hardwood floors the paint came off just with a wet rag. Shwew!

Then yesterday, I finished this sucker off! And boy does it look pretty! I even managed to get the whole room back together and hang new curtains I got from TJ Maxx! Overall I am so pleased with the result because it actually came out the way I had envisioned in my mind- which is very satisfying because so often it doesn't quite work out that way.

Now I would say the room is a blend of peaceful and romantic, calm and welcoming. All very good combinations for a bedroom I think.

Facelift, part 1

So while most of our projects have been focused on the inside of our house, we took this past Saturday to venture outside and tackle one that we hope brightens the house a bit. See our house, as much as we love it, needs a LOT of TLC....especially on the outside. It was a rental home before we got our hands on it and let's just say it's been a bit neglected in terms of aesthetics and all things eye-appealing. Then add that it was built in the late 70's and hasn't been updated much since then- and yah, well you get the idea.

SO what did we do you ask? Well...

we decided that we'd paint our shutters! Right now our exterior consists of two colors- white and brown.... LOTS of brown: the siding, the stucco, the trim, the fascia, and the shutters. But not for long!

In order to get to the fun part of painting we had to do a little prep work- you know, take the shutters off the wall, sweep them off, rid them of all the DISGUSTING spider and caterpillar nests on their backsides, wipe them down with a wet rag, and then finally- paint!

Basically this is what it looked like:

Oh yah- we umm, tried to wait for this couple to finish their biz-nass but moved these stick bugs with a stick so we could continue on in our project. 

Once that was taken care of we unscrewed and took all the shutters down.

We cut open and laid out some cardboard boxes to spray on.

Used very 'official' tools to de-bug all the backs of the shutters. (I'm referring to the obliging stick, not the power tool =P)

 Exhibit A: All the nasty spider and caterpillar nests on the back of the shutters.

 (Ewww eww gross gross... sorry still creeps me out)

(look at them all!)

Once all the critters were off, we swept and wiped off the shutters too.

TA DA! All the prep work was done and it was time to paint!

Tune in soon for the painting and finished product shots! We're still in the process of deciding if we like the paint color enough to continue with spraying or to change the color. =)

Our New Foyer!

So about two weeks ago I blogged about our changing foyer soon to be complete with a built in bookshelf! Well friends the time has come for the big reveal!

It took a little bit longer than we expected, but then again, what house project doesn't!? The results though are SO worth the wait and extra effort. At least I hope Josh feels that way since he did a lot of the grunt work. ;)

The difficulty came when we realized the floor was just a touch un-level/sloping, and unfortunately the bookshelf was slightly uneven as well. As luck would have it (not that I believe in luck, but I can't think of another transition phrase), they both were leaning the same way so unfortunately one's off-ness did not fix the other.

This is where Josh's grunt work came in. What did we do to fix the problem? Sand, sand and more sand. Yup. Josh sanded the tar outta that shelf until it was level when placed on the slightly unlevel ground. I'm so grateful for a hard-working, non-flustered, dedicated husband. See when kinks come up in our projects, Josh is calm... hardly anything ruffles him. I on the other hand, get all tense, flustered, and am easily overwhelmed. Perhaps it's when things are out of my comfort zone that I have the hardest time trusting, but yet that's exactly what I need to do. Josh and I are a great team, and we've solved many little bumps along our home improvement way. So I need to trust that he is more than capable and together we can come up with a good solution.

I didn't take any pictures of sanding but oh well.

So are you ready friends? Here is the big reveal!

Here is the foyer before we even moved in:
(Here we're measuring in preparation to build the bookshelf!)

Mid-progress- after we've ripped out the carpet, the old rickety banister, and installed new floors:

And finally: NOW!

Of course there are still more changes to come- staining the railing, hanging a 3rd picture in the 'walks of life' series, perhaps a collage of photos on the other wall, & painting the foyer;  but we are SOO happy with the results! It feels wonderful to have thought up an idea, planned for it, seen it built, and to finally embrace the end product!  I love being a home owner with Josh and wouldn't want to do this whole adventure with anyone else! 

Now onto continuing my current project... give you a hint- the preparation for it is in this picture (and no it's not hidden in what we affectionately call 'the tool bar'):

Fun Door Decor

So the other day while I was at the doctor's office perusing through their magazines I came across a really cute door decoration idea for the fall. I liked it so much I even took a picture of it so I could reproduce it later. Well today is later and it looks great! (eh hem- if i do say so myself.)

Basically it's a cluster of pine cones, tied up in ribbons and it's just simple/pretty.

So off I went on a hunt to find pine cones, which wasn't too hard because the park right around the corner from us had plenty I could choose from off the ground.

(Here's my loot!- 8-10 pine cones, & 2 spools of ribbon.)

Once I got them home, I had to pick out pine needles and various other foliage since they had been lying on the ground for a bit of time. I even managed to have an earwig fall out on me (in the bag) while cleaning one of them, which startled me but since he landed in the bag it wasn't traumatic. (if you know me, you know I HATE bugs and admittedly can over react when they come crawling towards me but out of a genuine fear of them).

(You probably can't see but there are pine needles and leaves in the bag)

After that, I just cut my thinner ribbon at various lengths, tying a pine cone to each end, leaving a bit of a 'tail' so it would flow and look purposeful rather than awkward.

Like so:

Once all the pine-cones have been tied you simply tie a larger ribbon around the loop you create at the top, which will be used to hang on a hook (or nail) when you put it up on your door! The larger ribbon I used was wired which helps create some interest since you can make it curl however you want.

And that's it friends! 15 minutes later I had a fun, fall/hokie-colored door decorator. Simple as that!

ta-da!

It's coming!

Oh I love house projects- well most of the time. And this is one of those most-of-the-time times.

I've been recently working on painting a BEAUTIFUL bookshelf, Josh's best friend made for us to go in our foyer. See when we moved in here the banister that existed could hardly be called a banister. (well maybe I'm being a bit hard on the poor rickety old thing but anyways) Suffice to say, it would not be staying as it was un-safe.

 Here's my husband, who stands 6'4". See how short the banister is? (*granted he is not the 'standard' height)

Notice the gap on the bottom- i.e. not safe for when we have babies crawling around who might like to go right under the gap (or stick their head in between the not-up-to-code slats)

No no. It was decided that this puppy needed to go. So out it went.

(Note the HORRIBLE linoleum floor that we found after we ripped up the carpet in the foyer! It's the black stuff)

And so then we were left with this, which is how it looks TODAY (with the exception of 2 pictures I hung on the right wall)...

But not for long because right now I'm in the middle of painting this sucker that will soon find its permanent home running lengthwise in the foyer, complete with baskets for organization and shoe shelves on the bottom!

End capped with this beautiful piece (see safe, aka child proof, aka Josh height and normal people height safe):

Welp, I'm off to go paint. Can't wait to see how this looks when it's all finished and installed! =)

~We're Home Owners~

So while I had every good intention of getting this blog going in the spring, it seems like life just took over and I couldn't find time to post over here as well as my personal blog, and even that was sporadic at best.  But since starting this blog A LOT has taken place and hopefully this'll become a place to post about our house projects. Yes friends, you heard me right- we bought a house! Our first house and I love it!

She is a fixer-upper indeed but her bones are great! (like how I've managed to personify our house already? Apparently, she's a she.) Anyways, as I was saying her bones are great! We knew in buying this house we'd need to do some things even before moving in. She's been a rental home for the past few years and as such needed new flooring, new kitchen counters, and preferably new toilets to replace the, what I affectionately call, snot-green toilets. Yes snot green.

See? 

We closed on this puppy on July 12 and one month later we have ripped out all the old carpets upstairs and replaced the entire upstairs with a hardwood laminate that we LOVE, we replaced our counter tops in the kitchen, Josh, my husband installed a BEAUTIFUL new kitchen sink, Josh's best friend (& contractor) built us a custom bookshelf/banister for the entryway & a new railing for our kitchen stoop (to replace the hideous 70's brown, view-blocking fence) and I've managed to transplant the few plants we do actually have in the front yard to a more prominent and appealing location. It may not sound like that long of a list but I am SO pleased with the way even those changes have improved the house!

But let me not just bore you with words of these beautiful changes- let me let the pictures do the talking!

Before & After living room floors:

The Kitchen: Complete with new sink, counters, and floor!
Top: Before, Bottom: AFTER!

Our outdoor fence replaced by beautiful railing (T.B.S.- to be stained) (please ignore the horrible 1970's siding. That will be replaced eventually)
Before:                                                                     After:

These are just a small sampling of the wonderful changes my hubster has made happen- I really can't say enough for how he has blown me away with his handyman skills! We also are so blessed with generous and thoughtful friends who have helped us along the way and we could not have done so much so quickly without them. I've got to run for now, but at least this is a start- hopefully to be followed by many more fun updates!

It's a process- Stage 1: Cutting the Seats

So about a month ago I mentioned that I scored some wonderful free chairs!

Since then I've been slowing making some progress on finishing these puppies, but man there are a lot of steps involved. So I figure let's go ahead and talk about it in steps.

Now let's talk the first step- seats! The chairs didn't have any when we snagged 'em so I decided I would buy some 3 or 4-ply particle board, cut it to size, sand em down, get some foam and batting for cushion, and finally upholster them! Shoo- and that's just the seat part! Granted, that is by far the most time consuming part of the whole thing.

So off to Lowe's I went and man was I in for a treat! I went to the lumber section (albeit I feel a bit weird whenever I go to that part because I get these funny looks from burly men- What? A girl in an Ande's mint green trench coat and grey faux suede boots doesn't belong in the lumber section!?) Anyways, I just couldn't find the dimension I needed- either I would have had to buy a bazillion little pieces which would have meant big monies or one big 8'X4' slab that would have left me with over half left in extra wood. Again, not necessary. So I pulled the cute card and asked if they had any in between pieces. TA-DA! It worked- they took me out back and cut down a perfect 4 ply board to the dimensions I needed and instead of paying 20$ for wood, my grand total = 3$! Yesss!!

Then it was time to cut. Fortunately Josh's work has a band saw that I could use and after taking many measurements I drew out a seat matched to each chair frame, and went to work. I made sure to measure and measure and measure! One thing I also recommend is to err on not cutting off enough, that way once you put the seat in the frame, if it doesn't fit you can trim a bit more, but if it's too small... well you can't add the wood back on.


Here's my 'workshop':

(Safety first- my husband wanted to point out that glasses are required. Fortunately-I complied.)

One thing to note- it is extremely important to measure each chair (I used a numbering system where I numbered the chairs 1-6 and matched their seat 1-6 to them.) Each chair although, very similar, is unique in it's shape for the seat and thus needed individual tweaking.

So after hours of cutting, here is the end result for Stage 1- Cutting the Seats!

(It looks like they're having a pow-wow discussing their seats. 'yah dude, ya look good.')

Up Next- Cutting the Foam