Updates (Downstairs) - pictures & details to follow!

Front Entry
- Got a rug (HomeDecorators.com)
- Got a new light (Ballard Designs)
- Got a table (Craigslist - $35)
- Got some art (by friends)
- Made some curtains (I did it)

Dining Room
- Got rid of the table & chairs (sold on Craigslist)
- Got a hutch/china cabinet (Ballard Designs)

Hallway
- Got rugs (West Elm)
- Got art (frame gallery fm Target, others custom framed)

Office
- Painted (mixed a few random colors together)
- Built desk & shelf (I did it)
- Built in corkboard (I did it)

Back Entry
- Replaced light (from front entry)
- Got a vase... (that empty area was killing me - Neiman Marcus)

Family Room
- Got a TV (& surround sound - thanks lightning storm - Jeff Lynch)
- Got some art (custom framed & donated by Grandma)
- Got tables (Rug & Home)
- Got couches (Hand me downs, sold the others on Craigslist)
- Got lamp (local antique store)
- Got pillows (Pottery Barn)

Kitchen
- Curtains (shower curtain from Pottery Barn, spray painted rod from West Elm)
- Art (spray painted EAT from Hobby Lobby, frames from Pottery Barn)
- Under cabinet storage (Lowe's)
- iPad mount (gift from brother & sister-in-law)
- Barstools (hand-me-downs)
- Rug (Pottery Barn)
- Trash Can (Bed, Bath & Beyond)
- Added spice rack to lower cabinet (Lowe's)

Pantry
- New shelving configuration (I did it)

Master Bedroom
- Quilt (Pottery Barn)
- New Dog Bed (I did it)
- New buffet (Local antique store refinished by me)
- Bedskirt (Pottery Barn)
- Art (by me)
- New TV (Best Buy Black Friday purchase)
- Bedside lamps (Pottery Barn)

Master Bathroom
- New rugs (Pottery Barn)
- New towels (Belk)
- Updated gallery wall (by me)
- Reconfigured Tim's Closet (by me)
- Reconfigured My Closet (by me)
- New toilet plunger (ooh fancy... - Lowe's)

Half (Guest) Bath
- Storage Cabinet (Pottery Barn)

Laundry Room
- Air Register (Lowe's)
- Art (Ballard Designs)
- Drying Rack (Ballard Designs)
- Rug (Ballard Designs)

And It Begins...

I've got the bug to tear out a room and start over, here goes nothing!

Updated Hallway

As promised, I'm back with some updates...

I've been desperate to get one room in our house finished. I never realized just how expensive & time consuming decorating a house would be. For us its been a combination of lack of funds & lack of time that have really kept our house from becoming what I want it to be. Thanks to my Uncle Sam savings plan (aka paying more into taxes than I should just so I can get a fat little check once a year - I know, not the best idea ever) I finally have (almost) finished up a room - all that is lacking now are the pictures & crown molding (moulding?).

So in case you've forgotten, here is what the hallway looked like originally as well as what my plans were. A family gallery wall may be something we work on later but for now it's gotten the kibosh. Instead I decided to combine a few of my ideas from around the house into this area. I've been looking for a runner everywhere I go for this space but a 2.5'x14' runner is not an easy find (FYI- when building a house make sure you look at what size rugs will fit in each room & make sure standard sizes fit. Trust me on this one). I finally found one I liked at West Elm, unfortunately it was exactly half the length of what I needed.

Lucky for me, inspiration hit. Why wouldn't this look just fine lying next to another with the patterns butting up against one another? I ordered 2 during their 20% off rug sale and waited for delivery. I rolled them out the second I got home & got lucky that my plan worked pretty well. Its been a few weeks and they are still settling a bit but so far rug pads seem to be holding them pretty steady although I think I may use some carpet seam tape to make sure they are really secure. They've also held up pretty well for being so close to the entrance and with a puppy and husband who come in the house with who knows what on their feet.

That same weekend I went to an event called Artisphere where lots of local artists have tents and sell their creations. I found one painter whom I loved and he happened to have a framed painting he was selling of the area where Tim & I took our mini-honeymoon called the Cullasaja Gorge. It (obviously) holds a special place in my heart so although I walked away at first I came back and snatched it up. Lucky for me, it fit perfectly next to our office door.

I've also been obsessing about having a map with pins in it showing places Tim & I have visited together. For our anniversary I found a vintage map of the US and had it mounted to foam core then framed with a linen frame inset within a wooden one and opted to leave it without glass. I bought some gold-headed map pins off of Amazon and dipped them into wood glue before placing them on my map (look for the little sparkly dots on the map picture). That piece finished out the office door side of the hallway & it was time to dive into the big blank wall.

For the large blank wall I went with my second plan of 16x20 photos of gates on the wall. Just bear with me for this one. I bought 5 16x20 frames matted down to 11x14 pictures from Target & went to work figuring out the spacing, then I threw all of that out. I found the middle of the wall, figured out the height of my middle piece and hung it. Then I went to the side of the wall with the light switch & hung that one. Based on how far away from the edge that was I hung my far left piece. From there I measured from nail to nail, split that number in half & placed the last two on those measurements. Clear as mud? Oh & I used a laser level to make sure they were all at the same height based upon the first center piece I hung. Basically it was a good deal of guesstimating & hoping which luckily worked out perfectly to give me this beauty.

Now I have to take the pictures that go in these, I have a few "for sures" so far but still trying to figure it out. I know I want the pictures to be of gates that have some significance to Tim & myself but still working on the finer points of that. Anyways, here is the final space with my lackluster camera skills.

No Excuses

There've been quite a few changes in my life recently not limited to a new job, raising almost $15,000 for cancer research, dealing with multiple different courses of treatment for Tim (and about to start a new one), trying to keep a house together, trying to keep my sanity & trying to keep up a social life, but honestly I just got bored of blogging for awhile (pbly bc I've been keeping up with Tim's blog so much). Still probably won't be back full time but thought I'd catch everyone up on what I've been up to lately!

So here are a few posts you can look forward to reading sometime (hopefully soon):

A new dog bed - constructed by me (& my dad)
My latest obsession - Accupuncture!
Dehydrating Food - aka what not to do
Refinishing a buffet - still can't believe I did it
Some things I'm dreaming about right now
Hanging a flatscreen/hiding the cables
New kitchen rug, trash can (& soon curtains)
New hallway runner(s) & art
New bedroom art
Restructuring the bathroom gallery wall
Curtains for the front door
New art for the den & new (to us) couches
San Francisco Trip
Refresh of the pantry
Little landscaping refresh
Garage Clean-out/Basement Organization

And here are some (hopefully) upcoming projects that will be happening at the hizzay sooner than later:

Cabinets in the laundry room
Replace transom in the laundry room (seriously dad...lets finish this one! :))
Staining/sealing the back deck (yep 2 1/2 years later we still haven't done this)
More landscaping...
Master Bedroom curtains
Hallway Art Project
Master Bedroom Art Project(s)
Front/Back Hall Light Replacements (might as well do it at the same time)
Front Hall Rug

....told you I've been busy.

Laundry Room Update

It has been a LONG weekend thanks to our "buddies" over at Sears. First things first, in case you are just starting out with us, here is where our laundry room started and here is where we were last time with the planning.

We got the floors placed last week and painted & installed the quarter round. Also repainted the entire room & all of the trim because apparently painting over 2 year old paint is kind of obvious...basically the room looked fantastic, just needed the washer & dryer in place to get started on our next steps.

Then the fun began...Sears came about 4:30 on Friday and delivered our new washer & dryer. They looked fantastic!

Unfortunately they didn't tighten up the intake hose as much as they should've & as we pulled out our first load of laundry we heard the unmistakable sound of dripping water. I climbed over the tops & saw a giant puddle of water on our brand new floors just sitting there. We immediately called the Sears store we purchased them from who sent us to the customer service number. Long story short it was 3 the next afternoon before anyone actually showed up to fix it. I've never experienced such terrible customer service in my life. Each entity was trying to push off the responsibility to the other so now we will get to deal with their insurance adjusters & so on. Let me tell you just how excited I am about this...oh & on top of everything else, they got scuff marks & dings all over my freshly painted walls & trim after climbing all over the new washer & dryer to try to tighten the hoses. They also dinged up the top of the washer & dryer with all of the gymnastics...ugh.

 Water on the floor

 Water dripping down the washer

Look at the hose on the top right compared to the one on the bottom right, 

you can still see the threads on the Y joint.

Anyways, all is fixed (for now) and our next step will be installing crown molding this week as well as trying to see if we can trim down the old transition piece to reattach. I'm hoping to have the entire room completed by January, we'll see how it goes once we determine just how much is damaged! We really are counting our blessings that we discovered it that night rather than days or weeks later.

Check out my list below to see how far we've gotten, I will be so excited to get one room in this house completed after 2 years!

1. Order new floors
2. Get underlayment for floors
3. Remove shoe molding
4. Install new floors
5. Get a pipe collar to cover where the new flooring meets the dryer vent. - canceled this, they don't make them...oh well!
6. Install pipe collar - see above
7. Get quarter round
8. Paint quarter round
9. Install quarter-round
10. Touch up baseboards & quarter round  - I actually ended up painting all of the trim
11. Remove existing shelf
12. Touch up walls - We unexpectedly ended up painting all of the walls too, oops
13. Touch up trim around doors (see here for the issue with it) 
14. Trim transition piece
15. Replace transition piece
16. Get washer/dryer delivered
17. Order rug
18. Order new air register (ours was stark white & I found one in aged brass online for only $6)
19. Place in new air register
20. Get hooks for ironing board
21. Install ironing board hooks
22. Buy crown molding
23. Paint crown molding
24. Install crown molding
25. Buy cabinet materials
26. Buy new dog bowls (the ones she has now are a little gaudy for my taste)
27. Build cabinets
28. Paint cabinets & cabinet trim
29. Install cabinets
30. Install cabinet trim
31. Install cabinet knobs
32. Buy hanging bar
33. Install hanging bar
34. Replace light bulbs to be the swirly efficient kind (see why the peeps at Lowe's love me?)

Why of Cork!

I know, its a lame title but I couldn't resist, the dork in me had to come out. As I discussed in my master plan, we purchased Cork Flooring from Lumber Liquidators to put down in our laundry room. My first post about our laundry room had a glimpse of what the previous linoleum looked like but I'll give you a better idea in just a few. This project was actually pretty simple (thanks to all of the help from my dad) and its made the room look really incredible!

So here is our former flooring in all of its glory. It wasn't that it was bad or looked terrible, we just wanted a higher quality floor for resale value.

Luckily we were able to leave it & just start adding everything else to the top since we picked out a floating floor (yet another reason we chose cork over tile). First we pulled all of the flooring out of the boxes & laid it around the den to "acclimate to our environment" for about 48 hours.

Next we laid down a moisture barrier, I'm still not sure that we really needed it but figured it was better to be safe than sorry!

We actually determined later that we started on the wrong end of the room but we made it work anyways. Lets just say that our lives would've been much easier had we been able to slide a full piece under the door jam rather than piecing it together. :)

We really only had 2 obstacles to our rectangle, the air vent & the dryer vent on opposite corners of the room. First up was the air vent, my dad used a combo of a drill & a jigsaw to make that cut. It was really close to the edge of the board so we accidentally broke one before getting the hang of everything. After getting it cut out it was a matter of quick measurements & cuts and banging the boards together until we got to the dryer vent in the other corner of the room. Then it was a guesstimation of a cut & trial & error until it fit. We thought we could just buy a PVC collar to cover it but apparently they don't make those. Oh well, it will be hidden anyways!

Our 32 square foot room took about two hours to do from start to finish. Here it is in all of its glory (without the quarter round to cover the edges).

Finally it was just a matter of trimming off the edges of the underlayment & placing the quarter-round back in, sealing up the edges & touching up the paint on the baseboards (Sherwin Williams Dover White in glossy) & the walls (Sherwin Williams Dapper Tan in flat - btw its not that funky yellow color you see below, the more accurate color is in the photos above)!

Laundry Room Re-do

Ok, so I've been pretty slack around here lately. Lots to catch up on but for now it's really just a teaser. Here is a link to my original post about our laundry room.  Well, we're FINALLY getting around to fixing it up. The in-laws are generously gifting us with a new front-load washer & dryer & the pedestals as our Christmas gift this year. They got an AMAZING deal on a fully-loaded Samsung washer & dryer set (not sure if that is the exact one but they look really similar) from our local Sears Outlet on Black Friday & they will deliver tomorrow.

Well since those giants are huge & extremely heavy so we knew that if we were ever wanting to re-do the floors that now was the time. I first read about cork floors over at Young House Love through their kitchen remodel & became interested. We first looked into slate but with the laundry room being right next to our bedroom I wanted something that would be a little quieter...not to mention warmer on the feet. We found the last 3 boxes of our style & color (pictures coming soon) at Lumber Liquidators for about $3 a square foot & started the install Tuesday night. I have to say that it was pretty easy & actually went really quickly once we got the prep work out of the way & got the hang of it all.

All of that will come to you soon enough but for now I wanted to share my plans with you for our future laundry room space as well as my checklist to both keep me in line & you in the know!

Here is a view from the ceiling. Feeling a little cramped? The room is just 4.5' x 6.5' so we need to use every imaginable space available to us. You can see the washer & dryer peeking out just a big under the blue cabinets (still haven't committed to that color but its my initial idea) & there are some other cabinets on the other side we'll get into in a minute. That thing on the back of the door would be the ironing board that I'm going to get some brackets to install & hang it there.

The green square on the floor is the Le Poeme rug from Ballard in Sage that is only $50 for a 2'x3' rug...sold!

The gold on the left wall is actually these safety pin plaques from Ballard as well that my sister & her husband bought us as part of a wedding gift. I have a big crush on them.

Here is a better view of the room as you walk in the door. We will be keeping the same wall color, just touching it up a bit.

Now turning to the right you'll find the washer & dryer with cabinets. Not really sure what the extra strip of white is at the top, it was just supposed to be crown molding.

 

Cabinets on the sides will have doors (see reference idea below) & yes we have an old birdseed bucket that is used for a multitude of things but came with the ubiquitous name of "puke bucket" thanks to what it was called in my childhood. Mom & Dad kept it classy folks. The silver bar will be for keeping extra hangers around & most likely will inevitably be used to dry my bras...the class is embedded in the DNA. I haven't done a lot of measuring so my idea of how this will all pan out may not be accurate but this is the rough idea. I'm loving these knobs from Anthro but will pbly see what Hobby Lobby has before diving in.

Next up, the left side of the room.

Hidden behind the door will be a rack for our OXO Floor Sweeper & my newest friend in the cleaning game, my Shark Steam Mop. On the right side will be a much thinner cabinet.

I'd like to put a tilt-out drying rack up top to dry larger pieces of clothing so they aren't scattered throughout our downstairs, similar to this old piece from Ballard.

Below that I'd like a shelf for perhaps some carpet cleaner, stain remover, etc & a taller shelf for the things you need but don't really want to see like the plunger & toilet brush. Finally below that I'd like a built-in area for our dog's bowls since that is typically where we keep them but it would be nice to have them look a little more professional.

I think that's about it! So here is our ever-growing to-do list. I still have to run everything past the husband & the master builder (my dad).

1. Order new floors
2. Get underlayment for floors
3. Remove shoe molding
4. Install new floors
5. Get a pipe collar to cover where the new flooring meets the dryer vent. - canceled this, they don't make them...oh well!
6. Install pipe collar - see above
7. Get quarter round
8. Paint quarter round
9. Install quarter-round
10. Touch up baseboards & quarter round
11. Remove existing shelf
12. Touch up walls
13. Touch up trim around doors (see here for the issue with it) 
14. Trim transition piece
15. Replace transition piece
16. Get washer/dryer delivered
17. Order rug
18. Order new air register (ours was stark white & I found one in aged brass online for only $6)
19. Place in new air register
20. Get hooks for ironing board
21. Install ironing board hooks
22. Buy crown molding
23. Paint crown molding
24. Install crown molding
25. Buy cabinet materials
26. Buy new dog bowls (the ones she has now are a little gaudy for my taste)
27. Build cabinets
28. Paint cabinets & cabinet trim
29. Install cabinets
30. Install cabinet trim
31. Install cabinet knobs
32. Buy hanging bar
33. Install hanging bar
34. Replace light bulbs to be the swirly efficient kind (see why the peeps at Lowe's love me?)

We've still got a LONG ways to go with this project but I'm really excited to see progress & will share how far we get after the weekend!