Hallway...well because its easy

As you can tell from my not so creative post title I'm taking the easy way out tonight...our entry hallway. I just figured out that for some reason the posts for the last 2 days didn't go up in their entirety so I've spent the night recreating those but my goal for these first few weeks of blogging was to stick with it every night M-F until I've reviewed all the rooms of our home and we get started on the good stuff...the projects. That leaves me at 11:30 at night, after a long workday and 30 minutes to get a blog posted and myself into bed, this will be a short one.

SO...here we go, not much to it, its a hallway. Long, narrow, moves you in a coordinated fashion from one point to another and that's about it for the description. I mean what else can you say about the thing?

Below is a reference picture:

Basically we have an upgraded shotgun house, you can open the front & back doors and get a clear shot straight on through. Other than that it has the same issues as the entry, its all neutral.

Things we have left to do here:


1. The one, the only -  I want to create a "family wall" somewhere in the house. I haven't decided if this is the place I want to do it or if I want to have it going up the stairs. This situation seems a lot easier to get under control rather than having to work on the placement along with getting everything working its way up stairs. Regardless I came to this conclusion after seeing this entry on the blog House*Tweaking (bear with me this is my first blog linking). I loved Dana's family wall project and plan to do one of my own...somewhere...someday...

Well thats it for today, like I said it's short and I'm off to bed with 17 minutes left until midnight...doesn't get much better (actually a 10PM bedtime would've been nice!).

Lay Your Weary Head to Rest

Our bedroom is my favorite part of the house so far. I think that is in part due to it being the closest room to being finished but mainly I think it is due to my love of sleep. Poor Tim has not only had to adjust to me taking over the majority of our king sized bed but also has to deal with me poking, prodding and nudging him as he snores his way through the night. Apparently I also have a slight issue with breathing a little louder than most but that didn't happen until earlier this year when Tim tackled me in the snow resulting in a broken nose for me and a lifetime of guilt-trips for him. Note: apparently when you are being tackled you are not allowed to lift your head without expecting to get a broken nose.

Anyways, as I digress, Tim's parents gifted us a King sized mattress last Christmas and with some of the money we were given for our wedding we were able to get a bed frame. 

                                     

We got the majority of our bedding as wedding gifts from Pottery Barn and the Biltmore Collection from Belk. Their sheets and comforter are so comfortable. 

                                     

Recently I was at a Pottery Barn outlet and found two of the nightstands I've been wanting so of course I snagged those right up. 

                                               

We've got a bed for our sweet little girl on the floor next to me which she loves and typically will go straight to when she gets back here from daycare everyday (my parents house). Although a few days ago I walked into our room to see a sweet little beagle with a guilty look on her face poke her head out from the covers on my bed. 

                                    

The only other furniture in our room is a TV cabinet leftover from my college days with a TV my parents gave to us when they upgraded to a flat screen. The TV seems to be a little too heavy for the cabinet because I've noticed lately that the side of the piece is pulling away from the support shelf. I'm thinking that we should put a few extra screws in there so the three of us don't get a rude wake-up call in the middle of the night with everything crashing down. 

                                               

There are three things in this room I'm most proud of:

The first are the silhouettes over our bed. The ones on the edges are actually each of us from our wedding day and the one in the middle was taken right after Tim asked me to be his girlfriend a few years ago. The fun part is that they actually hang about the spots we sleep. I didn't mean to do that but kind of neat that it worked out that way. I minored in photography and had to take a graphic design class and just applied a few of those rusty skills. These aren't exactly 100% accurate but I'm pretty proud of them anyways. I took some random frames I found at HomeGoods and spray painted them green and was done.

                                          

My next favorite is the drawing just inside the entrance of our room, which is one that my dad did when he was a freshman in college. I'm still amazed at how talented my dad is/was. He on the other hand was not as impressed that I hung up his picture, the look was more of "Greeaaaaaatt." Oh well, I like being able to see it as I walk back and forth everyday.

My third favorite are the pictures of our parents and grandparents from their weddings. I'll be replacing the picture in the middle with one of ours one of these days so we have a full collection.

Things we have left to do here:

1. Get a quilt for the foot of our bed - Tim likes to freeze me out with the air and heat usage and on top of that he loves to wrap himself like an enchilada with the blanket at night. Not only would a quilt help to finish off the bed and add a little more color to the room but it would help me stay a little warmer. The Pottery Barn Colebrook Quilt is one that we registered for but it sold out in record time so now I'm on a search for a replica.

                                                                     

2. Replace the center picture in our wedding assortment with one from our wedding - the simplest and cheapest project, yet somehow I can't seem to complete it. One of these days!

                                                 

3. Get a new armoire/tv cabinet -  there is much discussion in our house as to whether or not you need a tv in every room. I say no, Tim says yes. Guess who is winning...I can't deny that I haven't used it a good deal as well but I'm still not a fan. Oh well, its my turn to compromise. I want something that looks weathered and well-loved but still looks clean and fresh. Here is an example of the idea I have in mind.

                                                 

4. Get a bench for the end of the bed - Neither of us have a place to sit and put our shoes on after we get dress so it always ends up being a selection of the lesser of two evils. Sit on the floor or put the shoes on the bed. A bench would be great for that purpose and would help fill the space of our very large master bedroom. Btw, whenever you build a house make sure you measure out each room to make sure you get a better feel for how big it really is. Ballard Designs has a great classic turn-legged bench where you can select your own fabric to match the rest of your home.

  

                                                

5. Put up curtains - I didn't really realize how much curtains can complete a room until Tim's brother & sister-in-law got some put in their den. It makes such a huge difference. I want to get some heavy fabric, almost like a tapestry weight and have them made (I'm not crafty enough for this project...yet that is) and some of those nice thick wooden dowels to hang them on. 

                                              

6. Get a bedskirt - This goal actually has a deadline attached to it. We registered for one I really like and have a discount to Pottery Barn & Williams Sonoma through November so my goal is to finish off everything I really want by then. I was going to get my parents to buy some of that for me but apparently my car has to have some kind of specialty tires that are insanely expensive so those have now blossomed from my birthday gift to my birthday/christmas gift. Growing old is oh so thrilling.

                                            

7. Get some bedside lamps - There is nothing I hate more than stumbling through a dark room, yet somehow I end up doing it just about every night. This is why we need some lamps on either side of our bed but I hate how much room they take up on the nightstands and at some point I always end up knocking them off. Pottery Barn to the rescue again, they have some awesome bedside lamps that install on the wall but they actually plug in so you don't have to worry about making sure everything is wired. These even have an upgrade in that they swing around so you can bring them closer or move them further away based upon how much light you want.

                                         

8. Do something with the giant blank walls - I'm not someone who is a fan of blank space. I understand not wanting to overload a room with stuff but then again I always feel like a room is missing something when there are large expanses of wall without anything on them. I feel like we need to either add something to either side of the new armoire or we need something on the two large expanses of wall to either side of our bed. This is probably a project I'll take on after I get the rest of the house finished up.

Just Throw it in the Back

That is pretty much what I feel like we've done to our amazing back porch. We certainly aren't doing it any favors right now...We were lucky enough for our builders to build a nice large back deck with plenty of room for entertaining and dining. The problem? We have no furniture to entertain with or to dine on.

The one thing we do have is a pretty nice little grill. Back when Tim was a baseball coach he played in the local school district's coaches association golf tournament. He had some raffle tickets and took a chance by dropping them all into the grill raffle. Lucky for us, he won. Around this time two years ago I found some excellent deals on grilling tools and being naive bought them all. So if anyone needs to borrow a rib rack, hot dog roller, kabob rack or anything else you could possibly think of for a grill, we've got it.

As I bought all of the junk I was actually smart enough to buy a few necessary items that have come in handy like a grill cover, light and a mat the grill sits on so it doesn't stain the deck. Unfortunately the grill was not on the aforementioned mat when I made rotating fireballs rather than rotisserie chicken. Long story short, when you are using the rotisserie and the chicken isn't cooking fast enough turning on the bottom burners does help them to cook faster but only in the flames shooting out in every crevice of the grill and the chicken is so burnt that touching it literally makes it crumble kind of way, no joke.

Back in November the movers brought in the still boxed up grill and put it on the deck I had every intention of  having a nice little chair and table set to accompany it by this time of the summer. Then a sweet bed caught my eye and after that I found two amazing nightstands that I had to have. Not to mention that infamous porthole mirror. We did hit the jackpot in the the grill is a pretty deluxe stainless steel model with quite a few add-ons. Tim's manhood has been stroked quite a few times as he shows it off to visitors. I always think its hilarious how it plays it off like "yeah man I guess its a pretty sweet set-up" when I remember how giddy he was when it was first put together, not to mention how protective he is over keeping it covered and cleaned. I'm still apologizing for the burn marks that remain on it from the fireball chicken.

In addition to the grill we also have two Adirondack chairs that Tim's mom got for him back when he was in college with the school logos on it. Once we get our dining set I want to put that in the shaded area below the deck. I just envision sitting around drinking lemonade watching our little puppy run around in the backyard.

Here are some photos of how it looks right now, sorry they are so dark. I didn't want the workers next door to think I was trying to get some photos of them, ha!

Things we have left to do here:


1. Get a patio set - Kind of one of the basics for a deck and we don't really need anything special but it would be great to get something to enjoy the cooler summer nights that should start coming pretty soon! Target has a great little set that would be perfect and we could get it all, table, 4 chairs with cushions, umbrella and stand for right around $1,000. From what I've seen that doesn't seem too bad, especially with it being Smith & Hawken (a brand I love).

2. Stain the deck -  Technically we should've done this already but I've been absolutely dreading it so looks like we will be taking care of it this fall and I just happened to look out while it was raining the other day and decided that we need to stain the porch the color the wood gets when its wet. Yes, strange I know but I love it. From what I've been able to figure out it looks like Behr's Natural Cedar is the closest to that color.

3. Get an outdoor bar table - Ballard Designs has one that I like a good bit right now. It would just be nice to have something to put the plates of food to be grilled, clean plates for pulling things off the grill and even a little serving spot if we are having a larger party. Right now Tim gets to do a balancing act of old plate, new plate, grill tools and seasoning items out there since the sides of his grill are pretty minimal. Although it does a good deal for my entertainment value I do feel bad for him...sometimes.

4. Get some outdoor curtains - have I mentioned that our neighbors have begun building their new monster of a house within "spitting distance" as Tim like to refer to it. (I hate to ask why he calls it that because I have a sneaking suspicion that name may have resulted from his own testing) Not only is their house extremely close but they also have a large window in their family room that stares straight out onto our porch. So much for hanging out in my pjs in privacy. The other day one of our friends mentioned that with their porch being so incredibly close to ours we should just combine the two. With that in mind I have come up with a plan that if we put curtains up on the portion of our porch that is covered we can gain back a good bit of that privacy and since that won't be a permanent thing we can open and close them as we please depending upon how social we are feeling that day. Ballard has some great color options as well as some outdoor tiebacks that could work with our friendlier days.

5. Up the privacy a little more - by adding in a nice big square umbrella over the grill and bar table area. This could not only give us back some privacy where curtains won't work but it can make grilling on a hot summer day a lot more comfortable! Pottery Barn has some good options, obviously we wouldn't go with red but this is a good example of what would be a perfect fit!

Not too much of a welcome . . . yet

So right now when you walk in our house its blank...as in tan walls, brown floors and thats about it. I mean even the carpet is a slight beige color. Along with having issues keeping plants alive, I also have issues making decisions so anything that is slightly difficult to change (paint colors, carpet, wood stain, etc) is immediately regulated to my neutral color palette. I'm always afraid I'm going to regret my decision and be too lazy to change it after putting in the work. That statement will make a lot more sense after you see the mirror/porthole I bought without measuring to see if it would fit first...oops!

 Below is a reference picture:

Can you make out any shapes or do all of the tans just blend together? Anyways, as you can see there is a LONG way to go with this "room".

Things we have left to do here:

1. Buy a rug! - My grandfather helped us out by paying for our wood floors as a wedding gift and we are SO glad he was kind enough to sponsor those for us, they turned out really well! With as much as we like them we would like to keep them protected since this is the main entrance to our house, plus why give up an excuse to go to Pottery Barn? Problem for me may be that every rug I like right now happens to be on clearance (usually a great thing for me) and each time I'm actually ready to buy one they sell out of the size I need, go figure. Anyways here is the rug I love for this space that will most likely be sold out when I finally head back over to pick it up.

2. Update the light fixture -  Don't get me wrong, I adore our current fixture but it doesn't make as much of a "statement" as I'm looking for. My big plan is to move the current fixture into the back hallway and replace it with this beauty from Restoration Hardware, stay tuned for the electrocution of the newlywed. Just kidding my dad will be supervising me, or I may supervise him as I "learn" what I'm doing, aka talk him into doing it for me. Right now the only problem being that I finally saw this in person last weekend and it may actually make too much of a statement...I should probably get out that measuring tape!

3. Find a console table - The one below from Pier 1 is similar to what I like but not all there just yet, we'll see what I come across. I've started searching antique stores but still can't really see what a piece of furniture could be from what it already is and can't commit to any one piece (see indecision above). 

4. Get some art for that tan wall... and yes it still is kind of neutral but in my defense it does have some brighter colors in it. I found this on Pier 1 online and haven't seen it in person but am thinking I would want to replace the frame with something nice, big, chunky and brown (sounds like a description of some shoes I want right now as well...).

5. Get some knick-knacks onto the table - Typically I am not a fan of knick-knacks (aka dust collectors) but I have recently discovered that I don't think something really looks "done" until it has a knick-knack involved. Maybe a bowl that had a previous life mixing dough, some scholarly hard-cover books I can try to convince people I actually read but in fact have never picked up in my life, picture frames that I'll never get around to actually putting a picture into or even some type of little statue, but no candles for this girl. I've learned that candles + me = danger, whether it be hot wax spilled everywhere or the fact that I left a candle burning all night...again...its just never a good ending. 


Now that I actually put this all down it doesn't seem like there all too much to do...well except starting to make some decisions. This could take awhile...

Starting from the Front

Since our closing our awesome builder/friend installed some shutters to the sides of both sets of windows on the front of our house, painting them a dark navy to match our front door. These helped the look of the house so much and really gave it a more finished appearance. They've been too good to us!

Moving into the house we were lucky enough to be able to start with a good amount of furniture and household items due to Tim living on his own back in college and me living solo during the short 9-month tenure of my first job. Something neither of us had were rocking chairs and what proper front porch doesn't have rocking chairs?

After moving into the house in November and with a pretty cold winter we really didn't have much focus upon the front porch, then spring arrived. The warming of the air and blooming of everything around us not only brought on my seasonal allergies but with them came an itch to start making that porch more functional and our house appear more lived in. This slight itch became too strong to ignore after walking sleepy-eyed into the kitchen wearing nothing more than my pajamas, grabbing a refreshing glass of OJ out of the fridge and glancing up to see a woman peering into our front windows. Luckily she seemed to be just as shocked as I was and I became absolutely determined to make our house look much more lived in rather than a model home after that lovely experience with our very own peeping Tom.

Lucky for us we had a Home & Garden shower a few weeks after my unexpected morning visitor and not only did we receive some excellent kitchen tools, garden tools and fabulous Home Depot gift cards but Tim's parents went in with his brother and sister-in-law to get us....rocking chairs! Beautiful, white, classic chairs that were made for front porch sittin' and sweet tea sippin'. I couldn't have been more excited, in fact I was a little disappointed that we couldn't fit them into Tim's car to take them home and place them on the porch that very night.

Now that I had my chairs I could tackle the flower boxes I had been pondering over. I took my sister off to Home Depot and invested in some boxes, potting soil and a few different resilient looking plants. $100 later I was using some of my fancy new gardening gloves and trowel (also picked up from our shower, we've got great friends and family right!?!) to plant and install our new boxes. It took about two more trips in the following week to get enough potting soil but finally we were up and running. I've killed the plants a few times but somehow they keep coming back for more.

Next up was a table to put in between the chairs because what good does that big glass of sweet tea do you if  you don't have anywhere to put it while you rock. I searched all over for an iron table that wasn't too big or too small, too high or too low and found a great little side table at Pier 1. It wasn't the aged brown color I was looking for but the style, size and price were perfect so it was sold. Pier 1 is a place I always forget about until I walk in the door and discover just how much I like their stuff again. You can't really go wrong with their prices either. I even found a nifty little hook I could screw into our front door to hang wreaths on as the 3M hooks I used over Christmas are not such a great match to the great outdoors. Lets just suffice it to say that our front porch looked like a murder scene after our red wreath was blown down in a rainstorm and proceeded to bleed all of its dye for the next couple of hours.

Due to another excellent gift card to Amazon I was able to get a nice little spring-ish wreath that could carry through the summer (well it is going to at least), added a wide ivory ribbon to it for hanging purposes and voila no more model home look.

Throughout the summer I've been finding little knick-knacks to add to the porch; a welcome mat from Target, a moss-covered terra cotta pot from Pottery Barn complete with a plant I've been assured that I cannot kill, outdoor throw pillows from Restoration Hardware and some decorative birds from Crate and Barrel and Mast General Store. It looks homey and Tim and I have even eaten supper out there, well we started to until the mosquitoes got too bad.

Although it may sound like we have this "room" pretty much wrapped up, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve that I want to get taken care of...


Things we have left to do here:


1.   Add some house numbers above the entry - although we already have numbers on our mailbox, with a new house being built next door ending our residency of being the only house on the street I think its about time to add that on for a little more recognition. I'm thinking of something along these lines...they are pretty inexpensive but I haven't found any that I really love just yet and as a rule I won't buy anything unless I have to have it.

2.   Install an iron railing - not only will it help to define the space a little more but would be extremely helpful when it gets icy and will help us with the resale of our house. Our neighborhood has a nice mix of age groups but we live in the section that the retired folks seem to prefer and retired folks like safety, hence the handrails.

3.   Get some weathered Terra Cotta pots and more unkillable plants for the base of the steps -  We've got this pencil sticky plant thing right next to the steps that around February I could've sworn to you was a goner but it came back about 2 months later and although it is thriving right now I keep waiting for it to re-kick the bucket. I want to replace it with a planter, along with one to match for the other side with the idea that its a lot less noticable when I kill those then my pencil plant is when it dies again (and yes when, not if). Pottery Barn has some that I am adoring right now but the $169/pot price tag is a little bit of a kill-joy for that one. I'm hoping to save up a little and grab them right as they go on sale a little later in the summer. Here's to hoping they don't sell out first!

4.  Get some planters and more unkillable plants to place beside the front door - Yes, I may be harping on that whole "unkillable" thing a little too much but if you knew me and my black thumb you'd get it. I found some unbelievable (and again unaffordable - be prepared for the reoccuring theme of my life) through Aiden Gray. They are $450 and I haven't really figured out just yet if that is for the set or just for one, regardless these will remain a pipe-dream unless some miraculous twist of fate lands them upon my porch. Doubtful but a girl can dream right?

5. Add in a ceiling fan - I'm not so sure how we can do this since I was smart enough to request a can light over the rocking chair area of our porch but having a fan to create a little breeze would make the porch so much more comfortable and user-friendly. There has to be a kit that lets you do it and we will be exploring that as we move into our home improvement phase. I want something pretty basic that can handle the weather but that looks like an outdoor fan, not like I'm trying to bring the indoors out. Maybe adding a cage around the light to make it look a little more rough & tough would do the trick! This Emerson fan and light kit are close to what I like but maybe with just 1 light rather than 3.

 

6. Upgrade the doorbell -This should be a pretty quick, not to mention inexpensive replacement. Welcome to the OCD side of my personality where everything must match but not in the matchy-matchy sort of way. Due to this the doorbell MUST be the dark oil-rubbed bronze so that it aligns with every other part of our home. Sometimes my insistence on all of the particulars exhausts myself, poor Tim!

7. Last, but certainly not least, an uncertainty about a bench - now this is a purchase I haven't fully committed to the idea of just yet but I do like the idea of it. Plus we stayed at an incredible beach house last weekend where I saw an adorable bench and now want something similar. Just something simple, backless and with a weathered paint job, preferably in the cream family. Ballard Designs has one with potential for only $120 that I'm thinking I could paint pretty easily.I still haven't decided how I'm going to fit this on my relatively small front porch but was thinking of placing it along the railing next to the front door. I need to do some measuring first (learned this after the porthole purchase mishap, a story for another day).

Here are some pictures of our handi-work thus far:

A little bit of everything.

Comfy pillows make for longer relaxing...

until the mosquitoes come break up the party...

Still enough room to put my glass & my plate.

Not only is it staying alive but it also blooms!

The more successful basket (and the wrap of our new neighbors house).

We can stare at each other through our kitchen windows, yay.

Overhead view, this reminds me that we need to mulch...

The entry of the porch along with the pencil plant.

My spring wreath thats rockin' its way through summer...