Dining Room : Slow Upgrades

There are a lot of changes since I updated our dining room progress a year and a half ago.

Now let me tell you about one of my favorite things about the town we live in. There is an exclusive-to-our-community Facebook group called Freebox where people list whatever items they want to give away for free. When you see something you want, you claim it and pick it up from the person's porch. It's a great way to declutter without leaving your house and an even greater way to get things you want/need without having to pay for it. I saw this chandelier (similar to what I'd been looking at) go up on Freebox, but it was already claimed by a friend of mine. I quickly commented I'd be second in line if she changed her mind. A couple days later, she messaged me to let me know that her husband wasn't feeling it and that I could have it. After switching out the lights, I listed our old chandelier and it was snagged within minutes. It made me happy to see our new lighting (that we got for free!) and know that our old one was going to a home that would appreciate it.

Another new addition to our dining room is our sideboard/buffet. I always call them sideboards, but after a quick google, it's called a sideboard if it's in your living room and a buffet if it's in your dining room. I was using large wire shelving from our old house for all craft and overflow storage. It was not the prettiest solution and was getting to be difficult as Ida was more mobile. I was looking for any and all buffet solutions, and we lucked out with our old friend Craigslist. Ben is our Craigslist guru and will always look up options for me, reach out to seller, negotiate prices, and generally do the pick up. He sent me about 10 options that I was able to quickly narrow down. My favorite piece was already sold so I landed on this one. There was actually an identical model that was painted also for sale for slightly more. This one is slightly damaged, but we were able to work out a great price with the seller. Ben picked it up and reported back to me that she had an amazing old house that she did a lot of work on herself. She had tons of pieces in her house that she purchased on Craigslist and was only selling this one because it was her mother's and she had no room. He told me it was a meet up that I probably would have loved.

We got the sideboard in our house and it fit so perfectly in it's spot. The finish matches the dining set that I already own and it has lots of storage. I love when things work out perfectly like that... especially when I fail to measure dimensions.

I had one project on my list during Winter Break and it was to paint this dining room. Golden beige is not my favorite color, so I was itching to get this space painted. We picked out paint one day then Ben had to go to work. The girls were begging for a lazy day so I put on some movies and spent the rest of the day priming and painting solo. Ben was able to come home for just enough time to cheer me on and tell me to keep up the good work then headed back to work.

When I finished, it was pretty late and I started to stress that we picked too dark of a paint color... until the following day and all the natural light came in and realized it was actually the perfect color for this room. I hung up our cuckoo clock and set up the girls' coloring area. 

Now that the walls are painted. I have turned my attention to the fireplace. It needs some work. It appears that it chipped a lot previously and the previous owners just painted a coat of white paint over it.  I have scraped and patched all over the place. We're still bouncing around ideas for colors, but haven't landed on anything yet.

MY TO-DO LIST:
+ Pick a new light fixture
+ Paint walls
+ Paint and recover dining room chairs
+ Patch, sand, and paint the fireplace
+ Declutter

Weaving For The Girls' Room

An ongoing goal for me over the last 6 months has been working on finding projects I can work on in teeny tiny increments (think 5-30 minutes). Back in October, I felt the urge to get back into weaving, so I got to work. Cora was hanging around when I started this piece, so she picked this pink color and asked if this could be for her room. I worked on this in 30 minute increments over a week or so, then finished it up in January. Because I was working on this mostly at nights and during the middle of winter, the picture quality is all over the place... but that is not my biggest priority.  I always love seeing people's progress pictures, so here you go...

This is when I should have been finished according to my 'plan', but it just didn't feel right to me. I let this sit for a couple days before adding the black stripe on the top...then let it sit for a month or two before I decided it was for sure finished. 

Since I finished this up during the middle of winter, I wasn't super excited to head out and look for a stick to hang this on. During a walk in January, I decided to keep an eye out and found the perfect stick in front of our friends' house. I cleaned off the stick, trimmed it down, and attached the weaving.

Cora loved the final piece and kept mentioning how much it looks like a dress. I found the perfect spot in my favorite little corner of the girls' room.

Basement Stairwell : The Beginning

We have been super busy the last month or so with work, dealing with a frozen pipe/water leak (more on that another time), and just day-to-day stuff that comes with both of us working full time and having two kids. I'm trying to get back into blogging regularly and catching up on sharing some of the projects I've been working on over the last two months.

I have no true before pictures of this space, but believe me when I say it was pretty creepy. The walls were dark green/gray and splotchy and it was overall just dingy. This isn't a space that sees much traffic, so it is super low on the list of priorities.

There was a bunch of leftover paint in the pan whenever I was working on another space like painting the girls' room doors, priming the bathroom, or painting the dining room (more on the last two soon). As I was bringing the paint to rinse off in the utility sink (in the basement) I knew it was such a waste to just rinse it down the drain. I decided to take any extra paint in the pan and roll it on the walls in the stairwell. None of it matched and I didn't do a thorough job painting, but I was able to brighten up the space a bit with materials that most people would get rid of.

My main use for this space is to go in and out multiple times a day when I take the dog out. I was hanging all of the dog stuff (leashes, bags, etc) and my coats all on these two little peg hooks that came with the house. I knew I needed to make this space more functional, but had very little budget to do so.

I grabbed an extra shelf from Ben's studio space aka former walk-in closet (see before here), an old fishing basket I got from my Grandpa (for plastic bags), and purchased a dog hook from IKEA. It took less than 30 minutes to hang everything up and make this space sooo much more functional.

This space still isn't much to look at, but it works for me for now while I cross off other things on my home to-do list.

TO DO:

+ Patch the walls

+ Paint the dog hook white and brown like Clovey

+ Update lighting/electrical

+ Fix and paint the door

+ Install smart locks 

+ Paint? Wallpaper?

+ Make cute curtains for the door

Our Home One Year Later

It has been one year since we closed on our house! My to-do list is pretty long, so I kind of feel like I haven't gotten that much done... Until I look back on these before pictures and realize how the house has changed so much. We're loving our home and working on projects.  Even one year later, we're still adjusting to the new area and vibe of this town. We're finding new favorite spots, meeting new people, and learning new things about our town every day.

To see some updated pictures of our home, you can check out my posts on the exterior, kitchen, living room, dining room, entryway, kid's room, and the master bedroom. The living room (now partially gym) and dining room (now studio/messy room) have changed a little since I last shared pictures, but they're all works in progress. It has been fun spending the last year working on projects and really making this space into our own. One year down and many more to come...

House Exterior : Taking Off the Awnings

We've been working hard lately to make the exterior of the house a little bit more attractive. See where we left off here. We got some loppers and cut down hella weeds from the front 'garden' and did my best to clear out what I could.  Ben has been slowly taking off some of the extra stuff on the house that isn't our style. He took off the screened in porch in one evening then the porch awnings and side door awning the next day.

It is surprising to me to see how much more open this seems so far.  I walk out onto the porch and it feels so much brighter and airier without all of the extra stuff blocking the view. Now that it's cleaned up a little bit, it's much more inviting to hang out there.

Our previous house numbers were covered up by the ridiculous amount of weeds and we knew we wanted to replace it at some point anyways. I knew I wanted to do something on the house and somehow incorporate wood. I checked out my salvaged wood stash and found the perfect piece. I oiled it a little bit and it looked so much better already. I measured and taped off some rectangles for the numbers. In hindsight, I should have accounted for the spacing of the numbers, but I would love to go over it another time with white paint to try to correct the spacing issue.

We still need to take off the remaining awnings, but progress is progress!

TO DO:
+ remove the remaining awnings

+ replace the mailbox

+ repaint the porch/steps

+ rescreen all of the screens

+ more defined garden beds in the front 

+ Down the road, we'd love to paint the house and get the steps, path, and driveway/retainer wall redone

Entryway : Progress

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To make things a little easier, our entryway will include the entrance, stairs, and small 'book nook' at the top of the stairs.  Eventually I'll probably branch out and share some separate book nook posts, but there is still lots of work to do before then and I'm treating it all as one space right now.

I would have loved to design and DIY our own stained glass transom, but I'm a little too busy for that right now. I found this window film and thought we'd give it a try.  It looks much better than I was anticipating. I'm also really surprised about how visible this transom window is throughout the home. I can see it from the dining room, living room, top of the stairs, and back entrance. I love how it shines in the morning light and it was the perfect inexpensive touch to bring a little bit of color and character to this space.

I have no actual 'before' pictures for the book nook, but just picture a plain old empty space at the top of the stairs.  It's probably always been ignored and most people would think of it as a useless space. For the first ten months in our home, this was used as a place for boxes that were halfway unpacked, extra diaper and wipes boxes, and our giant bin of primer. I'm working on making sure each inch of our home has a purpose, so I thought this would be a great reading spot.  In the long run, I'd love to do a built in bench and bookshelves for the perfect little space to escape, but for now we just have a small chair, a bin with diapers and wipes, and the baby gate... functional, but not very fashionable

The stairway window was in need of some kind of coverage. It's a weird spot for a window and would look weird with blinds, curtains, or any other window treatment I could think of. I picked out a striped window film that still lets in light, allows us to peek outside, but doesn't give everyone a free show when we're walking around in our undies.

There is so much to do and each thing on the list is like a domino effect throughout the whole space. I would love to have this space semi-done by the end of September.

TO DO

+ Paint prep (remove some paint covered wallpaper, lots and lots of patching)

+ Paint (leaning towards white)

+ Paint a pattern on a couple of the walls (still brainstorming)

+ Replace sconces (already purchased)

+ Paint doors (front door and basement)

+ Paint or replace tile

+ Hang artwork (whole wall filled of photos? a couple pieces?)

+ Replace the carpet (wood steps? runner? we'll have to see)

+ Built in bookshelf

+ Built in bench

What kind of pattern do you think I should paint on the walls?

Master Bedroom : More Progress

This month, I joined ThriftDiving's 30 day room makeover challenge to get as much stuff in the bedroom done as possible. I had a little hiccup in the middle of the month and didn't get much done for the middle two weeks, but I'm happy with the amount of progress we've made so far. Check out this post to see where we left off.

We spend a lot of time in here just hanging out with the girls, watching movies, reading, cuddling, rough housing, and playing.  I wanted to make this a place filled with love and family.  I got a bunch of pictures that I love of different combinations of the five of us (including Clove).  Each picture makes me so happy to look at and I love this little wall of family. 

The brackets for the shelf are from IKEA and I was originally going to use it for my closet, but figured this would be the perfect spot. I had this piece of wood that I got from a pallet salvage place and Ben cut it down to size for me.  It had some writing on the side, but it mostly came off when I oiled the piece down.  I'm thinking about tracing over the letters to add a little bit of character, but I haven't decided yet. It's the perfect little shelf for our speakers, my planner/journal, and a little box of photos.  

I picked out some black and white curtains and hung them in Ben's studio (door on the left). I sewed them together so both sides are showing pattern and we can block out more of the light when he's working in there at night. We also hung up one of the tapestries I bought when I traveled to Burkina Faso.

We made plans to build a larger headboard and bed that is layered in front with this upholstered headboard.  I had all of the parts for the upholstered part, so I went ahead and built that before we get to building the rest of the piece. 

I was surprised at how easy and fairly inexpensive building this headboard was. First, I upholstered this piece with some plain fabric and then created a slipcover so that I would be able to take this off and wash it.  Knowing that we have messy toddlers and love to have 'picnics' and movies in bed, the slipcover was totally necessary.  I'll share a tutorial on that soon.

We're about halfway done, so here is where we are on the to do list:
+ Replace fan. (done, just need pictures)
+ Build bed/side tables.  I have some ideas for this, but no official plans yet.
+ Build/upholster headboard
+ Hang pictures.  Planning a wall of pictures (kind of like Ashley's)
+ Get rug or FLOR tiles.  This is a tricky room since the bed is covering half of it and the other half is essentially a cut through for the bathroom and man cave.  Thinking FLOR tiles may be the way to go.
+ Mount TV.  Still deciding if I want it in it's current spot or if we want it above the dresser.  Once we decide, we'll put it up since we already have a mount. (we're going to skip mounting this for now)
+ Redo closet. Paint whole closet and put in to place some kind of organization system
+ Make art for above the beds.  I'm thinking of some kind of wall hanging or even hanging some african baskets.  I have a bunch of ideas so I'm putting that off until the bed gets done.
+ Figure out something to do with the giant blank wall... Ben and I are leaning towards a giant black and white photo, but we haven't picked anything yet.
+ Curtains? Or some other window covering? Ida likes looking out the window so she has torn up the blinds (we have breakaway ones and she is constantly being watched, so she isn't in danger), so I'm thinking of a roman shade