Added Square Footage

Earlier this week we finally made a big change to the house, one that will hopefully make it feel quite a bit bigger. We got carpet installed in the basement and, in a game-time decision that I think makes all the difference, up the basement stairs.

This is what we were dealing with before:

Since the stairs are open they really are kind of part of the main living space. Even though they were hardwood, they were looking beat. I considered refinishing them myself, but uh, it's not like I'm flush with free time right now.

Notice Tesla at the top of the stairs in this pic.

Oh, my eyes. That's ugly.

And here's how it looks now:

So warm and lovely.

And notice Conrad in the top of the stairs in this pic.

At the end of the hall is the laundry room and storage. The second door on the left is a bathroom where we also had new vinyl floors installed. We're still doing some work in there, and it will probably always be an eyesore, but I may just man up and post pictures eventually, because it's definitely an improvement. I was scared to even go in there when we moved in.

So eventually this space will be a play room/workout room. We have to move the treadmill back in and Jeff's bike trainer. It probably won't ever be "pretty," but it will be nice to have more room for Mia's toys that are cluttering every other corner of the house.

Christmas Craftiness

I like DIY home improvement projects, but I don't really think of myself as particularly crafty. The idea of scrapbooking or making my own Christmas ornaments or anything small scale like that appeals to my DIY/artistic side, but when I get right down to it, it's not for me. I run out of patience and the craft never comes out looking like it should. It always ends up looking like a kindergartner with unmedicated ADD did it.

I bought Christmas stockings for myself and Jeff a few years ago with our initials on them, but when I went back to buy another one, they no longer had the same ones. I really wanted them all to be the same, and I like fairly plain stockings, no animals or angels or glitter. Of course I couldn't find anything like that. So I came across this picture on pinterest (which came from Cottage Instincts)(Gah, that mantel is gorgeous!) and I thought, duh, I could make my own personalized stockings with some cheap plain stockings and some wooden letters.

So I did.

Cheap plain stockings, which ended up not being that cheap,
because I really wanted white or beige and apparently that's unheard of!

Not-so-cheap plain stockings with wooden letter (both from JoAnn Fabrics) which I spray painted silver

I decided to just glue the letters on with hot glue because figuring out a way to attach them, as cute as it looks, might be above my level of craftiness, and I feared would end up looking, quite frankly, like shit.

Then Jeff thought they were TOO plain and suggested adding some snowflakes. (Look at him being more crafty than me!)

So I did.

And I'm really happy with how they turned out, even if from across the room the snowflakes look a bit like the Star of David. We're multicultural up in this house.

(Second &) Third Time's the Charm?

Now that Mia and I are into somewhat of a routine I've been getting a major itch to do some projects around the house. But it seems I have lost a bit of my DIY mojo somewhere along the way.

The first project I've been thinking about for about a year now: painting the front door. I even went so far as so try out a dark gray color I already had about a year ago, but I didn't like it. So since then our front door has been light blue with a little swatch of gray paint. Lovely.

I always hated the color scheme of the outside of our house (as seen here). The light gray siding with light blue shutters, and until last year the trim around the windows was two-tone blue and gray (which looked really dingy). Jeff painted the trim white last year and removed the shutters from around the kitchen window (because one was broken), so the only light blue we're left with is the shutters around the bedroom window and the front door.

Oh hey, look how fugly our front door was when we first moved in!

and this is after trying a few different paint colors I already had on hand
(the storm door was replaced a few years ago via Craigslist)

I turned to Pinterest for inspiration for the front door color. I wanted to do something bold and splashy. I thought about yellow (but I considered that when the door is open into the entryway it might clash with the yellowish paint in the walls there), eggplant (worried about resale), charcoal (not enough of a splash), poppy red (too much of a splash?), and finally settled on green after seeing this picture:

obviously from Blueprint magazine

I thought the color scheme seemed preppy and cute.

Not so on my house...

It was just okay from the outside, but truly hideous when the door was open, which it is a lot of the time as we get evening sunlight through the storm door.


So I had wasted $10 on a quart of paint, and I went back to my gut feeling which was to paint the door a rich, dark, charcoal gray. I like it. Is it splashy? Not really. Was it a risk? No. But it no longer looks like an elementary school. So that's something!

next up, I need to replace the ugly blue mailbox

Onto my second project which actually took 3 tries to get just right: hanging curtains in Mia's room.

I had some curtains that I loved from our old apartment, but they did not look good in our existing living room, and since the afternoon sunlight has been creeping into Mia's room through the side of the blinds and right onto her sleeping face, I decided they would work in her room.

On my first attempt I bought curtain rods and spray painted the finials aqua, but as Jeff was hanging them I realized the rods were too short. Ugh. If only I hadn't painted them, they could have been returned. Measure twice, hang once, right? Right. So another $10 wasted.

I ran out and bought longer rods. I learned my lesson and didn't paint them first. Jeff hung (hanged?) them. At first we only did one curtain panel on each window because they are small windows. It worked fine on the window in the corner, but the other window just looked lopsided.


So, on my 3rd try I finally got it right and moved the curtain rod out a few inches on either side and added another curtain panel.

Success!

I think it actually warms the room up considerably.

And since I have no other way to wrap up this post; Look! It's Mia as a penguin!

Evolution of the Nursery

I'm finally posting pictures of the nursery. I've taken forever, because I'm kind of disappointed in how it comes across in pictures. I think it looks so much better in person. Maybe if I had a better camera or photoshop or an ounce of patience with any of the free photo-editing software out there, I would be happier with these pictures. But I love this room. It makes me happy.

Here's what the room looked like when we first moved in:


And this is what it looked like around Christmas (well, this picture wasn't actually taken around Christmas because I can clearly see some green on the trees outside, but you get the idea...)

And this is what it has evolved to:

It was a family effort. My in-laws bought us the crib, my sister-in-law's parents bought us the crib sheets I wanted, and my mom made the crib skirt.

There is my painted lamp and my DIY giraffe art.

My mom also made the small pillow in the chair. I painted the table beside the chair, and the rocking chair.

I painted the dresser and the shelves on the wall. The "M" is a clue as to her name. It is driving my mother insane that we will not tell her. (Honestly, I'm not sure I'm feeling the black frames here, I may spray paint them silver at a later date. Preferably when I'm not harvesting a human fetus who could be effected by the fumes.)


And because I'm a total sucker for closet organization of any kind, I couldn't resist snapping a picture of the closet.

We found out on Friday that the baby is breech and will most likely be delivered by c-section on March 28th. Maybe not my ideal birth scenario, but I'm just excited to meet out little girl. We are full up on stress in our household (a death in the family, a cat with an injured leg, Jeff finishing up grad school, trying to buy a new car, sticker shock at the price of a c-section [!]), we just want our little bundle of joy to be here, in our arms, so we can count all 10 fingers and toes and take a deep breath.

Small Projects, Continued

Finally finished the rocking chair from this post. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, even if it did take forever to sand and paint all those little spindles, and even if I did spill the better part of a quart of paint on the basement floor. (Comedy is a an 8 months pregnant woman on her hands and knees wearing a dust mask and futilely scraping up a puddle of wet paint with pieces of cardboard.)

Small Projects

My neat-freakness has compelled me to update if for no other reason than to move the last post down on the page.

In good news (AKA News That I May Be About to Jinx Right Now Simply by Mentioning it) the desk from my last post is set to be delivered today after 7 emails from Target, 2 phone calls TO Target and one strongly worded email to customer service.

In other news, I've been working on some smaller projects for the nursery lately.

I painted an end table and a few wall shelves white we already had around the house white, and I decided to paint a few other found objects some bright colors to liven up the room a bit.

I started with a cheap-o lamp and a little wooden pig that my grandfather made for me when I was a kid (it's supposed to be a bank, but I learned the hard way that there's actually no way to get your money back out).


I was unsure about how the lamp came out at first, but it's grown on me. I thought the color might be too gold before, but now seeing how it fits into the room I think it works.

The little piggy is turquoise, and almost looks like it blends in with the wall color here, but that's not actually the case. The walls are more sage.

Next up I need to repair and then refinish this rocking chair my Granny gave me when I was little. I'm not sure about the color yet. Stay tuned.

The Guest Room: Part 3 (The Ugly Truth)

I am ashamed. Ashamed that our guest room/office currently looks like this:

While the nursery is coming along nicely, this room is the bane of my existence.


We sold our desk on craigslist right before Christmas. We found a smaller desk through Target that cost the exact amount we sold our other desk for. But Target keeps emailing me that there has been a delay in the order with no further information about when we might get it. Will we have it in time for the baby shower my mother is hosting for me at my house? Will we have it before the baby comes? Will we have it before she goes to college? Will we live in limbo for eternity? I am waiting to do any further organizing in this room until we get it, and it's driving me batty.


I am not good with mess and chaos, but for now this room has become a dumping grounds.

There, I have advertised my shame to the universe. May God and Target repay me with my new desk!

The Bathroom Re-Do

We are working on the nursery over here, but for now it's just furniture in an otherwise empty room. Meanwhile our guest room is a disaster area as we sold our computer desk and I'm writing this from a folding table formerly from our laundry room.

I'll take this time to document the bathroom remodel we embarked on in May.

When we first moved into this house I didn't think the bathroom was too bad. I removed the wall paper and thought a fresh coat of paint would be enough for a while. But the more I lived with it, the more I came to abhor it. I hated cleaning it because it never looked clean. I hated the mauve tub and the soft spot in the wall under the shower head which I was sure meant the studs behind the wall were rotted (spoiler: they weren't, thank goodness). I hated that stepping on the tile floor with wet feet meant loose tiles would stick to said feet. I hated that someone had replaced tiles on the shower walls unevenly and that perhaps that same someone had caulked around the tub while under the influence. I hated the vinyl wall covering that had been applied to the ceiling and grew mildew like a champ.

But enough with the complaints, here are the befores:



Jeff's brother (a contractor) came and stayed at our house for about 5 days to help us (or more accurately, Jeff) with the work. I am so grateful to him and his expertise. He worked his ass off for us.

The demolition took only a few hours. The putting back together took 4 and a half days. Luckily we have another bathroom in the basement (one that I will likely never post photos of because it ain't pretty and as much as I'd like to make it over I fear it would still be like putting lipstick on a pig). Albeit has a frightening metal shower that kind of made me gag every time I stepped foot in it, but at least we didn't have to beg the neighbors for baths!



At the time we did the remodel I was working in a kitchen and bath showroom so I was able to get a lot of the big expenses at a deep discount; the vanity, the tile and the countertop mainly.


I painted. That was my main physical contribution.

And now the afters:

I wanted most of the permanent fixtures to be pretty neutral so that the paint color and accessories could be changed out with future owners.

I had considered doing some sort of glass accent tile in the shower, but my cheapness won out. I also have more of a modern aesthetic and was afraid that might alienate future buyers or that I might end up not liking it some day, so I went ultra-neutral with white subway tile, but I decided to stack it instead of stagger it for a bit more modernity.



Source List:
The vanity is Kraftmaid Grandview Cherry in Peppercorn

The countertop is Corian Whisper

The faucet is Vigo from Overstock.com

The floor tile has been discontinued

The wall tile, toilet (American Standard), and tub (Kohler) are all from Home Depot, I believe.

The shower controls are Kohler Corlais from Lowes.

The light fixture is from Bellacor.com

The window shade is a cordless cellular from JC Penney.

The shower curtain is Nautica from Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Happy New Year!