vol.25

finally... a finished complete tour of our home!

{you can click the pictures to make them bigger}

Whew... So that is the grand tour! I'm excited to work some of these into a photo book, to kind of chronicle our time here. Its been a ton of work getting this house to its current state, and now that we're selling it.. I'm having mixed feelings. I know that our next house will undoubtedly need some work, if its going to be in our price range. But, I guess there is no way it will need as much work as this place did. So that should make me feel better. I'm really looking forward to finding a house a little bit bigger then this house. If your new to the blog, be sure and check out this post for a few pictures showing just how much love this place needed. :) Or our home category for all things pertaining to our house. :) You can also check out my flickr set titled "our home" for other pictures. If anyone has any questions as to where something was purchased, I'll try to help out as best I can. HOWEVER, chances are it is from either pier 1, ikea, or target. :)

for my kitchen...

Just a quick post to share what I've been working on today. I've had this idea in my head for awhile now, and it feels nice to finally be able to mentally check it off the list. :) Jaydon hung my grundtal shelves from ikea. I love them, but (like always) I do wish they could have been centered a little better. Had to hang them where there were studs. I'll try to get some close ups of the shelves, but for now I suppose this will have to do. The picture is going into a larger frame I sprayed black, hopefully it will fill in this area some.

(the white cabinet door is leaning against the wall, because I had thought about painting it with chalkboard paint and hanging it instead of a picture. Figured it would make good use of that cabinet door... but it wouldnt be an ideal spot. In fact I could barely reach it. Its so nice being short. :P)

As you can see the kitchen is still in progress. :) I am still scraping away at the paint on the cabinets. We decided to keep the upper cabinets, but add a coat of paint and some nice dentil chair rail. We'll be using the same doors as the lower cabinets. We also have  a door and drawer face on order, so that will be coming in soon!

I bought this platter from ikea, and love it! I had a hard time finding art to match the colors... so I decided to make something that would. :)

Well, hope you guys are having a nice week so far. :)

I'm packing my house up!

 

Thats right I totally am. We're not "officially" moving yet, and I am not really packing up the entire house. But I AM packing, and beginning to get a little stressed. (ok that honestly started happening daays ago) It all started on Friday when Jaydon had the idea of listing the house NOW. Before all our renovations are done. For a cheaper price of course. Why in the world would we do this? Well I guess I am not entirely sure that it is a good idea, and I am little uneasy about listing now. BUT, the couple of main motivators are:

1) the rise back in interest rates: Even if we got considerably more for our house when it was complete three months (or so) from now, if interest rates are significantly higher at that time our new house payment will be quite a bit more then it would be if we could lock in a low rate soooon.

2) time, time: I am just mentally tired of living in a remodel! There is always a project needing finished up over here (like many people's home's I'm sure) and our list is never ending it seems. I want to be able to go somewhere for the weekend and not have to think "well, we really need to finish this up..."

So, this house has really grown on me, and it was absolutely perfect for us three years ago. We could only afford a fixer upper and this was definitely your definition of a fixer upper. BUT, we have really outgrown it. Maybe a newlywed couple or older retired couple will think of it as perfect for them. I sure hope so. :)

This brings me to stressing. I tend to do that anyhow. ;) I've been dreaming about the house finally being done and "staging" the house for sale for so long that now I am kinda worried about how unfinished everything is. The kicker... we're still planning on continuing the remodeling and finishing things up. Which at that point we will list with a good friend who also happens to be a realator. :) Until then Craigslist will be our method of choice. I hope hope that we are doing the right thing. So, keeping it clean and "staged" while remodeling and keeping two kids in tow should be interesting. We are renting a storage unit and the boxes (and some of the furniture) will be more appropriately placed there. :) Giving us more space and less clutter to keep up on!

Will it be bad to show the house and continue to raise the price as we complete new projects? I dunno I guess we will see. Anyone have any tips to keeping your house show ready or near show ready with a baby and 4 year old? :)

Keep your fingers crossed! ;) I may be a bit MIA around the blog during this BUSY and stressful time. I decided to take a break from packing/cleaning/organizing to give you all that update. The girls are sleeping so I had best take advantage of this time and get some more done. :)

One more thing: I'll be officially ending the BOGO sale tonight at midnight! Thanks everyone!!

quite a bit can happen in two days...

...especially if you have two super handy men like my dad and hubby. In two days they have dramatically changed the appearance of our humble kitchen. :) Turned out they had a couple of days off so monday and tuesday they spent they're free time working on our kitchen. I couldnt have been more excited!! To uh... put it mildly. :)

The kitchen is without a doubt the biggest room in our little house, and yet I always felt like it was the room I disliked the most. We really had a limited amount of money to spend on improvements when we bought the house 3 years ago. There was definitely some necessities in the house that needed purchased (carpet, carpet pad, paint, mortar, sheetrock, flooring for the bathroom to name a few) so the kitchen really didnt get changed much. We ended up painting the cabinets white, and purchased new knobs and drawer pulls. I also painted the inside of the cabinets to make them feel a little cleaner. We purchased some wainscoating and chair rail (the mdf variety to save some bucks) There was an old window that had been boarded up in the kitchen, so we had to finish sealing that up, and had to try to match the mortar with the existing.

 
(since changed the paint color to a more seller friendly neutral) :)

The kitchen definitely changed from its dark depressing before state.

it took SEVERAL coats to cover that red!

eeeewww....

here is how it looked sunday night.

I had already emptied the lower cabinets on the sink side, hence the clutter on the surrounding areas. :) I had detached the doors and scraped the paint off the upper cabinets on the left hand side because we were originally planning to use the existing frames. Here is our plan in a nutshell:

rework kitchen layout
purchase new lower cabinet frames
purchase new upper cabinets
build new coutertop
tile new countertop
Spray cabinet frames black, use cherry doors, drawer faces etc.
Purchase Dentil Crown molding
recover floor with tundra antique stained flooring (from ikea)
(possibly) purchase used or new black oven
plan the ikea grundtal rail system into my kitchen :)

*purchase wood and make shelves

Purchase and hang wainscoating.

We are definitely trying to keep costs down, but I have always heard that kitchens sell houses, and if your going to sink your money somewhere the kitchen is the place to do it. After we are all done I'll give a detailed list of where our money went. :)

We scored some really great cherry bordeux door and drawer faces. My dad is in construction and ended up having a lady sell my dad around 60 miscellaneous doors, drawer faces, corner bread cabinet end panels, etc. All for about 50.00. Apparently she had ordered new cabinets and many of the doors came slightly damaged, bumps in the finish (really not noticeable to me, but I imagine if you were paying for brand new cabinets you would want brand new quality) I think the cabinet place just ended up replacing her entire order. Long story short we ended up with extras for a super great price!

Anyhow, we really had NO idea what we had and a couple weekends ago finally took a day to inventory them all. I grouped them by size, and my mom came over and wrote down measurements for me. Several of the doors were in boxes labeled wrong.

It took quite a few hours, but it was kinda fun not really knowing what to expect out of each box. From the doors we created our kitchen layout.

Both lowes and Home depot sold unfinished oak cabinets. Since we really needed just the frames, this was the best way for us to go. Home depots unfinished cabinets were cheaper, and I later realized why. Lowes' came with shelves!! While Home Depot's didnt.

I was in charge of removing the doors and drawer faces. Will probably put these up on craigslist. You never know what someone may need. I also did the magority of pulling the old flooring up. FORTUNATELY it came up suuuper easy. There were two layers of flooring, the bottom and older layer was square tiles, so the top stuff ripped up in square shapes. Since the glue on the original stuff was suuper old it came up by just pulling. wheew. Could have easily been a three day job.

Another great score for us was my parents having 8 boxes of the tundra flooring left from they're house. Exactly enough to do our kitchen. We had purchased (2 years ago) a few boxes of some discontinued hardwood flooring. It really wasnt the color I wanted (oak) but at .50 cents a sq. foot I could definitely live with it. Thank goodness my dad suggested using the tundra flooring. It went down sooo much faster then the other stuff would have. No messy glue or stinky fumes to deal with. Not to mention I like the looks of it soo much better! The other flooring is yet another item needed to be listed on craigslist.

Oh so clean feeling. It is so nice to have a nice new kitchen floor. I can clean my floor, and it will actually LOOK clean! :) Jaydon sprayed one of the cabinets black to see how it will look.

When we told the crown molding guy at home depot what we were doing he said "very european feeling" guess we will see. Definitely going to splurge on the dentil thick crown molding. I think it will really set it off. Should match the chair rail, and also part of our original front door has dentil molding on it. Similar to this.

Jaydon is planning to stain it cherry. I am kind of thinking it should be black since the frames will be black... BUT he thinks it will look good cherry? He used to have his own painting buisness, so his opinion seems to trump mine in these cases.

This is messy, but you can see how the flooring turned out. Look at all that useable counter space!? I am so excited to have a work area next to the oven, I wont have to walk around that microwave cabinet anymore. I am really excited to use the grundtal rail system to the right of the stove. I think it will give the kitchen a chef feeling, and hopefully set our house apart from any others a buyer may be looking at.

Removing the lower cabinets to the right allows us to scoot the kitchen table over and keeps the "work zone" open feeling. Which is so nice. The uppers are the next big job to tackle. Then the tile, but we wont be doing that until Jaydon finishes spraying the lower cabinets, and I can finally use them! Remodeling is fun, but I get tired of the disorderly state the house has to  be in. I have canned foods in the girls' room, and other misc kitchen stuff scattered throughout the house. :)

Wheeew... that was a long winded post! I'll give you guys an update when I have some more news and pictures. Hopefully within the next couple of days. :)

new curtains!

 
I am really really happy with how they seem to work in our living room. I picked these up from ikea a couple trips ago. You really cant beat the price 29.99 for 2 panels. They are the stockholm figur curtains. I love that they add a subtle graphic design without overwhelming the space. They are also sheer enough that they let in quite a bit of light when closed. I mounted these about 7" higher then my window trim. We are fortunate enough to have high ceilings, but why not accentuate a good thing? :)

Here is a sneek peek at the living room without curtains. Gotta love that trim! This is where I had the curtain rod hung originally.

In the picture below, you can see how the living room looked before. You'll notice more has changed then just the curtains. :) The area rug was moved to the kitchen where it now happily resides under the dining room table.

Have you stopped by this young house? I stumbled across John and Sherry's blog a few weeks back, and am addicted. They have such a cute personality, and I love what they are doing with they're house! This picture and post inspired me to finally replace my cheapo wal-mart blinds.

I couldnt find any bamboo blinds at my local wal-mart, so I ordered some from overstock. I purchased the shanghai color . Hopefully it will match the bamboo blind covering the window in our front door.

Anyhow, I ordered three. I think they will add some great texture to the living room! What do you guys think? I just received an e-mail saying that had been shipped, I am so excited to install them!

my shiny new workspace

Thank you ikea! Once again you have made my house look soo much nicer, MUCH more organized, and at prices I can afford! :) The only thing that would make you nicer is if you would build yourself right here in the Tri-Citites. :) Driving 3 hours is less then ideal. But, I will definitely not complain!

** Warning this post is heavy on the pictures. :) **

love love these asker pots with the asker rail system from ikea. They are holding quite a bit of pens, paintbrushes, watercolor pencils, scissors etc. Its really handy because if I need something up high, I just lift the pot off the hook and I can put it anywhere. Since I usually paint in the living room this is really nice for me.

The reflection of the door leading to the utility room makes for an eery reflection. :) Eventually we wont be needing this door anymore and I will be so glad when that day comes. But that is waay down on the list of remodeling project priorities. :) 

Here is a view of the desk. The keyboard shelf pulls out, so it gives me more room. Which is definitely needed when I am shipping and printing orders. :)

Here is the Skruvsta chair I bought a few weeks back. I really really wanted it in white, but when I seen the black one in the as is section for 69.00 (70.00 less) I decided I could handle the black just fine. :) So far, I still love it. Have yet to find anything wrong with it. uhh... knock on wood. ;)

 

Another view of the Lykta lamp. I am soo glad I went ahead and purchased this little guy, the soft light from this lamp is amazing.

 

So, here is my little corner of the kitchen. I purchased the billy bookcase with doors, and the benno cd tower. I also purchased the add on unit to make the bookcase taller yet. This made a really nice space for my paintings, and also holds my large canvas printer paper. The only problems I have with the whole set-up is... one it doesnt hold my large printer (have to create a new space for it in our bedroom) right now it is on the floor to the left of the actual computer. Two, that plug in above the wainscoating... why in the world would there be a plug in up there? It seems so odd to me. Unless there was a microwave cabinet there at one time? Anyhow I think I am going to use a flat extension cord and maybe hang a painting over the wires if it bugs me too much. :)

Here it is with the doors open. See how much stuff  managed to get in here? Soo happy about that! Oh- and I put an old number 4 (house number) inside the lamp shade, and the silhouette looked kinda neat. :) Something else I plan to do, is print some pictures to go in the doors of the bookcase. The black background comes out so you can mount stuff between the glass. Some people have used fabric and customized they're doors. The possibilities really are endless.

and last... here is the little desk that could. :) Its called that Goliat, and though it is little, it really has some great storage possibilities. It holds my canvas paper, plastic sleeves, cardboard, priority mail envelopes, scanner printer combo, computer, and this handy box of drawers also from ikea.  Eventually I am going to move my scrapbooking stuff from our bedroom and into the utitlity room, and when I do I will be moving this computer into the bedroom, (along with the wide format printer) and using my touchsmart here. The touchsmart has a bigger screen (22") so it will take up more top space, but I wont have a computer taking up space below. :)

wheewww, that was along post. If you made it this far, kudos to you! :)

p.s. that big surprise I have been teasing you with should be up in the next couple of days, so be on the lookout for that!! :)

Our home... some history

I dont think I have ever posted before pictures of the girls' room... or very many before pictures of the house at all... but believe you me... I definitely have them. To say this house was thrashed would be somewhat of an understatement. I can still remember standing in the front yard of the house, after a quick showing of the house. We had asked my parents to come along for a second opinion... and I can still hear my dad saying "it looks like a big job" He was sooo right, but we were MORE then determined to make this house work.

The house was built in 1892, and was loaded with character... but it had ended up as a bank foreclosure, and we purchased it through HUD so we got a really good deal on the home. We had just 3 weeks to make the house livable. We did all the work ourselves, only enlisting help from family and friends. Trin spent quite a bit of her time at Grandma's while I painted and did odd things during the day. At night Jaydon would come home and we would work on the house until 2-3:00 in the morning. She also spent some time with me watching a portable dvd player in this little play pen. :) She was such a good baby.

isnt she soo cute? :)

Here is a side by side of the room from a similar angle. The doors still need refinished. It took us a bunch of work, but we did get it done just in the nick of time. There are some things that still need finished. The kitchen for one... and the utility room, but I couldnt be happier with how everything else turned out.

Here is the bathroom before (after tearing up the old floor) Can you believe that trim?

and after... This really isnt the best picture, but you get the idea. ;)

Here is the girls' room again, their shoe cabinets finally installed. Along with the hooks from ikea. She has a few of these princess dresses, and they are always getting switched out. The artwork is by Trin, and hangs on a nail. This way I can switch out her new paintings without actually removing or touching the hanging frame. Love that! After months I can almost officially say her room is done. I say almost because we do still have (1) major task to accomplish... the restoration of those original hardwoord floors. We already have the stain, it is just a matter of finding the time.

Here is the wardrobe project I had posted about MONTHS ago. This picture shows the lines in place, and the birds where they were going to stay. :) It was actually super easy to get them applied. The hardest part was mapping out where exactly I wanted everything to go. I purchased these from one up designs on etsy. He was super nice to work with, and lengthened the lines a little for me at no additional charge. :) I was able to split the lines in half this way, and apply it as shown. :)

 Here is a close up of the birds on their hinged tape. :)

and at last the final project!!! I love how it turned out, a simple way to dress up an ikea wardrobe. The one you see here is the Odda Wardrobe I love it to pieces, it has a BUNCH of room inside, I'll have to take pictures. We set it up so that Journey has closet space on one side, and Trin on the other. :)

This last picture I thought was kinda neat. Mirrors also from Ikea. I believe they are labeled as the Krabb mirror.
 

I also jumped on the bandwagon, and organized Trinity's books by color. :) We'll see how long they stay that way... I'll try and post more before and afters, and also get in some more detailed shots of the room. :)