A Whole New World

Quite figuratively, really.

This summer my attention has been grabbed by the family room.  I am so incredibly ready to use this room, so I keep adding just little touches every once in a while to keep the momentum going.

A few weeks ago I ordered my first item ever from Etsy.  It was exciting, it was thrilling.  And I found exactly what I wanted for not much money.

Any guesses on what I ordered?  Pillow?  Rug?  Adorable bow for our niece?

Well, if you were to have used deduction from the title of this post, then you probably figured out it wasn’t any of those things.  I bought us an old school map.  And it’s really cool.

It sat in the box for a bit mainly because I needed Adam’s help to hang it.  Why?  Because he’s a giant.

When we first bought our home, it was rumored there still might be a map in the storage area.  But when I put on my big girl pants and looked under the dark, creepy stairs, I didn’t find anything except for dead spiders.  For the past few months I have been on the hunt for something to pay homage to our home’s past.

Batta boom, batta bing.  Done.

When it came to hanging the map it was pretty straight forward.  After taking a trip to our local hardware store, we were ready.

The first step was to drill a small hole one either side to use as a pilot hole for the screw in the picture hanging set.  After that the anchor screws were screwed in and we measure the wire and tied it to the other end.

Once we decided on how high we wanted to hang the map, we (ahem, Adam) nailed the anchor nail into place.

I knew it would be secure at the top, but I was a little worried about the bottom of the map not being secured to the wall.  The image of a small child coming by and grabbing it came to mind.  So I had Adam anchor these mirror anchors to either side to hopefully prevent that from happening.

All in all, the entire project took right around 20 minutes.  Definitely an easier project for the two of us!

We’re getting so much closer to being done with this room.  Soooo close!

Left on the to-do list is:

*paint trim on south wall

*wood burning insert in fireplace

*build bookshelves to flank fireplace

Woo hoo!!

Elves on our Shelves

There’s something about knowing school is right around the corner that makes me go into hyper mode when it comes to getting our house in tip-top shape.  This school year will be especially time consuming.  Why?  I’m going back to school to earn my reading specialist certificate and I will have 23 kids this year.

Twenty.  Three.

WHOA.

So, I’m looking around the house looking for things that could possibly distract me.  Our bookshelves in our family room were driving me nuts.  Not literally, but every time I would walk by I really didn’t like the way they looked.  Using inspiration from Younghouse Love, I decided to take an hour or so and spiff ’em up a bit.  (You can find their first book here!)

First step I took was to clear the shelves and dust.  The shelves hadn’t been dusted since the basement remodel was finished.  That meant we had drywall dust and other kinds of dust that was produced.  It was gross.

The main reason I didn’t like the shelves is because of how cluttered they looked.  Plus, there were books sitting on the shelves that we didn’t really need anymore.  TIME TO PURGE!!

Once the books were cleared off and sorted into a keep or get rid of pile I began to follow the suggestion of Younghouse Love by starting with a vertical layering of books.  It was after that I added some personal mementos to add interest.  Yes, we’ll be watching tv down here and not staring at our bookshelves, but no one wants to look at boring bookshelves.  🙂  And I mean no one.

At this stage I was kind of liking where it was going.  But I definitely had to tweak things to make sure we still had access to books we needed.  #firstworldprobs

I don’t have much education when it comes to decorating, so I’m sure I’m breaking all kinds of rules, but I’ve learned if I like it, I like it.

Last winter when we made the trip to IKEA we bought the magazine holders and media boxes you see on some of the shelves.

I am getting a little better about updating pictures around the house.  This picture above is pretty special to me.  Almost all of my mom’s siblings are in it just months before one her older brothers passed away.  Plus the smile my grandma has on her face is pretty awesome.

I can’t wait until we can hang our larger tv on the wall.  But it won’t be until a new roof is put on and an antennae installed that we can finally make that switch.  Otherwise we would have a large black rectangle hanging on our wall showing an occasional picture.  Thrilling!

Overall, I’m happy with the final product and am no longer antsy over the shelves.  So, I have to ask, is there anything around your house that you have to put in order before you can do anything else?

Lightin’ It Up!

This family room is going to get finished before I retire.

Seriously.

I keep making a few changes here and there mainly to keep the momentum going.  Because objects that are in motion stay in motion.  It’s science.

After cleaning out our storage areas a few weeks ago, I came across a large lamp.  Being in the purging mood, I immediately put it in the give-away pile.  One more thing outta the house!  But, then I really looked at it and realized the family room needs a beefy lamp and this one was already ours.  Why buy another one?

I have the matching lamp upstairs by the couch, but this poor guy had just been sitting in a plastic tub for the last four years.  Everyone together… awwwww.

After this find I had to make a trip into town and one of the stops included Target.  I hate it when I have to run errands.  😉  I love stalking shopping the clearance aisle.  And that fateful day in Target was no exception.  Why?  Because I found this!

And all of God’s people said AMEN.

Once the lampshade made it back to our abode, the next decision was what spray paint to use.

Decisions, decisions.

Don’t worry this one was kind of easy.  I didn’t want a color that would compete with our media cabinet, but I did want a color that would make a little bit of a statement.

I am really digging this color.  A few months ago I picked up a wicker chair from the side of the road someone wanted to throw away and painted it this color.  It looks awesome.  And it looks even better in my classroom.  So, I knew the color would look really sharp on the lamp.

I took it outside to the spray paining spot.  I wish I was kidding.  There’s a patch of dead grass that I’ve claimed as mine for projects.  Adam is happy to oblige.  🙂

Two coats of spray paint, lamp shade placed, and lamp set on the side table later the lamp has found its place.

So I have to ask, should I paint the cord?  Or just leave it?

Hope you have an awesome weekend!

Roll Out!

On my Facebook page I posted about a picture of our new rug that had just come in the mail.  It really was not nice of me to just show you a picture of our new rolled up rug and not show you with it in use.  Shame.  Shame.

Even with it still rolled up, it’s a beaut.

This purchase wasn’t necessarily an inexpensive purchase.  We waited until we had the cash save up and until we received one of these in our inbox:

I had been looking at this very rug for a while, so I knew when we were finally able to purchase, it was exactly what we wanted.

Here I go again, talking about it instead of showing you.  So here ya go!  Here it is in action!

See my green tractor stool?  Ahhh!!  Every time I walk by it, it makes me smile.

It makes me so excited to see this room coming together!  When we walked through our house for the very first time, this is the room that made me really feel like we could make this building a home.  It’s taken me almost 7 years to make it into the room I know it can become.  There are a few more things I would like to do to really finish it off.  Such as, adding trim, putting in a wood burning insert in the chimney, and adding shelves on either side of the fireplace for more storage. But… We are getting there!!!!!

Oh, you wanted one more close up of the rug?  Eh, can’t blame ya.  😉

This rug is super comfortable to walk on and not at all scratchy.  Every time I showed Adam a rug that had potential his main concern was about being able to walk on the rug without shoes.  This rug has met his high expectations!

Something else I would like to show you in another blog post is how I turned this:

Into this:

And, yes, we do plan on putting our larger tv down here.  I’m not sure you would even be able to see the picture if you sat on the couch.  Unless you had a magnifying glass…

So, what do you think?  Did I make a mistake?  Any one else out there buying rugs?  Who else is a fan of green tractor stools?

Family Room

I need to give a big “Thank you” to the response for the Family post.  I was blown away by the comments and even seeing how many people read the post.  Whoa!  According to my stats there were over 500 people who visited the site.  Wow.  A big time wow.  Thank you so much for your support.  So very much.

So, maybe it’s only natural that I want to focus my attention to another area in our house; our family room.  Or maybe because it’s current state is drivin’ me crazy.  Which one do you think?

Can I get an amen?

A few weekends ago, I actually had some time to go through some of the piles and put a few things away.  But I was still left with a pile.  Smaller.  But a pile none the less.  Ugh.

But tonight I wanted to take some time to dream.  To dream what this room will look like six months from now.  Why six months?  I don’t know for sure.  Probably because I feel like that’s enough time to really get things accomplished in this room so we can finally use it as a family room.  Finally.

My first dream is our entertainment area.  The last time I showed you a picture I showed you I pushed the two bookcases (that Mr. Handsome made, I might add…) around the buffet.  That left a good spot for our tv to be hung on the wall.  Or set on the top of the buffet.

Regardless, it will be set between two decluttered bookshelves.  At this point I plan on restaining the top and trying my hand at milk painting.  Oh, and the trim?  Yep.  That’s going up.  More on that in a bit.

Swinging to the left of the entertainment center is our fire place.

We would love to install a new wood insert so the fire place will actually be functional.  On nights like tonight, I can’t wait to have a roaring fire going.  Baby, it’s cold outside!

Swinging again to your left, you’ll see our desk.

Don’t mind the clutter.  The bookshelf behind the desk holds all of our notebooks for committees and boards as well as other “officey” stuff.  My goal with this corner of the room is to add a sturdier shelf (this one is made out of barn wood and isn’t the best for holding heavy items.  So, I can’t sit on it…) and a larger shelf.  Plus, I would also like to get a chair for the desk that’s stylish and cheap.  Probably more on the cheap side.

Going back to trim.  Oh, the trim.

Our goal is to install trim in the room, but I found out today this is going to be more of a challenge.  Why?  Because not only will we have to glue to trim to the poured concrete wall, but also because we’ll have to pre-drill holes into the wall before screwing the trim in every few feet.  If Adam hasn’t appreciated me before, then I don’t know when he will.  What’s more fun than predrilling holes into a concrete wall?  That’s right, getting shots in your eye nothing.

Anything else I need to include in our family room?  You know, like a sports bar?  Something else I should consider?

The School House Switch-A-Roo

The last time I left you with a basement update, the bathroom looked like this:

A bit rough and in need of a “homey” touch.

This past weekend, Adam and I moved a ton of stuff around the house.  All of the stuff that was in our guest room was moved out so we could get the guest bed moved into our new guest bedroom.  Among all the stuff was a lot of my decoration items.  Which meant I could take the bathroom from blah to bla-mazing!

And while we are at it, we also hung a few pictures up in our bedroom and did a few tweaks.  Here’s a peak:

I am still on the lookout for a new comforter.  Something with navy blue in it.  Kind of like this.

We are really enjoying our new bedroom!  So comfy, so cozy, so clean.. so new!

Oh, yeah.  Back to the bathroom.  (That darn bedroom gets me every time 🙂 )  It looks quite a bit different from the original picture.  Which, in my opinion, is a good thing.  A really good thing.  Here’s what we are living with now:

There are a few things on the bathroom to-do list which include:

*storage baskets for the shelf

*lengthen the fabric shower curtain

Unless I wanted to spend over a $100 on a shower curtain, I couldn’t get one that was long enough for where we wanted to hang the rod.  So, I have to alter this one.  And I have a plan!  Be on the lookout for a blog post soon.

With our items moved around, that meant we were able to put things where they will stay.  No more moving around!

Our closet storage now holds ALL of our sheets and quilts.  Every last one of ’em.

The family room needs a lot of organization, but I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Cluttered?  Yes.  Is everything down here the room needs?  Yes.  One of these weekends I’ll get to it.

Here’s another view of the family room.  My inspiration came from this post.  Once I have things in place, I think it will look a lot better.  Right now it looks really weird.  I also want to do a paint job like this from Bower Power on the buffet.  You can’t tell from the picture, but it’s in bad shape.  We bought if off of Craigslist almost two years ago on the cheap.  And there’s a reason why it was cheap.  If ya know what I mean… 😉

Going back upstairs, our old guest bedroom looks really well put together.

I’m surprised we don’t have more people who want to stay the night.  Hmmmm…. On the other hand, our new guest bedroom looks like this:

I am on the search for a night stand.  There was one of the Wal Mart sight I have my eye on, but I’m going to look a bit more before I really settle on something.  The mud marks are from where we took down the window that hung above our bed.  I’m not sure where it will go next, but it wouldn’t fit above the bed anymore so down it went.

So, there ya have it!  Our big switch-a-roo around our school house.  What do you think about our family room?  Any suggestions on how we can make our guest room more “guest friendly”?

Go ROYALS!

Picture Show ‘N Tell

I’m here!  I’m here!  I promise.  School started a little over a week ago and I have been up to my eyeballs with school stuff. So, I’m sorry if you have been missing my amazing and oh-so-thrilling blog posts.  🙂 

The last few weeks have been pretty quiet around here when it comes to home improvement things.  It took a bit longer than anticipated for our Onyx surround to come in and our electrician took FOR-EVA to come back and finish!  Without those things being incomplete, our construction guys couldn’t begin the finishing touches.  However, we were able to help them out by painting (yes, PAINTING!) the newly finished walls.  We spent between the two of us six hours both Friday and Saturday night Labor Day weekend priming and painting all of the walls.  Sunday saw a long nap from both of us.  We were tired.  Pooped.  Exhausted.  Spent.  

 

You probably noticed the hallway wall doesn’t look like we finished it.  Where you see the white is where our hallway shelves have been built.  Yep, you read that right.  They have been built and are now installed.  Woot, woot!!

 

This picture is such a breath of fresh air.  But, wait, I’m not done showing you pictures!  🙂

The only progress in our basement were painted walls for about a week.  Earlier this week, work started back up again.  This is what we now have in our basement:

Our new shower surround.  The surround extends from the floor all the way up to the ceiling.  It feels super luxurious.  

Our new light fixture in the bathroom.  The globes resemble the original globes in our house and produce great light.  

 

The globes will be shining bright on this beauty of a counter top.  The counter top and the shower match in color and look really nice with the green walls.

Last, but, not least is our vanity.  At this stage it’s just a shell (the doors will be built later this week), but we are very excited about the wood stain.  Take a look at this detail on the drawer:

 

Moving just outside the bathroom, you’ll see our new hall closet:

Remember the area that we didn’t paint in the hallway?  This bad boy was why.  Ain’t it pretty?  When we were planning the shelves we knew we wanted wider shelves on the bottom for quilts and blankets.  The shelves in the upper part are narrower because it’s on those shelves where bed sheets will be stored.  Or paint thinner and caulk.

There aren’t too many major transformations in our room.  

Take a look at our cans.  Er, can lights.  And this is the true color of the room.  Every other picture I took made the room look way too blue and not enough grey.  

Who is excited about a new closet organizer?  This gal!

Last, but certainly not least, our doors will be hung later this week or early next week.  Would you believe these doors are $175 less than the doors I originally picked out?  All because the panels were raised.  That’s it.  Adam was really proud of me for choosing the less expensive doors.  Heck, so was I!

While I am SO excited to see this area of our house progress, I am even more excited to clean up this area:

It’s driving me crazy!

So, what do you think?  Anyone else thinking we should put in a fairy garden in the egress window?  No?  🙂

-J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peeping Toms

Apparently the turkeys in our yard wanted a peek into our basement.  

I can’t blame them with all the work that’s been going on down there this week.  Take a look:

You are looking at the south wall of our family room.  For the six years we have lived in the house, there was a door frame off centered on this wall.  Now, we have a full wall complete with three outlets!!  THREE!!  And they work!

 

Our bathroom!  It’s a bit hard to photograph this space due to its size.  I guess that means you’ll have to come over.  🙂  The space you see on the left side of the picture is for a shelf and then plumbing access for the shower.

The bedroom is really shaping up as well!

The closet is also getting me really excited!  It will be so nice to have an organized closet from the get-go.  Woo-hoo!

On another note, this past week Adam and I went on a shopping trip to pick up the last few items we need for the basement project.  They included:

*Toilet

This sucker is a dual flush toilet.  Meaning there are two buttons for #1 or #2.  I never thought I would be excited about a toilet. But this one’s worth raising a stink over and we’re flushed with excitement.  😉

*Faucet

*Vanity Light

Going with the “theme” of our school house, we thought this light was a true nod to our home’s history.  Plus with the chrome finish, it looks pretty good with the faucet and shower head.  We also bought a towel rod, toilet paper holder, and hand towel holder in the same finish.  They.  Look.  Good.  

*Floor Tile

This may look familiar to some.  The tile we chose is the same style as our tile in the upstairs bathroom.  Only the upstairs tile is black and white.  I chose a navy striped shower curtain and I didn’t think the black and white would look very good with the curtain.  

We also picked up a closet organizer at Lowe’s.  It is the allen + roth storage system.  To say we really like the look is an understatement.  It’s classy, it’s dark, it’s us.  Probably except for the classy part…

While we feel we have quite a few big items crossed off of our list, something that I still want to look for are hand towels.  And not just any hand towels, but unique ones.  I have done a bit of looking via internet, but was wondering, does anyone out there know where I can find unique towels that don’t cost a lot?  The colors I’m looking for are navy and green.  Any suggestions?  

-J

It’s ‘Bout Time!!

The end of this summer should see the finished product of a project we have been waiting a long time to accomplish.  Adding a second bathroom and a third bedroom to our humble abode!  Even though there are only two of us living in this house along with two eccentric cats, a second bathroom would have been handy fairly often.  Thank goodness we live in the country and can use the good ole outdoors when necessary. A-hem.  

With our house’s original intent to be a school, there is a raised platform area in the basement.  Over the years it’s been a junk room, an “office space”, and then a place that only houses on of our freezer.  It’s a bit pathetic and it’s time to get this bad boy whipped into shape! 

A few months ago, we had an architect friend come over and take a few measurements of the space.  Before he came out, Adam and I discussed what we wanted and how we thought the plan of adding a bedroom and bathroom would go.  It was so nice to have a professional’s help with something like this.  He gave us insight on things that we probably would have had to learn the hard way.  

This is the drawing of what it will look like:

 

I tried to scan the document, but our scanner decided to be a bit temperamental.  I opted for the classy option and took a picture of it.  🙂

Our hope is that a local construction group can come out by the end of the summer to do everything we don’t want to do/can’t do because of our skill set.  This includes:

*framing/drywall

*plumbing

*ripping into the concrete floor to access plumbing

*dirt work around the foundation to install an egress window

*installing said egress window

What we are planning to do on our own at this point is to:

*install vanity in bathroom

*install tile

*paint

*add trim

For some reason I have it in my head that everything will be done by the time we had back to school.  Not sure why, but a girl can dream, right?

It may be quite a few months away, but while shopping with my mom I came across some really neat bathroom accessories I couldn’t pass up.  

 

I found a really neat toilet paper holder (who would’ve thought anyone would ever type that sentence?), cup holder, and toothbrush holder.  Whenever I see a toothbrush holder like this it always reminds me of my grandma’s bathroom when I was growing up.  Sentimental much?  🙂

 

 

The upper set of white things is a towel bar.  There was a dowel rod that came with it that I’m pretty certain I’ll replace.  The bottom two complete a towel bar.  However, my plan is to use them as a towel hook.  

If I were to be honest, we don’t even have a paint color picked out.  So it was pretty gutsy of me to buy these without 

a.)  consulting Adam

b.)  not really knowing what kind of color we want in the bathroom

As you can tell in the plans above, there won’t be a window in the bathroom.  Which means I’m going to have to do everything I can to keep things nice and airy.  And that probably means a light paint color.

While I was picking out a few colors for the chicken coop, I went ahead and picked up some color options for the bathroom as well.  I am definitely not sold on any of them, but what do you think?  

 

This journey is far from over, so stayed tune to see how this venture turns out!  

Keepin’ the Home Fires Lit

When we stepped into our house the first time, I knew this was our home because of the room downstairs.  I fell in love.  With the room, that is.  I was already in love with someone else. 😉  It was large and I could envision us creating it into a room that we would share with family.  

 

 

As you can tell, this room needed lots of love.  And it still does.  Even though we’re closer to making this room the family room of our dreams, there are still have a few things to do to accomplish this goal.  

But a few weeks ago, we were able to put a few finishing touches of the fireplace to make it what we have been envisioning.  A few years ago, I painted the brick white to give it a new look.  There was no way I wanted to take the time stripping the paint off of the brick.  Oh, you thought the bricks were that bright red?  I thought so to until I got closer and saw the bricks were painted.  And what I thought was really clean mortar was in fact painted white lines.  Once I painted the brick, it sat like this for 2 1/2 years.

 

 

Better, but not only could the fireplace use a bit of ‘styling’, it just needed a bit more love.  I had pinned a few fireplaces inspiration on Pintrest that had horizontal paneling.  The look was really neat, but knowing our paneling wasn’t that bad, I didn’t really want to add extra cost to the project.  We had the primer, paint, and the brushes.  All we needed was the time.

After our spring parent/teacher conferences, I went downstairs and cleared off the mantel and hearth.  When Adam got home from his conferences, he put a coat of primer on before we went to bed.  The next morning the fireplace was ready for another coat of primer before we could put the paint on.

 

For someone who hates painting, Adam was a great help.

 

So after two coats of primer and two coats of paint, we have a better looking fireplace.

 

Before I say the fire place is done, I still have a little list to accomplish:

*add trim around the top and bottom of the fireplace

*clean out the fireplace.  Right now it’s pretty sooty.  

*take out the candle holders and replace it with the log holder (the log holder is currently outside being covered in snow)

*style the mantel

*do something with the conduit.  

So family and friends, hopefully this time next year we’ll be spending time in this room.  Keepin’ those home fires lit!