Trim and My New Dining Room!

My trim is DONE! Well, the living room and dining room are done (I ran out of paint…EXPENSIVE paint, so my kitchen didn’t get touched).  It looks amazing.  I was totally crazy to do this during our insane holiday, but in a way it was a good deadline because we were having lots of company and so it had to be done.  (And, I still have to paint all the quarter round…but again, no more paint). 

And my fireplace looks 100 times better!  Still trying to talk Josh into letting me paint the brick and now the ugly red tile on the floor stands out even more, but the mantle looks fabulous!

(If you look closely in this pic you can see the trim of the playroom door to see what my trim looked like before).

A shot of the dining room trim.

AND, in the last few days I’ve totally redecorated my dining room.  I got this for Christmas from my sissy and her hubs….

It’s huge and awesome and casts cool shadows.  I. LOVE. IT. 

After I hung this I checked online at the table I’ve had my eye on.  AND IT WAS GONE.  NO LONGER AVAILABLE.  I was so devasted.  I know it’s just a table, but I knew it was THE ONE for my space.  It was perfect, exactly what I had been wanting.  And now CB2 was no longer carrying it.  My sweet Joshie immediately jumped on the phone and tracked down the last 3 tables available.  They were sitting in a warehouse in KC!!  So, we piled in the car on Saturday and picked it up!  And these lovely chairs are from Target! A 2-pack for $70!  They are surprisingly sturdy and durable for the price. (Remember my kitchen chairs?  Yeah, they were $70 apiece.  UGH! Wish I had known about these then!)

 I love the shadows that this fixture casts!  (Liam says they look like spiders, so that’s not cool, but the rest of us like it!)

T-R-I-M

Tonight is the night!!  In a few short hours I’ll be taking the quarter round off our floor trim in our living room and sanding the heck out of all of it.  I’M. SO. EXCITED!!!!!

My goal is to have the living room finished by this weekend, and the dining room and kitchen trim done by next week.  I know it’s the craziest time of year to be doing stuff like this, but Josh is off a bunch the next few weeks so it’s a perfect time for projects!

I’ll hopefully have finished trim pictures to post this weekend!  (Now if only I could talk him into letting me paint the fireplace………..)

The 2nd Floor

Our house is weird.  It’s a weird design and it got even weirder when the addition was put on years ago.  Technically, our house is considered a ranch.  BUT, we have a second story over a tiny part of our house.  From what we can tell, it’s original.  The trim and flooring matches up with the rest of the house.  At some point since 1920, the second floor was turned into an apartment.  It has kind of an efficiency/studio thing going on.  It has a living area/bedroom, a tiny hallway that connects to the kitchen, and a dinky bathroom. 

The guy who rented out that space from the previous owner didn’t have much furniture except a mattress on the floor and 2 cats.  Fun stuff.  And, like the rest of the house, it too was filthy.  When we moved in, we just used the upstairs for storage.   Two weeks ago, we got a desperate call from Josh’s brother asking for a place to live.  He’s been fighting God and recently is starting to turn his life around.   We have the ideal set-up for him here.  He can have his own bedroom/kitchen/bath and be totally separate from us if he wants, or he can come downstairs and be a part of our family.  So we painted our butts off for like 10 days straight getting everything ready.  Unfortunately we didn’t get the kitchen set up before he needed to move in, but at least it’s clean and fresh!

Here are some shots of the apartment before we bought the house.  The bedroom/living room before (notice all the cat stuff):

And after: 

The kitchen before:

 The appliances were GROSS.  The counter was a weird height.  Taller than normal, but with no cabinets underneath.  When we tore out the counter, we found that it was being held up by old flooring and scrap wood.  Quality. 

The kitchen isn’t too much to look at yet.  BUT, it’s amazing how much better fresh paint can make things.  We’re looking for cabinets and small apartment size appliances.  I think black cabinets would be sharp with the gray walls, but we’ll see what we find.

The bath:

After (there’s not much we could do in here but paint and scrub.  Josh still has to install the new toilet).

This was  a totally unplanned project right now, but it feels SO good to have it done (almost done).  Now all we have left to do is drywall our main floor hallway and replace our floors and we’ll be DONE with the indoor projects.  I am already anxious for spring to arrive so we can begin work on the exterior.  Oh boy those will make for some good posts (especially the one where Josh decides to take down our giant walnut tree himself).  Stay tuned!

The OTHER Half Part 1

Finally here are pictures of the OTHER half of our house.  We’ve been living in one half of it this past year because EVERY room needed so much work.    I also must say that this side of the house was G-R-O-S-S.  The guy who rented it out lived like a pig.  Literally.  There was trash and food everywhere.  We rented  a dumpster and shoveled the sh** out the window.  It was that bad.  And the smell.  Oh the smell. **

The Master Bedroom before (only one shot because we were in a hurry to get out of there)

 And after….

 The paint color is called Sealskin and as you can see it’s really dark.  I LOVE IT.  Josh originally only wanted me to paint one wall, but after I did that, he decided it was awesome and let me paint the whole room.  After that, we decided to leave it at one coat because the white wall kind of came through and gave it that erased chalkboard look.   Josh also designed and made the platform bed.  (with plans to stain it a dark gray).  Bedding is from Dwell’s Target line and I actually bought that months ago, so it was the design piece I worked everything else around.

 My amazing wood-working dad made this floating night stand for my birthday.  I’d seen it in CB2 and knew he could make one for a lot cheaper.  The drawer folds down for more storage.  Genius and way cool!  And thanks to a little white spray paint, the branches from my sister’s wedding really pop.

Audrey finally has a permanent home.  She goes beautifully with the wall color (but then again, pretty sure Audrey Hepburn goes with anything!)

The door that you see me walking out of in the before pic used to be the door into the bedroom.  It is now the door into our walk-in closet.   (This is a dream come true.  We have ALWAYS lived in old houses and old houses ALWAYS have very tiny closets.  We have never had a nice closet or even one together for that matter).  Obviously I’m still painting all the trim in here and the knobs still need to be finished.  The door on the left USED to be the bedroom closet and when tearing out walls, we realized that it was the original doorway into the room.  This house has been remodeled and added onto so many times that we are still trying to figure out the first floor plan.  By adding the walk-in (we cut into the former kitchen) we are now using the original doorway to enter our room. 

 

** Nasty kitchen/newly remodeled laundry room pics coming soon!

The Nursery and Playroom

Whew! I’m back to blogging on Forest!  Due to some changes in situations and the fact that we FINALLY have a renter for one of our other properties, we (Josh) were able to start work again on our master bedroom, closet, and laundry room.  Apart from some trim work and painting that needs to be finished, they are DONE!!!  (Pictures to come in the next week or two!)

BUT………. the most important rooms that needed to be done immediately were the nursery and the playroom (for Gav’s Son-Rise program).  Sweet Joshie spent the better part of a night while I was in the hospital with Tate setting up the nursery.  We had been sleeping in that room while our master was being worked on, but now that the babe was here, we wanted to get his room together.  So, he did a little reshuffling of our bed into what is now the playroom in order to set up the crib and get the baby stuff organized.  (I had forgotten just HOW MUCH baby stuff we had until it was all piled in that little room). 

The nursery before (again, these are pics we took before the previous owner moved out.  This is NOT our creepy stuff)……..

(Matt, our realtor, and my arm)

And Tate’s room after…….

 

My mom made the sweet bird mobile, the square pillow, and the cutie curtains. (If you look close enough, I took these shots while Tate was sleeping! Oh newborns, they sleep through anything).  AND, I heart this Ikea LACK shelf.  I have plans to buy several more for our bedroom.

My favorite part about his room is this:

 I had seen this at Pottery Barn

but it was 6 feet long.  WAY too big for Tate’s little room.  My genius design friend, Carrie, was able to modernize it and make it just perfect for his room.  Isn’t she good?!

And here’s the play room now.  We just hung the swing last week (another super cool Ikea purchase) and this is now where Gav spends a good portion of his week. 

Signing Off

I’m going to be taking a wee break from this blog for a while.  We’ve had to switch gears and work on one of our other properties in order to put it on the market by September.  So, sadly, our master bedroom/laundry/walk-in closet project has to sit unfinished for a time.  I’ll post again when we’re back at it over here.

Demolition Man

Again, sorry for such a HUGE lull in news.  I hadn’t realized it had been early June when I posted last!   We have officially entered the BIGGEST project of our house remodel so far (the most challenging, most time consuming, most expensive, etc etc). 

But first, I DID paint my front door like I mentioned in my last post and I LOVE it!  It’s true name is “Luau Green” but every time I look at it I think of guacamole.  Yum!   This project ended up taking a week as opposed to the two days I thought it would.  Sigh…..that’s always how it goes; I should know better by now!  The old hardware did not come off easily (it’s 89 years old and has been painted who knows how many times).  Holes needed to be filled and the new hardware did not go on as easily as the box said it would.  Oh well, it’s done now.  (Except I still have to do ALL the trim on the porch.  That’s a project for AFTER baby).  And that’s a weird reflection in the glass.  I DO NOT have plaid curtains hanging on the other side!

And drumroll please………………………………………………….

 This is the current state of our master bedroom/bath, laundry room, and walk-in closet.  Nice, huh?   This was originally the kitchen and bedroom of one of the other apartments.  We (Josh-do you like how I always throw “we” around as though I’m in the trenches with him?) will be moving doorways, plumbing, electrical, making a hallway, building walls and re-doing the floors.  I’m tired just looking at these pictures! 

We weren’t originally going to do anything to the bedroom except paint, but as Josh got started, he realized the walls had absolutely NO insulation and that does not work in a house this old.  (I always wonder why houses were built in 1920 without insulation.  It was cold back then too.  Weird!)   So, the walls came down along with all the nasty plaster and lathe-such a dirty mess. 

Josh is currently having some electrical dilemmas, so “we” are at a standstill with putting up walls until those issues get resolved.   Stay tuned!

The Finished Product (well, almost)

The sun room is done!  Well, almost done.  Josh’s dad is coming over soon to help with the built-in shelves, we still need to hang the tv, and paint the radiator.  Other than that, I have gorgeous walls and windows that I’m not afraid to show off!

This is the wall that was SO bad before.  Josh does good work!

My favorite part about this room is all the white trim.  It really makes the windows stand out and for some reason it makes the room feel bigger, even with dark walls. After doing this room, I’m so excited to paint the rest of the trim in the house.

And we decided that we are no longer keeping toys in here.  Josh is moving his desk from the office to a bedroom upstairs and we will soon be turning the office  into the playroom.  I have some fun ideas and I’m anxious to get going on that project.

But first, I just bought some fun green paint and I’m planning to paint our front door this weekend.  Can’t wait to see how that turns out!

The Office

For my kids, if you call something a name once, that’s what it is forever. So, I guess this is “the office”. Such a formal name and not much work gets done in here, but what else are we going to call it?

This room is on the other side of the house from the main living space. It was part of the original floor plan in 1920, but at some point along the way it was divided into an apartment. This was the living room of that apartment. (The guy knew the house was being viewed the day we walked through to take pictures and he either didn’t clean at all, or this is what he calls clean. Just wait until you see his kitchen! I’m saving that for another day though!)

AFTER…..

This wall may eventually come out when we redo the hallway/front entry.  That’s the front door you see in the picture and we may make this a more open space.  That’s still up for debate though because if we go that route, then this cannot ever be used for a bedroom.  (We do have two more rooms upstairs but those have easy access to the roof and I will soon have three boys).  Think about that for a minute…………….

And, my lovely friend Carrie (who is also my inspiration for the nursery) did this picture for me.  It’s actually a birthday card I found at a local shop.  I loved the picture and colors, but it needed to be bigger and text needed to be removed.  Being the design pro that she is, she made it the perfect art piece for this room.

Oh yeah. And I should probably mention the ceiling in this room.  It was fine.  Then we had the roof redone and during the time the shingles were off, we had a bad rainstorm and this happened…………….

We came over one night to work before we had moved in and I kept hearing a dripping noise.  And then I looked up.  Due to the elasticity in the latex paint, the rain that had gotten in collected and began to form this giant bubble.  It seriously looked like an alien was trying to get into our house.  I was just glad we found it before it burst all over the room.

Now our ceiling looks like this from where Josh carefully cut the “bubble” down………

It will require some major patching and probably a whole new textured ceiling.  They’re on the to-do list, just not a huge priority at the moment.

BUT, the sun room is coming along nicely!  And the very best part is that I FINALLY get to paint all my trim!  I’ve always wanted to paint it (there’s nothing better in a room than bright white trim), but Josh likes the stained wood look. After our new windows he declared that he’d be ok with me painting the trim. I’m thrilled (also slightly bummed because that’s a HUGE job and I’m not going to tackle that project until after baby comes).

The Porch, Mother’s Day, and Windows

So this is kind of a combo blog.  We’ve been busy at our house these past few weeks.  Most of Josh’s free time is spent working on our other properties, so it’s been nice to finally get back to our massive project.

First I have been itching to paint all winter and now that it’s nice, I finally painted our porch.  The boys LOVE playing out here and it’s great in the evenings after dark.  I love this space.  It was just gross…..and old-man smelly.

Before….

(sorry, this is the only shot I have)

After…………..

(sorry for the dark shots)  I painted the walls Goose Down (my all-time favorite paint color) and Josh installed new windows last week.  I have yet to paint the trim (white) and the front door.  I’m still debating the color of the door.  I kind of like the green it is, but it’s pretty chewed up so it will need a fresh coat whatever color I decide.  I was also thinking dark teal. Hmmmm….decisions, decisions.  We also will be installing new flooring (yet to be determined-maybe tile or my favorite alligator flooring?) and we’ll be putting corrugated metal sheeting on the ceiling for a more modern look.  Still a lot to do, but it looks so much better and the funny smell is gone.

Last Friday, my dear, sweet, wonderful husband asked me to help him move the furniture out of the sun room.   His Mother’s Day gift to me was new drywall!  I’m sure most of you think this sounds crazy, but here’s why it was the best present ever………

When we moved in, this room was covered in dark brown wood paneling (sorry no before pics).  Very dated and very ugly.  So we immediately tore the paneling down and this is what awaited us underneath.  Years of water damage from a leaky roof.  Instead of fixing the problem, the previous owner just covered it up.   So, I’ve had to look at this wall for the last several months and it’s really fun explaining it to people when they come over.  That’s why new drywall was the best present ever!

AND today, we got all new windows for this room!  The guys installed all 8 windows in 45 minutes!  Now we just have something like 39 more windows to replace.

Once the drywall is finished, the plan is to paint this room dark red (another favorite).  I’m a sucker for dark walls, especially when there’s a lot of natural sunlight like this room.  More pictures to come!