New pillows, New paint!

We have got some new little friends in the house.  And by friends, I mean, new accessories. I have been working on some small projects around the house, while we are saving money for some larger ones.

Recently, my grandfather gifted me with my grandmother's 1960's Singer sewing machine.  She looks like new and works like it too.  After a few evenings of reading over the manual (almost throwing in the towel) and lessons from my mother in law - I have some new throw pillows for the couch!

I must tell you that the new elephant pillow - I picked her up at Pier 1 on clearance.

I am addicted, people! I picked a simple first project, so that I could have instant gratification.  It worked.  One couch is full of new pillows, while the other one looks "blah" now.  I must push on and sew some new pillows for it - darn...not!

I used 18x18 inch pillow inserts and created a simple envelope closure for the back of the pillow.  I like to be able to take the pillow covers off and throw them in the wash when needed.

Guests are in and out constantly at our new house (welcomed of course)! We are trying to fix up the guest room so our friends and family feel comfortable.  We received an old piano bench that was going to serve as a luggage bench at the foot of the bed in our guest room.  It was definitely in need of some TLC and it came to the right place!

I sanded her down to begin with, then spray painted the whole thing white.  After several light coats and some dry time, I taped off the bottom of each leg.  I used metallic gold spray paint on each leg to add a little pop.  A little more dry time...then some polyurethane spray to top it off.  Our "new" piano bench got two thumbs up from Hubby's parents on their last visit. Hubby and I love tackling big projects - but I also love these little projects that I can do on my own while he is at work.  Sewing machine here I come.

A Master in the Making (Part 1)

Our master bedroom needs a lot of tlc.  Day one of move in we were ripping up the carpet.  I could not live one day with the carpet that was in there.  It was soiled from dogs and had holes and snags everywhere.  Not to mention - I am not sure what the original color of it was.  We lived on plywood for a few weeks while deciding on a new floor.  Day two was paint - our walls were almost a burnt orange with a nice space between the ceiling and walls where the previous owner left room for crown molding.  Sound familiar?  Several walls in our house were left like this.  

After several weeks (possibly months, I have lost track) our new floor arrived.  We purchased our flooring from Lumber Liquidators.  After a lot of searching we went with a laminate floor.  We decided on this because of our dogs and our budget.  I had the barn wood look in my head and this floor was dead on for the look I wanted.  Yes, there are many wood and tile floors out there that we could have got that are barn wood look-a-likes, but we have a budget people!  

We are pleased with the look and have gotten many compliments.  It is very easy to clean and with all the dog traffic - no scratches yet.

Ugly tile alert! Off of our bedroom we have a nice area that leads out to the back yard.  It houses another closet and Hubby is in the process of building me a vanity in this little nook.  It is tiled and leads into the bathroom. The tile will be changed when we start the master bathroom remodel.  I cannot wait to have a beautiful tile matched up right next to our new bedroom floor.

A new coat of paint can do wonders in a room.  With just new paint in every room in our house - it looks like a totally different place.  We used Benjamin Moore's Kendall Charcoal for our master.  Hubby and my dad installed all the crown molding to finish it off.

New closet doors. Our list of master bedroom upgrades: -paint -crown molding -flooring -new electrical plugs and covers -bedding -area rug -head board -bench/chairs at end of bed -closet doors/handles -paint french doors black -curtains on french doors -hide TV cords -vanity Still a lot of things to do ( I am sure the list will grow), but A TON has been completed. I am starting to love walking by our french doors in the dining room that lead to the master.  I do not cringe looking at plywood floors and burnt orange walls anymore. I am about 90% sure that I am not going to frost the doors, just hang curtains so that I can look in when it is not a mess! I know these pictures leave a lot to be desired, but come back for Part 2 of the master bedroom reno soon!

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House of Turquoise

While red is a wonderful color and looks great on many things, my front door is not one of them.  YES, many homes look so charming with a red front door - again, not mine. Guess what? When we bought our home - red door!  Not only did it not look good with the original color of the house, it did not look good with our re-painted house.  When we were house searching I already knew I wanted a turquoise front door.  I was not sure of the shade, but it was going to be turquoise.  I walked up to every door with my eyes squinting, trying to see if I could picture the color change on the door.  We didn't really have that long of a home search before we landed on ours.  Walking up to it - the door color would be changed along with the house color.  So - no worries there.

I thought I had a better "before" picture of the red door, but in all the move and rush of painting - this is as good as it gets.  The bottom right picture is the color of red that was on the outside of the door. A few months down the road after the purchase, when we began to paint the outside of the house - we had a little "snafu" if you will.  I will save you from this story - until another time of course.  Lets just say I was completely re-thinking my whole color scheme including my beloved turquoise door!  Hubby fixed everything (as usual..blah) and I got my door!

We do have a glass storm door that is not pictured.  I have considered removing it (eye sore), but the dogs love it so much when we have the door open because they can look outside and enjoy harass the people and animals that walk by all day! We have plans to paint our porch tile grey.  We will use the outdoor porch paint that we purchased for our striped floors in the craft room.  We had it matched to the outside of the house because we knew we would not use the whole gallon inside.   Don't ya'll just love our gold mail slot?  Yes, that is really how we get our mail!  I have a basket inside to catch everything.

I loved the "after" so much that we decided to paint our side door by the garage.

And our back doors. The dark grey and white trim on our house makes these doors POP! The front door is still red on the inside.  I cannot decide what color to paint it.  Take a look at our living room and give me some help! White, light grey, dark grey, turquoise?  Keep it red? HELP! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Craft Room Progress

The craft room is under way!  In the back of our house (leading out to the backyard) we have another add on room that we really consider a mud room.  It has 3 great doors that have windows top to bottom.  They let in great light.  The room also came with a built in cabinet and counter top.  Since we moved in, the counter top has really only housed Hubby's tools and projects (pretty much an eye sore).  Let's be real.

One day, while standing in the room with my thinking cap on - I decided this was to be my craft room.  I consider myself a crafty person and figured Hubby would like all my crafty things in one spot.  Brilliant.  With built in cabinets already in place - this would be the perfect spot to get messy.

I like to be inspired when working on a project or writing a post.  Nice, pretty, creative things around me usually help!  YES, this room is still in progress, but so far - we have painted of course (this room was an interesting shade of green), we added a solid cedar shelf above the cabinets, I painted the cork board, and we cut out some chicken wire. Still left to do - more storage, shelves for printer and  printer accessories,  I have my eye on some Nate Berkus accessories for the desk.  Also, in time I would like to have this counter top magically turn into a butcher block (maybe when we redo the kitchen).

Painting this floor dramatically changed the look of the room.  Before - the floor was a brown vinyl that looked like tile. HIDEOUS.  It was faded to green from the doors never having window treatments on them.  Hubby and I considered many options before painting.  All those options totally busted the budget we had set for this room.  While browsing Pinterest, I came across several pins about painting the floor.  Showed it to Hubby - we were painting the next night.  I plan to post a tutorial about painting the floor, so if you are interested in that - come back to me soon!

The turquoise stools were originally brown and in my parents' kitchen until they built their second home and finally upgraded.  They sat in the attic for several years until Hubby and I moved into our second apartment and had a bar that needed some bar stools.  Mom and Dad - your stools made another move and live on (with a little face lift)! 

Tripp is making his debut and loving every minute of it.  He is very photogenic, don't ya think?

DIY Side Tables

After posting my Movie Room Inspiration and receiving our couches - I have turned it into high gear in the decorating department.  I was licking my lips and rubbing my hands together as those couches were being moved in.  The wheels were turning and Hubby was tightening his hands on the wallet.  We immediately went to Target to get the Threshold side tables I had my eye on.  Well, OF COURSE they did not have them in-store.  That is okay - I am just as good of an online shopper.  Since we struck out with the tables, we took a peek at the rugs.  I had actually been eyeing this rug for outside by the pool, but it is the size we needed in the movie room, surprisingly soft,  and it was on sale - score and SOLD! Before I could even ask if we could get it, Hubby had pulled it off the shelf and had it on top of his shoulder - that was a good sign, so I went with it. As we were walking out of the store Hubby let me know that he had two old wooden stools at work that were going to the thrown out - would I want them? UM DUH. I can always do something with those.  Before we made it to the car we had decided we were going to make our own side tables for the movie room - with the stools!  Wheels turning I tell you!

Materials:
- white spray paint
-metallic gold spray paint
-Polyurethane clear coat
-sand paper
-circular saw (any type would get the job done)

1. We  Hubby used a circular saw and cut all four legs to the height we wanted (we measured another table in our living room to get the correct height)

2. Using a sander, we sanded all four legs, top and bottom of stool to get a good surface for the paint to adhere to

3. We actually spray painted the whole stool white first (Hubby thought I wanted the whole thing white and just the bottom of the legs dipped in gold) then we taped around the legs so we would not get gold all over the white and went to town with the gold paint

4. Ta- da! Removed tape and sprayed two coats of Polyurethane on top for a glossy finish (and to prevent water rings)

Now, I know it is not my Threshold table I originally wanted - but I am happy with it! The other stool is in the workshop awaiting sanding. She will join her long lost twin soon enough.

The movie room is making it's transformation as we speak and I am excited to show you the final product hopefully soon!

Movie Room Inspiration

Hubby and I have a living room that was an add-on to the back of our house.  It is a really great space to have - it just takes more furniture to make it usable!  Our one bedroom apartment cannot possibly furnish this 3 bedroom 2 bath house with 2 living rooms!  As you can see from previous posts we focused on our front living room first since it is the first room you see when you enter the house.  Also, it has the amazing windows and shutters that I love to look at everyday.  We decided that we would make that back living room into a "movie room".  It was already painted a dark color and it has a good wall that Hubby could put a projector screen on in the future.  I also recently pointed out how perfect it could be for the future- it is connected to one of our guest bedrooms that would be turned into a baby room.  I see this "movie room" slowly transformed into a play room one day! yeeeahhh! All toys in the back of the house - I think yes.

1.  Pantone Mood Indigo - I am in love with navy blue.  It goes with everything.  We have already transformed this room from a dark red to this navy blue (that is really all we have done to it in 9 months).  I love it.  We have large white baseboards and it really looks good.  Also - dark enough for the movie room!

2.  Anthropologie striped curtains - I want some sort of stripe in this room.  I am slightly obsessed, for some reason I am drawn to any type of stripe. Home decor, clothing, anything - if it has a stripe - I want it!  I have crossed paths with these curtains a few times and I like them every time.  We will see if Hubby lets me spend the $ on them or not!

3. Threshold Round Tables - Okay, I want these tables so badly! Loving metallic gold right now - and of course they go great with the navy! Clean and simple. SOLD.

4. Brown leather couch - Hubby and I have recently been gifted with 2 brown leather couches from his uncle.  We are actually receiving them this week!  So, while I am lusting over this leather couch - mine will not look exactly like this.  I am A-OK with that - they are FREE and in great shape.  A girl can dream.

5.  Jonathan Adler pillow - I have been obsessing over these alphabet pillows ever since I saw them on a Giuliana and Bill episode a few seasons back.  I promptly searched for them and thought I would be making a purchase that night - then my eyes drifted over to the price. Pump the brakes. $125 was a little steep for me to spend on one pillow.  So I sent a picture to my mother in law and she sewed us up an almost exact replica. WIN.  Now I want this red one - I shall have it. One way or another.

6. Indoor/outdoor navy rug - Our back living room has carpet, unfortunately. Let's just say that this carpet is not in "mint" condition either.  We are not in a place to completely replace it right now, so I will try to cover it as much as possible. I am not sure of the EXACT rug that I want - but this is pretty darn cute.  I am always drawn to rugs that have a lot of white - not good with dogs. So I will keep looking until the exact one jumps out at me, and it will - they always do!

I am itching to get this room going! It has been just sitting there empty and waiting to be dressed up.  I haven't really touched it yet because I was waiting for our couches.  They are arriving and my wheels are turning!  Get ready Hubby - shopping is in order!

Living with the Reno

She is all ours. Now what?  We move in. Fast and furious.  We decided to move in and then start tackling all of the projects that needed to be done.  Let's start with the living room.  Right when we walked in the front door the fireplace (so happy about) and bookshelves were staring at us and they were just begging for a face lift.  I knew before we started the moving process that I wanted to paint the room, fireplace, and bookshelves right away.  We took a million pictures during our walk-through and inspection - so I had a lot to refer to while we were waiting to move in.  I pinned my little heart out on Pinterest so I would already have the paint colors picked out and ready to go.  I had help in town for the week and we wanted to get as much done as possible.

So that is our little gem of a living room. She is actually really cozy. I love how the original wood creaks under my feet as I walk. I love the wall of windows that face the street (great for people watching). I love the wood burning fireplace. I love the potential that is here. Okay, that was a nice moment. Now for the hard work. We immediately started painting the walls, trim, trim, and more trim.

Our living room paint color is Benjamin Moore Moonshine.  We got it color matched in Behr at Home Depot.  Please notice that YES there is about an inch gap between the ceiling and wall.  So we must put crown molding up.  Several of the rooms are like this in the house - we are thinking that the previous owner prepped it for crown molding, but never quite got there.  That's okay - we got this! 

Side note - Hubby built that table out of the fence gate we took down in the backyard and a door that the previous owner left in the garage. A perfect example of how we work : I come up with the idea and he makes it come to life!

We added the crown molding! She feels a little more complete now. Your welcome - living room.  After dressing up the ceiling/walls, we are moving on to the book cases.  I think these are such a great feature in this house - feels very original.  From all my "pinteresting" I decided that I wanted to paint the back wall of the book cases.  Our bedroom (more on that another day) is a darker shade of gray and I used that paint for the back walls.  That way they would not fade into the living room wall color.  LOVE how they turned out and I am now in the process of decorating them.

We waited, waited, waited, waited, and waited.  Oh and we waited some more for our shutters to come in and cover our wall of windows.  Despite having to wait for what felt like an eternity, we are so very happy with them.  They totally change the feel of the living room.  When we walk into the living room from the back of the house - it looks like a different space.  My pictures and words do not capture what an impact these make on our space.  I hear they are pretty good for re-sale too (sa-weeeeet)!  Rosie Posie loves them too - she will rest her head on the bottom slat and look outside for hours.  DO NOT think you can walk on our street and get away with it!

The wood burning fireplace got a little face lift with white paint that we used for trim, just for the time-being.  We plan on tiling it with marble subway tile at some point.

(Pre- paint/window coverings)

Most of our furniture we have had for a while.  I am constantly changing rugs, pillows, lamps, and candles out.  The striped rug - I have already moved to another room and replaced it with a new one in here (too much traffic in this room to have a rug with any inch of white on it..).  Our couches are actually from Hubby's late grandmother.  Some days I LOVE them and other days I look at them and want them out immediately.  With one of them being a sleeper sofa - it is hard to give that up (and to fork out the money for a new one), and just for the plain fact that I am a HUGE fan of anything mustard yellow - I think they will stick around a little bit. Funny that Murphy made it into both of those pictures and they were taken months apart - silly dog!

 

I am slightly obsessed with my "golden" buck on the wall.  The skull and horns are on behalf of my dad (I warned him that I would be altering it when he gave it to me) and I think it adds a touch of masculinity to the room - in a girly way (does that make sense?!).  We will continue to add to the "M" wall as we go. 

We are slowly getting there, and before you know it - I will change something up! It's just what I do.  Come back for more room updates!

{All images by Natalie Monk for Rosie Posie and Home}