Danks and Honey

Master Bath Reveal

2020-07-03T08:30:00.002-04:00

It's here - our first completed renovation project at our new home!

We chose the tiny en suite bath to our master bedroom because we figured it was a smaller project to get our feet wet. Plus, with the extra bedrooms, it was easy to set up sleeping arrangements in other rooms while we completed this bathroom and the adjoining bedroom.

I last shared that we had completed the tile back in August of last year, and we "finished" the major components of the bath soon after that. As I mentioned in my last post, we were waiting on the windows and trim to finally call this room complete.

It's certainly come a long way from when we bought the house, 1 1/2 years ago.

During our first walk-thru I remember talking about vague ideas for different rooms in the house to Mike, but when we saw this bathroom, we both said the first thing we would do is remove that wall to the shower. We knew it would make all the difference to open this room up and make the small footprint seem bigger.

Having showered in both states of the room, I can attest that it no longer feels like a college dorm room shower and it's actually a space that I want to take my time in!

I designed everything and Mike installed it all, everything except the glass installation, which we hired out. We didn't want to mess with that one, and we have no regrets! While the door is almost the same size as it was before - maybe an inch or two bigger, it can swing both ways so it feels less awkward getting into the shower.

As for the design elements, I went with SW Spare White (SW6203 - in ProMar 200 Egg Shell) on the walls. It's the same color I used in our last home for Archer's original nursery. Spare White is a creamy white, with a cool undertone. All the photos read a little green because of the trees outside and the tint to the shower glass. Any white would have worked in here because of the simple color palette, but I loved Spare White in our last house so I was happy to use it again here.

We tried to get a custom vanity made, but no one would return calls/emails. I ended up convincing Mike to use the Ikea GODMORGON vanity with Semihandmade drawer fronts. Mike always rolls his eyes when I suggest Ikea, but then is always pleasantly surprised when it turns out great! The space for a vanity was less than 2', so the GODMORGON was perfect for the drawers I wanted and maximizing the space.

Mike was able to get a small solid surface counter top made from a fabricator on one of his jobs. I told them the look I wanted and they used what they had on hand. I believe it ended up being Corian Ash Concrete, and with the 2" edge, it looks like real concrete without the porosity issues.

The rest of the accessories came out of necessity. This mirror was a splurge, but it was part of my vision for the room since the beginning so it was worth it to me. It looks similar to a certain high-end mirror, but it's about half the cost, so this is actually a really good price.

We went back and forth on the towel bar because Mike really wanted a towel warmer. I liked the idea, but I didn't like the cord and additional cost. Because this room is so small we really only had the area above the toilet to put it, so we compromised and got this towel rack to maximize the space and it holds both our bath and hand towels.

I had specific requirements for the light over the vanity and while this one from West Elm fit all of them (must be opaque glass/milk glass, two bulbs, brass, and down-facing light), plus was less than $80 on sale. I'm not in love with the "antique brass". It's very gold to me, but I've stopped noticing after a while. If I ever run out of projects to do (HA!) I could always try to use some Rub 'n Buff to tone down the brassiness.

I mentioned in a previous post a couple months ago that we installed heated flooring. We used the same controls/system that we used in our last home in the basement bathroom. It wasn't as necessary here as it was in our previous bathroom, but it's a nice treat for our master bath.

Another way we went a little extra is adding this bidet seat to our new toilet. We knew we wanted to splurge on a bidet and I started by looking at the full Toto experience, but realized we didn't need a spaceship toilet. Heated seats, front and back spray, plus heated water was enough for us. We love our seat and while we have simple bidet attachments on the rest of the toilets in the house, this feels like a little luxury in our private bathroom.

I forgot to take a better picture of the toilet, but the seat and lid are extra big, but the extra features are worth the less streamlined look.

We didn't add any window treatments because we live in the woods, and this room overlooks our barn. We would have been completely fine, but I was still a little nervous (what if I was getting into the shower at night and our neighbor happened to be at the very edge of their property corner and looked just at the right angle 🙄) so I added some frosted window film to the bottom 2/3rds of the bottom window, after taking these photos. Mike rolled his eyes, but now I feel a little more covered, you know, if a deer happens to walk by.

The other upgrade we made was to the pocket door. We're slowly switching out all the old doors, and this pocket door was no exception. We added soft close stoppers on the open and close motions, and it is just short of life changing! We have another pocket door downstairs in the powder bath that we haven't touched yet, and we can't wait to upgrade that one too.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this bathroom came together! I love the modern and simple palette, and I'm glad we focused on our bath and bedroom first so we get to enjoy it longer!

Rework of our Window Replacements

2020-06-17T09:30:00.001-04:00

It's been more than a minute since I've updated anything here (over six months!). Renovating is very slow going with two toddlers, who knew 🙄.

The current status of the world right now has been hard on everyone, and one of the smaller things that has helped me mentally has been to organize/write-up the progress of our projects. It's not to say everything is "fine" over here, or that we're flying through projects. More that sharing the completion and organizing thoughts on upcoming projects helps to relieve some of the stress of having so many projects on our plate. With all the additional stress of the current social, economical, pandemic crisis right now, finding small things that bring joy and focus go a long way for my mental health! We don't have a lot finished, but we're finding a little bit of a groove now and since this is also a bit of our home diary, I wanted to share the things we've done and catch up to what we're currently working on.

When our new windows were installed, I was the only adult home trying to get two tiny toddlers fed and out the door. There was some miscommunication and our windows were installed flush to the inside drywall. I've seen this done, actually my sister's windows are mostly like this, but we didn't care for the look and wanted to be able to have a sill on the inside. Since this was done by some of the guys who technically work for my company, Mike and I didn't want to make a big deal about it and decided to fix the issue ourselves.

Since we were opening up the house for 6 difference windows, we waited until a decent day early spring, back in March.

I didn't grab any photos of the windows as they were installed, but the outside had a very large reveal, while the inside was flush with the drywall. The photos I did get were all from my phone since I was helping during the whole process. They're also from different windows because the process went pretty fast.

EDIT: I did find some photos I took right after installation (unfortunately, they were both taken at night). These show the interior window flush with the drywall and the large ledge on the exterior.

Mike was concerned with the larger ledge on the exterior catching water and allowing snow to sit on it with the potential for issues later.

Mike also wanted to add some window flashing to better seal the sill plate, so this was a good excuse to move all the upstairs windows 2-3"! We started by removing the window and trimming the siding which prevented the installers from pushing the window out further. I vaguely remember one of the guys talking about this and giving me the option to install it the same way the original windows were. I definitely remember having at least one kid in my arms for the conversation and figured they knew best, so whatever they wanted to do was fine. I've since learned to slow down and actually pay attention to what's being said, I promise!

The opening after the window was removed.

Trimming the siding to allow the window to set back.

We tried to do everything during naps, but sometimes we got lucky and had extra help.

The kid loves any reason to wear ear protection.

We then added the flashing tape which added a waterproofing and air/vapor seal.

We also attached and sealed the top trim piece which the previous installers didn't. The window sits in this, so it wasn't noticeable on most of the windows, but where some of the openings weren't the exact same size, there was a bigger gap at the top. Mike used sealant at the top and then screwed to the the frame. We also added some insulation tape to the top of the window (inside the time piece) for better air seal.

Once that was complete, the window was ready to be placed back in and reattached.

I did make sure to borrow some vacuum cups from work for handling the glass. These were invaluable for this!

Each window only took about 30 minutes, but each window was pretty heavy and trying to do this with toddlers under foot was ridiculous so, we only got 1-2 done per day.

This project put finishing the master bathroom on hold because we had to move the window before finishing the trim. Once we had moved all the windows, Mike was able to finish the trim in the bathroom and bedroom. I didn't take long to paint and finish the final touches to the bathroom.

I took some after photos of the bathroom and will share that reveal next! It's officially our first completed renovation in our new house, and feels really good to mark a major project off the list. Not to mention actually getting to enjoy the new space!

Master Bath Tile

2019-08-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

We're inching towards the finish line in the bathroom and we've completed a huge hurdle in the last week.

All the bathroom tile is complete!

The floor was done shortly after my last update and I love the black hex tile with the dark gray grout. I took these really quickly with my iPad before the babies woke up so the lighting is bad and it's making it look like the grout is half done, but once we get more done in here I'll take better photos for sure.

The shower tile took the longest, and I'm really proud of the detail Mike put into this. Both of our pet peeves in tile work is small slivers left on the edges where the spacing wasn't laid out in a thoughtful way. Mike measured everything a dozen times and used a laser level to keep his lines straight. He made sure he left at least half of a tile at the top so that it mimicked the half tile at the base of the step.

We both were a little disappointed with the grout lines, and I had hoped they would be smaller. The tiles were self-spacing, but Mike had thought he was making the thinnest lines he could by spacing only 3/32". I know that eventually the thicker lines won't seem so noticeable once we install everything else in the room, but it's something we're keeping in mind for tile projects in the future.

The marble topped ledge and shower step are two of my favorite details and I'm so happy we went with the ledge instead of a niche. I think it's works well with the tile design and achieves my goal of a step to shave my legs, as well as a ledge for shampoo and stuff.

We got a couple quotes for the glass shower door and just gave the official approval last week, so hopefully we have that show in a few weeks!

We're waiting to figure out a solution to a problem we have with the pocket door right now, but once we finish that we can wrap up the trim in here and start installing the vanity and toilet. I'm not making any deadlines for us, but we're very much looking forward to moving into our new room and it's motivation for us to keep moving ahead!

Master Bedroom Closet Organization & An Elfa Review

2019-08-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

One of the things I did early on was design our bedroom closet organizational system. We knew we wanted to work with the white wire shelving we used in our old house. I know there are tons of systems out there, but we liked it for it's price as well as the option to reconfigure. I actually reconfigured our old closet a couple times while living there to better utilize the space. And, we completely redesigned the office closet into a nursery closet easily using the same rail system.

I had wanted to try the Pax system from Ikea, but all my designs either didn't fit our dimensions, or didn't maximize the space we did have, so I went back to the wire systems. I knew I wanted to incorporate drawers (I like drawers way more than shelves - in all organizing situations), so I looked at The Container Store since I loved their wire drawers in Archer's closet above. Anything was going to be a vast improvement over the one sagging clothes hanger/shelf situation that we started with.

I inputted our dimensions and they're planning tool asked questions like was it a male or female, or combined closet, and then what types of doors. Then it gives you a couple premade designs. You can modify it a little like adding in more long hang space if you have more dresses (I do not), or shoe storage for example. I had to be very cognizant of where the drawers were because of the bi-fold doors. I needed them to line up with the openings to be able to open fully. After some tweaking, I came up with this design.

Because everything is 2' wide, I knew I could switch the pants hanger and shoe drawers (the shoes lined up right where the bi-fold doors were so they wouldn't work in that location), I just wasn't able to change the design online to show this. Because I made this while I was 8+ months pregnant I didn't want to drive to the nearest store and spend time designing with someone so I just bought this whole premade design and also some extra drawers and shoe drawers to switch out in our final design.

To prep the closet, Mike skim-coated the walls after removing the old shelf/hanger and to even out the texture, and installed the base trim before I painted everything. I like to use semi-gloss in closets because it adds a little more forgiveness to all the bumps and scratches that happen when you're moving things in and out.

It was actually at this point that we realized that adding a light inside the closet would be really helpful. Mike wakes and gets dressed while I'm still sleeping and usually uses a headlamp to get his clothes out of the closet so he doesn't wake me or Finn, who's still sharing our room. That's love right there! Having a light inside would mean he doesn't have to wander around our room with a silly headlamp and creates minimal disruption. It was relatively easy because there's an attic above where Mike ran some wire to the new LED light and added a switch right out side the doors. He installed it above the closet doors, so it kind of shines at (as opposed to down if it were mounted on the ceiling) the clothes.

The installation of the closet system was pretty easy, but I will say, Mike was not a fan of the "Easy Hang Standards" as their called. Basically you screw in the top rail and then just hang those rails off of it, they don't get screwed to the wall. Because they're not attached to the wall, they can swing and shift, even after adding all the components like shelves and rods. Maybe once you add clothes and more weight they don't, but Mike didn't like that idea and drilled and attached them to the walls. We later found out they make wall clips so you don't have to but for free we can just drill holes too.

I did go back to the store to return the extra drawers and things that I switched (like switching out a high heeled shoe rack for a regular shoe drawer) and grabbed some extras like shelf liners and a valet rod, because I'm fancy, ha!

We were able to install everything in an hour or so, and we can't wait to load it up with all of our stuff. Mike keeps pushing to start putting everything in there now, but I know it'll be easier to paint all the trim without worrying about our clothes getting splattered. Patience is neither one of our virtues!

This is our first time using a complete Elfa system and we had to make some modifications for personal preference, but I really like the system. We also probably could have made it cheaper by utilizing different systems like we did in the old house (like the rails and hanging supports from Home Depot) and only purchasing the fancier items from The Container store (like the drawers and extras). But, at 8 months pregnant I didn't have the brain capacity for that type of designing so it is what it is!

Because we were restricted by the doors, our design wasn't centered and after a lot of thought I decided to put the long hanger behind the left wall. I don't wear dresses that often so it made more sense that way.

This left about 18" empty on the right side. The online design tool only lets you design 104" wide, so I didn't have anything here. Mike pointed out that we could extend the top hanging rod and gain a little more space, duh! We had to go back to the store to get the extra pieces, and by a happy accident our laundry basket fits in that space on the bottom!

Next closet on the agenda is Archer's "big kid" room so I think I may suck it up and head up to the store to design it since they don't offer a premade kids closet. I want lots of shelves and drawers so that the boys can grow up putting things in the proper place. Hey, a mama can dream, right?!

Casing and Base Molding Decisions

2019-08-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

Heading back up to the bed/bath project, one of the major decisions we had to make when redoing these rooms was the trim. This was particularly important because it would be what we would replace the entire house with one day, so no pressure! I needed to pick the base molding, (somewhat easy), as well as the casing molding, (so much more difficult than I thought).

The base was somewhat easy because we knew we wanted to beef up the 3 1/2" dark-stained base the house currently had. We came from a charming 1927 house with most of it's original trim and loved the large base molding.

I didn't want to copy this exact style and found a similar style that I thought was more appropriate for our new home's style and age. Instead of the 7 1/4" height, I went with 5 1/4". Still substantial (and much better than the builder basic), but the shorter style felt more appropriate for this 1970's home. The cheapest I found locally was from Lumber Liquidators.

We actually bought a piece similar to the old style for different project and you can see the difference between the two.

We're working smarter, not harder, on these remodels and bought everything pre-primed. It's saving me tons of time and that's a hot commodity over here!

For the window and door casings, I struggled for awhile on the style. I couldn't find a lot of inspiration out there, mostly because the rooms I looked at were styled rooms and the trim details usually gets washed out in all the pictures. It wasn't until I noticed the casings in Young House Love's Instagram progress photos of their duplex that I found the style that I wanted. It's a simple Craftsman style casing, without the top casing cap (illustrated below). I loved the simplicity, and it worked well with the base molding.

Source unknown

Since we started in a room that had two large door openings (the sliding exterior door and the 4 bi-fold-door closet) Mike needed to come up with a method to create the profile while using readily available pre-primed pieces. That's the reason we bought the 7 1/4" base shown above, it came in 12' pieces which he needed. He ripped that down and used it for the top casing. We still have to sand and paint everything, but here's where we're at right now:

We also are updating all the doors. We went with a three-panel shaker style solid core for the doors and think they'll not only update the style of the house, but provide some necessary sound proofing as well. We haven't had many instances of brothers waking each other up with crying, but I'm not risking it!

Once every things painted, we'll be adding matte black hardware. I'm excited to try something different. Even though I loved the black doors in our old house, this house needs more lightening up, and I think white doors and trim will make everything look completely different and updated.

A Quick Front Door Update

2019-07-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

The previous owners of our house were the original owners and had the house custom made in 1973. It's not a very innovative or unique layout (my sister's house actually has a very similar layout), and a lot of the materials and styles used are very "builder basic". There were several updates made about a year before we bought the house, to get the house ready for the market. Unfortunately, these updates were done not exactly up to our level of craftsmanship, and not really our style. While we appreciate the thought, we almost wish they weren't done because we are now removing very recent updates, or trying to modify to fit our style.

One of those modifications was to the front doors.

We like the double doors (they were awesome on move-in day!), but the stained glass isn't really our style. They aren't bad at all, but we wanted something a little more modern. Also, you couldn't see clearly out of them and it was kind of a hassle when I was trying to guess who was driving up our driveway or even if it was raining before I headed out.

On his current project, Mike was working with a glass company who could make new glass inserts for around $150 and we jumped at the opportunity.

Funny story, Mike made the mistake of relying on me to measure (only a couple weeks after Finn was born - mom brain was real strong!) and I must have measured the frame as well and when we got the new inserts, they were too big! We had to wait another couple of weeks for new ones to be made.

We went with a simple pane of glass, no muntins (the framing over the window), to keep it modern and to allow the most visibility. We sit far back from the road and there is a lot of tree coverage so we're not worried about anyone being able to see in by simply passing by.

Mike had to track down the door company and request new frame covers for the screws, and I told him to hold off putting them back in until after I decide how I'd like to decorate this entry. I'm thinking of painting the door black, but it may be too small of an area, and too big of a door to look right. We'll see after we move downstairs with our improvements. Until then, we're loving the modernization and the view out the windows!

The Not-So-Pretty House Progress

2019-07-24T12:10:00.000-04:00

Before tackling the Master bed/bath rooms, and shortly after moving in, we completed a couple projects that weren't all pretty, but helped protect the house or just updated to more our style. Before those updates get lost in the decorating of new rooms I wanted to share them here to remind ourselves of the progress we've made.

When we bought the house, we were aware of water issues, so one of the very first projects Mike took on was tying all the downspouts together and routing out towards our creek. It destroyed our yard, but nothing is more important than keeping water out of the house!

We also learned why the garage was flooding, (driveway slopes toward it #facepalm) and why the water wasn't draining, (a shirt was stuffed down the drain (#doublefacepalm) and the drainpipe was crushed right outside the garage - probably why they stuffed the t-shirt down there). There's very few things Mike and I hate more than throwing a cheap band-aid over a major issue, so Mike dug underneath the garage a bit and replaced the crushed pipe and tied that into everything as well.

The other major water issue was the crawlspace. The main house structure has a full basement, but the living room behind the garage has a crawlspace beneath it. During the inspection, Mike found that the basement access, as well as the outside vents had been sealed up, trapping all the moisture in there and allowing mold to grow. It was so bad that the mold grew in stalagmite formations and not only were many of the block wet (on a dry day), but the floor joists supporting the living room and it's fireplace were completely rotted! Here are some of the photos from the inspection:

It was actually a huge undertaking and Mike spent many weeks remediating the mold, replacing the joists, backfilling and waterproofing everything. He even installed lighting! Since I was pregnant and Archer was 8 months old, we were very grateful to still be living in our old home while Mike took care of the dirty work!

He started by opening up the basement access. The fan was run almost nonstop to dry everything out.

He cleaned the mold and added a perforated pipe for proper drainage, and started backfilling with stone from the exterior window in the top right of the photo below.

It was a lot of stone and a tiny window so he made a little funnel to help the process!

He added insulation and waterproofing on the walls and, in Mike fashion, he went above and beyond what was necessary for a crawlspace, but unlike the creepy crawlspace memories of my childhood home, ours is now waterproofed, conditioned, and completely usable for storage! We even added some of the old rugs that don't work in any of the rooms here for a little bit of comfort and protection for the things we store in here. Right now it's just our extra air filters.

It's worth noting that we removed the moldy batt insulation from the floor joists and didn't replace it because this is a conditioned space (you can see the duct runs along it with a couple vents) and it's now the same as a room/basement below the living room, so there's no need to insulate it.

Because he's really extra (ha!), Mike finished the block edge with some solid surface leftover from one of his job demos. It helps finish off that edge, as well as adding something a little more comfortable to walk over when he has to get into the space.

The block work on the basement side was done around the same time we painted everything. When we moved in the first space to get any real attention was oddly enough the basement. Because the barn isn't really usable yet, (we have to get it sealed up against all the critters that are living in there right now) all of what will be in the barn is housed in the garage, and all the garage stuff is in the family room next to the garage and in the basement. Because we knew a lot of stuff would be going down there, not to mention once everything was down there it would be tough to move it all around, we decided to focus our efforts and paint and seal that space first.

I didn't get any before photos, but the whole space was a dingy yellow (the previous owner's loved blue and yellow, ek!). One of the painters from work gave me several gallons of heavy duty waterproofing paint but they were all different colors. I chose the grays and whitish colors and hoped that it came out decent when they were all mixed! It's basically a light gray color and works perfectly for the basement.

The space outside of the crawlspace access is next to the washer and dryer, so I decided to create a laundry area with some storage and a space to fold clothes.

I used Ikea cabinets because we're familiar with them, they're inexpensive, and it was easy to design and utilize the entire space and most importantly these days - have delivered to the house! I went with the basic VEDDINGE fronts with the BAGGANÄS handle in black and the EKBACKEN countertop which is a light gray laminate that looks kinda like concrete. Mike wanted to keep the basement "industrial" vibe going on

We added under cabinet lighting and I haven't filled a quarter of the cabinets or drawers with laundry items, so it's perfect! The laminate was close enough in size that we didn't cut it down and it fits laundry baskets and an embarrassingly large amount of clothes piled up waiting to be folded too!

Also shown in the photo above is the work Mike did to the sump pump. Here's what it looked like before we bought the house.

During our inspection we tested the radon and it was at levels necessary for a mitigation system. Mike was able to buy all the supplies and install it himself (he was determined to find a system that didn't require the massive pipe up the back of the house). I won't go into too much detail because it's best left to the professionals, but know that we went from around 4 plus pCi/L to less than 0.5 pCi/L and it's still monitored today. The radon mitigation system ran into the sump pump and when he was tying in all the downspouts, he also dug and ran conduit to the barn for water, electric, and gas.

He cut out the old sump crock (it was a solid piece of vitrified clay pipe on end with a concrete cast bottom and he had to smash it to get it out) and replaced it with a new plastic perforated crock and back-filled with gravel so that any water that gets around the crock or radon laden air can be discharged. He also tied-in the crawl space perforated drain pipe to the crock to drain any water picked up inside the crawl space.

He patched back in the floor and sealed the crock with an air tight lid and gaskets around the lid and piping. That was probably an incredibly boring paragraph and it's hard to take something ugly like a sump pump and do a whole heck of a lot of work to make it only slightly less ugly, but we take a lot of pride in the less glamorous projects too, because we know they make the house work efficiently and safely.

We're glad to have a lot of these upfront messy projects done so that we're able to move on to things like renovating bathrooms and painting bedrooms, but they're just as important and I wanted to make sure to show these steps of the journey to making this house a home that works best for us!

Mike recently finished the tile in the shower and just prepping for grout and I've started painting all the doors (so many doors!) so I'll be back with some progress in our bed and bath soon!

Master Bedroom and Bath Updates

2019-07-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

The last time I mentioned the bed and bathroom progress was a few months ago to show the demo progress. A couple weeks after Finn was born, we found our groove again and Mike started building the rooms back together. Mike's rebuilt everything and is in the middle of tiling the bath and I've painted the walls and will start on the doors and trim soon.

There was a lot of work that went into these still-very-much-in-progress shots above though. Mike started by redoing most of the plumbing and electrical in the bathroom, and because we had most of the fixtures picked out, he also added in blocking for extra support before adding in the drywall. This isn't necessary, but with careful planning it's really helpful and reduces drywall anchors.

We've got the towel bar on the left above the toilet and the vanity and mirror on the right.

Once he had finalized everything, Mike wrapped everything up with drywall and cement board.

He also had a substantial amount of drywall work in the bedroom too. He ended up taking the bottom half of the wall out from the window wall, because of the water damage. It could have been smaller holes and patched back in, but with all the other work, it was just easier to replace with whole sheets. While he thin-coated the new drywall, he also took care of all the imperfections on the existing drywall and damage from the wallpaper removal. The purple walls are actually good for something - seeing all the work Mike put into making the walls smooth!

Once he was done with that, it was my turn to paint everything. I started with priming everything. The walls were half new drywall and thinset so it was definitely needed, but what surprised me, and something Mike discovered early on, was none of the ceilings had been painted! The house was built in 1973 and they had never been painted in almost 50 years!!

It's hard to get a good shot of the color right now but, I chose Sherwin Williams Moderne White. It's a soft white with a slight green undertone. I wanted almost white, but enough warmth to let the white trim contrast.

I'm more conservative with my sheen finishes and always use flat on ceilings, semi-gloss on trim, doors and in closets, and satin/eggshell on walls.

In the bathroom I painted the walls Sherwin Williams Spare White, the same color I used for the white walls in Archer's nursery in our last home. It has less green than Moderne White and a little cooler in my opinion. Everything looks very yellow right now due to the waterproofing, but even that bright yellow is still less yellow than when we started!

Mike had already finished the tile on the shower floor and I love the small white hexagon with contrasting grout. You can also see the start of our ledge/shelf. This was the compromise after countless discussions after I told Mike I wanted a niche to put shower stuff, but also make it low enough to put my foot up to shave my legs. Mike wasn't a fan of the niche for various construction reasons, and we were concerned with sound carrying through the wall which is shared with the nursery. There is nothing more important to me than my babies' sleep!

We'll have marble tops on both the ledge and the shower step and white subway tile in the shower.

On the bathroom floor, Mike has already finished laying the black hex tile, but first he installed the heated floor coils. To offset the thickness of the coils and the areas where there is no heating (behind the toilet and beneath the vanity) Mike did a thin layer of thinset to even it all out for the tile.

The flooring was actually installed last week and I'm really loving all the materials in this tiny room. Mike hopes to start on the shower walls soon because then it'll be a lot less strenuous tasks to wrap the room up!

Some of the major tasks to finish are the trim around the room, installing the closet system, replacing electrical outlets/switches, and lighting. Since Mike is working on this pretty much any free moment he has or after the boys go to bed, he had to get creative with his efficiency and brought the chop saw upstairs with a hood that hooks up to the shop-vac.

It took a long time for me to allow Mike to test the babies' sleeping abilities, but we've appeased the baby sleep gods because throughout this whole reno the babies have slept through almost everything without issue!! I can't believe it, but we're thanking our lucky stars and trying to get as much done as we can while they sleep so we can cuddle and hang with them while they are awake.

I've got some doors to paint and Mikes got a date with his tile saw, but we hope to have some more major progress done in the next week or so!

Introducing Baby Finn

2019-07-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

The blog's been a little quiet lately and it's mostly because of this little cutie!

Meet Finnegan Michael, the littlest Danks!

Finn joined our family 3 months ago and has been the perfect little addition. He's such a calm and happy baby that the fear of managing both a newborn and Archer hasn't been too difficult! Finn usually hangs out watching and smiling while Archer runs around around him.

Finn may have caught us all by surprise at the very beginning, but his delivery wasn't too bad at all. While my epidural wore off before he came, he was ready and came out before my doctor made it to the hospital! Recovery has been very mild and I'm very grateful since 14-month-olds don't really understand the concept of "taking it easy" ha!

When we talked about what Finn might look like when he arrived, I always assumed he would be another carbon copy of Mike, so it was pretty exciting when he came out looking much more like me! There's definitely some of my distinct features like my lips, darker hair, and ears, but every once in a while I look over and see a tiny baby Archer, especially when Finn sleeps.

As for the dynamic between the two brothers, Archer began by treating Finn similar to the way he treats our cat, Benelli. He would be in the same room and not pay too much attention, then he'd catch his eye and run over and giggle, then touch Finn and went back to what he was doing! There's very little prep you can do at this age so we just emphasize that all "BABY" things are gentle and there are a couple of things like bottles and the tiny pacifiers that are just for baby. Archer still steals his pacifier sometimes (it's actually hilarious when he puts them in his mouth, their so small and look ridiculous) but he's been so good with Finn and really does temper his actions around him.

Now, Archer is starting to want to be around him and will get on the furniture to sit next to him, or lay down next to Finn. He gives these little hugs, which are basically just touching his head to Finn, and they are so cute! He's even been known to rock his car seat if Finn starts getting fussy!

After working on Archer sleeping through the night before Finn arrived, I was determined to help Finn develop better sleep habits earlier. I'm not sure if it was some of the things I implemented (like actually letting Finn sleep in a crib as a newborn - I always held Archer and it made it harder to break that habit later), or the fact that he's such a great baby, but he's a little sleeping champ and basically sleeps through the night and takes great naps throughout the day.

We've had some big changes around here with the new house and baby, but I think we're finding our groove and it feels good to make some progress on the house, but also to enjoy these little ones right now.

We've made some major progress on the master bath and bedroom and I'm looking forward to finishing that space up so that we can start on the boy's rooms. Archer will be getting a bigger room and Finn will get his own nursery! I'm not sure which directions I'll be going for in each room, but I'm so excited to give them their our spaces!

Bathroom Demo

2019-03-06T08:30:00.000-05:00

It’s been slow-going on the bathroom/master bedroom project, even though we are t-minus 6 weeks until baby! Mike has found the time to demo the room though and I thought I’d share because it already looks so different.

He started with the fixtures – vanity, lights, and toilet (we actually moved this to the downstairs powder room because it was brand new and both an elongated bowl and handicap height). He then took the shower wall out, which just as we thought, opened the room up to seem twice as big.

After that, he took everything down to the studs and took out the tile floor. The shower plumbing was built out from the wall (my thoughts are that they used a standard shower pan and this was built to fit), and so he removed that wall as well. He’ll move the plumbing into the interior wall and we’ll build the shower the entire width of the room.

The biggest difference is the removal of the pocket door. We’ve thought of every scenario to keep this as opened as it is now (even as crazy as just framing out the opening so the room is always open – even for two very comfortable married people like ourselves, that still seems weird), but the fact remains the best option is a pocket door even if it’ll close the room back up.

What you also can see to the left of the photo above is the first attempts at that wallpaper removal. I spent a couple hours with a tiny garment steamer trying to remove the paper. It seemed to work really well at first with the piece right next to the sliding exterior door (I’m thinking there was some moisture issues with the door that helped the paper come off easier), turned into a nightmare with the piece next to it. The fact that I was using a dinky garment steamer didn’t help either.

I was getting completely discouraged and even thought of hiring it out (which I imagine would be extremely expensive, since it’s such an awful job), until Mike volunteered to help one night. His method of removing all the leftover pieces from the area I already worked on was to wet it down as much as possible with a damp rag and peel it off. I suggested a water bottle and our method was born. Most of the room came off relatively easy, just a lot of spraying and a lot of patience, but of course when we got to the last wall, which happened to be the exterior wall, we had some hiccups. A lot of water later, and we had all the wallpaper off and found ourselves in a very lilac hued room!

Like I said, one wall came off relatively easy, and the residue left behind is very minimal.

Then we had this corner, which just happened to be the spot we ended on.

You can see glue marks and drywall paper peeled off in some spots. I have to sand the whole room and then I’ll do a primer coat with some Kilz, before Mike goes back to skim coat the more stubborn spots where the drywall peeled. The reason for the Kilz first is to that the moisture from the skim coat doesn’t leas to bubbling and more peeling. While it’s only necessary in the spots he’ll skim coat, I don’t want any residual wallpaper glue to seep through the paint, and I’m not feeling this lilac color, so I’m going to make sure it’s getting well buried!

To add even more hiccups, there’s water damage under the window that will need to be replaced – the drywall and the window. The windows are old and single paned and we knew we would be replacing them, we just planned to do them all at once in a couple years. This one and the bathroom window are getting replaced during this phase because there’s water damage and we might as well!

We’re down to the wire before baby comes so I doubt we’ll be finishing this project before then, (Archer keeps catching bugs at the sitters and sharing with us knocking one of us out for a week before getting something new and sharing with the other parent), but we’re going to keep trekking and working on whatever we can!

The Master Bath Plans

2019-01-29T14:41:00.000-05:00

In my last post I mentioned that our first renovation will be the master bath. We figured it would be easy enough given the size and scope and since we’re able to play musical bedrooms until the new baby comes we left the master bedroom empty in anticipation.

This home may not be our ‘forever home’, but it will be our home for the next 20 or so years (I grew up in the same home my entire life and stayed in the same small school district my whole education, so it was important for me to give that same stability/experience to my kids as well), so our design decisions are being approached a little different than our last house. We also have a lot more room for improvement so upgrading the finishes won’t push us out of the local market. There are many multi-million dollar homes in our town, even some on our own street (even though we’re nowhere near that), so we know that using high-end materials won’t be a waste come time for resale.

We also are thinking about function even more so than form this time around. Not to say I’m not making sure I’m making everything look good, I’m focused more on how we use our home, then looking at how I want it to look.

For example, I shed a lot of hair (weird tidbit to share, but hear me out), I have don’t have as thick of hair as I used to, but I have lots of it, and with postpartum hormones, I lose even more. Mike’s constantly complaining about all the hair after I blow-dry. Because of this, I knew I wanted darker tile to hide this fact until I’m able to vacuum it all up.

With these factors in mind, I actually had most of it designed in my head to start. The room is small and so the layout won’t be changing, but we’re ripping it down to the studs to make sure everything is done correctly (we’re noticing a lot of short cuts here already so we want to make sure nothing is hiding behind the walls that will come back to haunt us later).

The one thing we both knew we were doing was tearing out the shower half wall. We even mentioned it during our first walk through! It would make the otherwise small shower feel a lot bigger just by opening it up to the rest of the room. I want white subway tile with darker grout (learned my lesson in the last house with white grout) in the shower to brighten it up, but also because subway tile is timeless and inexpensive. To make it a little trendier, and make the shower really feel bigger, we’re planning on laying it in a vertical pattern.

For the floor I want dark hexagon tile with darker grout. This way it hides the hair, but also adds contrast to the white shower.

For warmth I want a wood vanity, and from experience Mike and I both prefer drawers over cabinets, but with the small footprint, we may have to get something custom made for the quality we’re looking for.

With these items already designed in my mind, I wanted to find inspiration to show Mike because I find no matter how well I describe it, it’s much easier to show him a picture. It’s a pretty basic design so I knew I could find some great examples to share.

Via

I’m also thinking white walls, because I realize I prefer a more neutral wall then add in color through accessories.

I’m currently sourcing the vanity, then I’ll focus on the lights and toilet. We’re actually deciding whether or not we want to go full automated toilet (we’ve had aftermarket bidets on our toilets for a couple of years now and we’re thinking we may want the whole experience now – we’ll see!). I also have to narrow down the trim details which is difficult because it’ll be what we start replacing the entire house with and I want to make sure to get it right!

Mike’s already started demo, but it’s a little difficult this time around working around Archer’s 2 naps a day. He’s got probably another good 8 hours left, but in the mean time we’re going to start picking up material so that when he does get some time, we’re ready!

Our New Home

2019-01-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

I’m excited to introduce our new home because we’ve got so many projects planned that I can’t wait to start talking about them! We actually came up with many of them as soon as we saw the house, but some of the specifics have changed after living here for the past almost 3 months. Some of the photos I’ll share are from the listing, and others are quick ones I’ve taken on my phone. None are great, I’ll warn you!

The house was built in 1973, so a lot younger than our old 92 year-old beauty, but at 46, she’s not a youngin either! While our old house had all the charm like thick baseboards and trim, and hardwood, I’m calling this house builder-basic with pretty much no charm! That’s okay, because the layout is great, and we can work with builder-basic to make the rooms more us.

I’ll share some of the major rooms now, and then go into more detail when we start sharing our plans for remodeling. The actual layout is very, very similar to my sister’s house actually, so you can check that out too to get a better understanding of the flow.

The first room to the left when you walk in the front door is what we’re calling the Living Room.

It’s pretty large (and really beige!) and has a large window that overlooks the front yard. The dining room is the room to the right and the kitchen is beyond that behind the wall on the right of the living room. The future intent of this room may or may not have a TV, but it’ll have some sort of built-in along that back wall with lots of seating. I imagine this room to be where we gather to hang out when we have people over.

New laminate flooring was installed in the first floor before we moved in, but we have plans to replace all that, install new baseboards, and brighten this room with some paint. We also are planning on recessed lighting since there is no overhead lighting in here and let me tell you something about living in the country, it gets real dark at night!

On the opposite side of the house is the Family Room, which is situated on the other side of the kitchen and behind the garage.

It’s a longer room with a fireplace and sliding door behind the curtains that opens to the backyard. The door on the right is the garage. The plan here is to have this the main hang out space with a TV and comfortable seating. The main obstacle is once we start using the garage, it’ll be our main entrance so that has to be considered when designing this room as well. It’ll get new flooring, trim, paint, and some recessed lighting as well. I also have plans to redo the fireplace with built-ins on each side.

The family room opens to the kitchen and eat-in area.

The kitchen is very similar to our old house in layout, but it seems to work only half as efficient and feels like so much less usable cabinet space. We’ve gone back and forth on this space and keep coming back to the original layout, just moving everything around, but we’re several years out from updating this space so we’ll take our time and think through the ways we see ourselves using it.

In the hallway between the front door and the kitchen area is a half bath.

I want to do something really fun in here, but this will get updated when we redo the flooring on the main level, so we’ve got some time. For now, this pregnant lady is enjoying every moment of having a bathroom on the main floor, which was one of my top NEEDS of our next house!

Upstairs are the 4 bedrooms, with a hall bath and an ensuite bath in the master bedroom. It’s actually where we’re starting our remodeling. Since we have more bedrooms than people at this moment we haven’t moved into our final bedrooms yet and plan to shift as we finish each up. All in time for baby in 2.5 months!

The master bedroom is pretty big, with a sliding door to a small enclosed balcony, two good-sized closets and the small ensuite bath.

Oh, and lots of wallpaper!

The bath is where we’re starting everything and I’ll go into more details next time on this project. We’re working with the same footprint, just tearing everything down to studs and adding materials and products that are very functional and stylish.

The other bedrooms are pretty basic boxes, but will all get new trim and paint and closet organization.

The room we’re currently in will be Archer’s “big boy” room (this makes me laugh because how big boy can he be at less than 1 year old!), it’s also known as the sail boat room, you can see why.

It’s a very big room for a small kid, but we’re planning to have the boys share a room down the road, hoping that they ask for it eventually. Right now, the plan is to finish the master, then move into there, remove all the wallpaper in here, new paint, new trim, and paint and organize the closets, before moving Archer into here.

After Archer moves, we’ll then focus on the nursery, where he’s sleeping right now.

The room is right at the top of the steps and is pretty basic, but I’ve got bigger plans for some sort of wall treatment down the road.

The final bedroom is the smallest of the 4 and will be made into a guest room, but we probably won’t get to any updates in there until later this year.

It’s our catch-all room right now, but my mom will be here to help with Archer when the baby is born so we’ll need to get this room operating quickly.

So, that’s the overall scheme and some basic plans for the place. Right now, it’s all our focus on the master bedroom and bath because of the baby, but come spring time, Mike’s focus will be the barn, which needs electric/gas/water (a little overkill, but ‘if you’re installing one, might as well get it all’ is Mike’s motto!).

Right now it’s not completely sealed so Mike doesn’t have any of his tools there, but eventually it’ll house everything and the garage will have my car, the bigger toys, and all the day to day items like strollers and camping chairs. We also have a shed in the front which will have all our lawn tools and mower.

One of the last major projects will be to remodel the exterior of the house. We’ll definitely be going in a very different direction with the color, and we’ve even talked about extending the porch to add more interest to the front. That’s much further down the road, and will probably wait until after most of the major remodels are done in case we move/install windows.

Overall, like any new project, I’m excited to start. Not to mention, I’ve hit my nesting phase in my pregnancy and can’t wait to start tackling the bedrooms! Archer’s sailboat room is much bigger than our old bedroom, but that ensuite bathroom is looking really nice with the amount of breaks I’m now taking in the middle of the night!

Saying Goodbye to our First Home

2019-01-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

Before we “introduce” you to our new home, I wanted to take a moment and give our first home a proper goodbye here on the blog. It’s literally the reason I started blogging, to document the updates/renovations of that house with our family, and it was a big part of our lives for several years. Be prepared for a very photo heavy post!

Most know that some people discouraged us from buying that house, saying it was too much work and it would strain our relationship. Instead, Mike and I found the opposite, our relationship was strengthened by the teamwork and communication skills we acquired undertaking such large and small projects. We also learned that we really love making spaces our own. I love the design and planning, while Mike is willing (I’m not going to go as far as saying he loves it, ha!) to put the work in to make it better than he found it. He does love buying new tools needed for a specific job, and learning the skills needed! The success we found from our first house is what motivates us with our new home.

I’ll start with some of the listing photos. We used a broker to sell our house, and while it’s not completely “by owner”, you pay a flat rate of a couple hundred dollars to have them list the house and you do all the work after that. I took all the photos and let me tell you, photographing an entire house while living there with a baby is no joke! Each time we focused on a room, the surrounding rooms became dumping grounds for all the “actual people live here” items. It was similar to the way I photograph for the blog, but I tried to pair down on the “stuff” and let the rooms breath a little to show off the space.

I never did show the guest room converted to the office, mostly because it was never really completed, but I cleaned all the actual crafting out to make it a clean as possible.

We listed on a Thursday afternoon and by Friday we had 2 over-asking offers! We had planned on an Open House that Sunday, but ended up canceling after accepting an offer.

Since we already had purchased our new house, we moved out within a week or two and before the new owner’s took possession, I walked through and took some photos of the empty house (unfortunatly, I was coming back from a dr. appt and only had my iPhone). What some would think would be a sad moment wasn’t really for me. I’ve talked about it a lot with Mike but I don’t miss our house. I know! I miss living in a completed space, of course! But, this house was a great chapter in our lives and I’ll look back with really great memories, but I look forward to creating new memories in our new home.

There were great moments in our lives that happened here. We got engaged and married while living here. We hosted dozens of parties. Mike started homebrewing. Of course, we brought our son home in this house, but he was there for such a short time, it doesn’t feel like he was that much of a part of it. This house was exactly what we needed for that time in our life. But, we went in knowing it was only our starter home and we would be moving on to a bigger space with more land. I’ll miss the neighbors and the proximity to certain things, but we’re more than happy to give this baby over to another young couple starting their lives (sidenote: the new owner’s are a young engaged couple so I can say with experience that this house will be perfect for them!).

Like I said, I will miss all the experiences and memories made here, but I’m looking forward to the new ones we’ll be making!

Happy Holidays and New Year!

2019-01-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Whew, it’s been whirlwind end of the year for us Danks! With our big move, my pregnancy, and Archer’s first holiday season, I feel like the last couple of months have gone by in a blur. It’s nice to come up for air and get back in a routine. We’ve got big plans for some major and minor renovations at the new house and some will be kicking off real soon in preparation for the new babe.

Before we get into the plans though, I wanted to share a little of our holidays here on the blog for my future self, and to share a really cute gift from Canvas on the Cheap we gave the grandparents to celebrate all the babies this year!

We kept the same traditions we’ve had for the last couple of years, just moved everything up to accommodate earlier bedtimes and wake-ups, and while the kids were clueless as to what was happening, it was more magical with them there!

I felt a little out of spirit this year because we didn’t decorate our house at all because we are still very much in the “just moved in” phase, luckily my sister volunteered to host this year. In some ways it made the whole season less stressful, which was nice. And, I didn’t go overboard on gifts for anyone, especially Archer, because no matter how expensive the toy is, he’ll still choose the random spatula to carry around!

As for the grandparents gift, I was approached by Canvas on the Cheap to try out one of their products and it couldn’t have been better timing because one of the Christmas surprises was a family photoshoot with all the babies!

My sister-in-law came up with the idea and we used our favorite photographer/friend who offers mini shoots during the fall/winter to get us all together. It was a comedy of errors getting us all there, but we got some great photos of all of us!

It was close to bedtime and pretty chilly, and sometimes the babies cooperated,

And, sometimes they didn’t. HA!

We ended up making a 16”x20” canvas for my mom and step-dad which included the whole gang, and an 11'”x14” canvas for my dad with just my sister’s family and us.

My mom wasted no time in hanging theirs up and sending the photos.

All the grandparents loved them, (I mean with those baby mugs, how could you not?), but I was also impressed with the ease, time, and quality of the canvases. They offer framing options, but one of the things I liked about the canvas was the wrapped edges, so I chose not to frame it. Obviously, they were professional photos so the background was perfectly blurred, so that helped too. I wished I had taken more photos of the quality, but it was the week before Christmas when I did all this, so I was a little bit preoccupied!

Overall, we had a great holiday and I’m secretly happy that I didn’t have any decorations to take down! I’m glad we chose more meaningful gifts this year that will be admired long after all the excitement of the season dies down.

If anyone is looking for canvases to make their family photos a little more special, I’d definitely recommend Canvas on the Cheap! They were super easy to work with, and shipped quickly and I was really happy with the quality.

Major Updates

2018-10-29T15:55:00.000-04:00

Last time I took such a long break from the blog Mike was living in Chicago and I honestly didn’t have much going on. These last couple months of absence are because we have TOO much happening, I can barely keep up in real life, let alone on the blog!

First, little Arch-man is keeping us very busy! He’s standing and cruising between any thing he can hold onto. He’s also right in the middle of a little mommy moment. He’s got a little separation anxiety, and while I can leave him at the sitter’s every day with no problem, if I’m near, he needs to check in with a hug or slobbery kiss every so often. It’s super cute, but doesn’t allow me to get much done!

The major update is we bought a house!

We’ve been casually looking for a couple years for land to build on in the future, but our search was beginning to get frustrating with the lack of properties available. Mike was looking for specific wants on the land: mostly treed – didn’t want to mow much, a water feature like a stream would be nice, and no HOA, and I was looking for proximity to our workplaces and school districts. You wouldn’t think it would be that difficult, but every time we found something in our budget there would be a large riparian set-back (building limits based on water sources) or something else prohibiting us from building. With Archer becoming mobile and all the accumulation of his stuff, we realized how much our little house wasn’t really working for us anymore.

Mike and I both discussed increasing our budget to include the house building and land procurement and began searching for homes with acreage. Once we did this, it became clear we were full-on house hunting. The market is still a seller’s market, at least here, and some homes were being sold before we could even schedule a showing! We spent a couple months like this before we found a house we were willing to put an offer in on. We ended up not even getting a chance because they accepted an offer (hours after we looked at it), but we realized we were ready to buy! The next house I found was a beyond our budget but I asked to look at it anyways because it had sat on the market for several months and wasn’t updated so I figured if we liked it we could lowball and just see what happened. After some negotiations we came to a price closer to our budget and we signed ~~our lives away~~ on the dotted line!

The house was built in 1973 and is pretty ugly and ‘builder basic’, but it comes with over 3.5 acres, a shed, and a two-story barn, all within a top rated school district! I can work with ugly any day for all that! It really is the perfect combination for Mike and I, and with 4 bedrooms and space to grow, it’s perfect for our family too.

Which is important because during the negotiations we found out I’m pregnant!

That’s right we’re going to have 2 under 2! I thought I was tired and feeling icky from running after Archer and not wanting to eat very healthy, turns out is was just the first trimester! When I saw the doctor for the first time a couple days after the at-home test, the ultrasound determined I was about 10 weeks along!

Archer has no clue what he’s in for (ha!) but he loves babies right now and we think he’ll make a great older brother. I may go completely gray when the boys are old enough to get into all the shenanigans Mike has planned, but I’m loving the boy life so far and can’t wait for another little guy!

Look for some more detailed house posts coming soon. Last night was our first overnight and while we’re living mostly out of boxes we’re excited for this next adventure.

Rethinking Paper Cards & Invites

2018-06-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

I love sending and receiving mail. It’s so old school, but I get excited seeing something other than an internet promo with my name on it in my mailbox. I think it’s the personalization and feeling that someone spent time to send me something.

But, recently, and especially since Archer’s arrived, I find it difficult to remember to get a card while I’m out (because you know I can’t make a special trip as easily as I used to), then to get it in the mail in time. That’s why when Paperless Post reached out and asked if I would review their online cards and invitations, I jumped at the chance. Personalization without the hassle of going to the store, sign me up!

As soon as I visited the site, I knew what and who I wanted to send an online card to, my dad for Father’s Day! My dad’s a semi-retired IT guy so I knew this would be right up his alley, and since they live in a gated community in Florida where all the mail is delivered to boxes near the club house instead of their doors, it takes extra time for travel time. Not to mention that’s if they check their mailbox that day. For example, I sent a Mother’s Day card to my mom back in May the Thursday before, and she didn’t get it for an entire week!

It was difficult finding a card at first, because they are all so cute! I found this cute bear, and liked it mostly for the inside message (although I could have totally used any card and changed the message to read whatever I wanted), and made a few customizations and had it ready to go in a few minutes.

My favorite part has to be that I did this all last Thursday and was able to schedule it to be delivered anytime I wanted! I obviously scheduled it for early Sunday morning and that was it! I knew it would get there in time, and I knew my dad would see it because he’s on his computer a lot. I loved it so much I made one for Mike too!

For Mike I went with a photo card and used a recent photo from a music festival we went to. I mean, those baby ear protections get me every time!

It was perfect because while I had already gotten Mike a gift I, of course, forgot a card. And, because we were at a wedding the night before, we ended up sleeping at my sister’s house since she watched Archer for the day and it was easier than moving him. Mike got his card first thing in the morning, and then later when we got home, he opened his present!

For those that don’t follow me on Instagram, part of the gift included shirts that I’ve had planned to make since basically the day I gave birth to Mike’s mini-me! Arch-man looks a little apprehensive here, but he loved his matching outfit, I think it’s all the goofy faces I make trying to get him to smile, he’s on to me!

Overall, Paperless Post was really easy to use, and for this season of my life, where I can’t remember what day it is some days, let alone making sure I’m getting cards in the mail for holidays and birthdays, it’s a really great option! It’s not limited to cards either, you can send out invitations, flyers, thank you notes, save the dates, etc.

My good friend recently used a similar service to send invitations to her rehearsal dinner, and even though I was a bridesmaid and Mike was not only a groomsmen but also the officiant, (so we were obviously not missing it), it was still super easy to reply and let her know we would be there! I’m already thinking about what parties I can use this for next!

If you’re thinking about trying it out, use my invite link here for 25 free coins which is enough to send a handful of cards, or maybe invites to your 4th of July BBQ. I know Archer’s got a super cute outfit picked out, just saying, wink wink!

This post is in partnership with Paperless Post, I received free coins in exchange for my honest review, but all opinions and words are my own. I honestly loved the service provided and wouldn’t have shared otherwise!

The Shortest Lived Office

2018-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

The nursery was my office in it’s previous life and while Mike was in Chicago and our pregnancy plans were put on hold I figured I’d redo my office. I mentioned the idea here and then showed my plans here, but we wasted no time after Mike got home getting pregnant and I never stopped to show you the office space before it was made over into the nursery. It was never finished, let alone styled, so they’re just phone photos, but I thought it was fun to see.

I had bought all the items that I had planned to, knowing they would all move into the guest room when we switched over this room.

I had thought it would be a little longer like this so I even bought a small cabinet to be used to store my cutting machines. It was only $35 on Craigslist and had awesome hardware, but unfortunately a faux wood stained paint job too. Yes, in the photos I was fooled and thought this was stained wood, but once I examined it it was pretty obvious it was painted to look like wood grain (why?!).

This is where the dark blue paint came from. I had wanted a dark blue piece anyways and cleaned it up and painted it Sherwin Williams 7615 Sea Serpent. Due to a miscommunication at the store I was sold a gallon of All Surface Enamel, which was awesome for this project but I didn’t know what I was going to do with a whole gallon of it.

It’s a good thing I loved the color, and at first I was worried about painting the wall with it, but I figured if any wall in our house could use the extra protection, it’s the wall in the nursery! I got really lucky when it worked well with the rug I bought.

The light in this room can be really great and I was looking forward to styling it as an office, but I was even more excited when we got the news that we would need this room for something else! Everything moved down the hall except for the rug, which I sold at a loss since it was too small for the new space and the old rug was still in good shape.

One day I’ll photograph that room, hopefully before we have another kid and I lose my office all together!

Our Finished Basement

2018-04-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I had to look up something so I used my Home Tour page and realized how out of date it was! I decided to fix that and started in the basement mostly because it was the cleanest at the time!

I’ve shown updates here and there like our Christmas decorations, but never a full tour of the space and how it looks most of the time.

There was a lot of work done to get it to this point below (check out this tag to see all the work), and after that it was easy in comparison to finish it off to become one of the most comfortable spots in the house.

I actually prefer to watch TV down here, but in the winter months it’s a little chilly and thinking ahead to turn the space heater on beforehand is sometimes too much. Now that the weather is finally warming up here, (not to mention we’ve found Archer wakes up if we watch TV right below him right after he goes to bed), we’ve been spending more time down here again.

We bought the sectional used and it will probably stay with the house because it was a hassle getting it down the stairs and its the perfect size for the space. We also added a fauxdenza using Ikea kitchen cabinets the same way we did for the living room.

It’s awesome for storage, and it helps to even out the room since the sectional and TV are set up further into the room. Making it almost the whole wall keeps the room from feeling lopsided.

I’ve explained the art above the sofa before, but for those new here the larger art on the right is actually hiding our circuit breaker access!

On the other side are the stairs and anyone who’s been around for awhile knows the work that went into building and finishing them, and they had to get worse before getting better.

But, all the work paid off and not only do we have gorgeous new stairs, but we have a lot more efficient storage.

The paneling was actually designed to hide the new storage spaces.

To the right of the stairs is the little hall with the beer keezer and the bathroom, as well as the new closet. And a special sighting of my little llama helper!

Since the beer was over here and I wanted a way to show off Mike’s homebrewing accomplishments I thought a little gallery wall above the paneling would be perfect. It’s a lot of beer art with some photos from our Europe trip including our trip to the Pislner Urquell brewery and the Hofbräuhaus München. There’s also a spot for some of Mike’s medals!

Overall, I love this space down here! It’s bright and comfy, two descriptives rarely used for a basement, and I can’t wait to keep cool for some Netflix binge sessions during the upcoming warmer months.

For more photos of what this space looked like when we bought the house and links to all the work we did, check out the Home Tour page!

Lifesavers and Special Items in the Nursery

2018-04-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

When I talked about Archer’s nursery I pointed out the main components of most nurseries: the crib, the dresser/changing table, the rocking chair. While those are obviously important, I’ve collected a few special items that were handmade for Archer, or unique lifesavers that I thought I’d share. These are obviously personal to our situation, but I thought by sharing they may be helpful to someone else too!

The first our the crib sheets. From the photo above they look pretty basic, but they’re actually a genius zippered crib sheet called QuickZip.

What’s so great is that it’s a fitted sheet that can be changed quickly by zipping off the top sheet instead of removing the entire fitted sheet. I didn’t realize it but crib mattresses are heavy! I’d hate to pick that thing up every time I needed to change the sheet. Archer hasn’t had any diaper disasters on the sheets (yet) but he has spit up his lunch a time or two and I can easily pick him up, unzip the old sheet, toss in the hamper, grab a new one and zip up, all with one hand!

I got mine from Amazon and got a set of 3 top sheets with one base. It was a pricey investment to buy the whole set at once, but well worth it!

The next lifesaver wasn’t shown in the nursery reveal because it is a little bulky (for the small table) and doesn’t look great in photos. On the little table next to the chair usually sits our little mini fridge.

And when I say mini fridge, this isn’t your dorm room fridge, more like a micro mini fridge.

Mike bought it for me from Amazon and it’s a 4 liter (6 can) mini fridge! We were running downstairs multiple times each night/day for milk and Mike being Mike figured there had to be a better way! This fits a couple bottles and bags of milk and is right next to me in the middle of the night.

The best part is, when we’re done needing the milk throughout the night (during the day Archer will be at a sitters), we can use this for the car or camping!

The next item I mentioned in the reveal, but I think it’s worth noting here too, are the book ledges. I knew if Archer was anything like his dad, I would need to think about the items I installed not only in terms of a little baby, but also a rambunctious toddler. That means these ledges had to be strong!

These from Amazon are advertised as twice as thick as the usual acrylic ledges and are said to be unbreakable. We’ll see about that in a few years, but that and Mike’s anchoring made me feel a little better installing these!

Another item not pictured was something we bought after I took the photos, an iPad stand.

Since I liked being in the nursery, and those first couple months it seemed like all we did was nurse and sleep, I found myself trying to get things done on my iPad but struggling to do it with only one hand. This stand was awesome! I could catch Queer Eye on Netflix during those dreaded cluster feedings and I could answer emails from work while Archer was napping in my arms. I tried to cheap out and buy one that clipped onto the crib, but it couldn’t hold the weight, so Mike found this one for me. I use it less nowadays now that we have a sort of schedule and his night feedings are more like dreamfeeds where I can do them in the dark in less than 20 minutes. But, again it’s something we can use around the house when we aren’t using it in the nursery anymore.

The final item was something I handmade for the room, the painted globe.

The idea is all over Pinterest and I knew I wanted to have one in this Tibetan Sherpa themed room. It wasn’t that difficult, and was actually kind of relaxing (which was nice those last couple weeks before Archer was due) to paint. It’s not something I could bring down to play with, unless I clear-coated, maybe with some Modge Podge, but I like looking at it!

Like any room in the house, some of these were designed into it from the beginning, and some were added after we saw the need, but all of these items are special and/or lifesavers and worth twice as much as we paid for them (anything that gives me 10 extra minutes of sleep is worth it’s weight in gold these days)! If I can give that extra time to any other mamas out there I'll gladly share my finds! My sister (who just welcomed her little one yesterday!) is already getting the zippered crib sheets after I raved about mine!

Archer’s Nursery

2018-03-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

I’m excited to share my favorite room in the house. I’m grateful I love it so much because I spend the most time in there these days #hello3amnursing!

Thanks to the short lived office redo, we started with a blank slate and white walls.

I had a general plan and theme (ha!) and started with the major components – crib, dresser, chair, and rug. I chose a lot of white furniture, knowing that anything dark would be too heavy for this tiny room, and because of that I wanted to add some visual interest to one wall to break up the white. I painted the only full wall a deep blue with left over paint I used for a piece of furniture that lived in the office for such a short time I have no photographic evidence!

I bought the rug first and was lucky that the left over paint worked well together. The wall took two coats, and because it was furniture paint, it had a pretty decent sheen to it, which I normally wouldn’t choose for a wall, but now that I’ve discovered how messy everything can get with a baby I’m not too upset over the extra protection next to the crib!

Once the main furniture pieces were in place it was just adding in the accessories.

We added a bamboo blackout/cordless shade (above the light diffusing honeycomb shade not shown), some acrylic picture ledges for books, a shelf above the dresser, and another shelf next to the crib.

The dresser is from Ikea, and while it’s not specifically a changing table, but I prefer the extra height for changing Archie. The felt ball garland from Hobby Lobby was placed there temporary because I was going to cut it up to use for a mobile above the crib, but the kid stares at that for a good 20 minutes every morning and it’s enough time for this mama to brush her teeth and hair and therefore it’s staying forever!

The triangle shelf is an awesome find from World Market and besides hiding the camera and the white noise machine, it’s basically decoration, but the fun part of a nursery is that kids toys can be the décor!

The light box was a gift from my mom and besides being perfect for parties, it serves as a nightlight.

The closet was one area we didn’t skimp and our son literally has the best organized and most expensive closets in the house.

Back when we moved in we used the cheaper ClosetMaid systems from Home Depot and Mike set up this closet supports 24” apart.

This was a happy coincidence because I really wanted elfa drawers from The Container Store for the nursery and wouldn’t you know they’re 24” drawers, that after some research online, I read from others would fit the ClosetMaid support system we already installed!

We bought the drawers, a shelf and hanging rod from The Container Store and was able to reuse one of our shelves. The finished picture above shows a better angle so that you can see the closet is deep enough for the drawers to open inside. We have so much organization in this nursery I started hanging up random onsies that could easily be folded inside the dresser.

While the main elements are pretty basic, the accessories have that collected/well-traveled look Mike and I wanted, and the textures (like the sheepskin and woven baskets) and whimsical items like the llamas have that Tibetan Sherpa vibe Mike specifically wanted.

The room is tiny, but has a big personality while still feeling as though it compliments the rest of the house.

Below is a list of the major sources:

Welcoming Baby Danks

2018-02-28T15:28:00.001-05:00

Allow us to introduce the latest member of Danks and Honey, ARCHER LEE DANKS.

It’s been 5 weeks today since Archer joined our family and we are even more in love with him each day. We’re also starting to get acclimated to our family of four (can’t forget about Benelli!) and after a couple weeks at home, I’m figuring out how to get things done with a tiny human attached to me.

Archer is a mini copy of Mike and throughout the day I can see him making little Mike faces like the crinkle lines above his nose when he’s determined or concentrating on something.

As for the actual delivery, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Due to some health issues, I was scheduled for induction at 39 weeks and having heard from some family and friends about their recent induction experiences I was prepared for the worst. In the end, Archie was ready to go and all set in place and Mike was an absolute rock star and the best support person! It was a long process, about 20 1/2 hours, but as the cliché goes, it was all worth it. So much so that the next night in recovery as Mike and I stared at Archer, we looked at each other and agreed that we should immediately have another!

Benelli has been awesome with the new addition, and for the most part has gotten over being an only fur child. He hasn’t gotten too close to Archie, but he’ll come sit near us, like when I’m nursing, and follows me towards the noise when he’s fussing and crying. He’s never been a huge fan of children or babies so we worried that he would hide for the most part, but he’s surprised us and just slightly modified his regular routine.

We began prepping the house and him months before Archer came home by putting all the baby gear out and letting him get used to them and the new smells. When we were in the hospital Mike left to feed Benelli and to get me sushi (my first meal request!) and while he was home he brought a couple items that Archer had been wearing that had his scent on it and let Benelli smell the items while giving him treats. When we came home, Mike carried Archer and the car seat in after me and I walked in and gave Benelli my full attention since I hadn’t seen him the longest. He was very excited about the car seat and the new smell and was introduced to his brother when Archie began mewing inside. It freaked B out for a second, but I think curiosity won out and he’s been slightly intrigued ever since.

These days you can find us stealing baby snuggles and discovering his little personality as he takes in more of the world around him. We can’t wait to see if he grows up to look like Mike or if he’ll have at least a few of my features, ha!

I was able to get some photos of the finished nursery today as well, so I'll share the space that has become my new favorite room in the house. Which is a good thing because I spend a large portion of my day (and night) there!

Nursery Planning and Picking a "Theme"

2017-10-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

While my pregnancy has progressed (hello 6 months!) I’ve got the normal curiosity about how we’re prepping the house for baby. A lot of people specifically have asked what is our nursery theme? While picking a “theme” would make a lot of things easier, I never had planned to go this more traditional route. My plan was to design a more masculine grown-up room and add layers of whimsy and fun in the decorations, toys, and books.

Via

Mike really surprised me one night when he shared the “theme” he wanted for our son’s room!

The room is small and, thanks to my impatience, already a blank slate from starting the office redo.

I had the top image in my mind as inspiration and knew adding toys and colorful books would add the layer of "fun" I was looking for. When Mike and I were discussing the room he surprised me by having his own, very distinct, opinion. Not to say Mike having an opinion is surprising, anyone who's a longtime reader or knows him in person knows that he's very opinionated, but he usually lets me do my thing decorating because at this point he trusts me. Even though he doesn't like some things I bring into the house, he recognizes that many people do and that I have relatively good taste.

His idea for a theme? Tibetian Sherpa.

Ha! Let me explain. He has this snowboarding game that he said is kinda the feel for what he had in mind. It's called Alto's Adventure and it really does have visually cool and interesting graphics.

Basically, Alto, a snowboarding Shepard, forgets to close his llama gate and they escape and he has to collect them all.

As we were talking, Mike said he doesn't want little sherpa's in the corners or kid-sized llamas, just the overall feel of the imagery of the game. We talked about colors and textures like leather and fur and wouldn't you know it was basically the direction I was already going!

So while the "theme" is kind of a joke, it's also the direction we're heading and in addition to the basic colors and furniture, I'm sourcing a llama or two for fun!

We've got a lot of the major furniture, like a new rug, dresser and crib, either installed or en route and the room's painted, so now we work on adding a little Alto to the room!

Replacing Perfectly Good Lights with New Ones

2017-09-01T10:05:00.000-04:00

This is a short post, but basically I’ve been relatively happy with our bathroom vanity lights we installed almost 5 years ago (I had to look that number up and the seems really crazy that that project was that long ago!).

The style wasn’t something I loved, but they were okay. What I didn’t love was the dust.

It may be difficult to see in photos, but the frosted glass made it impossible to clean off the dust.

Regular Swiffer dusters were out of the question, and even using a damp paper towel left it dirty and little paper towel pieces behind. Besides, I know my cleaning limitations and I barely want to get on the counter now to hand clean these bad boys, I know when a baby comes it’s definitely not happening!

So I went on the hunt for something with a smooth glass cover, but I also liked the diffused light from the frosted glass. When I came across these Oslo 3-Light Brushed Nickel Vanity Lights from Home Depot I felt like it was a winner.

While I don’t absolutely love the style, it works for our somewhat traditional bathroom, and it has both a smooth glass exterior while still providing the diffused light as the old lights.

Like the original installation, we installed with the bulbs facing down because the room is small and facing it upwards would loose light as it bounced off the ceiling first.

Installation was relatively easy, except that the screws on the mounting plate were a little too long for the new fixture. Mike was able to get one to work, but ended up needing to cut the other set down. Strange and annoying, but like most things, he figured it out!

While it’s not a huge change, we did add LED bulbs and the lighting is now brighter and a little cooler in temperature, it’s a nice little upgrade. Also, knowing that cleaning them will be much easier makes me smile a little every time I turn them on!

Adding New Outlets to an Older Home

2017-08-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

While we work on moving furniture around in the bedrooms to make room for the nursery, there were a few projects that we had to complete first.

First up, was installing two new outlets upstairs, one in the (future) office and the other in our bedroom. You see, one of the perks of our 90-year-old house is there are no outlets on any exterior walls upstairs. When I first mentioned this to Mike he was living in Chicago and he 100% thought I was wrong. I assured him that as someone who’s had to decorate around this quirk, it was true, (I’m pretty sure he went and checked the next time he was in town just in case I was wrong)!

Before moving the desk I wanted to add an outlet so I didn’t have extension cords running across the room, and while we’re adding one, we might as well add another on the other side of the house in our bedroom to get rid of the extension cords we were already using!

While the pictures aren’t anything to look at, some aren’t even in focus because I was also acting as “apprentice” during installation, I found the process interesting and actually it’s not that hard at all! Although, if you’ve never done electrical work before I definitely wouldn’t recommend this, but by knowing the process it can help you stay informed when getting quotes by licensed electricians.

First, you cut a hole. We determined the new outlet should fall somewhere in the middle of the wall where my desk would sit. We used the cable outlet (which were installed in all the bedrooms prior to us moving in) to match the height. Mike chose to use an old work box (the blue plastic kind) because we are installing into the original lathe and plaster walls, also you don’t need to find and attach to a stud. We used the stud finder to determine we weren’t hitting a stud and then used a multi-tool (oscillating saw) to cut the hole.

Then came the fun part, and by fun, I mean worst part for Mike because he had to get up in the attic.

We attached a pull string to the original outlet wiring in the room and from the attic, Mike pulled the existing wire up (making sure the string didn't get pulled out and I had something to grab on to). Then he attached the new wire to the string and existing wire. From below, I pulled both back through the outlet. The gray is the exisiting, and the yellow is the new wire.

By connecting the new wire to the existing receptacle, this is where the power to the new outlets will come from (they'll also all be on the same breaker which will make it easier for future work). Mike then moved to the other side of the room (in the attic) and since we had measured where the new outlet was cut in relation to the corner of the house, he knew where to drill the holes to drop down the new wire. Here's the relation of the existing outlet (on the bottom right) to the new outlet across the room.

I was in the room in charge of making sure I saw sawdust through the new hole as he drilled the hole up in the attic (check!) and then I had to grab the wire as he fed it down. Once the first wire was pulled, then he sent down another one, which would then feed to our bedroom across the attic.

At this point, it's basically 90% done. We did the same procedure to the new outlet in our bedroom, (Mike laid out the second wire across the attic and after cutting it with more than enough slack, he pushed that down the wall as I grabbed it through the new hole and pulled it through).

Mike then added receptacles, which was a little difficult due to the 12-gauge wire, but of course, he made it work. We decided to add receptacles with USB ports (these ones specifically) knowing that I'll be charging my phone and electronics in my office sometimes, and we charge our kindles on our bedside tables in our bedroom.

With that project done, I'm basically ready to paint this room! I have a lot more energy now that I've hit the second trimester, but I still can't get excited about this project. I'm hoping to just push through it this weekend so we can start setting up the nursery, which is both overwhelming and exciting!

We tackled another smaller electrical project this weekend, which I'll share later this week.

Baby Danks is a…

2017-08-24T10:05:00.001-04:00

Two weeks ago we had a small cookout for about 25 of our close friends and family (small in terms of our usual parties!) to announce the gender of our baby! Mike wanted to make “baby” back ribs (ha!) and pork butt sliders and everyone brought a dish to share. It was an awesome informal gathering and Mike and I felt so lucky to have some many loved ones who are just as happy to share in this exciting time for us. The kick ass food may have helped too!

I thought of a million different ways to share the news, but in the end I went with my old favorite, a giant balloon!

At the beginning, I'm talking to my mom via Facetime from Florida.

Although I’m only 17 weeks along right now, we chose to get the optional non-invasive chromosomal screening test at 11 weeks and had the option to test for the baby’s gender as well. We received the results less than a week later, and didn’t waste any time ripping open the envelope to see the XY MALE!

Mike and I both had a feeling it was a boy. Mike based on the fact that he really wanted a son, and mine based on my symptoms ( for example, I had a severe aversion to sweets for the first couple of months). We're both really excited for our little boy to join our family!