House and Home{stead}

a little more finished

2014-01-06T10:02:00.000-05:00

So, last post I shared our new herringbone wood plank wall with you:

I mentioned that we also made more updates recently. After getting the herringbone up, an architect friend (who has amazing taste and design skills and I trust immensely) suggested it was a little busy even with the (new) TV mounted. We agreed and decided that our hemming and hawing over whether to purchase the doors for the bookcases was an easy choice - they needed to be bought, despite the fact that I painted the backs. So, two days after Christmas my awesome hubby headed off on the 2.5 hour drive (each way!) to IKEA and came home with the doors.

And, I was smitten.

Obviously not finished. We still need hardware, install the top for the middle unit (a beech butcher block top that we stained), trim out the sides, baseboards and crown. Then we hope to continue moving on the board and batten on the blue & white walls. It has been all moving quickly this winter, but we're also finally finishing the basement bathroom. More on that in the coming days!

I Heart Herringbone

2014-01-05T09:50:00.004-05:00

I can't seem to keep up with regular word-y posts, but I keep getting messages asking about our basement floors and built-ins, so I figured I could update people with short-but-sweet, to-the-point posts.

We've actually done a ton since I last posted….finished the floors (but still not the trim), made huge progress on our basement bath and done some really fun stuff with the Besta built-in wall.

As a reminder, here's where we last left off with the wall:

And here it is after a recent update:

Hello gorgeous! (Pardon the construction mess). Yep, a herringbone wood plank wall. More updates coming soon!

plum brown

2013-03-05T09:23:00.004-05:00

As if we didn't have enough going on after deciding to install hardwood flooring, I also decided on a whim to repaint the playroom (i.e., technically our formal dining, but we're not "formal dining" people, so....). Actually, we repainted the master bedroom too, but that was always in the plans. More on that later!

We had visited some friends in St. Louis last summer and their house is ah-mazing! He is an architect and has an amazing eye for design as well, so I pretty much drool over every.single.thing about their home.

Just a couple of things in particular were 1) their floors and 2) their foyer color. The foyer color was a rich, beautiful dark color - not quite purple, not quite brown. It is a Sherwin Williams color called Plum Brown. I grabbed a chip and compared it to our current color scheme to see how it played in.

Above you can see the plum brown next to our great room color (BM's Camouflage), and to the right our yet-to-be-painted master bedroom color (BM's Silver Half Dollar). This color is also planned for the kitchen, and because of our open concept, I want them all to mesh well. I love them all together, so I went ahead and purchased the paint. After having painted with BM in our great room though, I went ahead and had BM color match it for me.

Going on, to say it was a little different was a HUGE understatement...

Sorry for the blurry photo. Anyway, once it was up and dried I had this:

I LOVED it! It was exactly what I was going for. And yes, the baby sat (and slept) contentedly in that carseat while I painted almost the entire room.

We've now lived with this color for a little while, and I can say that I still love it just as much as the first day. The floors are dark also, remember, so I was looking forward to getting lighter furniture in the room, a rug and art on the walls to brighten things up. After now having that done also, we want to brighten it further, so we've decided to go ahead and put board and batten on the walls in this room also, which will be good practice for the basement. That being said, we haven't done anything to "finish" the moulding in this room in the meantime.

What do you think? Do you have any bold colors in your home? Where?

picking the floors

2013-03-03T13:14:00.000-05:00

Picking the floors for us was a long process. We actually started looking at flooring during the fall/winter of 2011. We looked both online as well as in showrooms locally. Ultimately we decided last year that it just wasn't the right time, so we held off. Some of that has to do with our money choices, which I'll share more about some other time.

One benefit of shopping local was service and the ability to see nice big samples that they would let us take home and return. The samples were always a nice large size, so you could get a good feel for the flooring in your space. Downside? Price. The prices locally were always far larger than online for similar woods (and in some case, the same wood).

The site we focusing our online shopping on was BuildDirect. I first learned of this site when Dana over at HouseTweaking used it in her Underdog house. I loved the look of her floors (see here), but felt that birch wouldn't hold up well to our three (two at the time we first started shopping) kids, one (two at the time!) dog and cat. We wanted something harder, more substantial, more dense. What I loved about it was they would send you samples - as many as five - for free. You could order more than five, but then just have to pay shipping. Over the course of the two winters we were shopping we ordered LOTS of samples.

Once we were more seriously shopping it helped that Dana did a "how are they holding up" type post about her floors. It was good to be able to go read about how she felt about the floors after living with them for a while, and honestly it sold us on BuildDirect even more.

Long story short, after looking at the samples, considering colors, and giving them all a "scratch and dent" test, and considering pros/cons of hardwood vs engineered, we opted for this maple coffee flooring from BuildDirect.

I never actually took any pictures of the sample we ended up choosing but did snap this pic once night after the flooring was here, acclimating and we were still prepping the surface:

If you look at the link to the flooring, you can also see beautiful variation in it, even though the overall color is quite dark.

Next up, install!

loooooonnnnnngggg break

2013-02-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

Wow! Did I drop off the face of the planet or what? Meanwhile the pageviews on the blog have been crazy! It turns out IKEA built-ins and painting a basement floor are popular projects.

SO much is going on here. I had a baby!

Isn't she lovely? Harper Sage. Born 4 hours after my water broke and was (surprise!) breech. That was fun - though I strongly credit the fact that I do CrossFit with not having to push for very long. Of course she's 5 months now and still sweet as can be.

And we're also going crazy with house projects. I'll pick back up here but leave you with this teaser:

Yep, the carpet's coming out and floors are going in! What a long process from start to finish - from picking the flooring to install (yes, we're doing them ourselves). We're currently on day 52 of the install, but who's counting....

Back with details on how we picked the flooring next!

post party and living room update!

2012-07-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

Well, here we are. July 8th already and the party is obviously over. It was awesome and we all had a blast. It was so great to have all our family and friends over and celebrate with the kids and make them feel so special and loved. I'll share pics from the party soon (I went with a rainbow theme and made a rainbow cake!).

In the meantime, I'll quickly address the birthday list. Of the 18 items on that list, I made it through 9 of them. Wop wop.... Oh well, what can you do? Chalk it up to the usual for me, slightly overzealous with my list-making, but underestimating the time for each and time available for projects. At the time I was coaching 4 days a week (currently back down to 3) and that coupled with my regular duties of full-time mom, the Etsy shop, etc. just made the rest hard. But, I'm making my way through the rest and a few new items as well! I'll post a few of those items soon (new sun shade anyone?).

In the meantime, here's some updated pics of the living room! Finally you get to see the transformation of the new paint color, as well as the new mirror I added to the space!

Hello kitty!

the new mirror!

notice this side doesn't have the back painted?

I've since made some changes to this, and it obviously wasn't' filled back in yet also.

I love love *love* the new color. It's everything I've been wanting - it is a fresh look, it's still neutral, it's a cool color but definitely has warmth to it, and it really seemed to brighten up the space. This was also my first time painting with Benjamin Moore paints and they are *totally* worth the extra cost in my opinion. Everything went on in one coat even around the trim work, which almost always needs a second coat. We'll definitely be using it again!

I also LOVE the new mirror. I totally broke down and splurged on that one. I had seen the mirror in Centsational Girls living room. It was a mirror she had picked up from Lamps Plus and then painted white, which was my plan all along. Once the mirror arrived and I saw how perfectly it went with the tile on the fireplace I decided to leave it.

So, where am I in this room? I need to:

finish painting the other bookcase (this is actually done already!)
finish the curtains (oh boy, do I have a story on that one for ya!)
finish styling the bookcases
move the family photo to another wall and add a gallery of frames
add a new piece of art in the old photo space
add some personal touches to the foyer
add some color!

Other than the splurge for the mirror, I'm really trying to do this room on the cheap, so I'm working with what I have and as much as it would be nice to buy new furniture pieces, etc, it's just not part of my plan, so it might happen slowly and will surely evolve over time. I'll talk about the financial aspect of our spending/decisions in a post soon!

the birthday list

2012-06-12T11:14:00.000-04:00

It's been a few weeks. Summer....the time of relaxation and more flexible schedules, right? Ha! Around here summer hit and things went crazy! Between out of town trips for the hubs, and just juggling our already crazy schedule (my coaching, Noah's Tball and gymnastics, etc.) time for blogging just got away from me.

Another reason? It's now June. What is perpetually the craziest month of our year. Both kids' birthdays, friend birthday parties, garden prep, house projects galore (that we're always trying to get done before the party, etc.). So, without further ado, I thought I'd share the "pre-birthday party" list with you. We've actually been crossing stuff off the list - I just haven't blogged about them yet! Good news is that I do have stuff to share!

The Pre-Birthday Party List:

Deck - clean and scrub down
Gazebo sun shade (mostly done - a little clean-up to do)
~~Flowers outside~~
AC/Mulch area (just needs to be de-weeded and cleaned up a bit)
Carpets cleaned (appt scheduled!)
~~Paint family room~~
~~Paint back of bookshelves~~
Curtains (fabric samples ordered...decided to go another route)
Deep cleaning
Pictures hung and updated
Lilah's dresser (might get pushed to the back burner because I had to add #14 thanks to miss Lilah)
Baby clothes (we have bags given to us from friends since we got rid of a lot of our infant stuff)
Rearrange attic (closely tied to #12)
Lilah's nightstand (um, she decided to draw all over it with non-washable red marker. Did I mention that it's white?)
Laundry room curtain
Touch up playroom paint
Touch up kitchen paint
Touch up trim work

Some of these might be a miracle, to be honest, but this is typically how DIY goes, doesn't it? Big lists and dreams and schedules that always take longer than we thought. :-) Back soon with some finished projects!

bookcase shuffle

2012-05-14T08:07:00.001-04:00

The family room bookcase before:

And now after:

Meanwhile, all the books, pictures, etc were transferred to the basement shelves (which have finally been installed). Nothing is permanent, because I now need to go through everything and get things better organized, displayed, etc. And the painting of the family room will resume this week, so we'll get to see the two new colors together, instead of the one new color (bookcase) and the one old color (beige).

upstairs hallway: before

2012-05-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

Short post today, but just a couple of pics of the upstairs hallway before it was painted, so you can see how filthy the walls were. Four little hands touch these walls every.single.time they go up and down these stairs. I've scrubbed them, and while the dirt would come off, the flat paint the builder used was so cheap it would always still look "greasy". As opposed to the trimwork, done in a nice glossy sheen, which wipes right clean. Sigh....

The upside is that it's DONE though! So happy!

Back with after pictures soon!

room by room: family room

2012-05-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

Now that progress has started on the family room, it certainly seems fitting that I would show you what the room looks like *before* we make too much progress. I'm putting it all out there - the room is clean (well, clean enough...) but I'm keepin' it real - so yes, you'll see my messy bookshelves and all. :-)

Here is the back fireplace wall - looking into the room from the kitchen/eat in area.

Main fireplace wall. Plans for new mirror above fireplace (we've had that print for a long time. I love it, but it's time for something new).

Built-ins for television and components. Need to remove pots above (can you say dusty?) because they don't fit the space at all (came with us from Arizona), and there are more plans for the built-ins.

Built-in bookshelves. Plans for these similar to the television built-ins.

This is the view of the room looking towards the front of the house/foyer. If you look closely, you can see the new paint job extending down from the upstairs hallway, and the hallway patch job for repairs. :-)

Room facing the back of the house (west) and the large windows. The mirror will come down and get moved, and there will be new curtains. There will also be a new furniture layout, and possibly refinish the end/coffee/console tables.

So there you go! Next up are some *before* pics of the upstairs hallway before we painted it. I swear my kids touch the wall every single time they climb up or down those stairs. So they were filthy! Keepin' it real....keepin' it real....

Stay tuned!

family room moodboard

2012-04-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

I went ahead and put together a mood board for the family room plans. Here it is!

The paint color (BM's Camouflage - large paint chip) will be going on all the walls. The complementary color Smoky Ash (smaller paint chip) will be used in another place or two. I have plans for wide-stripe horizontal curtains flanking the very large set of windows we have in the space. We also may use some roman bamboo shades, but the jury is still out on that one (we can't do blinds inside the window because of the extensive moulding).

The sofa we have isn't nearly as "traditional" looking as the one on the board, but at some point in the future we hope to purchase new furniture for the family room and move this stuff to the basement. If that happens, I hope to purchase a sectional in a more neutral tone. For now, we're using what we have. The wood floors are definitely a little ways off. Because we pay cash for everything we do (and are on plan to have our new Highlander paid off in just a few months) we wouldn't be purchasing flooring until we save up the money for it. But we will eventually be getting it.

The coffee and side tables we have will be used as well - very craftsman in style and rustic. So, a nice mix of styles in the space. We've had them for almost 8 or 9 years now, and I've been thinking about refinishing them somehow (I have an idea in mind!) and I know Derrick would love me to refinish existing furniture rather than consider purchasing new. The slipper chairs would also be a down-the-line purchase with a new sofa, and thus a new furniture arrangement that I already have in mind.

The mirror is one of my favorite parts so far (well, maybe a tie with the curtains!). It's actually not the one pictures, but similar in style. NOT similar in color, but there are plans for that!

UPDATE: The mirror arrived yesterday and I LOVE it! I may leave it as is for now, knowing I can always change it later.

The blue and yellow work well with the wall color we've chosen. In fact, the color in the zig zag pillow is probably the closest in shade to a color that the BM site said works very well with the Camouflage, so it's the color I'm leaning towards for the kitchen.....someday. :-) And the yellow *could* change to green. This is just a plan so far, but we'll see how closely I can stick to it. It's been fun putting it together, but we'll see how it evolves!

How about you? Have you ever done a mood board or design plan? How closely did you stick to it?

new family room color is a GO!

2012-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

The same day I picked up the yellow paint for the basement bookcases I picked up a 2 ounce sample jar of the Camouflage color I've picked for the family room. I painted it in a few places in the family room (right next to the fireplace, close to the windows, and on a wall opposite the window that receives direct light). And, unlike the basement bookcase color - I LOVE it! Love - seriously.

I'll admit - at first glance, it doesn't seem *that* different than what's on the walls. But, it feels a bit more sophisticated to me (or maybe I'm just so sick of that builder beige), it feels a bit lighter and softer, and I do love the two-tone feel it has to it like Censational Girl mentioned (a tad gray looking in indirect light, more greenish in direct light).

I'm also hugely looking forward to having anything other than flat walls that I can clean with a damp cloth again!

And in other news, I've purchased something for over the fireplace which I'm super excited about! I think it's all coming together and I'm thinking about doing a mood board before we get started.

So, what do you think of the paint color? Would you like to see a mood board of the future room?

painted bookshelves

2012-04-25T10:45:00.000-04:00

Progress? I chose a coordinating color for the bookshelves, thanks in part to the Benjamin Moore website and the coordinating color choices they provide when you look up a single color. I entered the blue we used for the basement, and a yellow choice, called Desert Tan is what was provided. Derrick thought it was too dark, and since he's pretty much giving me full reign of the decorating decisions these days I'm appeasing him where I can. :-) So, I found another very similar color called Summer Harvest and bought a quart.

I did the first coat and it was obvious I would need a second. I painted the second coat and while I like the color and am happy it is done, I will admit.....I don't LOVE the color. Thoughts? I'm starting to wonder if maybe a more orange color - such as a pale coral - might be a better choice. Or, I might just leave it and see how it works once it's all styled.

Decisions, decisions.....

playroom picture frames

2012-04-23T10:15:00.002-04:00

We have a bit of a problem in the playroom. Well, in all fairness it's only a "playroom" problem because that's where I store said items, but I think it's something many parents struggle with.

Art work overload.

Yep, being the parent of two kids that go to preschool a few days a week as well as love to do art projects pretty much anywhere, the art projects pile up. Big time. I purge as best as I can when they aren't looking (let's be honest, not every thing my kids create is a Picasso) and save the stuff that is really special or unique, but it still piles up like mad.

I've seen a few ideas on pinterest which I'd like to incorporate sometime down the line.

From here.

Now, this is shown with photographs, but I've seen this idea of photographing all the artwork and displaying as one large collage. That also suggests that I have the time to go through all the art work, photograph it and organize them, find a way to have it printed (not that I would go that large), etc. But it's still something I'm thinking of down the line.

I also like the idea of, and this is a bit more practical for me, to make a yearly book with the artwork from that year in it (by photographing, but still saving special pieces).

In the meantime, I still wanted a special way to display their artwork and encourage them to continue making such beautiful pieces.

I had seen this display on Pinterest and loved it, and thought frames in a bright fun color would be perfect in the playroom. I especially love the mix of different sizes and frames, but for now, I went the uniform route.

Enter, IKEA frames. And enter, picture placement.

We bought the frames on our last trip to IKEA (it's a good 2.5-3 hours from us) when we were also buying the BESTA bookcases. I bought 2 of each in four different sizes. then I traced each size onto paper the kids had on a roll so I could play with hanging the frames that way instead of trying to actually do it with the frames and putting needless holes in the wall. It worked really well, and this was the placement I settled on, but I think I changed it twice before landing on this one.

I then got to work, as I didn't want the white frames - I was thinking orange or yellow, and at our last trip to Lowe's I asked Noah and he voted yellow. Sold!

I thought maybe I could just paint them since they are wood, after all, but they almost seem to be covered with a plastic-like coating, so had to go the prime route after all (and really, painting these was just a big huge PITA, to be honest).

After a few coats of primer, I did the yellow (but forgot to take a picture of that part of the process).

After putting a sawtooth hanger in the back of each frame, I also used those Command poster strips to keep the frames from getting knocked back and forth on the nail. I hung them all up, secured the strips, and stepped back to enjoy!

I'll reveal with full artwork when I show you the entire playroom, hopefully soon! I also still might put some cork into the center of each so that we could just use thumbtacks to secure the artwork....still deciding on that one!

So, how about you? Do you have any clever ways to store/keep/display your children's artwork?

growing

2012-04-19T11:21:00.002-04:00

Seeing as how we're growing, not just as a family, but two kids aged 2 and 5 do some pretty nice growing on their own, we've always wanted a nice way to capture it. Up until now, it's been on our master bath wall. And as I've mentioned before, builder beige is very blah, as well as won't wipe down well at all, so the walls look filthy (yes, they painted the bathrooms in flat paint).

So, as much as I love this wall with all the markings of my kids' growth, it is time for it to go. The bathroom needs to be painted, and I want something that could come with us (if we ever moved, but I don't foresee that at any time in the near to distant future).

So a while back, hubby made a white wooden one, but it had no measurement markings on it or anything. I offered to add them, but never got around to it. Truth is, I didn't really like the one he made. He didn't really care for it either - but we were trying to fix a problem. We knew where we wanted to put it, but yet it never was hung. This wall is just off the kitchen and playroom and next to our powder room. Everytime we go on a family trip, we pick up a memento from our travels. We picked up this carved piece on a trip to Jamaica. I have a lizard painted in aboriginal style from Australia. a wooden carved turtle from Mexico, and we have a Koa wooden paddle we bought in Hawaii.

This has been hanging here since we moved in, and I decided to evict it for the growth chart - if we ever got around to finishing it/making a new one.

Then one day I was cruising around various blogs on the web, and found these gorgeous growth charts from Dear Lillie. I saw that she sold them, but also saw that she followed the tutorial available on the blog 517 creations to make them, so I went ahead and did the same. It was SUPER easy to make and came together quickly. But then it sat waiting for a couple coats of poly for, well, a couple months. Sigh....

It's all done and hanging in the hallway where the Jamaica carving once was, and I absolutely love it. I started the markings (spaced every inch) at 6" and hung it 6" from the ground. Only thing left to do is take it into the bathroom to transfer all the old markings, and hopefully I'll get to that sooner rather than later.

What do you think? Do you have a growth chart like this or similar in your home? Or do you prefer to do it in a doorway/wall/casing of some kind?

my favorite kitchen gadgets

2012-04-17T20:17:00.001-04:00

I have three that jump out at me. I love them all for their beauty, simplicity and joy they bring to me in the kitchen.

The first is simple. It's a couple of mugs that my son bought me for Christmas one year (picked them out himself!). They are bright and cheerful colors, and are the perfect way to start the day with a hot cup of tea, which I do every morning.

cups of hot tea happen every morning. cinnamon rolls - not so much.

The second gadget(s) are a couple of berry bowls I recently purchased at Anthropologie. There's a bigger story here though. First I owned this gorgeous berry bowl:

It was the most gorgeous berry bowl I'd ever seen. Purchased from a seller on Etsy, it was small and petite, but perfect for rinsing berries and small bowls of grapes, and was used just about daily. It was a beautiful robin's egg blue, complete with black specks and everything. And after more than a year of owning it....it was broken by one of my kids, on accident. After I loved this bowl so much (and before this one broke), I had purchased another green one from a different seller on Etsy. This one went into daily rotation. I was seriously crushed over this one, so I wrote to the seller I originally purchased it from, and begged her to make me another. She suffers from pretty bad arthritis and doesn't make them anymore, but after a few months, she sent me another. And then - within 2 weeks - it was broken again. UGH!!!! The green one was broken within a few months of that. Sigh...

After that, I was done buying one of a kind handmade items only to have them broken within months. Do NOT get me wrong - I'm all about supporting handmade and filling your home with these lovely things, but in our case, I just can't purchase super functional items like berry bowls and expect my kids to never touch them. It's just not practical. So, I replaced them with these two new ones from Anthropologie, knowing that if they get broken, I won't suffer the same heartbreak I did with the others. :-( So, a large aqua and small yellow have a new home in my kitchen.

The third item is a gorgeous handmade maple cutting board made by an amazing seller on Etsy, Red Onion Woodworks. It's thick, and has incredible graining which seems to glisten when well oiled and cared for. One side is more solid, and that's our "use everyday" side, and the other has a bit of the natural bark side showing, and so we save that as the "serving" and "entertaining" side.

Mine is actually in need of a little TLC, so I just need to do a bit of sanding and another treatment of mineral oil and we're good to go!

What about you - what go-to kitchen gadgets make you smile in your kitchen? Check out the Kitchen Gadgets Link Up Party over at Censational Girl to hear about lots more!

the never ending list

2012-04-16T10:14:00.001-04:00

I have so many irons in the fire right now, and not just in the world of home improvement, that I thought it might be a good time to create a to-do list for myself, at least as far as the house/blog are concerned so that I can start to tackle things in a prioritized order and not lose sight of some things. I realize you haven't even seen pictures of some of these rooms, but no fear - we'll eventually get to all of them.

from here

Basement Main

possibly get more bookcases to go floor to ceiling
paint back of bookcases
wall treatment around bookcases
touch up paint
board and batten
light fixtures
arrange furniture
cover all the boxes

Basement Bath

build vanity
get new sink
purchase/order tile for shower
decide on the accent tile & floor tile
install ejector pump
install toilet
install sink and faucet
touch up paint
hang shower rod and curtain
get rug and towels

Family Room

choose new paint color
fix corner pieces
paint
paint back of bookshelves
re-hang curtain rod
decide on shades?
diy new curtains
new mirror above fireplace
declutter the bookshelves
more feng shui furniture placement?
remove items from tops of bookcases/leave empty or find replacements?

Master Bed/Bath

choose new paint color
paint
update bedding?
stencil treatment on headboard wall?
window treatment
new artwork?
move furniture around - one dresser to closet, move armoire to corner
add mirror and chair
new light fixture

Playroom

touch up paint
finish artwork/frames project
make bench for under window
cushion for bench and add other textiles
new light fixture

Kitchen

paint
bamboo roman shades for windows in there
so many other ideas - but these are on backburner for now, right hubby? :-)

Lilah's Room

new headboard for queen bed
eventually possibly build a twin for her room to increase size of room - move queen to spare
finish diy artwork
finish ombre dresser (need to repaint drawer fronts)
paint nightstand
curtains (I spotted a fabric I love)

Noah's Room

diy artwork
curtains?
some beanbag seating for playroom?

By no means is this list considered complete - I'm sure there are items I already intend that I've forgotten or left off. But it's a good starting point, especially when we honestly have SO many things going on at once.

How about you - do you have a similar list for your place or just a nice small list?

craving crisis averted!

2012-04-13T10:33:00.001-04:00

Sometimes, the best breakfast is a quick and sweet one.

This is *so* not a typical breakfast for us mostly-paleo eaters (and probably not the best fuel as I prepare to head out to my Olympic Lifting seminar this weekend). But you cannot mention certain foods to a pregnant woman (in this case, cinnamon rolls) without her thinking about them every.single.day until she finally has to break down, get some and eat them. Ahhhhh! Craving satisfied!

Happy weekend everyone!

billy built-in, meet besta built in

2012-04-12T08:24:00.000-04:00

Remember how I mentioned that we had big plans for the far basement wall?

We knew from the get-go that we wanted some built in shelving and a TV console down there. Well, we actually have plans to hang a television on the wall (thus the boxes in the middle of the wall there) but we still need a place for the components, thus the console.

We have beautiful built-ins in our family room that we love (and were actually made custom for us) so we checked with our builder so we could get a quote for the same in the basement. And the quote was crazy. Granted - it's a huge wall. And we wanted floor to ceiling shelving on the sides and a console in the middle....so that adds up. To the tune of $1800. Yikes. On to plan B (which we didn't have - we need a plan B!!!).

We have the skills and tools to do them ourselves, but that was honestly much more work than we really wanted to take on at this point and we knew it would take us a really long time. We're both very busy. Hubby works. And works out a lot, like me. I work out, have an Etsy shop, and coach at our CrossFit box, so he's often watching the kids when I'm working, which I'm in turn doing while he's working. We try not to do too much "working" when we're with our kids, because, well, that's OUR time with them that we'll never get back, kwim? So, we wanted to explore other options.

I hit up Pinterest in search of inspiration, and sure enough - happened upon a pin featuring this project by Censtational Girl. So. Freaking. Awesome. I had only seen the pin of the bookcases installed - not yet painted or styled, but the finished room is breathtaking. Love love LOVE those bookcases with the dark blue paint. As I searched, I found a few more.

Just a girl did some also.

And Chris Loves Julia made theirs a bit different, but also used IKEA cabinets to create a unique, custom piece.

I was pretty sold. I showed Derrick some of the pictures, we pulled out the IKEA catalog and realized that we could do this pretty affordably (well, a heck of a lot more affordable than $1800 - that's for sure!).

One issue though - many of those posts used the roughly 32" Billy bookcases, and four of them, which means that they had walls that were about 128"+. We have a wall that is about 169"+. We looked at doing one Billy on each side and something lower for the middle. Couldn't find a solution. We thought about a 32" Billy and a 15" Billy and then something lower for the middle. Still can't find a solution. Another problem - many of the Billy pieces are not at the 15 3/4" depth, but a more shallow 11". That seemed to be our main problem with anything we looked at for the center part, actually. They were either much to shallow, or not even close to the right height.

So, I went searching through the catalog to see if I could find a piece from a different line that might work in the center. I happened upon the Besta line, and not only found a possible solution for the center, but realized they had tall cabinets as well that we could get and have all the pieces work together. The solution became two 75" tall bookcases on either side of the wall, 48" wide each. Then, in the center, two 25" tall pieces, one at 48" wide, the other at 25" wide. We priced it out, and all four pieces would run us $440. The two tall pieces were $150 each, and the 48" wide lower unit was $80, and the 25" wide unit was $60. Probably would make more sense at this point with a picture.

Here are the pieces all put together and in their spaces. You can see we have gaps on either side we will have to fill. Derrick also wanted to build them up on a platform, because we plan on using 5-6" baseboard as part of the board and batten, and in order for it to look seamless, we'll need space for that piece underneath. Also, he's not thrilled with the height of them (we really wanted floor to ceiling, but we couldn't have bought any more if we wanted to when we were there - well, not if we still wanted to take the kids home in their carseats!) so the platform helps add a little height as well.

Another comment about our plans - we plan to get doors for the far right and left sides (yes, they are one 48" wide unit, but you can get 25" doors for just one side of the unit - so we'll have one side with doors, one without). We will be doing the same with the center piece - doors on the right and left but open in the center.

Here is the center unit after Derrick had already secured the solid 48" piece (on the left) to the smaller 25" piece (on the right). There is a seam line, but you almost can't tell it's there. Also, we're not as worried about that because once the doors go on, you won't even see the seam. He's already built the platform for the center here.

You can also see he extended the center out a few inches past the side bookcases. We have this done in our built-ins in our family room and love it. It not only adds architectural interest, but serves a purpose as well. If Derrick needed to, he could cut out a piece of the back so that a deep component (which he has, ahem) can fit and still get wired to. No one will ever see the space in the back, because we plan to eventually cover the top with a piece of wood painted to match the other trimwork.

Here everything is all assembled, on the platform, and secured to the wall (well, sans shelves). There is an extension piece we can get to put on top of the tall pieces (another reason we chose this over the Besta - I believe the extension piece for the Billy is only 11" deep) but we just haven't decided whether we want to do it right away or wait (and same goes for the doors).

Can't wait to start adding moulding (is it moulding or molding? I always thought moulding...) to see it all built in!

A few things: Yes, the paint in the corners looks horrible. We plan to add a decorative wall treatment which will hide that once installed anyway. And I haven't added the shelves because I do plan to paint the back of the shelves. Just finalizing color choice and then need to get to work!

more paint colors

2012-04-11T07:59:00.001-04:00

In the basement floor reveal, I showed quite a few pics of the walls as they exist today.

As I mentioned back in the basement update post, we're going to be putting board and batten in. So, we chose to paint the top of the wall the blue color, and the bottom will be a glossy white with the board and batten.

This post shows the length of the large room. The sole window is to the left and there is a bit of a bump-out to the right as well (the wall immediately to the right houses the stairs, so there is a door on the far side which accesses under the stairs and the mechanicals room for additional storage. You might be wondering why the far wall is all white. Such HUGE plans for that wall! I can't wait to share - but that's for another post.

So, what are the colors?

As I mentioned in the update post, the tile was scrapped. We had originally found this tile on clearance at Lowe's and jumped at it. Fortunately, returns to any of the large hardware stores are simple, so once we had decided on painting the floor, we simply returned the tile for a store credit (a store credit never goes to waste in this house).

The colors are all Benjamin Moore. From left to right they are Stonington Gray (wall color in the bathroom), Newburyport Blue (going to be an accent color), and finally, Santorini Blue. which is the colors on the wall. It's actually funny - I wasn't sure what I wanted for the basement, and happened upon these colors after I visited a Benjamin Moore store for chips because I really wanted to see the color in person that Young House Love had used to paint the back of their built-ins. While there, Noah started picking out colors for his room, and that lead me to these colors. The connection will make more sense when I show you what we painted Noah's room. :-)

I love these colors, and think the Santorini Blue does a good job of adding lots of color that will look great with the board and batten but doesn't make the room feel heavy and dark. And we have plans to brighten things up a bit as well with pops of color. I will admit that right now it does feel a bit stark and clinical down there, but we have plans to address that as well. We've already added two rugs to the space - an 8'x11' (which was supposed to be a 9'x12' but they sent the wrong size) sisal rug from Overstock for the office, and the identical rug in the living/tv space in the 9'x12' size. They add a nice element of natural texture and soften up the space, and there are plans for more, a couple of which I'm hoping to be able to show you very soon. One project is already underway, and the second needs a bit more traction.

Considering that Derrick did almost all this work himself (plus my dad and brothers on occasional family visits) we're just excited to be in the homestretch. Derrick did all the electrical, low voltage wiring, then we hung all the drywall (and his mom helped with the ceiling), hired out for the taping/mudding) and then primed and painted ourselves, and of course did the floors ourselves. We really are starting to realize how close we are to finishing (well, let's not talk about the bathroom - ha!) and it's really exciting!

basement floors

2012-04-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

I was going to continue discussing paint colors, since I left off with that on Monday, but I realized that when I showed you some of the pictures of the basement walls with paint on them, you'd also see the basement floors, and we're pretty happy with how those turned out, so I didn't want to ruin the surprise. So, stay tuned for a future post for paint colors down in the basement.

We've been going back and forth on what we wanted to do with the basement floors for months. Literally. Months. We knew right off the bat that we didn't want carpet (as it is, we have carpet on our main level in the family room, playroom and master which we can't wait to eventually rip out and replace with hardwood...but boy oh boy is that a whole 'nother post....) and we also weren't planning on doing anything like engineered wood or anything like that (again, if we had the money today, we'd be putting it in upstairs, not in our basement!). The obvious choice after that seemed to be to either stain or paint the floor. So I turned...where else. To Pinterest (this is getting predictable, isn't it?).

I found SO many inspiring photos there. First thing I was drawn to were all these amazing floors with really cool stenciled designs on them.

via

This was one that caught my eye. Not too large of a pattern, and not too small. But it did still seem a little busy. And we knew we wanted a more neutral color than what they chose.

via

This next one drew me in because of the geometric design they chose, which is what I had been leaning towards, but for the size of floor we would have to cover, this would take forever and be, I fear, far too busy.

via

I fell in love with this one when I saw it. I loved the use of similar but lighter shade, I loved the geometric, but not overly "hard" design, and I loved the scale of it.

But, in the end, we ultimately decided to skip it. We knew we'd be covering some of it with rugs, and figured we'd try to draw the eye to other elements in the room, and not so much the floor. And, if at some point down the line we wanted to add something, we could always do it.

So, we just needed to narrow down whether we wanted to stain or paint, pick a color and get to work. I ultimately swayed us more to the painted floor, mostly because I liked the more solid look of it. Acid stained floors can often have a lot of "movement" (think marble or granite) to them - and it can go either way. They can be beautiful, or they can be downright scary. (I thought this post had a funny take on it!). So painted floors it is! We ultimately picked up flooring paint samples and compared to our basement color choices and chose a color called Tarnished Silver by Behr. It had a dark grayish-brown feel to it on the chip, which I'll admit looks more eggplanty-brown when down, but we still really like it. The paint is a 1-part epoxy and the line is Behr's Concrete and Garage Floor Paint.

We did a bunch of research and found quite a few links with steps on how to prep a floor for this, but ultimately, this is the one we used the most. We moved out all the furniture and construction materials from the large room, bathroom and small "hallway" if you will, to the bath and mechanicals room and shoved everything into the room we call the "workout" room. Want proof?

Then we got to work (or, I should add, hubby got to work). This was right around the time we found out surprise #3 was on his/her way, which seemed to light a fire under our butts to get moving on some projects. This basement has been 4.5 years in the making - and was literally a room with studs when we moved into the house. I digress..... Anyway, hubby got to work vacuuming the floor with the shop vac, then mopping, and mopping again, and mopping yet again.

Lucky for little ole me, I was off to California for some fun in the sun with a dear friend and some Olympic Lifting training. Fun stuff, and I got to come home to finished floors! Score!

sorry for the blurry pic!

He then rented a commercial-grade floor cleaner and used that to help him acid etch the floors.

fyi: acid etching and a pregnant woman in her first trimester do NOT mix!

After etching, he needed to wash the floors again with a neutralizing wash. After that final wash, there were two coats of primer applied, allowing 8 hours between the first and second coat. The primer we used was the Behr Concrete and Masonry Bonding Primer. After 24 hours, the first coat of paint went on, and after 8 hours the second coat of paint went on. We didn't walk on it or anything for at least 24, and even then it was gentle stepping with no shoes, etc.

We waited a full week before moving any of the furniture back. We ultimately chose not to seal it, and here's why. We fully expect there to be some imperfections with this floor as time goes by. Scratches, chipping, etc. We have a dog, a cat and two (soon to be three) rowdy kids. Part of the reason we left the floor cement was the kids LOVE to bring their summer toys (bikes, scooters, tricycle, etc.) down here in the winter and ride around. All of that stuff will start to wear on the finish.

If we sealed it, and there were areas that needed touch-ups, it would be much harder to do. This way we can slap on some paint when needed and voila! Easy peasy. When we eventually moved all the stuff out of the workout room and back into the rest of the space so hubby could finish the floor in there, he had to overlap the paint at the base of the stairs where it meets that room. It turned out great - and you'd honestly never know that they were painted weeks apart (by the time we got back to it).

You can't really see it here, but I pinky swear it's true!

I think the bathroom shot (two pictures up) gives more of that "eggplant-y brown" feel I was talking about, but in the large space it really doesn't feel that way. We're both super happy with how they turned out and it's amazing how finished the basement feels just having this piece done.

Anyone out there ever paint a floor? Solid or stenciled? Share away!

paint choices

2012-04-09T10:58:00.000-04:00

I've been spending a LOT of time lately trying to come up with the perfect paint choices. Everywhere. I want there to be a flow to our home and the rooms, and feel like they are cohesive even while being different. I've been going a little crazy with it (and I'm certain driving hubby crazy in the meantime) but we have a TON of painting to do and again, I want the colors to work well together.

Part of my problem? I hate our kitchen. Okay - hate is a strong word. But I don't LOVE it. I want to have that *gasp* feeling I have when I look at other kitchens and think, "oh my gosh - I LOVE it! I have to have that in my house!", while then turning towards ours and just thinking, "eh".

The house originally came with the same exact sheen/color on every.single.wall. It was nice to not have to worry about slapping paint colors on right when we first moved here (and had no deck, no landscaping to speak of, no grass even, etc). But after a while, that builder-beige color gets old. Really, really old. So, we started changing some of the rooms.

Builder beige in Lilah's room before we changed it

One of the problems with builder beige was that it feels really dark. Our kitchen is where we spend 80% of our time, and is west facing, so we don't get morning light. Even though there are quite a few windows on that wall in both the kitchen and family room it still felt dark to me. Eventually we painted the kitchen a yellow color - I wanted lighter and brighter but not neon, obviously. It was supposed to be a color we used in Phoenix and received a ton of compliments on, but I'm guessing they changed the formula because I really don't care for it. I thought I did.....but alas, I don't love it.

the yellow kitchen. See...eh? Right?

Of course it doesn't help that folks like Young House Love are doing amazing things to their kitchen I am drooling over (namely, white cabinets, open shelving, tons of tile backsplash, etc.). I realize our kitchen is beautiful, and we have gorgeous maple cabinets, but I am so drawn to white kitchens it's ridiculous. Want to see amazing? Check out Camille's kitchen (and whole house!) makeover here.

So, hubby and I have discussed that maybe....just maybe...one day in the very distant future, when all other house projects have been exhausted, that maybe I could have my white kitchen. And regardless, the yellow has to go, so I'm planning - knowing - that even if the kitchen cabs don't get painted, the walls will.

I had already picked a color for our master bed/bath a while back (yes, a paint chip has been taped to the walls in there for over a year and a half....I'm getting to it - I swear!) and while I love the chip up - I won't claim to be 100% sold to it. I want to pick something for the much larger family room/foyer/upstairs hallway first, and then go from there.

Centsational Girl has an amazingly gorgeous kitchen and I love the wall color - she used Camouflage by Benjamin Moore, and described it as a grey-green that looks grey in indirect light and green in direct light. But it's subtle and gorgeous and has a neutrality to it that I wanted also. That is my #1 choice for the family room right now.

I also know (because of my big plans for the family room - I really should put together a mood board) that I want a dark complimentary color, and when I check out Camouflage on the Benjamin Moore site, I see a few that work, and two that are to.die.for.

When you click on the "More Color Combos" on the lower left, you get a dark brown called Black Bean Soup and a grayish blue called Silver Half Dollar. SOLD! I wanted a dark color for the back of our family room built-ins and I love the brown color they chose. Tehre is also some plans in the works for some new curtains, and that color comes into play. The grayish blue is EXACTLY what I had in mind for the kitchen, so that's currently my front-runner there.

Of course, these are all choices based on colors on a laptop monitor. Once I get some small samples made up and brought home and see them on the walls in our spaces, I could very well change my mind. But it's nice to have a starting point.

I've gone through a similar process for the basement based on the colors we chose because I have some similar plans down there. But I'll save that for another post as I've already gone on long enough. Off to get paint chips and samples!

ombre dresser

2012-04-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

A while back I purchased a dresser for Lilah's room (she had no furniture in her room but a bed and a nightstand) at a garage sale for $50. It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but it was solid wood, so substantial and heavy, and in excellent condition.

I knew the gold knobs would have to go, but outside of that it was perfect. Only downside? Lilah is 2, and has no hope of reaching the top drawers any time soon, but she also has ample room in her closet we can utilize in the meantime (I really like to encourage my kids to dress themselves as soon as they are able, put away their clothes after I've folded, etc.).

I had every intention of leaving it as-is, until I found inspiration....where else? Pinterest.

From here, via Pinterest.

This was the first one I found that caught my eye. But there are sooooo many others. A simple search for "ombre dresser" on Pinterest yields a bunch of results, many of which are repins of the above, and then this is another one I happened upon:

via

Okay, not a dresser, but much more in line of what I was thinking for her room. Based on the color palette I had already come up with, I knew I wanted to do it with the coral-like color.

I left the outside as is - it was already a nice creamy ivory color and I liked the way the colors I chose worked with it.

Here's a mid-progress pic:

Stay tuned for the finished project! How about you? Anyone out there do an ombre project?

lilah's room

2012-04-04T10:00:00.001-04:00

Well before we knew we had a bun in the oven, I knew one of the rooms I wanted to tackle next (well.....let's be honest, I pretty much have a standing list of every room in the house right now) was Lilah's room. But hers was a high priority because she never really "had" a room. I mean, we had a physical space in the house dedicated to her, but for the longest time it was more of a "storage" room. Bags and bags of donated clothes we received for her, smaller sizes of cloth dipes as she moved out of those, etc. She never slept in there, because she spent her smallest days in our room with us, and then started sleeping with big bro in his room (he has a full bed and the two of them are pretty great buds). Now that we know we have a bun in the oven (um, unexpected surprise!) I'm even more motivated to finish it because we've decided that whatever the little bean ends up being (boy or girl), we'll have them bunk up with the same-sex sibling (well, eventually, after time in our room, of course!). So, both kids' rooms had plans to get changed up a bit, but since nothing had been done to Lilah's, well, it needed to be thought of from the beginning.

When I tried to come up with ideas for it, I wanted something fun and bright and not typically "girly". All that really meant to me was not screaming bubble gum pink or purple. I don't mind those colors, but definitely did not want them to be the highlight of the room, and I really wanted something a bit more sophisticated and less.....stereotypical.

So, I started pinning ideas on Pinterest, and that definitely had some ideas rolling:

Found via Pinterest, unsure of original source.

From here, via Pinterest.

I loved these top two rooms for the bold use of color and atypical girl rooms (i.e., no pink or purple walls). One thing I tried to keep in mind, though was the cost, and I knew that we had a green comforter that would already fit the bed we had in the space (a queen) and wanted to see if I could find something fun that would work. I started finding cool combos of coral and green, and here was one of my faves:

From here via Pinterest.

I didn't love the idea of the entire room painted that color, but did love the combo. The search continued.

While the overall theme of this room below isn't bright, per se, I love how the bright pops of color add the overall feeling to the neutral tones. And what a great base for a room, really. SO easy to change out to a boy's room, a guest room, etc. Granted, it's not expensive or hard to paint a room, but having a nice neutral base is always nice. While I loved this room and the gray, in particular, I decided against it because it is actually very similar to the gray we've chosen to use in the basement as well as Noah's room (and more on his room soon).

From here, via Pinterest.

So, I loved the coral and green and gray.....where to turn next?

I kept seeing these color palettes that people had put together themselves - whether it be on mood boards they had created or from other sites. One that kept jumping out at me was Design Seeds. Every day, they have new posts of photos with the colors pulled out individually and put together in a palette that just....works. Beautifully. Examples:

So, I spent some time on there trying to find combos with the colors I had mentioned (coral, gray and green) and found this:

I was sold!!! The comforter we have has a lot of lime-green in it, the coral was a tad different, but I liked it, and they gray was there, along with a very, very subtle lavender-gray that I loved! So, now I had my palette, but needed to apply it to the room. Here's what I decided on:

dark purple - small nightstand next to her bed (was bought unfinished, whitewashed, and could seriously use another coat of something
coral - garage sale dresser
gray - neutral for the room
lime green - bedding
lavendar-gray - it was a subtle-enough purple for the walls for me. As long as it was *very* subtle.

Stay tuned for how I've changed the room since then! How about you? Where do you get your color inspiration from?

basement update

2012-04-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

When I last wrote about the basement in December 2010, we had finished most of the drywall in the basement and had drywall taping/mudding scheduled. We had done all the work up to that point ourselves, but wanted someone to come take care of the really messy stuff. Once that was done, we were left with this:

Our basement is quite large - at 1600 square feet. This is the one large room, and there is also a small mechanicals room, another room next to the wall left of the desk (which we use as a workout room) and a 3/4 bath (which has a shower, but no bath). We chose to do all the priming/painting ourselves to save money, and we finished the priming very quickly after the drywall was done.

So, what do we have planned for this space (or what DID we have planned, since a lot more has been done to the space in the long year+ since I last wrote)?

Here was a rough idea of what was planned:

I won't even address the tile because that idea was scrapped. :-) But the paint colors all stuck. All Benjamin Moore colors, we had the zero VOC Olympic paint tinted to match. More on that soon!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with these images of what we have planned (because this part still isn't done) for the walls. Namely, board and batten!

Images from here, here and here (via Pinterest).

And while we're at it, we didn't choose this one, but I thought this one was cool enough to mention:

From here (via Pinterest).

More on additional progress we've made soon!