Our House: The Living Room

I couldn't handle all the beige that was our house when we closed on it.  I had a pretty clear vision of the house that included hardwood floors, white trim, and replacing just about everything I could manage.  We have a pretty open floor plan and I wanted things to flow between the rooms smoothly.  I have to be honest in that a lot of my decisions were last minute because they had to be made right then.  I wish I could say I had a detailed plan and everything chosen well in advance but trying to do a full scale renovation in 8 weeks while working 65+ hours a week (oh and planning a wedding) I was pretty much at my limit.

**Photo Disclaimer, I feel like I should apologize for my photos.  These were all taken for my personal use with no thought that I'd ever be sharing them.

The Living Room and Loft before:

We knew that we wanted hardwood or engineered hardwood though out the entire first floor of the house and it really boiled down to which of them I could get the best deal on through my contractors.  So engineered it was.

Installing the new floors required removing the existing baseboards and I couldn't justify paying someone to reinstall the old baseboards I didn't like.  So a much taller slightly detailed baseboard was decided on, and since we were doing the baseboards we figured we might as well do the casing as well.  The combination of the new trim and painting it all white made the most immediate impact on the appearance of the house.

Our painter sprayed all the trim that was to remain in place.  Paint used was Sherwin Williams ProClassic colored matched to Benjamin Moore's White Dove.

You can see the doors propped up along the wall for painting and part of the new marble surround going up around the fireplace here.

And the photos taken the day before we moved in:

I can't really call these the real 'afters' of these spaces.  I've done more work since these were taken and probably still have more to be done.

The walls were painted Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter (in Sherwin William's ProMar 200 flat).  The floors are Mannington....Hickory in Natural I think.  The ceiling fan was my husband's request.  When he initially brought it up it was with the question "Can you deal with it?" because he knows how much I dislike ceiling fans in general.  I actually really like the fan and can't imagine the room without it.  Pretty sure my husband loves it because it's the first thing that people comment on when they walk in the door!

Our House

After the sale of The Bungalow and the house my husband owned when we started dating, the deal on the new property fall through due to a sticking point of repair after inspection.  It literally left us homeless. We thought it would a very temporary issue, hah, yeah right.  Ten long months of living in an extended stay hotel with the majority of our stuff in storage ensued.  I easily looked at over 150 houses, we wrote 7 offers, and I was beyond frustrated.

I was looking for a house that met our basic criteria in terms of room sizes and layout that was priced far enough under market value that I could justify the work I'd want to do before moving in.  I have to be honest, I don't think 'move in ready' will ever exist for me.  There will always be something I want to change.  Need to change to make it my own.  I mentally start remodeling and redecorating almost every building I walk into.

I looked at our current home while my husband was out of town on business.  He made the offer on the house sight unseen.  It had his big sticking points and I was confident the price was right for the work I'd want to do.  The downside? It was a short sale.

We made the offer in May.  And waited.  I continued to look at other houses.  And waited.  I bugged the bank and listing agent.  And waited.  Finally we had all the approvals we needed.  We closed on the house on August 1st of last year.

Behold the builder beige that was our house when we looked at it:

The dumpster was delivered the day of closing and we hit the ground running.

In eight short weeks we remodeled the kitchen, two of the bathrooms, installed new flooring through the entire house, new base and casing and had everything painted top to bottom (including all the stained pine woodwork that remained).  Clearly this was not a DIY project but a race to the finish to get out of the hotel!

The afters start tomorrow........

Sunday Afternoon Boredom and a Paint Review

It was 95 degrees here on Sunday and I pretty much had no desire to leave the house and needed something to keep me occupied all day.  Sunday was the last day of the Sherwin Williams paint sale and I'd been itching to paint the inside of our front entrance closet for a couple of weeks.  I hated seeing the blah beige color on the walls every time I opened the closet door (the same color that the entire house was drenched in when we bought it).

So one gallon of Sherwin Williams ProMar 200 (my long time go-to paint) color matched to Benjamin Moore's Bermuda Turquoise #728 and a couple of hours later we went from this:

To this:

I LOOOOOOOOVE this color. Oddly enough I realized last night as I was scrubbing the paint off my feet that the paint color is actually pretty close to the color I have on my toes at the moment.

For the record, love it on my walls, not so much on my toes.  Counting down the days until my next pedicure.

I want to leave the door open so I can see it all the time.  Two coats and some touch up and I'm happy with the true even color with no streaks.  I had a new shelf cut at Home Depot because I was too lazy to paint the old particle board one white, I also bought a new white metal bar but after two different trips to Home Depot to attempt to get it cut to the right size I gave up for the time being.

On to the paint itself.

I knew some of the prices at SW had gone up recently but I didn't realize they were reformulating their paints and going to the Zero VOC until I bought this gallon.  There was no odor which was great since I was on a step stool in a fairly small coat closet.  I didn't notice any difference in coverage.

I was turned on to the ProMar 200 by professional painters I've worked with previously.  They swore by it for its even coverage, often being able to use one coat of paint, and low price.  I almost fell over when I paid   for this gallon, $6 more than the last gallon I bought just a few months ago and that was during the sale. So my cost will be about $9.00 more a gallon now. That's going to add up really quickly and suddenly it's not such a deal anymore so maybe it's time to start trying new products?

Totally Obsessed....

I love almost everything about this bathroom from Houzz.  Yes I know it's a little teenage girlie but whatever, I love it. I'm still waffling on the colors in my nearly completed (yet to be shared) guest bathroom and this picture is another prod in the pink direction (versus aqua and coral).

I adore this tile and wish I'd come across it sooner!  Not to mention I think I'll likely end up DIYing a shower curtain with a similar printed fabric band at the bottom (if for no other reason than to prove to my husband that I'll use the sewing machine that I insisted on buying).

So what say you? Pink? Or Aqua/Coral?

Creative Mountings for a Flat Screen TV

I was at a friend's house recently and noticed this (really wish I'd taken the time to take a proper photo of it)

He bought the easel at a local antique mall and mounted the TV and sound bar to it, hiding all the cords down the back leg of the easel.  (He's looking for a complimentary item for the components now.) It's super tall and really impressive in real life.  It got me thinking about other unconventional ways to mount your TV.

I realize that most interior designers would prefer to not see a TV but that's just not convenient for the way the majority of families live.  We have more TV's than people in our house.

This isn't a mounting exactly but I do love the frame around the TV in the Brooklyn Limestone master bedroom.

Incorporating the TV into a wall of built-ins is genius if you can do it (in my opinion anyway).  I wish I had this option in my living room.

As it is, I think that with the shape of my living room this would be about my best option.

Bottom two images via: DecorPad

Anyone come across any new ideas for TV mounting that they've loved lately?

The Bungalow: Recap

I loved this little house and selling it was definitely bittersweet for me.  Regardless of my lack of employment keeping it had become impractical once I'd moved in with my then boyfriend, now husband.  Can you ever really go from living together to not?  Looking back at it now I appreciate just how precarious my situation was, but I don't think I really got it at the time.  Had things gone badly I could have very likely ended up in foreclosure and bankruptcy, another victim of the high unemployment rate.

Thankfully I got the house done, on the market and had a cash over asking offer in a little over 3 weeks.  I was able to replay the loan I'd taken to finish the work and then some.  I couldn't have hoped for a better outcome.  And for that, I will always be thankful.

The Bungalow: Exterior

We all hear so often how important curb appeal is when trying to sell your house.  How's this for curb appeal?  The roof had already been replaced in this photo with grey shingles assuming that when the re-siding took place it would make sense (glad the current owners took my color recommendation on their siding selection).

From a time and cost perspective there was no way I was undertaking the siding.  The current siding was fine, just ugly.  I did try to make the exterior as appealing as possible though by painting the brick columns and metal handrail, patching the cracked concrete and cleaning up the landscaping.

The current owners have had new siding in a pretty sage green color installed along with new doors and windows.