Monday, December 23, 2013

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

I don't think I'm ever as conscious of my position in life as I am around the holidays. I am a lover of New Year's resolutions, cleaning up on Boxing Day and putting your best foot forward to close/begin the year. The house is no exception.

In fact, it was torture trying to not begin a new project this past weekend. Every time I'm on Pinterest or looking for last minute gifts, I bookmark more and more ideas for the house; from side tables to bookshelves to knickknacks. I'm hoping that some Ikea gift cards are in our future.

Not only are we having a small Festivus party next weekend, but my parents-in-law will be visiting the house for MLK weekend. That's two very big reasons to get the house looking like we didn't just finish college.


This year's Christmas tree.
It's Cardinal-themed, although we only have three cardinal ornaments,
the colored ball ornaments have painted trees with little red birds in them.
Did you know the Red Cardinal is the state bird of Virginia?
My grandmother gave me this ornament so I don't forget.
Vader is not a state bird, but he has a spot on the tree;
along with a stormtrooper, Hello Kitty, Nic Cage (above)
and this copper frying pan ornament from Williams-Sonoma.



Back to the project side of this blog, two weekends ago, I started finally painting the Master Bedroom. Thanks to an early Christmas gift card from my best friend Merritt, we picked up the supplies we needed at Home Depot. The project took about two days cumulatively, since my arms felt like they were going to fall off by the first night. 

The first coat. Big difference from the original light blue. 
Behr "Sailboat"

Yes, it photographs very very dark, partially because of the front windows
A bit of a better view. Dark blue walls. Clean white trim.
Now that the walls are done, Troy was able to mount the new TV we bought on Black Friday.
The wire rack is temporary until I can find a suitable media table.


Lastly, the accent table for the entryway arrived from Target. My father gave me a little slack for not buying "real" wood furniture. I know that compressed wood from Target and Ikea aren't ideal. However, I am 28 years old with a limited budget and an empty house. Anyone who feels strongly about the real vs. fake wood debate is more than welcome to buy us the real stuff themselves.

Minimal setup for the holidays. We're planning on hanging an oversized mirror above the table later on.
Still not sure what to put on the shelf below, but the matching Hunter Rain Boots make it quaint. 

We have a lot of plans coming up for the next couple months; including the parent visit, a bridal shower and our first spring. Stay tuned!


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

A Home Wish List

I love this time of year, pre-Christmas. Making lists of gifts to buy, taking advantage of sales, setting up the first Christmas tree of our first house. And while it's thought of as a hectic time, December and January are historically the least hectic for us. 

All of our friends and family are asking what we'd like for gifts. While I can't really ask for the things we need around the house, or even knowing a place we could request a gift card, I have put together our house wish list. 



1) Ledge shelves with this awesome tutorial




2) Finishing the office Gallery Wall



3) Repainting the Master Suite
The Spa Blue feel that I was going for was a little disappointing. We picked the color hoping it would be calm and relaxing. Instead, it looks like we sleep in a nursery. Now, I'm falling in love with this dark, inky blue color. It's very modern and masculine, but so is Troy. 





4) Finishing the Foyer
On Black Friday, I bought this side console table from Target, for our front entryway. The red will look great, since everything in our front area is white. We'd like to work in some oversized mirrors for the walls, and we'll check out World Market and Target for other accents.

5) More and More Bookshelves
Lastly, on Pinterest last week, I saw these Ikea Expedit bookshelves. Yes, everyone has them, but I love how these were used floor to ceiling. It gives the room great height and would be a perfect wall unit for our office. It would give us more storage space without taking up square footage. 




That is our December plan for getting this house ready for the new year. Luckily, they are all projects that can be done in minimal time. Here's hoping for gift cards. 


Friday, November 1, 2013

Winterizing

"We can't. It's too late to save the front yard…"

This past Sunday, Troy decided that today was THE day to seed our back yard, whether we liked it or not. The weather was perfect, and we absolutely could not put it off until next weekend after payday.

So a bag of seed, a borrowed seed spreader and a rototiller rental later, we have a newly-seeded, fingers-crossed-for-grass, back yard. This was made possible by three hours of raking years of dead leaves, pine straw and mulch from the previous owners. We had 17 bags worth of lawn waste.




I know everyone says that pine straw is cheaper, but unless you have actual pine trees, it looks like you haven't raked in 10 years. At least mulch looks intentional.

I also cleaned out the front flower beds; and this week, am prepping to winterize what hydrangeas we have left. I like to think I know more about gardening that the average 28-year-old, but I still have a lot to figure out. It may just have to wait until Spring when I can start from scratch.

Spring will bring new paver stones for the flower beds, the end of the ivy overgrowth and fewer trees shading our area. 


Reminds me that we eventually need to repaint the deck and exterior siding...
Another thing off of our ever-growing checklist is cabinet pulls for the kitchen. We can now open our cabinets and drawers like normal people.



November will focus back to the inside of the house. We'll be getting the house ready for the holidays, as well as a bridal shower for February. 

We'll be repainting the Master Bedroom and the sink cabinets for both guest bathrooms. Also we're framing all of the art we've collected and finally finishing the office gallery walls. 


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Autumnal Equinox

Fall is always a busy time for me. It's always the culmination of many projects that I've been juggling all year.

Slowly, bit by bit, things are starting to come together in the house as well. And as a special treat, I got to tour another house, way more famous mine.


Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Charlottesville
My first panorama pic on my iPhone 5S
View from the famous vegetable garden
A very glam monogram TJ

In the meantime, back in Atlanta, we finally purchased our kitchen cart from Ikea. It's found a nice home with all of our  cookbooks and liquor, and makes the kitchen feel finally complete. The basket next to the cart is where we keep our cookie sheets, cutting boards, wire racks, etc

I found the silver tray at an antique store for $2. The hobnail was a gift from my grandmother (we have a hobnail obsession) and a few of the items were gifts from our housewarming.

It's still a little bare, but we do plan on picking up bar cart essentials later on. We've also installed cabinet knobs and bars onto the new cabinet fronts. 

Next on the list is finding replacement light bulbs for our fixtures. The previous owners installed the fixtures and they require specialized bulbs. We haven't seen them in any hardware stores or Home Depot, and the company website is a joke. Seen anything like this before?


Friday, September 27, 2013

Refinishing

This specific bedroom set is very important to me. I spent a good-sized pile of $$ to fly to VA, drive it down to Atlanta, and pick up a ton of refinishing products from Home Depot to make sure it never gets into this condition again. 

The furniture was actually my great-grandmother's. It was given to her for her wedding.  The last time it was used, it was in my father's house when I was in 2nd grade. It has been through a hurricane, basement flooding, multiple moves, and now it has a permanent home in my blue guest room.



Initial Sand Down



Love these little wood details.
Continental Furniture Company from High Point, North Carolina.
This company was founded in 1901-2, and High Point was one of the main hubs for the furniture industry in the South.


Primer stage

First coat of Black High-Gloss

Not a bad clean up. I experimented with the nightstand, using semi-gloss instead.

Refinishing the dresser is my project for this week/weekend. We've ordered new veneer for the top and sides, and I've already done an initial sanding. Once the veneer is affixed, it's ready to prime and paint. Sadly the hand-painted flower detail will not be staying. 

The individual drawer fronts will also be refinished, as well as sanded down to alleviate any warped or swollen wood. The last two drawers took a good pry to get out, even though the drawer boxes are in fantastic shape.

The top hutch will be repainted, and actually has spindles that need to be reattached. They hold a face mirror above the dresser, which is in very good condition. 

Stripping the dresser.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The "To-Do Now" List

To Do now or To Do later? That is the question. 

I go to sleep at night with a million and a half ideas running through my head. A million and half tweaks and purchases and things to Google, all because of this house. I've never been the "go slow" type, but my BF and my bank account have the final say. So all of these projects I want to start are being sorted into To-Do Now or To-Do Later lists. 


1) Finishing the Office
After the weekend, I picked up a couple new prints at the Atlanta Arts Festival. That will bring my count to 9 prints to be framed and hung on for my office gallery wall. The office is dark grey and  in addition to the frames, we are waiting for black and white curtains that my "mother-in-law" has volunteered to make. 


Since we both share the office, it will be an even split down the middle: my glam prints to contrast with his anime swords. Quite the Match made in heaven, or Bento Cafe in Gainesville…




Office Gallery Wall Inspiration

I know there are many DIYs for these curtains online.

2) Finish Kitchen (still)
With everything that we've done to the kitchen, it's still not quite finished. To fix our lack of kitchen storage, we've picked out a table/cart from Ikea. When we eventually buy it, it will be our bar cart and cookbook shelf.

The Forhoja Kitchen Cart from Ikea.
Here's some other Kitchen/Bar cart inspiration:
Style Me Pretty

Apartment Therapy
We still need to buy a new kitchen rug, cabinet and drawer pulls, and some form of spice organization. 

3) Landscaping
October is a prime time for prepping our yard. It's too late in the year to be planting, but we've got our work cut out for us as far as winterizing. The turf builder is going down this Sunday, thanks to the seed spreader our friend is giving us. Troy will also be getting rid of the monster patch of ivy that is our side yard. This will give me the time to rake up all the leftover pine straw in the three front flower beds, and replace it with mulch. 


Next month, we are tackling the back and side yards: planting grass seed, trimming low-hanging limbs, and possibly having a very big maple taken down. If we can get the grass to sprout by the spring, we will build in raised flower/vegetable beds. 

We will also be tilling, since there seem to be a lot of dead things on the property. We are very much still novices at landscaping, so any advice would be very welcome. What can we do now, and what can be left for Spring?

Since the cat doesn't like indoor plants, kitchen herbs will go in this on the back deck.




Thursday, September 12, 2013

A House with Stuff in it

Our new Driver's Licenses came in the mail last week, so it is official. We live here.

I wanted to name this blog post "Finishing Touches", but everyone knows nothing is ever really finished. The renovations are finally done and everything has been signed off, inspected and broken in. For the most part, everything has it's proper place, and we have an extensive list of even more stuff to buy and projects to schedule.

The real judge comes today, my grandmother.

Guest Room #2 Before and After
Dining Room Before & After
Front Door and Finished Kitchen
Living Room Before & After
My favorite room so far, The Office.

Putting each room together is a big puzzle. There is still a long way to go before things start looking and feeling complete. At the same time, we have ideas for future remodeling and landscaping layouts, ranging from drawer pulls to tree falling to adding square footage. Here is the down and dirty plan:




Monday, September 2, 2013

The First Two Weeks

The first two weeks have been abnormally slow going. The BF said that it seems more like a vacation house since we are have been half unpacked, waiting for the rest of the carpet and cabinet fronts to be installed. In the meantime, we had a few projects of our own to work on.

The first was a memory board for my office. This was a DIY I found online. I picked a quality canvas that had a solid wood frame. The purple material is heavier and very durable, and I used white fabric ribbon. Everything was stapled with my brand new staple gun, and the gold buttons were sewn in to keep everything taut. Nail in some claw fixtures, and it's ready to hang.
   

The second project was a hidden litter box. There are no convenient spaces to keep a litter box, so we created one. We googled some ideas, and found this toy storage bin at Ikea. Using an electric handsaw, we cut a Shorty-sized door. He had no problem adapting, and the litter box is perfectly concealed and odor-free. 

You too can pick this up at Ikea.

Finally the custom cabinet fronts are in! Clean white fronts with seeded glass panes. 
A nice Before & After shot, but disregard the silverware and kitchen gadgets.

My plan for this coming week is to refinish the furniture set we brought down from my parents house, and to finish unpacking. I'm hoping that once that is done, I can show B&A pictures of all the finished rooms. Stay tuned!