From Drab to Fab!

Dave and I have been super busy finishing up the house or at least make our house a bit more livable. We got rid of most of the stinky carpet and finished up our floors, just in time for our first house guest since the big floor reno. The floors look great and our house is really starting to shape up now. One thing that I wanted to get done before we finished the floors was to paint our hutch that we are now using as a bar. I want to paint it before the floors were completed so I wouldn't have to bother with being super-duper careful if I was to paint indoors. The hutch is very pretty but it needed a little updating from that rustic look. So I decide to go with a little glam. I choose Martha Stewart's Lagoon which I believe I recently told you in a previous post. Well its done. And I think it looks great. I think it definitely added a bit of charm to this old piece. I have to admit, when I put on the first coat I was thinking, "oh my, what have I done?!" but in the end it turned out perfect! Take a look see from the before to the after!

 

I'm not sure if you are a fan of painted furniture but I think it turned out great!

Latest Updates

Hey everybody! There was a first this weekend. This was the first weekend that Adriene and I did absolutely nothing but enjoy our house!!! Saturday was the first Auburn football game so we had friends in all weekend tailgating, then thanks to Neal and Lynsey we spent Sunday and Monday at the lake. It was a great weekend and even though there is much more to be done it is nice to sit back and just be at home.

This is not going to become a trend though as we have two bathrooms left that need to be renovated, bedrooms that need to be re-carpeted, and all the other army of things that Adriene has yet to let me know about...

So on to a serious topic, Florida football. I mean seriously 13 mishandled snaps is not acceptable and I am worried about them getting that fixed in just five practices. The defense played great and when they could get past the fundamental mistakes the offense played pretty well. Brantley seemed to be fairly confident back there though.

OOPS, well at least that is out of my system, back to the house, really people who else thinks that the refs delivered that game to Boise St. in the end, oh well. Oh yeah, our office. We still have carpet in there, it is in pretty good shape but we also have around four boxes of wood floors left over from the rest of the house. The office will be a workout/office/extra guestroom////////////nursery (notice that I added several extra slashes to that one).

It kind of throws off the balance of having carpeted all of the back rooms, but I think that it would make the office a little more sophisticated. Also it would save us some $$$ on new carpet. To floor the office would not cost too much, we estimate that we would need two more boxes of flooring (around $150), and to rent the nailer again ( around $30). So what do y'all think about that? Seriously we would like to hear your opinion on that and all our work so far. Adriene has gotten several ideas from her other daily blogs and we hope that with your help we can add our two cents into the home design blog-o-sphere.

PS. We have a three piece sectional sofa for sale, would anyone be interested??? Its a Norwalk and is in really good shape!

Flooring 101

Well its been about a month since we've showed the world what on earth we are up to. Sorry folks, Dave and I have been shaking things up around the house and haven't figured out quite how to tell everyone about our flooring process. Its hard, real hard, and long! I thought we would have them down in no time. But wow, once you see your results its all worth your hard work. We are mostly done with it all, but we have one finish one stair in our entryway, then presto we're done! When you decide to put in hard wood floors in your own home you gotta be willing to do the work and get a little dirty. First there is the demo phase. We had to rip up linoleum, carpet and some tile.

Once that is done we decided to lay down tar paper which is good for a moisture barrier, or at least thats what Dave told me it was for. Be careful to not get it on your walls. That stuff sticks and you are gonna have to repaint over the mess up. Sadly I tried to work too fast and I got some of the tar-ikyness on my striped wall. But its all fixed now, some fresh paint did the job. But laying out the moisture barrier is pretty easy. Just lay that out, make sure it all lines up and use a good stable gun. After my mess up with the wall, my job changed to stapler, as you can see from this unfortunate picture Dave got while I was working.

Once you get ready to lay out the hard wood floor, may I suggest one major purchase, an air compressor. Its completely worth the money. If we rented one for the time period it took to complete our floors then we would have paid for for it 5 times over or so. Also a mitre saw, We already had one when we extended our kitchen entryway. After that purchase, you must rent a nailer. Its about $35.00 a day from Home Depot.

About two maybe three weeks ago, Dave and I rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Its amazing how different the house is. After 25 years of being a rental home, this house really needed some 'tender love and care'. In almost one year Dave and I have really put some love into this home. The den, hallway and kitchen took about three/four days and luckily we had some help from some friends (only after some extreme begging) to finish up the living room and dining room area.

All of our hard work paid up in the end. We are so happy with it, although it would have been great to have gone a vacation and come back and the floors were done for us. But since we did it ourselves, I'm a bit more prideful about it all. I hand picked each grain/plank and David nailed an estimated 5,000 nails. Our big reveal will come really soon, here is a sneak peak of the work we've done.

You can definitely do this stuff yourself. With a little knowledge, some fancy tools that you will surely use again especially if you are a DIYer, you can save some money in labor costs and be a proud of your own wood floors.

Big Things Coming!!!

Give us a few more days folks. We have been working like crazy for the last three weeks and the progress is really showing now. Updates soon!!!

Dumpster Diving!

Happy Friday! David and I are laying our floors in the den, kitchen and hallway this weekend. Dave has a lot ahead of him the next few days and our little family want to pitch in as much as we can. So I've got my gloves on and ready to start working. Tux is even in on the action. Usually Tux just poses for the camera but Dave wanted him to help out a bit more! You think he has a new career opportunity as a paperweight?

Happy Weekend!

Demolition Days

So we've purchased the floors, now what? David and I have entered, yet again demolition days. We have been ripping, scraping, and sniffling our way through our layers of linoleum and carpet. First we were pretty excited and very eager to get it all done...here we are taking the linoleum out in the den on demolition day 1.

Here I am on day 3. David said my expression said it all. I was now wondering why we were still doing this. We even had a slight injury, David cut himself on some wood that was sticking out around the refrigerator.

Nasty right? But as days of work set in, we ended up beaten, broken and sick. A word of warning, please make sure that you wear masks when you are doing the work. It took us a little longer to get our floors prepped because we got sick due to all of the dust, maybe some fiber-glass and a little bit of asbestos. I'm a lot better but Dave still has the sniffles and a slight cough. Now we are done with the first part of our floor prep. We still need to lay the felt, get some of other stuff in order and then begin laying the actual floor down. After this part of the house is done, we get to start the entire process over again with the living room. Luckily we don't have to deal with linoleum! Take a look at all of our hard work.

Living Room Pump Up

This is currently what our living room looks like. It needs a plan of some sort. The sofa and coffee table will stay in their location. The sofa is a little dated but its really comfortable and easy to keep clean. I think with the right coordinating pillows, it will look much better. The rocking chair will be moved to the office or the den. The wood side table (which Dave calls 'a stump') will go in the den. Once David and I get finished with the floor installation, I can really start getting our furniture where it needs to be. In the meantime, I've recently put together another mood board for our living room. Since we've lived here for a bit, I now know what I want each room to look like.

1. The living room and dining room are painted the same color, Lovely Buff by Valspar. The other colors will be accent colors throughout the room. 

2. I found this print at Z Gallerie and I thought, I can just paint this on a gallery canvas. I think adding some contemporary pieces to our home might add a little spunk but still keep it classy. Plus, if you know me and know my style, you know I love anything that has any circular design to it. I can blame my freshman design instructor, Professor Dunlap, for that obsession. This piece will be hung at the top of the stairs. (above tux in our current living room photo)

3. We are keeping our coffee table just as it is. I don't want to overload the room with multiple different types of wood stains so I want to add two glass side tables from Crate and Barrel on either side of the sofa. I hope by doing this, it will keep the room looking large and give it some airy-ness (believe I just made up that word). 

4. I found two lamps at TJ Taxx very similar to this one that was at Crate and Barrel last fall. Not bad for $30.00 a piece. The lamps will of course go on top of the glass side tables.

5. I love, love this rug from CSN Rugs! It reminds me of one that Pottery Barn use to have. This yellow rug will show nice contrast between our floors and our wooden coffee table. 

6. I have been eyeing this linen slipper chair at Target for almost a year now. I promised myself I wouldn't buy it until Dave and I were ready for our living room to become the living room. The chair will be in place of the rocking chair. The linen fabric will hopefully add some texture to this boring room!

7. Black console table. This console table once was David's mothers. She never liked the stain and didn't have room for it in her new home. So like a lot of our furniture, it was handed down which we are very grateful. I painted it black and it looks like a brand new table. A new table that was made well. This table will be at the top of the stairway, across from the slipper chair and sofa. I plan on hanging an arrangement of photographs and prints in white frames to create a balanced collage.

8. The Bar/hutch, another hand-me-down. I really like the shape and its the perfect size for a bar, but it needs something. I first thought about just painted to back bead board, but after thinking a bit more; that just isn't enough. Another thing that I had to consider now is that our floors and the hutch are pretty much the same color. If I don't do something to it, its gonna look like a big 'brown' blob extending from the floor. So I've decided to paint the entire piece a lovely blueish-teal and replace the knobs with clear glass knobs from Anthropologie. The official color is Lagoon from Martha Stewart. The teal color will really make the piece stand out. Some people might be hesitant about painting a piece of old furniture but I think paint gives some of those old pieces a second life. One good thing about the color I have chosen, lagoon, is that it can be inter-changeable throughout the seasons. The bar/hutch will be moved over to where the entertainment center is currently living. 

In the area where is bar is, I am gonna get David to hang a photo collage of David and I when we were kids. You'll see that update real soon! I'm really excited about seeing it all come together. Happy weekend everyone!