Archive for the ‘House’ Category
Future library
March 5th, 2010Preview of Bedroom
March 1st, 2010We started painting the master bedroom here, and here it is mid-painting:
Glorious Living Room
February 26th, 2010
Now that I’m getting close to graduating, the next goal is for me to find a job, and while it’s very exciting it’s frustrating as well. It helps to keep me motivated when I think of the projects we can tackle once I do have a job. One of the things that we’re both excited about is entertaining, and the living room is a huge focal point of that. I would like to have movie nights, and I love the play Pictionary. Currently, we have a three seat sofa that is just not enough seating for guests. It was also a quick purchase for college, and it’s definitely time to upgrade. I love chaises, and I wanted a sofa that included that. I also wanted a sofa that had a built in sofa sleeper for guests, because while we will have a guest bedroom I never want to not have enough places to sleep for anyone visiting or staying over.
I found this sofa here at La-Z-Boy. I really wanted a white sofa for the living room to help lighten it up, since we painted the room such a dark color. However, Steve and I both agreed that while it would look beautiful, it would not remain white with Elway’s dark black hair or if kids were over. We compromised on a gray couch, and using a the Ikea rug and adding white pillows and blankets would help to lighten it.
We also purchased new white paint to paint all of the molding and doors in the living room to really freshen it up. With the high ceilings and older house, we decided to go ahead and add crown molding to this room as well. I am really super excited to begin working on the room. I’m also a huge fan of displaying photos, so once I get those printed, matted, and hung up, it will add even more white space and help to brighten the room.
The other way to lighten up the room will be the curtains. I’m still unsure of where to go on the fabric for this room, and I feel that I will probably go through several sets of fabric before I find exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve used the Cecilia fabric before here, so it would be nice to have that tie into a different room.
Here’s what the room looks like now:
So hopefully in the next few months we can begin making this room exactly what we want.
Our pitiful master bedroom
February 3rd, 2010So back in this post, I discussed some goals for this year, and one of the areas was our master bedroom. It’s pretty pathetic to be honest. It had off white (pink?) walls, and the ceiling is not white with splotches of white paint around one edge. It actually used to be a porch, so there is a sub-flooring in the room but no flooring. We’ve been trying to take it in small doses.
Right now we’ve mostly just been living in the house to get a feel for things that we thought we hated that we actually like, and things that we thought would be fine that are actually a nightmare. I’m just glad that we decided to be patient, so that we could discover them. If we’d started tearing in right away, we might have made some changes that were not necessary or neglected problems that would annoy us down the road.
Ah, so the bedroom, here it is in all its glory (or lack of):
This is right before we started painting the bedroom, so we had moved a lot of the furniture out. Here are our goals for this room: paint the ceiling, add flooring, finish drywall, and add crown molding. Once we’ve completed those things we’ll really start to focus on furniture. I like to take things in stages with this house, so that we have time to see what will really mesh together.
I created a mood board a while back for this room, and most of it still applies. We’re a bit unsure about the wardrobe at this point, but we’re going to revisit it once we finish the projects and get the bed.
Goals for the Year 2010
January 2nd, 2010I normally don’t do resolutions, but I do always have goals for the year or things that I intend to complete. So here they are in all their glory, and I organized them by my most popular topics.
SCHOOL:
- Register, Take, and Pass the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam
- Get through Winter Quarter
- Get through Spring Quarter
- Do all the required hoop jumping, and successfully GRADUATE in June!
- Find sweet job between now and graduation.
HOUSE:
- Finish the bedroom: paint ceiling, add flooring, finish drywall, add crown molding
- Make utility room more functional: get other dryer working, add wall, close in dryer & washer, add storage
- Finish bathroom: find-purchase-install flooring, paint, add tile (remove junk that’s there now)
- Build porch swing for side porch
- Fence: move fence back, paint fence, add in front flower bed, install privacy fence where needed
- Vegetable Garden: remove gravel, add “good” soil, plant
- Detached Garage: power wash, seal, paint, install flooring, add fridge & stove, put up for rent
- House warming party in March!!
BUSINESS:
- Do more on foot marketing at local businesses
- Promote, promote, promote
- Get website up and running tomorrow (woohoo!)
OTHER GOALS:
- Run Half-Marathon
- Run Marathon
- Go to Gatlinburg, TN for the first time for vacation with Steve and camp-depends on the season haha
- Go on a cruise/long vacation
- Learn to sew
Whew! That about covers it. I think all are reasonable, and they’re all things I was planning to do since about November.
Painting is a pain in the butt. Nuff said.
December 15th, 2009I think the last time I painted was at my parents’ house when I was in high school, and I’m not going to lie. I’m pretty sure my mom painted most of it. Plus, I had only one window, a closet door, and the entrance door. So my painting “job” was pretty simple that time. When we decided to paint the downstairs of the house during my winter break I was all for it, and I still am - just not as excited. My hands are blistered, and I’m pretty sure my right shoulder wants to kill me. It is finished though, and I am so happy.
Here is what the room looked like before. It had a lot of brown, and it was very closed in. While Elway is not a hyperactive dog, he is really HUGE, so not having that much space between furniture did become a problem. So we cleared everything out (minus the couch) to make room to paint and to start from scratch furniture wise.
Then we started taping things off and putting paper down to protect the floors.
I must say. Taping was probably the worst part for me. We kept the plastic that wrapped our new mattress just for this project. Because I wanted a deep purple, I asked some resources and decided to use Benjamin Moore paints. Initially I chose “summer plum”, but after we bought the paint and took it home. I realized that was not what I wanted without even painting anything. I took it back and luckily they were able to darken it, and I can’t say enough good things about Star City Paint. I had them darken it as close to “grape juice” as possible, but really our color is a custom color. It’s pretty darn close to grape juice though.
Here are the walls with just the primer:
Then here is the final product:
(Painting was really tiring for Elway)
