Painting Projects
When we moved into our house, every room was painted gray. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like gray and none of the varying shades of it throughout the house are offensive. I just don’t want every single room in my house to be the same color. It’s just kind of boring, and honestly, in some of the rooms the gray doesn’t really go with the other decor we have. The bigger rooms in the house will be staying gray, at least for the time being, as I have no desire to commit hours upon hours to repainting them, but I have begun to tackle some of the smaller spaces in the home.
The first room I repainted was the office, which was formerly a light gray. The gray was pretty, but it made the room seem a bit cold and given that the majority of it is over a crawl space it doesn’t need any help with that. I chose a warm beigy-tan color to paint it instead. It really helps to warm things up and makes the space seem more welcoming. Well, I think so anyway.
Obviously I still need to get on making something for that empty frame. Baby steps.
Fresh paint meant that I could also start hanging up more stuff on the walls, which included my printer’s tray, and this small wire line with clips to hang things on. I think it will really come in handy for leaving myself notes or inspiration.
Right now it just holds one little card with a cute four-legged cowboy on it.
Just this past weekend I decided to tackle painting our downstairs bathroom, as the dark gray it was painted was just not doing it for me. It didn’t really unite the other colors in the room and made the room seem small. I brought home some paint chips from Home Depot and oddly enough Rob and I immediately agreed on a color (this pretty much never happens). It’s a beachy looking blue, which actually coordinates really well with the shower curtain’s citron and white stripes, the teal towels, and the dark-colored countertops.
This room still needs a bit of work (art on the walls, a curtain to hide the ugly ass open closet space, and perhaps a little curtain over the window) but I think it’s finally starting to come together.
Yes, I know that shower curtain is very wrinkly. I tried ironing it, it refuses to comply.
I think I’m done painting for a while, especially since I seem to keep finding new places I got paint in my hair. Up next will probably be the upstairs bathroom, but that is going to take some construction prior to painting, as I don’t want to paint until we can put in new, more attractive shelves.
Landscaping, Landscaping, Landscaping
The landscaping around our house was…. not so good. It involved lots of plants that weren’t right for the space and more red mulch than I have ever seen. We spent weeks raking that infernal mulch up, but finally it’s mostly gone, save for the very, very deep reservoir of it under our front porch. As we’ve cleared it away, we’ve been putting in new plants and getting everything looking nice. Here’s a look at what we’ve done so far.
The Back!
The back part of the house was the first thing that we tackled. We turned the small space beside the sidewalk into a planter for veggies and herbs, as well as a few flowers. Hopefully, once the nice summer weather kicks in, they’ll be thriving.
Our grass is coming in really great, too. Never had sod before but it’s pretty awesome!
Why is this Dianthus so huge? That’s because it is from last year. We had such a mild winter it never died and came back this year with A TON of blooms. This image is not color-enhanced, it’s really that bright!
My lovely, lovely anemone. It is blooming like crazy right now.
Bog rosemary. Couldn’t resist, it looked so neat!
I also picked up these fence planters on sale. They look great with some succulents in them.
The Front!
The front of our house was a multi-step project. We started with the smallest planter. I had to rip out an azalea (who plants one of these in full sun? No wonder it was half dead) and I replaced it with a Sedum. I’ve also got some other lovely flowers planted there that I can change from year to year.
Here’s a close up of my ranunculus.
The left side of our porch was the next thing I tackled. After moving an arborvitae bush (which I learned I am quite allergic to, after getting hives), I replanted the azalea along with a little friend for it. It is in full bloom!
I added some shade loving plants (another anemone, love those things!) and left some space for a future columbine that might call it home.
The large planter in front of our house was the biggest challenge, because, well, it was sooo big. It was a lot of mulch to remove and a lot of dirt to move around.
At the heart of our planter, we decided to put in a pretty Japanese maple. It’s slow-growing so it should stay a manageable size for the space for quite some time. I have always wanted one, so I’m happy that it worked for our space. Since we don’t have a big car, the guys from Home Depot were nice enough (or crazy enough, you decide) to let us wheel the tree on one of their carts the mile or so to our house. My husband took care of that, which meant that I got to dig the massive hole for it. Not fun, but it got done and the tree is looking great!
Here are some close-ups of some of our other picks.
Dianthus
Pincushion Plant
Cranesbill
Veriegated Weigelia (small now, but it will get very large.)
The maple took over for this pine tree, which is now in a pot. Hopefully we can find it a new home, it will be lovely someplace where it can grow without being obnoxious! It was about two feet from our house before, not an ideal location for a tree that will get 80-100 feet tall.
I also got around to finally putting this little white table I have had forever back together. The nuts had gotten lost a long time ago, but I bought new, got some cute chairs and it’s ready to enjoy! Can’t wait to spend lots of time outside this summer!
Recent Projects Around the House
I made yet another trek to IKEA (somehow still forgetting the one damn thing I needed to return. Guess I’m keeping it now) to get some more stuff for our house now that we’re settled in enough to know what we need.
One of the best purchases has been these bedside lamps for our room that actually allow me to get enough light to read a book. Fabulous! I love that I can adjust them as needed, too.
I also picked up this chalkboard/key holder/mail holder. It’s working really well so far, though I imagine my husband will abuse the drawing abilities it offers pretty soon.
My big purchase was this rug. It’s a creamy color with flecks of gray, which makes it match enough but not too much. Soon we’ll have some chairs to fill in that bay so it won’t look so empty.
I also finally got around to hanging up our maps and the mirror I got for a steal at the West Elm outlet.
I got a number of frames as well. One to house a great map of Paris landmarks I have, and a couple more to fill up this entryway space. I plan to make a drawing of our house for one and Rob wants to also make a drawing of our house (not sure why) for the other. I finally got to hang up my whale hook, too!
Last but not least, I got a desk chair for my office space. It’s not fancy, but it works and I like that it’s yellow. Makes work a bit more cheerful.
Earlier, I also got around to hanging up some artwork (and my awesome orchid wall planter from West Elm), though I realized that I want to paint the room so I stopped at just a few.
Also, I got these rad floral towels at Target (already had the others, also from Target)! So cute. Can’t wait to paint the room and get it all looking nice.
Closet Makeover
As I mentioned in a previous post, the closets in our house were not installed correctly. Not even a little bit. In fact, one ripped out of the wall soon after moving in, as you can see here.
We hemmed and hawed about what to do in the closet, but ended up going with a pretty simple solution. We just reused the old shelf, installed properly, added a matching one for me, as well as a closet rod in the back of the closet. It’s still not a perfect system, as the door hits both sides (really not well designed) but it works for storing our clothes. We really don’t spend much time hanging out in there anyway.
This time around we made sure to screw everything securely into the studs and actually followed the manufacturer’s guidelines on how far apart to space the support brackets. Now, we can fit all of our clothes in here easily! I’m loving actually having a place to hang my dresses, as they were previously stashed under the bed in boxes.
We’ll eventually have to redo all of the closets in the house, but this is a start!
New Homeowner Trials
We are finally getting settled into our new place, and like many homeowners, are learning that there are a few quirks that go along with our new home.
So far, we’ve discovered these things:
- All of our closets were installed incorrectly.
- Our yard was apparently a garbage pit at some point (we expected some construction garbage, but this is far beyond that)
- One of the bathroom doors doesn’t open correctly
- The builders were not careful about paint or caulk.
- Our living room floor isn’t level
- The steps out front and out back are cracked and loose.
- There are lots of random lumps under the carpet.
- One window in the bedroom doesn’t stay up.
And that’s just what we’ve noticed so far! Who knows what other weird things are lurking.
Aside from those things, living here has been pretty amazing. It feels so good to have room and to actually have a place to put everything.
Here are some photos from our first few weeks in the house.
Living room, part 1.
Living room, part 2.
Dining room. Our table is sooo small in this room.
Kitchen, with lots of yellow!
The office, including a stack of decorative objects that had yet to find a home.
Downstairs bath
The master bedroom, plus cats.
The master bath.
Guest bedroom.
It’s still a work in progress but I’ll update as we make changes/improvements!
New House!
I haven’t been back to post much in the past few weeks because I have been a busy little bee! I headed down to Texas for my sister’s wedding which was a great time and Rob and I just bought our first house! It’s been pretty non-stop for the past few weeks with wedding stuff, and mortgage stuff, and house stuff, I haven’t really had time to work on any projects or be creative. I also just got over a pretty scary/crazy cold, too, (which involved becoming so dehydrated I passed out. Uncool) so that has not been fun to deal with on top of the rest of this stuff. Not to fret though, a new house will give me ample opportunities for doing loads of fun projects! Hooray!
The new digs!
Just thought I’d share a few photos in the interim, so as not to completely neglect my blogging duties.
I made a portrait for Rob and myself when we got married, so I decided to do the same for my sister and her new husband. While it doesn’t really look like either of them, I think it came out cute.
I went down the week before the wedding so my parents and I could help her out with wedding prep. Mostly we just hung out and had a nice time. Here are some photos of the drive and fun ol’ San Antonio.
Prickly pear margarita. Do not die without trying one of these.
Weird light in Oklahoma.
Best. Cheese. EVER. It was a mix of fresh marscapone, ricotta, and mozzerella. topped with truffle oil and served with fresh heirloom tomatoes. OMG.
I’ve also been doing a bit of thrifting lately. I’ve found some pretty awesome stuff!
I got this chair and ottoman at the thrift store for just $20. It needs to be recovered but it was cheap and comfy and I think it’ll make a good addition to our new home once it gets a makeover. I’m thinking a similarly colored velvet? I may never get a chance as the cats have claimed it as their own. They seriously aren’t off of it much at all. It’s where they sleep and hang out most of the time.
Sharing, reluctantly.
Also purchased: This rad lamp! I bought a shade at Target to complete it. The Hawaii map was a Valentine’s present for Rob.
I found this super awesome whale hook on eBay and I had to have it. Happy house owning to me!
Just a few more crazy weeks and we’ll be moving into our new house. I can’t wait!
Bedskirt for a Box Springless Bed
We’re running a little low on space in our tiny apartment (hopefully we’ll finally find a house soon!) so no space can go to waste when it comes to storage. That means that under the bed is prime real estate, space which we’ve already filled to the brim with clothes, a shelf we don’t have room for but want to keep, and various paintings and drawings. All these things fit pretty neatly under the bed, but it’s still not the kind of storage situation that you want to look at everyday. Problem is, our bed doesn’t have a box spring because: A) it is very Swedish and doesn’t require one and B) we are very cheap and didn’t buy one, so putting up a bedskirt that looks halfway decent is a bit of challenge.
We used to have a pretty standard bedskirt (also from Ikea) on our bed that you can see here, but it was much too long (see how it’s laying on the floor? Yuck) and pretty quickly got dusty, dirty, and gross past the point of no return. So, I trashed that one (trust me, it was time to put it to rest), and decided to make one that was actually tailored to our bed.
Mission one was finding some plain gray fabric, which, believe it or not, wasn’t easy. Joann, among their hundreds of selections, didn’t have a thing. I ended up driving out of my way to go to Hancock Fabrics which had a great color and it was on sale, too! I also picked up several yards of velcro (not the name brand kind, which is crazy expensive) to use to attach my bedskirt to the bed. Sound weird? Let me explain.
There’s a small (1 inch or so) space between the edge of the wood on the bed frame and the metal parts that hold the slats. Perfect for velcroing a bedskirt into place. This velcroed bedskirt won’ t require going over the slats, can be tailored to fit perfectly to the legs and space between the floor and the bed, and will show off the wood edge of the bed. A perfect solution!
I started by getting all my measurements in order, cutting the fabric, and doing one hell of a lot of pinning. Easy work, yes. Fun work, no. This took quite a bit of time and I was super glad when it was all done. You’ll notice that the velcro gets pinned to the pretty side of the fabric.
Next, I took the mattress off of the bed and pulled back the slats. Around the entire edge of the bed, I hot glued the “hook” side of the velcro strips. I think eventually staples or another kind of adhesive might be in order for long-term durability, but for now, hot glue is fine. There was one hang up in that I didn’t realize the end of the bed had a bracket on it, but I simply loosened it and slid the bedskirt under.
Then, to the sewing machine! I sewed three individual pieces for the bed, one for each side and a short guy for the bottom. Really easy, as it was all straight lines.
I came back into the bedroom to find these shenanigans happening. Uncool, dudes!
After removing the cats from the top of the mattress, I got to work pairing up the velcro so the bed skirt could hang. Super easy to put on and to take off when it needs to be washed. I put the mattress back, and viola! It looks so much better than it did before.
The cat even came back to try out the bed, horizontally this time.
