Drinks: Stationed!

One year into home ownership, we have come to end of our kitchen tweaking! We're really happy with how it turned out. First, a look at where we started:

 

The previous owners remodeled the kitchen and included a breakfast area. The TV was mounted on a shelf and a 6 foot folding table stuck out into the kitchen--directly into the path between the back door and the hallway door.

We knew immediately that this wouldn't work for us. So, we asked you, Internet, to give us ideas for how to improve this nook, way back in this post. Then we clarified that request with more pictures and diagrams in this post.

We tallied the votes and formulated our plan: make the nook into a drink station. Our hope was beer/wine/dr. pepper fridge below, coffee pot, french press, tea pot, hot water pot etc. above.

Well we finally made it happen! Only took a year after we originally decided on our plan!

We really love it. It's been installed for about a month, and it is so handy.

We researched several options including having cabinetry built in, cutting the Corian ourselves, and more. This set up ended up being the most cost effective and the most manageable.

The Corian shelf is from our original island. When we took it off the island and Kyle installed the new, larger countertop, the Corian sat in a closet for a while. It was too wide for this nook, but we knew we wanted to reuse it. First, it's a great material in good shape. Second, reusing it would repeat the Corian around the perimeter of the kitchen, with the butcher block only on the island. We thought it would make the whole rearrangement look intentional.

We finally found a Corian installer who came and measured the spot, took the piece away and cut it down, and came back and installed it. He did a beautiful job and he built us a steel support, so the Corian is securely floating. The drink fridge doesn't support any weight.

The final piece was that little rolling cart that we got last weekend on a road trip. Again, we considered several complicated built in options until I ran across this Ikea cart. It fits perfectly!! It was only $50! Its shelves house coffee, tea and filters on top; coozies (and some bananas) in the middle; and lots and lots of potatoes on the bottom. We have gotten a TON of potatoes in the farm share this year. As the kids get older, I can see this being a snack station too. It rolls out smoothly for access and tucks back in perfectly.

For the final touch, Kyle installed his bottle opener on the cabinet next to the cookbooks.

We are really so happy how it turned out! The kitchen works really well for us now, and after a year of having this hole serving no real purpose, it's great to have everything looking so neat and organized.

Now if only everything we bought at Ikea had worked out so easily...

[dun dun dun! Foreshadowing!]

Incremental

Little by little... that's the plan.

We ditched the bent beige air return cover that's front and center in our foyer for something a little fancier. Thanks again to Jeff for all things wood related! In this case: cutting the 45 degree angles and building the frame for us.

We glitzed up the curtain rods in the living room so they are no longer a combo of raw wood and Martha Stewart standard issue brown. (But also aren't the bra$$ ones I was loving at Restoration Hardware.)

We hung the art in Hamish's room and got her some sweet and cozy big girl bedding. 

We FINALLY filled the holes on our front door with a door knocker. This has been bare since we returned the previous owners' months and months ago.



Chipping away slowly but surely. 

Before & After: the Nursery

The last room upstairs is a little "hobby room" that the previous owner used as a sewing room. It's about 90 square feet (11.5 x 8) and has a window, but no closet.

 
When we moved in, I immediately dubbed it the nursery (after all, I don't sew). We put the crib in here, and the changing table, and this was Hamish's sleeping room until she moved into her big girl bed after Paris.

Once she moved into her big girl room, this sort of stayed part of her "suite". We left the changing table in here, and so used it daily. And we were definitely not taking that crib down in a hurry--it was a pain to set up the first time! When we had visitors, she'd move back into this room on occasion, and slept really well in the crib when needed.

So in having this room painted, we decided to complement its furnishings.



Tom fixed the drywall issues (again) and added a piece of flat trim around the perimeter of the room. He painted the ceiling/wall/eaves white above, and green below. It's sort of a reverse color scheme from our dining room. We love how the white upper half opens up the space.

We rearranged the furniture a bit, moving the crib and the changing table. We added a rocking chair that has been floating around the house from the beginning--nursery, Hamish's room, living room, guest room, now back to the nursery. And Jennifer loaned us the BEAUTIFUL Beatrix Potter alphabet quilt that she stitched by hand when she was expecting her first baby. We're so honored that she'd let us display it and it works so beautifully with the colors.

Since there is no closet, we moved a dresser from the guest room up here that was part of my bedroom furniture growing up and had been handed down from my aunt.

We lost a little floor space, of course, but gained a lot of storage.

This may be one of my favorite transformations so far. I love the colors and love how the trim works.

In fact, we love the room so much we decided we should move someone into it.

We're thinking August.

Before & After: the Bathroom

Our bathroom upstairs is no master suite, but it's in a lot better shape now than it was when we started! It's made up of two small rooms--the front one with a sink and linen closet, and the back one housing the shower, toilet, and window. Shockingly, the doorway between the two used to have a real door hung there. I don't know how you would have gotten them all open/closed at once. That's one door in the house that was long gone when we got here.

Like the downstairs half bath, this bathroom was wallpapered. But this bathroom has a shower, and over time the moisture inherent in that type of room had done its work. The paper was dirty and peeling. Some seams were taped shut with Scotch tape. We were thrilled to strip that baby clean! 

Under the wall paper were all kinds of surprises, and once again, Tom had some fairly major drywall repair work to do before we could get to the pretty stuff.

 

Also on my wishlist for this room was a new fan. The fan-light combo in the shower portion of the room was awful. A yellowy-brown horrible color with a yellowed plastic light lens. I just knew a new, white fixture would go a long way to cheering the whole room up. And since the same fan was in the guest bathroom downstairs, we could make that one a bit more cheerful too.



I priced replacement fans and for the size we needed (that fit the hole in the ceiling), we were looking at about $70 each. Which is a bit more than I wanted to invest in bathroom fans.

Then Kyle pointed out that there was actually nothing WRONG with the fan. Or the light. Both worked admirably. My complaint was purely aesthetic. So we looked into focusing our fix there.

Turns out, you can buy a replacement lens for our model of light for less than $10. And Home Depot delivers to the store for free, so no shipping. So for $10 each plus one can of white spray paint, we went from awful to much, much, much better.

HUGE improvement! One of those things that was so easy once we actually did it, and makes me much happier.

Once Tom had fixed all the drywall issues (including some out and out holes hidden by the wallpaper). It was on to painting. And here's where I'm not 100% pleased with my choice. I picked Sherwin Williams Cucumber, a pale green that is down the card from Pickle that we used in the dining room.

Kyle did the painting in this room because we ran out of time/money to pay Tom for another room, and we went with a painted ceiling and walls the same color. In the shower room--with its big window and new, white light fixture, I love it. It's cool and cheerful and feels clean. In the sink/vanity room--with inset can lights that are a bit more yellow and at night when daylight isn't pouring in--it feels more yellow, more neon.

When Jennifer came to tour the finished product one evening, she said thoughtfully, "I really like that color (the shower room), but I'm not sure about this one (the sink space)." Unfortunately, it's the same color. Same can of paint. Just really different lighting. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

But even so, it's a WORLD better than the wallpaper that was there before. It'll stay for a while because for most of the day it's just fine--and I really like the color! If we get to any other bathroom renovations in here eventually (we have ideas) then we can rework everything--color, lighting, layout, the whole nine yards.

But right now we're just so happy with the fresh clean paint and that nothing is held together with tape!

Before & After: Our Room

As I think we've explained before, rather than taking the downstairs, ensuite master bedroom, we are upstairs with Hamish. This has worked out SO well for us and our guests. We're closer to her if she needs us, and guests have plenty of space, privacy, and quiet downstairs.

While in Hamish's room the focus was on trim painting, here the focus was more on drywall repair. This was just a spare room to the previous owners and it had some of the worst drywall issues. It definitely needed some love. Here are some (oddly lit) photos of joints in the room:



We went the same gray that we used downstairs in the office and guest room (Knoxville Gray by Benjamin Moore). We again painted the eaves to match the ceiling rather than the walls. In 2D pictures, I might like the eaves-as-walls better, but in person it felt like the walls were leaning in on you. Because they were sort of. A very tall friend helped us move furniture, and I swear he stood more upright in here after the paint job. 

We've only hung one picture in here (over the tall dresser), but that is on reclaimed wall! That section of wall was created fairly recently to house the upstairs HVAC system (behind the dresser, creating those shelves to the left). The upstairs thermostat was RIGHT in the middle of that wall. For us, that was right at the foot of the bed. Kyle, being awesome, moved it before Tom got there to patch and paint so that we can actually use the wall. Yay!

Still on the list for in here...
1. Hang the 2 things propped up on that chair, probably in that corner.
2. Come up with the best use for those HVAC-created shelves. Buy some hampers that fit the space? Buy some trim to make the shelves look slightly more fancy that plywood? Some more baskets?
3. Rework the inside of the closets. They are decent sized, but the storage is really inefficient.
4. A new bed frame. That's been on my list for a while, but I have to find something I really love. When we get a new one, though, this one will go downstairs to the guest room, and we would love to get our guests up off the floor fairly soon. 

Before & After: Hamish's Room

Germaine left a comment on our last blog post pointing out that it has been a week! Updates already!! We had family visiting Sunday-Wednesday, so that's one excuse. And we still haven't rehung all of the art upstairs, which I'd really like to do, so that's another excuse. But let's go ahead and get this party started anyway.

We are SO thrilled with the way everything turned out. It looks a MILLION times better and happier and cleaner and more us. So let's celebrate with lots and lots of before and afters! 

Here's Hamish's room on our second walk through of the house: 

You may notice that everything is a pale blue-gray. And I mean everything--doors, window trim, baseboards. This room was likely "unfinished space" when the house was bought and was finished later. The carpet was different from the rest of the upstairs, and the baseboards (which you can't see in any of the walk through pics) were different from the rest of the house. They must have been cheaper (they were smooth, wide rounded trim), but I thought it was so odd.

We took down most of the window treatments and replaced the carpet when we re-carpeted the upstairs before we moved in. Here's an early iteration (carpet in, window treatments still up, air mattress for playing on):

That (and just way less furniture) went a long way toward making this room feel more open and like a deliberate part of the upstairs.

Here are more recent pics taken during bedtime stories (with an iPhone camera filter that Hamish turned on, so ignore the colors). Hamish has been on her mattress/box springs for several months now (since Paris), but both were still sitting on the floor.

  The blue-blue-blue and the mismatched, invisible baseboards were still high on my list to fix.

And then there was the closet door. All of these mini-doors lead to storage space under the eaves, but it's not really tall enough for clothes storage. So the previous owners created a closet behind the hallway. It's large and works well, but the door (adjacent to the bedroom door and a set of mini doors) was awkward. Kyle added a real doorknob right away (it had a little wooden cabinet knob that occasionally came off in your hand) but there was still definitely room for improvement.

Ok, that's a lot of build up. Ready for the (art-not-hung) afters?



After all that, we still  painted the room blue. :)

But we love the contrast, the bright white trim and new baseboards. And I love that new strip of baseboard at the bottom of the closet door in a way that is unreasonable. It looks SO MUCH BETTER!

The color is Benjamin Moore's Van Deusen Blue. It's the same blue we used for the front door, bookshelf backs downstairs, and the mud closet. The trim is Simply White (Ben Moore).

Hamish is up in the real bed--bed frame and all--and has been up there for a few nights and naps. So far it's gone really well.

Still on the list for this room...
1. Hang the stack of art that's currently sitting on the dresser/floor.
2. Window treatments with more personality, though these plain roller shades do a great job of light blocking so they're staying up until we have something better.
3. Paint the fan body and blades white. It's not killing us, but it would look fresher and blend into the white ceiling with a new coat of paint, and I am told that's an easy process. Our painter recommended a spray primer and paint, which we bought, so now we just need to do it.
4. Pretty, fluffy big girl bedding. Yay!

To Peek or Not to Peek

Are you a peeker?

I have never been one to peek. I never shook my Christmas presents or tried to unwrap them at night. I never even guessed really, preferring to just store up anticipation until Christmas morning. I didn't really want to figure it out. I wanted to be surprised. (And since we were NEVER Christmas List people, I almost always was.) 

This sort of drove my mom crazy when we were younger. She liked for us to guess. She thought the guessing game was part of the fun. My dad on the other hand never glanced twice at his gifts, only to pick one up on Christmas day and tell you exactly what was inside. That drives us crazy. 

And now, I hear all manner of noises coming from the upstairs all day while I work. Banging and ripping and hammering and scraping. When Tom was actually painting yesterday I got worried at the silence and yelled upstairs to make sure he hadn't passed out. 

I feel like I'm supposed to go check in. After all, we're paying someone to do the work, so I need to make sure that we're on the same page. I should certainly intervene before anything goes too off track. I don't want to be disappointed and I don't want him to exert effort in the wrong direction.  

But... part of me wants to just let him do his thing and walk upstairs for the big reveal when it's all over.

In Progress...

We're under construction here... just in time for Kyle's family to visit for spring break. Because we're great at timing like that.  Here's a sneak peak at the upstairs: 

Which means our guest bedroom (you know, for our impending guests) looks like this:



I love a good before and after, but the middle shots are important too. And no one is ever going to accuse us of only blogging the pretty parts! :)

Day-bedding

In terms of furniture, besides the guest bed, we have only acquired one new thing. And it's big.

Before we moved in--when I was anxious to nest--I spent a lot of time trying to decide how to deal with the large living room. When we saw the house the second time, the previous owners had the room like this:

I'm basically standing in the doorway. To my left was a secretary. To my right a couch. Further in the room against the left wall was the second couch. The very first time we saw it, those two couches were at right angles to one another with one facing the fireplace with its back to the door.

As we were closing I had a chance to meet the owner and she said, "I can't wait to hear what you do with that living room. I never could figure it out."

(What we use as an office, they made a cozy den.)

So I made it my mission to work out this room. We knew we didn't want guests to enter the room straight into the back of a piece of furniture. We didn't want half of the room to be dead space. We knew we wanted to try to avoid putting the TV over the fireplace if possible (not always possible, but let's see if we can work it out). We knew we wanted the fireplace and bookshelves to still be an area of focus.

I use "we" here very deliberately. There was MUCH discussion and emailing ideas back and forth over this room.

When looking at large/long room pictures, I kept coming back to rooms that were divided with daybeds. This post sealed the deal for me and helped illustrate the idea for Kyle. Such great options.

So I mocked up a few options with my floor plan technique.



Of course it's all very good and well to have agreed on an idea. We didn't actually OWN a piece of furniture like that. So mostly we had this:

 

Then this:

 

Along the way I was shopping for daybeds and looking at options. Every person that we mentioned the idea to had one of those iron or brass metal-backed beds with a trundle in mind. Like the one my friend Marla had in her study when we were kids that I thought was so sophisticated (made all the more so because it was in a "study"!!)

We kept saying, "We're looking for a day bed... but not what you're thinking!"

Jenny's post had a lot of good suggestions and on one trip through Atlanta we visited the Crate & Barrel and saw the Marlowe Daybed, which was Kyle's first choice from the beginning. SO comfortable. We talked about it a lot. We started actively saving for it. (And at $1,400 + delivery, it was going to take a lot of saving!).

Then a week ago on a regular Craig's List scan, I found what is certainly my biggest CL win to date. A Crate & Barrel Simone Daybed (the design that preceded the Marlowe) for $175.

I'll do the math for you. That's 87% off. Before delivery.

I emailed the posting. No response. Oh well, it was too good to be true. Eleven days later (??) we got an email. The daybed was available. It was about 3 years old. No smoking. No pets. We could come get it.

So now we're the proud owners of the day bed that we've been decorating around for almost 8 months.



I'm still not sure about the scale. It's easily as big as our couch, and combined with the other pieces in that half of the room (including that octagonal coffee table I LOVE) things over there are quite cozy. And it's not in perfect condition. It has a few stains and we wouldn't have picked that color for the space. But man, we've got $1225 to work with to still come out ahead. (Not that we are in a hurry to... That savings plan was very long term and we live with a small, sometimes-messy person.)

But it's so, so comfortable. Several lovely naps have been had there already. And it serves our purposes perfectly. You can lay on it and watch TV. You can sit on it and read by the fire. It doesn't block the view of the fireplace from the entrance. It provides more seating for either side of the room.

It's nice to see a vision come together. Now to just find the rest of my wish list on CL!