Wednesday, April 18, 2012

House Updates!

Hi friends :) So...once again, I've been slacking so bad with blog entries. I can't even tell you how busy life has been...yikes! I kind of feel like life will never slow down but my hubby keeps reassuring me that eventually it will...he's been putting in a lot of extra hours at work and then the minute he walks in the door, he is downstairs working on the basement (which by the way...is really coming along!!! I could scream I'm so excited...they started on the sheet rock and it is making such a HUGE difference!! My next update will be pics of the basement!) I do feel though once we finally have all the house projects done, life will settle down and we will have more time to just focus on family! Thank you LORD!
The list of To-Do's for the upstairs is slowly but surely getting crossed off! I have 80% of all the trim, windows and doors painted...I only have buggy's room to do and the baseboard trim of the "future nursery" to do which means that I have done the baseboards, windows, door trim in the bathroom, master bedroom, future nursery windows, hallway, living room and kitchen! Painting has literally been the story of my life for months now! We have purchased all new 6-panel doors to replace all the bedroom (3) doors and a linen closet door replacement as well; they are pre-primed white but need to be finished in the same paint that we have already painted all the other trim...we're waiting to "jig" the doors to match the existing hardware and then we can paint them. We are LOVING all the newly painted trim...it makes everything look so much more bright and cheery and is making our little home look so much bigger!
 As promised to keep it real from the very beginning...here's the future nursery which is currently the "dump room!" haha! Oh my gosh, so embarrassing but with the basement currently being a construction zone, we have limited space so right now, it's just the catch all room which is making me crazy but it will all be over soon enough :)
 A close up of the newly painted windows in the garbage dump future nursery! I only have the baseboard to do in this room!
 Our new closet doors which my clever hubby came up with...we took the old flat, oak stained doors off and removed and saved all the old hardware that allowed the closet doors to slide back and forth; we then bought the new, paneled doors and screwed the old hardware to the backs and they work just like the old ones did...only look a million times better! They are a tad long and are rubbing a bit on the hardwood so Chris needs to cut the bottoms a bit but that can definitely wait until the other to-do's are done! These are only primed (came that way) so we still need to paint these along with the other doors but this is exactly what all the doors to the bedrooms will look like as well!
 The hallway with white trim and new school-house light fixture which we love so much! Around $25 with tax at Lowe's...ummmm, you can't beat that :)
 More trim shots of the hallway.
And finally got the built-in hutch painted as well; As you can see, the inside shelves are still not painted and it's something that I'll probably do "some day" but because we need as much storage as we can get, I plan to find some fun fabric and make a little curtain to put in the inside of the hutch so we can use the inside for storage versus displaying my fun fiesta dishes...because also on the list of to-do's are floating shelves for in the kitchen which I will happily display my fun dishes there instead!!
We still have to paint ALL THE WALLS upstairs as well...we plan to paint buggy's room a different color for her big-girl room that she will get his summer, we have to paint the hallway and living room which will all be one color and then we have to paint the kitchen! Ughhh...many more hours of a paint brush in my hand!!! But once it's all done, it's going to be so beautiful, I can't wait!
Here's a pic of the colors we are crushing on:

 Never mind the ugly, off-white light switch (which have all been switched out upstairs for nice, bright white ones but still haven't done this one yet!) They are all in the gray-beige family..."greige" which we really love. The new furniture we plan on buying for upstairs (the two couches and chair that are currently upstairs will go downstairs) is a really light linen colored couch with a dark brown, espresso-like leather chair so I feel like we can't go with a "cool-gray" but more of a "warm-gray" will be perfect! We really like either Behr Wheat Bread or Ben Moore Revere Pewter.
 This one shows our change of heart for the kitchen...originally we were going to go with a pretty glass tile back splash shown in this post but after giving it more thought, we felt like it might make the kitchen feel closed in...we are still going with the same solid-quartz counter top in a putty color but instead, we are doing the plain white, subway tiles for the back splash! It's going to really open our kitchen up and the picture doesn't really do it justice but the paint color we are 99% sure we are going with is Ben Moore Rockport
Speaking of kitchen...here you can see all the new painted trim around the windows...it's amazing how much it opened things up...such a bright feeling! We also replaced the two lights for the school-house lights as well...it really looks kind of retro! We are loving the changes so far and we are just so excited to see our vision finally all come together!
Also, because I'm a little inpatient, I needed to give the family room a face lift for now...until we can paint and get the new furniture here, I HAD to get rid of the dark red and gold accents (if only I knew then what I know now!)...they were dragging my new bright and cheery trim down...we got rid of all the old and added some things that we had from the old master bedroom...I also got some new throw pillows as well as some new curtain panels (cheap cheap from Target!) It's not what I want long-term but it'll do for now...it's so much more springy in our home now and I LOVE it :)
 Yeah that's right...I'm a "Real Housewife Junkie" and proud of it ;) Here's our floating shelf in the living room with new digs!
 New white curtain panels which once we paint, we will be hanging them almost to the ceiling...they are the 93" panels and will really open up the room once they are hung at a taller height! That's my $5 Goodwill lamp find (yay me!) And that hideous front door...also on the list to replace but probably not till next Spring! Priorities, priorities!
And our new, cute little zig-zag throw pillows that I got super cheap from amazon.com and they just add a little Cheer to the room!
Well, that's it for updates...I actually have many more to share with you but I can't put them all into one post...more to come this week (I promise!) of the basement...you guys are going to be shocked at how different it looks....SOOOOOOOOO excited :)
I hope you guys are having a good week so far...Happy Hump Day!
xoxo,
Amanda