switcheroo

The other project we tackled was removing the bathroom door from the family room and putting it in the guest room.  I still have no idea how I want to decorate the family room.  It's quite boring right now... sigh.

before

after

before

after!

In-law suite master bedroom to family room

This has been our biggest transformation yet!  We turned the in-law suite master bedroom into a cozy family room.  Here is a before shot of the bedroom when we first moved in:

I still have to paint the back of the fireplace opening black, but can you believe it?  Notice the archway to the right of the mantle.  That wasn't there before and J knocked that wall out to open it into the main living area.  Man my hubby is crafty!!!  He built the fireplace and bookshelf from some pictures I drew and I did the mantle myself.  It was very therapeutic beating the crap out of that wood to get the old distressed look I was going for.

These trees are all made out of old boxes and cardboard and paper I had laying around the house.

Here's a close up of my decor and the mantle.

Below is a pillow I made out of a pretty place mat.  I just painted a "Q" on it because I can never find things monogrammed with our last name.

I have the shelves decorated with Christmas frames and pictures with Santa right now.

I made this "noel" out of scraps of paper and cardboard as well after an inspiring post I saw on Pinterest.

The pillows in the background I made out of some old curtains.  They are simply easy slip covers for my existing pillows and acrylic paint lettered on to say "merry christmas".

To dress up my french doors, I hung red curtains and wrapped garland and candy canes around the top.

Fall Decorations on a Budget

I'm trying to be really good about decorating on a budget but it's so hard when Fall is my favorite season of the year!  And, I think I've done it with some thrify thinking starting with my new Autumn inspired pillows.

This is my goal: to have seasonal throw pillow all year long.  But, instead of spending a fortune on pillows and trying to figure out where to store them, I'm making seasonal slip covers for my already exisiting pillows.    

The first pillow below is made from a really cute hand towel I found this season at Kohls.  All I did was measure the size of the pillow, cut the towel to size and sew two folds of  coordinating linen fabric to the back.

This beautiful linen and embroidered pumpkin lumbar pillow is a place mat I adored at Kohls as well!  If you look carefully at the place mat when you purchase it, it is already sewn like a pillow with a distinct front and back piece of material.  I simply cut a slit in the center of the back piece of fabric and stuffed it with one of my pillows.  Boom!  Instant pillow!

Here is the new mantle (minus paint and stain) in the family room.  I still have to post my how to for the mantle and bookshelf my amazingly crafty husband built for me.

My foyer is decorated with Halloween decor already as well.

I love these cute Halloween ornaments but I needed a place to hang them.

I simply cut a few branches from a crab-apple tree outside and duct taped the bottom together.  I was going to spray paint the branches black and decorate with some glitter but I think I want to uses the branches somehow for November and December.  I may just need 3 different sets but for now I'm content with their natural look.

I took my glass votive jars and changed them out too.  This one below is stuffed with cotton pillow stuffing and a few black felt cutouts for eyes and a mouth.

I even hit up the bookshelves of my kitchen island!

Here is the living room; full view (still minus white trim and paint sadly)

Meanwhile......

While I was busy redoing the play room, J was busy finishing the wainscoting in the family room.  He also finished his arch where we knocked out a wall.  It's beautiful!!!  Don't mind the mess....

 

I also talked J into installing a chair rail in the half bath.  I have no clue how I want to redo this area and can't decide on a color at all!

I keep my man busy too.  You see, last week I begged J to drag home an old railroad tie for another project.  Here is my inspiration for why I needed and had to have that "heavy ass piece of junk wood" as he calls it....



But I also really really liked the look of these two fireplaces too...






Well, after a heavy debate over breakfast, here is a teaser of what J built for me a few hours later in my semi-formal living room!  I seriously CAN NOT wait for this project to be complete!  It had dramatically changed the living space already so stay tuned.

50 Shades of Gray

I was just thinking, coloring was so much more fun when it was just crayola.  Here's where we are; the hold up has been paint color.  Originally, we painted the family room after we knocked down a wall and bought 5 gallons of this light gray paint.  When I poured out the paint, I was fearful because it looked white.  But, as I began painting and it dried, my beautiful light gray took on a purple hue.  Soon after that, the kids got home and they kept telling me they liked the purple room.  AGGGHHH!!!!  I had people over and they commented on the "lilac swatch" I had painted on the kitchen wall.  This "lilac" was the same light gray I was going to paint the ENTIRE downstairs!!

(PLEASE excuse this photo! It's the only one I have of the new couch and paint in the family room right now.  The couch had just been delivered and I was rearranging furniture and cleaning the room since we had been camping out on the floor in this room from the power loss.)

So, for about 4 months, I have been staring at this lilac swatch while my husband finishes up the wainscoting. Right next to the swatch, I have painted the other shades of gray for comparison.  I kept going back to the color I chose for the playroom and dining room and decided that I was going to switch and do the whole downstairs in that gray instead because it's just a great color.  I mean, I even painted my craft room that color!
Well, it had been a while since I was rubbing elbows with the home depot paint center until last week.  My friend was painting her living room gray and asking about my colors.  Her gray came out blue and she asked me for some advice.  I told her she could use my swatches I'd saved.  But when she went to home depot, they had switched out ALL of their paint samples and apparently the home depot guy said he couldn't look it up in the computer.  I had to see for myself and strolled over yesterday and was delighted about a bunch of new choices but bummed my old ones were gone since I was only 98% sure "gentle rain" was THE color for my whole 1st floor.  I grabbed a few swatches, came home, changed my mind and bought two samples; natural gray and cathedral grey.  I slapped some paint on a few walls and (GASP) not only does my whole house look like gray camouflage, but the paint looks purplish... AGAIN!!!
Back to the drawing board looking at my idea board, comparing colors of the new couch I bought last week and fabric I'm about to construct Roman shades out of.  JEEZE!!!  I needed help and J wasn't helpful because he was the one that sent me back to home depot to buy two samples of purple.  Fortunately, I spoke with the girl in the home depot paint center and she said she could look up my old color.  I logged onto www.Behr.com and looked up the color "gentle rain" to check out the next shade darker.  I was shocker to discover, well sort of, that gentle rain is in the blue family.  I played around with the shades and by going just a shade cooler to the yellow family, it's my office color!  My point is this..... when hanging out at home depot and staring into their color wheel of paint, it's not so obvious which direction to go to find your desired shade.  My suggestion would be to grab a color you really like and go to behr.com and find alternating shades from their.  Yeah... it takes you a little longer and costs you an extra trip but finding the right shade of gray has been more difficult than anything else I have done around here!
At this point, I'm trying to decide between ocean pearl and koala bear.

Again, I'm sorry for the delay and lack of posts.  The wainscoting has taken FOREVER and we were greatly affected by the central Ohio storms two weeks ago.  We lost half of our roof, the top of our chimney, had water pouring in the fireplace, the ceiling began leaking in 5 spots with the rain soon after and we were without power for 4 days and 5 nights.  Throw in the super high temps and we spent most of last week keeping cool at the pool and avoiding our 98 degree living room.

****************UPDATE!!!! August 25, 2012*************************
Do NOT go with Koala Bear or Road Runner if you are looking for gray.  Turns out that both are definitely shades of beige-ish green.  I was really disheartened and went back searching for the right gray and it turns out that the right shade was in front of me all along.  The gray I used in the downstairs master bath ended up not having a blueish color and remained a neutral gray through all hours of the day with different sunlight.  So the final choice will be Dolphin Gray by Behr for the living room and kitchen.  You will see it pictured in the wainscoting post HERE.

My Half Finished Projects

I mentioned that my progress would be much slower with a 5 and 3 year old slowing me down. I can't work well into the night anymore and I think J is about sick of working on the house unless he's tearing things down. Forget clean up... that's apparently my job too. And I just haven't had the energy and spark to work into the wee hours of the morning. So here's what I've been doing. None of these projects are finished. I know. I know. I should probably work on one thing at a time. I hear you. But sometimes my wonderful hubby just likes to scare the crap out of me with the sound of a crashing wall. You'll see what I mean... OPENING UP OUR LIVING ROOM:

We decided to open up the formal living room and make the house more open and less choppy. The best way to do this was by removing the wall between the formal living room and the In-law Suite Master Bedroom. We saw no need for such a large guest room and wanted to have access to the double doors that led outside from that room. We still have yet to paint the formal living area and I haven't even begun to decorate the new space which we refer to the "family room" now. REMOVING THE CARPET FROM THE STEPS:

I did stay up into the wee hours of the morning with this project. It was not fun pulling out every staple and and nail. But, the effort was worth it I think. First, I got rid of the nastiest carpet in the world and second, there are beautiful hard wood steps beneath! This is my inspiration photo for what I will be doing with my newly uncovered stairs:

traditional staircase design by boston architect Siemasko + Verbridge

THE KITCHEN MAKEOVER: The first time I saw this kitchen, I thought to myself, "Now THIS is a kitchen I can cook in!". I was wrong. Once I started unpacking dishes, I realized I had no counter space and the cabinets were bass ackwards. The worst part was the ginormous island taking up most of the kitchen and slowing the flow of traffic in and out of the kitchen. Also, the cabinets weren't designed for someone who cooks. There's no space for me to store my dishes or my spices. In other words, we came to the realization we would have to replace the cabinets. Oh, and I hated the huge 60" wide fridge. It was obnoxious!!! So here we go...

Our new island cabinets are here and I'm waiting on J to install them. He's been rewiring the outlets and moving the plumbing around. Meanwhile, I've been working on the sink. Let's just say I drove two hours one way to pick up a sink yesterday and got it home, pulled it out of the box and J found a huge chip in the porcelain. I'm heartbroken. I have a 4 hour trip ahead of me to return it and I might go with something different now. I'm stressed to the max because out granite needs to be measured and I'm on a timeline with that. The kids and I have been looking everywhere and they are bored out of their minds comparing sinks and faucets! That still won't stop H from modeling everything I take a picture of as you can see in these out takes: