A Dining Room Transformation

It's amazing how sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest differences. And while the thing I'm referring to isn't exactly small, I definitely didn't expect it to pack quite the punch it did.

H and I decided to see what the stores had to offer on Black Friday last year, and there were definitely some good deals. I had wanted to put a mirror above the buffet in the dining room for a long time now, and when we found this gorgeous frame for 60% off, I scooped it up right away. We bought some mirror glass for it, and this past weekend, we FINALLY got around to getting it framed.

And while the guy at the framing department at Michael's kind of laughed at us for not doing it ourselves, I really thought it would best be done by a professional. I didn't want to ruin H's grandmother's antique buffet, or be cleaning up shards of glass for days on end, after the glass would have inevitably fallen out of the frame.

Here is the before (at Christmas):

And here it is now:

But anyway, I love how it turned out! It really anchors the dining room, and it's a great focal point. I think it makes the room look more formal as well, and I love how it reflects the kitchen. I just really love those little things that make such a big difference! We are slowly coming along...

Paint it Red!

One of the other projects I tackled this weekend (besides sorting through my closet!) was painting the front door. I didn't think the color was too bad before- just a little faded, but BOY was I wrong- what a difference the fresh coat of paint made!

Anyway... I love red front doors- I think they're classic, yet fun, so that was my color of choice. We also got new hardware for the door- the old, yellow brassy hardware was tarnished and screamed 80's. I was so excited to get this done, and love the way it looks. The color stands out from the street so much better, and looks great.

The old door- not the greatest picture.

Um, wow, what a difference!! Goodbye faded, dingy pink- hello RED!

The end result. Lookin' good!

I am Embarrassed to Admit it...

but this is our front door. Yes, the paint is chipping, it's not exactly white, and the early 90's are begging for that terrible brass handle back. But in my defense, I never noticed how bad it actually was...


I had off from work on Friday, and decided to do a bit of painting. Most of our trim is kind of dingy, no matter how much scrubbing I do. So I figured that a fresh coat of bright white semi-gloss paint is just what the doctor ordered. And I went to town on the trim around the door and the front of the living room. And what a difference that little project made! It's boring and tedious, but well worth the results.

Unfortunately, the fact that the door is in terrible need of some TLC stands out even more now... but I'll get to that soon.

Living Room Before and Now

After writing about my tropical modern inspirations, I realized I never posted about the progress on our living room. We actually did all this painting Halloween weekend, the first weekend after we got back from our honeymoon. We didn't waste any time!

Most of the walls- living room, dining room, and kitchen were all a muted yellow. Except for the (accent?) wall in the middle, which was sponge painted orange.

Looking into the dining room, from the living room.

The living room from the stairs.

And now- we did the living room and dining room walls a bright, sunny yellow. We also did the accent wall a cobalt blue and the kitchen a natural white, but I realize I didn't take any pictures of it yet!

View of the living room from right when you walk in the door.

View of the living room from the dining room.

Closeup of the honeymoon art on the wall above the sofa.

The dining room table. Yes, those are still our Christmas cards there :P

Antique buffet in the dining room.

It's coming along pretty well! I just wish I had the cash to decorate as much as I want to :P

Office Progress

We got a desk!

Here was the old one we had in the room:


I don't have a true before picture of it in use (this one is from our craigslist listing), but here it is. This desk was huge, and I mean HUGE. At about 6' long, 3' deep and 5' tall (seriously, it took up about as much floor space as a twin bed), it had tons of storage space, but it just took up too much space in the room we wanted to be more multipurpose.

And we truly didn't need all that space anymore. In the past few years, we both replaced our desktop computers with laptops. (And plan to remain "laptop people" in the future) And during my Fresh Start week, we reduced the amount of boxes of "stuff" in the desk from six to two.

So we were looking for something compact, yet still had some storage space and under $100. We searched Ikea, furniture stores, and scoured craigslist, but we were mostly finding large executive style set-ups that were way more than we wanted to spend or had room for. We found a few smaller, more budget-friendly options, but they were mostly just a table with a small drawer. We still needed some space!

And then we were in the furniture section of Staples and found this for only $60. It's compact, fits perfectly in the room and still has a good amount of storage. No, it's not gorgeous, nor does it go with my aqua, red, brown, and white I have going on in there, but it gets the job done. It's also small enough to fit in a nook in the media room should that room ever hypothetically need to be turned into a nursey. Hypothetically.

Well, here it is:


I realized this photo doesn't show the placement in the room at all, but it is in the corner to the left of the door. We're planning on putting a shelf above the wall adjacent to the door as well, so we have just a bit more room.

*Disclaimer- this is totally a BEFORE picture! It will definitely look a lot better in the near future!

My Fresh New Start

As promised, (thrilling, I know) I'm checking in to report the results of my "Five Days to a Fresh Start" challenge. I took a bit more than 5 days, and I didn't get everything done, but I put a large dent in it and I'm really proud of my progress. It feels really good to have everything a little neater and more organized. Let's hope we can keep things this way for a while!

Declutter

• my closet- done

• office- mostly done

• night stands/dressers- done

• linen closet- done
(what, that wasn't on the list before?!? Well I added it to the list, and it's done!)


Donate/Recycle

• clothes from closet- mostly done
(not donated yet, but they're in piles and ready to go)

• old office desk- done
(we listed it on craigslist- for free- weeks ago, and each interested seller fell through. Finally someone picked it up!)

• stuff from office- mostly done
(we had a lot of working, but old electronics that we are able to donate, and the non-working ones we recycled. I still have to go through the books and CDs to see what we can donate.)

• old dishes/glasses- mostly done
(In piles, ready to go. I just have to check to see if my brother wants any for his apartment before they go to goodwill.)


Organize

• my closet- done
(feels so good to be able to walk through it. It used to be a total waste of a perfectly good walk-in closet)

• kitchen cabinets- mostly done


Store/File

• As organized as I am, H is usually the one who takes care of filing bills, tax info, medical stuff, etc. I have a tendency to "clean" too often and throw away things we need, so important papers are safer in his hands. I'll see if I can interest him in filing away some mail, pay stubs, and papers. However, this is something I try to do on a daily basis so I'm not sure how it will turn out...- done!!!
(I am so thrilled, he cleaned out the filing cabinet! He got rid of so much that we didn't need, it feels 50 lbs lighter. I love him so much!)

• holiday decorations- done
(I was able to sort out everything from the old "wedding" bin and store our Christmas decorations there.


Clean
This constantly needs to be done throughout the whole house, but I guess that's a bit ambitious... but what really needs a good, thorough scrubbing is:

• the upstairs bathroom- done

• laundry area- done

• downstairs bathroom- not so much... maybe this week

I promise my next post will be a little more interesting!

Five Days to a Fresh Start

I read about this challenge on Kate's blog Centsational Girl, and I knew I had to try it. Our house is absolutely crying for this! I'm so excited, I might start early...

So here is my list of places to tackle:

Declutter

• my closet

• office

• night stands/dressers

Donate/Recycle

• clothes from closet

• old office desk

• stuff from office

• old dishes/glasses

Organize

• my closet

• kitchen cabinets

Store/File

As organized as I am, H is usually the one who takes care of filing bills, tax info, medical stuff, etc. I have a tendency to "clean" too often and throw away things we need, so important papers are safer in his hands. I'll see if I can interest him in filing away some mail, pay stubs, and papers. However, this is something I try to do on a daily basis so I'm not sure how it will turn out...

• holiday decorations

Clean

This constantly needs to be done throughout the whole house, but I guess that's a bit ambitious... but what really needs a good, thorough scrubbing is:

• the upstairs bathroom

• laundry area

• downstairs bathroom

I'll give myself a goal of Sunday, January 10th. Let's see how it goes!

Computer Room- A Before and After

Before:
it was two different shades of yellow- one very bright yellow-yellow and one an orangey yellow and a wallpaper border in between.


We cleared the junk out of there (although it is now in the guest room until we get some storage), disassembled the giant desk that was in there, and took down the wallpaper border. After hearing horror stories about removing wallpaper, I was afraid this was going to be a long, tedious, difficult process. I was lucky, however, that it went very quickly and was very easy to remove.

We painted the walls a pale robin's egg blue. The plan is to use browns, a crisp white, and red accents as the other colors in the room. We are probably going to paint the end table and TV stand white and we are looking for a small and compact desk for our printers.

After: (for now)

Bathroom Painting

The downstairs bathroom before:


And after a new coat of paint and some hooks!

It was just too blah, I wanted to get something more clean and spa like. The ivory tiles, tub, toilet, and sink don't really fit in with it, but they're just going to have to stay for now.



The pedestal sink had absolutely no storage space, so I put up a shelf next to it. It was tough to find the exact size (I didn't want it too long or short and it couldn't stick out too far), so there weren't many choices. And that led me to my first real DIY project, whoo! The only one I could find in the perfect size was a cherry finish, so I painted it black.


Now H has somewhere to put his razor. That's about it for now, but I'll have to look for some decorative accents for it as well. It also hides the outlet well when you're at eye level.

Master Bedroom Progress

This was the master BR before we painted. It was two different shades of sky blue, and we just weren't feeling it. I am embarrassed by the mess, ugh. It's not usually like that!!



After the painting and our new furniture:


We chose a nice sandy brown for the walls and contemporary furniture in a dark espresso. We just need new bedding and lamps now.

We're going for modern luxury. Like the feel of a luxurious urban hotel, but still cozy and home-y. I have in my mind exactly what I want for bedding, but it is SO hard to find. I want a bold, graphic print that still has delicate details- not juvenile or blobby and not too busy, and intense colors (preferably a warm palate). I found quite a bit that I like on bedding.com by Inhabit Living but they are quite $$$ and not quite the right palate. They are gorgeous though...




And I can't say that their accent pillows are that bad either...

all images from bedding.com

Our Guestroom is Ready...

For its first guests, that is! We have two friends from college coming over for dinner and a movie night Saturday, and they are staying over. Whoo! We are having cider cheese fondue, Shepard's pie and biscuits, and apple pie for dessert, in case you were wondering...

That was a kick in the pants to get this room up to snuff though! The only thing we had left to make it acceptable to have people stay over was to get some curtains/blinds. We chose a lacy valance with scalloped edges and a scrolly antiqued brass curtain rod from Bed Bath and Beyond, and the plastic faux-wood blinds from Target. I like them SO much better than the vinyl ones, we have them in our bedroom and I love them.

The only thing that is bothering me about them is that they are a slightly more ivory-white than the curtains. I want to spray-paint them a bright white to match, but H thinks I'm crazy. At any rate, it's not going to happen by Saturday, so they'll just have to deal with it :P


Pictures of the room from the entrance, a closeup of the lovely throw pillows I got for the bed, and a closeup of the curtain rod, lace valance, and offending blinds.

All in all, it's looking good. I jst can't wait to refinish the dresser in there, and get some more decorative items.

Kitchen Inspiration

While we were on the topic of kitchens (and believe me we were), I found some new inspiration pictures.

My blog is pretty brand spankin' new, but I've already discovered a cycle. I'll write about my progress or inspiration for a room, post pictures of how it's coming along, and realize it's nowhere near there. It happened with the guest room, and after looking for some more inspiration, I am a lot happier with the progress. It really helps me look at my "vision" more objectively and see what needs to be done. And after writing about the kitchen the other day, I thought "yikes, this doesn't look good at all."

Love the blue and yellow, from (www.outinhome.com)

(www.hgtv.com)

(www.makepeace-furniture.com)

This one is just to prove to myself that my wood cabinets are indeed, not outdated. (www.hgtv.com)

(www.fineliving.com)

(www.fineliving.com)

(www.arcink.com)

(www.about.com)

Kitchen Dreaming

Our kitchen now:


It's like a clean slate, which is great. There's no backsplash, so that means don't have to remove one, and believe it or not, I love the cabinets. I don't think they look 80's or early 90's at all.

Not that our kitchen redo is anytime in the near future, but these are the tiles I want for the backsplash. All from here. Love! And so I had some Photoshop tiling fun...

(Suez)

(Palma)

(Granada)

(Andalusia)

And here's a terrible comp of what our kitchen may look like. But hopefully not!! We're planning on doing the walls a clean, natural white and the accent wall (which goes into the living room as well) will be a cobalt blue. And maybe some stainless steel appliances to go with that lonely refrigerator... hey a girl can dream!!