Catch Up!

Holy smokes it's been almost a month since I last blogged. I don't know how you Mom's with kids and a  blog do it! All I have is a husband and a dog, and they are pretty low maintenance so I guess I am just a slacker...so it is time for some serious catch up!

Let's start with the basement...it is coming along nicely! We finished the treatment to the paneling and primed and painted it. Our process was pretty simple...we filled in the seams of the paneling then just used drywall mud and went to town. After it dried for a few days we primed it all then painted it. I will say it looks a whole lot different in person.

It's hard to get on camera how textural it is. But when you look at the before pictures...it is quite the improvement!



We are by no means finished with the basement but at least we can mark this job off our list!

This weekend I have plans to overhaul the bathroom down there, paint, new mirror, new counter, shower curtian, the works! I will post about that next week!

We finally got our new couch in our sunroom! It only took like 8 weeks of waiting! But I love it! These pictures are bad but its a really pretty linen.



We also got our new rug. We got it from rugsusa.com. That is the BEST place to get rugs from! This one is an 8x10 and I got it for around $150. They have the cutest patterns too and free shipping!!!

Ok so we still have a lot to do in here. Remember when I showed you the fabric I was going to use for the room and had everything planned out? Well I changed my mind...It's a wonder  I can even decide what to wear every morning! Anyway, This is the plan for curtains in there...I found the stripe fabric and I am going to buy some white curtain panels and add the stripe to those.

I also have 8 vintage movie posters that I am getting mats cut for and will hang above the sofa. I am super excited about those. All the mats are in really fun colors and I think it will had some color to those walls! Here's the lamp I am going to use in there! I am doing the white one and I am thinking of adding some kind of fun trim to the shades! They are from pottery barn.

And in some kitchen related news...We went to Lumber Liquidators to get some flooring samples. We are planning on doing cork in the kitchen/dining/laundry room and hard wood in the hallway and front room (where the fireplace is). I have been reading a lot about cork flooring and I am really excited to use it! We knew we didn’t want tile in the kitchen because it is a much harder surface and I feel like it makes kitchens colder….the hardwood option was also nixed for the kitchen/dining because it would be a whole lot more expensive! The cork is really reasonably priced, it’s softer, and wears the same as hardwood. Here's a sample of one of the cork options.

My process was pretty high tech for choosing the best cork and hard wood options. I ruled out all the hardwood that was over 5$ a sq. foot. I knew I wanted something dark with wider planks as apposed to the skinny kind. Once I found a few hardwood options I liked I laid them with the cork to see what went better with what.

I basically came up with 2 options.  Option one was a speckled looking cork with almost a ridged looking hard wood. I have no idea what the technical term is for that. The second option was a pretty basic bamboo hard wood. The cork almost has a marble effect to it. Here is option 1:

And Option 2:

I am waiting to get the samples of these in the mail so I can see what they look like in our house. We also have to make sure whatever cork we use matches the wood floor we have in the sun room. I am hoping to have pictures of the hall closet makeover I started. Let's just say it turned into a whole lot more of job then I thought it was going to be...