Chaos

This is what our house looked like over the weekend...



Why is it always so much more fun to see others people houses in complete disaster? Ours was that and then some this weekend.

We took out the sliding glass door that was between the sunroom and kitchen. There was glass everywhere.

We took out the first layer of linoleum and sub floors....

Which then resulted in hammering in 5,000 staples in the floor...

This was my expression half way through....please help. I also had to empty out all our kitchen cabinets into the spare bedroom...

It's completely normal to have cake stands and Pyrex under the bed right?

New Year, New List

I’m not going to make a list of things I want to accomplish this year because who knows how big that list would be. I do better with short term goals that I know I can get done as opposed to a HUGE list of 50 things that I would “someday” like to accomplish. It normally ends up being that someday=never. We want to get started on the cabinet sanding/priming/painting step in our kitchen process. Since we know this will take us a good month or more to do (we have a ton of cabinets) we are giving ourselves a month to finish up a bunch of small unfinished projects. So here is the list…we’ve already got some accomplished too! I will share each project when it’s done!

• Touch up paint downstairs
• Prime and paint basement bathroom
• Hang new light fixture and mirror in down stairs bathroom
• Hang curtain rods and curtains in sunroom
• Finish sanding and stain new end tables for sunroom
• Finish table lamps for sunroom
• Hang crown moulding in sunroom
• Hang bead board in hallway on ceiling
• Hang crown moulding in hallway
• Hang 3 light fixtures in hallway
• Re paint front entry table
• Make cushions for window seat in sunroom
• Make upholstered ottoman/coffee table for sunroom

Think it's doable in a month? Here's hoping it is!

Grab your popcorn...

It's movie time! I have had these vintage movie posters stashed away for a long time. I have been so excited to use them somewhere in the house. We thought the back room/sunroom would be the best space to use them in. First because there was a huge blank wall and second because that's where we watch most of our TV/movies and it only makes sense to have movie posters in a room with a TV. Cody and I love old movies. I grew up on old movies and musicals and Cody loves old westerns so we have watched our fair share of them all. I always tell Cody that in my perfect world everyone would sing how they feel just like in the musicals and we would all sound great too...he just looks at me like I'm crazy. I had seen this image awhile ago with really colorful mats and prints and simple silver frames. I knew that's what I wanted to do with mine too!

I ordered all the movie posters off of Amazon. They were only a couple bucks each and since I knew I wanted to do 8 pictures I wanted to try and keep the cost as low as possible. For my mats I headed to good old Hobby Lobby. The hardest part was choosing a complimentary color to go with each mat. The frames will be 16x20 so it will be a pretty big and fun statement in the room. (Sorry the pictures are terrible, they are from my phone) Here they are all laid out on the floor...

I defiantly got the effect that I wanted, colorful but not too crazy. First up we have Rio Bravo and the original Ocean's 11 with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Cody loves John Wayne movies, and can you blame him? He was a pretty cool cowboy....

Pillow talk and Breakfast at Tiffany's. I love Doris Day movies, they are always super cute and cheeky. And can you get any more classic then Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Meet me in St. Louis and the Sons of Katie Elder. I grew up watching Meet me in St. Louis. This is one movie I could watch over and over again and never get tired of it. The Sons of Katie Elder is another classic western and has Dean Martin in it too. Let me just tell you about our love of Dean Martin... He is our favorite singer by far, wayyy better then Mr. Sinatra if you ask me. We own all his variety shows, movies and CD's. And yes I have even read his biography. And Cody's great Grandpa's name is Dean Martin...no joke.

And then we have Guys and Dolls and Singin in the Rain. How can you not love Gene Kelly? And how can you not love a movie that that makes a song and dance out of a gambling session in the sewers like Guys and Dolls and doesn't make it seem weird??

The mats were around $14 each since I had to have them cut to fit each poster. I found a place online that I can get 16x20 poster frames in a matte silver for a reasonable price. I can't wait to get the frames and hang them up. So, if you haven't seen any of these movies I highly suggest that you do so. And hopefully afterwards you will either be running around singing everything or shooting bad guys with your pistol.



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...

Current affairs and guest room plans

I figured since were already working on about 1,000 other projects it’s time to start a new one! For anyone that cares here is what we are currently working on, bullet point style:

• Painting our front door a fun new color
• Painting all the brick on the outside of the house
• Finishing up the siding
• Planting sod
• Landscaping front yard
• Trying to pick a paint color for our family room/sunroom
• DIYing a new mirror for the entry way(I found a new idea I love even more and this one’s cheaper!)
• Hanging lights in the hallway
• Creating a gallery wall in the hallway

Those are just to name a few…

So with all the elves running around finishing up those projects for us I thought we might as well move onto the guest room. This was my thought process for choosing to do this room next. This will eventually be a nursery when we have kids. Therefore we are not going to be spending very much money in here in terms of furniture/décor items since this room could change its function in a year or two. As much as I think the bed is too big for the room I don’t want to spend the money on a new one or even a new headboard. I am trying to work with what I got people! So here is my crazy mock up of what it will look like.

Ok let me break it down for you. The dark teal color is what I am going to paint the headboard and footboard. The colorful shams I have and they are from pottery barn. That is where I am pulling all my colors from. The yellow pillows I have and I think I may sew a fun green pom-pom accent pillow. I wanted to keep all the bedding white since I am doing some crazy colors everywhere else. All I need to pick up is a ruffled bed skirt.  The one thing I did want to buy was a new side table. I wanted something with open shelving in a fun color and something that I could potentially use in the future. Enter Pottery Barn Teen. That’s where that cute blue nightstand is from! Since the room doesn’t have an overhead light I wanted to add some sconces on either side of the bed for more light. These are plug-in sconces that I found on sale for $39 a piece. The green little shelf is from Home Decorators collection. They come in just about every color imaginable and in different sizes too. I wanted to add some storage to the room and this will work out perfect. Right now they are on sale for under $40 plus I have $10 off coupon.

As far as curtains and blinds go, this room gets a ton of light in the mornings so I want something that will block that out and maybe some kind of fun print curtains. But before we do all that….we still have to get all the wallpaper off the walls and get new carpet! Just a minor detail. I think the worst part will be moving the furniture out of the room!