7 points for me!

I've realized that the blog has recently become a lot more "tell" than "show," even though it was originally created to be an update of our home renovations.  I'm enjoying my opportunities to be an armchair philosopher and dive into some of the other posts, but - you need pictures!

The visual updates have been lacking, in part, because the completed projects have been lacking.  With a limit to the number of hours per day that I can do something that requires both hands and more than 50% of my attention, blogging and crafting sometimes are at odds for my attention.  But, on Sunday, Justin took Anna to the park, and I had a lovely afternoon sewing (given that I don't do any housework on Sundays, I also got to devote her entire naptime to craftiness!  Woo!)

It turns out that when I am fully awake (as opposed to quite tired, after Anna's bedtime, when I usually sit down to sew), I'm much more willing to start projects that require thinking or deciding.  And so I finally made myself some letter templates and, voila:

Scrabble pillows for our bed:

Although we don't play much anymore, Scrabble was a big part of our early dating relationship, so I thought this was a cute nod to that memory.  I saw similar pillows (I think spelling HOME) online a long time ago, and that inspiration was literally the first thing I ever pinned.  I'm not even sure how many years ago that was, and I know I bought the fabric at least 6 months ago.

So, while it wouldn't be a high-scoring move on the board, FINALLY completing these feels like a huge crafting 7-point win!

Speaking of sewing, I've had several friends over the years tell me that they wanted me to teach them to sew, and so with the most recent request, I decided that I would write a few brief "so you want to sew" posts about gathering materials, getting started, choosing a beginner project, etc.  I'm hoping to get the first one up this week, so if you've been meaning to learn, now's your chance!

P.S. Apparently my mid-afternoon brain isn't as sharp as I thought - I just published the initial version of this post giving myself 6 points.  Basic math skills are always helpful...

One room, mastered

Sometimes, despite all of the renovation progress that we've made, I have trouble seeing the progress, and still focus on all that I want to do before the house is "done."  One of my goals for the summer (post-work and pre-baby) was to go room to room and finish a lot of the little things that have been on my mind for a while.  The master bedroom was the first to get this treatment (and, besides the nursery will probably be the only room that I completely finish before Anna's arrival).  The little changes have made me fall in love with this room, and its much cozier and functional.  The nursery transformation obviously required that my sewing table be relocated, and incidentally I like my new space even more than the designated "sewing room."  But - I should back up, since the last time I shared pictures of the master bedroom, it looked like this:

It's embarrassing to admit, but since I was never completely happy with the room, I never got around to blogging about it - even a progress post!  So, let's go back to the beginning!

Here's the room when we bought the house:

It wasn't the worst of all the rooms (that honor is difficult to bestow, but most likely would go either to the kitchen or upstairs bath).  Basically, it was a poorly painted and dirty big box.  With lots of little issues, like random neon splotches on the ceiling, a taped-over and painted-over junction box that should have been a light switch, and NO storage.

 First things first, Justin built a closet (still one of his projects that has impressed me the most) for Christmas 2010:

Then, we fixed the many problems with the drywall, primed, and painted:

Had carpet installed:

And made some curtains (the last you heard a peep about this room!)

Somewhere along the line, we purchased some grown-up furniture.  ("Grown-up" meaning that it was not only a step up from the mattress-on-the-floor solution, but also came from a legitimate furniture store, and isn't made of particle board).  It was exactly what we wanted - and also on clearance (thus the thumbs-up!)

And....now's now:

I made the quilt for Justin when he was a bachelor.  I have another quilt in-progress for our room, and that will eventually become our summer-time quilt (the flannel one is a bit much for the warm weather!)  For now, though, I really like this one.

Sewing machine AND Jo-Ann the fish relocated as part of the nursery transformation.

Art between the windows is an original painting (of a house and bicycle built-for-two) from Justin's great-aunt.  She gave it to us as a wedding gift with the sweet note saying "There, now your house is all done and you can enjoy!"  I recently got the console table at Pier 1, and had fun decorating with finds from around the house, including our wedding cake topper.

The art above Justin's dresser are pictures he took at his family farm.  You can tell who's the more talented photographer in the family!  Incidentally, the farm was home to his great-grandmother, who is pictured in the framed photo, bottom right.  Although she's no longer living at the farm, she is still living - and 101 years old!  We can't wait to get some 5-generation photos once Anna arrives!

Our room is still door-less (and thus my behind-the-door jewelry board is still functioning as basic decor!)  Once we can find another suitable door (we purchase them used to maintain the same look throughout the house), we'll get one up.  Until then, it's an added perk that we can see Anna's crib from our bed!

So, there she blows, the first room we've completely "mastered."  I'll leave you with one final before and after reminder!

Keep checking back; I feel like I'm on a blog roll now, and have several more posts planned (and even photographed already!)  I'll keep putting them up until it's baby-time...no promises after that :)

Movin' on up!

The day you thought would never come is here.  We are upstairs residents of our house!  I believed that this day would come, but many others (including my husband, at times) were skeptical that it would come - at the very least, skeptical that it would be in 2011!

So, granted, we blew through my initial deadlines of wedding...Christmas...Valentine's Day...BUT we got in just under the wire to meet my "end of February" final deadline.

Check out how happy this makes us:

Yes, folks, we're laying on the upstairs floor.  Remember, the one that looked like this less than 24 hours ago:

And looked like this when we moved in:

The incredible improvements we've seen over the last six months were cause for snow angels (carpet angels??) today:

Soooooooo excited.

We're also pretty excited to corral our clothing collection from our overloaded (and less-than-sturdy) garment rack to our bonafide master bedroom closet!

Justin re-hung the doors to the closet (and we subsequently hauled our belongings upstairs) shortly after I snapped this picture.  We also wrestled our mattress up the narrow stairway, and are excited about spending our first night in our master bedroom!

Goodbye, dusty, dirty upstairs.  Goodbye, late-night crashes from the falling-over garment rack.  Goodbye, bed in the den.  Goodbye, desk in the kitchen.  Goodbye, old house.

Hello, former glory.  Hello, dream upstairs!

A technicolor dream

This weekend in review:

• Finish sanding drywall in both bedrooms - CHECK
• Shop-vac dust and wipe down walls in both rooms - CHECK
• Prime walls in both bedrooms - CHECK
• Paint both ceilings - CHECK
• Install bathroom vanity lights - CHECK
• Paint master bedroom - CHECK
• Paint guest room - CHECK
• Celebrate Saturday's accomplishments by spending Sunday in the beautiful Cornell plantations snow-shoeing with good friends (including frisbee in the snow, a several mile hike, and Justin & Glenn's snowball fight with a team of 9-year olds) - CHECK
• Drop into bed utterly exhausted at 8:15 pm - headed that direction VERY shortly!

A few pictures to prove all of the above is true:



Painted master bedroom




Painted sewing room / guest room




New bathroom vanity light

 



Snow shoes!




Beautiful Cornell plantations (from the top of the big hill we climbed!)



Random kids engaging in snowball battle with Justin



Frisbee in the snow

All in all, it was an excellent weekend.  I love the feeling of pure exhaustion that comes from knowing you squeezed every ounce of energy out of your body, and every second out of a weekend ~ especially when the exhaustion is coupled with a feeling of great accomplishment.  Hooray for painted walls and an excellent outdoor adventure!

Biting the bullet

Well, folks, today I bit the bullet.  Not literally, thankfully, since I declined the dental coverage at work.  But in terms of painting, I bit a big bullet.  I bought 3 gallons of paint.  This required a final decision on colors for the master bedroom, the sewing room/guest room, and the stairwell. 

You see, we had a 10%-off-your-total-purchase coupon for Home Depot.  Basically, we bought everything we could imagine needing to finish projects for foreseeable future.  Which will be helpful in the event of a large snow storm, although I have given up hope for real winter weather.  Yesterday's "snow day" didn't pan out, and we got less than 4 inches.  I feel entitled to just one "I moved North" foot of snow, and then I'll be happy to eagerly await spring weather.

But I digress.  We were talking about paint.

It's obviously pretty difficult to show the colors correctly on screen (a lot got lost in the translation between poor photography and the internet), but hopefully this will give you an idea.

The bottom left is "Sand 3" by Laura Ashley home (color matched into Behr paint).  In the picture, it looks a little yellow, but it's more of a tan.  Think of the color of, uh, sand.  That pretty well sums it up!  This color will be for the stairwell.  The practicality of painting a two-story stairwell made me realize that I'd have to give up my commitment to all-white ceilings (there would have been no way to neatly edge the walls and ceiling without risking life and limb on some sort of scaffolding).  The fact that the color would be on both the walls and ceiling made me choose a little lighter tan than I might have otherwise, but I think that Sand 3 will look quite nice.

The top color is "Bombay Pink" by Valspar (again, color matched into Behr paint, since that's what was recommended by the helpful Home Depot paint guy).  This will be the sewing room color.  I wanted something soft and relaxing and pretty.  A lot of the pinks/roses I considered looked too girly-girly, but I'm hoping that this darker rose will create the perfect creative-yet-restful atmosphere (very necessary for a sewing room/guest bedroom)! 

The bottom right color is "Willow Leaf" by Glidden (yep, in Behr!)  It's a dull green that looks like a muddy tan in some light.  It looks fabulous next to the fabrics I'm using in the quilt for our bed (more on that once the painting is done and the sewing room is set up for quilting!!)

I promise our house won't look as much like an Easter basket as the above photo looks.  They came out looking quite pastel, but there's more substance, mood, and maturity to the colors than my computer screen can currently handle!  Hopefully once they're on the wall, I'll have some better photos to show this weekend - fingers crossed, we'll avoid sewage disasters and get some major work done this time around!

Before I sign out, I'll give you a sneak peak of a few other exciting things that were part of the 10%-off-everything Home Depot coupon shopping spree:

 I love the white porcelain handles on this faucet.  I think they'll perfectly tie in with the other white accents in the upstairs bathroom (for more on my vision for that room, see here). 

And although you can't tell in the photo, these towel rods have matching white porcelain accents ~ another exciting find!

What do you think of today's purchases?  Which of the colors is your favorite?  Anybody else agree with Justin that a pink extra bedroom will guarantee (via Murphy's law) that a future firstborn child will be male?  (Note, we're NOT expecting a child; just laughing about the probability of having to repaint when we are!)

Status Report

Well, this weekend brought us only minimally closer to moving upstairs.  I think I can safely blame the sewage situation for this delay.  Thursday night, each of us got only three or four restless hours of sleep, and Friday - although it did not require our own physical labor for the clean-up - was as exhausting as if it had.  So despite a full, restful night of sleep on Friday night, we didn't wake up Saturday morning rearing to go.  Justin actually had a lot of lab/report work to finish to make up for what he'd missed Friday, meaning we were down a set of hands in terms of house work.  I eventually found enough motivation to drag myself upstairs and work on some of the drywall. 

Here I am during one of my un-motivated trips downstairs to visit Justin.

I essentially finished prepping the master bedroom for prime and paint.  It has had all three coats of spackle, and just needs a few touch-up spots.  Here's how it looks as of tonight:

I didn't get to work in the other bedroom at all this weekend.  The guest bedroom/sewing room needs to be sanded, coated once more, and given the final sand.  Here's how it looks today:

They're obviously not painted rooms (as mentioned in our overly ambitious weekend goals), but we're getting closer.  We also accomplished a big Lowe's shopping trip on Saturday evening to pick up the new vanity, toilet, etc, for the upstairs bathroom.  Given the circumstances, it wasn't a bad weekend.  As soon as the drywall is finished, I suspect the rest of things will fall into place quickly (I tend to be motivated to work on painting tasks, but the novelty of being able to finish drywall has worn off, and I've joined the "I hate drywall" club). 

Speaking of that, has anyone out there every met someone who LIKES finishing drywall?  I'm asking mostly out of curiousity, because in my experience, such an individual doesn't exist.  I'm also asking because I may try to arrange a bribe to bring a drywall-lover to Ithaca ;)