Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Final Reveal: The Bathroom

Well folks, we got another room done over here. Thought you might like to see. It's the ol' can this time. The water closet. The BATHROOM.

Here's what we started with:

BEFORE


I know this doesn't look that bad. But, it was. The paint was the same ugly brown throughout the rest of the house. The counter top was super ugly and the vanity had been painted, but not very well. The tile looked OK (though the floor isn't level so that may have to be fixed later) and there was wainscoting installed on the wall opposite the vanity which was a plus. BUT, all the fixtures were old and crappy (sadly you can't see most of them in this picture) and it was in desperate need of a face lift. So we gave it one.


AFTER


First thing to go was the counter top on the vanity. We replaced it with a granite counter top from Lowe's which had a built-in sink. This was a great way to make a huge change without getting too crazy on the cost. And it was easy to do! So I'm pretty sure everything we replaced came from Lowe's. The towel rack, tp holder, and towel ring were from Moer's 'Sage' collection, and the toilet cabinet, medicine cabinet (we got the 25" wide one and I removed the crown molding on top because it looked weird with our light fixture), light fixture, and faucet were chosen as individual pieces. I also replaced the knobs that came on the toilet cabinet and medicine cabinet as they weren't very high quality.


 

We wanted to keep this room bright and I really love that light aqua color, so I chose to use Behr's 'Pensive Sky' color on the walls. We stuck with the same white we had throughout the rest of the house for the trim, wainscoting, and vanity. And... did you notice one more thing? Yep. We got new doors and knobs. So much better!



Like I said, there are a couple things that may change down the road (the lumpy tile and the toilet which has the flushing power of spit), but I love the way this room turned out. Now to tackle all my bare walls...

Sunday, August 14, 2011

My Favorite Room

After showing you our newly re-done kitchen, I promised I would show you my most favorite room in our house: The Living Room. But first, I have to show you what it looked like before we got our hands on it...

BEFORE

The floors were in terrible shape and that brown color looks like somebody barfed up a chocolate creamcicle on the walls...

AFTER

TA DA!




So we weren't quite sure what we were going to do with this room, but it kind of came together on its own. We started by refinishing the floors... huge improvement! Then the orange paint and new blinds. The khaki color behind the couch was Seth's idea. He called it a "reverse accent wall." It's the color we used throughout the rest of the house and it's called 'Keratin' by Kwal. As you can see, we don't have much on the walls yet... any ideas?? 

The first real decorative thing we got for the room was the rug. It's one of my favorite things in the room and it came from Lowe's. Then, we knew we needed to get some furniture as we only had one sectional couch which was definitely going down in the family room with the tv. We didn't have a ton of money to spend on furniture, so we looked around at a lot of different things. I hadn't found anything I was too crazy about until  I found this patio furniture set on sale on the Target website. Yep. It's patio furniture! Awesome huh? Now if it gets dirty I can just take it outside and hose it off! I did get new decorative pillows as the ones that came with it didn't match too well. I got the flowered pillows from an Etsy store called Pat's Table (way cute stuff at a great price) and the green leaf-print pillows from Walmart. My "weeds" in the tall glass vase in the corner are an old purchase from Ikea (though I've seen them there recently) and the other vases are old purchases from Ross. I thought we did pretty well with a small budget and I love the way it turned out!

So there you have it! My favorite room. Let me know of any ideas you have for my blank walls. So much space to work with!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The Final Reveal

It has been a long time coming, but the day has finally arrived: My kitchen is DONE. All the cabinets are painted, the dishes and pantry items have all found their respective places... this place is ready for some action!

Let's take a look back at where it all started, shall we?

BEFORE

Boring brown paint, outdated & damaged cabinets, ugly light fixtures and curtains...


Wasted cabinet space, a small fridge nook, and damaged wood floors... have now turned into...


AFTER

A cheerful orange kitchen with character! Bright lights & newly painted cabinets with knobs & pulls!


A large fridge with custom fit pantry cabinet!


Modern curtains, a cute little dining table, and refinished floors!

This was definitely a huge project... even more time consuming than I'd imagined. Refinishing the cabinets was not a difficult task, but it was tedious. I thought I'd never get it done. Wondering how I did it? Check out my tutorial. Refinishing the floors was another task that was easy, but time consuming. Though we did hit a snag along the way.

I figured I should give a few details on some of the items and paint colors we used in case anybody out there is neurotic like me and has to find just the perfect fit for their kitchen. Did you see my paint color fiasco? It took about 15 different paint samples before we finally found the right one. We stumbled upon our orange color at RCWilley's while looking for furniture. It's called "Brasilwood" by Kwal. Every time I walk into this room I smile. The orange makes me very happy. We used the same white shade throughout the entire house for the ceilings, baseboards, and doors. I also used it as the base color for the cabinets. It's Kwal's Ambassador Semi-Gloss Hi-Hide White. I highly recommend keeping it simple and using the same color throughout because it eliminates confusion and mistakes. I also got the glaze for the cabinets at Kwal. I'm not sure what it was called as they mixed it up for me and it didn't have a label. But if this is something you're interested in, just tell the people at the counter what you want to do and they can help you out. I used almost a full quart of glaze for all the cabinets, so it didn't take much.

Because we have both a Lowe's and Home Depot nearby, we found ourselves bouncing between the two places to find things we needed. I pretty sure we went to these places on a daily basis. I believe we got all the drawer pulls and knobs from Lowe's as well as the curtain rod and curtains. We also ordered the custom pantry cabinets from Lowe's. It wasn't exactly cheap, but we decided the extra cabinet space was worth it, and it was a fraction of the cost of replacing all the cabinets. For us it was a realistic and efficient way to work with what we had by paying only for what was really necessary and important.

Speaking of important, we knew we needed to replace all the light fixtures, not only because they were super ugly, but also because there just wasn't enough light. The rail light made the biggest difference because it has four halogen lights which could be positioned where we needed them. We found it at Lowe's. I believe we found the pendant light at Home Depot, and the chandelier light over the table came from Lighting Design. Just a tip... apparently there are different sized Lowe's around. The one closest to our house was a smaller one with not near as big of a lighting section (and other sections were smaller as well). We found a larger store a few miles away in Roy that had much better selection (surprisingly this was a tip the guy at Lighting Design gave us). It was worth the extra drive to be able to find more of what we needed. Including the floor sander.

So there you have it. Our kitchen. As much as I love it, it's actually my second favorite room. Stay tuned for my favorite...

Monday, August 1, 2011

A Facelift

This weekend was definitely full of projects. It started out with the one we've been avoiding for a couple weeks: cleaning out the apartment. It took several hours worth of scrubbing, but we finally got that place in shape and turned in our keys. Woohoo!


While waiting for some paint to dry over at the house this weekend, I decided I really hated the flower bed in front of the house and wanted to fix it. So, we went and bought some plants and gave the house a mini-makeover!

 BEFORE:

Blah



AFTER:

TA DA!!! And the best part is, they're all perennial, low-water plants!




BEFORE: 


Technically this was filled with grass and weeds...


AFTER:

My favorite: Zinnias! The only annuals we planted


It still needs a little work, but it's getting closer!