House Updates: Fire Place is Done!

Remember when I blogged all the time? That was so long ago but now that I have several more projects done around the house, I have a *little* more free time for some leisurely typing. Honestly though, most of my free time is spent cat-napping. I am almost done with my fire place project and I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out!

One of the selling points for this house was the fire place. Both Perry and I really wanted a fire place in our new home (as well as a master bathroom!) but it was considered an extra perk if we found one we liked with one. We scored on this place because it not only has a fire place in the living room, but also has one in the basement (and we scored a sweet master bathroom too!) and we used it to the max this past winter and spring. 

I put off painting the fire place for so long because I had no idea what color to paint it. I love all the grey shades but wasn't sure what shade to paint the fire place since I managed to pick out colors for the living room and hallways that are actually more in the brown scheme of greys. Greige I guess? And then the carpet is more of a grey-grey so I was stumped. I finally opted for the same white as the ceiling, knowing I'd have to touch it up every so often.

 My first project for the fire place was painting the front of it. I don't know why I dislike gold so much. Maybe it just clashed so much with the off white color of the fire place. All I knew was that it needed to go. I wasn't sure what kind of paint to use, so I ended up using a high temperature paint from Home Depot. If I recall correctly the only color choice was black. Luckily that's what I was after.

  Just painting that part black made the dirty off-white color of the stones more bearable. I love how it turned out. If I didn't spend so much time taping off the brick, the rest of the fire place would have been painted a lot sooner. Instead I waited several months to tackle the rest of it.

 I didn't realize how dirty looking the fire place was until I painted it white. It's not a white-white, but has the littlest hint of grey in it. Spun Wool. I'm trying to simplify the color scheme in our house so using the left over paint from the ceiling not only prevented an extra trip to the store for a ton more paint samples and agony over the color again, but it also made painting the ceiling border a breeze.

Before decorating the mantle again, I painted it black to match the front piece. I also spent an extra few minutes spray painting the log holder knowing full well it would get nice and scratched up come fall season when it's constantly being restocked with logs. Overall I'm really liking how clean and fresh it looks now that the majority of the painting is done. I still have a little trim work to do but I happy to be able to cross this project off my list. I kind of want to repaint the downstairs one now but I also kind of need to work on our master bathroom first. It's in the "I hate wallpaper removal stage" and looks terrible with half the wall paper off.

Upstairs Bathroom: Repainted and Done

It wasn't until Saturday when my hubby and I went to our next door neighbor's estate sale that I realized how fortunate we were to have a few updates done to our house. The kitchen especially! They had been the only owners of the home and lived there into their 90's. With the exception of a bathroom that was made to be handicap accessible, everything appeared to be original furnishings from the 70's. I'll be curious to see what the new neighbors do it. 

Over at our place though, the updates they did were either painting over the wallpaper, wallpapering over the wallpaper, or wallpapering over the wallpaper and then painting it. It's made for a long removal process. One of the rooms that didn't have wallpaper, but did at one point, was the upstairs bathroom. I was so in love with the bathroom we re-did in Missoula, that I wanted to re-create it - in a sense. I'm not entirely sure why I chose this to be my first project though but I'm happy to report it's almost done!

When we first arrived in December, we had this baby blue bathroom with brown cabinets. The floors are a white and blue linoleum but sound sticky when you walk on it. Slightly annoying in my opinion. By the end of the 4 days I was here, I had the walls and ceiling painted. 

I've been trying to decide what color to paint to the cabinets because this tanish-brown just wasn't working for me. I was going to with white, but since the counters were already white, I wasn't sold. I did however have left over paint from the dining room and figured, why not? We were going to go to the coast this weekend to watch the crab races in Tillamook, but decided we'd stay home and work on a few projects since it was supposed to rain all day over there. (When is it not raining though...?)

 

 I feel like I spent the entire day in this bathroom, but I'm so glad I did! I love how it turned out! Remember how I said there was an estate sale going on next door? While I'm elbows deep in paint, our doorbell rings a few times and some people walk in as I'm on my way to the door. They quickly turned around in a panic when they saw the kids, exclaiming, "This is the wrong house!" I'm sure it doesn't help that I was getting a StitchFix delivered at the same time... 

In order to paint the linen closet, I carefully removed the towels and sheets and placed them in nice piles in the freshly cleaned bathtub. By the end of the day I had a tub of towels to refold. There is a kid in there. Somewhere. This time around it might have been JP. I suspected a child might do this at some point. I figured that was where JP ran off to after dinner but I paid no attention to him as I put the handles back on the doors and drawers until my towels started vibrating and giggling. 

We're going to replace the flooring at a later date, and I'm going to have to repaint the already painted counter tile, but for now I'm done with this little project. I really like how the cabinets turned out. They fit in perfectly with the shower curtain and towels that were already in there.

I might start to tackle our master bathroom soon now that this one is done. It's covered in wallpaper though so it'll be quite the project... So much wallpaper in this home! 

Our Basement is Complete - Just in Time to Sell - Update #4

If I were to guess, I would say we *finished* our basement remodel at the end of May/beginning of June. It's hard to say. I do recall painting the hallway while the twins I babysat were sleeping, or before they arrived. And I know the boys were in school still. I love love love how it turned out! I must say, Perry did a nice job picking out carpet :)

Perry did some nice work on our columns too! While the placement of them still blows, they at least look nicer :) Because we opted not to wall-in the one by the laundry room, we made the new nook into our game shelf. The bottom cubby was also helpful in storing laundry baskets. 

 Our closet was one of the last things to come together. I cursed and cursed at Perry for not lett me paint the walls first before he installed the trim for the hanging rods.

 The closet still turned out nice, even though it wasn't completely finished when we listed the house. Perry ran out of time to make the trim for the left side of the closet. Because of the ledge that runs around the perimeter of the basement, we agreed to level it off in the closet and build a dresser below it, except again, time ran out. We stored our laundry basket there and I had my extra tub of out-of-season clothes below so we never had to look at the trim-less wall.

While I was at the Dome Home this past summer, Perry took it upon himself to paint the storage room so he could install the shelves. Out of all the colors in our stash, he chose the light green that used to be in our bathroom. I didn't like it then, I still didn't like it when it reappeared in the closet. But I didn't have to worry about painting!

I added a mirror above our bed before we listed the house since we hadn't gotten around to hanging pictures. Probably a good thing! I still get annoyed looking at this picture - For whatever reason, Perry mounted the shade to the trim? Every morning the sun shown right through the little gap it created. Right into my eyes...

 Now that our room moved to the basement, Hunter had the pleasure of moving his room upstairs to the "big" room. He was thrilled because that also meant he inherited the queen size bed that JP used to have.

 The extra room was supposed to be the basement room, but because the couch couldn't fit, it had to be moved upstairs. It was handy having my sewing room within ear shot of the living room and being able to quickly see what was going on in the backyard. However, because the room was upstairs, the kids were still in and out of it. At any given time there was toys all over the couch and the floor. Ugh. But the TV in there was put to use a few times for movie night :)

Charlotte was bumped to the basement and while at first she was excited, it eventually wore off and she wanted her old room back. I can't blame her. I loved the owls and trees in her room, and the baseball wall just wasn't cutting it for her. I don't know that I ever posted an after picture of Hunter's room when I completed his baseball-theme, but we also made modifications to the closet so he could reach all his clothes. This made it extra handy when we moved Charlotte downstairs. (Hunter started using a chair when he moved upstairs.) 

Just when we finished up and were ready to really enjoy our "new" basement, it was time to sell. Bittersweet...

Basement Remodel: Update #3

Has it really been a month since I last posted about our basement? Gah. The days have been long and the nights way way way too short! 

Let's see here...After the Easter weekend was over, Perry pulled up the carpet and re-laid it. He's also kept busy working on the trim. To say it looks amazing isn't giving him enough credit. 

Just look at how nice that door looks! As Perry says, "It looks so sexy" Seriously though, he's a keeper.

In his free time, when he's home and not exhausted, Perry has been working on getting the hallway taped, filled with mud, and textured. I believe this weekend he's going to work on the columns. He hasn't told me what exactly he's going to do with them, but he informed our neighbors that they will be jealous. So there's that. 

In other news, Perry and I agreed to get rid of our extra queen mattress. Grandma said she'd give us her hide-a-bed couch in replacement so we'd still have an extra place for company to sleep if needed. Hunter spent the weekend with her the other weekend, and Perry brought the couch back with him. 

We tried to get it downstairs into the spare room and just couldn't. We hauled stuff around for a good hour. We first switched out mattresses with the one JP had in his room. (I haven't been sleeping well at night, so I was hoping a change in mattress would do the trick. It didn't.) After the mattress shuffle, we began the process of hauling the couch inside. The hide-a-bed portion was detached from the frame thank goodness! Because we have a split entry home, we had to bring the couch in and up the stairs, shut the front door, then take the couch around the corner to go to the basement. Such a production. As soon as we brought it down the stairs, we discovered the bathroom door was going to need to come off. Off it went and into the basement a bit further the couch came. That was about as far as we got. 

Over and over I explained to Perry that even if we could get the couch through the basement doorway, there was no way we'd be able to get it into the room. The angle just wasn't going to work. He was adamant it'd work. He was even going to go as far taking the couch apart to get it in there... I won the debate. However, now that the couch can't go downstairs and Grandma doesn't want the couch back, we're moving our room downstairs. 

Yup. Perry convinced me. I'm not thrilled about it. I don't like the idea of Charli being upstairs alone because she's so young still and wakes up needing me every so often. I just don't want her navigating the stairs the dark. That brings me to my next project, after I repaint the new room. I wasn't in love with the purple-grey but was going to deal with it for an extra room. Now that it'll be my room, it's got to go. Once that's painted, as well as the hallway, we'll be playing the switcher-roo game with the kids. Hunter will go upstairs to our room, Charlotte will go to Hunter's room, and my new sewing room will be Charlotte's room. SO much re-painting to do... I'm already over it.

(You can see the finished basement here!)

Basement Remodel: Update #1

Last month Perry and I, mostly Perry, gave JP's room a needed updated - we gave him carpet! Perry did it all himself :) He's so handy! He also bought an extra roll of carpet. When we finished up the room, he was going to take it back to the store but then we began talking about what we were going to do with the queen sized bed that used to be in JP's room. I didn't want to get rid of it because the kids LOVE to have sleepovers together and I didn't want that to end just yet.

We've talked about doing something to the basement off and on for years but nothing ever came of it until now. After a lot of discussing and measuring, we agreed to put up a few walls to create a 5th bedroom. It will also have a walk-through closet that leads to a storage area. Earlier this year we were talking about taking out one of our closets upstairs when we remodeled the kitchen, but would need somewhere in the basement to store the vacuum and such. I imagine this new space in the basement will be where the vacuum, mop, and shampooer go, when, and IF we remodel the kitchen. Not ideal, but hey.

The new space in the basement will house the extra bed and double as my sewing room. Currently most of my sewing things are upstairs in our living room area, and it's driving me nuts! I'm working on a quilt and I have no room to lay it all out! I'm hoping for the best... The bonus to having the spare room down stairs is solely the fact that there will be a door on it. I can lock the kids out of my sewing stuff. FINALLY!

I was going to post a few pictures of what the space has looked like over the years but I may or may not have misplaced my external hard drive. I am trying to remain calm about it but on the inside I'm panicking about where it could be! There's only 8 years of memories on that bad boy...!! I've been praying to Saint Anthony, the saint of lost and stolen things, but he hasn't pulled through yet. Just keep praying, just keep praying...

Anyways, when we moved in, we housed our green couch from the apartment downstairs, as well as Perry's extra couch and chair. Basically it was a sitting room that no one actually sat in. Ever. Eventually we moved all the kids' toys downstairs and made it into a playroom. You know, why not? keeping their room clean was hard enough, let's give them one more space to have to clean... I've had high hopes for this room, but the vision never really pans out so I'm just excited to be able to make it into a new space.

 Perry was supposed to take a trip to Spokane and be gone for the first week of March. I love when he has to be gone for the whole week. (Can you sense my sarcasm?) A few days before he was set to leave, there was a change in plans so he ended up no needing to go. Because he was already planning on being gone, he opted to use up a few of his thousand vacation days and stay at home with his lovely wife (and start on the basement).

We started taking out the floor on February 29th, but before we began, I managed a couple pictures of our mess of a basement. This first one is standing in our "office" looking towards the family room.

 This second on is looking towards the family room from the bottom of the stairs.

 This one is standing by the window looking towards the office.

 I spent the morning packing up all my sewing things.

And Charlotte helped dad by stacking up the small flooring pieces. She was such a good helper! 

 By the end of Perry's "vacation" he had most of the framing done. There was way too much banging going on for my liking, so I'm glad that part is done.

 Perry decided we are putting in a pocket door. I would have liked a normal door, but there was some kind of problem with the door frame size. We also agreed to wall in the hideous post that is just hanging out in the middle of the hallway. On the other side of it, we'll add some shelves for storage. What would have been the end of the hallway will now be a walk-through closet, and where Perry is at will be a "large" storage area. (He wasn't thrilled to have his picture taken...)

 Perry spent that Saturday and Sunday mostly working on the electrical but by the end of the weekend, we had a few walls up! 

I'll be posting more progress soon! And by soon, I actually mean after I finished two cakes...Check back next Sunday for pictures of those and more basement progress!

JP's Room: Sunday and the Reveal

We had a little bit of a late start Sunday morning because church trumps room remodeling. But as soon as we got back we jump right in (so we'd have time to watch the Super Bowl!)

 My first task was to get the Ninja mask on the wall. I was going to do it in blue, since JP's favorite one is Leonardo, but I had red paint left over from the cars I painted in Hunter's room, and then the baseball stitches you haven't seen yet... 

While the paint was drying, I ran to the store to pick up a mattress pad. I knew I was forgetting something the other day... And then I made his bed up with his new Ninja Turtle sheets and the quilt Nanny made for him. She gave it to him for his birthday a couple weeks ago since she wasn't sure if she'd still be around or not. It's a good thing we told her about updating his room, because she was in the process of making his quilt, and since he was in a queen bed, she made him a queen sized quilt. Though she didn't have to, she removed a few rows and it fits perfectly now on his new twin size loft bed - complete with matching pillowcase! 

After I had couple more coats of paint on this sucker, the four of us walked down the street to go watch the Super Bowl at a neighbor's house. I was so impressed with both Hunter and Charlotte, mostly Hunter. So well behaved! And the food there was delish! I probably had too many ribs... We were only planning on staying for a little bit, but stuck around for the whole game. After we got the kids to bed, I went back to work putting one more coat of paint on the mask, and painting the eyes. I was so glad to bed done. I cleaned up and "staged" his room and then went to bed. 

Here's it finished:

 Perry built the captain's bed. When he first built it, it was a lot closer to the ceiling, and Perry thought JP would need more head room, so he cut a few inches. That was a process...

 We were hoping to put his desk under his bed. It fits, but his lamp is pretty close to the mattress, and with it turned on, it could potentially be a fire hazard, so back to the corner it went. 

 I just love his chair!

Hunter was pretty excited about the mask on the wall, so I knew JP was going to love it!

JP arrived home Monday morning before school, literally 3 minutes after I got out of bed. I had a rough night. I woke up around 1:30a with stomach cramps, then I thought I was going to faint, and then I started get nauseous... Such a horrible cycle! After puking my guts out, I was able to get back to sleep but was exhausted come wake-up time. But I was also antsy to show JP his room, so that was motivating enough to get out of bed. Here's how it went:

Don't mind Hunter's hair, he's growing it out. JP's socks are in the garbage now, and I'm surprised there isn't a hole in the ceiling yet...!

JP's Room: Saturday

Saturday morning came too quick. I wasn't ready to start working again but Perry was. He spent the morning drilling into the concrete. Way too loud for me. Luckily I had other things to work on.

Let me just pause here for a minute to say this: Perry pretty much rocks. He can do almost anything from tiling, to plumbing, to carpeting to anything woodwork related. I really scored big when I married him!

By late morning, he was done with all the drilling and had the padding laid. I made sure the green had enough paint on it and then I busied myself with the curtains. 

I thought about making my own, but I saw some Ninja Turtle ones at the store and opted to go that way instead. I didn't realize they were going to be super long so I ended up hemming them. You can't even tell they were hemmed! I felt pretty accomplished!

This was the first time I saw the carpet. The day before he just went out and bought some without my approval. When I asked him to send me a picture, the response I got was, "You'll see it when I lay it out." Ugh. But he did a nice job picking it out, I'll give him that. 

Also while I was at the store picking up a few things, I spotted this guy. For Christmas, I let the kids each pick out a little stuffed thing that I would buy them for Christmas. Hunter picked out a Minion, Charlotte picked out an owl, and JP settled on the orange Ninja Turtle since they didn't have any blue ones. We stayed at a rented house for Christmas and he slept with his Ninja Turtle and it became lost in the sheets. After we checked out, I called the owner to let him know, and he told us he remembered seeing it, but since there were other guests there, he'd have to wait to get it. And then he never got back to me and we just called it a loss. I went back to the store shortly there after and they were all gone, so I was over the moon when I found one at a different store! WooHoo!

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents house and while we were there, Aunt Bobby and JP had a little time together doing some craft projects. Before I knew it, he handed these to me to keep. I can't tell you how impressed I was! I love his artwork!  When I was done with the curtains, I painted these frames for his pictures. (I'm keeping the originals; these are pictures of the orginals.)

I left for work that afternoon, and later that evening, Perry finished up the carpet. He said he really struggled with the closet because when we made it, the dividing wood piece went all the way to the floor, so he was having a hard time trying to get carpet under it. But he did it, and was sore for the rest of the night. I was planning on painting a little bit more after work that night, but after the shift I had, there was no way. I was too mad and fired up to stay up much longer.