The Big House Reveal

It only took 4 years, but we are finally done renovating the house!

The last big project was the vinyl siding. We started in October of 2013, and finally got around to finishing it in the Spring of 2014. (The delay was due to the cold weather and too much rain!).

So back in 2010, when I first looked at the house, here is what it looked like.

I had forgotten what a mess it was! Roof half torn off, old, broken windows, and the horrible siding. What was I thinking when I bought this house!?

Well, it might have taken longer than I thought, but the house finally looks like I envisioned it.

Hard to believe it's the same house, right?

My Happy Place

I finally got my new Cricut Explore in! I was ready to set it up in my Office/Craft Room when I realized the room was a MESS! I decided it was time to clean up and get organized!

The biggest issue was storage. The closet just had boxes stacked on top of each other and so much space was being wasted.

I decided to add some Closet Maid Adjustable Shelving (from Home Depot). We removed the wooden shelf and hanging bar since this wasn't being used. I used 4 of the adjustable brackets along the back wall. Then I hung a 12" x 8ft Wire shelf across the top. We purchased two 16" x 6ft wire shelves and cut them in half, creating four 3ft shelves that could be adjusted as needed.

The end result is Perfect! There is so much more storage space, and you can easily access everything. 

With the closet looking so great, I had to clean up and rearrange the rest of the room. I think I have found the optimal crafting set up!

My Crafting Room is definitively my happy place now!

'Be Our Guest' Room Update

Since our family went to Disney World, I've been wanting to update my Guest Room with some new Disney Shwag. (Here is what the 'Be Our Guest' Room looked like originally.)

When we booked our vacation, I ordered the Free Custom Park Maps. When I saw how nice they were I decided to use them as art!

The maps are very large (around 14" x 20") and I couldn't find a frame that size, so I purchased an 18" x 24" and mat board.

I cut the mat board to fit the frame and put the map on top. I tried cutting the mat to put the map behind, but I didn't like how it covered some of the map design.

Here is the framed map! The maps are folded, so they do have creases but they aren't very noticeable. Also, the parks are printed on both sides, so if you wanted to frame all 4 you would need to order 2 sets. So far I have only framed the Disney World Map.

Since going to Disney World, I have 2 new collections. We got hooked on Vinylmation! I needed some shelves to display my collection on so we built corner shelves just like these picture frame shelves.

I also started collecting the Disney Shoe Ornaments! These are adorable!

If I'm not careful I will run out of space and there will be no room for guests in the Be Our Guest Room!

Picture Frame Shelves

I've been wanting to change my living room wall art for a while. I finally decided to make a picture frame shelf wall.

Ikea makes great, affordable picture ledge shelves that are perfect for this. Sadly, they don't ship and we don't have an Ikea nearby. So we made our own! We used cedar and stained it to match my living room furniture.

Each self is only 3 pieces of wood. The bottom which is 3 1/2 inches x the length you want your shelf (mine are about 4 feet and about 2 feet.)

The back piece (which is where you screw the shelves to the wall) is about 2 inches, and the front picture ledge is about 1 inch. You just glue all the pieces together and voila - a picture ledge shelf.

All you need to hang the shelves are screws and possibly anchors if you aren't hanging on studs. We used 3 screws/anchors for the large shelf, and 2 for the smaller ones.

Then I added framed pictures and some nic-nacs. I loved how it turned out!

I also added a collage frame in my living room. This is my All About Lola collage! 

Let There Be Light

After 3 years my master bedroom is getting closer to what I envisioned! We finally moved the bed to it's proper place and we were ready to install some wall lamps on both sides of the bed.

I ended up ordering wall lamps from Home Depot because I could not find any that I liked in stores. I decided on this Oil Rubbed Bronze Swing Arm Lamp (Wow the price has gone up $12 since I ordered it.) It is a simple, traditional looking wall lamp which is just want I wanted.

The first thing to do when installing anything electrical is to hire an electrician (or get a family member who is an electrician to help :)) You must make sure there is power that you can run to where you want your wall lamps.

Always turn the electricity off (at the breaker) when dealing with wires etc.

Once the wires have been run, then you can decide on the placement of the lamps. I did some research online and most bedside wall lamps are centered with the top of your decorative pillows. Then the next measurement would be distance from your headboard (which we don't have yet) so I used my window as a guide and placed the lamps about 8 inches away from the curtains.

So we traced the blue electrical work box and then cut a hole for both lamps. Then we pulled the wires through and screwed the work box in place. 

These lamps come with a plug-in option as well. Since we had wires run, we needed to remove the cord and expose the wires. 

Then we needed to attach the back plate to the wall and use wire nuts to connect the wires. Next we fed the wires through the hole in the back plate into the work box so we could attach the lamp to the plate.

The lamp attached to the plate with 3 decorative screws.  

Then we turned the power back on and the lamps worked!

I love how it turned out. It only took us a few hours to install these lamps. Now each side of the bed has a lamp, perfect for late night reading! I also love that there is more room on the night stands since we no longer need table lamps. 

Kitchen Update

Ever since we finished the kitchen renovations, I wasn't happy with the curtains. They were heavy and too dark for the kitchen.

So I have been keeping an eye out for the right window treatments and I finally found some at K-mart! They were super affordable and are the perfect curtains that really brighten up the kitchen.

Here was the kitchen curtains before: long, grey, almost too formal curtains.

And here are the new ones: light, white, airy curtains.
Kate Tier Panels and Valance in Blue.

I am so happy with how they look! They diffuse enough light to block out the evening sun, but they also brighten up my kitchen. 

Quick Mailbox Makeover

In the 3 years I've lived in my house, my mailbox has been hit at least 3 times. After the 2nd time, we cemented the post into the ground and painted the post to match the house.  I even planted some flowers at the base.

Unfortunately the flowers didn't last long.  My mailbox gets direct sunlight and I didn't water them enough. 

So I started looking for mailbox garden ideas. A friend told me about their neighbor who had a large pot that their mailbox post was in.  I decided to try it for my mail box.

I purchased a large (22"+) wine barrel that I cut a small hole in the base.  This was so I could put it over my mailbox post, since my post was cemented in the ground. I had to remove the cross post and my mail box in order to position the pot.  This was fairly easy since we had screwed the posts together.

I filled the bottom of the pot with gravel to help with drainage, and I also filled in around the pot with gravel to fend off weeds.

I am very pleased with the end result!  I'm hoping that the potting soil (and the pot) will help keep more moisture for the plants.  My mailbox is now one of a kind!

Country Walkway

For our "Spring Break" we decided to build a walkway from the porch to the driveway.

I had already purchased a Quikrete Walkmaker Mold after seeing a friend make a path with one.  I loved the 'Country Stone Pattern' and knew this would make a great design for our walkway.

First we marked out the outline of the path and took measurements. (Helpful Tip - when calculating the area make sure you are awake and don't think 17 x 2 is 24! This will greatly skew the amount of supplies you will need!)

Then we began removing the grass (which we transplanted into the backyard) and then dug down about 4 inches.

This was a very labor intense process but setting the right foundation will ensure the longevity of our walk way.

Then we filled in about 3 inches of drainage rock {paver base rock) and used a tamper to compress it down.

Next we filled in with about an inch of leveling sand (paver sand) that we tamped down and made sure it was as close to level as possible.

Finally we were ready to use the Walkmaker mold!  We decided to dye the concrete a dark charcoal color.
(The Walkmaker instructions say use one 80lb bag of concrete per mold, but we found one 80lb bag was good for 1 and a half molds.)

This part is very tedious, with the concrete mixing, mold filling, and smoothing. But with a little patience the pavers turned out great.

The concrete looked much darker before it dried.  I was worried it would be too dark.  But after letting it set for a day they turned out much lighter.

We finished the walkway by filling in around the country stones with pea pebbles. You could also use polymeric sand (but we had too much space around our pavers to use that.)

The pea pebbles still need to settle down, and the pavers have some dust from the pebbles, but I love our new walkway!

French Doors

It's been a busy 2013.  We have lots of projects going on with the house.  The big one has been changing out all the windows, to new insulated ones.

I snuck in another project this weekend of changing out the french doors.  I noticed back in the fall after a heavy rainstorm that my french doors were leaking. Rain was coming in through the panes!

Here is what my old french doors looked like.

It's hard to tell, but they had 4 horizontal panes.  I believe they were designed to match the windows, which also had horizontal panes.  I've never seen french doors like these before.

First we had to remove the old doors.  I was very surprised how large of an opening they left behind.

(If you look closely you can see it started raining on us during this process.)

The new doors were almost 8 inches smaller than the original, so we had to fill in 4 inches on both sides of the door.  8 inches sounds like a lot, but you really don't notice a difference.

Well you do notice the hot pink  2'' x 4''s right now.  But they will be covered by the vinyl siding when we redo all the siding in the fall.

I love my new french doors! 

Built in Dresser

While my master bedroom isn't small, it's on the 2nd floor and has slanted walls because of the roof.  This is problematic for furniture - if its too tall, it won't fit flush against the wall.  The slanted walls also create a lot of 'dead' space.  While some of the space was turned into attic storage, others were just left unused.

We saw this great idea to maximize the space and gain some much needed storage - A Built-in Dresser.

We started by cutting a hole into the wall - to see what was in there.

We quickly learned that there was No Insulation!  No wonder the 2nd floor was always so much hotter!  So we insulated the space and added plywood flooring. Then we framed the opening for support.  

Then my dad built the drawers.  He lined the outside of the box with cedar just in case there were any bugs lurking in the attic space.

Then we slid the drawer structure into the space, and it fit perfectly!

All that was left to do was 4 coats of paint! And here is the finished product.

The best part is now we have 3 more drawers of storage but it doesn't take away from the floor space!

Porch Update

Remember that porch we built back in October? Well, I slipped and fell down the stairs on Saturday so we decided it was a good time to clean and paint it.

We had primed the porch back in the Winter.

I had already picked out the colors, we just hadn't found the time to paint it. We decided to add some Rust-Oleum anti slip additive into the paint that would be on the floor and stairs.

So here is a side by side by side.  

No Porch, Primed Porch, Newly Painted Porch.

I think its a huge improvement. Though now it makes the rest of the house look even worse. Eventually, the house will be a light grey blue with navy blue as accent and the sliver grey as a highlight. I've been living here for nearly 2 years, but some how adding my address numbers makes it feel more official.

Finished Deck

So how many screws does it take to build a deck?  I think we used close to 700, maybe even more.

Lola definitively approves of the deck! She enjoys hiding underneath it too.

It only took us a few hours on Saturday to add the deck boards.  And now we have a great 16' x 12' deck to enjoy in this beautiful Spring weather!

I picked up some colorful chairs from Target and some pots for my plants as well.

Target had these cute hanging pots that we planted Oregano and Lemon Thyme in. We also ran another Faucet for the backyard (since previously we only had one on the side of the house).

We can't wait to invite friends over to enjoy this new space!