Four Beds Two Baths

With a little help from Decor8

2008-07-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is just so awesome! I had emailed Holly Becker, of the famous Decor8 awhile back, asking for some guidance in my quest for a more cohesive place to invite clients to review my work and chat about their wedding day.

Along with Vanessa De Vargas they came up with some outstanding suggestions for my office space!

Check out Holly's post right here to see all the wonderful things they offered up to help out my studio.

You know I've done a few things to the space since I originally contacted Holly, but oh my word, I am SO VERY invigorated by this post. I liked the changes I had made to the office space well enough, but wasn't loving the outcome now that I've had a couple clients over and actually lived in the space awhile now.

So, check out Holly's post, and stay tuned for some office updates that are very likely to be coming along the pipeline now with such great ideas to jump off of!

It's done!

2008-07-15T11:28:00.001-07:00

So, last night we finished the floor! We layed the glue down (didn't get a picture) and then the vinyl, and lastly used the 100lb roller to smooth out air bubbles.

I can't explain how much better I feel about my kitchen now. It's still far, far faaar from a dream kitchen, but the thought of being in it now and cooking makes me less gaggy. Who knew a cheap temporary patch could really lift the spirits like this?

So, not going anywhere...yet. And a new floor!

2008-07-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't call that last post pre-mature. I am not sure how often Four Beds Two Baths will be updated in the future, but hey, look!! We are working on our house!!
Spur of the moment, we started ripping up the old floor in the kitchen. We've been here for a year, and one of the first projects that we promised to one another when we moved in, was to work on the kitchen. Over the past year, you've seen some of our more grandiose plans, some small musings, a whole lot of bitching, and then total and complete inaction. I guess we both had had enough with that nasty floor. And the other night we just started ripping. Even if whatever we were going to do next was a temporary solution, we needed a change and we needed it now.
Then this morning, Kyle heads out and next thing you know he's back from Home Depot with this lovely stuff. To be honest, this was his second trip. What was brought home the first time was deemed unacceptable. But look at our new floor just waiting for us!
Everything was shuffled out of the kitchen into the dining room.
And we started scraping and peeling.
Peeling and scraping.

We're done for the night. Kyle started to measure and cut a few angles, and for laughs, I rolled it out to cover most of the floor. And it. is. glorious!! For $150 I think I will stop whining and complaining about the kitchen. At least for a little while.
When all is said and done, I will certainly be updating again.

Crickets

2008-07-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

I know it's been rather quiet around here. Wedding season has officially picked up for me, and it's left me with little time for the house, even less time to blog about the house.

With that said, I am contemplating letting Four Beds Two Baths go. I don't think I could totally stop updating about the house, I might just be doing it alot less and when I DO want to gab about some little home improvement, it might be over at my other, more full time blog, Kimberly Hurst, Inc.

Four Beds won't be disappearing any time soon, but if you want to see what I am up to, check out my wedding photography blog, newly designed by Nicole Balch, aka Making It Lovely herself.

Thanks all!

2008-06-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Corey over at Baltimore Rowhouse.

The rules: Answer the following questions about yourself. At the end of the post you pass on the questions to 6 (or so) other bloggers and list their names. Then write them a comment telling them that they've been tagged and ask them to read your blog.

1. What did you do 10 years ago?
That would be my freshman year at Rochester Institute of Technology. I was 18 and an Advertising Photography major. I spent many long hours in windowless studios taking photographs of bars of Ivory soap, Tupperware, freshly poured glasses of beer, and other lovely product shots. I am so thankful for my time at RIT. It took me some time to come to that realization, but with 10 years between now and then, I’ve realized how much I DID learn, and how much it started me off on the track I am on today. Go Tigers!

2. Five items on your to-do list today:
-Email Ray (my local upholsterer) some photographs of my curbside pick-up’ed couch. As well as dimensions for the new bolster cushions.
-Investigate some outdoor lighting, especially for the busted light by the backdoor. I am tired of taking out the trash at night by my sense of touch alone.
-Hang the large corkboard I found in our garage up in the studio. We cleared out our garage this past Friday night, and it’s unbelievable how something can be so “out of sight, out of mind.” I’ve been thinking how badly I need a real corkboard for the studio. I was ready to drive to Staples to pick one up. Never realizing I had one sitting in my garage! It use to hang in the kitchen in our Sea Cliff apartment.
-Think about re-arranging living room and master bedroom furniture. I haven’t figured out if this desire is rooted in genius or boredom.
-Photograph some of the recent changes going on in our backyard makeover. Ikea’s summer sale is the best. Cushions, lanterns, and candles all for a steal. We also hung our hammock and laying back looking up into the maple trees is pure heaven.

3. Snacks I enjoy:

-Those flat pretzels. You know the ones I am talking about? They are so damn crunchy. I love dipping them into say, tuna salad, or what have you.
-Guacamole.
-I make a mean Texas Caviar. It’s a glorified salsa I guess.

• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 (8 ounce) bottle zesty Italian dressing
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can black-eyed peas, drained
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro
It’s delicious!

4. What would you do if you were a billionaire?

Renovate my kitchen and then buy another house. Or several homes, scattered across the globe. And Kyle and I would both quit our jobs and hop from place to place. I’d also start an environmental foundation and use my money to try and effect positive change.

5. Places I would live:

I loved living in Brooklyn and would move back in a heartbeat. I would also love living in some kind of seclusion. Maybe a home where I could raise sheep and spin boutique yarns for a living, or grow maple syrup, or something whacky like that. I don’t think I could live somewhere too far away from family and friends for any length of time to be honest. So, I’d say places in the Northeast seem the most appealing. Maine and Vermont in particular.

6. Bloggers I am passing the challenge onto are:

How about The Brick House, At the Westwood Ranch, and Tiny Old House!

Tales of Dirt and Sweat

2008-06-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we picked the hottest weekend of the year to do a brutal amount of manual labor. And then we asked all our friends to come over and help!

What can I say other than we have the most awesome group of friends ever. A bunch of them swung by, on their day off, or TOOK a day off from work to come and help us. Shovel dirt no less! Kyle and I are really blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Saturday, Kyle, my father and I laid the groundwork. We framed the majority of the patio space, and started to move dirt. At the very back end of the yard, we first had to build up the retaining wall about 2 feet in order to level out the area and prevent the massive amount of run-off that would occur each time it rained. My neighbor had been the recipient of some amazing top soil all these years, while we were left with our fair share of sand. NOT FAIR, said I!

So, this alone is a huge thumbs up. Our dirt is gonna stay our dirt!

Ideally, we would have liked to complete the project using 8x8's. Even 6x6's. But they were costly, and hard to come by. So, we settled on 4x4's and got to work. My father happened to be demolishing some concrete in his backyard, so we took it and used it to reinforce our foundation and to aid in drainage.

Once the frame started to fall into place, we then started tilling and moving a TON of dirt from the high points in the yard, to the low points.

Here are James and Adina helping us check for level. We had to do that....alot.

And lastly, here is where we stood at the end of the day. The framing is in place. We need to go and buy dirt unbelievably. But there are areas that still need to be filled in. We need to lay some seed in the areas around the patio. And then we need to get some gravel and spread it around. We've decided to live with just the gravel for a year or two until we can afford bluestone or flagstone or the like. Right now, it's just not in our budget. But WOW! I feel like we made some incredible progress on our backyard. I am starting to invision where the tables and chairs and grill and lights and fire pit and lounges will all go.

Just so very happy with the work we did.

Succulents and Herbs

2008-06-06T15:04:00.001-07:00

The other night when we were at Home Depot, I picked up some little herbs to plant in Mr. Owl's head.

Then last night when we went price shopping for a fire pit, I picked up some succulents and planted them before going to bed. Nothing like a little late night potting to set you off to bed in a good mood!

We are calling today the calm before the storm. Tomorrow we are getting up bright and early and starting work on the back patio. My father is coming over and we are going to start building the retaining wall, and mapping out the lumber and where we are going to be digging and moving dirt on Sunday.

Pruning

2008-06-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

So, we've got some big plans for this weekend. First thing, we went to Home Depot last night, in the pouring rain, and bought 50 4x4's in order to start the patio project. Loading and unloading 50 4x4's in the rain? Not fun. Thank goodness my father came along or I think Kyle and I would still be moving all that wood!

We also have been working on moving plants and pruning trees all along.

Here are some action shots!

That last one is a clear example of how Kyle likes to wear his safety goggles. Purely as a fashion statement if you will.

We now have a MASSIVE amount of twigs and branches in our backyard. We are thinking of going and buying a fire pit just to start getting rid of some of them! But the pruning is coming along nicely, and we are pretty much ready for the weekend ahead!

Our theme for the weekend?

Thrift

2008-05-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

I went to Savers yesterday after work. I hadn't been in awhile, and I do love going. I find it relaxing to poke through all the rows of "stuff" in order to find a few little treasures.

Here is what I walked away with:

First up is this cute little embroidered (?) picture of a butterfly. It should cheer up the right side of the bed quite nicely, and it matches the yellow bedside lamp we already have in place! Thrifted for 99 cents.

In an attempt to start using less plastics, I've decided to start collecting more Pyrex for food storage. It's cute, no? And thrifted for $6.99.

The captain's chair might be the steal of the day! It's gorgeous and thrifted for $3.99! I also picked up the side table for $9.99. A little more than I thought it should be marked, but it ties in nicely with the credenza in the living room already.

Mr Owl! I am not sure if he's lost his top or never had one in the first place. He's going to be used as a planter. I am thinking something white and precious sticking out the top.

The bottom says McCoy, but who knows if it's real or fake. I don't really care either way, again, Mr Owl was too cute to leave sitting on the shelves at Savers. And he only cost me $3.99.

I also nabbed this little saucer for 45 cents. I loved the design in the center, so he's going to be added to the plate wall.

Riiiiight....

And just because he's too handsome for words, here's one of our cats. His name is Dude and he's doing a marvelous job this morning of covering our comforter in cat hair. Ahhh, summer shedding. Time to get out the vacuum and lint brush!

Shade Garden Musings

2008-05-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

How does everyone feel about buying "collections" from plant distributors online? I found a couple shade garden collections that have caught my eye that I can get for fall planting.

In particular, I am looking at one from Dutch Gardens.

It includes:

1 Burgundy Lace Painted Fern
1 Hakonechloa Aureola
1 Britt Marie Crawford Ligularia
1 Jack Frost Brunnera
1 Chameleon Houttuynia
10 Lily-of-the-Valley

I love Lily-of-the-Valley! And I think mixed in with the various hostas I already purchased (and that are waiting still to be planted) this could be a very pretty and colorful addition to the back corner of my yard!

You know, right back in here

I am just curious about the rate of success with ordering plants online. Do they arrive in good shape? Are the plants hearty? Or I am throwing away my money?

Picture Dump!

2008-05-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I are off to Rochester this weekend to see The Hurst side of the family!! We are headed out first thing tomorrow morning, so I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend!

Before I head out to start packing and cleaning up around here, I wanted to do a picture post of our yard!

First up, we have window boxes! I decided I liked them better ON the ledge, than in front of the ledge. My Dad is making the brackets to secure them in place since of course, my decision to have them there warrants some tinkering to make it so.

Next up, we have to deal with the issue of crowding! The front yard is packed to the gills with some really nice shrubbery. It's just that you can't appreciate half of it because so much stuff is growing on top of one another, that it just ends up looking like a mish mosh.

The next weird issue we have is this. I think the previous owner liked to HIDE some of the prettiest plants in the whole yard! For example, we have this lovely rose bush...planted square behind the forsythia bush. YOU NEVER SEE IT unless you are taking out the trash. We've started calling this corner "Rose du Garbahge."

Next up, why hello there you pretty, pretty little thing. Yellow Iris, I must say...I never knew you existed until this past weekend. WHY?!

Because you are planted on the side of the house that butts up to our neighbors driveway! You poor things!!!!! Looking all bright and cheery and no one is there to appreciate you. No worries, I will move you come fall time.

Break.

Whew. Ok.

Next up, here are two panoramics of our backyard just for fun.

We grow lots of moss around the back part of the yard. It's actually kinda fun to brush it off and then take your shoes off and walk on it! This is one aspect of the yard I would like to enhance/preserve around the outskirts of the flagstone patio.

In this area will be columbine, bleeding hearts, hostas, astilbe, and so on. Along with the moss I think it might be just gorgeous. Just not gorgeous yet, that's all.

So, where is this patio going?! Well, right in this hole of dirt and crazyness. We recently ripped up a bunch of forsythia and moved them back along the fence. And these are the holes that remain. In the next couple weeks some time, we plan on digging. Alot. To try and level out this area. There are plans for steps and retaining walls. But we have to dig down a good foot or so in order to level out this back part of the yard to get it ready for the flagstone and also to try and stop some of the run off we get when it rains.

I know it's hard to imagine, but can't you see the firepit over there, and the white metal table and chairs over there, and the gas grill off over there, and yummy outdoor lights strung from the maple trees in a lovely criss cross pattern? Well, I do.

Lastly, I love my recent dumpster dive from down the block. It's a lovely place to sit and read and look up at the branches of the sycamore and daydream about my future backyard wonderland.

Forearm Hell

2008-05-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

Oh
My
Goodness

My forearms feel like someone came along and punched me repeatedly.

Kyle and I spent part of our day yesterday trimming back the wild kingdom of our backyard. We borrowed the tree trimming pole and hedge clipper from my dad (aka The Endless Source of All Things Yard Related) and did WORK on our backyard.

I was in charge of trimming back the hedges. I don't know what kind of hedges they are exactly. Part of me thinks they are just HUGE WEEDS that grew large enough to disguise themselves as "bushes." I am starting to catch on to them. They better watch out and be on their best behavior, or I plan on exposing them for the imposters that they are! Needless to say, they need much shaping. And my poor forearms are paying the price today for yesterday's shapings. Garden equipment is just too dang heavy, I've decided.

Kyle started to prun back branches but didn't get all that far. He's got the sycamore to deal with, the two maple trees, and the pine that's got dead branches for the first three quarters of it's trunk. Not fun.

We've decided (well, our finances have decided FOR US) that this summer, we are focusing on getting our yard in shape. The project involves plenty of manual labor that we can do, and the least amount of capital.

The kitchen is on hold, indefinitely for now and we will probably insulate and reside the house next.

Pictures of our yard work, window boxes, and plans for the backyard to come.

Window Boxes

2008-05-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

So, bright and early this morning Kyle and I decided to rough it out, elbow to elbow, with all the other locals hitting up the nursery. I couldn't believe how people were cutting you off with their cart, huffing and puffing, and just being down right childish in their quest for the perfect hydrangea or flat of impatiens.

Just wild!

Anyway, I think I did an ok job with picking out plants for my window boxes. I had some help from random strangers at the nursery, and I am unsure of some of my choices...in particular the Gerber daisies. But this woman swore up and down that she has hers planted in shade and they are thriving...AND the little tag for the daisies said "shade/full shade." But I always thought they were full sun. So, we will see. Everything else was marked partial shade, or shade.

Here's the list:

Caladiums
Coleus
Gerbera Daisies
Sweet Potato Vine
Fuschia
Lobelia
Varigated Ivy
Begonia

The next challenge is figuring out how to mount them to the windows or the fieldstone. I think I want to fasten them to sit on top of the brick, not in front of it. Or, do you think that will look weird??

Pretty shady back there, no?

WOW!

2008-05-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

All I can say is thank you to everyone for your list of shade plants!!!! I am on my way to Home Depot and a nursery or two this morning to look for some window box contenders.

And thank you to all of you who suggested some awesome plants for the yard in general! Kyle and I have been trying to design our backyard ourselves, and now I have another list for when the time comes to plant our little backyard oasis!

Window Boxes

2008-05-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

This is our house.

It faces North.

Does this limit my options for planting window boxes? I hear there are much less shade tolerant plants than full sun that work well in a window box...

I am getting really down and out about my yard. It seems everywhere I want to plant something, or grow something...there is no sun. My house doesn't feel like a black hole, but I am starting to feel that it is. That sun just gets sucked into the black hole of my house, never to be seen again.

In our backyard, we grow moss. In the front yard, there's shade from the house.

I had visions of window boxes overflowing with petunias and sweet potato vine, gerber daisies and marigolds, geraniums and strawberry...

Now, I have no clue. I don't know anything about shade plants, or shade tolerants plants.

Anyone have any suggestions???

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

2008-05-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead, I promise. Kyle and I have been making improvements, spring cleaning, tidying, making plans, saving, sighing, digging, transplanting, and lots of other verbs involving various aspects of home repair and renovation.

It's just I've been too busy with all the other "stuff", and wedding season has kicked into high gear, so it's been a little tricky having the time to take pictures of our little progresses.

But some pictures will be coming which include:

1. Our front yard gardening
2. Our back yard gardening and plant transplants.
3. Our "plans" and "sketches" for our backyard wonderland.
4. Our newly painted guest bathroom.

Until then, ciao!

Unclutterer Workspace of the Week

2008-04-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, my little sewing station made it to the Workspace of the Week over on Unclutterer.

I have to say, it's been a great little space! Thanks to the Husby for rocking the design and construction!

Energized Bedrooms!

2008-04-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

Master of Energy, Rich, was over our house this morning strapping weird things to our door, looking at our walls with his infrared gun thing, and all the while, shaking his head in dismay. Turns out we have no insulation. Anywhere. And our oil burner and water heater are ten times larger than need be. We are heating 30 gallons of hot water, for two people, using two oil burners. He said aLOT of other things, which went entirely over my head...something about BTU's and the like, but I am very glad he said we are in the same boat as 90% of everybody else on Long Island...dealing with houses that were built when oil was .17cents a gallon. Kyle and I have some very calculated decisions to be making in the next couple weeks.

LOOKEY HERE! I told you we really do have a bedroom! Yesterday we decided to paint our bedroom in the spur of a empty Friday night. We had nothing to do, which is the kind of Fridays we LOVE to have every now and then. But Kyle and I can't seem to just be happy being idle, so we waltzed over to Janovic and bought some paint for the guest bathroom and our bedroom. We both thought a darker color would help out our bedroom a little bit. This room gets BLAZING sunlight in the mornings. And don't get us wrong, we love the sunlight...but when it reflects multiple times on white walls, it got a little too intense for our fragile, waking from REM sleep, eyeballs.

So, we painted. I am kind of ehhhhhhh on the color. I like it more in the daylight than I did painting it last night. I think all those Red Stripes we were drinking just made me cranky. That, or painting just makes me cranky. But I wasn't feeling the color at all last night. We've decided to live with it for awhile and see how I feel a month from now. If I've grown to like it, it will stay. If I hate it enough to paint the whole room again, then we might go for something a little less purple (I was aiming for more of a denim color).
Stay tuned for bathroom pictures and updates on the ever changing plan to spend an insane amount of money on our house.....heating vs. kitchen. Who will be the victor?!

Someone else loves chairs!

2008-03-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Victoria, over at sfgirlbybay wrote an adorable entry about her love of chairs in all their shapes, sizes, colors, and materials.

I too, love chairs. And it was so very nice that she included two of my images with her entry. So, check it out here.

Couch in the studio

2008-03-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

I added a cute little loveseat to my studio! Ikea's Klobo just happened to be the perfect size for this tiny space as well as the perfect price tag!

Potential clients needed a cozier space to sit down and watch a slideshow, or check out an album. Before I had a bunch of mismatched chairs, and it was. not. working.

I think this little couch was one of the best bangs for my buck I've had in awhile.

Brooklyn Flea

2008-03-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

I am going! April 6th! Bishop Loughlin High School in Fort Greene! Is anyone else out there thinking of going??

Straight from the website:
"Brooklyn Flea will take place every Sunday—rain or shine—starting April 6, 2008, at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Lafayette Ave. between Clermont and Vanderbilt Ave. The Flea will feature 200 vendors of vintage furniture, clothing and antiques alongside new designs by local makers of everything from jewelry to textiles."

Their list of vendors alone, is worth going at least once. But I might just have to make this part of my monthly (maybe quarterly?) routine.

Energy Survey

2008-03-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

Super quick post to say that: Kyle and I signed up for an energy survey on April 5th! This is a no joke survey. Infrared readings of our walls to read for thining insulation, some vacuum contraption zippered to our front door to check for air leaks, etc.

We are very excited, but down right nervous at the same time.

Some small changes

2008-03-16T13:09:00.001-07:00

Nothing drastic has been going on around here lately. I think it's referred to as the calm before the storm.

The storm being the eventual kitchen remodel.

Eventual in that the more people we consult on our kitchen, the more we are pretty sure this will be a long process. One in that, certain things need to happen before we even think about the cosmetic aspect of the kitchen. This is so much more than paint, new cabinets, and granite countertops.

It will involve relocating the backdoor, knocking down a wall, moving heating and plumbing, etc.

But we are excited about the whole thing and are planning what we call the:

3 Stage Attack to Our Kick Ass Kitchen
This well thought out raid tactic is brought to you by my Dad (aka Colonel Kitchen).

The gist is such:
1. replace the casement window, install the french doors in the dining room, knock down to the halfwall between the kitchen and dining room, and reroute the heat.

2. knock down mud room where existing backdoor is now and close off old exit, re-create new wall with possible window.

3. the final phase is this. remove existing cabinets, rough plumb, reroute any needed electric, install floor, appliances, cabinets, lighting, and countertops.

The phases were divided up so that we don't go broke in the process. We can still have a fully functioning kitchen while all the demo is done on the areas affected by the remodel.

Anyway, we have an appointment with someone from Consumer Kitchen and Bath this week. They already came to measure our kitchen, now we meet with a sales rep who helps us design the kitchen. I hope the experience is better than the one at Lowe's!

Lastly, I thought I'd snap some pictures of the very tiny, but awesome changes that have been going on around here.

For starters, Kyle installed some wheels on my card catalog!!! I can't even expound on how awesome this is. I can roll it from one side of the desk to the other and not break my back, or scratch the floor. I am thinking about adding a small loveseat to the room soon, and I have a feeling this will serve as a wonderful coffee table in the near future.

A recent birthday brought this lovely poster into my life! Breathless is one of my all-time favorite movies! Now I just have to get it framed and find a home for it.

WOO HOO! No more stuff jammed into the closet where I close the door never to find things ever again. I got some shelves baby! And a closet turned into a cute little sewing station!

Lastly, the long forgotten master bedroom. Well, it's still the most neglected room in the house but hopefully not that much longer. Kyle and I are talking about paint ideas (dark...maybe even a plum color). And at Ikea this weekend, I picked up a cuuu-uuu-ute chandelier for over my vanity. See, we do love our bedroom. I promise!

2008-02-25T16:46:00.001-08:00

Kyle and I ran over to Lowe's this past Sunday and utilized their free kitchen design services. I was less than impressed with the individual helping us. He seemed less than thrilled to be working at that point in time, barely asked us any questions about what we were thinking, wasn't really able to answer the questions we had, and overall left me a little annoyed with the sad level of customer service.

Either way, I was able to communicate with him enough about the basic idea that Kyle and I have for the kitchen.

I highly doubt we will be going ahead with using Lowe's. Unless they somehow magically become customer service superstars, we might investigate getting custom made cabinets and working with someone who actually sits up in his chair and cares enough to talks to us about such a huge investment.

Even if the service was free, come on Lowe's. You turned away customers with big purchases on the horizon.

Anyway, here are some pictures I took this morning of the printout we were given. We are keeping the paperwork under magnets on the fridge. I ate my breakfast this morning staring at the designs. I am already seeing things I want to change.
This first picture is showing you the view as if you were standing in the dining room looking into the kitchen. Where there once was a wall, there is now additional counter space.
Numero dos here, is showing that we have flip flopped the pantry and the refrigerator. The fridge being so close to the doorway of the kitchen makes me bonkers. It's a traffic jam inducer! And I hope moving it a little further into the kitchen alleviates some of the traffic. We also are contemplating a lazy susan for the corner base cabinet. The set up now is awful, and this might make it easier to get those hard to reach pots and pans. The corner wall cabinet will likely be where our dishes will go and will also have a glass front. Just cause I think it looks pretty!

There are a couple other renderings from different angles, but it's pretty much more of the same. The major issue at the moment is we still need to speak with a contractor about possibly moving the location of the back door, and how to handle the radiators that happen to be on two of the three walls being effected by this project.

Keep tuned in for more of the kitchen drama to come!

2008-02-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

I went to Michael's to pick up some decorative plate hangers today and together Kyle and I hung a few of the plates we already had and a couple I picked up the other day at the thrift store.

I believe I will add a couple more plates, but I don't want to go crazy with them. Something about the balance right now seems right.

Check it out, I also hung some curtains! They might look familiar because they use to hang in the guest bedroom. I had bought some plain white tab top curtains thinking they would work well in the dining room. They didn't. So, the tab top curtains now live in the guest room, and the pretty guest room curtains are now in the dining room. I hope to take a nice picture of the dining room some time soon. When I feel it's a little more "done" I suppose. But I do believe it's well on it's way.

We went to the accountant today! We need to get a few more pieces of paper to him (like that famous HUD statement) before our filing is complete, but we are hoping to walk away with a little something to put towards our kitchen reno. Wish us luck!

Lastly, we are getting pretty close to picking a new front door and new storm door. I can't wait until we have a brand new, fire engine red front door....on a yellow house. We figure if we get the new door now, come spring/summer the color clash will certainly encourage us to paint away our daffodil colored home.

Decorno-ing my Dining Room

2008-02-06T09:30:00.001-08:00

There have been so many awesome suggestions over at Decorno. I can't tell you how much it's gotten me excited about the space again! I got home yesterday and decided to play around with the idea of mismatched chairs. It was mentioned on Decorno as a possible idea, and one thing I have an overabundance of, is chairs. It's kind of crazy how many chairs I seem to adopt. So, I pulled out 3 chairs from the garage (two white bentwood chairs we have had since the Brooklyn days and a green backed newbie that spoke to me recently at a trip to Savers).
I kept walking in and out of the dining room last night testing out the new look and then took some pictures this morning. I have to say, I think I like it. It makes the set look less matchy matchy obviously, and it just seems a little more casual but in a good way.
And lastly, one of the suggestions I really, really liked was the idea of hanging plates on the big wall o' blankness. I measured, and there's only 26" between the chairs and the wall. Any kind of console or shelving would spell disaster for whatever was placed on top of it. I thrifted these little gems last night at our local thrift shop. It was glorious! I have plans to go back on Saturday. If I score any more loot, I will be sure to share.

Decorno

2008-02-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

So, I responded to a recent post over at Decorno and asked for some inspirational ideas for my dining room. It's come a long way from where it started, that's for sure, but it's stalled badly. I simply have run out of the juice to add some finishing touches to the room.

So, I asked Decorno readers to give me some 411 on their thoughts.

And boy, have they ever! It's up to 42 comments or something like that.

So, here's the link to the post. I'd love it if more people left some comments. Decorno's blog kicks major design booty, so if you haven't checked it out yet, get going!

The One Where I Take Pencil to Paper...Poorly

2008-02-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

Kyle and I spent a small part of our day yesterday mapping out a scaled version of our kitchen. We want to take these drawings to Ikea one day and get an estimate. We did 2 of the 4 walls thus far, and hope to finish the other 2 some time this week. I've decided to take pictures of the drawings and post them so you all can see my EXPERT drawing skills.

But in so doing these drawings, we've made some serious decisions about the kitchen.

The job is just so much larger than we've originally planned. And it's ok! The kitchen we are slowly designing in our heads is ten times more awesome than our current one. If it means staving off some of the renovations until we have some more money socked away, so be it. We finally are starting to have a clear cut vision in both our minds.

So, some of the plans include moving the location of the rear door (not yet so lovingly illustrated) from the kitchen to the dining room. The new dining room door will have French doors that open out to the eventual new deck space. So, once the current back door is gone, it opens up a thousand new possibilities because all of a sudden we have an additional wall back. Appliances can be moved, additional cabinetry can be used, a big picture window can come into play if we want. Just. SO. exciting.

And then there are definite plans to knock the wall down between the kitchen and the dining room in order to create an island or half wall, with additional, desperately needed counter space between the two rooms. By knocking the wall, it also will make both rooms, which are so tiny to begin with, feel a little more open. Please see amazingly detailed rendering, below:
Besides the knock down wall, we did a scale drawing of the main "hub" of the kitchen. Here is another awesome rendering:
In the future plans, not a whole lot is changing as far as the foot print goes here. We will be getting rid of the soffit and either hanging new standard size cabinets higher, or getting extra tall cabinets instead. The window is getting replaced, the vintage stove is coming in, new sink, subway tile backsplash, and probably a slightly smaller dishwasher.

The funny thing is, we might not even start the kitchen until a few "insulation issues" are dealt with first.

The house is heated entirely with oil at the moment, water and all. I have no clue if this is alot, but we've gotten 460 gallons delivered since we moved in in June. One delivery in September, another in November, December, and January. Each times it's a little over 100 gallons. I've asked a couple people if this is alot, some have said yes, others have said not really.

The thing is, we are COLD, all the time. We don't put the thermostat above 62. Ever. Which, is ok, but we figured it's time to insulate what we got. The front door MUST get replaced. Both the door and the storm door. There are three original windows still in the house. The casement in the kitchen, and two double hung in my studio. My studio is biting cold (I sit here now with a space heater blasting and a blanket wrapped around my legs). And once the winter comes and goes, we are going to call an insulation expert to come in and tell us what we got going on between the walls. My father seems to think it's cellulose or worse, nothing at all. In that case, we might get some blown-in insulation put in.

And once we are well insulated, a new boiler, and/or full or partial conversion to gas will follow.

Once all that's said and done, I might finally be able to cook with a gas stove. My pots will thank me for it.

Staying Focused

2008-01-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

I am so grateful when people leave comments on this blog. You guys have such great suggestions, and seriously, most of you have infinitely more "home improvement" wisdom than Kyle or I do.

Needless to say, a couple of you have left comments on my last post, and you really helped me get focused and tackle my plan for the kitchen.

I am not saying I have everything figured out, but you were able to help me narrow the "scope." I even learned the term for the disease (thanks Wanderluster.

So, for starters, I think Kyle and I are going to
1. replace the casement window.
2. run the gas for the stove.
3. replace the cabinets in the vicinity of the sink and dishwasher.
4. replace the sink.

It's a jumping off point I can live with. We are not married to it, but I think it's a great place to start.

And with the idea that we are only replacing a small portion of the cabinets, I absolutely fell in LOVE with the idea of doing an accent color cabinet around the sink area much like Alyson Fox's Sneak Peak via Design Sponge.
Isn't it just the cutest kitchen ever?

Kyle and I have been lusting after the Ikea Domsjo double sink for quite awhile now, and there it is! Looking all purdy and BIG.

So, I am feeling less frantic about the whole thing. I don't know if it's because the 6 hour rockfest in my basement yesterday is now over, or if it's the Monday morning cup of coffee, or that I realized it will all come to me eventually if I just chill out, but I am feeling very excited about our possible kitchen makeover.

Kitchen Before

2008-01-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

I was bored today, kind of just wandering around the house. Uninspired to do laundry or anything of the sort. I wasn't able to sit around and watch tv or read because Kyle had his friend over to play some music...loudly. So, I wandered around taking a couple pictures of the kitchen figuring it's never too early to post before pictures, and never too early to get some ideas out there.

And I surfed the internet getting more and more entangled in the idea of starting some light kitchen renovations.

First things first, we are going to replace the casement window. It's drafty, it's old, and I would love something where I could have a couple of plants or herbs growing. I'm thinking a bay window might work nicely.

But once the window has been replaced, that's where all sorts of confusion comes in.

Kyle and I bought a perfectly lovely, fully functioning vintage Magic Chef stove back before we even moved into the house.
I've known for a long time I wanted a vintage stove for my future kitchen. It's just cute and clean, and only cost us $80! Anyway, we don't have gas to the house yet. So, we are pretty sure that will be the second step after we replace the window. Once we have gas running to the house, there are other decisions and rammifications to be made/had. For example, once we have gas to the house, where should we run the rest of the plumbing? Pretty sure a gas fireplace is in our future, so should we just run the plumbing now? There are also talks of heating our water with gas because our oil burner is sucking us DRY (both in the chapped lips and dry skin sense and the financial burden sense). By partially converting to gas we could stave off replacing the oil heater for a little while longer. But do we want to take on these repairs/improvements?? See where I am going with this?

All we want is a pretty kitchen that doesn't make us go ewwww when we stay in it for too long.

So, gas oven debacle aside, there is a long list of other improvements we are battling.

There is way more to this picture than meets the eye. For starters, the obvious issue is the floor. The linoleum is so old it's starting to peel up around the appliances. Nevermind the base trim. That's been rattling around and falling off since day one.

Besides the scary floors, there is a much bigger issue at hand. There was a leak in the kitchen at some point. We are pretty sure it was the dishwasher. The stain leads right up to the dishwasher, and if you go downstairs and look up, you can see detergent stains on the ceiling in the basement. But we are pretty sure nothing was ever done about the leak other than a light mopping up...because behind some of those cabinets is some scary stuff. The baseboard under the sink was pretty much rotted away. We knocked it out and put in new wood, but it was a temporary patch. And the longer time goes by, the more skeeved out by the whole thing I become.

So, that leads to dilemma #what? 3? or 4? Anyway, the dilemma! We've got great wood cabinets in there now. But the lower ones are pretty trashed. Do we replace just the ones we think are garbage? Or replace the whole dang kitchen? If we replace the cabinets, do we get rid of the soffit cause I hate it? Or rehang the new cabinets and leave the soffit?

We want a new sink. The current one is too small. Doing dishes, you get more water on you and the counter than on the dishes. But by installing a larger sink, we cut back on our precious counter space. This is a cape with a typical (aka MINIATURE) kitchen. I thought if we get a bigger sink, add the (larger) vintage stove, and all of a sudden....where'd our counters go?

So, we thought about cutting a half wall between the kitchen and the dining room and opening up the space a little, allowing for an island type of set up, with plenty of counter space.

And on and on I go in my head! Where do I stop?! Because I can go on and on about the florescent light that every time we turn it on it blows the switch. Or how our refrigerator door doesn't close unless it's done in a rather deliberate, careful manner...no kicking it closed in this house. How I HATE the formica countertops? And how I want to rip out the backsplash as well?

Better yet, where do I start to make decisions about all of this?!

Someone tell me this is normal.

Ikea Kitchen Planner

2008-01-27T10:43:00.000-08:00

The Ikea Kitchen Planner software doesn't support Mac. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I mean, really? In this day and age? Come on, Ikea. Get with the program.

Kitchen Makeover

2008-01-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

Just ran across this article over at Cottage Living. The first couples kitchen renovation is very inspiring! Not only does their before picture look STRIKINGLY like our sad little kitchen, her hubby's name is Kyle too. hehe.

But check it out here.

There is HOPE for us and our scary kitchen!

The Studio

2008-01-15T08:22:00.001-08:00

Well, the new computer is here, the new desk is here, I've made an attempt at straightening the room, and here's where we stand now with the studio!
I had posted two inspiration boards awhile back trying to figure out what direction to take the studio...in the end, I did a combination of the two ideas and I couldn't be more pleased. There were things about both ideas I loved. The red accents, the blue accents, the black and white damask curtains...so, I decided take the elements of each idea that I liked and combine.

So, the room seems to be springing forth into a red and aqua/turquoise palette.

The first thing I bought for the room was the curtains. I loved the ones I posted about from Urban Outfitters, but they were too sheer. When I am sitting at a desk, working on photos for hours on end, sometimes the sun can be your worst enemy. For every other room in the house I wanted sheer curtains that would let the light spill on in. But for the studio, and for editing purposes, I needed a thicker curtain. Ones that I could close on a sunny day and would keep the light out. Target answered my calls! Thanks, Target. Once I got them home, I used a little bit of ribbon as tie backs. For now, they are held in place with push pins! hehe. Soon I hope to sew something a little more realistic.
There are lots of things we still want to accomplish with the space.
For starters, I want another desk. Yup, plans are to go back to Ikea and purchase the same desk all over again. And butt it right up against the first. That way my work space will be pretty spread out. The second desk will be there for whatever else I might be working on...sewing curtains, screen printing invitations, clipping things from the newspaper and magazines, etc.
I also plan on hanging this shelf some time soon. It's going to be a spot to display my vintage camera collection and more photographs.
Ok, so the dirty little secret is this. The closets! They need some serious organizational help. And hopefully in the form of shelves...lots of 'em! We are going to get some shelves up in here and get things organized. The first closet is where my sewing machine, wrapping paper, the Gocco machine, and office supplies lives. You wouldn't know to look at it though. I can't wait til the day they all have their proper place on a shelf.
The second closet is my photography equipment (and my lonely yoga mat haha). But again, shelving in here will do a world of good for my equipment.
But it's coming together slowly. I plan on inviting clients over here soon instead of asking them to meet me at a random Starbucks where we have to fight for a spot to sit and talk! Now I can show them images right from my computer instead of my tiny iPhone screen. Hooray!

Little improvements

2008-01-12T08:25:00.001-08:00

Last night I had the bug. I walked around the house after a long day at work needing desperately to do some kind of project. Kyle and I have been here for a couple months now, and I think we're suffering from Home Repair Attention Deficit at this point. Many projects are started, but none seem to get fully and completely finished. There are pictures laying around that need to get hung, there are shelves that need to find homes, outlets to replace, those kind of things....you know what I mean?

Anyway, I decided I wanted something over the bed in the guest room. The blank walls were making me crazy! It's such a cute room, but there's that prison cell feeling when you walk in. There's just nothing to look at! So, I grabbed a small Ikea shelf we had stashed in the basement (I had bought it over the summer and didn't know where to put it) and some "tchotchkes" for lack of a better word.

I hung the shelf, hung some silhouettes I won off eBay, put some things on top and felt much better about my mental state afterwards.

Another white light fixture in the dining room!

2008-01-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it's here!! It's actually been here for quite some time. The Blik decal arrived one day, waiting for me when I got home from work, and I was so excited to open up the shipping tube and unroll what was inside. I had no idea I would be unrolling for quite as long as I did. I made the cardinal homeowner mistake! I never, once, looked at the measurements for the decal. I fell head over heels in love with it, had to have it, and thought to myself, it will look awesome in the studio!!

That was until I saw how tremendous the decal really was.

So, I sat on it, literally (to get the bend out), for quite some time. I just wasn't sure where to put it. I decided it would just look weird in the studio. If I hung it in there, it would have to be on one of the slanted walls...and something about that just said "umm, no." to me.

So, I walked from room to room in the house trying to figure out where to hang this pretty thing.

And I landed on the dining room.

Now, from my previous post, I had lamented the fact that I stare at a big blank wall in the dining room and it bothers me. I thought...let me put this on that wall, and be done with it! Not that simple of course. The decal was actually too big for the studio, but too small for the big wall o nothing in the dining room. But it just HAD to go in the dining room now that it wasn't going in the studio! What's a girl to do?
Use the other wall. The wall where you thought nothing would ever go. The wall that you thought looked great with nuthin' on it. But I love it now! It looks happy nuzzled into the corner. I think my decal and my pendant lamp like one another. My dining room feels like a happy place with the new addition!

Resolutions

2008-01-06T18:26:00.000-08:00

Some people despise them. But to me, resolutions help you get inspired for the year ahead. Yes, most of the time you simply don't live up to them. They become your "failures" for the year. That's if by the time New Years comes around again, you are even able to remember what you resolved to do in the first place.

But these first 6 months in our new home have been a whirlwind of change. I started a new job (my regular 9 to 5 gig), I started a little side venture with my photography business, and together Kyle and I have done quite a few things to the house. It's weird though. I say "it's been 6 months!" but we both agree, we feel like we've been here forever. I guess that's what home should feel like...

So, Kyle and I chatted recently about what 2008 has in store for our little four beds and two baths.

Our wishlist:

-"Renovate" the kitchen. We do not have the money for a complete overhaul, or to expand and build out like we know we will do one day, but I desperately need to make a few cosmetic changes in the meantime. Ideally, I would love to run a gas line to the house. I hate cooking electric, and this is one major improvement we might save up for. But phone calls will be made to the gas company and to a plumber who runs gas lines. Besides running the gas line, we want to install a bay window to replace the original (and drafty) casement window currently in our kitchen. As well as new countertops, flooring, and light fixture.
-Finish the office. It's made leaps and bounds, I bought my cute red lamp, and the new computer is on it's way. Once the computer is here, I plan on taking some more pictures and asking for inspirational ideas. But a new desk is still needed, and I have some grandiose ideas for two of the closets (this mini office inside the office). Ideally, this will be done sooner than later. I want to start welcoming potential clients to my home.
-Art for the dining room. I stare at a huge blank wall. Every day. For breakfast and dinner. It's driving me mad!! I hate feeling unsure about what to hang up. I want something bold, something unexpected. But can't seem to place my finger on what exactly that means.
-OUR BEDROOM! Is the forgotten land. It's awful. The bed and furniture were put in carelessly, we never painted, never did anything to the room. It's just neglected. But I hope this year we can make some serious decisions about furniture, wall color, and layout. It needs to feel like the master bedroom. Not some place where we shack up at night!
-The master bathroom. It's awful, really. Scary wallpaper, eww fixtures. Picture the most lifeless, boring, nondescript bathroom. It doesn't inspire you to brush your teeth, or comb your hair, nothing of the sort. If anything the wallpaper MUST be stripped and fresh paint applied asap.
-Hubby very much wants some new lighting for the basement. His hangout room, his music room, his domain has come a long way. I think removing the godforsaken florescent lighting and replacing it with some killer drop lights or track lights would be great. He'd be a happy clam.
-And lastly, paint the exterior of the house! We so desperately want to say goodbye to our school bus yellow home, and welcome in the English country horse stable look I have in my head. Black shutters, red door, hanging lanterns by the front door. This will be a major push come Spring time.

So, here is to 2008. To all the others with their wishlist, their dreams for their house, I hope you have a smash bang year, and good luck!

I know we will need it!

My Book

2007-12-26T12:04:00.000-08:00

So, I self-published a recent year long photography project through Blurb, and now it's available for sale!

Check it out by following the link below:
Kimberly Hurst's Bookstore

365 Days was a year long journey where I took one photograph a day for an entire year. It cronicles some major life moments and some small every day kind of days. It's a great book for your coffee table, or as a gift for anyone who loves photography.

So, check out the link, buy the book, or if you know someone who might get a kick out of the concept, please share the link with them!

Cheers,
-Kim

Happy Holidays and Merry Couches

2007-12-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

My sister Candice is so very sweet in that she is letting Kyle and I babysit her furniture until she gets her own apartment. These are some seriously comfy couches, but they are just way to big for our shoebox living room. But they are a great temporary solution, and I am so thankful Candice is letting us use them in the mean time. I love you Roo!

Kyle and I rolled out of bed this morning and put up the Christmas tree.
Ornaments came out of hiding.

Bed sheet from Savers doubled as a tree skirt.

And we're off! Later today is the outdoor lights and some more decorating.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Idea #2

2007-11-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

Office ideas

2007-11-27T13:22:00.000-08:00

Seeking a way to get my thoughts collected, I created this inspiration board. It's just one of several ideas I have for the studio swimming around in my head. I have some other color schemes (aqua and orange, jewel toned blues and greens, grays and browns) and fabric ideas I still want to organize and play out. So, stay tuned for more virtual inspiration boards...

New lamp

2007-11-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

We got a new lamp for the living room.
And that's about all there is to report. We've been working some more on the studio; finishing molding, painting and rehanging doors, but I wouldn't say there is a drastic enough change since I last posted about it to warrant more pictures.

There are plans in my future for a new desk(s), some new lighting, and a Blik decal (if it EVER GETS DELIVERED).

Otherwise, the house has been pretty quiet. We installed some weather stripping for the front door which was insanely drafty. It's nice and air tight now. I think I can physically SEE the money we are saving, all the warm air that ISN'T escaping now. It's kind of funny how conscious both Kyle and I have become about stuff like that now. Long gone are the days of careless energy consumption!

I am kind of surprised how quickly the holidays have arrived this year. So, we will see how much time and money will be dedicated to the house in the next couple months, what with gifts to buy and all. I do love the holidays though, even if it means shifting my focus for the next couple of weeks.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Random things

2007-11-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

We are getting this Blik decal in the mail very soon. In white, not black. A lovely friend gave us a gift certificate to Blik as a housewarming gift. Seriously, I've wanted a decal for so long, so this gift certificate was very exciting. I think I want to "hang" it in my studio...just not sure if there is proper wall space. If not the studio, I am thinking our bedroom...that is, whenever we get around to painting it.
Also, I am shopping for a new lamp. Now that we've hung and centered some photos above the credenza, the lamp that was there no longer fits. It blocks the picture furthest to the left and not in an interesting way. It's just off. We have a gift certificate to Target, so I am hoping to find something lovely while I am there today. And if nothing tickles my fancy in the store, I hope to find something at online Target that works.
Lastly, and very unglamorously, I think we have to call a plumber. The radiator in our bedroom refuses to work. Kyle has flushed the line or whatever it's called, and nothing seems to be moving to or from this radiator. Let's hope the local plumber can help.

Of course, further, more interesting updates to come.

We DO make progress

2007-11-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

Kyle works at a pace much different than myself. I think I tend to work, when on my own, at a much quicker pace than my husband. In no way am I saying it's better. But it's something I've had to learn to cope with better. Because when Kyle works at HIS PACE, without me nudging him, he's simply outstanding. He's a master of many things he does. I just cannot, whatsoever, tell him how quickly to do something. I think I can do a thorough job of stressing him out with my "downstate" speed. He's a country boy at heart. Don't get me wrong, he's cultured, and SMART, and loves music and art, and can SLAUGHTER me in math and science. But he's got an internal metrinome that just ticks away at a totally different beat than the one found inside me.

And I am learning to appreciate it.

The studio didn't get done in time for the housewarming. And I am ok with it. I think I completely misjudged the time needed. I think both of us had no clue how long it would really take. I stressed out about it leading up to the party, but once we got down to the final hours leading up to the party, there was nothing I could do about it. And when I walked into the room with it swept clean, my computer in place, the walls painted, and most of the trim work done, I was giddy.
I love the way it's shaping up. Here's the before to jog your memory.
Thank you Kyle!

Some Halloween pictures

2007-10-29T09:51:00.001-07:00

Our party was on Saturday! It was a great time. Our friends all went above and beyond, showering the party with food and drinks, lovely gifts, and really killer costumes! You can check out my other blog over at kimberlyhurst.blogspot.com for some pictures of the costumes!
But here are a couple images of the house lit by candles and jack-o-lanterns. I didn't get quite as many pictures as I had hoped to of the decor, but I was too busy being the hostess to get that many pictures taken...
This is the dining room. I ran some black streamers from the chandelier to the corners of the room, and tied a string of little white ghosties around the chandelier itself. The bar was off to the left, and the table was packed with food and candles. The kitchen had yellow "caution: enter if you dare" tape strung from the doorway. Once you stepped inside, there was a chalk outline of a body on the floor. The person had died from my cooking I guess.
Here's the living room. I went bat crazy! With tons of paper cut bats, jack-o-lanterns, punpkins, big skulls, little skulls, spider webs, and more candles.
Just a detail shot of the credenza and all it's skulls, jack-o-lanterns, and bats flying every which way.

Decorations

2007-10-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've started getting the house ready for the Halloween Housewarming Party. I just think it's funny that Kyle and I both loved the idea of making our house (which we've worked so hard on all summer to make look extra pretty) just really extra ugly and creepy for the housewarming. We are hoping our friends see how pretty it is underneath all the black, all the skulls, the caution tape, fake blood, etc.

I don't want to give away all the decorations, but here are a few I captured just for the heck of it tonight. A little sneak peak if you will, of the creepyness to come!

Progression

2007-10-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

Slow, but steady. So, the room was nowhere near ready in time for our house guest, but we managed fine regardless. Here are a couple in progress pictures.
We finished the floors last night and the second coat of polyurethane was dry this morning.
So, early morning trip to Janovic, and we selected a bluish grey for the studio. I was really unsure of what I was going to pick all along, and walked into the paint store completely undecided. I thought the decision would take me forever to come to, but I picked something rather quickly and just went with it. This picture is rather deceiving though. I painted about 90% of the room, and asked Kyle to finish up the last little smidge of painting because I had gotten to the breaking point with it all. You see, we got home from the paint store, I started to paint, and Kyle and I decided rather last minute that we wanted to rip all the moulding down and replace it with much nicer trim. So, Kyle started yanking it all down, and then left me for hours while he hunted down trim to match the rest of the house.
The whole room has become more of a project than either of us imagined. Which is fine, because when it's all said and done, I will have a nicer room than I had ever imagined originally. But with the Halloween (Housewarming) party looming ahead of us this weekend, it's proven to be getting both us of properly stressed out. We want the storage room (aka our bedroom) right now, to be all nice and tidy by this weekend, so when I show guests around the house I don't have to say "Please, forgive the horrid state of our bedroom." Once again, it's a race against the clock to see if we can paint and replace the trim, get all the furniture, computer, my clothes, and other stuff back in place and in the studio by Saturday.
But I DO TRUELY love the progress we have made so far. Lots of work ahead of us this week that's all!

Our living room

2007-10-17T15:18:00.001-07:00

Just a shot of our living room as it stands now.

Today was a good day!

2007-10-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

Kyle, my girl Gretchen, my sister Candice, her friend Yesid, and I all braved the early morning hours to head out East for some serious pumpkin and apple picking. We got an all you can carry for $25 deal at Lewin's, and some large mums, 4 for $10 at some other place.

Needless to say, I think we are well on our way towards decorating for the Halloween Housewarming. I think some cobwebs and candles remain, then we are all done. Massive carving session will commence this weekend!

But the day went from awesome to KILLER!

We were headed over to my aunt's house for my cousin's birthday party, all "la-de-da, what a fun day we are having!" when my neck practically snapped clean in half when I whirled around and noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I thought I was fooling myself, maybe a trick of the eye. Or maybe I got too much sun and windburn being out pumpkin picking all day. But ney, there it was!!! Just sitting on the curb waiting for the good old Monday morning pick up!!
I must check Craigslist and eBay at least once a week for updates on who's selling credenza's like this. And I always tempt myself with laying down the couple hundred bones they always seem to fetch. I've loved and coveted a piece like this for so, so. so long.

And lo and behold, this very nice woman was just throwing it out!!! Kyle even knocked on her door and politely double checked that such a treasure was being thrown to waste. She was just so happy that we wanted it! We floored it to my parents house, Kyle THREW the seats of their mini-van out on to the front lawn and went back with Yesid to pick it up. They tried to trick me saying it was gone by the time they went back, and honestly, my heart SANK, but I think they saw the blood drain from my face and quickly told me they were fooling.

So, now it's home. And taking up an enormous space in our living room. I seriously don't care! The room will be designed around this behemoth.

EDIT: Monday morning and here's a better picture!

Done!

2007-10-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

With the floors in the studio? No.

Today is the day I took the last picture for my year long Project365. If you are not familiar with it, I have been taking a picture a day for a year and posting it on my blog over at kimberlyhurst.blogspot.com. It's been an incredible experience for me. I wrote all about it, so follow the little link on over.

Wood floors

2007-10-08T15:45:00.000-07:00

So, it's been another blogging break. Kyle and I have been in recovery mode when it comes to our home repair budget. As many of you know, when you first get in the house, it's pretty much non-stop repairing and purchasing. You do so much, so fast. Well, we certainly had to throw on the breaks for a few weeks in an attempt to stay on top of everything. And we had our first oil delivery recently. Holy moly!!

Even with the price of oil, and our aching checkbooks, we've both been whining about the state of the studio. Well, I have been whining. And Kyle's been whining about me whining.

This past weekend was a blur for me. I worked Saturday and Sunday as a photo and lighting assistant, so I wasn't home AT ALL. Kyle decided it would be the perfect time to start working on the floors! WOO HOO!

I did manage to take some before pictures of the studio before the work got started. Here we go:

As you can see, the room is pretty bare bones to begin with. No paint, no finished floor, no shelves. But it does have lots of closets...4 of them! I have heard rumors of thick brown shag carpeting being the flooring du jour of the former owner. It was all over the house. Every room. And they supposedly ripped it all up and "finished" the floors to get the place ready to sell. I use quotes because the job they did sucked and we had to come in and re-finish all the floors anyway. All the rooms throughout the house are wood flooring except for the studio. We haven't decided why quite yet. There are a couple of theories go around. But instead of a nice oak floor in here...some kind of masonite was nailed down. And it quickly started to warp in places, and in the high traffic areas it was actually starting to disintegrate and track dust all over the house. Saturday morning Kyle drove on over to Home Depot and purchased some unfinished white oak and got the party started!

That'd be my Dad in the white t-shirt. I guess he was bitten by the party animal too. But I came home to hammering and sawing and the smell of wood.

It. Was. Awesome.

They didn't manage to finish the room...three closets and the nook/alcove area to the left of the door remain. Once Kyle gets home tonight we are going to try and bang out some more. This is all in a race against the clock! We have a guest coming to stay this weekend (my dear girlie-Q Gretchen)! We've taken up residence in the guest room since ours is packed to the gills with all the crap from the studio. It's a race to Saturday...Will we prevail or will the studio claim victory?

2007-09-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

My website has gone live!! YAY!

I know it's not house related, but this is really thrilling news for me, so I thought I'd plaster the announcement pretty much anywhere I could. Photography has always been a love of mine...well, for 13 years now. I had a short falling out when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. In the end, I picked my camera back up a little over two years ago, and it's been with me ever since.

So, check it out!

kimberlyhurst.com

Ghoulish Good Times

2007-09-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

So, the invitations for the Halloween Housewarming are done! Just need to get a white pen, address em, stamp em, and send em off.

Now, I only hope more people show up than just Kyle and I!

The Studio

2007-09-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Yup. It's calling out to me. Right now, I walk into that room and cringe. I've been spending more and more time in there lately working on the computer on my fledgling photography business (anyone need a wedding or portrait photographer?), or sewing, or printing, or whatever really. So, I don't think I can ignore the need to get this room in top shape any longer!

Here's a very small peephole view of what we are dealing with. I swear, real "before" pictures will follow once I tidy up just a teeny, tiny, little bit.

Trust me, there's stuff everywhere! Scattered on the floor I can see books, magazines, boxes, paperwork, my iPod, my camera bag, my hoodie, Gocco supplies, and on and on. First things first, Kyle and I are headed to the beloved Loews or Home Depot this weekend to take an estimate on what the flooring will cost us.

Right now, there is some subflooring down, and that's it. I haven't made any decisions yet on what product we are going to use, but Kyle wants to keep the flooring the same as the rest of the house. I am open to exploring some laminate and/or bamboo options. It's been hard researching flooring. It holds zero interest for me. I almost don't care. That's not true, I guess I haven't been drawn to anything yet. I tend to be a person that sees something they like, and I KNOW IT. It's immediate, and it's rare that I deviate from the feeling. But with the flooring, I just seem to be "ho hum" about it.

It's at this point that I would normally start listing and sharing different ideas I had for the floor, but that's the problem...I don't have any!

So, stay tuned and see what happens after this weekend!

But I need to talk about my love of Flickr. Flickr's been a wonderful website for me. I started taking a picture a day (343 days ago) and sharing those pictures with other people on Flickr. As I started to explore the site more, I saw all these wonderfully inspiring home decor pictures. I started favoriting pictures left and right even before I was thinking about owning a home. Whenever I start to think about a room, I usually start in Flickr. Searching people's home pictures for those little bursts of inspiration.
Sigh. One Good Bumblebee shared some new pictures of her workspace recently, and I was oohing and ahhing all over the place. I am really loving the color scheme...the browns, blues, and greens...much like the main floor of my house now, only deeper, richer, a little more jewel toned. Just lovely.

And Froggy Monkey! The red, green, and white combination here is just eye catching and cheerful! I adore the wall color, the desk, the accessories. I don't know if I can incorporate a wall unit like that because my ceiling slopes down so low in my room, but boy am I envious of the wall space!

Mizutamago has what I think looks like the most serene, peaceful sewing station. The chair and cute apple pillow must be comfy to sit in while hunched over that sewing machine creating some lovely little fabric masterpiece. I know I want my sewing machine out permanently in the office/craft room (can you tell I am torn what to call it??). That's why I am thinking two desks butted up next to each other creating one long table space along one wall. One desk for sewing machine, and crafting in general, the other for the computer and work.

Although, here, Wisecraft does both on one long workbench. I love this counter top style space as well. I might have to commission Kyle or my Dad to build me an old-fashioned long, counter height work bench. Sometimes sewing is easier to do when you are standing. Sometimes your butt starts to hurt and you don't want to crouch anymore.

The first picture I ever favorited on Flickr:
is from Flickr user Little Birds. Her studio space really inspired me the very moment I saw it, and I still look at this picture and think how lovely it's going to be to have a room, a space, a studio (!!!!), that is mine to create, think, feel, read, sip coffee, burp, whatever, how I want to. That I am there to create whatever it is I happen to be making at the time. In that respect, it's more than just a room where I am storing craft supplies, more than a room where I will file my taxes.

With that said, the office/craft room will now be called my studio.

I just want to say thank you to all the people who's images and homes inspire and insight a sense of excitement in me.

Halloween Housewarming

2007-09-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I have been toying with the idea of combining a housewarming with a Halloween party. You see, this is the reasoning:

My older sister Chris always had a Halloween party. She always had a KICK BUTT Halloween party. Lots of people hanging out, having a few drinks, wearing the most ridiculous things. It was fun. But she's a Mommy now, with two little ones. She is asking that I uphold the tradition, a passing of the torch if you will. I was more than happy to accept! So, how is it that we would have a big Halloween party before we have an actual housewarming? That'd be weird, so we've been thinking about just combining the two.

This is simply my very first attempt at designing an invitation. I like the idea of a black invite...I already have some black cardstock and envelopes from Paper Source...and white ink for my Gocco! So, that was my "jumping off" point for the invite design. Skulls, crossbones, skeletons seemed a little more sophistiqué than "woooooo"ing ghosts and witches on broom sticks. I think I dig the font, just not 100% sold yet. And the wording will surely change. Anyone have any funny ideas for the wording? That's always the hardest part for me.

Lighting

2007-09-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is one of those places where Kyle and I tend to disagree on what to do. I am in favor of keeping many of the original light fixtures that are already in the house. I love the round glass flush mount overhead in the bathroom, and the plate glass fixture in the guest bedroom is too quaint and vintage to replace with some weird ceiling fan monstrosity. But Kyle wants all new. Update update update. So, we are trying to come to some common ground. And we've found it...in some places:

There are two fixtures that we agree, for sure, NEED TO GO!

Ugly Light Fixture #1:
Is the light above the medicine cabinet in the guest bathroom. I snapped the picture before Kyle started to paint the bathroom the other weekend. Just look at that! We are talking bare bulbs people! I do wonder what happened to the rest of the fixture that must have been there originally. Where did the other part of it go?
I've been scouring sites online for inspiration. I love Rejuvenation.
I assume something like Rufus (pictured below) must have been what was there before our sad little light lost it's hood. So, in keep with the period of the house, something like that fits and might look pretty darn cute!
After Rufus, I would really like something a little more midcentury modern as a possibility. The only picture I could grab off the Rejuvenation site is the bronzed version. But here is Donald (hehe. I just love the names they give them too)! Thankfully they offer this light in a nice polished chrome.
These two are my favorites so far. I was reading an issue of Atomic Ranch while in Borders the other day, and while we do not own a ranch, Kyle and I both appreciate that midcentury asthetic. I remember seeing an ad for another retro lighting website, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was...something about schoolhouse lighting? I will Google of course, but anyone out there know what I am talking about?

Anway, after we settle on something for the bathroom, the mother of all ugly lighting is located in our kitchen. I love our kitchen, I hate our kitchen. I love the ideas I have in my head for the kitchen, I hate the idea of how much it's going to cost us to see those ideas come to fruition...c'e la vie.

But this is about the mother of all ugly lighting, right? Here she is folks.
Ugly Light Fixture #2:
She's round, she's LARGE, and glows super green. She's florescent! And has to go.

I keep trying to find where the line between retro vintage COOL, and retro vintage KITSCHY overkill falls, and I hope and pray I don't fall victim to it. With that said, I do like the idea of trying to keep most of the lighting in the house somewhat period appropriate (except my darling dining room pendant of course). So, good taste be damned, here's one light I was thinking would look rather adorable in the kitchen...that being the dream kitchen in my head.
That is Lombard. Lombard is much. much smaller than what is there now, and with our tiny kitchen I think would just be more appropriate scale wise. I also like the blue band. Altough Rejuvenation seems to offer the same shade with different band colors...there is a light green and also a yellow banded shade that would both work equally as well.

I hope to place the order for at least one light fixture this weekend. Speaking of weekend, I don't have many home improvements planned...I might do some more sewing, or tackle a shelving issue, but we will see.

I think the loungy feeling of the Labor Day weekend is only hitting me now.

More crafting!

2007-09-04T05:59:00.001-07:00

Monday night was kind of quiet so I decided to do some more weekend crafting. For a long time I've admired the swatch portraits over at Purl Bee. You can check out the Flickr group dedicated to the swatch portraits project here or you can check out a more generalized Flickr group with tons of amazing Purl projects here.

They are super easy to make and lots of fun. The hardest part was deciding where they were going to be hung up. I wanted to make sure I really, really liked the spot I was hanging them because 5 holes in the wall was making me all crazy-like. I like the placement, and think I might actually add two extra teeny tiny embroidery hoops in the mix there somewhere to balance it out a little more.

But I am very pleased with the result. Weekend crafting! Woo hoo!!

Curtains are happening!

2007-09-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

We had well laid out plans for the weekend, but they just seemed to get away from us. For example, my Saturday trip to Ikea turned into a Sunday trip. The furniture getting painted turned into sewing curtains and installing a cat door. And so on.

But yes, I spent a large part of Sunday in my craft room/office. It's a scary mess of a room, but hopefully that will change. Right now, it's got nothing nice about it. Nothing but subflooring, boxes, papers that need to be filed, extra printers, a broken vacuum, etc. When we first moved in, this room easily became the room where we put everything we didn't know what to do with. And it's pretty much stayed that way while we carved out a small spot to put the computer in the meantime.

So, consequently, I don't feel quite ready to share pictures. Maybe once I organize a little, we can take some not so scary "before" pictures.

But this is about sewing! So, let's get on with it.
My mom found my sewing machine at a garage sale for $10. It's a great little machine, and all I need for my mediocre sewing skills.
While at Ikea today, I picked up three sets of their wire curtain hangers. I liked the idea of a really simple, almost invisible way to hang the curtains. I couldn't use a tension rod here, and a regular rod seemed like too much. In the picture below, you can actually still see where the old behemoth mini-blind use to be hung. One of these days I am going to try and touch up the door. So for now, just pretend you can't see that unpainted spot.
Once I finished sewing the curtain I pressed some basic folds into the fabric with the iron.
And when all was said and done, I had a curtain for the front door. It's a simple, but pretty improvement.

Just love this picture

2007-08-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

I stare and stare at this picture. I saw it in Domino (of course) and it looks so heavenly and cozy. But pretty and sophisticated all in one. I really love the little picture frames with different silohuettes all hung at eye level to the couch. I even like the couch! Which makes me chuckle because it's nothing like my beloved Petrie.

Thoughts about the living room seem to be creeping in all the time now. Which stinks, because I feel there is NOTHING we can really do with the living room until I have the funds to purchase my dream couch. Whatever it ends up being.

But money is getting in the way. Kyle and I have to be frugal. We are so incredibly fortunate to be as young as we are, and be home owners. We feel very blessed and lucky that the cards fell as they did, when they did. Because if we were only starting to look now, I am not sure if we would be approved for a mortgage in the first place. We were lucky to get in before the bottom fell out and all those sub-primes seemed to explode, sending the banks running or at least tightening the reins on loan approvals. We are surprisingly comfortable with the payments that at first scared us. We have certainly cut back on extraneous spending and opted for a rather budgeted life while still working out our payment schedule and moving some due dates on bills around to ease the cash flow.

But things are getting done. I have to remind myself of that. And we are still planning to do more. I have to keep telling myself that.

I am planning on drawing up an estimated budget on home improvements that we have done so far. We have not been keeping track as we go, and I think for our own benefit, it will be nice to see what we've done.

Love this idea

2007-08-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I saw this today via Decor8.
It's in the home of Nike aka My Cute Cow and it's totally adorable. It might also help me with a fun way to display the art in the guest bedroom. AND the dining room.

Regularly scheduled program?

2007-08-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

Hello. So that was a little unexpected blogging break, wasn't it? What can be said about it? Well, I got a really really awesome summer cough and cold for the last week or so. It's been slowing me down big time, and today is the first day I feel relatively normal again. So, very little house things have happened.

Two weekends ago, Kyle and I did some painting. He worked on freshening up the bathroom on the main floor, and I concentrated on painting the guest bedroom. Since this morning before work wasn't so gloom and doom, I decided to take some pictures of the guest bedroom as it stands right now.
I painted the walls Benjamin Moore "Healing Aloe." And yesterday, I went to Ikea after work to see if I could grab the curtains that I included in my inspiration board for the room. Well, I got there and hated them. They were not at all like the colors illustrated on the website. The greens were much more, well, green. It just wasn't going to gel with the rest of the room, so instead I picked up these white ones. They have hidden tabs, which I LOVE! My sister Cori recently replaced all her curtains with blinds, so she gave me a couple very simple metal rods. Thanks Cor! I picked up that cute embroidered pillow too. Ikea is just far too tempting with prices like that.
I framed one of the prints so far too. I still have to find proper frames for the other two prints as well. I like how this one is just propped up on the nightstand for now.
This old game board that my Uncle Jim gave me will get hung somewhere in the room as well. I just haven't decided where yet...over the bed? over one of the end tables? On the wall facing the bed? Over the armoire? I keep moving it from place to place and nothing seems to be working just yet.
Lastly, that there is my weekend plan. I was thinking my weekend would include some light (very light) sewing, and possibly some furniture painting. I am still pretty petrified of the idea for some reason. I have my Dad and Kyle telling me I am making a huge mistake, my mother saying she thinks it's a good idea, and then there is me...flip flopping back and forth. So, I think I am just going to bite the bullet and paint them. They didn't cost me anything, it's not like I would be ruining something I paid good money for, right? Right?

For Like Ever found a home

2007-08-20T20:45:00.001-07:00

In the hallway leading to the bedroom. It's oversized and you can't miss it. I do love it here vs. downstairs in the living room. It was actually too much in the living room, and just right up here where we can appreciate it.

Crafting

2007-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

I finally got some fun crafting done! Still no curtains. I know, I know. I think I am psyching myself out of making them for fear that they are going to look awful. I am not the best sewer, although I so desperately want to be better! Maybe this weekend I wil give the kitchen cafe curtain a try. Just dip my toes in the sewing waters...maybe.

Ok, so what crafting DID take place? Kyle and I were painting up a storm this weekend (him the bathroom, and I the guest bedroom (pictures of that to follow when it ain't so grey and dark outside)).

The bathroom: needed to be painted WHITE. The walls were that cream color that every other room in the house had been painted before we moved in and it just looked bizarre in the bathroom. White trim, white curtains, white everywhere but the walls. We also had to pull the shelves from the linen closet and paint them too. Because the linen closet scared us.

Here's a picture from when we first went to see the house:
I kinda loved and adored the flower power con-tac paper. But it was ancient, and really, I was scared to rest my clean towels on top of it.
So, we cleared out the shelves (and found really old Q-tips....everywhere! ewww):
and started peeling the paper from the wood:
That's when it hit me. I had been hemming and hawing over what kind of art I wanted to hang in the bathroom. I was torn between keeping it all black and white (most likely using photographs) in order to off-set some of that pink. Or to embrace a color (like orange) and run with it... I wasn't in love with putting up photos because I am just picky about photographs and didn't want to put just anything up. But color scared me a little bit because the bathroom is just sooooo pink. But there it was...just staring back at me! The perfect bathroom art!! I could keep my fun retro, kitchy flower power! I grabbed a razor blade, and cut three pieces down to size, and grabbed three small Ribba frames from Ikea (god, I love the Ribba frame!).
Et, voila!
They will be hung up eventually. I just have to find the perfect little shelf for above the toilet.

And other crafting goodness soon followed!
I got my hands on a Gocco machine awhile back, and learning to screenprint was on my "summer to-do list." There are 99 things on my summer to-do list, but this was a very important one for me. I swore to myself I would use the Gocco machine for the first time before the end of summer, if it killed me. Can't you feel that fall weather starting to creep in? I just love it!
So, I made some "new home announcements" to send to family and friends!I really enjoyed using the Gocco machine. It was easy and so much fun! Ideas are already starting to percolate for the housewarming party invitation!

Man Cave? I prefer Rock Den.

2007-08-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

There's still some work that needs to be done. Kyle will be replacing the old florescent lighting (which now that the drop ceiling is gone, is even more of an eye sore) with some regular incandescent/tungsten lights. He also has to create a mock crown molding around the perimeter of the room to try and seam the area between the paneling and the ceiling. I also have to hem his curtains. But the basement is pretty much done. This is most definitely my husband's space. Can you tell? He's so happy to go down there and jam, play pool, watch tv, microwave some pizza bites, etc. I'm glad he finally has a place to sort and keep all his music equipment. It was a regular battle for us when it all was stored in our living room in the apartment. New furniture is on the horizon as well. I think Kyle is interested in some kind of sectional. He also wants a flat screen tv. One can dream, right?

Finished painting the stairs

2007-08-16T07:14:00.001-07:00

We finished the second coat last night and hung the art up this morning before heading off to work. We didn't get to put the new light switches on though, so please excuse. Also, that entry light...has got to go. We still have to hang my For Like Ever poster that Kyle got mammothly framed for me for Christmas this year. It's a beast and I lurv it! It's going up in the hallway leading to our bedroom. oh wait, or maybe it could go right above the vintage sewing machine...you see it there in the picture above? To the left? hmmm. Well, picture to follow either way.

This weekend will involve either painting the bathroom or guest bedroom. Or sewing curtains. I was thinking of doing rock paper scissors with Kyle to see what wins out.

Inspiration

2007-08-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been culling images from different places in an attempt to get the ideas popping for the guest bedroom. Let me jog your memory. At this point I gotta stick with the cool palette I have established for the main floor. But I am leaning towards more of a green color for this room. I am really toying with the idea of a metallic/pearlescent finish too. I've examined the walls, and the plaster seems to be in great shape. I can't see anything that will be freakishly magnified by the glowy finish, which I think a room this dark might need to brighten and cozify it.

When I saw Oh Joy!'s Sneak Peak on Design Sponge, I swooned. Hard. It instantly became a Flickr favorite. I just loved all the framed art above the bed. The room felt soft and serene. The Dwell pillowcases are to die for, etc. I already have a simple white duvet cover down, but I am going to start scouring ebay and the like for a yummy vintage chenille bedspread. The small, dark bedside lamps will be replaced with something white and much larger. The decision has been made to definitely paint the bedside tables and the armoire. They are nice but not my first pick (they were a hand me down). I think softening them with a whitewash/shabby chic finish (Ariana, I need your expertise here!!) will really make the room leaps and bounds better. Oh, and the curtains! I really like these from Ikea!

Little update

2007-08-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

Thank you everyone for your recent comments about my dining room curtains. I believe I am leaning towards the roman shades myself. I don't think I want to cover up all the window and chair molding, and since the curtains will most likely be open all the time (I love the view out to my backyard), pulled up roman shades seem to be the answer!

Now to find a pattern AND pull out the sewing machine!

Kyle and I painted the stairwell and upstairs hallway last night. It's the same color from the living room (BM Pismo Dunes). I was way too terrified to edge the job myself when I got to the top of the A-frame ladder on the top of the stairs (whoa, was that high up)...that I had Kyle do the really scary stuff. I edged everything that didn't require the A-frame.

Finished pictures including stairwell and hallway art to follow.

Roman shades or full length curtains?

2007-08-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

I keep flip-flopping about what type of curtain I want to hang in the dining room. I have this yummy Lacework fabric from Amy Butler's Lotus collection, and I can't convince myself which way I want to go with the curtains. Hoping that staring at these Photoshop-ed files will shed some light.

Ask and ye shall receive

2007-08-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

Some shots of the new dining pendant at night.
My question is this:
What should I put along that long wall?
I want some kind of buffet or sideboard, but I am just not sure what direction to take it...something girly and possibly white? Or something midcentury? Something sleek? Or metal? Any opinions? Once I find something I like for that spot (which is actually not that much room...I'd either have to make the table off center from the chandelier, or find something very, very shallow) only then can I think about framing something to hang above it.

I really am open to many suggestions. If you saw something floating about on the internet that might look at home in my dining room, let me know.

Dining room

2007-08-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Goodbye old scary chandelier...
Hello new, cute pendant!

Things have slowed down here as far as home repair these last two weeks. I've been busy printing and framing for the upcoming show.

Once that's done though, my attention is turning to one of the following:
the office
the guest room
our bedroom

and the couch! We can't forget about the couch. Hope to actually get that estimate some time this week.

One down. For Now.

2007-08-06T11:42:00.001-07:00

The books are unpacked, the CD's and DVD's are moved to the basement, and the den is practically all said and done. The only addition to come will be a possible ceiling fan and/or new light fixture.
I spent yesterday morning with a large cup of iced coffee and the last of our "library" spilled out on the floor in front of me. I settled in and started asortin'.

We picked up the bamboo shades at Ikea the other day for dirt cheap (where does this expression come from? Last time I checked, dirt actually WASN'T cheap). But it was a definite that the windows facing the front of the house needed some kind of double hung window treatments. The single panels just were not cutting down on the heat nor bumping up our privacy. These shades are actually a smidgen too small for the windows (the next size up was also too big), but they are growing on me. They've done a lot to keep the room cooler and less glaring during the day, and in combination with the curtains closed at night, we don't feel like anyone can hang out and watch Kyle and I veg on the couch as we watch movies.
The original drawing hanging above the Ektorp chair is one that was hanging inside the art gallery we lived above when Kyle proposed. I won't go into the details, but we decided to seriously splurge on our first real piece of art to celebrate the occasion. It's just really lovely, and it reminds us of a song by Seaweed called "Last Humans." If you've never heard of Seaweed, run out and buy one of their CD's. Now. I'll wait. The artist is Jason Paradis. He's so wonderfully talented, and if you click on the drawings link on his site, you will see Campfire 6. That's our lovely piece. So, go peruse his site. I'll be here when you get back.

Couch ideas

2007-08-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

Have I ever said how much I love the internet? Well, I do. It's the most incredible thing that connects you with so many talented, creative, inspiring, and helpful people. I've been a long time admirer of Sylvie and her really special Flickr photostream. So, when I found this couch on the side of the road, it didn't take me long to wander over to Sylvie's photostream for reupholstery inspiration. You just have to see the things she does to vintage pieces.
She breathes new, and FRESH life into furniture you didn't think could get more wonderful to start with. But the finished pieces leave you wondering "why didn't it look like that in the FIRST place?!"

So, I messaged her on Flickr, oh so subtly asking if she thought my couch was salvageable, and also subtly asking her for any ideas she had when it came to fabric for the upholstery. WELL, she came back with so many awesome ideas. Her big thing was damask. AND I LOVED THE IDEA! Something about taking the couch and making a bold statement, just was so dead on. But the idea that really spoke to me was the bamboo insets under the arms of the couch. I would have never in a million years thought to treat those little framed out insets as a little canvas. Someplace to frame an extra special fabric. A mini piece of art per se.

Again, pardon the hacked up Photoshop image, but this is one idea Sylvie spoke of that really called out to me. I was thinking of some nubby, tweedy fabric. Grey, or a pale yellow-y green. And Sylvie picked up on the idea of the turquoise damask.

Like so:
I just love this idea! Kyle is hoping to make a stop at the upholsterer some time this week to get a quote on how much it will cost to recreate the bolster pillows and the seat cushion. Once we get that estimate, we can decide to move forward or whatever. But at this point, I have my heart set on using this couch. Let's hope the estimate is reasonable!

Odds n Sods

2007-08-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

First of all, thank you thank you thank you all for your comments on Battle Royal! I haven't made any final decisions, but after speaking about it with good ol' Mom, I am leaning more towards Petrie. Her words were "don't buy something unless you absolutely love it." So, with that said, I feel it only fair to give Corona a good old fashion test drive. I plan on marching myself down to Macy's (I hope they have it on display) and giving Corona a look-see. I might fall madly in love. Or my undying love for Petrie might win out.

I will keep you posted!

We hung some art last night.
Keep Calm and Carry On now resides above the couch in the den. You might remember the injury that almost was and I am happy to report that no glass was shattered on anyone's heads while hanging Keep Calm.

I have failed to mention that we have been getting an alarm installed all this week. I've had workers removing window molding, running wires, pulling clothes from closets, and making a small, but general mess of the place in the process. We are almost done, and the system should go live tomorrow! Which is just so exciting. And nervewracking! I lived in an apartment while in college for two semesters, that had an alarm. Me and the alarm did NOT get along. I don't do well typing in a code under a timed "beep beep beep." Kyle has decided to get me a remote instead! No timed code entry! It shouldn't be all that bad, right? Anyway, while these workers have been going through the house, Kyle's been helping out. And just yesterday he had to explore our crawl space for the first time so they could run some wires. We knew it was there when we bought, but it's at the BACK of a deep closet (my closet actually), so we never got around to exploring.
Until yesterday that is! Kyle gets in there and all of a sudden he finds this big, black, trunk. He later told me that for the first few moments while he was dragging it out of the close quarters of the crawl space, he was convinced we were now millionaires. Well, needless to say I am typing about this instead of running off with my husband to some lovely country sipping mai tais. Drat! But what a cool trunk, no? I will have to find a home for him.
While Kyle was home crawling around the far corners of our crawl space, I was visiting the local campus where my father works. I had some printing that needed to be done, and that's my place to go. While walking up to his lab, I spotted something rather lovely and lonely looking. I can only assume that it was about to take it's final walk to the dumpster, I decided to rescue this cute little chair. I think it's going to stay in the living room. We sure do need the seating anyway! Hope the folks over there are not missing it! It's not technically stealing is it? IS it?!

Ok, so I saved the best for last!

What could this be? I wonder!

Could it be? It could!

Not hung up yet, but already I could die of happiness.
I had called up my Dad and asked him if he could drop by the West Elm in Chelsea for me on his lunch break (he works one block north, on 19th St). I wanted him to scope it out, tell me how it's rigged, and if he thought it was a nice buy. Needless to say, he got it. And when I asked him how much I owed him, he said $97. Turns out, they charged him a heck of a lot less than what it's listed for online. I can't complain about that! I hope to get to hanging this utter joy of a lighting fixture some time tomorrow. And pretty pictures will surely follow.

Battle Royal

2007-08-02T05:54:00.001-07:00

I want a clean fight. No biting, no kicking. No low blows. Let's get it ON!

Head to head, I like both. If I were to nit-pick, I'd say my heart still belongs to Petrie. I've loved it since the moment I saw it. While I was registering at Crate and Barrel for the wedding, I'd always stop in to see Petrie and sit for awhile, just daydreaming about it being in my living room one day. With that said, I think the price tag is ridiculous. It's a nice couch, don't get me wrong. But I marvel at price tags these days. The likes of Blueprint and Domino don't help the matter. Dropping $5,000 on a couch doesn't seem like a big deal to anyone at either publication, so they make $1,500 sound like an utter steal. But, that's just not the case for us. That's a boatload, a ton, a whopping, amount of money.
So, in steps Corona. She's pretty too! And look at the price! That's an $800 difference! She speaks to me on that rational level. But is she a Monet as they say? "From far away it's ok, but up close it's a big old mess"? Corona is an acrlyic/polyester blend while Petrie is 100% cotton with Stoneguard finish for example. Petrie is a kiln-dried hardwood frame...Macy's doesn't even list any information about Corona's frame.

Dilemma, decisions.

I adore Apartment Therapy!

2007-07-31T10:57:00.001-07:00

Not only did someone provide me with a local upholsterer in my area when I posted the other day about my couch, but Apartment Therapy just always has cool stuff to check out, tips, Craigslist links, and so on.

It's like they can see inside my head sometimes. All morning (and afternoon) I've been ruminating about the guest bedroom. What does it need? What can I do to breathe some life into the space? Everything feels just placed in the space. Then what does Apartment Therapy do? They go ahead and post about how easy it is to make your own headboard! This might be a cheap project to attempt some time soon.

So what's the project list up to now? 5 pieces of furniture to refinish and/or paint, and now let's add "make a headboard"! Why not?

Pictures From Around the House Part 2

2007-07-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

Maybe this can become a recurring theme for the blog. Here are two more pictures from around the house.

Guest bedroom

2007-07-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

Guest bedroom design dilemma! I just don't know what to do! I've been staring at this picture all morning, and nothing is coming to me. I see no clear answer. And I know it's not just going to drop from the heavens and into my lap, but usually I have a sense about something. I can kinda know what I want to do. Not so here.

I order three prints off Etsy this morning to get my inspiration going.

Some "problems" with the room are:
-it doesn't get much light at all. Which, might not be a bad thing for the guests. No early morning blinding light shining through the window. Perfect for curling back over and catching another 30 minutes before you get out of bed! It's actually a very calming, soothing space with the sycamore tree right outside in the backyard. But not much light. And tends towards the dreary side.
-to make it just a little more dreary, I inherited some dark stained furniture for the room from a friend of the family. I love the pieces, but they are so dark! I want to paint them white or a soft green or something, but Kyle thinks I am insane.

Any suggestions?

Pulling out the big guns

2007-07-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Asking the folks over at Apartment Therapy about my couch dilemma. I hope someone out there in the ether has a name and contact info!

Weekend Workend

2007-07-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

And so another weekend draws to a close. Weekends are a valuable commodity around here lately. It's a matter of cramming in as much life stuff as possible (friends, family, obligations, appointments) with house work. This weekend Kyle and I never left the house except for a short jaunt over to Ikea. We have our first house guests arriving this Wednesday evening and we wanted to get the house into the best shape possible before Kyle's parents come down to stay for a few days. That meant getting the kitchen entirely settled (for the time being), getting the dining room table cleared of power tools, bills, random clutter, and boxes, getting the living room painted and what little furniture we have for it, in place, and lastly, the dreaded basement. It needed to be DONE before Kyle's father helps us reassemble the pool table.
Hoosier found her new home and she looks quite nice in her corner spot. Cookbooks, placemats, wine accessories, candles, etc. are being stored here now. Which means my counters are quite sparse. YES!

When I said "what little living room furniture we have", I mean it. This room is pretty much empty, and it's going to stay that way for some time. But the walls are painted! Benjamin Moore "Pismo Dunes." I am really pleased with the end result and I think a living room can bloom from here quite nicely.

I have to take a second to say thank you to my friend Debbie and her boyfriend Keith. They came over to the house Saturday night bearing vodka, beer, and pizza...and then on top of that, they stayed to help us around the house! I am a lucky person to have Deb and Keith in my life, and I know Kyle feels the exact same way. Deb and I had at the living room walls all night, and I would have never finished without Deb's help. Kyle and Keith disappeared into the basement and only surfaced when the new floor tiles had been cut, fit, and glued into place, the last of the painting had been done, and all the moldings had been cut and nailed in place. The basement looks brilliant! And again, Kyle couldn't have finished in time without Keith lending such a huge hand. So, thank you both!

And the thanks do not end there. As Kyle and I walk from room to room in the house there are constant reminders of just how lucky we are to have the loving and supportive parents that we do. From day one when we first started mulling over the idea that we might purchase a house, our parents have talked us through it. Every stone was turned upside down. They shed light on the joys and the not-so-joyous aspects of owning a home. Then when the time came and we made an offer and it was accepted (and we started down that rocky road ending in the closing) they were there holding our hand as we figured it all out. Now that we are in the house, the generosity has been overwhelming. My mom and dad are here all the time helping me weed the beds, helping Kyle learn how to grout tiles, ohhing and ahhing whenever I finish painting a room. Kyle's parents might not be able to drop by at a moments notice, but I look at all the lovely furniture they just gave us...the pool table, our dining set, the hoosier, dressers, a coffee table, 2 nightstands hand-crafted by Kyle's fathers alone. The list is endless.

So, this entry is dedicated to all our family and friends who have lent a hand so far. We are the luckiest kids on the block.

Dumpster Diving

2007-07-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

I learned about it at a young age. My mother would return from walking the dog, or walk into the house with armloads of groceries, and tell everyone about this "adorable such and such, just sitting on the curb a couple blocks away." And either a family member, or myself would have to go back with my mother to the spot she had seen the item to retrieve it. And for the longest time it would be something I preferred to do under the cover of night, or with a real big hoodie thrown over my head. Not really, but there was always that pre-teen fear that someone I knew would just happen to ride by while I was picking up someone else's "garbage."

That feeling's long gone.

I LOVE Monday mornings as I drive off to work. Items that went unsold at those weekend garage sales just line the streets waiting to be carted away.

Although yesterday wasn't a Monday, some times you find little gems by accident.

Case in point:
It's obviously midcentury, I haven't examined it too closely yet to see if I can make out a maker, but it's cool. I am hoping to bring it back to it's former glory, or as close as possible.
First things first, the cushions have to go. They stink like you would not believe. And black vinyl? Um, no. Does anyone out there happen to know a reupholsterer who can recreate the entire cushion? Not just reupholster the existing ones? I have visions of a lovely nubby, tweedy green fabric. Or maybe grey? Anyway, if you happen to know a trusted reupholstery place in the tri-state area, I would be forever greatful for their contact info.
My other question is this...should I attempt to refinish the wood myself? Or pay someone else? I mean, the couch was free, I could spare the expense (if it's not toooo much) to have a pro refinish it. Unless it seems like something I could handle.

Opinions?

Some morning shots before work

2007-07-26T07:20:00.001-07:00

The kitchen view from the dining room.

The basement, ugh, the basement. We had gotten it looking rather pretty and clean. But all that was a wash when we had to loose the wall under the stairs.

This corner hutch goes with the dining room furniture, but it's too large to actually fit in my dining room. No worries though, I don't like things too matchy matchy, so it's going to live in our living room. I really love this piece. The glass windows are that rounded type of glass...just pretty. I can't fill it with our china and wine glasses just yet. Must paint the walls first.

And the hoosier! Which is probably going to move to the kitchen this evening. Again, I love this piece! It lived up in Kyle's family's lake house for eons. His dad said it was there when his parents first bought the camp. Now, it's going to get a new life (and a nice oil rub) in our house.

Lots happening, little to show for it

2007-07-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

The title says it all. Kyle and I have been busy little bees over here at Four Beds Two Baths...but, alas, I don't really have much in the way of photographic proof to show for it.

We got home on Monday with a 24 foot Uhaul in our driveway after being away all weekend. You see, we hauled ourselves up to Kyle's hometown, and then hauled a Uhaul truck back down, filled with loved furniture that came from Kyle's grandparents and parents. No less than a pool table, dining room table, 6 dining chairs, a corner hutch, a hosier baking corner, a vintage Singer sewing machine, various end tables, a vacuum, a jam cupboard, a dresser, and other assorted records, comic books, Star Wars toys (Kyle couldn't part), ended up coming back home with us.

So, while the Uhaul was parked in our short lil driveway, we quickly prepared the rest of the house for the new arrivals. Neither of us got much of what we were planning to done. But there was some painting, and some walls being knocked down.

What? Walls? Knocked down? Yes. After doing some measuring and some head scratching, Kyle realized the wall underneath the stairs in the basement had to go. We needed the clearance for the pool table! So, it was wrenched from it's spot, new tiles have to be laid, the wood paneling needs to be recut. All in the name of billiards. The basement actually looks larger and more open with the wall gone (I promise, a picture is coming).

While Kyle was busy knocking down walls, I was busying painting them up. And I started with the dining room. I love it. I actually feel it's somewhat indescribable how much I love it. The color is just perfect. The lighting fixture has got to go, hopefully to be replaced with this lovely pendant from West Elm. After I finished the dining room, then came the kitchen. It might still need a second coat, but it's coming along too. Kind of. The kitchen, ugh the kitchen. Who knew when we moved in that I would come to fixate so much on it? It's all I've been thinking about really. I stare at the soffets and seathe. I glance at the casement window and shudder. I look at the floor and want to rip it out right there on the spot. The countertops? Don't get me started! And so on and so on. With all that said, we simply don't have the money right now to do the repairs we want to do. Our immediate solution will be to buy the cheapest (but prettiest) laminate sheet flooring we can find, and get the casement window replaced. Once those are done, we can think about countertops and moving cabinets, and running gas to the kitchen. In time it will be the room I see in my head. For the time being, I will have to settle for the ugly step-sister.

Tomorrow is all about moving all the furniture that is currently residing in our living room, to their somewhat proper place, deciding if the kitchen needs a second coat, and hopefully starting to paint the living room. I feel a new to-do list coming.

Revisiting the yellow

2007-07-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

So much better.

I had a hot date last night!! Kyle called me on my way home from work and asked if I wanted to meet up at Janovic Paint for a stimulating discussion over an array of Benjamin Moore paint chips. His treat. How could a girl say no to an offer like that?

Kyle studied his basement colors, while I mused over the living room, dining room, kitchen trifecta. We both made some final decisions, and I will save mine for another day. But, I have to say, what Kyle picked as the new accent color for the basement was dead on. It's perfect (BM "Corduroy"). It even sounds retro! We went home and got to painting. We still have to finish painting the existing trim, replace the floor molding, and create some kind of mock crown molding, but the basement is well on it's way now.

Goodbye yellow, hello golden-y orange goodness.

End products used:
BM "Semolina"
BM "Corduroy"

First Floor Musings

2007-07-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this is some kind of subconscious retaliation due to Kyle's choice in color for the basement, but all day I've been playing with really muted color palettes for the three main rooms on the first floor. A very soft, very neutral brown for the living room, a (decidely un-yellow) grey color for our dining room, and a cheerful "good morning!" blue for the kitchen.

For the longest time, I've held onto this clipping from Domino magazine for color inspiration. Every time I crack open my inspiration sketchbook and see this picture glued down to it's pages, I smile. I knew this was the feeling I wanted to capture when you opened the front door to our home. Light, bright, airy.

The living room right now is an empty space. No furniture to speak of. It should be a piece of cake to paint and have the room grow around this color that I love so much (Benjamin Moore's "Pismo Dunes"). The dining room will have a lovely dining set early next week, but other than that, should be ready to paint some time soon as well. Now, the kitchen...well, I haven't talked much about the kitchen other than mention that it needed a real good clean-up (three days worth) when we first moved in. But that's not even scratching the surface of the kitchen issues.

It's the room that by far, needs the most work in the house.

-new floor
-new counters
-new backsplash
-replace old casement window
-paint the cabinets
-and eventually, run a gas line so we can install our vintage Magic Chef

Now, I've toyed with the idea of painting the cabinets. And family and friends have cautioned me not to do it....but the more I see all these gorgeous kitchens with white cabinets, the more my kitchen envy grows...

The yellow? It's staying.

2007-07-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

I got off the phone with my dear husband awhile ago, and he has decided that he now likes the color, has always liked the color, and wants to keep it. He thinks what is irking him so about the basement, is the flourescent lighting. There are plans for some kind of track lighting or high hats, but as of right now, the old flourescents are causing our bright, fun yellow to just scream bloody murder.

So, we are going to live with it for awhile. Lay the rugs down, get the shelves up, furniture in, the pool table in it's corner, art on the walls, and change those awful flourescents out for something softer, mellower. Something with a dimmer switch. Kyle's uncle is a lighting specialist, and hopefully he can come over some time soon and help us out by making some suggestions.

Ahh, yellow. You're here to stay.

We can't seem to escape the yellow

2007-07-19T06:10:00.001-07:00

So, just yesterday on this lil blog, I was bemoaning the fact that I don't love the yellow that is covering the outside of my house. But for some inexplicable reason, Kyle and I thought a yellow/orange color in the basement might be kinda fun. You see, the basement is going to be the music/game/hangout/pool hall/recording/office space for Kyle. It's his turf so to speak. And I know he was looking for a retro 70's vibe for the whole thing.
So, we got to paintin' last night. And everything started out fine. We thought the color was going to work well. It seemed cheerful and bright. Fun! But then we kept painting. And painting some more. There's a lot of wall in that there basement, and by the time we were closing in on being done, I think the excitement over the color had waned. Kyle woke up this morning and declared he didn't like it. And I had made plans for a yellow dining room awhile back. Yellow!! It's actually gotten comical now. So, needless to say, I might need to scrap the yellow dining room. It's just getting out of control, the yellow.

And Kyle already has his new, softer, mellower yellow all picked out. Yehello, yellow.

C'est fini!!

2007-07-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

I snapped the "after" picture before I left for work this morning. About 10 minutes before the skies opened up and the deluge of rain started pouring down all over our new roof. Well, if this morning's thundershower wasn't a christening, I don't know what would ever have been!

Well, I can say that I officially LOVE LOVE LOVE the new roof. The architectural shingles look lovely compared to the standard shingles that were on the roof before. And it's clean! No black mold or whatever that was that had stained the old shingles. All that's there now is nice, new, clean.Now, I know what you're thinking. The grey shingles don't jive all that well with the yellow shutters and yellow siding... But hear me out! The exterior facelift isn't anywhere near finished. At some point in the future (I don't know about near, maybe sometime in 2008?) we are painting the siding, the shutters, and the door. My ideas as they stand now are (and please forgive the slapdash Photoshop job I did) black shutters, red door, and grey siding. I want to diminish the appearance of the siding and really play up the door and the fieldstone. Make those two elements the focus of the front of the house, which right now unfortunately just screams "look at me, I'm YELLOW!"

Top 100

2007-07-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Baldwin has been simply abuzz the last few days with the news. What news you ask? Well, CNN's Money magazine created a list of the Top 100 Places to Live in the United States. And with this published list, somehow Baldwin, NY ranks #25. #25!!! Out of all the places in the country (and you and I can think of alot of towns and places out there), Baldwin somehow made the Top 100, and top 25% to boot.

Ok, I swear I'm not gushing this intensely to sound snobbish or strange. It's more about the surprise and happiness about it. We just purchased a home that CNN calls one of the best places in the country to live.

CNN Ranks Baldwin as a Swell Place to Live

Well, it's started

2007-07-17T06:31:00.001-07:00

As I walked to my car this morning, I turned around and snapped this picture. I wonder what it's going to look like when I get home?!

New Roof UPDATE

2007-07-13T05:53:00.000-07:00

Our roofer is coming TUESDAY! Tuesday, people. A big ass tarp is getting thrown over my house, shingles will be ripped and dropped to the grass and shrubs below, workers will be walking around on my roof hammering and making a whole lot of noise, the cats are going to live with Cori for two days, and I am deciding whether I should be home or just go to work.

But come midday Wednesday, we will have a very pretty, very clean, very DRY, new GAF Timberline Ultra roof. In Pewter Grey Blend.

2007-07-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

Something craft related might happen this weekend! I could plotz I am so excited! It's been a good couple weeks since I've done anything craft related, and that's just been too long in my book. So, what are the plans?

I am going to try and Gocco for the very first time!

Our old kitchen table has been put back together and repurposed as my temporary craft table/office desk. The room itself is still completely in shambles, and needs serious organizing and unpacking to be done, but in between working on that, I would like to attempt making our "new address" announcements. I've never sent something like this out before, but I figured why not. It should be fun! I ordered some flat cards and envelopes from Paper Source awhile back, and the Gocco machine has just been staring me down saying "USE ME!!" ever since it arrived on my doorstep all that long while ago.

This is the mock-up I made in Photoshop yesterday:
FRONTBACKThe flat cards are a lilac color, and the envelopes are a pale green. I am not sure what color ink I should use though. Red? Black? White might be neat, but I don't think that was included in the kit. Yellow? hmmmmm

New roof

2007-07-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

We need a new roof. We knew the roof wasn't so great when we first saw the house, but thought we had a few more seasons in it before it really needed to be ripped and replaced. Then comes our walk-through the day before closing and we see water stains on the ceiling in the master bedroom. ut oh.

To make a long story short, there was a quick, painless agreement at the closing to reimburse us the cost to get the roof repaired. Not replaced, but repaired (aka patched). This equaled about 40% of the cost to rip off the existing roof and start over. Patching this roof just is not an option. So, we called some friends and family looking for trusted names in roofing.

So, we called three names and got rather varying estimates. Who knows what kind of shingle is best anyway? And everyone telling you:

"this one's the best."
"Well, this one is number one in the Consumer Reports."
"You need a rubberoid roof on the low pitched part of the roof."
"No, you want to avoid rubberoid. You want to shingle that as well."
"Architectural or standard 3-Tab?"

HUH?!?!?!

But we are pretty sure we are going to make the final decision as to who to go with tonight, and hopefully we will be having a new roof installed as soon as humanly possible.

2007-07-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Just some pictures I snapped around the house

Shaping up

2007-07-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to shape up. Slowly but surely!

The den needs a few more tweeks, like wall art and some storage units to contain and hide the massive amount of CD's and DVD's we seem to have accumulated over the years. It's crazy to see how many CD's we still have duplicates of (Very Emergency by Promise Ring for example) ever since we officially "merged" collections three years ago.
But once the art is hung and the shelving is prettified, I think I can close the book on the den for the time being.
Another den story involves house injury #2, aka the "injury that almost was." I only heard about this story this morning. You see, Raz came over last night to talk about the top secret graphic novel with Kyle. I found this topic of discussion mildly boring, so I decided to head off to bed, at a whopping 9PM. Woke up this morning to my Keep Calm and Carry On poster out of the frame, and lying on the dining room table looking sadly thrown about. I asked my darling love what had happened. Now folkd, Kyle tends to sit down rather vigorously when landing on a couch, and well, this time was no exception. But my poster was balancing precariously on the edge of the couch, leaning against the spot on the wall where I wanted to hang it. That is, until Kyle sat down and had the poster come crashing down on his head, where the glass went and shattered all around him. Nary a cut or scrape befell him and that's why it's called the "injury that almost was", but poor guy!

Speaking of poor guy Kyle...some more progress was made on the basement this weekend!! He spent all day Saturday painting the ceiling. We hated the drop ceiling and tore that out, as you know, within the first couple days of being in the house. Once the celotex was removed, we decided to go for a more "loft" industrial look, (idea stolen from my sister and brother-in-laws basement). Anyway, it looks WONDERFUL! And Kyle came up from the basement looking like the abominable snowman. The thing that really makes me laugh is that, magically, where his goggles WERE is where the white paint IS. hehehe.

Lastly, I spent a small part of yesterday replacing the hardware on the kitchen cabinets. That's the ugly knob there on the left. When I was scrubbing the kitchen down last week, the one thing that just wasn't cleaning up the way I liked, and that just felt like they needed some updating, were the knobs. It's definitely an inexpensive way to update and freshen up your kitchen! I bought regular knobs for the cabinets, and cute retro cup pulls for the drawers.
Here's the after:

Ahhhhhh. Much better.

2007-07-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

I just picked up this tray over at day-lab. I can't even tell you how much I love and adore it. It's either going to live on my dresser holding some of my jewelry, or on my vanity keeping my bottles of perfume safe, or maybe as decoration in the bathroom once the shelving is in place. Oh, the possibilities!

Updated pictures of the kitchen and den to follow. Neither are done yet, but the furniture and appliances are slowly landing where they need to be, boxes are getting unpacked, and function is slowly starting to take over all the chaos.

Den Ideas

2007-07-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

Well, we have the extra room and I have never liked the idea of televisions in living rooms, so we are making one of the spare bedrooms into a den. I never had a television in a living room while growing up, and I find that once I was on my own, I just didn't like the look of it sitting there staring at me.

We are using most of the furniture from the apartment living room as the den furniture now. The Ektorp couch, ottoman, and chair are all going in there. As well as our simple little coffee table, my favorite ugly lamp, and my not favorite entertainment unit.
The only new purchase is the Expedit shelving from Ikea. I've wanted one of these units for a long time now, and Kyle called me earlier to say he's already dropped it off at home for us to put together tonight! I asked for it in white, and I think I might paint the walls white as well to have it blend a little. It's going to store all our CD's, DVD's, and some specifically chosen books. Ideally, I would like to buy some storage units like these from West Elm so that the unsightly CD and DVD covers are kept under wraps. Also, I am still in love with those curtains from Urban Outfitters, so I might need to swing by and see if they are in stock at our local UO.

I can't wait to pop our first bag of popcorn and settle in for a long movie!

Scrubbing

2007-07-05T08:00:00.001-07:00

When Kyle and I first saw the house, one of the things we loved was the original bathroom on the main floor. We loved the seperate knobs for the tub spout and the showerhead! The pink tiles! The pink sink! The etched mirror!

But it was filthy.

Then came the move in, and our first house related injury. While Kyle was finishing up the demolition of the basement drop ceiling, he stepped on a nail. And consequently got the bathroom even dirtier with his bloody foot and dirty shoes. All in all, the bathroom screamed YUCK! EWW! GROSS!

So, while I was busy scrubbing the kitchen, I set Kyle on the bathroom. He's a bathroom scrubbing MASTER! I just marvel at how focused he gets. He will scrub and scrub the same spot til it meets his approval.

When all was scrubbed and polished, cleaned and rinsed, I can't be happier with how it's starting to shape up. I can walk inside the bathroom now, and it smells clean. And nothing has a layer of scum on it anymore! I hung the shower curtain, put in some hand soap, and have started putting away the rest of the toiletries. The only things missing is some wall art and some shelving. Since the bathroom is so pink, we are sticking with white accessories and accoutrement's.

To-do list

2007-07-01T05:16:00.000-07:00

-new switch plates
-new outlet plates
-plywood for the two cabinets
-sheetrock the wall behind the cabinets
-scrub the hallway light fixture
-replace the kitchen cabinet hardware
-tile kitchen floor
-replace old casement window in kitchen
-~~Butcher's wax the kitchen cabinets~~
-~~buy new stove inserts~~
-~~run white vinegar through the diswasher and washing machine~~
-~~pull out fridge clean behind and inside~~
-~~Hollytone the front rhody and shrubs~~
-Weed n Feed the lawn
- ~~5 Force the backyard~~
-finish mulching the side beds
-Clean and buff the basement floor
-Paint the basement ceiling with the Wagner
-Get new downspouts with trays and extenders
-Smoke detectors
-Carbon monoxide detectors
-~~Scrub the bathroom~~
-~~Get curtain liner and new curtain rings~~
-re-grout all the tiles in both bathrooms
-investigate oak saddles for all the doors

And so on.

DEMOLITION!

2007-06-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Demolition is kinda fun!

Kyle and I finished the floors last night, but when we got there today they were still a little tacky under foot. And looking at the finished job in the daylight, we realized we have a ton of patches to go over now. Some places we just plain old missed, others seemed to suck up the poly much more than other spots. Needless to say, I have been charged with patching it all up by brush on Saturday once the floors have another day to really dry up first.

So, what did we do tonight instead? We went into the basement and started throwing hammers and crobars up at the drop ceiling and started yanking! Seriously, too much fun. Well, fun except for the clean up! But whatever. We realized in so doing this that we had another good 2 feet additional space above the drop! Woo hoo! And the beams themselves look to be in excellent shape. Kyle wants to get them painted this weekend.

This is getting to be addicting. I can see how people are never "done" with their house.

Some Things I Learned While Applying Polyurethane

2007-06-27T21:16:00.001-07:00

1. There is some gross stuff in the corners of wood floors. Like dirt, old carpet chunks, staples, old band-aids (EW!), a discarded nylon stocking, etc.
2. It's incredible how many spackle drops you can see on closer inspection that need to get scraped away.
3. When applying said polyurethane, watch your hair near the stairs you just finished coating.
4. It stinks.
5. It stinks even more when you are forced to shut the windows due to torrential downpours lasting all night.
6. It's really cool when you find an old silver pocket mirror in a closet.

All the hardwood floors are all done. Now we just have to see how many days it takes them to dry with all this wet weather and humidity. After that, it's on to more scrubbing...the kitchen cabinets, the bathrooms, and the basement floor in particular.

A couple things that need our attention this weekend are:
1. THE GUTTERS! WIth this rain tonight, we were able to witness how and where the rain is not draining properly.
2. The antenna at the top of the house. It's fallen, but got stuck on the roof.
3. The yard. Cutting the grass again, roto-tilling the beds, yanking out TONS of weeds and randomly weird bushes, possibly trimming back the sycamore, planting some daisies in the back beds, etc.

On Wood Floors

2007-06-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

Today was more window washing for me. More oil soaked basement floor for Kyle. And more floor sanding for the both of us. Inbetween all of this, we managed to get dinner over at Chris' house (we walked!) and had some folks come to visit! Raz and Veronica were the first people to ring our doorbell, that is of course, excluding the Verizon guy soliciting for Fios. When I told him Kyle and I wanted no more than the first 20 or so channels for the television, he looked at me like I was crazy. Anyway, in between guests and dinner, we DID manage to finish scraping and sanding the floors.

And I received a housewarming gift from someone at work today!

With all the dirt, dust, grime, and overall "uck" factor at the house right now, it was nice to set up something that's pretty. And rather inspiring me for colors in the kitchen to boot!