Three Month Catch Up

Three months later, I am making good on my promise and revealing my living room project and the new downstairs with new carpet, new paint and a new couch!

Life has been speeding along and suddenly it's June!  So, what's been happening the past three months you ask?  Well here you go.....

My living room project technically isn't 100% done, but to be honest, if I waited until it was actually done done, it could very well be next year.  It is done to the point where it can be in the living room and enjoyed and really only I would know that it's not done.

Feast your eyes on my lovely new living room chair:

About a year ago, this beauty looked like this:

I found this chair about a year ago at a garage sale.  It was only 25.00 and despite it's mustard colored fake velvet upholstery and slightly sketch/musty smell, I saw the potential. 

Due to the musty smell and probably more so because I just can't say no to other projects, the chair sat in our basement for close to 9+ months.  It gave it time to air out and I finally had the inspiration I needed to get going on the chair.  I stripped the chair.

Yikes, the snow outside gives away that I started this project about 5-6 months ago! Oops.

I then recovered it with fabric I bought the same time I bought my living room pillow fabric.  See living room pillows here.  The original chair had a double welt around all the edges.  Because I don't know how to do welts yet (on my list of things to figure out) I found this awesome nailhead rope at Joann Fabrics.  I used that around the seat cushion.
 

I then took some cording and put that around the back cushion and arms.

Don't you just love it!

During this time, we were also working on the downstairs.  Once we go the new carpet in, we had the fake wood wall panels removed and the walls smoothed out.  This is the same type of wall paneling that was in our upstairs office.  We had decided to remove the paneling upstairs by ourselves.  HUGE mistake.  The panels had been glued and nailed onto the walls.  I don't have any pictures from that project, but if I did, it would have been a dusty blizzard of wall board and plaster.  It was the biggest mess EVER!  Dave and I have decided that we are not cut out for that type of do-it-yourself project.  So we called in the professionals for this job and it was completely worth it.  Two days, in and out, no mess and it was done!  Amazing how a little money saves us 2 to 3 months of dust and frustration!  After the wallboard was removed, Dave and I painted, got our new couch and moved back in.  The space is so much better and now feels like an actual room that we own and not someones grandparent's basement. 

This is how the space used to look:

And now:

We love spending time down here now!

In other new and exciting things, I just started my own business!  LH Interiors.  I'm down to working two days for my boss.  The other three days I am on my own setting things up and hopefully soon, busy with clients!

My current project is redoing the craft room area and making it more of a design studio space for me.  More to come on that soon.  Or, hopefully sooner than three months from now!  No promises though. :)

Unexpected hiccups with happy endings

So I know in my last post I hinted a second project soon to be complete that would be added to the living room and I promise it is still coming, but not quite yet.  I have this loose idea of a timeline in my head as to when and what I will be doing project wise.  My order had a slight hiccup turned into a speed bump.

At work we have clients who are remodeling their condo.  They decided that they wanted to get new carpet and hardwoods throughout the condo.  Their existing carpet had to go.  I learned that they were looking to give it away.  My parents have a couple rooms in their downstairs that could benefit from some newer carpet.  Going off of the premise that this was yes used, but high quality carpet I told the contractor that we would take it.  It ended up being close to 100 SQ YDS of carpet.  More than enough for my parents to use and for Dave and I to use to recarpet our downstairs.  Such a great deal, right?  Ha.  Just wait.
Our existing carpet down stairs was a super thin, not comfortable, most likely commercial grade carpet with an oh so lovely brown, grey blue striped coloring.  See.

Last spring and fall we had some issues with rain coming through a crack in our foundation and getting the carpet wet.  We have since fixed that problem, but it left part of our carpet pulled up and fraying  a bit on the edge.  But really in general, before and despite the water issue, I just wanted new carpet.  Of course.

Through a turn of events, a family friend recommended a carpet installer that ended up being a new neighbor of ours!  Every thing seemed to be too good to be true: free, high end carpet and an installer who could give us a neighbor discount and install the following week!  Old carpet out and to the dump, new carpet laid and ready to be installed and then the call...

Have you looked at your carpet yet? 

Um, no.  (it came to us in huge rolls that need three grown men to lift so we hadn't looked at the carpet.)

You should see this before I go any further.  You don't want to pay me to install this.

Great.  Too good to be true.

Here it is the "good quality, high end carpet we got for free".  Thank goodness it was free.

All this to say, now instead of focusing on other projects first and possibly getting new carpet in a year or so, we get to buy brand new carpet now. Really, as unexpected as this was, I'm not complaining.  I always love new things that I get to pick out and make my house look the way I imagine it.  But still, this is a big speed bump in the project timeline.

We (really I, but I'll include Dave because he's the one who told me how much I could spend and that I could pick out whatever color I wanted so he's kind of involved) picked out new carpet.  We had to wait about a week for it to come in and it was installed on Sunday.  All in all, we lived for about two weeks with rolls of carpet in our carport, entry, hall and laid out throughout our downstairs, all waiting to go to the dump.  And now the new, clean carpet is installed and the used deceptively not clean carpet is gone!

The new carpet project rushed us into another project I didn't have down for at least a year or so, removing the ugly fake wood paneling that is around our downstairs.  This is being taken down in about a week and then the walls will be skim coated and then we'll paint and put all of our furniture back in!

So, now I have two promises:

1. I will soon be showing my other living room project I have been working on.
2. I will show pictures of the new downstairs once everything is done.  We also bought a new couch, so I will reveal that at the same time!

Here's a sneak peak at the new carpet.  Much better!

Here's to projects being put on hold, other projects jumping forward in the timeline and things getting updated!

Living Room Pillows

When we moved into our new house almost two years ago, we purchased a new sofa and loveseat for our living room.  Both the sofa and the loveseat came with two throwpillows each.

To me, these pillows are nice and okay, as long as you aren't a super picky, things need to look and work just how I picture them in my head type of person.  Fortunately for the the throwpillows, Dave is not this type of person and has been perfectly happy with the throwpillows as they are and could have lived with them the rest of his life.  Unfortunately for the throwpillows, I am just such a person.  Pretty much from day one their time with us was counting down.

About a year ago I found fabrics at Keepsake Cottage Fabrics in Country Village that was just perfect for the look and feel I wanted to go for in the living room.  I have been holding onto those fabrics for living room throwpillows and a chair that I am reupholstering.  Other projects, insert the never ending hall bath project here, consumed my time and I am finally getting to do the living room projects I have had rolling round in my head.

I am proud to say that the throwpillows are complete!

For the four larger throwpillows I was able to reuse the filling from the throwpillows that came with the sofa. 

I pretty much am in love with the new throwpillows and how much more color they add to the room!

The chair reupholstery is in the works and will soon, I hope, make it's grand entrance onto the internet!

I think I'm addicted

Looking around and wasting hours of time on Pinterest this week, I discovered a blog, Smells Like Home, that shares a recipe for the most amazing, highly addictive double chocolate cookies ever!  You can find the blog and recipe here. 

I did alter the recipe a bit to factor in my oh so lovely annoying need to avoid dairy.  I also made the cookies normal sized so that it made far more than the 12 giant cookies that Tara made.  I like to think that making the cookies smaller means I can have more than just one.  Right?  Because, let's be honest, I've had so many today I don't even want to tell you the number.  I think I've come up with every possible excuse as to why I need to have another cookie...Dave just ate a cookie, I should eat a cookie; I need a little dessert with lunch; they are quite small, so another one is okay. I even offered Dave a cookie, just so I could have another one.  I really think I have a problem. 

So I figure, it's only fair that I offer this amazing recipe to everyone else.  Here is my altered non dairy version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Crisco Baking Sticks cubed (if you can eat dairy, go for the real stuff, butter!)
• 1 1/4 cups + 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup good quality dark cocoa powder
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 1/2 cups semi-sweet Enjoy Life Mega semi-sweet chocolate Mega Chunks (dairy, nut & soy free!)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the shortening and sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Blend in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. On low speed, stir in the cocoa powder until well blended. Add the flour, salt and baking powder to the bowl and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula. Transfer the dough to a work surface and with slightly damp hands to prevent sticking, knead briefly by hand to be sure the ingredients are well combined.
3. Roll each portion of dough into a 1" ball and flatten just slightly into a disc. Place on the prepared baking sheets, two inches apart.
4. Bake 8-9 minutes, until you’re just able to lift the edges up off the pan without breaking the dough. Let cool on the baking sheets 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Seriously, you need to try these.  Go and make some now!

From Bathroom Gaah to Bathroom Glam

When we moved into our house, well to be honest, even before we moved into our house, I began to scheme on how I would remodel each room of the house.  The second time we visited the house, before we bought it, I brought my measuring tape to measure rooms so I could draw up floor plans.

Once we moved in, I tried to slowly ease my way into changing things.  Pulling down wallpaper, painting walls, some new furniture and a couple new pieces of art.  And then suddenly, my impatience kicked in and randomly one day I started pulling down the ugly fluorescent light cover that spanned the entire ceiling of the hall bath.  Thus, the bathroom model began.

I have to say that planning out a remodel, thinking about colors and how I want things to look and actually undertaking a remodel are two completely different things.  My dad helped out with electrical and plumbing, but other than that, I did the demo, tiling and painting myself. 

I pretty much gave myself a crash course in remodeling.  Did you know that using a non-powered tile cutter can result in a person going back to the store multiple times to buy at least three more boxes of ceramic tile than what was actually needed to tile the shower surround? Or that prepping a shower surround for tile by putting the mastic on the walls can be one BIG mess?  Putting thick, wet material on a vertical wall equals a large amount everywhere else.  Goodbye one pair of jeans, a mound of rags, probably 20 pounds of broken tile, weeks and weeks of Saturday's, a pair of sunglasses, a water pitcher and a plastic spoon.... But, oh the things I learned.  And now my next undertaking will be some much easier, I hope.

Here are some before shots:

When taking pictures, I forgot to take one of the awful fluorescent ceiling cover.  This is the only picture were you can see a bit of it in the upper left hand corner.

I appreciated my dad's help in this whole project.  I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done this remodel on my own (or for so cheap) without his help!

And...the end product!

I got the floor tile from Tile for Less.  http://tileforless.com/

 All other tile, plumbing fixtures, cabinet hardware, accessories, lighting and paint came from Lowes.  www.lowes.com

To save money, I had the tub refinished versus buying a whole new tub.  I used Advanced Refinishing LLC and I have been so happy with the outcome.  http://www.advancedrefinishingllc.com/

For the walls I used Valspar "Ironwood" and for the cabinet, Valspar "Journey".

And there you have it, my new love. 

Hello Blog World!

It's really hard for me to believe that I am actually writing a blog.  I remember growing up always trying to keep a diary, and every time failing.  I probably have five different diary type books at my parent's home all with two to five pages filled up.  So to actually decide and commit to writing a blog is a really big deal!

My goal with this blog is to have a place where I document and showcase my design work, mainly on my own home to:

1. Keep track of everything I am doing and the slow evolution of our house.
2. Get my name and talents out there for the whole world to see! 

Also, I might just throw in some of life's happenings to spice things up. :)

So here it goes.  It's official.  I have a blog.