Posted by Amber on December 10, 2009 – 7:00 am
When we went to pick out a Christmas tree on Saturday, I knew I wanted to put it in the library, but there was one small problem. The ceiling in the library still needed painting AND it was filled with boxes. Here’s how it looked before I went to town unpacking crap::
A complete mess. For some reason, I decided that I wasn’t going to unpack any books until the room had been painted, the flooring replaced and we built (BUILT!) bookshelves. Well, that only lasted about…2 months? The urge to have a christmas tree ran over the urge to have boxes in the center of the room. So here’s what it looks like now.
Not perfect by any means, and the tree in the photo has yet to be decorated, but you get the idea. The books stacked along the wall are kinda charming. We are no longer living with those boxes. They are gone. Well I wish they were gone, they are currently sitting in the garage waiting to be taken to the recyclable place. Anyway, tree is up and the library is a place we can sit and enjoy the view of the cul-de-sac while sitting on our awesome green thrift store couch.
Posted by Amber on November 24, 2009 – 7:00 am
Here’s our fireplace in the downstairs living room. After painting the wall white (Zen Garden Sand by Martha Stewart carried by Valspar), the fireplace just kind of faded into the wall. The mantle is nothing to get really excited about, but it’s not hideous. I wanted to go with a black mantle, to break up the white and blend in with the black insert.
Here’s the finished look. I went with Benjamin Moore’s Black Satin paint in a semi-gloss. It went on like a dream and no one even thinks the mantle was ever white. Even Jason came home after I painted it and took him about 10 minutes to realize that it wasn’t white anymore. It certainly looks a lot cleaner in black.
Posted by Amber on November 13, 2009 – 7:00 am
I guess you could say that this is more of a office furniture upgrade. The office still has a lot of work that needs to be done(ahem…like paint and a floor…)
Lets set the stage. The office is really our unfinished room over the garage. It currently has a plywood floor and plastered Sheetrock walls. It’s one of the many rooms that we are working on getting up to par. But it’s heated and huge, so we have been using it like it was a normally floored and painted room.
Here is our sad little computer work station before the trip to Ikea. Pitiful, ain’t it? The pink table is really a vintage vanity I got for Christmas one year back in high school years. I painted it that great pink, but it has seen better days. It’s been our computer table since 2007. That’s our dinosaur desktop PC(not that old really, but acts like it) that we hope to replace soon on top of it. The striped boxes aren’t of any importance. They are holding some DVDs from the move (they aren’t staying in the space).
Here’s the after. A nice large and stylish work station. The great chair + rug combo to make a comfy seating area. Please ignore the walls and the floor. We haven’t decided if the location of the items are going to stay in that spot, but for now it works well. A big difference from that itty bitty desk and stationary chair. I’m happy to say I’m blogging from that chair right now!
Posted by Amber on October 24, 2009 – 8:00 am
The before is our front door when we moved in. Really ::yawn:: boring. A door that matches the shutters and that matches everyone else’s front door on the street. It was the first thing I wanted to paint when we moved in. When we moved into our first house, the first thing I did was paint the front door red. This time, I have yellow on my brain. I painted it Bold Yellow by Benjamin Moore. It took 4 coats of yellow and a base coat of primer to get rid of that black. We also replaced the old brass door knob and bolt lock with a new shiny one. Big improvement!
Posted by Amber on October 20, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Why do we need a hand rail to get up the stairs?
We don’t!
Ah…the small changes that make such a difference.