Category Archives: House

Yeah. Like, FOREVER

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Posted by Amber on April 16, 2010 – 9:00 am
Filed under House

For Like Ever Poster

The decorating in the house is going slower than a snails pace. Winter was hard on us and now tax season has hit home hard. But I did get a chance to buy a frame for one of my favorite Christmas presents this year. It’s huge and awesome. Not sure it will live permanently on the mantle, as it makes the low ceilings in the downstairs living room seem lower, but it’s nice to have some artwork up.

BTW, I will be again participating in Ali Edwards, a week in the life project starting on Monday. Join me?

a room with a view

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Posted by Amber on December 10, 2009 – 7:00 am
Filed under Before + After, House

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::

library in a mess

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.

library

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.

lights! camera! santa hat!

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Posted by Amber on December 9, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Filed under House

jason hanging lights

We (Jason) hung the icicle lights up on the house on Sunday. It looks nice, especially since I got to finally use those boxes of netting lights that have just been sitting in the shed for years. We wanted to put lights on the dormers as well, but that may have to be saved for next year, or when Target puts those icicle lights on clearance. As you can tell, we ran out of lights just at the very end down there on the left.

all light up

craft area :: the plan

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Posted by Amber on November 25, 2009 – 7:00 am
Filed under Design, House, Projects

FROG

The “craft area” is really just a small corner in our FROG (finished room over the garage). Basically, when we moved in, the cabinets provided a great place to store all my DIY crafts and scrapbook stuff. I have lots of it. My first thought when we moved in was “Yay! An already built in craft area! HOW AWESOME!” I giddily started to unpack my junk when I quickly realized that this set up was a| not going to work b| not really inspiring. There weren’t enough shelves. The cabinet doors didn’t provide me with quick access to my supplies. The counter top was nice, but nothing else was really working out. I went into design mode right away.

Since this area is also sharing a room with a “den” and office work space, I wanted someway to close it off and easily block off the mess when friends came over. My idea was to install a curtain rod system on the ceiling so that in times of need, I could just close the curtains around the area and VOILA! No mess and pretty curtains! I also needed a good table space. Something large and study as well as plenty of storage, preferably open storage so I could easily see what I was looking for. Here is what I have decided to start with in the space ::

craft area

1 | It all started with the Circle of Life brackets(no longer available online) from Urban Outfitters. On sale for $5.00 a pop, marked fron from $20. Alas, I knew I had some open shelving brackets already. Point. Click. Ordered.

2 | Ikea supplies already cut and ready to install wood planks for shelving. All I had to do was measure and purchase on my next trip.

3 | Lack Bookcase from Ikea gives me a lot more sturdy open shelving. I wanted a pink one, but I will have to settle for blue.

4 | I wanted to recycle my old craft table by giving it a face list with the purple and black paint colors.

5 | A handy little work lamp to place on my newly painted table for those long nights crafting.

6 | Baskets and Boxes to help store away supplies and make the shelving not so overwhelming.

7 | Tundra laminate flooring from Ikea. This will end up going in the whole upstairs and eventually downstairs, but I wanted to buy enough to at least get the craft area ready for some furniture.

5 | Vanuatu Twilight Wallpaper from Anthropologie is really just a pipe dream right now. Way out of my price range, but it would be oh so pretty on the wall behind the table, bookcase and shelves. Anyone have a good resources for a cheaper version?

First things first. Remove the built in cabinets, prime the walls, make a trip to Ikea and install the flooring. I’m gonna be busy.

fireplace :: before + after

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Posted by Amber on November 24, 2009 – 7:00 am
Filed under Before + After, House, Living Room

fireplace before

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.

foreplace after

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.

Office Upgrade

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Posted by Amber on November 13, 2009 – 7:00 am
Filed under Before + After, House

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.

Sad little Computer Desk Before

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).

Computer Desk After

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!

Sunshine

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Posted by Amber on October 24, 2009 – 8:00 am
Filed under Before + After, House

9203 Front Door {BEFORE}

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!

9203 Front Door {AFTER}

Before + After :: Stair Handrail

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Posted by Amber on October 20, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Filed under Before + After, House, Living Room

handrail before

Why do we need a hand rail to get up the stairs?

handrail after

We don’t!

Ah…the small changes that make such a difference.

operation paint has begun!

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Posted by Amber on October 19, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Filed under House, Paint, Projects

Ahh...Clean White

On Friday I stopped by Lowes and picked up a 5 gallon bucket of Valspar by Martha Stewart Zen Garden Sand in satin. It was time to get rid of the girl scout khakis that was haunting the entire house! Jason got almost the whole downstairs done with one coat by the time I got home from work on Saturday. On Sunday we spend the whole day painting the trim, patching holes, painting harder to reach places. We only have one coat of paint on and it looks like we are going to need three coats to make it perfect. We haven’t even made it up the stairs yet!

Jason Working Hard

We did find a cool vintage Pyrex casserole dish hiding above the kitchen cabinets while we were painting. Very cool!

Pyrex

Hardwood. Kinda.

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Posted by Amber on October 16, 2009 – 8:00 am
Filed under House

COL_ColumbiaOldOakPlaceCherry_OOP103

This is the “hardwood” we have downstairs in the main living areas. It’s actually laminate. We’re OK with laminate. It’s not carpet and that’s all I care about. The laminate is made by Columbia Flooring Originals. The make is Old Oak Place Cherry. It’s not what we would have chose, but it’s not terrible.

Living Room

This view of the main living room isn’t great, but it allows you to see the floors better. It works well. So why talk about it? Well everywhere downstairs has this installed, except the library. The library still has the ugly Berber carpet.

When we met the previous home owners, who installed the laminate, they told us they ran out of the laminate before they got to the library. They said the make and model of the laminate was discontinued.

Not true. I found it very easily online. Turns out the company they bought it from was going out of business, not the manufacturer of the laminate. So it’s available, pretty easily.

I called a few places, the best price I have found so far is $1.99 per square foot or around $35.00 a box. Not terrible considering we have two whole boxes in a closet upstairs. It’s still going to take us around $200 dollars to finish just that one room downstairs.

The people I got the $1.99 price from wants me to pay $65.00 dollars shipping. They are the dealers, don’t have it in stock, but I have to pay the shipping. Really sucks. I spent a good deal of time online looking for a place that ships laminate for free. It does not seem to exist. One place wanted $1.94 per sq ft but wanted over $100 to ship it! I understand shipping, I was in the eBay and retail business for some time, but c’mon people!

Anyone know of a place that carries Columbia Clic flooring and does free shipping? Or better yet, a place within 50 miles of Charlotte, NC and has it in stock?