Painting and Re-arranging

Do ya’ll love to see pictures of the inside of people’s houses as much as I do?  How they decorate.  What colors they paint their walls.  Furniture style and arrangement.  What they hang on their walls.  Colorful accents.  Lamps.  Pillows. Rugs.  Throws. Curtains. Patterns and textures and how it’s mixed and matched to coordinate.  I love it all so much and I get so much inspiration from seeing what other people do and how they put it all together to make their house a home for their family.  
I hope you guys like seeing those things as much as I do because I’m about to overload you with pictures of my freshly painted and newly rearranged living room. 
So come on in!

But first, let me rewind just for a minute.
Since moving in to our house a few months ago, the living room furniture arrangement that we originally settled on has continuously bugged me.  This living room has been a real challenge because it only has one complete wall.  And naturally, we thought we should put the t.v. there.  So we did.  But that meant that the only place to put the couch was then straight across from the t.v., in the middle of the room.  And then there wasn’t enough room for side tables (because the room is so small cozy), so I stuck them behind the couch.  Kinda weird, but it worked out okay. I didn’t like how the entire room was centered around the t.v though.  And overall, the room just felt off to me and I felt unsettled with it.  I kept looking at it and trying to re-think it. In my mind, I would move everything around and try to brainstorm better ways to make the room work for us.  I’ve found that it often takes time living in a home to figure out what furniture works best where. And you kind of have to be patient with the process and keep trying until you get it.
Some before pics from my iphone: 

This picture was taken back at Christmas time.



After taking a few weeks off to recover from all the kitchen renovating madness, we finally worked up enough energy to paint the living room. (And when I say we, I really mean me. Tim doesn’t paint. I fired him from that job years ago. I’m a perfectionist and He’s not, so I do all the painting so it will meet my standards in the end. He does spackle all the holes for me though and he also takes over full-time kid-duty when I paint. So he gets kudos for that.)
So since we already had the room in disarray that day from painting and everything was already pulled out away from the walls, Tim agreed to help me try out some different furniture arrangements.  I just had to see if there was a better way to do it.  In the end, every piece of furniture was relocated to a different spot in our living room/dining room, except for the coffee table.  And the room looks and feels so much better to me now.
I always know when something is right in my home because my mind stops thinking about it and I can just relax and enjoy the space. 





Now that my picture window is finally hanging up above the couch where it belongs, it feels more like home here.  Before hanging it back up, I switched out some of the pictures for more recent ones of the kiddos.  I still kept some of my long time favs in there though.


The t.v. got moved over to the corner.  Initially, we thought it wouldn’t work well here because of the half wall (and being able to see the back of the t.v.), so we never even tried it out. But after moving it over there ‘just to see’, we decided we really liked it there.  And since the stairs going down to the basement are on the other side of that half wall, the back of the t.v. is barely noticeable. Now the t.v. isn’t the main focus of the room, but it is still comfortably and easily viewed from our couch.


Here’s a peek at the other side of the room; directly across from the couch.  This entire layout feels much more open and spacious to me.  And by moving the chairs over directly across from the couch, it is also better set up for entertaining.
One of the main ways I want my home to feel, is bright and happy. It’s why I like turquoise and yellow.


I don’t think this vintage typewriter could be any happier.  It was a birthday gift from Tim last year.



Did I ever show you guys my lockers?  I got these months ago when we still lived in Alabama.  I took off a few rows of doors to make open shelves and then spray painted the whole thing glossy white.  It’s now one of my favorite pieces of furniture.  I use the open shelves to display things I really like and I keep things like the kids Dr. Seuss and Berenstain Bear books behind the closed doors. 





I obviously have a thing for old books.  These (below) belonged to my Meema.


And although we have a real fireplace now downstairs in the basement, I still love my faux fireplace too much to get rid of it.  All winter long I turned that little space heater on to warm up our living room.  It always makes the room feel cozier.
Eventually, we plan to switch out that chandelier to something less “dining room-ish” (plus it’s a hazard to tall people’s heads).





And I still love my Katie Daisy print. It’s an especially good reminder to me when we’re having a rough day around here.  Because in reality, we have so many reasons to be filled with joy.

The Kitchen Reveal

The kitchen is done!  (Well, except for a few minor paint touch ups that I still have to do, but I’m not counting that!)


Before I give you the grand tour, let’s take a quick look back at where we came from so you can fully appreciate the transformation.
Looking in from the dining room.  Remember those dark red bricks and linoleum floors!?



And here’s the opposite direction with a look at the lovely wallpaper.



The sink side. More wallpaper.



The oven side. More red bricks.


As you probably remember, we initially attempted to do some of the renovating ourselves, but quickly realized we were in way over our heads.  So we waved the white flag of surrender and called in the professionals to get the job done.  Their part of the reno was the demolition and removal of everything (it was a complete gut job!), install new wood floors and baseboards, install new cabinets, and hook-up the appliances.  Our part was staining and applying Waterlox to the butcher block countertops, cutting and installing them, painting the walls and the ceiling, and putting up the subway tile backsplash.  They were done with their part in about 10 days.  It took Tim and I quite a bit longer to get our part finished.  But we’re finally done!
Here is the new view looking in from the dining room.  I love the white washed bricks.  It makes it so much lighter and brighter!



After much thought and deliberation, we decided to put the microwave at the coffee bar.  It’s especially convenient for heating up my coffee and the kid’s food at meal times and it keeps the microwave from taking up any of my very limited counter space.



Plenty of cups for company!






And here’s the view into the kitchen from the table and coffee bar area.



We’ll start with the sink side.
For the upper cabinets, I wanted some to have regular doors, some with glass doors, and some with just open shelves.  Down below, we moved the dishwasher to the right side of the sink (because I’m right handed) and we chose to have a few base three drawer cabinets instead of having all base door cabinets.


Pudge has claimed my new kitchen rug for himself.









Now on to the stove side. 
The day after we had settled on our renovation plan, signed the paperwork, and cut our first check, I read a blog on someone else’s kitchen renovation and she said that her favorite thing she did was enclose her refrigerator to give it a more built-in look.  And immediately I regretted not asking for ours to be enclosed.  So I made a few fast emails back and forth with our project coordinator and got that remedied.  And I’m so glad that I did.  It definitely changes the look and feel of the space.  Our refrigerator (that we inherited with the house) is a smaller/shorter refrigerator than normal, so we made sure to leave extra space around it for when we upgrade to a regular size fridge in the future.



It’s so nice to be finally done with the renovation and settled a little bit more into this house.  Slowly, but surely we are making this place feel more like home!

Farmhouse Sink : Ikea Domsjo Double Bowl
Butcher block counter tops : Ikea Numerar Oak
Countertop stain : Minwax Special Walnut #224
Faucet : Danze
Oven : NXR
Range Hood : Broan
Cabinet Pulls and Knobs : Restoration Hardware
Rug : Target
Paint : Behr Silver Drop

Kitchen progress… the little details

Going into this kitchen renovation, I knew the major things that I wanted… white shaker cabinets, butcher block countertops, and a farmhouse sink.  But when it came down to the smaller details like which faucet style or what kind of range hood, I hadn’t given it much thought and I really had no idea what I wanted.  I guess I initially thought that those little things wouldn’t matter too much as long as I got the big things right.  But through this process, I’ve realized that those little details do matter and they make a big difference in the final outcome of your kitchen.  It could kind of be compared to putting on jewelry after you’ve put on your clothes.  The jewelry you choose can possibly make or break your outfit.  Your jewelry can be really elegant or it can be very simple and understated or it can just look cheap or even thoughtless.  But in the end, what you pick does matter in your overall look.

So since I was pretty much clueless about what I wanted, I had to do a lot of research to really nail down what I liked when it came to these things.  I’ve spent the last few weeks searching Pinterest and reading kitchen renovation blogs to see what’s out there, what others recommend, what I think looks good, and what doesn’t.

In the end, here are the things we’ve decided on:

 

I really wanted a bridge faucet, but since we only have one faucet hole to work with, I decided on the Danze Single Handle Bar Faucet.  I wavered back and forth between a chrome finish or stainless steel. But in the end, I went with chrome, because I wanted it to have a little bling to it.  I mean it you’re going to have a nice faucet, it might as well shine and make that farmhouse sink look extra pretty.  And I also realized that every pin on Pinterest in which I liked the faucet, was a chrome faucet.  Gotta go with what you love.

 

We ended up returning our Ikea 36” range for the NXR 30" Pro-Style Gas Range.  A detail that we had overlooked was that the Ikea range took a 240 watt outlet and our outlets are the typical 120 watts and we didn’t want to add any extra electrical work than was necessary.  Plus I really didn’t need the larger 36” range with six burners.  A 30” range with four burners will be plenty big for our family and it will also allow me to have those extra 6” in counter space and cabinets.

And I love the look of this one better anyway.

 

Plus, look, it’s blue inside!

 

When it came to the range hood, at first I really didn’t have much of an opinion, but in an effort to make an informed decision and to make sure I would be happy with my choice for the long term, I did my Pinterest research.

I do like the big range hoods like this

via the inspired home

But, for whatever reason, Tim wasn’t much of a fan. 

And we are going to have cabinets on both sides or our hood, so ours would look more similar to this (below picture) and neither of us really loved how that looked.

via here

But when we came across this next picture, we both immediately agreed that we loved the look and that it would work well in our kitchen.

via here

The above range hood is a Viking and runs upwards of $1000, so we settled on this much more affordable, but nearly identical, Broan Pro-Style Range Hood in Stainless Steel.

I’m still in the decision making process when it comes to pulls and knobs.  I’ve already bought these from Restoration Hardware.  I love the pulls, but I’m not in love with the knobs and they may get returned.  I kinda want to do something a little more fun with the knobs.

 

 

I love what The Inspired Room did in her kitchen.  If you look closely, you can see that the top knobs are different from the bottom knobs.  It’s fun and unexpected, a little bit quirky and I’m really liking it. 

 

At this point, we’re still in the process of cutting and installing the butcher block counter tops.  Cutting them has been really nerve-wracking.  We measure, measure, measure, hold our breath, and then Tim cuts.  We still have two more to cut.  I’ll be excited when this part is over.  It’s too stressful for me (and I’m not even the one with the saw!).

Once it’s done and they’re installed, I hope to be back with a blog post about it.