Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Finishing what you started

So with less than 11 weeks until the arrival of baby Bryan, I'm feeling the pressure to get his room listo pronto! So far...his room looks like this. Half storage, half chaos...zero percent baby zen. But, before I could start on Bryan's room - I decided I had to finish Claire's room first. Long story short - we updated her crib (yes it is a toddler bed now and yes, she rocks it like a big girl), put together some DIY super cheap wall art, and most importantly did some organizing/consolidating/ donating of toys to her baby brother. Here's a few pics of her new big girl room. Enjoy! :)






Claire decided since it was her room - she needed to have her picture up too. :)




Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dining room switcheroo...

So here's an update on our dining room. As some of you know, we've overhauled a lot of the original floor plan to our house, including the kitchen, living room, dining room, master suite, etc. All that to say, in our before pics - this space was more or less a corner with a chair. It took some vision, but the project is finally finished. We built new wainscoting last weekend to give the space a little uniqueness. It is a part of our "great room" now - so it needed a little style of it's own. Hope you enjoy!
So here was the original space. Before this room was the dining room on one end (now the living room) and a seating area on this end (now the dining room). I know it's a little confusing. That door to the left is the front door to the house, so I wanted this space to really set the tone for the house. As much as I loved these original hardwood floors, when we expanded this room to include the kitchen, the hardwood ran into concrete slab. I knew trying to harmonize two different floor types would make these spaces feel disjointed, so we installed a floating laminate floor over both spaces. The bonus is that it's super puppy and baby friendly and doesn't have a single scratch yet!



Afters:

So for the most part this project was minimal. The flooring was part of our kitchen budget and the rug we repurposed from the living room of our old apartment. We went with mismatched chairs (super budget friendly) and painted them all the same color. The wainscoting should have cost us about $235, but we dug through the garage for leftover supplies from other projects to return and whoola...$42. I built and installed the wainscoting on a Friday, and the Chris puttied and painted over the weekend. I love that it was such a simple project. I have a feeling it might find it's way into a few more spaces in our house. :)


So our centerpiece still needs a little work. I just threw together a few items from the rest of the house to give the table a little warmth.










Here's a sneak peak of our living room.....shhhh.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

I know you've been holding your breath....

Here they finally are. The finished master bathroom photos. It was a lot of work, but we're so happy with how everything turned out!! Our budget was $5,000 and we came in at $4,920. We completely gutted the space, meaning walls to the studs and floors to the foundation. We added all new fixtures, ran new electricity and completely overhauled the existing plumbing. My favorite parts of the space would be the quartz countertop, backsplash and our amazing rain shower head! Hope you love the pictures, meanwhile, we've been busy on other projects - so expect more updates soon! 


 Just so you don't have to flip back, here's a couple of before pictures:





Here's the after:



So as you know we finished the whole project without hiring any professional help! This vanity is a custom-built that my mom made in her shop! Can you say mother of the year award. The hardware and lighting are from myknobs.com, and the rest of this space is brought to you by Lowe's and Home depot.


These wood blinds were $26 at Home Depot, and they made such a huge difference!! The shelves are simple little additions from Target. Cute, but I wouldn't put my library on them!! I bet Ikea ones would be stronger. :)


You can see a little of the shower curtain here which I made form Dwell Studio fabric. We added a curved shower rod which makes our shower feel huge!


Our "rain" shower head from Delta! This was one our splurges, but it is amazing! Also the handle for the shower head holds it temperature setting which means no more guessing where it should go - just turn on the pressure and you're done!
Thanks to all our friends and family that helped with inspiration, lending a paintbrush and much needed encouragement when the project became a little overwhelming!