Living Room Reveal

Once the floors were done, after furniture was moved in (and around) and boxes were unpacked, it was time to get busy putting the living room together. 

It is much easier to live with the kitchen a wreck and a blue bathroom when you have at least one room that feels cozy and like home.

And it feels great to have something finished.

We took the best of the big house living room, moved some of it downstairs, updated a few pieces of furniture, moved a few things from other spaces and made this little living room our very own.

We started with the walls - Painting them Filtered Shade by Valspar (Lowe's). It is the perfect shade of warm gray - not bluish, not greenish, not purplish. The trim is painted Bistro White (also by Valspar). 

Eventually we will paint the kitchen the same color.

Hero made this fireplace for me several years back for Christmas. We never had a fireplace and I had always loved how homey they look. This little cutie has candles and Christmas string lights to give off that fireplace glow. In the big house, which had a fireplace in the great room, we used this in our bedroom. Feels good to share it again in the living room.

I love the gallery wall. I love how personal it makes the room. Anyone can have the couch or the table, but that is our family and our history up there.

Hero made that coffee table. It opens up to store stuff (like magazines) and the bins underneath hold a bunch of games. 

This photo was taken in the middle of the pillow recovering project. The green one on the left recently underwent a transformation here.

That little table on the right came from an estate sale a few years back for just $5. 

The trunk on the left came from a garage sale for $10.

New pillow! Makes a difference.

The trunk link above tells the story of the coffee table and the cabinet in front of the window, too. 

We have had a few comments about the white furniture. They are slip covers - just toss them in the wash. We have done it a few times and they come out awesome. 

Here is a close up of that little pillow on the chair. I ordered this fabric from fabric.com, someplace new for me. It is great quality and pretty inexpensive. (Just saying.)

And here we are back around to this side of the room. 

Check out that office.

And that cute baby.

The rug came from Lowe's. We wanted something subtle and this one was made for the space.

We love our cute cozy living room!

For whatever reason, I do not have any official photos of the living room before it belonged to the Murphys. 

But I did capture this apparently very fun furniture assembly moment that Alex and Brenden had.

Check out those beige walls. Very not what we were going for. 

And see those brackets along the back wall? Those held a massive oak looking shelf, left for us by the previous owner. I think we did not get a picture of that because that was one of the first things to go.

We had a great time getting all this together and making this living room feel like home.

I Missed My Chalkboard

After a really long time of admiring chalk boards in all their varieties, Hero and I finally decided to put one up in our big house. I loved it! It was mounted to the door to the basement, right in the kitchen. I had visions of clever quotes and neat artwork - And we did some of that. It was lots of fun.

And then we sold the big house about 5 months later.

Rats.

I did not get that chalkboard thing out of my system though. I still admired them and was feeling the itch to get another one up.

Here is the lumber. A thin board and some trim. Pretty simple stuff here.

I broke out my favorite white - Bistro White from Lowe's. I started with a coat on the trim and they were looking good.

I headed outside to spray the board with this way fun chalkboard paint. I did spray a few coats of regular old black paint to cover the board, sort of like a primer. We have about a million half empty cans of regular old black and I was hoping to get rid of one. But no such luck - I did not empty it, so back in the box it went with the rest of them.

Back inside to finish up the trim while the board dried. This went on for a while - back and forth to paint and wait till it was dry enough to paint the next coat.

All that time, Hero patiently waited on me so he count mount it. 

Here it is in all it's glory! The perfect place was on the door to the basement, right in the kitchen. 

Sound familiar?

Hero used little tiny nails (and a nail gun) to hold that baby up there. It is so fun to have a chalkboard again. After I prepped it (by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk over the entire thing and then erasing) I got my first message up there:

Side note - Although the picture does not show in full depth the amount of paint on my feet, you may want to take a tip from me about proper footwear during spray painting. Flip flops will leave a flip flop line if that is what you choose to wear.

But you may like that look.

Also, be prepared for the scungy nail look when spray painting with a dark color. Although Hero has a huge supply of latex/non-latex gloves at my disposal, they are a little too big. When I wore them to spray, the tip of the glove would hang over just enough to collect paint and drip on my board. Ugh.

There are also cool (and very useful) spray can sprayers that you can attach to the top of the can to spray. They make spraying loads easier.

We have one. 

Somewhere. 

But I could not waste time looking for it when I had a chalkboard to paint.

It only took about five days for the grease monkey look to go away.

No problem.

Whole Lot of Blue

I have a hard time when I consider my favorite color. I have good feelings about all the colors, even non-colors like white, gray and black. They all have goodness in them.

But if I really, really had to choose, I would choose blue.

Good thing, too, because I have a blue bathroom.

Blue floor.

Blue walls.

Blue tub.

Blue toilet.

Blue sink.

Blue counter.

Blue towel bars, toilet paper holder, soap dish and toothbrush holder. These are all built into the walls.

And blue wall paper.

There is a little bit of accent going on here. Wood molding around the window, door and closet. You cannot tell from the photo, but this molding is nailed right over top of the original (painted) white molding. Can never have too much molding apparently.

The vanity is also stained oak wood color.

And if you count the light fixture, which is bright brass (and oak), we have another accent.

This bathroom is all original, except for the vanity, mirror and light fixture. It was built like a tank, and is actually in decent shape. Just. a. lot. of. blue.

We have future plans to de-blue this room, but it is not in the budget quite yet (kitchen first). But in the meantime, I really could not take it any longer. Something blue had to go.

And that meant the wallpaper. It's free to strip it, and we already have lots of the awesome Bistro White paint we are using throughout the house. 

Hero is pretty great about these kind of projects. I let him know that we are doing something with that bathroom, he questions me about who the "we" are ("Do you have a mouse in your pocket?"), is confident there is no rodent involved and gets all the tools we (he and I) might need.

First up, spray the heck out of that paper. Remember the stair wallpaper removing project?  Really, you cannot over-spray when removing wallpaper. I know there are probably some great products out there specifically for stripping wallpaper, but I have always just used water and it works great. And I already have water.

Good shot of that groovy light. Two bulbs burned out - so nice. And that big hole once housed a medicine cabinet. There is a big hunking mirror in the bathroom now. 

While I am tackling the wallpaper, Hero gets all that molding down, fills holes and preps the closet for a little makeover.

Extra molding removed and wallpaper coming down - looking better already.

Here is a neat-o view of the closet. Trust me when I tell you there was way too much molding going on over here. You can imagine where it was by the exposed drywall.

Did you notice the shelf paper? I edited this photo in the 1970's filter. It totally works. A little too well.

Once the walls are clean, it is so time to paint. White. Not blue.

We found this light fixture at Costco a few months ago for about twenty bucks. Not too bad.

It can be wired to shine up or down. That is quite a feature for only twenty dollars.

We choose down.

Oh, look at that! Less blue!

Those holes right under the window? No need to cover them - We added a row of hooks for hanging towels there. That one blue towel bar is not enough for our family. Bummer, cause I totally love that blue towel bar.

And the closet. All painted white, with new laminate shelves. And easy access. With layers of molding all over the edges, we banged it up pretty quick. Now it is a piece of cake to get stuff in and out of there.

The shower curtain is not blue.

We thought about getting a blue one.

Not really.

I do still like blue a bunch, but this un-blueing was a good idea. 

I want to keep liking blue.

Let There Be (Cute) Light

In case you have never tried, light fixtures do not photograph well when they are turned on.

Just a little update on the light going downstairs. Here is what we started with:

Nice, huh? 

I am pretty sure this is an updated fixture. As in, an improvement from what was there before. If you use your imagination, you can see this being used in the seventies with a little success.

It did the job (sort of) of illuminating the stairs, but not very attractive at all. When painting, I was none too careful, cause I knew it was coming down.

And here is the $15 beauty from Lowe's. 

What a difference - and it is much brighter, too. 

Little things like a light fixture make a big difference. The area feels pretty complete now.

Well, except for the not so attractive flooring. That is a project in conjunction with the kitchen floor, which we will get to probably after the holidays.

To see the rest of the basement stairs revival, check here.

Picture Art

I have this thing for old wooden windows.

Not sure how or why, but I seriously just love them.

My first old wooden window set me back three dollars at a garage sale. That is the most I have ever paid for one.

I found these beauties in someone's trash pile a few years back. I scrubbed them and hung them on the wall. They were perfect for working with a tall wall created by the vaulted ceiling in our bedroom at the big house

(Disregard the blue tape. Got excited about the project. I tend to forget to take before pictures.)

But here is a close up. I thought when I first discovered them I would paint them, but I kind of like them the way they were - Lots of history.

At the big house, I copied an idea from Pottery Barn, using big frames with a center picture, and some cutie hand-picked photos of the kids surrounding the center. PB used a super expensive frame and fancy mat - I used thrift store frames, painted black, and white poster board. 

I totally loved them.

But there is not room at the small house for them. That means a project.

Yay!

So, I created a new history. I painted the window frames.

That blue tape comes in handy.

I used a color a little bluer than the gray on the walls, left some of the past paint to show through and gave these babies a whole new look.

Just what I wanted! I love, love them. Again, not sure what draws me to them - The history? The symmetry? The price? Who knows. 

They would have worked plain, but here is the end result - A new way to show off my kiddos. Each one gets 2 panes. 

I have a little stash of old windows for upcoming projects - Another collection of mine.

I just love them.

The Stairs

The person who owned our little home before us tried to make most of the house neutral. It was his goal to buy cheap, put in a little money and work and then flip it for a profit. 

But for most of the house, all he succeeded in doing was making the house pretty drab.

But not the stairwell to the basement!

Just look at this lovely space. Really, all that pattern in one small space was more than drab. 

Not sure what though.

Patterned wallpaper and that lovely linoleum floor that is also in our kitchen. It was a good idea to hold onto that handrail - It made you feel a little loopy just walking through.

See on the back wall? The brown stripe? That is the thinnest piece of molding that has ever been available. It actually went all the way around, fortunately keeping the wallpaper from going all the way up to the ceiling.

The yellowy strips that are torn off are the result of just walking by, grabbing a little corner and seeing how far you could tear off. I figured each strip off would mean less work later. 

What I did not realize was that under that layer of wallpaper was another layer of wallpaper.

Um. First, who wallpapers the stairwell, and second, who wallpapers it again?

I know the answer to the first. Hero's mom. She did the whole kitchen with the wallpaper. But it was the late 50s and that was very trendy. The second? Not sure, but after scraping these walls, I can see where someone just might be tempted to wallpaper over wallpaper.

But not me.

See those little pieces? This is a great project for someone with OCD issues. You just want to grab those little things a peel away.

The funny thing was, the first layer of wallpaper was painted over, too. This stairwell sure got a lot of attention.

First wall almost clean!

The best way to remove wallpaper is a spray bottle of water, a scraper and boat loads of patience. Seriously. Just spray the heck out of that wallpaper, let it soak in for minutes (really) and then scrape. If you start scraping too soon, you only get little bits. If you are patient and spray every time you want to scrape for at least 5 minutes, you will get nice long, very satisfying strips.

Evidence of my patience - Big pieces.

All clean! Horray! 

A quick wipe down of the wall and we are good to paint.

I taped a paint brush to a pole, got busy with the Bristol White (Valspar from Lowes) and painted the actual wall (not wallpaper).

Look how glorious and clean and white and wallpaper free! 

I can hardly wait for paint to dry and I am ready to accessorize. It may be a problem. 

But, really, all those hours in the stairwell spraying, scraping, wiping and painting - I had lots of time to make my plan.

Hero on the job. Always ready to help with whatever I have cooked up.

I wanted to hang stuff on the stairwell - Apron, broom, etc. I searched high and low for a good hook rack, but did not find what I wanted for cheap enough.

Genius idea moment - I remembered this green board that Hero and I made a long time ago for another project. I had not seen it since we moved to the small house, but Hero had it in the garage, just waiting to be loved again.

It was perfect! And free! Even more perfect!

This space is sooooo much better. And functional. The little kitchen needed help from this area. 

This space has gotten on board with the neutral plan, but not the drab plan. No wallpaper needed.

It is little things like this that are making this house our little home.

Kitchen Window

This project was one of those kind of projects.

The kind that you know will bring fabulous results, but for one reason or another it falls farther down the list. And then something happens to move it to the top.

This is window in our eat-in kitchen. It is a great, big Andersen window that probably cost more than all the other windows in our little house combined. It is solid - we totally walk on it as needed (usually there is a table in there.)

But there were two big problems with it. 

First, the faux-wood blinds. When they were extended all the way down, they did not cover the whole window. This is a west facing window, so we need that coverage for at least a few hours everyday during the hot months. And when they were cinched all the way up, they hid about 10 inches of the window.

Um. Who's idea was that?

Oh, and the lovely sound these things choked out when raising them - worse than nails on a chalkboard, worse than a screeching kid, worse than opening up an ironing board.

You get the idea.

The second big problem was this -

We do not love the wood frame.

I know some love wood trim. We do not. Especially since the rest of the entire house has windows with white trim. (And all the doors and all the floor moldings. This space is not playing nice yet. But it will.)

Then we had a catastrophe.

The min-blind broke. Oh, this is sad. This is a problem. What will we do?

Rejoice! 

I got online immediately to order new roller shades (the same ones that we got for the bedrooms) and got to work getting those blinds out of our house. Trust me when I tell you that the window looked better already.

I got the Kilz out and got that window covered in glorious white. With just one coat of primer that was streaky and flat, I am sure that even all the neighbors could here the angels singing. It looked that good.

Holy cow! It is wonderful! It even makes the back yard look better. And it feels like the outside is coming in. 

So, so great.

And see those fancy stripes on our shades? (Which, by the way, do go all the way down.) They did not come that way. That is my doing.

While I was out of town for a few days, the shades arrived to their new home. And Hero, being the hero that he is, put them right up to surprise me. 

But he did not realize I was not quite finished painting - Just needed to do a few touch ups, including right above the shades. 

Rats. I thought I was being so careful. 

But, I have a plan for them. 

It is on the list, not too far down. Hopefully it does not become one of those projects.