Our home before's and after's

View of our home...

2011-02-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

We live in a cozy 1100 sq ft 1950's split level with the typical first floor living room-kitchen-dining room set up. These are some shots on a clean day :) The kitchen renovation is the next post below as it was an adventure unto itself.

Our bedroom make over...

2011-01-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

My bedroom. Gah.

I am not going to lie to you. The before picture is a whole lotta ugly.

I actually cringe when I look at it; I'm actually embarrassed.

Let me tell you, when you have 3 kids in 5 years, it messes with you.

Our bedroom was a dumping ground. We painted it in 2000 when we moved in and that was it. From there it was just a mish-mosh of what we had, I would hardly even make the bed because I could never get back in there during the day. I would literally get up, throw stuff in there and go. I was so busy trying to make every other space nice, I kind of forgot about the most important one. Ours.

Before... Gah...

When this company sent me some paint to try; I knew it was time to get off my fanny and finally make our space nice for us.

With fresh coats of paint, new lamps and vintage finds, here's what I ended up with.

After

The vintage curtains, mirrors, and vintage embellishments make the space personal.

I already had the one nightstand and found the other on Craigslist. I then painted them to match, but I am okay with the different handles. I didn't want them to be matchy-matchy.

It's still our old headboard, you can see the make over here.

The drapes were a vintage Farm Chicks find. You can read about how I cut the panels here.

I love the contrast of the dark furniture. It was a neighborhood curbside find that my hubby refinished about 6 years ago.

The lamps are from Homegoods and the metal flower piece was a very ugly gold yard sale find I spray painted white. The two matching mirrors were a flea market find.

Total cost was about $300 not including paint.

Kid's bedroom makeover

2011-01-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

My girl's room has been Lenox Tan for over a year now. I love non-traditional colors for kids rooms. I wanted something that could work for all 3 of my girls. Since it is a tiny room, I wanted it to be non-claustrophobic and and very calming. I was very excited to see that tans are coming back in style.

And I was totally inspired by super-talented Tara's use of paper butterflies. I had to be a copy cat. :)

I painted all of the garage sale frames I had accumulated over the years.

And then collaged them on the walls. The paper butterfly's are just cutouts from book pages stuck on with a bit of foam tacky tape.

The headboards were a church sale find. $20 for both. The footboards are in storage until they have bigger rooms.

I am trying to decide what to do about the valances, if I keep them or not.

I found this bamboo birdcage for $8 and painted it white, hung it on a ribbon from the ceiling and added some little flutterby's. It's kind of neat because when the windows are open it drifts just a bit and the little wings kind of flap in the breeze.

The best part is; I took the book pages from a copy of "Little Women."

And the reason the beds are slightly off center is the little peanut sleeps over in the corner.

Someday when she get s big girl bed we are going to have to reconfigure the room a bit; but we'll make it work.

You can read more about this room featured on Design Sponge

Our kitchen remodel...

2011-01-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the "Oak Cave."

This room has hardly any natural light and the cabinets were light suckers. The minute we do the roof a Solatube skylight is going in.

We had that plasticky laminate floor, and if you notice, the people who put the cabinets in ( two- owners ago) didn't: 1. line up any of the top cabinets and 2. shoved the stove right up against the wall so there was no right-side work space.

Our kitchen is only about 7 x 11 with the cabinets. We had not planned on doing a remodel until the kids were much bigger. A burst pipe over the summer and mold changed all that.

I kept smelling a smell, like a faint, stinky dampness, and having some weird tummy upsets after the burst pipe and the floor felt funny under my feet. We had the inside bottom of the sink cabinet ripped out to see what was underneath and eh amount of water damage I found was incredible. My heart sank when I realized the amount of water damage there was. Not to mention that it was a sink drain pipe so it was basically food waste water.

I interviewed 6 contractors till I found one I could work with and went with our budget. He wasn't lowest bid, and he wasn't the highest, but he was the right one for us and he did beautiful work (Klaske construction, Dekalb, IL).

We had to replace the bottom cabinets as they were water damaged but couldn't afford to replace the uppers.

When the floor came out we saw why there was such a small. This was October and the flooring was still wet under all of the layers of old vinyl flooring. The wood was composting. Two layers of wet stinky mushroomy ick. I cried. A lot.

Then when all of the bad flooring was out; I felt relief like I hadn't in months.

Can you see how bad the flooring is under where the sink was? All of that rotten floor was hidden.

We could not afford to replace the top cabinets, so we opted to paint them and have the new cabinets come unfinished so we could match them.

I scrubbed every last board with vinegar, soap and Borax.

Our contractor reconfigured the upper cabinets around for us so we could gain that right sided work space, and the kids didn't risk the chance of burning themselves coming right up the stairs.

Once plywood went in, I kind of missed the wide planked subfloor. :) I wanted to go as low VOC as possible so I opted for plywood as sub-floor over OSB. Same as the cabinets. We paid a bit more for plywood backs instead of pressboard.

We also knew we wanted to go with real wood this time. We opted for what's known as "grade 2" rustic red oak,or the cheap stuff, but we love it. it has knot holes and dings and it's full of character.

After the flooring went in, the cabinets went over the top. Some how I missed this step. We added trim to the bottom of the cabinets before we painted. Sometimes it was such a rush to get things done between the contractors steps.

Stone was out of our budget and laminate off-gasses VOC's for up to 7 years, plus it's not a recyclable or biodegradable material so we went with wood countertops. I also found a sink made with 93 % recycled materials for under $200. Being eco -friendly is REALLY HARD on a budget, so it's about the best choices for you.

We were lucky, these stair treads were already under the old carpet. So we had them refinished to match the floor.

The color is a mixture of dark brown and mahogany. I knew I wanted dark, rustic floors. The refinishing products were all low-VOC as well . Though, I still thought they smelled.

One of the really big decisions we made in our kitchen was to actually remove some cabinets. I wanted character and storage and I didn't just want more painted cabinets.

This hutch was a $200 Craigslist find. I did want something old; but the $900 one I loved from the flea market broke the bank. By putting in the hutch, I actually gained more organized storage, and it gave us a few more inches as standard cabinets are 24 inches and the hutch is only 19. Plus, the average cabinet is roughly $250 per cabinet. That would've been almost $1000 for the same storage!

I picked the color Bennington Grey from Benjamin Moore paints and had it mixed in their Aura line. It's a great taupe-y grey color, that has a bit of a warmish-green under-tone. The base color is BM Linen white the same as the cabinets, only flat instead if satin.

Originally, I tried green on the cabinets, but I just wasn't feeling it. I really wanted to bring some color in.

I decided to do it with the hutch.

I also decided to NOT put knobs on the upper cabinets so there is not as much attention on the fact the upper cabinets are so wonky.

To take the grain down on the cabinets, after sanding, I puttied over the deeper ones with wood putty and sanded again till smooth.
The last step was adding the now painted and distressed hutch,saying bye to the boob light and hanging my grandmother's rewired chandelier. We added a embellished element to cover up the gap with the old light and new light.

The hutch has felt sliders on the bottom so I can scoot it with out worrying about scratching the floor.

I added some crystal knobs in the little space between the hutch and pantry for my aprons.

The Westham sign is a family thing. We still need to do crown molding, but that will be next summer.

We removed the wood piece over the sink and replaced it with corbels we found on-line. It was a really inexpensive up-grade. And I needed a spot for my dish towel, So why not a towel bar on the front of the cabinet?

I also didn't want a big hunk of brown wood for a back splash, so we used trim.

The countertops need to be oiled with a sealer every few months. Mostly around the sink 's wet all of the time. The other part I do twice a year. You put it on and it dries overnight. You can tell because the water beads right up. The best part is when your coffee maker overheats and smokes about a week after they are installed and leaves a burn mark, you can just sand it right out and reseal.

And so even though there are still little things we need to do, it's mostly finished. I really want marble top for my island for bread and pasta making, and some day some new appliances, but I love the brightness the white brings.

You can read more about my kitchen on my main blog here.

and here