Me, Ed and Pea

Herb garden on the wall

2012-02-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

We have a large-ish wall in our kitchen that needed something. It's looking pretty bare in there!

(This is an older pic of the kitchen...)

I toyed with the idea of putting up shelves to hold our cookbooks but also wanted something flat that didn't stick out too much. I Googled "cookbook wall" and found this one...

(via)

And then I read some of the comments below the picture...

"Looks like clutter."

"Seems pretentious."

and "This form of display seems a bit "too bookstore" for me..."

I don't necessarily agree with these comments, but it is interesting to hear what other people might think about it.

At the same time, a couple of people said they would use their cookbooks a whole lot more if they were out where they could see them. I agree with that.

Ultimately what made me decide to not put the cookbooks in the kitchen is how dirty I think they would get. I can wipe down my cabinets but books might get kinda...sticky...after a while. This is also the reason why I would never do open shelving. I just cook on the stove-top too much.

So the problem of my blank wall still wasn't solved. Until I found a little something at Ikea. (Ugh! Ikea strikes again!!! If you have one within two hours of you I recommend making the trip. I know people come from far away cause you can see them eating picnic lunches out of the trunks of their cars. It's worth it.)

What I found is basically a wall storage system that can hold potted plants. So I also picked up some potted plants and herb seeds at Home Depot. The seeds were part of a $10 herb garden.

The only small potted plants they had were lavender and rosemary - which is great! I just wish they had more! The other available potted plants were things like cabbage and broccoli... which I love to eat, but I'm not tryin' to grow a cabbage on my wall.

And up they went!

(Not enough potted plants meant stuffing some new dish rags in one extra bucket. And I still have another empty bucket to fill!)

And then the second bar went up.

No more bare wall! And hopefully some fresh herbs soon!! I already clipped off some rosemary for our pot roast last night :) I'm thinking of slapping a clock above the herbs to completely fill the wall.

I also noticed last night that the seeds are sprouting!!! I'm SHOCKED. I usually can't grow anything from seed. It's only the thyme that's coming up right now but hopefully the others will come along soon.

There is also some white stuff growing...ew. Is that mold? At least something is growing haha.

Side note: Some of my cookbooks have found a home in the living room thanks to new bookends from my in-laws. Still on display, but away from the sauteing and searing.

DIY upholstered headboard - part 2

2012-02-21T23:23:00.000-05:00

Back again for round two!

***warning: this turned out to be a rrrreally long post - should have made three parts!***

At the end of part 1, I had just glued the frame to the back like so.

Next came adding the legs. I didn't really see any tutorials for adding legs so I winged it. Most of the DIY headboards I have seen online are mounted on the wall when finished, but I wanted mine to be screwed into the bed frame like a "real" headboard.

So again using some scrap pieces I had in the basement - this time from the kitchen window framing adventure - I cut two 2' wooden "legs". Then I picked up two mending plates at Home Depot (under $3 each), 12 bolts, locking washers and nuts (under $5 total) and screwed them onto the bottom of the headboard.

Ok you got me............that's not my thumb..........

Ed was around to help (thank God!) Lifting the headboard and flipping it over multiple times by myself would have been pretty entertaining for the neighbors.

Both mending plates attached.

Next I sanded the top of the headboard so the frame and back would match perfectly - not sure this step was necessary...once the batting and fabric is on, you probably wouldn't notice that they were uneven anyway. Oh well.

Next came the foam! And upholstery adhesive...

Foam = $20, adhesive (from Joann's) = $10

I laid it down and cut off the excess.

Then I figured I would double up the foam since I had enough leftover.

Even if it meant piecing it together like this...

The spray adhesive instructions said for a permanent bond, spray both sides, wait till it's slightly dry and tacky, then stick together. This stuff was strong and came out kind of like silly string. I definitely recommend keeping it outside.

This is actually when I stopped on the first day - the whole project took me three afternoons. At this point, the headboard had to be moved into the basement. The foam was static-y and picking up every loose blade of grass in the yard. Just what everyone wants right? Grass clippings, forever sealed in their headboard.

Moving the headboard into the basement seemed like the cleaner option, until I discovered that a certain someone liked my new headboard too.

I shouldn't have put the headboard right in front of the space heater where Peanut likes to bake herself.

Anyway, once I shooed away Pea, I laid down a clean sheet and then placed the batting on top of it.

Queen size medium loft batting from Joann's = $18

Side note: I have no idea what "loft" means...thickness? I went with the medium loft since I didn't know what it was.

Headboard, on top of batting, on top of sheet.

Then I started stapling.... and stapling.....aaaaaaand stapling some more...

First layer of batting.

After adding a second layer of batting, I added the fabric.

Fabric from G Street Fabrics, 2 yards = $30. They were having a big sale and I had a coupon.

Starting at the top...

Then stapling the bottom and sides...

And then all the way around.

As I went around with the staple gun, I pulled the fabric tight and then sat on the headboard to squish down the foam. This made the finished headboard smooth and lump free. Things got a little funky around the legs. I just trimmed off excess fabric as I went and tried to keep it as neat as possible.

Et voila!

I was a little nervous about the wrinkly curves...

but luckily the nailheads pinned them flat.

On to the final step- nailhead trim! (or second to final I guess - still have to attach the legs)

I was really nervous about this part. It's tough to put so much work into a project that can be messed up with the final step! Also, since there are nailhead trim kits, I already knew that hammering in the real thing was probably not very easy.

And guess what!?

It's not very easy.

At all.

Here are my tips:

First and most important - don't stress! Unless you are a robot or superhero, there is no way the nails can be perfectly spaced. Once you have all the nails in, you won't notice small differences in spacing.

Use a real hammer. Other bloggers said you have to use a rubber mallet because a regular hammer takes off all of the antique brass finish. So I went and bought one and it was awful to work with. I couldn't see exactly where I was hitting the nail so I ended up hitting it slightly off to one side or the other, causing the nail to go in crooked or even break. Also, in order to hold the nail under the mallet, you need needle-nose pliers... the whole operation was very cumbersome. I got frustrated and just tried a regular hammer, holding the nail with my fingers, and it worked great! The finish stayed on fine and I did not tap gently. Each time I successfully banged a nail in, I would give the last few nails in the line a satisfying thwack for good measure.

Move around the piece of furniture so that you can hold down the fabric and nail with your left hand (if right handed) and staple with your right. This way the fabric and nail are held down tight and straight. On the left side of the bed I tried holding with my right hand and hammering with my left...yyyyeah not so much.

Buy an extra box of nails. They break and bend often.... use needle-nose pliers to pull out nails after their heads break off....

First....nail....in....only 200+ to go!

1 box of 20 decorative nails = $1.30 = awesome!!

Then a few more...

(see...not perfect up close)

(but looks great when you step back!)

(please excuse the surrounding mess...and how did Peanut's snowman toy end up under the headboard??? ...weird)

Ok. Now we're at the final step. I promise. Is anyone still reading? Longest post EVER.

The legs.

Using the excess fabric I trimmed off of the headboard, I half-wrapped the legs and stapled the fabric in place.

(I half-wrapped them because I simply didn't have enough fabric to fully wrap them.)

And then drilled holes and attached the mending brackets to the legs.

At this point, the headboard is fully supported by the legs. If you want to attach it to your bed frame, slide the headboard behind your bed and mark where the bed frame headboard bracket screw holes are on the headboard legs using a marker. (I just poked the marker through the screw holes and made a mark on the headboard legs.) Then drill holes in the headboard legs and attach with nuts and bolts.

And finally....another pic of the finished headboard!

And the covered legs peeking out from the side (hopefully soon to be covered by a bed skirt anyway...)

Ok last one I promise...

.....aaaand yes I did carefully arrange the jewelry on the nightstand...blogger nerd!! At least Ed gets a kick out of it :)

Total cost = $102.....actually not under $100! I lied in part 1 :( Close enough.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions fire away!

DIY upholstered headboard - part 1

2012-02-20T23:16:00.001-05:00

Finally a good project to share!

And I'm pretty proud of this one I must say.

First some inspiration pics...

Nailhead trim upholstered headboard by Crate & Barrel - $1799

Nailhead trim upholstered headboard by Pottery Barn - $899

Nailhead trim upholstered headboard by me - under $100

Here's how I did it.

I did a little research on making your own headboard and got some great tips from Kate @ Centsational Girl and Kristi @ Addicted to Decorating. I also picked up some general upholstering tips from Jenny @ Little Green Notebook. With this project some tips worked and others didn't, so I didn't stick to one tutorial.

Over the last several months I slowly gathered the supplies:

plywood

upholstery fabric

foam

batting

upholstery adhesive

staple gun

decorative nails

The plywood I already had. I don't even remember what project it's leftover from but I'm thinking it was part of the kitchen floor adventure. But if you're buying one, a piece of plywood this size is around $18 at Home Depot. First I measured the width of the bed and then the length from two inches below the top of the mattress to approximately where I thought the top of the headboard should be. Then I measured from two inches below the top of the mattress to the floor to get the leg length. More simply put...I measured from the floor to where I wanted the top of the headboard to be and then subtracted two feet (two feet from the floor was about 2" below the top of the mattress = 2' legs).

Then we cut out the rectangle using a table saw (for our queen size bed it was 5' w x 33" h) and I started experimenting with curves.

(the second line from the top ended up being the winner)

Then with a jigsaw, I cut out one side of the curve. It didn't go quite as smoothly as I would have hoped which is why I ended up with more of a geometric or hard curve than the inspiration pics but...oh well. Taking a tip from Centsational Girl's tutorial, I used the first piece I cut off as a template for the other side. This creates a perfectly symmetrical headboard.

Then, taking a tip from Jenny, I bought a mattress pad (egg crate) instead of buying upholstery foam. A piece of upholstery foam at Joann's that is around 2' x 6' is $100!! Ouch! An egg crate on the other hand is $20 for twice as much. No brainer. I bought my 1 1/2" thick foam mattress "topper" at Target for $20.

The next part involved some planning... There was no way I was going to be able to get a decorative nail through one layer of fabric, two layers of batting and two layers of foam. So I needed to make a wooden frame for the foam to sit in. With the foam partially recessed into a frame, the decorative nails would only need to get through the fabric and batting.

Using a long scrap piece of plywood (that we had just shaved off when cutting the rectangle) I used the curve scrap as a template again and cut out the frame for the top.

Then using the jigsaw again, I cut out the curves.

And used the table saw to cut out the sides.

Then using some good ol' Elmer's, we glued the frame pieces to the back and clamped or weighted them down.

That's the end of part 1 - swing by tomorrow to check out how I finished up the headboard!

Linked here:

A little friday fun

2012-02-17T16:18:00.001-05:00

Brandi over at His Shabby Her Chic tagged me! Thanks Brandi! I love learning more about fellow bloggers.

Here Are the Rules:

1. You must post the rules. (And link up who tagged you.)

2. Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post.

3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.

4. Tag eleven people and link them on your post.

5. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

Time to share a little about moi...

These are very shallow answers...in many cases I should say things like "donate it to the needy" or "wish for world peace" but hey, it's Friday afternoon and I'm just a really awful person. Haha jk :) I'm just throwing out whatever comes to mind first (maybe that means I am an awful person?) anyway, just be cool*

1. What are your weird habits?

Nervous fidgeting - constantly. Fiddling with my wedding ring, picking at a loose thread, shredding a post-it, whatever it is, my hands never stop moving.

2. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Such a tough one!! It's a tie between India and Australia.....and the Maldives.

3. How would you define your style (pictures are fine)?

Also a tough one. Less than a year ago it was 100% cottage/neutral. All white and tan, very monochromatic. Now I want as much color as possible and a more eclectic look. Hope I can achieve it!

4. What’s your favorite animal?

Peanut!

5. Do you have any phobias? If so, what are they?

Insects of all shapes and sizes. Actually only the big ones - I'm not going to run screaming from a gnat. I unfortunately live in a state that deals with cicadas every 17 years. Next time they come around I'm taking a month long vacation.

6. What would you do with 10 million dollars?

Quit my job.

7. What made you decide to start blogging?

After we bought our house I knew we had a ton of work to do and I started looking for renovation and design inspiration. That led to reading tons of blogs. So when we started working, I started documenting our progress with my own blog and it turned out to be a great way to keep our families up to date with all the changes going on at the house.

8. If you could offer one piece of advice, what would it be?

Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. (Hard advice for me to follow since I have zero patience for pretty much everything. And I'm from the East Coast......)

9. If you had 3 wishes, what would you wish for?

Patience (see above), more energy and three more wishes.

10. Where do you live (like state or city)?

Falls Church, VA - woot woot!

11. What’s your favorite hobby?

Right now I guess it would be blogging and home renovating...although those have been dwindling lately.

Have a great weekend everyone! Gotta run - I'll post the taggees later :) Thanks again Brandi!

*A Mindy Kaling reference from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns). Great book, highly recommend it!

Updates

2012-02-16T13:27:00.002-05:00

Just checking in...

Last weekend Ed and I went snowboarding in Timberline, WV.

It was so fun! Great conditions for the mid-Atlantic.

Then as soon as I got home....I got sick :( Terrible cold. It's to be expected since everyone in my cube farm at work has been coughing and sneezing for a couple of weeks. So no projects or house updates this week. Hopefully I'll be back in business for the long weekend coming up.

On the plus side...they installed Google Chrome at work. WOOHOO!!! I've been unable to read most blogs at work let alone update my own. They sent out an announcement that they installed Google Chrome specifically to facilitate employees use of Gmail, Facebook and Twitter..... Can you believe that? I work for a government agency so, now you know why nothing ever gets done here in DC ;)

Be back as soon as I'm able.

Big purchases

2012-02-09T06:00:00.015-05:00

Ok I'll actually start with a smaller one.

This guy...

One brass and glass coffee table courtesy of Craigslist. I know most people reading this will probably hate it....a year ago I would have hated it too. But after going on an interior design blog binge for the last six months, I'm in love with all things brass. This 80s goodness is back!

Living Etc. via Decor Pad

Bazaar of Serendipity via Decor Pad

Atmosphere Interior Design via Decor Pad

Shaun Jackson Design via Decor Pad

This was also a great find because it was only $40 - the rest of the brass and glass tables on Craigs were in the hundreds. It was listed for $50 but when I went to pick it up, the lady said she was pretty sure she listed it for $40....not going to argue with that!

Here it is with the rest of the living room...or half of the living room at least. The camera angle makes it look much bigger than it is....

On to the big purchases! 9' x 12' big to be exact.

This is the softest rug of all time. EVER. It's like we have a big blanket on the floor.

I'm sure it will be about as easy to clean as a big blanket on the floor too but oh well, I love it. This rug and the next one were both purchased from Overstock.com which I had never ordered from before. I recommend it! Fast delivery and low prices.

First, I saw a similar rug at Crate & Barrel....for $1300...eek!

Then I posted a couple of weeks ago that I was going to buy this rug from Home Decorators Collection...for $849...better...but they also charged $187 in shipping! Total of $1036....ugh.

But then! I found this one on Overstock for $576! Aaaaand? Only $2.95 for shipping.

It's so nice to finally have a cozy rug in the living room! Now onto the dining room....

Before...

After...

I don't think I like it :(

It's a fun idea....but maybe for a teenagers bedroom? I'm going to leave it there for a couple days to be sure but I think this one's a no.

It's sold out on Overstock now but it was $288 with zero dollars for shipping (Overstock is awesome!!)

What do you think? Horrible? Beautiful? Cheesy?

Where the heck have I been!?

2012-02-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

You know...around...hangin' out....

Not doing a whole lot of DIY that's for sure...

But I have been doing some shopping! Shopping's way easier than DIY projects ;)

Here are some recent purchases for the living room.

The bright red lamp came from Ikea and I found the fabric last night at Joann's. It was $7.00/yard on sale so I picked up two yards for only $15.00!! It's full of lime green, fuchsia and turquoise. So pretty! I plan to cover two throw pillows with it.

We needed some color in the living room big time. Everything is beige, tan, brown, tan, ivory....you get the idea. When I told Ed I was so excited about the fabric I bought and ushered him into the living room to see, he let out a disappointed groan and said "that's the worst one yet."

Well what's that supposed to mean Ed?

Ed says it looks old fashioned. And that it clashes with the curtains.

Au contraire says I.

He'll get used to it.

On a completely unrelated note I also made pea and potato samosas last week for Ed's work potluck.

Filling...

Finished product...

It's not my recipe, it's Emeril's recipe, which you can find here. It's SO GOOD. And it was so hard to make them knowing I wouldn't be eating them!! I'll just have to make them again.

Anyhoo, there are more purchases to share over the week. Hopefully I won't be MIA for another week and a half like last time!

TTFN.

Quick closet update

2012-01-30T09:09:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Just a quick update today.

Closets painting is finished and I decided to use Contact paper on the shelves instead of painting them. They're just painted pieces of plywood and pretty rough so I would have probably put Contact paper on them even if I had repainted them. After giving each shelf a Lysol scrub in the tub, I dried them and stuck on the paper.

Before...

After...

I got the paper at Target for just over $6 a roll. I'm so happy the closet looks fresh and clean now!

Tonight's simple task is to finish papering the other two closets. Then I suppose we'll have to get some closet doors...probably a good idea.

Cleanin out my closets

2012-01-26T23:14:00.001-05:00

Keeping up with simple tasks for four days in a row! Go me.

(Pretty sad that I'm actually proud of myself haha.)

The most recent task was done in two parts - Wednesday night prep, Thursday night paint.

Wednesday night - everything out!

Pantry...

Linen closet...

(currently cleaning supplies, tools and other junk closet....)

And the second hall closet...

Then I got out the TSP and washed, then rinsed all three closets.

Thursday night - paint!

We have been using the same paint inside the closets that we used for the ceiling: Behr Stain Blocking Ceiling Paint in Ultra-Pure White.

The old paint color just looked SO dull and dirty. YUCK. Next to the fresh white it looked even worse.

Unfortunately I ran out of paint before the job could be completely finished with a paint brush (corners and shelf ledges) but at least I got the majority done with a roller in all three closets.

Lookin better already.

I ran out of paint around 9pm and Home Depot's open till 10pm so I headed out to pick up some more. I didn't plan on continuing to paint, I just thought I'd get more so I could finish up right after work the next day. I also thought I could peruse the paint chips for some front and back door colors.

Behold!

Wooohooooo those are bright! Melon and Navy Blue by Behr on the left and top, Cobalt by Glidden on the right. I of course couldn't stand it and had to put them on the back door the second I got home.

More dingy dirty peach brown paint...it used to cover the entire house! At least now it's only on the front and back door and in the office. Hope to get rid of all of it very soon.

Here's what I think of the colors from left to right:

Navy

Kinda boring

Would go with pretty much everything

"Safe" (someone's been watching too much Project Runway and Work of Art)

Melon

Love it in the paint jar, not so sure on the door...looks too fluorescent

Goes great with the kitchen backsplash

Might be hard to find a rug that doesn't clash

Cobalt

LOVE!!!

LLLOOOOVVVEEE!!!!

But it clashed horribly with the kitchen backsplash. Sad. Sad panda.

So right now I'm not giving up on Melon. I mean, look how good it can be!

source for both pics

Ed likes the Navy cause he says it looks the best with the floor. We'll see ;)

Liebsterific

2012-01-25T23:46:00.000-05:00

As I said in yesterday's post, Teresa at Teresa D Boyd passed along the Liebster Blog award to me!

Thank you so much Teresa!! I love how Teresa posted one of her favorite pics from the blogger that gave her the award, so I thought I would do the same.

Ok I couldn't pick just one...

Great pattern combo!

Oysters Rockefeller....mmmmm....drroooollll

Floor to ceiling curtains at the head of the bed. Love it!

The Liebster award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers, to promote and encourage new friendships among the blog community. When you receive it you:

1. Post the award on your blog.

2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

3. Reveal your 5 picks for the award and let them know.

4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogosphere... other bloggers.

5. Finally, the best rule of all, have fun and spread the love!

Here are my five!

Kendall Simmons @ A Girl In The World Kendall
Courtney Lane @ Courtney Lane
Kendall is an interior designer and Courtney is an interior design student. These ladies can teach me a lot!

Beth and Jesse @ Je voudrais que

Beth and Jesse post about anything that interests them be it beautiful, creepy, unbelievable, inspiring or all of the above. I don't know if they have more than 200 followers but if they don't, they should!

Meg @ Nutmeg and Company

Gabbi @ Retro Ranch Renovation

You know I love a good renovation blog and both of these ladies are making beautiful changes to their homes.

Check them out and spread the blogger love!

P.S. I got a (spam?) comment from Mike i Make of Fashion by M&M on my last post. I checked out their blog and was immediately blown away by the background in all of their photos and thought I'd share.

Any guesses on where they live???? I had no idea. And had to look it up. Answer after the pics.

It's Perast, Montenegro. Yeah I still had to look it up on a map :) Must add Montenegro to the travel bucket list!

It can't all happen at once

2012-01-25T00:16:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed... now that the kitchen renovation is done, what do I focus on next? There are so many little odds and ends that need to finished...

Should I paint the inside of the hall closets so we can finally put our sheets and towels away?

Should I get a new bathroom door so I don't feel like I'm in a public bathroom stall?

Should I pick out a color for the front and back door?

....maybe I should just keep watching this Real Housewives of Beverley Hills marathon.....

So this week I decided to just keep it simple. Baby steps. All the things that need to be done don't matter. All I care about is what I decided to do today.

For example, Monday's task was moving my clothes from my large dresser into a smaller one that fits inside a large closet we have in the basement. Unfortunately all of my clothes are in the basement and Ed's are in the bedroom closet. What can I say, it's a 1956 house and there is one small closet in our master bedroom. Does anyone else have to spread their clothes all over the house due to lack of space? Anyway, a small task but something that needed to be done at some point...so why not now!?

Last night's task was finishing the curtains in the guest bedroom. I wrote a post a couple of week ago about modifying Ikea curtains. Well...I modified one set (two panels) of curtains and then stopped.

It looked like this...

One panel with tabs removed, one lace panel not hemmed...nothing else done. So last night I thought I would quickly hang up the curtain rods above the other window, hem the lace curtains and feel good having accomplished Tuesday's simple task for the night.

Haha....it didn't quite work out this way. I had completely forgotten that I hadn't taken the tabs off of the second set of curtain panels, and I realized that the lace Ikea curtains don't come with iron on hem tape. I may have thrown my head back in dramatic fashion and groaned ooooooh aaaaarre you kidding meee?!?! But I pressed on, and I'm glad I did. I hemmed four panels of lace curtains, removed tabs from two panels and hung two curtain rods. Again...not an epic accomplishment, but something I can cross off the list. (Btw...I noticed in a post last week that Sherry of YHL just cut the tabs off her curtains with scissors and hung them up. Makes me wonder why I went through the trouble of removing them...)

Anyhoo, now the room looks like this!

Much better than this!

(As it was when we first saw the house)

(and right after we had the floors refinished)

Slowly but surely things are getting done. One (baby) step at a time.

Tomorrow I'll be back to post about Teresa @ Teresa D Boyd. She was kind enough to give me the Liebster Award!! Thank you Teresa!! You're the sweetest ;)

Quick and easy project

2012-01-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

Not sure if I can even call this a "project"...but I thought I'd share it anyway. One of our wedding gifts was a knife-wall-hanger-magnet-thing and Ed's been wanting to hang it up for quite a while. So last night, he did.

Yay!

I helped by watching Ed work, taking pictures, and eating this straight from the pan with a fork (of course)...

I do what I can.

P.S. I'm sad that I can't eat chocolate cream pie now without thinking of "the terrible awful".

Indecision

2012-01-17T06:00:00.006-05:00

-------Check out the new update to the Cookery page!-------

I am having the worst time trying to make a decision on rugs and fabric for our house!

Mainly just rugs for our living room and dining room...and fabric for our Craigslist chairs.

I think there are two reasons why it's hard for me to pick something. First, rugs and fabric can be expensive and second, rugs and upholstery are not things I plan on changing out year to year. So I have to be sure that I absolutely love it. And as far as the chairs go, I have never reupholstered something so I'm trying to figure out what type of fabric I want in addition to what color, pattern, etc. After seeing some chairs like this:

via

I thought that velvet could be really fun. So I ordered some samples from www.fabric.com.

Pomegranite, Rust and Very Berry

Cadet Blue, Green Lilly, Navy, and Colonial Blue

If Ed didn't live here I would have already purchased several yards of Very Berry.

For some reason he doesn't want two bright pink chairs in his living room. Weird.

So my second choice was the Colonial Blue which (I think) is actually the most boring of the colors...except for maybe the Green Lilly. But in the end, regardless of color, I don't think velvet is the way to go. Look at allllll those little bits of lint and fuzz....

With one of these (modeling my bachelorette party sash)....

I think I would be lint-rollering the chairs every day. Every hour.

So the search for the perfect chair fabric continues *sigh*

BUT! We did finally decide on a rug for the living room! Prepare to be underwhelmed!

Wild and crazy right?? Haha. I love the braided pattern and natural color. I think it will really cozy up the living room and go nicely with the chevron curtains. We should have it here within the next couple of weeks!

Finishing touches

2012-01-12T21:38:00.001-05:00

Unfortunatley we haven't been able to post a final kitchen "reveal" because we got to the point where the kitchen was useable and then came to a screaching halt. We committed a cardinal sin of DIY....we started using the kitchen before it was finished! You know how that goes... you get comfortable (and lazy!) and before you know it it's five years later and that piece of trim (or whatever) is still not installed. Well we can't let that happen. The holidays are over and it's time to get back to work. Here are some of the things that still needed to be finished in our kitchen...

A door frame...

A vent cover, baseboards and quarter round...

and some more crown moulding.

We faced some challenges when installing the new door frame. The old walls were twice as thick (some weird combo of plaster and drywall) as the new drywall we installed so we needed to add some extra trim to make up the difference.

We also couldn't find plinth blocks that matched the rest of the blocks in the house so we had to get creative and make some. We found some trim that looked similar and then added filler pieces until it was *almost* perfect.

Not quite there...

Theeerrrre we go.

I'll have to put my sculptor hat on again when I touch it up with wood filler cause like I said, it's not perfect.

But I'm happy that it matches! You can see the original trim in the background here:

Next we were on to the baseboard and quarter round which was much easier to install since there were no angels involved. And we were lucky enough to find a vent cover that fit at Home Depot.

Then....we were on to the scary part.

Crown moulding.

Up until this point we had only cut straight edges for the fake beam in the center of the ceiling. But now we needed to figure out the angles to go around the fridge cabinet and cover the second beam (where the old wall used to be).

---Old shot so you can see the unfinished top of the fridge cabinet---

Nothing makes me feel dumber than trying to figure out crown moulding!! Time to bust out this pic again.

We made so many cuts on a test piece before we finally cut the real thing.

Also, to make things extra difficult, we had already installed trim on the center beam, and one side of the second beam which meant we needed to cope the crown moulding. Eek! If you don't know, coping is a process where you...well...it's really hard to describe. Here, watch this:

Basically you remove the extra wood that is exposed once you have made your cut. This allows the two pieces of moulding to fit together at a 45 degree angle.

So I bought myself a coping saw for $8.

And gave it a shot.

Success!!

It looks good in this picture but up close it's definitely not perfect. We will be finessing the moulding quite a bit with wood filler/caulk. I'm still happy with it though! The fridge cabinet looks so snazzy now.

Once we got the general idea, covering the second beam was a little easier. The kitchen's a mess in this pic but I can't believe how far we've come!

From this...

To this!

There are still some odds and ends to finish the finishing touches (aaargh it's never ending!!!) but we'll get to that final reveal post some day soon. I hope!

Modified Ikea curtains

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! Did everyone have a great weekend? Our weekend was full of crown moulding, baseboard and quarter round installation....super fun right??? Before I get into those details I wanted to share a quick project I did after work last week.

On one of my many Ikea trips I picked up two different curatins I wanted to layer in our guest room. This one...

And this one...

Since the walls are a cool aqua (Benjamin Moore Makaha) I wanted curtains that were light and airy to give the room a serene beachy feel.

The only problem was I wanted curtains without tabs....and the second set of curtains only came with tabs....

Then I started thinking. how hard could it be to remove the tabs? Turns out, not very.

Down with tabs!

Enter seam ripper!

I removed the stitches from the hem on either end of the top of the curtain panel to make room for the curtain rod.

Ignore the horribly chipped nail polish. Ew.

Then I removed the stitches attaching each tab to the top of the curtain...

and pinned the open edges in place while I removed the rest of the tabs.

Then I sewed along the top of the curtain where the tabs had been.

And hung up my tab-less curtains!

Layered with the lace curtains and bamboo blinds.

I can't show the rest of the room just yet (it's....kinda a mess...) but will post a "Progress" pic soon!

P.S. All of you other bloggers are amazing. I love reading and learning from your blogs and thank you, thank you, thank you! for reading mine. I appreciate every one of your comments :)

Reversible pillowcase placemats

2012-01-03T17:21:00.000-05:00

----First a quick note to apologize for the photos in this post... they were all taken with my phone since I couldn't find the camera and I was working in the basement which has terrible light. I will post another pic of the final product when it's sunny out and I find the dern camera!----

Over the weekend Ed placed a hot bowl of pho on our new table and it left a huge ring. First, I had a heart attack. Then I buffed the daylights out of the ring using a cloth and some Endust and it has pretty much disappeared....thank God! This incedent made me realize we needed some placemats. STAT.

Being too lazy to go to the fabric store and also not wanting to spend money on fabric, I started scrounging around for something I already had on hand that would make a pretty placemat. Then I remembered the sheets I had ordered to make curtains for the office! Each set of sheets came with a pillowcase which I wouldn't be able to use for the curtains project anyway. I also needed something to provide heat protection and give the placemats some weight. I decided to use the leftover interfacing I had from when I made the groomsmens' ties for our wedding. Perfect! Then I thought I would add a colorful detail with some bias tape I had in my sewing box....after sewing four placemats though, the bias tape got the boot. I'm too impatient. Anyway, here's what I started with.

Two pillowcases, interfacing, bias tape.

Cut through the hem at the open end of the pillowcase...

And then rip up the seam to the folded closed end...

If you do this project don't get too crazy with the ripping. It was fun so I enthusiastically ripped open the second side and ended up tearing through the middle...

Easily fixed but still...it added an extra step and now one of the placemats has a small seam through the middle.

Anyway, once you're done (gently!) ripping up the sides of the pillow case, you should have one long piece of fabric. Trim off the hemmed ends.

Next, take the piece of fabric and fold it accordian style until you have four layers.

And then cut through the folded edges to make four pieces of fabric equal in size.

Repeat the process for the second pillowcase. Then, using a ruler and pencil, make an outline of the actual size you would like your placemat to be. I went with 12" wide and 18" long. This left me enough fabric to fold the edges under and still end up with four placemats. Using an iron set on the highest heat and steam setting, press the edges down along the outline.

The corners will be somewhat visible when the placemat is finished so fold them neatly and press.

Once you have pressed all of your placemats, cut out a rectangle of interfacing about 1/2" smaller than your placemat and place it between two sides of fabric (right sides out).

Interfacing sandwich.

Pin in place....

And sew around the placemat about 1/4" from the outside.

For some extra structure and detail I added another line of zig-zag stiches about 2" in from the edge.

And that's it!

Hopefully now our table will be ring free!

Victory is mine!

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well.

What do we have here?

Remember that table I thought was long gone? Well it's mine now! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!! When the owner told me he was taking it off Craigslist all I could think is, it will be mine....oh yes.....it will be mine.

A day after hearing the bad news from the previous owner, I though what the hey, I'll send him another email asking if he's still willing to sell it if the price was right, and what he thought a fair price would be. Turns out he was still willing to sell it and had got a pretty low offer for the set from a local dealer. If you're a fan of Auction Hunters or Pawn Stars like I am (I know, super nerd) then you'll know that dealers want to buy items for less than half of what they're really worth so they can make a large profit. The clever owner told me he'd rather cut out the middle man and deal directly with the buyer. He also said he was going to turn right back around and put it on back Craigslist and eBay, but would hold off if I was interested. Oooooh rrrrreallly?

SOLD!

Sadly, it was not $300 anymore....but it was also nowhere near what the same set was going for at a local shop or online. So not a coup, but a good deal nonetheless.

And I love it!!

What a cute little chair.

I hadn't noticed the little diamonds before either.

Me and this table were just meant to be.

I was also able to finally put up an Ikea light fixture that I bought a few weeks ago. Not bad for $20.

It stunk though that the pendant light fixture kit Ikea gives you doesn't come with a cover or "canopy" to cover the hole in the ceiling. So after a trip to Home Depot I was able to install the new light.

Before.

During.

Remember, in old houses, red wire = black wire.

And another after shot.

Yay! Moving on!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!! I haven't been posting because I have been maximum relaximum. Total laziness! Kudos to you bloggers that kept posting over the past week.

Did Santa bring you anything good? Our gifts to each other were both snowboarding themed (not planned - just happened that way!)

Ed's gift to me? A new Rome SDS Blue snowboard. WOW!!!!

My gift for Ed was a custom vintage subway poster of every resort he's been to. He was stoked.

(bad picture - still has the plastic on)

I ordered it from Native Vermont Studio on Etsy. I definitely recommend this shop, they were great to work with.

Hope to be posting some more projects soon - there is much work to be done in 2012!

Happy New Year everyone!!

Cash in my attic?

2011-12-23T06:00:00.009-05:00

The last couple of days I've been on a bit of a mid-century modern bender. Searching endlessly for another deal on a dining set (or anything really) that was a good enough substitute for the table I lost. This searching led me to ebay where I saw this picture.

"Vintage Rid-Jid Space Age Pod Table and Chairs" $595.

Wait a minute......I've seen a chair just like that.....

Up there....

In our attic.

Helllllooooo.....

This cute little space pod chair has friends!

Three of them! AND a table!!

SCORE.

They're in pretty bad shape so I'm sure there's no way I could get $595 for them, but I don't plan on selling them anyway. We don't have any patio furniture and I can't wait to bust these out next spring.

This got me thinking...what else did the previous owners leave up here???

Turns out not much.

Buuuut I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

Some old gift boxes that turned out to be empty.

One was an Abercrombie & Fitch box that said "New York, Chicago, San Francisco." How old is that???

According to this source, Abercrombie & Fitch used to be an actual sporting goods store similar to today's REI or Hudson Trail Outfitters, and opened their third store in San Francisco, in 1947. It wasn't until 1988 that A&F was purchased by The Limited Corporation and started focusing entirely on apparel. And placing topless male models in their storefronts during the holiday season.

Over on the other side of the attic, I saw some old Samsonite suitcases.

It's all dark and dirty and creepy in the attic. I had to muster some serious courage to open those suitcases. And I didn't even think about checking out that scary black thisiswherewe'llputthebodies barrel. WHAT is that barrel....I don't want to know.

But I was pleasantly surprised!

(White stuff was just packing material to keep the ribbons in place.)

Such a cute interior!

And stored with such care. It's such a shame the exterior is beyond repair.

Little hangers!

So that you can hang your garments once you arrive.

via

Complete with TWA sticker.

Makes me want to watch a Pan-Am and Mad Men marathon.

Craigslist sadness

2011-12-21T06:00:00.014-05:00

****update: The owner responded! He had this to say, "Thanks for the response, but I discovered the table is worth significantly more than what I listed it for [$300 for the table and 6 chairs], so I have removed it from CraigsList." So annoying when they realize what they have!! haha****

Well the owner of the table I've been checking on every five minutes for the last 48 hours has still not responded. So I think it's time to call it quits. Was it sold to someone else? Was it that I said I wanted to see it first instead of just saying I would buy it? I'll never know.

Here is the mid-century dining set that would have been right at home in our 1956 raised rambler. (Such a sexy name for a style of house. Raaaised raamblerrr.)

The green would have to go. Some off-white/cream fabric would have brightened the chairs right up. Can you tell I'm having trouble letting go?

After deciding around noon yesterday that the dining set owner wasn't going to get back to me, I started searching around on Craigslist some more. I think I like ~~junk~~ Craigslist a little too much. I can search around on there for hours....literally. It's a giant online garage sale that I get to pick through at my leisure. My favorite items are ones that make me think Who owns that? and Where would you even buy that in the first place???

Things like this:

Yes.

That's a cow's foot lamp.

My favorite part of this listing? The seller's first sentence: "Please put 'cow' in heading of response or I won't respond."

Yes ma'am!

Here's another winner.

Only $400! What a bargain...

But mixed in with the crazy things there are beautiful things! Unfortunately anyone selling trendy furniture in our area knows they have something valuable and jack up the price. If I had endless space and funds I would snatch these things up asap!

$150 Campaign style desk. Painted peacock blue or emerald green. YES.

Faux bamboo nightstands. $250 each.

Sunburst mirror. $199

Knock-off Dorothy Draper Espana chest. Also $199.

Glass nesting tables. $250.

Then there are the items that you see and I think Yikes! CRAZY! But then look again and start thinking....crazy awesome?!?!??? I'm going to mix some crazy with some great and let you decide.

Crazy?

Purple velvet armchair with invisible casters. $600.

"Contemporary Scandinavian-type chair." $10.

Rolling bar cart with glass shelves. $30 (Ok this one's not that crazy...)

Egyptian crystal chandelier. $200.

Or great?

What do you think?

Lesson learned

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

The other day my sister and I took a trip to Ikea. Ikea is hit or miss for me. Sometimes I go in there don't see anything exciting.... and sometimes everything is flying into my cart at record speed. This recent trip happened to be one where everything looked amazing. Especially the carpets. As I threw two rugs into my cart intended for the dining room and living room, my (smart) sister asked twice, "Are you sure they're the right size?" "Yeah yeah sure sure they look about right, they'll be fine," I said.

Not the case.

This rug looked so pretty in the dining room but unless we wanted to use an end table as our dining table, it just wasn't big enough.

Close up.

It might look like it fits the room in the picture but it was really too small.

I also bought a carpet for the living room that was not big enough but also not small enough (if that makes any sense...) It made the room look a lot smaller. I didn't even take a picture before rolling it right back up again.

So. What have we learned?

MEASURE YOUR SPACE!

Measuremeasuremeasure.

I've also been shopping for dining room tables but don't even know what would fit! So last night I got some masking tape out and made a rug/table floor plan.

I have been stalking a table on Craigslist (the owner hasn't responded to my email yet - grrr!) that is round without the leaf and an oval with the leaf. So first, I taped off the 44.5" circle in the center of the room.

Then I extended the length to account for the leaf.

Looks like this table could be a perfect fit! If only the current owner would respond!! Aaargh!

To get an idea of what size rug I should be looking for, I taped an outline (just eye-balling it). The rug I bought from Ikea was 5' x 7' and the tape outline turned out to be 7' x 9' - quite a bit bigger.

I'm sure there is a much easier way to do this but taping the outline really helped me see the layout and dimensions. If you are in the rug market and aren't sure what size to go for (and don't feel like getting out the masking tape!), here are some good rules of thumb I found for choosing the right size.

1) Ideal dining room carpets are large enough so that all chairs are still entirely on the carpet when pulled out. The best way to estimate this is by adding 4' to the length and width of your dining table. In my case, this means I should bump the tape outline out about 6" on all sides.

2) If a large carpet is not possible, try to have at least all of the front legs of dining chairs remain on the carpet when pulled out.

3) In any room, a rug should never be so large that it reaches the baseboards. Try to have an even border of floor around the edges. The size of the recommended border differed quite a bit depending on the source. One designer said at least 18" away from the walls when another designer (one of my favorites!) said she usually does 7" - 12" max. Guess it's just personal preference.

4) If your living room furniture is anchored to a wall, place the rug under the front legs of each piece of furniture. If your furniture is floating, the ideal rug will be large enough to be completely under all pieces of furniture.

Wish I had looked into this before shopping! Back to Ikea I go!

Sources: The Perfect Rug Size Guide; HGTV Rug Size and Placement; High-Heeled Foot in the Door; Haskell Interiors

Bedspread options

2011-12-16T06:00:00.011-05:00

I did a little shopping the other day and came home with two different bedspread options. Both are pretty colorful patterns which I thought was needed in our otherwise bland master bedroom. So far it's all gray and white in there.

Here is option #1 purchased at Home Goods for $79 (bed in a bag):

Option #1 happens to be reversible...

Option #2 purchased at World Market for $10 less.

I've decided to go with.....................

Option #1!

What do you think? Did I make the right choice?

Also you can see I have not solved the curtains dilemma....but I do know that I'm going to drop the curtain rod. The illusion of making the window look larger and ceiling look taller by hanging the curtains higher doesn't work when the curtain panels are not on both sides. At least is doesn't seem to in our bedroom. So the large color block idea is out but I think a coordinating (not matching!) border would still be nice. Also, I have decided that hanging the curtains by the tabs is better than scrunched which is the opposite of what I thought when I first hung them up! Next week I'll probably be back to scrunched haha.

P.S. Check out the new "Our Wedding" tab!

It's a major award!

2011-12-14T06:00:00.002-05:00

Last week Carrie at Hazardous Design gave five bloggers the Versatile Blogger Award and I happened to be one of them! Thank you so much Carrie! I am thrilled to receive the award and am so excited to pass it along to other bloggers I've been following.

Here are the "rules" of the award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave the award to you.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Send it along to 15 other (new/newer) bloggers and let them know you have awarded them!

Number 1: thank and link. Check.

Number 2: Share 7 things about yourself. Eek! I suppose all I do on here is talk about myself....but this gives me stage fright! Oh well, here are seven (completely random) things about moi:

1. I used to think a friend of mine was nerdy/lame for writing a blog.

2. I haven't read a single book from the Twilight series but devoured the Hunger Games series in a few days. (and cannot wait to see the first movie!)

3. I've seen Michael Jackson in concert. Epic.

4. I have met two famous people: Bill Clinton and Andre Agassi. I got Andre's autograph and was a completely awkward deer-in-the-headlights tool....*sigh*

5. I have never been to Disney World or any other Orlando attraction.

6. Pretty much everything in my closet is from Target or Old Navy. Blah...

7. I love snowboarding but am not very good at it. Ed's a shredding superstar! Park City trip is in the works for March - yay!

And there you have it. Pretty mind blowing stuff............

Now the fun part! I get so excited when I discover a new inspiring blog (that is not one of the mega-blogs) and this is a great way to spread the word. I only have six so far but here are my Versatile Blogger Award winners!

Kristen @ Old House New Folks - Kristen and her husband are fixing up their 1956 ranch all by themselves. Sound familiar?

Jolene @ Duck Egg Blue - I've been following this kiwi blog since I discovered their sleek and modern DIY kitchen renovation.

Sara @ Forever and a recipe - Sara covers everything from cooking and crafts to book reviews and fitness.

Leigh @ Popcorn Ideas - Leigh has been blogging for more than a couple years but she's new to me and I'm lovin' her posts on food and crafts. Also I'm slightly partial since she's from my hood. VA represent!

Elisa @ What the Vita - I love Elisa's style! Check out their House Tour and Before & Afters.

Christine @ Peaches & Cheese - Christine has been cranking out the Christmas decor projects and has made major progress on fixing up their first home.

Thanks again Carrie for passing the award along to me!

P.S. Virtual high five if you caught the post title movie reference.

P.P.S. Anyone notice the backsplash tile in one of the inspiration pics from YHL's microwave cabinet post yesterday? I sure did. That's muh tile. Nice.

First food post

2011-12-08T06:00:00.003-05:00

I realize that so far this has been a DIY renovation and home decor blog. Not a food blog. But I fell in love with food and cooking looooong before I started looking at tile, rugs, paint, curtains or trim. So in order to not get off theme, I will post recipes and cooking adventures on the (new) Cookery page of the blog only.

Except for this first one.

Enjoy!

Ed and I left work yesterday and headed to the grocery store for something "light and quick".

What happened???

Yes that is fried chicken with mashed potatoes. At least we got some nutrients from the broc!

It all went wrong when we walked into the meat section and saw these.

$2.37? SOLD! Better get two...you know cause, drumsticks are small.

I have never fried chicken before and I've always heard it's really hard. I think because you have to fry it long enough for the chicken to be cooked but not burn it at the same time. Whatever the reason, I've always been scared to make it.

Then a few months ago a girl in my ~~wine~~ book club who always says she can't cook, made fried chicken using her mom's recipe and said it was really easy. So I knew I had to give it a try.

There are two things that - for beginners at least - are necessary for successful fried chicken. Number one: an electric frying pan. Number two? CRISCO. Yeah!!! GREASE.

Here's the recipe exactly as it was given to me:

Small can of Crisco (lard)

Chicken

Flour

Frying pan (with lid)

Heat Crisco in frying pan - don't have the heat up too high or the grease will splatter everywhere. Coat each piece of chicken in flour and place in skillet when grease is hot, turn the heat to medium/low - fry each side of chicken until crispy brown, set on paper towel when done to absorb excess grease.

THAT'S IT.

The only thing I did differently was add some salt and pepper to the flour before dredging.

Floured chicken.

Crisco out of the can. Appetizing!

Melted and ready to go.

Everybody in the pool!

Mmm mmm good.

If I made it, this recipe has to be fool proof! I fried the chicken for about 20 minutes on each side. There's so much fat in the pan I don't think you could possibly overcook it. Give it a try!

But wait! There's more!

I had to throw in an app too. We pick up the ingredients for this all the time. It's so good and so simple.

Caprese salad (in this case sans basil)

I use platters regularly. Weekdays, weekends, I say put your food on a nice dish. It goes from regular food to something special instantly.

While I was busy in the kitchen, Ed made a fire for the first time in our fireplace. Nothing like pigging out and then vegging out by a nice fire.

Less talking. More doing.

2011-12-07T06:00:00.008-05:00

I've been ~~talking~~ writing a lot about my grand plans for making curtains out of sheets and reupholstering my Craigslist chairs and I would also like to sew roman shades for the dining room, kitchen and bathroom. Well....sadly this post will be no different. More talking about the plan and not actually sewing anything.

Thanks to my mom though, I feel like I'm one step closer to the actual "doing".

While my mom was in town two weeks ago helping me tile the kitchen backsplash, she brought over some Singer sewing books titled, Sewing Projects for the Home, Sewing for the Home and - you guessed it! - More Sewing for the Home. Copyright 1991, 1984 and 1987 respectively.

Now....my mom loaned me these books with the disclaimer that while the sewing techniques/tutorials are still good, I won't like how most of it looks since they're so outdated.

What...

You mean like this?

Nice.

Or this?

Mmmmmm.

The padded cornice.

Don't get me started on the upholstery section.

YES.

That looked good once!

And I'm sure it will look good again. Just not right now.

Needless to say it was fun looking through the books. It was even more fun recognizing things my mom had made through the years. The pages were still dogeared on the a padded headboard and cloud shade tutorials. Padded headboard + cloud shades = my room in the fourth grade = most awesome princess room ever!

Thanks mom!

There was some good in with the bad though. For example, I would like to make these for the kitchen, dining room and bathrooms.

And if I'm really feeling confident I will tackle this project.

I have minimal/beginner sewing experience...so this stuff will require some assistance. "Pin skirt to deck"??? What's a deck? We'll see how this goes...

*********update**********

In case you missed Monday's post, we moved upstairs last weekend.

...................It's cold upstairs...................

You guessed it.....(perfect timing Diana!).......I caved.

I turned on the heat.

And it was glorious.

Ed immediately said YOU LOSE!!! YOU OWE ME......SOMETHING. Apparently he hasn't decided what I have to do.... whatever he comes up with, I'm sure it's not as bad as sitting around shivering! ...I hope....

Saturday: Moving day

2011-12-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

So Ed and I have been living in our basement while the reno upstairs has been going on. Since the kitchen is finally finished (except for a few pieces of trim.....grrr) we decided the dust had settled enough to finally move upstairs. Basically this meant moving the TV upstairs. Sad. Does everyone else live wherever the TV is?

Here's the living room Saturday morning.

And here it is Saturday afternoon.

And here it is now!

(fuzzy iPhone pic)

The plaid and chevron combo cracks me up.

First we moved the couch and ottoman up from the basement. By "we" I mean Ed and our friend Joe who lives close by and is always called upon for jobs like this. Thanks Joe.

Don't come over to my house unless you want to end up on the blog. You've been warned.

The Verizon guy was coming around noon to install a cable outlet next to the fireplace and Ed wanted to get a TV mount on the wall before he got there.

So he got out the level and the drill and marked where he would drill the holes.

And realized quickly that our 14v cordless drill was no match for the brick behind the wall. Even with the right masonry drill bit. So he tried our other drill which is not cordless and still no dice.

Meanwhile, the Verizon guy showed up early. He was instantly frustrated because Verizon had told him that we just needed our internet hooked up instead of needing a new outlet installed. He said he had to cancel the ticket with Verizon, but that he would go ahead and install the outlet free of charge.

Score!!!

Then, as the Verizon guy was drilling a hole through the side of our brick house, Ed had a brilliant idea.

We paid the nice man for his time and the use of his much more powerful drill. Six holes drilled plus a new outlet for less than what we were supposed to pay Verizon? Fantastic.

Ed said his vision for the whole house is complete. Typical dude.

So! Back to the Saturday afternoon picture. Here's the plan.

Or at least the immediate plan.

1. You might remember that I found these two chairs on Craigslist for $25 each. Now that most of the major reno is done I hope to get around to reupholstering them. Until then, the chevron and plaid will just have to get along.

2. This ottoman/coffee table will eventually be sent back down to the basement. I would like to find a brass and glass coffee table instead. I think with the large couch and two big-ish chairs, something that feels lighter will look better.

3. We need a rug stat! I'm stumped on this one....not sure what we'll end up getting.

And then there will be throw pillows and pictures/mirrors/etc for the walls to get too. Like everything else in our house, it will be a while before it's a completely finished "After" but at least it's much better than the "Before!"

A little tiling how-to

2011-11-30T06:00:00.002-05:00

First of all - I love all of the comments! I love you for commenting! YAYHOORAY for comments! xxoo

Can't say I'm an expert at this - but here's how we put together the best backsplash in the world (in my humble opinion).

First!

Pick out your tile...

(duh...)

As I said yesterday, we decided to go with Arctic Ice 1" x 2" glass tiles from Home Depot for about $9/sq ft.

We had originally wanted large white subway tiles that were 3" x 6" but then I fell in love with the glass tiles and also thought our all white kitchen could use some color. But when I researched 3" x 6" glass subway tile....eeeesh....expensive! The cheapest I could find in stores and online was $15/sq ft. That would have been around $500! Just for the backsplash!! Not happening. The smaller glass tiles were still not cheap, but much better than $500.

When we purchased our tile, we also picked up some white glass tile mortar, a new blade for the wet saw, a 3/16" x 1/4" V-notch trowel (recommended for this size/type of tile), a grout float, and some bright white non-sanded grout. Non-sanded grout is best for small grout lines and also, we were told by a Home Depot employee that sanded grout can scratch the surface of glass tile.

I'm sure you can use the premixed stuff but this specifically said Glass Tile Thin-set Mortar so we picked up two boxes.

I've also seen on lots of home improvement shows that you should use white grout for glass tile - or at least a color that you won't mind seeing through the tile. Our tile came with a white back though...so maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Better safe than sorry I suppose.

We had a pretty small amount of grout and mortar so we mixed by hand instead of buying a mixing paddle. I have a 99 cent whisk from Ikea for such projects.

Once mixed, you have to let the mortar rest for 10 minutes so we measured where we needed to make the first cuts for a snug fit in the corners and around all of the light switches. Luckily my parents own a wet saw so we were able to take our time and not worry about returning it to a tool rental place.

Momz cuttin' some tile.

Using a wet saw is a messy job. Mom knew this from previous tile jobs and made us a lobster bib of sorts out of a small trash bag. When the saw slows down it spits water all over you. Actually it probably wouldn't if you kept the guard down like you're supposed to....aaaaaanyway..... Definitely use the wet saw outside or in a place where the floor can get wet.

Not too shabby!

Slather on mortar with the flat side of the trowel, then comb it with the notched edge to create some grooves. Then slap your tile on!

Hmmm... notice who's tiling and who's taking pictures? I helped I swear.

First two sheets up.

I'm not sure if spacers would have fit in between each tile because of the mesh attached to the back, but we added some spacers along the bottom to keep it up from the countertop. Once the mat was up, we wiggled and squished it into the mortar and then made sure all of the tiles were evenly spaced. Nothing like eyeballing it! My favorite type of measuring.

We worked our way around the kitchen covering about one sheet's worth of wall with mortar at a time so that it wouldn't dry while we were cutting the next piece. When we were done it looked like this (a repeat from yesterday's post).

The next day, we mixed up some bright white grout and let it sit for ten minutes (same process as the mortar).

And used the grout float to spread it all over the walls.

At first I was nervous that the grout lines would be way too big but Momz assured me once we wiped the tiles down the grout lines would shrink.

Before wiping...

After wiping (20 minutes later) and then waiting two hours for the grout to set, we polished off the remaining film with some cheesecloth.

I could not have imagined it turning out this well. I absolutely love it!

Is this my kitchen??

Wowzers. I can't believe there's an actual kitchen where the hole used to be. All we have are finishing touches and we're done!!! DONE-ZO!

Exciting new kitchen developments

2011-11-29T06:00:00.011-05:00

So much to blog about and so little time to blog!

My mother and I have been working on something fantastic in the kitchen. It's not finished yet, but here's the new backsplash so far.

Ooooh!

Aaaaah!

Arctic Ice 1" x 2" glass tile.

Still needs grout but it already looks so good! I love the sea foam color. I'm also glad that we ended up going with some color in the kitchen instead of white countertops with white subway tile.

Unfortunately I had to remove the trim from the window but oh well. It's easily nailed back on. The kitchen has so many layers....onion-like. Can't put this on till you add that, can't paint that till this is installed, etc, etc. Thank goodness we're putting the icing on the cake this week!

As always I wish I had some daytime pics to show you but unfortunately I'm in a gray cube during prime photo taking time. I'll take some good ones this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T11:42:00.000-05:00

Give thanks, enjoy some family time and stuff your face.

Marble's here!

2011-11-21T06:00:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post today. We did a ton of work this weekend and I'm too pooped to post but I had to share some marble pics.

Behold!

And our new faucet.

Yay!

Now that things are gettin' pretty I wish I took better pictures! I'll have to work on that.

Curtains update

2011-11-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

O...

M........

G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE!!!!!

Perfect length!!! No hemming needed!!!

I was also thrilled to rip up all the protective paper that's been covering the floors since...July??? UGH! It's finally looking like a living room! These curtains have transformed ~~my life~~ the entire room. It's things like this that make me glad I trusted my instinct that our fixer could really be turned into something nice. (Can you tell I'm extremely happy about my curtains??? I may have ran a few squealing laps around the house after I hung the first panel...They're lined, they're weighted, they're amazingawesomeness.)

The bedroom curtains? Not so much.

Waaa....

Waaaaaaaaa........

Yeah......... I know.

**********sigh***********

They're not terrible. But they're not great. I suppose that's the difference between $100 panels from Crate & Barrel and $10 panels from Target? I should have realized they weren't long enough....before I washed them. Now it's too late and I can't return them. Oh well. This may turn into an experiment in color block curtains so I can add the extra length.

Since I have to live with them for now, which is better.

Hung by the tabs?

Or scrunched up?

Triminey-trim-trim-trim-truh-roo

2011-11-16T06:00:00.001-05:00

Phrases heard most often in our house:

"Well, we're just going to cover that with trim anyway."

"I don't know, we'll just put a piece of trim over it."

"Well that's what trim's for right?"

Trim is the answer for pretty much everything. And last night's project was no exception.

Can't have a pretty new window with nothing around it!

I had no idea how to go about finishing this window. So I googled "Install window trim" and found this ~~vague~~ video:

Once I saw the general idea I was off to Home Depot. Ed was originally planning on drywalling around the window but since it will be the window over the sink, I know that we will end up setting things on the sill. Things like dish soap or little potted plants that might be wet. Moisture and drywall do not mix. A wood sill was a must so I figured we would just go with wood all the way around. Nailing trim around the edge also sounded WAY better than plastering some more drywall corners. I've had about enough of that!

So I built a box and nailed it in. No sweat! Haha yeah right, I messed up the cuts on the first batch of wood and had to go back to Home Depot. You know...same ol' same ol'...

But here's how it looked once nailed in.

Ooh-la-la!

So much better!

One problem we needed to solve was covering the gap between the trim and the window. The trim has to be flush with the drywall and for whatever reason, our window sill is not even. As in, on one side the trim was flush with the drywall and the window, but on the other end there was a big gap.

Answer? More trim of course!

I chose a small trim for the outside and inside of the window. Installed like so.

Complete box with inner trim.

Then all I had to do was install the outer trim and we'd have a complete, finished window.

But then....

I ran out of trim.

AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! So close!

Three trips to Home Depot was not happening, so the final photo will have to wait. Although I did get one strip done on the window sill.

Not bad for a Tuesday.

A master mini makeover

2011-11-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

Before...

(as in way, WAY, before....this is the master bedroom we saw when we were house hunting)

Choosing paint. Which we discussed here.

Painting the trim and the windows.

Installing the ceiling fan.

And after this weekend?

Better!

The bamboo shades look great and it's nice to finally have something on the windows. They were pretty hard to install though. We have metal window frames and finding out how to drill into them took some time. And I may have broken two drill bits in the process.... but once I discovered it was simply dull drill bits and went and bought a new one, it went a lot faster.

Since I decided to not go with the custom shades there is a little space on either side but at less than one tenth the price of custom, it's a space I can deal with!

The mini makeover picture was supposed to include some curtains too. But there was an issue with the curtain rods I bought. Once extended to the right length....there was major saggage.

That's not gonna work!

After looking at the saggy rod for a while I also decided that it should be hung higher and slightly off center of the window. Because the bed and nightstands are squeezed into the space between the wall and the window, there isn't room for two panels on that side. I'm thinking one panel on each window, hung on opposite sides.

Then throw some other stuff in the room and voila!

Peanut approves.

Unfortunately we need to incorporate Peanut's crate into the room. Lady (one of her many nicknames) can't be banished to another room of the house! Out of the question! Her crate currently lives in the closet (our clothes are in another closet downstairs till the reno dust settles).

....looks like someone's put on a few lbs....

W.D.E.

2011-11-10T16:28:00.000-05:00

I believe I promised you a new kitchen window post today. That was before I knew that Wednesday (I write posts the night before they are "published") was going to be the worst day ever.

Worst day ever!!

Ok, maybe that's a little dramatic. It really stunk though.

First, I woke up early for a dentist appointment (Waking up early and a dentist appointment are almost enough to qualify for W.D.E. on their own...) When I was about ten minutes away (the dentist is about 40 minutes from my house) I called to say I was running late. That's when the receptionist informed me that my appointment was on Thursday. So I turned back around and snailed to work in rush hour traffic.

A couple hours later I went to run what I thought would be a quick errand during lunch. Our kitchen design store guy that we've been working with to have our countertops installed had reserved a slab of marble for me to look at. Before this kitchen reno I never would have guessed that you go to a warehouse and pick-out/approve your slab of granite or marble or whatever. Well I showed up at the marble warehouse and they had never heard of our guy, his company, or us...very frustrating. I did get a chance to look at their slabs though - more on that below. I drove back to work - extremely grumpy - and that's when I was rear-ended while minding my own business at a stop light.

Someone was trying to tell me that I should have just stayed in bed!!

Luckily, I'm fine and there is minimal damage to my car. Just some paint chipped off the bumper. Sadly you don't really notice as my car has seen better days.

Aaaaannnyyyhoooo.....let's talk marble!

The not-really-reserved-for-us slab was here:

Marble Systems in Merrifield, VA.

The showroom...

And the warehouse!

Cool!

I wish I had had more time to walk around but...at this point I still thought I was going back to work. (After the rear-ending I threw in the towel and went home.)

The receptionist walked me through the rows of slabs to the polished carrara marble.

And I hated it.

It looked tooooo gray.... And it was suuuper shiny (as one would expect polished marble to be).

So I wandered around until I found the honed carrara marble.

And I loved it!

The surface was so soft like soapstone (ready to soak up stains! haha). I also think the polishing brought out the gray. This looks similar to the above in the picture, but you can see that there is no shine.

And the non-shiny surface made the gray less...gray.

So we're off and running with honed carrara marble countertops! The kitchen design guy said it takes two days to fabricate the countertops and then we just schedule installation!! I can't wait.

TTFN - ta ta for now!

Some recent purchases

2011-11-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

My sheets-to-be-turned-into-curtains arrived! And I still think the patterns will be really cute together!! Here's a (bad) picture of them.

I will definitely layer the black and white on the outside with the green floral peeking out underneath. I also ordered some curtains-curtains. Some BOLD ones!

With the help of a wedding present gift certificate to Crate & Barrel, these babies were purchased.

EeeeeEEEEeeeEEEEeeeee!!!!

Chevron! Chevron! Hurray! If all the white and off-white paint in living room was sending the room down the blah path, these curtains should bounce things back the other way.

Ed does not know I purchased these curtains. I'm pretty sure he'll say "zig-zag???" or simply "I hate them." I'll be sure to let you know which one he went with. I did tell him I bought curtains from Crate & Barrel which he was super excited about. Better (in his opinion) than my usual "look what I found at the Salvation Army!"

In addition to the curtains shopping I've been doing, I also went on a hunt to find bamboo roman shades. I had seem some ready-to-hang ones at Home Depot in various sizes but of course, most of the windows in our house are not standard sizes. I was hoping to get five shades total, two for the master bedroom, two for the guest bedroom and one for the picture window in the living room.

Blinds to go estimate: 5 shades = over $1000

Next Day Blinds estimate: 5 shades = over $1300

WHAT!??!??!?

What's up Home Depot! Looks like I'm making it work with some non-custom shades.

I guess I could ----maybe---- see spending that much on blinds or shades that I knew were going to hang in my house FOREVER. But what happens when I hate bamboo roman shades in five years? Or even sooner than that?

Back over at Home Depot I picked up three shades and little something extra for only $150. Still not the cheapest thing in the world, but much better than over a grand!

The two master bedroom windows will soon have these installed.

And not soon enough! The neighbors probably know us a little too well...winkwinknudgenudgewinkwink...

The two master bedroom windows are 35" and 36" wide and luckily, there was a 35" stock shade. I'll just use it for both. One might have an extra half inch exposed on either side but who cares. Curtains will cover that eventually. The picture window unfortunately had no exact match. It's 90" across and the closest size was 96". It will just have to be mounted on the outside of the window frame.

After searching around online, I've decided I like curtains hung high and wide, but blinds or shades hung inside the window frame. Unless you are trying to do some serious window size trickery, I think this is the best look.

For example:

via

Instead of...

via

I think both styles look nice....but the deciding factor for me is that when both shade and curtain are hung at the same level, I think it ends up being a little top heavy.

I can't wait to post pics of the curtains hung up! We should be able to get the living room ones up soon, but the office sheetscurtains will have to wait. I still want to wallpaper in there and wallpaper should probably go up before curtains....ya think?

Oh! I almost forgot about my little something extra from Home Depot!

Kitchen pendant light for over the sink!

Seeded glass, chrome trim and a vintage style bulb. I love it!

(This is a picture of it hanging in Home Depot. It's still in its box at our house till the electricians finish their work in the kitchen.)

Hope to post some window pics tomorrow! It's dark when we get home from work now though...crummy daylight savings....

Oh what a difference some paint makes

2011-11-08T06:00:00.002-05:00

More and more and more painting! Ceilings, walls, trim, fireplace, windows.... and we washed every square inch with TSP first.

Here are some updated pictures.

Ed halfway done with the dining room.

Finished ceiling and walls in the living room.

Remember the walls before???

Blech!

Fireplace before paint.

And after.

The fireplace actually looks so much better in person! This second pic was taken with my iPhone instead of the camera and also taken at a later time of day so it's darker. I'll post a better one once we take the paper off the floor.

The fireplace took so long! All those nooks and crannies. Also, I noticed something that I hadn't seen before.

See?

50 years of Christmas stockings.

Awwww. These are things I like about an old house.

Changing the trim paint on the windows also made a huge difference but I'm not sure how to take a picture of a window during the day (without everything else being blacked out)...any tips are appreciated!

One issue I ran into while painting the windows: gnats.

Little bastard.

I had to remove the screens in order to paint and at least five gnats flew in and met their end on the wet paint. Since it was semi-gloss paint I couldn't pick them off - it would mess up the careful brush-stroke-free job I had done and I'd have to redo the whole thing. So they just had to stay there till the paint dried and I could brush them off. Ew.

Lots of other things happened this weekend including getting a new kitchen window, installing the microwave and my sheets/curtains arriving. I also did a little blinds and wallpaper shopping. Wowzers that stuff ain't cheap! Time to get creative....

Ouch

2011-11-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

My arms hurt! And my neck...and my back....

And nothing helps soreness like a 45 lb dog sleeping on you. Not at my feet. Not by my side. ON me. I love her but sometimes I want to launch Peanut off the bed with one swift kick!

I'm sore because I've been painting for three days. The dining room, living room, and hallway were the most beautiful shade of peach/pink/brown/crud and we're working hard to fix that. Here's the best picture I could get of the color.

Living room

View from living room into the dining room

It looks beige in the pictures but trust me...it's bad. It just looks dirty and dingy.

My attempt at Halloween decor during a renovation...

Sad I know. I figured the house is scary enough on it's own! At least the candles let kiddies and parents know there was someone home in this otherwise abandoned-looking house.

We chose White Dove by Benjamin Moore for the walls of the living room and dining room and Ultra Pure White Stain Blocking Ceiling Paint by Behr for the ceiling (duh). I am a little concerned that we're covering everything in too much white but white feels so clean and I think it will really freshen up this old house. Here are some so far pictures....

Super inspiring right??? That's our oven in the living room! Nice.

I know I know, not so great. You can really see how dark the old paint was in the first progress picture though. I can't wait to finish it up and get rid of the paper protecting the hardwood floors. I think the white walls and "provincial" stained floors will look sooo good. Just gotta get there.

Moving on to prettier things...I ordered some sheets yesterday! I will not be putting these sheets on a bed - they will become curtains.

I was first inspired by some curtains I saw at Ikea.

It wasn't the color or pattern of the curtains, but more that they had layered two solid curtains instead of one sheer and one solid. I was also inspired by Jenny at Little Green Notebook's post about turning sheets into curtains. Sheets are cheaper than curtains (always a plus) and the selection of patterned sheets is endless!

These sheets from Macy's were not only cute, I thought they would fit into my office inspiration perfectly. In Lauren Leis' DC Design House room, she uses multiple patterns right next to each other (window seat mattresses) and it looks beautiful. I've never done this and I'm certainly no decorator...but I thought the top pattern and bottom pattern might work together.

What do you think? Bad idea? Bad pattern combo?

We'll see how they look in person - I'll be sure to post a pic!

Belated bloggiversary

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

I did a bloggiversary post after one month of blogging and then never did it again. Here is that post:

Can't believe we kept it going for a month already! Typically things I start don't make it past a day. In the last month we've had over 500 hits with today breaking the daily record at 43. Someone from Russia, Canada and Germany has viewed Me, Ed and Pea. I'm sure this was by accident...but still cool to know. Thanks for reading! Hopefully I can post another "anniversary" note next month.

And here is an update after five months of blogging:

Can't believe it's been five months already! Typically things I start don't make it past a day (no update needed for this sentence...) In the last five months we've had almost 2,000 hits with today breaking the daily record at 126. (Today did actually break the record since I linked my fake beam post to Young House Love's blog.) People from ten different countries have viewed Me, Ed and Pea. I'm sure that some are still by accident... I still haven't shared this blog with most of my friends - just family and some other DIYers. Once the kitchen's done I'm plastering Me, Ed and Pea everywhere! (....Facebook)

THANK YOU FOR READING!

What the ???

2011-11-01T06:00:00.001-04:00

I forgot to mention what happened last weekend....

Snowing??? This is not supposed to happen in Northern Virginia for at least another month! Sometimes this is all we get all winter! At least the next day was sunny and warm(er). Which made this daytime kitchen picture possible.

Before...

Almost there...

Side note: Ed and I have not turned on the heat yet. As soon as it started turning colder, I said I wonder how long we can last without turning the heat on. Ed said, I bet I could last longer than you. We all know what happened next...challlloooonnnge!!!

On Saturday when it was snowing I texted Ed:

"I'm thinking of turning the heat on."

Ed responded:

"You lose."

I did not turn the heat on.

Peanut's pissed.

Success!

2011-10-29T13:54:00.001-04:00

Let's get right to the picture shall we?

And from the other side...

And with Ed.

I always scroll to the bottom of blog posts to see the final picture and then go back and actually read it. I'm impatient like that.

We are really happy with the way our fridge cabinet turned out! Especially since we had to build it from scratch and work around the beam where the old wall used to be. Here's how we did it.

First thing? Come up with a plan. I could see what I wanted to do in my head....but had trouble explaining it to Ed. Of course I expect him to read my mind. To make things easier for both of us, I used Excel to come up with this.

There was a lot of filler involved. And I think the more filler, the higher chance that that "DIY look" will show. Everything had to be exact - which is one of my excuses for why it took us a week (and a half?) to build.

Our over-the-fridge cabinet was way too high for the new plan, so we had to take it down and move the suspension bar down to the right height.

Too high.

We originally put the cabinet at the same height as the rest of the wall cabinets, but it was way too high in relation to the top of the fridge. I didn't want a foot or so of empty space between the bottom of the cabinet and the refrigerator.

We also needed to bump the cabinet out to match the depth of the beam so that the cabinet would have a flush front with the panels and filler. So we added a piece of the Ikea base cabinet ledger behind the suspension bar.

Ed likes me constantly taking his picture almost as much as he likes moving suspension bars. (Which we have done several times throughout this kitchen reno.)

We added another piece of the same ledger to make the cabinet level, and then installed the first panel.

Before installing we used a table saw borrowed from a friend (thanks Jesse!) to cut the panel to counter depth (two feet). Then we used L-brackets to anchor it to the wall and the floor checking for level the entire time. Can't have a slanted panel!

Putting in the second panel was a little more challenging since it had to be shorter than the other one (beam in the way). So we had to slice off a little with a jigsaw, and then sand it down until it was just right.

There was a little gap along the wall after we installed it. We're not sure if it was a bad cut on our part or if the wall or floor was slightly tilted but...we're putting a piece of trim there anyway so no worries.

That's what trim's for right?

Being perfectly flush at the front is more important than getting it right in the back.

Then came taking the cabinet back down in order to install the filler piece on top. We took that cabinet up and down about....five times? FUN! But it was necessary in order to get the measurements right and then have access to the back of the filler piece from inside the cabinet.

We cut the first filler piece and notched out a place for the beam.

Sadly, the first attempt was a no-go.

It had a gap along the left side...

And I broke it trying to jam it into place.

Oops.

So we cut another one which worked out perfectly.

We used little baby L-brackets and very short screws (1/2") to secure the filler pieces to the side panels. It's hard working with finished pieces of - in this case MDF - because no screws can poke through the other side. Everything has to be seamless, so the perfect screw length is essential.

Then it was on to the side filler pieces. Pretty much the same process except we used Ikea's "finishing screws" to attach them to the cabinets - screwed through the side of the cabinet into the side of the filler piece.

Ed choppin' some filler in the workshop.

Sides in...

Add a 2" piece of filler to the bottom (using the little L-brackets again), add a fridge and there you have it!

The same molding that we used for the fake beam will be going around the top of the cabinet so it will have a really built-in look.

We're so close to the end! It's time for countertops, electrical and microwave vent installation. Know what's great about those things? We pay people to do it for us! Nice.

So sssllllooooowwwww

2011-10-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

I was hoping to have a completed refrigerator cabinet post for you this morning, but it's truly amazing how long it takes Ed and I to complete a project. Wow.

WOW.

Amazing.

Anyway post will be up tomorrow showing the finished product. It's lookin great so far!

Where were we

2011-10-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

Oh yes. Re-doing the kitchen floors. As of my last post, we were still going with tile. This is no longer the case. We had even gone to The Tile Shop and purchased this tile.

"Texas beige"

They didn't have it in stock so we had a to wait a few days for it come in. During the few days of waiting, I found this.

John Bridge's deflectolator! In other words, a deflection calculator. What is deflection? After doing some research, I believe it is a measurement of how much your floor moves up and down. Why is this important? If your floor moves up and down even the tiniest bit, your floor will not support tile. All sources said this is not a matter of how strong your floor is. As in our floor is definitely strong enough to hold up the tile (and not cave in), it's just that the span of the joists (and other factors listed above) allow the joists to move up and down just enough to crack grout and tile over time.

I would have never looked into any of this if it weren't for a blog I read daily called Young House Love. They are re-doing their kitchen right now and Sherry mentioned in this post that their floor would not support tile. Whaaa?? I had never heard of that. I commented on the post saying I hadn't even considered this and Sherry responded that she hadn't heard of it either until they moved into their current home and the previous owners mentioned that the kitchen floor would not support tile.

Great.

And so started my search to find out exactly what our floor could support. First I thought it was just a matter of creating the appropriate subfloor, hence the ripping out our previously (incorrectly) installed cement board and re-doing it. But turns out John Bridge's deflectolator has this to say about our floor joists (regardless of what we put on top of them):

Umm...

Ok ok! Sheesh!

We'll forget about the tile.

*biiiiiiiiiiiiigloooooooooooongsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

Our choices were now wood or laminate. It's not that this was horribly disappointing, it was just one more thing to think about that we hadn't expected (and another week added to the project). At this point, we just wanted to GET IT DONE. So anything that had to be ordered was out. I literally walked into Home Depot and said what can I take home and install tonight. So I came home with this.

Hey now! I like the sound a that!

And lemme tell you. They ain't lyin'. I installed this flooring in an hour or so, by myself. And the good news is - we love it! It looks really good! And I won't wince anytime someone jumps up and down in the kitchen (cause this happens all the time...).

I will mention briefly that we installed 3/8" plywood over the cement board in order to make the kitchen floor level with the adjoining dining room and hallway. Yes that does make our entire cement board installation effort a waste. But we've learned a lot. No, that doesn't make me feel better about it. The only positive thing I can say about any of it is that it wasn't an expensive mistake. We're actually saving money (even with the cement board and plywood) by going with laminate instead of tile.

We bought TrafficMaster Allure laminate flooring sold exclusively by Home Depot. The flooring was cheap enough that I figure if we hate it or it starts falling apart in a few years, it won't be a tragedy to redo it. Let's just hope it lasts at least a few years.

Sadly I did not document the laminate installation at all. I was flying through that stuff! And Ed was watching football. But here is the finished product.

It was peel and stick! Sweet.

It doesn't match the hardwoods around it, but this doesn't really bother me. It's not wood and the plank width is wider than the rest of the hardwoods so I think it's obviously not trying to match, therefore making it look okay? Anyway we like it. I actually think I'm happier with this than I would have been with tile. It's so easy to work with! And most important, we don't have to worry about our floors now.

We have also changed the arrangement of our base and wall cabinets since the last post. Nothing dramatic, we just added some filler pieces. I was watching Holmes on Holmes critique a DIY kitchen on TV and he said a typical mistake is putting base cabinets and drawers right up against the oven and also putting drawers directly up against a wall. We had done both of these things. Since the cabinets were out anyway, we decided to just go ahead and make the adjustments. I'm glad we did because the large drawers in our peninsula were ever so slightly scraping against the wall. That's not good.

So over the last week. We've gone from here:

Not a very show-stopping after shot is it haha. It looks better during the day - and also we need to take the plastic off of the fridge. But all the filler pieces are in, the base cabinets are installed, and the dishwasher and fridge are in the kitchen. Now we're fussing around with how to build a cabinet around the fridge. That should be happening this week - latest next weekend. That is - if nothing else goes wrong.......