Laying our own floors: Prepping

Once we picked the floors, we had to wait a few weeks until Andy would be home. He decided he wanted to do the floors on a day I worked since I wouldn't be of much help in the actual laying process. We picked a weekend I worked on a Saturday so that we could do the prep on Friday. Earlier in the week we went and picked up the floors and brought them home so that the wood could adjust to the temperature and moisture level in the house. So our front hall looked like this:

 

On Friday we took to prepping the floors, which was surprisingly easy. Andy took all the baseboards off in the front room and down the hall, he said this was kind of a pain because of the way the installers had nailed it but it went quick. Here's a picture of the floors without baseboards:

Once the baseboards were off it was time to roll the carpet and padding up and cart it away:

That was really easy, very heavy, but easy. Especially since there are still construction dumpsters on our street. Shh, don't tell. Voila, no carpet:

Now the next part was probably the most difficult, we had to take all the carpet strips that held the carpet in place out and also pull up any staples or nails in the sub floor. It was more tedious than hard and took the most time. I pulled the staples while Andy removed the transitions. Once all that was done we had to sweep up all the debris, which was not that pleasant, I found some things under the padding I'm not pleased about, like dead insects and some dirt clods from the construction aspect. The very last thing that had to be done was sanding the floor and priming it so our naughty kitty couldn't find the spot she had peed.

Sorry for the blurry picture, I was tired by this point.

We used Kilz 2 on the floor, which we had read would cover the area where the cat missed her litter box and keep her from smelling it. That had to dry for a few hours and at this point it was around 9:30 so we decided to give it up for the night and Andy would continue on in the morning.

Andy will be posting about the next steps because he was the one doing them, so it may be a few days before that post goes up.

 

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Laying our own floors: The what and the why.

We decided, pretty much as soon as we moved in, that we were going to slowly replace all the flooring in the house. We opted for the most basic carpet in most of the house, minus the kitchen and master bath, because it was free and the upgraded options didn't do a whole lot for us. We figured that as the carpet wore we would be able to just replace it with better options. Well that happened a lot sooner than we imagined it would in the front room, due to a trouble making kitty and the fact that our builder used crap carpet and installers. This sped up the process a bit and we had to decide on a flooring type. We landed on hardwood/bamboo because the front room is rarely used and we figured it might be a formal dining room down the line. So we took on the task of finding a color/type. This took way longer than expected. We went to about 5 different stores and brought home dozens of samples. Nothing looked great with the purple paint in the front room and if it did it turned out to be too expensive. Finally after weeks (yes weeks!) of deliberation, we decided it was easier to paint and pick a floor that we loved and fit our budget. We landed on this:

Sorry about the flash glare!

This is Home Legend hand-scraped bamboo in cafe, which can be found at Home Depot. We loved the color, the hand-scraped detail, and it passed the durability test (we hit it with a high heel multiple times, didn't leave a mark). Once we picked it we had to pick a time to lay the floor. It was going to be a few weeks at the time because Andy was going to be gone. Next post, I'll talk about prepping the floors.

 

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Beige begone

One of the more problematic aspects of building was the paint color; builder beige as it is more affectionately known. It's in our whole house and while it's a nice beige, its not what you want to stare at day after day. So on Labor Day weekend we decided to chip away at the beige. We had already painted our living room and part of the front room, but we decided the front room was too dark so we did a redo of the three walls in New Bamboo by Behr. The forth wall we did in Weathered Moss by Behr. Take a look:

I'll be honest, the green is bright. I'm not sure about it. I love the grey, I am considering doing the whole room in that color but I'm going to live with it with the floors in and see how I feel. We also decided to paint our bedroom as well in Pencil Point also by Behr.

I love how the dark grey contrasts with the white furniture, but it's so dark I was scared to do all the walls so I stopped with one and will again live with it for a bit before I decide what to do. I will also take opinions on all of the above, please and thank you!

 

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Project budgeting

Like I said in my last post, things have been busy in the SalTal household. Andy and I decided a few months back to start a monthly project budget. We decided that we would take X amount each month to tackle major projects on our list for the house. This does not include small DIY or crafty projects, which rarely are more than $50. For example things like painting a room, redoing floors, a kitchen backsplash, we would consider a big monthly project. We decided to do it this way so that it didn't seem to overwhelming and it's been working out nicely. We have taken on three big projects since we instituted the budget: the kitchen backsplash, the bamboo floors, and painting two spaces. All of which I plan to blog about in the near future. Three projects may not seem like that many since we have been utilizing the project budget for a little over five months, but we created a rule that we could roll over a previous month's budget to tackle something we really wanted to do. We had to do this with the floor project, which was totally worth it. I don't think that we will always have a project budget every month, eventually the house will be settled and we will only want to take on bigger projects as needed, but for now with so much to do I think this system will work.

How does everyone else tackle major projects? Do you save a little over time or just budget it in each month? Or some kind of combination of the two?

 

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Decisions, decisions

I recently ordered these wall panels from The Container Store in black and had the chance to hang them this weekend in our front room.

I love the way they look but I'm not completely sold on the black. They are plastic so it would be easy peasy to spray paint them if I decide to change the color but I thought I would get some opinions first. More than likely I would go for a pale green or white if I painted them but I am open to suggestions. Tell me what you think.

Poof, I'm back!

I apologize for taking the blog off the public sector for a little while, we were dealing with some legal stuff with our old rental company and didn't want anything to come up. I don't want to get into it too much but we decided not to pursue it anymore as it's not really worth our time and energy. We would like to focus that energy on making our new home kick ass.

I will be honest there wasn't really much to post about while we were offline. We kind of took a bit of a break from all things house after the party. We were in hyper drive for a few weeks so I think we needed a break. However, now we are starting to get rolling on some stuff and I'm excited to share it with you. Just a little preview of the plans in the works:

• A demo will be taking place in the near future
• A journey into the land of grout and tile
• More painting
• Some awesome hand-drawn designing
• An adventure in re-covering

Plus I should probably share some pictures of the house since we painted and furnished it. All this and more to come in coming days/weeks!

Ohh em gee!

Seriously, I apologize for the lack of blogging, it seemed like Andy got home last Wednesday and we hit the ground running. We've been planning a get together for the first weekend in February since we moved in, partially to hang with our friends but partially to light a fire under our butts to get the house in some semblance of order. With him being gone so much it's been a bit of a challenge, especially last week when I managed to hurt my neck and couldn't do much more than laundry. However, he got home Wednesday afternoon and once I got home from work we started running errands and really we haven't stopped since. There's been a lot we've needed to pick up for the house and a lot we've had to do. I have lots of projects to share but just haven't had the time to share them. Promise to do so soon.

Also if you are around Saturday night stop by the new place, we would love to see you!

Hobby Lobby FTW

As you know, we have been slowly acquiring bits and pieces for the house even before it was finished. Now that we have moved in and started work on the house I wish we would have waited. Things just aren't shaping up the way that we thought it would and we've bought a couple things that I would like to return. Luckily, Hobby Lobby, where I bought one of the items in question, offers returns for credit for returns without a receipt. Woohoo! that's going to make things a little bit easier for me because I am certain I can find things to buy at Hobby Lobby. In fact I had a nice little find this past weekend when I was visiting my parents. We decided to pay a visit to Hobby Lobby because all their wood and metal ware items were 50% off this past week. That's where I found this:

Pardon Murphy's nose, he's a curious pup

It's a wall mounted coat rack, which is going to be perfect for the area just inside the front door. I'm weird because I've always wanted a standing coat rack. I'm not sure why, I just really like coat racks. I know I'm odd okay? Moving on...a standing coat stand would not work in our front hall, there just isn't enough space there, so this wall mounted version is perfect! The best part is that it was only $10! I can't wait to see how it looks on the wall. Slowly but surely the house is coming together. I promise to do a house tour post pretty soon, I just want a little distinction between the rooms.

Living Room Partial Preview

So our living room is coming along nicely. This is the one area in the house I would love to have finished by the time we have our house party since we will be mainly be hanging out there. I apologize in advance for the crappy cell phone pictures, I'll drag out the good camera when everything is actually done. Also please ignore the pile of crap poking out from the side of the couch, that's stuff that doesn't have a home yet and the TV out in the middle of the living room, we need our media center to be done.

General view from the kitchen

Shelf behind the couch

 Just so you get an idea of where we are going: there is going to be some kind of art behind the couch the media stand will be pushed against the far wall (which isn't really pictures here), I'm going to add something to those lamps to make them look bigger (like maybe foam wrapped around the spindly part), I'm going to get some matching frames for our pictures to put on the shelves between the mirrors, I'm going to get a glass bowl with filler for the long shelf behind the couch, we are going to add another chaise to the other side of the couch plus another shelf behind the couch, we are going to make a coffee table, and last but not least we are going to get/re-purpose a chair for the far wall. Whew, I'm a little tired even typing that out, but hopefully it turns out like I'm picturing it in my head.

Picking Colors: Living Room

We have gotten our living room in some semblance of order, in fact I finished painting it last week. I should have some pictures of the semi-completed living room tonight but in the meantime let me tell you about how we decided our color selections. We selected the living room paint color way before our house was done because we had the model to base our selection on. The paint color we selected is called Opal Silk by Behr:

It's a little lighter looking in person but I love it. It's bright and welcoming. We loved this color so much we decided our couch color on it. Voila:

Ikea's Karlstad modular couch in Kordal Medium Grey. While we were at Ikea we also found this rug:

So we have this rug and the couch as well as some white shelves for behind the couch (it'll make more sense in pictures). We knew that we needed to pick some colors to accent the living room, so we headed to Lowes and Home Depot to take a look. We brought home some paint samples and compared them to the couch and wall color and wound up selecting these two:

Top color is Tibetan Orange by Behr, bottom color is Caribe by Behr. The media stand is going to be the Caribe and the Tibetan Orange we used as a basis for throw pillows and wall decor. I'm really excited with how this looks together. Hopefully you will see it in tomorrow's post and like it as well!

Overloaded

Our entire house is beige. AKA blah. Now I admit we did pick beige as our paint "color" but it really is overwhelming to be in a house that is suppose to be yours and not have it really feel like yours. Our house feels more like a model than a home. It's not just all the beige, it's also all the rooms that are half empty because we just don't have furniture to put into them. This has turned my head into a scary place because every day I am making lists of things I want to do to make this house a home. And folks my lists are like scary long. So to help make us accountable and also get my thoughts organized I'm going to share the list of things I would like to get done. To help us out even more I'm going to highlight the ones I want to get done before our friend house warming (We are also planning on having a big family and friend house warming in the warmer months so our families can make the drive down if they want). This list is in no particular order:

• Paint living room (Completed 1/12)
• Paint the front room, media room, office, and our bedroom
• Put mirrors in the hall and half bath
• Hang toilet paper holders and towel bar/circle 
• Hang curtains and/or blinds in all bedrooms
• Re-cover black and white chair for living room
• Put legs on the record player stand to make it higher
• Make or buy a liquor cabinet
• Finish media stand for living room
• Unpack all boxes that aren't going into storage
• Hang mirrors, shelves, and decor in living room
• Buy an additional chaise for the couch and shelf for behind couch
• Buy a bigger TV for living room
• Figure out art work for front room
• Buy Star Wars posters for Andy's office
• Buy desks for Andy's office
• Make accent pillows for living room 
• Get big TV and the old couch up into the media room

I know that there are more things I need/want to do but I just can't think of them all. I think I may have to start carrying around a small notebook and pen to keep track of things when I think of them. 

Moving is hard

I finally have access to the interwebs folks! We just got our internet and cable connected on Sunday, so freaking crazy! Anyway, that's my excuse for being gone for so long, plus the whole moving thing. Good news is we are all moved in to our house, not that we aren't unpacked nor do we have anything in the slightest semblance of order but we are working on it. Let me tell you having four days to get out of the old house and into the new house was crazy hard. It was so stressful and tiring but so worth it since we are in OUR house. We are homeowners, it still doesn't feel completely real, like some days I will be sitting in the living room and think "Oh my gosh, this is our house, we own it!" It sounds weird but I still do that sometimes about being married. I think it's the whole feeling like a grown up thing, I still see myself as a kid in college (and act like it).

Anyway, we are completely loving our place for the most part, there are a few minor annoyances but nothing too major. For example we don't have sod so our yard is just mud right now so we have to walk the dogs, which we haven't had to do in nearly 2 years.We freak out at any damage we do to the house (like a hunk of drywall that was taken out when we were moving furniture in). Plus no one can find us, since we aren't on Google Maps, people like the pizza delivery dude and our internet and cable provider. Other than that things are great. We've been working on organizing and unpacking, slowly but surely. We need to get our butts in gear though because the first weekend in February we are having a house warming party and I would like to have most of the house set up and organized. I actually planned the party to motivate us a little more, I think it's working.

Anyway, that's my little update, I've got a lot to share about the projects we've completed since moving in and all the projects I want to undertake in the near future. I promise to post a little more often now that we have our connection back up!

Death by DIY

With the new house zooming toward us I realized our decorating/DIY projects really need to get going, then I took a look at the list. Geeze. I think I over did it just a tad. Take a look yourself:

 A console table by Young House Love. We really love the idea of having some lamps and storage behind the couch, we may not build this exact one but we want something similar. Honestly, I think that our living room is going to be pretty similar to this just because I think that's the couch we may end up with.

 A drying rack for the laundry room, I have really wanted some place to hang my air dry only pieces for a while, in the new house I will finally have the space to do so.

 Laundry sorting by Ana White. Love, love, love this for sorting our clothes both before the wash and after.

 Liquor Cabinet from Ana White. We aren't major boozers or anything but I love the idea of having a liquor cabinet.

 Apothecary media center for the living room, again from Ana White (sensing a pattern?). I love the look of this and it will fit lovely into the living room, unlike the behemoth media center with have now.

 Cable spool coffee table from Country Living. I found this on Pinterest and HAD to have it. I have already got my hands on a cable spool to make this pretty piece.

 Ceiling medallions as wall decor, found on Pinterest.  It's an easy way to liven up a wall space.

 Pallet table from Sew Homegrown. We want something similar to this and also some pallet end tables for the living room as well. 

The worst part about that list is that it isn't even the extent of my projects. There are still some others that I don't have pictures for, like a bench for the entry way and framed shelves. I honestly wondered if we should cut back some of the list and then I realized that the reason we are doing so much DIY is to save money. Many of these projects are lower cost than it would be to buy, in some instances basically free. We really need to get started on these. I promise once we do I will share the process. 

P.S. Anyone willing to come help out?

We are a hot mess

I mean in our decorating style. See I am a fan of IKEA furniture, I love the clean lines, the little touch of funk, the pop of color (and it's usually affordable). However, I am also a fan of old stuff, I love vintage, the shabby/rustic chic movement look makes me drool. It seems that my personality is battling itself.  Not only that but I also have Andy to consider. I really don't think he cares how anything looks as long is it is functional/comfortable. You would think that wouldn't be a big deal but it kind of is when he is insistent that it be comfortable (I'm all for comfort but sometimes style wins out, hello 3 inch heels anyone?) So we have a giant hodge podge of ideas and opinions that we are trying to ball up into one smooth, flowing style that will look beautiful and make us feel great when we are in it. Turns out that's pretty hard.

It has actually been stressing me out a little how different not only my own tastes are but also Andy and myself. We are at entirely different ends of the spectrum, where I believe style and beauty reign supreme, he believes that comfort and function are the most important aspect when choosing items for the home. We are going to have to compromise and I know it, but I know that we can handle it. Luckily we are in agreement on one thing involving decorating and furnishing the new house and that is a budget. We have already decided that we will not break the bank to make our house a home, we will DIY, thrift and shop sales so that we aren't taking on any debt to create a space we love. If we are in agreement on the money aspect I am sure we will figure out the decor issues, right?

Where's Izzy?

It seems like every time we ask this question lately the answer is the guest room. Which I finally have pictures of. So instead of boring you with tedious words I'll just get to the good stuff right now.

Here's the breakdown. Bed, nightstand, floating book shelves, curtains and lamps we already had. We bought the bedspread and sheets from IKEA. We bought the cupboard from JCPenney Outlet and painted it using this awesome tutorial. The mirror, flower arrangement, picture frame, and the embroidery hoop wall art were all bought and/or created with materials from Hobby Lobby. Roughly the total cost for this room was $125, not including the price of the things we already have.

There you have it. The pictures don't re-size very well with the Canon (I think we need Photoshop or something?) and  I can't get a good shot of it all together, the room is just too small, I wish I could because I think it flows nicely. There are a few things I want to add, maybe a shelf and a clock maybe even another piece of wall art, but the big things are done like color and furniture. In the new house the set up will look a bit different because the guest room has double windows. I will probably add green/blue curtains and also paint the standing floor lamp a shade of green from the bedspread. Overall, I think that the use of what we had mixed with what we bought worked out well. I was worried the bed and night stand was too modern for the country-like feeling I was going for, but I think it turned out nicely.

Room by room: Master Bedroom

Wednesday, I finished decorating our guest bedroom, which will be our guest bedroom in our new house. There are a few little details I would like, an extra blanket, some baskets, maybe a clock, but for the most part it is done and I am in love with it. I will post pictures as soon as Andy gets home and finds the SD card connector but trust me it's a thing of beauty (so much so that phone pictures just won't do). Anyway, since I finished with one room I am moving on to another one and I decided the master bedroom is next. This decision was a process of elimination since the great room/kitchen/living room area is all interconnected and scares the crap out of me decorating wise. Andy is in charge of his office (with some gentle guidance), the media room is pretty much done, and the fourth bedroom is going to be a craft room.Plus I love our guest room so much that I want to sleep there so it seems right to do our room next.

I have been dying to do something with our master bedroom forever but other things have been more important. So now I can and I am thinking that I want to do a shabby chic motif, white, grey, light blue and maybe some pale yellow. I put together a board on Pinterest and I think it's pretty sweet. Andy has taken a look at it as well and he is liking the vibe as well. Take a peek and let me know what you think!

A promise to myself

Dear Self,

Remember this moment right now, when you are looking at blogs like Young House Love and seeing pins on Pinterest that have gorgeous, organized spaces that you promised yourself that is what your new house will be like. Your new house will be beautiful, organized, and cleaned regularly. You will paint the rooms bold colors and buy/thrift/make furniture and decor to suit your tastes and create a space you love to be in and never want to leave. Just take it one step and one room at a time. Like the wonderful guest room you just finished today. It took time and patience to pull that room together but now you never want to leave it (nor does Izzy). Do the same thing for every room and you will create a beautiful home that will inspire other people, the way those blogs and pins have inspired you.

Love,
Amanda

Color Dilemma

A few weeks ago I talked Andy into purchasing this:

We found it at the J.C. Penny Outlet near our house and I LOVED it for our guest room. It was only $40 so I was so excited. Only thing I don't love is the color. It doesn't vibe with what I'm going for in the guest room. I'm going for greens and yellows, wild flowers, glass milk bottles, natural, homey, with just a touch of modern. We have an IKEA bed that was mine from my single gal days, so that's our modern.

Pretty cool looking duvet cover. 

 Wild flower arrangement for top of cabinet.

So my problem is that I'm not really sure what color to paint the cabinet. We've looked at yellow and green samples but everything looks good in theory and on a 2 inch card but how will it look in the new house in the guest room. Should we go with green for the cabinet and do yellow walls? Should we do white walls and do a yellow cabinet? What shade should we go with, light green, dark green, light yellow or more mustard? Any help/opinions would be seriously appreciated!

I have a little secret

Lean in close...a little closer...okay too close. Anywho, my secret, I have an addiction. It only started yesterday but I know that it's going to be a problem. I got an account with Pinterest and haven't been able to stop. I noticed that this seemed to be a craze, it started popping up over at Weddingbee and on Facebook. I even checked it out a time or two but I just could not understand it. I mean I thought it would be helpful for something like wedding planning but I am not planning a wedding (a vow renewal would be fun tho *hint, hint Andy*). Then I realized yesterday that I have a new house to decorate and fill with furniture. So it begins, I requested my invite, received it, took a few minutes to figure it out but once I did things got crazy. Furniture, recipes, clothes, hairstyles, all things that I try to keep track of now can be in one place. LOVE. Now I have to go pin some more...