Master Reboot

Have you guys officially given up on me?

While I haven't blogged much about our house lately, we have still been working on things. The jobs are not nearly as die hard as they were when we first moved in, but they are still fun and exciting changes. Plus we have some bigger projects that we are saving up for.

Sometimes I walk into a room and it feels good. I guess the best way to explain it would be; if I don't want buy anything for that room, or want to move items around, then it is good. If I look at Pinterest and all I can think is this room could use *incert whatever item here* then I know that I am not done.

The living room has been the same for awhile now, and the spare room is still one that when I walk into it I smile.

The spare room is bright and happy and I really wanted that same feeling in our room. Not necessarily as colorful, but bright and fun.

I have had some stumbling blocks with our house before. Our bedrooms are small and tend to be shaped a little weird. Our master bedroom, while it has a master bathroom (which is nearly unheard of in our neighborhood for an un-remodeled house) is still very small. Our room can fit a queen bed, but would never be able to fit a king, and even a queen is a pinch.

I have tried different furniture configurations,

in hopes of maybe finding a better setup, but I always go back to the original.

When we originally bought the house we had two side tables and a large dresser. We sold the dresser and two side tables and exchanged them for a small dresser as a side table, and a dresser for me.

That is how it has been.

Not awful. But not great either.

I look at pictures of bedrooms all the time, and when I started really pinpointing what I loved about the rooms, it was that the majority of them were white. They looked clean and uncluttered.

Along with working on our house, I have also been trying to actively get rid of items that we don't use or need.

For years I have told Blake that I would like a bed with no foot board. It is a strange request, but I do have some sound reasoning for wanting to change.

Our room is tiny. I am OK with it's tinyness...I don't spend a ton of time in there, so I would rather have that space somewhere else. With a foot board, our room looked even smaller. It feels like you are walking into a bed the moment you walk in the room.

So I went searching for a new bed frame.

I found this picture on Pinterest

and after some super sleuthing I found out that the bed frame was from Ikea. Of course they had painted it, but it was just the simple shape that I wanted. I was originally going to buy a white frame, but since I knew I was going to paint the walls white, I went with black.

The next step was getting rid of the unwanted bulk, in the form of dressers.

Then I started the painting.

When we moved into the house, I painted our bedroom a grey color. It was light, and I still like the color, just not in our bedroom. So the walls got painted a bright clean white.

I knew I wanted to hang a picture that I got from my great grandma on the wall since it had been stored under my bed since we moved into this house.

The picture is old and I didn't want to make our room look old.

So in order to counter the oldness of the picture I painted the wall with the most immature shape I could think of. Polka dots.

My decorating methods are very scientific.

I kid.

Most of the time I just cross my fingers and hope it looks OK.

Painting the dots took two grueling days.

Then it was time to hang the picture and put everything back into place. Until I realized that our baseboards could use a touch up.

At this point, our walls were white, our curtains were white, and we had white bedding. Sure, we had a black bed and black polka dots. But, our room needed a smidgen of color. 

So, I did what any insane person would do.

I painted the baseboards a dark turquoise color.

Surprisingly, I enjoy them quite a bit.

Blake managed to clean out a big three drawer dresser in exchange for a small one drawer side table.

Our bedroom now feels uncluttered and clean. I hope to at some point get a rug, but I am no hurry.

New Year, New Decor, New Floor

Where do I even start? 

We have lived in this house for 2.5 years. Lots of rooms have changed. Some have changed quite a bit since the last time I updated this blog. Looking at how our house has evolved is still one of my most favorite things. But the one thing that I am sure of, going forward, is that our house will continue to change. Moving things around, changing colors or decor, or just arranging things is still something that I can't stop doing. It is what seems natural to me. Sure, most people might find it to be kind of odd, or even quirky, but I think it is what makes our house different. You end up with a new place to live without even having to move. That's winning in my book.

So that goes back to my original question. Where do I even start? Some changes are small, some are more drastic. I suppose, that starting with the drastic is probably the best place.

The new laundry room.

Like most projects that I take on, it starts out innocent enough.

The last few months there have been a lot of necessary updates. Not fun, but definitely something that is needed.

The heater was replaced. 

Along with the water heater not long after. 

We replaced our back door in the Laundry room. It was hollow and drafty. We figured it would be a pretty easy fix. We bought a framed out door, and Blake assumed that he could have it done in a few hours tops. It took months. No. Literally months to finish. It was not his fault. He had to completely reframe the door, and try to get it level, and figure out how to make the concrete floor level. 

I am glad it wasn't me trying to do it. Had it been me, we would still be with out a door.

So, let me break it down. We had replaced the door, heater, water heater, and we also moved the armoire, and freezer out. All of those things took an gigantic toll on our floor.

Another problem that I was having was with our kids laundry, clothes, and general messiness of their rooms. I would wash, fold, and put away their clean clothes and they would end up all over their floor. Clean clothes would end up in the laundry, and their rooms were always a horrible mess.

Then, it happened.

My mom suggested that I should take the kids dressers out of their rooms and put one dresser in the laundry room. This would serve a couple of purposes. First: It would make doing the laundry easier. The kids would get their clothes on in the laundry room, and leave their pj's in there. At night they would remove their clothes in the laundry room and put on their pajamas. Clothes wouldn't be an issue in making their rooms messy. Second: doing the laundry is easy when you can take clothes right out of the washing machine and put it in a dresser in the same room. Third: The kids rooms are small. By getting rid of their dressers, not only would we be getting rid of the clothing mess, we would also make room because there would be one less piece of furniture. 

Our laundry room is quite big, so it made a lot of sense.

We figured it was worth a shot. If we didn't like it, we could always put dressers back into their rooms.

The first order of business was to move the desk from under the windows and put it on the opposite wall.

Then we stacked the washer and dryer, removing some of the above cabinets that I didn't use anyways.

At this point it was decided. If we were going to move around the laundry room, and add a dresser, we may as well repaint the floor. After all, it was looking quite worn.

There were a few days of discussing what color to paint it. We had liked the grey but it felt cold. Which is no surprise since we basically painted the concrete the color of...well...concrete.

I painted this small dresser white to match the cupboards and washing machine. This dresser holds all of my sewing items like a champ. 

I primed the kids dresser, and waited. I was waiting to paint the kids dresser, until I figured out the floor color.

Then inspiration struck in the form of this picture.

I had thought of painting the floor grey, white, black...all neutral colors. But why couldn't I paint it a bright color? Why not make it fun? It is, after all, just a laundry room.

So, it was decided. We were going bold.

Not so bold as to have striped pink walls and a bright floor though.

The walls all got a few coats of white paint.

I have really learned to love white paint. Something about it makes it feel so clean, and new.

The floor color was agonized over for days. Days.

Then the painting started.

I was so excited.

I rolled on the paint, and waited for it to dry. Then I did a second coat, and waited.

While waiting for the floor to dry, I painted the dresser. I had decided that I wanted to paint the dresser the same color as the floor. That way, when you looked into the laundry room the dresser wouldn't stick out. I was hoping it would just blend in and look like a continuation of the floor.

With the floor painted, and the dresser drying, I was miserable.

In the early morning the floor looked good. The rest of the day it looked bright. Really bright. I used the term garish multiple times to describe it. It was the only word that seemed to fit.

Not only was it bright, but it made our family room walls look dirty.

It's funny, because when thinking of the floor in the laundry room, never once had I thought of how our paint in our family room would look with it.

I wanted to cry.

I had spent so much time painting the floor and the dresser, and I hated it.

So, I went back to the drawing board.

"Well, what if our family room wasn't this color?"

Sometimes I make bad decisions.

Really bad.

I will have to address this at another time. Back to the laundry room.

With the floor not matching the family room, and being horribly bright, I was back to picking out a new color.

My friend April suggested that I should use the same color that I used on my front door.

It was brilliant.

As soon as I started to paint, all I could do was sigh.

It was bright, happy, and not garish.

Everything I had hoped for, but had failed to get the first time around.

The best surprise of all, was that the dresser didn't have to be repainted.

Just in case you are wondering: We have had the kids clothes in the laundry room for months. It is hands down one of the better things I have done. Sure, it gets messy in there. But, I have been able to stay on top of the laundry better, and the mess is contained to one room instead of four.

Before:

After:

Still to come?

Fixing a hall closet problem, and what did I do to my family room? 

Stuck

Oh, the living room. My secret nemesis.

Too dramatic? Possibly.

Me and the living room have a love/hate relationship. Because our house is split entry, the staircase comes up the side of the living room, where there is a pony wall.

Attached to the other side of the living room, is the dining room. Neither the living room, or dining room is very large, but they are not tiny either.

My biggest struggle is trying to get the most of our space with out making it feel overwhelmed.

When we first moved in, we tore up the carpet, painted the walls and ceiling and then proceeded to try and make our furniture work with the space. When we bought the majority of our furniture it was for our house in Vegas. The Vegas house, was newly built and had more spacious rooms. Hence, the larger furniture fit in great.

The furniture in this house fit...OK. It worked for what we needed it to, at the time. 

I had disliked these couches for awhile, and had tried numerous times to rearrange the room to see if it could look better a different way.

I had lots of people compliment my room saying that they loved it, for which I was truly grateful. For me, it started to feel a little too busy. I didn't like our couches and I wanted something new. I wanted something that felt uncluttered and clean.

So I did something drastic.

My mom had given me money, as a gift, to buy something that I wanted, that I typically wouldn't buy. The only thing that I knew I wanted was a couch. Obviously couches are more...so...I sold all of our living room furniture. With the exception of my vintage orange chair. Then I used the money to buy my new couch.

We looked around for couches that we liked. I wanted it to have straight lines, be comfortable but not too fluffy, and still be able to sit three people.

We found this leather couch from RC Willey. I was nervous about having a light colored leather couch...but -spoiler-...I loved it, and I still love it.

The couch was in, and the room was definitely simple, but I still didn't love it.

So I did what any none sane person does...I moved around furniture.

Sometimes I would add in a chair,

or try the "divide and conquer", 

I found a coffee table that was in rough shape...so I tried that too.

This layout was the one that I liked the best, so it stuck around.

This cabinet was originally in the kids toy room but I thought I would give it a try in the living room.

I liked that it wasn't too big, and that it seemed to ground that side of the room.

But, I still wasn't completely happy.

I figured since I has changed the furniture, and the decor, and even the style, that it couldn't be any of those things. The only thing left, that I could think of, was the paint.

I love color.

Me and color are besties. 

So, when I proposed that I was going to paint the room white, Blake probably thought I was joking.

I wasn't.

I got the room all ready to paint, and then I just went for it.

What you can't really see in these pictures is that the wall that I painted white is the whole depth of our house. It goes into the dining room.

In the dining room is a large mirror.

Separating the two rooms has always been a little of a challenge for me.

"Where do I hang art, that I want to be in the living room, and not look like it is part of the dining room?" "Will it look weird to have a big mirror, some space, and then some more art?"

My solution? Separate the rooms with a stripe.

Oh how I wish this were the end of the living room saga!

Alas...no.

I felt like the very hungry caterpillar that was still hungry. Something just didn't seem right.

Along the way I traded the wood dresser for a hutch

and I traded the black chair for a white one.

My living room felt dark, and full of wood,

...and maybe even a little old? I don't know.

I needed lighter colors.

I tested colors for the stripe.
Nope. That wasn't going to fix my problem either.
After reading an article it occurred to me that perhaps I just needed to eliminate some colors. Streamline, if you will. I also realized while looking at pictures of other rooms, that I like rooms with lots of white.
So I got rid of the hutch and traded it for another dresser, this time with white. (I may eventually paint all the drawers white, but I haven't committed to that yet.) I also changed the rug, the brown cabinet at the top of the stairs, and I painted over the stripe.

There are lots of plants around. I seem to not be able to stop buying them. Our house is going to look like a jungle soon.

I love having fun things to look at in rooms. I appreciate that special thing that you won't see in other people's houses...
Like metal frogs used to hold photos.

Or a random collection of globes in the corner.

Maybe a little piggy bank that looks like it could be in Toy Story,

or a mask from Mystere and a brass cricket to remind me of our living in Vegas.

Since the room has changed, which I will admit hasn't been a real long time, I have really liked it.
It feels colorful, but not too busy.
Before:

After: