I'm Walking On Sunshine!

When I last left you, the walls were up and we had already started painting.

When they were working on the walls we decided to start laying our floor.

We had previously decided to do a bamboo flooring that would coordinate with our upstairs hardwood floors. Originally we were going to leave the family room carpet and just put wood flooring at the bottom of the stairs and into the new piano room. When we found some flooring that we liked, we just decided to do it all. Go for the gold...right?! Truthfully, what was the breaking point was we found some flooring at Lumber Liquidators and it was being done away with. The chance of never being able to find the wood, if we changed our mind, was what did it.
We moved all of the furniture and toys and crap to one side of the room and started taking up the carpet and baseboards.

Underneath our carpet was...Surprise...peel and stick tile.

I probably shouldn't have been shocked, but I was, a little. On top of the peel and stick tile they had put some sort of glue to hold the carpet pad down. Only problem was, I couldn't clean the glue off, I tried, and the glue was still sticky. Tacky sticky. It was pretty gross. Instead of taking up the tile, which would have taken a good long while, we decided to lay the wood over the top of the tile.

We ordered some underlayment for the floor when we ordered the wood. It is supposed to help with sound and water.

We used some spacers and started laying the floor.

It wasn't necessarily quick work, but it wasn't horrible either. When Blake and I were working together we were definitely faster then me doing it on my own.

We worked in sections pulling up the carpet, pad, tack strips, and baseboards so that we wouldn't have too much tile exposed since it was sticky

and we were still having to "live" in the area.

Cutting around all the little nooks and crannies was the most time consuming.

When half of the room was done we moved the furniture over and started working on the other half of the room.

The wood extends all the way into the new piano room.

By the end, we just wanted it to be done so we worked really hard one weekend to finish it.

With the wood floors in and the walls painted it finally looked like a room.

By removing the carpet in the family room, it occurred to Blake and I that we no longer had any carpet in our house.

Eventually, we plan on carpeting the two back rooms but for now we are quite happy to have the nasty carpet out of the house.

It is amazing the difference it has made!

Before:

After:

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And just to really rock your world...

Really Before:

and After:

Really Before:

and After:

Rearranging For the New Year

Since we moved in, the upstairs living room has looked like this.

It was fine. I have been dying, however, to move the small couch that was downstairs upstairs....just to try it.

Since I had to put away Christmas, I figured this was my opportunity to ask Blake to help me move the couch.

Another thing I wanted to do was ditch the rug in our basement. I like it. The problem is, no matter how much I tried I could not get it to lay flat. I even spent a day steaming it with an iron and laying books on top of it. Nothing. Still bumpy.

So after I got all of the Christmas stuff put away, I got to work. I know some people draw stuff out on paper and don't just move furniture around all willy nilly...but I do. I have to move the furniture and then see how it "feels."

I tried a couple of different formations:

I liked both, differently.

Then I had a thought...what if I tried that cursed rug?! I figured that I was going to sell it, but by looking at it in the room, it would help me decide if I wanted to find one for this room in the future.

Suddenly it was like the room was more cozy...complete? I don't know. And wouldn't you know? The rug lays flat up here. The most interesting thing is even though there is more furniture it feels more open.

Blake likes the leather chair in the living room because it is extra seating, but ideally I would like to move it downstairs. We will see who wins out.

Sometimes all you need is just a little change to make a room seem different.

Since I had stolen the rug from the basement, I was on the lookout for a new one.

Not having a rug downstairs is not an option. Our carpet is nasty, and needs to be covered up. Lucky for me Ikea saved the day. So, unintentionally, downstairs got a little makeover too.

This rug from Ikea is great. It is very inexpensive, as far as rugs go (Hello! $99 for a 6'7"x9'10"), and it adds a graphic contrast that I really like.

And...since we can't have some days off with out replacing something in our house...

The faucet in the main bathroom was on it's last leg. The knobs were becoming stripped and it was just a matter of time until we had to replace it.

Luckily, madame fate shined her favor on us, and we found a faucet at Home Depot that was originally $98 marked down to $24. We bought two. One for the upstairs bathroom and one for the master bathroom (if we ever get around to it).

One would never guess that changing out a small faucet would create such a mess. It started in the hallway, and just progressively got worse the further into the bathroom you got.

After one and a half hours, a couple mumblings, and some good ole fashioned muscle, the sink was in.

One of these days we will replace the whole vanity, in the mean time...this works.

Any projects that you have done over the Christmas break? I would love to hear!

Another Room Bites the Dust

Our downstairs has two family rooms. The one that I have already painted and fixed, and another one down the hallway. For along time we just referred to it as the second family room, sometimes we still do. But more often then not we refer to it as the "toy room". 

Sadly this is the only true "before" picture that I have of it. 

But...I do have a couple other from after we moved in, and...as long as you can disregard the mess, then we can be friends.

The closets in this room are great. They hold A LOT of stuff. The left closet holds all of my Etsy things,

the one on the right holds all of the kids toys. Well,...when they aren't strewed across the floor. I have found that keeping the toys all in one place makes for only one messy room instead of the whole house. That isn't saying that the house doesn't get messy....because...Oh, it does.

This room has had a lot of different furniture configurations since we moved in. We just couldn't figure out what we wanted.

One thing we did know? That we didn't want to have the room be all wood paneling. 

Surprise, surprise.

I decided to start with the closet doors first.

They both got primed...

and then two coats of paint, and then the room sat.

Just like this. For a long time.

The wall across from the closet doors is only half of a wall and it was originally covered with wallpaper.

One day I decided that I had had enough. 

So I started priming all of the wood paneling and the wall that had wallpaper.

Then, I painted it the same light grey color that is on our other walls.

Painting the wood and the trim around the doors was surprisingly time consuming. Painting one wall took me all day.

It probably didn't help that I accidentally had a little...er...big spill.

Thank goodness for a shopvac. 

Once all the walls were painted it seemed to amplify how ugly the ceiling was. I don't know if it was because the new grey color made it look really dirty, or if the old brown paneling had distracted you enough from actually looking at the ceiling.
So the natural next step was to paint the acoustic tile ceiling. I am not really sure why I got such a wild hair, maybe it was because the whole room was grey and it was supposed to be a fun toy room, but it was decided. 
The ceiling was going to be painted blue.

Why not add a little bit of character to a room?! It's just paint, right?
So I went to Home Depot and picked out a few colors and lined them up on the ceiling. 
(the picture below shows the best of how truly ugly the ceiling was)
I like to look at paint colors on the wall in the morning, afternoon and evening to make sure that I have the best color for the space.
I ended up settling on the third from the left.

I wanted something that was clean looking but not neon at night with the lights on. 
Its interesting, I thought that a blue ceiling would stand out more. You know...you walk into a room and it is like "Hey! Look at me! I am a blue ceiling."
But it doesn't. It more of a cool kid, "What's up. Yeah, I'm blue. So what?"

I hung up big pictures of the kids and put little frames beside them to hold quote bubbles that they can write in.

 To the right of the kids pictures is a little hallway of sorts that leads to their "Laboratory." (More on that another time.)

I painted the side of the wall with chalkboard paint. The kids love it. So much so, that I always have a thin coat of chalk dust on all of the furniture in the room. 

I tried a lot of curtains in this room but finally found some sheer panels at Home Goods for $6.99 for two. Best deal ever.

I feel like the room itself could use more personality. But if nothing else, it is better then when it started. 

Before:

After:

Kind of Before:

After:

Before:

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After:

The big piano was given to us by the previous owner. At some point I plan on painting it.

Still on the list:

change out outlets to white.

Paint piano

Find something to hang above the piano

buy a rug