The House on the Hill

We’re halfway through! Here’s last week’s to-do list:

• Test limewash
• Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
• Build deck stairs
• Build more concrete forms
• Remove second remaining brick walkway
• Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
• Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
• Start setting/leveling concrete forms

And here’s how well we did:

• Test limewash
• Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
• Build deck stairs
• Build more concrete forms
• Remove second remaining brick walkway
• Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
• Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
• Start setting/leveling concrete forms

Not only did I test the limewash, but I ended up getting almost half of the wall started before a pop up thunderstorm washed me out. Thankfully, most of the limewash survived but I need to go back and wash some off where I went a little too thick. The nice thing about the product I’m using is that you can wash it off within 5 days of applying it to the brick. The not so nice thing is that it’s been raining most of the week and I’m on day 4.5. I’ll also need to go back and get into the mortar better in a few spots. Our mortar is pretty deep set and it’s been difficult to get good coverage using the masonry brush. I remembered afterward that we have a paint sprayer so I might try that out for the rest of the wall. I was hoping I could leave the door to the garage alone but after painting the brick, I don’t think the color is working. My plan is to find a light gray but the gutters and downspout will likely stay the same color unless I can’t stand it and then we’ll see what happens. The gutters also need to be cleaned ASAP. We’re thinking we’re going to build a raised planter along the other wall (stained to match the deck) and plant some hostas to help hide the foundation and maybe help disguise our meters. Hopefully we can get that done during the ORC but it’s an extra project that wasn’t in our original plan. We finished our deck expansion on Saturday with help from Kyle’s parents. Not sure if we’ll be able to get it stained by the end of the ORC but at least the building part is done! Kyle installed some temporary stairs down into the yard for OG and the dogs but Phase 2 of this project will include adding some big box steps and railings to finish everything off. We are still planning on building an outdoor fireplace at some point but that will also be a Phase 2 project and won’t be done during the ORC. We’re planning on going ahead and pouring a concrete pad for it when we rent the mixer for our pavers but the actual building and plastering we’ll save for later. There are still a lot of details to figure out there. As for moving the gravel, we’ve gone back and forth on this but we decided to leave it all in place and just move it around as we need to. We have a lot of leveling to do this weekend since the patio is sloped about 6-8 inches and we’ll probably just use the gravel that’s there as a base layer and get marble chips to go on top and between the pavers instead of using the aggregate. We also didn’t cut/cap any sprinklers because we’ve only come across one so far and it’s not in the way so we can deal with it later if we need to. We did start leveling out the first concrete form but got rained out. It’s supposed to be nice most of this weekend so I’m hoping we can get a lot of leveling done and most, if not all, of the forms in place. We weren’t able to build anymore over the weekend so we’ll start by setting the 5 we have and go from there. Here’s our plan for this weekend:

• Finish limewashing
• Finish building concrete forms (for pavers)
• Dig/level patio area
• Set/level concrete forms (hopefully all of them)
• Choose a paint color for the garage door
• Clean the gutters?

I can’t believe we’re halfway through and I’m so glad we have 8 weeks instead of 6 this time or else I’d really be sweating! You can check out all of the other guest participants right here.

Week Three! Over the weekend, we got ready to knock out a bunch of progress on the deck expansion and start getting the patio ready. First up, we removed the first half of our current wonky brick walkway to make way for a new 5ft x 24ft deck expansion. Then, before we could even start digging out holes for the new deck posts, we had an idea that ended up changing our entire plan: What if we built an outdoor fireplace? Not a fire pit, but an actual wood burning fireplace with a hearth and a chimney. (Ignore the measurements) How does that change our plan? Well, we don’t have enough space for the full deck expansion we had planned and the fireplace where we want it. The whole reason we were doing the deck expansion was so that we could eventually replace our dining room window with a sliding door that would lead out onto the deck. Moving the doors from the kitchen to the dining room would have given us enough space for 3 more sets of drawers and another 4.5ft of counter space in the kitchen. So we could either keep our original plan or we could add in the fireplace and scrap our plans to expand the kitchen and the deck. In the end, we decided to scrap our original plans. We have plenty of storage in the kitchen and while we have slightly less counter space than I’d like to have, the island makes up for it. So instead of a full deck expansion, we are just adding on large box steps down into the new patio area and we’ll add another set down into the yard. Now, I’m not thinking we’ll be able to build the fireplace in the time frame of the One Room Challenge. If we had this idea from the beginning and had started on time instead of two weeks late, I’d feel pretty confident, but we already have a huge list to get done and we’re battling the weather (remind me to never commit to an exterior project for the ORC again, mmmmkay?). Plus, we need HOA approval and I haven’t even submitted our request yet. ANYWAY. We weren’t prepared for that change of plans and basically lost half of the weekend but we did get two of our new posts set before the rain hit (we’ll still need 4 posts for the steps we’re building). We also ripped down a sheet of plywood to use for our concrete forms. We used 2x4s last time and that’s what I would rather use but we already had 2 sheets of plywood that were just sitting in our garage with no purpose so we’re using those up first. We ripped enough material to put together 7 forms (I think we need 14 for the pavers and we’ll need more for the concrete pads for the kitchen area and fireplace) and Kyle built 5 of the forms over the weekend. We started playing around with the placement to make sure spacing will work. On Monday, we got hit with crappy weather and it rained every day until Thursday. We’re supposed to get more rain on Sunday so we’re hoping to get a little bit of work done after work today (Friday) and knock out the deck stairs with some assistance from Kyle’s dad tomorrow. Here’s how it was looking near the end of the weekend (before we got our second post in): Yikes. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than how it looked a couple of years ago… In better news, we got our approval from our HOA to paint our brick. I’ve been having the hardest time finding the limewash I want to use in stock due to the shutdowns in Italy but I managed to find a local paint store that carries it and has two of the color options in stock. The store also happens to be on my way home from work (my company recalled everyone to the office this week) and is offering curbside pick up so I’m going to swing by on my way home to pick up some to test out. Eventually we’d like to add brick around the rest of our foundation and maybe above the garage door around front and paint the siding white as well but those things will be done down the road. Here’s what I’m hoping we can get done this weekend (majorly dependent on weather):

• Test limewash
• Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
• Build deck stairs
• Build more concrete forms
• Remove second remaining brick walkway
• Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
• Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
• Start setting/leveling concrete forms

Be sure to check out the other guest participants here!

It’s that time of year! If you don’t know what the One Room Challenge is, you can read all about it right here and make sure you check out the other participants here.

You guys, we have gone back and forth so many times on whether to participate this season. Originally, we decided to sit it out and just keep slowly (painfully slowly) working on finishing the trim work in the kitchen and dining room. Then we decided to join and redo our family room. We were all in on this plan…until we weren’t. So then we decided again to not join. And then we started spending a butt load of time outside trying not to go completely bonkers from staying home 24/7 for the last 9 weeks and decided it would be nice to finish out deck/patio and give ourselves a nice outdoor retreat. And since the ORC just happens to be going on right now, we may as well just go for it, right? Right?! So here we are joining in Week 2 and we’ve got half a plan and no work done. Sounds about right.

We attempted to do our patio a couple of years ago for the Fall ORC and it was a massive fail. We still have a pile of gravel in our driveway from it that we never finished spreading; it’s only a slight hazard with a two year old running amok. It was the rainiest fall I could remember at that time and I swore off ever trying to do an outdoor project for the ORC ever again. And yet here we are. Attempting to finish an outdoor project in 8 weeks (LOL more like 6 because we’re starting 2 weeks late). In the Spring. In the South where it’s sunny one minute and hailing the next. Should be fun!

There’s a lot going on back here. Our grass is always way overgrown, we need to extend our fence another 20ft back, and there’s ivy taking over everything. I’d love to one day replace our murder shed with a garden house and add a plunge pool. But none of that is going to get done right now so let’s just talk about the patio/deck area.

First up, the deck. A few years ago we took down our original deck and built a new one. The old one was in very poor shape: the paint was peeling, the joists were undersized, some of the frame was rotten, it wasn’t attached to the house, and none of the posts were actually in the ground; they were either sitting on pavers or random pieces of wood. It took me literally ONE swing of the sledgehammer to take the entire thing down and I almost knocked the spigot off the house in the process. We are going to extend the deck about 5ft into the patio area, basically replacing the brick walkway, plus a step or two down to the patio. Eventually, we’re going to replace this window with sliding doors and a couple of box steps down onto the deck.

We won’t be able to stain the deck during the ORC since the boards will need to dry out first but eventually it will get the same stain as the rest of the deck which could use a new coat, too.

As for the patio, we are planning on doing a mixture of large concrete pavers and gravel. The gravel we have here now was supposed to be temporary and is usually used for drainage so it’s pretty sharp and doesn’t feel great if you step on it the wrong way without shoes. We are going to keep/reuse this gravel though because we already have it and most of the surface area of the patio will be large concrete pavers that we pour ourselves. We are also going to pour two narrow concrete pads along the tall section of our fence to eventually build an outdoor kitchen area. For now, we’ll be moving our grill and smoker down there. I’m not sure that we’ll have time to do a kitchen build during the ORC and we’re not 100% sure on what we want it to look like or exactly how we want it to function yet. The arbor was trashed by a storm before we got to finish it and we don’t need/want it anymore so we’re going to repurpose the posts from it to be used for the new section of our deck. We’re also going to put in a more permanent set up for our café lights. The patio area is sloped but instead of filling it and leveling it, we’re going to level the pavers and then fill in with gravel where we need to.

The other thing that I’d love to do back here is to limewash the brick wall (eventually we want to paint our whole house white). TBD on whether we can do this during the ORC because I’m still waiting on HOA approval and then we have to test a sample to see how we feel before committing since it’s not the cheapest product. So let’s see if I can break this down into a nice handy to-do list that will probably change 12,000 times over the next 6 weeks:

• Remove bricks
• Extend deck (this is a big to-do list on its own)
• Install ledger board
• Set posts
• Build frame
• Install joists
• Add blocking
• Cut/install deck boards
• Build stairs
• Pull weeds from patio and try to blow out pine straw and broken acorn bits
• Remove ivy that’s growing through the fence
• Remove railroad ties in patio area (to be replaced with retaining wall at some point)
• Build frames for pavers (ripping down existing plywood to use materials we already have)
• Place/level/stake frames and rake out gravel where needed
• Cut and cap sprinkler feed line (we don’t use our sprinklers but they run under the patio area and don’t want any issues for future homeowners)
• Pour pavers (we’ll be renting a concrete mixer this time instead of mixing by shovel in a plastic baby pool)
• Remove frames from pavers (once cured)
• Fill in with gravel where necessary
• Hang wire for lights
• Hang lights
• Limewash brick?
• Paint door to garage?

That somehow doesn’t seem like that much and also seems like a whole heck of a lot all at once. Thankfully we’re going to have some help building the deck and the concrete mixer should speed up the concrete work so maybe it won’t be so bad? Now let’s just hope our weekends stay dry.

Let’s do this!

We are finally back to making progress in the kitchen but not enough for a full blog post so I thought it might be fun to post pictures from the birthday party we threw for our TWO (how??) year old.

My original career plan after college was to be an event planner. I pretty quickly realized I like having my nights and weekends to myself though so I’ve settled for throwing themed parties instead. Last year, we hosted a Winter ONEderland party and this year I decided on a tropical TWO-tti Frutti theme. In case you’re wondering, the plan for next year is “Odessa’s 3 Ring Circus” unless she decides she’s done with my ideas and wants to choose her own theme.

Here’s a glimpse of last year’s party. I bought out the silver and rose gold bottle brush trees from the Target Dollar Spot every time they restocked for months and used them all over the party.

We knew a large chunk of our family wouldn’t be able to make it this year so we decided to send out invitations to OG’s classmates. Kyle found a template in Canva and then tweaked it to fit the theme.

I spent the week leading up to the party blowing up balloons and putting together balloon garlands and other decorations throughout the house. I had planned on putting one above our front porch but since it was supposed to be rainy the day of the party, I decided to nix that one and just go with the three I had planned for inside the house. Outside, we blew up flamingo and pineapple floats that we already owned, hung a garland I ordered from this Etsy shop, and put up a “Welcome” poster mounted to foam board. We had the poster printed at Staples and grabbed the foam board at a craft store.

Inside, we set up the goody bags and a “Thank You” sign on the entry table along with another one of those flamingo and pineapple garlands, one of OG’s stuffed flamingos, and a little wooden pineapple we bought in Haiti a few years ago.

We cleared probably about 80% of her toys out of the playroom and left out a few toys, puzzles, and blocks and set out coloring pages and crayons. I set up the gift table in here with a “Happy Birthday” sign I ordered from amazon and I had a few photos printed to go over her toy shelf with the balloon arch. I also pulled out some tassel garlands I made for my friend’s baby shower a few years ago and we strung them up using command strips.

We threw some table cloths over shelves and furniture we didn’t want the kids to mess with (our shelf full of vinyls between the playroom and family room, the gift table that had my computer equipment under it, and a dresser in the family room hallway) which worked pretty well. I think we ended up with 8 kids ranging from a year old to 4 years old so we tried to keep things we didn’t want touched pretty well hidden and tried to keep the toys and crayons easily accessible.

Of course, I also had to decorate the pictures of our pups who were at camp during the party; those are pineapple glasses on Barley, if you can’t tell.

Balloon arch #2 helped to hide the yet-to-be-finished opening between the family room and kitchen.

I didn’t take a picture of the food set up or the few decorations on the kitchen shelves. The party was at 1 so we provided a lunch spread plus beer, wine, water, juice, and soda. I ordered 2 sandwich rings (turkey and ham) and a platter of chicken tenders from Publix plus chips and dip, goldfish, cheese puffs, and two large fruit salads. We also served falafel and hummus as well as spanakopita as vegetarian options which were a big hit. And then of course cake (and cupcakes both from Publix)!

 

I used a tropical table cover from Target to cover the back doors and hung balloon arch #3. I ordered a flamingo and “Happy Birthday” cake topper from amazon for the cake and fruit themed toppers (amazon) for the cupcakes. I also purchased balloons and a template from The Creative Heart Studio to make a flamingo balloon mosaic. I was going to make a watermelon slice too but I ran out of time. The flamingo actually wasn’t even finished the way it was supposed to be but I deemed it “good enough” and rolled with it.

I always like to make sure we have plenty of options for seating so in addition to the lounge furniture in the family room, we also pushed our dining table to the window and set up an extra table and chairs. I went to Lidl the week before the party and bought a butt load of fruit to decorate with. The table cloths I bought at Lidl a few years ago when I hosted my friend’s baby shower and they worked perfectly for the party. Those pineapples were $0.99/each and we sent them home with a few of our friends after the party!

Overall it was such a fun day! I was a little anxious leading up to it because OG’s first birthday party was the last time I saw my dad completely coherent before his passing and it was hard knowing he wouldn’t be there this year. That’s honestly probably one reason I threw myself so deep into the planning and decorating leading up to it and thankfully I was so busy the day of I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. I’m extremely thankful for the family, friends, and classmates of OG’s that showed up to celebrate with us. I wasn’t social most of last year and it was nice to see everyone and feel like a real person again.

Anyway. It’s hard to believe we have a two year old! It feels almost impossible that it has already been two years and at the same time that it’s only been two years. Time is a weird thing.

This weekend we’re hoping to knock off a few things from our kitchen list! I stained the last two floating shelves yesterday so Kyle just needs to hammer the top one into place and those will officially be done.  You can’t really tell but I didn’t tape off the bottom shelf and ended up staining some of the grout so I’ll have to touch that up at some point,

I’m also hoping Kyle can get the ceiling primed and that we can do a lot of work on the trim that we’ve already installed (crown, window, hood). I also need to finish up a tiny bit of grout but that should only take a few minutes. If we can get a lot of time to work (which just depends on the toddler’s mood), I think we can have the already installed trim all patched and painted or at least prepped for painting this weekend! In case you don’t follow me on instagram, here is a look at the two floating shelves I stained yesterday. Don’t ask me why we haven’t put outlet covers back on. It takes two seconds but we just haven’t done it yet. One of those silly little things that’s easy to do but takes you years to actually get done I guess!

Have a great weekend!

Week Six! We all know what that means…it’s reveal day!

It has been both the slowest and fastest six weeks ever and I’m so ready to take the weekend off before jumping back into our kitchen. Did I mention we’re hosting Thanksgiving and our kitchen is only 70% finished?

ANYWAY, that’s another post for another day. Today, we’re here to talk about the dining room. Before I show you how it looks now (which I’m going to say is 95% finished: the final ceiling trim and painting the ceiling can’t happen until the kitchen is ready for the same treatment and the pantry door isn’t installed yet among other small things), let’s take a trip into the past.

This is what our dining room looked like before we bought the house and it has looked more or less like this for the last 6.5 years that we’ve lived here.

I did paint it a far too purple toned gray at some point, Kyle installed a new light fixture, and we filled it with a hodge-podge of furniture but otherwise, this room sat pretty much ignored.

As beautiful and inspiring as that space was, we decided to try to make it over and add a pantry to the room for the Spring One Room Challenge earlier this year. Now to be completely honest, this was probably not a good decision on my part. I was struggling really hard after my dad passed in March and my grandfather’s health was quickly failing (we lost him shortly after) and I was really just trying to distract myself from grieving. Long story very short, participating in the Spring challenge probably added way more stress than I needed at the time and it actually lead to us having to demolish our entire kitchen which you can read about here if you feel so inclined. To say it has been a stressful and emotional year would be a giant understatement.

This is about as far as we made it for the Spring ORC:

Actually, I do think we got the new door to the garage installed but you get the idea.

We talked about finishing the kitchen and taking a break from projects for the rest of the year but when the Fall One Room Challenge rolled around I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to give ourselves a hard deadline for the kitchen, dining room, and pantry. Obviously the kitchen didn’t make the cut but the dining room has come so, so far and I am so excited to share it with you guys! I am planning on getting some professional photos of this space done when our kitchen is finished so for now I just have my always stellar iPhone photos.

The wall to the right used to be solid with no doors and now there are two: one to the garage on the left and one to our new pantry).

Don’t worry about the fact that I didn’t paint the crown molding all the way to the ceiling; we have one more piece of ceiling trim that will go in once we’re ready to do the same in the kitchen and it will hide the unpainted parts. I also need to paint and install the pantry door and paint the garage door but those are two projects that got cut for the ORC.

The entrance to the pantry used to be in the hall and was used for our cats’ litter box. This is what it looked like before:

We opted to move the entrance to the dining room side and use the space for storage for our serving/entertaining dishes, specialty baking tools, and a couple of small kitchen electrics.

I’ll be 100% honest and say we chose to plank the walls and ceiling with tongue and groove pine because it was a lot easier and faster than hanging and finishing drywall. I love how it turned out though and it’s reminiscent of the paneling in other parts of our house.

It’s killing me that these are so dark but it’s a cloudy day and the room doesn’t get a ton of light at this time of day anyway. I cannot wait to get my friend Christina in here to work her magic!

This chandelier from World Market is one of my favorite parts of the room.

We actually bought this during Black Friday last year to install in our bedroom but we never got around to it and once I painted the walls and trim in here, I knew our chrome pendant wasn’t going to work in this space anymore. I love the wood beads with the dark green trim.

The cabinets are actually Billy bookcases from IKEA and still need to be trimmed out but we wanted to see how they felt in the room before doing too much to them. They hold all of our drinkware and some of our overflow dishes that we don’t keep in the kitchen as well as some seasonal items.

We looked into buying actual cabinets for this area but the price difference is huge and we needed something shallow anyway so these 11″ deep bookcases are perfect.

I have had such an incredible response to this (removable!) wallpaper and trim combo. If you’ve been around a while, you might remember that I actually bought this wallpaper for the laundry room which I was going to pair with dark green cabinetry. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to expand the laundry room like we wanted and this wallpaper has just been sitting rolled up on top of a cabinet. We knew we were doing a faux board and batten painted green in here and we had planned on just painting the top half of the wall white. The more I looked at it, the more I knew how much that color (Behr Northern Glen, by the way) and that wallpaper (which you can find here) were meant to be used together. Shout out to Young House Love for using this same paper while I just happened to be on the hunt for a large print wallpaper. I had been looking for something with lemons because I liked the idea of yellow and dark green but the minute I saw the oranges I was sold. The wallpaper is actually a wall mural meant to be hung vertically across about an 8ft span but we were able to add more trim and hang it horizontally without needing to match up any seams in most areas.

I think I found about 6 different popular greens on Pinterest when I was trying to find the right color for the dining room and kitchen cabinets. I got samples of all of them and none of them were “the one” so I headed back to Home Depot to get two more samples mixed up. While those were being mixed, I decided to browse the paint chips and got a sample of Northern Glen on a whim. It just goes to show that while the internet can provide a wealth of inspiration and information, sometimes a random paint chip at the hardware store is what you really need.

We’ve had these chairs almost as long as we’ve lived here. They were a gift from my in-laws and they are so sturdy and gorgeous. We’re planning on getting a new dining table at some point and one of my requirements is that the new table has to work with these chairs.

We needed some sort of hutch to put by the new entry to the garage to use as a place to set down our keys and wallets after coming home each day. When this beauty was posted on a local vintage shop’s Instagram, I snatched it up. It fits perfectly in this space and offers extra storage.

Speaking of coming home each day, this view coming into the house is sooooooo much better than walking into a 5×6 cramped box that’s 2/3 taken by a washer and dryer and not one but two doors.

Although, this view is more realistic:

And the view coming down the hall from the front door isn’t too shabby either:

So, that’s it! Like I said, there are some small finishing things left to do but this is the first time in four One Room Challenges that we’ve actually finished our space enough to reveal it and I could not be happier!

Let’s just take a look one more time.

Before:

After:

Please make sure you go check out the other reveals here. There is some seriously insane talent out there!

Holy crap it’s week 5 which means only one week left until the challenge is over!

Per usual, we are behind but I think if we really buckle down this weekend we’ll be able to knock it all out. Here is what I had hoped to accomplish over the weekend:

• Finish trim install
• Finish caulking/spackling/sanding all trim
• Paint all trim
• Prime ceiling
• Paint ceiling
• Install cabinets
• Paint garage door
• Clean pantry door
• Paint pantry door
• Install wallpaper
• Install new light fixture
• Install blinds

And here is how we’re looking now:

• Finish trim install
• Finish caulking/spackling/sanding all trim
• Paint all trim – In progress. Hoping all of the dining room painting is done by end of day Thursday (except the ceiling trim which we will be finishing later)
• Prime ceiling – putting this off until we are ready to paint the ceiling in the kitchen since the two spaces are connected
• Paint ceiling – putting this off until we are ready to paint the ceiling in the kitchen since the two spaces are connected
• Install cabinets
• Paint garage door – hoping to be done with this Thursday
• Clean pantry door
• Paint pantry door
• Install wallpaper
• Install new light fixture
• Install blinds – Not sure on this one. Need to get the wallpaper up first to see how I feel about the blinds. Might opt for a different window treatment.

It doesn’t look like we got much done and we definitely did not get as far as I had hoped but things are about to go fast. I’ve got a first coat up on the rest of the trim and there are just a couple of spots on the garage door that need to be sanded before I can paint. I’m also hoping I can talk Kyle into installing the new light fixture tonight since we won’t be painting the ceiling yet and we installed our cabinets over the weekend which was the last thing we needed on the long wall before wallpaper.

We also attempted to start the wallpaper after OG’s bedtime and before our dinner one night but it’s definitely going to take longer than we thought it would and we don’t want to rush through. We did get one piece up but we accidentally cut it a little wonky and it’s now just the slightest bit too short so we’ll have to remove it and put up another piece. Womp, womp! But it looks so good! I cannot wait for all of it to go up.

 

If I can get all of the painting finished up Thursday and we can get the new light installed, that will leave the weekend to install the wallpaper and finish everything we need to do in the pantry and then next week will just be finishing up all of the little stuff, cleaning it all up, and taking pictures.

So here’s the dining room to-do list for the last week of the challenge:

• Paint all trim
• Paint garage door
• Install wallpaper
• Install new light fixture
• Install blinds

As for the pantry (which we haven’t touched during the challenge yet):

• Re-route electric (we found a live wire hiding behind a wall when we demoed but we will be able to just remove it instead of having to re-route it)
• Finish installing paneling on the walls
• Install paneling on the ceiling
• Prime and paint new paneling
• Spray paint brackets for final shelf
• Move two existing shelves
• Install final shelf
• Patch/paint nail holes
• Install trim
• Caulk/spackle/sand trim
• Paint trim
• Paint bottom shelf? Not sure on this yet since I think the white would just get scuffed up.
• Paint door frame
• Clean door
• Trim door (it’s slightly too wide)
• Paint door
• Install door

Be sure to check out all of the other incredible room transformations right here!

Week Four!

In true ORC fashion, we are not on schedule to finish so I think we’re going to cut the finishing work on the kitchen and focus solely on the dining room and pantry. Still planning on finishing the kitchen by Thanksgiving (hopefully before!) since we’re hosting but since we still have floor to ceiling cabinets to plan and build, four shelves to drill out, sand, and oil, lots of trim work that hasn’t started, and only two weeks left until reveal day, I don’t think it’s happening.

That’s okay though because progress is chugging along in the dining room and I’m optimistic it will be finished! I don’t have many progress photos today since we’re still working on trim but once that’s finished things should very quickly start falling into place.

We had planned on getting our storage cabinets from IKEA last weekend but they ran out of stock the day our friend Tom was going to pick them up for us. We live about 1.5 – 2 hours away from IKEA so we couldn’t just hop in the car when they re-stocked a couple of days later. Kyle is planning on heading up tomorrow assuming they aren’t out of stock again and we should be able to get those put together and up this weekend.

Here’s the one progress photo I have from this week: partially painted trim! I got the first coat of green up on the first wall and I’m hoping to get the second coat up today and the rest of the installed trim caulked. I am in LOVE with this color. It’s Behr Northern Glen if you’re wondering and it’s the same color we painted our kitchen cabinets.

This is what I’m hoping to get done this weekend:

• Finish trim install
• Finish caulking/spackling/sanding all trim
• Paint all trim
• Prime ceiling
• Paint ceiling
• Install cabinets
• Paint garage door
• Clean pantry door
• Paint pantry door
• Install wallpaper
• Install new light fixture
• Install blinds

This would basically finish off the dining room and give us a week to finish the pantry which doesn’t need much more work.

Be sure to check out what everyone else is up to right here!

Week Two!

Admittedly, I don’t have much progress to share this week. We are slowly working on finishing up caulking and cleaning the tile in the kitchen and prepping the open shelves for finishing/installation. I’m hoping to get a lot of trim work done this weekend so I can start caulking all of that which I estimate will take me approximately 3 years and 47 days.

Since I don’t have much progress to share today, I thought I’d share a couple of mood boards and a little more detail for the two spaces so you guys can see how they work together.

First up, the dining room:

The main elements in this room will be the green board and batten wall treatment and the orange grove wallpaper. The green color we chose (Behr Northern Glen) isn’t showing true to color on this screen but the shots on my Instagram are pretty close.

We’ve also decided to purchase this IKEA Billy bookcase to replace the dresser we’re using now (which doesn’t look like it’s going to hang in there much longer anyway). Here’s a shot of the dresser (and a sneak peek at the wallpaper and green together); it’s just a cheap Target dresser that we’ve had probably as long as we’ve lived in this house. What you can’t see is the severe bow at the bottom of the dresser from the weight of all of our crap.

We’re planning on building the bookcase out a bit and trimming it so that it looks built in. We’re going ahead and splurging on this for two reasons: 1) it gives us even more storage than what we have now which is never a bad thing and 2) it keeps us from having a seam in our wallpaper. Since this paper is meant to be hung vertically, I don’t think we’d be able to match the pattern and blend the seam. The bookcase will go about where the dresser is now and then there will be wallpaper on each side of it.

Right now we have a chrome light fixture that I really like but I want to use some more natural elements in the space so we’re going to install this World Market chandelier that we purchased for our bedroom in here instead.

We’re also keeping our existing dining room table for now which we built using plans by Ana White. Eventually, we’ll get a new table and put our farmhouse table outside but for now we’re using what we already have since the table I want is $1,000 and ain’t nobody spending that on a table right now.

There’s really not much to talk about in the kitchen and since we’re making our own counters, I didn’t include any on the mood board.

We replaced all of our cabinets with these Lowe’s Project Source drawers and painted them the same green we used in the dining room. We also carried the same laminate floors from the rest of the downstairs into the dining room and kitchen.

As for the tile, we installed the white penny tile counter to ceiling on both cabinet walls which was a major labor of love and a learning experience. For instance, we learned that our kitchen isn’t square but to be perfectly honest we probably could have guessed that one for ourselves.

The black and white tile is majorly out of my comfort zone. I tend to get tired of patterns really quickly (ask Kyle how many bedspreads we’ve gone through since we moved in) but I just really wanted to do something bold…because I guess green cabinets and wallpaper with giant oranges on it aren’t bold enough? ANYWAY. Kyle (AKA the one who makes my house dreams come true) built a custom hood frame and then I tiled it with the patterned tile. It’s probably one of my favorite projects we’ve ever done and once it’s all clean and caulked I will post about it (there’s already a picture on my Instagram feed of it before grout if you can’t wait until next week).

This space has been partially finished for SO LONG now and I’m really ready to get it wrapped up. Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish at a bare minimum this weekend:

• Finish installing shelf rods
• Drill holes in shelves
• Sand shelves
• Oil shelves to match counters
• Caulk tile
• Continue cleaning tile (do as I say, not as I do: DO NOT let grout haze sit for weeks on end because it will have gotten nice and cozy and will not want to leave)
• Trim out the doors to the deck
• Trim out the wall next to the counter by the family room
• Trim out the garage door
• Add additional trim to the window
• Fill nail holes
• Start caulking

Be sure to go check out what the other guest participants are up to right here!