The House on the Hill

Renovating a house from the 70s in the South.

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Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Eight – Reveal!

June 24, 2020

REVEAL DAY!

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This has probably been the most physically demanding project we’ve done so far. Mixing concrete and shoveling gravel in 90 degree weather has not been the most fun we’ve ever had. We’ve spent the last several weekends working from morning to night on this patio and our bodies are wrecked but you guys, WORTH IT. Just as a reminder, the major things we had planned for back here were: expanding our deck, pouring large concrete pavers, painting the brick exterior, and spreading gravel.

We went from this…:

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…to this:

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I am so freaking proud of how this space turned out and we cannot wait to be able to sit out here and just relax.

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These concrete pavers were a major labor of love. We had planned on renting a concrete mixer to knock them all out at once but ended up spending 3 weekends mixing concrete by the bucket.

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For those that follow me on Instagram, you might remember we had an issue with a couple of pavers. I tried resurfacing one and patching the other buuuuuut in the end, they still didn’t turn out. You can kind of see them in this photo in the back corner.

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So we’ll have to bust those out and pour new ones but not anytime soon. We’re going to hold off on working on exterior projects until the weather cools off a bit. In the fall, we’ll work on Phase 2 of this project which will be to re-pour those two pavers, pour two concrete pads for our future outdoor kitchen, and build a step from the patio to the yard. We had planned on adding an outdoor fireplace but as of right now, we’re going to stick with our fire pit.

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We plan on painting our entire house white eventually, but for now we went ahead and started limewashing the brick parts of our exterior. We’ve never loved this particular brick and we’re not even sure what to call our siding color but I’ll admit I got really nervous when I started getting the limewash up. Thankfully, after finishing this wall, I’m really happy we did it! I do want to get some mats for the stairs from the garage though.

We decided to build this planter to hide the giant foundation wall and to add a little greenery back here. This space doesn’t get a ton of light so we picked up a few hostas and we’ll see how they do. This lattice is strictly to hide our outdoor meters but I kind of want to build one for the other side of the planter, too. I’m planning on hanging some potted succulents on the lattice. Unfortunately, Home Depot was out of the pots I wanted to use so I didn’t get that part done in time for reveal day but hopefully soon!

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We left our old World Market outdoor sofa outside uncovered last season and unfortunately, it did not hold up. The frame itself is okay but all of the woven resin covering basically falls apart at the touch. So, we used the cushions we had from that sofa and Kyle built an outdoor loveseat and two chairs. The chairs still need a good sanding and another coat of stain before I can seal them but I love them.

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We’d love to add a larger outdoor sofa in the same style so that we have even more seating out here. We love to entertain and although we haven’t done it as much over the last couple of years, we’re itching to start hosting again once we’re comfortable having people over.

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We’ve had that little elephant plant stand since our apartment days and I’m so glad to have a permanent place for her as a little side table out here.

Since our deck project ended up being smaller in scale than we originally planned, we used our leftover materials to build this outdoor table. I love how it turned out and it’s going to be great having some place to set food and drinks. Between the rest of the leftover decking and some other leftover lumber that’s been living in our garage for a few years, we were also able to build a boardwalk and step from our walkway down into the patio.

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It has been SO much nicer than the gravel and retaining wall situation we had. I can’t find a true before but you can see it on the right side of this photo:

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Of course we finished this space just in time for it to get uncomfortably hot and aggressively humid but you’ll still find me sitting out there with a box fan by my side while I enjoy all of the blood, sweat, and tears (and believe me there were all three) that went into this space!

Before:

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After:

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Check out all of the other guest participant reveals right here!

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week SEVEN

June 18, 2020

Week 7. That means there’s only one week left until reveal day!

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I kept meaning to post for Week 6 last week but I’ve been working non-stop either for my job or on this patio and I just didn’t get around to it. When we last left off, we had finished our deck extension and I had started limewashing the brick exterior of our house.

I don’t want to give too much away (although if you follow me on Instagram you’ve already seen a few sneak peeks in stories and on my feed), but we have made a whole lot of progress over the last couple of weeks.

I finished limewashing the brick, we finished all of the concrete work and spread most of the gravel, Kyle built an outdoor sofa, we started building stairs from the walkway to the patio, and we built a table out of leftover decking.

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We were hoping to finish the stairs from the walkway to the patio over the weekend but unfortunately Home Depot was out of the lumber we needed.

It looks like an entirely different property back here and I cannot wait to finish up and show you guys the whole space!

Going into the final week, here’s what we need to do:

  • Finish building stairs
  • Build planter
  • Finish spreading gravel
  • Build outdoor chairs
  • Sand/stain stairs
  • Sand/stain deck
  • Sand/stain table
  • Sand/stain sofa
  • Sand/stain chairs
  • Stain planter
  • Limewash garage stairs
  • Clean pavers
  • Clean out gutters
  • Hang lights
  • Place furniture

It’s not a terrible list but I was hoping to have most of the staining done already. Unfortunately, the weather has not been great this week but it’s looking clear for the weekend so hopefully it stays that way so we can finish strong and take some photos before more rain moves in!

Don’t forget to check out what the other participants are up to right here!

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Four

May 28, 2020

We’re halfway through! ORC-Guest-400white 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. IMG_0557 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. IMG_0549 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! IMG_0514 IMG_0518 IMG_0519 IMG_0522 IMG_0523 IMG_0052 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. IMG_0545 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. IMG_0544 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.

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Three

May 22, 2020

Week Three! ORC-Guest-400white 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. IMG_0259 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. fireplace (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). IMG_0366 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. IMG_0353 We started playing around with the placement to make sure spacing will work. IMG_0356 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): IMG_0344 Yikes. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than how it looked a couple of years ago… img_5480 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!

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Two…No, you’re not crazy. I skipped Week One.

May 15, 2020

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

Back deck

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Odessa’s TWO-tti Frutti Birthday Party

January 17, 2020

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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)!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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Have a great weekend!

2020 Project Plans: Our “Finish It” Year!

January 4, 2020

Warning: This is going to be a very long post full of photos, plans, and to-do lists.

I’ve never been great at posting regularly on the blog but I think 2019 is the first year that I’ve had multiple months with no posts. I’m hoping to get into a somewhat regular posting schedule (at least twice a month) for 2020 but as always, no promises!

2019 was basically bad news after bad news and because of that, we didn’t actually finish or even start on any of our 2019 projects (which were really just finishing 2018 projects). We did unexpectedly demolish our kitchen in May or June and have slowly been rebuilding it and we completely made over our dining room and added a new walk in pantry that houses all of our entertaining and serving dishes so it wasn’t an entirely unproductive year, just different than what we expected.

I’m not usually one to wish time away but I could not wait for 2019 to end and I’m ready for a more positive year in 2020 which we have dubbed our “Finish It” year. We have 8 spaces in our house that are in some state of project limbo that we have decided to finish this year. These aren’t all of our partially finished projects but I think it covers all of the “in progress” spaces on the inside of the house and one exterior area.

Here they are in no particular order (although the kitchen and dining room/pantry are the first three spaces we plan on finishing):

Kitchen

The kitchen is #1 on the priority list to finish after we host OG’s birthday party next weekend. We’ve come a very long way on this Phase One renovation but we still have several things to finish.

In case you’re new here or these images haven’t been burned into your brain, here are some listing photos from before we moved in:

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We immediately painted all of the cabinets white and lived with that version of the kitchen for almost exactly 6 years:

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Then, we decided to replace the tile to run laminate floors in the dining room through to the kitchen and found a ton of water damage and mold that went under the cabinets. We decided the best thing to do was to completely demolish the kitchen including some of the sub-floor and drywall.

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Then, we very slowly started rebuilding the kitchen on a teeny tiny toddler sized shoe string budget. The last time I posted about it, it looked something like this:

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We are much further along now and I’m hoping to get some current photos up soon. Here are the things that we need to do to finish:

  • Drill out, install, and stain the remaining floating shelves
  • Finish counter installation, including waterfalls at ends and small counter on the pantry wall
  • Prime and paint ceiling
  • Fix crooked faux drawer on sink cabinet
  • Install, patch, sand, paint toe kicks for bases and pantry and microwave cabinets
  • Finish installing, patching, sanding all trim work
  • Paint all trim
  • Figure out window treatment for window over sink
  • Purchase, assemble, and install final cabinet for pantry wall
  • Tile and grout between counter and cabinet on pantry wall using leftover penny tile
  • Install outlet/switch plates.

And here is a list of “might do” items depending on how I feel about how the kitchen looks after we finish the list above. Admittedly, I love the overall concept for the kitchen but some of the pieces just aren’t coming together for me at the moment. I want to see everything above finished before I decide on any of these projects but I want to be completely open and honest and sometimes projects just don’t turn out like you thought they would or you don’t love the result as much as you thought you would.

  • Apply veneer to kitchen counters (not loving the color with the green cabinets)
  • Build new drawer fronts (don’t love how much of the boxes you can see or the style of the fronts)
  • Paint drawers slightly darker green (major maybe; I think fixing the counters would help)
  • DIY panel on dishwasher to make it blend in

Dining Room

The dining room was one of two spaces we started and “finished” in 2019. There are really just a few things we need to do in here for it to be completely finished.

As a refresher, here’s a listing photo:

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Here’s how it sat for many years. Super inviting, I know:

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And here it is now:

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We replaced the floors and trim, added two doors to the wall on the right (one to the garage and one to the pantry), changed the fan to a pendant light and then to this gorgeous wood bead chandelier, added batten molding to the walls, and installed removable wallpaper. Thankfully, the “finish it” list in here is pretty small:

  • Install/Paint ceiling trim
  • Paint ceiling (in tandem with the kitchen ceiling)
  • Paint door to garage
  • Trim out cabinets
  • Add curtains
  • Maybe switch out faux wood blinds with something with more texture (like a woven shade or something similar – TBD)
  • Spray paint HVAC register black so it doesn’t stand out so much

We also may need to reinstall one small piece of wallpaper that has started bubbling. Trying to figure out what’s happening there.

Pantry

This little pantry is one of my favorite parts of our dining room makeover. I love having a place for all of my serving dishes and it’s the perfect spot to store my KitchenAid mixer. This closet used to be the home of our cats, their food, and their smelly litter box. We ripped it down to the studs thinking we’d be expanding our laundry room into this area but unfortunately, there is a plumbing stack and lots of electric that would be very expensive to move so instead we built it back up, moved the door from the hallway (which was super inconvenient) to the dining room and made it into a small butler’s-type pantry.

Here it is before:

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And here it is now:

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All we need to do in here is:

  • Finish door frame
  • Clean/Paint/Install door (need to fix one pane of glass as well)
  • Install a shelf liner on the bottom shelf
  • Patch/Sand/Paint base trim

Master Bedroom/Closet

Our poor bedroom has never been a priority. At some point we removed the carpet and put in new floors. We also painted it white and then navy and then we tried to remove the reach in closet that takes up a bunch of space but I guess the builder decided to tie the roof structure of our house into the closet which means it stays. Of course we didn’t know this until we took all of the drywall off and honestly we just didn’t have the motivation or energy to put new drywall up so we used tongue and groove boards painted white instead to make it a “feature.” Our new long term plan is to hopefully expand the hall bath into the closet and close it in on the bedroom side but for now, this is what we want to do:

  • Finish installing small tongue & groove boards on the closet (just need one or two small boards at the very top)
  • Finish painting – originally, we had planned on installing crown but have since decided not to which means I have to take the paint up to the ceiling. We’re also going to paint the tongue and groove boards navy to blend rather than stand out.
  • Touch up paint the ceiling because I’m a messy painter and there are a couple of big navy spots
  • Purchase and install chandelier for the bedroom – we bought a chandelier for in here but it now lives in the dining room
  • Move sconces to new location – we moved our bed to the other side of our room and now that we know we love it there, we need to move our plug in sconces over.
  • Patch where old sconces are currently installed
  • Move couch to family room
  • Build a small walk-in closet – this is a biggie. We don’t have a walk-in closet, we have two reach in closets: one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom sink area. We turned one of our bedrooms into a closet but we’d like to convert it to a home office/gym. Our master bedroom is huge and I love it but we really don’t use all of the space. I always thought we’d create a sitting area and we do have a couch in there but the dogs are the only ones who use it and that’s not often. So, we decided to sacrifice some of the bedroom space to create a closet instead. This project will have a whole to-do list of its own and will probably happen later in the year if all goes to plan.
  • Build art ledge (or two) on new wall – we have so much art and this will give us a place to display some of it once we have the new wall built for the closet (the entrance to the closet will be on the far left end of the wall and will act as the entrance for the bathroom and closet.
  • Bring up free standing electric fireplace from family room and put into current reach in closet “nook”
  • Hook up TV – we have a tv for our room but it’s just sitting around unplugged until we have a place for it.
  • Build a new bed – I love our bed but it’s dark gray which I don’t love against the dark walls. I have an idea that will really end up just being a cover for the headboard but we’ll see if it works out.
  • Add a rug!
  • Add a dresser under the art ledge(s) (either existing or buy new if nothing we have works)

Here’s a couple of listing photos and how it looked for way too long after we moved in. I don’t have any great pictures of what it looks like right now but hopefully I will have some soon! Here’s one little peek into the room from the hallway for now. We need to take down the Christmas tree we have in there and clean up a bunch of old boxes of my childhood stuff my mom passed off to me before I can take any more pictures.

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This is probably the biggest project we’ll tackle this year (assuming we aren’t able to work on the master bathroom) but it’s one I’m most excited about. I’m even starting to consider doing some sort of wall treatment or wallpaper (WHO AM I?) but I need to get through the kitchen and dining room before I can really think about it.

Master Bathroom*

*This is a major maybe. It really just depends on our finances and how expensive this project will be.

Here is a listing photo:

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If you’ve been around here long enough, you might remember that back in 2017, just a few months before expecting our first child, we had our master bathroom demolished. We hadn’t been able to use it for a while after finding severe water damage that left our subfloor crumbling next to the tub. Our plan was to rip it out and just make it functional but I’m here to tell you that since it was demoed, it hasn’t been touched. Not at all. Partly because we have another full bathroom and it wasn’t a priority while navigating our lives as new parents and partly because we weren’t really sure how much we wanted to do with it. Do we just make it functional for now and do the big dream bathroom reno later? Or do we just hold off until we can do it the way we want it? To be honest, that’s still what I’m struggling with but as OG gets older it’s becoming very apparent that we need our own space back. Sharing a tiny bathroom with an entire farm’s worth of squeaky rubber animals and bath books plus our 1,200 shampoos and body washes is getting more and more aggravating.

So, at the bare minimum we’d like to try to make it functional this year and if we can do more than that, we’d love to. This is what I hope we can do this year:

  • Have the old tub drain moved – we had a tub/shower combo but would like to move to just a shower for now and add in a free standing tub down the road. We were quoted $600 to re-install the existing tub and $1,800 to move the drain. Doesn’t really make sense to spend $600 for the tub now knowing we want to get rid of the combo at some point. $1,800 is a lot more but it’s better than $600 now plus $1,800 later.
  • Fix vent (ours currently vents into the attic)
  • Install drywall where needed
  • Purchase and install new toilet where plumbing exists
  • Build and tile shower – will likely use a curtain for now but would love to replace with frameless glass down the road
  • Remove carpet and carpet pad in sink area
  • Install new floors throughout (tile vs. vinyl)
  • Paint
  • Make over vanity (or replace depending)
  • New light fixtures
  • Replace mirror (maybe)

Here are things I would love to do this year but not sure if we’ll be able to do them at this moment:

  • Remove wall between toilet/shower area to make one room instead of two (depends on if it’s structural)
  • Remove reach in closet (depends)
  • Rough in future tub???
  • Install a second sink to make a double vanity – this would likely mean replacing the existing vanity and sink
  • Add a linen closet
  • Move toilet

And here are some super long term wants that won’t happen this year unless we win the lottery:

  • Look into possibility of raising the ceiling
  • Install free standing tub
  • Add a chandelier over the tub
  • Add a window above the tub
  • Add recessed lighting
  • Marble hex tile floors

Exterior Walkway

This is one of those projects that we made way worse before it got better. It was originally made up of brick pavers which we had planned on replacing with 12″x12″ pavers all the way down and through the patio area behind the garage. We ended up changing our minds on the pavers (or more accurately, I changed my mind and Kyle is thankfully very laid back) after pulling up all of the poorly laid brick pavers. We threw a bunch of mulch down just to have something but it was a weedy, muddy mess for years.

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We finally started clearing out the walkway and monkey grass and we poured these 4′ x 4′ pavers and filled in with gravel.

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We abandoned this area once it got cold a couple of years ago and then we just never made it a priority to get back around to it until this year.

I’m not 100% sure what I want to do here but we need to back fill more gravel near the gate and I know I want to string cafe lights to make it more inviting. I either want to do planter boxes with flowers or some sort of retaining wall situation, just not sure exactly what yet. Once it warms up we’ll start figuring out exactly what we want to do between the current walkway and the property line.

Downstairs Hall Closet

This will hopefully be a relatively quick project. When we moved in, I tore the shelves out and doors off of this closet, built a bench and a box for our shoes, and hung a couple of hooks for bags and jackets.

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Great idea but it honestly just became a dumping ground so we decided to tear it all out when we were planning on expanding/opening up our laundry room.

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Long story not nearly short enough, the framing in this house is weird and we’re not confident that removing the little wall between the laundry room and this closet is possible, at least not without redoing other framing and it’s really just not worth the money and time to do that. SO the closet stays but we plan on making it more of a built in cabinet where we will keep all of the food and other necessities for the pets.

Foyer

I swear we have tried to finish the foyer every single year we’ve been in this house but this is the year!

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This is what we’ve done so far: paint the walls gray, remove all of the trim, replace some of the trim, install new floors, switch out the door, paint the walls white, switch out the light fixture, add a mirror and entry table (which is actually a working vintage stereo). We also built a barn door to close off the laundry/closet/half bathroom.

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This is what we plan to do:

  • Get another new door. The one we put in is a beautiful, very old door which was painted with lead based paint. We painted over it to seal it but our dog Barley continues to scratch it and has now gotten down to the lead paint. We are going to replace it with something that fits more with the style of the house and isn’t potentially dangerous to our health.
  • Maybe replace the current light fixture with a recessed light
  • Patch and spot paint the ceiling where we removed a post
  • Get a new barn door track (the one I bought originally isn’t long enough so the door won’t fully open)
  • Get a plant stand for our snake plant
  • Figure out something for the window sill that Barley can’t damage while standing on it and barking at/protecting us from other dogs, neighbors, delivery people, stray cats, her own shadow, the sound of her tail thumping the floor that she mistook for a car door, a sound that came from the tv, and/or absolutely nothing.
  • Add batten trim in the foyer and down the hall because we love how it turned out in the dining room (this time with white trim and white walls above)
  • Install/patch/sand/paint crown moulding
  • Touch up paint

So that’s the plan! It’s hopefully going to be a big year for this house of ours and I can’t wait to finally knock some projects off the list. We also have one project on stand by in case we decide to start something new this year but I’ll talk about that more later if we decide to take it on.

One Room Challenge Fall 2019: Week Six!

November 7, 2019

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

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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).

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Although, this view is more realistic:

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

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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:

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After:

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

One Room Challenge Fall 2019: Week Five

October 30, 2019

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

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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.

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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.

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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!

One Room Challenge Fall 2019: Week Four

October 24, 2019

Week Four!

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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.

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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!

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the house on the hill blog
Southern made. Lover of animals. Married to a New Englander. Slowly renovating our 1970s home.
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