The House on the Hill

2016 Goals: Monthly Check In

February 1, 2016

I decided to start checking in on our goal progress at the beginning of every month. I’m hoping this will keep us motivated to keep working throughout the year. Kyle and I tend to start off the year super productive and then turn into sloths the rest of the year. As adorable as sloths are, I don’t think they translate well to the human form.

Anywho, let’s take a look at the original goal list which has been updated with the new projects we added in.

House:

-Demo current deck
-Clean garage…again – Done! Both cars now fit in the garage. Update: Kyle’s car is back in the driveway until we can get all of the carpet we removed from the downstairs to the dump.
-Build new, bigger deck
-Refinish very old but new to us front door – Started at the end of 2015.
-Install front door
-Repaint the study
-Add built ins in the study?
-Add crown moulding in the study?
-Create new area for dogs
-Remove dog crates from master bedroom
-Caulk windows – Started. All downstairs windows have been caulked. 0/4 upstairs windows have been done.
-Paint master bedroom?
-Clean up side/back/front yards
-Price out all aspects of kitchen remodel
-Stain fence
-Extend fence?
-Remove trees? – Started. We’ve gotten a couple of quote and we’ve decided to move forward with removing the dead oak in the front yard. We’re hoping to remove three pines from the back yard later this year.
-Remove shed?

ADDED AFTER JANUARY FIRST:
-New flooring in entry/study/living room. – Mostly done! We just need to add the thresholds and then install the baseboards in the living room.
~~-Paint living room.~~ – Done!
~~-Stain beams in living room.~~ – Done!

Personal:

-Read 26 books – can be re-reads or never before reads, but must come from books we already own – On track. 3 books done, started on #4. Heck yes, Harry Potter!
-Go on an awesome vacation – Booked and mostly paid for!
-Lose 20lbs – I know weight loss goals always get tossed around after the calendar rolls over but this has actually been a goal for a while. Last year the goal was 40lbs but I only got half way there before falling off the wagon and landing in a big pile of soda, doritos, and candy bars. I’m giving myself until my 28th birthday (end of June) which is way more than enough time. I need to figure out smaller goals to get me to the 20.
-Tone and tighten once I finish losing these last 20lbs.
-Walk the dogs more
-Use my craft room – I rarely use this room and that’s pretty lame
-Get a new look for the blog

Not too bad for the first month! Now let’s see if we can keep up the progress. The weather down here is weird but I’m hoping the warmer weather we’re getting now will stick around so we can start working on the yard clean up and I can start working on the front door again.

Snowy Weekend and a Little Progress

January 25, 2016

Mondays are bad but a Monday after an unexpected long weekend is even worse. I’m riding shotgun on the struggle bus today for sure, anyone else? We got hit with some nice wintry weather Thursday night which lasted into Saturday thanks to winter storm Jonas. I guess I didn’t technically get a long weekend but I got to work from home on Friday so it felt like a long weekend. Bravo to Mother Nature for that but the pretty white stuff also ruined our plan of going to Charlotte on Saturday so it wasn’t all great.

This is the one time of year that the murder shed actually looks kind of cute.

backyardsnow

frontyardsnow

Since we couldn’t actually leave the house on Saturday, we decided to get some work done on the house instead. I wish I could tell you we did the living room floors but we didn’t have enough underlayment (I just checked the tracking and it should be here today) so instead we decided to rip up the parquet in the entry and put new floors there instead. You’re not crazy, by the way, the entry floors weren’t in the original scope of work but neither was the carpet in the study and that didn’t stop us from ripping it out and putting down laminate last weekend.

Mid-floor destruction:

entryfloorsprogress

We’re in pretty good shape in the living room. I finished up the last little bit of painting yesterday and Kyle switched out the old almond colored outlets with new white ones. We’ll start ripping the carpets up this week and once the new floors are in, we’ll just need to put in baseboards and move everything back in. Here’s a little teaser photo I put on instagram about a week ago.

livingroomteaser

Here’s to hoping we can wrap this up by the end of the month!

Living Room Plans

January 16, 2016

I’ve already mentioned that we’re redoing the living room floors because I’m a crazy person but we decided this would also be a good time to do some other things we’ve been talking about since we moved in.

Stain Beams. I love the faux beams on the ceiling but they’re a little too light and way too orange. We’re going to give them a quick sand and wipe down and then stain them a darker, browner color. Listing picture for reference:

Living Room

Paint Ceiling. The ceiling in the living room doesn’t actually need a lot of help but there is one section that shows signs of old damage. We fixed the source of the issue soon after we moved in but never took the time to paint the ceiling. We’re going to start with that section and if we decide the rest of the ceiling needs it, we’ll paint the whole thing. I refuse to paint anymore ceilings so this one is all Kyle. You can see it in this picture; it’s the shadowy area between the far beam and the fireplace.

livingroom1

Paint Paneling. This is what I think will make the biggest impact and it’s also the one that scares me the most. I’ve never loved the paneling but it’s actually really nice lumber and it would be a big pain to remove it all. Plus, it’s a huge fad right now in the world of blogging and home improvement; funny how trends circle back around. We had planned on white washing it but I think we’re just going to bite the bullet and paint it. Ours won’t quite look like this since it’s all tongue and groove but just to give you an idea (photo from Brandi Nell the Southern Belle):

Paint Fireplace. We’re not sure if we’re going to paint the fireplace or not but for now we’re keeping it in mind. We want to get the walls done first and see how we feel. I love how warm it is with the brown and tan tones but on the other hand, that doesn’t really go with the rest of our house. We need something to warm up all of the gray and white but I’m not sure the stone fireplace is it. If we do paint it, it’ll probably be white. I don’t love the idea of white walls and a white fireplace (I pushed for gray walls/white fireplace or white walls/different color fireplace) but I’m not the only one who lives in this house and since I get my way 90% of the time, I’m willing to let Kyle have his on this (you’re welcome). Here’s a pretty good idea of what ours could look like (photo from Greige Design).

Laminate Flooring. You already know this one but I figured I’d say it again. Carpet is coming out, laminate is going in. If you look back up at the living room picture you can see a couple of the stains, one of which is roughly the size of a small human. We want to get the rest of the room done first because we’re lazy and want to take advantage of not having to put down drop cloths so the flooring will probably get pushed to the last weekend in January. We already put it in another room (the only other carpeted room downstairs) so we have a pretty good feel for it and it should go pretty quickly when we get to it. Here’s how it looks in the other room so far. Have I mentioned how much I hate the color of our windows? We’ll replace them one day but not today.

studynewflooring

So that’s it. This is our first “big” project of the year! I’m pretty excited about it because even though we just cancelled cable, this will probably still be where we spend most of our time. In case you’re wondering about the other projects we started already, the garage is clean (though not as organized as we’d like it) and we’ve slowly been working on caulking the windows. Not too shabby for halfway through January!

First Projects of 2016

January 8, 2016

We’re kicking off 2016 with a couple of small projects and one not so small, not so big project.

Project #1: Caulk Windows
A few months ago, we noticed that the caulk around our windows was cracked in a lot of places so we made a mental note to eventually re-caulk. Well, last weekend I was sitting around and felt a pretty substantial breeze coming through the closed window I was next to so we bumped caulking to the top of our priority list. Kyle started on this Wednesday night and we’ll probably do one or two windows a day until it’s done.

Project #2: Clean Garage
We did a pretty good job of cleaning our garage last January but it didn’t stick. We really need to get it cleaned so that we can keep at least one car parked in here and have the other side to do projects. Right now we have room for one car and the other side is just crap thrown everywhere. The plan is to tackle this on Saturday. I had hoped Kyle could take care of this while I played with our new leaf blower but it’s supposed to rain Saturday. Womp, womp.

Project #3: Living Room
If you paid attention to my post about our 2016 goals you may be a little confused. If you didn’t pay attention or didn’t read it at all you may be confused as to why those who did pay attention would be confused. Well, that would be because the living room wasn’t anywhere on our list of 2016 goals; we had absolutely no plans for the living room this year other than cleaning the carpet.

So why are we already altering our 2016 plan just a week in? Because our dogs suck. I love our dogs but sometimes they suck. There have been many bathroom accidents and other stuff I won’t get into on that carpet but I was just going to suck it up and deal with it because we’re hoping to put in new floors downstairs in 2017. We figured we would get them cleaned and deal with it until we could afford to replace everything so at least they wouldn’t look disgusting. But then I came home from work to find multiple puddles of dog pee and a nice big pile of dog poop, part of which did not want to release itself from the carpet.

And that was that. I snapped and decided I can’t deal with it anymore so we decided that we’re going to rip up the carpet and put in laminate flooring. It’s not my dream flooring but honestly, it’s not going to cost much more than having the carpet cleaned and now if the dogs have an accident it’ll be much easier to clean up. Plus we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to replace all the flooring next year anyway so this may end up holding us over until we can.

Of course since we’re ripping the carpet out we figure we’ll go ahead and take advantage of having no floors and use the opportunity to paint the ceiling, stain the beams, and do something (paint? whitewash?) with the wood paneling.

Even though this wasn’t in our original plan, I’m pretty excited about it! It’s the room where we spend most of our time so it will be nice to have it looking a little more done. Of course there will still be other things to do down the road (new windows, reface fireplace, add lighting, etc) but I think the small changes we’re making now are going to make a big impact.

Here’s what the room looked like when we moved in.

From the entry way into the living room:

Living Room

From the room we call the study:

Living Room-Bar

LivingRoom

Here’s what it looks like now. Spoiler Alert: not much has changed. In fact, it looks a little worse now, I think.

livingroom3 livingroom2 livingroom1

I told Kyle we could get the garage done first but as soon as we’re finished with that you better believe I’ll be tearing up that nasty carpet.

2016

January 4, 2016

So it’s 2016 now and I’m stoked. I work several months ahead at my day job so I’ve been working in 2016 since October; glad the rest of you have finally caught up. Anyway, I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions but I do like to make lists so this is what I’m hoping to accomplish this year. A lot of these are big maybes since the deck is our top priority and will taking most of our money/time/patience.

House:

-Demo current deck
-Clean garage…again
-Build new, bigger deck
-Refinish very old but new to us front door
-Install front door
-Repaint the study
-Add built ins in the study?
-Add crown moulding in the study?
-Create new area for dogs
-Remove dog crates from master bedroom
-Caulk windows
-Paint master bedroom?
-Clean up side/back/front yards
-Price out all aspects of kitchen remodel
-Stain fence
-Extend fence?
-Remove trees?
-Remove shed?

Personal:

-Read 26 books – can be re-reads or never before reads, but must come from books we already own
-Go on an awesome vacation
-Lose 20lbs – I know weight loss goals always get tossed around after the calendar rolls over but this has actually been a goal for a while. Last year the goal was 40lbs but I only got half way there before falling off the wagon and landing in a big pile of soda, doritos, and candy bars. I’m giving myself until my 28th birthday (end of June) which is way more than enough time. I need to figure out smaller goals to get me to the 20.
-Tone and tighten once I finish losing these last 20lbs.
-Walk the dogs more
-Use my craft room – I rarely use this room and that’s pretty lame
-Get a new look for the blog

Life Lately

December 10, 2015

I know I haven’t been around much lately but that’s because there hasn’t been much of anything going on around the house. The rest of Phase One of the fence is on hold until spring (or until whenever we have a warm weekend after Christmas) and we don’t want to start anything new.

I was working on stripping paint from a 100 year old door that we want to replace our front door with but that’s on hold, too until after Christmas.

I’m still trying to figure out what our winter project should be but in the meantime, I’m day dreaming about vacations past and future which brings me to this:

alaska-dream-vacation-giveaway-sweepstakes-ana-white-cabin-square

If you don’t know who Ana White is well then shame on you. She’s my go to for furniture plans and ideas; in fact, we used one of her plans for our dining room table. I fell in love with Alaska when we went last year and would love to go back. Seriously, do yourself a favor and enter here. And if you win instead, pretty please take me along 🙂

In other news, we decorated for Christmas! I don’t have any pictures of the complete scene but I have this one of Kyle getting the tree into place. I think next year we’ll try out a 12 foot tree – this guy is about 8, I think. Special appearance by Gatsby.

christmastree

Posts will probably be scarce for the rest of the year as we relax and enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Do You Want to Build a Fence? Part Two

November 18, 2015

Phase One of the fence is done! …ish. Mostly? Yeah, mostly.

yard2

All of the posts and boards have been installed, the new gate has been built and installed, and we removed the posts and lattice that we didn’t need anymore which probably doubled the amount of space the dogs have to run around.

Seriously, the dogs have been playing outside like crazy which makes me happy because they never used to play outside. I guess it’s no fun when you barely have a yard to run laps in. Anyway, being able to play outside means there’s now a lot less dog wrestling going on in the living room and a lot more of this:

barleyboo

We still have to trim some of the posts down but other than that, all we have to do for this side to be finished is stain. I had hoped we could get that done before winter, but it’s looking like we’ll probably have to wait until spring. The plan is to use the same stain we used when we rebuilt our front porch.

porchafter2

I was hoping to be able to do the next phase of the fence next year but 2016 went from being “Year of the Deck” to “Year of the Deck and a Vacation” and has hopefully settled at “Year of the Deck and a Vacation and Tree Removal.” 2017 isn’t looking much more promising since that’ll hopefully be the “Year of the Kitchen.”

The most important thing now is that pushing the fence out allows us the room we need to expand the deck which is necessary for what we want to do in the kitchen. Maybe 2043 can be “Year of the Finished Fence.” Maybe.

Anyway, I’ve already started on another project but progress is slow now that it’s dark in the evenings (is it appropriate to go to bed at 7:30?) and with holidays coming up. Here’s a hint:

frontdoor

Do You Want to Build a Fence? Part One

November 2, 2015

With the closet wrapped up, we were finally able to move on to Phase One of our fence project. Almost a year and a half ago, we threw together a very cheap fence in anticipation of adopting a second pup. Taking one 60lb pittie out on a leash is hard enough, trying to take two out every time they needed to pee just wasn’t going to happen. We bought several 4×8 sheets of lattice as well as a bunch of 4×4 posts and post anchors. We opted for the anchors because we knew the location of the fence was temporary so we didn’t want to set anything in concrete.

Here is what a very cheap fence looks like:

Not the prettiest or sturdiest thing in the world but it was functional so we didn’t have a new fence at the top of our priority list. Now that we’re closing in on being able to overhaul our existing deck, it’s time to revisit the fence. We are only putting in one side of the permanent fence right now. This is 100% a budget thing because we just can’t afford to do an entire fence plus a brand new deck and the deck has to be done in order to do the kitchen. Both the kitchen and deck are a much higher priority than a full size fence. If you’re new here, you may be wondering why we’re even bothering with doing one side right now which is a totally valid question. Not only are we tearing down the existing deck, but the one we’re putting in its place is going to be about twice the size. The current crappy fence is right where the stairs from the deck to the yard need to go so it needs to be moved.

Anywho, we started planning out the design of our fence forever ago and at the time, we settled on this:

I love horizontal fences and I think the style fits with our house and I liked that this design had a little variation at the top. Once we got ready to actually start on the fence though, we decided it would be much easier to just keep the same size boards all the way from bottom to top. Not only is it easier for us, but our backyard isn’t flat so we’re having to terrace the fence which looks a lot less weird when all of the boards are the same size.

Our plan is to build this one side of the fence and then connect the existing area to the new area. This time, we’re setting the posts in concrete so everything is a bit more involved but somehow it’s still easier than trying to get those freaking anchors in the ground. We’re also clearing out a couple of trees to make it a bit more open for the pups (and maybe one day small humans) to run around.

We’ve made a lot of progress on the fence and we’re down to the last 3 or 4 boards that need to get installed before we connect the two areas. Unfortunately for us, the weather is being a real witch right now and I’m not sure when we’ll get another dry day to finish. We’ve also got to let the wood dry out for a few weeks before we can stain it; fingers crossed we can get it done before it gets too cold or else we’ll have to wait until Spring!

Here’s a little peek at how things are going:

Most of our fence will be about 5ft tall but we decided to integrate a couple of taller privacy panels which are those two taller sections you see in the picture. Eventually, that’s where our outdoor furniture will go so we thought it would be nice to block out the fence our neighbor has around her deck. Oh and if you’re curious, the plan was not to bump the fence in like that but we ran into a little bit of an issue. When we were digging for the next post after the privacy section, we came across some PVC. We’re thinking it’s a sprinkler line since we called 811 to come spray for utilities and there was nothing in that area. Not a huge deal, we just ended up having to bump toward the house 2ft.

We don’t have much more we have to do for Phase One so hopefully the rain will clear at some point and we can finish up. Or maybe the rain will never stop and we’ll use our fence lumber to build an ark instead.

Turning a Builder Basic Bathroom Mirror into a Leaning Floor Mirror

October 27, 2015

As part of our guest bathroom mini-makeover a while back, we decided to take out the large builder basic mirror and replace it with something smaller.

That left us with a large mirror that we could either break to get it to fit in our trash can, have picked up by the local ReStore, or repurpose. We decided on the third option…duh.

This project was super easy and would take a normal person only about a weekend to finish. The hardest part was probably getting the giant frame up the staircase.

We decided to use 2×12 lumber to add some height to the mirror which is what gives it that nice chunky look but it also makes it heavy as sin. I think we ended up having to buy 3 8ft lengths to get an overall mirror size of about 5×6 (the actual mirror part of the finished project is roughly 3×4).

We chopped the lumber to the sizes we needed and then Kyle put a few pocket holes in the back of each piece to secure it all together. We typically miter corners of stuff like this but in all honesty, it was just way easier to do the blunt cuts plus it gives it a little more of a rustic character (which I’ve learned from watching HGTV is basically realtor speak for ‘flawed’). After the frame was put together, we propped it up on a couple of sawhorses and I wiped on a coat of Early American stain to match the shoe shelves in the closet.

We let the frame cure a couple of days before hauling it upstairs where the glass portion was waiting. While Kyle had worked on assembling the frame, I took the time to glue several pieces of scrap lumber to the back of the glass. I made sure that these pieces extended beyond the dimensions of the glass – you’ll see why soon. These dried for a couple of days before we put everything together.

Once everything had plenty of time to set up, we used liquid nails to glue the frame to the glass. Since this was done on the floor of my craft room, we weren’t able to use clamps or anything to make sure everything was pressed together nicely, so I used a few heavy books and let gravity do it’s thing. Side note: I need to clean my craft room closet.

Hi, Kyle!

Otter working hard as Project Supervisor.

We let everything sit for another day and then stood the mirror up and put a few screws through the back of the scrap lumber and into the frame, just for a little extra security. This is why it was important for me to overlap the scrap pieces.

After that, all we had to do was slide it down the hall to the closet and set her in place. TA-DA!

Once more – before:

And after!

Spare Bedroom Turned Walk-In Closet

October 20, 2015

We have a closet! This room is really small so it was pretty much impossible to get great shots but I did my best. If you were to time this project from the first pry of the crowbar to the last shoe put away, it would clock in at a whopping 20 1/2 months. It really probably only took a month or two of actual work but we sure do know how to stretch out a project! For a quick refresher, we decided to turn our 4th bedroom into a closet since we don’t have a walk-in in our bedroom. We don’t need a dedicated guest room so this was the next best thing.

Enough talking, let’s get to the pictures.

Before:

After:

I painted the room Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore – I had it color matched but at this point I can’t remember if I used Behr or Sherwin Williams.

The storage units were built from scratch by Kyle. This is the first thing he’s every built of this scope and I think for his first attempt they turned out amazing. I seriously have to give him all the credit; all I did was paint and attempt to help him lift everything into place (these bitches are heavy). We used 3/4 MDF for everything, including the drawers.

I ripped out all of the old baseboard and crown and we installed something a bit more substantial. Since nothing can ever be easy, our nail gun died halfway through installing stuff and we ended up having to buy a new one. We decided on the Ryobi AirStrike and IT. IS. AWESOME. Who knew a girl could get so excited about cordless nail guns?

We’re using the room’s actual closet as a shoe closet. We actually need to buy another one or two shelves to put up because not all of our shoes fit! The shelves are just 2×12 pine that I stained with Minwax Early American. We used the same track system that we put in my craft room and so far I like it.

Kyle and I both worked on building this mirror. I’ll have a separate post with more details but this mirror came out of our upstairs bathroom.

Over in the corner is my jewelry area. The mirror was on clearance at Target and I made the jewelry block. I used to have 3 or 4 but I used command strips to hang them and most of them ended up falling off. I just put a couple of nails in the wall to hold my necklaces and any earrings that can’t hang on the jewelry block are kept in my ring dish. I feel like I need to fill the space above the mirror but I’m not sure what to put there. A clock, maybe?

I love having that window in here! We have a really pretty Bradford Pear tree outside this room that adds a lot of color when the blinds are open. We try to keep the blinds closed in here so that the sunlight doesn’t damage our clothes but if I’m in the closet for an extended period of time I’ll open them for a bit.

The dresser holds all of our duffel bags, weekender bags, and other bags.

The rug is a 4×6 that I bought during one of RugsUSA’s big sales. It smelled awful when I took it out of the packaging but the smell is fading and I really like how the rug looks in the room. I wanted something to kind of break up the wood tones between the dresser and floors and I think this one works well.

I really want 6 matching baskets to go in the shelves above the drawers on each unit. I love the way the two wicker baskets look but those came with a bench we bought from World Market a few years ago and I can’t buy more. If anyone sees anything similar anywhere please let me know! I’m having the hardest time finding baskets that will work and I hate those white tubs. In case your curious, I have purses in one basket and a random assortment of bathing suits, hats, belts, and unmentionables in the other.

Now for a bit of honesty: the closet isn’t actually finished. I KNOW, OKAY? We replaced the ceiling fan that used to be in this room with a light fixture. Well, when you do that you need a way to turn the light on and off (the fan was not switch operated). Our original plan was to just buy a remote but the receiver wouldn’t fit with everything in the electrical box so we had to go to Plan B which was to hire an electrician to come out and hard-wire the light to the switch by the door which currently controls the outlets. The problem with this is that Electrician #1 gave us a generic quote and then never returned our phone calls when we wanted to hire him. We’re supposed to be calling another electrician this week to take care of it but then I’ll have some patching and painting to do since they’ll most likely need to punch holes in the wall. “So…uh…how are you turning your light on and off right now?” Well, we have this thing rigged up to a pull chain which is so, so not the way to do it and probably not even the tiniest bit safe so don’t do it in your own house, okay? I feel like I’m going to pull the light out of the ceiling every single time I pull that stupid chain.

Anyway, other than the light and my frustrating basket search, the closet is done! Hooray! We started on the fence on Saturday and we’ve already make some pretty good progress so I hope to share that with you soon.