The House on the Hill

Renovating a house from the 70s in the South.

Accidental Discovery

We recently added another item to our to-do list for the downstairs – new baseboard moulding.  This wasn’t really something we had planned to do but we accidentally found out that it will completely change the feel of the space. How did we happen upon this discovery? I’ll share the story.

Remember the closet project I was working on? Well, we ended up having to order moulding to trim out the bench. It finally arrived and I immediately took it out of the box so I could bask in its awesomeness. Then, I had to figure out where to put it until we were ready to cut it and add it to the bench. Our closets are currently packed to the rafters and our garage isn’t much better. Our dining room on the other hand is 100% empty except for 2 boxes that we haven’t unpacked yet, so I just went and plopped it down on the floor. 

Just look at it:

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Apologies for the iPhone quality photo but I was way too pumped to go grab my fancy schmancy new camera. What do you think? I think it amps up the space and makes it look sooooooo so so much better. Of course it would be great if we could also replace that tile floor but that’s one of those projects that’s a couple of years down the road.

I’m stoked about this project since it’s something so small that I think will make a huge impact. Once we wrap up the kitchen and the hall closet, hopefully we’ll get to start on this! Speaking of, I’m hoping the closet reveal is just right around the corner – we’re just waiting on our custom cushion now.

A Mini Reveal

The seemingly never ending kitchen project is still underway but I do have a teeny tiny reveal to do for you. We have been super lazy lately and not much house stuff has been going on which is why I haven’t been posting as much. We have tons of half finished projects but all we really want to do after work is be lazy and for now that’s fine with me. 

Anywho, back to the kitchen. It wasn’t terribly long ago when our cozy little cooking space looked like this:

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I’ll admit, it’s not the world’s ugliest kitchen but that brown just wasn’t cutting it. It made the entire room feel dark and dank – not really descriptors you want for the place you prepare your food. With a little paint and a lot of patience (and time), our kitchen now looks a little more like this:

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Ahhhhhh, so much better. Is it perfect? Heck no! I’ve noticed some oops spots on some of the cabinet doors and we still have some touch up painting to do on the walls but for now, I’ll take it!

A couple of things to notice:

1) Uhhhh we don’t have drawers. I mean, we have drawers but they’re not finished. We decided to do those last but they’ve really just been hanging out in the garage (oh, oh, oh) for the longest time. Patience, grasshopper. I promise they’ll be done this week…weekend? Eh, whatever.

2) Take a look back at the awful fluorescent monstrosity in the “before” photo. Notice anything different about it now? We painted the mess out of that sucker. We’d eventually like to do recessed lighting but this is the best temporary solution we could come up with. I’ve got to say, it makes the light almost disappear. That’s a big emphasis on “almost.”

That’s all I’ve got for now, friends! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to cuddling with this cutie:

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Back in Action

Wowzers, sorry about being MIA! I’ve been pretty exhausted this week and we had a lot going on. I figured I would check in and give you guys a status report on some of our projects:

Closet:

I’m nearing the end on the closet transformation! We have to order trim and our seat cushion but other than that all I have left to do is build the box to house our shoes. Here’s what it looks like as of last night:

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I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep it all white or if I want to break it up with some gray or add some architectural detail with beadboard. I’m going to live with it like it is for a couple of weeks and see how I feel about it then. The photos on the shelf are only there temporarily. The plan is to get some baskets like these that match the ones in our laundry room to use for storing phone chargers and other random items that are otherwise homeless. So far, I’m really loving how it’s turning out!

Kitchen:

We started hanging our cabinet doors back up last night! We still have quite a few to hang tonight and the drawers still need to be painted but it’s a far cry from where we were at not too long ago. Here’s a look at the built in pantry – only half nekkid now instead of the full monty:

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Other:

I hinted a few posts back about another project we had going on while we were waiting for the doors to dry. We decided to replace all of our brown slab doors with these that we bought at Home Depot.

We started hanging them the other night and were having some major issues because 1) the hinges weren’t in the exact right spot and 2) one of the doors wasn’t the right size (whoops!). Our plan is to go ahead and get those hung this weekend and then paint them as we have time. 

The last thing we’ve been working on, one piece at a time, is our front porch. Right now it’s like a cave so our plan is to lighten it up a bit. Here’s a sketch of what we’re kind of going for.

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I hesitated to show this – I didn’t want anyone to feel inferior because my art skills are so incredibly amazing, but in the end I decided I didn’t want to deprive the world of such talent.

All of this basically means that we should have lots of reveal posts coming up within the next couple of weeks…not to mention we’ll (finally) be moving our kitchen stuff over and cooking real food again, woo!

Closet Progress

We had a whirlwind weekend full of spending time with friends and getting some much need rest – it was great but also meant that we didn’t make as much progress as we would have liked, especially since Kyle was sick pretty much all day today. While he was camped out on the sofa, I decided to finally get busy working on the closet makeover that I started a week ago. I still have a long way to go but wanted to show you guys the progress I made tonight:

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I decided that instead of a closet with ugly brown bi-fold doors, it makes the most sense for us to have a “landing spot” to toss shoes and hang our keys. I really wanted to use the laundry room for that but it’s too small already and adding hanging coats and a place for shoes would make it unbearably cramped. We already have to do this weird tango when we’re both coming in or out!

This is just part one – building a bench where we can sit and put on/take off our shoes. I’ll also be building a wooden crate that will slide in so our shoes will be hidden and I won’t have to worry about tripping over them.

This project really tested my skills and patience what with it being the first thing I’ve ever built besides a desk and bookcase from Walmart. It was also my first time using any kind of saw and I’ve got to say, I’m already feeling it. I’m sure I’ll be sore all over tomorrow but for now I’m incredibly proud of myself for doing this about 99% by myself. I’m also super thankful for the tiny bit of help I did get from Kyle though or else I probably would have ended up sobbing in a corner.

Now I’m going to reward myself with a cookie and an episode of Deadliest Catch.

D-O-N-E

That’s right, we are DONE painting our cabinets! Of course we still have to tackle the drawers but there are far fewer of those and they’re much smaller. I plan on posting again later today but was too excited not to share the news! It’s recommended that you let them dry for about a week before hanging but we’re going to see how they feel on Monday or Tuesday and go from there.

This project has been a pain but it’s going to be so worth it once we get those pretties into place!

Oh where, oh where have my 2x4s gone?

So a funny thing happened last night.

We were finishing up a coat of paint on the cabinet doors and I was gearing up to finally start work on the hall closet project. As I’m rolling along, I spot my plywood but can’t seem to find my 2x4s anywhere. I looked around the garage for a solid five minutes just thinking “What the heck?! Where are they?”

It was at that moment that I realized we were using them to help us paint and dry the cabinet doors.

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Of course. So it looks like I probably won’t be starting the project until this weekend. That’s okay though because there is plenty we can do in the meantime. I’ll give you a hint – it has something to do with these things:

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Have you ever searched tirelessly for something that was literally right at your feet/in front of your face?

The best laid plans…

You know those “big plans” I had for the weekend? Well, let’s just say the closet looks the exact same as when I last showed it to you.

Saturday we spent most of the day sanding/painting cabinets and running errands (complete with a trip to Home Depot, duh) before going to spend time with some family. I had every intention of tackling the closet on Sunday but I was feeling a little under the weather. We ended up just lounging around the house on Sunday and resting which was probably good for us but it did mean my closet project didn’t get finished and we haven’t flipped the cabinet doors to paint the fronts yet. It was kind of hard to walk away from spending the day like this though:

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We’re going out of town tonight but our new plan is to work on the cabinet fronts and the closet after work tomorrow. This will push back finishing our cabinet project until Wednesday of next week but we should have a few projects in between now and then to show you.

Have you ever had one of those days where you throw your plans out the window and just laze it up instead?

A little Friday night demolition party

Well that’s a bit dramatic. It was a lot less like demolition and much more like disassembling. Confused? Allow me to explain.

You see, this weekend I have big plans for this guy:

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That my friends, is the hall closet in the front entry. Not the prettiest girl at the ball if you know what I’m sayin’. Let’s take a look behind Door Number One, shall we?Image

Sigh. This has been our “catch all” closet which included a random assortment of items left behind by the previous owners. Thanks for the broken fan and beige paint, I guess. Anywho, this area has been nagging at me since our house hunting days. It’s just begging to be fixed up and turned into a much more attractive space (don’t even get me started on the parquet, that will be changed but not quite yet). I’m not going to go into too much detail because I want it to be a surprise but I’ll just leave you with this “in progress” photo:

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Of course, this means that our foyer currently looks like this:

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Yikes!

Get out of my dreams and into my car

And by car, I mean house.

Seriously though, I have been absolutely drooling over white kitchens for the longest time. Sometimes I day dream about them…that’s a little weird but hey, we’re all a little weird sometimes, am I right? I don’t know what it is about a white kitchen, maybe how clean they look or maybe it’s how open and airy they seem to make a room feel. Whatever it is, I want it. Who wouldn’t want to cook in one of these beauties?

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These are just a few of the hundreds of white kitchen pictures that I’ve been ogling lately. Keep in mind that for now we’re just painting the cabinets and then we’ll move on to installing a backsplash, adding new lighting, and maybe one day we can even expand our space a bit (or maybe that plan will just have to stay in my dreams forever).

One thing that I know we’ll be making room for is a baking station – hopefully we can make it look as pretty as Jenny’s from Everyday Occasions:

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Anyone who knows me knows (or should know) that I absolutely love to bake and I’m stupid excited to have my own little corner of the kitchen. Jenny’s baking station is not only gorgeous but functional and incredibly organized which I love.

Progress has slowed a bit in the kitchen since Kyle is out of town for a work trip but we should have all of the painting done this weekend which means next weekend I’ll be able to do the cabinet reveal! Until then, I’ll just keep getting some inspiration from my BFF.

What do you think about white kitchens? Too trendy? Classic? Boring?

The List – Part One

So if you’ve been following along, you know that we gave our laundry room a face lift and that we’re currently working on phase one of our kitchen. You can also see from what I’ve posted on the House Tour page that our house could use lots of updating. I thought it might be helpful for you guys if I posted a “to do” list of sorts – giving an overview of our master plan.

Now, I love a good list – seriously, next to spreadsheets, amortization tables, and DIY projects, a list of any kind is my all time favorite thing – but I know that too many boxes to check off can be overwhelming for you and me both…but mostly me. So to keep you guys from dozing off (and me from having to check myself into a mental facility), I’m just going to do a broad plan for “Part One” of our whole home makeover which focuses on the downstairs.

PHASE ONE (of a million)

Front Porch

  • Sand and refinish the wood
  • Change light fixture
  • New front door
  • Add some greenery
  • Make it look less like a cave

Entry

  • Create an attractive entryway (table, lamp, art, etc)
  • New flooring
  • Pretty up the hall closet

Half Bath

  • New flooring
  • New lighting
  • New toilet
  • New vanity top
  • New mirror
  • Paint

Living Room

  • Figure out what to do with the pine paneling
  • Make the fireplace look less groovy (did I mention our house was built in the 70s?)
  • Create a sitting area
  • Revamp media stand
  • Disguise ugly railings

Study (formerly dining room)

  • Add storage
  • Add seating
  • New Light
  • Find or build a piece to use as a bar but that doesn’t look like a bar – this ain’t a frat house
  • Tables/lamps/general decor

Kitchen

  • Paint cabinets
  • Add backsplash
  • Change lighting

Dining Room

  • Build table
  • Paint old chairs
  • Reupholster old chairs
  • Find additional chairs
  • Add storage
  • New light fixture

Laundry Room

  • Paint walls
  • Paint cabinets
  • Add counter
  • Storage for keys, sunglasses, wallets, etc

General

  • New doors
  • Window treatments
  • Art

Phew! I’m worn out just from typing that list. We don’t really have a deadline for any of this, we’re just trying to do what we can as we have the time (and dolla’ dolla’ bills, ya’ll).

What do you think? I didn’t want to go into too much detail but I promise that I have some exciting plans for these spaces! Next time, I’ll share a little bit of the inspiration behind our kitchen plans and hopefully the reveal isn’t too far off.

Until then,

Jess