Home Improvement – Page 2 – A Smith of All Trades

Renovation Station

March 11, 2016 Jessica Smith

So we randomly started a major renovation of our house. It is sort of how we work. I dream and plot and dream some more about what I want to do in our house, then we start one small project and BAM, it explodes into an entire renovation. It’s how we started our basement reno and our bathroom reno. And it’s how we started our current reno.

I just wanted to open a wall a teensy bit. Eventually we’d redo our hardwood floors, paint our cabinets, get a new stove and do a tiled backsplash. But right now, I just wanted to open the wall. You see, my step dad is SUPER handy and is moving soon. So I wanted to cash in on his handy man skills while he wasn’t crazy busy pimping out his new house. So a few weekends ago we took this:

Wall_Before_K

And this:

Wall_Before

… and destroyed it!

Wall_During

Knocking down walls = SO MUCH FUN and so cathartic. Have a bad day at work? Punch a hammer through a wall and tell me it doesn’t make you feel better.

For this project we needed to remove drywall, cut out studs, relocate cable, redo trim, repair drywall and patch giant holes in the wall. We also smoothed out part of our ceiling that had gotten a little wonky.

Here’s a semi-finished shot of the space:

Wall_After_k

It’s really nice to be able to see into our dining room. It took us quite a while to get used to it. I think we were both silently worried we might have made a mistake, but it is wonderful!

We have so much more space to walk around our table, which means instead of squishing in four people at a dinner, we can comfortably have six people in that space.

Here’s another almost-finished shot from the other side.

You can see the whole kitchen from here now! It makes the space feel GIANT.

I don’t want to spoil some of the other progress we’ve made in the house in the past month with the more complete version of the wall project, but trust me…. it’s looking sharp.

I will share one sneak peak of what else this mini reno inspired:

Check out those hardwoods, baby! You can pretty much guess what that means we are doing with the rest of the house… but I’ll save more photos until next time.

Huge shout out to my step dad John — we couldn’t have done all of the drywalling and mudding without you. Thanks for all of the help!

Furniture, Interior Decorating, Paint

A temporarily permanent mirror

March 4, 2015April 27, 2015 Jessica Smith

I’m not a hoarder by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a hard time letting go of items I’m positive I can use someday. And every time I did deep into a pile of long-forgotten gems, I am always so pleased that I didn’t do away with them.

My best friend knows I love mirrors and thrift store finds, so several years ago at Christmas she gave me two beautiful wooden mirrors in major need of some TLC. I have saved these mirrors for easily three years, if not longer.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you’ve seen my console table in my family room that is just begging for a mirror above it. It sits directly across from our bay window, and a mirror would brighten up the space so wonderfully.

I’ve been searching high and low for a mirror to hang above the console table, checking HomeGoods, Target, Craigslist, thrift stores… the usual spots for inexpensive decor. I was in no rush, so I chose to be super picky (I didn’t want a square mirror and was hoping to find a mirror with a unique, not trendy shape). I’d found a mirror I loved on Craigslist, but it was too pricey. By the time I decided I should just go for it, it was sold. It just wasn’t meant to be.

I was avoiding the pair of mirrors from Dana for many reasons. First of all, they are tall and skinny, and the orientation cannot be changed because of the fancy detail at the top. Plus, I only needed one mirror and didn’t want to split up the pair. And lastly, they were just fancier than I wanted. I don’t think of my house as fancy and really love the relaxed vibe the whole house has, so I didn’t want to throw this traditional mirror in the mix and have it look strange.

I leaned one up against the wall as a test many times and wasn’t crazy about the look, but I bit the bullet and decided to go for an update to the mirrors because they needed it anyway. Who cared if one sat upstairs for a while as the other pined away for its mate in the basement. They are just mirrors, after all.

I sanded down the frame and taped off the edges of the mirrors, then proceeded to paint the whole thing white. I only have transformed one of the mirrors because I wanted to make sure I liked it.

Turns out, I do. And these fancy mirrors don’t look half bad on my console table!

I titled this post “A temporarily permanent mirror” because I plan on continuing my hunt for a different mirror, either new or used. Regardless of my hunt, I’m so pleased that I like this mirror in my house and over the table — I truly didn’t think I would, but it’s growing on me. I still think it doesn’t have the right proportions for the space, though. Plus, it kills me to separate the pair of mirrors. Now I just need to paint the second mirror white and find a place for the pair. I have a couple of ideas where they might look nice.

These mirrors are super heavy, so if I do choose to leave it, I’ll need to get heavy-duty hanging materials for the wall. I like it leaning, but I think for safety reasons I’d rather it be mounted instead. I’d hate for Remmy to bump the table and for this to fall and hurt him.

Anywho, don’t you just love when someone that’s been sitting in your basement for years turns out to be just what you were looking for, even temporarily? I know I do!

—————————-

UPDATE: I found a mirror I loved at Target, and with that my temporary mirror has been relocated back to the craft room *whomp whompppp*

Here’s the new setup:

Home Improvement, Interior Decorating, Paint

So fresh and so clean

February 9, 2015February 10, 2015 Jessica Smith

Our master bedroom is the perfect display of what it means to be indecisive, something that has plagued me my entire life. Dramatic, yes. True, yes.

I remember waiting in line at the grocery store when I was little and my mom let my sisters and I each choose a candy bar. Well, I couldn’t decide on what to get, so I ended up getting nothing. That’s scarring for a small child, folks. Scarring!

Anyway, back to our bedroom. We wanted to paint most of the rooms in our house before we moved in three years ago (this march, holy smokes!). I don’t think I’m ever as indecisive in life as when I have to choose a paint color for something. There are sooooo many choices. The master bedroom started off beige, and that was never going to work. The folks who updated our house before we bought it painted everything terrible, boring beige. It all had to go.

First, I bought teal. And I love teal. But it was sooooo bright for a bedroom, so that got nixed before I got farther than a sample coat. I ended up using the color in my craft room, which is in the basement with no windows and needed something super bright and cheery.

Second, gothic amethyst. I should have known from the start that a color with “gothic” in the name wasn’t going to work in my bedroom. It’s a gorgeous purple, and since we are Ravens fans I thought it was a color B could get behind. He liked it. I didn’t. I ended up using the color in my bathroom. I get so many compliments on this color in my bathroom, too! And my stepmom actually just took the remaining paint for the bottom half of her chair rail in my parents’ new house. It looks great, but I’m still glad it isn’t my bedroom color.

That’s the funny thing about me and color. It’s not that I don’t like the colors I choose. I do. It’s just that they don’t seem right for the space.

On to color three: darkish, bluish-gray. Ugh. This was the only color B and I seemed to agree on (he wanted hunter green….) for the bedroom. So I took it as a win that we painted another room in the house a shade of blue and we actually painted the room this time.

Well, this should come as no surprise…. I wasn’t ever super happy with this color. It was just. so. dark. and. gloomy. And I’m not a dark and gloomy kind of person. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. I love the brightness of white, but cannot stand the lack of color. So most every room in my house is a light, bright color of some sort.

So yeah, the blue/gray color didn’t work.

I finally persuaded/annoyed Brian that ~~I’d~~ we’d be happier with a more cheery color, and after years of badgering he acquiesced.

So I wasted no time. I sampled five colors, thinking I wanted a bright neutral. But like I said before, the neutrals lack color (duh) and I seem to always end up not choosing a neutral no matter how hard I try.

So we ended up with Sherwin Williams Sea Salt, a beautiful, super light green that sometimes looks gray.

Here’s the room in progress. Don’t you love my style of painting? No tape, no drop cloth, no furniture removed? Hey, it works for me.

The other exciting thing I did in our room while doors were off closets and clothes were out – I painted our closets a bright white. Check this out:

Before

After

SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN! Minus the dirt in the corners… I painted the doors, the trim and the insides of both closets white and it made such a world of a difference. The whole space felt bright and airy. And clean. So very clean.

Once the paint was dry and everything was put back together, I happily shopped at Target for a new duvet cover. I actually ended up keeping the old, dirty-looking duvet we had and simply buying a beautiful knit blanket for the top of the bed. I threw some matching pillows on the pull in the green and blue, added a pop of pink. And voila! Love it.

The final step that I’ve done so far is to treat myself to a new bed. I looked for months on Craigslist and at Habitat Restore for a bed I liked, but I couldn’t find one. So I bought us a brand new bed online. It is so pretty 🙂

There is still quite a few things I’d like to do in our room:

Iron the curtain I put up for Brian’s closet door. So doable, probably won’t ever happen since I hate ironing. Hey, just keepin’ it real.
Get taller night stands for next to the bed. The ones we have a so short it drives me a little nuts. But I haven’t found the right thing yet. Plus, I’d really like to redo these myself.
Get B a new dresser. His is old and clunky. And while I actually like the color against the Sea Salt walls, it is time for something a bit larger and more in-line with our style. I’m waiting to find something I can paint in the same color gray as my dresser.
Art for behind the bed. I’ve tossed up the idea of doing several gold mirrors or framing some botanical prints. I think this will have a huge visual impact when you walk into the room.
New duvet? I still might change up the bedding. I like the knit blanket a lot, but knit doesn’t hold up great. The problem is the dog gets on the bed, so we don’t want to splurge and buy really nice bedding on the off chance it gets dirty. Because it will get dirty.
Build a long, skinny console table for under our painting. It is lonely on that wall. Or do something completely different on that wall altogether. Only time will tell.

On the whole, I am loving the update to our room. B doesn’t seem to miss the blue, that’s a win in my book.

P.S. This is actually what our room looks like. Notice the stick of deodorant on B’s nightstand and Remmy’s oh-so-dirty doggy bed. And his sweet stick bone. You can also see the basket by my dresser to hold dirty towels to wipe Rem’s paws. The only thing I changed in here for a nicer photo was not adding our duvet under the blue blanket so it laid flat. Arguably I should have added it since the banket hangs over so long, but whatevs. Perfection is overrated.

Proof: Here is our duvet stuffed nicely into the hamper for this photo shoot hehe. Back on the bed it goes!