Archive for December, 2010
Twenty Eleven Resolutions
Every year we publicly proclaim a few of our resolutions in the hope that it’ll light a fire under our arse (arses?) and help us “get there.” So without further ado (except for this gratuitous Clara picture) here they are…
Resolution #1. To be more bold with our decorating & renovating choices. We want to embrace color and contrast and just have fun without worrying that we’ll mess up. Mistakes are always when we learn the most about a project or our style, so we’re going to welcome them with open arms. And we hope to do our best to resist always going with the “safest” decisions in favor of taking a few chances and diving in with both feet. Wait that doesn’t make sense. Jumping in with both feet? How about cannonballing? Sounds good to us. It probably means there will also be the occasional belly flop, but we’re ok with that too.
Resolution #2. To find balance. We’re going to try our darndest not to fall into the trap of putting all of our time, money, and energy into the house to the point that we have no life, no savings, and Clara is trapped in our casa for her entire childhood. We’d love to remember to plan family trips (we haven’t been on a big vacation since our honeymoon three and a half years ago other than some low key road trips and family beach weeks) and just take time to enjoy visits to the park and the zoo and the occasional meal out. Since the internet is 24/7, sometimes it’s hard to resist working nights, weekends, and even on vacation so we hope to get a handle on that. Now that we have a wee one, some healthy family-friendly balance seems like a good idea.
Resolution #3. To save more money. We’re already pretty frugal (ok, we’re total tightwads) as you can see here, but we’d like to learn more ways to squirrel away cash for a rainy day (or retirement, or the college fund…). For example, we have no idea how to coupon. In fact we only recently learned that it could be used as a verb after watching this crazy show on TLC. But now we’d like to learn the act of couponing (but by no means will we take it as far as the people on that TLC special). Yesterday we gave it a whirl and ended up saving $19 at the grocery store. Not bad for two people who had no idea what they were doing. So we’re ready to learn more. From virtually loading our Kroger card with online coupons to buying the Sunday paper for the insert and even printing out online coupons when they’re something we actually buy, we’ll give it a try. And we’ll share how it goes if we happen to get the hang of it.
Resolution #4. To take the people-pleasing thing down a notch. As we mentioned during our blogiversary, “after three years we’ve learned that it’s impossible to please 100% of the people 100% of the time.” Gone are the days when we could write about whatever was happening at our house without someone (usually in the nicest way possible) telling us what to change. Like that we should post less or more, do bigger or smaller projects, share more or less family stuff, do more or fewer mood boards, etc. Basically, if we listened to everyone who told us how to alter YHL for the better, we’d pretty much have to scrap everything. And we might be crazy, but we like how we blog! It has gotten us to where we are today. Over two million hits a month is crazy (ok, mind-blowingly insane) to us.
We actually really enjoy sharing real-time diary-style entries about what’s going on as it occurs (the good, the bad, the ugly, and the average day-in-the-life stuff) along with whatever inspires us – just like we did back in 2007 when this whole adventure started. One week we might be flying along and the next week we may be as slow as molasses – but hey, that’s real life (with real budget constraints, snafus, & timeline challenges). There’s always HGTV for those 30 minute makeovers, so we’re all about the stuff in the middle. In the end, we know that as our blog continues to grow and evolve, some people will like it less while others may enjoy it more. Which is completely ok. It has to be! So this Bill Compton Cosby gem is our new mantra: “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” Here’s hoping we can trust ourselves to share our lives in a way that feels the most authentic to us.
Resolution #5. To teach Clara a few key home improvement and decorating terms. Like “phillips head screwdriver.” And “cohesive.” Can you image how cute a toddler who says things like “keep it cohesive” would be?
Or is that just my sick fantasy? My dad taught me the word “dehydrated” when I was a tiny tot and I’d walk around saying “I’m dehydrated” instead of requesting water or juice like the other kids in daycare. So dramatic. And I can just picture Clara pointing around the room and saying “drywall,” “hardwoods,” and “baseboard” instead of “wall” and “floor.” Could be funny…
Psst- Balancing couple found here.
Pssst- Check out our weekly photo project featuring the beanette here.
Pssssst- Peep one more (kid related) resolution over on BabyCenter. Any good faux curse suggestions?
Duvet On The Way
When we saw the amazing after Christmas sales at West Elm we had to spring for a new king sized duvet buddy for Ed the bed (get acquainted with Ed here and here). Even though Ed’s a queen sized bed, we wanted a king duvet cover because we thought it would drape a bit more over the sides (our old full/queen sized duvet cover was looking a little tight). Plus it’ll hopefully result in fewer sleep fights about who has more of the covers. So here’s what we got:
We love that it’s bright, bold, geometric, and full of energy. It just looks nice to wake up to. Plus it has a lot of the colors from our new house color scheme going on. And thanks to some huge holiday sales, the king sized duvet cover was marked down from $80 to $50:
Does anyone else love the red sale type as much as I do? I just get giddy when I click on something and those four little red letters (s-a-l-e) are there to greet me. And I’m greedy. So I googled around for a coupon code to knock those red numbers down to a little more.
It ended up being $42.49 after the discount I dug up (around $50 total with tax & delivery), which we’re pretty excited about since it’s king sized. For some reason that size always sounds like it should cost thirty gold bars or something- it’s just so regal and Henry The Eighth-esque. So while we wait the obligatory five-ish business days, we’ll be dreaming of Ed…
… dressed in his new king-sized uniform…
Godspeed new duvet cover. Godspeed.
Frosty The Side Door
It’s no secret that the real improvement we need to make to our new laundry area is in the upgrading to energy efficient appliances arena along with adding some nice built-in storage to maximize that tiny room. But as we save up and plan for those upgrades, we took a few hours after Clara’s bedtime a few days ago to tackle some smaller items on our laundry list. Pun intended.
First we went to work on the glass side door. You know, the one that gave everyone a straight shot from our carport, through the laundry area and into our kitchen (here I am being creepy and demonstrating the problem, which you can read more about here).
Since we were eager to get rid of this bi-fold door that was currently acting as a privacy solution in the interim…
… at first we figured we’d throw up a cheap wooden blind over the glass side door, remove the dark pocket door, and consider our problem solved. Well, after buying a bamboo rolling shade from Home Depot, we realized how much light it blocked and after learning that our kitchen is a black hole in the mornings (it’s the only room with no windows to the outside world- the window above the sink looks out into the sunroom) we didn’t want anything that would block too much light.
That’s when we opted to go the frosting film route. We used the same materials / techniques that we employed in our basement a while ago, so you can read that step-by-step guide here (and see what film we chose). The only issue we ran into this time was bubbles.
Some serious, annoying, won’t-go-away bubbles. You always have these at some point of this process, but it usually just takes a few squeegees to get them out. But these bubbles weren’t bursting, no matter how hard Sherry squeegeed. And it totally burst our bubble (too corny- had to cross it out).
We hoped it was just an issue with not having applied enough applicator spray to each surface, but we feared it was a problem with the temperature of the side door (instructions said not to apply it in under 40 degree weather, which it definitely was on the other side of that glass). We crossed our fingers, peeled off the permanently bubbled film, scraped some residual glue off of the window, and readied ourselves to try again (fortunately our leftover scrap of film was perfectly sized for a second attempt). And this time we used a boatload more of the applicator solution to keep things nice and slippery so no bubbles could take permanent hold.
And it worked. Phew.
Our next little project was the removal of those shelves next to the door. We love bonus storage just as much as the next blogger, but we couldn’t figure out exactly what we’d want there since it’s not concealed- and we learned that coming through the door with our hands full meant that we routinely bumped into whatever was on those shelves anyway. So we decided to take them down and instead turn it into a place to hang art or a frame collage someday. Every laundry room needs a little space for the eye to rest and art always makes it feel a bit more welcoming and less utilitarian. At least that’s what the wife says. She’s more of the decorating brains. And I’m the take-those-shelves-down brawn. Although Sherry does get down with the power tools when the mood strikes.
While I was in the midst of unscrewing things (despite it being about 10:30pm) we thought we’d keep the momentum going and get rid of the shutters on the laundry room window too (to make room for an eventual set of blinds/roman shade/curtain).
So by morning, our laundry area was looking more like this:
No shutters, no shelves, but a bit of touch up painting to be done.
And we’re still getting a nice stream of morning light coming into the otherwise pitch black kitchen in the early morning. Frosting film was definitely the (nice cheap) way to go.
Have you guys frosted windows with the same film stuff from Home Depot? Have you ever encountered the not-coming-out-no-matter-how-hard-you-squeegee-bubble problem? Was it due to temperature or lack of applicator spray? Or something else entirely?
Psst- We announced this week’s giveaway winners back on the original post. Click here to see if it’s you.
Listy McListerson
Wahoooooooo! A list post! I loooooooooove lists! Oh haaaaaappy day.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, this post will continue without the excessive exclamation points & extraneous vowels.
Lots of people have been asking what we’ll tackle next, what order we’ll be doing things in, etc. And our answer is usually: it’ll honestly just depend on our mood and what supplies we have on hand. When it comes to big projects we like to save our pennies and plan things to death, but for small things (which we always recommend doing first so you can live with the house for a while before making any dramatic changes that you might regret) we always just dive in and learn as we go. It’s the only way we’ve been able to accomplish things instead of being paralyzed by indecision. So we’ll hang frames somewhere and if we don’t like them we’ll move them. Same deal for picking paint colors and arranging furniture. And we’ll post pics and details as they occur, not to worry! But just for fun (and because I’m a die-hard list making fool) I thought I’d share a few of the bulleted things scrawled in a notebook by the bed.
My method? Just casually write everything out in list form, circle the small things I think we can get to right away, cross them off as we go, and underline the long term things we want to save for and tackle when we finally have the funds (and are feeling more sure about our approach). Looking at those underlined things from time to time keeps us excited to squirrel away as much as we can to make them a reality down the road. And seeing all the crossed off smaller items reminds us that bite-sized undertakings can really keep you motivated and excited to tweak your house one day at a time until it’s suddenly your love-it-to-pieces home. Anyway, here’s the ol’ list:
To Do (But Not All At Once…):
- Find bold saturated/patterned fabric and DIY some no-sew curtains (using this method) for the living room, future dining room, office, guest bedroom, playroom, bedroom, hall sliders, etc.
- Paint every room (this is one of those slowly over time tasks- we’re thinking about tones seen here in this whole-house color scheme post of yore)
- Paint all the dark wood trim (beams, trim, baseboard, crown) in the living room and the kitchen (some people love natural wood trim, but we love it glossy and white)
- Remove unnecessary bi-fold doors
- Frost the side door that looks in on the kitchen (just tackled this- will post details soon)
- Remove the shelves next to the fireplace (just realized we didn’t share this project yet- soon!)
- Prime and paint the paneling in the kitchen using this method (not sure what color we’ll go for…)
- Redo the kitchen backsplash (check out overstock.com for tile along with clearance stuff from local vendors)
- Get all new kitchen hardware (check out local places, online stuff, and big box stores for best deal)
- Prime and paint the oak cabinets in the kitchen using this method (again, not sure what color)
- Finally refinish and reupholster the craigslist rocker that we got a while back (and find a spot for it in one of the living areas so it gets lots of casual use)
- Recover the leather parsons chair in the corner of our living room (at the white desk) with a bright fun fabric slipcover
- Replace a ton of light fixtures (too many to list)
- Remove all the door handles, hinges, and doorknobs in the house and spray them with oil-rubbed bronze spray paint
- Frame out the mirror in the hall bathroom
- Paint the vanity in the hall bathroom
- Hang a thick velvet curtain in front of our walk-in closet
- Wallpaper or stencil the sink nook in the master bedroom
- Frost or add curtains to the window in the master bathroom (and possibly the other two bathroom windows)
- Turn the area between the addition and the old house with the sliders leading out onto it into a sweet outdoor cutting garden (it’s near the kitchen, and it seems to get enough light… will share details in the spring when it’s planting time)
- Make built-ins around the washer and dryer to create mini mudroom function and replace cabinet doors up top with pull out baskets or drop down blinds
- Paint the front door
- Frame out the porch columns so they’re chunky and square instead of ornate and curvy
- Plant evergreen trees around the perimeter of the property for more privacy from the side, back, and even part of the front (waiting for them to “fill in” will be the hardest part, but getting smaller plants will save us money so we’ll hopefully have patience)
- Pump up the curb appeal with more landscaping upgrades
These ones are circled:
- Paint the back of the future dining room built-ins something fun and bright
- Update and paint the vanity in the master bathroom
- Replace the medicine cabinet in the guest bathroom with a charming mirror
- Paint the dark brick fireplace in the kitchen using this method
- Paint the master bedroom
These ones are underlined:
- Refinish the various wood floors throughout the house (the same shade for a nice cohesive look- dark brown? ebony? light gray?)
- Turn the fireplace in the kitchen into a double-sided fireplace that also opens up into the living room (call the mason who helped open the doorway in our old house just to make sure it’s possible and get an estimate)
- Widen the doorway between the kitchen and the living room
- Create a huge doorway between the kitchen and the future dining room that lines up with the newly widened doorway between the kitchen and the living room
- Build/adapt a custom island for the eat-in area of the kitchen near the fireplace
- Convert the carport into a garage (and pick out a killer garage door to add some dimension and architecture to our flat little rancher)
- Add french doors between the future dining room and the office (for privacy and tons of charm)
- Replace the flooring in the kitchen and mudroom/laundry room (with cork ?)
Furnishings To Slowly Save Up For:
- A queen sized bed for the master (so we don’t have to sleep on our mattress on the floor anymore)
- A big charcoal gray u-shaped sectional for the living room (I’ve dreamed about having a big enough living space for a sectional for at least the past three years)
- A larger TV stand/media center for the living room (ours is laughably dinky, but we’ll craigslist it and put the money toward something that’ll fit the space better- hopefully something thrifted or even something we can build ourselves)
- A giant rug to define the new seating area in the living room (8 x 10? 9 x 11?)
- Some kick-arse stools for the new island in the kitchen once it’s there (find something cheap and reupholster it for more style?)
- A giant round wooden pedestal table for the future dining room (with an expandable leaf to seat 10-12 people)
- Comfy chairs for the future dining table (preferably upholstered parsons chairs so they look library-ish and casual as opposed to hard and wood-heavy)
- New shower curtains and bathroom towels and accessories for the hall bath and guest bathroom
- New energy efficient appliances for the kitchen and the laundry room (we’re waiting for some killer deals, which we’ve heard can pop up in February once new models are introduced- we’ll also check out craigslist and scratch & dent stuff).
- A full sized bed frame, mattress, and box spring for the guest room (then we’ll make a fun DIY headboard)
- A big cabinet or console table for the hallway off of the kitchen (thrifted/craigslisted and refinished?)
- A new console table (since ours is laughably small, we’ll sell it and put the money towards one that’ll better fit the space to help define the entryway in the front of the house)
- His and hers dressers for the master bedroom that we can refinish (preferably super cheap on craigslist or from the thrift store)
In summary, it doesn’t sound like rocket science, but our method is to basically just write everything down and tackle things that are doable and not too intimidating while we save up for the bigger projects. And as for priorities, we generally just do whatever project we’re in the mood to take on (barring anything that needs to be a priority for safety or other extreme urgency reasons). And we definitely jump around from room to room just to stay excited and not feel too regimented and “forced” into doing something that we might not want to deal with yet.
So you’ll see us working on different areas and taking on everything from DIY curtains and paint-related projects to heavy duty renovations and lightweight accessorizing. We’ll share more deets on each of those projects as we tackle them over the next few years (yes, we said years- remember our last house took us 4.5 years to “finish” – and even then there were things we could have noodled for years). Woot! Off to the home improvement store (again) for more supplies. There’s no place like home (depot). Sometimes I wish I had red sparkly shoes that I could click three times and be taken to the hardware aisle…
Psst- Adorable “I heart lists” stationery found here on Etsy.
Psssst- Check out this floor plan post which might make some of the major layout changes & renovations that we’ve listed a bit more clear.
Day Fifteen
Yesterday marked two weeks of being in our new house, so we thought it warranted an updated glimpse into each room’s progress… or lack thereof.
On one hand we feel very accomplished for having already tackled things like painting Clara’s room, buying and assembling a new bed, removing a bunch of bi-fold doors, raising our shower curtain, and unpacking everything – especially considering we were tied up with family stuff for a few days over Christmas. On the other hand, we’re still feeling pretty unsettled. Most of the important stuff has found a place in our new abode (not that it will necessarily stay there for the long haul), but the house is still riddled with piles of things waiting for a home (think picture frames, tools, rugs, etc). Here are some of the rooms that are looking the most presentable so far.
The living room (aka the future dining room) is finally cleared of boxes and we even organized some storage in the base cabinets of those built-ins (although the objects on display are just shoved there, so don’t judge the arrangement just yet):
Here’s the kitchen:
And the family room:
Next we have the sunroom:
And Clara’s room (curtains are up, but there’s no art or new light fixture yet):
Here’s the hall bathroom:
And the guest room bath:
The master bathroom:
And the main hallway:
Then there are the rooms that are semi-functional, but still feel pretty darn disheveled. Like our master bedroom (we have yet to organize the closet, work out a nightstand solution, purchase another dresser, etc):
The office (see that pile of tools in the corner, yeah- they need a home):
And the laundry / mudroom (which is in desperate need of some more built-in storage and a few organizational solutions):
Then there are the close-the-door-when-people-come-over rooms that are basically not at all useful yet… and therefore have become dumping grounds for items in limbo. Like the guest room that we revealed this morning (who wants to stay over in there?):
And the playroom / future kids bedroom (yikes- not so kid friendly yet):
So that’s how things are looking two weeks after moving in. Clearly there’s lots left to tackle and we’re actually working on a giant to-do list to share with you guys (and to help my type-A wife feel more organized). Then it’s off to Home Depot for some supplies…
Psst- You can check out Day One pics here, you know, just for fun.
