Archives for January 2011

January 14, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 29 Comments

Giving Us That Warm Feeling

It’s time for our monthly shout out to thank our sponsors for making the other 35+ posts possible and keeping the lights on in our new house (how else could we check out our paint swatches at all times of the day and night?). They definitely make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside (or is that the eggnog?) so instead of just listing everyone, we like to pick something from each of them that makes us smile/drool/inspired/happy. Not that we’ve been gifted any of these things ourselves (see our no-swag policy here) but we did have fun trolling their sites on a virtual shopping spree of sorts. And as usual, there’s a little sump’in extra

January 13, 2011 | By John Petersik | 288 Comments

They’re Here!

Our new washer and dryer are here! Which of course means that our old ones are not. Fortunately our plan to craigslist them worked out swimmingly (thanks for buying ’em Leslie Ann!) even if it did leave us appliance-less for a few days (as you saw in the video house tour). By selling them for $250 thanks to good old craig and his list, we in effect brought our already-super-discounted total down from $638 to $388. Although after the wall plug, the stack kit, and taxes it was closer to $460 spent. Either way, we’re still feeling crazy good about the deal – and we’re glad that so many of you were able to take

January 13, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 291 Comments

At Last, A Video Tour Of Our New House

So it’s been exactly a month since move-in day and it’s shameful to think that we haven’t shared a video tour of the place yet. We officially accept a virtual slap on the wrist. Or a noogie if you’re old school. But no indian burns. Gotta draw the line somewhere. Anyway, after unpacking, list making, nursery painting, door frosting, bi-fold removing, duvet ordering, bed-assembling, washer & dryer hunting, shelf removing, Christmas tree decorating, playing with ceramic animals built-in bookcase arranging, built-in bookcase painting, dealing with a plethora of mirrors (some in very odd places), bedroom painting, Christmas tree dismantling, and waiting for our new washer & dryer to arrive (update: they’re here! more details later!)

January 12, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 814 Comments

What Could Have Been…

When we’re painting we talk about all sorts of weird things that we probably wouldn’t otherwise get around to. And while painting the bedroom we got to the topic of “names that our parents almost gave us.” Get this. My mom wanted to name me Gina. We would have been John & Gina. That made us titter. Not sure if it’s a had to be there thing though. Either way, John’s dad’s choice of names takes the cake. He wanted to name John… wait for it… Lars. Lars Petersik. How funny is that? If I had seen tall dirty blond John at work and asked a coworker “oh who’s that?” and heard them respond with

January 12, 2011 | By John Petersik | 264 Comments

I’m Running Out Of Mirror Puns

Our recent flurry of mirror-related projects means my repertoire of pun-riddled mirror references is growing thin. Our latest victim was the guest bathroom. We figured after swapping out the medicine cabinet in our master bath, that we might as well do the same in the guest bath. Especially since our guests won’t exactly need a medicine cabinet. At least we hope not. It was still functional, but had definitely seen better days (the interior metal cabinet was starting to rust- we think it was original to the house, which makes it almost 50 years old) and we figured we could do better than the plain silver frame. So two screws later it was off the

January 11, 2011 | By John Petersik | 549 Comments

Carolina Inn Club Aqua

That’s the name of the new bedroom color. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it does look pretty good rolled on the walls. We finally made a decision to go with the middle band on the Valspar swatch at the top of this photo (though we got it color matched to Olympic’s No-VOC paint in a satin finish). We liked that it was green and a bit more saturated than a color we’d choose for our last house. Here’s one last look at the room paint-less (and mostly furniture-less). Oh yeah and look at poor semi-disassembled Ed the Bed. We had to remove one slat on the top so that he could slide

January 10, 2011 | By John Petersik | 3,630 Comments

Fab Freebie: Cut It Out

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** It’s no mystery that we think silhouettes are a great and graphic spin on the traditional framed family photo. So of course this week’s prize is right up our alley: a customized 8×10 silhouette portrait from Nella Designs. Nella Designs has a bunch of other fun items in her Etsy shop (like this 2011 desktop calendar that our winners will also be scoring), but it’s these prints made from photos of your family, pet, or even you & your significant other (in your choice of color) that really caught our eye. You can see more of the prints that she’s personalized

January 10, 2011 | By John Petersik | 465 Comments

Hanging A Sink Mirror In Front Of A Window

Our master bathroom came with a mirror dilemma. Instead of having the traditional mirror-over-the-sink set up, there’s a window (seen here on this moving day pic that we snapped before we removed those bi-fold doors). But although that picture makes the window look all glow-y and angelic, staring out at the house next door (it’s a side window) isn’t exactly ideal for brushing your teeth, shaving, fixing your hair, or walking by after a shower in the buff. Nor is that the first impression that we really want to make on the neighbors. So we knew we needed a privacy solution stat. We also needed a functional mirror solution too. The room is (ironically) far

January 7, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 374 Comments

Removing The Side Splash & Backsplash From Our Bathroom Sink

You might notice a theme when it comes to posts like this and this and this and this. Making this house feel like ours seems to be just as much about stripping things down and removing stuff as it is about adding new furnishings and wall colors. Just like the old matted carpets in the sunroom and the bathroom of our old house had to go (along with the crocheted duck curtains, the wallpaper, some small doorways, a few bi-fold doors, and the linen closet door) we’re all about working with what we have. Which could mean altering things a little bit to help them fit more within our aesthetic instead of just junking them

January 6, 2011 | By John Petersik | 233 Comments

A Few Husband & Wife Christmas Gift Ideas

We realized in all of this new house hubbub we never shared what we gifted each other for Christmas. Fishsticks! (No, we didn’t give each other fishsticks, I’m just practicing our resolution to not curse around the baby anymore). Sherry wins the “best gift” award this year. In continuing her efforts to grow our art collection, she considered a couple of Richmond-themed pieces (including this one that we’ve always liked) and finally ended up getting me this awesome Richmond Type Map: It’s a colorful map of our fair city made up entirely of identifying text. See what I mean? The black grid is made up of street names and the colored area behind them are

January 6, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 147 Comments

Removing Wall Shelves And Patching & Spackling The Holes

Let’s talk about breathing room. One thing we learned from our last house was that we prefer to let rooms “breathe” a little. Which means resisting the urge to fill every corner and span of wall with furniture and plant stands and coat racks and storage baskets and everything else that you can stick in there to crowd the perimeter of a room. So after a bit of deliberation we decided that letting the previous shelf-riddled corner of the fireplace breathe was the best choice for us. I actually attacked them after only a few days of living here and realized I never shared the pics while writing my list post– so here they are.

January 5, 2011 | By John Petersik | 120 Comments

What’s Wrong With Us?

We’ll admit it. We’re a little relieved that the holiday season is over. As fun and exciting as all of the hoopla is, December can be a stressful month with all of the last minute shopping, long distance traveling, family gatherings, and weather madness that come along with it… which is probably why lots of people called us certifiably crazy for adding moving-into-a-new-house to the mix. It definitely was a bit crazy of us, but it just dawned on me and Sherry that this wasn’t the first year that a major project fell over the holiday season. In fact, it’s happened for the past FOUR YEARS IN A ROW. Update: Five years in a row

January 5, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 340 Comments

Duvet In The House

Remember the West Elm duvet cover that we ordered on sale last week? It’s here! Oh, I guess it would make more sense to show it in our space now: Of course we’ll be adding in some bolder accent pillows down the road, but we love it. It’s a smidge greener than we expected, but it actually reminds us of the bold blue-green color that we used to paint the back of our built-ins. We filled it with an über-cushy king sized Ikea comforter (we think it’s this one, but we’re not 100% sure since there are so many). And can I just say that we’re so glad we didn’t try to make do with

January 4, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 599 Comments

$11 Makeover: Painting The Back Of Our Built In Bookcases

We’re back with the after pics of our freshly painted built-ins. As we mentioned in the last post, we went with an inky blue color with hints of green called Dragonfly from Benjamin Moore’s Affinity line (color matched to Lowe’s No-VOC Olympic paint for the bambino). We only needed a quart, and since we used objects that we already owned on the shelves this entire built-in makeover only ran us $10.97. You can read more about how we planned the shelf placement here. Oh and here’s a poorly lit progress pic from last night, just for fun. Yes John’s shirt does say “Talk Nerdy To Me” on the back. I love it. But here’s what

January 4, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 188 Comments

The Challenge: Reducing Bookcase Clutter

We painted the back of our built-in bookcases last night! Which is totally our idea of a good time by the way. It’s the equivalent of a “Date Night” for us, if you will. So we figured we should post about the pre-planning process that went on so we can share the “after” pics as closely to real-time as possible (once the paint dries and we can put the shelves back up to snap some final photos for ya). So here you go: We decided we needed to roughly layout the objects on the built-in bookcases before painting the backs of them (we’ll explain more about that in a minute). We were planning to put

January 3, 2011 | By John Petersik | 4,379 Comments

Fab Freebie: The Heat Is On

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll to the bottom to see who won!*** Is it hot in here or is it just these? Har har. But seriously, Air & Water offers a slew of heating, cooling and even humidifying products for your home, and this week one of you is gonna score one of these electric fireplaces on the house: Whether you go for the modern and colorful Mini Cube ($100), the large and traditional Lincoln ($300) or something in between, like the Danville or the Compact Electric ($130) you’ll be adding function and ambiance to any less-than-warm space. My mom actually has one like the Compact Electric and it was quite

January 3, 2011 | By Sherry Petersik | 376 Comments

Scoring A Pretty Amazing Washer & Dryer Deal

What the dealio, guys? Remember how we mentioned a few times that we’d like to upgrade to an energy efficient front loading washer and dryer sometime down the line when we saw a killer deal (we heard they pop up around February since new models are often introduced then)? Well, one found us a lot sooner than we expected. Yesterday actually. We were walking through Lowe’s on Saturday when we noticed a sign that said 10% off all appliances. Not much of a deal, but enough to make us take a detour through the appliance section for fun. And while we were in that shiny-new-appliance-induced-euphoria, we noticed a big sign on an energy efficient Whirlpool