Archive for January, 2011
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!) we finally broke out the Flip and took it for a quick spin around the new digs. Watch it below on Vimeo or here on YouTube (and if you’re at work, you can mute it and still get a pretty good idea of what we’re dealing with). Oh and I wholeheartedly apologize for Blair Witching you guys. I’m not exactly slow and steady with a camera:
Since it would take hours to discuss all of the half-baked projects on our to-do list, this tour is meant to give you a better sense of the layout and how each room connects (while providing some never before seen angles of rooms and shots of things like our closet, our kitchen sink, etc). When it comes to what we’ll do in the future (along with how we’ll do it and why we’ll do it) we honestly like to take those things one day at a time to keep from getting too overwhelmed.
So hopefully you’ll enjoy a look around our house without tossing out any “what are your plans for this sink/bed/wall/room/window?” or “are you keeping/painting/replacing those fill-in-the-blank” or “have you considered doing such & such?” questions. Not because we don’t love your inquisitive nature, but because in truth we’re most likely not set on anything yet and have tons of ideas swirling around in our heads. Which is why we’re so set on taking things as they come and blogging about each and every project & decision that we make as we tackle them in real-time (instead of doing a lot of future conjecturing). Things always change along the way anyway.
Oh and we figured we’d include the rough floor plan that we shared before moving in for easy cross reference. You know, if you’re the cross-referencing type (I’m not. Hubs is). Let the record state that some rooms are labeled differently in the pic below than they’re called in the video (ex: we labeled the future dining room as “living room” below, since that’s what it is now. But there’s more info over here (and another floor plan that reflects how we plan to change the layout/rooms as we go).
Maybe once we’re further along with the transformation, we’ll shoot a more formal house tour without me behind the wheel. Again I apologize for all of the spinning, shaking, and other nausea inducing maneuvers. Fingers crossed that nobody lost their lunch croissant/cheerio’s/pop tart/egg sandwich on the tour. But if you did, at least it was virtual. Which means no clean up on my end. Can’t complain.
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 ” that’s Lars Petersik, he’s an account manager.” Let’s just say I would have been all “niiiiice to meeeeeeet you Laaaaars” with that over-enunciated-because-I’m-not-sure-you’re-great-at-deciphering-super-speedy-NY-talkers connotation. The same long drawn out delivery I use with my only-speaks-Italian grandmother. It would have been hysterical. John probably never would have let me live it down. Or asked me to marry him a year-ish later.
But that’s not all. Apparently John’s dad also wanted to name John “Vector.” Because he liked math. How I was able to continue painting with tears of laughter streaming down my face is beyond me. So it got us wondering what you guys were almost named. Come on… someone out there can beat Vector and Lars, right?
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 wall and after another two minutes (ok, maybe I’m exaggerating, let’s say five) we were back in business:
It’s clearly nothing elaborate, but at least it was free (it was an old Target mirror that we’ve had for a couple of years). And we figure once we get some paint on those walls (we’re thinking some sort of muddy gray will hopefully add some sophistication with the yellow tile) the white frame will pop nicely off the wall and go hand in hand with other clean white objects like the trim, sink, toilet, etc.
We also took a moment to remove the large room-encroaching metal shelf & towel bar. You can see it gone in the photo below and scroll back up to see it in action above the john. We figure we’ll add two clean looking hooks to the inside of the bathroom door for guests to hang their towels, and the room might benefit from some crisp art on the wall, just so it feels a bit less utilitarian. Oh and speaking of the inside of the bathroom door, we decided to remove the full length mirror that you see in the pic below. Not just to free up space for those towel hooks that we mentioned…
… but also to remedy the uncomfortable placement. See, if our guests went in there to do their business, they’d get a view similar to this one. Minus the jeans. Awkward.
Removing it was a cinch. Since it wasn’t glued to the door, I just had to remove the single clip on the right side, and then carefully slide that baby out (it had two clips on the top and the bottom, and one on each side). Once it was off the door, I removed the rest of the clips. Here’s the best one handed “in progress” shot that I got.
And here’s the door as it stands now. We’ve still gotta putty over the screw holes left by all of the mirror clips and then hang our towel hooks but we feel pretty good that we’ve saved our guests from having to experience their very own “John on john” moment. If they happen to be named John. Otherwise switch the first John out with their name (like how I overexplained that for you?).
Oh, and you probably remember that we’ve got another one of these mirrors on the master bathroom door (on the outside, fortunately). We were thisclose to taking it off moments after finishing this project, but suddenly started second-guessed ourselves. We’re now thinking that instead of removal, we might leave it be and someday upgrade it with a nice frame of molding around it so it looks built-in. We’ll see…
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 forward into the middle of the room without hitting the fan while we painted around him.
And thanks to the magic of the internet, here’s what the room looked like around five hours later after two coats of Sweet Caroline Club Carolina Inn Club Aqua (we never got the name right a single time that we tried to remember it) on the walls. Amazingly we only needed one gallon (we’re not used to rooms this big so we totally expected to run out and have to do that annoying go-back-to-get-more thing in the middle of the project).
It’s definitely somewhat reminiscent of our last bedroom color (Glidden’s Gentle Tide) but it reads a good deal darker and greener in person, so it’s definitely a step towards our vision of a bolder color scheme when it comes to this house. We debated going a lot darker or brighter when it came to the walls, but ultimately decided that we didn’t want the wall color to be the star of this room. So keeping it somewhat subdued leaves room for colorful curtains, art, and even some painted secondhand furniture if we decide to go that route.
We actually hesitated before painting Carolina Country Club Inn Carolina Inn Club Aqua in the bathroom nook because we thought we might want to go darker, lighter, or bring some other accent idea in there (decorative wallpaper? a tone on tone stencil?).
But since our goal has been to de-emphasize the bathroom-ness of this space and help to better connect it to the main room (so that it visually makes sense instead of sticking out like a sore thumb) we went for the cohesive look and used the same color on the walls in there. Good old Caroline County Aqua Carolina Inn Club Aqua. Oh but we used a semi-gloss finish for extra wipeability since it’s near a sink. Don’t mind the fact that it looks lighter in the pics (it doesn’t in real life- must just be the lighting).
And yes, we’re still talking about painting the mirror everything from gray to white. We go back and forth between leaving it and letting the room evolve a little more before doing a thing and whipping out the paint brush and getting ‘er done later today. Whatever we do, we’ll share pics when we do it.
The color on the wall is also reading a bit light in these pics. We’d definitely describe it as something in the “mid-range” (not light but definitely not dark). You can see from the swatch in that top pic that it’s definitely not super subtle, but it’s also not ultra saturated. We actually really love that we landed in that middle-ground area. Everything from the crown molding to the trim and even Ed the Bed really pops, but it’s not too much that it would compete with bold curtains, art, and other stuff that we can’t wait to mix in. Oh and Ed’s poppage is a bit more evident in the first pic of the painted walls above though. Scroll scroll scroll.
None of the furniture placement is permanent (heck some of the furniture itself may soon be replaced, like that old ikea dresser from our guest room above). But at least it’s starting to feel like a our bedroom. Sherry has this big idea to get two secondhand dressers that “go but don’t match” and refinish them (or paint them a bold color) and then place them on the walls on either side of the bathroom doorway for some nice balance – and some his & hers sock and pj storage. Then the chair will probably go live in the corner to the left of the bed as you face it.
Oh and speaking of going but not matching, we like how Cape Carolina Canaveral Carolina Inn Club Aqua picks up the color of the duvet nicely too, without being perfectly plucked directly from the fabric itself (which we think could have been waaaaaay too much).
Actually, you can better see how saturated the walls are in this shot with the lights off (so it doesn’t read as yellow on camera). Oh and the walls/duvet look a bit more true to life here (see how they kind of work with each other without competing or looking too flat?).
And yes, that’s still our Christmas tree in the background. It’s on the list.
Anyway, it feels GREAT to have this room painted because it was a big leap towards making “the new house” feel like “our new house.” And consider us as having officially caught the painting bug. We’re thinking one of the big living spaces might be next. If only we could settle on a color…
Psst- We’re spilling one of our favorite money and space saving baby secrets over on BabyCenter. Oh yeah and there’s a video of Clara screaming over there too. Good times.
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 right here on her blog too.
So here’s how to enter:
- PRIZE: A customized 8×10 silhouette portrait and a 2011 desktop calendar from Nella Designs.
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “CUT ME OUT!” and…
- BONUS QUESTION: … speaking of cutting things out, what’s one thing you’re trying to cut out of your life (or at least cut down on) in 2011? Trying to ditch a bad habit? Looking limit your time spent in front of the tube? Or maybe you’re cutting out caffeine?
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, January 12th at 8pm EST
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: Two
- PRIZE SHIPS: The United States and Canada!
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winners will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here on Thursday morning for the announcement of our winner. Good luck…
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Random.org has chosen our two winners and they are… Nessa (who wants to cut down on being so serious all the time) and Angela (who wants to cut out sleepless night with her 4 month old). Congrats!
Note: We weren’t paid or perk’d for hosting this giveaway, we just take them on to reward our lovely readers! See our Giveaway FAQs page for more info. Pics from Nella Designs.
