Since a bunch of you guys have requested more details on what layout changes we’re pondering and what paint colors we’re currently leaning towards, we thought we’d share a giant brain dump about what’s flying around in our heads at the moments (which will change as we go I’m sure!). Y’all ready for this? Lots o’ words. Lots o’ diagrams. Lots o’ links. Please fasten your blog-reading seatbelts and be sure that your desk chair is in its upright and locked position. This is what the first floor looked like when we bought our house (we’ve since removed the three sets of the double doors off of the kitchen). Â But here’s what we’re thinking we’d
Archives for July 2013
How To Program Your Garage Doors
We have two garage doors. I know, I know – cool story, bro. But I promise this gets better. Well, it does if you’re a tech nerd or just enjoy life’s little conveniences. Sherry’s eyes glaze over when I try to tell her this stuff, so I’m talking to the remote-control-loving convenience enthusiasts out there. Anyone? Each door came with its own remote, which we inherited from the previous owners. This guy barely worked at first, but with a quick battery replacement it works almost too well – occasionally opening or closing the door when the remote shifts in my cup holder. Did I mention it didn’t come with a visor clip? Yeah, that’s why
Painting The Back Of Your Front Door A Bold Color
Alternate post title: Paint Me Like One Of Your French Girls. Yes, much like Rose once begged Jack, the dusty blue back of our front door was just begging to be painted (ok, so Rose said “draw me like one of your French girls” but it’s close enough). The new paint color of choice? The same happy teal tone that’s on the front of it. There’s no hard and fast rule about carrying the color that’s on the front of the door back around to the inside of it (in our last two houses we chose bright colors on the front and plain old white for the back) – but for the first time ever
House Crashing: Calming & Clever
Psst- Sorry about yesterday’s truncated post, Reader users. There was some bad code in a video we embedded (we like to feed full posts, so if you ever see a shortened one, something wonky’s going on). We’re painting something again today! Who’s surprised? Anybody? Nobody? We’ll be back with the goods tomorrow, but in the meantime we thought this house tour was so charming and creative that we had to share it. It’s a great example of a someone buying a house and just going for it, without being even a little afraid to make it theirs. And if there’s one thing that we’ve learned in this whole home-making journey of ours, it’s that the
How To Paint Trim Without A Paint Sprayer
“I’m Blue Da Ba Dee Dabba Da-eeeeee” (anyone remember that song?). Picture us maniacally singing it while priming and painting trim for hours days. We’re slowly losing our minds, but we’re having fun doing it. Please feel free to click over and jam out so we feel less alone (and slightly less certifiable). Ok, so when we last left our hero, er, our foyer, he was sporting some snazzy blue trim. We had stripped down all the wallpaper, and had also removed two closet doors and the bathroom door so we could take them out to the garage and use our paint sprayer to apply a coat of primer and two coats of white semi
Celebrating Our 6th Wedding Anniversary
Last weekend marked our sixth wedding anniversary. As you’ve come to know from us, we like to celebrate with some family time, a good meal, and a few pictures to remember it all by. Actually, one of our few goals for commemorating each year is to get a family portrait (which we hung as a collection in our last house). It started off very casually on our little point and shoot. Then it started involving tripods and camera remotes (you can thank Clara for that). But this year we went super simple and just broke out the iPhone on a family walk. I snapped this guy with my own hand. We also tried to get
Email Answer: I Bought A Fixer-Upper, Where Do I Begin?
Q: My husband Tim and I just bought our first fixer upper two weeks ago in Fort Worth, Texas. It is our second home and we hope to make it our last. Falling in love with our home was the easy part, but the thing is we just don’t know where to start. Should I mention that we have a 19 month old little ball of energy “helping” us? I know you don’t know what our house looks like nor do you know what our plans are for it. I won’t bore you with the details, I just want to know if you have a post about getting started; about how to go about making
How To Use A Steamer To Remove Wallpaper
Things are getting steamy in the foyer! As a refresher, we have five rooms full of wallpaper and we’re attempting to take five different removal methods for a spin, just to see what ends up working (and what bites the big one). For our first time at the wallpaper removing rodeo we used hot water and a spray bottle, which actually worked out pretty well. And in this week’s hard-hitting Wallpaper Exposé we’ll be tackling the foyer with this guy. His name? Steamer. His game? Steaming clothes. He’s actually John’s sister’s, but it was free to borrow and we thought we’d see how it worked out for wallpaper too. But first, a moment of silence
Stars, Stripes, and Some Thanks
It’s time for our once-a-month pause to show how grateful we are to the sponsors who help make all of our other posts possible. So feel free to check out some patriotic things that caught our eye this month, and peruse our usual round-up of discounts at the bottom of the post. Summer-tastic, vacation-envy-inducing art canvasses on sale at Joss & Main. A knitted pendant light spotted on Fab.com, among other cool & quirky items. The Tile Shop‘s inspiration page, which showcases lots of unexpected tile combos. Patriotic WallQuotes for Americans (and Canadians!) like this one. Shades of Light‘s vintage sign-y letter lights, available in an alphabet of options. Small scale stencils from Royal Design
Our Fun & Filled Fourth
Our Fourth of July weekend was pretty jam-packed and we were grateful to be able to carve out some time to enjoy the holiday. The fun kicked off Thursday (July 4th) afternoon with a family walk around a new park we’d never been to. It was hot, but too beautiful not to be outside. Actually, one of our favorite parts (partly because it was completely shaded) was a tunnel that went under the road. Clara could’ve spent all day in there. It’s where we got this cool shot we posted on Instagram that day. Oh, but did we mention it was hot? After we got home, cooled down, and napped (well, Clara napped) we walked
Priming & Painting The Bathroom
When we last shared our hall bathroom adventures, we had removed the old wallpaper and were left with this: Not only were the yellowed walls crying out for a fresh coat of paint, the mirror had some functional deficiencies. As in, John couldn’t see his whole face when he looked into it. Just about anything from the nose up was cut off, so while he could still perform is-there-something-in-my-teeth checks, if he was having a Something About Mary hair moment (uh, but not for that reason) he wouldn’t have even known. Beyond having a too-small mirror, the other issue was that the light fixture drooped about 8″ from the area that it connected to the
Changing A Door Knocker And A Doorbell
How about a post about hunting for knockers? Nope, not those knockers. This is just the follow-up we promised yesterday about updating our door knocker and doorbell. Here was the situation before: a nice but quite aged door knocker whose main flaw was that the previous owner’s last name that was etched into it (it’s a little hard to see because I slightly blurred it for their sake). We took the engraving as a sign that it needed to be replaced, rather than salvaged, so we figured we’d use the opportunity to buy something unique and statement piece-y. First we hit up our favorite local hardware store (Pleasant’s Hardware) which had some animal kingdom inspired