How about a little color?!?!

There is no BIG renovation that needs to take place in our living room - dining room. Perhaps the biggest thing in there is how to decorate it and make the space feel like to separate yet cohesive rooms. It is one very BIG, rectangle room. The dining room has a Bay window on one end and the living room has french doors on the other end. The dining room is also semi open to the kitchen, so there needs to be some cohesion there as well. See my post below about the kitchen which is a mild mint color with red, khaki and black and white accents.

I have been tossing around a lot of ideas... paint the dining "room" red and the "living" room tan. It could work there are places on both sides that would equally divide the space. BUT the couch that I want is Gray (shitake). And while it comes in Cocoa, that would be entirely too much tan.

So here is what we are currently working with...


Above: Pottery Barn 8x10 rug... LOVE it. This is also a hand me down. This will go in the dining room under the table (which is another hand me down). We will eventually redo the hardwood, have this rug in the dining room and one in the sitting space in the living room. The colors in this rug are the inspiration and work well with the kitchen.

Below: a beautiful 1920's sideboard that I scored on Craigslist for $100! It is in fabulous condition and fits perfectly in the space.

Below here are two of the "red" color options we were looking at. Love them... not so sure though.

Below: One of the dining room chairs. The dining room table and chairs were a hand me down/gift from my parents. It was their dining set from when they first got married. It is beautiful! In fabulous condition and fits well with the other pieces we have for the room.

Below: We have a set of the end tables below (garage sale - 2 end tables and another matching table with oval top for $80.00). The design of these tables fits in perfect with dining room table.

So that's the scoop and the sneak peak. I have some other pictures but I'll post those another day. In the meantime... my couch is on sale!

So I Took a Hiatus!

It was unplanned, but you know how it goes. Life gets in the way of blogging and next thing you know it's October! I also realized that my banner is out of date. We are now up to 2 kittens and sadly we are down to 2 dogs as we our 13 yo Yellow Lab Casey passed away.

In the midst of all this life living, I've been doing some renovating and some planning. Here are some glimpses of the kitchen and the decor plans.

Above: I found this really great rug at Christmas Tree Shops for $12.99ish. This is actually after a washing, in which it came out beautifully! It may say Not Machine Washable but for the price, it was worth the try when it had gotten soiled.

Below: Wall art is also from Christmas Tree Shops a few years ago. Walls are painted Behrs' Mild Mint and the table was a hand me down from my brother.

Last and certainly not least...

Our kitchen clock. Oh how I love that clock. It was a housewarming present from my parents. It is the Courtly Check enamel collection from MacKenzie Childs. The aloe plant and pot that it is in is from Ikea.

Do you want to discuss MacKenzie Childs? How much I love that company and all it's pretty things? I literally drool over the catalog and website. I'm up to 4 pieces and I've got a rainy day Mackenzie Childs fund going. So far I can afford a knob.

But the reality is, I have sort of based my kitchen renovation around the designs and ideas of MacKenzie Childs. The black and white check with hints of red and tan and green and the whimsy patterns.

Remember this?

Remember this?

It's now this:

Mid-Renovation Master Bedroom Pictures!

French Silver by Behr on the walls, trim is Ultra Pure White by Behr. I used their new primer and paint in one. It was a blessing on the old plaster walls. It really made a huge difference I think. And going a somewhat darker/fuller color. We had toyed with a yellow, but it really showed all the imperfections on the walls when we put up the test square. I am VERY happy with the choice and it really offsets the floors and furniture.

Here is our kitty Layla getting in on the renovation action. This was the day the furniture got delivered!

I did the walls one weekend and had to wait to do the trim for almost a whole two weeks because of the heat... after a week or so the peach and gray grows on you. Lesson learned... Peach should never grow on you. Go out get some air, have a glass of vodka and then remind yourself again, peach should never "grow on you."

The doors are still not stripped. If they stripping doesn't go well, I'm planning to just paint them white. I'll keep you updated.

Master Bedroom Before Pictures!

This post is full of fun and fabulous and what you should NOT do when decorating your master bedroom (or anywhere in your house for that matter!). These pictures are from the few times we visited the house prior to closing/moving in. I don't have any of the room empty from the day we moved in, so these will have to do. Besides, I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't share pictures of what really sold us on this house (not so much).

The master bedroom is the first room that made the renovation list and it is almost done. I say almost because I still need to finish painting the windows, strip the doors, we are still waiting on 1 more piece of furniture and we need a rug.

Here is a picture of the carpet that the previous owners had in the master bedroom. It's green shag. GREEN SHAG. Hello?!?! 1960's & 70's calling and they want their carpet back. Well, thankfully they got it back. We moved in and low and behold the green SHAG was nowhere in site. Thank you prior owners!Underneath that carpet beautiful hardwood floors were hiding. They are in pretty great condition... thank you green shag for protecting!

Oh isn't it just wonderful. White walls with PEACH trim, doors AND WINDOWS!?!? Who paints windows?!?! Ugh.

So the plan was...

Paint - Trim - Ultra Pure White (Behr)

Walls - French Silver (Behr)

Doors - I'm going to attempt to strip them and see what's underneath. If that doesn't work...painted white.

Windows - Navy Blue Roman Shades (JCPenney)

Furniture - Huffman Koo's

Bedding -Macy's Hotel Collection (design is now discontinued!)

The walls & trim are painted, windows are um, getting there. It's been sooooo hot this summer that painting has been hard to do and I mean lets be honest, who wants to paint windows? For a brief moment I considered just going out and buying replacement windows instead. Most of the furniture has been delivered. Oh, and the doors are still on my project list to be stripped.

Stay tuned...

I Heart Craigslist

I found this fabulous 1920's buffet on craigslist.com. I LOVE it. It's all original hardware and in very good shape and I got the deal of the century! The piece is a little darker in person and makes a great addition to our very sad looking dining room.

Can we discuss?

This is our master bathroom. Let me give you the tour. To the right, LOTS of closet space. To the immediate right is the stall shower, then the vanity with sink and then the toilet alcove. Did I mention the blue tile? Do I have to mention it? And that wallpaper border? Oh isn't it wonderful.

I had this exact tile in the bathroom I grew up with. I hated it. Loathed it. In fact I celebrated the day I moved out. And then again the when I moved out again. Oh and yes, again when I moved out for the third time. And wouldn't you know it.. it's come back to haunt me and it's doubled. Pros: it's in really good condition, it's not on the floor and it's not SOO much that I can't work with it.

Cons: It's blue tile. That has haunted me since childhood.

This picture here is once we moved in and added the shower curtain that sort of downplays it. I have really great dark wood pieces that I got for my shower (thank you Nicole & Joyce). I would like to paint the walls a nice warm chocolate brown (not poop brown) and make it a little more hip. But the husband is having a hard time with that.

Eventually the horrid wallpaper border will go down and most likely everything will get a nice coat of white. Then we'll see.

PS. Yes, the floor is linoleum tiles.

For Sale: Nests & All...

Yes, we are the proud owners for a 1950ish Hotpoint Stove. That, cleaned up could be a really gem. They are going for 1k on Ebay and I've seen them as high as $3400 fully restored. I did crack ours open this past weekend and um, it's not pretty in there as it is apparently become an animal condo....

For 1k... I may just de-nest that thing.

I should note, this is not in the HOUSE, it's in the cabin.

Progress!

Slowly but surely we are making progress. The GIANT bush on the right is a Holly. Oh yeah, a Holly! No, not Oh yeah, oh ugh. It completely blocked that side of the house and while we did for a very brief moment consider cutting it back and shaping it better, that wasn't an option as it's all sticks inside.

So, we took it out...
Completely.

I'm going to do some black eyed susan's and hydrangea's most likely, and make it a little smaller than the patch is now. Ahh...progress.

Thank you!!!

Dear Previous Owners:

We truly appreciate that you think you cleaned before you left, but really didn't. We also appreciate that you masked a lot of things. While we are on the subject of thing you didn't do, can we discuss why you just half-assed things? No? Okay.

I am really writing though to say thank you. Thank you for removing the beautiful, most likely vintage RED shag rug that was in one of the guest room prior to our arrival.

Really, it's the little things like this that make us overlook the fact that the fridge SUCKS.

Love,

New Owners.

Another sneak peek...

Wallpaper in the kitchen... oh how I can't wait to part ways with you. The paint is already bought, the wallpaper remover steamer thing is in the house... soon. Oh so very soon.

And that switch and switch plate... say goodbye my friends, (unless anyone is interested in it, i'd be happy to send it...free of charge and free shipping!!!).

Okay, just a peak...

This is from when we had our home inspection...

It's the upstairs guest bathroom. Isn't it beautiful, or um, we'll go with different. The shower curtain(s), window treatments and everything else is gone. The wallpaper will be gone someday but for now we Layla our kitten is taking up residence in there.

How does one get to this cabin?

You take the bridge across the creek.

How do you get to the bridge??

Down the LONG winding concrete staircase.


Remember this was in February.

So there's less moss and leaves. And somehow it isn't nearly as dangerous as this picture makes it out to be. We go down there often. On the list of projects...clean up the stairs a little more. Oh and fix the 1-2 spots where the railing is compromised.

Reason #1 we bought the house...

Sorry, not going inside just yet. I promise this will be worth it though.

Okay, so reason #1 we bought the house:
(I'm not rating these in any order, just that this is one of the BIG reasons we chose this house)

Oooh, what's that?!?! It is our fabulous little cabin and creek.

It is located about 150 feet down in the valley behind our house. I'd show you some inside pictures of it, but I don't think we are there just yet. I mean my blog and I only met and I don't want to scare it off...

This is a view from the bridge you have to cross in order to get there. It's like our own little fairytale. I don't have too many recent pictures as really all we've done down there is mow, cut back a few things, take the dogs swimming and gone hiking up the creek.

Funny story: When I first saw the house online, I didn't even look at the house pictures, I just said OOOOHHH Fabulous Husband, look it has a cabin and a stream. "What about the house?" he asked. "What about the house, it has a cabin and a STREAM!!!" I shouted. Once I told him the house was 150+years old he laughed at me and said yeah right. But guess who is laughing now... ME! Cause the cabin and stream are ours!

We first looked at the house in December. Then again in January. Hence a lot of bleak, dreary before pictures of our side and back yard. When we first looked at the house, I loved that it had a screened in porch. It's not in perfect screened in porch condition, but it's not too bad either. We have already used it a lot to eat out and hang out. We also have a side porch, which has been getting a lot of use as well.

Here is what we saw when we first looked at the house:

And here ladies & gentlemen is what we were greeted with when we went back for our walk through:

It's sort of hard to tell the different with these two pictures. But in picture A you would have had to squeeze by to walk along the back of the house. In picture B however, you could park a car behind the house. Don't believe me...

You could definitely fit a car in there. Before it was all overgrown shrubs.

What happened you ask?

The septic failed inspection and we are the proud homebuyers who were given a whole new septic system prior to closing.

Our side yard went from this:

To this:

While this was not a renovation we did, the clearing of the trees and shrubs was something we were planning to do and this not only saved us a lot of time, but money as well. Really, we had no idea the potential that existed, but it is a HUGE difference.

Eventually, this particular area will be what gets fenced in.

Don't worry... we are getting very close to venturing to the inside of the house, I promise.

My first new friend...

Here is a picture of the first new friend I made the day after we moved in.

Ccchhhaaanngeesss...

When describing our house to people, I usually say, well it's a big old (and I mean OLD) colonial farmhouse on 8 acres of property in Bear Country, NJ and we also have a cabin and a stream. This makes it sound like something right out of the pages of a story book, right?

The truth is, it's a 1840ish (we've heard probably earlier) colonial farm house, with a "dilapadated" cabin (according to our tax records) and a really pretty creek, that pretty much dries up in the summer. And I love it.

We have deer and snakes and bears and wild turkeys. We've got lots of woods to explore, only a few (and far between) neighbors and there's no traffic.

I won't lie, it's not pretty. There was A LOT of brush up against the house, so one of the first things we did was to take down a tree, and remove all the shrubs and crap that were growing up against or near the house. We haven't 100% finished this job as it has been 90+ degrees almost every day since we moved in, but eventually.

Hopefully our neighbors are just so excited that we are doing soemthing, they don't care that we've not finished the job.

Looking better already, right?

Both front doors will be painted Behr's Jazz Blue. The grill has been moved, and the ground cover is getting ripped out and that will be all rocks.

What did we discover through this project?
-We had a front walk way that had been covered for YEARS.
-A cute little garden snake.
-That we should probably get tetnus shots because there are a lot of random metal things hidden in there.

Let's get the party started...

You made it! I wasn't sure I was going to. This is where all the magic will happen, well at least as it relates to our house and what we are doing with it. I promise to post fantastic pictures of mint green circa 1950's bathrooms and wildlife and our cabin and our stream and a lot of "were they for real" or "who does this" type of things.

Sit back, maybe grab a cocktail because once you see some of the pictures, you will for sure need a drink. If you don't then send it my way, because I do.