So we hauled butt to Lowe’s last night and stocked up on all our supplies for the project, and the taping and priming begins tonight! I am so excited to get something done in this room so that guests who come to visit don’t have to be subjected to the super dated (I don’t think I can even legitimately call it vintage), dark, old-person’s bathroom they have to use while at our house. The paint alone is going to change the whole space so much!

Right now, we aren’t budgeting to replace the vanity or the floor as part of this first phase, even though we know those two things desperately need to be done (read: the vanity countertop is, no lie, BRIGHT yellow). But I have to be honest and admit that part of me is thinking those things might get moved up on the priority list once we see how great the rest of the bathroom looks.

This whole painting of the paneling thing is a large experiment. I have read a lot online about the best way to approach paneling painting, and we have already done some of this in the house, but the type of wood the previous owner installed in here is vastly different from anything we have tackled before. We are not sure how the paint is going to take to it or how it’s going to look when it’s done. But believe me, I have a really pretty picture sitting in my head. I’m just hoping it turns out the way I’m envisioning it, because it will be a lot less work for us to slap some paint up than it would be to rip down the paneling and replace and refinish all that drywall. Been there, done that, and….yuck.

Photos to come….

Now, admittedly, this idea is not an original. I have rather poached it from various interior design blogs I read (most of which you can find links to in the sidebar). But it is INGENIOUS and I don’t know why I didn’t conceive of it sooner.

I have read a lot about DIY art, things like framing pretty postcards, special items, even sheets of plain ol’ colored paper can be effective when executed properly. I also know that many artists have books written about them that often also feature a lot of their work.

I knew I wanted to do an art wall/grouping of some kind in the corner behind the couch in our living room, but B and I struggled for months to come to a compromise on how we would achieve such a thing while also blending our individual tastes effectively (B leans toward the minimalist, I have been known to get a bit crazy at times with my love of eccentric furnishings). B was insistent that the frames on all the pieces included be uniform, while I would have been perfectly happy with a mish-mash of various frame sizes and types. In the end, B got his wish.

We ventured to Barnes and Noble one night in search of a book by any artist we love that we could dissect to gather art to frame for the wall. The one stipulation: the art had to be full of bold colors because there is a lot of brown and neutral going on in our living room. We needed something to spice things up a bit. By happy coincidence, we stumbled upon a book of Van Gogh’s work (one of our favorites and one we had actually discussed for this space) in the perfectly almost-standard size of 8.5 x 11. And since each of the prints had a significant amount of white space around them, we figured they would easily work in 8 x 10 frames. The colors of the prints were spot-on and vibrant to boot! Winning!!

Next step: order the frames. I love West Elm, and to my complete delight I discovered their gallery frames were on sale, which I love because of the simple, classic lines and built-in matting. So I snatched up four of them in my online shopping cart. We chose four prints from the book that worked with the color scheme of the room and the natural theme of our house. We cut them out in seconds with a box cutter, popped them in the frames when they arrived a few days later, and threw them up on the wall! (And by throw, I mean we painstakingly mapped out the placement using paper first and adjusted for about an hour after we actually got them up.)

So here are a couple final shots:

And here’s the cost breakdown:

• Van Gogh book from Barnes and Noble: $20
• Four 14 x 17 gallery frames from West Elm (which hold 8 x10 art): $23/each
• Total cost: ~ $112

That is FAR less than it would cost to buy a single Van Gogh print and have it framed, so I feel like we’ve really uncovered something here. And I’m so in love with this method that I recently purchased another book featuring the art of David Weidman (if you don’t know him, look him up and be blown away by his totally amazing, retro work). So look forward to an update on what we do with that coming soon.

So last weekend we finally bit the proverbial “bullet” and set out to paint the bed white (we went with an off-the-shelf white from Valspar in a semi-gloss, the same color we used for the trim on the main floor of the house). We thought the bright white against the rich caramel of the wall would provide some seriously dramatic contrast while at the same time helping to brighten up the room. (An added bonus is that it will tie in with the white trim we plan on eventually implementing throughout the upstairs.) Since we had never undertaken a furniture painting project of this magnitude before, I consulted what I consider to be the bible of DIY how-tos: Young House Love. Sherry and John have a post on their site that covers how to tackle just about any do-it-yourself project one can come up with. We followed the instructions here pretty much verbatim, with the exception of adding the high-gloss poly coat at the end (read: the project ended up taking way longer than we had anticipated and we got lazy). It all turned out well though, since high-gloss with the rustic design of the bed might not have made for the right partnership. We retained the rustic look by NOT filling in any of the dings/cracks in the frame and simply painting over them with the semi-gloss. And we are very happy with the results.

So without further ado, the reveal:

Before

After

As you can see, it really brightens up the whole room and helps break up all the brown tones. Notice the dresser to the left….that’s next on the refresh list. Stay tuned for more details on that project.

We are currently working on a semi-large project that’s going to make for some killer before and after shots. Photos should be available by end of week, so stay tuned….

Over the better part of the past year, we have invested a lot of time and energy into shopping around for furniture and unique decor items to make the spaces we have revamped feel as lived-in as possible. I am going to profile each of the rooms that are at about 75% or more of where we would ultimately like them to be. And as the title of this post suggests, I’m going to be starting with the dining room.

Behold:

Before

And now:

After

After 2

For a quick rundown of what we did in this space:

• Removed popcorn ceiling and refinished and painted ceiling a flat white
• Painted all walls with Malted Milk and Oregon Coast by Valspar
• Tore out wall-to-wall Berber carpet and installed new bamboo flooring
• Replaced baseboards with white painted MDF
• Removed old fixture and installed new chandelier fixture
• Removed old fuzzy (yes fuzzy) blinds and installed white curtains
• Mounted a mirror we already had on the left wall
• Added a new 8×10 rug from Pottery Barn
• Added a new table and chairs set from World Market

(Please excuse the darkness of the first after photo, but that side of the house doesn’t get a lot of late afternoon light.) We’re pretty happy with the results. Of course, when we do the kitchen remodel this summer, we will be removing the wall on the right, opposite the giant mirror, and installing a cabinet peninsula with additional counter space on top to open up that small kitchen, but that’s a whole other before and after post waiting to happen.

One thing we do have nailed down is flooring. We are going to continue the same strand bamboo flooring we used on the rest of the main floor into the kitchen, and this is also going to save us money since we have just about enough left over from the original flooring project to cover the measly 100 square feet that comprise the kitchen. Knowing what the flooring will be helps a bit, because it’s at least a starting point. We also know we will be going with stainless steel appliances. And we plan on keeping it pretty simple as far as the cabinets go, with a very basic Shaker style.

Initially we were thinking we would go with a warm, rich wood tone for the cabinets. But after taking into consideration the medium-dark color of the hardwood flooring, the lack of direct sunlight the kitchen gets at the back of the house, and some seriously inspirational ideas from Layla at The Lettered Cottage (one of my new favorite reads!), my attention has been turned to white cabinetry instead. Some pros for the white cabinet argument:

1. Bright white cabinets will bring a lighter feel to the not-so-bright kitchen.
2. They will tie in with the bright white baseboards we have on the rest of the main floor and will eventually be implementing throughout the rest of the house as well.
3. They will allow for us to get a little bit creative with the wall color we choose to supplement them with.
4. They will play well off the rich hardwoods.

In addition to the white cabinets, my attention has now been turned from the granite counter tops we were originally planning on, to butcher block counter top options (thanks again, Layla!).

Below are a few inspirational photos I have come across while browsing the Web for design ideas for white cabinetry. What do you think about the butcher block counters vs the granite? I’m pretty sold.

We ended up ripping down all the drywall and starting from scratch. The space actually looks really nice now. I’ll post some pictures when I get some more free time.

Wow, I’ve really been slacking on updating the blog, but in all fairness we have been trying to take a bit of a break from all the hard work and get back to our social life lately. Furnishing has taken precedence over really big remodeling projects like bathrooms and the kitchen, which is nice because there isn’t a whole lot of physical labor involved in bossing a delivery guy around while telling him where you want him to put your couch.

We had a housewarming party last weekend, and so of course we made every effort to get the place in tip top shape before people arrived. One thing that irks me a lot about the lower level of our house is how DARK it is. It’s essentially a daylight basement, with a large slider in the main room and another full window in what will eventually become the fourth bedroom, but the previous owner thought it would be a good idea to put wood paneling up on every wall down there, which, needless to say, doesn’t help with the brightness factor. B and I have discussed this paneling many times, and we agree that it needs to come down eventually, but the lower level is really our lowest priority at this point in time, since we don’t really need to spend much time down there.

Our progress has really stopped at the bottom of the stairs that lead to this space, which creates an interesting look because the new paint color comes to an abrupt halt, the ceiling is unfinished, and we have a bare light bulb hanging from the spot where the new fixture will eventually go. Finishing this space just has not been high on our list. In addition to this, there is one wall in that downstairs hallway space that is covered in the aforementioned wood paneling. Well, there WAS. I had the bright idea that we should attempt to remove said paneling prior to the housewarming party, since I thought it would be nice to completely finish that hallway space, and removal of the paneling could only help in brightening up that lower level (especially when looking down from above). Now, since I am a stubborn woman who rarely admits when she is wrong, I wont say the decision to do this was a mistake; however we were in for quite the surprise once we started the project.

Not only did the previous owner (who fancied himself QUITE the woodworking handyman) nail the paneling to the wall, he also used a super sticky substance to GLUE it on as well. This we only discovered upon attempted removal of the first board. Cue much Googling of “removing glued-on wood paneling”, etc, etc. We ran out to Lowe’s, purchased a heat gun, and went to work.

This is the lovely result:

Um…yeah. As you can see, we ended up pulling off chunks of drywall paper, despite careful use of the heat gun and hours of toil. There is going to be a lot of mud involved in patching this baby up.

Moral: Don’t glue wood paneling to your walls.