Popcorn, Plans, Paint, and Projects

 

We've got a little alphabetical trend around here lately.

We'll take these one-by-one shall we?

 

 

Popcorn.

Nope, not this stuff:

I'm talking this stuff:

You know what I'm talking about.

It's that aweful white gunk found on the ceilings of your grandmoma's house. 

And it's all over the ceilings in our house.

Up until this point, we've simply painted it and tried to pretend it isn't there.

So far we've painted the popcorn in our Master Bedroom & Bathroom, the Guest Bathroom, and we've had the Den ceiling reblown to repair where we ripped out the built-ins.

These rooms will all receive major renovations down the road so we chose to keep the popcorn ceilings for now as a way to save time, money, and heartache.

 I don't have any major beef with popcorn ceilings. I don't really like them, definitely wouldn't choose them, but I don't hate them either. Most people do hate them, though, and because the majority of people hate them, popcorn ceilings ultimately reduce the home's value. We can't have that so from here on out, the popcorn ceilings have to go.

We've begun the ridiculously filthy, nasty, disgusting popcorn removal project in the bigger of the two guest bedrooms, which is the next room we plan to complete.

Here's a look at how that's going.

The popcorn as been removed and we've done the initial rough sanding.

All that's left is to mud the spots that need repairs, sand again, sponge it clean, and then paint that sucker! Once the ceiling is finished we plan to jump right on painting the rest of the room.

Plans.

"A goal without a plan is just a wish." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Well, getting a new kitchen is not just a wish. It has to happen. The brown and yellow monstrosity that we have been living with for right at a year now has got to go. And soon!

As some of you may know, Travis and I are currently under a contract for the sale of the Russell St. house in Holly Hill that stipulates that the buyer must finalize the purchase by the end of the year.

Our plan is to use a portion of the profit off the sale of the Russell St. house on our kitchen renovation. Dec 31 will be here before you know it, so we've begun working with Derek Wilson, our cabinet builder, on the kitchen design. Our hope is to have the kitchen completed within the first few months of the new year.

Why so soon?

1) Have you seen our current kitchen??? 2) We would like to refinance 3717 as soon possible after the sale of Russell St. and having the kitchen completed will drastically increase the value of the house. 3) HAVE YOU SEEN MY KITCHEN!?!?!?

I'm so very excited about the kitchen potential. I can't wait to share what we've got in store!

As for the Guest Bedrooms I've already mentioned are underway, here is a little sneak peak at the direction those are headed:

Big Guest Bedroom

 

Small Guest Bedroom



 

 

Paint.

We haven't even completed a third of the rooms in the house and I'm already making changes to the ones we have finished. Go figure right?

Ever since we painted the Master Bathroom, I've thought the white vanities were blah. So I sanded those suckers and repainted them a dark chocolate brown.

Painting the vanity in the dressing room, no problem. Painting the vanity in the bathroom, womp womp.

I forgot that Travis had used a silicon caulk to seal the "crack" between the tile and the vanity.

 Silicon caulk + paint = no dice!

The silicon will not allow the paint to adhere to any surface that the silicon is on, regardless of how many coats you try to apply. To fix this issue, we simply reapplied a bead of standard caulk over the silicon caulk and then painted over that. And finito! 

 

 

 

 

 







 

Better, right?

 

 

Projects.

I've got a few DIY projects in the works.
I hope to turn this fun quatrefoil radiator grate...

into something like this...

...to organize all my earrings and necklaces that are currently being stored hanging on the vanity cabinet knobs. My plan is to make frames of varying sizes to hang on either side of the vanity in the dressing area of the Master Bath in a gallery style-ish way.

I'm also going to be giving this little guy that I purchased off of Craigslist for $10 a little makeover...

which will involve this Dwell Studio fabric that I found in the sale bin at Hancock for $5/yd...

Not sure where he will live yet, but I'm thinking either the Master or smaller Guest Bedroom.



More Guestroom goodness to come!

Bringing You Up to Speed

Where have you been, all my life?

I know you've been thinking it.

And to answer that, I say:

I've been everywhere, man.

Yes, that was a shameless Rihanna reference. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

But seriously, I've been a very bad blogger.

I'm afraid I've found that I am not so good at juggling renos, the blog, and real life.

The past few months have been jam packed and I just haven't been able to manage being where I need to be, doing what I need to do, and then blogging about it.

But this is something I'm really intent on doing. So do it I will.

I'm vowing to myself, to those of you who care, and to those who don't to stay on top of this thing.

In order to do that I must first bring you up to speed.

So hold on folks, its gonna be a long one.

I think we last left off here...

We had just applied the first coat of white spray paint to the counter top. An experiment I'm proud to say was a success. Then we added new faucets.

In this picture you can really see how white the newly spray painted counter top is.

And with that we called the Guest Bath finished.

This is how she stands today...

with a little before and after fun.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

And that completes our Guest Bathroom facelift.

I still have to figure out a window treatment but other than that she is finito!

So to the garage we go.

The work in the garage was just a whole lot of painting so I'll spare you the play-by-play and get straight to the before and after.

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

And there ya have it. It's so silly because it is the garage but we can't get over how much better the bright white looks and feels over that aweful bug-infested mint green situation.

On to the Den, shall we?

This is where she stood when I last reported on the progress.

We were still waiting on the chairs and ottoman to arrive. Old recliener was still in the room and so was the old end table ( that now lives with Amber and Trey...yay!).

Since the chairs have been delivered I've been playing around with that side of the room. It is still far from where I want it to be but it's getting there.

Totally blah, right?

That big blank wall was sucking the life out of the room. It definitely needs something to draw the eye up. So I walked around the house gathering ideas and decided to try the old entertainment center back behind the chairs. It still didn't force the eye up so I placed the mirror we had hung above the sofa at Russell St. on top which left us here...

Getting better, still not there.

So we added some stuff.

A few house plants and some picture frames and it's getting better.
I'm still not in love with it.
 I know I don't like the mirror. With it being the same tone of the wood of the console and just propped up there it looks like a bedroom dresser that we've randomly stuck in the Den. Just weird.
So I've definitely got to search for a new mirror or some artwork to replace that.

I also don't know if I like the dark wood furniture behind the dark steel blue chairs. It makes that side of the room a little heavy and drab. I might prefer a lighter painted piece of furniture behind the chairs? With a gold mirror flanked by two peices of art on each side?
Who knows...I'm going to live with it like this for a while and make changes as I go.

In this picture, you see that I've changed out the old side table with a small pedastal table I inherited from my Nanny. I like it there because it's sentimental and I like the addition of a different shape but it may end up being a little small. You'll also notice that I added a steel blue metalic garden stool to the end of the sofa. I love it.

I even added a little something-something to the mantel. That thing is a beast and it intimidates me to think about styling it but I went through some old boxes of decor and pilfered a few items to throw up there.

This little piece of driftwood was stolen from graciously donated by my Daddy who found it himself.

 The desk and bookshelves weren't left out of all this fun.

Some new pillows for the couch are in the works and we still plan to put some sort of table behind the sofa, get some new lamps, and hang some curtains. All to come in good time.

So there ya have it! That's where we've been and what we've accomplished in the house.

We've had some unexpected and costly set backs (had to get a new water pump and dig the well a little deeper and discovered a leak in the roof above one of the Guest Bedrooms) but we are ready to get back on the wagon so stay tuned!

I'll send you off with a little love from our boys.