Things are starting to look up!

Things are starting to look up, and my neck and shoulders are very sore because of it!

 

Remember our terrible ceiling fan and pink ceiling?

 

 

Well the ceiling fan and pink ceiling are gone! Hooray!  I never thought just having a white ceiling would make me so happy!

 

 Here is a progress picture for those of you who, when I pointed out the pink ceiling, said things like, "Is it really pink? I never would have guessed! It doesn't LOOK pink!"

 

 

Let's take one more look at the before/after pictures before we visit the living room:

 

 

 

I know it has been a long time since I've posted, but with the busy-ness of the Christmas season, we haven't done much to our house!  It was nice to take a break, and now we're eager to throw ourselves back into it!  Here is a glimpse of what our living room is looking like these days...

 

We got a great deal on two matching dressers that I got at a yard sale.  We are using this smaller one in the living room as an entertainment center and the much larger chest of drawers in our bedroom.  They were each $20 and they are solid wood (AKA very heavy!!!)  I've got some exciting plans for these babies which include replacing the top two drawers with baskets, sanding and painting, and replacing the knobs.

 

 

To the right of the entertainment center, you can see our Christmas tree.  Here is a close-up:

 

 

 

If you were being very observant, you might have spotted a new light above the entertainment center.  First, check out the before:

 

 

And here is our new can light!  Eric installed it and then for weeks we played a not-so-fun game where we would buy a light bulb and then return it and buy another one because it didn't fit or it was way too bright!  When we finally figured out the right wattage, we decided to install a dimmer switch, which meant buying yet another light bulb.  But we finally got it right! 

 

 

Here is the dimmer switch.  It's a little funny looking because the lights from the Christmas tree are reflecting off of it.

 

 

And speaking of switches, isn't this a far cry from the old paint-covered switches/plates we started with?

 

That pink color will haunt me for the rest of my life. 

 

 

Yes, we've come a long way, that's for sure!  Next on the list for us is:  Hanging some curtains on the "closet wall" in our bedroom (curtain rods are up and waiting!), installing some exposed shelving in the kitchen, and replacing the floor in our bathroom. 

 

Happy New Year everyone!

 

-Sal

 

 

 

It's beginning to look a lot like the 21st century

We have been very busy lately!

We got four new windows for the front of the house! So last Saturday Eric and his dad installed them while I painted the bedroom...

 

The color is Valspar "Homestead Resort Spa Aqua."  I decided this time around that I would not belabor the paint-selecting process, but rather just choose from Lowes' Valspar selection.  Our experience with selecting our living room color was not in vain, however...it allowed me to feel comfortable just going with the lightest shade of whatever color struck my fancy.  But back to the windows...

 Here are the before shots:

 

And here's after!

 

 

 

As you can see, I also painted the trim.  All of the trim in this house is yellow/brown and once we put those new window it looked even worse!  The windows are wonderful and once I got the trim painted....well, it just totally transformed the living room!  Looking at those windows, I can actually visualize this house looking fresh, clean and modern.

 

Here are some before shots of our bedroom:

 

 

After:

 

 

Notice anything funny about the "after" photos?  Other than the horrible ceiling fan and the yellow trim, I mean?  The ceiling is PINK!  So one of our next tasks will be to paint the ceiling white in our master bedroom and the second bedroom, where the ceiling is also, unfortunately, pink. 

 

Still to be done in the master bedroom:

• Paint the ceiling white
• Paint the trim (in process!)
• Replace blinds with plantation blinds (in process!)
• Install new windows
• Crown molding
• Curtains to line the wall behind the bed
• Replace ceiling fan with new light fixture
• Hang pictures/artwork
• Create reading nook on wall opposite the bed
• New accent pillows/throw blanket

Hopefully it won't take me as long to post next time! Until then!

 

Sal

 

Painting in Progress

Finally...progress! 

 

It's been a while since my last update, but there really wasn't a whole lot going on!  Two weekends ago, Eric and I had our minds set on demolishing the half-bath and installing our (free!) pedestal sink, but that didn't exactly happen.  We ended up getting sucked into yard work and cleaning-- I forget that just because you're spending all your time and energy updating a house doesn't mean you don't have to mop the floors and scrub the toilets in the meantime...bummer!  And then last weekend we had our annual Halloween weekend in Boone with my family, it was so much fun! We look forward to this weekend almost as much as Christmas!  Our traditions include the Ghost Train at Tweetsie Railroad, an Appalachian State football game, and lots of food. 

So that brings me back to the progress we've been making!  After a painstaking paint-choosing process we ended up going with the very first paint sample we tried-- Sherwin William's "Sea Salt."  Remember this picture below?  I actually have no idea which color blob is "Sea Salt" but if you're looking at the color collection behind the TV, I think it may be the third one from the right.

It hasn't been an easy process...before we even started painting we had to repair some of the messes the previous owners left for us, which included massive paint drips, spackle diasters, and how they painted right over the light switches, which made getting the outlet covers off the walls almost impossible and left some of the outlets completely non-functional! 

Seriously, who does that?!?  I hate to be ugly, but I just have to say that every bit of work that the previous owners put into this house has been cheap, messy and lazy!  There...I said it!  So, one of our major goals for this weekend is to replace all of the covers, outlets, and light switches.  I'm excited!!  Here are some before and after pictures to show you the paint color:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now if I could get my act together and straighten up before I take pictures and broadcast them to the world!  Oh well, you can't have it all.  Unfortunately, it is always very dark in our house...that is one of the things we're looking most forward to changing about it.  Because of that, all of these pictures were taken with the flash, so the color looks very blue, when in actuality it's a tie between blue and gray.  Here is a picture I snapped on my phone right when I got home from work and the natural light was hitting a wall:

 

 

And if you haven't noticed, we got new curtains!

 

 

 In other exciting news, we've ordered four new windows!  We'll be ordering them three or four at a time, and Eric and his dad will be installing them.  I think that will make a huge difference.  Hooray for progress!

Sal

Decisions, decisions...

Can you tell we're trying to pick a paint color? 

We have a total of about five different paint colors in each area, we've just painted them in multiple areas so we can see them in different kinds of light.  The problem is we don't get a lot of light in here by the time we get home at 5 pm, so everything looks so dark to me! The look I'm going for is blue/gray with a hint of sea foam...I want it to be a neutral color without having to be brown.  Sort of like this.  The funny thing is, I have the EXACT color from that picture represented somewhere in that blob of blue you see on my wall, and it looks nothing like it does in the picture!

While there's plenty of chaos going on at 100 Briarwood as we search for wall colors and specific pieces of furniture, there is also a lot of stuff going on that makes me very happy! Here are just a few examples...

 

 

 That's yummy chili cooking on my glass-top stainless steel stove! :-)

I'm LOVING our functional re-take on the space that was intended to be the dining room!  On this shelf I've repurposed a cigar box for a place to empty your pockets and drop your car keys.

I think it's important to decorate and make things pretty even if you're planning on completely changing everything because it's keeps you sane amongst the chaos!  While Eric was becoming an attic addict (see what I did there?) and trying to get me to store away the decorations, I was begging him to take them down! 

Today we got a FREE pedestal sink for the half bath off craigslist!!  Since that room is so small and we're planning on replacing the sink in light of our new find, we decided to go ahead and replace the floors too! So that will begin this weekend, and I'll give you the whole story then! Get excited!



Sal

Landscaping Fun

There's nothing that makes you feel more like a grown-up than treating your lawn with mole/gopher repellant.  Especially when you shake your fist yelling, "And stay out!"  In addition to implementing Phase 1 of de-mole-ing the yard, Eric and I began what will be the long and arduous process of landscaping!  I didn't include an outdoor to-do list in my last post, so here's what I left out:

• Kill the ivy!!
• Today we clipped the ivy at the root, but we didn't pull it off of the side because we didn't want to hurt the brick.  Once it was all severed, we sprayed the roots with herbicide.  When it dies we'll yank it all up!

 

 

 

• Contain the gravel drive way, get rid of the weeds growing up in the rocks.  While the gravel driveway seems innocent enough from the front, in the back it is covering the entire yard.  We'd like to take up the gravel in the back and plant grass. 
• Border the driveway with brick or some kind of paving stone
• Build a carport next to the house.  Ideally, we would like this carport to look similar to the house (same roof and style).  We've even thought about somehow connecting the two so that you can walk straight from your car to the back porch without being exposed to the elements.  We would love to incorporate a shed into the carport as well.

 

 

 

• Pull up ugly/unnecessary plants and bushes.  We would like the yard to be as flat, grassy and uniform as possible, with clean and simple bushes/flowers closer to the house/back patio

 

 

 

 

•  Make the back patio a comfortable space to entertain and enjoy! I don't have much of a vision for outdoor spaces, so I'm going to let Eric and my brother take the reins on this one.  All I can see in this space's future is a grill, a fire pit, and some benches.  How bad could that be?!
• On the right side of this picture you can see the back "stoop" with the stairs on the left (you can't really see those) leading up to the back door.  We would like to enclose this back porch with a railing and build stairs going down the right side that could eventually lead to the carport.

 

 

Here are a couple of before and after pictures to show you what we did today!

 

 

Although it's hard to detect in these pictures because of the way the light is hitting in the first picture, we removed 4 huge rhododendron bushes on the left side of the driveway plus tons of ivy and brush.  Here are a couple play-by-plays...

 

Eric sawed while I hauled the branches to the side of the road, where they will magically disappear on Thursday, thanks to the wonderful City of Hendersonville!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also taped up samples of a range of colors we are considering painting the exterior:

 

 

We tried getting a sample can of our beloved "Spanish Moss" (we talked about that here), but we found out that the smallest amount of that particular color we could get would be a whole gallon.  And at about $40 per gallon, we just decided to pick out a paint chip that was pretty close (the one on the top).  We like it!  We also picked out 2 lighter colors to compare.

What paint color do you like the best?

 

-Sal