Since we didn’t end up putting in navy kitchen cabinets, I still have an itch to have it in a big way. Now I’m thinking about covering our entire bedroom. Even though it has 4 windows, it doesn’t get a ton of natural light and I’m not sure how it would look with our dark & heavy furniture. But I am loving the idea of it and feeling adventurous, especially after painting the rest of the house in white and gray (and trying to block out how much I hate painting). Maybe we could just do one wall navy, and the rest white? Are accent walls still in? Anyway, check out these rooms:
Category: House
In love with: Cement tiles
I’ve been looking at cement tiles for months and months. I desperately wanted them for the bathroom addition, but to my great despair, they don’t quite fit into the renovation budget. I even went so far as to consider buying them in bulk to get a better price and selling off the rest! Even though they aren’t a possibility, I can’t stop ogling them. These are some of my favs:
This Walker Zanger tile is what I would use as the kitchen backsplash in a budget-free world. It was $75 a sqft. Insanity.
And I wanted something like this for the bathroom floor.
Or this 🙂
Love this blue from Villa Lagoon.
And this from Granada Tile.
It just looks SO good in action.
Sigh. Maybe in the next house??
The Plan
Dan and I have been meeting with contractors!! We have one more meeting on Thursday and then hope to move forward. We’re planning on gutting the kitchen and moving a couple of walls to make it more open/functional/have matching cabinet doors. We’d (mostly me) also really love to be able to have more than 1 one person comfortably cooking at a time. Dan says it’s totally fine for 2! I strongly disagree. And you know how at parties everyone wants to be in the kitchen? Still true in ours. At a whopping 2 feet wide, which may be generous.
We’re also planning on making our garage a bedroom/bathroom/laundry room. Mostly just an all purpose room that will result in us having a 2nd bathroom and a washer/dryer that isn’t in the garage. Since I do *almost* all the laundry, I’d really love for it to be air conditioned and to not have my clean clothes fall onto a filthy garage floor. Plus, our only existing bathroom has a shower, but no tub. It’s worked out just fine for the 2 of us, but we are trying to get ahead of the game and make sure there’s a tub to bathe our future children, because I hear they outgrow the sink pretty quickly 🙂 [Side note to family- the children time line has not changed]. Dan will then have an long term project of building a detached garage so we don’t lose the storage space. Or maybe we will use it to actually park our cars? Doubtful, but hey! I can put in on a goals list.
So that’s our grand plan! Meeting with contractors has been intimidating. Even more intimidating- the thought of having to pick out every. single. thing. that will go into the spaces. I know what I like, but question how everything will go together and I’m worried I’ll second guess all my choices. Choices that will be PERMANENTLY affixed to the house. Scary. Oh and since we are using Ikea cabinets to save money- planning all of that. That’s a whole big thing and the kitchen planning website is already driving me crazy.
Still, I’m insanely excited to the make the house even more our own and to have a real life kitchen to fill with all of my Pinterest dreams. Will keep you updated as the project moves along!! Hoping I don’t drive Dan too crazy throughout the process.
Trim = Devil
I found my new worst enemy last weekend. The trim. I had multiple mini meltdowns over the course of the weekend. Preparing trim to be painted is just SO incredibly unenjoyable in the most extreme sense of the word. To start, my arms were jello from a challenging yoga class. Then I had to sand and I felt like my arms were actually going to fall off. Luckily, I had to pick up a bit more paint (for the backs of the bookshelves) and the paint guy sold me on this product, which cut out the sanding. Sanding might done a better job, but I couldn’t sand any longer.
Much relieved, I wiped it on everything and Dan even helped with the crown molding, so I didn’t have to move the ladder around. Then came caulking. Which is actually not that bad… there is something soothing about filling in gaps that makes you feel good. I became a pro caulker, even though I used a whole roll of paper towels on my journey. Finally, taping. Which takes forever. Cue Sunday at 8 pm and I STILL hadn’t painted any of the trim. Which is disheartening when you’ve spent the majority of your weekend “painting” (prepping) the trim.
Then Dan swooped in, grabbed a paint brush and just went for it, even on parts I hadn’t taped. It made me both incredibly grateful, but also, WHAT at the same time. Why had I spent so much time taping?!?! Word of advice- just learn how to paint without having to tape. It’s all in the brush angle. It also helped that the trim and walls are 2 very similar shades of white… 🙂 We went with White Dove by Benjamin Moore in semi-gloss for the trim and Hale Navy in eggshell for the backs of the bookshelves.
You know you’ve got a keeper when he spends all day building a beautiful fence, braving poison oak, and still maintaining a positive attitude AND THEN comes in and helps with your project too, making you feel 100x times happier. And just to brag a little bit more on him- one of the dogs (we puppy-sat this weekend also) chewed through a lamp cord, but we needed that light to help see where we had missed while painting. So he just sat down and fixed it in a total of 3 minutes. And then went back to work, like no big deal. *swoon* Even though I hated painting the trim, I love having a home to paint and I love the husband I get to share it with. Life is good.
Yellowing trim vs. shiny, new trim color
So fresh and so clean, clean
So friends who foresee trim painting in their future…
Callie’s tips for painting trim if you’re okay with it not being 100% perfect, but close:
1. Use Krud Kutter and don’t waste endless hours on sanding.
2. Do use caulk- I ran out before I finished and was too lazy to go back to Home Depot. The parts with caulk look much, much better. Hoping to caulk the parts I missed later, when I find some more enthusiasm.
3. If you do decide to tape, LET THE CAULK DRY. In the places I didn’t wait long enough, I ended up ripping paint off the wall when I pulled the tape up. Whoops.
3. Learn how to paint without taping. It’s really not super hard, just meticulous. All in the angle and making sure you have the right amount paint on the brush. *Do tape the floors, unless you’re a really big pro* We used frog tape because everyone said it was the best.
4. Make sure you have several rolls of paper towels on hand.
5. Buy quality paint brushes!! And wash them out well after using. Hang bristles down to dry.
6. Feel super relieved that it’s over.
OR
1. Hire a professional.
2. Enjoy.
We finally finished last night and I couldn’t be more pleased. We still have to do the bedrooms & bathroom and this time we are hoping it will be much less time consuming. Yay for learning curves.
The Super Hero In-Laws
Friday was a blast! Dan’s boss gave us tickets to the Houston Dynamo suite, which was great (even though we lost to FC Dallas) and then we met his parents for drinks at D&T Drive-In, which I personally think is one of the cooler places to drink a beer in Houston. I love that they still have the old sign in front. I’m assuming new ownership as it’s part of Treadsack now (as is Downhouse, yum), so it’s neat that they chose to keep the sign.
So as mentioned above, Dan’s parents came to stay with us this past weekend! We always have a great time with them and this weekend was no exception… although it was a little bit different type of fun! Ha. Dan’s dad helped him put in all the fence posts around the back yard and his mom helped me paint the dining, living, and sun rooms. It was a productive weekend to say the least. They are amazing motivators to get things done and have more energy than we do. It’s impressive and so appreciated.
Having a fresh coat of paint on the walls has REALLY brightened it up. One of the biggest things I would change about the house (if it wasn’t prohibitively expensive) are how low the ceilings are, so having white walls make them feel just a bit taller 🙂 I ended up choosing Benjamin Moore White Linen and love that it’s warm without feeling yellow. We also tested out Frostine and Simply White. Dan is still complaining that it feels like an insane asylum, but I think he’s mostly kidding 😉 But I am in love and can’t wait to do the trim next weekend (because right now it just looks dirty :/). The furniture is still pushed in the middle of the living room at the moment so the house feels like a wreck, but sitting in the midst of white is quite dreamy. I’ll post better pictures once everything is back in place.
Testing out colors
The cutest little helper. Who was more in the way than anything.
We also decided on a horizontal fence and Dan will start putting on the planks this week!!! It’s going to look amazing. And he gets to buy a new toy- a nail gun. Because apparently the one we already have isn’t strong enough. I swear, the amount of tools we have… Yay for house projects!!
So funny that prior to painting I was finally starting to feel like the house was really coming together. Felt homey, (most) things had a place, and I just generally liked it but still knew what had to be done. Then everything came off the walls for paint and I’m starting fresh again. Ha. Hoping we get to the kitchen soon!!!
Relaxing at Cottonwood and home after a hard weekend
I’ve Got the Blues
I have/want blue and white everything. It’s verging on the edge of extreme. Dishes? Blue & white? Bathroom? Blue and white. Bedding? Blue and white. Heck, our house is blue too. And pretty much everything we registered for for the wedding was as well. Dan feels like he’s swimming in it 😀 Luckily he’s been fairly obliging. I mean… I could definitely be a huge pink fan. There are some really beautiful salon style rooms that look gorgeous and have the prettiest pink walls. So in reality, I think he should be pretty satisfied that I adore blue.
So of course, when we get the chance to renovate the kitchen, I am wanting blue and white cabinets. I’ve been keeping a look book ready.
*swoon*
All photos from Houzz.com
bewitchered 