Wall Sprucing

Since we changed out the carpet in our front rooms, I have been itching to make some other changes.

First, we received this bench as a wedding present, and it just so happens to live in the office now…

It was on my registry at Target, it is the Threshold Storage Bench with Slatted Doors.  I think it goes well in this room, plus now you can take a seat if you wanna put your shoes on(even though we put our shoes on at the side door, we’ll just have to pretend that’s what we use it for).  I added a ceramic fish I already had to the shelf and also a couple fish pillows on top. What can I say? I like fish!

Next change was the current wall decor.  I wasn’t digging that we had black frames in these rooms with a wood desk, wood table and now a wood bench.  So, I replace the existing black frames with some new wood ones.

I kept Justin’s signed hockey picture and our concert ticket collages, but I did swap the walls they were hanging on.

Sorry about this dark photo, hard to get a good picture from this angle.   Since the concert collages were no longer hanging over the desk, we had a bare wall to fill.  Thankfully I recently received some bed bath and beyond gift cards and I found this guy on their website…

It was on sale for $49 and I had a 20% off coupon making this bad boy only $39 and free shipping to boot.

And above you can also catch a glimpse of our new wall clock that was another wedding gift.

In case you’re wondering it’s the Threshold Casual Wood Wall Clock from Target, which was also on my registry.

I’m pretty stoker about how much homier these rooms are becoming.

Straight across from this room is our “second living room”, which was previously a dining room.  This room was also in need of some wall sprucing, so I decided to direct my attention that way as well.  I just so happened to come across a great deal on some frames at Michaels and picked up, oh you know, 6 of them!  Don’t judge me, it was a great deal, they are all matted 11×14 frames for $10 each.  I added some watercolor beachy prints to them and Justin helped me hang them…

I am pretty pumped about these, this may be my fav wall I have spruced to date.  Oh, and that little sail boat up top is a bridal shower gift from my friend Lindsey.  I totally dig it, and I may be feeling a sail boat collection coming in the near future.

I got one last frame from Michael’s that was also on clearance that matched these…

It was also $10.

This guy is now hung to the right of the window in this room.

I am now happy when I walk in the house past these rooms, as oppose to the blah-ness we once had.

Shall I share some before and afters?

On the day we moved in….

and now…

And once again on move in day…

and now…

You dig it?

Just need some curtains and I might call these rooms done.

 

 

 

Something Blue

Remember our bedroom?  No?  Well here it is…

We have now had our gray duvet cover from IKEA for a little over 7 months and we still love it, but we decided to change it up a bit.  We headed over to Target and found this…

We both thought it would be perfect.  In case you haven’t noticed we are pretty big fans of the color blue, also I am loving anything with a herringbone design lately.  Lastly, it’s a quilt which is nice to have since Florida isn’t known for its low temperatures, so the lightness of a quilt is nice.  We were pretty much sold on this guy.  We however didn’t get the shams because they only had standard size and we need king.  We also grabbed some new sheets while we were at it, yup livin it up on this Target trip!  Here is what we got…

Good old gray sheets and you can’t quite tell from this photo but they also have a herringbone design.  I know what you’re thinking, “didn’t they have gray sheets?” Well yes we did, but they were not very good quality and they did not fit very well.  These were a bit pricier($60) and with that price comes much higher quality.

In the photo above the quilt looks really blue, but it has more of a teal hue to it in person…

See?  Here is everything on our bed…

I think I’m diggin it, but I definitely need some new throw pillows.  My others were a bit too blue for this tealish quilt.  I also hopped online to order the matching shams, but realized with shipping it would cost around $55 for two king shams and I thought nope! So looks like me and the sewing machine will be hanging out soon.  I’ll keep you updated on the pillow dilemma!

Paint it Blue

What are we painting blue now? Our front door! Woot woot! I have been dying to paint this door. It is so gross, boring and Black! Here it is…

It’s not horrible, but I really want to add some color. Our house is tan and our front door is black, how blah.

When I told Justin I wanted to paint the front door, he said we should do tan or black. He is so plain! I told him I wanted to do something bold and he was not thrilled with my idea. I thought about it and I figured the only compromise I think we could both live with would be blue. So blue it was. I then started my search for the right blue. I found a few photos on pinterest that I was really digging…

And how much do you love this guy….

And lastly…

I tried to find inspiration photos that had a similar tan colored home with white trim, just so I could really see how the blue would look with a tan color. Once I had some ideas I headed to Lowes to pick up some samples.

Once I got home I pried this guy off the door…

It’s some sort of hanger, we thought it was glued onto the door… turns out its a magnet.

and it’s disgusting. It took some serious prying, there was a lot of dirt holding that magnet on. Yuck.

While at Lowes I also picked up a sanding block…

I then sanded the door down really well…

Hey Zack! After the door was sanded down, I took some soapy water and a rag and cleaned the trim and the front door. I then gave the trim a fresh coat of paint in a white semi gloss.

We also changed out the old weather stripping on the door. The original weather stripping was brown…

We traded that out for white…

I also picked this up at Lowe’s for $5 a strip, we only needed 3. I think it looks much better with white…

Justin also screwed some new weather stripping to the bottom of the door…

There will be no air getting around this puppy!

From there I was ready to paint on my sample colors…

Let’s get closer…

These are the four samples I picked up from Lowes, they are all Valspar brand. We stepped back to take in the colors from the street…

Which one do you like? Well it doesn’t matter because… we went with the top left, which is Cornflower Blue! Hope that’s what you picked too. I ran back to Lowe’s and picked up a quart of the Cornflower Blue in a satin finish, I didn’t want it to be too shiny since the door has some small dents. The quart was about $15.

I started painting over each of the other three colors, then did the edges of the entire door…

Once a had a couple coats on the square panels and the edges, I rolled the rest of the area with a small roller…

Yay! Blue door! I had to leave the door propped open for a little while to let it dry. I didn’t want the edges to smear on the door frame.

Hey there blue door!

Since the door was all painted I felt it was necessary to get this fancy door some accessories. I ran over to Target and picked up this pretty wreath and a hanger…

I then hung her up and put our normal welcome mat back and we were in business…

Let’s take a quick look before…

and now…

Makes me wanna dance.

Oh, hey new bathroom!

A little delayed, but I hope you all had a fabulous 4th of July!  We sure had a great long holiday weekend, we accomplished a lot!  We also got to relax and get together with friends.  I would say it was a successful little break.

Now lets get back to this bathroom! Last we left off it looked something like this…

We were well on our way to a new bathroom, but still had a few things on our list to finish up.  First up Justin installed the new mirror, which was also purchased from Lowe’s.  The mirror was the match to our new vanity…

They are both Style Selections Longshire Brand in Espresso finish.

Here they are all installed and hung! Much better than that 90’s vanity we had going on before. The next thing we wanted to tackle in here was the sink, having a toilet is great but let me tell you… it’s even nicer when you have a sink! So Justin got right to it.

Look at that beautiful new sink!

It’s even nicer when it’s on a vanity and hooked to plumbing!

This sink isn’t just for show… it works! Justin really is becoming quite handy.

There’s our new mirror and a little glimpse of the new light.

Next up I had to finish painting the trim and give the wainscoting one last coat.

Here it is all nice and white…

From here we were done with the painting and installing and it was just time to put this bathroom back together.

Our last toilet paper holder was attached to our vanity.  We really didn’t want to have it hanging off the vanity this time and the wall behind it was a little to far of a reach.  So, I picked up this guy at homegoods, it was only $14 and matched all of the faucets and the light fixture.  Which I unfortunately did not get any good photos of.  It is also from Lowe’s…

Just picture this guy on our wall above the mirror.

I also finally got to put up the shower curtain that started this whole bathroom renovation…

Sorry about the weird angle, it’s a small bathroom.  I bought this shower curtain at Target for $19. I love anything in an ikat pattern!  I also purchased that bath mat from homegoods for $12.  Here is the bathroom pretty much finished…

I still have to add some decorations and I already have some things brewing in my mind! Here is our updated list…

1. Patch and sand all walls.
2. Paint walls.
3. Add wainscoting and chair rail to walls.
4. Paint wainscoting, chair rail and trim.
5. Tile and grout floor. 
6. REINSTALL TOILET.
7. Install new faucets and shower head in bathtub.
8. Install new light fixture.
9. Install vanity.
10. Install mirror.
11. Install towel bar.
12. Decorate!

Last thing I want to show you is a before and after…

Click the photo! It gets bigger!

The first photo is before we moved in, the second is once we moved in and I painted the walls green.  The last photo is now!  Woo hoo!