My House

So I bought this for $80

and this was purchased to go on top of the it

plus I bought this couch WITH a fold out bed for $150

I'm not playin.

If you follow me on instagram you would already know that I'm slow to post here - I MEAN you already know I have had these for a minute (head on over to Vintage Revivals to get some insight regarding the moment of impact - me freaking out right after buying the couch). 

So let's back up and recall where it all began. This is the front room in 2012 

If you follow my State of the State of Chaos updates you will recall that it then turned to this:

Awesome. Sauce.

Currently the green/blue wall is now white and I did this to the sides of the firelplace:

Have I seen the marble guy again you ask? Yes I actually did. He came back to remeasure and has since returned to his black hole. So it still looks like this. He is aware of my day job so his lack of concern confuses me.

The dresser has been put in the bay window. I plan to address the knobs and top drawers at a later date. It got a light sanding, stain touch ups, and I sprayed the pulls dark bronze but I need to live with it before deciding how it will finally look. Also, the pull out mattress in the couch bed never saw the inside of my house. It went straight to the curb and a new mattress from Ikea replaced it.

So this is the latest

Much better without the broken house in here.

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Lavatory Update [interior design]

The lav is at about 90% done. As a reminder this is where I started when we moved in.

Now it looks like this

The opposite wall hasn't changed and still looks like this

If you follow lindO on the 'gram you have already seen this...like a while ago. I just realized it wasn't posted here. The Corona was to celebrate the win in the battle to hang the incredibly heavy hand me down (from my husband's great aunt) mirror all by myself. About 283,528,935 holes in my wall later I. WIN. I'm a big fan of the old vs. new look going on there.  The mirror happens to be too wide for the sink and is right against the door wall but it will stay until a similar one the correct size falls in front of my eyes. The battle was too epic just to take it down until the right one comes my way. Plus we need a mirror there of course.

What's left? A cleanup of the threshold. There is currently a gap between the hallway wood floor and the new bathroom tile.  One of the tile end cuts is at an angle and it's making me nuts. More so than usual. Today it will be addressed and, should everything go OK, the gap will be grouted. Please PLEASE design gods don't let me chip and/or ruin the tile. Please.

I'm thinking neon sign above the toilet. Stay tuned.

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State of the State of Chaos

I would like to announce that most of the "broken house" is placed in it's final position. Only one drawer is holding its ground.

Look there it is! On the non-green wall!!

Now why wouldn't the drawers be fully installed since it's been hanging for 3 days? Let's talk about making life harder. It started with the whole floating vanity idea. Similar pieces were around $750-$1000+  range. 

For example:

currently on sale for $755.99

and

$1,949.00

And those are Overstock prices. That's not my flavor. 

Ikea GODMORGAN at $329 was easy math. Now the laminated drawer fronts are a problem. Way too faux wood-ing for me. My answer of course is to buy solid oak and stain it to match. Of. Course. So I'm waiting (and waiting) for stain to dry. The other issue with the GODMORGAN is that the pre-drilled holes for the silver pulls are only 3" apart. I thought wider and golder handles would be better.

Anyhoo it's a far cry from where we started when we moved it. 

If you are loving the wallpaper I just found it on ebay. Not kidding. Little did I know I had paper gold in my hands.

The current shot again

Now to continue making my life harder.  I had a quick simple idea for the fireplace wall

that was terrible. So 3"x3" hand painted multicolored squares were the obvious (re)answer.

It's only going up about this high on both sides. I'll add a couple more when or if the fireplace gets finished. Sidenote: please let me know if you can find my marble guy because I can't anymore. 

The sconce above is from Restoration Hardware since someone had asked about it. Shout out to Restoration.

I love them, my husband hates them. Please contain your shock.

Many of you are now questioning my sanity. Yes, I am crazy for taking on the squares but insane would be to do the entire wall [says the voice in my head]. I leave you with this project to truly ponder my sanity.

Paper bag faux wood floors. PAPER. With a wood grain stamping tool.

That is crazy. I now look completely sane right?

Right?

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State of the State of Chaos

Answers to the previous post:

Ugh. I'm currently "working it out" with the contractor.

Remember how I mentioned the lavatory as one of my 875,293 projects? Feast your eyes on this mess:

I can' t recall if the terrible green picked by my husband came first or if it was the birch. I hand painted the trees when the birch wallpaper was all the rage. I'm over it 2 years ago. I do, however, still love my $30 Menard's knock-off of the Tom Dixon light. Love. Not moving. P.J. says he hates it but he gently dusted it off the other day on his own merit. I think he secretly likes it.

The floors are 3/4" wood with nailhead details. I have a four year old boy that uses this toilet. You can put two and two together. It's gotta go. You can see that we started taking off the base board already.

My mug shots! I still love these and they will stay in the next rendition. Food for thought when guests are on the toilet. I have more that need to go up but right now my favorite is Frank Sinatra. He was arrested in 1938 for carrying on with a married woman. I'm sure that man had STOR-ies. I painted the wall black because I had to reduce the awful green. I let the man go rogue and look what happens. Please note this room canNOT be applied to my design style as I hate it as much as the next person. It's merely in limbo.

So as you may have guessed the "broken house" is still in the same place but will be the new vanity in here. I'm going gold handles and fixtures. Holla!

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State of the State of Chaos

So the dining room looks like this:

Ceiling is smooth and dark in a semi-gloss paint. Yes I did say semi-gloss. Since the color was dark I wanted that good window light to bounce around. Now is that the best idea for say, an older home with old ceilings? Probably not as there are likely flaws in old ceilings and semi-gloss only highlights those. Now my ceiling was brand big box store drywall new. It took about 5 rounds of spackle/smooth/spackle/smooth but it's next to perfect now. While I am pretty freekin' good with a spackle knife I wish I could say it was done easily and right away but I always find a way to make my life more difficult in the name of design. Whatever. It's done. The room is a work in progress just like the rest of them. Not sure I'm feeling the frames hung the way they are. 

Moving on. Marble is on the fireplace. Now reread that sentence like your parents bought you a car when you were 16 BUT it's a station wagon with faux wood paneling on the side because 

it ain't right.

Can you see the issues?

I'll post them tomorrow and in case you were wondering the "broken house" hasn't moved. 

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State of the State of Chaos

This is pretty close to the finished project folks. Just pretend the baseboard is installed next to the door and that the outlet plate is attached without the tile blocking the screw holes. Just ignore that last part. I'll take some prettier photos soon but this is pretty much crossed off my list.

This is the before if you need a reminder - we flipped it from the living room to open to the hall in order to get a sectional against the now closed off wall.

Dining room update is that I have a ceiling once again. Even better is the fact that my dad likes to spackle. I have some smoothing to do then I get to paint the ceiling and fill in the holes in the old crown molding that was put back. Super. Hashtag myfave and soreneck.

Family room is still in this condition

My son hasn't moved (nor has the "broken house")

Picking up the tile for the first floor lav tomorrow. I foresee joy in racing a four year old up carpeted stairs after last second announcements like "I just have to go to the bathroom".

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State of the State of Chaos

Sooo we've talked about the bar project, the fireplace project multiple times, but did we talk about the first floor lav project? I know we haven't talked about the new dining room ceiling project. For the sake of bat shi+ crazy I'm going to add to the list a master bath remodel project.

Boom goes the dynamite. 

This is a long post so grab a hard drink. I'll warn you earlier next time. So listen I finally ordered the tile for the bar back splash. Finally thought I made a final decision and was so proud of myself. See I can pick out a back splash for you no problem. I make design decisions for others on a daily basis but it doesn't go down like that around here. Different tiles cross the path of my eyes multiple times a day and it confuses me. It's a fear of commitment. Will the tile still make me happy in 5 years? I'm not a fan of tiling. Don't want to do more tiling work than I have to. So Houzz.com (I can't find the photo!) slapped my eyes with a 12"x12" Carerra back splash someone installed and I thought "how hot would a 6"x6" Carerra be?!?" So (P.J. avert your eyes and unfollow this blog) I have samples coming tomorrow. Good news is that the tile is local, in stock, and I don't need much of it. I can get it yesterday if I want.

Next topic is the fireplace. I ripped the mantle off and sold it on Craigslist. Here is the plan as we have mentioned before - the bottom image is the goal

but currently the top right is where we are stuck until I find the right white marble. Waiting...and waiting...and waiting on contractorS. Yes plural.

Moving on. This happened:

Ohhhh the repetitive sound of water dripping from an unexpected source such as a ceiling. Makes me warm and fuzzy inside but in a terrible money flying out the window kinda way. Please note: the formal dining room is on the kitchen remodel list as the wall between them is planned to come down. The kitchen remodel starts in 2083. So the short list the dining room did not make until 3 days ago. The leak is fixed ($400 later - please don't ask me about $2 toilet valves) and the ceiling will be repaired only to be messed up again in 2083. Sweet.

Anyhoo the leak started above the dining room between the boys bathroom and the master. We hate the master as it has peach tile and sponge paint OVER the wallpaper. Who paints over wallpaper? Real question. The husband is really over how gross the master bathroom is. Cue the flying pigs and ice in hell because he's actually wanting more work done around here. And who am I to tell him "no"?

 I'm going to expand on the master later and save the first floor lav for another post. This post is too long and it makes me want to scour Houzz and Pinterest It's 10:32 pm and a girl needs her rest. I could spend days on both. Bottom line is I bought the vanity for the lav like 8 months ago and it has been living in my family room. My son loves to play with the "broken house". 

Here is what I stare at these days

the "broken house" aka Ikea's Godmorgon

in said living room (out of the shot but behind the white container here) -->

new ceililng...new chandelier?...hmmm....

yes I use it [said with fingers crossed behind back]!!

I [not so]secretly love it. BRING it.

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Holidays 2013

This is some of what I had going on around here for the Holidays.

I made these cone trees using Michael's craft cones. Super easy to do with acrylic paint. I tested out a gold leaf glue pen for the gold trim at the bottom of the paint and was not impressed at all but I managed to make it through. Faux snow and bells are from Hobby Lobby.

Happy Holidays to everyone out there! 

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