Days 20-21 - The Little Things

Thursday & Friday
These past few days have been difficult for me to work on the house.  My little peanut has been extremely attached and gets very upset if I try to leave her with anyone.  I finally managed to get to the house today for a bit by bringing her with me and having her aunt and cousins entertain her upstairs while I got a few things cleaned up and prepped for the next steps.  Do what works, right?  Esther helped by sweeping the kitchen and dusting the furniture while Julia sang five hundred rounds of Maria's favorite song to keep her happy while I worked.  These hard-workin' girls didn't even have time to change out of their school uniforms before coming over!

All the new doors are now hung with the exception of the linen closet and pantry.  Those doors are both 20" which is apparently a special order size.  They won't be in for another two weeks or so.  I'm glad we got the new exterior doors up so the locks are now changed.  It's always a good idea to change the locks when you buy a new home.  I know I still have a key for our old house (kept by accident) so chances are there are at least one or more keys floating around for this house too.  I'm loving the new front door.  I would have liked to have a bit more glass just to let in extra light, but if you've ever gone door shopping, you know how expensive those pretty doors are.  With all we've got going on, I'm happy with this one.  I particularly love the handle we chose.

Here's the guest bath door with the handle installed and the sliding closet door in the nursery:

Spraying paint on these doors is on the list of things to do after we've moved in.  They're good enough for now!  Already a major improvement to the blanket doors...

One thing I really appreciate looking back at our old house was all the little things the previous owners thought of.  They had extensively renovated that house back in the 90's, and while I didn't necessarily appreciate the wife's affinity for floral wallpaper, the house was planned with love and care.  For example, every closet had a light inside that came on automatically when you opened the door.  The bathrooms all had motion sensor lights in them.  Granted, this occasionally confused our guests when they used the powder room, but I miss that!  The kitchen had been painstakingly laid out in a way that made it so easy to cook in it.  Each bedroom closet had a convenient system to maximize the storage space.  The beauty of living in that house for me was in the lovingly planned details.  I'd like to find ways to put our own thought-out details into this house.  It's the little things that make a house a home.

What are some minor details that you have seen somewhere or done in your own home that you felt went above and beyond?  Is there a non-necessary "extra" you've put in to just add that special touch?  What little things help make your house a home?

Keep dreaming!

Day 19 - House of Doors

Wednesday
All future overnight guests of Casa del Goodwin will be pleased to know that we now have doors for each room!  You may not have noticed in the original photos that were taken before we closed, but there were hardly any doors in the entire house.  Most of the bedrooms had blankets hung on nails for privacy and the closets were either open or had a blanket tacked up there as well.  The few doors that were there were not the style we would have wanted anyways so all doors are being replaced.

We chose the 6-panel door design for the interior doors.  Perhaps it was just wishful thinking but looking at these doors in the store, we kind of thought they were already painted white.  Turns out they are just primed to be painted.  When placed up against the very white door casing, they look more off-white or grayish.  Hey, another thing for me to paint!  The hardware on the doors will be satin nickel handles.  Here's a photo of two bedroom doors and the handle for the front door:

The closet doors will be installed Thursday so Daniel is painting the casings white tonight.  Apparently the slider type closet doors don't come with a casing so we'll be using the existing frames.  Those casings are one of the few original things that will remain in the house I guess!

I stopped at TJMaxx to check out their clearance shelves for decor items.  I found two lamps that I liked for the living room.  Unfortunately, the living room was designed (as most are) without any overhead lighting.  While I'm adding "canned lighting" to the wish list as we speak, for now we will need lamps to see when the sun goes down.  Plus lamps are just a stylish to almost any room I think.  Here's the two I found, and I'm hoping to find the matching floor lamp online.  The photo is a bit blurry.  I liked the brushed silver base with the neutral gray shades.  Going for clean classic styles in this room - I guess I'm not very funky.

Speaking of decor, I loved the ideas I got from everyone who responded to Tuesday's post both in the post comments and on the Facebook link!  I think I'll keep the decor gray walls with black and white in the dining room with just one or two pops of red.  I don't think an accent wall would look as good once we put in the wainscoting - a project for after we move in.  I liked these examples of monochromatic rooms with just one or two pieces in color.  Red is my favorite color so that will probably be our "pop" in the dining room and at least one of the bathrooms.  Of course the style of furniture in the dining room pictured below is more contemporary than anything I own.  After all this remodeling, our old furniture is just going to have to keep holding up for a good long while.

The biggest thing on my mind now for decor is window coverings.  If money was no object, we'd live in a house with enough trees and privacy around it that I would never cover the windows.  In fact, that's pretty much what we did in our old house.  The way it was situated on a hill higher than any of the other houses with our bedroom windows facing the large backyard, I rarely closed most of the blinds.  Sure, folks may have gotten a surprising view occasionally, but that's what good neighbors are for, right?

So what are your preferred type of window coverings?  Wood blinds, Cellular Shades, Vertical Blinds, Aluminum Blinds, Roller Shades, Curtains with or without blinds - so many options!  Keep in mind, I like things that are easy to clean and maintain (what mom doesn't?).  And soon enough, little toddler hands will start exploring whatever I put on the windows.  What do you like best?

Soon we'll have those windows covered to keep the summer sun from waking us up too early so we can keep on dreaming!

Day 18 - What would YOU do?

Tuesday
I think my hand is soon going to be permanently scrunched in a "brush-holding" position.  I guess that's what happens when you've been painting for six days in a row.  On the bright side, we are ALMOST done!  Daniel's brother Josh was so kind to come over again last night to help while his wife and girls babysat Maria.  He got the second coat rolled in the dining room and bathrooms.  He's an awesome brother!

I just have to get a few more rooms cut and then I can be done painting for a while, hallelujah!  And the good news is, I got the scary job over with.  My least favorite thing to paint is the stairway due to having to climb up high on a ladder to paint.  It always freaks me out.  I never used to be afraid of heights but the older I get... yeah, I was a little nervous.  I couldn't help envisioning losing my balance just enough to throw the paint tray I was holding all over the new carpet on the upstairs landing.  That would have been very upsetting.  Fortunately I kept my balance and all went well.

Daniel worked on installing the flooring in the guest bathroom.  We typically tile in the bathrooms - Daniel is awesome at tiling - but couldn't find a tile we loved so decided to try something different.  The Restore had boxes of Allure Vinyl Plank flooring in "Iron Wood" color.  I'm usually not a big fan of vinyl flooring but this looked kind of cool and modern.  My biggest complaint about bathroom floors is how cold it is in the morning.  This seemed like it would be a bit warmer than tile so we thought we'd give it a try.  If we hate it, we can always pull it up later and tile.  So far I think it looks neat, and it's definitely "softer" and warmer than tile. 

So now I'd like to ask for YOUR opinion.  In our gray rooms, how would you decorate?  Would you stick to a mostly monochromatic theme or do a bold color to offset the gray?  The dining room will have white wainscoting eventually with a medium dark Pergo floor.  The bathrooms have the gray walls with white trim and now you can see the flooring color in the upstairs baths. 

I have a small painting that I bought from a street artist in London back in 2009.  It's a white canvas with a black outline-type painting of a couple walking down the street with Big Ben up ahead.  They are holding a bright red umbrella.  It caught my eye because of the splash of red on the black and white canvas.  Perhaps there's something there to work with.  What would you do? 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts to help us keep dreaming!

Day 17 - Stony Gray Beagle

Monday
New flooring install has begun!  The installers began laying the new carpet in the living room, office and second floor.  Since the laminate floors won't be installed until Wednesday, they will be coming back on Thursday to carpet the stairs and tuck the carpet edges properly everywhere it meets the laminate.  We chose a frieze carpet with a tan/brown fleck called Custard.  We installed this carpet into the old house right before we sold it.  I'm looking forward to getting to enjoy this new carpet a little longer!  Here's a picture from the upstairs landing.

Daniel and I headed to the house after dinner to keep up on the painting work.  Daniel rolled the kitchen, put a second coat on the entryway hall, and cracked open the Stony Gray paint to roll the dining room and half bath.  I was a little worried when he opened it because of how blue it looked!  But it just needed stirred.  I think it looks pretty nice!  We will be adding a white wainscoting to the bottom half of the dining room wall after we move in.  But that's a project for another day and another post.

I worked on cutting the hallway and office while he rolled.  The nice thing about no trim boards in the house is only having to cut in by the ceiling and in the corners.  I hate taping so I just do it freehand.  After painting so many rooms at the old house, I've gotten relatively good at it.  As you might recall, I had forgotten to cover the one ceiling fan in the house we are keeping before the texture guys did their thing.  So I spent about 30 minutes just cleaning the texture spray off of every square centimeter of that ceiling fan.  Fun!  Ah well, lesson learned.  I won't forget to cover it in the next house.

I knew it would happen at some point, and tonight was the night!  One of our dogs leaned up against a freshly painted wall.  Here's Venus wearing the latest color from our spring line, Stony Gray.

When Daniel took off some plastic in the kitchen, I got a good look at the cabinets he'd been painting at night after I was already home with Maria. I'm loving the color!  We are going to tile the counter tops as well to save some money.  Eventually we may install new counters but we'll see.  Tile will certainly be an improvement to the cheap Formica that is currently there.  We need to do a second coat of Espresso on the cabinets, just to make sure it holds up against the wear and tear of using the kitchen.

As soon as we get the painting done (just have some cutting and the two bathrooms upstairs left), we can work on putting the bathrooms together.  I'm looking forward to that!  As of right now, you just have to make sure you don't drink too much before you come work at the house...  Enough said.

Until next time, keep dreaming!

Day 16 - Now THAT'S how you clean a floor!

Saturday
Tonight my husband gets a back rub for all of his hard work on the house today.  We really wanted to get all of the areas that will be carpeted painted before Monday - the entire upstairs (minus the bathrooms) plus the living room and den on the first floor.  Lots of paint!  Thank goodness for Habitat Restore prices.  A 5-gallon bucket is around $55 which is much more affordable than the $20-$30 pricetag for one gallon at the hardware store.

Today Daniel and I (but mostly Daniel) worked on the following:

• Finished spraying all the ceilings
• Finished rolling paint on all bedrooms including inside the closets (cutting still in process)
• Rolled the living room, den and entryway
• Daniel's dad got the entry way and upstairs landing lights installed (pics to follow as I forgot to take them today)

I spent some time just cleaning up as well.  All the plastic that covered our windows and furniture needed removed.  It was covered in the texture and made a giant mess on both me and the floors when pulled down.  I threw it away in the dumpster.  Now the top layer of trash is all that painters plastic.  This may make the dumpster hauling truck an interesting site going down the road... I hope it doesn't all blow out!  That would make for a serious littering fine.

Unfortunately, today was a tough day for scheduling with Maria.  As I mentioned, our go-to babysitter had something come up that kept her busy most of the day.  I was able to work at the house from about 10:30-1:30, but that was it.  Sometimes, you just have to be the mommy.

My biggest challenge of the day was getting all those floors cleaned.  To be honest, I had no idea how to really get them clean.  Do I sweep, vacuum, mop, scrub?  I just wasn't sure what would work.  But this morning on the way to the house, something wonderful happened.  Daniel got a call from a friend offering to help clean the floors.  He's a pro when it comes to floor cleaning - literally, it's his profession.

He came by the house around 11 to look at the project, then returned with his work van.  He's got some serious equipment in there.

He ran that giant blue hose into the house and went to work on the upstairs bedrooms.  You won't believe the difference that machine made!

Here's a before and after shot of the nursery floor:

So obviously that cleaning equipment (plus the operator!) worked a miracle for us.  A GIANT thank you to our friend Rodney for his amazing work.  Seriously, he took a load of stress off my plate.  And it was thanks to the blog that he knew of our need.  Guess this thing really came in handy for us!

As you can see, the bedrooms had hardwood floors under the carpet.  While in the future we may consider refinishing them, right now it's just more work than we can handle.  They're pretty beat up and badly stained which would mean to LOTS of time spent sanding.  That's just not a project we're up for right now.  So carpet it will be for us come Monday.

By the way, after a second look today, I've decided I like the Autumn Mist color.  It's is a good thing too, considering how many rooms it's going in (almost all of them for now).  We're keeping it very neutral at this point.  Once we move in and I have some decor for the rooms, we may decide to change it up.  This will definitely do for now though, and I'm happy with it.  Looking forward to seeing how the Stony Gray paint looks in our bathrooms and dining room!

Until next time, keep dreaming!

Day 15 - Remodeling Stress

Friday

Ok so I have a confession to make - I'm stressed today!  Typically, I'm like an emotional rubber band.  Sure I get upset or riled up about things but I snap back to my normal self pretty quickly.  I don't let things get to me for long.  But today, I have to admit, I'm a little overwhelmed.

I didn't go to the house until after dinner today.  Due to some unforeseen complications, we were without a babysitter for Maria.  While it was nice to spend the whole day with her, it also meant I sat thinking about all the things that needed done at the house.  Thankfully Daniel's dad was able to go over in the afternoon and install the rest of the ceiling fans.  He's been a huge help getting that stuff taken care of while Daniel is at work!

To further complicate things, Daniel found out today that the carpet is being installed on Monday.  Monday.  As in the first day of next week.  We had thought it was scheduled for Tuesday, but I guess we wrote it down wrong.  If we delay the install, the next available date was April 2nd which is no bueno.  So Monday it has to be.

This means that all our rooms that will have carpet need to be painted before Monday - four bedrooms, upstairs landing, stairs, living room and office/den.  Also the floors in those rooms need scrubbed down as they are coated with lumps of texture and drywall mud.  Thus the cause of my distress.

Tonight we got all the ceilings on the 2nd floor and most of the 1st floor painted.  Daniel started rolling our actual color paint on the bedroom walls as well.  I just need to go in and do the cutting around the ceiling.  So we're not in bad shape.  Plus, if we really can't get it all done, it's not the end of the world.  Obviously people typically paint in rooms with carpet.  It's just so much easier when the floor is unfinished.  I can't even think about how I would feel if we accidentally kicked over a bucket on the brand new carpet.  (True story, an entire can of wood stain was knocked over in the basement of our old house on the off-white carpet.  It's still there.)

Another reason I'm feeling stressed is due to the actual paint itself.  Picking paint colors is worse than the actual job of painting to me.  I always worry, "What if I hate it after we've painted the whole room?!"  I'm not a great decorator, as you will soon see.  I don't have an eye for it so I don't trust my judgment on the subject.  Fortunately, we like to save money and therefore buy all our paint at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  This is helpful to a paint-phobic such as myself because they only offer about 12 paint colors.  That keeps things pretty simple.  However, I still find myself doubting the color I picked!  It's called Autumn Mist, and we are going to use it in most of the house.  Again, trying to keep things simple, we planned on only using two neutral paint colors - a tan-ish color for most rooms and light gray in the bathrooms.  The Autumn Mist is looking a little more green than I was hoping for.  Here's a pic of it as Daniel looking adorable rolling it on and I'm standing in the doorway fretting.

Ah well, it's what we've got and we're sticking to it for now!  We'll see how it turns out.  On the bright side, I am very happy with the ceiling fans we picked for the bedrooms.  We are using all satin nickel fixtures in the house.  Our old house had a ton of outdated brass fixtures so I am THRILLED to have something more modern!  The blades are two-sided with a sort of light brown option and a dark wood option.  We decided to go with the dark side since the brown didn't match our furniture and the new trim will be white.

In conclusion, tonight I've discovered blogging is good for the soul!  After typing out tonight's post, I feel better - certainly less stressed.  So thanks for "listening" to my earlier rant.  It helped.  Thank goodness, for Daniel's sake!  I've found that stress makes me a bit of a mean wife, poor guy.  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I snap a lot at him when I'm feeling overwhelmed.  He takes it in stride but I hate when I'm like that.  It's just not me.  

So now that I'm feeling back to my old chipper self, keep dreaming friends!  I know I will.

Day 14 - New Makeup Routine!

Thursday
Today was a "make your shoulders ache" kind of a work day.  I went to the house before lunch, after lunch and after dinner to paint.  My top priority - get the ceilings upstairs painted so we can take out the old ceiling fans and install the new.

My #1 illumination expert was there to help me this afternoon.  He took down the bedroom ceiling fans while I painted.  Does your electrician wear cuff links on the job?  I didn't think so.  You can't buy this kind of class.

I went to Home Depot this morning to get some more roller covers for this job.  I asked the paint counter folks what type of nap roller I would need to paint the textured ceilings.  They suggested the 1/2 inch.  I had the 3/4 in. in my hand but put it back based on their recommendation.  I wish I hadn't.  I rolled the dark blue bedroom ceiling until my arms ached and could still see through the texture.  The roller just wasn't cutting it.

That afternoon I got smart.  I brought out Daniel's Wagner Spraystation paint sprayer to give it a go.  Since we are just going with flat white on the ceilings, I used the Killz primer for the job.  It's white and will seal out any smoke residue that might try to seep out later.  (Side note: The house no longer smells like cats OR smoke, hallelujah!  Now it just smells like a construction site.  We're getting there.)

The Killz is kind of thick, so I watered it down for the sprayer - about 3/4 primer and 1/4 hot water.  Not sure if using water that was hot made a difference but logically speaking, typically things mix better in hot water than they do in cold.  Worth a shot.  Whether that helped or not, spraying the ceilings worked great!  The key with the sprayer is to take your time.  It doesn't spray on thick so you've got to move slowly to cover the area adequately.  I used a stepladder in the beginning but then got tired of moving it every few minutes and just held the sprayer as high as I could reach over my head.  It got the job done!

By the end of tonight, all 4 bedroom ceilings and both bathroom ceilings upstairs were finished.  Daniel came that evening after band practice and rolled the walls of the bedrooms and baths with the primer.  The second floor is now ready to paint!

Being a busy DIY Renovation Mom, it can be hard to find time to take care of my appearance.  I've been learning to take shortcuts wherever I can.  Today I discovered a brand new makeup routine that saves me time by doing my makeup while I paint the ceiling.  Presto!  Ready for date night with the hubby!

White eyelashes, white highlights and white lipstick are in style, right?  Even my contacts have small flecks of paint...  After a long shower, I still don't have it all washed off...  FYI when I went back after dinner, I got slightly smarter and wore a mask.  My lungs and throat are thanking me for the break from the fumes.

Keep dreaming!