Entry Way Makeover Complete!

Back in February I published this post  about redoing our entry way and the ideas we had for it. Well, it is finally finished! It actually has been finished for awhile but it always takes me forever to take pictures and put a post together :) I'll show you a few 'before' pictures again.....

Look at all those shoes....Yikes!

Before

      Before

Before

And here are the AFTERS! I really love how it all turned out. Jon did a great job, as usual!

We turned the hall closet into a little 'mudroom'/bench area. Jon painted the inside the same light gray (Sedate Gray by HGTV for Sherwin Williams) we used going up the stairs and in the upstairs hallway. The trim and door are just a plain white. He also took out the metal hanging bar and added the hooks. He then made the bench from scratch. We weren't sure in the beginning how we were going to finish it off. Doors? Baskets? Rolling carts that fit under the bench? But in the end we decided just making doors would be best because we could just close the doors on the shoe clutter! And look at that... All of our shoes (OK...MY shoes!) are now nicely hidden under the bench.

We enlisted the help of my mama to make the cushion. She and I made a trip to JoAnn Fabric's where I picked out this fabulous fabric (which I can't, of course, remember the name or maker of). We also grabbed some foam, which was ALOT more expensive than I was expecting! JoAnn's would just cut the foam to length but not width. So Jon brought home an electric knife from work and we did a little chopping! Then mom sewed up the cover! Now it is a great little nook to sit and get your shoes off and on.

The finishing touch was adding the three baskets shown below that I got at Target. They are from the Smith and Hawken line. I love the little chalkboards attached. We will keep our winter accessories hidden away in those!

Thank goodness my shoe mess is hidden away now!! And there is still plenty of room under there for more ;)  We got the hardware for the bench doors at Lowes. Wheezy is glad the shoes are stored away now too. More space for her to sprawl out!

I didn't get a great picture of it, but you'll see below that opposite of the bench we hung a little coat rack type thing. I wish I would have taken a better shot of it because it is one of my favorite finds from an estate or garage sale. I found it in a barn (along with a lot of other great stuff!). It is a vintage, metal hanging with a little shelf type top. Super industrial looking. It's a little rusty/dusty and the perfect addition to the space.

The other major change was the floor. We decided on a faux wood vinyl to replace the old, faux tile/stone... or whatever you would call it. We both really like it. It is easy to clean and really makes a big difference in the feel of the hall. I think it looks and feels a lot more inviting and 'homey'. 

Here is a picture of Wheez 'modeling' the floor. She actually slips on it pretty often. I thought that she might get use to it after a couple of months but she still seems to be having a hard time. If we have visitors she gets really excited and starts dancing around on the floor.... and sure enough a leg will always slip out from under her!

We painted the walls 'Retreat', an HGTV for Sherwin Williams color. We have used those HGTV colors quiet a bit in the house and I have been really happy with them. 'Retreat' was on the same matching color palette as the 'Sedate Gray' we used going up the stairs and in the upstairs hallway. It helps take the guess work out of matching!

Here is one last angle of the hallway. It also gives a little glimpse of the new light fixture we put in. It has a neat look to it and provides a lot more light than the old one. I am not TOTALLY in love with it though. I was having a hard time finding something I really loved for a decent price. Oh well! This one will do for now.
The mirror above the mail table was a great find at Goodwill. It was actually from Target and still in its original packaging. I had it hanging in our Oakmont townhouse but never liked the placement of it. In our new house I think this is the Perfect place for it! You can get one last peek at your hair and makeup before you rush out the door ;)

I am so happy with how this space turned out. It is so nice to walk in to after being gone all day. It looks fresher, happier and more inviting. I am proud to have people over now and know that this is the first thing they will see when they walk in. 

Ms. Batista likes it too!! :)

Hope you enjoyed this little tour! I think next up will be the baby's room. :) It is pretty much done now and Jon and I are so happy with it! Not too much longer before our little guy will be here to actually enjoy it!!

Nursery Decor Ideas

It certainly has been a very busy couple of months! Along with all the busyness that comes with expecting a baby, we have traveled to Nashville, Chicago and have been working on fixing more things up in the house. It's been a good couple of months!
Doing all that other stuff didn't leave much time for the nursery though. The nursery is already painted the color we want ...... but that's about it! But just because we haven't actually done much in there yet doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it an awful lot!
We do have a 'theme' (I have never really liked that term).... sort of. I always knew I didn't want too much going on in the nursery. No decals or major 'theme' overload. In the beginning when people asked me how we would decorate I just kept saying Animals. And then the next question would be, 'Well, what kind? Jungle? Forest? Farm?'    And I wouldn't really have an answer. Because the only real idea I had in my head was that I wanted to incorporate illustrations from my Little Golden Book collection in the room.
And then one day it hit me. DUH! Your 'theme' is Little Golden Books! So now we sound a little more put together when anyone asks!

So hear are some ideas I have been collecting over on Pinterest. Some inspiration for our little guy's room.

Love this fabric! But unfortunately I can't seem to find it on the interwebs ANYWHERE! :( Just pictures of it then the sad realization that it is sold out and/or no longer being made.

I plan on making a few banners and bunting like below. I'll use images from some of my favorite Golden Books and we plan to hang them over or near his crib. 

Here

I couldn't ignore this room! The images are from some of my favorite books and I was having trouble finding any other Golden Book inspired nurseries! 

Here

I just love the image below. The room is simple with great colors and is a room a kid can really grow into without having to make much change. 

Here

Same with this room. I LOVE the banner and clouds above the crib but it is all so easy to change out when you and/or baby outgrow it! The color on the well looks a lot like the one we are using too!

Here

And of COURSE we need some book shelves to hold all his new books and my Little Golden Book collection! I like these shelves because it sort of turns the books into art work themselves!

Here

Now, of course Jon was on board with the Golden Book Nursery Idea. But, as with most guys I think, he was really ok with any idea I came up with just so long as it wasn't too girly :) But once Jon and I really started shopping around for baby items and registering, we noticed that there is a lot of cute Fox stuff out there right now. Jon seemed to really like a lot of it. I thought it was great that he seemed particularly interested in them so we decided to try and incorporate some foxes into the room as well. Which goes along pretty well with Golden Books because I have been able to find some cute fox illustrations in some of the books that we will definitely be using. I have also been trolling Etsy for some other Fox stuff... especially a mobile.

This crocheted Fox mobile is super cute

So is this felt one!

This Fox nightlight will be super helpful and cute!

And who could resist this adorable fox 

 SOOOO the official decor of the room will be Little Golden Book with a side of Fox. LOL. Sounds a little crazy but I know it will look super cute and I can't wait to share the finished room photos with you!! Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later! We're running low on time!!  ;)

Baby on Board!...and what we've been up to lately.

So I've been MIA since my last post in April. BUT I have a good reason! Jon and I are expecting our first child in October!! So needless to say we've been a little busy handling this new, exciting chapter in our lives! We found out on May 30th that our little one will be a boy :) He is looking healthy and I have been feeling pretty good the past few weeks so now it is time to get back to it! We have a lot of stuff we want to get done in preparation for his arrival near the end of October!
I had a garage sale in the hopes of selling off a large chunk of my vintage stuff to make room for baby and because I know I won't have as much time to devote to selling for awhile.

My mom and Jon helped me for several weeks ahead of time preparing everything and getting it set up nice. I advertised what I thought was a decent amount and really emphasized the fact that most of it was vintage. I thought for sure the garage sale would be a hit! .... Not so much, unfortunately.

I did ok on Friday. A decent amount of people come through. I was certain that Saturday would be 10 times better... but it wasn't. Barely had any customers. And the weather was really crappy. I was pretty disappointed. BUT that's the chance you take with yard sales I guess! The worst thing though, is packing away (again!) all the stuff you thought for sure you were going to sell. I did end up giving away a decent amount to a great local second hand shop whose profits all go to local families in need. I also ended up finding a local woman interested in buying my whole lot of vintage women's clothing...so not all was disappointing!

Jon and I will be leaving to go on our 'Babymoon' to Nashville in a week and we are really excited. Jon has been working hard on projects around the house (which I will share soon!) and deserves this little break before he has to start class again on the 24th.
I am hoping one of the next posts I'll share will be our front entrance makeover! We have painted and Jon has put down a new floor. And we are just about finished with turning the hall coat closet into a mini mudroom! I will also probably be sharing some of favorite Pinterest ideas for the babies nursery soon. Storing some of my favorite ideas here while we try to decide how to decorate :)

And now I will leave you with our first official photo as a family of '3' :)

Main Bathroom Makeover

The biggest and most time consuming project in the house was the bathroom renovation. It was a complete gutting and redo. That hadn't always been the plan when we first decided to put an offer in on the house but the more we thought about it the more we thought it might be best to knock this project out right away.
The picture below seems to be the only 'Before' photo that I took of the bathroom. It was in usable(ish) condition but outdated. There was no storage and some tiles in the shower were pretty lose.

We toyed around with the idea of hiring someone to do the job but we had faith that Jon was capable of handling it. So Jon got to work on it pretty quickly. Home improvements were a fairly new thing to him so I am so proud of him for sticking with it (things got very frustrating in several steps of the process) and doing such an amazing job! I won't be going in to a lot of detail about everything that was done mostly because I didn't do any of it ;) and it would be an extremely lengthy post.

The bathtub was really small, shallow (the old tub is shown below) and really dingy looking so he removed it. It was ceramic (with cast iron base??) so it was extremely heavy. He had to bust it apart with a sledge hammer to be able to get it out of the bathroom. The tile floor had to go to and that was a process chiseling that away. 

Jon ended up learning A LOT about plumbing, since it turned out that pipes and things needed to be moved around and replaced. I think that was probably the most frustrating and time consuming part. 

But alas! The room was finally gutted and the bathtub in place and plumbed correctly (this all took a LOT longer than we both expected.... A LOT LONGER...). Now Jon was ready to tackle tiling for the first time. He tiled the shower walls and the floor. Cutest handyman you've ever seen?? :)

And, as I said in the beginning I won't go into all the 'how-to's' of it all. I will just show you the beautiful, finished product!

Darn! I guess I completely missed that an outlet cover was still missing when I took these photos. We actually had to have an electrician come and put in an outlet in the bathroom (and a exhaust fan) because there was none. There aren't any in any of the bathrooms! How did a lady do her hair back in the day!? :)

We chose this 'open' bottom sink because, as you can see in the picture below, the air vent is sort of in an inconvenient place. I was a little worried about losing storage space when we first decided to go this route but it has worked out well and I love the way it looks.

Well, there you have it! One of the smallest rooms in the house and the one that required the most time and attention. I can't say enough how proud I am of my hubby for taking on this big project. He did an amazing job and we both love the result.  

Awesome Craigslist find and makeover

Moving from a 2 bedroom townhouse (where the second bedroom was used as an office/junk room) to a 3 bedroom house, we knew we would have to buy some furniture...specifically bedroom furniture. So being the thrifty, vintage lover that I am (wink), I began to search Craigslist for dressers and nightstands. I sort of planned on finding something that would probably need some TLC, like a fresh coat of paint or new hardware. I was hoping for something sort of unique. 

After a few weeks of searching, a new listing popped up with just what I was looking for (don't you love when that happens?)! a set of 4 vintage pieces that definitely seemed unique. They have a 'faux' bamboo look and are super sturdy.  

The only problem was their color. They were an ivory/yellowish color that just wouldn't do. I was excited to try my hand at painting them. But also a little nervous because they are a fairly sought after vintage name that I was worried I might totally ruin. BUT by a lot of vintage lovers standards, changing the color, no matter how amazing the paint job is, is a crime worthy of death. I had actually told the person I bought them from that I was thinking about painting them and he looked at me like I was crazy. OH WELL! I painted them :)

I thought a high gloss black would look great and stand the test of time. I had never used a high gloss paint before but had read it is a lot trickier to use than a normal paint. So I did some reading and some research. I went with high gloss paint and primer from Sherwin Williams.

From my online research it mostly seemed everyone just mentioned that it took more coats and you had to be careful of your brush strokes because high gloss paint shows off more imperfections. I mostly found this all to be true. 

Painting 3 of the 4 pieces took WAAAYY longer than I had ever anticipated. With the sanding, primer, paint, and 4 hour dry time in between coats, this project definitely ended up taking up several weekends. The picture below shows what only one coat of paint looks like. It's obvious it doesn't cover nicely in one coat. 

This vanity will most likely live in our guest room and be used as a desk or possibly a nightstand. 

The dressers BEFORE. We are using them in our room. 

The dressers AFTER. Kitty approved. 

We are pretty happy with how they turned out. The black looks WAY better in our light pink room then the yellowish/ivory did. When they were still the original color I believe one family member said our bedroom looked like an 80s Miami hotel room. LOL. And we CAN'T have that! :)

I still think the drawers on the dressers might need another coat of paint but we'll see. I'm not in a hurry to work with high gloss paint again any time soon!