2019 Project List

There's been so many projects on my mind for so long. We are coming up on our two year anniversary of owning this home and I think its high time we get some of these things checked off. So, for 2019 my plan is this:

Paint the kitchen cabinets
If you've followed me for any amount of time you know that I've been wanting to repaint these cabinets since day one. Every time I think I'm getting ready to do it something holds me back, right now, its the weather. We plan to use a paint sprayer to speed up the process and right now its too cold to do that so come spring I'm gonna be checking this one off.

Replace the blinds with bamboo shades
I am one of those people that makes decisions quickly. Sometimes thats a good thing, other times it bites me in the butt. Before we moved in I thought I wanted bamboo shades, I even sent away for several samples but non matched the hardwoods well so I gave up and went with white and I have regret it every day since. This year though, the blinds are coming down and the woven shades are going up!

Replace the rest of the counter tops.
If you remember, back in September we replaced the kitchen counters with a gorgeous calacatta formica and I want to replace the bathrooms (2 full 1 half) and the laundry room with the same kind.

New flooring in the guest bathroom
I'm hoping to try my hand at some peel and stick tiles in here!

Re-organized the garage and add more storage
When we first moved in we coated the floors, built a work bench and peg board and shelving and it looked ok. Since then, however, we removed the peg board because it wasn't functional for us, bought a huge tool box and started storing way too much junk in here. We're getting it cleaned out though, and we're coming up with better storage solutions in the process

Decorate the front porch
I love my rocking chairs out front but basically that's it. I want to spruce up the landscaping with some pretty lavender bushes, add a new table, some seat cushions maybe, I'm not quite sure what I want yet but I'm working on it!

Of course there's going to be lots of little projects in the meantime so check back soon!

---Jackie

Dining Room Makeover

Ive been wanting to add some sort of chair rail or board and batten on the two window walls but I couldnt picture what it'd look like so I grabbed a roll of painters tape and went to town creating a plan.

When Zack got home the next day I had him help me frame out the windows with baseboard trim and add 1x4 MDF boards around the walls.

Then, I painted the lower half of the wall Valspar Swiss Coffee

About a week later I decided I really did want to add the vertical boards for a more board and batten look so I picked up some simple flat trim from Lowes. I marked all my studs and then cut the trim to fit

After everything was attached with the nail gun I caulked the seams and filled the holes and did a quick coat of paint.

Im hoping to replace the blinds fairly soon and then this will be another project off the list!

---Jackie

Living Room Progress

Theres been some progress being made around here lately and its getting me all giddy that the projects will be wrapping up soon. The new sofa was delievered and we are really enjoying having all the space to stretch out. We went with this one from Furniture Row

I purchased these pillowcases from Aki Home when we were on vacation in California and turned them into couch pillows, which I am really diggin.

Source

We also got around to building the new coffee table.  I envisioned so many different types of tables for this space. I wanted something industrial but also rustic too. I loved these options from Restoration Hardware...

And these from Arhaus....

Ultimately, I landed on one super similar to the last one that was in here just without the bottom shelf, lower to the ground and with wider planks, kinda like this one from Rejuvenation.

Zack built the frame out of 2x2 decking wood and I spray painted it Rustoleum Hammered Black to give it a metal like appearance.

Then I stained the wood and we attached them with our nail gun.

Next on our to do list: Paint the fireplace and get a rug. I cannot wait to get the painting done! Its going to have the biggest impact on the space. We are planning to paint the fireplace white and replace the grey/white tile with simple subway tiles.  Its going to be so good.


---Jackie

New Counters Are In

The moment we stepped foot in this house the first thing I thought was how amazing the kitchen was, but also how dark it was. I imagined some marble counters and white cabinets and open shelves and now, almost two years later, the only thing that changed was the lighting. But today its all starting to come together. I talked about our new Formica 180fx counters in a post a couple weeks ago and they were finally installed yesterday! Im not going to waste time talking about it, you have to see these beauties for yourself.

Before

After

You may have also noticed that the cabinet arrangement on the back wall changed (and one cabinet is different color than the others). We decided that, for backsplash purposes, it would look weird run it up around the cabinets on one wall but only under the cabinets on another wall. We also feel that these small cabinets dont get a lot of use from us because of their size so, we purchased a 3ft cabinet that will fit perfectly and allow for all the cabinets to be on one wall and give us more functional space. Confused? Heres the before of that area...

And after we removed the three cabinets...

And after the new 3ft cabinet was installed...

So much better right? And once we paint the cabinets you wont even be able to tell the color was ever different and,when we get around to doing the backsplash it'll run countertop to  ceiling on the window wall and countertop to bottom of cabinet on the stove wall which we think will look much better.

I am so motivated to get those cabinets painted now. I originally though white uppers and grey lowers but I think now we're going with the green lowers, white uppers and a white island. Stay tuned!!

--Jackie

Zacks Office Reveal

We finished up Zacks office fairly quickly. If you remember, we need to add a peg board, a desk and shelf combo, paint the wall and add new curtains. Not too much work at all and Zack did 80% of it. This is how the room looked as we started.

Then, Zack build a wood frame with 1x3 and attached it to the studs.

We had the begboard cut to 3'x6' pieces at Home Depot and we screwed those into the frame.

Next, I painted the accent wall (and the pegboard) my new FAVORITE color, Behr Gladiator Gray. When I proposed a green accent wall I thought Zack would fight me on it but he loved the idea and hes the one that ended up finding this amazing color that I am now putting all over my house, so kudos to him.

Next, Zack build the desk top using a 20in wide by 7 foot long piece of edge glued pine. He used 1x3 inch strips of pine to add an edge all the way around it. The shelf is an 8in x 7 ft piece of pine with 1x2 inch pine trim around it. He screwed them into the studs and stained the whole thing Minwax English Chestnut.

We wanted to use pipe legs for the desk and shelf but couldnt find a place (HD and Lowes wouldnt do it) that would cut and thread them for us so we actually made our own out of dowl rods,floor flanges. I spray painted them Rustoleum Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze and Zack attached them to the desk and shelf with screws.

All we had left was to decorate which Zack gave me full rein of.
Check out the after:

Zack is so happy he finally has a space to sit down and enjoy his hobbies and I'm happy everything has a place and is organized. I dont think it could have turned out any better!

---Jackie