House Goals Progress

This post is going to be a bit random, but I wanted to fill you in on some progress we've made on our house goals in the last couple of weeks.  I'm not sure how interior decorating is supposed to work, but I always had a vision, most likely from the countless hours I've spent watching HGTV, that it went room by room, in a very orderly controlled manner.  My mind does not really think that way, it's a bit more scattered, so it makes sense that we haven't progressed that way at all.  Plus, in trying to keep with my goal of choosing intentional items that have meaning and are unique, not things I just pick up at Home Goods because I want to get the room over and done with, I've been taking my time and as me and Shelly see things we like, we order them for this room or that. 

Because of my somewhat scattered way of thinking, Shelly had the idea of just going in phases instead of trying to get everything done at once.  Phase 1 consisted of ordering bar stools, fabric for throw pillows in the family room, lighting for the dining room and pendant lighting for above the bar area.  Phase 2 will consist of ordering a dining room table and an area rug for the family room and dining room. My budget for the area rugs is making it quite interesting to find something we like, but I'll be patient because I know it's out there.

Shelly chose this fabric,it's Hot House Flowers in Spark and Bleecker in Spark, both from Schmacher.  I wasn't in love with the floral at first, but after taking home a huge swatch for a couple of days its boldness started to grow on me and with the contrasting graphic, I figure it would help it not be so "old ladyish".  I now love it and can't wait to make some toss pillows.  I have to admit I felt very fancy when she called and said my fabric was in.  I've never had 'fabric come in'.  "Dahling, you're fabric is in."  I'm such a dork. 

This is the area rug for the living room to help break up all the red tones.  It's got gold and silver leather and suede weaving in and out.  It's amazing.  I've never loved an area rug so much.  Now to just put it in place...

These are the pendant lights she found for above the bar area.  They were a steal, well under $100 each and they are the absolute perfect size for the low ceiling. 

Two will hang here and replace that silly recessed light that rotates and provides minimal lighting. 

The bar stools are on back order and so the kids have been having to eat on the counter.  Really I don't make them eat here, I swear.  But for the last couple of weeks they've been eating here every morning, it's the weirdest thing.  It's like it had never occurred to them that it was a place to eat until they heard us talk about ordering bar stools so they could eat there.  It's quite unsanitary but I do clean it really well after they get down ;)   

The biggest progress has been made in the garage though.  After tearing into the paneling, Art discovered termites, so we had them spray 2 weeks ago.  They suggested we don't drywall for a couple of weeks to let the treatment seep in, so in the mean time Art epoxyd the floors.  This is what they looked like before.

The epoxy process is quite simple.  You first wash down the floors with an acid treatment to get them primed for the epoxy.  Then you just roll the epoxy on with a paint brush and sprinkle on little flecks to give it a more professional, finished look.

Art working hard rolling away

The kids took turns sprinkling

And this is a glimpse of what it looks like when complete.  They're not the greatest pictures so I apologize, but the idea is just to get a more uniform looking floor.

You still see some of the cracks in the concrete, but there's no more stains or blotches showing through like before.  The kit for a double garage is $100 at the Home Depot and it took about 4 hours of prep work and about 3 hours of painting/sprinkling.  We've had friends have this done professionally and it runs about $1000 so we saved ourselves quite a bit of cash by doing it ourselves. 

And so that is where we are at my friends.  This weekend Art will start to hang drywall and I will be a very good supervisor :)

I'm linking up to Jules' William Morris Project because with the little reminder to "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful", we're on our way to creating a home we both love and find functional.  Thanks Jules, and thanks Mr. Morris :)

Closet Organization

Last week I posted my home goals for 2012, and while quite lofty, it was nice to get some encouragement that maybe it is possible to achieve most, if not all of those goals this year.  Thank you all so much for that.  In the last week we've made some progress on a few of those goals including:

• ordered an area rug for the living room space - it ships soon, I am giddy with anticipation
• ordered our barstools and pendant lighting to create a functional 2nd eating area in our house
• continued work on the garage, only to discover we have a termite problem that is being treated today

So while we've made some progress on making decisions, nothing is quite yet complete so I thought I'd talk a bit about the kid's closet systems that I showed you last week.  I had a few friends email me with several questions about how they work and cost, etc, so hopefully this is somewhat helpful.

After doing a lot of research online and in store, we found that the best quality and most customizable DIY system was from Martha Stewart for Home Depot's line.  We loved that the lining came almost all the way to the ground, creating that true custom look, there were endless configurations available, 3 different color choices to choose from, and the cost was mid range; not as high as custom closets, but not so cheap you doubt their quality.  We first designed each closet online with their awesome design tool.

You begin by choosing your closet type, either walk in or reach in, and then enter the width of your closet.  It spits out a design that they think would be right for your space (coincidentally their design is also the most expensive, but that's okay, they're trying to upsell).  You can see the price for each design in the bottom left hand corner.

The drawers are quite nice, but since each kid has their own big chest of drawers, we deleted the drawers and went with more shelving.  We also did some adjustments to the type of hanging configuration we wanted.

This is essentially what the closets each look like, but we wanted to add one of those nifty laundry baskets to our design, so we went to add accessories.

That laundry basket added $50 to the total, but still within budget and it's probably the feature we love the most, so well worth it.

When your design is complete, you simply click on the Kits Needed tab to show you a list of all the items you will need, which you can print up to take to the store and shop, or you can order online and shipping is free.  The espresso pieces are all available in store, but most of the white pieces were only available online for some reason.

Syd's closet was the first one Art installed and because the walls weren't quite plumb, he had to add some shims, which took a bit more time.  Installation on Syd's closet was about 6 hours total from start to finish.

Taylor's closet went much quicker and only took about 3 hours.  Both closets though did require some cutting with a standard table saw, so beware, depending on the size of your space, some cutting will most likely be involved. 

As a frame of reference, this is what Taylor's closet looked like before the installation:

The bars were not functional for a kid's wardrobe, with not enough bottom hanging space that she could reach.  The shelves were spaced very far apart as well, so not maximizing all the available space.

And after:

Shelves are perfectly spaced apart for maximum storage space

and shoes fit perfectly in a row, with some room for her growing feet

our favorite part of the entire system, eliminating the need for a big bulky hamper we previously had

tip: if you have a young girl, get one of these to avoid the tangled masses of jewelry.  I picked up this one at Marshall's, and while not the cutest in the world, it was cheap and functional, saving me hours of having to untangle necklaces she collects from goody bags and craft projects.

Syd's closet is in the espresso wood and is just beautiful.  He has a lot less "stuff" so his shelves allow us to actually display some things, and yes, they always look like this (NO!).   But for the most part, Syd's room is able to stay a lot cleaner than Taylor's. 

So there you have it.  I know it sounds like I'm trying to sell you on this, but we just really love how they came out and how customizable they were.  Art loved how easy they were to install.  A win-win for both of us, which is a plus for our marriage ;)

I'm linking up with Jules for her William Morris series