Renovating for the Lazy

Before we bought Sarah, I was obsessed with home renovation shows. I pretty much watch them all. It probably started with Trading Spaces and evolved from there. I love pretty much everything on the DIY Network, HGTV, and even the classic This Old House which made Bob Vila a household name.

With the advancement of technology came websites to entertain me with renovation ideas: Pinterest, Etsy, Better Homes and Gardens, Houzz, and my new favorite Hometalk. If you've never visited Hometalk, it's similar to Pinterest and Houzz, where you can have idea boards with links to stuff you like. The difference is that it's almost all idea boards that include instructions on how to do things for home renovations. They link to blogs that show you what they do and explain how to achieve similar results.

I decided to tackle a project. I chose the window seat in our bedroom.

I did two things to our window seat area. My first project was to trim the curtains to the right height. I'm not a great seamstress but with help from my handy-dandy-sewing-machine I was able to bring the bottoms of the curtains up to the point where they just brushed the bottom of the bench.

 Here's a picture showing the great storage that the window seat has hidden under the trap door. We keep all of our bed linens and extra blankets there. The colors are all washed out because I'm shooting these in direct sunlight. Paint is actually white and the front of the bench is a very light grey.

The second part of my window seat renovation was to build a seat cushion to cover the trap door and the painted wood (which p.s. my kids had painted with permanent markers - the little sweeties). I found several tutorials online but I went with a no-sew bench cushion. Here is a tutorial if you want to know how I did my bench cushion.  

And if you're curious, here is what the bottom of the cushion looks like using the no-sew method. I really liked this method because the cushion fits perfectly into the space. It's a little snug so that my kids can't get under the bench and get out all of the blankets (and make a huge mess). And see - the wall in front of the bench is light grey, not black like the previous pictures looks like.

 Here is a view from the side, so you can hopefully see what it looks like in my room.

And finally, here's a close-up of the fabric and Kitty (yes, so original, we named our cat Kitty) I guess she wanted to get in on the action and hopped up on the bench while I was trying to take these pictures.

So Long and Thanks (for all the Fish)

For those of you not geeky or nerdy enough to recognize the title of this blog post may I introduce you to one of my favorite movies. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest movies and is based on a great book series of the same name.



On a semi-related note, my dear grandmother died in May. She left our family all of her possessions, including trying to give us her fish tank filled with guppies, which my father dropped of at a Petsmart since none of us kids wanted them.

We have been greatly blessed, however, to receive many great items: from family heirlooms, costume jewelry, to furniture. Sarah is now filled with vintage pieces from the 1950's and beyond.  We got end tables, dressers, desks, a rocker love-seat, and two upholstered chairs. I've been doing a lot of research on dying and painting furniture. I think I've decided to the chairs using chalk paint. Here's a great tutorial that I found on using chalk paint on velvet.

Step one, for me was to remove the dust skirt. That's all I've done so far, and I must say that I'm quite pleased with the results so far. I am a big fan of large pieces of furniture and clean lines. 

I've decide that I'm going to do one chair at a time, instead of both chairs at once so that I can show the progress of the transformation. This should be fun, stay tuned for the progress and final transformation of my Grandmother's chairs.

So long Grandma, and thanks (for all the furniture).

Old School is the New School

I've got some exciting news that I would like to share. And, let me get this out of the way first - No, I'm not pregnant.

I will be attending school next fall at Idaho State University in Pocatello. It's been a long time coming. I have thought a lot about what I want to do with my life and what kind of person I want to be. I have been seeing a therapist and I feel like now is finally the right time for me to go forward in obtaining my bachelor's degree. I got my Associate's from BYU-I way back in 2002. I was looking at getting a second Associates degree to become a drafter and found out that I could transfer almost all of my credits and get a Bachelor's of Applied Science!

I feel like this is the perfect degree for me. I have a sister who got her Bachelor's in Technical Writing and I have a brother who Minored in Graphic Design for his Bachelor's degree. AutoCAD strikes a balance between the two. I will be able to create blueprints and 3D models for engineers, architects, construction and more. I have taken several graphic design classes and I know my way around Photoshop and several other computer programs. I think that this would be such a great specialty for me to pursue.

I have been praying and fasting about this decision for a month or two and I had some of my husband's family over (interesting side fact about my husband's family - he was adopted as an infant. He's both the youngest of 17 kids and the oldest of 4 kids) for dinner a few weeks ago. One of my sister-in-law's was discussing the new home that she is building and how their architect couldn't do the drafting so they had to have it outsourced. There is only one draftsman in town capable of doing the work and he is so back-loaded that they might have to go all the way down to Provo to find a company to do the blueprints for their home.

I had never considered becoming a draftsman (draftswoman?) before but we talked about how fun it is to see an idea become something more tangible when it's drawn up and you can visualize it - like on Property Brothers and other renovation shows. I have loved renovating our home and considered going to school for interior design but there are no programs near where we live and I felt like the job opportunities for interior design would be very limited and sparse. I considered the Construction Management degree from my Alma Mater, but I'm honestly not that interested in becoming a manager or general contractor. I continued to search the internet and looking at all the programs that my local colleges had to offer. When I stumbled upon the "Computer Aided Design Drafting Technology" page on the ISU website, I felt immediately excited and nervous.

I have a meeting with the programs recruiter and another one with a college adviser tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Mud Room Musings

We have a small entry hall in the back of the house that is just off the driveway. We currently have hooks hanging on the walls and I would like build a mud room bench and some shelves to go along with the current hooks.

We store all of our coats, jackets, hats, gloves, car keys, and shoes in this area so it needs to be functional as well as cute. I am looking for 3 main things: a bench with shoe storage beneath it, shelving or cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling, and beadboard backing with hanging hooks,

Below are some ideas that I have been collecting from the internet on what I want my mudroom to look like and how I want it to function.

1. This little beauty is probably the most simple to accomplish what we need with what we want. It has basic straight lines and we could do it with shelf brackets and just store the shoes in baskets under the bench.

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2. This is one of my favorite ones. I think that the colors of the knobs are stinking adorable. I like the way that the bench curves around the wall. This one is about the same size as what we could make. Plus we could extend the cabinet all the way to the ceiling and add a second row of hooks without it getting too crowded.

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3. This is another one that  is pretty cute. It's got the beadboard and the shelf goes all the way to the top, like  I want ours to do. I like separated partitions on the tip that match the separations on teh bottom.

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4. This one is cute. The height of the shelf would be easy to add a second row for hats, purses, and the like. I like that it has legit drawers instead of open bin space.

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5. This would be my ideal bottom bench if we can figure out how to build it. It looks like it might be a bit more complex to make than some of the things above. I really like the storage for the shoes and the small drawers for putting mittens and hats in. I plan on making a cushion to go with the bench and this demonstrates what that might look like.

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6. This next one shows what it might look like if we had a second row of hooks on the mud room wall. I also like the partitioned shelves on the top (and the fact that they go all the way to the ceiling). As of right now, the hubby thinks that looks too complicated to build, but I think we could do it. Youtube baby.

Let me know in the comments what you think, or if you find something that you think I might like but haven't thought of yet.

Where do we go from here?

I love fixing up our little-old-farmhouse. It was built in 1904 and there was a small expansion done in the late 60's so there's a lot to do. But, things are going well with the house. We still have some things to do to the interior but I'm excited because we've started to improve the exterior this summer. We are doing some landscaping, painting, building a french drain around the back of the house, and building a deck/patio for the sliding door that we installed in the back room last summer. 

There used to be a small window that looked onto the back yard and no easy access to the back yard. You had to walk out of the side door and around the fence to the gate in order to get into the back yard. And the room was tiny and had a tiny window. We knocked out the wall between that room and the laundry room and made a large laundry/office room and took out the tiny window and replaced it with a 6-ft wide sliding door which adds a ton of natural light and makes the whole house flow much better with the outside. 

The  new sliding door opens straight onto the grass as of right now so we're installing a wood deck at the ground level. We have to install a french drain to keep the water out because the back room was originally built on the house's original patio, so the room is right at ground level. Our whole house has a fenced yard surrounding it, and we are going to install a fence to separate the front yard from the back yard this summer too. 

We have plans to paint a lot of the wood on the exterior of the house because the paint has chipped badly and we are afraid if we don't do something that the wood will rot. We are going to refinish our front porch because the ceiling is starting to collapse in one part. I think when we get to that repair we are going to install a porch swing. 

We have plans to build some planting boxes to do some gardening in the backyard as well as build a sand box under one of the trees in the yard. We put down grass seed last fall, but the grass hasn't grown very well so we're going to re-seed the lawn again. 

Our bathroom (the house only has one) was partially remodeled when we bought the house but when we painted the whole house, we somehow didn't get the bathroom painted so we still need to paint it. We are going to make some little built-in shelves above the toilet to give ourselves a little more storage. We want to replace the mirror with something more decorative and we want to make a small set of drawers to extend the counters. 

We have a small entry hall in the back of the house that I want to convert into a mud room with a little bench with shoe storage, shelves, and lockers. We have a good-sized detached garage but it has manual garage doors. 

Next year (hopefully) we will install new automatic garage doors, or at least get new mechanisms for the old garage doors. 

We want to install some beadboard or wainscoting in the living room and kitchen. We also want to put in crown molding in the bedrooms. 

Our bedroom has a window seat that I want to make a cushion for. I've bought the fabric and want to make a cushion for the window seat, some throw pillows for our living room and then a cushion for the bench that we plan on making for the mud room. We're kind of attempting to have the same color scheme in every room for a more polished look to the home. 

We've done a lot to make the home nice, but I feel like there's so much more to do before it's the home that I have envisioned in my mind. We've been lucky. The house was a foreclosure in disrepair so we got a good deal in it. We paid $76,000 for the home but before any repairs the home was valued at $95,000. We've invested about $12,000 into the home since we bought it (replacing the furnace was the most expensive thing we've done so far) the home has been estimated to be worth about $110,000 to $120,000. So, it's been worth all of the work because of the return we will get on the house when we sell it.

It's the Little Things

One of the things that I recently did was put up some pictures in my bedroom. This may not seem like much to some people, but for me it was a big project. So, I had my mother help me tackle it. We printed out a lot of pictures that have been taken of my family over the past year or so. I realized that I had no idea how I wanted to hang the pictures so I searched online until I found a layout that I liked. I actually found 2 layouts that I liked, and since I had a ton of pictures, I decided to do both of them, on 2 different walls of my bedroom.  Then, we went to the dollar store and found a bunch of frames - because, hey, I'm cheap like that. I found 2 different frames that I liked, one size was an 8x10 and the other was 8x8. There weren't enough of the 8x8 frames, but we have several dollar stores in town so I went to each one looking for the exact same frames. They had plenty in brown but the black ones were like finding a needle in a haystack. When I finally got enough for my project, wouldn't you know it, ended up stepping on one and breaking the glass! After another rush to the dollar store, I was ready to hang my photos. I decided to hang the larger gallery picture display above my headboard and the smaller display next to my mirror on the wall by the door. I had my father come over and help me hang the pictures because it's a two-person job. We used command strips (which are a total life-saver and I cannot recommend enough if you're going to do a similar project) to hang all the frames on the wall. One person would hold the picture and the other person would hold the ruler and level so that we could get everything perfectly done. I really like the final result. They turned out better than I thought. The command strips made it so easy to hang in the right spot and they made it so they don't swing or move and get off-kilter like they would if we would have used just nails.

Breaking Walls and Building Dreams

As I mentioned in my previous post, we bought Sarah in July last year. We have done a lot of remodeling to the home since it was purchased. Here is a list of all the things that we've done so far, hopefully, I will be able to put pictures in another post for your viewing pleasure.

• Took down wallpaper - ugly 1970's wallpaper.
• With the help of a contractor, we tore down a wall between the laundry room and "third bedroom". I write it with quotes because it was just a small craft room off of the laundry room that had a cabinet taken out of the laundry room and put into the small yellow room so that the realtor could call it a third bedroom. The house is actually a 2 bedroom house. We combined the craft room with the laundry room to make a larger room which we call the "command center". It's part office, laundry room, and kids play area.
• Took out a broken window in the back of the house and installed a 6' sliding-glass door in it's place. This door looks AWESOME in our command center and it makes the backyard so much easier for my children to access. Before, we would have to go in the driveway and around to fence to get to the gate to get into the backyard.
• Took the siding from off the back of the house to install glass door. then used excess siding from where the door went to patch a random door on the side of the house that went to nowhere from the previous home-owners' remodel. Took the door off and patched the siding. The door went onto our front door as a screen door.
• Painted the interior. Lots and lots of painting. Every room in the house and every closet (except for the bathroom which we will update in the future). We painted every ceiling and all the trim as well as patched holes in the walls.
• Installed fencing along the back of the house, which is against a field. In this field there is a cell tower, a gravel quarry, and an active train track line.
• Removed the old clunky, red-flagged by the gas company for being outdated and dangerous, furnace. Replaced said furnace with a brand-spanking-new 95% efficiency gas furnace. Apparently, it will pay for itself in the energy savings within 10 years of owning it. Plus, it keeps our house oh-so-warm in the cold winter months.
• Removed all the old STINKY carpet.
• Replaced said carpet with new laminate wood flooring for every room in the house (except the bathroom). It took a log time but was well worth the effort. Installing the wood flooring really helped to recapture the farmhouse feel that we were going for.
• We had to do a lot of electrical work to replace the knob and tube wiring. Plus move some light sockets to better locations, add electrical outlets to rooms that needed more than 1 socket in the room. We added a cadet heater and thermostat in the "command center" because of the remodel. It had horribly inefficient wall heaters before that needed to be replaced.
• We switched out a lot of the lighting for new and updated lighting. We installed LED lights and a ceiling fan in the command center. We changed out the light for a modern lamp in the mud room. We put in a pendant light above the sink in the kitchen, and we added flood lights in the back yard next to the sliding door.

This house has been a labor of love over the past 10 months that we've been home owners. We've done a lot of work to make it livable, but we want to do more that just live here. We want to excel here.