Started the Master Bedroom Floor Today!

We started putting down the wood flooring down in our room today. It took a lot of prep work to get the planks ready to go down. Al removed all of the old rusty nails from the planks and we scrubbed down all of the planks then waited for them to dry out. We are doing the floors the old-fashioned way-hammers and nails-since we don't have the type of nailer used for flooring. But we are enjoying the process and envisioning the finished product. It's very satisfying to get a major project going since it has been a while since we have done anything to our house.



This is what we have done so far and still have much more to put down. It will be so worth it when it's all down, sanded, and finished!

Eva

Thrift Finds for Jenna's Room

My Mom and I went to Goodwill on Monday and I found some cute things for Jenna's room.

I found this cute mirror.

And this picture frame.

My favorite find was this Ralph Lauren twin-sized bed skirt. I LOVE the colors! I chose a soft pink called Pink Sunrise for the walls.

Our cat, Lily, has to be in the middle of everything I'm doing!

One of my favorite parts of summer is when the chicory blooms between July and September. I love the color of these flowers-exactly like the color of cornflowers!

Eva

Salvaged Wood for our Bedroom

Al finally got all of the wood planks up and our 2 oldest sons, Zach and Austin, stacked it on our back porch. We still have to pull out all of the old nails before we can put it down in our bedroom. After we get it down we will sand it then finish it.

I got the notion to get a plank and sand the old varnish off half of it (see pic below.)

Here is the sanded half again....

I had some Minwax Oak Provencial stain from an old project and decided to stain the sanded portion to see how it would look.

I let the stain set for about 15 minutes and wiped it off.

I will probably try a darker stain as well to see how that will look.

All in all I think the floor is going to turn out beautifully. Can't wait to get started on it!

Eva

Wildflowers

My hubby, kids, and I went for a walk yesterday and I picked a bunch of pretty wildflowers. Just wanted to share some photos of them with you.









The cornflowers and tigerlillys are starting to bloom here. I hope to get some nice pictures of them this weekend. Speaking of weekend, hope you all have a great one!

Eva

Simple, Pretty Rooms

I was looking online today for some cottage inspiration and came across some rooms that I like.

I like the white cabinets and the farmhouse sink in this one. The three white pitchers are so pretty.

Again, I love the white cabinets and white accessories. I'm not sure if I like the blue shade though.

This room looks so cozy and inviting. Love everything about this one.

I like mix of textures and materials in kitchen. It isn't fancy at all but I think it's beautiful in its simplicity.

The only thing I would change about this bedroom is the small side table. I like the size and the height of the table but I would prefer wood weathered to a soft taupe/gray, or with white, chippy paint ( and a lamp for reading at night.)

This bedroom is simple, sparse, and very clean looking to me. I love the light color palette and the bedding.

Hubby is still working on taking weekend. up the rest of the hardwood flooring next door. Tomorrow will be the last day because the owners will be demolishing what's left of the foundation this weekend.

Goodnight all.

Eva

White and Distressed!

I am becoming seriously obsessed with the color white. Below is a picture of my mantle that I took today-the picture looks a little wonky. I painted the
candlesticks white and lightly distressed them. I found the cute little bird on the right at a thrift store. It was an orange-y color and I painted it white and distressed it as well. Please forgive the picture quality.

I found these at Goodwill today.

They were sage green with a black glaze and probably would have been fine as they were. But I decided to (you guessed it) paint them white and distress them!


Another pic of them.

There was a house next door to us that was at least 50 years old. You can see it in the pic above, behind Jenna and Ian. This was taken about a couple of weeks ago.

This is what's left of the house. The owners are going to build an A-frame cabin toward the back, behind where the dumpster is sitting. The house itself couldn't be salvaged due to a crumbling foundation and extensive termite damage.

The whole house, aside from the bathroom, had tongue-in-groove oak hardwood floors throughout. One of the owners, who is a friend of ours, told us we could have whatever we could salvage of the hardwood floors so we are going to try to get enough to do our bedroom.

This is what we have so far. Still a lot more floor to take up!



A couple of pics of some of the floor boards. I am so excited to be able to use this in our bedroom!

Happy Monday everyone!

Eva

Makeover

My mom and I went to get our hair cut Monday. My hair has always been short but I wanted to go even SHORTER!

BEFORE

AFTER

I love it! My husband loves it, too. My 6-year-old son said, "Don't worry Mama, it'll grow back."

Eva

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part II

Welcome to my second installment of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". Below are a couple of closeups of my kitchen cabinets. These are a laminate finish over particle board which, in my opinion and experience, are not the sturdiest of surfaces for a kitchen or bathroom.

Notice the wear around the edges of the cabinet door. Most of the doors in my kitchen look like this.

See the worn area behind the knob? Again, most of my cabinet doors look like this. I'm not sure if it is from my scrubbing them or what I use to clean them with, which is Mr. Clean or Pine Sol mixed with water.

This is the second bathroom. I've removed the trim from around the doors and tub and put up paintable wallpaper. I don't think I like the blue though. I am going to paint it a neutral color. This is just a temporary fix until we get around to remodeling this room. The door you see in this picture opens to the laundry room.

The door to the hallway is to the left and the door to the laundry room is to my right. The tub is behind me.

The "chrome finish" plastic faucet is cracked and the plastic sink is scratched, stained, and basically horrible-looking!

This is the master bedroom. Right now it is the master of horror! The size is good though and it gets good light.

Another pic. The door you see opens to the master bath and there is another door beside it, to the left, that opens to our closet.

This picture was taken in my room as well. I took one of the strips down and you can see how wide and deep the gaps between the wall panels are. Some are even wider! It is almost impossible to fill these gaps and sand them in order to paint the walls and get great results.

Our room again. The carpet in here was awful! After 3 years of living here all the carpet in the house looked like it was 20 years old. I ripped out the carpet in our room about 2 years ago and just put a coat of porch paint on the subfloor to make do until we redo this room.

The batteries in my camera ran out before I could take pictures of my bathroom and the boys' room. I will have to take those and post them tomorrow. So I guess that means there will be a part III!
Until tomorrow-good night all!

Eva

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" Part I

I love where I live and I like the floor plan of my house. The interior leaves a lot to be desired and I wish that we had an extra bedroom and an office. The main thing though is LOCATION. The rest can be changed.
I took a few pictures of my house today. About a year after we moved in, I decided that I was going to take down the vertical strips that cover the gaps where the wallboard panels meet, fill the gaps in with drywall mud, and prime and paint the walls. I have done that in the rooms you are about to see. I am not very satisfied with the results though. Some of the seams that I did were up to an inch wide and very hard to get filled and sanded evenly with the rest of the wallboard. Some of the walls have a "wavy" appearance. So we are going to be installing drywall in every room now. We also installed laminate flooring in the living room, dining room, and family room.

Kitchen pic I. This room will be totally gutted. I hate the laminate cabinets! The flourescent light fixture above the island has got to go!

Kitchen pic II. I like the windows here. I usually keep some plants here but my 2-year-old likes to play in the potting soil.

Excuse the panel of sheetrock leaning against the wall. We are going to replace the window with a set of French doors.

Living room pic I. I see something under the couch.

Living room pic II. There is nothing cottage about this room.

Living room pic III. The china cabinet I have yet to paint.

Family room. My plants are on top of the entertainment center. I think the big TV and entertainment center will go when we remodel and be replaced with built-in bookshelves. I like the wainscotting in this room but when we redo this room I will probably allow hubby to put in the unfinished tongue-in-groove paneling he wants. As long as I can give it a nice whitewash!

This concludes part I of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". It will get worse I promise. Come back for more pictures tomorrow-if you dare!

Eva