Bedroom Closet Before/After

Total Cost:

$0 - Everything we already had... paint, hooks, shelves, hangers, boxes... I like this kind of project :)

Hand Prints and Lemonade

Today was the first nice day in about 2 weeks. It has been raining and cloudy every.single.day. Which has been good and bad. Good because I sit down at my laptop and work all day. Bad because I haven't been able to get any painting in.

I decided to paint the Twilight Room closet because it is a huge closet where I could be storing all of my excess office supplies, which are still in boxes. It took me almost all morning to clear out the boxes from the area, and then clean the closet (vacuuming and Clorox wiping). 

I then put two coats of Kilz 2 Primer on the walls, door, shelf and ceiling. I used two coats because the dark colors of the hand prints showed through very clearly through only one coat. And there were hand prints everywhere! The Kilz also took care of the weird smell that the closet had (I'm assuming it's from being shut for so long).

Once that dried, I painted the shelves, trim and ceiling with my favorite white paint. For the walls I used Benjamin Moore Lemonade, which we had leftover from our apartment painting days (same as the other rooms... paint calculator told us to get 2 cans, we didn't even use half of one can). I normally would have painted closet walls white, but I had more yellow paint than white, so I figured I might as well use it. It means that if we ever change the wall color I'll have to paint the closet as well, but hey, it's yellow. It'll cover easily. It wasn't easy painting a 7' tall, 23" deep closet, with a 14" shelf and a lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling. My neck and arms were killing me by the end of the day and I was covered in paint.

I was very happy with how it came out. The yellow looks much better here than it did in the apartment. Less neon-y. And it definitely looks a lot better than the hand prints!

Mirror Refurbished

The previous owner left the mirror in the upstairs bathroom. It was old and ugly.. stained brown, with the wood chipping and peeling from being in the bathroom for so long. And the back was covered in paper, which was disintegrating. But, we needed a mirror in there.

I found one at Ikea that I liked and that matched the glass shelf and candle holders in the bathroom (the picture is the shelf, not the mirror... apparently they discontinued the mirror. It was only $20 though). However, when we were actually in the store, R hated it. Not sure why. He just did. So I didn't buy it. That was months ago. The mirror had been taken off the wall when I was painting and rather than hang it back up (and resign to the fact that it was staying), we had it propped up on the counter.

Back in December I tried painting it white, just to see what it would look like. With a coat of primer and a coat of paint, the stain still bled through. And you could see the cracking. It looked horrible. So now rather than just an ugly mirror, we have an ugly mirror that is half painted white.

Finally I had had enough of it. The rest of the bathroom is done except for the stupid mirror. I took it outside, put newspaper and painters tape over the glass and spray painted it black. And I have to say, I love how it came out! It looks almost identical to the Hemnes mirror from Ikea, which I liked, but was $50.

Laundry Room Before and After

Finished Laundry Room

I think this will be my cheapest room makeover in the entire house. And that's mainly thanks to the major discount I got on the wall paint. Originally $35, on sale for $5. As long as you're willing to be flexible, there are amazing paint discounts you can get!

Washer - $0 (given to me by a former client)
Dryer - $0 (given to me by a former client)
Wall Paint - $2.50 (the other half of the paint will be used in the upstairs Hall)  

White Paint - $0 (I had some leftover from other rooms)
Cabinet Knobs - $3

Rug - $0 (was in our Master Bathroom in our apartment, but didn't fit in this bathroom) 

Iron/Ironing Board Holder - $0 (I bought this about 3 years ago and we never got around to hanging it up in our apartment. I love having somewhere to put the ironing board and iron now.. they always seemed to get in the way!)

Yup. A $5.50 complete room transformation. The new cabinet knobs match the ones in the bathroom (because the cabinets also match). The washer and dryer were very generously given to us by clients of mine. We were remodeling their house and part of the remodel involved relocating their washer/dryer to the finished basement (as opposed to in the middle of the Kitchen where they had been). But to conserve space, we decided to go with a stack-able unit. Which meant that they had no use for their old washer and dryer. When they heard that we finally closed on the house, they asked if we needed a washer and dryer. At the time, we were just going to use my parent's or the ones in the basement. But who could pass up free appliances! And ones that were only a couple years old? The only catch was that we had to pick them up that weekend because demolition was starting Monday. More good luck... we already had the UHaul reserved to move out of our apartment. So all we had to do was make a quick trip down to Deep River to get them!

The wall cabinet is a huge help. It has three shelves, so I'm able to store household essentials and additional cleaning supplies in there. There's room for all of our backup laundry detergent and fabric softener, dusting supplies, Febreze, lightbulbs, laundry supplies, etc. If you know me, you know I have a lot of cleaning supplies... And they all fit in here!

Fabric Bulletin Board

Have a bulletin board that needs a quick remodel? We had two. When we were young, my mom made bulletin boards for my sister and me. She bought just your average bulletin board and painted them with our name and some pictures (I had hearts and my sister had flowers). As amazing as the bulletin board is, it just didn't fit in our new house. Plus, R had a plain (boring) bulletin board from his room at home. It looks, well, like it lived in a boy's room for 20-odd years. It was not pretty. But I can't just throw stuff away. So from apartment to apartment it sat in the closet. Then when I remodeled my office, I realized that the two walls on either side of the windows would be perfect for matching bulletin boards. But they'd need to match. And both be hung horizontally (the one my mom made had to be hung vertically). So in about an hour I transformed them.

The first step was to fine something to cover the cork with. To save some money, I first decided to look through fabric I already had and hope to God that I had something that not only matched the walls but also would fit both boards. I tried a couple different colors, but eventually settled on this pink. Not only did the color look perfect with the white trim and blue-ish walls, but it kinda sort matches my new Ikea lamps!

The next step was to take the frame off of the bulletin boards. Seems simple enough, right? WRONG. The frame is held together by these crazy looking zig-zag pieces of metal which do not want to come out! Nothing I did made them budge a millimeter! I tried a hammer (in many different ways), pliers, a staple remover... Eventually I got just a little frustrated and just started hammering away on the thing. I broke off a chunk of the back of the frame, just enough so that I could get the hammer in there and smack that stupid zig-zag out of there!

Because I was worried about breaking the frame beyond all repair, this is as much as I took apart. I gently slid the cork out of the frame and left the rest of the frame corners intact. Then I painted the frame front and sides using two coats of white paint.

While the paint was drying, I ironed the fabric like crazy. I cut each piece about 2 or 3 inches larger than the front of the board. I started at a shorter side and after making sure that the fabric was centered (to be sure I'd have enough overhand on each side), I stapled it to the back of the board. I put a staple every 3 or 4 inches or so. I then moved on to the other short side, then the two longer sides, making sure to pull the fabric as tightly as possible before stapling. This is very important because it would be very noticeable if the fabric isn't straight or tight.

All that's left is to reattach the frame, which is much much easier than removing the frame. Time start to finish? Including waiting for the paint to dry, about 2 hours. I love the new bulletin boards! They look perfect in the room! Now I just need to find stuff to hang on them! Total cost? $0.00!

 

See it next to the lamp? I love it!!

 

The new bulletin boards also inspired me to clean up my desk and bit and unpack some more office boxes.

My Old Laundry Room

Now that I work from home, it's easier to get work done on the house. The best time to paint in this house is when it's sunny out. It gets very dry in the house, which means that I can put multiple coats of paint on quickly. And because the house was designed before fans or air conditioners, the window placement was designed to provide amazing cross ventilation. You've got to love the spring breezes coming through here!

So my first project was to paint the Laundry Room. The Laundry Room is located on the second floor, off of the back hallway. The upstairs bathroom is located directly off of the Laundry Room. At one point in time we believe that the Laundry Room was more of a dressing room, complete with a sit down vanity (which we found in the basement). When we bought the house it looked like this:

The closet you see is a linen closet. The existing space also had a large window that looks out to the driveway and a large upper cabinet. The previous owner had his washer and dryer in the basement (actually they're still down there), but because I didn't want to be dragging laundry down 2 tight, narrow, uneven sets of stairs, I convinced R that we should put our washer and dryer up here. The only problem with the set up was that there wasn't a dryer vent, so for the past couple months we've just been opening the window and putting the vent out the window.

Back in August, on a really productive day, the wallpaper got taken down in here. We had 2 helpers who were working way too fast, and they needed something to keep them busy! :) But then we never got around to painting in the room. So for about 7 months, the room looked like this:

 So nice that this is one of the first things you see in the morning. Needless to say, it was starting to drive me crazy. The room just felt icky and dirty. The walls were disgusting looking (never would have thought that anything was worse than the wallpaper that was on the walls before!) and the trim/doors/windows were all a dirty cream color.

The Importance of an Organized Cabinet

I adore my pots and pans.. they were a wedding present from my uncle and since we cook for ourselves basically every single day, we've gotten a lot of use out of them in the past 3 years. However, they're starting to show their age. In our apartment, we had a large cabinet next to the range which is where I stored all of the pots, pans and baking pans. They were organized for about 1 day, then for the next two years were just thrown in there, with a prayer, hoping they'd stay in there and not fall out onto the tile floor and break. The same has been the case at the new house. Only here, we have a half floor, and what's remaining of it is nasty beyond all belief, so if one of my precious pans fell on that floor I'd be scrubbing the crap out of it for weeks before I'd use it again.

Enter the Rev-A-Shelf 2-Tier Cookware Organizer. I found this little piece of heaven months ago in Lowe's, but was immediately scared by the price tag. With tax, we were looking at about $97 and change. Eek. With a whole house to remodel there was no way I could justify that purchase. Right? But then between Christmas and our birthdays, we received a large amount of Lowe's gift cards (how'd you guys know?). So on a snowy afternoon last week I finally got my organizer (my smart husband instantly recognized my snowed-in cabin fever and set out to Lowe's to get this to keep me busy).

It wasn't very hard to install. My only complaint was that the first instruction was to dismantle the pull out trays, and the things were impossible to get apart (and were drenched in grease which got everywhere). Other than that, it went together without any problems. I immediately got all of my pans and lids in their new homes and basked in the greatness that is an organized cabinet and an empty warming drawer (where I had been storing all of the glass lids so they wouldn't break) that I can now use.

The ingenious thing about this is that it not only has pull out shelves, but it also has a spot for the lids, which I've noticed, most pan organizers don't. They focus on the pans themselves, but for me, it's always been the lids that are the biggest trouble makers. They don't stack nicely. I'm afraid they're going to break. Also, on the bottom shelf are 5 adjustable place holders for the pans. They can be removed or pushed over to accommodate any size pot or pan. This organizer that I bought is made for a 12" cabinet, but I have an 18" cabinet, which left just enough space on the side for pizza pans and cookie sheets. Once again leaving my beautiful warming drawer empty and ready for use!

Our $250 Total Room Remodel

That almost sounds impossible. Especially when you remember what we were dealing with. But we made it happen. 


Toilet - $179
Faucets - $20/ea ($40 total)
Countertop - $2
Floor - $25 (vinyl tiles and luan)
Wall Paint - $0
Primer/White Paint - $5
Cabinet Knobs - $10

Lots of Painting Progress!

Woah... we definitely tackled some painting today! My sisters-in law wanted to paint again, so the three of us went to Lowe's to find a paint color for the Guest Room. I think I want the Twilight Room to be a nice yellow (it'll be a future baby nursery, so I figure we'll just paint it yellow now instead of when the time comes), and the Office is the blue-green, so we wanted to find something that went well with both colors. We unanimously decided on a light sage green from Valspar called Lyndhurst Shady Grove. It looks amazing! The room went from being overloaded with pink (the reflection off of all of the pink (walls, rug, curtains) was so bad that R was convinced for days that the ceiling was also painted pink), to being a beautiful serene Guest Room. Which is good because in 2 weeks our mover helpers will be sleeping in there!

Before

In Progress

In Progress

After

 

It's so bright and inviting in there now! We didn't paint the trim because it looked like it was in good enough condition, but now that the rest of the room is painted it looks like it could be touched up a bit. But who knows when we'll get to that..

While they were painting the Guest Room, I was next door painting the Office again. Day 5. Ugh. But the good news is that the paint on the beams passed the lead paint test... No lead! So R has the go-ahead to sand those down so I can paint. Who knows when he'll get to it though. We're getting down to the wire here... we need to start moving in soon!

Kitchen Demolition

Today with the help of my dad and uncle, we demolished our Kitchen. It felt great! I tell ya... if you're ever having a bad day and need to let off some steam, pick up a crowbar and tear down drywall! Great stress reliever! My uncle brought his saws-all and went a little crazy on the cabinets, so we had the nastiness out of the house in about an hour!

Of course, we found a couple unexpected things. The first being the open electrical box that was behind the dishwasher, with live wires sticking out of it. Lovely. Luckily we have an electrician coming in this week, so he'll take care of that for us. The dishwasher wasn't even hooked up to that.. it was hardwired through the floor (as was the stove). Again, it'll all be taken care of, thank God. Electrical stuff scares me.

Another minor problem we found was the floor beneath the sink cabinet. Not only was it disgusting and filled with dirt, acorns, toys, food wrappers, bottle caps, and BONES (mice and other larger somethings...), but the plywood was completely rotted. So we made our first Lowe's trip of the day and got some new plywood.

Next came tearing down the drywall. My dad kept trying to talk me out of it, but I'm glad I insisted on tearing it down. In all of the other rooms we've been leaving the plaster and/or drywall and just painting over it for now, due to our tight moving-in schedule. But in the Kitchen, the wallpaper was fused to the drywall and would not come off. No matter what we tried. And it was old and yucky, and I'm sorry, but Kitchens need to be clean (ok, according to me, everything needs to be clean, but Kitchens especially). There isn't a ton of drywall in the Kitchen because there are so many openings and the huge fireplace, so it wouldn't be that bad. As soon as all of the drywall was down and out of the house, everyone agreed with me. The horrible smell that had been in the Kitchen was now completely gone. The smell was probably a mixture of moldy drywall, mouse poop in the cabinets and the rotten floor. All of which are now in the backyard in a portable dumpster. And we got the pleasure of seeing what the walls in the Kitchen used to look like.... very very wide, very very detailed wood panels. Yet more proof of the Wilcox's wealth.

Old wallpaper, also showing where the original wall was (the back half of the house was originally split up into three rooms).

My backyard

And this is when we hit the major snag of the day. Electrical outlets. There weren't enough in the Kitchen, both for code requirements and for S's small appliance requirements.  So we had to call an electrician to run some new wires for a bunch of new GFCI outlets as well as outlets for the dishwasher, microwave/hood and stove. And why not throw in some new wall switches while we're at it. So here's the problem. It's the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. We're not going to get anyone in this weekend. So this ruins our plans. We had 3 days straight to work on the Kitchen and get it done, but now we have nothing we can do. We can't move forward with anything until the electrical is done (No drywall, no floor, no cabinets, no paint, no trim, etc, etc, etc).

So, you ask, what did we do? We found stuff to do (not hard to do in a 239 year old house). Today we decided to replace the one old window in the house. It was left, most likely, because it was a taller window, and the Kitchen cabinets had been installed right in front of it. Turns out, it was also open, letting in more smells and mice. Woohoo. Enter Lowe's trip #2 of the day. My dad and I went in search of a matching window, but in a shorter size, so that it would fit above the base cabinets. All we could find in that size were windows without an mullions, or with a 4/4 grid. I can't do that when the rest of the windows are 6/6 and it would be very very obvious if this one was different. So I set off wandering around the store looking for someone to help me (which never happened... one guy said the window guy was on his lunch break, and he'd send someone else over to help. No one ever showed up). On my way back to my dad I noticed a window on a cart in the back of the store. No label, but it appeared to be the correct size. After arguing over the windows some more, we decided to go look at doors instead (to replace the back door that is impossible to open). Now my dad sees the window, and discovers a tiny price tag on the top. It was a special order that was returned. Originally $239... we get it for $50! Now that's a great deal!

Before

After

The Kitchen at the end of the day