Emptying out the Twilight Room

The Twilight Room is soon to be renamed "?'s Room". We decided to keep the Guest Room as a guest room and turn the back bedroom into the baby's room. When I painted the room almost two years ago, I painted it a light yellow. Yellow's my favorite color, but I also figured it would be perfect for this room because it's the smallest of the bedrooms and I intended it to the a future baby's room, and yellow goes with either a boy or a girl. It's a little bit of a stress reliever now to not have to worry about choosing a paint color and painting a whole room! Especially this room which was such a pain in the butt!!

In the fall I started slowly emptying the room. I hate piles and stuff just thrown places, so I wanted to relocate everything slowly, finding a place for each thing, not just piling it all in another room. I moved Madison's chair, my bookcase full of sewing supplies and some other small things into the Guest Room. I had to rearrange all of the furniture in order to do this, but I actually prefer how the room looks now. It looks so much bigger now that it has all of this extra furniture/stuff in it! All of R's books for work got moved into my office, along with a bookcase, and a neighbor of my parents' gave us this desk, which I put in the Dining Room and filled with all of the office supplies which had taken over the Twilight Room's closet. R's computer got moved into the Guest Room, but it won't be there for long because he's planning on getting a laptop soon.

It's crazy how much stuff ended up in this room that we hardly ever used!

Not So Scary Anymore..

This is actually a project I finished over the summer, but I finally just took pictures of it this week. Between work, other projects and a LOT of cloudy days, I had an excuse every day for months.

You'll remember from earlier posts that this is the room we've dubbed The Twilight Room. When we first viewed the house it was completely empty, except for two Twilight posters. And the walls were a beautiful striped montage of black, magenta, and purple, with a lovely bright blue carpet. Just delightful.

R claimed this room as his soon after we moved in. He took the desk that the previous owner had left and that's where he had his computer. He doesn't use it much.. maybe once or twice a week. The room wasn't really a priority. We have the guest beds set up in the Guest Bedroom, and R didn't really care about the scary walls (which by this point were primed, but you could still see the stripes peeking through).

However, this spring, I was attempting to organize all of the remaining boxes upstairs and realized that I could empty the majority of them if only I had somewhere to put my excess office supplies. I had boxes and boxes full of art and craft supplies, pens and pencils, notebooks.. etc. Plus a bunch of random stuff like our winter coats (downstairs coat closet isn't very high on our to-do list), all of my gift wrap, and what I call my memory boxes (basically plastic boxes filled with mementos). As I was sitting on the floor amid all of this stuff, I realized that I had a huge closet in the Twilight Room, sitting there basically empty.

In April and May I got to work on the closet.. not as easy as you'd think, seeing as it was covered in hand prints.

Once that was done, I started filling it up. That didn't take long. But I managed to unpack almost every box left in the Guest Room! Plus all of the boxes that I had accumulated in the Twilight Room.

The walls weren't that bad. Two coats of the light yellow paint, over two coats of Kilz covered all of the stripes. There are still a couple spots where you can see a little raised line (whoever painted the stripes taped off the lines and there are some spots where there's a raised line of paint along where the tape was), but only if you look really really close. The trim and windows were a pain because the paint was so dark and I was painting it white. I'm still not 100% done with the doors... they're taking an obnoxious amount of paint!!

Over the summer I moved in some furniture I had in the Guest Room. We got R's childhood bed and I had to rearrange the Guest Room, and all of the furniture didn't fit any more. I moved in his old bookcase and  Madison's papasan chair. We also have an old filing cabinet in here that was left in the house. It's broken and not very eye-pleasing, but it's too heavy for me to move out of the room, let alone down the stairs, so it's staying in here until it bothers R enough to move it (it'll be here for awhile).

In the fall I bought some Ikea curtains for the room. The next time R went to use his computer, he was like "What is all of this? What happened to my office? There are flowery curtains and stuffed animals in here!" It had definitely gone from being his room to mine.. My craft supplies take up one whole wall, there are stuffed animals on the shelves there and on the puppy's papasan chair.. there are flowers on the walls and curtains and there are pink stripped tie-backs on the curtains. His wall does have a nice panoramic view of Fenway (I said, if this was my room I definitely wouldn't have hung THAT up!) and all of his books and CDs and This Old House magazines, etc. by his computer still :)

The room still isn't completely finished (what is in this house?). I haven't painted the ceiling yet and we're planning on getting a new carpet soon. I plan on painting the ceiling and touching up the base trim when we get the new carpet. I also need to finish the doors and install the re-painted hardware.

**Picture disclaimer** I broke our camera. Our good, fancy camera. So these pictures are blurry and not the best (after waiting so long to take them you'd think they'd at least be good!). Sorry.

Madison's corner of the room. It's her favorite spot to sleep.

All that's left of R's space in the room

Bought these frames and pictures at Ikea for a total of $3.  I spray painted the frames black to match everything else in the room.

Curtains from Ikea with ribbon tie-backs. I spray painted the existing curtain rods black.

Weekend of Craziness #1

As you know, we have a Kitchen deadline. I made a schedule. It's taped to the cabinets in the Kitchen, to taunt us.

This weekend was Weekend #1. And it was pretty crazy. On the schedule for this weekend was "Finish the drywall in the Kitchen (under the windows and on the beams), patch/sand the drywall, install the window casing, paint the Living Room and finish the beadboard backsplash".

I was pretty angry last week because we went on a vacation/business trip (which is why we didn't get any work done last weekend) to Minnesota and when we got back I had a TON of work to catch up on. Which meant that I didn't have time to finish the paint removal in the Living Room. (Not angry about the trip, which was amazing... angry that I didn't get to finish everything in time..) So before the weekend started we were already behind (I was going to have my SILs paint all the Living Room trim and woodwork).

But, we still managed to get a lot done. Not everything on the schedule, but still a lot.

By the end of the weekend, we managed to get the drywall up on one vertical beam (only one left to go!), and under the windows. The fireplace got two more coats of paint, plus the cabinet door got painted. The casing of the door opening between the Hall/Living Room and Kitchen got painted. The casing of the Dining Room opening got painted. 80% of the walls got patched, sanded and primed. The disconnected electrical outlet from under the windows got removed. The door to the stairs got scraped and taken down. The chicks got updated nesting boxes (they destroyed the ones I put in a couple weeks ago.. the new ones are screwed into the shelf.. they're Gladys-proof!). And the lawn got cut (it looked like we had a lawn service.. two lawn mowers going at once!).

Pretty successful weekend, even though we didn't finish everything on the schedule. We did do some stuff that was on there on other days though, so I think it evens out. I don't mind that the Living Room didn't get done. That was my fault, because of Minnesota and work. Couldn't be avoided. And the Living Room technically isn't part of the Big Schedule of October 2011. So who cares. It can be done in November.

We could have definitely gotten more done if we had been home last weekend to do some of this. We had 2 (3 on Saturday) extra helpers, but most of the time we didn't have any work for them because we had to wait for other stuff to happen first. Like, if we could have done the drywall and sanding, and/or the window trim last weekend, they could have helped me paint it all this weekend.

I have to say though... on Saturday we were all amazed by the Hall/Living Room opening casing.. it being white now (as opposed to half stained, half plain wood like it has been) made a huge difference! But that was nothing compared to white, primed walls by Sunday afternoon! It finally looks like we're almost there!

And on top of all that, we managed to go to two fairs, watch TV, have a nice big breakfast and wash and put away all the dishes from the whole weekend. We're pretty awesome :)

The Start of a Chicken Coop...

We started building the indoor coop today. First we had to go to Lowe's for supplies.. We spent about $90 and got 2x4's, insulation, flooring and hinges for the door.

We ran out of time and were only able to get the shed cleaned out and the walls up today. We weren't able to fit the plywood in our car, so we'll have to wait until next weekend to do the insulation and plywood. Once the plywood is up we'll put down the floor and install the chicken wire. Then it'll be ready for the chicks! The exterior play area is going to take a little bit more time. The space is currently housing a bunch of dead rotten trees that were cut down by the previous owner and just left there in a pile. The tree branches will also need to be trimmed a little. Just the clean up will probably take at least a whole day.

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!

Kitchen Built-in Hutch

This week my goal was to finish this hutch. I realized that I have about 10 boxes of Kitchen stuff that I can unpack into this hutch. I also have a ton of Christmas stuff that I want to put up here. So starting on Sunday, I've spent every available second sanding, priming, and painting.

The hutch was originally stained, so I used a couple coats of Kilz 2 to cover it, then 2 coats of white paint. I hadn't realized before, but the cabinet goes up all the way to the ceiling... even though the trim is about 12" below the ceiling. It was pretty difficult to get up in that space. But I also realized that it would be the perfect spot for some lighting to illuminate the whole hutch. Someday..

I originally wanted to replace the wood paneling in the back of the cabinet with beadboard to match the backsplash, but now that it's painted, you don't notice it as much. It actually looks pretty nice. And luckily for me, the doors and shelves all came out very easily, so it made everything a little bit easier to paint.

We decided to keep the original hardware. It's very unique, and I think it fits better with the house than anything else we'd find. But when I went to put it back on the newly painted cabinet, I realized it needed some help. When a very thorough cleaning didn't make much improvement, I decided to spray paint them. I painted them black and they look brand new!

I love how it all came out! Now we just need to get the rest of the trim/casing and walls painted in the Kitchen... As beautiful as the hutch looks, it's a little out of place in the rest of the construction zone that is my Kitchen :)

$2 Countertop

A brand new countertop, for $2, purchased at your local cheap-o store (aka Big Lots, which often has a lot of good house necessities, for really cheap. Wouldn't ever buy food there, but other stuff is good!).


A client of mine at work mentioned to me that 10 years ago when they bought their house, she couldn't stand the Kitchen countertops. Because the huge remodel we're now doing for them wasn't in their budget at the time, she bought a couple packs of contact paper and covered the countertops with the contact paper. I was in that house for months, measuring, designing, meeting with them, etc. and never realized it was contact paper! So when cleaning our lime green countertops just wasn't working, I went digging in the bag of contact paper that the client gave me. While the brown color she used wasn't exactly my style, it was still a good idea. Rolls of contact paper were only $2 at Big Lots, and I found one that had a granite-ish pattern to it, and was really the only option they had (everything else had flowers or fruit).


I tried to do some research online, but nothing seemed really helpful. So one night after work I just decided to go for it, and if it didn't come out good, I'd suck it up and go buy another $2 roll.


Turns out it's pretty easy! First I cleaned the countertop as best as I could. I didn't want any of the dirt or paint that was on the countertop staining or causing bumps in my new countertop. I started in one corner, with the backsplash, and very slowly and carefully rolled out the paper. I would peel off about 3" of backing, and then using my fingers push down the paper as flat as possible (and I'm a perfectionist, so it was definitely flat!). The hardest spots were the backsplashes and corners (corners were almost impossible!). When I got to a sink, I just rolled right over it, and then when I was done took an Xacto Knife and cut around the edge of the sink. It only took about 3 hours. R was shocked when I finally let him in the bathroom around 11:30 pm... he had been waiting outside the door wanting to see our "new" bathroom! I was so proud of myself! You can't see any seams and there aren't any bubbles (though my client gave me a good tip... if you do get a bubble, use a pin to pop it and then smooth it out).

Countertop Before

Countertop After

Drywall!!!

I have an almost new Kitchen!!! It's amazing what a difference drywall makes... This house keeps amazing me.. just a fresh coat of paint or something small makes such a big difference. I love it!

Today while I was upstairs painting (guess where), R, my dad and my uncle put up drywall in the Kitchen. They did a great job. It was R's first time, and he did all of the taping and mudding. It looks awesome.

While they were doing that, and while I was painting, MIL and SIL were helping me out upstairs cleaning up the bedrooms. They washed the floors in the front two bedrooms and they look amazing now! SIL also helped me paint some trim in the office.

My mom stopped by around lunch with Subway for everyone, which we ate while sitting on folding chairs in the backyard :)

After lunch, us girls headed over to Middletown to move as many boxes as we could. We made two trips (three cars each time) and brought over a ton of stuff! I was so proud of us! We made a ton of progress. We even brought over a box of Madison's toys and her chair/bed. She was so happy. She jumped on it and started whining and crying and rolling around on it. We wish we got a picture of it. I love how the chair looks in the room... the brown with the green.

Day One... of the rest of our lives

Today we closed. Because the closing was right smack in the middle of the day, we took the whole day off from work. We spent the afternoon doing your typical post-closing activities... changing the locks, cleaning out some of the garbage/stuff left behind, and just walking around in awe that it was actually ours.


We met with the seller about a month before closing so that we could discuss what we wanted left in the house. Which was a waste of time. He was suppose to leave everything that was in the attic, as well as some pieces of furniture on the first floor. The main things we were interested in were an antique spinning wheel from the mid-1700's and an army foot locker from World War I. Gone and gone. He was also suppose to leave the kitchen table, which wasn't a nice table by far, but it was at least something to hold us over until we got our own table. Gone.


But in their place he did leave a bathroom full of wet, dirty towels, cabinets full of old food and dishes, and a couple garbage cans full of garbage. Luckily he also left a Dumpster, which we took complete advantage of! We also did a little Dumpster diving, and "rescued" some antique wooden skis, an old wooden sled, some drywall tape, old glass bottles, and books, among other things.