Built-in Shelving?

Just today I was browsing Apartment Therapy when I came across this post about putting shelving over your door when I was struck with an idea.

Source

What if I were to make built-in shelving on the wall that I currently have my TV on? It could go on that wall, over the door, and down the other side of the doorway. 

Unfortunately this is a new idea and I don't have a good picture of that wall at the moment. But here is a sort of angled view of the wall just after my floors were installed.

And here's an awesome mock-up of what it might look like with my TV on the middle.

What do you think?? Should I go for it?

Allison

Guest Post!

Just a note that today I am guest posting at The Ivy Cottage! Go check it out to see what I've been up to around my condo lately.

Allison

January Punch List

Here is my room by room punch list. It's still growing.

Throughout whole house:

• Replace lightswitches and outlets with new, white ones- Done about 4 of them!
• Replace lightswitch covers and outlet covers
• Have GCI outlets installed in bathroom, kitchen;- scheduled for Dec. 22
• Purchase and install programmable thermostat
• Purchase and install new smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector

Kitchen

• Paint Cabinets (in progress)
• replace counter tops?
• replace floor- purchased! Installed!
• Decide on color and paint walls
• paint trim
• Install under-cabinet lights
• Replace Fridge, Dishwasher, Range

Living Room

• Paint Walls "Wild Aster"
• Pick out, buy and Install baseboards
• Paint Trim
• Replace carpet with laminate!?? <- Purchased! Waiting to get installed!
• Hang Curtains
• Get new Couch
• Hang Art, mirrors- Still some work to do here
• Hang blinds?

Bedroom

• Decide on color and paint walls
• Paint trim
• Paint Closet
• Redo Closet system
• Hnng Curtains
• Hang art, mirrors
• Replace carpet

Bathroom

• Remove shower doors
• Hang shower curtain
• paint vanity
• paint trim
• Replace or Frame mirror
• Remove Wallpaper
• Decide on color and Paint walls
• Clean grout or regrout?
• Replace Faucet AND sink!

Second Bedroom

• Decide on color and paint walls
• Paint trim
• Redo closet?
• Replace carpet

Basement

• Paint paneling white <-!! Details coming!
• fix water damaged walls (probably a contractor will do this)
• replace carpet
• Finish basement bathroom (what a nutty set up!)
• organize and set up sewing area
• replace washer and dryer? Ordered! Delivery Dec. 6th!

New Years Eve Dress

I'm nothing if not a rule breaker, but one rule I won't break is the one that says you must wear sparkily or shiny things on New Years Eve. This year, in order to not break the rule I made a dress for myself out of a lovely bronze-gold stretchy fabric I got at Joanns.

I had a hard time deciding what pattern to use, but ultimately decided on Vogue 8631, a wrap dress. It was a snap to put together.

I'm actually proud to say that now I can basically look over the directions quickly but then I really don't need to refer to them word for word anymore! I used to hang on every word, now I'm doing my own thing. I guess I'm actually becoming more experienced!

I'm quite happy with the outcome, and think the pattern looks much like the picture on the envelope, minus any fitting issues which are my fault. I'm still perfecting fit and don't always want to make a muslin. I maybe paid $4/yard for this fabric so I wasn't too concerned. Plus its so shiny it basically blinds anyone who looks at it. Can't see the flaws anyway!

And now onto the awkward self portraits in the mirror:

This is ultimately how I wore the dress, minus the shoes. Those boots seem to cut my legs off at the worst place possible! I ended up wearing black flats!

The pattern directions say to finish the edges with bias tape. I didn't do that with this non-fraying fabric, but I think it will be a nice touch if this was made with a patterned fabric and contrasting bias tape.

Now, do I fix some fit issues and wear it to work?? I love day sparkle. 

Floors are Finished!

I've never been so happy to come home to plywood floors as I was on Monday. The new flooring process was started on Monday, with ripping up the carpet, working on the creaking (some of the plywood wasn't nailed down at all!), and leveling out the floor as much as possible.

Give it another 24 hours, and it looks like this!!:

Much improved from the lovely buttery yellow carpet I started with!

Next up-- baseboards!

Painting Cabinets

When I moved into the condo, this is what the kitchen looked like- medium brown cabinets, faux butcher block counters, black appliances and yucky tan linoleum floors.

I decided that one of the first projects I would take up was painting the cabinets and adding knobs and drawer pulls. I'm not quite sure when I started it, because I've been working on so many things and kind of all at once...but this was an early project.

I wanted to paint the cabinets white, so I went to my favorite hardware store and bought some supplies. I could have gone the kit route, but I thought I could do just as good of a job myself. So I bought a gallon of oil based Kilz primer, and a gallon of Valspar's "Dove White" paint. It's nearly just the white straight off the shelf. I just wanted a white white. This has done the job.

In the mean time, I actually decided I would do the vanity in the bathroom first, as it is identical to the kitchen cabinets but smaller and that way if something went terribly wrong I wouldn't have wasted much time. I washed down the cabinets and set out priming. The can of Kilz said that you could re-coat after an hour, I think, but I let it dry for about 24 hours, until the next morning. 

I then did coats of the white paint. I did a coat, and gave it several hours to dry, then did another. Once I was satisfied with the coverage I let it dry for about 24 hours, and then added knobs to the cabinet doors.

The kitchen was a much bigger project, taking many more days and hours. At any given point, my kitchen look like this...

...or this...

Starting to see some progress...

And how it looks tonight, all finished!

Before:

 

After!

 

Black Friday Purchases

Black Friday was a great day for my condo-- I purchased laminate flooring for the living room, dinning room, kitchen and hallway, AND a new washer and dryer.

I posted a teaser picture earlier this week of the flooring samples I was considering.

Before I got the samples home, I thought that I would put laminate flooring in the living and dinning rooms, and hallway, and then put a vinyl in the kitchen, 

but once I laid them on the floor to compare, I decided there was no reason to not put the laminate in the kitchen. I think the color will look great with the cabinets (unsure about the counters, but those might go anway)

Unfortunately for me, the store didn't have enough of the product I picked in stock, so they had to order it, and what do you know but this flooring is back ordered. Luckily this seems to be a pretty nimble industry, as my scheduled delivery date is next Friday. (When I heard back ordered on the phone, I thought weeks/months, not 7 more days!)

So my new floors should be in and all pretty in about 2 weeks!

In addition, I also bought myself a new washing machine and dryer!

My current washer and dryer came with the condo and are older than I am. The washer is a paltry 1.75 cubic feet (standard now is more like 3.4-3.5) and the dryer is extremely inefficient.

I had to be cognizant of my budget, and thus decided to go with the Admiral brand washer and dryer from Home Depot. On black Friday they were $249 each, so I got the set for just over $500 including hoses/cords and tax.

I am super excited to not have to tiny loads--twice as many as usual--and to not have to run my dryer twice to get a load of clothes dry!

Allison

December Punch List

Here is my room by room punch list. It's still growing. 

Throughout whole house:

• Replace lightswitches and outlets with new, white ones <- Done about 4 of them!
• Replace lightswitch covers and outlet covers
• Have GCI outlets installed in bathroom, kitchen<- scheduled for Dec. 22

Kitchen

• Paint Cabinets (in progress)
• replace counter tops?
• replace floor<- purchased! Waiting to get installed
• Decide on color and paint walls
• paint trim
• Install under-cabinet lights
• Replace Fridge, Dishwasher, Range

Living Room

• Paint Walls "Wild Aster"
• Paint Trim
• Replace carpet with laminate!?? <- Purchased! Waiting to get installed!
• Hang Curtains
• Get new Couch
• Hang Art, mirrors <- Still some work to do here
• Hang curtains
• Hang blinds?

Bedroom

• Decide on color and paint walls
• Paint trim
• Paint Closet
• Redo Closet system
• Hnng Curtains
• Hang art, mirrors

Bathroom

• Remove shower doors
• Hang shower curtain
• paint vanity
• paint trim
• Replace or Frame mirror
• Remove Wallpaper
• Decide on color and Paint walls
• Clean grout or regrout?
• Replace Faucet AND sink!

Second Bedroom

• Decide on color and paint walls
• Paint trim
• Redo closet?

Basement

• Paint paneling white <-!! Details coming!
• fix water damaged walls (probably a contractor will do this)
• replace carpet
• Finish basement bathroom (what a nutty set up!)
• organize and set up sewing area
• replace washer and dryer?  <- Ordered! Delivery Dec. 6th!

Coming soon...

Bathroom Sink and Faucet

One thing I didn't touch in my recent bathroom overhaul was the sink and faucet. I tackled that this weekend!

Above is my sink before. The faucet is one of those lovelies with plastic round knobs. It also is a bright shiny silver (or it was when it was new) and I wanted a satin nickel faucet that would match the knobs on the vanity.

This really is a saga. I first purchased an American Standard faucet at Home Depot, which Mike wasn't a huge fan of from the start, but we decided to try it. It was relatively easy to pull off the old faucet and set the new one in place, but then came the tough part--putting in the new drain.

The silver part of the drain that rests in the sink is supposed to twist off "easily" according to instructions and videos we watched online, but in this case, the pipes were so corroded that that wasn't possible. After many rounds of trying to unscrew it, we ended up using a hack saw to cut the pipe. We finally got the drain out! We're almost done! so we thought.

We installed the new drain, gave each other high fives, and then turned on the faucet to see how it worked. And oh, it leaked. We tried tightening everything that could be, applied some more teflon tape, etc, but to no avail. 

It looked pretty at least?

Lastly, we noticed that the hole in the sink that the drain went in was so corroded that there was no way we could get a tight seal--in other words, it was always going to leak. The sink had to be replaced.

The dirty details

 So then I had this:

Early Sunday morning we made a trip to the Habitat for Humanity Restore to see if they had a suitable replacement sink, and we were in luck! Not only did they have several that were the right size (in many colors! Mike vetoed the pink one), they were all in great shape.

After the ReStore we headed back to Home Depot (I always say its not a project unless it involves at least 2 trips to a hardware store) to exchange the leaky faucet. I ended up getting a Moen facet that is rather similar to the previous faucet. 

The new sink has no corrosion! And its poreclain, not cast iron, so it shouldn't rust quickly. We easily put her in place, and now my bathroom looks GREAT! Next up...replacing the light fixture?

Before:

After:

 

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