A Big Blue Wall and New Bathroom!

We had another successful weekend with home improvement projects. This weekend we painted the accent wall in our living room/hallway and did a makeover in our master bath!

When we first bought our house, the living room accent wall was bright green. I wanted to change it because I didn't like the color. Because it was so bright, I also wanted to do something more neutral. When we went to the paint store, I picked out a beige-gray color, but when we put it on the wall, it actually looked more pinkish-purple than neutral at all. I pretty much hated it as soon as we painted it. I thought it might grow on me, but it never did. AJ also felt that our whole house was too beige, so we decided to do something bold and paint the wall blue.

Here are the two previous colors...

And the new blue color....

It is very blue, but I think it goes well with our furniture and decor. Now I need to add some wall art in the living room. Any ideas on what to do?

We also put in a new master bath vanity set. Our sink was way too small and we needed more storage. We plan to re-use the mirror and vanity in another bathroom, but that is a project for another day. Here is the before...


And here is after...


I love, love, love the new set and think it really makes the master bath more sophisticated. I am so proud of my husband for doing this all on his own! He is becoming so handy. I need to patch the holes left by the bolts that were holding the old mirror and touch up the paint in a few places, but our bathroom is pretty much done!

The kitchen is coming along...

The last two weekends have been productive on the house project front. We painted our kitchen one weekend and bought a new table and chairs this past weekend. We still need to paint the pantry white, do a few touch ups on the walls, and figure out our wall art situation, but it is finally starting to come together.

The colors are a tad off because I took these pictures at dusk, but you get the idea. What do you think? I am liking the white cabinets with the dark wood table and light wood floors. AJ wants to eventually upgrade the countertops and get a stainless dishwasher, but those just aren't in the budget right now. I think for now, it all works.

And yes, there are dirty dishes in the sink and our stove is filthy. But hey, that's life!

The Home Improvement Snowball Effect

It all started when our kitchen faucet snapped in half. We stopped at Lowes to pick out a new one, and the next thing you know we have changed pretty much the entire kitchen.

This is what our kitchen used to look like (realtor photo):

Since then we have replaced the faucet, painted the cabinets white (using Rust-Oleum Kitchen Transformations), bought new hardware, installed under the counter lights, and replaced the light fixture over the sink. After painting the cabinets we realized the ivory wall color doesn't look so hot, so now we need to paint the kitchen walls too.
Here are some pictures of the work in progress:

The cabinets are back on, but we still have to paint the walls, touch up the ceiling where the previous light fixture was hanging (yuck, do you see that?!), and paint the pantry white. Did I mention we started this project at the end of July? Oh yes. Luckily, we finished all that stuff in early August, but the rest that needs to be done has been on our to-do list for two months.

Any paint color suggestions?

Let's take a ride on my emotional roller coaster, shall we?

We closed on our house on Friday, May 6th. Getting the keys and stepping foot in our house was very exciting. We spent the weekend completing projects and made a lot of progress on the house. I cannot WAIT to move in for good.


I attended Mother's Day brunch last Sunday, and I am really glad that I did. It was difficult at the time, but the few pangs I felt were totally worth it. I was able to spend time with my grandmother, which ended up being very important, because she passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday at the age of 77. After brunch she (and the rest of my family) came over to our new house and we gave her the grand tour. She was so happy for us and called all seven of her sisters afterward. They all told me about her calls at her wake on Friday. Her death was very shocking and I miss her so much already. She was the most wonderful, caring lady and a joy to everyone that knew her. We did not take any pictures at Mother's Day brunch and I am so upset about that. I can't remember the last time our picture was taken. Here she is with my grandfather, father, and brother on my wedding day and one of AJ and me with all of my grandparents:


After attending my grandmother's funeral on Saturday, AJ and I drove back to DC so that we could attend his law school graduation on Sunday. It was very difficult to leave NY and switch emotional gears, but we did, and we enjoyed the day as best we could. I am so proud of my husband and all that he has accomplished in the last three years.

While we were in NY, I received phone calls for two interviews in two different school districts in NY. I am flying back to NY tomorrow night for my first interview on Wednesday morning. I am really hoping to land this job. It is in the town next to where we will be living and in the same town as AJ's law firm. The other interview is next Friday, also known as moving day in this household. We haven't quite figured out how we are going to fanangle that, but somehow we will make it work. Best case scenario...I land the first job and don't even need to interview in the other district. Fingers and toes crossed!

So that is my life in a nutshell. You understand why I haven't posted in a while now, right?

It's Almost Closing Day

There is nothing like a good cry. Or the blog/twitter world. Your comments, tweets, emails, and texts have lifted me up like you wouldn't believe. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don't know why this is happening to us, but I have to believe there is a plan for our family and someday it will all make sense.

Let's talk about something more exciting, shall we? We are tentatively scheduled to close on Friday afternoon. We are just waiting for the bank to choose a location for the closing. Ahh! I can't believe it is finally here. I am excited and nervous and still a little apprehensive (even though I know deep down that we will fill those rooms someday). I just want to sign the papers and have the keys in my hand!

The weather on Saturday is supposed to be beautiful, so we are planning to start tackling our to-do list right away. Here are the things on our to-do list for the weekend:

Paint the green wall in the living room
Paint the pink bedroom
Paint the wood trim and window frame in the living room
Power wash the siding
Spray paint the shutters
Paint the front door

We still have not decided on paint colors for the living room wall or pink bedroom, but we have some ideas so I will share them later today or tomorrow. I would love some input!

As for the door, does anyone have suggestions on tackling this project? Types of paint, best process, etc.? I am not sure what kind of door it is (wood or metal), so I probably need to figure that out before I decide what paint to use.

DIY Kitchen Cabinet Makeover?

Besides painting, the other big project we want to take on in our new house is the kitchen. The cabinets are nice quality, but the two toned wood just doesn't work for me. The gold hardware also has to go, but that is an easy fix.


We were thinking about stripping, sanding, and painting or re-staining the cabinets, but then I stumbled across Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations, which requires no stripping, sanding, or priming. Has anyone used this product? It sounds like a great way to go about changing your cabinets without spending a ton of money on replacing them. It also seems easier than figuring out how to do the whole painting/staining process on our own.

We want to make the cabinets darker. These are the two colors we like:


We are planning to glaze everything, so the colors really aren't that different in terms of darkness. However, Espresso seems to have more red undertones than Kona.

The Rust-Oleum website has a virtual tool that allows you to change the cabinet colors and countertop colors (they also have a DIY kit for that), so I tried the two cabinet colors with the countertop color that is closest to our countertops.


We are obviously more inclined to choose Kona because that is our dog's name. That is a good way to choose your cabinet color, right??

Paint

Well we are finally in the part of the process where I feel pretty confident that this whole house buying thing is actually happening. The inspection is done, the repairs have been made, and now we are counting down to the closing! Ahhh! Now that all that stuff has been taken care of, I can start focusing on the more important things (at least in my book).....decorating and painting!

There are two rooms in the house that need paint. The living room has a lime green accent wall and one of the bedrooms is baby pink. I love pink and green, but I do not like them as paint colors.We want to keep the accent wall in the living room, but we will probably play it safe and do a color from the beige family. The question is, should we pick furniture or paint first? We are planning on getting a new living room set, but likely won't buy it until after we move. Ideally I would like to paint before we move in. Is that the wrong way to go though?

As for the pink bedroom....we are hoping to use this as a nursery some day and I would prefer to not paint twice. I am not sure what color we will use, but I also want it to be neutral. Boring?

What are your favorite design/decorating blogs? I need to add them to my reader!

Our First Home

More details to come!

Challenges to Start the New Year

I don't usually make new year's resolutions, but I have stumbled across a couple of cool challenges and have decided to take part in two of them to start 2010.

First is a one week challenge created by John Mayer, coined the "Digital Cleanse". As outlined on his blog:

I’ll be defragmenting my mental and psychological hard drive during the first seven days of the new year, and I invite you all to participate.

The cleanse will begin at 9am on January 1. This gives everyone a chance to text and tweet their new year’s well wishes, and theoretically begins upon waking up the morning of January 1. The cleanse will end at 9am on January 8.

• Guidelines:

  *email only from laptop or desktop computers

  *cell phones can only be used to make calls, and no text messages or e-mails are allowed - if you receive a text, you must reply in voice over the phone. E-mails must be returned from a laptop or desktop computer.

  *no use of Twitter or any other social networking site - this includes reading as well as posting.

  *no visiting of any entertainment or gossip sites. (No need to detail which ones - you know what they are.)

I think I can do it. Actually, I know I can do it. Texting and social networking make it way too easy to avoid talking to others. It also isolates me from my husband. I know he gets annoyed when we are doing something together and I stop talking and get lost with whatever I am doing with my phone. As for phone calls, I normally avoid calling people like the plague, but it makes me antisocial and distant from my friends and family...so I need to slowly bring it back into my everyday life. This will be good for me. Will you join in too?

The second challenge, Improve Yourself! 2010 was created by Dustin at Engaged Marriage.

As described on his blog:

1. You will choose one area of your life to improve over the first 8 weeks of 2010 (January 3rd through February 27th). This is completely open based on your desires, but some suggestions would include the areas of fitness, personal finances, spirituality, communication with your spouse, parenting, career, education, romance, etc.
2. You will set your own goals for what you intend to accomplish over the course of eight weeks. Goal-setting is incredibly important, so I will publish a post soon (now found here) to help you establish specific and effective goals.
3. Each week, I will publish a post that focuses on self-improvement and motivation, and I’ll report on my own personal progress toward my goals. You must comment on each weekly post to report your progress and remain accountable.
4. At the end of eights weeks, I will choose the top three finishers based on who I feel made the most meaningful progress in self-improvement. At this time, I will also “call out” all those who did NOT finish all eight weeks (to add a little more accountability)!
5. The final three contestants will summarize their progress in a short write-up, and you (their fellow competitors) will vote to choose the best overall success story.

You can participate too by leaving a comment here by January 5th.

My goal is to save money for a down payment for our first home. We are planning to buy something in the summer of 2011, after AJ graduates from law school. I recently payed off my credit card debt and since I am sans student loans I figured it is the perfect time to start allocating money to something important rather than blowing all my disposable income on dinners and drinks out and shoes/clothes/bags I don't need. We opened an ING Direct Orange savings account specifically for our down payment and have already saved almost $2,000 in just one week! (BTW, if you want to open an account let me know and I can send you a referral. You'll get $25 from ING when you deposit $250 and I'll get a $10 referral bonus. Win-win!)

So those are my goals to start the new year. Let me know if you decide to participate in either of these challenges!