Working for the Weekend

Or just plain working on the weekend :)

The laundry room is really coming together. Ryan was originally going to put a utility sink in the laundry room where the original window was but after he took the drywall off, he realized it was too small. So, he decided to make me some shelves.

After he ripped the drywall out, this used to be a window to the outside.

Starting to put the shelves together.

He ran out of plywood to finish the back but you can see it coming together. He also mentioned that this week/ weekend would be the week the washer and dryer would be installed. Containing my excitement for the day that I will no longer be visiting the laundry mat is pretty hard to do. Squeeeeeal!!!

Ryan also put down almost all of the floor in the bathroom. The bathroom is definitely going to be an added bonus. It doesn't really bother me to not have one downstairs but boy will it be nice to have one.

And he framed out our storage area. I want to make a mini barn door to cover the opening (and clearly move that god awful light). That project is not at the top of my priority list but I think it will be a cute addition.

I spent the weekend working on wedding projects, reliving my days in arts and crafts. I'm actually really enjoying it. We'll see if I feel that way in 5 months :)

Fail

As I have mentioned before, my brother in law ordered us our back door. Since it was special order, it took two weeks to come in and last week it arrived. But, since we didn't order it at our Lowes, it came in to the Dover store. So, Friday night, Ryan and I borrowed Clark's car and drove to Dover to pick it up. After sitting in traffic, we finally arrived around 9pm. Fast forward an hour or two and the boys load the door in to the car, which doesn't fit, so they ghettoly tie the hatchback down. After they come back inside, we're sitting around and Ryan is like "we wanted the door to be 3 feet wide, right?" and I'm like "um, no, we wanted it to be 30 inches wide".... since the car is already loaded we hope I'm wrong and bring it home with the heat blasting. I wasn't and the door has now been sitting in our family room all weekend waiting to get exchanged.

Sigh.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Before I get in to our weekend's activities, I thought I'd share my ridiculous laundry mat experience bright and early Monday morning.  Over the past four months or so, since I've started going to the 24 hour laundry mat (after Ryan pretty much peer pressured me into it),  I've learned that apparently, the laundry mat is not only for doing laundry, it is also a market place of sorts. From socks to underwear to candy, I'm never quite sure what these entrepreneurial men will take out of their large black trash bag and try to sell to my fellow laundry mat goers. Usually, I'm not that surprised by what they have to offer and I often see ladies purchasing these items (although I should note that if you want to go in to this business, candy seems to be the most lucrative especially since the laundry mat also appears to be a playground of sorts), but Monday was a first when I saw a man walking around the laundry mat selling raw steaks.... and no, he didn't have a cooler if you were wondering. Oh, laundry mat, you sure do spice up an ordinary President's day. And no, that wasn't the win I was referring to ;)

This weekend our back room came a long way. Ryan started cementing down the rocks in the bathroom and learned that placing each rock isn't much worse than creating the tile sheets. I'd call that a partial loss and a partial win.

Placing the rocks

All placed in the bathroom

The prize winner of the weekend was my stripes. I'm still amazed that I actually made straight lines.... Here's a quick tutorial of how it went down after a few lessons via the Internet.

Wall after I had painted it white and before I started on the stripes.

I measured the wall, decided on my width of stripes, and used a leveler to draw my lines.

I put up my tape making sure to tape on the outside of where the beige stripes would go.

I sealed the tape with the white paint and let it dry.

On to the stripes! I used a semi gloss paint to give it a sheen.

Peeling off the tape before it drys.

Finished product!!!

I'm pretty much obsessed. I find myself making excuses to go in to the back room to see them, stare and pet them. Ryan may or may not have called out my ridiculousness considering he doesn't do that with the ENTIRE kitchen ;) I couldn't do the back hallway yet because we need to get our new door in (which my fantastic brother in law ordered for us) but we're on our way.

Another win, was that Ryan finished our transition and it looks pretty darn good.

Less of a win and more of housekeeping was that Ryan cleaned up the wires for the dishwasher, secured it and put in a transition piece between it and the cabinet.

Putting in the transition

Done!

We had a bunch of wins this weekend but our big loss came with the bathroom light that I had ordered a few weeks ago. First off, it was a NIGHTMARE to put up. It took up a good thirty minutes and once it was up, we were both kind of like eh, I want to like it but it's just too big.

Oh well, you can't win them all, right? But, of course, I won't leave you on a loss because we had one more win this weekend and that was when Ryan began to grout the laundry room. I pretty much picked the grout color just off of the fact that I didn't want it to look like it should be white when in reality I wanted it to be grey (and show less dirt). So, I told Ryan what I was thinking and he just came back with a color (that's terrifying if you know Ryan's color blind self) and it's pretty darn perfect if you ask me. 

It's still a little wet here so it did get a little lighter this morning but I would definitely call this a win. 

So, that's the story of our wins and losses of the weekend. Now if only I could find a new light for the bathroom....

Jackpot!

Guess what I came home to last night?!? My amazing fiance putting down our floors... eek!!!

So clearly this is sans grout but you can get the idea.  

I am one VERY lucky lady :) 

Pay off

This weekend was a busy one. I think the frigid cold weather helped keep us indoors and I'll take it!

Ryan put up the molding on the other window in the kitchen. We still have to paint the trim but it's looking really good. Of course, now that means I'll have to pull the trigger on some fabric for the curtains which may or may not take another ten months....

Putting up the molding

Done! (Ignore the ladder)

While Ryan was working in the backroom, I had the task of finishing covering the front edge of the birch in the cabinets. The only negative of Ikea cabinets is that if they aren't perfectly aligned (or if they're a corner cabinet), you can see the birch through the cracks and it kind of drove me insane. Low and behold Google had the perfect solution, an Imperial Walnut veneer that was easy to install and matched almost spot on. A few weeks ago, my sister and I had started doing the upper cabinets but had run out of the veneer. I finally got around to ordering more and a few weeks later actually got around to finishing the cabinets.

Before

After I put on the veneer

After, you can't even see the birch!

So, not the best example, the corner cabinets would have been better but I forgot to take pictures of those :)

Ryan got the bathroom walls painted in grey (of course) and it's looking rather fancy. We had a little issue with the paint being too thin at first since it's been sitting in our basement for over a year but after much stirring, it covered quite nicely. It looks super dark but that's just because it was night.

After!

He didn't paint the bottom because we decided to do the bead board wallpaper on the bottom half. I just ordered a roll from Lowes so I'll let you know how it is. I've never tackled wallpaper before so it could be interesting.

Ryan also started staining the transition which has made huge difference and blends the two rooms together really nicely.

It needs one more coat. Luckily, we even already had the stain down the basement. Oh the jewels you find down there...

I also painted the laundry room white last night (which will soon be getting the stripes) and Ryan brought up some of the rock tiles so we could get an idea of how they will look.

Pretttty exciting if you ask me. So, we're making progress slowly but surely and it's crazy how different the mudroom/ bathroom is starting to look. It's been about a year (at the end of this month) since we started this project and boy is it starting to pay off....

Commitment Issues

I definitely have a hard time pulling the trigger on furniture for the house, hence living here over a year and only having bought stools. So, when I decided we REALLY needed a rug, it took me MONTHS to commit to buy one. I had been eyeing this guy for awhile:

Catherine Rug by Ballard Designs

But in the catalog, it looks a lot more yellow which I wasn't so fond of plus the light color would be a nightmare (as I learned from my place holder rug).

I had also been eyeing this guy:

Overstock

but, it isn't wool so I couldn't justify that in such a high traffic area. It had also been out of stock for ever until Monday, when I got an email saying it was back in stock. Out of pure curiosity I went online to check it out and browse through some other rugs and then I found this beauty:

Overstock

and I knew it was meant to be. 100% wool, handmade in India and it had all the right colors. So, after a back and forth with Ryan (who wasn't as convinced), I pulled the trigger.

It came in today (can you say a-m-a-z-i-n-g) so I worked from home to bring it inside all 76 pounds of it and what a nightmare that was. First off, the delivery guy never even knocked on the door, I only knew he had come because of Monkey going crazy barking. So, I go outside to "grab" it and see him seriously sprinting back to the truck. He had also just thrown it under the stairs... a 76 pound rug that would now have to come up two flights of stairs. After a few trials, I managed to push it up the stairs but then I couldn't get it in the front door. I seriously tried everything and eventually got Ryan's fork lift hand thingys and managed to DRAG the thing inside. I'm pretty sure I threw my back out but anyway. Here's a before and after of the family room.

Before- this rug got SO dirty here and is going in the office

After

I'm going to get a linen colored couch and some other coffee table but I really think the rug pulls the room together. It also gives me some good ideas of what I'll end up doing in the space.

And here's the view in to the kitchen.

Swoon. I'm pretty sure even Monkey is in love.

Powder Room

Ryan's been working on getting the powder room together this week. He finished drywalling and moved on to priming last night.

Priming

It's hard to get pictures of because it's SO ridiculously tiny. I had been debating about what color to paint this room since the mud room/ laundry room will have the beige and white stripes. At first I was leaning towards a light blue but then I remembered that I had over a gallon of paint leftover from our master bedroom and I LOVE that color. 

Benjamin Moore Wolf Gray

It's pretty dark but one whole wall of the bathroom is basically a window and it doesn't feel that dark in my bedroom. I also decided that we should do board and batten or a knock off beadboard wallpaper on the bottom half of the wall to lighten it up. What do you think?

The real thing

Knock off

So I think that will definitely lighten up the room which we'll need considering we'll have the dark rock floors (with a cute rug of course). I also just found a light fixture that I'm realllly hoping fits in the room because I loveeeee it.

AND on sale!

I had been searching everywhere for a light fixture that was close to the ceiling that I liked (like REALLY close to the ceiling so my tall brother in law doesn't hit his head when standing in our 7 feet tall bathroom). Then this morning bam, I got an email saying that lampsplus.com was having a ridiculous sale and it was fate when I saw this beauty. I think the tiniest bathroom of all time might just be putting on her jewels and I like it.