reprioritizing

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i know i said we were going to have hardwood floors down by now... but we decided - after careful contemplation - if we wanted to do it the "right" way, we'd need to do one more thing on our list first... tear down & rebuild the wall in the entryway. 

a little history on our house... back in the day it was a smaller house with a little general store attached (which i think is kind of cool).  one of the previous owners turned the side that was once the general store into an efficiency apartment to rent out.  when we bought the house it was separated into 2 living spaces.  So when you opened the front door, you were immediately greeted by a wall (right in your face) - with a door to your left & a door to your right.  it was horrible & awkward & really difficult to maneuver if we were carrying bags into the house (or even if more than 1 person wanted to come into the house at a time). *sighs with frustration*  

but we have vision :D  all along we've been planning to push the wall back a few feet to open up our layout & create more space... & we're finally to the point where we get to do that!  i'm super excited.  you can check out the changes in the picture above.  

ps. yes we realize this also means we'll be renovating the bathroom behind the wall (eventually).  it's a good thing we have this really nice other one to use in the meantime ;D

closet overhaul

wow… it was an uncharacteristic 85 degrees on sunday.  combine that with a super messy room & no clean clothes & you have the perfect day for swapping out sweaters for sundresses. here’s the result of my endeavor.  my ‘rainbow’ makes me smile every time i change my clothes. i’m hoping it also motivates me to stay tidy  :D

what happens when dj gets bored...

so i came home from my pilates class on monday to this (see below).  the good news is that the prep work for the dining room floors is complete.  the not so good news… it will be about 2 weeks before we can lay the new floors - oh, & we have family staying with us this weekend.  we’ll have to be careful to keep our shoes on.  sweet.   

bedroom curtains

i meant to post this a while back.  i would say this is my first successful independent sewing project!  yeah.. i know.  how difficult is it to sew 4 straight lines?  it doesn't matter... i sewed a pair of curtains from scratch!!!  it's very exciting for me.  i think they're so beautiful.  they're in our 2nd bedroom, which we call the green room - mostly bc it's the room i get ready in & also because it's green :)

ps... i can't remember who the fabric designer is, but i got it at my favorite local fabric shop, sew to speak.  i sure love that place!

still working on the bathroom...

we're so close! sometimes i get so excited to complete a project, that i exaggerate - or over simplify - how little is left.  in this case, when i said "all we have left to do is hang the doors", what i really meant was "all we have left to do is: hang the doors, select the molding that goes around the doors, put up the molding, prime & paint the molding, finish tiling around the door (to the molding), finish grouting the tile around the door, paint the ceiling, purchase/make the accessories & move everything else in!

whew... so, although we're still working on the bathroom, we're finally to the point where we just have to finish decorating,  yay!!  

here's the molding around the door...  

also...a super cute catchall i picked up in berlin, ohio (amish country).  i'm thinking it will be a nice place to drop my rings when i'm washing my face + the orange is a nice pop against the blue-green walls  :)

oh... & we finally picked out a shower curtain!!  personally i could have easily continued vacillating on the perfect shower curtain for months.  i really like this one though... the grey flowers are the same color as our pigeon grey towels  :)

 

wood floors

one of our upcoming projects – as you may remember from the 2009 resolution list – is installing hardwood floors in the dining & living rooms.  i’m super psyched for this one.  i feel like it will give the house much more charm, character & warmth… plus, we’ll have to move the horrible in-your-face wall back in the process!!

although i love the idea of reclaimed wood floors, our budget just won’t allow that.  lucky for us, we have a backup  J  i remember last summer - when we were remodeling our kitchen - finding a local distributor with really reasonably priced beautiful hard wood floors.   ironically it was the same place we ended up getting our granite countertops from (also very reasonably priced).  dj recently stopped in to pick up flooring samples... all the samples below are acacia walnut (with different stains).  Although they’re all beautiful, we’re leaning towards the "natural".  we like the contrast of light & dark + think it's more traditional & characteristic of the time period our house was built in (1920s).  

(port)

 

(natural)

(royal)

drafty doors

wow it's been cold outside!  cold enough to freeze our kitchen pipes ;)  a couple of weeks ago, as i sat on the floor trying to thaw the pipes with my hairdryer, i noticed we had a major draft under the back door.   i don't know how we missed this last winter.  

it reminded me of this project (posted on the paper pony last year).  filled with the motivation of not only a new project, but one i actually had a chance of completing, i decided to make a "draft blocker" of my own.   

although the paper pony version is so lovely with it's mismatch of beautiful fabrics, since mine would be laying on a dirty floor (where people constantly track in snow & mush), i thought i should use a more substantial (& less dirt revealing) fabric.  i found a really pretty soft grey corduroy & went to work.  below is the end product. 

it was so easy, i ended up making another for the front door.  at the end of the day i was beaming with pride (mostly because i finished a 1-day project in 1 day - & dj mentioned he was impressed with my sewing craftiness) - hahaha

note:  

• afterward i realized i could have used an old pair of corduroys (either a crazy color via jcrew clearance or a thrift store score).
• our doors are 35 inches wide so my fabric measured 37 inches long x 8 inches wide, which gave me a 1 inch seam allowance.
• each pillow used about 3 lbs of rice - fyi, the rice cost more than the fabric!
• i feel the need to mention that we are planning to paint the back door the same color as the trim (once a final trim color is picked)  :D