It’s been a minute since I’ve given an update, so here I am. This is a modge podge of a blog post.
1st-the good ol’ half bath.
I am having THE hardest time getting good pictures in this dark room. There isn’t any sunlight because the screened-in-porch is behind it, so this is what I could get. I have to admit, I am SO PROUD of the crown molding and chair rail. It’s so much harder to do than it looks!
Here’s what I did–
attempted beadboard & discovered that it is nearly impossible to put up in such a small room with so many edges to cut around. scrapped that idea (& a bunch of beadboard. ouch $) & went with a high quality beadboard wallpaper. $20 for one roll which perfectly covered the space!
painted walls dark, masculine gray
added chair railing–4ft
added crown molding w/ corner pieces
used a stripper to remove the gloss on the vanity, the re-stained it with minwax jacobean.
spray painted light fixture oil-rubbed-bronze and added new globes ($15 for the pair at home depot)
spray painted cabinet hardware oil-rubbed-bronze
added a “frame” to the mirror with frosted glass spray paint. blog post about that here.
used a shower curtain from World Market as a curtain
2nd- Appliances are here!
But they’re sitting in my basement until we save the moolah to tackle the kitchen reno. We should be up for it in the next few months!
3rd-Floors
My amazing husband finished the floors upstairs and they look amazing! This is just a quick sneak-peek.
4th-a bear?
This is the newest addition to our family that will live in Alex’s office…much to my chagrin.
Alex’s grandpa killed it years ago and it was just passed down to Alex. Apparently it’s going to be going on the wall. I think if the head weren’t on it I wouldn’t be so weirded out….oh well!
Well, that’s it for now. We’re in a waiting time of saving for the kitchen. Any tips on where to get a good deal on countertops?
Just wanted to give a little linky link to The Lettered Cottage for their official reveal blog.
It’s so funny hearing their perspective of the makeover verses mine. In her blog she mentions how she kept telling me and Alex how we could change things after they left if we didn’t like them. I was wondering why she kept telling us that throughout the week…was there going to be something crazy we would hate at the reveal? Nope, she was just nervous. We’ve been in the room going on 7 months and the only things that have changed are 1. I killed the tree that was in the corner of the room (totally on accident. I can’t seem to keep plants alive.) and 2. added a couple more items to the built-ins. We LOVE this room.
Also, Layla wrote out the resources for paint colors & items used in the room for those who are curious.
I was perusing Hobby Lobby for supplies for the next Pinterest party (yes, me and a few girls have a Pinterest party ever so often and we each bring a craft to work on while we chat) I came across these dense, cardboard-like letters on sale. Normally they’re $1.99 each, but they were reduced to $1.19 on Friday when I was there. I know–80 cents, big freakin’ deal. Yeah yeah yeah.
So I grabbed an M and decided to take it home. Surely there’s something I could do with it!
Just a few minutes later down a different aisle I came across this copper looking, tape, stuff.
*light bulb* It sparked my interest, and I’m really digging copper accents right now, so I thought this was the perfect stuff to cover my M.
So here it is, ready to hang on the stairway wall.
It took less than an hour & it was a great craft to mindlessly work on while I watched some TV.
I came up with the easiest, cheapest, quickest way to update a builder-grade mirror!
I know I want to frame the half bath mirror someday, but I want to wait until the rest of the room is finished. My mom and I were brainstorming and came up with spraypainting a frame around the mirror to give it some texture.
This is definitely a “for now” fix. I like finding things that can be done at little to no cost, but that change things up drastically. This is one of those things.
We made a quick run to Home Depot and bought this can of spray paint for less than $5!
Then quickly taped off a frame on the mirror with painter’s tape. I left about a 4 inch border and pressed the tape down firmly so the edges will be sealed.
We used newspaper to protect the mirror and walls and sprayed away….until I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. At that point we ran out of the bathroom to catch some fresh air. We used a mask, but that wasn’t even enough. FRESH AIR.
Just a few minutes later and it was finished!
I know it’s not that big of a deal, but to me it adds the tiniest bit of texture to the room and it really looks great! It’ll look even better once I frame the mirror with wood!
I am ecstatic right now! Seriously, I’ve been stalking Ikea’s website for months waiting for a kitchen sale to pop up. I read some Ikea message boards that said they usually have a kitchen sale between March and May every year. Well, March 2nd the sale was announced!!!
Here’s the deal:
SPEND $3500 or more SAVE 10%
SPEND $4500 or more SAVE 20%
The appliances in our kitchen are original to the house. That means they’re from 1987. They at least work, but they just don’t work efficiently AT ALL.
I browsed appliances all over. I’ve always wanted a beautiful Wolf range, but let’s face it, that’s WAY out of our price range.
I was at Ikea one day and saw a beautiful range that had the look I was going for. I researched Ikea appliances and read many reviews. To my surprise, most of the reviews were wonderful! The appliances are actually Whirlpool appliances with Ikea’s design. So my mind was made up and I just waited and waited for a sale to come along.
The sale ends at the end of April, so we’ll purchase the appliances by then. It may be a couple more months before we actually tackle the kitchen though. We’ve got to save the moolah for that one!
Without further ado, here are the pieces that we’ll be making a part of our home soon enough!
The built in microwave oven: The built in wall oven:
The BEAUTIFUL gas range with convection oven (oh yes, that means I’ll have TWO ovens!):
The hood for over the range:
Lastly, the dishwasher:
All of these pieces together total $4,645. Even at that price, it’s a great deal for what you get…especially when you compare them to other Whirlpool products. BUT, we’re so not paying full price!
With the 20% discount for spending over $4,500 (just barely!) our total will come to $3,716 + tax!!! That’s a $926 SAVINGS!!! Seriously, how awesome is that? I’m so excited and can’t wait to get my hands on these!
It is my goal, that by the end of this year, we will have a completed kitchen.
Man, I’m so sick of this dang half bath. One thing I’ve learned, or shall I say keep learning, is that I should never under estimate a project. The things that I think will be small and easy just don’t seem to ever turn out that way.
Here’s the bathroom when I last blogged-
Since then, we bought beadboard and I learned how to use a jigsaw and resurface my geometry knowledge from high school. Lesson in cutting beadboard: Measure 100 times. Cut once.
Beadboard is on the wall. The chair railing is on as well…..kind of.
Here’s the deal—I don’t like it. I feel like it’s a “C” job. It’s the first time I’ve ever worked with beadboard so there was definitely a learning curve. I think that if I would re-do it I could make it an “A”.
I was so frustrated one day that I just went to Lowes and bought beadboard wallpaper.
So the question is:
Beadboard re-do or Beadboard wallpaper????? Help!
I feel stuck. It’s such a tiny room and I’m just ready for it to be finished. I plan on working on it some Saturday so I need to make up my mind on which material I’m going to use by then.
I’ve always want to write down a blog about our wedding, but I’ve just never gotten around to it. Like our house adventures, I think it’s a great idea to document our wedding so we can share the memories with our kiddos someday before we forget many of the little details.
Alex and I got married September 17, 2010 in Lawrenceville, GA at 550 Trackside.
This was my design board.
Before the wedding date there are certain things you’ve got to get done…like getting THE dress! We were on a very tight budget and so I knew I had to be careful about how much I spent on my dress. I fell in love with this one Priscilla of Boston dress, but it was 1/3 of my total budget…….sooooo I let that one go.
The Running of the Brides at Filene’s basement was taking place two months after I got engaged.
You know, the dress event where women (& some men, actually) stampede in to Filene’s basement for their one day a year wedding dress sale. The dresses were priced from $249 to $699. They are high quality dresses too, but they might possibly be last seasons or something like that. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, take a look at this video. This is from one of Atlanta’s popular radio stations Q100. The actual “running” starts around 2:55.
I never imagined doing something like ROTB, but when I quickly realized how expensive wedding dresses were, I thought it would be worth it to give it a try. My mom and I assembled a “team” of people to go. Signs were made to hold up so 1. we could find each other in the crowd and 2. for bartering purposes. The signs had pictures of the type of dress we were looking for as well as size. There’s a whole bartering process that goes on. In order to get a dress to try on you have to have one to trade. It’s quite a riot.
My brother’s wife, Amie, is beyond extremely crafty. She threw together the cutest shirts for us all to wear and my mom made me a mini veil out of the veil she wore in her wedding. Lots of people make t-shirts, but we got SO MANY compliments on ours. They were just that cute!
Amie, me, Belynn.
See the back of my shirt? “The Bride” That was the first time I realized I was a BRIDE. Such wonderful memories.
If you can’t tell, I’m definitely very girly-girl when it comes to wedding stuff. I love it all!
My mom’s friend ended up being the victor. She is the one that found “the” dress and brought it to me to try on. It was 100% silk organza. So simple, but very complex as the same time. Very much my style.
The 2nd best part about the dress was the PRICE! I mentioned I was on a budget, right?
This dress was $500 at ROTB. Retail it was $3000. Can you really beat that?! Well, yes. Yes you can. My mom entered a contest online just a few days prior to ROTB to win a $250 Filene’s giftcard to be used at ROTB. Well guess what happened? Yep, she won it! We paid only $250 for that beauty. I love a great deal, and I loved it even more that I found one with my wedding dress.
The rest of the wedding details came about with the help of my mom and my sister-in-law Amie (the crafty one!).
Starting with tables–My mom and I cut out brown craft paper to make runners.
The “M” stencil was created by tracing a large “M” on to dollar store plastic placemats. That saved lots of $ rather than buying a large stencil. We did some of the M’s a pale pink and others navy blue.
The brown craft paper was perfect for our “shabby chic” wedding. Sometimes things are more shabby…but we had Shane’s BBQ cater the reception, so it was perfect! Speaking of Shane’s–what a great way to save moolah. I think it ended up being $8/head. Awesome. Not to mention it was YUMMY.
The centerpieces were made up of dried hydrangeas that my mom gathered from friends, family, the stranger at the grocery store….wherever she could find them!
For some reason my mom had a box of wood blocks like in the picture above. We got resourceful and used them for the table numbers. A little wire + printed out numbers on cardstock + a wood block=cute. A few ball jars, tea lights, and dried green hydrangeas completed the table.
We were supposed to have ice cream at the reception instead of a groom’s cake since Alex doesn’t really like cake. Well, for some reason the ice cream was delivered on dry ice. That meas the ice cream was like cement and totally not edible. But the point of that little story was that we bought the cutest little ice cream spoons and my mom’s friends HAND STAMPED each and every one of them with “Alex & Em”. How oowey goowey sweet is that?
Alex & I had our own special seating for the reception. We didn’t sit in them for one second. Literally.
I had hoped for better looking chairs, but these were the free ones and we didn’t have any spare change for the upgrade. (Our friends actually got married at 550 Trackside just a few months ago and the standard chairs are now pretty white wood ones. Yay!) When you’re on a budget, you have to pick your battles. Where people sat their behinds wasn’t my absolute top priority. So I apologize to our guests if your bum went numb.
My mom really got in to making signs. There were signs for EVERYTHING!
These were the place cards with table assignments. We attached burlap over a cardboard backing in a frame. A few decorative scissor cuts and some bows…simple and pretty.
Do you recognize what the signs above are made of? It’s crown molding! In fact, it’s the same crown molding that’s about to go up in our half bath.
The venue had four large pictures bolted to the back walls. We used them to display some of our favorite engagement shots. Our prints were just taped on the outside of the frame and they looked wonderful.
We also used our engagement pictures to make our guest book. Friends of ours did this in their wedding and I thought it was such a great idea. We used iPhoto to make a book of our engagement pictures, then had a couple Sharpies for guests to sign their names or best wishes for us. It sits on our coffee table and I love looking through it every now and then.
Oh look! More dried hydrangeas at the sign in table! I love you, mom.
Also at the entry was a sign made by Joni Lay of the Chocolate Butterbean. Joni’s current site, LayBabyLay, is one of my favorites and I can’t wait to turn to it for nursery inspiration someday! Joni’s mom and my mom have been great friends since they met in nursing school years ago. This sign was a gift to us for our wedding and now it’s hanging in our home. The quote is one that Alex & I picked out which is personal to us.
Every wedding needs a cake and ours was no exception! Here comes another budget saver–We had my mom’s friend, who is a great baker, make our cake. It was her wedding present to us and greatly appreciated. Did I mention that it was delicious?! Pound cake and the best buttercream icing ever.
At the time, Alex and I had only 2 nephews. Now we have 3 nephews and 2 nieces! Our nephews, Liam & William, served as our ring bearers. They were just shy of 2 years old at the time, but they did a fantastic job!
Amie, my aforementioned uber crafty sister-in-law, made the cutest little pillows for Liam and William to carry.
My bridesmaids were spread across the country at the time so I found it easiest to go with David’s Bridal for their dresses. They were plain and simple navy blue short dresses; two styles to choose from.
I know it’s hard to see in the picture above, but I loved their shoes! It was not easy to find a nude or pale pink high heel that was the right look. I actually found these on some random website for $25 each. I bought each girl’s shoes and accessories for $35/person. I don’t think the shoes were very comfy…but they looked amazing!
As for the guys, I was really happy with the deal we got for them!
We knew we wanted gray suits for the guys, but we just couldn’t find one that we liked. Then we realized that just renting a tux was going to be close to $150 and they just wear it, then return it.
We found a great suit that Alex loved at Express. We gathered coupons, sorted coupons, and strategized how to best used the coupons. It may have been time consuming, but we ended up having the groomsmen pay $100. For that they got a nice outfit from Express: gray slacks, white dress shirt, and socks. We used Macy’s coupons to buy the chuck taylors and found the skinny ties online.
How great is it that they actually get to KEEP their outfits?! I love that.
I was a bit in to personalizing as much of the wedding stuff as possible. Enter, the runner.
I really wish it wasn’t wrinkled, but oh well! The runner itself was purchased from Hobby Lobby for $8. My mom’s cousin made a stencil to monogram our initials on it. I really liked that detail.
The last, but my absolute favorite, tiny detail of the wedding, was the men’s boutonnières. My father passed away when I was in high school and I wanted him to be represented at the wedding somehow. My mom came up with a DIY boutonnière that had golf tees in it. It may help to mention that my dad was a golf pro. She really did a fantastic job and they were a great accent to the guys’ outfit.
Alex and I had such a great evening and had so much FUN. We didn’t have an enormous budget to work with, but we made the wedding beautiful anyway. Best of all, it was just US. Not too fancy. Not too casual. Juuuuuust right.
So, what’s going on? I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog-front lately so I thought I’d give an all words, no pics, update. Fun, right?
I actually have some pics of some projects half-way through, but Alex has the camera at work. Oops.
Last Saturday my mom came over and we went to work on the half bath downstairs.
DID YOU KNOW THAT IT’S NOT THAT EASY TO CUT OUT BEADBOARD IN A VERY SMALL ROOM?!
I got fooled. I thought it would take an hour, all pieces would be cut and hammered to the walls. Nope. I was dead wrong. BUT, I did learn to use a jig-saw which is quite fun! The bathroom is painted a very masculine gray/brown. We’re putting up a 4ft. beadboard wall around the bottom and it’s going to be “gooooooorgeous, dahling“.
I can’t wait to post pics of the light fixture makeover. My dream light fixture is a little pricey and we’re savings for kitchen appliances right now, so with a little spray paint and some new globes, we gave the light fixture a great $18 makeover and I love it!
Hopefully in a week or two I’ll have an official BEFORE/AFTER post. *fingers crossed* I’ve got a busy weekend coming up but I’m hoping to get some work in during the week .
I’m also in the middle of painting Alex’s office from super girly pink to the same gray/brown as the half bath. Speaking of my man, he’s been FANNNNNNNtastic at installing our floors. I took him away from the upstairs project Saturday to help with the beadboard cuts, but his office is finished, the hallway is done and now just the guest bedroom and our bedroom is left to go. It looks so wonderful!!!!!!
It’s been a few weeks since I loaded up my car with the Lapacho Laminate flooring from the Floor & Decor Outlet in Atlanta.
We let the flooring acclimatize for 72 hours…and then for another two weeks while we worked, kept busy, and vacationed in NYC. We procrastinated enough and last weekend things got busy in the Morrison house! I got back to tackling the downstairs half-bath (which I will write more about later–the wallpaper just about beat me) and Alex went to work upstairs.
He started last Friday night by cleaning the floors really well. This meant nailing down anything that was sticking up. Removing balls of carpet padding that were still slightly attached to the floor. Vacuuming extremely well to get up any and all dust and particles on the sub-floors.
Next came the underlayment. We didn’t want to spend a ton on the stuff because being on the 3rd floor from the ground we don’t have to worry about moisture rising, and we really haven’t had a sound issue even just being on sub-floors. I did some research and found a very reasonably priced underlayment at Amazon with great reviews. I bought eight rolls of the stuff and the total was around $175. It’s also worth mentioning how easy it cuts and goes down and has a 3 inch film overlap with adhesive strip for seamless protection.
Alex started in his office. His still very pinkish/purple office with glow and the dark stars on the ceiling. We’ll be heading to that room soon enough to fix it up. I can’t wait to mid-century modern the heck out of that room! Remember my Mad Men inspiration board for it? Oh yeah.
The office floor is finished. He’s recovering from the soreness of it all and will probably move on to the hallway and guest bedroom this weekend (fingers crossed!). Pardon the dusty floors, tools, underlayment peeping out the sides and lack of toe molding. It’ll all come together in time.
Our progress is slow, but that’s just how it is for us. I dream of not having a job and devoting all my time to fixing up the house. Until then, we’ll take it at a pace that doesn’t kill us.
I’m so happy to see a room with FLOORS upstairs!!! Seriously, I can’t type my excitement…but it’s to the utmost degree of excitability!
It’s been nearly 6 months since five days of chaos ensued at our new house. It was an unforgettable experience and we have a beautiful room to remember it by. I blogged about the experience here.
Sadly HGTV ended up passing on the show. *tears* Layla and Kevin are such a sweet and talented couple I couldn’t have imagined that the show wouldn’t get picked up, but they explain it more over at The Lettered Cottage.
Our living room is A-MA-ZING and we had such a great time with the whole shabang…..BUT, I must admit….I was so nervous about being on TV! You know how you hear your voice on a recording, then you immediately cringe and think “is that what I really sound like?!”. Well, that’s pretty much how I felt about being on TV. I am so thankful for the experience, though, and met some wonderful people along the way!
Let’s take a look back one last time of the room before:
And here’s the room as of today!
Isn’t she beautiful? When we were filming, Layla showed me the design of the room on an iPad. Alex and I were both shocked to see red doors leading out to our screened in porch. We had talked about my love of gray neutral colors with a crisp & clean look. I didn’t expect RED. I must say, I could kiss Layla’s feet for pushing our design boundaries!!! The wall of built-ins with the red doors are my absolute favorite part of the room.
Speaking of built-ins…they are such a deal! They’re Ikea Billy Bookcases made in to built-ins! They just secured them to the wall, popped off the old crown molding and placed it at top. Wonderful! I was also very happy to see some doors….you know, to hide the not-so-pretty stuff I don’t want laying around.
Pardon the blurriness. This table is such a great accent to the room. It really helps section off the room appropriately. It wasn’t red when they got it, but one of the bloggers who came out to help spruced it up with this great red.
Didn’t they do such a great job with the picture wall? The day of the finale was me and Alex’s one year anniversary and we had yet to print a single wedding photo. Layla made sure to take care of that.
I LOVE the coffee table! When we came in for the reveal it was the first thing I saw. Layla & Kevin got it from Southern Accents in Coleman, AL. I will make it to that store some day in my lifetime! They have great reclaimed pieces that I’d love to get my hands on to use throughout the house.
Here are some close-ups at the great, unique pieces in the room:
I don’t know why, but I am so in love with this little moss and the container it’s in. Seriously, my favorite accessory in the room.
This chair was fabulously re-upholstered by a blogger who came out to help. I’m sitting in it right now. It’s so dang comfortable.
Isn’t the mantle succulent? I could just eat it up! Okay, not really. But you get it.
Last but not least, here’s Abby. She was patiently (or not) waiting outside for me to finish taking picutres…otherwise a blurry wag of a tail would be in every single shot. Thank you, Abby!
