Family Room Reveal

Here's a quick update on the almost finished product. It's taken a long time to take photos since the moments of the house being quasi-clean, having good lighting, and having the toddler entertained elsewhere are few and far between. It's like a split-second utopia.

Overall, we love the house. We still have some nesting to do, but it will come (right??). The big stuff is complete, and making it ours is a work-in-progress. We are getting there slowly but surely. But, here's where we are today...

the little rocking chair was left with the house. i painted it & B loves having his own "big boy" space in the family room.

Need a reminder of the before? (shield your eyes from the shag carpet!)

The inspiration behind the transformation...

Favorites in this room:

• The black windows. Replacing all of the aluminum-framed casement windows throughout the house wasn't in the budget. Painting them black gave them an INSTANT update and we love it, despite the pain it was to get the painters to finish the job correctly.
• Natural light
• Fireplace - hubs did an amazing job installing the wood cladding. 
• Fireplace surround
• Shelving update - a little trim on the shelf fronts and paint on the rear wall is another instant update
• B's play area isn't as pretty or contained as the Sarah Richardson in me would like, but I wouldn't trade having him a place to hang out for all the designer fabric in the world.

Details:

• Rug: One Kings Lane
• Bench: Antique
• Mantel: Custom reclaimed Douglas Fir
• Fireplace surround: Absolute Black granite, honed
• Fireplace cladding: Custom
• Armoire: Crate & Barrel
• Curtains: Ikea
• Wall hanging: vintage
• Paint colors: see here

Kitchen Reveal

As we near a year on being in our house, it's about time I post some pics of the finished product. Well, almost finished. Between trying to finish some little projects and keeping the house quasi-clean amidst a toddler's endless energy, it's been tough to get photos. Let alone upload them and find time to post them. So, bear with me.

We are really happy with our kitchen, to say the least.

It started ugly, but with a little inspiration like this...

...we went from drab to fab.


We didn't do too much in this room from a structural perspective except remove the peninsula. Knocking down the bulkheads helped to elevate the ceilings and open up the space all around. We removed the pantry and replaced it with floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinets for more functional storage.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Some of my favorites in this room:

• Dual fuel range - this sucker can turn out some yumminess in a jiffy
• Bench storage & window seat - perfect spot for coffee and family meals
• Open shelving - this is uber functional for us and we're surprisingly able to keep it tidy. We love the mix of old & new that this adds, too.
• Marble counters - we languished over this decision a good bit, and we're ultimately really happy with it. More on that coming in a future post. 
• The openness - we originally planned to have a small island in the middle of the kitchen, but we nixed that after living in the space a while. We love being able to dance during dinner prep (neighbors must love watching us) and Burke can spread out his toys to really make quite a mess.

Details:

• Cabinets: Wellborn Shaker full overlay, glacier white
• Countertops: honed Carrara marble, more on that search here
• Shelves: Custom from reclaimed Douglas Fir
• Hardware: Signature Hardware and My Knobs
• Bench: Custom
• Paint colors: see here
• Lighting: Restoration Hardware (over sink) and Ballard Designs (over table)

Nursery Progress 1: the closet

With Thanksgiving around the corner, the future nursery was overwhelmed with baby stuff and my sister's sleeping space was quickly disappearing. We had to contain the clutter in time for her to have room for the blow-up bed.

We knew we'd need plenty of storage for all the stuff, and since the closet was formerly a built-in desk, we had some configuring to do. (I'm sure you're wondering...well, where are you going to work now? Why, thanks for your concern. Do not fret. A new desk was a big project for Cricket...which we've since installed and changed our mind about for space reasons and are in the midst of a replacement replacement desk project. Stay tuned for that reveal.)

After ripping out the desk stuff, we had to patch the wall. Which opened the door for painting the wall a fun color! Enter turquoise to brighten up the space. (Disregard the chaos...it WILL be contained!)

A closet kit from Home Depot plus a drawer kit and we're in good shape.We went with the shelf-track system so that we can easily adjust the shelves without tearing up the wall as the kid grows & needs different configurations. I'm sure we'll adjust the set-up once we know what stuff we have and get everything organized. For now, this works to at least hold all the generous goodies we're receiving as the baby bump grows!

house paint source list

professional help:
hire a pro. my dad offered to paint our house, but well, i'd rather actually enjoy his visits than end up at the ER. and he's had significant pro painting experience, so i wasn't worried about the quality. we hired CertaPro after lots of rave reviews from friends & neighbors. they came out and recommended different treatments where the wood was beginning to rot, where sun was doing more damage, etc.

Their crews arrived on-time and were easy to work with. Jeremy at CertaPro was great. He actually sold his house to some friends of ours & he's been the go-to painter for our group. Even some friends in the construction industry have good things to say about 'em.

They started with a thorough pressure washing, followed by scraping where necessary. The paint was applied as both spray & hand, depending on the surface. They worked their tails off and were even here until 8pm on a Saturday night to finish the job. The pressure washing started on Mon, and they finished up on Saturday night. Any drops of paint were cleaned up, and they sealed the spots where knots were beginning to show through the existing paint.

and, i've already mentioned the priceless guidance from friends + fam.

colors:
body of house: SW7018 - dovetail
dormers: SW7019 - gauntlet gray
trim: SW7008 - alabaster
accents: SW6664 - marigold

I cannot say enough good things about my local Sherwin Williams store on Moreland Avenue. I visited another one by my office, and they weren't so helpful. But Brandon at my local store was very nice. I was waiting outside the door at 7am, and he was obviously having one of those mornings where things don't really go your way. Apparently, his dog had made a midnight ER trip during the night, so he was frazzled. But he still had a very pleasant attitude (which is more than I can say for my other store experience, and there was no sick dog in the equation.) When he asked me how many samples I'd already purchased, I told him "about a dozen." He was a bit surprised and told me those could sure get expensive at $7 a pop, but I told him it was worth it to make sure we got the right color. He said, "Well, today is going to be buy a dozen, get 4 free." Kudos to Brandon!

On another note, if you're thinking of sampling gray...I have 16 quarts of various shades. I'll sell you enough to sample multiple shades really cheap.


accessories:
turquoise planter: Lowe's, this season
black porch swing: box store, 2010
zinc planter by door: Crate & Barrel, this season (set of 3)
doormat: Ballard Designs, 2010
wall plaque: neighborhood store

If there's anything else you'd like to know, just let me know!

house paint tips from a pro

my genius cousin Janet Sanders of Sanders & Sanders Associates in Houston hit the nail on the head when i posted a call for help on Facebook. from the before photo, here are a few small changes she suggested that made a huge impact.

[before]

Main thoughts:

1. Columns & house trim should be the same color to keep it from being so top heavy.

2. The corner boards should not be accented with trim color.

3. It looks like there is a tall trim board over windows on the porch. This board should be the same color as the body of the house to give height.

4. If the dormer is only on one side of house, consider painting entire dormer a darker value so that it blends into the roof.

cricket had really been pushing for the dormers a darker color. i was afraid it would give the house wings. i'd never thought about them blending into the roofline. she gave the example of if the main body of the house is SW7024, the dormers should be SW7025. we thought her color was just for an example, but i picked up a sample on a whim. and, it was the lead contender for a while. we opted to a shade just to the left of it on the brochure (to pick up more gray vs. taupe), but i was nonetheless impressed.

[the dormers are one value darker, though it appears much darker due to the shadow. it's hardly noticeable from the ground]

the other big "AHA" was that extra trim board on the house that's currently dark brown. it runs along the entire house, but it definitely makes it heavier. the trim is actual stacked double-high and all was brown, but painting the lower board the color of the house really helped! the porch ceiling seems so much higher now and it's really helped the scale appear more proportionate.

[note the dual trim boards above the door & window. once they were both brown.]

her other suggestions of which trim pieces to paint which color really helped shift the scale of the house. it's like the house had a dislocated shoulder and Janet was able to pop it back inline.

[the columns, corbels, + trim match. the corner boards match the house, not the trim. it's less choppy]

and, if you don't already agree that she's pretty good. here are some ideas she sketched on the fly to give us ideas of ways we could better balance the facade in the future. doh! maybe we'll venture to tackle option B in the future.

thanks again, cousin Janet!

house paint reveal

[before...bile yellow and poop brown]

it's so true that a fresh coat of paint can add new life to just about anything. we've been in our house for almost two years, and we've planned to paint the exterior since the first time we walked in the door. finally, we got around to it.

[after: SW dovetail, gauntlet, alabaster, & marigold]

we always knew we wanted a gray exterior, but, well, that didn't come so easy. 16 quarts of trial colors, a polka-dotted side of the house, a 7am run to Sherwin-Williams and some cha-ching later, we're pretty happy thrilled with the result.

we couldn't have done it without some seriously qualified expert opinions. special thanks to my cousin Janet Sanders at Sanders & Sanders Associates in Houston. she's got plenty of other things going on these days with a daughter getting married this summer + helping my mom remodel her house, but she did, and she nailed it. if you need any architectural or interior work, she + her hubs are the best.

another special thanks to Anne Manning from Manning Homes. she swung by one AM to offer a second (and "professional") opinion as we narrowed down the polka dots. and she came wielding her swatch book, just in case we'd left out a shade during the trial. she's juggling a few balls too--a 6 month old, a 3 year old, 6 year old, and a traveling job. we would've picked the wrong white without her.

and, surprisingly, no one talked us off the ledge with our orange windows. even though they probably wanted to.

i'm not sure if it's the paint, or the subsequent "finishing" projects that followed, but our house finally feels like a home. and that's priceless. we hung the swing we bought after we moved in - it always clashed with the house, so it sat under the guest bed for 2 years. we potted some plants in shiny new planters, and yeah, even hung something over the sofa.

[my new fave spot. what to do about the tinted plexi in the background?]

saturday morning, i was enjoying my coffee & muffin on the swing, watching the neighborhood come to life. Lula joined me--she likes the swing. we could see the English Premier League game on TV through the window while cricket got his weekly dose. and it suddenly felt like home. not just a house.

[our newest tenant deems our porch home-worthy]

and we watched a bird build a nest in our freshly painted porch, and figured she agreed. (she'd actually fought another bird the day before to win her spot...it feels good to be coveted among the birds.)

i'll be posting tips, lessons learned, + material lists soon, so stay tuned.

house paint update

over 16 samples, a 7am trip to SHerwin Williams, priceless input from some expert friends & fam, and a polka-dotted house later, we've selected our colors!!

the winners are...(I'll update with the SW numbers soon)
Trim- Alabaster
Body- Dovetail
Dormers- Gauntlet Gray
Accent- Marigold

The house is primed and the painters are well underway! Stay tune for more updates.

paint decisions on a deadline

So the painters come Monday to begin the transformation of our house!! It's just taken us 2 years to get to this project--we hated the color when we bought the house (the yellow/brown combo reminds me of poop. we like the red accent around the windows, but it's really peeling and hardly noticeable here).

And even though the house was re-done in 2007, the paint is peeling and knots are showing through. Ughhh flipper!

Anyway, here's where we are today.

Leaning towards a gray base, creamy white trim, and a pop of color accent on windows (orange, yellow, red, teal?!?!). Reversing the scheme should balance the scale a little, right? It's so top-heavy now with that steep pitch. May do the dormers a tad darker? Wish us luck!

Any color reccos from Sherwin Williams?