Before & After: Master Bedroom

The master bedroom.  Your retreat from the world.  If I had my way, it would be floor to ceiling white and muted linens, but according to my hubby - that's too girly.  Plus, we have a couple of fur-babies who like to snuggle in bed, so white probably would not have been the most practical choice anyways.  Oh, compromise.  So we started with this...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The furniture was actually our first big purchase for the house.  I know in an ideal world, you don't buy the matching set, but instead accumulate coordinating pieces over time for a "collected" look, but we weren't working with a whole lot - money or furniture - and this set from Ashley fit the bill. I did opt out of the side tables and ordered the Charlotte tables from Pottery Barn.  I've really liked them since they don't take up much space, but still have some drawers for storage.  The lamps are from Target, but I'd really like to replace them with something different - maybe missmatched lamps, or even mounted sconces.  The bedding is from Bassett Furniture.  It's hard to see in the photos but it's a neutral paisley pattern and has held up well to our pups.  Unfortunately, it does stay wrinkly, which is explained in the second photo.  The rug is also from Pottery Barn, but is no longer available.  It's a herringbone pattern surrounded by a brown border.  The paint color is Valspar Patina.  If you notice the curtains aren't exactly hung well, it's because I have a bigger plan for them and haven't gotten around to it yet.  I want to make cornice boxes out of molding and have the curtains hanging from the inside.  Since I wouldn't need a pretty rod, I haven't spent money on one, so they've been on cheap rods that are a little wonky for the last 3 years.  Now that I've shared it with the world, hopefully, I'll actually do something about it.  We'd also like to hang crown molding, but that's a large project we have yet to muster of the courage to tackle.  Decor wise, I haven't done much.  I hung several of our wedding photos in here and the 3x3 collage made its way with us from Auburn.  And of course the giant black dog crate is always a beautiful touch. :)  I love our bedroom, but it still needs a little "finishing."

Before & After: Downstairs Bathroom

Unfortunately, our house does not have a true master bathroom, so the downstairs bathroom serves as both our bathroom and the one our friends use when they are hanging out at our house.  We do, however, have a separate vanity area between our bedroom and closet where we get ready in the morning so our "stuff" isn't all over the bathroom.  Makes it much more liveable!  So if you haven't noticed, the previous owners liked red & brown...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This little room took a lot of work.  I chose the wall color first.  I wanted to match the shower wall as close as possible because it is so prominent.  I felt like when the shower was tan and the wall was red, the room looked very choppy.  So I picked a tan paint.  The tough part was that the walls were terribly uneven.  We think there may have been wallpaper on them before, then it was stripped and painted over.  We ended up sanding - A LOT.  It's still not perfect, but much better.  Then, I went in search of a shower curtain.  You'd think it would be easy with a tan wall color, but I'm quite picky.  I ended up falling in love with this fabric

Waverly Chippendale Fretwork Quartz

So my wonderful mother made me a shower curtain out of the fabric.  The vanity had been darkly stained previously, and not very well.  So I opted for painting it a dark chocolate brown (sorry, I don't remember the color).  We changed out the light fixtures and all the hardware for brushed bronze.  I picked up the framed mirror at TJMaxx instead of the boring builder grade mirror.

The one thing left to do in this room is install quarter round.  The previous owners installed tile themselves (at least I'm hoping they didn't pay someone to do it!) and the tile doesn't quite meet the baseboards.  Again, this isn't our permanent house, so I"m not looking for a tiling project, so I think installing some quarter round will cover that gap and make it look more finished.  Something that I'm sure most people don't notice, but it irks me every time I'm in there!

Before & After: Living/Dining Room

One of the things that sold us on this house was the open-concept floor plan, not exactly common in the 80s.  The kitchen, dining area, and living room are all very open to each other.  But it was a whole lot of brown.  Brown walls.  Brown trim.  Brown floors.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We got to work painting this area right away.  The walls are Behr Pensive Sky and the trim is Behr Ultra Pure White.  We switched out the Pizza Hut style chandelier for something a little more my style.  We also changed out the ceiling fan for one with a brushed bronze finish.  I also made valence curtains to hide the blinds on the french doors.  The fabric matches the cafe curtain in the kitchen - Waverly Stripe Ensemble in Robins Egg.  That's really about it.  As you can see - paint goes a loooong way!

Before & After: Kitchen

Oh the kitchen.  By far the most intimidating part of our house.  I loved the charm of the house and could deal with many of the outdated aspects but oh the kitchen.  With it's 80's oak cabinets (albeit solid wood), brick floors, fluorescent light fixture, yellow formica countertops, and hobby woodworker embellishments...  Not quite my dream kitchen.  BUT the appliances were updated, so there was a plus!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Oh what a little paint can do!  Because this is our starter home (and not exactly the best economy), we opted against the full gut option.  Like I mentioned before, the cabinets were solid wood, just dated.  We decided to paint the cabinets white - Behr Ultra White.  We were newbies to the whole DIY thing and didn't exactly do it the way the professionals do.  We did use a sprayer on the doors so don't get me wrong, they look great, but durability hasn't been the best.  After nearly 3 years, it's about time for another coat, especially around the knobs.  When we finally get around to round two, I will look more into the sealant side of things!

We also replaced all the knobs and pulls with brushed bronze hardware.  I love the contrast between the dark and light.  And of course the countertops had to be replaced.  We started out looking at a nicer formica but for the size of our kitchen the price for granite wasn't too bad so we opted for it.  We figured we'd be happier with it and it would be better for resale.  We chose Giallo St. Cecilia, which is a common color.  I'm so glad we went with the granite.  I love it!

 We replaced the old stainless sink with a white cast iron one and added brushed bronze fixtures.  We painted the wall space between the cabinets in Behr Pensive Sky, a soft grayish blue.  We opted not to do a backsplash since we extended the granite up the wall several inches.  I know many people hate a blank wall without a backsplash, but it really hasn't bothered me and I've enjoyed having the little bit of color there.  It's not shown in the pictures above, but I promise we replaced the light fixture with something of the non-fluorescent variety.  Nothing special, just a basic flush-mount, but it will do until I find something that excites me.   I also made a cafe curtain to go over the sink using Waverly Stripe Ensemble in Robins Egg.

 

I love a good striped fabric and this one had the perfect shade of blue and the little pop of red to tie in my barn star that you will see more of soon!

Before & After: Office

Next up on the home tour is our office right when you walk in the front door.  Technically, it's the formal dining room, but since it isn't quite big enough to fit a long table and we needed an office, that's what we made it.  This is the room we did the least amount of work to.  I actually liked the color of the walls in here.  So other than a fresh coat of white paint on the beadboard, it was all ready to go.  One thing you may notice is the tile stops at the kitchen and switches to brick.  I'd love to have the same flooring throughout, but we've heard the brick is quite a pain to take out so it's staying.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

As you can tell, we are quite proud of our Auburn diplomas - all 4 of them.  And yes, there is a litter box and mass of cords in the photo - just keeping it real.  I really want to address the cord issue (doesn't everyone?). I'm thinking about getting one of these from Amazon

or just trying this trick I saw on Pinterest

The chair I absolutely love.  I found it at an antique shop in Auburn before I finished vet school.  It was wobbly and the seat was looking rough, but the price was right and I liked the paint finish on the chair.  I ended up recovering the chair with leftover fabric from making the curtains (my first sewing project).  The fabric is Waverly Paddock Shawl Mineral.

   The desk is actually a table from an unfinished furniture store that I painted, and the rug is from Martha Stewart that I found at TJMaxx.

I talked about the bookcase that Cameron built for me here.  I painted the beadboard back the same color teal as the table for another pop of color.  It still desperately needs a little "styling," but it is what it is and I love having the extra shelf space.

For those who haven't been to our house or seen pictures on Facebook, you can see a little sneak peak of the kitchen update - by far the most dramatic in our house!

The Beginning of the Before & Afters

When I started this blog, I fully intended to share more interior design/DIY stuff, but I really haven't followed through with that promise.  Life happens and sometimes it's easier to sit back and just look at all the beautiful images on blogs and Pinterest rather than do and share my own.  I figure my house won't be as pristine or my craft projects as creative or my photos as perfect.  But part of the purpose of starting this blog was to motivate me to do more around my house.  The other day I saw this posted over at the Nester and it hit home...

via

So I decided there was no time like the present to start sharing the before and afters of our house.  We purchased our home, our first, almost 3 years ago.  We got right to work, painting EVERYTHING.  Then, we kind of stopped.  Is everything "done" - no.  (I mean, really, are our homes ever really FINISHED???)  But the pictures you see here are what it looked like when we moved in and what it looks like today (well, a couple days ago when I took the pictures).  I decided I will separate it into several posts and discuss my future goals for each space.  Hopefully, that will be a little motivation to get something done (what is it they say about writing down your goals?)  Oh, and be prepared for some pet photo bombs.  It's very difficult to get a photo without one of the 3 in it!

First up...

Foyer/Stairway BEFORE:

Foyer/Stairway AFTER:

As you can see the previous owners liked really dark brown paint.  I felt it made the stairway feel like a cave.  We (i.e. the painter - I was not teetering on stairs) painted over it with Behr Chocolate Froth, a basic neutral pale khaki.  I also painted the railing dark brown.  I'm still contemplating black, but Cameron likes the brown better since the front door is dark brown stained wooded.  I really like our gallery wall, but it needs some updating - I haven't changed it since we moved in - and I'd  like to add in some other art pieces/decor besides just photos.  We also changed out the light fixture, which I talked about here.

That's it for today, but stay tuned for the next set of before/afters!

On the plains

Last weekend, Cameron and I took a quick trip up to Auburn.  I had fully intended to share the details of our trip earlier, but 3 migraines in 4 days left me with little energy for much of anything.  Yep, three.  A personal new record - one I hope to never beat.  Any other migraine sufferers out there?  Mine started back in high school.  I had them occasionally through college, but they got worse in vet school.  Think lack of sleep, plenty of stress, large amounts of caffeine.  Not a good recipe for a migraine sufferer.  They slacked off some since graduation because I've had more control over those triggers.  I've also been more aware of my "triggers."  Mine are very much hormonal and sleep cycle related.  The problem now is that they seem to be occurring in clusters more often and in the middle of the day.  It used to be that I would wake up early, like 4am, with them, take my medicine and go back to bed.  I was usually at least somewhat functional by school/work time.  And once I had one, I was usually "safe" for 4-6 weeks.  Two of the three this week hit me mid-morning - at work.  Nothing like laying on the laundry room floor of a vet clinic because it's the darkest room you can find...Awesome.  In light of the recent events, I've decided to start a daily preventative medication so fingers crossed it works!

Enough griping and on to our trip.  We decided to go to Auburn for 3 reasons 1) we love it and miss it so much (obviously)!  2) my friend Jane Ashley from vet school was going to be working at the vet school for 2 weeks as part of her residency so we would get to hang out again, and 3) Dean, our foster dog, was adopted by a family in Auburn.

One of Cameron's archaeology friends decided to adopt Dean, so we dropped Dean off as soon as we got to town.  The plan was for them to have a "trial" run to see how he fit in with their family.  We got a text later that night saying it was a done deal.  That dog can win over anybody immediately!

Then we headed to Niffers to meet JA for dinner.  Niffers is a local restaurant with a definite college vibe.  Their homemade chips are amazing!

here

Saturday morning was overcast and gloomy, but we still loved every moment being back in Auburn.  It's crazy how much the campus has changed in just 3 years.  Of course, I had to get a picture of the Toomer's Oaks, as they will be torn down after the spring football game.  The university is relandscaping the corner and bringing in new trees, but it will be a while before any celebratory rolling can occur.

We wandered around downtown all morning.  Jane and I shopped at all the cute boutiques, while Cameron sat on the benches like any good husband would do.  (We realized that there isn't much for a guy to do downtown!)  I picked up a few things, but became very well aware of my age!  It may only be 3 years since I lived in Auburn, but it's been 8 since I was in undergrad!  I caught a few girls looking at us, probably wondering who the old ladies were!

Lunch was at my all-time favorite - Amsterdams.

It was a hard choice between the turkey wrap and the crab cake & avocado sandwich (one of the top 100 dishes in Alabama).  I love them both.  I chose the wrap so my sweet hubby got the crab sandwich.  Sweet potato chips were non-negotiable.

After lunch, Cameron & I spent the afternoon visiting family & friends.  First, my cousin and his family, then Cameron's former boss/professor/mentor.

We met up with Jane again for dinner at a new restaurant - The Hound.

here

The restaurant is located where our old favorite, Ale House, used to be.  Think fancy American food + bourbon bar.  Very cool place.  We loved it!  It was so sad to say goodbye to Jane Ashley, but we had such a good time hanging out again and were already planning the next visit!

Sunday morning, we drove by our first newlywed "home," then we had to say our goodbyes to Dean.  We were so sad to give him up, but he is loving his new home!    They live on several acres with a few other dogs and two rambunctious little boys.  He fit in so quickly and loves having the room to run.  I have to admit though there were tears shed, but it helped to see him adjusted and happy! 

After an all too quick trip we headed home.  I love going back to Auburn, but I always have that pang of sadness when I leave.

Until next time...