Living room gallery wall

>> Monday, November 19, 2012

It took me a really long time to get stuff on the walls of our house. It was partly due to the fact that we were more worried about things like flooring and kitchen cabinets and windows and doors and bathrooms and trim. And then once we finished that stuff, I was just way too big and pregnant and tired to even care. But things are finally starting to happen. The one big thing that I’ve had in mind the whole time for this house is a gallery wall. And not just any gallery wall, a massive one! I have always hated the fact that I take tons of pictures but they just end up stuck on the computer. I also really wanted to showcase not just the most recent pictures, but my favorites from over the years. And so from all of that, you get this!

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I wanted to use color pictures so I chose white frames to let the photographs shine. Most of the frames are thrifted and spray-painted white. The pictures are an assortment of the last seven and a half year. It was actually pretty difficult choosing pictures. I could have included a hundred more! Overall I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. There are still a few more things I would like to tweak though. But that’s one thing I love about this wall – it can constantly change and evolve with us.

One thing I’d like to try is to eliminate all of the mats in the frames. I almost think there is a little too much white going on so I may try some enlarged pictures and see how I like it. I’m also not sure of a couple of my frames up there. The one on the top right is always crooked and some of them are not in too great shape or a very different white color. I’ll keep you updated as I move things around.

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DIY Growth Chart

>> Saturday, November 10, 2012

This is one of those projects that seemed to carry on and on forever. Actually it didn’t just seem like it, it was more than two years from the time I bought the materials until it was actually hanging on our wall. IMG_1360
I love the idea of recording our kids’ heights but I had a few criteria when designing mine:
- I wanted to be able to move it around if needed
-I wanted to be able to record each child’s height separately
- I wanted some form with all that function
I started out with three pieces of pine tongue-in-groove paneling from Home Depot. This style had two small panels on one side and one large one on the back. After acclimating in our garage for a few months (totally not a needed step, just my way of saying I procrastinated a whole lot!), I first cut them to length (about 5') and then I glued them together with wood glue. I flipped the middle piece around so that instead of two skinny panels, it had one wide one. I cut off the tongue piece on the right with my circular saw but I left the groove on the left, in case we have more than four children and I want to add another piece of paneling.IMG_6985
Then it was primed and painted white – just some leftover semi-gloss that I had on hand. Now, I know this next part could be done a lot more easily with vinyl but I am not a patient person and I just wanted to get this done so I used a bit of a different technique. I overlapped two pieces of painters tape on a scrap piece of 2x4. Then I printed off the words in the font and size I wanted and taped it over the tape. Then it was just a matter of tracing around the letters with my exacto knife, making sure I was getting all the way through the paper and the tape. After that it was just a matter of peeling off the tape and sticking it to my already painted board. It is definitely not perfect but it worked good enough for me!
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Once I filled in all of my stencils with a light grey paint (I just mixed a little bit of black acrylic craft paint into the white semi-gloss), I did the same thing with the numbers and filled them in with a darker grey paint.

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Then it was just a matter of adding the measurement lines and I was done!

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But by this time, we were about ready to list our house so I didn’t hang it up at the time. Then we moved and renovated and everything else that last year entailed. When we pulled it our at our new house, the paint had been scratched up and it wasn’t looking too hot so it still didn’t get hung up. So then finally this weekend I found a spot for it and figured out how to hang it up. Then it just took a little bit of touch up paint and it looks awesome! You might notice that I still have to add another name to the top but I’m giving myself a little time since that boy is still a few months away from being able to stand on his own!

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Nursery

>> Monday, September 17, 2012

The baby’s room is finally at a point that I can call it done (for now!). It still needs some more small touches but all of the big things are done. And now it’s a fun, simple room, perfect for baby Nash. But first, lets travel back in time a year and check out what it used to be.
SAM_0928I’m not sure exactly what this room was used for but it was an elderly lady that lived here so I’m guessing this room was used for some type of physiotherapy or stretching? Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, it wasn’t very inviting with linoleum floors and those giant metal bars.

SAM_0929But even though it looks quite different now, this is probably the room that got close to the least amount of changes. First, we tore up the linoleum and extra subfloor, which was a total beast! I actually have my grandparents to thank for that because they got most of that job done. We also, of course, ripped off all of the wallpaper, trim and the closet doors. Next it got a coat of paint and a new window! Those big bay windows were kinda cool in their own way but totally not the look we were going for.

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After some new trim and flooring, here it is today:
SAM_1243 copyPoor Nash, the third child that he is. We really didn’t do much for his nursery other than set up all the furniture that was in Landon’s nursery. But I do love that we were able to give the room a whole different look without much effort or money spent.

SAM_1241 copyI knew I didn’t want to go all out with the crib bedding so I chose instead to order some fabric and make him a fun crib sheet. I really love the pop of color in the crib! I would like to have a crib skirt but I’ve done without one for this long, I don’t think I’ll make the effort now. IMG_1055 copyThe crib and mobile were both bought before Tyler was born. It is kinda fun to have things that we’ve used with all three boys. I made the dinosaur art and then had it printed at Costco and popped them into dollar store frames. IMG_1048 copy

The “Nash” sign was made by adapting an idea I found on Pinterest. It was kind of a fun project and Jeff actually helped me a lot by pounding most of the nails and even doing some of the string. I actually snapped this picture the morning before Nash was born. The boys were watching a show, Jeff was finishing up the sign and I was sitting in the chair having contractions. IMAG0143
I think it’s a fun, unexpected element to a little boy’s room!
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The chair and night stand, I recovered/refinished before Landon was born but I recently whipped up that fun pillow to add a bit of color to that side of the room.
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I’m really happy with where we are at with his room right now. It definitely needs some more finishing touches but I’m happy enough with it right now that I can move on to some other projects in our house that are in more desperate need of my attention!

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A Bed Upgrade

>> Wednesday, September 12, 2012


You see, we had this bed. We bought it about a year after we were married and I think it was our first big furniture purchase. We felt all grown up buying this big, dark four poster bed. And it’s been well loved for the past 6 years. And it was still in pretty decent shape, despite several moves and years of wear and tear. But we were just itching for something different.
SAM_1070It all started with the idea of hacking off the posts. I think a four poster bed can be great, but we just don’t have a big enough room to pull it off. It really made the space feel closed in. The hubby was on board with that so we disassembled the bed to haul the posts out to our miter saw and give them a little trim. And while we had the bed taken apart, I decided that there was no time like the present to give it a little facelift. You see, in addition to those posts really closing off the space, the dark color was really heavy and I just wasn’t feeling the leather anymore. So we took all the pieces down to our basement where they sat for the last 5 months. I wish I was joking. In the meantime, our room looked like this. SAM_1116Nothing like sleeping on the floor to keep you feeling young! And then finally with summer winding down and me getting the bug to get the house in order, I finally got around to finishing it up these last few weeks. It was a fairly simple process, although it did take a bit of time (stretched out over quite a few days) to prime and paint all of the pieces. The old leather pieces were just screwed into place from the back so updating that part was fairly simple. I cut a piece of plywood to size and then upholstered it in batting and fabric and screwed it back in. I’m loving our new bed. It feels so fresh! I can hardly believe it is the same piece of furniture.

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As you can see, there is still quite a bit of work to do in our room. And when I say quite a bit, I pretty much mean that I haven’t done anything else. Except the lamps. Next up on the agenda: pillows, things on the wall, a new dresser and some closet organization. And when I say next on the agenda, I pretty much mean hopefully sometime in the next year!

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A roof over our heads

>> Thursday, January 12, 2012

One of the very first projects on the agenda for our new house was our roof. It had a few issues.

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The first issue was that the shingles were old and wearing and needed to be replaced. Simple enough. The second issue was that the roof sagged a bit over the garage. (The garage was an addition and was built with homemade rafters that obviously were not as sturdy as manufactured ones). The third issue was that it was boring! But luckily we were able to find a fix for all of those things!

So first of all was to fix the structural things. Luckily, our inspector told us that the garage was still structurally sound and that it looked like the garage would not continue to sag. A cosmetic fix was all that would be needed. Great news! Next on the agenda was to hire a contractor who could add some interest to the contour of the roof. My husband came up with the idea of the peak and we hired a friend of ours to put it up and to also fix the spot over the garage. We were really excited how it turned out! It adds so much to the house and just looks great!
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So now that the bones were in place, we could start shingling. We chose to do the roof ourselves (like pretty much everything else in the house). My husband’s cousin, who roofs for a living, was able to come help us. We also had lots of help from our family and neighbors.

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We somehow chose one of the hottest days of the year so we definitely owe everyone who came to help. It took us a day and a half but now it looks awesome! After pictures to come!

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Demo!!

>> Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Well, we are all moved in and mostly settled but before I show you current pictures, I need to bring you up to speed on all that has happened. I didn’t take a ton of pictures during the whole renovation process because, lets face it, I was working! This reno process has seriously been brutal! I don’t know if we would do it again if given the choice. But, man am I happy with how things turned out!

Onto the goods!

All of these pictures were taken one week after we took possession. It’s amazing how quick you can make changes with demo. I almost typed its amazing how quick demo goes but then I remembered that it felt like we were doing demo for-ev-er. If you need some before pictures to reference, check out this post.
SAM_0937SAM_0938So at this point we had ripped out almost all of the carpet and stripped most of the wallpaper.

SAM_0936We also knocked a huge hole in the wall. We took out the door to the basement and opened up the half wall to the stairways. We have a huge basement and I really wanted to utilize it, not for it to be this dark, dingy place. I think it really helps it join the floors together and help it to feel like living space. This was kind of a big project but now that it is completed, I’m so happy we did it!

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And, speaking of big projects, we totally gutted our kitchen…

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…and our bathrooms.

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It was really nice to not have to live here so we could go ahead and just demo everything at once. Although, it was a little inconvenient to not have a toilet while we were there working. Luckily my sister lives about a block and a half away!

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The bedrooms eventually got stripped of their flooring and carpet too. I don’t have pictures of the bare bones of the house but to give you the gist of it, here is a run down of all the demo that we did:

  • tore out all of the flooring in the main floor (including all of the linoleum and subfloors under it)
  • stripped wallpaper in pretty much every room in the house
  • completely gutted the kitchen, including removing some of the drywall, since we discovered lots of it needed to be rewired
  • tore down the door to the basement and half of the wall beside the stairs
  • completely gutted (down to studs in some places) both bathrooms
Demo was a lot of work! And the thing I hated most about it was that the harder you worked, the more mess you made. It just seemed like a never ending cycle. But luckily, once the demo was done, we got to start putting things back together! That part is a little more rewarding!

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