Room Makeovers

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 24 – The Kitchen Reveal

by Claire on October 24, 2012

Thanks for stopping by! This is Day #24 of my “31 Days To An Organized Home” challenge. If you missed it, you can catch up with Day #1 here!

__________________________________________________

Well here we are on the 24th of October already! Seven days until Halloween and my kid’s costumes still aren’t done but, darn it, I will finish this kitchen! Mother of the Year.

As much as I tried to get this posted yesterday it was not to be. If you read my last post you may recall that we were having some major internet challenges with our cable ~~monopoly~~ provider. I would now like to retract every disparaging thought or comment I have made right now because our technician (even though I let The Husband deal with it since I was working during most of this) was very knowledgeable and could not have been nicer.

Well… ok. Next time he could bring Mama a Pumpkin Spice Latte but, otherwise, he was absolutely great.

So that was late in the day yesterday. We started putting the kitchen back in order after rearranging the counter and hanging some things late last eve but nothing felt quite right. I rearranged again and then decided to GO BIG and get some paint this morning. I am pretty excited about the way this has turned out and I am glad I spent the extra day on it.

As a recap – here’s where we started (hardest kitchen to photograph EVER ):

The window is on a very large vaulted wall. Needs help!

So today I painted… I chose this Benjamin Moore color called “Lady Liberty” because it reminded me of a color called “Batter Bowl Green” from the Martha Stewart line many, many years ago. I’ve always liked it. Let’s see if it sticks:

And painted…

And painted some more. I was on a tear!!

And then the second coat of paint went up and we hung and placed a bunch of things (shopping details below) and here’s where we ended up (oh and, thank GOD The Husband has the patience of a saint, btw. He is my “master hanger of things”). Also, I found no window treatments I liked so I am going to have to make a valance:

I did not know if I would like the roosters until I placed them and I must admit I just love them. And they’re the non-crowing kind, even better!

And the authentic wooden wine crates were found at a garage sale many years back. We got rid of some in the move – now I wish we had kept them all, but we have the three shown above.

As far as the pantry and bi-fold laundry doors we have a bit of a dilemma. First I painted the inserts in the panty door. I wasn’t sure if it was too much (when The Oldest saw it he rolled his eyes and said “MOM, mint green? Really??” (which no, it’s not “really”) I told him to shut it or his room was next). So I just did some of the insert trim as a test in the laundry doors on the right:

I don’t know which I like better. Neither does The Husband. What do you think?? Here’s another view of the laundry doors:

Going to stare at it for a few days. Since the bi-folds have 12 total inserts it may be too much to fill them in? Hmmm… This will NOT keep me awake tonight. (as a side note, Middlest (who is 8) came in and loved the pantry door but said we should paint the white part red. Lord have mercy now that’s a fiesta waiting to happen right there – I think maybe “no” on that one).

As far as the shopping goes, we had $250 budgeted and bought the following:

Ace Hardware:

1 Gallon of Benjamin Moore paint - $30.00

Hobby Lobby:

2 Posters (Fork & Spoon) @ $20 – $40.00

Two frames (50% off) @ $25.00 each - $50.00

3 Roosters (50% off) at $20 each – $60.00

8 metal letters (“LA CUCINA” – 50% off) @ $3 each – $24.00

3 Other pieces wall art (Bon Appetit, “Eat” etc) – $44.00

_____________________________________________________________

TOTAL: $248

Which is pretty good (and I’ll admit the Roosters are maybe a bit extravagant but I went to Hobby Lobby, not Pottery Barn – which I love but this wasn’t a PB budget, y’all!). Only catch is I still need to get fabric for a window valance. Going to use a 50% off coupon at JoAnn fabric this weekend if they have something that will work! I already have plenty of curtain rods.

So there’s the kitchen looking a million times better than before, at least in person! Let me know what you think!

And, for the record, if I had my way I would have THIS kitchen (at least today). Thank you Shannon at Fox Hollow Cottage for all of the inspirational kitchen photos!!

Here’s to some happy cooking!

~ Claire

*********************************************************************************************

10/26/12 – Linking up to… A “Tres Fabulous” Linky Party at Redoux Interiors!

Enjoy!

{ 6 comments }

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 22 – Step Into The Kitchen

by Claire on October 22, 2012

Thanks for stopping by! This is Day #22 of my “31 Days To An Organized Home” challenge. If you missed it, you can catch up with Day #1 here!

__________________________________________________

I don’t know about you guys but today is a perfect example of a stereotypical “Monday”. Not to be snarky but… I have had work meetings and calls all day and have tried to simultaneously multi-task on our kitchen / pantry re-do. And I was doing pretty well at it, too!!

Until the internet crashed.

At least the wireless portion (and that is what we all use around here). The cable ~~monopoly~~ company is coming tomorrow afternoon. It happens. All my chickadees are home safely so I can’t really complain. I am going to try to get back on on a little while to at least get the “before” pictures up from the hard connection. For now, The Oldest needs to do homework!

In the meanwhile, I hope you have all had a fabulous day with none of these types of shenanigans or goings on!

To Be Continued ASAP…

*************************************

UPDATE - The children (both large and small) are all sleeping.

And apparently so are most “normal” people using our internet provider’s bandwidth, because the signal has picked back up a little bit. Either way the “big monster cable company” is coming out tomorrow to “fix everything”. At least that’s what they promised, so heres hoping!

On to the Kitchen “Before” pics… I won’t make it through the “After” this eve but it’s something to look forward to tomorrow, right?

First, I do SO love the kitchen (you must believe this even though the pictures below look a little bit like a war zone). The Husband and I both absolutely love to cook. I also love to bake. We have a (possibly) unhealthy relationship with Food Network and The Cooking Channel and all things food. We might have stalked local food trucks and Farmer’s Markets. I mentioned in a previous post that I haven’t set foot in Williams Sonoma in a few years because, frankly, I would like to be able to put my children through college and I don’t need the temptation.

However, this month is not about recipes and baking goodies – it’s about organizing our home (and I won’t lie, I can’t wait until next month right now :) ).

So our “new” kitchen was hard to photograph. I tried! First, here are two pictures from our previous home that we had renovated just to try and help put it all into a bit more context:

And…

Someday I will post all about that renovation. For now, the space we are working with is a bit “challenging” – nicest word I could think of (we still have the same bratty kitty as shown on the island above, however ). You can also see that our makeshift island – with “fancy” corner pads so the little guys didn’t lose an eye at the time – is the desk that would just not work in last week’s Front Room Reveal post!)

Here are the current kitchen pics:

And to try to give a little more detail – our laundry area is in the kitchen as well…

And you recall my couponing workspace is also in the kitchen…

So, there is the “before”, as best as I can show it. I have decided to make the pantry a separate post. It’s a little messy but it’s pretty small and we had just organized the “stockpile” a month ago so I am focused on the kitchen and how we can take half the space we had with the same amount of people (and they’re getting bigger!!) and make it work!

Looking forward to posting the reveal tomorrow. Sadly, hardwood floors will NOT be happening, but no problem! We will do what we can with what we’ve got, right? :)

Happy organizing! I look forward to reading your kitchen stories / memories or makeover posts too!

xoxo,

~ Claire

{ 2 comments }

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 17 – The Front Room Makeover {Reveal}

by Claire on October 17, 2012

Thanks for stopping by! This is Day #17 of my “31 Days To An Organized Home” challenge. If you missed it, you can catch up with Day #1 here!

__________________________________________________

Whew. This room has been a mental (and sometimes physical) challenge! Ultimately, this space is a multi-purpose “Guest Room, Home Office, TV Room for the Teenager, Husband’s band equipment storage, and sometime Little Kids Play area”. I knew it would require some extra attention.

First, organizing your home can cost a little money, so I have been trying to be very judicious about where the budgeted dollars are being spent this month. It can be very difficult (and sometimes impossible) to function or to be creative in a cluttered environment. It’s just not good for anyone, and I also don’t believe it sets a good example for my children – especially the teenager. It was a little hard to harp on him about cleaning his room when ours was a disaster!

There are some areas / rooms (like my couponing workspace) that cost me no money to get in order. The Master Bedroom ended up only costing $291 (I had budgeted $250). We hadn’t updated our bedroom (even through two moves) since 2004 so sometimes ya’ gotta spend a little money AND always repurpose what you can.

And then sometimes you plan on repurposing an item and it just doesn’t work out. This is the case with the old (and granted, cheap) 10 year old desk that I wanted to re-utilize in this front room re-do. It just didn’t work.

So I hadn’t planned on buying the new desk in this case, and this cut back on a few other things that I had planned on buying (I wonder how many times in how many posts I can mention “area rugs”??). Anyway, sometimes that happens, and you just have to roll with the punches and cut back in other areas.

We had budgeted $250 for this space.

If you remember yesterday’s post (and there is more detail there about the items filling this space as well) here’s what we started with:

Kind of makes you want to run screaming over to a more beautiful blog space, no? It’s ok, me too. You can just peek through your fingers and continue on for now.

Here’s the “After”. It actually still has a little way to go but we are so much happier with this (the picture looks very yellow – the walls are off-white):

And:

The TV is out for repair and when it comes back, it might be wall mounted.

Nice to have an organized desk and work area for everyone, especially for the boys and homework. And I am hoping it will also help keep our dining area cleaner!! Woohoo!

Shopping details:

Target

New desk – $99.00
Two new bookshelves @ $69.00 each – $138
Four organizational bins for the bookshelves @ $7.99 each - $31.96
Two green window Panels @$24.99 each – $50
Two cream window panels @ $10 each – $20

So there we sit at $339. And still no area rug (Haha). I might buy some rich brown spray paint tomorrow (two cans will cost me $10 at Ace Hardware) and paint those two pine corner shelves which I think will really finish it off but I need to live with the space a little more first to see.

So there’s the front room. It is now a functional space that I won’t be embarrassed by when I come in the front door.

And it is amazing how, when the room became organized and clutter free, Littlest immediately wanted to be in there and went right for his easel which he hasn’t been able to get to in months! (Bad Mama!!)

I think we all need sleep now.

Thanks for stopping by! As always, I would love to hear your feedback. Do you have a multi-purpose room?

xoxo

~ Claire

{ 0 comments }

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 16 – Organizing The (Dreaded) Front Room

by Claire on October 16, 2012

Hi there! This is Day #16 of my “31 Days To An Organized Home” challenge. If you missed it, you can catch up with Day #1 here!

__________________________________________________

OK, “dreaded” is probably a little dramatic.

But this one IS a doozy! Since we moved in, the front room has sort of been a catch all – extra furniture, boxes of office and school supplies, our printers, The Husband’s guitars and band equipment… Basically it’s become an extension of our garage (and that is scary)! We just haven’t really determined exactly what this room will grow up to be. To be honest, I am not sure that will be solved in this challenge but at least we can get it more in order.

Nothing pretty about this so just jumping in. Here’s the “Before” pics:

This is such a “hodge-podge” of stuff. Aside from the antique love seat (which we just moved in here to get our Dining area in shape yesterday so that was just temporary), here are the following pieces of furniture we are dealing with:

Trundle bed (which I like and we actually need – we are down to three bedrooms from five so this is a much needed extra bed!)
TV Stand
Glider & matching ottoman (so comfy and I rocked two babies in this one – this is hard to get rid of!)
Arm chair
Two mismatched side tables (each holding a printer right now!)
Two pine corner shelves
Kids “Thomas The Tank” chair and Kids easel
Kids “Buzz Lightyear” table and 2 chairs

In addition to all of this, there are a boxes of school and craft supplies (and of course that ridiculous random box of “Data CDs with pictures and music” and unidentifiable cables that need to be figured out….)

So a few hours in and it’s kicking our butts. It’s taking a LOT longer than expected since I am actually going through the boxes.

Thankfully we received a flyer yesterday announcing that our neighborhood is having a garage sale in November. That actually has helped motivate – there are lots of things going into that pile!! You might recall from my 10/1 post that I detest garage sales… I am willing to give it one more try just to hopefully make a couple hundred bucks back towards this home organization process!

Here’s the latest progress. Many hours later and it doesn’t seem like we have gotten anywhere yet… what we have accomplished is listed below…

We moved the bed to the opposite side – once made and pillows added it will be a less cluttered view from the front door than the TV stand or the desk
The desk – we moved this back in from the garage along with the desk chair. I don’t know about keeping it yet. I am going to try and spruce it up and we’ll see whether it just gets replaced or not…
We went through boxes
We hung a few pictures
I bought some new curtains (since those pictured came with the house and I do not really like them). Then I changed my mind about the ones that I bought so not hung yet.
The tile is still awful.
We are going to bed.

More tomorrow. We also hung a few things in the Dining area arch so I’ll also add those to yesterday’s post tomorrow.

Night, y’all.

~ Claire

{ 0 comments }

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 15 – The Dining Room Makeover

by Claire on October 15, 2012

Hi there! This is Day #15 of my “31 Days To An Organized Home” challenge. If you missed it, you can catch up with Day #1 here!

__________________________________________________

Halfway through October?? That’s just crazy talk.

What a challenging and inspirational month it has been! And, after coming off of our successful “Bedroom Makeover” weekend yesterday, it’s a little hard to concentrate on anything. I just want to sit in there undisturbed and read (ok, and maybe have someone feed me grapes… is that so wrong?).

But, it was time to attack the dining room makeover. [click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 14 – Master Bedroom Makeover {Reveal}

by Claire on October 14, 2012

Wow – what a difference getting organized can make (not to mention some new bed linens and a little spray paint!). If you saw the last post, you know our room was in pretty bad shape. Honestly it was one of those projects that was just hard to start, but once we got going, it was actually (mostly) fun and the results are SO worth it!

Here are the before and after pictures – I’ll give the shopping details below:

_________________________________________________________

From the doorway:

And now…

And the next angle (notice the color of the standing mirror and the bookshelf):

And now:

We removed the red chair (oh no, where will I pile things?!?) and will repurpose that somewhere else. We finally hung all of our artwork that has been sitting around. The mirror got a fresh coat of black paint to tie it in with the bedroom set. And, the plain little Target bookshelf that we’ve had for at LEAST 10 years, got a snappy coat of green paint to make it pop. I love it! The Husband did a great job handling the painting!

A closer look at the mirror:

And the bookshelf before and after:

Needless to say, there is a whole lot of HAPPY going on in my head right now. It’s hard to explain the feeling of accomplishment and just plain relief at having this space organized and livable, and I’ll bet you’ve experienced it before too. The lighter bedding just makes it so much more airy and fresh. And, while I mentioned in my previous post that I just can’t stand the tile floor (and that’s still pretty much true), it’s a little more bearable now.

So here are the stores I hit and the items I found to bring our bedroom makeover together. After looking at countless blog posts and articles about bedrooms over the last few days (ok, months!), I set out on a mission with $250 dollars in hand to find some inspiration!

Stop #1 – Hobby Lobby: You have to hit the sales here. All candle holders happened to be 50% off so I snagged two of these at $10 each just in case.

I figured I could return them if I couldn’t use them in the room and, once everything started coming together, I thought they might actually work over the bedside tables. But when we went to hang them it just didn’t feel right. Too small or something. The Husband (who patiently holds things up against walls while I agonize over the placement) simply moved it a few feet to the left , just turning the corner (see 1st reveal photo above) and bingo! Perfect, and yet another point for The Hubs!

Next…

Stop #2 – Big Lots:

Big Lots is in the same plaza as Hobby Lobby - it’s always hit or miss, but their prices are pretty good when you do find something. When I initially set out, I had it in my mind that if I could just find a new comforter I liked, then I could really tie everything else in.

So, at Big Lots I looked at comforters. Bleh. Then I looked at rugs. Nothing. And then I wandered through the Home Decor aisle and that’s where I found this little gem. They were $25 but the sign read that Home Decor was 50% off. I still wasn’t convinced I wanted it for $12.50 so I had the Manager do a price check…. turns out they were marked down to $2.50. $2.50!!! What?? I’ll take two please. They are now over our bed:

Two connected pieces of 5 plates each. The initial reveal photo might make it look like these are hung a little too high, but the ceiling actually vaults on an angle towards the left so they are evenly spaced between the headboard and the ceiling line and also positioned at an ever-so-slight upwards angle which really helped with the flow of the room. I will most likely mute out the gold tone in the one plate(s) at some point and bring in a whitewash or a bright green like the bookshelf. Or not. I don’t know. Here’s an example of what inspired me in the first place and why I knew they would work when I saw them on the shelf. And another example here.

Plate arrangements are just cool and they are always different, and for $5.00, this works in our room for now!

Stops #3 & 4 – Pier One & Ross:

Pier One is great for ideas but unless you hit a GREAT sale on something that works just perfectly, it can be really pricey. I saw a rug here I adored. $599. Ok, no. Ross is another store that is hit or miss. No comforters or rugs that I liked there either.

Stop #5 – Marshalls (I’m still in the same plaza, mind you!):

Once again I didn’t see a comforter I liked and no rugs or pillows, either. But… when I went through housewares I found two matching (shock!) lamps that caught my eye. Just so you know, in all of these years we have never had matching bedside lamps. And that really hasn’t ever bothered me - I am ok with things not being too matchy-match, but for some reason these just “grabbed me”. Since I knew I would be playing with some greens and blues (walls are mint green) I was hoping they would work. I was definitely a little concerned about the price at first – $35 each. Then I remembered the prices at Pier One so I went ahead and snagged them.

I guess the initial picture above shows them off the best – I struggled with lighting (ironic) to get a good picture of the lamp but here’s one:

Stop #6 – TJ Maxx (I’ve now changed shopping plazas!):

I am glad they only had one of these precious little pillows. I am not sure why – maybe because I hadn’t had any coffee yet – but it just made my day. Six stops into the morning and still no new bedding. And of course the pillow wasn’t tagged so I had to wait for a price check, but the Manager just made it $12. Perfect.

Stop #7 – Super Target:

My nemesis. I absolutely LOVE Target. I think they have great buyers, the store is always clean and the employees are always super friendly. I know many of you out there may prefer Wal Mart (and of course, it may be closest to you and that makes sense!) but I just can’t do it. I’ve tried. Not only is my Target closer, but the closest Wal Mart is always dirty and… well, that’s a whole separate post. So back to Target. Ahhhhh…… AND I had an electronic coupon on my phone for a free Pumpkin Spice Latte from their Starbucks Cafe so everything was looking better now. I spent quite a bit of time looking at window panels and bedding and I found an all white comforter with some fun detail – the fabric is gathered in a diamond pattern. While I thought I MIGHT find an actual colorful pattern I liked, I realized white had been on my brain all morning.

I was slightly concerned about the $99 price tag for a King comforter and two matching pillow shams (can’t a girl get sheets included too??) but returns are easy so I grabbed this and two blue window panels for $15 each. I am am now up to $236. I stopped at the hardware store (Stop #8) and got the black and green spray paint for another $15 ($251 total) and headed home.

While The Husband started sanding and painting the bookshelf and standing mirror, I cleared out the clutter and changed out the curtains on the sliding patio doors. The blue really is tying in nicely and I am SO happy to get rid of the darker comforter and floral curtains.

We re-purposed a green swag that was in the closet from two houses back. Once again, it wasn’t easy to get a great picture of the curtains. Here’s the “Before” and two “After” pics:

And… much better:

So, while those are the after pics, I still hadn’t actually taken the Target comforter out of the box at this point in the story. I wanted to check one more place… just to be sure. With the painting well in hand, I headed on over to Bed, Bath & Beyond just in case there was something better to be found.

Stop #9 - Bed, Bath & Beyond:

Can I just tell you that I am completely shocked at the cost of bedding?? This is the “bedding SUPERstore” and I did not find one single King comforter I really liked AND… the basic white comforter I found was $199 – what?? And apparently this is normal pricing now but since we’ve had our old comforter for 8+ years I guess I was just surprised.

What I DID find were two “Nicole Miller” standard pillow shams with a green geometric pattern. These were on “clearance” for $20 each and I am considering these my splurge for the day, putting me $41 over budget, but I am actually SO happy to have found them. After re-purposing throw pillows from other rooms (and closets) I REALLY wanted something to tie into it all that wasn’t flowery or too feminine. And I actually did find another pair that I also liked and then found out that they were $69.

Apiece.

So I bought these:

End of day and all said and done, I think it was a hugely successful project.

Most importantly… I now actually want to BE in our bedroom.

And, from what I’ve seen today, so does everyone else.

I would love to hear your thoughts on our project and to see your own bedroom renovation/re-do pictures and stories!

Sweet Dreams!!

~ Claire

{ 17 comments }

← Previous Entries

Room Makeovers

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 24 – The Kitchen Reveal

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 22 – Step Into The Kitchen

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 17 – The Front Room Makeover {Reveal}

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 16 – Organizing The (Dreaded) Front Room

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 15 – The Dining Room Makeover

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 14 – Master Bedroom Makeover {Reveal}

POPULAR POSTS:

Recent Posts

PROUD MEMBER OF:

Archives

BUTTON UP {grab a button}

Dont Miss A Thing!

Room Makeovers

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 24 – The Kitchen Reveal

Share this!

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 22 – Step Into The Kitchen

Share this!

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 17 – The Front Room Makeover {Reveal}

Share this!

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 16 – Organizing The (Dreaded) Front Room

Share this!

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 15 – The Dining Room Makeover

Share this!

31 Days To An Organized Home: Day 14 – Master Bedroom Makeover {Reveal}

Share this!

POPULAR POSTS:

Categories

Recent Posts

PROUD MEMBER OF:

Archives

BUTTON UP {grab a button}

Dont Miss A Thing!