Master plan for the master bedroom

Our empty bedroom

We got rid of most of our bedroom furniture before we moved, which was a good thing, since we wouldn't have been able to fit another piece of furniture in the moving truck.  So we'll pretty much be starting from scratch on our new bedroom. We're considering  making an upholstered headboard and using some of the accessories and bedding we already have to finish off the space. Instead of regular bedside lamps, we're planning to get wall lamps. Upholstered headboard + wall lamps = hours of comfortable reading in bed. And since our closet is a bit smaller, we're thinking about using small dressers as nightstands, to give us more space to store our my clothes. We'd also like to include a small seating area, with a pedestal table and two upholstered chairs. We'll have a better idea of how much furniture we can comfortably fit in the space once we've got a queen sized bed in there. We may end up having to nix the seating area, or going with just one chair.

Plants

I picked up a few plants at the grocery store that were "reduced for quick sale." I was expecting half dead annuals, but surprisingly I found quite a few perennials, and they looked like they were still pretty healthy. I have a thing about annuals; I rarely buy them because I can't justify paying money for a plant that is just going to die by the end of the year. I prefer perennials because they come back year after year and are usually a little more hardy than annuals.

I bought three salvia plants for 99 cents each and a gaura for just 50 cents. I'd been planning to buy a few salvia plants anyways, since they are pretty low maintenance and don't require a lot of water. Technically, salvia is an annual in colder climates, but in Texas it can be a perennial. I actually bought salvia splendens, which isn't quite as hardy as the salvia greggi that we had at our old house. I took a chance on the gaura since I didn't know anything about it. It turns out that gaura is native to Texas, grows well in hot climates, and is tolerant of drought.

When they get a bit bigger they will hopefully look something like this. We'll see...

Source

Source

Custom Shelving and an Ode to Mr. Williams

We just finished putting shelves in the office to create more storage for my craft supplies. Between our two desks, there's not a lot of floor space in the room, so we need to utilize the vertical space as best as possible. Zach designed and built the shelves himself, to fit my many craft bins.

Here's the space before. The bookshelves and file cabinet are from here. When we ordered them years ago we chose the antique cream finish, expecting something off white, but they're really more of a buttery yellow color. And yes, that's a light saber on top of the bookshelf. Can you tell this is Zach's side of the office?

Zach created a template for the shelf brackets, cut them out with a jig saw, then gave them an ogee edge with a router. He also routed the edges of the shelves with a round over bit.

Most of the bins hold fabric, the color of which is shown in a nifty little label window. I just cut out a small swatch of fabric from each bin and used that instead of a paper label.

In our old office we had room for a second file cabinet, which we painted to match the bookshelves and existing file cabinet. We used Behr semi-gloss and had it color matched at the store. Color-wise, it was a decent match, but we soon found out that the paint stayed tacky after drying, and anything we set on top of the file cabinet would stick and leave marks. So when we decided to paint the shelves to match the rest of the office furniture, we opted to try out a different brand of paint. After reading reviews online, we went with Sherwin Williams ProClassic interior latex in semi-gloss. We debated whether or not to use oil-based paint, but in the end decided against it because of the odor and the tendency for it to change color over time. I've always heard that Sherwin Williams made good paint, but one paint stroke proved it. ProClassic is the best paint I've ever used. Which is obviously no secret to Sherwin Williams, who prices a quart of the stuff at $20, similar to what you might pay for a gallon of another brand. But it's worth it. Coverage was excellent, it brushed on smooth and dried flat, not to mention the color matching was dead-on, better than Behr. In addition, the semi-gloss finish is less glossy than other brands, which I like. But the best part is that it dries hard, so objects don't stick to it.  And maybe it was just my imagination but it even seemed like the paint rinsed out of the brushes and rollers more easily. (I wasn't given any compensation to gush about ProClassic, it's just really good stuff!)

The shelves may be painted and up, but we've still got a bit of work to do in this room, including organizing, buying desk chairs, and painting the walls. We're thinking about painting them a warm gray but haven't quite made up our minds.

What's cooking in the kitchen

We knew right away that we wanted to brighten up our kitchen cabinets and replace the worn laminate counter tops. We looked at all the options (or at least we thought we did) and settled on replacing the laminate with more laminate..huh? We convinced ourselves that at less than half the cost of granite, laminate was the best option for us. They have some really great patterns and edge finishes now, which make for a much more attractive counter than your grandma's yellow formica...even if you do remember it fondly. We narrowed down our choices to "Perlato Granite" with an ogee edge, rather than the standard square edge.

Perlato Granite

Ogee edge

Square edge

Although we were satisfied with the choice, we weren't exactly excited about it. Then I came across these beautiful kitchen makeovers by this and that and Stillwater Story.

this and that

Stillwater Story

Dark stained butcher block, beautiful isn't it? And when Zach and I realized that butcher block counters would be cheaper than laminate, we were sold. We like that it's a natural material and more diy friendly than laminate, which has to be custom ordered. We've also got plans to give our cabinet fronts a face lift.

Here's the plan:

LAGAN countertop, DOMSJO sink, white subway tile, pull-down faucet, shaker style cabinets 

Along with the butcher block counters, we'll be putting in a white apron front sink and subway tile back splash. The first step is staining and sealing the counters, which between drying and curing time will take at least two weeks. We want to make sure the butcher block's ready to install before we remove the existing counter tops and sink, since we're not fans of doing our dishes in the bathroom.

MarCraft photo contest

A few weeks ago we entered the MarCraft photo contest via their facebook fan page. MarCraft is one of the leading makers of cultured marble and granite vanity tops. We installed one of their vanity tops in our guest bathroom and genuinely like their products; they're a good blend of affordability and quality.

The contest results were posted today on facebook:

Does that bathroom look familiar?

That's right, we won the photo contest, along with the grand prize, a refund for the retail price of our vanity top! And what, you ask, are we going to do with the prize money? Buy another MarCraft vanity top, of course. We've got plans to redo the vanity in our master bathroom, so this prize couldn't be more perfect!

Final Floor

The floors are done!

There's going to be much box shuffling and furniture moving over the next several days...

Cabinets and Shelves

The kitchen was the first room we unpacked when we moved in to our new house. Let's just say we like to eat, and our stomachs and wallet were getting tired of eating out. I think it was the breakfast sandwiches from Sonic on moving day that put us over the edge.

But before we could fill our new kitchen cabinets, we had a little prep work to do. We started by removing the shelf paper. In some areas there were three layers of paper. The bottom layer looked like it must have been put in in the 60s, when the house was built. After much peeling and scraping all the paper was removed and the cabinets were ready for new liner. We prefer the non-adhesive shelf liner because it's easy to remove if you want to clean it or switch it out. We use the solid-colored stuff because it's inexpensive and gets the job done, but there sure are some cute patterned papers available...

Fabric-topped for dresser drawers and closets (from Container Store)

Scented (also from Container Store)

And if your looking for prints, chicshelfpaper.com has a wide selection:

Flower Burst

Eco Leaves

Windblown Whispers

So pretty.

Aside from being a little dated, the cabinetry in our kitchen is solid wood and in very good condition. (We have plans to redo the kitchen soon, with new counter tops and a new look for the cabinet fronts...we'll share those plans with you soon.) While we didn't splurge on shelf paper, we did put up the cash for something a little more practical- cabinet organizers.

Do you see that little bit of green poking out from the frying pans in the photo above? Those are "pot protectors" that I sewed to keep the pots from getting scratched when they're stacked.

I can't stand having to pull everything out of the cabinet to get to the one thing I need in the back, and that's why I love these. Such an easy solution to such a common problem.

Let me switch gears for just a second and say that our MO for this house remodel is a bit different than the last. Since we're only planning to stay in this house for 4 to 6 years, while Zach is in school, we're choosing materials and finishes that will give us the most bang for our buck, especially when it comes to the resale value of the house.  Of course we want to enjoy the house while we're in it, but at the same time, all our decisions have been driven by the question, "What's the cheapest, most practical option for us?" If we're going to put it in the house, it must be affordable and relatively durable.

So when pricing cabinet organizers, we we're excited to find this IKEA option starting at $16.

RATIONELL wire basket

Measurements in hand, we went to IKEA to purchase them. It's wasn't until we saw them on display that Zach pointed out one fatal flaw, they were side mount.We have a galley style kitchen and all the cabinets open up to one another, with no cabinet sides in between. Even though the IKEA organizers didn't work for us, we think they're still a good option for those with cabinets that can accommodate them.

The next stop we made was Container Store, to check out their Elfa easy glider.

It mounted to the bottom of the cabinet, so that was one problem solved, and starting at $25, the price was still reasonable. Unfortunately we needed 12" and 15" widths, and all that was available were 9" and 13" widths. We could have made them work but would have lost several inches of storage space in each cabinet. We were about ready to call it a day when we came across these chrome roll out drawers.

They were perfect in every way, bottom-mount, and just the right widths, but they came with a bit of sticker shock. We compromised and ended up going home with 4 drawers, instead of the 7 we had originally planned to buy. We were also able to use Zach's educator discount to get 15% off. And although we bent the "affordable" part of our "affordable and durable" rule a bit, we figure that we can always take these with us when we move.