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Showing posts with label H-Haus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label H-Haus. Show all posts
Our Kitchen in HGTV Magazine!
I'm super excited to see the kitchen from our first house in the May edition of HGTV Magazine! They contacted me months ago, and I just went to the bookstore and bought up a bunch of copies. It's included in the Wow! What color is that? feature, right next to the entryway of a couple of my fave bloggers - John and Sherry of Young House Love. Thanks so much HGTV Magazine - you made my day! :) xo, Lauren
9 Tried & True Paint Colors
1. Behr Dolphin Fin
This color is such a great neutral. It goes with just about everything, and it contrasts well with bright white trim. Even though it's a nice light gray, I prefer it in spaces that get a lot of natural light. In darker spaces, I go a shade lighter with Behr Silver Drop, which you can see a little further down in the post. I think Behr may have taken this color out of their collection of paint chips, but they can still mix it for you.
You can see more of our former family room here.
2. Martha Stewart Magnetite
This color was actually a happy accident. I meant to get a more medium gray and somehow asked for this one by mistake. I didn't realize it until I started painting it on the wall, but I ended up absolutely loving it. It looks amazing in a space that has a lot of white to balance it out. It also looks great with wood tones, greenery, and pastels.
3. Behr Juniper Breeze
For this space we wanted a light neutral, but I didn't want to go with a traditional gray. We found this light blue-green-gray. I love that the color changes depending on the light and that it's still really neutral. It looks great with white and warm wood tones.
4. Behr Venus Teal
This is probably the most colorful that we've gone in a long time, but I love this color. It's rich without being too heavy and dark. It's colorful without being too saturated. It's just a really lovely, balanced color.
5. Behr Ultra Pure White
We use this color for all of our trim, but I love it on the walls as well. It's bright without being to cold. It looks great with pretty much everything.
You can see more photos of our new house here.
6. Behr Silver Drop
A slightly lighter version of Behr Dolphin Fin, which I mentioned earlier, this is a the perfect light gray. It looks great with everything, but especially coppers and warm wood tones.
You can see more photos of our kitchen reno here.
7. Behr Country Dairy
If you're looking for a great off-white/cream color, this is it. Light and airy, and a great neutral that pairs well with most anything.
You can see more photos of Violet's room here.
8. Behr Prelude
I was worried that this color might be too dark for this small space, so we added the beadboard to help balance things out. It ended up being such a cozy space. I love this color paired with whites, warm linens, and warm colors - yellow-golds, oranges, and reds.
You can see photos of Violet's nursery here.
9. Behr Smokey Slate
This color was the winner after we tested many, many colors for our lower cabinets. It would also look great on a piece of furniture like a bookcase, or even as a wall color. I love this color with jewel tones, whites, and warm wood tones.
So what about you? Have you found any paint colors that you love? I'd love to hear about them! We've still got a lot of rooms to paint! xo, Lauren
You can see more photos of our first house here, and our new house here.
(Just as an FYI, we tend to use a lot of Behr paint because we think it's a great product - this post is not sponsored by them in any way.)
(Paintbrush photo by my talented friend, Elizabeth.)
Master Bedroom: Now You Have It, Now You Don't
In the last post I mentioned that we randomly ended up redoing our bedroom in the middle of trying to sell the house. It was a collaboration with Apartment Therapy and Sherwin Williams that was pitched to me, and it was too fun to turn down. I received a selection of bold, trendy paint colors to choose from for the walls, and it definitely took me outside of my comfort zone. While I love this color, I never would have picked it if it wasn't for this challenge. I would have chosen a much more toned-down, gray, probably even slightly lighter version of the color. But I'm so glad that AT and SW convinced me to make that leap of faith. The room felt like it had that zing that it was missing before. Kev and his dad also built me this amazing headboard, and I bought a new pillow and quilt for the bed.
The only thing I would probably do differently if I could have, would be to buy a new bed frame. We were (and are) still using a metal bed frame with a box spring and mattress, and the height of the bed really is a bit much for the space. I would have loved to have purchased a bed frame and gotten rid of the boxspring, but it just wasn't in the budget. Overall though I was really proud of the transformation and was super sad to leave this space. We got to sleep in it for probably about a month before moving out.
I absolutely adored having all of these beautiful roses in the space. Believe it or not they are grocery store flowers! They were having a sale on make-your-own bouquets and I got all of these beautiful fresh roses for a STEAL. It felt so romantic, I wish we could have them all of the time.
I also picked up a few cacti with those cute little flowers and buds on the tops (not sure what they're called exactly!) and I'm happy to say that they survived the trip to the new place. They're still blooming and I haven't killed them yet, so I'm definitely planning to continue to buy more succulents from now on!
I also wanted to rip out those sconces and take them with us. We got them on sale at Pottery Barn and it was great to have some extra lighting in the space. For the longest time we lived with a single table lamp (no ceiling lighting to speak of!) Let's just say seeing ourselves when we were getting ready in the morning was a challenge. Anyway, even though it's way after the fact, I really wanted to share these photos on the blog. Now I can't wait to get our new master bedroom together. Add it to the list... xo, Lauren
Starting Over
It's been so bitter-sweet buying this new house. While I knew for a fact that we had outgrown our little home, it was a really difficult decision to leave it. We had lived there for nine years. It was our first home purchase and where we came home for the first time as a married couple. We spent our first night as husband and wife here, raised our babies here, and put in countless hours of work, blood, sweat, and tears to make it a home.
It took us all nine years to get the house "finished". We painted and repainted every single room. We put on a new roof, got a new furnace, converted to gas, put in a new water heater, landscaped, added a garden, installed hardwood floors, tiled the shower, tiled floors, painted cabinets, put in new counters, added a shiplap backsplash, new sink, faucet, hardware, and much, much, much more. We did it all while working full-time as teachers and raising a family.
Our new house isn't going to be one of those transformations that happen overnight. We aren't full-time bloggers like Sherry and John over at Young House Love. We don't have the money or star power to call in Emily Henderson or Jenny Komenda like Cup of Jo. But I'm excited to make this house feel every bit as much ours as the last one did. Even if it takes us nine years (although I'm hoping it doesn't!) Because we're planning to live here forever. '
It helps to soften the blow a little because when we visit our friends in the old neighborhood I can see that our little house is well loved and cared for. I feel like all of our hard work isn't going to waste, and I hope that the new family who lives there appreciates it as much as we did. I hope that they make as many wonderful memories as we have. And I hope that the house is set to last at least another hundred years.
I think that Lucy has already mostly forgotten her first home, but Violet is holding onto it fiercely. All of sudden out of the blue emotions will bubble up and she'll burst out with tears and wishes that she still lived in her old house with her little climbing tree and her secret garden and her room with her cozy bed nook. She misses romping through the neighborhood with all of her friends and taking walks around the corner to the park. I think that the move has been hardest on her. We have big plans to make her room feel a little more like her old one. She misses her birds and her clouds, and she's requested that her walls look just like her old ones did.
Lucy is excited for her dots to go back up on her wall, and she seems to regard photos and videos of her old crib with nostalgia, but she doesn't have the sadness over the loss of her first home that her sister has. Two is a much more flexible age, and she's taken the move in stride. She started climbing out of her crib just before the move, and I was nervous about switching her to a big girl bed and moving her to a new house all in the course of a few weeks. But except for a couple of weeks of rough nights for Kevin and I, everything has really been a lot easier than I expected with her.
A Bedroom Update with Lulu & Georgia
We're still slooowly but surely working on updating our master bedroom - the last major room in the house to get any attention. Is it like that at your house by any chance? I guess because it's the one room that I can close the door and (hopefully) no one will have to see it. At least until we go to bed that is. Anyway, the point is that it's been a bit neglected and I was thrilled when Lulu & Georgia suggested that we partner to spruce up the space a bit. We have a corner in the room that felt a little empty, so I decided that would be my focus. Lulu & Georgia sent over this amazing console table (their Fairmont console) and it is just perfect! They've also sent over a coupon code for all of you to use in case you have a space that needs a little something. Use lovelylark20 to receive 20% off your purchase at Lulu & Georgia. The code is valid for one week after this post. (Keep in mind that L&G ships to the contiguous 48 states only)
I'm so excited to be in our bedroom now! It makes me go to bed earlier and spend more time in the space. It's my new favorite reading corner. And the girls love it too. Violet always asks why my bedroom isn't "pwetty". When I brought her into the room after I was finished she gasped and said, "Mommy - it's beautiful!" I think I might be creating a little decorating diva! Thanks Lulu & Georgia for my beautiful Mother's Day present! xo, Lauren
On Having a Rug in the Kitchen
The rug is actually holding up quite well (especially considering that it was a steal at $79!) I do find that I have to vacuum it every other day, as it definitely gets a lot more traffic than some of the other carpets in the house, and it is obviously around food. I am pretty careful about where I prepare messy food - I try to do it on an area of the counter that isn't directly above the carpet in case anything should happen to spill, like when I'm cracking an egg or making spaghetti sauce.
It definitely helped that we chose a very flat, low-pile rug with a fairly busy pattern and darker colors, as I have had to spot-clean it a couple of times. I would definitely never choose to have a light-colored or thick/shaggy rug in a kitchen, or even a dining room for that matter. I love that it makes the room feel a little cozier and less sterile, as kitchens can sometimes tend to be. What about you guys - do any of you have rugs in your kitchens? How is it going for you?
An Update on Lucy's Nursery
One thing I get a lot of questions about is Lucy's nursery. I know I've never really done a "reveal" because it's really still not finished - for a lot of reasons. Namely budget (being off work without pay for over a year makes you pinch your pennies for sure) and time (with Lucy down to one nap and Violet not napping at all, plus freelancing for a bunch of different sites and a local magazine, plus finding time for friends and family = not much time to fiddle around with home decor) So anyway, here is an update for you, and really there are just a few little things that I need to do to finish off this space.
The main area that needs work is this little corner. You can still see the painter's tape on the shelf that Kev made, the curtains need to be hemmed, I'm trying to decide if I want to hang a tassel garland above the bookshelf or put a few globes that I've collected on top of it, and I need at least one more piece of artwork for the wooden shelf (thinking of a cutie from The Animal Print Shop). The crib still doesn't quite feel "finished". We didn't use a bumper with Lucy like we did with Violet, and the all-white crib bedding just isn't quite doing it for me. Some fun patterned sheets or a new crib skirt could make it look a little more put-together. In my dream world I'd get a new glider as well - ours is fine and you can't beat the $5 yard sale price tag, but beige isn't really my jam. Overall though, the space is functional and I love the bright, colorful, happy vibe that's going on in the space. I think it's very "Lucy"!
Family Room Update
We formerly had a pretty decent little art wall in this little section of the family room. That is, until I stole most of it to fill up this corner. As a result, this part of our room has been looking pretty forlorn the past few months. It's not that I didn't have any artwork - it was mainly just finding the time to hang it. So when Apartment Therapy asked me to fill up a wall in my living room with art, I seized the opportunity. To see the before and after, find sources for the artwork, and watch a fun little animated GIF of the process (created with my trusty iPhone, the girls' play kitchen, and a C-clamp due to my current lack of camera), head on over to Apartment Therapy.
And for those who may be curious, here are the sources for the other items in the space:
Wood Floors (Finally!)
Ah I love me some wood floors in a kitchen! This shot is extra colorful thanks to the billions of tomatoes and giant squash that are currently overflowing from Kevin's garden. Too bad I don't have access to those all year round - they make for a pretty picture and yummy pasta :) And sorry for the teaser post earlier this week - I totally meant to get a final shot, but with these two monkeys around, it can be easier said than done!
And kitchen sources for anyone who may be interested:
Source List:
Kitchen Update: We Have Wood Floors!
Other than enjoying summer, we've been working hard on a few projects around the house. We'd still like to find something a little bit bigger, so we'd like to get the house on the market sometime in the next few months. It's definitely difficult to find the time with two kids, grad classes, writing, and generally enjoying life, so the progress is slow but we're getting there. Finishing the kitchen is one of the biggest things on our list - we hear all of the time (thanks HGTV) that kitchens are key to selling a home.
The last time that you saw the kitchen, it looked a little something like this:
We had painted the upper cabinets, door and walls, freshened up the decor, and added some shiny new schoolhouse pendants. The plan is to add new cabinet hardware, paint the lowers, install wood flooring, add butcher block counters, add one of IKEA's farmhouse sinks (which is currently on backorder and may never come back in stock in North America due to a manufacturing issue...*wah wah* Anyway, that's another story for another time...unless you have an IKEA DOMSJO single bowl sink that you don't mind parting with!), and a install a new faucet.
In these photos I know that the floor doesn't look too terrible, but in real life the white laminate was absolutely impossible to keep clean. I tried scrubbing it with every floor cleaner imaginable, using Soft Scrub on it, Magic Erasers - you name it, I probably tried it. Plus it was ripped up in a couple of spots from an incident that occurred when moving the fridge. When we installed wood flooring in the rest of the house we had purchased enough for the kitchen as well, but were dragging our feet on putting it in because we were worried about how big of a job it might be. The kitchen had a billion layers of floor and subfloor, plus we thought that the bottom layer might be asbestos tile, which we did not want to disturb. After a lot of deliberation, we successfully glued wood flooring on top of the asbestos tile in our bedroom, so we decided to go the same route with the kitchen.
I took the kids to my parents for an overnight stay while Kevin and his dad went crazy ripping up the existing flooring. It looked a little something like this:
Pretty, no? Until they got down to the lovely bottom layer:
They only did half of the floor at first because we had no where else to put the dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator. After finishing that half of the room, the kitchen looked a little something like this:
The flooring is now finished, but I have yet to snap a decent photo of it! I'm going to try to take on today and share it with you tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we have a nice sunny day for my trusty iPhone to work its magic lol! (What I wouldn't give for a new camera!) xo, Lauren
The last time that you saw the kitchen, it looked a little something like this:
In these photos I know that the floor doesn't look too terrible, but in real life the white laminate was absolutely impossible to keep clean. I tried scrubbing it with every floor cleaner imaginable, using Soft Scrub on it, Magic Erasers - you name it, I probably tried it. Plus it was ripped up in a couple of spots from an incident that occurred when moving the fridge. When we installed wood flooring in the rest of the house we had purchased enough for the kitchen as well, but were dragging our feet on putting it in because we were worried about how big of a job it might be. The kitchen had a billion layers of floor and subfloor, plus we thought that the bottom layer might be asbestos tile, which we did not want to disturb. After a lot of deliberation, we successfully glued wood flooring on top of the asbestos tile in our bedroom, so we decided to go the same route with the kitchen.
I took the kids to my parents for an overnight stay while Kevin and his dad went crazy ripping up the existing flooring. It looked a little something like this:
Pretty, no? Until they got down to the lovely bottom layer:
They only did half of the floor at first because we had no where else to put the dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator. After finishing that half of the room, the kitchen looked a little something like this:
The flooring is now finished, but I have yet to snap a decent photo of it! I'm going to try to take on today and share it with you tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we have a nice sunny day for my trusty iPhone to work its magic lol! (What I wouldn't give for a new camera!) xo, Lauren
How to Make Your Own DIY Water Table
I've been wanting to make a water table for the girls for a while now - they both love the water, but whenever I get out the kiddie pool I have to watch Lucy like a hawk. She's definitely full-on toddler right now, and toddle she does. She loves to stand up in the pool and climb in and out and I'm paranoid that she's going to fall and crack open her head or slip under the water. A water table seemed like the perfect solution for those hot days when splashing around is definitely needed, but I need to get a few things done, like watering the flowers or getting a project done outside. When I looked around online at the options for water tables, I couldn't find anything I really liked for the price - we're on a budget this summer, and, to be honest I'm not a huge fan of the plastic monstrosities. So when Glidden® paint asked me to partner with them on a project, I knew just what I wanted to do.
To keep the project as budget-friendly as possible, I headed over to the thrift store to see what I could find. After a bit of searching, I came across this end table that needed a little bit of love for $4.99, and the best part is, it was half-price day so I snagged it for a mere $2.50.
2. After it was centered we traced around the tray's perimeter with a pencil.
3. Next we measured the width of the lip of the tray and measured in from the initial tracing we made.
4. To start our cut we drilled holes in the corners with a spade bit.
5. Next, we used a saber saw to cut along the lines that we measured.
6. After we had the entire rectangle cut out we inserted the tray into the opening. Luckily it was a perfect fit - thanks Dad! :)
Next I started in on an area where I'm much more comfortable - painting. First up: choosing a color for the project. One thing I really love about Glidden paint is that they don't have a billion different colors to sort through. Instead they have a simplified palette which makes it a lot less overwhelming to choose a color. I knew that I wanted a bright yellow, so I grabbed three of their most vibrant yellows - Glidden paint Dazzling Daffodil, Glidden paint Spicy Banana Pepper, and Glidden paint Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I loved that the Spicy Banana Pepper and Extra Virgin Olive Oil swatches weren't quite a true yellow - they were a little more muddied and had more personality than the Dazzling Daffodil. I ended up choosing Extra Virgin Olive Oil because it was just a bit richer than the Spicy Banana Pepper. (And is it just me or is anyone else hungry now?)
I had an image saved of a dresser that had been painted with a chevron pattern on the front, and wanted to use that as inspiration. I thought it would help to freshen up the look of the very traditional end table and I liked the idea of bringing in a second color. I ended up using Glidden paint's White on White - nice and crisp and simple. I purchased both in exterior semi-gloss so that it would hold up to water and life outside on the patio.
After I selected my colors, here's how I went about applying the paint:
2. I painted the face of the end table in White on White - two coats did the trick.
3. The rest of the piece was painted with the Extra Virgin Olive Oil - I absolutely love how the color turned out - it's exactly what I was picturing.
4. After the paint had time to dry, I used painter's tape to tape out my pattern. First I measured to find the halfway point of the white section and stretched a piece of tape horizontally across the white section of the table.
5. Next I measured 1.5 inch sections and placed the tape at an angle across the top section of the white part of the table.
6. Before applying the Extra Virgin Olive Oil paint I went over the edges of the tape in the White on White. That way if any paint bled under the tape it would be in the white rather than the yellow.
7. After the white had dried and sealed any places that could have bled, I applied the Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
8. I like to remove the tape while the paint is still a little tacky - I've had better results than if I wait until it's completely dry and cured. After everything in the top section was dry I repeated the same steps in the bottom section, but had the stripes slant in the opposite direction. This time the stripes that I painted yellow would be below the white stripes above.
After everything had a long time to dry and cure, I popped in the tray, filled it up with water, and threw in a bunch of our bath and pool toys. I absolutely love how it turned out and the girls are having a blast with it. Surprisingly Violet seems to like it even more than Lucy and keeps asking if she can keep it forever, because she, "Loves it soooo much!"
When the weather gets cooler we could fill the tray with sand, corn, or even dirt for the girls to dig around in, and after they've outgrown the table we could even fill it with dirt and use it as a planter for succulents. I'm hoping we'll be able to enjoy it in one form or another for a long time to come!
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Glidden paint through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about Glidden paint, all opinions are my own.
