Tuesday, October 29, 2013

I have a new nightstand.

I thought as part of buying a house, we would stop buying crummy furniture at Ikea, but high quality furniture is so expensive. The floating nightstands I really liked were like, $150 each. So, Ikea it was. We were supposed to put this one on not-my-side of the bed, but that vent there really made it difficult to put the one nightstand we have that matches my furniture on my side of the bed. The door slides from one side to the other, and it's quite wide, but I'm hoping this means I will have an easy spot to keep my spare chargers like my kindle and garmin chargers. 

Up in the right hand corner is my jewelry box. We got it from Macys or JCP a few years ago and I love it. It's so much better than hanging all my jewelry from driftwood like crazy people on Pinterest.  

The mounted nightstand lets me open my drawer. All that I'm keeping in it right now is my heating pad and old bedside organizer, but I'm sure we'll fill it eventually. 

New living room rug

Our living room rug came from Overstock.  I had mixed feelings on the color at first, but I'm warming up to it and it's really soft and comfy. 




We had to put the rug pad down first.  Rug pads by the way, need to be trimmed to fit.  Also moving the furniture around to put a heavy rug under it is really frustrating. 




Once we had gotten the rug under the sofa and looking good, my husband raised concerns that the rug was too far under the couch and was making the room look too...large on the left? I did not care for his concerns or having to pick up the couches again. 
However, I do agree that it looks better with equal amounts of wood floor on either side. 
We also realized it would be best to just prop up the couch with books so that we could move the rug around without massive lifting and swearing.  I recommend this method. 

Monday, October 28, 2013

Getting Things Done

Over the weekend, we had a very long list of projects to tackle.  Our rugs arrived last week (we wound up ordering from Overstock for a variety of reasons, mainly the Flor samples didn't feel that soft), and we needed to finally take care of hanging a lot of things, like mirrors. 
 The to-do list
 
New rug!

More pictures and posts will be forthcoming, but we also went to Ikea and bought a new dining room table.  The table is enormous.  I wanted to find a table that was small and extended to fit 8-10 people.  Those don't exist.  So we bought a table that is larger than our old table, and extends to take up our entire dining room.  I've already ordered new protective fabric for the tabletop (Mom) and fabric to make a tablecloth with because they don't make that many tablecloths that are 140" long. 
 
 

Go big or go home!

 
The dining room is 13 feet long.  The table takes up almost all of it.  

We also bought a medicine cabinet for the bathroom.  We went back and forth on hanging the old ugly kitchen cabinet that had been in the bathroom, but it was really deep and I was worried that over the sink, it would just be too in-your-face. 

The cubbies on the side will hold small square containers that will hold various bathroom supplies.

 We still need to find a place for the soap dispenser.

 More to come!


Saturday, October 26, 2013

Removable decor

At our old place, we had vinyl wall lettering and a fabric backsplash. The Internet assured me that these would both be removable. 
The vinyl letters were pretty tedious to get off, but they left zero residue and didn't damage the paint. We had them up for about 2.5 years. 

The fabric backsplash was held up with spray starch and I loved it. It brightened up our dingy kitchen. 
It was super easy to remove. Most of it peeled right off, and I just wet it for any stubborn spots. It was up for at least a year and a half , I think. It was needing a wash and reapplication if we had stayed.  
People have asked if we'll be doing either of these at the house, but our wall space is pretty limited, so we're gonna hold off for now. 


Friday, October 18, 2013

Small things

When we first looked at our house, we saw there was not going to be enough room in our office for two desks, a futon, and a craft area. Our realtor's assistant suggested we consider building a bit of an office nook downstairs, and I immediately loved the idea. At our old place, we eventually put a desk in our dining room, and I do most of my computer stuff on my laptop anyway.  I mentioned to our realtor's assistant that I had an antique desk at my parent's house that I wanted to bring over.  She said, "as a friend [which we are, and that is how I found our realtor], that's going to look really great here." 
 
 
So we drove down to my parents house with a pickup truck and picked it up and brought it back and then it has sat, covered by a moat of stuff, for months. On Monday, we finally cleared a path to it and I spent the afternoon sitting at my desk, working on some projects.  I love how much light is right there from the window.  It's also really nice having office supplies downstairs, instead of upstairs, and we are keeping all of our stamps in it.
 
The desk, by the way, I always thought belonged to my Daddy K, who was my great-grandfather.  He was a wonderful, kind hearted man and he passed away when I was very young and I remember him very fondly.  It turns out
 
Also in it is our new return address stamp.  We had to get a new one with this address, and I liked our old one but wanted something a bit more streamlined, so I used the company I used to order our sister's stamps (they got matching ones for Christmas one year. They aren't related to each other but are both stylish and modern in taste.)
 
This is the stamp we got:
 
 
Below is the one I bought for our sisters. Clearly, I like the names to be in script font and the address in plain letters.  They both use theirs and they look great, so I highly recommend this shop.  The sellers are also prompt about replying to questions.
 
 Our Flor samples are in, but we have to pick them up from UPS, and so we should be able to order carpet this weekend. I'm also going to pick up entryway rugs from Bed Bath and Beyond once we know what color we want and I've rounded up enough coupons. 
 
Finishing up my vanity is also on this weekend's agenda, and will mean that we can finally take care of a couple of more boxes and might be approaching unpacked. 
 
After these more major projects are taken care of, we get to move on to smaller things, like figuring out what to do with our fireplace and finding a place for all of the decorative stuff we had at our old place that just doesn't fit/go in our new place.  Then there is the as-yet-unresolved search for a new dining room table.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Floors, and the rugs that cover them

Having hardwood floor means needing area rugs.  We've been avoiding this issue for awhile because well, rugs are expensive and they are daunting. I do not have good taste, I don't know what a rug needs!

It is challenging to know what goes into a quality rug.  It's also hard, when you are eco-friendly and trying to consume fewer products made in unethical factories (I conveniently decided this after we bought everything from Ikea), to know where to buy a rug that is going to be durable and also not made by children in a third world country. 

We also need an oddly sized rug for our living room if we want it to run the full length of both couches - about 5'x13' should do it.  Which is a weird rug size, since 5x7 or 8x10 seems to be the norm.  All of this is how I ended up on the FLOR website lusting after carpet tiles. 

FLOR tiles are made in the USA with recycled carpet tiles and they take your old floor tiles for recycling and if you stain one of them you can just buy a new one and swap it out.  They are also significantly cheaper than pretty much all of the area rugs I've been eyeing. 

I'm a really big fan of the striped one above - I think it'll look great with our couch, bring some color into the room without going overboard, and since the tiles themselves are about 20" square, a long rug in this scheme would be about $300, which seems pretty reasonable.  (Plus there is a sale going on right now that would bring it closer to $200.)

We also need a dining room rug, and since we are trending towards greys/blacks for our dining rooms, I'm leaning towards something bold and graphic for that space. Unfortunately, I also favor bold and graphic tablecloths so maybe we should go neutral.

The only problem with the FLOR tiles is that they don't line up perfectly. So while I love the look of patterns like this, I'm just not sure they wouldn't make me crazy. 
 I'm going to have to do some more FLOR related research to decide if they are right for us, but my initial hesitation was that they needed to stick to the floor - however, they have an adhesive connection system that you use to stick the tiles to the adhesive and each other, not to the floor, so that concern is addressed. 

We don't just need to find a rug for the middle of our living room though. We also need a thoroughly absorbent entry mat and a rug for under our bikes. I love this indoor/outdoor option for under our bike rack - we need something absorbent that protects the floors and will hold up to stains, etc.  At $33, the price is right but I don't know where it is made, etc. so we may have to pass.

Any suggestions for where to go to buy rugs? Any ethically sourced/environmentally friendly companies that you know of out there?

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Monday, October 7, 2013

Drying rack

I was worried that we wouldn't have room for our drying rack, but it fits well in the guest shower, at least until we get a shower curtain. 


Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Installed!

Washer dryer and sink went in today. I think things will be finished tomorrow!
The cabinet on the left will go over the laundry sink. 
We are very pleased by how well the washer dryer fits in this space. 
The door still needs to go back up, but there is a lot of room back there, especially compared to the prior setup. 
We could potentially add a super tiny sink in this corner, but it may not be necessary. 
Gratuitous shot of the shower, which is now totally caulked and good to go. 


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The OTHER bathroom

I haven't talked much about the upstairs bathroom because there isn't much to say - but it has been an organizational challenge. The vanity is too small. There is also no medicine cabinet. 

There's also no storage. So when we moved in, we stood there and stared at the bathroom going, "I don't understand where all this stuff will go."  Then we remembered that my sister gave us storage cubes that did not yet have a home, and would fit perfectly on either side of the vanity.
It is totally ugly and disorganized, but for right now, it's provided the additional storage that we need. If this was permanent, we would paint the cubes, but I'm planning to steal them for craft supplies after we redo the bathroom.

Eventually, we will be replacing the vanity with a wall to wall vanity that has plenty of storage for all.

The more immediate question was the issue of towel storage. We don't have a linen closet, so we knew towels had to go somewhere.  We had one of these old bookshelves from college, so it created a temporary solution (and gave it a temporary home) to the problem.  Unfortunately, it didn't fit nearly enough of our towels - it maxed out around four, plus hand towels and washcloths.

 We were at Bed Bath and Beyond on Saturday, so we picked up this 3 shelf bath tower. I've included a picture so that YOU DO NOT BUY IT. It is terrible.  Assembly was horribly, and the quality control is absolutely awful, but now it's assembled and looks okay.  But seriously, save your money, because I'm sure you could get a similar but better unit elsewhere for similar money.
 However, it does fit all of our towels. (Many of which are currently waiting to be washed in our soon-to-be-working washer/dryer.)
 I've never really worried about having a lot of matching towels before, but now I'm concerned because they're out and oh no, they don't match. Then I remembered I don't live in Pinterest and it's really okay to have assorted towels because that is how real people live. I would like to get a basket for hand towels and one for washcloths for the top - any thoughts on how that would look? I mostly want them to not fall over.
 We also installed a new towel rod, because we needed a closer location to hang towels in the bathroom.  We used to keep them on the door of our old bathroom, because the door was close to the tub.  Having to hang them over a rod was not working for us, so we got a rack with hooks instead.  We're trying to keep all of the fixtures brushed nickel, so that's what we went with here as well.