Bookcases

All three bookcases are up and all of them are filled with all of our books. 

We still have to bolt them to the wall, and there is room in the bottom for anything else we need to store. 

We have been in the process of clearing my grandparent's house for 6 months now, and on Sunday we will be getting new, taller bookshelves. So the living room has been rearranged. The Expedit unit that was holding the TV has moved to the dining room, and the TV is up on the wall. We've moved the couch down and the bookshelves are where the couch used to be. 

Having the couches facing each other creates a galley feel in our tiny house, but it's not so bad. 

We are getting a third bookcase to go in the middle to replace the dark brown one, but we started with two to see how it went. The third one needs to be modified for the air duct that is between the two bookcases, but M. assures me it will be an easy fix. 

The final plan is to have books on top and storage baskets on the lower shelves. We will also be moving our DVD collection to the third bookshelf when it comes, which will free up space under the window.

Finished!

Before:

We opted for a faux wood finish because M. had to putty so much of the front. We followed this tutorial: http://www.lucydesignsonline.com/2011/05/ive-been-to-gel-stain-hell-and-back.html?m=1

After the first coat of regulat latex paint:

Mid- gel stain:

After texturing the stain:

Drying before polyurethane:

First poly coat:

Finished!!!:

M. installed it while I was out today and it looks fantastic! I can't wait to start putting things on it. And clean up the fireplace a bit...

Upgrade

We've been keeping out workout stuff in an LLBean boat and toat bag for awhile, but I would like to be able to use the bag, so when I saw decorative "baskets" at Target last weekend for $15, I picked one up. 

Before

After!

Ideally we would have something that made the yoga mats less visible, but I've been looking since September with no luck. We might switch to keeping blankets in the bag and workout stuff in the storage ottoman. 

New mantel!

Our fireplace, sad and mantle-less.

A mantel has been on our to-do list since we moved in.  I looked at a few tutorials, but the first time my friend Kelly came over, she commented, "we have an extra mantel."  Four months later, we finally got measurements to them and she and her husband confirmed the size of their mantel.  So we took our corolla the five blocks to their place and tried to get this bad boy in the car.   

It took several tries.

 It may have gotten a bit ridiculous. 

 But! We got it home and here it is, in front of the fireplace, fitting perfectly.  I was absolutely thrilled when we first saw it, since I was expecting a plain, generic mantel, but it's beautiful and fancy.  I especially like how the center part comes to a point.  We are going to paint it and do some repair work.  We're not sure how many layers of paint are on it, but hopefully it's just one layer and can be sanded down pretty eaisly.  Ideally we would sand it and stain it to be wood-colored, but I think that it might be best to go ahead and paint it, but we aren't sure what color.  We could go with the same espresso brown as most of our other furniture (does Ikea sell black-brown paint?) or possibly the same latte color as the walls in the living room. 

Anyone have any color suggestions?

Fireplaces

As we buckle down to work from home today, I'm at my desk between the front window and the fireplace.  As much as I don't want the annoyance of having a fireplace and was happy ours wasn't functional, sometimes it would be nice to sit by a crackling fire. 

We started talking about gas fireplace inserts.  Given our fireplace has the gas vent from the hot water heater and the HVAC, we could tap into them to vent a gas insert, so the only question is finding one that is an appropriate size and deciding it is worth the $1200. 

This one actually has pretty good dimensions, doesn't need to vent, and can be installed as a zero-clearance fireplace.  I don't know what that means.  It needs 15" behind it though, and we don't have that, so I guess we would be looking at somehow building out our fireplace for it. 

I'm a bit more inclined to go with something that would actually just go in front of the fireplace if we have to build out anyway.  This guy is much cheaper and the right height, plus we wouldn't have to build a mantle.  At 13" deep, it would only creep out about a foot, so not significantly more than our existing fireplace cover, which we could get rid of.  I can't decide if it would look cheesy though, since we did see a few houses with something similar and it did look odd. 

There are also electric options.  They are cheaper, safer, and easier to install.  However, they are not real fireplaces, they are well decorated space heaters.  I kind of like the idea of something big like this:

which would look fairly substantial in front of the chimney (our old place had a massive, impressive mantle that we did really like.)  But ultimately, I don't think it would suit us.    

Have you ever seen a standalone fireplace design you liked? Where can we get an 8" deep insert for our fireplace? 

Shelves

We hung some shelves Sunday.  Finally we have a place for some of our knickknacks and other various items. M. also fixed my desk so both arms extend when you open the top.  Unlike some secretary desks, this one is an automatic one.

And I went through a giant bag of pens, tested, and sorted them. 

I'm just not sure what to do with those two cups of highlighters from the first picture.  I also have a lot of extra markers and stuff, but I'm hoping I can donate those along with some books to the Baltimore Book Project.   

 

These pictures are really awful. I think I'll be breaking out my DSLR for some good pictures this weekend before our housewarming party so that I can do a full-on house tour of our almost done house!

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. 

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. 

(source)

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.

(positive slant)

(interlaced)

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. 

(Lasting Grateness)

 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?