Our Gray and Yellow Bedroom

For the past month or so I have been making some changes to our bedroom because we wanted a look that was more cozy and put together.  I wanted to wait to show you guys the changes until I had everything together and could show you the finished look.  These photos go back to what the room looked like when we bought the house in April of 2010.  There was lots of beige and spray-on texture in that room!

Here it is after our first over-haul- we sanded the walls, painted the ceiling and walls, and took out the carpet and had the wood floors refinished (after we took up the sparkly linoleum).

For our new room we wanted something dramatic and relaxing, and we wanted to incorporate the yellow nightstands that we got at an estate sale last year.  First I painted the room a darker gray that would go with the colors in the rest of the house.

Next the dressers each got a new coat of paint, and they also switched places with each other.  The white tall one got a fresh coat of white paint and the light gray one became a darker shade of gray, similar to the wall color.   We also took out the fan that was in the room when we bought it and replaced it with a chandelier.  I spray painted the chandelier a dark gray color to go with the wall color.   So enough about all the steps, here’s the new room!

We still have some things to work on, like art work and accessories, but it’s most of the way there.  I found the yellow pillows on the bed at West Elm this past weekend, and the comforter is from Ikea.

I took some of these photos at night and some in the morning before school so the lighting isn’t the best, but I wanted to go ahead and get everything posted.  We really like the yellow with the dark gray and the new lighting!  Hope you guys like it too!

 

 

 

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Saturday’s Shopping Trip

Jimmee and I went to Dallas on Saturday for one final trip to Ikea to return a couple of things and buy the last few items for the kitchen.  We bought an island (more like a table I guess), some wall shelves, and a couple of things for our bedroom, and I’m really happy to say that I think that will be our last trip!  :)  The weather was perfect on Saturday- in the 60s and sunny-  so we went into the city to look in a couple of other stores that I’d been looking at online.  We ended up getting a coffee table and two (really cute) yellow pillows for the bedroom at West Elm.  We are so happy with the purchases, especially because we’re hoping they will be the last of the big purchases for awhile!

Here are some photos of the new coffee table in the TV room.

We got it for 20% off because they were having a sale on coffee tables, but it was still a splurge for us.  It’s called the “Y” leg coffee table for reasons you can see below.

I also took some photos of the island table, but it’s not completely finished yet.  I’ll just give you a quick look, and then I’ll post the finished look later… the shelves are missing in this one and we have plans to change the top by painting or staining it a different color.

This side will have two shelves for cookbooks and other things that we want to display.

Later this week I’ll post photos of the new look for the master bedroom and hopefully we’ll get the shelves hung in the kitchen.  I don’t think there is anymore snow in the forecast, and although I won’t miss the snow, I will miss the snow days.  It was really nice being able to stay home all day and work on projects.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

ps  Happy (early) Valentine’s Day!!

 

 

Grouting and Caulking

Last week I ended up having four days off from school (due to the snow) so it was like a very extended weekend, except that I was sick and couldn’t take full advantage of the days off.  I finally started to feel better on Saturday so we decided to finish the last of the tiling and then start the grouting.  As usual, these two tasks ended up taking most of the day and by the time we were done it was dark outside and we were starving.

Here is my tile cutting space… complete with two cups of tea and lots of scattered spacers.  I was really trying to rush to get all the tiles up so we could start the grouting process, and there were definitely a LOT of tiles that needed to go up on that wall.

Here are our grouting tools- pre-mixed white grout, sponge, and spreading tool.

It’s kind of hard to see the tiles in this photo because the white grout makes them fade away, but most of the right side of the wall has been grouted at this point.

I didn’t take many photos during the grouting or caulking process because there really wasn’t much to document, and once you get started it’s hard to stop and take breaks.

Here is a before photo just to use as a comparison since it’s more of a subtle change.

This is the end result, complete with outlet covers and caulk on the joints.  The photo doesn’t quite do it justice, but you can get the idea.  :)

Here are some more photos of the kitchen with the new backsplash!

Here’s the view from the living room.

And one last kitchen view.

Oh man, I was so happy when we finished that last little bit of grout!!  It took forever, but I think it was definitely worth every minute and now we can sit back and enjoy the result until it’s time to start the next project.

 

 

Snow Day!

We have been hit by a big winter storm here in OKC so Jimmee and I are getting an unexpected break from work/school.  Although I’m feeling a little under the weather, we still managed to get some work done on the backsplash and other things in the kitchen.

I haven’t been going outside because it’s too cold for me and my sore throat, but our animals have enjoyed playing out in the snow (until they start shivering and want back inside).   This is what it looked like when I opened the back door yesterday morning.

Here are some photos from the front…

Also, I took a few photos of the backsplash from when we worked on it this weekend and then some from yesterday.  We had to stop working on it because we ran out of boxes of tile, but we’re going to try to get the whole thing squared away this weekend.

Yesterday we were able to start the other side of the backsplash and add more height to the side by the sink.  The range hood is also about half-way up, but we are going to have to take it down when we tile behind it.  It will be pretty easy to take the bottom part down again since there are just two screws holding the whole thing up.   Jimmee also cut the baseboards to size, but we haven’t actually attached them to the legs yet.  It’s really easy to attach them so it will just take a second today to do that part.

I’m really loving these snow days (but not this horrible sore throat!).   I’m thinking that we’ll go back to school tomorrow since I haven’t gotten an e-mail saying that it’s cancelled, but it’s been a really wonderful break.  Hope you all are staying warm and safe!

Photos from the Weekend

I just have a few minutes before I need to head to clinic so I thought I would do a quick update of the things that we’ve been working on.  We worked on one side of the backsplash on Friday night and then we got the range hood up on Sunday night (well part of it up at least).  We also hung a light over the dining room table — the new black drum light.

Here are some photos:

I don’t have very many photos of the fan that used to be over our dining room table, and I forgot to take one right before we took it down.  I generally tried to crop it out of photos of the room, but this photo gives you an idea.  It was much worse in person.

Our new light:

We started working on the backsplash this weekend, but we didn’t get as far as we had hoped.  The plan was to go all the way to the ceiling with the tiles, but Jimmee’s not 100% sold on this idea.  We decided to stop at the cabinet height and then live with it for a week or so to see how we feel.

We had to use a lowes paint stick to get the adhesive into the small space left under the window.  I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that tiling is fun, but it’s surprisingly not so bad.

This is our handy $25 tile cutter which worked wonders for making clean cuts on edge or window tiles.   Jimmee used a tile cutting blade on the jigsaw in order to make the weird size cuts around outlets.

Hmmm.  I just realized I didn’t take a photo at the end of the night so I’ll have to post a more finished photo later.

I’m actually running a little late so I’m going to post the photos of the range hood tomorrow.  Plus, we might have the whole thing up and running by then so it will be a little more exciting.  As exciting as photos of a range hood can be, I guess.

On Tuesday they’re forecasting snow for OKC so I’m really pulling for a snow day (or maybe 2??).  I have 2 tests on Thursday so it would really be convenient to have a day or two off.   :)

This is my new favorite spot to sit and work on things, well and eat of course.  I really can’t wait to get the window seat set up and buy new chairs. This is my last minute studying/eating/blogging before I head to clinic.  Hope you guys have a great week!!!

Our Weekend

Today was one of the most hectic and stressful days I’ve had in a long time, and it was mainly due to the fact that I started a new clinic rotation that’s a lot more time consuming.  I left at 8:30 this morning and didn’t get home until 7 tonight, but I did manage to snap a few photos before I left this morning (while there was some natural light in the kitchen) of the progress that we made in the kitchen this weekend.

We really thought that we would be able to wake up early on Saturday and get a long list of things done, but things never turn out the way you think and in our case everything seemed to be more complicated than we thought.  To make a long story short, I thought that hooking up of the sink/garbage disposal/dishwasher would take 1 to 2 hrs, but I was wrong (in a big way) and it ended up taking more in the range of 8 hrs.  There were several problems that needed to be fixed along the way, not to mention many trips to Lowes.   Even though we weren’t able to get the backsplash done like we had planned, we DO have running water!!!  And that means that we DON’T have to wash dishes in the bath tub anymore.  :)

This was in the morning when we were really optimistic….  see the boxes of tile and the grout adhesive on the floor?

While we were hard at work in the kitchen, Striper (our cat) made himself comfortable on the couch.

Jimmee went to Lowes to buy the garbage disposal and to get the things we would need to connect the faucet while I tried to move all the dishes, pots, food, etc into the kitchen cabinets in anticipation of the running water.

It’s not as organized as I’d like it to be, but we’re going to be switching things around when we install the open shelving later so I didn’t worry too much about it.  It’s just really nice to finally be able to find things.

After arranging the cabinets, I went in to check on a couple of things on the internet and here is what I found.  Our cat takes his relaxation very seriously.

I tried to nudge him over, but he still only opened one eye and then continued to sleep.

Jimmee came home from the store and installed the plumbing over a number of hours and with a number of frustrating moments, but we we managed to get it all worked out (except one minor detail which I’ll mention in a moment).

Here is the running water!!

And the plumbing work that made it possible.

All I’m going to say about this is that the online video we watched made it look like the whole ordeal would take a total of 25 seconds.  The man in the video even had me thinking I could handle the “p trap” or maybe even the “s trap” all by myself, and only after watching Jimmee did I realize that he skipped the first 70 steps and just showed us the two little pipes clicking together at the very end.  very deceiving if you ask me.

Back to the minor detail that I mentioned earlier… Everything in the kitchen was a success, but when we went to turn on the dishwasher we realized that there was no way to turn it on.  We bought the kind that has the buttons on the top of the door–they’re hidden from sight when the dishwasher is closed– which seemed great.  The problem is that we installed the dishwasher really close to the countertop and you can ONLY push start when the dishwasher is closed.  We thought that there would be some kind of delayed start where it would sense when it closes — Basically we can’t get our fingers into the space to start the dishwasher so we’re currently using a flat head screwdriver to get it going.  It’s a minor detail, but we don’t really want to unscrew and uninstall the whole thing at the moment just so we can lower the legs and reach the start button with our fingers. We’ll just keep that screwdriver handy.

We love our functional but not so finished kitchen—

I’ve got a few more things to show you guys from this weekend, like the new light in the dining room and the table for the breakfast nook, but I’ll save it for later this week.

Countertop (finally!)

I started school on Monday, and I was really hoping to keep up with classes and the blog but as usual the posts came to a dead halt as soon as classes started.  It seems like I have a really hard time managing to do school and the blog in the same day so I’m hoping to still update on Fridays and the weekends.  We’ll see how it goes…

Well, that was a little bit off topic because my real reason for this post was to show you guys our new “Amazon gray” countertop!!  It took them about 4 1/2 hours to install it, but that included cutting the hole for the sink and faucet and making other small adjustments to the quartz slabs.

Here are some pics…

 

Here is the sink and the faucet, but I just stuck the faucet in the holes so you could get the idea.  We have to wait 24 hours to connect the plumbing, but I’m already counting down the hours until 2 pm tomorrow!

We chose quartz silestone because it’s really low maintenance and reasonably priced.  I really like the darker color with the white cabinets and the warmer feeling that it gives the kitchen.

We’re hoping to start the backsplash this weekend since I don’t have much homework/studying to do yet, but there are also several other things on my list (hanging lighting, hooking up faucet and dishwasher, putting the pulls on…) so we’ll see how far we get.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Cabinet Doors

We finally got all the doors on the cabinets, and although some of them still need to be adjusted,  I think it made a big difference.   It’s nice to be able to move some of the kitchen stuff out of the office and put it back into cabinets, where it belongs.

I also took down the last bit of wallpaper that was above the fridge (next to the big pantry) and painted the wall white.  It really cleaned that area up and gave it a nice clean look.

This photo is a little fuzzy, but you get the idea…

Here is the pantry area without the wallpaper and with a fresh coat of white paint.  We have a little piece of tape of the door to use as a pull until we get the hardware on.

We finally put some food in the pantry!!

And here’s the other side of the kitchen…

Now we’re going to try to focus on the other corner of the kitchen- the one with the table and benches-  while we wait for the countertop to come in.   I have to go back to school next week so I won’t have as much time to devote to the house, but I’m hoping we can get the big projects done on the weekends.

My friend from college is coming into town tonight so I’m going to take the weekend off and enjoy my last few days of freedom from studying and homework!  Hope you guys have a great weekend!!

Kitchen Inspiration Board

This was my first attempt at doing an inspiration board, and (thanks to Savannah’s advice!) I think it went pretty well.  I had tried using this website called imagespark.com that lets you create 2 free moodboards, but I didn’t have any luck transferring said moodboard over to the bog so I opted to use powerpoint instead.  Basically I just moved the photos into a powerpoint slide, and then saved the slide as pictures and voila!

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of the final look that we’re shooting for.  The fabric swatches pictured are for the roman shades and the bench cushion.  I still haven’t ordered the fabric, but I’m pretty sure those are the two I’m going to go with.   I’m thinking the larger print will go on the windows and the striped fabric will be for the bench cushion.

We decided to go with white subway tile for the backsplash (shocking, right) because it’s beautiful and cheap.  What else can I say?  The price per tile is only 20 cents so that puts the price per square ft at about $1.68 which seems like a pretty good deal to me.   Due to the affordability, we decided to install the tile all the way up to the ceiling on the wall with open shelving– this is the wall to the right of the sink.  The other wall will have it under the cabinets (like a normal backsplash) and then all the way up to the ceiling behind the range hood.  We’ve never installed tile before, but I’m really hoping it’s not too hard.  Chelsea over at This Fresh Fossil posted a great tutorial about installing subway tile a couple of weeks ago so I’m going to head back over there to refresh my memory on the steps and materials.  Her backsplash looks fabulous by the way if you want to check it out.

As I’m typing, Jimmee is installing the last of the cabinet doors!!  I feel like we should have a champagne toast to celebrate the last door (and the fact that we only have one very small pile of IKEA things left in our living room!!!).  I’ve been living with those boxes for way too long!

Kitchen Progress 3

In the last two posts, we covered the floors, dry wall, appliances, and some of the cabinet building, and now we’ve finally reached the present state of the kitchen.

Here is the view from the dining room:

We still have a bunch of work to do, but at least the heavy lifting part of the renovation is done.  Now we need to do things like painting, adding the finals doors and drawers, adding hardware and lighting, and installing the open shelving.  I could go on and on…

Here are some photos from the past couple days:

Jimmee hanging the bar that the cabinets hang on.  That actually the only thing that holds them up- pretty amazing!  Ikea has all of these things figured out, and they make (almost) everything so easy!

Oh, and I almost forgot to show you guys the other side of the kitchen.  This is the pantry area by the fridge, eventually we’ll get rid of that wallpaper (I just hate taking that stuff down).

This is our new pantry!!  I love how it pulls out, and you can see everything inside without having to dig around in dark corners.  All the drawers pull out, but the top and bottom ones pull out automatically because they’re attached to the door.

It’s probably hard to get the overall feel for how this is coming together from these photos, but in the next week or two it should start to look a lot more like a real functioning kitchen.  I ordered all the lighting today, and I also bought the range hood after going back and forth between several options.

We found one on Overstock that was the right size and height and it seemed to have the look that we’re going for….

Tomorrow we should have all the cabinet doors on so stay tuned for a couple more cabinet photos, and maybe some kind of kitchen inspiration board so I can show you all the aspects of the kitchen on one page.  I need to poke around on the internet and figure out how to do those types of things…

Hope your week is off to a good start!  :)