Since we moved in to our new house in November, we have been
slowly but surely making progress on all the many little projects that remained
unfinished. Brett spent a lot of time this
winter building closets, and most recently bookcases in our “library.” We’ve been slowly purchasing light fixtures
and hardware that weren’t done in the original remodel. We’ve been trying to hang some pictures, buy
rugs, and make the house look and function the way we like. It’s a journey. And in my experience, a house is never really
“done,” so I’m not holding my breath for this place to be perfect or finished
anytime soon, if ever! That’s ok. It’s fun to have a project and to try new
ideas. After reading “The Nesting Place,”
I did some major furniture rearranging and picture hanging. Lots was accomplished by just working with
what I already had. Anyway, here are a
few of the little and not-so-little things we have accomplished.
First of all, I realized I never posted pictures of our completed master bath (which has been done for 9 months). The only thing STILL missing is hand towel hangers. I know, this is a totally ridiculous thing to have not yet purchased or installed, and I have no real valid excuse. But, I’m picky and have very little time to shop, so I’ll buy the right ones when I find them! Otherwise, we love the bath. It is clean, classic, functional and the materials are good quality and should stand the test of time. The bathroom was already a great size and layout with three really great skylights, so all we did was update. It cost a lot more than I had predicted (of all the projects, this is the one where my estimate was the furthest from accurate!).
The tub is by Victoria and Albert; the vanity was built by our
local cabinet makers (who are awesome!) at the Artisan Studio; the faucets are
Moen; the mirrors and sconces are from Lowes (or Home Depot – I can’t
remember!); the counter-top is Carrera marble.
Pierce and Grant’s closet turned out great! Plenty of room for two boys to share for
years to come.
Brett built a fabulous set of bookshelves in the room we are
now calling the library. It is what most
people would call the “formal living room” and we had so many names for this
room since we moved in, but have now settled on the “library” since it is full
of all our books. We wanted it to be the
opposite of a “formal” living room. We
wanted to use that square footage daily, get it messy, live in it, enjoy it -
NOT walk by it daily and dust it once a month.
So far, mission successful. The
kids love to go in there and read or play and now that we have a piano we are
babysitting for a friend who has no room for it at her house, they enjoy
playing music pretty regularly. This
picture was taken on the day I got to unpack all our books that had been in
storage for over a year and the kids were “helping” me organize and shelve the books. They were somewhat helpful, but really they
just wanted to read all their books. The
bookshelf is still missing the top board, so I’ll post another picture when it
is complete.
We also recently bought a small settee for the library from
World Market. I got it for a great deal
on sale and with a coupon (and there is no need to ever buy anything from World
Market full price, because everything goes on sale eventually and they often
have decent coupons). It is big enough for
me to read to all three kids at once, or perfect for a single reader to stretch
out and put his or her feet up. I walked
by the other day and caught Sydney and Molly moving in to the space! So funny!
In other news, we finally hung a light in our breakfast nook
after almost a year of just a single light bulb screwed into the ceiling (for
the exact same reasons that I have not yet purchased hand towel hangers in our
master bath!)
I also had a small victory over a charming little dresser
that I’ve had since I was a little girl (that came to me from my
grandmother). I’ve always disliked the
knobs on this dresser (and there were 12 of them on a very small piece of furniture). Actually, there were supposed to be 12, but 2
were missing and 1 was broken (and had been for who knows how many years!), and
the dresser looked like such a mess with all those missing knobs. It has always bothered me, but I guess for
those same reasons I haven’t bought hand towel holders yet, I just hadn’t gotten
around to getting the right knobs for the piece. And with 12 knobs, I know it could get
expensive quickly. Well, I read an article in a home decorating magazine about
using sisal rope as drawer pulls. So I copied their
instructions, spent $5 at Lowes on the sisal rope and transformed this dresser. I love the result and it cost almost
nothing. The boys have a much easier
time opening the drawers now (which house many of their little cars and trucks). Success!
We have lots of other little projects in the works (and are
praying to get a handful of them done before baby #4 arrives in October). I’ll post pictures as we complete some of
them.
