makeover – A Glimpse Inside

MHCT&M: Amazing MAster Closet Transformations

It’s June, officially summer, and it’s time for a new room to focus on in our fun series!

This month we are moving from children’s bedrooms to master bedrooms.

There is so much you can do with a master bedroom, but today I’m turning my focus to one particular spot there.

I have dreams of a master closet makeover some day. Right now it’s fairly low on our list of projects. I mean, it’s functional as is, just not all that pretty to look at. But one day…!

All of the master closets I found to share today are total DIYS and DID NOT START OUT looking like this! They are all makeovers that show the potential your closet has to be.

From creative colors and wallpapers to great organization ideas, there is a lot to inspire!

Executive Master Closet

My friends Sandra built this master closet herself. Amazing, right? I need her to come to my house asap! Definitely check out the video on her site of the process. So inspiring!

DIY Spare Room Closet

If you have the extra space, turn a spare room into a closet. In this case, a random room attached to only the master bedroom!

Farmhouse Style Closet

Sometimes it takes taking everything OUT of a space to figure out how to design it.

DIY Built-Ins

This is closet goals! Ours have those same wire shelves everywhere. How gorgeous are those new built-ins?

Ikea Wardrobe Closet

This is a great makeover using the Ikea Pax system. And I just love those doors to help with dust collecting on less used items!

Custom Cubbies

This lucky gal’s husband custom made call the cubbies in this closet. What does that mean? Each space serves a specific purpose so that even this smaller closet can hold a ton!

Small Walk-In Closet Makeover

It’s amazing what taking out wire shelving can do for a closet.

Wallpaper Closet

Adding a fun wallpaper to your closet walls or shelving backs is a great way to dress up a closet space without having to add a ton of other work!

Master Closet Makeover

Closet goals! The Container Store’s Elfa closet storage system is at work here but, seriously, I think a lot has to do with the height of that ceiling!

DIY Organized Master Closet

This may be my favorite of them all! That pop of color, a makeup/jewelry station, all that storage, and even a rug! And you can’t even see my favorite part in this photo – the purse storage!

Bookcases in Closets

These Ikea bookcases look amazing in a closet!

Great inspiration to think outside the box when it comes to creating good storage.

Girly Glam Closet

This closet has a place for everything! And that addition of the pretty wallpaper really dresses it up.

Are you inspired??

I’m so inspired I’m wanting to move our master closet to the top of the to do list!

Don’t miss next week when we share more inspiration for your master bedroom!

Your hostesses,

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The Scrap Shoppe | Flamingo Toes | Mine for the Making | A Glimpse Inside

June 7, 2019 By Allison

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MHCT&M: DIY Amazing Wall Treatments

Happy Friday, friends! It’s time for more inspiration from our Must Have series!

This year we are picking a different room in the home to feature each month in our series.

Last month is was all things kitchens.

This month we’re focusing on living rooms!

Your living room is where you entertain company and spend most of your time as a family. So obviously you want it to be amazing to look at. Well, you don’t have to spend a ton of money to get the perfect look. Sometimes you just need one AMAZING wall that steals the show and it can be a total DIY!

Check out these DIY wall treatments that YOU can do!

Board and Batten Wall Treatment

DIY Elegant Wall Paneling

Wallpaper Treatment

Simple Framed Moulding

2-Toned Paneling

Herringbone Plank Wall

Reverse Shiplap

Painted Stripe Wall

Geometric Paneling

Fancy Framed Trim Wall

Over the Top Wall Mural

Faux Brick Wall

Modern Wall Makeover

3D Floral Mural

Aren’t these stunning?

Which one would you choose?

Don’t miss next week when we share more tips and tricks for your living room!

Your hostesses,

Signature

The Scrap Shoppe | Flamingo Toes | Mine for the Making | A Glimpse Inside

February 1, 2019 By Allison

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Basement Makeover Reveal

Ok, are you ready to see the final result of our basement makeover?!

I sure hope so because I am so excited to show you today. You won’t believe how much brighter the space is now!

Yesterday, I shared what it looked like before and the process we took to get us to where we are today.

Dark, dirty, mustard and ketchup colored, and well, depressing!

And here is the basement today!

Bright, cheery, clean, and ready to enjoy instead of go down quickly, throw the clothes into the washer and dryer and exit.

Let me take you on a quick tour of the place now.

Stepping into the doorway you now have a totally different view. Before you would see the girl’s large trampoline in the corner and a shelving unit to the right.

Now, the trampoline is outside and the shelf is back where it was when we moved in, which made way for this side to turn into another play area for the girls. The playroom upstairs is great but small so their large toys were often hidden or just too much in the way so now they can keep them out and play with them any time without them being totally in the way.

Tucked behind the door now is the tent we created for the girls for Christmas a few years ago. Before we couldn’t have it set up since there wasn’t a good place for it but now it can stay up and they can play in it any time.

One of the best parts about the tent is that it is large enough that we were able to place both of the girl’s old crib mattresses inside it so it is comfortable to sit and play in there so they won’t just be on the hard wood floor. We threw some pillows in there and of course some blankets and stuffed animals found their way in as well. It’s fun spot to be in.

Travis built the large cube shelving unit to place on the floor under the winder where we tucked totes where they can store their toys and then the large castles and other large items can live on top so they can play with them on top of the shelf or easily grab them to play with on the floor. It is even sturdy enough that we could use it as a seat if we’d like as well.

Above the cube shelf, we hung a small shelf that was already in the basement between the two windows. I painted it the same blue color as the other accents in the room and just decorated it with some canvases. Still have to figure out what else to place there but for now, it will do.

On the far wall, I hung up the picture frames I painted and used for Miss P’s 5th birthday party. The girls can easily change out the artwork whenever they’d like since I used clothes pins to clip the artwork or just taped them to the wall.

Then we brought down their bean bags from upstairs to sit on, an old storage bench we weren’t using anymore got a coat of purple paint to cover up the messed up base, and throw in some more larger toys into this area, and we are all set.

We took Miss S’s old crib and gave it a paint job and turned it into an art desk. Her crib got really messed up during our move here so it was no longer able to be used as her full size bed so this was the next best option. Normally they have their two white chairs that sit at this space but those moved back upstairs for a short time.

We placed the desk in the center of the room between the three columns. It fit perfectly in the area and help define each side of the room. Next to the desk, sits an old nightstand that will eventually go in Miss S’s room but for now serves as extra storage.

And then the white rug on the floor are actually two rugs and used to be in each of the girl’s rooms. We bought them new rugs for their rooms and instead of getting rid of these, we thought they would work well together down here in the space.

Another view of the tent behind the door, the large cedar chest by the door was left by the previous owners and we use it to store our luggage so our kitties don’t use them as scratching posts, and then I hung an old print on the wall above the chest.

I still have a view more things I would like to add, decor wise, to this side of the room but the girls love it and enjoy going down to play. It will definitely come in handy during the long winter months.

Before swinging to the other side of the room, here is a shot of the striped floor. I love how it turned out and I love that you can barely tell there is plywood under the washer and dryer anymore. 🙂

Here is the view of the not so exciting side, the laundry/storage side of the basement, from the door.

The back corner is where we moved the large shelf that was in the room. We gave it a good cleaning with our pressure washer and I gave it a coat of paint and then everything was stacked on top and on the floor next to it. In the center of the room is the drop cloth rug I created and sits a large metal clothing rack that the previous owners left as well. It comes in very handy on laundry day to dry my clothes!

The dryer sits on the window wall and then the island that was in our kitchen in CO sits under one of the windows. I use it to fold towels and sheets and some times the girl’s clothing but mostly it is a large step for the kitties to jump on to get into their favorite window to watch the little critters in the garden outside.

The indoor outhouse now blends into the room after we gave it a coat of white paint as well instead of it being painted the dark brown color.

A little bit better shot of the racks in the center of the room and the washer wall.

I will say, I am much happier doing laundry in this space than I was before. I actually don’t mind it anymore.

And one last thing that we did that I forgot to share yesterday was that we replaced the lighting in the space as well. We bought these small round track lights from Home Depot so we could aim them in different areas of the room to give light directly where needed. Each side of the room has the new light so it is definitely bright down there when all the lights are turned on.

And there you have it!!

Talk about a transformation!

We both kept saying why didn’t we tackle this space sooner once we finally had it complete.

You can check out our other home renovation/makeover projects in my “house” label. Lots to look through!

September 29, 2017 By Allison

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Basement Makeover- The Process

You guys, I have talked about working on our basement for MONTHS and I am so stinking happy that I can actually can start to share it with you today!

This has been a work in progress since end of March, beginning of April. It has been mostly done for quite some time but with Travis’s busy training schedule over the summer it wasn’t fully finished until recently.

Before I get into all the details, let me show you what the room looked like when we bought the house and what it has looked like the past two years.

The room was just dirty from age, faded, dark, painted with yellow walls and ceiling, red floors (hello mustard and ketchup!) and brown accents here or there. It was terrible!

As soon as you walked in the door you had a view of the girl’s trampoline. It was a short, not fully size trampoline so we set it up in the basement for the girls to use during the nasty cold winter months. To the right as you walk in, we moved a large shelving unit that the previous owners left and it was full of items. It wasn’t suppose to live there but we had to move it from the location it was in to fix the floor under it and then once that happened it never went back until now.

As you look to the left, you get to the laundry side of the basement and more storage. We have 3 columns in the center of the room, one original and two were added later probably when the second floor of the house was added in the ’40s, so they line up awkwardly. The giant rug on the floor was left by the previous owners and it was actually in our master bathroom. We definitely didn’t want to use it in there so we drug this ginormous, heavy, wool rug to our basement to hope it would help with warmth in the winters.

Then in the far left corner, was our indoor out house, utility sink, and washer.

The washer and dryer sit on super thick pieces of plywood that sit over the original wood floor that, we assume, the previous owner put down for more strength under the washer and dryer and just stand out again the red painted floor.

As soon as we moved in, I had a plan of exactly what I wanted to do to the basement it was just a matter of time to tackle the huge job. After talking about it forever and after finishing many of the other house projects, it was time to tackle it!

We began by clearing out the room and giving it a good cleaning before we started to paint.

To help get this massive job done, we busted out the Finish Max paint sprayer from Home Right.

This thing was a life saver since we had so many seams between all the wood on the walls and ceiling plus duct work.

With living with the room so dark for so long, I knew I wanted to paint the room bright white! No surprise really, that has been my go to color with this house to make it brighter and I have not regretted it once yet.

Travis would paint the walls and ceiling with a roller and then I would come behind him and go over the area to fill in all the cracks and seams between the wood. So much better than having to use a brush to get between all that!

It was also SOOOOO helpful when it came to spraying all the duct work in the basement!

Once the walls were done it was time to tackle the floor!

Since we painted the walls white, I wanted to add some sort of pattern to the floor for a little whimsy so we primed and painted the floor white then went back and painted large gray stripes. I LOVE IT!

We left three rows white then painted five gray and it was perfect. Plus, we painted the thick plywood under the washer and dryer so it would blend right in now instead of standing out.

I did want to add a tiny bit of color but nothing too bright that it would stand out big time in the room so I used the left over aqua paint from the girl’s bathroom and painted the columns and the trim around the window with it. It was the perfect added touch of color to go with the stripe floor.

After all the was done and we let the floors cure for a week or two, it was time to move stuff in.

Well, it would have been time but that is when Travis’s training started and he was either out of town or working crazy hours so things got a little pushed back. He made sure I had a working washer and dryer and that is about it for the room. I didn’t want to move the heavy stuff alone because I didn’t want to risk scratching the floor so things sat. But I was still able to go down and use this awesome space for laundry and it was amazingly brighter and so much more cheerful!

We made a little progress on the room when he had a small break in July but then he went back to it in August so needless to say this was a long project!

It is done now but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the full reveal so STAY TUNED! 🙂

September 28, 2017 By Allison

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My New Bright Yellow Coffee Table

I’m so excited to share my new bright yellow coffee table this month! Hello again, this is Donna from Modern on Monticello blog and I’m happy you stopped by.

For months I have been on the hunt for not one, but two new coffee tables for my home. One for our living room and a second one for our newly renovated family room at the front of the house. Each room has a different style and decor. The living room is a relaxed family gathering room with multiple reclining sofas and is all about comfort. The front room – as we call it – has a more whimsical modern style with mid century furniture mixed with rustic details like the large stone fireplace. The room just needed something just as bright and whimsical in a coffee table too.

I love remaking furniture and sometimes consider opening a booth at a local resale shop, but for now I just remake furniture for my own home. I have been looking for the perfect piece to paint bright yellow for a while and when I found this coffee table in a local thrift store for only $30, I immediately imagined it in either a bright yellow or even orange. Yellow won out for me.

The first thing I needed to do was clean up the table and remove the top sheen. I used a deglosser product on the finish and gave it a light sanding to get the paint to stick. I decided to use chalk paint on this table because it would stick easily to the existing finish either way. The color I chose was Maize from Waverly Chalk Paint.

If you have ever worked with chalk paint before, you know that it goes on so much easier using the right tools and a little patience. Applying chalk paint takes several layers and then a wax top coat. In the end I had to apply four layers of chalk paint, the first being some leftover ivory chalk paint I used as a base coat, and then three layers of the yellow. The whole table got two coats of clear wax with buffing in between.

The bright yellow table combined with my new mid-century style chairs from Wayfair, which have two rows of bright colored buttons along the back that coordinate so well with the color of the table and accessories turned out to be a great combination.

This is going to be such a fun room to finish up and the simple charm of this yellow table just makes me smile when I walk by the room.

Hope you have a great August and if your kids are returning to school this month, I hope they have a great start to a new school year.

Until next month,

Donna

August 9, 2017 By Allison

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DIY Drop Cloth Rug

Hello, hello everyone!

I hope you are all doing well!

I’ve been MIA for the last week but I have a good excuse why and you will see it in this post today!

As you know, we were giving our basement a much needed makeover and it is finally complete.

I still have a few finishing touches on one of the sides of the basement but after we spent time organizing the rest of the basement, I finally got to working on the rug I wanted to place in the laundry area of the room.

So for a week straight, I was on my hand and knees on my garage floor working on this bad boy. I am thankful it is complete and I love how it came out!

This was a relatively easy project just takes lots of TIME!

Granted if you don’t do such a detailed design, it will take much less time.

Here’s what I did to create my own rug.

Supplies:

-Canvas Drop Cloth

-Latex paint (like wall paint for your home)

-Brushes and rollers

-Primer

-Polyurethane

I started by buying a large canvas drop cloth at Wal-Mart, if I remember correctly, this one is 6×9.

I also bought a super large drop cloth to go under it for when it is time to paint.

Next, wash and dry your drop cloth.

Once it is nice and dry, iron all the wrinkles out of the drop cloth. Mine actually came out of the dryer with very little wrinkles but I still ironed the entire thing twice, one on what would be the front, and then again on the back to ensure the wrinkles were gone.

If need be, this is the time to trim up your canvas to the size you need. Mine just so happened to be perfectly straight and I loved the size as is so I didn’t need to trim it or have any plan on creating a hem along the edge.

Then it was time to paint!

I first laid out the large drop cloth and then placed my canvas cloth on top of it.

I smoothed out both drop clothes the best I could before painting but as you can see, some wrinkles remained.

Next, give the drop cloth two coats of primer on the front AND back.

This sucker will soak in the primer like a sprinkle of rain hitting hot concrete on a summer day so two coats on each side is key to seal it well.

I let my drop cloth dry overnight before I flipped and painted the back but I was also outside and it was super humid so I wanted to make sure it was good and dry before flipping.

I read that if your cloth is rough and bumpy after priming you could give it a sanding and it should help resolve that. I did not do that to mine though. It was rougher but since it was just going to be downstairs instead of in a kitchen or bedroom, I left it.

Once the primer was good and dry, I painted the whole thing with 2 coats of my main base coat of paint.

Side note… make sure you don’t have to move your cloth the entire time you are painting it!

We had some crazy hard rain and I had to quickly run into our garage and roll it up because our garage sometimes likes to flood when we have heavy rain and I did not want it to get wet. Hence the wrinkles now in it.

Before I painted the design, I quickly drew out what I had in mind on a piece of paper so I wasn’t just fully winging it.

I then used white paint to draw/paint my whole design on the rug that way if I messed up or didn’t like the placement of something, I could just paint back over it with the blue and readjust. I actually did that in two areas and it was easy to correct.

Once I was happy with the design, I got to painting the whole design.

I had to decide what would be the base colors and top accents and paint accordingly.

Once all the base coats were dry, I went back adding all the additional details.

I tried to spread each color into each item in some way.

Then once the design was complete, I traced the whole thing in dark gray paint.

Once the paint was completely dry, I waited over night again, I gave the whole thing two coats of polyurethane to make it easy to clean up if something got on it.

It looks awesome in my down in the room in my laundry area.

Definitely helps add some more brightness and fun to a space that well, normally isn’t so fun.

It sits slightly under some of my drying racks that I have in the area to dry out clothes but you can definitely still see the whole thing since they are both open racks.

This project cost was cheap for me since I only bought the two drop clothes and then had to buy a new can of primer. All the other paint I used was left over paint we had from paint projects around our house.

If you don’t have lots of left over paint cans like me, you could always buy small sample cans and that should do you pretty good unless you are using a large amount of a color and the size of your rug.

I’m glad I finally did this. I was nervous for a while but it looks great! 🙂

July 18, 2017 By Allison

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{Fabulous Features} #94

Last week’s Handmade Hangout Party was chopped full of wonderful ideas. Be sure to go back and check them all out to get inspired.

Before this week party kicks off, I have some great ideas that caught my eye that I wanted to share with you.

Flamingo Drip Cake from Bird’s Party

How to Paint Watercolor Ice Cream Cones from Lines Across

Watermelon Slush from Jodie Fitz

How to Hang a Barn Door from Grandma’s House DIY

Airplane Birthday Party from Sandy A La Mode

Butterfly and Watercolor Art from Paper Seedlings

Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad from The Kitchen

Raspberry Mint Mojito from Simply {Darr}ling

Chippy Glam Dresser Makeover from Time to DIY for Lolly Jane

DIY Personalized Lunch Box from C.R.A.F.T

Thanks for linking up everyone!

Feel free to grab a Featured Button.

Hope to see you this evening for this week’s party.

allison

August 4, 2016 By Allison

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Girl’s Bathroom Makeover

I am pretty excited to finally show you the makeover we gave the girl’s bathroom!

We started this a few months ago, and was pretty much done, but there were a few small things that we just kept putting off finishing and I’m thrilled that we finally got them done.

I’ll start with a before picture of this, uh, lovely space.

To say this space was beige is an understatement.

It was horrible!

Beige tub/shower, beige walls, beige and mauve floors, horrible old vanity, dry woodwork…. oh this poor room needed so much help!

Let’s take a closer look at the horribleness shall we?

The previous owners installed these horrible tile floors when they bought the house in the early 90s. The grout was disgustingly dirty and it just grossed me out!!

They also took off the original wall sink and put this beat up vanity in the room. It may have been in much better shape when they first installed it but it is definitely showing it’s age with the chipped sink top, worn out door, and much more.

The only thing going for this sink was that it did match the originally wood trim in the room.

I do love that original wall vanity mirror though! Best thing about the place but the poor wood was so dry and thirsty!

There is also an awesome linen closet in the corner which provides a ton of storage! Another good thing!

And then this super heavy curtain was left behind by the previous owner. It was so covered in dust and just bad for this little space!

The room was so dark and again, beige, it so needed to a makeover!

So let the makeover begin!!

I began by painting a quick coat on the walls of a bright blue. It is pretty much the same color I painted in the girl’s bathroom in CO and I knew it would be perfect in here too.

Then Travis began by removing the vanity and toilet so we could rip out those floors.

This was when we discovered that there was an original wall sink.

Thankfully, the tile wasn’t put down that well or was so old, it just popped right out which revealed the lovely original teal linoleum.

After doing some research to see if this flooring would have asbestos in it, we figured out it didn’t and that it was just backed by burlap and we could remove it.

Then we threw down some concrete board on the floor for a good new surface for the new tile.

And after Travis completed the tile floor and put the new vanity in, I got to do the painstaking job of painting all that trim white and finish the walls.

This definitely help to fully brighten up the room.

Ready to see the room now?

Here ya go!

Isn’t it so much brighter?!

I seriously love how the room turned out!

We put down new cream and white long tile floors. They look like marble but are porcelain.

Since we were keeping the cream tub/shower and toilet, we had to find something that had white and cream in it to tie the whole room together. They turned out perfectly!

I found some fun fabric that I liked and just whipped up a new, much lighter curtain for the window.

The new vanity is actually a cabinet we found at an antique store. It wasn’t in the best of shape and was actually not the proper depth so we had to add a little but of wood to the back to make it work for us.

I gave it a coat of paint with some chalk paint in cream and it works great in the space.

Bought a bigger sink top from Home Depot to fit the new bigger vanity and it was a match made in heaven!

We just reused the old faucet because that was in great shape and I loved the look of it.

The vanity mirror looks great in white and we kept the old lights that were in the room but gave them a facelift with some metallic spray paint since they were previously painted and not looking so hot anymore.

The vanity definitely works great with the medicine cabinet.

The newly painted linen closet sure brightened up this corner as well.

And that’s it!

Definitely a MAJOR improvement and I love the finish results!

July 5, 2016 By Allison

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Living Room and Foyer Reveal

I hope you aren’t tired of house posts yet because I have one more for you today.

I already shared our dining room with you and then the construction portion of opening up our downstairs area to the stairs last week but I never shared the full reveal of our foyer and living room so today I am doing just that!

I will back track a little bit first.

This is our living room when we moved into the house. Beige walls, olive green carpet, lace treatments on the windows, and closed up wall.

And this is the other side of the room.
Even though there were a good amount of windows, it felt kinda dark to me in here.

We ripped up the old carpets to find this mess of the original hardwood floors.

So with the help from my parents, we sanded those bad boys down in preparation to refinish them.

Plus, we painted the walls the same white as the dining room because as I mentioned before, white was just calling to me in this house for some reason and I wanted to keep the walls light and airy with all the woodwork throughout the house.

When it came time to finally stain the floors, I had to get creative with the floors that were in the closet that would be opened up to the foyer.
Since the floors ran under the wall that was coming down, I couldn’t just stain the whole floor in there because when it came time to meet the stained area, it would be hard to blend so I taped off certain boards so they wouldn’t get stained and that way everything would blend much better once the wall was torn down and all the floors refinished.

And then it came time to stain the floors.
Luckily, we learned some tricks from redoing to dining room floors. We still had a touch up a few spots before applying the second coat but we got them done!

They are a lot darker than I wanted to go but in order to hide some of the large gaps we had to fill in the dining room, we had to go dark.
They do look good though!

Here you can see what the floors in the entry and my taped off area looked like before they were stained.
I had to sand the foyer floors and then they were ready to stain.

I was super nervous if they would blend in well, especially after how light they looked after the first coat but after the second coat was applied, they blended right in seamlessly! What a relief!

We ripped the carpet off the stairs. Still need to paint the risers and clean up the treads. We are still debating if we are going to add stain to them to darken them a touch.

Remember that vent that was in the wall, the metal was cut down so we could place the vents into the floor. There was a tiny bit of floor missing that was at the edge of the old wall so we had to figure out what to do about that. One of the guys working on our house had this idea to trim down the wood on the long sides of the vent and then frame out the vent to fill the gap. Worked out well!

Again, we got a new front door for the house. We reversed the swing of it so it will be much easier to open and greet guests.
Originally when the construction crew replaced the door, they put the old molding back around the door. It was a light color, and a totally different style than the rest of the molding downstairs since that molding was added when the upstairs was added. We decided to take that molding back down and replace it molding that was around the old closet door that was taken down. We stained it darker to match the finish of the door and it looks so much better now that it matches the rest of the downstairs trim.

We also replaced the old light fixture which was practically just a bulb in the ceiling and then added the little shelf by the door. That also has to get painted out still and then we are going to added a few hooks to it so guests can hang their coats.
And the plan is to restain the trim around the window as well to match better to the rest of the downstairs.

We left the little closet that was inside the old closet. Right now it is as it was but I plan on painting it out white as well to break up so much wood in this small little area.

I am really happy with how the whole project turned out!

Now onto the living room!

Standing at the front door, this is the view of the living room.

And here is a glimpse of the living room if you were coming down the stairs.

When you first walk through the arch, our entertainment center is on the small wall to the right. We mounted our tv on the wall and then I placed out gallery wall above it to help break up the giant black hole that is our tv. Normally the tv is turned into the room for better viewing. And then the toy basket is shoved in the corner by the entertainment center.

This is the angle the tv sits most days.
We sold our old sofa and loveseat before we moved and decided to use the sleeper sofa that was in our loft in our old house as our main sofa. Then Travis just had to get leather chair for himself.
I actually bought another chair to from a cute little store in town that still needs to be redone. That will sit on the other side of the little round table next to his leather chair. I have the fabric for it but it has a TON of tufting and I haven’t decided yet if I am tackling it myself or taking it to upholstery that lives down the street.

I bought gray and white curtain panels online at Target along with the rods and they look great in the space. No more dirty, dusty lace not letting light through!

Here is the view from the couch of the tv corner. The shelf is the faux mantle I had Travis build me to put up for Christmas and well, it is still up even though it wasn’t suppose to be still. lol

Standing next to the Leather chair, there is a view of the whole opposite side of the room plus foyer.

Here is another new rug that again was found at TJ Max/Homegoods. Every rug in this house was bought there or Target! lol We placed our old living room rug in our master bedroom so we needed a new one. When I found this one we both agreed on it and liked the color tones so it came home with us.
I also had to buy a new coffee table. The old yellow one got a little banged up in our move so it got moved up to the playroom and I found this one on Amazon. Looks great!

Just because I really love the way this space is opened up now, you can see this view again.
That cool mirror by the porch door was also a Homegoods find. And the little table under it used to be in our formal living room and was white. I painted it up gray to fit in the space better.

Between the couch and chair is another new little table. Got it at the same shop as the chair that will eventually be in the room. Then hung my “Life’s an adventure” pallet art in the corner.

I am really happy with how the room turned out!

It works well for our little family!

It is definitely a big change!

April 11, 2016 By Allison

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Our Foyer Construction Project

Yesterday I shared our dining room with you guys and you got a couple glimpses of the living room in the background.

Before I jump right into the whole living room reveal, I wanted to share with you the the construction that went on in our foyer area.

So this is the front of our house- front door and then a screened in porch.

The only problem is that the front door wasn’t really the front door. It lead straight upstairs for what was an upstairs apartment in the ’40s.

The previous owners used the screened in porch as their front door and since we were putting in a fence for our dog and kids, we knew we wanted to actually make it so you could access the front door from downstairs.

This is a view of the front door from the top of the stairs. See, just open the door and up you go!!

If you were downstairs, you can see the door to outside, which leads out to the screened in porch and then the door to the left is a closet. On the other side of that closet wall, is the other door.

When you open the closet, there are shelves and hanging space to the right of the closet.

And then to the left, is this built in cabinet.

After talking with the contractor we hired, we came to the conclusion that the wall that you see in the living room, plus the door, was original to the house, and the inner closet wall plus stairs, were added when they created the apartment so this project would be easier than we first thought.

The hardwood floors ran directly under the wall and that was going to save us lots of money!!

So after talking with our contractor and set a start date for work, Travis and I got a little antsy!

We hated not being at access this door especially when people would come knock on it and we had to go on the screened porch and tell them to come around.

So one day we decided to start a little demo ourselves.

I took the first few swings at the wall to see what was inside.

Then continued to bust through to the closet.

I let Travis take over and then he decided to go a little crazy!

We were just going to leave it a little hole between the studs so we could crawl through to use the stairs but he had other plans.

He just kept going which was nice so we could get a better feel of exactly how we wanted them to open this space.

Here is a shot looking into the closet from the living room. This was before Travis cut a stud out of the way so we could easily get through! But it was amazing to see the light shining through.

Seeing this light alone coming through the holes in the wall got me so excited to get this project finished!

When the contractor started, they got to work quickly on opening up the wall.

The inner wall was totally removed then they cut an opening leaving a half wall.

This was the route we were originally going to go. There is a cold air return in the wall and if we removed more of the wall, we would have had to figure out what to do with the vent.

Well after a weekend of living with this, and figuring things out, we decided it would best to get rid of the half wall portion because the space to walk through would be too tight.

So, when they came back to work, it was decided that the half wall would go and it was a great decision!!

Unfortunately, we were left with this vent sticking out of the floor but the plan was to just cut down the box and place the vent covers directly in the floor.

We wanted an arch, to match the other arches in the space, and so the guys built and dry walled it all up.

But it was totally uneven!

If you can see, the left side of the arch is very boxy compared to the right side.

We were told it would get fixed by the plaster finisher so we let it go for the time being.

The plaster guy showed up, started doing his thing, and when we pointed out the mess up he was like “I can’t fix that!” Awesome! So after literally placing in THOUSANDS of nails in the arch and trying to add the metal corner piece with even more nails, he hated how it looked so after working on it for 2 weeks, he literally tore the entire thing apart!! Talk about my anxiety level going a little crazy!

So after he completely rebuilt the arch, re-dry walled, and finally got to mudding the wall it was probably 2 to 3 more weeks since he tore it apart.

We definitely got to know him well since he was here late often. lol

The day he turned it over to the painter was the best day ever!!

The painted came in and got the whole wall and inner area painted out and it was a remarkable sight to see!

After the arch was completed, it was time to finish the stairs.

We had a stud that couldn’t be removed next to the cabinet where we opened the stairs up to so it left everyone a bit puzzled at what to do with it.

We asked that it be cut back and they pretty much messed it up so then it really left everyone wondered what to do with it.

We knew we had to add a newel post and spindles but if we added them to the existing stairs they would be too far in and look strange so I finally came up with this idea.

We built out the stair wall and treads passed the stud which gave us the perfect place for the spindles and newel post.

They also boxed in the stud up the wall to enclose it and tie it in a little bit.

Once they completed everything, they started staining it all and I had to tell them to stop because I had other plans for the space.

So over the weekend I painted the wall boxing in the stud the wall color, then painted the wood below the stairs white and stained the newel post and banister a darker stain then what they were doing.

They were a little surprised when they showed up Monday to see what I did but I am happy with the look.

Our plan is to paint the stair risers white so while I was painting, I started painting that area behind the spindles because at the time, they weren’t installed yet and it was so much easier.

The stairs were officially done and I loved looking over to see them.

The last thing the contractors had to to in this area was install the new front door we had made by an Amish carpenter.

This thing weighs a ton and it so nice!

This job was done, well the contractor portion of this job, and then it was time for Travis and I to take over to finish redoing the floors and a few other small projects.

But that is where I am going to leave off right now!

You will see the full foyer reveal tomorrow when I share the full living room reveal as well!

April 5, 2016 By Allison

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