So, how did I score?

Hi there Friends!  Gung Hay Fat Choy!

With it being the Chinese New Year and all, I figured it would be a good time to revisit my House Goals from 2011 and see how I scored. And then, of course, set some new house goals for 2012!  Ok, ok, give me a break…I guess I’m a month late on this whole goal setting thing, but it’s really never too late, is it?  Ok, good.

So last year for the first time I set some house goals for the year. Here’s a quick summary of what they were:

1. Fix the large hole/ install lights in my kitchen ceiling

2. Build a kitchen island

3. Paint the fireplace

4. Finish the master bath remodel

5. Paint my son’s room

6. Install board and batten in the family room

7. Paint the main living space

8. Paint the interior doors

9. Paint the exterior of the house

10. Paint the mailbox

11. Do something with the broken shutters in the master bedroom

So….how did I do? 

Score: 8/11= 73%…hummm, C-. Well, ok, could have been a little better, but I had a few ambitious goals!

Let’s review, shall we?

1. Fix the hole in the kitchen ceiling/ install a light so I don’t have to cook in the dark: Big fat FAIL!

Here’s how my kitchen ceiling looked one year two-and-a-half years ago and here’s how it still looks today:

But that’s not to say we haven’t thought about it! We’ve actually had a few contractors out to bid a huge skylight that will cover approximately a 4ft by 6ft space on the ceiling! And then we’ll hang a chandelier down and add a few can lights on the right. So we’re getting there!

2. Build a kitchen island: COMPLETED!

I fell in love with the Restoration Hardware reclaimed wood kitchen island and just had to have it. Since it was too large for my space, the only thing that made sense was to build one myself! So that’s just what I did. I found some reclaimed barn wood, purchased a slab of Carrera marble and started sanding. See all the details here and here.

3. Paint the fireplace: COMPLETED!

My husband was away on business for a couple of days, so I took that opportunity to surprise him with a newly painted fireplace AND I built a mantel to go with it

(I think I deserve extra credit for that one!)

See the painting here and mantel building here.

4. Finish the master bathroom remodel: COMPLETED!

The whole reason I started this blog: to chronicle the remodel of our master bathroom for my family to see. You see, as a child, my parents built the two houses I grew up in. See, this isn’t my fault, it’s in my genes! I wanted an easy way for them to follow our first remodeling project in our “new” house. And so the blog was born. See the  progress here and here.

 

5. Paint my son’s bedroom: COMPLETED!

After 250 paint chips on his walls, I finally narrowed it down to a small handful of colors and let my son chose the final color.  His choice: Benjamin Moore Quiet Moments…and a great choice that was. My little prodigy. So proud.

6. Install Board and Batten in the family room: COMPLETED!

We were so thrilled with how the board and batten looked in the family room, that we decided to install it in our master bedroom, too! 

I think that deserves some extra credit as well!

See the progress here and the finished product here. And then the follow up to my finished product (the insanity post) here. And the she-is-seriously-crazy post here.

7. Pick a paint color for the family room: COMPLETED!

Actually, that should read: completed TWICE!!!  Again, some extra credit please? 

I painted the family room once in Benjamin Moore Nimbus Gray, and then again in a 50% formula of Nimbus Gray (after trying a 25% formula). See the contemplation here and here.

Now, I shouldn’t even mention the next part of this story, but we’re friends, so I’m gonna anyways…I’m in the process right NOW of painting it AGAIN. But you know what I say to my husband, I’m not really crazy, I just love this stuff!  Changing the paint color in your home is one of the biggest bangs for the buck you can get. I remind him to be happy that I’m just buying a $50 can of paint and not a $3000 sofa every time I want to change up the look. See, it could be a lot worse!

8. Paint the interior doors: FAIL!

I really really want new interior doors, actually. So I probably won’t waste the time painting our current doors. Here’s what I am drooling over:

Source: The Pleated Poppy

9. Paint the exterior of the house: FAIL!

Ok, I got a few bids for this (I think it may be too big of a project for me to tackle by myself: paint chipping, dry rot, lead paint…um, yeah) but I had no idea painting the exterior would be so expensive.  Here in N. California, my bids are around $7000.  Ouch!

10. Paint the mailbox: COMPLETED!

I spray painted my ugly gold mail box almost a year ago and I’m very happy to report, it’s holding up beautifully! No need to repaint any time soon.  See how I did it here.

11. Fix the shutters in the master bedroom: COMPLETED!

A while back my sweet doggie panicked and torn apart the shutters in our master bedroom. You can read about it here. So finally a year later I took them down and replaced them with my new favorite drapes from World Market. See the details here.

Let’s rescore this now…I completed 8 of 11 projects, but earned extra credit on 3 of them…so that brings my score to, well what do you know: 11/11= 100% Yay me! Smile!

Stay tuned for my House Goals of 2012 coming up shortly. I bet you can make some strong predictions!

Hugs, Celeste

 

 

 

Happy First Birthday!

Hi Friends and Family!! 

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my first ever blog post!

Sneak Peek this Week

Hi friends! I hope you enjoyed your long weekend and that you had a bit more sun than we did in California.  But not to worry, we didn’t let the rain stop us:

Do you know what you are looking at? 

And the dresser paint color is...

OK, don't laugh. 

Promise?

So remember I said I was originally thinking of painting the dresser navy like the ones from PB Kids?  But thought that is so boring. And then I decided to be creative and try something different and new.  I was going to do a glaze...maybe a brown base and gray glaze; or a gray base and brown glaze. 

Then my son talked me into a blue base with darker  blue glaze after seeing a sample in the

"Strié brochure".  Well, maybe we'll do a gray with a blue glaze...or blue with gray glaze.

And then I got to the paint store and chickened out. 

I decided to go with a navy blue (like the Pottery Barn Kids dresser I said I didn't want to copy) but I'd spice it up a bit with some gray accents on the raised detail work.  Here's the funniest part, I ended up not only with navy, but a navy from the

PB Kids Benjamin Moore Paint Collection!  Well, you know, I don't believe in recreating the wheel.  I love PB's style so why wouldn't I love their paint choices?  I picked

Benjamin Moore's Kensington Blue for the base color and

BM Edgecomb Gray (from a previous Pottery Barn collection as well!) 



BM HC-173 edgecomb gray



BM 840 kensington blue



I thought I'd try a foam brush this time, hoping to get less of the "refrigerator" look that the foam roller leaves (do you know what I'm talking about? That pock mark look? Kinda like a colored refrigerator.)

I have these nice new brushes DH bought me after forgetting to rinse my favorite Purdy brushes out one too many times.

But alas, I STILL use those old Purdy brushes over everything else...and this time, same story.

I didn't care for the foam brush and in fact, decided

I don't like the foam roller either.

I like a high quality brush and a steady hand to get straight line strokes.

Purdy is da best, worth every penny, years old with caked-on paint. 

After painting my girls' dresser with a foam roller, I decided I prefer the brushstroke look to the bumpy refrigerator look. 

I sanded the dresser pretty well. Wanted to get all the old shiny finish off and down to bare wood. I like to start with a super smooth surface cause your finished surface will never be better than that of your starting surface.

I removed the old knobs, filled the holes with wood putty and sanded when dry.

Ready for the primer coat.

Did you know it's ok to use a white primer

even if you plan to paint a dark color? It is.  Yay, I already have white primer. No need to race out to the paint store.

After the primer dried, I sanded with 220 grit sand paper and my electric sander.

Now ready for the first coat of Kinsington Blue!  I had a few neighbors around while I was working and I felt I was on one of those HGTV shows as I popped the paint can lid off and

revealed the color!

You might notice there are some white spots on the drawer fronts and on the top as well.  Those places are going to be the Edgecomb Gray.  Hopefully I get a picture of the finished dresser in better light (and not against the blue tarp!)

Since I had my painting clothes on and a wet white primer brush and roller...I figured I'd hop on into the master bath and give the wainscoting a primer coat.

While trying to paint behind the toilet, trying to ignore the fact that it's probably overdue for a cleaning, my brush slipped a few times and gave me a CRAZY idea.  The toilet is the only thing we didn't replace in the remodel.  Money is tight and the toilet is a Toto.

But it's almond, not white. I really want a white toilet. But when my brush hit the toilet a few times, quite by accident, I realized,

I COULD PAINT THE TOILET WHITE! 

Have you ever done that?

Is it possible?

Am I CRAZY?

Sneak peek at 2 projects: wainscoting and another dresser

Well, some exciting news...

I picked up another free dresser today and this one is

PERFECT for my son's room. 

My dear friend (and talented designer) found this for me next to a dumpster, the poor thing! 

But she rescued it and now I'm giving it new life and a new home (sorry in advance for how rough my son will likely be on you, but you've been through a lot,

I know you can handle it!) 

My friend has an incredible sense of style and I love her taste.  She recently renovated her bathroom and is going to share it with us....tumbled travertine, Restoration Hardware fixtures, lots of white, it's beautiful!  Be on the look-out soon for lots of pics and juicy details.

OK, here we go!  This is my latest free find:

I just love how masculine it looks.  The lines on it are fabulous. 

One drawer has this built-in divider.

And a retro, old-school change tray in the top drawer, so classic, and again, so masculine.

What a find don'tcha think!

My son was so excited about it when he came home from school that we couldn't resist starting on it right away! 

I know there are so many paints out there now that claim you

don't need to sand before, but I'm skeptical and like to roughen it up a bit regardless.  Plus, then I can use no VOC paints and not have to think twice about coverage. 

Hummm, paint? 

I'm not sure how I'm going to paint it yet, actually.  I was originally thinking of your basic Pottery Barn Kids navy blue.  But then my friend suggested I try a 2-tone glaze, possibly brown/gray??  There's always black, too.  Oooooh, what about red?  My son asked to paint it blue and gold for Cal.  Ahhhh, DH is proud.  Go Bears!

But NO. 

I love Cal just as much as the next, well I love my hubby and I love Cal, let's leave it at that.  At any rate, I'm putting out the blood, sweat and tears, and I get to pick the color! 

 (But I might compromise with a removable Cal decal on the SIDE or perhaps some Star Wars Wallies from Pottery Barn Kids - all removable I might add!)

What color do you think is good for a boy's dresser?  Have you ever tried a glaze?
Leave me a comment!

Lookin' GOOD!    Ahhhhh, thanks J.K.!    Looking forward to seeing your bathroom.

Speaking of bathrooms....here's another preview of something we're working on.  Our "almost" finished master bathroom is a tad closer to finished after this weekend!  We are just about done with wainscoting.  Here's the before:

Stayed tuned for lots of pics of the after coming soon!

Bathroom is almost finished!

Hi! Wow, sorry for the break in posts, but with the end of summer and beginning of a new school year, it's taken me a while to get back into routine. So we are almost finished with the bathroom! The only things left are a shower door and beadboard. Yay! It's looking just the way we envisioned it and we couldn't be happier. Plus, it's so nice to have a 2nd bathroom...there were times that 5 of us and the dog were all crammed into the kids' bathroom, it was really comical. So without further ado, here's the bathroom!

The Vanity Area:

Vanity- Restoration Hardware Hutton espresso

Counter & backsplash- carrara marble, 3cm honed

Faucets- Costco.com brushed nickel

Mirrors- Restoration Hardware Asbury brushed nickel

Sconces- Restoration Hardware Asbury brushed nickel

The shower:

Walls- 3x6 subway tiles, polished white

Accent tile- Akdo light Caspian blue, 1x6

Floor- 2inch white hex, matte

Curb and top of pony wall- Carrara marble, 3cm honed

Faucets- Kohler Pinstripe, brushed nickel

I'm not showing you our W/C area as the toilet is ugly! It's the original, which is almond color. It's a great toilet, actually, a Toto....but needs to be replaced one day for something prettier!

And we aren't totally thrilled with the paint color, a little too baby boy like and also with a hint of purple (no good!) So we're working on finding a new paint color. We'll put beadboard in to the chair rail height, painted bright white like the rest of the trim: BM Chantilly Lace.

UPDATE: I finished the wainscoting! 

 

UPDATE to the UPDATE!  DH put new window and door trim up and I love it! As soon as I get the last coat of paint up there, I'll post a before the final final post (still need to install the shower door!)

 

I linked to The Lettered Cottage Best Room Redo of 2010!

 

Bathroom is grouted!

Our bathroom is getting closer to completion! The tile is now 97% finished and grouted! We just need to get the marble slab pieces for the top of the curb and the top of the pony wall and it's finished.

Next step will be to have the plummer come back to put the sink pipes into the wall (for some reason they are sticking out like 6 inches and are huge....which won't look so great behind the see-through vanity) and then we'll fix the sheetrock behind the vanity and finally get the vanity in place ready for the marble fabricators to come measure, cut, install!

Things we still need to decide:

lights over vanity mirrors (will be a two arm, pointing down light of some type)

faucets

shower door

paint color

whether to do the walls with subways or wainscoting or just big baseboards and pain

DH is working on the door and window trim in the bathroom right now. That will finish it off so nicely!

Bathroom remodel week 2

Hi!
Sorry it's been a while since I posted. We took a 4 day camping trip to Lake Tahoe last weekend, which was amazing! We're still getting unpacked and cleaned up from the trip, but that hasn't slowed down the bathroom remodel.
Our tile guy has been here for 3 days now and is almost finished! He did all the mud on day 1. Then yesterday he tiled the shower walls with white subway tiles. Today he did the marble floor (18x18 carerra marble) and some of the quarter round and cuts of the subway. Tomorrow he plans to finish the shower floor and grout!
Our marble vanity slab has been ordered. I didn't get it for quite the price I had hoped to, but think I got a great deal over all. I ended up buying a huge slab and we're using almost all of it. We'll have the vanity top, 3 sides of backsplash on the vanity, a slab for the shower curb and a slab for the top of the pony wall and finally we'll be using a slab for our entry way countertop! We hadn't planned that last project, but since we had to buy a whole slab, it didn't cost much more to have them cut it to fit our entry way. So I got all of the marble, fabricated and installed for $1800. Not bad considering most of the quotes I got for JUST the vanity top alone were $1,500-$1,700. I'm happy!

Here are some in-progress pictures:











Left side of shower.











Left side of shower, peeking into w/c area.
















Right side of shower and my cute last minute cut out for shampoo.

The main floor.