Home Reno January, 2016

We bought our house April 2009. We had the entire house painted at that time because every room was either baby blue or sage green and we wanted to introduce some more personality into it. We have loved the colors, but one can only be happy with something for so long and after nearly 7 years, it was time to pay some attention to the family room and catch it up to speed. It was feeling dated and I didn't want to have a house that felt like it was living in a previous decade. So, once 2016 hit (2015 was a broke year for many reasons so any home reno had to wait until 2016), I got started on my project. I started by going to Sherwin Williams and grabbing some paint swatches to get my brain started.

Yellow is the old wall color.
Brown is the old mantle color.
I was looking to see what would match or clash.

Then, on a trip to Pottery Barn,
I bought these new pillow covers because I couldn't not.

Some Before Pictures:

I didn't mind the mantle, but hated the trim and the gap on the right side.

Then I decided I wanted to go very neutral and light, so we started checking colors. I ended up having to paint a giant swatch of primer because the yellow was still bleeding through no matter how hard I tried to hide it.

mind the gap

Our two finalists duking it out.

We decided Perfect Greige was way too dark for our space,
though we love it in Cyndi's house.
Agreeable Gray for the win!

air return no longer used, but still there.

Once we got going, I decided to have Robbie give me a new mantle too.

out with the corbels!

more gap. This is looking down from above the mantle

Also, while we had Robbie and Ricardo here, we had them repair the holes in the ceiling in the garage. You may remember how the floor up there just gave way one night and how Seth had fallen through in a couple other places? Well, he made an awesome floor up there years ago, we sorted and purged everything before putting it back up there, but were left with these 4 or 5 holes that we never got around to patching. Ricardo was done within a couple hours.

He cut them square and patched no problem.
SO glad to have those done!

I insisted on a primer coat and two coats of color because
the yellow was bleeding through my tests so much.

bye Biltmore Buff!
We've loved you, but it's time for you to go.
You can see here how they had to do the ceiling.
I didn't take before pictures of that,
but we had cracks 10 feet long.

dust, dust everywhere!

grrrrr

The best thing to do was probably to rip out the whole fireplace and have it restacked, but that was not in our budget now or ever.

The whole ceiling got a fresh coat and
I've learned my lesson about candle smoke.

Before they moved the wires.
You could see these all the time.

Centered behind the tv now.
Which allowed me to move the tv center too.

Still a work in progress. The rug took longer to come than expected, so we were without a rug for like a week which was pretty annoying, especially to the little people who live here.

some lived-in pictures

Here are the Official After Pictures:

new rug. new bean chairs. new lampshade. new pillows.
new toy baskets. new throw over the chair. new candles in fireplace

New, more modern trim covers gap.
New, bigger mantel covers old one.

No more air return!

No more visible plugs!

I love all the extra carpeted floor space we now have.
That was a main goal.

Contrasting textures, hard to capture by camera.

My absolute favorite new thing. Soft, machine-washable, and "cheeky."
"Cheeky" as in tongue-in-cheek or kinda funny or slightly bizarre.

I like how the room has traditional elements plus modern elements plus some vintage vibe plus some Joanna Gaines vibe. I love The Lettered Cottage and Nesting Place blogs and got a lot of inspiration from those plus Fixer Upper.

The Pottery Barn rug is still shedding pretty good, but I was expecting that to happen. The best place for a new XL lamp shade is Lowes, and all the pillow covers but the Dallas one are machine washable. The bean chairs are second hand off Facebook and the boys love to sit on them. The toy baskets are Target for like $16 each. The faux candles are Pier 1 and have a remote. My only annoyance with them is that the boys are constantly affecting their placement and I can never remember exactly how I wanted them! I feel like the official after pictures make the rug look like it doesn't match the couch, but to the eye, it's more of the same brown. (I'm not going to post specifics because, well, time, but I'm happy to talk to you about what I got and why and where and such if you're interested.)

We had originally planned to get new art for above the mantle, but decided this one works for now. It's a sentimental piece--the first piece of art we bought together and it's been in three different homes of ours. Plus, I can't quite decide what I want... I want something with more colors than just blue, darkish to set off the lighter wall, and something that would mean something to us. The art that's there only means something because we've owned it so long. I'd like the next piece to actually say something about us. A scripture, a TX+WI something, etc. If you see anything or know of anything you'd like to suggest, I WOULD LOVE THAT. Also, if you think it looks bad and really needs to go, I'd like to hear that too. Don't let a friend live with decorating choices she thinks are fine but that are actually pretty terrible.

New Years Eve and Day -- 2015/2016

New Years this year was definitely interesting. I had nasal surgery the morning of, so I was a little drugged up and out of it the rest of the day. I slept a tiny bit right when we got home, had some apple sauce and mashed potatoes for dinner. I had bought sparkling grape juice, poppers and special plates to eat dinner on. We streamed last year's ball drop at 8pm, pulled the poppers and sent them to bed. Seth and I stayed up after that to watch a movie and then it was an attempt to sleep. I first tried the recliner in Carson's room but he kept me up with his breathing (lol). I then propped myself up on the couch with pillows galore (after waking Seth for his help) and got a little bit of sleep. The biggest problem was that I could not breathe through my nose AT ALL. So I had to sleep with my mouth hanging open and my mouth would get as dry as the wall, so I slept in 45 minute increments. I didn't have much pain and Seth was super helpful, so recovery was good aside from the the lack of sleep.

I was still bleeding from the nose,
so had to keep it covered.

They weren't very exciting to watch, but they went far!

I love this picture.

The next morning was so crazy it sounds impossible. We suspected Graham had another ear infection, and I desperately needed coffee and we needed to go to get stuff for the event at Tom Thumb, so we took Graham to Laura's house where she looked in his ear and diagnosed an ear infection plus wrote us a prescription (I have said many thankful praises prayers for her since that day. That and all the other ways she has loved us well!). We stopped by TT, dropped the prescription off at CVS, got gas, went back to CVS, gave him a dose in the parking lot and drove to The Colony. By the time we got there, we were an hour behind schedule and most everyone had eaten already. Austin was shaking and complaining of fever and once I felt him, confirmed that to be the case. We had thankfully brought Advil with us, so Cheryl helped get him some food, some blankies and put a show on for him to rest while the medicine kicked in before we could do presents. Thankful for amazing family that doesn't hesitate to help when it's needed.

Still bleeding the next day.

Carson looks so tiny here.

lol. funny face