guess who's back? (with my new zebra ottomans and a side of ranting and raving)

ah, well.
as i have stated before, it is good for my soul to disconnect from the cyber world every once in a while. sometimes these breaks are planned, and sometimes (like the last two + weeks), the break is just a result of a busier than normal time in my life.



as you know, i have three kids, and if you have kids, you know that the end of the school year can get CRAZY! like, "the-week-before-christmas" type of crazy. parties, library books to hunt for, graduations, gifts to buy teachers, notes to write, field trips to attend, concerts, recitals...throw in a few lacrosse tournaments, orientations, terrible internet connection, plenty of e-design work, the stomach flu, a broken arm, a road trip, and family in town from tennessee, and the result is...well, a neglected blog.



but i don't feel guilty. 
is that bad? 
i don't blog for a living. i write this blog because i WANT to. because i LIKE sharing what i have learned, as well as tips that i feel can help you make your home a place you LOVE. sure, because of the blog, i have a small and thriving design business, and there are a few occasional perks that i get to enjoy (giveaways, sponsored posts), but overall, i am NOT a professional blogger. and honestly, i have no desire to make bajillions of dollars selling you stuff and bloggingposting/tweeting/instagramming about the free crap i am getting and how you should go and buy it even though i am getting it for nothing.
whew! was that too harsh?!
frankly, i am thrilled that some people can make a living blogging. i actually think it is fantastic!  but i appreciate those blogs that have meaningful and personal content. and yes, there are some "professional" bloggers who do a tremendous job at this, and i LOVE their blogs. but there are a whole lot of others who seem to be like yapping dogs, vying for my attention, always tweeting and posting and instgramming about....nothing. 
it's just noise.
visual and verbal noise. 
i have slowly stopped looking at blogs that i feel are  there for pure commercial profit. that care more about 'getting a post up' and selling me stuff than in a personal connection with their readers and in creating content that is relevant and original and inspiring.  (am i alone in feeling this way? are there blogs out there that you just tune out because they are too commercial?)

ANYWAY, i suppose that is enough of the philosophical mumbo jumbo.


lets talk zebra, shall we?
as you may know, i like animal prints. a lot.
(check out an older post about zebra print here. it has some killer picture that i scanned from old-ish magazines. other posts that show some zebra love are here, here and here.)

but, i like my animal prints them in controlled and sophisticated doses. i know, i know. some of you might be thinking "oh--so slathering leopard wallpaper all over your girls bathroom is CONTROLLED?" well, in a way, yes.
the print is small and rather monochromatic.

if the wallpaper had been strictly black and white it might have been overwhelming, but it has a softness to it and contains several taupe and gray tones that mute the pattern and make it read as a neutral.

NOW, that being said. (holy cow, i am really ON ONE today, aren't i??)
let me tell you about my transformed ottomans!

i bought these ottomans from jc penney about 4 years ago. i am so glad that i snagged them when i did, as they are no longer available.

they came with a beige micofiber top, which i recovered in  houndstooth shortly after i purchased them.



i have always dreamed of having some hide on hair ottomans in my house, but they are SO expensive! i knew that i could come up with a more affordable way to get that high-end look i was after.
enter....EBAY.
after a couple months of hunting, i was able to find a new zebra printed cowhide from safavieh that had a small imperfection for $160. that isn't SUPER cheap, i realize, but if you have ever priced cow hide rugs (especially zebra ones) then you know that this is less than half of what they normally retail for.


(as you can see, the houndstooth top was showing some signs of wear and tear...)


ahhh, yeah! something good is about to happen!


because the cow hide is so thick, there is no way i would attempt this as a diy project! the cow hide would never run through my sewing machine. (plus, who am i kidding? i HATE sewing.) i took the tops and the rug to my upholstery shop and had them redo them and replace the foam with much thicker foam. each cushion with all the labor and the new foam cost about $45 each.
so, aside from the original cost of the ottomans, this redo cost me about $130 per ottoman. not too bad!

 i painted the frames with gold spray paint, which really brightened them up!

here is the finished product, which i am thrilled with!






the thicker foam makes the cushions look much more expensive...little changes like this can yield BIG results!





my living room refresh is almost complete!
you can see where i started here, and read about my progress here.
(hopefully in the next year i can replace this sofa. i am SO ready for something a little more streamlined and simple!)





anyway, it is good to be back!
i will be posting about a local nursery project soon, and give weekly updates on our progress, and i have some fun and easy projects to share in the coming weeks...so, stay tuned.

first look: my upstairs (BEFORE pictures)

i have been holding out.
i have been waiting and waiting to take some "good" pictures of the finished upstairs of my house to show y'all....
waiting for things to be perfect. or at least really, really clean.
and waiting until my "good" camera got fixed.
waiting until the kids were out of the house playing and, of course, remembered to clean their rooms and make their beds before they left.
waiting until the last boxes were unpacked and i had at least one or two things on the walls.

well, guess what? i realized this morning that those things may not happen for a very LONG time.
so, here are some really terrible phone camera BEFORE pictures of the upstairs...complete with kids still sleeping, temporary paper shades, toys on the floor, boxes stacked in the corner, messy couch cushions, and unfinished construction details. i hope you can manage to see (like i can) the POTENTIAL of these rooms!
ok.

here we go.

the stairs:

 i mentioned this before, but we ended up carpeting all of the stairs. one day (in the far, far future), we will pull up the carpet and install a fun runner on the stairs. i thought the carpet on the stairs might bother me, or look boring, but i am actually really happy with the way they turned out.

 the plan for the stair well is to add some type of trim or paneling going from the base molding to the ceiling. this will add a lot of architectural interest and help protect the walls from scuffs and marks. we already have QUITE the collection after moving in and being here just a few weeks!

 i realize this picture is terrible, but the camera on my phone is pretty limited. i had the electricians install three lights in a slightly random arrangement. i plan on having three moravian star fixtures hanging at different heights here. one day. 

the door at the top of the stairs leads to a mechanical and storage room.

 the upstairs hall, looking towards the bonus room. i am standing in the doorway of charlottes room. the first door on the left is olivias room. the second is the girls bathroom, and the third is gradys room. the door to the right is gradys bathroom.

charlottes room:

yep. she's asleep on the bed! i have some big plans for this room that include a new day bed with a custom head board and canopy, stenciled walls, painting her light fixture and current dresser, new bedding and adding a hinged bookcase that opens into a secret room. can you see that cut out in the sheetrock? it leads to a little area that is about 3.5 feet wide and 6 feet deep. charlotte has never had a room decorated just for her, so i promised her room would be one of the first that i worked on when we moved.

olivias room:

the two front bedrooms (olivias and grady's) are quite large. everyone who comes in comments on how big these two bedrooms are.  i still have some curtains that i had custom made 7 years ago for her bedroom in our last house in tennessee that i plan on using agin. i will also paint the walls, update her bedding a bit and possibly make a seating area to the left of the door. her bed and dresser were purchased when we lived in knoxville as well, and need to stay due to budget. the mirror was a semi recent purchase from anthropologie and will also be staying. the light fixture is from world market.

the girls bath:

 we finally got their drawer hardware installed! still a lot to do, but at least it functions...

gradys bedroom:

yep. there he is, curled up on the bed in his favorite footed pajamas. 

we bought his bed (from jc penney) and dresser (from the furniture mart in hickory, NC) when we was three, and while i still love both of them, he is slowly out growing them. i did a mini makeover of his room when we lived in our last rental house that included new bedding and new art, but in a year or two, i would love to update his room again. his room can handle a larger bed and dresser, and those items will be on the priority list when i am ready to tackle it, but right now, we need a yard and about 765 things more than we need a new bed and dresser!

the bonus room:

we were not going to finish this room when we first started building, but i am SO glad that we did! it is the place where my kids hang out, play with friends, watch movies and play with toys.

right now, we have a sectional that we bought from craigslist, and old dining table and a few chairs that we use as a game table, and the top part of a dresser that we are using as an entertainment center. (the bottom part of the dresser is in our master bedroom)

the door leads to a room that we call the "toy room". 

its where all the legos, games and toys are kept.  i LOVE that the toys stay in this room and if it gets too messy, we can just close the doors.

this is the only room that we had the painters paint!

the color on the walls doesn't look as green in person as it does in these pictures.

it is called "deep creek" by benjamin moore. it is a deep grey/brown color, and i really, really love it.

the room is nice and large, but because of the slope of the ceiling, and the location of the door, it has made the furniture placement a little tricky. i finally have the sectional, tv and table arranged in a way that works really well for us.

from the bonus room, looking back towards the stairs and into charlottes room.

i hope you can see what the spaces can become! i view them as "shells" right now---empty and void of character, but waiting to be transformed! i am really happy with everything, and so thrilled to be in the house! there are just SO many things that i want to spend my time and limited budget on...it is so hard to zero in on a room!
i think i am going to start with gradys bathroom...can you already see that i have some samples up on the wall? more on that soon...
thanks for sticking around!

construction progress: week 24

here is what has been happening at my new house lately:

there was more work on the front retaining wall. the wall will be about 4 feet high on the front of the house, and will continue on the side of the driveway.

the BIG news is that the painters started!

 

we planned on painting the house ourselves, but the whole TIME vs. money thing was not going to work in our favor if we spent 3 weeks painting. since we kept the colors simple, and we don't have any crown molding or additional trim, we were able to hire a crew to paint the house for us.

 the VERY freshly painted bonus room. as you can see, the paint hasn't even dried yet!

 once the walls were primed, they sprayed the trim.

 the girls bath.

 the doors, already painted and wrapped to prevent over spray from the walls and trim.

 on the main floor, they had to completely cover the floors and the cabinets.

 there is still a LOT to do on the back retaining wall. our original plan was to build a concrete and rock wall, but time and money were running short, so we changed to plan B...

 these large metal cages called gabians....they will be filled with stone, and stacked on top of each other to create the retaining wall in the back. each cage is wired to all of the surrounding cages, so it is super sturdy. 

we plan on getting some type of vine to cover the cages....right now, we are thinking of using creeping fig, but i need to do a little more research before i commit.

 a look at the painted walls.

the color on the walls is actually the "official" ceiling color, so it doesn't look

GREAT with the grey in the marble here, but i will eventually paint the walls.

 more finished paint.

i also dropped off this vintage lantern to get rewired. if anyone lives in salt lake, the BEST place to go is the lamp company, on 7th east, just across from liberty park. they have rewired several lamps for me, and they do a fabulous job, and are always affordable. i got this lantern rewired and got a replacement canopy for around $60. the man who fixed it said it was at least 70 years old. it will hang in my girls bathroom.

*if you follow me in instagram, then you have already seen the picture of the lantern, and you ALSO know that i am about a week behind in posting about my homes progress. this week i will be posting TWO construction progress posts to catch up! it is breathtaking what has happened in the last 5 days!
our target move in time is the first week of may, so things are moving fast!

hardwood stain options: votes!

it is just about time to sand and stain the hardwood floors!

we have always used minwax stains in the past, and plan on using them in our new house as well. in the last few houses that we have built and remodeled, we have used "provincial" and been VERY happy. since we almost always use red oak, we know exactly how it will look...provincial is a very neutral, medium brown stain color. (when i say "neutral" i mean a color that doesn't read red or yellow or grey.)

here are my favorite "neutral" minwax stains, in order from dark to light:

of course, when i picked out the stain colors that i wanted to test, i grabbed "provincial".

but i also wanted to test two colors that i thought would be nice, but still neutral, so i also chose "special walnut" and "dark walnut".

here they are:

(and YES, i just realized that i spelled provincial wrong here. but lets just pretend that it is spelled right. i need the time it will take to correct it to pack a few boxes.)

i was pretty surprised at how light the "special walnut" looked compared to the others! after seeing the samples, i definitely liked "provincial" and "dark walnut" the best.

**TIP for testing stain colors:

when testing stain colors, you need to sample the colors on at least two boards, since there can be so much variation from board to board. it is also a good idea to test the colors on the SAME board so you can really see the difference in each color.

here are the colors again:

at first, i thought i might also test out "jacobean", but i actually want the floors to be a slightly softer brown, and i felt that jacobean was just a tad darker than what i wanted. so, the race is between what i know works and looks great and i have used many times before:

PROVINCIAL

or...

the slightly darker, never used before

DARK WALNUT

?

which is YOUR pick?

please vote!