Do you Pinterest?

I almost wish I hadn't discovered Pinterest...if you don't already use it, it's this great website where you 'pin' or save ideas for whatever you like: house ideas, diy ideas, clothing ideas, places you'd like to go, etc. When you put in a 'pin' you can save the website address where you found the 'thing/place' you like, and have a ready resource for going back to something that has inspired you. Here is a link to some of the things that are inspiring me. It's a great time-waster though too, just like any good internet site, so be prepared to have some time sucked away before you finally get to where you only want to pin things occasionally.
I'm excited for all the things I want to try, especially projects with the house.

Happy Pinning!

Vintage Dressers, Part 2

Although I bought these dressers more than a month ago, you can see I just posted about them (done with the biggest of the 'yuckies' in my pregnancy and ready to start the blog). Trust me, I am not that 'on the ball' as far as getting projects started goes. The next step in the 'restoration'/making them less ugly process was the hardware. I considered buying new pulls, but I really liked the original drawer pulls, so I decided to keep them. Years of never being polished and taken care of had left them tarnished. Enter: Brasso, which, as it turns out, is great stuff! The project of tarnish removal took longer than I thought it would (I can only think of one or two projects we've taken on that actually took less time we thought they would, or even equal to the time we thought they would). I am very pleased with how they turned out.

Sad and sorry looking pulls above.

Here is a nice contrast shot of a polished (de-tarnished) pull next to the original pull

I alternated between putting the Brasso on with the old sock, and scrubbing them down with the tooth brush. For these very tarnished drawer pulls it took A LOT of Brasso applied several times. I washed them down in the garage utility sink in between applications.

How do I love thee: Vintage Dressers Part 1

I was so excited to find these lovely vintage dressers on Craigslist! Thank goodness for a sweet friend who brought her truck and helped me get them home. Here are some photos of the dressers and the kids enjoying them!

You can see the paint swatches on the walls, thank goodness I finally found a color I love. Also, you can see the rug I bought from Costco and disliked almost as soon as I got it home. Thank goodness the edge started fraying, and I LOVE Costco's return policy (they are pretty much the bomb, return almost any non-electronic items, even months after you bought them).

My To-Do List

If I think too long about all the things I need to get done, I will probably go insane, but I wanted to take just a minute to jot down some of the things that I would like to get done:
1. Paint the Ikea Expedit bookcase I bought for Gavin's room (it is brown/black and I want it to be white).

2. Paint the Ikea Malm dresser in our bedroom (it is birch and I want it white).

3. Paint our kitchen table (it is natural wood/birch color and I think I want it dark brown...undecided).

4. Decide on a paint color for our master, Gavin's room and Bryn's room.

5. Finish the trim paint in the living room/dining room.

6. Touch up the ceiling paint in the living room/dining room

7. Paint the living room/dining room

8. Paint the vintage dressers I bought for Bryn's room

Bathroom: Part Two

Since the bid for the bathroom remodel came in just over $10K (not including fixtures and tile, etc.). We decided to tackle the project ourselves. Here are some photos in progress of the demolition.Before we removed the old Toilet (above)

Before we removed the old linoleum

The tub wasn't in bad shape, so we decided just to move it while we did the sub floor, then put it back in place.

You can see the rotten part of the sub floor above

Removing the ceiling probably wasn't necessary, we just worried about the extent of the mold, so we wanted to be very thorough.

After removing the bad sub floor, plumbing to move the toilet and vanity, and installing the base for the floor tile (Thank you Handy Hubby and friends).

Bathroom: Part One

Here are some before photos of our bathroom (can you say yuck!)

The vanity started as soon as you walked in the pocket door

It was difficult to walk inside the bathroom, because of the vanity, not to mention that a pocket door was mandatory, because of the space issue.The rotten part of the floor (above)

Super gross around the tub and shower (it's hard to tell from the photos, but the whole bathroom was rotting, when we demo'd the vanity and storage area, the hinges almost fell apart because they were so rusted, not to mention that there was mold behind the mirror)Extra storage space in the corner behind the shower

The house!

After searching high and low (and many long discussions about exactly what we wanted, and what we were comfortable paying), we bought 'the' house. We knew we wanted a 'fixer-upper', although that can mean very different things to different people. So, we bought something that needed lots of work, and something that we could put a lot of time (and some money) into improving and (hopefully) selling someday (sooner rather than later, if I get my wish). Here are some photos to enjoy of the 'before' (although I'll call it the before, before; since I know we have a long way to go).
The carpet that had to go, above
The bathroom that the inspector said 'needed renovation' and the floor that was 'not live-able'
(sorry about the small photos, they are from a realty website, here are some more of our own)