2013 Calendar Sale

Hi there. How are you?

It's the last day of January. How is that possible?

I just got a few of my 2013 calendars back from one of my retail accounts. 

I want them all to have homes, so they are now........

 

8.5" x 11" chair calendars are now $16.00.

 5.5" x 8.5" abstract calendars are just $10.00.  

Procrastinators win!
  Head on over to my etsy shop and snag one. 

We Bought a Fixer - Paint, Parents & Drywall

Hi. How are you?

We move to the new place in just a month's time! Ahh! 

Exciting, but there is still much to do. 

2 weeks ago, my parents came to town help us tackle some of the work. 

Here's my dad......

 .....And my mom. 

Dust really gives her sinus trouble, so she wore this mask the whole time she was in the house. 

She's a goof, just like me, and had no qualms at all about posing in the mask.  

  

Matt and my dad's mission was to replace drywall here and in the hallway.

Matt and I demo-ed out all of the bad drywall prior to my parent's arrival.

It was fun to be destructive. 

By the end of the weekend, we had new walls! Woo! 

Meanwhile, my mom and I worked on painting trim.........

.....and painting paneling. 

This room was so trapped in the 70's! See more here.

As we painted, the fireplace started looking more and more out of place. 

First, we decided to take down the mantle, which was strangely centered above the off-centered fireplace.

Then, we painted. So much better!

This was my mom's project. 

She cleaned it all out and primed the whole fireplace with brush. 

We don't know what we'll do with the red tile hearth yet.

For now, its staying. 

It was really fun to have my parents around and we got so much work done!

Having 2 extra pairs of hands was great. Thanks Mom and Dad!

What's up next?

Lots of painting and lots of flooring.

And what do you think about things so far?

We love to hear what you have to say! 

Ta-ta.  

We Bought a Fixer - We have a Kitchen! (Almost)

Hi There. How are you? 

Things are really starting to come together in the kitchen! 

In a little over a week's time, our builders did all the electrical, hung the cabinets....... 

...And tiled the floor with this gorgeous porcelain.

We're really excited about our island, which features an Ikea butcher block top. 

(This was a bargain!)

And look at this mega apron sink! So pretty. 

Now we're just waiting for the counter-tops to be fabricated.

In the mean time, we're tackling the paneling and fireplace in the dining room. 

Stay tuned for a guest appearance by my parents in next week's blog! 

To read more about our home renovation, head here. 
 Ta-ta for now.

We Bought a Fixer - Enter the Pros

Hi there. How are you?

Work has officially begun on our kitchen. Hooray!

After weeks of DIY, I can't tell you how nice it is to have professionals on the job!

Blocking in the window was the first thing the pros tackled.

We hate to lose the light from a window,  but it was necessary to get the layout we wanted in the new kitchen.

On Monday, the cabinets were delivered. (Wellborn Barcelona Oak)

The lowers have a rich sienna stain.

The uppers have a lighter stain.  Don't you just love the grain?

These builders are moving fast! 

All of the electrical, plumbing and subflooring was completed in just a few days. 

The only work on the kitchen we had to do was paint the walls. 

That was our homework last night. 

The pros should be starting to tile and hang the upper cabinets today.

I leave you with some close-ups of our kitchen finishes. 

Have a great day! Ta-ta.

To read more about our home renovation, go here.

We Bought a Fixer - Making Progress

Hi there. How are you? 

Though we still have soooooo much to do at the house prior to move in, we are starting to rebuild from the ashes. We now have 2 bedrooms that are all finished and ready for furniture! 

The first room we tackled was our master bedroom. Other than getting rid of the carpet and and painting, there was not much to do here. Luckily, this room did not have wallpaper! Are you ready for the reveal?? 

Ta-da! Isn't it amazing what a little paint can do?

We gave the whole room several coats of bright white paint. We're actually painting the whole house white. White gives it that contemporary Scandanavian look that we love and will make a great backdrop for our massive art collection.  And how about that cork flooring? Love it!

We're installing this lock and click cork flooring in all of the bedrooms, hallway and the living room. Isn't it pretty?  

It comes in long planks (about 12" wide x 35" long) that float over the subfloor. No glue, no nails. You just lock the panels together. Though it takes a little elbow grease, it really is quite easy. A lot easier than refinishing hardwoods! The cork feels really nice under foot (much more give than hardwoods) and is supposed to be good at retaining heat. This was especially important in the master, as it sits right over the garage. Brr.

 

The last thing we did in the master was change out the granny light fixure and replace it with this. This puppy came from Lowes and cost less than $90. 

 

We've also made over the mysterious "blue room."

We still have some trim to install at the bottom of the "secret room" wall. 

I'm pretty excited to turn the "secret" room into my office. 

The light is great, and it's actually quite a large space!

Next up...The kitchen!

The demo is done and we are anxiously awaiting the builders who are supposed to start work next week. 

Ta-ta for now!

 

New Moleskine Creations

Hi There. How are you today?

My moleskine has been calling to me lately. If I'm sitting in front of the TV, my moleskine is out and I'm drawing away. I've missed drawing. Though I've never stop creating in the forms of designing, home remodeling, making gifts, snaping pictures, etc.,  it's been ages since I've actually put pen to paper. 

It's felt good to exercise the drawing hand again. Now that the holidays and art show season are over, I'm looking forward to regularly getting back into the studio and working. I'm planning an ambitious 2013 summer art fair season.....Gotta build up that inventory! 

I really enjoy drawing in this abstract manner. I know I've said this before, but I need to turn these sketchbook doodles into a sale-able product. It's on my to-do list! 

That's all for now. Gotta get Jack to band practice! (He jams with "The Burning Hotels" when he's down visiting us.)  Ta-ta!

We Bought a Fixer - Archeology

Happy 2013 friends! 

We can't wait to spend this year in our new house. Only 2 months until we move in. Lots to do! 

In it's "natural' state , our house was covered in lovely brown carpet (even in one of the bathrooms!)

As we've been renovating, we've discovered all sorts of secrets under those rugs. 

When we pulled up the carpet in Jack's room (bottom left) we found hardwoods!

And hardwoods in good shape at that! 

This was a total surprise as we had already torn out the carpet in the hallway and master bedroom and only found sub-floor.

We really thought about refinishing it and keeping it until we found this.

Drywall as a floor patch. Huh?? 

We deduced that there must have been a closet and built in here, the mimics the one on the other side of the room. 

Though we could have taken some wood out of the closet to patch the missing planks, we've decided to go ahead and lay our cork floors over. We'll leave refinishing the flooring for the next owners. 

Now enter the "blue room."

Even before removing the carpets, the third bedroom was a mystery to us. 

Though it is difficult to see in this picture, there is a small room within this room. 

What looks like a mirror to the left of the door is actually a doorway into another small room.

We found out from our kitchen remodelers that this was once a "secret room."

The wall was covered in mirrors and if you pushed on a certain spot the door would open. 

Strange.

 

Here is a look inside the "secret room." There's even a window inside. 

At first we thought the space for this secret room came from a large walk-in closet.

After pulling up the carpet and seeing more drywall patches in floor, we realized that this room was once two bedrooms. 

The patch marks the old closet and the window in the secret room was once in the 4th bedroom. 

After ripping out the hallway wallpaper, we found the old door frame for the room too.  

If the whole "secret room" thing wasn't strange enough for you, there is also this "dog door" in the wall??? Hmm.

 

We've decided to keep our secret room. Until my new basement studio is whipped into shape, I will use this as my office.

It's really a large space -  more that I have now in our condo! 

The main room will serve as a guest bedroom. We decided it was OK to forego a closet in there for now. 

Demo, is really pretty much done now. We're starting to build things back up again. 

Next week I'll show you our transformed master bedroom! 

Ta-ta!