Office Makeover: Pretty Much There

You may remember that last spring I had talked about doing a little office makeover. I just wasn't loving the wall color in there anymore and Robert wanted to get a new desk. So I started slowly working on the room bit by bit.

First came the new desk. Then came the new paint. I had originally wanted to do a nice blue color in there but we never got around to picking one/deciding on one. We had quite a bit of edgecomb grey left over from our living room paint project (yes, we did actually paint that room--I was kind of waiting for all the kitchen craziness to settle down before I shared pictures with y'all) so we thought, what the hell, and carried that color over into the office.

After we finished painting, we rearranged the room a bit and brought in some floating shelves from Ikea. A little accessorizing and organizing made it feel like we were getting there. But before I show you the afters, you may want to take a walk down memory lane.

This is what the room looked like when we first saw the house:

This is what it looked like about four months later (in June 2009):

And this is it today:

(That beige chair actually doesn't live in the office. We moved it in there to make room for our Christmas tree)

There are still some things I'd like to do down the line, like add some curtains and a larger rug. But it is indeed feeling a little more inviting and user friendly in there.

Gooooo Christmas

Font Yard Declutter

Over the summer I decided to take some action with the rose bed in front of our house. I got all the dead and gangely rose bushes out of there and brought in some loropetalum, japanese boxwood, and knock-out roses. Then all was well in the bed.

But as the summer wore on and the plants grew, the bed started to look like this.

I didn't really factor in how fast the loropetalum would grow—it began to completely cover the japanese boxwood and the roses. At first I thought I might just keep trimming back the loropetalum but, honestly, I try to stay low maintenance on the yard work and constant trimming just didn't sound like fun. So I decided to move the loropetalum to other parts of the yard and move the row of japanese boxwood up a bit.

So things are definitely looking less cluttery in the bed. Although the loropetalum that I transplanted elsewhere aren't doing as well as they were in their original home—like the ones I put in the planter in front of the carport.

 Maybe more love—and water—will bring them back up to snuff...

Renningers Extravaganza!

If you're a Floridian and you love anything in the way of vintage or antique, you probably know about Renningers. It's a huge indoor/outdoor antique mall where you can find anything from antique lab equipment to Heywood-Wakefield furniture.

 I've found some great pottery and art there over the years. Their triannual antiques extravaganza was this past weekend, so me and some friends drove up to check it out. I was in the market for some syroco-like ornate mirrors to hang above my dining room buffet and some vintage planters.

We saw some interesting stuff but nothing that was on my list (well, nothing that was quite at the right price). I'm pretty selective when it comes to purchasing accessories, actually--I either have to know exactly where it's going to go in the house or love it so much that I have to make a place for it. And I try not to deviate from my lists, which keeps down impulsive buys and the pile up of not-so-loved-items that end up in the garage sale pile. Actually, we all walked away without buying anything (except for Patty, who bought a small charm). But it was fun to look.

*Patty, Gregg, and Nick lookin' at some jewelery.

Pots and Plants

Adding plants to rooms can make a big (yet weirdly subtle) difference. They add color, can purify the air, and make a space feel less stark. This weekend I invested in some greenery to put into great pots that I bought from Etsy and Ikea.

I had my eye on this turquoise pot on Etsy for a while (you can actually see it on my Pinterest). The price was originally a bit steep but the seller eventually put it on sale and I scooped it up.

I just put some potting soil in it and planted some little succulents I found at Home Depot. I've become a big fan of succulents over the past few years—they're really interesting to look at and don't require much attention or water.

 

Then I gave the same treatment to an Ikea KARDEMUMMA plant pot I had in the guest room.

So now I'm just gonna let 'em go and watch 'em grow.

Chevron On!

That chevron fabric is finally on my danish chair! I can't take the credit though—I have a mom who's a very talented sewer and she offered to do the cushions up all nice and fancy for me.

We had quite a bit of fabric left over, so I cut a place mat for Henry's bowls.

Now he can eat in style (and maybe save some of that kitty water from getting on the floor).

Kitchen Complete!

Yes, friends, the kitchen is finally done! I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

kitchen before

kitchen after

 

Robert cut and stained the windowsill himself!

Source list

Cabinets, sink, and appliances: Ikea

Faucet: Home Depot

Counter tops: Lowe's

Backsplash: tiles from Floor and Decor (installed by Robert and Jonathan, grouted by Robert and Jen)

Pendants: Amazon

Rock My Socks

We have a little project ADD going on over at the Schubach house. Along with finishing touch-ups on the kitchen, we're also trying to get the office in order. And I'm determined to finish my friends and family wall sometime in the near future. Things are happening, they're just happening a little...slowly. Well, to make things interesting, I'm throwing another project on the pile. It's actually something I've been wanting to do for over a year--a succulent rock garden on one of the back sides of the house. Now that fall has fallen on Florida (it's way too brutal to try to do projects like this in the summer) I'm determined to get this thing going.

I already planned out where the garden would go quite a while ago (its this nondescript patch of weeds/grass that sits under the back windows of the office and our bedroom). This past weekend I started the process of killing off the weeds/grass by putting tarp and newspaper over the area. You can also use weed killer, but we try not to use pesticidy kind of stuff in our yard. The tarp and newspaper should suffocate the weedies over the next couple of weeks and then I can more easily dig them out.

Then I'm going to put a combination of small pebble rocks and large landscaping rocks throughout the area with some drought-friendly plants in between. Maybe something like this:

Or this:

(but without the water element)

 The small pebble rocks and plants are no problem to purchase, but I'm having a hard time finding some good, large, boulder-y rocks for the garden. Rocks like that just don't occur naturally in central Florida and I haven't seen anything like them at local home improvement places. So I've been scouring Craigslist to see if anyone has some large rocks they want to unload. Anyone know where to score some good rocks?

Rock pictures from here and here.

Friends and Family Wall

I've been wanting to do a friends and family photo wall on one of our blank hall walls for a while. Now that we're done painting everything (woohoo!) I can finally put my plan into action. So without further adieu, some inspiration from the world wide web:

As you can probably tell, I'm drawn to neutral walls with eclectically colored frames. I'm thinking I'll look for a few vintage frames and then use Ikea's RIBBA frame as filler.

Love the RIBBA frames--they're inexpensive ($4.99) but the mat that comes with makes them look polished. And you can spray paint them whatever color you want (they come in black and white).

Well, I'm thinking this and finishing up the office will be the next projects in the queue after we're done with kitchen touch-ups...

Frame photos from here, here, here, here, and here.

Geometric Rug Roundup

Our living room floor is feeling a little bare these days—we have laminate flooring throughout the main living area—so I've been doing a lot of research on area rugs lately. I find myself really drawn to geometric rugs—I feel like they can add interesting patterns into your decor and add a pop of color (or not if you want to stay neutral) here's a little roundup of what I've been looking at (and some that are just cool):

 Clockwise from top left: West Elm, Target, Overstock, Overstock, Overstock, Shades of Light

Kitchen Update (It's Been A While!)

Why, hello there. September is just flying by, no? Flying by so fast that I realized I haven't posted anything to ye olde blog in, like, 20 days. I do have an excuse for not posting recently, though--I was out of town all last week for work in Boston (and then went on a camping adventure with my friends Jennileen and Noelle south of the city!). Anyway, enough excuses.

Stuff has indeed been happening on the kitchen front. First, we got counter tops about three weeks ago. The installation went smoothly and was done in a few hours. We decided to go with the grey quartz from Lowe's that we had our eye on. It's the "Alloy" color from Lowe's Allen + Roth line.

Here are the counters in action:

After that, we were ready for backsplash tile. We decided a while ago that we would just go for a simple white subway tile. We looked around and found the best price at our local Floor and Decor Outlet--21 cents per tile, which came out to around 50 bucks total. I like that.

Then it was a matter of deciding whether to attempt tiling ourselves (which we've never done) or asking the contractor we've been working with to do it. The contractor's price--$400--was a too steep for us, especially now that we're almost to the end of the project and really trying to save where we can. So we looked at some tutorials online and decided to give it a go. Also, our good friend Jonathan came over to help us. He is wise in the ways of tiling and many other handy house things. We owe him many beers for helping us out over the years.

After a couple weekend sessions of tiling, Jonathan and Robert had most of the backsplash done. Here's a peek:

Now we just need to grout and finish up some of the edge pieces.

So I would say we're like 98% done with everything. We even have running water and electricity! All the electrical work was finished while I was out of town, so I came home to find working recessed lighting and our bar pendants hung up:

It was pretty great. Now it's just a matter of pulling together some finishing touches--putting a sill on the window, hanging blinds, buying a new trash can, etc.

(And you may or may not have noticed, but I've just been showing pieces and parts of the kitchen in my recent pictures. I'm waiting till we're totally, totally done to show you the complete thing. You know, like the big reveal they do on those HGTV shows. Humor me, folks.)

New Ikea Frames

I'm loving these new KVILL frames from Ikea.

I was actually just looking for some small ornate frames like this but nothing I found came close to beating the price on these: $4.99 each.

Sucker for Chevron

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for all things chevron.

I'm also a sucker for vintage chairs (although my husband has informed me that I'm cut off from buying any more). So I thought I'd jump on the chevron bandwagon and combine my two great loves by, wait for it, covering one of my mid-century chairs with chevron fabric. Cuhrazy. This gray Danish number I bought off Craigslist a couple years ago will be my victim (uh, excuse the cat toys in the background).

I bought the chevron fabric from fabric.com (for $12.48 per yard—I bought three).

I can't wait to cover it, but I have a little confession to make: I have no idea how to sew. I tend to buy these great vintage chairs with not-so-great fabrics and tell myself, "Well, I'll just reupholster it." It sounds so easy but other than some tutorials I've kind of breezed over online, I'm not quite sure how to begin. Luckily, I have some people in my life who are pretty handy with a needle so I may be calling in some favors...Either way, I'll get that fabric on there somehow!

Something's On the Way...

A new addition to our office is on the way (via a little order from Overstock). If you remember this post from awhile ago, I've been wanting to change things up in our office. Well, we finally sold our previous desk and pulled the trigger on this guy:

I'd been wanting a nice white parsons desk in there and was pretty pleased to find one at the right price. For $135, it bears a striking resemblance to some far more pricier options—like this West Elm parsons desk for $299:

The next thing is just finding the right wall color to give the room a little lift...

Sans Kitchen: Month 4

The end of this month will mark four full months of life without a functioning kitchen. So I thought I would, eh, reflect on our little exercise in making the best of it.

For the first three months, there was absolutely zilch in our kitchen—no cabinets, counter tops, sink, or dishwasher. Luckily, we were able to plug in our fridge and our oven (the fridge was plugged into a living room wall and we just wrapped the oven cord around a corner into the kitchen outlet). Here's a picture from when we first set up our makeshift cucina:

(Now that we've been able to move the fridge and oven into their rightful places—and put away dishes and food—our makeshift kitchen now fits on one single Ikea bookshelf. Hurray!)

Since we were dropping so much dough on the renovation, Robert and I really wanted to resist spending money on eating out all the time. At first I had grand ambitions of making great home-cooked meals in the crockpot and the oven, but we ended up resorting to a lot of frozen food. And not because it was such a pain to cook—it really wasn't—but because it was such a pain to clean dirty pots/pans. We switched between using the hall bathroom sink and the hall bathroom bathtub in the effort to keep either one from getting too clogged. Ew. We also found that outdoor hoses make pretty good rinsers as well.

As far as what we consumed during this time, these were go-tos for us:

1. instant oatmeal
2. hard boiled eggs ('cause they need almost zero cleanup)
3. BBQ chicken or pork (cooked on the grill)
4. salad mix
5. Valley Fresh frozen vegetable steamers
6. frozen pizza
7. Bertolli frozen meals (I can't tell you how many of these we ate. I think I'm done with them for life.)

For lunch, Robert had his usual peanut butter and jelly and I tried to eat leftovers or sometimes Amy's frozen meals.

I'm so looking forward to actually cooking good, fresh food again—and to not using paper plates anymore (sorry, Mother Nature, I really do feel badly about that). But maybe we helped out the planet a little by not using as much electricity? At least half the outlets in and around our house don't work right now—a product of updating our electrical panels and moving around outlets to accommodate our new layout.

Well, I hope this little post was insightful. I actually did a rudimentary internet search for cooking/food tips from kitchen-less renovators when we first started this thing, but I didn't find much that was useful. One woman, I think it was in Elle or something, said she was looking forward to roasting a whole duck in her open brick fireplace during her kitchen renovation. Uummm....no.