HOME TOUR // KITCHEN (AGAIN)

We first moved into our house in May of 2011, and over the course of the next year or two, we did a ton of painting and settling in. None of the original colors were hideous but this was our chance to customize our first house, so we slowly wound up painting most rooms.

Here we are 4 years later and a lot of these rooms are going through a second transformation.
I'm hesitant to speak for everyone but I feel pretty confident in saying that although it was only over the course of 4 years, my design aesthetic has changed a TON from 24 to 28. I always had a soft spot for the style we ended up gravitating towards but, much like wedding planning, I found myself appreciating many different kinds of styles, which meant that to the naked eye our house looked fine, but it started to feel disjointed to me.

So, slowly, I've been tweaking rooms to bring them in line with my newly defined preference, which I've dubbed a cross between farmhouse and restoration hardware (on a NOT RH budget). Actually if we're being honest, Jenna Sue is my new design style but that's weird to explain to people. Think: neutrals, some rustic wood finishes, a touch of industrial, and natural textiles.

Most of the first floor has gotten updates with this vision in mind.. the office, well, to be blunt I'm waiting until that transforms into a nursery (NOT PREGNANT) because it's weird to do a mini in-between stage and weird to make it a nursery sans baby in utero, so for now it stays. Even though the couch got moved to the living room and I HATE HATE those shelves now. Woof. The bedroom is close to finally finished (after that last update over a year ago, HA), so I'll post about that soon, and the bathroom is going to be going through it's 2nd phase of updates too since we took down some shelves, realized we lost/tossed the original paint color, and now need to repaint it all anyway to cover the spackle marks.

But TODAY is about the kitchen! She got a fresh coat of paint, some new shelves, and new curtains. The color is Benjamin Moore, revere pewter.. I want to slather it on EVERYTHING, it is THE PEFECT greige.. all caps necessary. Thankfully there's literally 1.25 walls showing (the rest are covered by cabinets) so this was a super easy paint job. Previously we had a mini cork board we made out of wine corks, a wine rack, and a chalkboard hanging on this wall. The former and the latter were REALLY early on DIY projects, and were quite honestly, very obviously DIY, which started to bug me as I want a more grown up look. So for now it's just the shelves, but I'm thinking of re-adding a chalkboard to the right, just have to determine my materials. Enough blabbing, here she is:

Shelves were a DIY: that's galvanized steel plumbing pipe that was sprayed in an oil rubbed bronze finish. For each one, we used an end cap, a 6 inch pipe segment, and a flange (this one is black though). We then drilled each assembled bracket into a stud through 2 of the 4 holes in the flange (just left the other 2 empty, it was plenty supported with 2 as is). Used some pipe clips that wrapped around each bracket and went into the bottom of the wood to secure the shelves in case they were bumped. 4 hooks on the bottom and side holding the mugs and keys were from Target and were white, just sprayed them to match the brackets. 

Curtains are from Target as well (also come in yellow and grey). 

And let's not forget what it looked like when we moved in: 

So there's a proper little tour of our little kitchen! Someday I want a great big open kitchen with the same kind of floating wood shelves (for some of my pretty white pieces), white or grey cabinets, white subway tile... but, I love this little kitchen just the same for right now. It's where we blast music and chop veggies and talk about our day as TJ alternates between meowing for scraps and staring out the door. 

The more we tinker with the house the more I realize that even though I know this isn't my "forever" house, I'm going to have a really, really hard time leaving it..and get emotional even thinking about it. I know I offhandedly mentioned it a few times we were sorta casually looking, but after running numbers decided that rather than stretching ourselves or making an intermediary move, we're going to stay here for a few more years and really save and make sure we're ready for the next one. That means we'll undoubtedly (barring complications) be bringing home our first baby to this house. The same house that saw us move in together for the first time, get engaged, get married, lose a parent and so much more. 

I love you, little house. You've been so good to us. 

CRAFTING FOR A CAUSE

Saturday was filled with 3 of my favorite things: friends, food, and crafts. 

The thing about being a craft-addict is, there's only so much you can make for your own house before your husband threatens to leave you you run out of wall space. 

This weekend was the perfect opportunity to expend a bunch of crafty energy for a good cause. 

On May 16th, I'm helping to host an embryo adoption fundraiser for Lauren and Jesse. 

Saturday, a bunch of us gathered at Coop's Event Barn down in Dodge Center, MN for a day of crafting items to be donated and sold at the fundraiser. Lauren's parents have a whole shed full of barn wood that's over 100 years old. To say I was geeking out was an understatement. 

A sampling of what I made.

Lauren's parents said they'd let me take whatever wood was leftover after projects at the barn were completed. I've been toying around with the idea of opening a shop of some sorts..what form that'd take I'm not sure- craft fairs locally? Facebook sales? Garage style pop up sales? Regardless, I think a gift of a heap of wonderfully perfect barn wood may be the push I need!

DIY INDUSTRIAL FARMHOUSE TABLE

Sometimes trolling pinterest leads to a false sense of confidence regarding your woodworking and furniture making abilities. 

Other times it finally inspires you to try something you otherwise wouldn't have.

After oogling farmhouse tables on pinterest for eons, last weekend M and I decided to take action. 

There was one small problem- we didn't want to invest TOO much money in one since in a future home, we know we'd want to have a much larger table for entertaining. That being said, our current table wasn't cutting it. 

Here it is again, as a reminder. Lots of crap on it for special effect: 

We actually bartered with the previous owners for this table, and got them to leave it behind. It fit the space well: since we don't have an actual dining room, it's just kind of butted up against the wall. It was fine for the two of us.. or even four people (we'd pull it away from the wall to seat 4 around the table), but any more than that and we were doing a "move all the furniture out of the living room, drag up a folding table, connect the two for one giant table" song and dance. No bueno. 

So, after hearing dozens of bloggers rave about the kreg jig - I decided I was brave enough to con Matt into a weekend project with me. A kreg jig is a small tool that allows you to drill pocket holes in wood. In other words, it's the preferred method to join a bunch of plans of wood together seamlessly from below without any nails showing. At first we discussed just covering our old table with wood to use it as a "form" for the table. I was a bit nervous to build something from scratch. As he was drifting off to sleep he said we should look at salvage yards for a metal base. That got my wheels turning, so as he snoozed.. I scoured pinterest for a game plan. 

Lo and behold I found this!

There were several tutorials on Pinterest on how to build an industrial pipe base table. They were modeled after a West Elm table that runs $2,000. O_O. 

The above pin used a butcher block counter top, but we wanted the look of planked wood. So, after spending some time over coffee sketching out plans and dimensions and calling Home Depot, we were off for supplies. 

The best part about this table was, most of the pipe segments we needed were already pre-cut lengths. This means the only one we had to have cut was the long support pipe that ran the length of the table- which Home Depot cut for us and threaded the end of the pipe for free. Our shopping list for pipe and wood went like this: 

• 5 2x6 planks of wood cut to 30"
• 1 1x3 plank of wood cut to 4 segments of 28" (to brace under the table top for added stability)
• 4 3/4 inch pipe at 8 inches
• 4 3/4 inch pipe at 18 inches
• 8 floor flanges (4 for the feet for support, 4 to go into the bottom of the table to attach the top)
• 4 threaded only pipe connectors (the entire piece was about an inch and a half of just threads to connect the feet to the base) 
• 6 T-connectors
• box of 3 inch screws for pocket holes
• 1.5 inch screws for bottom supports

of course if you don't have stain for the wood, poly, or spray paint for the pipes, you'll need those in your desired color as well. All the pipe we bought was galvanized steel, and I wanted it darker, so we bought Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Total for all the supplies was just under $200. 

We took the pipes and wood home and began assembling the base. (I should note - the original post called for 18 inch pipe, a connector, and 8 inch pipe to make up the height of the pipe base. We realized that would make it essentially a bar-height table and knocked out the 8 inch pipe- which made it the perfect height!) 

 

Taking out that 8-inch segment meant we needed something threaded to connect the T's at the base the flanges- this is where the small "thread only" connectors came in. 

Our original plan was going to be to attach the tabletop to the base as it was sitting above- in other words, that support brace wouldn't have been seen since it would've sat 2 inches below the tabletop. We realized the feet didn't feel sturdy without some braces, so we flipped the entire thing upside down (you'll see in the finished pic) and it worked wonderfully! 

{sanding the planks}

Before we screwed all the wood together using pocket holes, I beat the wood up a bit with a crowbar and hammer to give it an aged/weathered look.

{you can see the pocket holes above, each one has a screw in it connecting it to its neighbor board}

We also added some cross support underneath in the form of some 1x3 boards cut to 28 inches, so they came just short of the edges of the table. 

Next comes stain and poly. We only did one coat of red mahogony stain, wiped off pretty quick after application, to give us this look. Then comes the test of patience. Dry, light sand, poly.... dry... light sand.. poly. We ended up doing 4 coats of poly since this is going to get a lot of use, so we had to wait a few days to attach it to the base. 

We brought it upstairs for assembly, attached the top to the base, and added some carpet samples underneath the floor flanges to prevent scratching. If it's wrong to admit that I find myself just staring at it, then I don't' want to be right. 

We added about 15 inches in length compared to our old table, which still leaves plenty of room on that wall for it to sit..and only about 3-4 inches of width, which doesn't make much of a difference either in terms of space. 

While we were at it, I picked up some new chair fabric and recovered all the chairs. They were covered in a black felt-like material that held TJ's hair way too well and were gross. Slapped this pretty new fabric over it, and it really all ties together wonderfully.

This project actually got done 2 weekends ago. This past weekend, just in time for hosting Christmas (my real motivation for getting this done when we did!) we made a matching bench for the other side of the table. No more borrowing chairs or dragging inside our patio chairs- the table now comfortably seats 6 (7 in a pinch, since 3 could fit on the bench easily). 

Just wanted to stop in and share. :) 

I also may have an update soon regarding Zipper Merge Asshole and an update to my anticlimactic update: hint, it involves a police lineup. 

HOME TOUR // MASTER BEDROOM REMIX

 

I've hyped up this bedroom redo quite a bit that I hope it lives up to expectations. 

A little bit of back story. 

Our bedroom used to be upstairs- we live in a 2 and a half story  house, which means the upstairs is all one room, and there's a pitched roof situation. I posted not all too long ago about the redo we did up there (holy crap was that already 2012..? I take back the "not too long ago" part...) It was better than the first iteration, but I still didn't love it. 

It wasn't a room I liked spending a lot of time in, and would procrastinate going upstairs until the MOMENT I went to bed. 

We originally put our room up there because it made sense- or so we thought- since we'd have a whole floor to ourselves and would be out of the way of any guests. 

Fast forward a few years, and my friend Dana asked to store her furniture in our basement guest room while she lived in the country for a year for a judicial clerkship. She moved back right around Christmas, and with that move- reclaimed her furniture in the basement. I'd told M that eventually- there was no question- we'd be moving to the first floor guest room as our master. When babies come (not for a long time) the office will turn into a nursery, and I didn't want to schlep up and down stairs in a sleep deprived state to tend to said baby. 

SO, couple this knowledge with the timing of Dana's return to the twin cities and next thing you know M and I are looking at mattress sales right around new years. The other thing about having the upstairs bedroom, we would've been limited to a double bed-- there's no way a queen box spring would have fit. So these fortuitous events led us to purchasing a queen mattress and moving downstairs. The first floor guest room furniture then got moved to the basement. This of course triggered some "if you give a mouse a cookie" in me.. and required a remodel. 

There's still some work to be done- we need art to replace the giant flower I painted when this just served as a guest room (I have some ideas, I just need to execute), and we need something for above the bed. I've been very picky and am holding out for the right piece. I also want to get a real, huge, grown up rug that extends out from under all sides of the bed. Our current rug is an IKEA leftover from the last rendition of the living room that is only on my side of the bed. lastly, the biggest unknown is the paint color-- as you'll see the headboard kind of blends with the current color, which I don't love.. but we haven't decided how to handle it (accent wall?).

Without further ado- the bedroom as it it today :)

Source List:

• Side tables: Target (exact no longer online, but HERE are some similar)
• Headboard: Overstock (exact no longer online, but HERE is a similar)
• Lamps: IKEA
• Ladder: antique store find
• Wood pallet sign/wood & mason jar decor: DIY (stained the wood chunk, used plumbing accessories to hang the mason jars)
• Burlap letter pillows: etsy wedding gift
• Gold tray: antique store find
• Large gold mirror: free from my uncle, used to live in our living room and was black- I sprayed it out gold and kind of love that some of the black sort of peeks through, it really makes the details pop
• 4 gold frames: $3 Target clearance frames I sprayed gold, used burlap to back the Instagram printed photos inside the 5x5 matting
• Floral arrangement is fake from Michaels (vase is from Target)- my cat eats real flowers so we're like 80 year olds with a lot of fake flowers in our house. 
• Last but not least- would you believe me if I told you that dresser is the same as this one? : 
  

I assume you'd say yes simply because it's the same shape, but this may be one of the DIY's I'm MOST proud of.. EVER. I stumbled on a website called Ikea Hackers (google it, it's amazing) and saw the 3 drawer version of this dresser stained and hacked in so many beautiful ways.

We needed a long dresser that would tuck in perfectly to a nook created by the wall, and a heat register that juts out from the wall. It had to be no larger than 60 inches, but as close to that as possible. This dresser was about 58 inches and perfect RAW wood at IKEA.

We stained it a red mahogany color which is just insanely gorgeous in real life, polyed it, and then assembled the whole thing in the room. Finally, we swapped out the tacky wood knobs for the same drawer pulls we used in our kitchen-(I love that they tie in to the mirrored side tables so well because they're shiny and mirror-y, too).. we just had to drill an extra hole per drawer front, and voila- a custom, beautiful dresser for $150.--> MY FAVORITE PART. Dressers I was willing to "settle" for were still $250-$300 and still didn't totally fit in our room, with the natural wood ladder and other accents. (Actually we lucked out the two ended up so close in color! I stained the mason jar scrapwood the same color as the dresser, too, but the ladder was thankfully very close in color as it was!)

I'm obsessed. It has the natural elements I wanted with a more modern edge with the drawer pulls and clean lines.

So there you have it, our bedroom so far. It's my favorite room in the house (a close tie with the living room, actually). I finally feel like I'm hitting my groove with "my style" and am finding I can pick out pieces and envision a whole room more clearly than I ever have been able to.

Hope you like!

MONUMENT-AL IKEA DINNER

Confused by the title?
This weekend was a fantastic one and the title of this post contains a little bit of goodness from each part of it.
Friday we had some friends of M's over for a dinner party. It was delicious and I loved catching up with them over wine.

Saturday we slept in a bit, before ultimately heading to IKEA. More to come on that, later ;-).
Saturday afternoon I went to the gym, then met Dana to see The Monuments Men - which I thought was good! Liked it more than American Hustle, to be honest. Afterwards we met up with our friend Sammi for her birthday dinner with some others at Cooper's in West End. (I also noticed they got a Francesca's sometime recently... Francescas, Anthro, Charming Charlie AND Primp? Dangerous.)

Sunday we woke up and let TJ back in the bedroom. With our new headboard he gets a little too into parading around and rubbing his paws on it, which is loud and annoying. So we boot him. He came in and spooned with me. M started blowing on his face so TJ stiff-armed him. Love him..hahaha

Sunday morning M and I went to Union's rooftop for brunch- I had bought him a Living Social for Christmas. OMG guys, the food was outstanding, and being on a rooftop in the middle of winter...there's just something magical about it. They had a DJ playing some music (not clubby, but nice!) and it was just such a nice morning.

After brunch we got started on a little IKEA hack. I can't even recall how I stumbled across the idea, but there's a website for hacking boring IKEA stuff. I found a smaller dresser on there (the RAST, if you're interested) that had been transformed into a TON of cool new pieces- but we needed something longer for the bedroom. I recently tweeted my frustration and the lack of affordable dresser options. We needed a certain size, and wanted a certain look to match other items we had.

I was browsing IKEA hackers when I realized there was a bigger version of the RAST- this beauty:

 

 Looks like a nice but pretty boring hunk of wood, right? Well, if today's phase 1 is any indication of how she's going to shape up... be prepared for a pretty great "after" ... oh and did I mention it was only $130 for this SOLID PINE piece of unfinished furniture? God Bless IKEA.

Tonight we were jazzed the Walking Dead was back, so we watched that and hung out. 

Low key but perfect weekend, and I'm excited to finish up this dresser this week! Stay tuned for that :)

HOME TOUR // LIVING ROOM REMIX

Our living room has been through approximately 4 renditions since we moved in. I can't for the life of me find photos of #3 (in which we had a significantly less revolting couch than the slipcovered monstrosity you are about to see- that we eventually sold to Syndal!)

Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?
This is how she looked when we moved in.

 

We lived with the brown for about a year, I'd have to guess, before I realized just how much of our house was painted brown (the exterior, living room, hallway, bathroom, and one guest room) and the brown slowly started to feel like walls of poop closing in on me. 

We painted the walls gray, and for a while the living room looked like this: 

 It wasn't terribly offensive but it wasn't at its best yet. We putzed on other rooms, in the meantime.
(If you're noticing the presence of an additional doorway between photos 1 and 2, that's because there is one. We knocked out the wall/closed up the entryway to the basement in the kitchen to make the kitchen more usable).

We bought and sold a couch somewhere in there, and endured a brief stint with our second IKEA rug, before being handed down M's mom's old living room set- because you don't say no to nailhead trim... EVER. Only problem was I then hated the living room again. The furniture was a dark brown/green/grey color that didn't seem to match with anything.

Then came the wedding in which we were gifted an unholy amount of Target gift cards, and I took it as our opportunity to switch some items out for a little overhaul that made a huge impact. Ready for an after?

Nearly everything in this room is from Target.. and I don't even feel bad about it. Haha. Nate Berkus can do no wrong in my book, and Target has been ON POINT lately.

 (TJ just sat in the hallway as I climbed on things to take pictures with a very concerned 'wtf' face...)

 

Source list:

• Bronze stamped side table 
• Faux-wood veneer side table was also Target but isn't online anymore 
• embroidered floral throw pillow 
• sweater throw pillow
• Other floral-y blue pillow was also Target
• Est. 2013/M/K burlap pillows were an etsy wedding gift
• Rug was also Target (but they only appear to have smaller sizes/runners left in this print)
• Floral chairs were Target a few years ago but they always have similar styles
• Tray/floral centerpiece on the coffee table was also Target, neither are online (same can be said for the magenta floral in the mercury glass on the side table).
• Lamps were Target but I'm not seeing them online (similar more expensive, also pretty obsessed with these mercury glass ones).
• The large black/linen frame, small slatted wood frame, washed out wood frame (far left), 2 stacked 4x4 (PERFECT for instagrams) frame, the 5x5 matted frame (for more dramatic IG's), and the faux-window-pane frame are all Target
• Large canvas is from Agape Moments
• Small canvas is from easy canvas prints
• Small leaf sconce was from Target a few years ago, it was black and came in a 2 pack, I sprayed it out gold (and have yet to find a home for the second sconce.. maybe the master redo)
• Silver mirrored frame on side table was a wedding gift- it's from kate spade
• Entry way mirror was a hand-me-down from my grandma
• Jane Austin print
• Ampersand print
• The rest of the room was pretty much DIY's..
• entry way table
• "Home is where the heart is" canvas
• heart canvas
• burlap flowers
• hanging wine bottle
• Rosette monogrammed "N"
• coffee table

I think that covers all of it!? If I missed something you have a question about let me know. This is easily my favorite room in the house, now...and it was downright magical during Christmas. My plan is to have the master give it a run for its money and I just ordered 2 of these for the bedroom:

Jazzed is an understatement. :-D

And in the spirit of keeping it real, a cat who had a vendetta against the duster...

 

 and the behind the scenes of where all the junk got moved to take these photos. :)