Our House

It is about time we share some "after" pictures of our home.  We have put a lot of time and love into all of our projects and are very proud of our work.  However, we are nowhere near done.  Our to-do list is still a few miles long. So with that in mind, I present you with the first set of house pictures!

Before

After

 

What use to be a useless space is now our dining room.  We installed a new window treatment and gave the whole space (the whole house for that matter) a fresh coat of paint.  We also painted some subtle vertical stripes on the wall behind our dining table.

Before

After

The previous owners used this space as their dining room.  What a waste!  Isn't our family room lovely.  We added a some neutral paint and installed a new fan/light fixture.

Before

After

Our sun room got a fresh coat of paint and we also hung a large Ikea mirror over the fireplace (similar to the one the previous owners had).

Before

After

After a nice coat of neutral paint the hall looks much brighter and bigger.  We also hung a picture collage and a quilt my grandmother hand-sewed for us.

What do you think?  Is our hard work paying off?  Next time around we'll show off our kitchen, bedrooms and bathrooms.  We know you're excited.

Wendy & Allan

How I Get My Paint On

A few weeks ago Allan and I spent the weekend painting my dressing room.  Now, I don't often toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty darn good painter.  And I love it, painting is very relaxing to me.  And the best thing about painting is the end result which is always so amazing.  Painting is definitely the cheapest way to transform a room!  

Along the way I've picked up a few helpful tricks.  So, I thought I'd share a little something my dear mommy taught me long ago.  It all starts with this...

 

Yep! A gallon of milk.  Now, Allan is definitely the el-cheapo one in our relationship but there are definitely some things I refuse to spend my pennies on.  For example, this Handy Paint Pail, $9.87 at Lowes.

 

 Picture from Lowes.com

Whhaaatt?? Almost ten buckaroos for a little bucket that is just going to get filled with paint???   I don't think so.  That money could be spent much better at Home Goods!  So here is my solution.  Take a gallon of milk (or any other gallon beverage) and drink it all up, 'cause I don't like to waste.  Once your belly is full and the plastic gallon is empty, take a pair of sharp scissors and cut around the spout, down the side of the jug stopping about half way.  Continue over then back up to your original starting point.  Just be sure to leave the handle intact.

Your finished product should look like this.  Easy peasy right?  Finally, just fill 'er up with paint and you are set to go.  

Now I know my paint pail doesn't come with a magnetic brush keeper or a paint scrapper like this one, but it definitely gets the job done.  Costing you zero dollars and zero cents (aside from what the milk cost you, which you most likely would have bought either way).  

So there you have it! Your own super duper, super cheapo, handy paint pail!

The House That Could've Been

We thought it would be fun to take a look back at our house hunting adventure.  We absolutely love our house but it is always fun to think "what if?"

We actually stumbled upon this house while driving around one day.  The outside is similar to our home.  Even the color scheme.  Isn't the landscaping beautiful?  Talk about curb appeal!

This is what you see when you walk in the front door.  An open floor plan, a nice kitchen, gorgeous hard wood floors and a not-so-wonderful chandelier.

 

Here is the kitchen.  It was a little bit of a turnoff for us.  While we both love white cabinets, the fridge was just kinda hanging out with no place to call home.  Plus, the storage space was limited.  The open door leads to a laundry room with a desk and a small storage space.  (We felt that space was a waste of square footage).

 

This is one of the bedrooms.  All three bedrooms looked exactly the same.  All the same color, all the same size.  

This is the guest bath.  Our turquoise tiled bathroom definitely beats this one.

Isn't the backyard nice?  We loved the green grass and the nice storage shed.

What do you think?  Here are some of the reasons it didn't become ours.

• We felt it was way too overpriced for the size and location.  It is a lovely house in a nice area but a tad smaller than our house.  The area we ended up moving into is much nicer.  Also, our goal was to buy the cheapest house in the absolute nicest area.... then turn it into one of the nicest (yet smaller) homes.  Which brings us to our next point.
• While this house had to-die-for wood floors and was newly painted, we wanted something we could put our own mark on.   This house was completely move in ready, nothing needed to be done.  Not a bad thing but we wanted a bit of a bit of a fixer upper.
• The backyard was beautiful with lush green grass and a nice shed, but there wasn't much room for expansion.  If we (or any other owner after us) wanted to add-on or put in an in-ground swimming pool, it wouldn't be easy.  

This is just a sample of the reasons why we decided to pass on this home.  On a side note, just because this house wasn't right for us, doesn't mean it isn't the perfect home for someone else.  We were extremely picky when it came to finding a house.  We wanted to check off as many items from our had to have, want and would be nice lists.

Hope you enjoyed a look into what could have been. 

xo

W&A

Green to Clean

So on this coooold February day I couldn't help but daydream about how nice it will be when summer comes around and we get to go for a swim in our pool!! The pool has come quite a long way from when we first bought the house.  I soooo wish I had a good before picture of the pool for you, but just imagine something along these lines...

The pool was bad, REAL bad.  When we first looked at the house in April, it was hazy green and you could still see the bottom.  By the time we bought it in September it was like something out of a movie!  Completely black and covered in tadpoles/frogs.  The owners hadn't touched it for at least 6 months and it was just rotten.  

So we had a few options.  Drain it and pressure wash the entire thing, refill with clean water and start from scratch, OR dump as much chlorine in as we can get our hands on and hope for the best.  We decided to try our luck with the chlorine.  So off me and my dad went to go fill up the back of his truck with jugs of chlorine.  12 jugs later... Voila!!  Tadpole massacre!  We scooped out thousands of those suckers.  And to our surprise the pool was now a hazy greyish bluish color.  It worked!!!  Then the pool filter bit the dust...

 

And by the looks of it, we were expecting that.  So after a looong search we found a guy on Craigslist who knew a guy who knows a guy, we got a brand new filter for almost $200 less than retail.  Score!! Hooked that bad boy up and after dumping in another 6 jugs of chlorine this is what we had!

  

Woohoo!  Time to go swimming!  So we jumped in as soon as the coast was clear and the pool didn't reek of chlorine and the levels were no longer toxic.  Sooo refreshing!  Just ask Riley!  

 

She may not have been too happy about being thrown in the pool, but I think she enjoyed it. Ha!  Cannot wait til its warm out again and we get our turn!

-Allan

Meet Tebow

Meet Tebow.

 

Tebow is our other dog.  He lives on our front porch and watches over our house.  Tebow was a gift from Allan for my 25th birthday.  Most people would think a dog statue is an unconventional birthday gift, but to me it was love at first sight.  I still get giddy coming home to my beautiful 150 pound concrete Labrador.  We do have a secret about our darling watch dog Tebow... Riley is jealous.

 

Do you see it? Riley glaring through the front door at her younger yet bigger brother.  Don't worry Riley, just because Tebow is strong, muscular, handsome and an amazing football player... er... wait, wrong Tebow. Scratch that, just because Tebow is a better guard dog doesn't mean we love you any less.  You are still top dog (hehe) in our book.

xo

Wendy & Allan

My New Chalkboard

I cannot wait to share my most recent project with you - my new chalkboard!  I am a very bad blogger and didn't take pictures along the way, I apologize.  But I'll fill you in on the nitty gritty details.  I knew I wanted to "recycle" a frame I had from our old place.  The frame was gorgeous but the print that was previously in the frame wasn't really our style.  So, I removed the art from the frame, used some glossy spray paint and gave that sucker a good coating of nice, crisp white.  

With some chalkboard paint in hand, I decided to paint directly onto the glass from the old frame (mistake #1) with a brush (mistake #2).  In my defense, my google search on chalkboard painting directed me to use a brush.  Don't listen to google... at least when it comes to using chalkboard paint.    After applying 4 coats and allowing it to dry for 48 hours, it was time to condition the chalkboard.  You do this by rubbing a piece of chalk on its side over the entire surface. This is when I realized the gravity of mistake #2, it made the most horrible nails-on chalk-board sound.  Still, I continued on.  Now it was time to put the glass back in the frame.  Weirdly enough, it didn't fit.  It was as if the wood had contracted.  I applied just a wee bit of pressure and........ crackkkkk.  Yep, the piece of glass snapped into a million pieces. I. was. pissed.

After I cooled off, I thought up Plan B.  I would paint directly on the wall and use the the existing frame to highlight the area.  Genius!  So, I measured out the area I wanted to paint then used some blue painter's tape to section off my chalkboard area.  Chalkboards need to be on a smooth surface so I did a lot of sanding.  Next was the fun part... I got my roll on.  I learned from my first attempt that a nice foam roller would probably work best.  

Three nice, even coats later, it was time to let the paint set before finally conditioning it.  After I was sure it was completely dry, I peeled the painter's tape down to reveal a rectangular black chalkboard.  But I wasn't done yet.  Next, I used some long finishing nails to make sure the frame was perfectly flush against the wall.  Finally, I made sure my creation was perfectly level... let's face it, I'm anal about that type of stuff.

Doesn't the glossy white frame look beautiful with the blueish/grayish color of our laundry room?  Swoon.  And one feature I didn't think of first was that the inside of the frame could act as a shelf for the chalk.

Doesn't my chalkboard look lovely in our laundry room?  I can't wait to doodle and scribble little love notes (Allan hearts poop, hehe).

#3 - Check!

We are proud to say that item number three, riding the new rollercoaster at Universal,  has been crossed off of our 2010 To Do List.  Last Friday Allan took a vacation day and we used our season passes to spend the day at Universal and Islands of Adventure.  What fun!

Our first priority was to ride the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit.  We got in line immediately after walking through the park gates, only to wait in line 45 minutes and hear an announcement that they were experiencing some technical difficulties and the estimated time to fix these difficulties was not yet known. Bummer.  With our heads hung low in disappointment we headed to some of the other attractions, the Mummy and Men in Black Alien Attack.  Let me just say... it was not our day.  Both rides broke while waiting in line.  We were able to ride both... just with a little longer wait than we anticipated.  After our tummies were full with delicious theme park food (kidding), we decided to go over to Islands of Adventure. After more than a few letdowns we were pleasantly surprised to see this:

 

Yep, that's right. NO WAIT at the Hulk.  Score!  After riding twice, 'cause let's be honest you can't pass up the Hulk with no wait, we skipped over to Spider-man where our bad luck caught up to us. The ride broke.  We got stuck in our little buggy and it took two mechanics to set us free.  We were beginning to think broken rides was the theme of the day... we were right.  At Dueling Dragons we weren't surprised to hear they were experiencing technical difficulties.  

Finally, it was time to finish what we started.  We reentered the hour-long wait at Rip Ride Rockit .  All seemed well till we were next up in line.  Guess what?  Yep, more stinkin' difficulties.  Most people would have called it quits but we were determined to do what we came there for.  And we would wait all day if we had to!  Ok, that is a lie, we were about to walk out.  Anyway, we finally got to ride the coaster and.... it was a letdown.  Cue the wop-wop-wop sound.  In my opinion the best and only good part was the ninety degree climb.  But, it wasn't all bad.  You are able to choose a song from a preselected list that pumped into your ears during the whole ride.  Allan chose a Beastie Boys song while I chose Black Eyed Peas. 

#3 - CHECK!

xo

W&A