There Is No Charm Equal to Tenderness of Heart

 I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! I'm just popping in to share our newest chalkboard print with one of my favorite Jane Austen quotes. I plan on being back tomorrow with photos of the progress we've made in Jason's living room.

For now though, here is our latest design that is available in our shop. 

 I hope you have a wonderful week!

Jason's Kitchen and Dining Room

Well, after three days without internet it's finally back up and running again so I can finally share some photos of the progress we've made at Jason's house. It isn't done, but it is definitely finally starting to take shape and now that he has some furniture it's starting to feel like a home. 

Here is a before and updated shot of the dining room:

And a before and updated shot of the kitchen (we are waiting on a piece of marble for the island and to replace the light once I find the right thing, and then add some roman shades to the window). 

We found this mirror at Pier 1 for half off when I was up in NH a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to keep it for myself - haha! 

Jason is not so keen on splurges but this was the one big splurge I've been able to convince him of. I LOVE this Bolton Lantern from Pottery Barn. We bought it after Christmas when they were having a lighting sale. I think it adds a nice masculine touch to the dining room.

The biggest project in the dining room was ripping up carpet and putting down a new floor. We've been talking about putting down a wood floor in here to match the rest of the house (the rest of the house has hardwoods) but not only is that a big project, it's an expensive one. We really wanted to get the carpet up though and get rid of the linoleum in the kitchen and make the two spaces look more cohesive. We had a few ideas for some temporary plans until we could do the wood but weren't crazy about any of them. Then after I tried the peel and stick vinyl in our laundry room I told Jason about them and we decided to go ahead and give them a try.  Jason got the carpet up and then his girlfriend, Brie helped him put it down. (I'm pretty sure she did most of the work!) I can't believe what a difference it makes for the two rooms! It now looks more like one larger space vs. two little ones.

You can see here how the two floors were before in this shot:

 

 

In the kitchen we still have to replace the island counter, add some roman shades and replace the light over the island. In the dining room I am hoping to build something for this bare wall you can see below and possibly some kind of bench for the far window (in the picture above) or I may look for a narrow sideboard - not sure exactly. And I may keep my eye out for a rug for under table but I am not sure about that. 

I have another post to write up with some of the progress we've made in the living room (you can sort of see the living room through the french doors in the picture below.) We haven't made as much progress in that room, but it's a start!

Source List:

Wall Color - Revere Pewter by BM in a matte finish
Trim - Simply White by BM in a semi-gloss finish
Doors - Wrought Iron by BM in semi-gloss
Island Color - Galveston Gray by BM
Bar Stools - IKEA
Appliances - Home Depot
Floor - Peel and Stick vinyl that looks like wood from Lowe's
Counters - Black Granite from Home Depot
Island Countertop - Right now a piece of plywood (will hopefully soon be marble)
Chalkboard - HomeGoods
Little Cabinet with Baskets - Joss and Main
Metal Mail Organizers - HomeGoods
Glass Bottles on Granite - TJMaxx
White Pitcher - Target
Glass Bottles on Little Wood Tray on Island - White Home Collection in Wilton, NH
Charcoal Color Chairs - Target
End Chairs - Pier 1  Table - IKEA
Mirror - Pier 1
Draperies - Ritva panels from IKEA
Lantern - Pottery Barn


I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

A Little Peek at Jason's House

With lots of help from multiple family members and his girlfriend, we are finally starting to make real progress at Jason's house. It's so exciting! His living room, dining room and kitchen are all starting to come together. None of them are finished, but they are starting to look like "real" rooms now! I had planned on posting about his living room last night but our internet decided to go out yesterday afternoon and still isn't working. The girls and I are on a little "date" right now at Starbucks though so I could get on my computer real quickly and catch up on a few work-related things so I thought while I was here I would at least post a quick little preview and then as soon as our internet at home is back up and running I will get a real post up with lots more photos and details as well as a full source list.

 

I hope you all are having a lovely Wednesday and hopefully I'll be back either tonight or tomorrow.

Entryway, Laundry Room, Back Hall and Playroom Updating

I feel like I spent most of February working on endlessly painting and other not-so-fun projects which of course didn't really make for many blog posts and then we were gone for the first part of March. Anyway, I thought I would do a quick post covering some of the more boring projects that I have been working on and then I can get back to some more fun posts including the progress we've made at Jason's house including his kitchen, living room and dining room and also lots and lots of photos from my niece Everly's first birthday party! And then seeing how I am just about done with painting (I got more than half of the playroom painted last night and am hoping to finish it up today and then can hopefully attack the doors tomorrow) then I should be able to FINALLY get started on some fun projects here back at home!

So, anyway, today I thought I would show you a little round-up of some things including the artwork we added to the entryway, the progress we've made in our laundry room and the progress we've made in our back hallway.

Here is a little reminder of what our entryway looked like when we first moved in:

I saw this canvas at HomeGoods several months ago and snatched it up because I knew the colors would work well in our home. I actually originally planned on putting it in our master bedroom but ended up moving it down here a month or two ago and I ended really liking how it looked. And so now, except for the wall going up the stairs (which you can see in this picture) the entryway is pretty much done! You can find a full source list in including paint color information here.

Another room I finally made some progress in was the laundry room. It was the one room I wasn't sure what I was going to do in. Most of the rooms when we moved in just needed lots and lots of painting. The bathrooms, laundry room and kitchen though all needed quite a bit more work. We chose to the the kitchen in two parts (we painted everything and replaced all the appliances right away and then soon will be doing part two which includes the counters, sink and backsplash). We did the downstairs bath shortly after moving in and are working on the upstairs hall bath right now. That left us with two other indoor projects that involved some remodeling - the master bathroom and the laundry room. Seeing how I would rather do the master bathroom first and it may be a while before we have saved up for that project that meant the laundry room projects could be quite a ways off. Because of that I decided to at least spruce it up a bit in here temporarily until we eventually can properly replace the floors and add a nice countertop.

Here is what it looked like on move-in day. There was a lovely wallpaper border with a clothesline on it in case you weren't sure it was a laundry room. =)

Here it is mid-way through. I always get so stressed with the mess that takes over when I am in the middle of a painting project.

I bought some peel and stick floors from Lowe's to cover up the old vinyl ones for now. Eventually I'd like to do the same floor we did in our upstairs bathroom that I showed yesterday but seeing how this only cost about $35 it was a nice inexpensive improvement for now.

I painted the door, trim and cabinets in London Fog which was leftover from our kitchen and then painted the walls in White Dove which was leftover from the upstairs bathroom. I would have preferred to use Simply White but I didn't have any of that in the right finish and I was trying to keep the cost on this project as low as possible so just went with the White Dove seeing how that was free.

Then I got a huge piece of plywood to act as a countertop for above our washer and dryer. Eventually I'd like to replace it with a proper counter but for now this works and makes the whole space so much more functional! I added some baskets - one for Jon, one for myself and one for each of the girls. I have to say this system works so amazing! Right now I just temporarily have a piece of fabric thrown over a tension rod to cover the space where where we keep our larger trashcan and dustpan and other little things like that. Once I find the right fabric I will sew it properly. Anyway, this was just a quick fix to help make this room more functional for now. It took me a couple of days to get the cabinets, trim and door all primed and painted because I was working on and off in between a few other projects and then getting that huge piece of plywood in there was a huge undertaking. I did that project while Jon was out of town and have to say it was probably one of my least intelligent moves. Just trying to get it down off the top of my car by myself was interesting enough and then I got it stuck trying to get it in the laundry room - let's just say a few tears were shed doing this project. Haha! Although the countertop was a nightmare the floor was the opposite. I would say it only took about an hour to install it and it was actually pretty fun! I have my eye out for some inexpensive options for the walls but for now just have some completely random things up there from our attic.  So, nothing too creative in here but all in all it is an improvement.

Another project I worked on was getting this little back hall painted. Because it is off the kitchen and doesn't really connect to any other rooms I just used the same London Fog for the trim that I used in the kitchen and family room.

Lola helped me with the priming in here. The girls often help me for a little bit when I am painting but for some reason this time Lola stuck with it for quite a while.

And here are a couple grainy cell phone shots of it afterwards. I still need to replace the door knobs.

For the one flat door we have I used chalkboard paint. The girls have had so much fun with it!

And lastly here's the playroom:

After spending the last 8 months endlessly painting doors, windows (including each and every little divider - ugh!) trim and walls I broke down and we hired someone to paint all the trim in her Simply White. And then last night I started painting the walls and am hoping to finish them up today and then hopefully I can get the three doors in this room painted tomorrow. Once that's done I can put the room back together and then start tackling things like taking down those fans, painting the stairs and adding a runner and then starting on several organization projects in here.

Anyway, there is my little mish-mash of different projects that I have been working on lately. I can't wait to show you some of the progress we've made at Jason's house. Those pictures are a lot more "finished" looking than the ones in this post.

I hope you all have a fabulous Monday!