Category Archives: Living Room

Before…and AFTER!!

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Wow! It has been months without an update posted on here about our progress…and yet it seems as if the entire holiday season passed in the blink of an eye! We worked at full speed for several months in order to get the house ready for the Holiday Home tour. The two day tour was a complete success bringing in over 1300 guests and lots of exposure for our great neighborhood as well as The Reclamation Project, a community initiative to create a center for refugee immigrants which occupies the space at the former Rialto Theater on Calhoun Street. The two days of the tour were absolutely exhausting but hearing so many people say nice things about the work that we have done made it totally worth it. We opened up the foyer, the living room, the dining room, the master bedroom, the bathroom, and Raul’s office for the tour.  I thought it would be fun to show all of you just how far we have come since purchasing this home last March (wow, 1 year already!).  I’ve been seriously procrastinating as it is now almost Spring and I am just now getting around to editing and posting pictures of our house decorated for Christmas but better late than never! I was so fortunate to have the help of my mother and gram who helped me decorate for the tour. Also, my grandmother even asked some of her friends to donate some Christmas decorations which just looked absolutely beautiful in our home. I am so thankful! With everyone’s help I was able to do so much more than I could have managed on my own.

So without further ado please take a look at the colorful before and the marvelous after! (click on each picture to see it bigger)

Foyer BEFORE:

Entryway before

Foyer AFTER:

Entryway afterentryway after 2entryway after 3

Living Room BEFORE:


 living room before

Living Room AFTER:

living room after living room after 2

Dining Room BEFORE:

Dining Room before

Dining Room AFTER:

dining room after dining room after 2

Master Bedroom BEFORE:

master bedroom before

Master Bedroom AFTER:

master bedroom after master bedroom after 2 master bedroom after 3

master bedroom after 4

Bathroom BEFORE:

bathroom before

Bathroom AFTER:

bathroom after bathroom after 2 bathroom after 3

 

1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, FLOORS!!!!!

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That’s what I feel that I need after these last few weeks. A nice big shot of tequila. Make it a double.

Wow! I’m sorry to all my readers (all 10 of you 😉 I have neglected this blog over the last month. Things have been non-stop, go, go, GO! at the house. It seems like every day I have the same routine. It’s wake up at 7. Work 8-4. Then jet over to the house and put in 4 or 5 hours of work before I head home for a quick shower and a chapter out of my book. Then it’s lights out.

I think that has been part of my blog writer’s block. I feel like the last month has been like the movie Groundhog- we are working our asses off day and night (and not just me- mad props to my MOM, my DAD, Raul and his FAM,too) yet we aren’t getting anything actually DONE.

There is definitely one thing I have learned though; I waaayyyy underestimated the time that it would take to get this house looking like I want it…Oh! and I also learned that I never, ever, ever, ever in my life and in all my future lives want to strip, sand, and refinish a hardwood floor again. Ever.  The process is long, messy, hot and EXPENSIVE!!!!! Granted, it is not as expensive as new hardwoods but stilllll….

When we first purchased the home the floors were not even a priority to me. They were kinda one of those projects that was lingering in the back of mind- I knew they needed to be done, but honestly their ugliness wouldn’t be any kind of barrier to me living in the house.

And then…we started making everything else so beautiful around the floors. They became a huge eyesore. So we decided to tackle the upstairs. At first it was just the master bedroom.  There was just a fine layer of stain left on the original flooring. A bit of sanding wouldn’t be too difficut. Right? WRONG!!! Then the bedroom looked so good that we decided to do the hallway, too. Now the hallway was covered in 3 layers of ugly grey paint. We had to add tons of stripping to the process. Then sanding. Then staining. Then protecting with a glossy polyurethane.

And then we figured as long as we were doing the hallway why not do the 3rd bedroom, too. Just while we were at it, you know. That room was also painted. And we soon discovered that whatever paint they had used on the floor, well, it wasn’t coming off with regular paint stripper. Like not at all. So that meant a lot of heavy duty sanding.

To make a long story short the whole process was very complicated and took ffoooorrrrreeevvveerrrr. In fact, it took so long, and affected me so deeply, that I would rather not even write about it. I will, however, provide you with a lot of cool pictures! The progress is amazing!

And voila! I will post pics of the finished product soon! The most exciting part is that now we can get furniture!! 🙂

Spicing things up!

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I was staring discontentedly at the wall above the marble fireplace the other day- something was missing, I just wasn’t sure what.

It dawned on me that the room really needed a splash of color. We had changed the original sky blue walls (blech!) to a neutral tan color already but I set out to purchase a quart of the richest purple I could find. Purple is definitely a risky color but I feel like the beauty of the fireplace was getting lost in all the brown blahness of the wall behind it.  A deep, dark purple would bring out the pinks, greens, creams, and purples of the marble tiles which make up the fireplace.

I thought it was a great idea…everyone else just sighed in defeat. After all, we hadn’t even moved in yet and I was already RE-painting a room. hehehe I think it turned out great, though! The overall effect creates a richness to the space that wasn’t there before and also helps to tie the dining room and the living room together more. Check it out!

It’s gettin’ hot in herrrrre

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Our house has one fireplace that originates in the livng room and extends all the way through the master bedroom, the 3rd floor attic space and out the roof.  The tiles on the fireplace are really cool. It is a purple and green marbled look that we used to establish the paint scheme for the whole downstairs. There is also a really cool covering on the fireplace which adds a unique vintage feel to the room.

The mantle definitely needs some work though.  There is a huge gap (about 1″) between the wall and the fireplace which needs covered by…something!

The chimney runs through what was originally a closet in the master bedroom.  We knocked out the walls of the closet to create a nook space for the TV and also for a built in dresser. Originally we had plans to create an “exposed chimney” look.  The chimney, however, had been covered with cement and plaster so it wasn’t looking too naked 😉

I had the brilliant idea to create the exposed look by covering the chimney with thin brick or z-brick and then adding mortar.  Alas, my plan was doomed from the start. I think I searched every home improvement and tile store in the city but no one had exactly what I was looking for.  Either the product didn’t exist or it was the wrong color or it was too..fake looking for fake bricks. I found dozens of sites online but the total cost was ridiculous, especially when I would request pricing for a mere 22 ft².

While sanding the inside of the nook on Saturday I noticed that a bit of the cement and plaster had chipped away from the bottom of the chimney. I thought I might just try to remove a bit of the material covering my chimney.  A few (hundred) hammer strokes later and I had myself an original, turn of the century, genuine exposed chimney in the master bedroom! The process was extremely messy, not to mention painful (I walked away with at least 4 blisters on my hands and a nose full of gray gook), but I did save myself a few hundred bucks so it was well worth it!

We cleaned the bricks with water and soap to get the dust off of them but it looks like we may need to apply a mild acid to restore them to their original color.

I love the finished look. It really will provide the inspiration for the design of the master bedroom. Check it out below!