Pink Doors

Ever since I saw this home tour, I've had pink doors on my mind. I'm working to get out of my monochrome rut - both in my home and in my wardrobe - but I always gravitate towards black. With a colorful rug going into the guest room, I'm using this room renovation as an opportunity to play with color and see where it takes me. A step out of my comfort zone, but what could go wrong?

Image via curbed.com

Image via sardinesplease Instagram

Probably the most famous pink door is the #thatpinkdoor in Palm Springs. In fact, it's so famous that the owners had to post a "no photography" sign in their front yard to ward away bloggers and media. It's some real pink inspo.

Image via PurePhoto.com

Like the home owners in the Curbed article I mentioned earlier, I'm going to go with Sherwin-William's Haute Pink for the guest room door. If it goes well, it might make its way over to the bathroom door, as well, although this is color to be used in moderation.

Image via dosfamily.com

Image via Joe Cashin Photography

Image via camillestyles.com

Here We Go Again

After a brief home improvement hiatus, we're back at it. This time, we're tackling the front bedroom, which currently services as a guest-TV-storage-exercise-lounge combo room. This combo isn't working too well, so we took a hammer and crowbar to the parts that needed to disappear for good.

Saying Goodbye

Step 1: tear away the silly bump-out closet taking up already limited square space. Step 2: see what's hiding behind the mantel.

We plan to use the existing tiny closet as a built-in book shelf and are currently figuring out exactly what to do with the part of the wall formerly concealed by the mantel. We've got some brainstorming to do here and called in a contractor for an expert approach on this front.

Painting the Floors

Image via Oliver Yaphe

Image via One Kings Lane

I've done it before and I'll do it again. Since the majority of the floor will be covered by an area rug, sinking money into refinishing the hardwood doesn't make sense for us right now. I'm looking into black-painted hardwood floors as continuation of the painted steps and landing I'm working on wrapping up. I'll be using Benjamin Moore Floor & Patio Low Sheen Enamel on this after sanding and priming the heck out of the surface.

Using Elbow Grease

The walls and trim need some love. With my favorite friend Ready Patch by my side, I started patching the cracks and filling the gaps. Once it dries, I'll sand before priming and painting.  These little details are the opposite amount of fun as demo work, but they make a huge difference. Tedious, but necessary.

I'll use Benjamin Moore Simply White on the trim and my very favorite Benjamin Moore Moonlight White on the walls.

Furnishing it

Images via Ikea.com

To keep the room as versatile as possible, we're looking into Ikea's UTÅKER Stackable Beds. They can transform into two singles, one queen, or an L-shaped couch quite easily, so they'll allow us to keep the room serving several purposes. So that it continue to serve as a storage space, we'll keep a dresser and such hanging out.

So that's the plan. I'm beyond excited to get this space working for us. Stay tuned for what is destined to be another adventure.

Open Shelf Options

The kitchen is just about complete and I want to show it to you, but I also want it to be a little more breathtaking than it is at the moment. One thing that needs to happen: open shelves to fill the bare blank white wall. I am so glad we decided not to install wall cabinets. We didn't need the space and they definitely would have cluttered the room.

Right now, the color palette is monochrome. Gray floors, white fronts, dark gray counters, white walls. We need to get some stuff on those white walls - colorful stuff - to bring it to life. Here's where the open shelving comes into play. The internet never fails to overwhelm me in decision-making processes, so I'm halting my search and presenting these as recommendations to myself:

Source: Oh Happy Day

Source: Little Green Notebook

I quite like how the back splash runs up to a very thin line of a shelf in the top left photo. The mounting of that piece would require some investigation, which is why something with brackets (top right) could be more feasible.

Image via The Design Chaser

Image via Nicole Franzen

These two are quite clean. The black shelves, which I believe are from Ikea, would be placed next to each other if space allowed. And while the wood look of the bottom right photo is charming, I'm really looking for something that requires minimal assembly and time.

Let' s mull these over together and come back with a decision. Meeting adjourned.

Under a Kitchen, Part 2

I only had one meltdown during our time without a kitchen, which I feel is an admirable amount for a two-week window of living in a dust-filled house with extremely limited first-floor access.

At the end of last week, we were finally able to move the stove back into the kitchen and to start assembling the boxes and boxes of drawers stacked throughout the first floor. This week, the fridge went back into place and we slid those drawers right into their new homes.

Ikea assembly is awful, but also not so awful, but also a little awful. By the time you get the hang of things, it's over. The kitchen manuals have a lot of what I like to call 'Bonus Instructions', which are like a Choose Your Own Adventure within the assembly manual, except that you don't want to choose the wrong adventure because then your kitchen won't work.

The real reason you are here is probably to see some Before and After pictures. It's the whole reason I'm here, too. We're about 90% of the way done, which seems like as good a time as any to deliver you a visual update.

Before

End of Day 1

Week 2-ish

End of week 2

The corner cabinet's farewell tour:

We don't quite know what to do with all of this new storage space! The counters should be installed in about a week, so we're getting by with some more makeshift situations - which we are all too familiar with - until they arrive. Some more finishing touches and we are home free.