Pink Bedroom Renovation

As most of you know, we call the bedroom above our garage the "pink bedroom" because the walls are painted a pale pink color.  This is the one room in our house that we haven't done much with.  The previous owners used this room as their nursery, but the room is always at the extreme end of the temperatures, either too hot in the summer or frigid in the winter, so I don't think using it as a baby room is the best idea.
Greg and I have always wondered what was beyond the walls and why the builder didn't take the walls out further to follow the roof line and extend the length of the room.  Last year, Greg did some extensive research and decided that the space should be open behind the walls.  We drilled a hole in the laundry room side to hopefully peak into the space, but we hit some plywood, got scared, and didn't go back to the project for a year.  I decided at the time that the project was over our heads, but now we're back at it, and there's no turning around now!

It all started when we helped a friend move, and she gave us her double bed, and we moved it into the room, and saw that it took up half of the space.  Then, I also use this room to do some sewing, and it was a disaster with all the fabric everywhere.  I always wanted a "bonus" room in a house where you have a hang out spot to watch TV, use the computer and have room to do some crafts.  This was what I wanted this room to be, and there just wasn't enough space, so it had to change.

I showed Greg a picture on Pinterest of the room that I had in mind, and he agreed that we didn't have enough space.  Last year Greg drew up a concept design for the room where it had large built in drawers and an entertainment center.  He wanted to continue with this design and then build some simple desks that weren't built into the walls.  I agreed, and we cut a bigger access hole in the wall and confirmed that there was nothing behind the walls, so we moved forward with the demo...

So, maybe we didn't move forward right away with the demo... For those of you that know Greg, he doesn't jump into anything.  He wanted us to research every SINGLE detail and have it all planned out.  God love him for that, but it's so hard for me to read on the computer what is the best practice rather than asking those I work with, or the friendly man at Hope Depot, or frankly just go with my gut feeling.  However, Greg wouldn't go for that, so I tried to assist with the research, but ultimately, it was Greg who had to get a comfort level with everything.

Needless to say, we did move forward, and started the demo.  The first big obstacle that we came across is that we couldn't decide if the wall was structural or not.  I emailed a structural engineer that I worked with on a past project, and he had us measure the joist spacing and size of joists, horizontal distance from the peak of the roof to the exterior wall, and let him know how many layers of shingles we had on our roof.  We gave him the information, and he replied to my email with "Take the wall out. Your roof can handle 3 layers of shingles!"  Good enough for me!  But of course I asked a couple more questions for Greg just to make sure that he considered snow loads for the crazy winters we have been experiencing.  So, he went into a little more detail, and Greg was good with it.

We have made some good progress on the room.  We have purchased a ceiling fan, 3 can lights to match the one that was in the room, and Greg used this opportunity to buy some better lighting for the garage as well.  We hauled out all the demoed materials to the garage over the weekend for a big trash pick up this week, and we even pulled up the carpet.  Just look at all that space!

The first step in the build back was installing some baffles to allow air to flow along the roof line.  This is something Greg learned in his research.  You can ask him more about it.  Then, the next step is installing insulation to get the desired R-value, but I think I'll leave that for another post.

We pulled up one of the floor boards to make sure that there was insulation above the garage.  We confirmed that they installed R-19 fiberglass insulation, so we were happy to see that there.

We had a plan to get everything done before Thanksgiving, but it's not looking so great, so maybe the next goal will be Christmas.  We will definitely keep you updated on the progress.  Wish us luck!

Living Room Remodel - Progress

I did a post a while back on the living room remodel where I said that I wanted to paint an accent wall, move the couches around, get rid of the bulky coffee tables, redo the decorations on the mantel and make some curtains.  Well, we have made some good progress! 

Here is a reminder of the before look:

And here is our progress:

We have changed the couches around to be more conversational, but we often find ourselves changing it back when we have extended guests over because we know we will be watching TV.  I still want to get rid of the extra chair by the fireplace or recover it.

I took the fabric that is on the large pillows into Home Depot to find an accent color for the fireplace wall.  It's kind of a grey-brown color.  I painted this wall while Greg was out of town if you remember, and we both absolutely love the change.  It warms up the room so much!

Next, I've been working on those darn curtains for several months and just couldn't sit down and finish them.  I'll do a separate post on those, but I'm happy with the way they turned out after all the time I spent on them.  I made them green to bring out the green colors in the room more, but they probably would have looked better if they were in the same color as the accent wall to really bring the entire room together.  I keep trying to bring 3 colors into a room, and it hasn't been working out so well for me.

Finally, the mantel decorations were changed.  I finished this a couple weeks ago.  I bought the metal art piece from Target several months ago, and I love the size of it.  Besides that, I didn't buy anything new for the mantel, and used other items that I had around the house.  I really like the way it turned out.

Well, I still need to carry those black end tables down to the basement and just get them out of the room.  I removed the lamps from them already and completely got rid of the blue in the room.  I still need to paint the center coffee table, and my parents were going to buy me a piece of glass to sit on the top of it and make it nice.

In the corner, Greg has his computer still, but he found out that he is able to connect our TV to the computer through an app now, so there isn't a need for the computer upstairs anymore, so we are going to move it back downstairs to the other TV.

Other than that, I'd say it's coming along pretty well.  I'm excited to start decorating for the holidays!

Painted Front Door

It has been FOREVER since my last post!  I started working on a night project with my work at the end of July, and I don't get home from work before 9 PM two nights of the week, so it's really hurting my daily routines and ability to do much blogging.  The project ends at the end of January, so I'm counting down the days!

I do feel like we have been pretty productive around the house here in the last few weeks finishing up some projects and starting some new ones, so I have some things to tell you about.

Since the last post was on the yard, I'll first start with our fun and crazy new front door color!

It sure is bright!  I love it during the day when the sun is out, but it looks a little strange in the evenings when it's lit by the porch light.  Let's just say we're still getting used to it, but it's only been a week.  I was hoping the trick-or-treaters would have complimented me on my fine work, but they only said how much they loved our dog.  Abby always steals the attention.  Oh well...

So, if you're interested in painting your front door, then here is the steps that I followed.  I didn't go through much prep work, but this worked for me.

1. Buy a paint color in a glossy finish.  Most front doors are glossy, and it's more durable.  Some suggested to buy a sample first and paint it on there and see the color in the sun.  I picked out our color to match the yellow-green bushes in the front yard.  It's called "Lemon Grass" by Behr.

2. Wipe down your front door and knock off any loose paint with a light sand.  The wood by our front door is not in the best of shape, but we'll do something about that in the future.  I did my best to sand down the old paint that was flaking away at the bottom and then gave it a good cleaning.

3. Tape off any glass or edges that you want.  I only taped off the glass, but I probably should have taped off the edges of the door since our door is a off-white color on the inside.  I kept having to wipe the edge and just be extra careful.  Some suggest to tape off the bottom of the door as well to catch any drips.  You'll definitely want to keep a wet rag by you.

4.  Now you get to paint!  I was going to use a foam roller, but it just didn't put enough paint on the door and kept taking the paint off when I rolled over it again, so I went back to a brush.  I started with the sides.  Before they were brown, but I thought the green would be a bit overkill if it was on the sides as well.  Luckily, I found the paint to the exterior trim color in our basement so I didn't have to buy new.

5.  For the main door, there is a pattern that I followed.  I started with the creases first, then painted the faces of the insets, then the verticals between them, then the horizontals, then the verticals on the outside.  This worked well and followed the little bit of pattern that the door has.

First coat down, and 1 more to go!

6.  Then, I did a second coat over everything, and touched up a few spots and it was done!  Our door was wood, so the internal temperature wasn't too hot, well, and it was on a 65 degree day in October, but my mom always said not to do the door on a really hot day because the paint may bubble up.  It did dry pretty fast after I went over it, so you have to be careful of drips.  Even though I used a brush, I don't notice any really bad brush lines.  Some websites will say to sand down the door or use Kilz to make the paint adhere better or so that the first coat doesn't shine through, but I didn't have any trouble, and 2 coats seemed to cover fine.

 So, it's a little bright, but it's a nice change and it only look 4 hours or so to do, so I'll probably switch it up again next year.