Little Before/Afters

In the thick of remodeling, it is hard to remember why we bought the house to begin with... I mean, were we crazy to think that an undertaking of this sort was even remotely manageable?? But when we really step back, take a breath, and remember that we truly love this kind of stuff, we realize we are perfect for this house. Our new house.

{fixtures}

That being said, it is still crazy to think that I am 39 weeks (and 4 days) pregnant, waddling around the house with the cordless drill taking off brass door knobs and cream outlet face plates while Huynh undertakes all of the painting, only at night and on the weekends, so we can get some sort of semblance of home before our little one makes his grand entrance. Huynh's a rockstar, putting up with my crazy antics ("paint the master closet NOW before I start throwing clothes away!!") and smiling through it all before collapsing into bed at night and knocking out before the new day starts.

{fixture}

Needless to say, the house did not start out our style but we saw the potential and, in addition to the big updates, are making little ones to help make it feel more like us. 

{knobs, satin nickel}

Our house was built in 1988 and, in most cases, has not been touched since. The cream and brass finishes will all be updated to white and nickel niceties which we tackled first in the master closet then followed to the half bathroom and the main parts of the house. Huynh showed you the new fixtures in the master closet yesterday which replaced those unsightly bare bulbs; below that is the half bathroom with a sneak peak of it's new face lift. Last are our brand new knobs *swoon*! Funnily enough, I ordered all of the door knobs before we closed on the house - when we officially moved in, we realized that I bought the exact same knobs that were already in the house only updated. 

Twenty-five years from now, the owners of this house are going to be wishing we kept those brass monsters when they go full circle and come back in style (ha!).

Master Conquered

Well at least the master closet for now....

The weekend was spent painting and oh, some more painting. Mentioned in the previous post, we wanted to paint the other two rooms also, the half bath and utility closet, just so all the white would be painted at the same time. All of the blues were painted, and I finally was able to get to the white gloss of the master closet shelves last night at 6 pm. It took a while to maneuver a ladder around a half bath and the Jade Garden for the utility room took 2 to 3 coats to fully cover the walls.

The master closet took precedence in the white glossing due to the fact that Sarah may be giving birth any minute or second now, so we had to clear out our master bedroom as much as possible into the closet. And here's a sneak peak:

 

{all Hale the closet}

We replaced the light fixtures with two we picked up from Home Depot:

{sunshine}

In a rush to get home because our King bed frame was being delivered to our house, we quickly picked out some bulbs for this fixture, and clearly (or unclearly?) we need brighter ones for this closet. Add it to the list! We don't want to bang our heads every time we're looking for clothes so we shortened the wire and took a couple of pieces off the fixture so we could make it as short as possible.  Or should we have left them long? Is that how we'd get the bright ideas?!?! Ok... I won't quit my daytime job!

Now on to the white trims and cabinets of the half bath and laundry room!

Where's that Hale Navy?!

Here's the closet sanded down.

{prepped}

We didn't sand it down to the bare wood, just enough to roughen up the surface for the new paint. I hooked up my shop vac to the end of my electric hand sander so I wouldn't have to dump out the 2 oz. collector bag every 15 minutes.

{electrical necessities}

After 2 hours and resulting numb hands and ringing ears, I called the sanding job done. We vacuumed as much dust as we could and took a damp cloth to every surface, just in case the Dyson didn't do a good enough job.

Now comes the next decision.

{dilemma}

In trying not to spend too much remodeling and getting new fixtures, cabinets, etc., we are going to try and keep these 1 and 1/2" down rods used for hanging clothes.  But... what do we do with them?  Paint them Simply White like the rest of the shelving? or Hale Navy?  Another option may be to stain them a dark wood color since the plan is to get dark wood flooring throughout the first floor.  Hence why you will also notice in the "after" picture that the base boards are not painted white, preemptively for when we have to rip out the carpet.

Decisions... decisions... Any thoughts?

Lights, camera, closet

I absolutely love our closet. It's a nice sized walk-in complete with built-in drawers, shelves, and even pants hangers (all courtesy of Huynh and The Container Store). We have a his and hers rods and shelves; we even have vaulted ceilings. The laundry basket fits perfectly and there's enough room for shoes.

So why the post about our apparently perfect set-up we got going? Oh, yes, the fallacy: it's dark.

While good for tornadoes and hurricanes, this room has zero windows - and the closest one is above the tub which actually looks out to our neighbors fence. Not quite the ideal lighting situation... so for now, we have a naked bulb. I can't believe I am even telling you that.

I've been on the look out for light fixtures that would shed some light on our duds and lo, and behold, the perfect light came into my inbox just the other day:

{west elm}

It's industrial! It's 7 40W bulbs! It hangs down 36"! And more importantly, it's on sale! We have some free cash to spend at our mecca and my eye is leaning towards these hanging Edison light bulbs of contemporary joy. For now, I anxiously await the gift card to land in our mailbox then I will be making a beeline for store and light up this joint... eerr, closet. My clothes won't know what hit 'em.