Study: Done.

She Says:

This is our study, before and after:

Here are the finishing touches for the study:

I framed pretty notecards between glass.  The shelf was an old Pottery Barn item from years ago, painted to match the cabinets.

We found the clip and wire system at Ikea to display cards and hold important reminders.  We ordered the track lighting from Amazon.

Our guests also really appreciate the futon, also from Ikea.  Surprisingly comfortable.  It has storage underneath for the bedding!  We also dedicated one of the cabinets into a wardrobe by adding a clothes rod and shelving.  The rug was actually from our previous house- it's wool, from Target, and I still love it.

This room also provides critical storage for HoneyDo's guitar collection, and I think it looks cool, too!  We got the guitar hooks from our local music store.

And I think this my favorite thing in the room- it just looks like an end table, but it's actually my filing cabinet!  (Under the cat.) I found it at Target- it was even the perfect color- and I installed a file hanger inside.  Beauty and function... love it!

Okay.

Next project.

It's massive.

The great room!

Happy New Year!

Well, it's been quite a year.  We've been working quite steadily on the house; we just haven't been blogging about it.  Our "real jobs" have also required our attention, (imagine that!) but we're really pleased with our house progress.

We've also added a couple of Sidekicks to the family...

You remember Bean...

...and Boo...

who has decided to be a full time outside cat... but has to compete with this guy for cat food...

...and this spring, Peanut joined the family...

...finally, this is what HoneyDo got for Christmas:

A silver lab named Grey Goose!

It's becoming quite the menagerie around here.  Anyhoo, we're getting the blog back on track... for the New Year!

The Great Ceiling Debate

She Says: 

As I mentioned earlier, HoneyDo wanted to vault the ceiling several feet up into the attic.

I thought that sounded like an awful lot dirty work.

We went back and forth for months, while we were working on the other parts of the house.

Him:  But think of how awesome it will look!

Her:  But think of all the drywall and insulation in my hair!

Him:  It will open up the room and make it feel so much bigger!

Her:  Hello? Hair?

In the end, HoneyDo sold me on a "compromise."  We wouldn't vault it per se, but we would include the rafters within the space of the room and lay tongue and groove ceiling boards above them.  That would add 6-8 inches to the height of the ceiling and give us a beam ceiling, which we both really wanted.

So we dove in and tore down the ceiling.  And this is what our great room looked like:

He Says: 

The existing ceiling was 5/8 drywall under paired side-by-side 2x4 rafters.  The span of the ceiling was max 12'6", and the 2x4's sagged a bit at that length.  It looked bad, but hey, if the house wasn't a piece of crap, we could never have afforded it.

I did want to do the big vault up to the roof beams, but what we ended up with looks better than that would have, and was a ton easier to build.  Good compromise.

The ceiling boards are 1x6 pine Tongue and Groove.  Lifting them up into the attic was the tough part.

I built a jig on my 12' worktable to construct the beam-covers from 1x6 and 1x4 lumber.  This kept the beam-covers straight, and when they were built, we lifted them into place over the old beams and nailed them on.

She Says:

It turned out to be every bit as dirty as I had suspected the vaulting would be.  I cannot tell you how many gallons of paint and tubes of caulk it took to finish that ceiling.  We spent a full 2 weeks on that part of the project alone- it just never seemed to end.

He Says:

Like She said, the T&G ceiling boards required a LOT of finish work before paint, which included creating our own crown moulding out of 3 separate pieces.  But it all looks so good now. Really proud of this part of the house.

She Says:

And it was Totally.  Worth it.

Study Construction

We went back to our surplus store to get more unfinished cabinetry, just like the ones we used in the kitchen.  We looked at other options, particularly Ikea, but these unfinished oak cabinets are such good quality and price, we went this way again.

We chose several upper cabinets to store office supplies, and two large pantry pieces for craft supplies.  The pantries will eventually be converted to wardrobes for guests once the addition is built, which includes a fantastic upstairs craft room!  But I'm getting waaaay ahead of myself...

Demo was really simple- tear out the teal carpet.  Remove the closet door.  Remove baseboards and trim.  Done!  We then drywalled the closet doorway.

Paint went up next:  Spice Delight on the ceiling, Khaki on the walls, and Phoenix Sunrise on the accent wall.

Next HoneyDo mounted the cabinets and I got to work painting.  It was kitchen cabinet deja vu!

Here are the uppers on the left side (next to the window), mounted and painted.

And the right side of the room, cabinets installed.

I wanted a *lot* of desk space.  We chose butcher block countertops from Ikea for this job, which we snagged when we got the piece for the island.  We also got the legs and these Capita brackets from Ikea:

Oh, yeah, and we ran the same hardwood flooring in here that's throughout the house.

Then we tiled above the desk space to add some texture and interest to the room.

Next time, I'll post the finished product!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, from our house to yours!

Study Beginnings

She Says:

The next room we're tackling is the study/spare bedroom.  We're working with a pretty small room (9x12) so storage and organization will be the keys to making this space multifunctional.  

Here's the before shots:

It's got a nice sized window that looks out onto the back yard.

There was also a decent closet, but we conscripted that space for the hall closet.  So all the storage has to fit inside the room itself.

It's currently serving as a makeshift study and catchall... there's a lot of bills to pay when you're building a house!

The sheetrock is in good condition here, so this room doesn't have to go down to the studs like most of the rest of them (yay!  No gypsum dust everywhere!)

Let's get started!

The Closet That Wasn't

She Says:

I have a confession to make.  Or maybe we've already mentioned it, I can't recall, and I'm not going to read through the whole blog to figure that out.  My confession is this: we are addicted to reno.  This renovation is only phase one.  Once we tear down this entire house to the studs and rebuild it, we have plans for an addition.  Gluttons for punishment, I know.  But we are having too much fun.

The reason I bring this up now is that there is a portion of the hallway that is currently unused and walled off, because eventually that will lead in to the fabled addition.  But I need storage space *now.*  So we decided to build a "temporary" closet out of the unused space, nothing fancy, and cheap.

Here's the hole we're starting with:

We bought a $50 door, built bracing for it, and installed.  We patched the drywall, but didn't float it because this will all come out later anyway; like I said, temporary.  I guess that was about $20 in drywall and materials.

HoneyDo installed some $49 track lights, and I painted the whole thing with some leftover Ultra White from the spare bath.

I laid the floor, continuing the hardwood from the rest of the house.

Then we installed a $120 wire closet system.  I added a small bookcase that we didn't have any other use for; it makes great extra shelving.

We mounted a $20 Ikea Grundtal towel rack on the opposite side, for scarves (I've warned you before about my scarf problem).

And here it is, fully loaded!

I now have space for things that didn't have a home, like rags, aprons, and the vacuum cleaner.  Plus, it really frees up a lot of space in the master closet: blankets, sheets, and coats of every size and shape were moved in and are feeling right at home!

I already owned the baskets and boxes (I think I've also mentioned my basket problem as well), so no cost there.  That brings us to a grand total of $259!  Not bad for an entire new room!

I have to admit, at least once a day, I just open the closet, look around and sigh happily.

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