Introduction: The Kitchen

Day 1: Before

Taken the day of closing

Our Yard!

Day 1: Before

Taken the day after closing. Fence on 2 sides, reeeeeally long grass!

 After: Full Fence & Partial Garden!

Introduction: Spare Room/Craft Room

Day 1: Before

Taken the day of closing

After: Painting

Introduction: Living Room

Day 1: Before

Taken the day of closing. 

After: Painted Walls & Wainscoting 

Introduction: Master Bedroom

Day 1: Before 

Taken the day of closing. So much wood paneling!! So much carpet!! 

After: Removing the wood panel

Introduction: The Dining Room

Day 1: Before
This is how the dining room looked the day we closed on the house. 

 After: Floor & Paint
We ripped up the carpets and painted the walls with a coral half wall using Olympic paint. We still need to sand and refinish the hardwood. 
 

Project #1: Repurposed Antique Chairs

Several months ago, my grandfather gave me some old chairs to use for our apartment. I had seen this gorgeous picture on Pinterest of half-painted chairs and knew it was what I would like to do to mine once we had the space. The first furniture project I completed after moving into the house was exactly that. Here is what I needed for this project:

1 sheet sandpaper
1 can Minwax Wood Finish
4 foam brushes
3 Olympic paint samples (grey, orange, and blue)
1 Olympic paint sample in white (if using light colors)

We got all of this at Lowe's for under $20. After much success with the Olympic paint in our dining room, we decided we would be going with them for all future projects. Samples of their paints only cost $3 each and were more than enough for all of the coats I needed for the chairs.

I began by sanding the chairs and wiping them down to get rid of all of the dust and cobwebs. Once they dried, I followed the detailed instructions on the can of Wood Finish and sprayed the bottoms with two layers. What I liked about this was it made the color of the wood uniform without losing worn look. After leaving the chairs upside down until they dried completely, I used the foam brushes to paint them. I tried to use the $1 bristle brushes, but I did not like the streaky brush lines. The foam brushes left a smooth look and were much easier to navigate around all of the little bits. The blue and grey paints went on smoothly and only needed two coats each. However, the orange was extremely difficult. After the first layer I realized that there would not be enough paint in the sample to make it look right if I didn't first do a layer of white. Luckily we had some white paint leftover, but if you don't have any hanging around you could definitely get away with a sample amount of white.

In the end, the chairs came out exactly how I had hoped. I love the way they look against the coral half-wall!

Inspiration: The Master Bedroom

The master bedroom has been by far our largest undertaking. When we began, it was covered in horrendous fake wood paneling and industrial carpet. The hallway is painted panel so we considered that as an option, but we were  incredibly curious about what might be lurking under there. After a tiring day working outside, we no longer possessed the sense to take it easy with the bedroom walls. We ripped down the first panel to discover a parfait of style through the decades. Directly under the paneling was a faded wallpaper, beneath that was painted sheet rock, and on the very bottom was plaster.

It was clear to us that a lot had changed since the house was built in 1918. Of course styles went in and out, and with each decade came a new layer. It felt wrong adding yet another layer to this beautiful house, like the rooms had been growing smaller over time with each added layer and we owed it to her to strip it all away.  We knew it would be a large project- probably the largest immediate project in the house- but we had a perfectly livable spare room where we could sleep in the meantime. If we were going to get this done, we had to do it when the room was empty.

Jacob claimed this project as his own. He spent a few weekends ripping down the panel, stripping bits of wallpaper, filling the holes with spackle, and sorting out some problem areas. This is where we stand today:

We pulled up a corner of the carpet to discover dark, wide wooden boards underneath. The plan is to rip up the carpet and refinish these floors once we take care of the walls. Another issue I have with the bedroom is the closet. Everybody thinks I am ridiculous, but I insist that it is the closet that is ridiculous. When the staircase was built, it must not have been tall enough, so when they built the closet, they gave it a slanted floor. I have a serious problem with that! It looks awful, and makes no sense at all. I would like to some day turn the closet into built-in drawers and build a new closet in another part of the room.

Inspiration: The Dining Room

We have a lot of big ideas for how we want the living room to end up. Jacob and I were first contemplating an accent wall, but each room in the house is so small that we don't want to risk making anything look tinier than it already is. I showed Jacob this pin of a coral half-wall and we were both in love.

Several months ago, my grandfather gave us an old dining room table and some chairs from his barn. I was determined to paint the tops and refinish the bottoms like this pin here. After choosing a palette from design seeds, we picked up some Olympic paint samples and painted our chairs to accent the new half wall.

Our next step is to paint our old baker's cart and convert it into a swanky new bar. We have taken off the doors, and plan to refinish the top with Butcher's Block finish. We are thinking of painting it mint to match the fourth chair, but are not sure yet. The end game plan is to create a hallway under the stairs where the closet currently resides and open up the doorway to the living room a bit more. Those are more financially taxing projects, but were sort of my conditions of this house.

Inspiration: The Living Room

 The easiest room in the house to modify was the living room. Mostly because it needed very little done.

The floors had been refinished, there were no defects or damages, all it needed was a few coats of paint. We didn't mind the wainscoting, although the fake wood paneling was definitely a trend in this house. Jacob and I agreed to paint over the fake wood and make it white, and to paint the upper half of the walls teal. For this project, we used:

- Martha Stewart paint
- Cheap tape
- Roller brush
- Small brush

I was very impressed with the paint, it went on smooth and dried very quickly. I had a lot of difficulty with the trim because I chose to only tape the top of the wainscoting and areas around the windows. After two coats, the top of the wall was good to go. However, when I pulled up the tape, huge chunks of paint came with it! There were also several areas where the paint had leaked under and adhered the tape to the wall. It was a major disappointment and looked awful!

 We proceeded to paint the wainscoting with our white indoor/outdoor paint & primer mix, and discovered that we would need at least three coats to cover the fake wood properly. We paid better attention when taping this time and sure enough when we went to peel it off, chunks of paint were removed. Frustrated, we spot painted the areas that were affected, but it was nearly impossible to get the areas around the trim to look right. After going back and forth between teal and white paint another three times, we gave in. Surely no one would notice once the room was full of our things, pictures were hung, etc. Sure enough, as we began filling the room with furniture, none of the trim was even noticeable. When you're in an empty room with nothing to look at but the walls, it is easy to get wrapped up in making it perfect.

We did learn a few lessons from this room. Because it was the first room we really did any work on, we had not yet established a budget or any real plan. I think that we made a great choice in using the Martha Stewart paint, however, the white indoor/outdoor paint & primer was way too strong for me. We had all of the windows open plus two fans, and I had to make trips outside every 5 minutes for fresh air. Next time we will definitely use indoor only paint, even if it means we need to use more than three coats. Another lesson we learned is that we will never again cheap out on tape. No more tan tape ever! Lastly, we learned that although attention to detail is important when painting, it is okay to take short cuts.