Home Improvements

I am still here!  (Thank you Nakisha for checking!!)  This summer has spent working on making our new house feel like our house.  There has been a lot of DIY projects & painting, and a little bit of sewing.   Here's a recap:

Ugly old fashioned faucet in half bathroom...replaced:

In the same bathroom, I replaced the 1980's Dynasty light with something more modern:

Unfortunately, that wasn't as smooth of a process as I had hoped.  What I expected to be a 15 minute installation turned instead into a Drywall-101 lesson.  When I removed the old ugly light, I had expected there to be a metal box inside the wall to which I could attach the new light.  Nope.  There were just wires coming out of the wall.  The Dynasty light was held up with drywall anchors, no metal box.  Ugh.  After a long conversation with the very helpful Jared, who works in the Lowes electrical department, I came home armed with a drywall saw, the elusive metal box, and an assortment of other electrical bits & bobs.  Long story short, this is what I had to do:  

So much for a 15 minute light replacement!

Next up was the upstairs bathroom which was in desperate need of updating.  I should preface this by saying that the previous owners had the entire upstairs (3 bedrooms & bathroom), the living room, and downstairs hallway painted before putting the house on the market.  They chose Benjamin Moore's Bleeker Beige, for ALL OF IT!:

bleeker beige
This is a greenish beige, and should never ever be used in a bathroom.  Not only that, it's fairly dark, so not only did I need 2 coats of paint, but I had to prime too.  I hate priming!!

Before I painted the bathroom, I took some advice from pinterest and stained the existing cabinets with General Finishes Gel Stain in Java.  It took 4 coats, but it was worth it.

I also replaced that light fixture which again, required me to cut the drywall, install a metal electrical box, and then patch, tape, and spackle.  Ugh.  (The master bathroom has these kinds of lights too...I am putting off replacing those)

The new paint color is Benjamin Moore Yarmouth Blue, which I love!

yarmouth blue

Moving on to the kitchen...It had been renovated probably in the early 2000s and has ginger colored cabinets.  For some unknown reason, the walls were painted yellow which made no sense to me.  After countless color samples, I chose Benjaman Moore's Cream, which is possibly the most boring color name I have ever encountered, but it's described as "This delicious, deep gold is as rich and irresistible as the sugar-coated sweetness of caramel corn."  

cream

I'm not so sure about the "caramel corn" but it definitely relates to the cabinets better.  In this photo, you can see the new color next to the lower part of the cabinet and the old yellow up above.  A subtle difference for sure, but it makes me much happier. 

Cream on bottom, yellow on top

But wait!  I did say there had been some sewing, so lets (finally) get to it.

Our new house has 1 less bedroom than our previous house, so we have lost a guest room (and my sewing space--sniff sniff).  We gave the queen size guest bed to my eldest daughter.  I made the headboard for that bed probably 8-9 years ago using plywood, 2x4's, foam, fabric, and a heck of a lot of staples.  Here is a photo of it before:

After covering up the Bleeker Beige in her new room with primer & 2 coats of "Grape Ice" paint, I got to work on covering the headboard.  I ordered several samples from fabric.com and chose this one by Premier Prints:

Premier Prints Abigail Lavender

One seam and a zillion staples later, boom!  New headboard:

But wait! That's not all.  My youngest was able to benefit from some straight seam sewing as well:  She has new pink walls (primed of course, and 2 coats of paint), and some new valences:

The fabric is also from fabric.com and is Premier Prints Dandelion White/Candy Pink.

Premier Prints Dandelion White/Candy Pink

So there you have it, lots and lots of projects, but only a little sewing.  School is starting soon and hopefully I will be able to remedy that.