One Room Challenge Week 4-Big Updates in the Family Lounge!

YOU GUYS!  So much progress in these rooms this week!

First, the bathroom is now completely empty and only a box of studs.  Just tonight we prepped the floor for the shower stall that we'll begin tomorrow.  

We'll  have new insulation going in, to replace this stuff that DOESN'T EVEN GO ALL THE WAY UP.

 We'll maybe replace the window, maybe later.  It's not an original window to the house, more like an original window to the 80's when this addition was completed. 
BUT, what is original is this exterior wall!  This is the original wood board siding to the house, and if it weren't for the GLUE all over it, it would be in great shape.  We're considering just finishing and painting it, but we're not big into farmhouse style, but it's not ruled out.  It will DEFINITELY be lead paint, so we have to manage that properly. 

I do want to say that I had to peel and sand 2 different layers of flooring to get to the subfloor.  I maybe wouldn't have gone to all the effort, but the original wood floors are 3/4" laid directly onto the joists, with no subfloor.  We'll be trying to match that in the bedroom/living room but there's already a 1/4" subfloor.  We got 1/2" floors for that room, but it's important that the floors in here match that height also!  They cannot be too high. 

Floors were ordered and will be here next week! 

Maybe oak isn't the most fashionable floor choice, but it's an exact match for what flows through the rest of our main floor.  2" planks are hard to find, that this was only $.20 more per square foot than the 2 1/4" that we found.  This is unfinished, and will have the added expense of finishing, plus we had to pay for shipping.  BUT, we can refinish the other floors and finish these at the same time so that they are seamless, which is great. 

We began really cleaning up the mess we've made, which is no small task!  There's no public access dump nearby, and we totally don't want to spend money on a dumpster bag, so we're just putting out our mess bit by bit with the trash (which is pretty normal here-it's how we got rid of a room of carpet, a bunch of wood trim from this room and some drywall already).  This room is mostly cleaned up, so tomorrow we'll be starting the shower, completing clean up, and hopefully texture these walls to match the rest of the house (as much as I don't love it) so we can paint soon.  

Hopefully by this time next week we'll have carpet removed, walls painted, maybe even can lights installed? drywall in the bathroom a shower in progress, and the other projects I've been working on closer to complete. 



What else remains:
- get in touch with our floor guy to schedule the install of the floor
-purchase, cut, stain trim
-order the curtain rod and hardware
-decide on the layout for art and pictures, I have my eye on some, but I'm just not committed to the price!
-find a ceiling medallion that I love, and one slightly larger scale to put in the dining room
-TILE SO MUCH 

Wish us luck!  While we work, check out the sponsored participants HERE and the other guest participants *like me* HERE.

love, amy

One Room Challenge-Week 3

You guys.  I will be completely honest with you.  There has been nearly zero progress on this room in the last week.  It's been a crazy week at work and just in life.  HOWEVER.  I did finish completely scraping the ceiling and I began to sand all the patches.  I should be able to finish sanding and texturing this weekend so we can begin to move forward.  I'm really hoping this is the slow, long drawn out, challenging phase...but what do I know?

Here's a treat! I took some pictures last year after we moved in and first set up shop.  Here's how this room looked right after we moved in.  Notice how I tried to make festive since it was Thanksgiving when we moved?

Good news:
-I finally connected with a floor guy who gave us a lower than expected quote to refinish the floors on the main floor and install floors in the room (separate phases)-THANK YOU ASHLEY
-I picked up samples for the wood floor and we've narrowed down our options  
-Window shades were ordered and arrived
-I think we decided on a tile pattern for the floor
-I ordered the light fixture (have to replace that ceiling fan beauty with something!
-One of the pillows I wanted was out of stock, but came back in stock!  I have to find a new floral pillow though, because I CANNOT spend $180 on a pillow made of my dream fabric.  Just can't do it!

 Here you can see the original light, fixtures and mirror in the bathroom.  Those have been gone for a few months waiting for us to get going.  

Here's how the shower curtain from last weeks board really looks.  I saved to buy this ridiculously priced shower curtain about 7 years ago, and I still love it. 

I'm especially excited to be able to close the door all the way, because the door to this bathroom was not on straight and would never close right!

Bad news this week:
-We're about to get schooled in DIY tiling and wall texturing, I know it
-I hunted for doors to match the original doors everywhere else in the house with no luck.  I did find a tutorial to build them online-maybe we'll add some more woodworking to this?  (he does mention they're basically carried at every lumber yard, but I haven't been able to verify that at all).

To do this week:
-figure out curtain rod (I ordered acrylic rods through american plastics for 2 other rooms, so I'll probably do the same. But I used the hardware I originally purchased for this window upstairs in our bedroom, so I need to order that too. 
-sand, texture the walls
-measure shower and order tile for shower
-remove old shower
-order wood floors
-order floor tile
-rip up bathroom floor

WISH US LUCK!  Meanwhile, follow along with all the experienced and also those seeing great progress HERE and all of us guest participants, here. 

with love, Amy

One Room Challenge Week 2 (and a half)

One Room Challenge Fall 2016 by amykwadley featuring a landscape painting



Here is the inspiration/mood board for this room. Some of those are things we already own (*that shower curtain is not the actual one we own, I couldn't get a correct picture to load into polyvore to make this mood board, the rugs, the tv cabinet, sofa, salt lake temple print)  heart, bathroom accessories). Some I'll DIY (the basket, the curtains), and some we'll have to purchase still (the window shades, the pillows, the painting and the floor).

We made some good progress, but I can't show pictures because I uploaded them to the laptop and now I'm on the desktop.  Suffice it to say, there is no more trim (that's door, window, closet interior shelves, attic access), no more wall paper (kind of-there is still a layer and I CANNOT get it off, so we're working around that), no more doors (that's minus 3!), and a LOT of ceiling texture all over the carpet.

This week, the missionaries came and helped us scrape/sand the ceiling and we didn't get far, but now we're making progress. We met with a wood floor guy and installing/refinishing the floors on the rest of this level of the house will be surprisingly affordable.  Here's what's left:

• Find the floor we want to put in.  (tricky since the floors in our house are 2" and "they just don't make them like they used to."  Meaning, the smallest we can find is 2 1/4.)
• order the light, pillows, lamp and emily jeffords painting (I love her paintings and this will only be a print, but one day I'll have an original when they're available and I'm fast enough!), blinds
• DIY the knock off curtains and eliza gran basket (because I am not going to pay $180 for a pompom basket, but I'll DIY a knockoff)
• cut and install can lights to match house
• retexture walls and ceiling to match the rest of the house (which sadly isn't still smooth!
• Order the floor, have it acclimate, 
• Purchase, cut, stain and install trim to match the rest of the house (a week in itself, easily!)
• paint!
• rip apart the bathroom shower
• tile the shower (learn how!)
• install wood floor
• figure out which direction we're going with the rug, one comes from the bedroom.
• hang gallery wall and reframe some art that needs it.

The list isn't small, but it's possible.  It would be easier if we didn't work so far away from home, and if we didn't have other obligations like school work, Clint's chorus and young women; but, that is life!  It will likely take us much longer than 6 weeks, but if we're done by thanksgiving, I'll call that a win.  

Check out the progress of the other participants, HERE. 

love, amy

The One Room Challenge-Week 1

If you've never heard of the One Room Challenge sponsored by Calling it Home, I'm about to give you a lot of awesome blog reading material.  

20 designers and bloggers participate in making over a space in their home (or a clients) in 6 weeks.  They do dramatic makeovers-construction, molding, bold changes. It's inspiring.  You can check out the 20 featured participants here.  I'm adding myself to the guest participants because I have always wanted to participate, but I'm no designer. 

What we'll be tackling is our family room and main floor bathroom.  Technically, this room is actually supposed to be the master bedroom with a walk in closet and ensuite bathroom.  We always intended it to be a guest suite since we've been hoping for people to come visit (come visit!).  But, when we moved in, this was the only room our gigantic sectional would fit in.  

See, didn't fit in the front room:

What you can't see is that this blocks the access to the stairs, the entrance to the
dining room, and that I'm standing in the only other door of the room (awkward!)

We've done some small makeovers in our home so far.  We made over a powder bath and have made small changes here and there.  Nothing like what we wanted to accomplish in the first year of living here.  But, I'm done just living here. It's time to get to work and take action. We have family coming for Thanksgiving! That sounds like the perfect motivator to put some serious labor into getting this space all fixed up. 

So, let's take a look at how these rooms looked on move in day, almost a year ago!

From the "living room" into the bathroom-the closet on the left.
Somehow this is the only picture I have of this room "before."

Into the bathroom-the left hand side with the shower and built in shelves.  This room is
part of an addition and doesn't have heat except for this little baseboard unit, so it stays. 

The bathroom right hand side.  The toilet is tall and the vanity isn't my favorite,
but they work and they're clean, so they stay. 

Closet-this is still what it looks like, except 100% full of stuff and pillows and mirrors and games.

Even though we've lived here for a year, these are the photos I'm showing you.  Mostly because right now we've already started :)  I've been ripping down wallpaper border for months on and off, we've taken down all the old fixtures in the bathroom, Clint's been removing baseboards and running cable, and I've been testing paint colors and pinning away.  

Come back next week for me to show you the plans.  It involves some work.   But for now, all I know is this:

I hope it's light, bright, whimsical, classic, and a lovely place to spend time (both spaces, because you know...Chron's).

with love, Amy

Hello!

You guys, I'm joining the blog club.  We've moved far away from our families (HI, FAMILIES!) and even when we make it home to Utah, we don't see as much of them as we'd like.  PLUS, many of them have ALSO moved far away from our Utah homeland. There are many of Clint's family I've never met and there are many of my family who have never met him.  We're hoping this can be a way we can get to know each other and keep caught up on each others' lives.

So, hello!  Mostly this will be a place for us to share about our life in Pennsylvania and what we're up to-including updating the 1920's house that we purchased and are slowly fixing up (which, if I'm being honest is mostly what we're up to).  

Welcome, thanks for joining us!