The Parts of My House That I Do Not Like

OK. So that title does sound a bit negative, but I promise this post has a positive spin! 

I'm here to let you in on the parts of my house that I just do. not. like. I'll venture to say that nobody is completely happy with their home. You may have inherited a college house with college furniture (there is literally a Led Zeppelin bar stool in our kitchen- can I just please GET IT TOGETHER and cover that thing?) or the couch you are sitting on is 30 years old and smells of your great aunt Helen or you're living in what feels like the most #basic apartment ever... For most people there are parts of your home that just make you want to curl up in a ball and cry. And while there are many spaces in my house I do LOVE-  below are some of the parts in my home that I would like to chuck to the curb and start completely over.  

+ The Astroturf front porch. Yes, I said Astroturf. My 85 year old neighbor has it as well and while we both agree it's comfortable on the feet, I could personally do without. However, the stuff is GLUED down and I don't think it's coming up in the next 20 years. We're just living with it and trying to find anything that complements what I would best describe as a "neon grass green with touches of a Hi-Glo tint".

 

 
+ My big bulky beige monster of a couch. Nathan bought this at the beginning of the house renovation because he needed a couch. It was probably a bad sign when the furniture salesman referred to the giant thing as a "Video Gamer Couch". That's all that needed to be said for Nathan and it was out the door with a "SOLD" tag. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. I'm not going to lie... it IS the most comfortable couch in the world, but it's really hard to work with design wise. Exhibit A below.

 

 

 
+ Our guest room. Remember when we painted our guest room navy? (which I do still like) and then I painted the desk coral? Well that coral desk actually smells and is STILL tacky. I don't know if it was a bad batch of paint or we did something wrong. But I'm over the desk and over the trendy color scheme. At this point, I'm just holding out until it becomes Max's big boy room and I'm storing a bunch of junk in there in the meantime. 

+ My dining room chairs. OK this one started out as a big dislike, but they have actually grown on me and I intend to keep them a little longer... maybe eventually have them recovered? These chairs are AT LEAST 25 years old (from my aunt and uncle). I sat on them when I was like 4 and I still sit on them and I am 29. #Math

+ My kitchen floor. While it's a perfectly good kitchen floor, I wish I would have put more thought into this one. This was one of the FIRST decisions we made and we literally just bought the cheapest tile at Lowes. We didn't have the money for an entire first floor of hardwood  (and we didn't know what kind of hardwood we wanted) so we decided to go with tile for the kitchen. There are no plans to do anything with this floor, but sometimes I wish we would have done something different.

+ My entire unfinished basement/laundry room/prison toilet situation. Enough said.

Yeah there isn't going to be a picture of this one.  

I'm sure I could come up with more, but those are the main ones that basically make me want to pull my hair out. But here's the positive spin...  not only have these things made me realize what I want to avoid in a future home, but it's causing me to work with what I have. Hopefully this encourages you to do the same and to not be so discouraged with your own home.  Maybe I'll  come back with some posts about how to  work with these so called problem areas. #RealLifeHouseProbs

This post is not intended to come off ungrateful. I am blessed to call this my home and to have a roof over my head, but it's here to remind myself that there will always be aspects of my home that aren't all that great- but you just have to embrace them anyway and make the best of things... yes even Astroturf. 

Did someone say free Putt-Putt?

-Tricia 

Laying on Some Coral: The Guest Room Desk

When it comes to redoing the guest room, I've been wanting to keep it fun and not too stuffy. If you remember here, we painted the old baby blue walls a deep navy which was definitely out of the ordinary for this house, but I've come to love it more every day (as much as you can love painted walls).

 

One of my favorite color combinations is navy and coral. In fact, coral is probably one of my favorite colors in general. Off the top of my head , I can think of about 5 dresses of this same hue hanging in my closet at this very moment. So, it wasn't a surprise when I finally chose this color combo. 

 

Not only is the guest room for our friends and families who visit, but when I do work from home (and not working on my laptop.... on the couch... while watching Ellen) it's nice to have a desk to get some things done.

 

We started off with this beautiful thing...

 

 

 

And then layered it with primer:

 

 

And then started slapping on some of this beautiful coral paint!

 

 

It's not the perfect furniture paint job, but it's a far cry from what it was before. I'm still trying to figure out some hardware, but here it is against the navy walls...



 

 

Here's a quick Before and After...

Once I get the hardware on it, I'll upload another for the FINAL Before and After. (You would think that would be the easy part... but it's not!)

 

 

 

Speaking of hardware, I picked these up and they may be an option.

 

 

 

But I'm also liking the look of these pocket pulls- Martha Stewart Line from Home Depot. They would also cover the 2 screw holes that we had to patch on each drawer.

 

 

We shall see!

 

Stick around to find out.

 

-Tricia 

The 'Guest' Room Gets a Paint Job

I thought I would break up all this built-in madness business and show you a little progress on another room in the house... the guest bedroom. Or as we still occasionally call it out of habit: Josh's room. (Don't worry- he moved out a few months before I moved in!)

 

No fault to Josh since he did not make the design choices, but this room was pretty rough. Just imagine bright baby blue paint and cream trim. Or you can just feast your eyes on the pictures below.....

 

 

I simply don't understand that choice of color and that trim makes me want to vom, but to each their own I suppose.

 

 

Gloriousssssssss!

 

When I think of my dream bedroom, I definitely picture light, serene colors and tones- however, when I started brainstorming for the guest room, I wanted to have fun with it and do something I wouldn't normally create for myself. So....... in steps some beautiful navy blue paint!

 

 

 

 

I swear I do things other than take the pictures!

 

I know a lot of people tend to shy away from dark colors in a tiny room, but some would be surprised to find that it doesn't necessarily have to make a room feel smaller. I think it all depends on what you use to contrast it... which I will get to in another post :) Luckily, our house has pretty tall ceilings and large windows which helped when we chose to go darker. We also promptly painted that cream trim a nice bright white and that has made all of the difference!

 

I took a few pictures with my phone once the room was completely painted, but I couldn't take any good updated ones because I've made some progress that I want to wait to share. Hopefully these will hold you over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the many things I love about the house are its doors, trim, and hardware. They're not your typical builder basic pieces, so we definitely appreciate the quality materials throughout the house. I've seen a ton of blogs try to turn builder basic doorknobs into more of an antiqued brass look... Luckily those guys are already on our doors. They could definitely use some polishing, but they are just one of the cool perks of living in an older house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's amazing what paint can do right? Here's a sneak peak of what we've been working on since then....

 

Stay Tuned!

 

-Tricia