Downstairs Progress

Hi there!  Well this has taken me way longer than I wanted to share the other rooms downstairs progress, but I found the chance today to take some pictures. Yay!  Our house was somewhat put together, and Weston was able to come home early this morning before going back in for another call shift this afternoon/tonight.  So he played with Hannah's Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals upstairs (we're big into Pooh in this house right now), and I could hear them having a tea party while I snapped some pictures.  I love hearing them play.  Daddy is the best at pretend play.

And I would just like to say here that the keyword is progress.  It's mostly for myself that I let you know that.  I have yet to get the pictures, art, pillows, side tables, lamps, and all the things that will make these rooms instantly ours and homey.  The main improvement was the painting.  Like I said in the other post, I have painted every piece of trim in the rooms we've painted.  And you can't tell in pictures how badly they needed it, but it's a huge improvement in person to me.

In the living room, I ordered online these mix of modern and traditional wing back chairs from One Kings Lane.  And the rug I ordered online as well from Joss and Main.  For a natural woven rug, it's pretty comfortable underfoot.  And Hannah loves to be on it for some reason.

The other things for the living room I'd like to do are these:

• Add more color and pattern with pillows on the couch and chairs
• Gallery of wall art with pictures and meaningful pieces to our family
• Floor lamp
• Console table for the one sidewall at the stairs
• Circular upholstered ottoman with a tray to serve as a coffee table or foot rest
• Small table or garden stool between the two winged back chairs

And finally here is the family room's progress!  We hired professional painters to tackle this room and our tall, narrow stairwell.  They knocked this out in a half day.  Something that would have atleast taken Weston and I a whole weekend.  Plus there's no risk of us breaking our necks.  It was a win/win y'all.  The color we continued with in this room and the stairwell is Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter.

Progress

Before

So in addition to the paint, we've hung curtains and raised our new curtain rods.  Those rods that were in the before picture were left by the previous owner.  They were mismatched and too low and small scaled in my opinion.  We also found a mirror that Weston calls our "Game of Thrones" mirror from Kirklands.  I originally ordered panels for this room from JC Penney's, but they were not what I was looking for when I saw them in person.  So I found these through Country Curtains, and these are beautiful in person.  They're called a Soft Tweed fabric, and they're lined and everything.  It may be one of my favorite purchases for the house so far.  Always worth it to take something back and hold out for exactly what you want.

We have also ordered some swivel chairs to go on the other side of the coffee table from the couch.  We'll move that little slipper chair on the right upstairs to the guest room for now.  The chairs should be coming in before the holidays, and you'll never believe where we ended up ordering them from...the local baby store.  When we were looking at the furniture stores, it was difficult finding smaller scaled swivel chairs that looked good and comfortable plus not costing a fortune.  I told Weston I love our swivel, rocker in Hannah's nursery.  It was a Best brand chair, and I knew the quality and price was good.  So we headed over one morning to USA baby, and less than an hour later, we left with two chairs ordered!

The fireplace has already been nice to use several times this year!  Can't believe how quickly it's turned to winter.  The fireplace screen was ordered from Ballard Designs.

Progress

  

Before

The other items we'd like to accomplish in this room would be:

• Sofa table behind couch
• End tables
• Larger rug
• Different throw pillows for the couch and new throw pillows for the swivel chairs
• Maybe new barstools 
• New drum lampshade

And then we have the kitchen which hasn't changed much other than the paint.  It is actually a different color than the rest of the living space downstairs.  It looks very similar in certain light, but it actually a couple shades darker.  I went with Benjamin Moore's Silver Fox.  This room Weston and I painted one day.  The trim and cutting in for a kitchen was not fun in the least, but it's done.

Progress

 

Before

 

Progress

 

Before

 

Not a significant change, but we like the new color.  The tan clashed with the adjoining family room when we had it painted.  So it bumped up how quickly we painted the kitchen.  Other items down the road would be these:

• Rug for under the sink
• New rug for eat in kitchen area
• New table and chairs that aren't barstool height
• New backsplash
• Maybe update cabinets in a few years

Thanks for taking a look at what I've been working on!  It's really fun to share, and I love the feedback  and ideas you share.

Gentry's Farm

We headed to Gentry's farm after Weston got off work Saturday morning to pick out our pumpkins and enjoy all the fun for Hannah to do there.  Hannah lasted about 5 minutes in the stroller, and then she wanted out to explore.

Hannah loved the cornhole game.  We'll have to get our set out more often to play.

Hannah loved throwing pebbles through the fence and watching the sheep as we waited for our tractor ride.

The line cut off right at us when loading up, but it meant we were first in line for the best seat on the next tractor that came.   We were pulled through the cow pastures where Hannah sat so still and blew kisses to the cows.  Then we went by a couple of the family homes.  One was a log cabin built in the early 1800's. The other home was a brick home which the construction was halted during start of the war and then completed after.

Hannah really loves the animals.  The cows and chickens were probably the highlight of the whole day for her.  She propped herself on the fence like this and just watched those chickens so intently.

We checked out the mini tractors on the way to pick out our pumpkins.

Hannah pulled as many tractors as she could carry around with her.  If she had another hand, there would be another tractor.

Not the best picture, but we have to show our pumpkin treasures.

It was a fun family day.  Tonight I'm headed to a pumpkin carving party, and Weston is keeping Hannah and watching the football game.  We've got a tough game ahead tonight against Ole Miss.  Still always good to be a Tennessee Vol.

Upstairs Before and a Downstairs Update

We haven't posted much on here with the house mostly because we're constantly working on it in our free time.  But it is long past time I share the upstairs, and I have a few update pictures of our dining room and living room.  Our family room that is off the kitchen has had a few updates as well, but with a husband taking a post call nap on the couch and toys on the floor, I'll wait to take those pictures.

When we moved in to this house, we chose a room for Hannah that had pretty double windows and a paint color similar to the paint in her first nursery.  After digging through the old paint under the house, we came to realize it was the exact same color of paint we had chosen for her old room, BM Revere Pewter.  Talk about fate.

Her room is much larger than her first nursery, so there are some changes we'll make to her room.  Most definitely we'll get her a bigger rug that fits her room, and we'll hang a few more things on the walls.  I haven't decided whether to order more fabric to make two more panels in here.  And I would love one day to take down the tiny chair rail.

This side of the room needs a little more to me.  I'm just not quite sure what it will be.

This next room is our guest room.  It has a full attached bath to it.  So we thought it would be nice for any visitors.  Come see us friends!  It was a little girl's room with the previous owners, but obviously for a guest room we want something different than the purple.  This weekend I painted all of the trim in here, and Weston removed the tiny chair rail.  It was glued on really good, so we've had fun spackling around the room.  We'll paint it a nice neutral once we get all the wall repairs done.

Here is the attached bath.  We'll probably paint in here as well.  I would love to one day replace the sink with a cabinet type sink, and find a different window treatment for in here.

Weston and I think these built ins are really cool in the bathroom.  I could decorate it up really cute with towels and soaps.

We have one more bedroom upstairs that is just storing a few things for us that we either need to put in the attic or donate.  We'll make some lighting and paint updates in here one day.  This may be a future baby room or hobby room.

Across the hall from this room is our wonderful bonus room.  Which it really just houses a few of Hannah's toys at the moment.  Weston will tell you that this is going to be his man room, but I think it's going to be man room and play room.

And last room upstairs is the kid bathroom.  Other than brushing her teeth, we haven't really used this bathroom yet.  I think this will change pretty soon.  I want to do a deep clean of the tub first and a new shower curtain.  We love the double sinks and the separate water closet.  We'll paint both the walls and trim in here too.

The closed door is to a small linen closet.

See what I mean about trim painting?   And a lot of the upstairs seems more creamy yellow than the trim paint in other parts of the house.  So while I grumble everytime I tackle painting another room's trim.  It will be nice for it to all be cohesive.

Ok, so I want to share a few things that we've been doing to the downstairs.  This post is already really long, but I want to show them quickly.  I'll go into more detail and have source lists where I found everything once the rooms get more finished.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

 

The dining room walls used to be textured.  We skim coated the walls and then painted them a navy.  We want to add faux wainscoting to the bottom which is why we painted the bottom half white in the dining room.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

We still have a lot to do in the dining room like make the curtain panels, wainscoting, and add some art.  But we've worked a lot in this room to get it ready for the holidays.  Not the best picture below, but this is our new sectional for the living room.

And last but not least Hannah's playset has been refinished.  It was pretty dirty and unsealed when we moved here.  You can see how much dirt came off with just a little water and a scrub brush.  

The picture below was after most of the top half and ladder had been cleaned.

We also got rid of the sandbox down below and added a full deck on the first floor.  And on the left side of the tunnel, we added some vertical boards so that Hannah can't go down the really steep and tall ladder.  She loves to crawl through the tunnel, and now we don't have a heart attack that she is going to fall when she gets to the other side.  Then we stained it all a medium chestnut color.  Hannah loves it, and it's a lot safer for her to enjoy.  Just in time for winter, eh?  :)  In truth, this has been finished for awhile, but I'll miss the warm days out here....not the mosquitos though.

AFTER

Thanks for checking out what all we've done so far and the upstairs to our house.  I know this post got really long, but I thought if I don't sit down and get this on the blog now it'll wait even longer.