Fabulous April

Oh April.  You started off rainy, rainy, rainy.  I'll let it go because this last week has been gorgeous. 
Let's talk about some other gorgeous things about this month, shall we?

Homeowners- whut WHUT
 Clearly this has to be number one on the list.  We bought a friggin HOUSE.  It still blows my mind.

That's right.  I was sold by Kim Rock.

 Adele- Rolling In The Deep
  This song is my new obsession.  Like, driving-down-the-road-singing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs-obsession.  I liked Adele before, but now I'm a fan.



Peeps
  I love Peeps, and you know I will only eat them stale.  I'm sure I can get Peeps somewhere anytime of the year, but I will only eat them around Easter.  Because that's what makes them special. 

"Peep Show" never gets old to me.

Royal Wedding
  I confess when I first heard that Will and Kate were engaged, I didn't really care that much.  Honestly, I'm an American, what do I care about the royal family of another country?  Well, apparently a lot more then I'd like to admit.  After learning that Kate Middleton is a commoner (unlike Diana who was born into an aristocratic family with royal blood), I started to like her.  As the event grew to a fever pitch, I joined the fun.  No, I didn't order any commemorative plates, but I plan on being up at 6:00 am for the start of the wedding.
[Edit]  So Kate looked AMAZING-- love the dress.  She looked like a modern day princess.  Will... couldn't have used some Rogaine.

April, you were pretty cool, but you've over stayed your welcome.  Bring on MAY!

Always & Forever,
  ME

Carpet Be GONE!

I mentioned in this post, that JEGs and I talked about switching out the carpet in the living room because, well, it smelled.  Horrible.  We had a guy from Lowes come out to the house on Saturday to measure, and we decided we weren't going to do anything about it until we got a quote on Monday or Tuesday.

But that didn't last. 

Before I go any further, I am making a declaration about how this blog is going to run.  I know lots of 'home improvement'  and 'decor' blogs don't tell you about any projects until they are finished-- giving you that sense of  instant gratification.  Well that's not gonna happen here.  This blog is called Lizzie In Progress, and this house is going to be a work in progress.  I'm going to show you when we start a project, and it might be another couple months till we work on it more.   JEGs and I are real people with full time jobs, credit card bills and school loans.  We can't always afford to finish something as soon as we start it.  We are going to have to pay for things little by little.   Because that's how our life is.  Plus, I want you coming back for more (ohh, baby baby.)

That being said, during Easter dinner- while I was with my family and he was with his-  I get a text from JEGs that says "... Gonna cut that carpet out tonight.  I'm sick of it." 

And so we did.

After we flipped it over, this is what we found:  Mold.  Lots of mold and pet stains.  :::gag:::

We knew there was hardwood floor underneath, but we didn't know what kind of shape it was in.  We played around with the idea of sanding it just putting in a cozy area rug if it was salvageable.  

However,  it wasn't.  It was busted.  up.

There was clearly water damage to the floors, possibly a flood in the house at some point.    We might be able to refinish the steps, but we will have to replace the one side completely:

The most damage is right by the kitchen doorway.  It almost has a 'spongey' feeling to the wood.  There are section of the floor that we feel like with enough pressure, someone will fall right through to the basement.

The worst part is, it still stinks.    We think the floor itself has mold in it.  Rock and roll.

So what's next?  Even though it kills me to rip up the original flooring of this house (any decor blogger knows that is a crime against nature) I think it's the only choice we have.  JEGs plans to install a new sub floor and then we will have Lowes come out and install new carpeting when we can afford it-- hopefully within the next couple months.

Until then, we are living with some pieced together area rugs and some carpet remnants. 

It's very... eclectic.  Right?

Always & Forever,

  ME

A Peek Inside...

Other then our walk-in closet project, I haven't show may pictures of the new place. 

Ok, I haven't show ANY pictures of the new place, and I've gotten gobs of requests. 

So here is the interior of Falconhead Cottage, as it is now.  And by now, I literally mean I snapped this pictures before I walked out the door for work.  There are boxes littered all over the place still, and if you see a pair of my undies on the floor, well, I'm just keepin' it real.

We haven't gotten a lot done, other then move in our stuff.  We still working on cleaning and primering  the apartment.  So along this tour, I throw out a few projects that we would like to accomplish in the months and maybe even years ahead.

Random note:  is primering a word?  Spell check says no, but I don't know what other way express it.  Oh well.  You'll still love me, right?

[Edit]  According to JEGs is priming.  Same difference ;)

First we have the living room, with all it's awkward fireplace glory:

I don't know why I didn't bother to turn on any lights in this room-- it's really not that cave-like.    Anyway, I believe this will be one of the first rooms to see a coat of primer and paint.  Also, a lovely man from Lowe's is coming out this Saturday to give us a price on new carpet.  This carpet smells like dog and we want it gone.  We did a little poking around underneath, and it seems like there is hardwood under the floor, but we are a little afraid of what state it's in. Regardless, I think we've decided that we want this room to remain carpeted.

We would still like to have our dear HOVAS in this room, but it might mean loosing the end tables and lamps.  I would also like to replace the coffee table, as well as the chair by the fireplace-- perhaps two slimmer slipper chairs.

Moving on from the living room is the kitchen



like my upside down curtains and junk in the corner?  Just keepin' it real.

Clearly this room needs paint.  Lots of paint.  I think we are going to loose the bar stools because the breakfast bar/island cannot be sat at.  It's a deceiving little bugger.  We would also like to get a new kitchen table, perhaps a farmhouse table or something like that. 

Here is a yet-to-have-been-seen view of the kitchen and our fridge.  Oh yeah-- it's stainless.  Loves it.

I don't know if you've noticed, but we do not yet have a microwave, or a place to put one.  So in the area by the living room is probably going to go a little cart with a microwave.  I don't love the idea of it being so far away, but my choices are pretty limited.

Just off the kitchen is a little mudroom/laundry area that takes you out to the back yard.

We have not yet retrieved our washer and dryer from it's storage spot in Momma and Poppa G's garage, but when we do, they will snuggle in on the left hand side. 

Further down the road (and I mean, really far down the road) we would like to move the washer and dryer to the basement and enclose this little area into a powder room.  It would be nice to be able to piddle downstairs instead of having to run upstairs all the time.  We live a rough life.. I know.

Moving on upstairs, we have the spare room.

In the first week of living here this place was a M. E. S. S.  So bad, that JEGs and I would shut the door so we didn't have to look at it.  We've since gotten it slightly under control.  This room will some day host a bed for guest to sleep in and a comfortable chair for JEGs strum his guitar.

The bathroom is not really crooked, I was just in a hurry and didn't take the time to take a straight picture.



totally just realized that one of the hooks is falling down.  I really should pay more attention.



I was so excited to finally break out my wedding gift shower curtain.  I have such a crush on it, and I have ever since I spied it over a year ago.  Besides the obvious painting, we don't have any real plans for the bathroom.  We might replace the medicine cabinet and install a dual flush system, but other then that it's in pretty good shape.  Phew.

The master bedroom is the final stop on this tour de house



yup.. those are dirty clothes and a basket of clothes that need to be put away.



...and there is our headboard hanging from the wall.  M y husband has a sense of humor.

 I'm kinda of torn as to what to do about the paint in this room.  I actually really like the color (even though it clearly needs a touch-up) but it DOES NOT match our bedspread at all.  Do I spring for a new bedspread, or paint the walls?  Choices, choices...

There is our craptastic closet.  I my dream world, we are going to knock that back and that whole wall will become a closet.  I'm not talking anything crazy like a walk in-- just something with a bar that hang my clothes from. 

Also, that massive fan that is missing the shades (they are actually sitting on the dresser)-- consider it GONE.   It's not centered in the room, it's not centered over where the bed would go and we are having a slight clearance issue with JEGs' head.

As you can see, we have a little bit of work and a whole lot of painting to do!  We are still finishing things up in the apartment, but hopefully we'll have fun updates soon!

Always & Forever,
  ME

Family Secrets

My family is infamous for two things: 

 1.  Our inability to grow grass (seriously... grass seed, sod.. it doesn't work)

 2.  Daddy-O's Iced Tea.

My father doesn't drink water.  He doesn't drink coffee or beer or any of that nonsense.  My father has drank multiple glasses of his home-brewed iced tea for as long as I can remember.  The clink of the ice in his glass is a familiar sound of childhood.  Coming home to the smell of the tea bubbling on the stove is something I wish I could bottle.  Friends and boyfriend invited over would always answer earnestly "iced tea please" when asked if they wanted something to drink.

Three simple ingredients with a side of magic.  The recipe cannot be shared with anyone with a different last name, nor can it be written down.  The fact that I got my dad to actually measure out how much "two scoops of sugar" actually equated to in cups, was a feat in its self.

Today I try my hand at continuing the tradition. Even though I don't share the same last name anymore, this iced tea runs deep in my blood.

Here goes nothing ;)

Always & Forever,

  ME

Walk On In!

When JEGs and I first looked at this house, we knew right off the bat that closet space was going to be an issue, especially in the master bedroom.  We were going from this:

to this...

Laughable, right?    Not only is the closet small, but it is also located right above the steps to the first floor so we have this little gem

..which I could probably add some shelving and make it work, however directly above it is this:

...the stairs to the attic, rendering it completely useless.  Rock and roll.

Now, before I go any further, I have to say that this was 110% all JEGs idea.  I take absolutely no credit for any of this at all. 

After hemming and hawing about how to remedy this situation, we decided that instead of using the third bedroom as an office-- which we didn't really need because neither of us work from home and we both have laptops-- we would use that teeny room as a walk-in closet.

Originally we had thought about getting some Closet Maid and creating an arrangement similar to this Elfa System, but after some thought, we didn't want to do anything too permanent.  Ideally we would like to extend the closet in the master and turn this back into a bedroom/office/whatever, so the idea of purchasing all that shelving and then taking it all down in maybe a year just seemed silly to us.

So we went cheap-- IKEA.

JEGs' best buddy, Mike, actually suggested using portable clothing racks.  We searched around and found the RIGGA from IKEA to be the best match-- and at $19.99 each, we couldn't beat that with a stick.

I should probably mention that it took me about an hour to put my RIGGA together.  JEGs, on the other hand, had his together in 15 minutes, and without instructions.  Show off ;)

We weren't sure what to do about our shoes, until we realized the racks below were perfect for hanging my heels from

I like shoes.  A LOT.

and perfect for him to rest his shoes across:


sometimes it pays to have a size 13

In the apartment, I had a shoe rack in the closed that hid my massive collection of housed my shoes JEGs had the idea to secure the two RIGGA together with shoe string and then hang the rack from the end of the two bars

We moved the bigger dresser and I am currently using it to keep all my underoos, socks, jammies, t-shirt etc, and JEGs has the smaller dresser in the bedroom.  The Tupperware containers have my purses and off season clothes.

Now, there was an existing closet in this room, however it was teeny tiny, and only had shelving.  It actually works perfectly for a linen closet (since we have no other place to store our linens)

So what about the original closet?  It isn't going completely unused.  We hung our "fancy smancy clothes" in there-  all my cocktail dresses and JEGs' suits and ties. 

We aren't finished in the closet yet.  Somethings I would like to do still:

*add a rug.  That hardwood floor is cold on my tootsies in the morning

* have a full length mirror somewhere

*raise the curtain rod

*hang my jewelry board

*add some fun wall art

*repaint.  Although the color photographs as a pretty slate blue, it's actually really, really dark.  Also, I think the previous owners didn't know know about Frog tape:

So yeah.. one room down.  Five more to go!

Always & Forever,

  ME



Settling In

Well folks, we are offically homeowners!

Settlement went great!  No problems and we got to meet the sellers, who were super nice people.  After signing our names 29834792749374 times, we were given the keys to our HOUSE (weee) and we started moving stuff in.

The big move came on Saturday, and we were so blessed to have help;  our good friends Whitney and Max helped us with the furniture and both sets of parents stopped by with food and a willingness to clean (even though the sellers were nice, cleaning was not their strong point. Ew). 

I've had gobs of e-mails and requests for pictures, and I promise I will get them up-- just as soon as we can see the floor through all the boxes ;)

Damn if feels good to be a gangsta homeowner.

A&F,

  ME

Our House

JEGs and I made settlement on Falconhead Cottage on April 7, 2011.  It is a three bedroom twin built in 1923.  Although the house had been gutted and completely renovated just a few years before we moved in, we still have many things we would like to do to put 'our' stamp on the home.

We don't have any mind-blowing 'after' shots (Rome wasn't built in a day ;) but here are some 'before' and ' in progress' pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Living Room

Our living room was dark with two-tone walls of red and brown and smelly carpet:

After ripping up the carpet, we slapped on a coat of Valspar's Jekyll Grand Dining Sea Mist and replaced the subfloor and carpet.   We also added the IKEA HOVAS for husband-friendly seating

Yeah, I was getting my noon news on.  Don't hate on my love for Rick Williams and his sassy ties.  

To Do List: fix staircase landing, built in entertainment center, refinish coffee table and reupholster coffee table, paint chair,  art for the wall above the couch, replace ceiling light, replace wall sconces, and a new couch slipcover.

Kitchen

One of the things that really attracted us to this house was the massive, eat-in kitchen-- and I'm sure you can see why:

After a year of staring at that jelly bean green and hating it, we finally painted the walls Benjamin Moore's Weston Flax

 I got a honey of a deal for a vintage dresser and with the magic of paint, I created extra storage with a buffet

To help maximize the space, JEGs built a little office nook in an otherwise unused corner

To Do List: replace the floor (subfloor and tile), replace the island counter top with butcher block (?), center island in the room better

Mudroom 

Right off of the kitchen is a small mudroom that leads out to the backyard.  We currently are using it as a laundry room.  Eventually we would like to add in a small powder room.

Before we can add the powder room, we need to make it a functional laundry room.  We continued the Weston Flax color into this room, and added some super cheap, yet functional storage we scored off of Craigslist.

To Do List: replace subfloor and tile, possible move washer and dryer to basement and create powder room (still on the fence about this idea)

Third Bedroom

At the top of the steps, the first room you will see is our third bedroom.  When we first moved in, we set this us as a walk-in closet.  However, a month later we found out we were expecting, so it was converted into a nursery for our little monster.

After shuffling furniture around, I picked Glidden's Navajo Sands for the wall color, fell in love with a 6ft tree decal and added some colorful linens

 JEGs busted out the plaster in the closet and hung fresh new drywall as well as installed some fabulous Closet Maid in the closet for more beneficial storage.  More details here.

To Do List: build radiator cover, new art for over crib (?)

Guest Room

The next room on our house tour is our guest room.  At first this was just a place to house our junk.  After the news of our pregnancy, we scrambled to make it a suitable place for my mother to stay.

With the addition of  a HUGALUND, this room  doubles tripled as a guestroom/man cave/Hunter's play room.

When the second line showed up on the pee stick, we started making plans to move Hunter from the nursery into a big boy room.  With a little paint, a radiator cover and A LOT of work on the closet, the monster has a space that is all boy.

.

Bathroom

Our bathroom is modest, but functional.  We love love love the black and white tile on the floor.  The crazy blue paint?  Notstomuch.

We finally did something about the blue paint and covered it up with Glidden's Navajo Sand that was leftover from the baby's room.

To Do List: replace vanity, replace medicine cabinet, replace window sill.  

Master Bedroom

Finally we have our boudoir.  If this were MTv's Cribs, I would be talking about how this is where the magic happens.  However, very little interior design magic has happened here.

We moved the smaller dresser into the baby's room and added some closet space to hold us over till we can do a bigger closet renovation.

To Do List: paint all wood work, bust out closet to create two closets and built in dresser, build radiator cover/bookself, upgrade bed to queen size, art, replace side tables, add wall sconces, add bigger rug.

So there it is- our modest 1200 sq ft of investment.  We’ll share more details about what will go where and what projects we want to take on as things unfold. We’re all about the whole real-time blog-as-we-go thing – especially since we have so many new projects to tackle!  Hope you'll stick around for the ride!