You can see in the pictures below, I put support braces at the tops and bottoms of each bookcase.  This was to ensure we could secure this thing into another stud besides through the sides.  I also used a boatload of liquid nails.  I’m pretty sure this thing is going nowhere.  I feel bad for the next homeowners should we decide to move and should they decide to take this thing down.  Oh man, they’re in for some fun.

Next up was beginning the support pieces for the valance.  This is where I became nervous.  I knew this would have to be able to support plenty of weight between the wood valance, molding and puck-lighting.  In addition to support, I knew this would need to be completely level.  But how do you get it completely level when your ceiling is about a half inch height difference from one end to another?  I’m not sure.  But it all worked out; one way or another.

I supported the valance cleat to the wall by drilling screws through just about every stud between the two bookcases.  It also has support with lots of liquid nails.  I think I’m forming an obsession.  I also secured each end to the bookcases via screw.

I then began securing my second cleat to the ceiling.  Do you know how hard it is to find a stud in a ceiling?  I knocked and knocked on the ceiling for probably a half hour trying to find each stud.  The stud finder didn’t help, at all; probably because I’m a bit too awkward holding that thing up against the ceiling.  You’re probably wondering where I am going with these cleats and how it all ties into the valance, huh?  Here is the plan.

Each cleat will secure a portion of the weight from the valance face and bottom.  Then the valance face will secure into the bottom creating a nice clean edge.  Dear god I hope so. You’ll also see I drilled a hole for the puck lighting which will sit on the bottom of the valance bottom.

Here you see the valance face mounted via screws to the front valance cleat. It’s also secured with screws through the sides of the bookcases.  This thing is going nowhere. Don’t worry about those gaps you see between the ceiling and the bookcase; the crown will hide a lot of these imperfections.  Phew.

This is the view from “inside” the valance.  You’ll see I drilled a hole for the puck-lighting again.  See that random screw?  It was my clever way of making sure the valance face stayed level and straight while I was securing it to the cleats.  The valance bottom will fit snug behind the valance front and the rear cleat.

So what’s on the remaining to do?  A couple things actually.

• Install puck-lighting to valance bottom.
• Run wires to the left bookcase (where the outlet is).
• Secure valance bottom to the rear cleat and valance face.
• Install crown molding.
• Caulk the heck out of this thing.
• Prime the heck out of this thing.
• Paint.

Stay tuned.

I called in a good friend of mine to do the filming and editing and for 8 hours on Saturday, we interviewed various friends and family.  It was an absolute blast and I cannot wait to see the final product.  Until then, here are some teasers!

I had my camera filming behind the professionals in order to just capture the moment.  Here’s a small teaser from my footage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The powder room is pretty much entirely painted.  We do have some touch-up work to do as well as some re-caulking in some areas.  But otherwise, the incredibly dark and dramatic paint is here to stay.  The pictures don’t really do it justice, the contrast just isn’t strong enough.  I’m sure once we fill the space with some accessories, the space will look incredible.

The dark gray really is growing on me though!  Especially after spending a few minutes in there glazing at a wall.  TMI?  Too far?  We’re friends, right?

Here is the powder room from the hallway.  Holy dark Batman!  It does look a bit black, but I swear, it’s not.

And here is from another angle.  I was hoping to capture the color better against the glossy white sink.  Did it work?

While spending some time in Home Depot yesterday picking up supplies, we decided to look at towel racks and the like.  We found a set we liked, but for the price (roughly $25 for the towel bar and another $25 for the toilet paper holder) we just weren’t completely sold.

We both loved this towel ring as it’s entirely seamless, but after sleeping on it, I think it screams “THIS IS US!” too much.  Do we really want something that screams “US!” in such a dramatic powder room?  I think we can be a bit more creative in this space than going with something predictable.  But ten bucks says we still settle on it.

And here is the toiler paper holder.  Again, we love the brushed nickel and the seamless design — but I feel like we’ve done this before.

What do you think?  Do we go with the predictable options?  Or do we set out to discover something a bit more creative?  My hesitation with the latter is, how creative can you really get with these things anyways?

And by the way, this was the first time I have painted where 1) I didn’t get paint all over my clothes and 2) I didn’t get paint in my hair!  And Macky stayed paint-free as well!

With a little twisting of the arm, I talked Mike into painting today. He HATES painting. Did I ever tell you that we started our chair rail project because Mike didn’t want to paint the powder room? Yes, he would rather start a major molding project than paint a very small room. Well today, his time was up. The powder room it was!

We had a spare can of Benjamin Moore Smoked Oyster that was color matched to Olympic’s no VOC paint. We originally bought it to paint our office stripes but our lighter stripe ended up being darker than we wanted so we made that our dark stripe and picked a new light stripe, sidelining the Smoked Oyster. The Smoked Oyster was actually the color of our spare bathroom in our condo and I always loved it. I’ve been itching to incorporate it into this house and I figured the small powder room was the best choice.

First, I guess I should introduce you to the powder room?

It’s not much (and very hard to take pictures of), but it’s a decent size for a powder room. My major pet peeve with this room is that the towel bar is to the left of the toilet paper holder in this picture. So you wash your hands at the sink, then have to run across the room for a towel? No bueno.

We knew that towel bar was coming down, so we removed it (along with the toilet paper holder, to paint. I wanted a quick and easy day project, so we didn’t plan to replace anything else at this point…just get some color on the walls and do the rest gradually. We were going to remove the mirror because we were planning to replace it eventually and we didn’t want to paint around it, but upon unscrewing… it broke.

Seven years of bad luck…or less time with an awkward, oval shaped mirror. No biggie, it’s not like we get dressed in there in the morning.

Then something else happened, I put the Smoked Oyster on the wall and… it was fugly.

(ps- if you follow me on Twitter you already know about the T.P. teepee. Mike stacked it on Thursday night in an attempt to liven up the space? It was removed before painting)

It had this red violet tint to it that I don’t remember it having…

I was going to live with it, but Mike hated it and I pretty much did too. I didn’t want to have to repaint again in a few months, so off to Lowe’s we went (it was 5:30 tonight, btw)

I knew I wanted something dramatic, so we decided to go with a dark gray color. We picked it straight off of the Olympic selections in a matter of minutes. I later realized that my choice matched my pants and flip flops…

It’s the color in the middle- Cracked Slate.

Yes, it’s incredibly dark and dramatic (I think the picture above makes it appear even darker than it is). I’m still having my doubts, but I secretly love my nearly black bathroom. Mike literally just finished rolling (he was still rolling when I started writing this) so there won’t be any after pictures just yet, but here it is during my cutting in…

I know, some of you just fell over. I painted a small room with no windows nearly black? Yes, yes I did. And it’s not black, it’s very hard to capture on camera. It’s a satiny navy blue-ish, deep purple-ish, very inky color. I normally never tape and just free hand it, but I thought a dark color was risky. Turns out taping made more of a mess and we have a lot of touch ups to do. Somehow our to-do list has grown to include crown molding, since a dark wall meets white ceiling is near impossible to do flawlessly.

I think this room will be one that is transformed with accessories. I love the dark color now, because I can see it and I know where I’m going with it. I didn’t plan (at least at the beginning of this day) to paint it so dark, but I plan on adding glossy white accessories, possibly large matted frames and pops of yellow. Somehow my little 2 hour Labor Day project has turned into a room overhaul complete with a stretching of my limits

ps- I start grad school again tomorrow and I have class on Tuesday nights until 10:30… which means I won’t be home until 11:30. I will do my best to get you some after pictures tomorrow!

Here is the right side. All the way to the right you can see our neighbors also had their brush cleared and theirs is all done and looking pretty

A little more center…

Sort of left center…

And left field side.

We still have 3 dead trees that are getting cut down tomorrow, which is good news considering NJ has a tornado watch in effect tonight. I’ve never lived in an area of tornado watches in my 27 years living here. Yeah so, all the more motivation to get rid of trees that may fall on my house in high winds

Oh! More good news! Our tree buddy is going to dump our pile of wood at the back of the property line so that we don’t have to carry each of those pieces back there! Yay!

The backyard looks 10 times better already. I’m already thinking of whether I could defy the odds and grow grass in the summer. Hm worth a shot in the shady area between those trees? Then maybe I can do this, which I found on Pinterest…

(via)

Or maybe build a kick ass treehouse, also found on Pinterest?

(via)

Time will tell what we do with our new found land!

ps- two days later and both hydrangeas in the front yard are blooming!

Second, I did get one, but the coupon was too late

On Friday after work, Mike and I hustled our rears to Pottery Barn and bought the Chesapeake dining set. Yes after months and months of searching (which you can read about here, here and here if you’re bored), we finally took the plunge. And what a completely random plunge it was, considering my entire dining room is furnished with things from Ikea and Target.

I’m not mad about the coupon, because we weighed our options before we decided to go buy it in person. I priced out purchasing online and realized that with the high shipping costs (even with the current promotion), it was best to order it in store. We know it was expensive and kinda blew our budget. I say kinda because technically we stayed in budget, we just got half of the furniture we planned So we don’t get a loungey area this year, but that’s okay since we’re completely in love with the set we ended up with.

The floral cushions on the stock images are killing me, so I gave you the plain ol’ view.

So what made us find this set on a Wednesday and buy it on Friday when I’ve been agonizing for weeks/months? Well here’s a list! Some of which are listed in my previous post, but hey, I like justifying expensive purchases

1. We love it, which we could only say about the uber expensive Ventura set from Crate and Barrel before this guy came around.

2. It is still a fraction of the cost of the astronomically priced (have I mentioned that before?) Ventura set, and we actually like this set more.

3. It is solid wood and can be sanded and refinished rather than having a cheap set get crummy or go out of style in several years.

4. The table extends to 104 inches long and the extensions are stored underneath the table. Plus the chairs stack for storage. We realize that even with just either of our immediate families, we need more than 6 seats. Why buy a nice table if we always have to stick a folding table at the end?

5. We can add to this over time and mix and match other pieces of differing styles. I was having a hard time thinking of what I could add to the wicker sets I was previously eyeing. Plus doing this makes it a little more budget friendly.

6. I think this style better suits the patio, but I had to see the patio done first to realize this one.

7. I just finished 2 graduate classes with 101 average in one and a 99.6 in the other. Work hard, play harder

8. My twitter friends said I should buy it.

9. We want to sit on the patio this summer, and we’re not getting any younger here.

10. I nearly died this past week, please refer to number 7.

We also picked up a bench to use when the table is extended, rather than picking up extra chairs. We figure we can also use the bench as extra loungey seating, plus I’ve always wanted a table with a bench!

The only “extra” we purchased was 2 of these throw pillows which were 20% off.

I’ve wanted wide striped pillows for ages and I figured I’d make my own, but for around $20 for these pretty large pillows I figured I couldn’t do much cheaper. Oh and I haven’t used my sewing machine yet, so actually making them may not have happened this summer.  I plan on sticking these on some plastic adirondack chairs we already have to make them look a little nicer until we can do better. We didn’t pick up any of the chair cushions that went with the table or anything because a) I don’t know if we want them and b) I can get them cheaper elsewhere. We started with the bare minimum for now.

We opened a Pottery Barn credit card to receive 10% back in reward points. With the money we’ll be getting back, we’re thinking of buying a fresca blue square umbrella.

It’s amazing, I thought I wanted such a bright and fun backyard but once it started to come together, it just wasn’t screaming bright fiesta. I guess sometimes you can’t plan these things out no matter how much you think you have your mind set!

So we justified, planned what to get and purchased it. Shockingly, the store had every single piece in stock. We have an SUV now, so no problem, right? Wrong. The table box was ginormous. So on Friday, we left with only 3 chairs and a bench.

We asked my parents to come down yesterday with my dad’s pickup and we were able to get the table and remaining 3 chairs. Thank goodness they followed us to Pottery Barn because only the table and 2 chairs fit in his pickup (he has a hard top on it) and we were able to take the final chair. I meant to take a picture of the boxy chaos, but I forgot.

I wish I had a set up after picture to show, but sadly, it rained all weekend and this is what the weather is looking like for the rest of the week.

Whooomp whoomp. Sunday is supposed to be clear so hopefully we can put our furniture together then. Supposedly we “just have to put the legs on” (Pottery Barn Employee, 2011). I hope you get what you pay for in the assembly department and we’re not battling an Ikea-esque purchase. Though I must say, Ikea has gotten way better the past 2-3 years. Anywho, the minute this thing is together I will be snapping pictures!

ps- I’m still recovering from this semester (see #7 and #10 above), so I know I’m way behind in housekeeping around here. I owe everyone an updated blog feed, I wasn’t getting email notifications when I received comments so I’ve been awful at responding to those, and I have 8 million projects left unfinished. I’m slowly easing my way back into blog loving, so bear with me

My rough day was made much better when I came home to see that some fabric samples I ordered from Fabric.com had arrived. How did I not venture into online fabric shopping before?? I am in love with all of the possibilities! Here’s a little sneak peak at the first round I am considering…

I think I have a front runner and seeing this picture has given me even more ideas. I love seeing different patterns together like this, especially when designers make it easy for you by matching the same colors in a bunch of different styles! I am just learning to venture out with patterns and textures, so the online option takes some of the intimidation out of the way. It’s like a whole new wooooorld! Cue the Aladdin! Wait.. more about that tomorrow…

Did I just pull a teaser? Maybe

In my new Flickr account I’ve added all of the pictures of the house while it was under construction. You can find them (in chronological order, for the most part) under the House Under Construction set. These pictures were kind of the jumping off point for this blog, since they are the pictures I used to post under my personal Facebook account as our house was being built. Once the house was done, I stopped taking pictures and people were like whaaaat? More pictures please! And that’s how it all began…

Included are some areas of the house you’ve never seen, such as our master bathroom…

The hallway bathroom….

One of the spare bedrooms…

And the backyard…

The reason why I haven’t showed you any of these spaces is that they haven’t been touched since we moved in. Wait no, the hall bathroom has a shower curtain now and the master has some paper blinds over the tub, but other than that, we’ve done nothing in those areas. Slow and steady wins the race

Flickr is smart enough to know what camera I took each picture with and when it was taken (for the most part, some pictures are marked as the date they were uploaded), so please excuse the poor quality of the iPhone pics. I want to eventually get a room by room tour up and maybe even make Flickr sets of rooms from start to finish. I haven’t decided how to execute it yet, but it’s in the works!

Looking at these pictures make me happy, it was such an exciting, nerve-wracking and fun time. I still look at them and think, holy crap, we did it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This song has been in our heads for a week. Though I didn’t know the words were “Celebrate a dream come true” and I normally just run around singing “Celebrate da datty doooo”. I also perform the arm waving dance, which I did once while entering the Magic Kingdom and my beloved iPhone took a flying leap out of my pocket and onto the concrete. Mike told me this was a sign from God to never do that dance in public again. Luckily I can still bust it out in the house!

It took me about 4 months (of actual “serious” blogging) to get to this point. So I figured I’d set out some goals to accomplish by my next milestones. A list, shall we?

By my 200th post:

(via)

I would like to have painted another room in this house. Whether it’s the office, powder room or master, within another 4 months I hope to have told you about some new color on our walls!

By my 300th post:

(via)

We have been wanting to add some lighting to our landscaping since our yard is ridiculously dark at night. I would also like to change out some of our builder given landscaping with maybe some more hydrangeas. That is, if the two I planted last summer come back to life!

By my 400th post:

(via)

I would love to have our master bedroom completely (or almost completely) finished and made-over. I don’t necessarily want it to look like this one, I just picked a dreamy looking one

By my 500th post:

(via)

A nice finished basement with a pimped out theater area. Mike can go crazy with all of his speakers and wires and whatnot, and I can get a couch with cup holders in it without feeling like I’m breaking a design rule…

By my 1,000th post:

(via)

We’ve been dreaming up a nice backyard area for ages and well, this one wouldn’t be so shabby! We’re not sure if we want to do a deck, patio or combination type thing, so this project isn’t a big priority. Once we feel like we need an outdoor entertaining space we’ll look into it a little bit more!

By my 1,500th post:

(via)

If you’ve done the math at this point, you’d know this one is very far down the line, but I hope to be able to add a nursery to my resume in a few years. I love browsing nurseries, they are just so fun and imaginative. This one is one of Young House Love’s great nursery crashes on Baby Center. Oh and with a nursery of course comes a spin-off blog You think that I’d dedicate a blog to my cats and house but not dedicate one to my future kids?

Hopefully I’ll keep up with some of these goals, at least the ones within the next year or so. It will be interesting to see how many posts it takes me to actually finish and post about each thing! Now I’m off to celebrate a dream come true by watching a new episode of Jersey Shore!!

]]> http://thelilhousethatcould.com/2011/01/13/the-100th-post/feed/ 15 http://thelilhousethatcould.com/2011/01/02/new-year-new-projects/ http://thelilhousethatcould.com/2011/01/02/new-year-new-projects/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:56:02 +0000 Rebecca http://thelilhousethatcould.com/?p=1610 First off a little year-end blurb

I’d like to thank all of you who have visited my little side project and sent me words of encouragement- whether through email, snail mail (thank you Laura ) or in person. I really lacked the confidence to get this thing going in the beginning (if you look at the archives, I half started this in February!), but because of the kind words from people I haven’t talked to in years, people I’ve never met, or people who want me to help them with their homes, I feel so loved and encouraged to continue this. I LOVE doing this and it’s so rewarding to hear that so many of you enjoy it too. So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me to keep this bloggy up. On to a new year of blogging!

Though we still have many, many unfinished projects hanging around from 2010, we’ve already begun planning some new projects for 2011. We often say that we have house A.D.H.D., we bounce from room to room, never really finishing things. Oh you’ve noticed? Well this is sort of intentional because it keeps us interested, gives us time to think and re-think of things we’d like to do and be really proud of our finished product.

So what’s new around here? Well first off, we received the Delta Pilar Touch 2O Single Handle Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet we were eyeing on our Dear Santa list!

It was a generous gift from Mike’s parents and we are very excited to put the final piece of our kitchen puzzle together! I am planning on recreating the commercial once it’s installed….

While we’re on the topic of Christmas gifts, my parents bought us a Cutting Edge Stencil. I had been eyeing up the Casablanca Allover Stencil for months and decided it would be a good gift to ask for. Since I love meticulous, detailed jobs, I am going to do something like this in our master bedroom…

Okay, I am beyond excited to do this. Though Mike has already warned me that though he is fully confident in my abilities, this project is outside of his skill set. He always manages to roll paint in his hair, never mind successfully applying a stencil….

Yesterday, we hit up Ikea and found another missing puzzle piece- extra long teal-ish curtain panels. These are something I’ve been thinking of for our family room for quite some time. Once we added our white roman shades, we knew we needed a little something extra there. Cue the Merete dark blue panels!

They are nearly identical to the color of my coffee filter wreath ribbon and they will add just the right amount of boldness and fun that we’ve wanted in the family room since we moved in.

Soon I will have the Hawaii inspired color scheme I’ve been dreaming of in the family room.

As excited as I am to do all of these things ASAP, we’re laying low this week, putting away some Christmas decorations, oh and HEADING TO DISNEY ON WEDNESDAY! Woooo

Anyone else scheming up 2011 projects already?