project: kitchen backsplash

Scott and I have been talking about tiling the back splash in our kitchen for awhile. For some reason I didn't even think of it when we redid our countertops. We were finishing the basement at the same time so I think we were just focused on that project. I love the look of subway tiles in a kitchen though and now I get to enjoy the look everyday!

Before we just had a traditional style backsplash that matched the countertop and then painted drywall above that. It looked just fine but now that the tiles are in there it's amazing how much brighter and open it looks. After we finished the project we both wondered why we didn't do it a long time ago!

It was a very inexpensive project to do. For under a $100 we gave the kitchen a whole new look! I think the project took a total of around 10 hours. Scott put up most of the tile. After a few mistakes he told me my show was canceled. :) (You'd have to watch Design Star on HGTV to get that!) I did the grouting and now need to seal it.

It's nice to have a hubby with mad tiling skillz! :)

workin' on my fitness

When we finished the basement this winter we decided to put wood flooring in the smaller of the two bedrooms and use it as an exercise room. It's just the right size for the Total Gym and the elliptical runner.

We got the Total Gym in July and love it. Scott and I can both get a great workout with it and Thomas has even started using it. He's getting serious about his swimming now that swim team has started. The coaches encourage them to do sit ups, push ups, etc. on their own so Scott put the pull up bar on it for him last night. He went downstairs on his own today and worked out for 10 minutes or so.

The elliptical runner in this picture is new. We bought a Horizon Fitness model about two years ago but had some problems with it last spring that ended up not being repairable. When it first broke I called their customer service and was emailed a detailed parts list to look over and let them know what to send along with pictures of the problem. We procrastinated and took about 3 months to get that done. When we finally did they called and said that they were sending us a brand new one and within a week we received it! We are really happy with the new model and would highly recommend their company if you're shopping around for one. I have been running on it 4 days a week, 50 minutes a time and it's a great workout!

basement decorating

I've been having fun decorating the basement the last few months. It's going to be a long time before it is done but I don't mind. I've learned to be patient and only buy something when I really love it and can live with it for a long time.

I remember when Scott and I were first married and we went furniture shopping for our apartment. I picked out a blue and white checkered sofa and loveseat with a 'coordinating' pastel floral wingback chair and throw pillows. Scott kept asking if I was sure I wouldn't get sick of that chair. I insisted that I wouldn't but, of course, a year later I was. :) I ended up hiding that wingback chair in our bedroom and the checkered sofas were all that were left in the living room with solid cream throw pillows. I was done with pastel floral!

I think it takes awhile to find your decorating style though and to be sure of things that you like. After awhile you realize the colors that you are always drawn to and the style of decorating that fits your taste and it becomes easier. Having a very patient hubby helps too and I am lucky to have one!

We have been enjoying this space. The throw pillows and lamps have helped to cozy it up and make it a fun spot to curl up and watch a good movie.

I was excited to find these nesting tables in the perfect color. It's a nice break from all of the chocolate brown!

We are unsure of what we want to do with this area. For now we moved the table that was in the upstairs school/play area down here. It goes well and is a good spot to play games or for Scott to work at on his laptop.

The shower was completed recently. I am so happy with how it turned out. It's actually kind of L shaped. There is a bench along the other wall but it was impossible to get a good picture of.

I'm starting to look into window treatments now. I think I'm going to start by getting natural woven blinds like these in the picture below and then keep my eye out for something to soften them up. I wish I had the talent of The Nester to come up with some sort of 'mistreatment' that would work here!

basement pics

The basement is done! Well, pretty much. We are still waiting on the tile setter to finish the shower in the bathroom and we have a few small things left to do but we had furniture delivered yesterday and are enjoying the new space! Here are a few pictures. The bedrooms are really hard to photograph so there aren't any included of them.

carpet buying help

Everything I'm sharing about carpet is what I've learned since having it installed in the basement a week ago and want to remember for next time. You have to know the right questions to ask when it comes to buying carpet. What type of backing does it have? Will it beat up my woodwork during installation to where I'll have to apply another coat of polyurethane even though I've already done two coats and had a champagne toast to finally being done with that project? Are the seams easy to hide with this type of carpet? What happens if your daughter throws up on it a day after it's installed and we just happened to have a red meal the night before and I can't get the pink tinted stain out? Will the warranty cover that? All of these are questions that I wish I would've known to ask because all of these things have happened....incase you couldn't tell. :)

Let's start with the carpet backing. I was surprised by how scratched the woodwork was after the carpet was installed in the basement. When we had the carpet installed upstairs the woodwork was barely scratched at all. I mentioned this to the salesperson that I worked with at the carpet store and she said that is because we went with Shaw carpet in our upstairs and they are the only manufacturer that puts a soft back on all of their carpets to minimize damage during installation. Hmmm, wish I would've known that!

The seams show more with the carpet in the basement. The installer said that the berber we chose was very difficult to work with. I don't know if I would've chose a different carpet just because of this because the seams really aren't that bad. I'm sure that once we get furniture down there you'll never notice them but I think it's a good thing to know before you make your purchase.

And lastly check the warranty and know how to treat stains appropriately so that you have everything on hand to get out whatever stain might get on your carpet. It's true, Elle got sick the first night we had the carpet. Her and Thomas were having a camp-out down there. I worked and worked to get it out. Even my favorite cleaner wouldn't get it out completely! The next morning I called the carpet store and almost every type of stain was covered under the warranty except vomit. She called the manufacturer and gave me a couple of ideas to try to get it out and I also called my neighbor to see what she would do. My neighbor told me to soak it with warm water and (non-bleach) Dawn dishsoap and thankfully that did the trick! It pulled the last bit of the stain out and now you can't even tell where it was. I was so relieved and happy!

The other method I was going to try if the Dawn dishsoap wouldn't have worked was 2 Tbsp household amonia mixed with 1 cup warm water. I am going to purchase a small bottle of household amonia to have in the cupboard, just in case. One other tip I was told is to be sure to only use white rags and white paper towels when blotting. You run a risk of dying your carpet the color of your rag if you use anything else.

Here is a link to the Carpet and Rug Institute that has a great spot removing guide for pretty much anything that might get on your carpet. I've bookmarked it!

doorknobs

I am going to be doing a small series of posts about tips we've learned while building our house and finishing our basement. When we built our house four years ago we wanted to get every upgrade we could and still stay within our budget, doesn't everyone? That meant we did a lot of the work ourselves but we also learned to shop for the items we wanted for the best price possible. I've already shared about where I purchased our faucets. I was happy with everything I ordered except the RO faucets. They were way too big. Lesson learned: always check the dimensions of things if you haven't saw them in person. :)


These are the doorknobs that we have throughout our house. We have them in a pewter color everywhere except in the basement where we put in oil-rubbed bronze. They are an Emtek brand doorknob and are really well made. They are not sold at retail stores like Home Depot or Menards so Scott did some checking online and found them here for almost $30 less per knob than what we would've paid to get them from a local dealer. Even at the price Scott found they are still more expensive than a lot of doorknobs but the quality is definitely worth it. It only took about 5 - 10 minutes to do a quick search to find this better price and we saved around $150!

faucet deals

If you are in the market for a new faucet don't forget to look around online. See what's available at home improvement or plumbing stores and then search online for those same faucets at better prices. Today I purchased the snazzy faucet pictured above for the wet bar along with two faucets for reverse osmosis (one for the kitchen, one for the wet bar) and a shower faucet. I found exactly what I wanted at FaucetDirect.com, three of the faucets just happened to be on sale and I also found a promo code that saved me a little over $100! I saved even more because I didn't have to pay tax and I chose the free shipping option they offered since I don't need them for a couple of weeks yet. I'd say that was a pretty sweet deal. :) I did the same thing when we built our house 4 years ago and was able to save a lot of money.

wet bar

I talked to my mom on the phone last night and she wants to see more pictures of the basement. Here you go Mom! I really like how the wet bar turned out. The only things that are left to do in this area are - touch up paint where it got scratched during countertop installation, put the baseboard on, finish the plumbing for the sink and finish the wiring for the internet stuff.

The end of this basement project is in sight. I have been staining and polyurethaning boards and have a lot of it completed and ready for Scott to install this weekend. Next week I need to be sure to have all of my work done so that Scott will be able to finish all of the trim work next weekend when he gets home from his trip to Atlanta. Then carpet will be installed the following week. Woohoo! I'll show you the rest of it then. :)

a basement update

I am so excited! Progress is finally being made again on the basement bathroom! The ceiling and wall have been fixed. The ceiling still needs to be textured yet but is scheduled to be done on Friday. We were told that it would be done by Tuesday so I had the tile floor scheduled to get done today. Rather than move the tiling out again we decided to just go ahead and have it laid and then will put plastic down to protect it while the texturing and painting gets done.

Scott put a couple of heating mats down to keep the tile warm. We didn't do that when we finished the basement in the last place we lived and that tile was always freezing!

Here are the slate tiles installed! Tomorrow it will be grouted but I couldn't wait to post a picture. :) I love how it turned out and can't wait to see how the shower is going to look. That will not be done for a week or two though.

the good, the bad and the ugly

The Good - This weekend we cleared out the utility room, scrubbed the floor and then painted it with epoxy paint. It looks so much better! Today I've been moving everything thing back into this room and getting it organized.


The Bad - Demolition of one wall in our bathroom. After the leak we called the guy who did our drywall and he said that we needed to get the insulation out of wall because it would never dry. Now we can get it repaired and hopefully get to tile work soon.



The Ugly - Our yard. Construction is not pretty!

drip, drip, drip

This afternoon when we got home from Nebraska I went downstairs to put one more coat of paint on the walls of the bathroom before tile work begins this week. When I got down there the bathroom floor was wet and water was dripping from the ceiling. Yikes!! Scott turned the water off right away and started investigating. It turns out that there is a pretty good size slice in our flexible water line that runs to our fridge. We are baffled how it happened because there hasn't been any work done in the ceiling for a few weeks now. Of course we wish it would've never happened but are so thankful that it happened now and not after more work was completed in that room and that the mess is only in that one room. We are not sure what we have to do in there now. We have a fan going in there to help dry it all out. Tile is definately postponed for the week though.



We were in Nebraska to celebrate Scott's sister's wedding yesterday. I'll be posting pictures tomorrow but right now I'm going to go drink the cosmo Scott just made me. It's sounding good after being in the vehicle with the kids all day and coming home to our surprise.

another basement post

I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of the basement. This weekend Scott installed this wood floor in the wet bar area. He will be installing it in the bedroom that we will be using as an exercise room after the window trim work gets done and the electrical is finished. It was our bargain find at Home Depot a couple of months ago. We decided to stop in after church and take a look at what they had for flooring. This was our favorite flooring and it just happened to be clearanced out and there was just the right amount for our project. Love it when that happens!

This wall is on the opposite side of the wet bar and I decided to carry the same color over as an accent wall. An entertainment center is being built to match the wet bar cabinets. All of the other walls are going to be the same taupe color that I have throughout the rest of the house.

Are you wondering why you see an unfinished door there along with windows that still need to be stained yet when I said that I was going to stain before paint? That really was my intention and I did start but there just isn't time! Cabinets are being installed on March 13th so painting became a priority so that we could get the wood and tile flooring done before then. Carpet will not be installed before the staining and polying is done though so I still have motivation to get it done! :)

For those of you who don't know, when we built this house I stained and/or polyurethaned pretty much all of the windows, doors, trim, exterior cedar siding, and wood floor. Family did help me with it when they came up to help us and Scott helped on the siding when he could but he was plenty busy with other projects. There wasn't time to get all of it completely done before we closed on the house and moved in. I still have rooms in the upstairs where polyurethaning needs done....4 years later. Most people don't even notice that it's not done but I do so it's always on my to do list. To say that I am sick of staining and polyurethaning is an understatement and am so glad that I am getting closer to being done now!

This is Crazy Hair. She looks like a wild child except after a bath when her hair is super curly and cute. I think we are going to have to start putting some product in her hair to tame those curls! :)

dust, dust, dust

I told you my house is dusty with all of the drywalling and sanding that has been happening with our basement getting finished. Here are some pictures to show you just how bad it is. I can't even believe it! I have done all I can to try to keep the dust to as much of a minimum as possible. I've turned the furnace off everyday that work has been going on, a sheet of poly has been hung and taped to the wall to block the entrance to the basement when they've been sanding and I've tried to stay ahead of it as much as possible by cleaning. Seriously, the floor was mopped this morning and this is what it looks like now 8 hours later!! The only thing that is keeping me from pulling my hair out is to know that we are almost done. The basement is completely primed as of today and it looks great!

I guess I'll just be doing my spring deep cleaning a little early this year!

the fun begins

The basement will be primed by Thursday which means that all of the fun decorating stuff gets to start! I am undecided when it comes to paint colors. I will probably stick to a brownish neutral color in the family room but go with a couple of fun colors in the bedrooms. I'm really excited to get to the painting but am going to force myself to get the staining and polyurethaning done first. I need the motivation to get it done! I did a little surfing online to get ideas and found a few pictures to show you what I have in mind for down there -

I need to find 4 light fixtures for the hallway and bedrooms. I'm hoping to find some in this style.

The door style of the cabinets in the wet bar and the vanity in the bathroom are going to look like this in rustic cherry. I am really excited about these!

With the exception of a few places being wood floor and the bathroom being tiled in slate, all the other flooring with be carpet. I am thinking of going with a berber carpet similar to this in the color of DIRT! :)

under construction

My dad and brother did a fabulous job framing our basement and getting it to the point of being ready for taping and mudding. I love the way it turned out! Thank you so much Dad and Tory!



This is my brother. He likes glue. :) Just kidding! He's just a funny guy.