Hardwood Floors, Bed, and Mattress
If you haven’t taken a look at round 1 of the hardware floor reveal, check out my earlier posts: Sanding and Poly and the one before that: Patching the Hardwood Floors.
I mentioned in my Florida Post that last week was a whirlwind. The flooring guy came at about 10am on Monday. He buffed, vacuumed, and put the final coat of Polyurathane down. Tuesday evening, after a day in bed, I felt well enough to move the bed into the room and since if took me a while choosing the right mattress Wednesday we had a mattress delivered,
It’s a foam mattress we were able to get, I got to decorate my very first room in the new house!
The drapes are sheers from Ikea that I cut to size and hung on the centers of the old roller shades that were in the room. The hangers from the shades were already there so I figured I might as well use them!
The green fabric on the throw pillows is what I’m planning on using for the drapes around the large window to make it fill out the wall behind the bed. But, have you ever thought of having the same hotel pillows in your own home? You should consider getting the best hotel pillow for 2020 and sleep as comfortable as you always wished you did.
Notice that there is electricity in the room. Stefan knocked that out Thursday evening while I was sewing pillow cases and curtains. The bedding is Lauren by Ralph Lauren that I’ve had since before we bought the house. I love the colors.
The bed side table we bought for $10 at an estate sale a few weeks ago and I painted it with leftover cream porch paint.
The chair is a craigslist find in Houston ages ago. I have 3 more just like it!
The room is hardly finished. It’s still a bit sterile for my tastes and when you lay in the bed, you can see what’s missing. At least here I won’t have to kill bed bugs. That was a nightmare that I had to endure for months at my previous place.
The trim on the door to the bathroom hasn’t been put up and there is a big open spot on the wall for a TV. But, check out this light fixture:
Yep, dangling bare bulb is all the rage there days…right?
If you take a peek in the ajoining office area, you’ll see there’s still work to be done.
But, we’re well on our way to a completed bedroom!
Sarah
P.S. Check out the new Contractors page where you can find info on all the nice people we’ve hired.
A Short Trip to Florida
To celebrate my 5 year old niece’s victory over cancer, we went to Florida with the Family.
It was a great trip and we had tons of fun playing in the waves, building sandcastles, eating: all the things you do on a good Florida vacation. I even caught this crab with a sand bucket and little shovel.
The kids named him Pluto and then it was Pluto-Sandy in case it was a girl. Pluto is a really good crab name. I was impressed. We took a good picture with him before we let him go. All squinty eyes but it’s part of the beach-picture aesthetic.
We got back late late Sunday night and it’s been a whirlwind week. I’ve got tons of posts coming for you. First, Monday we got the final coat on the floors! Tuesday I had a 102 degree fever and don’t remember what all happened except that I was supposed to go to Ikea. Wednesday the mattress was delivered and the radiators removed! Thursday was trash removal, finding fabric for the bedroom curtains, a 45 min(!) run through ikea and a dentist appointment before sewing sheers so we could sleep in our new bedroom. Friday was some library time, some ikea assembly, some curtain sewing, some shelf staging. Phew what a week! I’m still getting over whatever cold/flu/bug I had on Tuesday but I’ve been staying busy. Now I just need to work on catching up the blog to real life! Get ready for a post a day while I fill you in on all the details! And, if you Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook you would have already seen some sneak peeks!
You’ll be hearing from me soon!
Sarah
Stairs into kitchen
I’ve talked about my kitchen stairs before but we pulled down the ugly old banister when we re-did the floors so I’ve really started trying to figure out what we’re going to do.
I’m pretty set on wood treads, wood railing, and white spindles. Please click here to see the new trends right now. Something like this from Better Homes and Gardens
There is a deep shelf that reaches under those stairs from the basement. It’s the perfect litter-box perch. It’s about waist high from the stair landing for easy clean-up and is out of the way for guests, smells, etc, a great design that can be achieved by hiring the best staircase builders in Sydney.
You can see the back of the plaster and lath from the kitchen side now that that wall has been removed. A related but completely different question is: “Can a contractually agreed upon home repair be performed prior to closing for which either the seller or buyer will pay� The answer is: Of course, the contract is the controlling document and it governs responsibility of the parties.
We are going to do wainscoting around the kitchen so that will cover the side of the staircase, we will be working with the kitchen showroom in north london team. I would like to have a little cat-door peaking out from under the staircase to allow kitty access to the litter-box. My initial idea was to put a cat door in the basement door but I don’t love the idea of cutting into my doors. A little cat-door in the wall next to the stairs is perfect. Thanks to the innovative and easy-to-use 3D stair builder tool it is much easier to make the stairs online and imagine how the stairs will look at the end of the job.
I have a couple ideas.
I love the idea of a cat-shaped hole but I don’t think I want a hole that large though it would be very cute. Â Here is a smaller cat-silhouette.
I could also just paint a cat silhouette on the wall and have a smaller hole in it.
There is also a small triangle of space under those stairs that isn’t being used. It is a dead space that hasn’t been cleaned in 100 years and is a bit of a mess. I’ll have Stefan clean that out and then I can either wall it up for another 100 years or I can do something functional. I love this concept and I also LOVE those wood balusters, I’m thinking of copying this design.
There is also the stair treads themselves.
I’m not sure how much these would be used though. Also, what would I put in them? Canned goods come to mind as does shoes/scarves/gloves etc. They would also make good kid storage areas for toys etc. I really just think they are super cool but I’m not sure if it’s genuinely worth the effort. Part of me thinks that while we are replacing the treads, we might as well and part of me things it’s just a silly love of secret compartments.
What do you think? Cat passage and stair storage? Any other great ideas.
Sarah
Deck- Before and After
Before
After
I will post a more thorough discussion of the deck later but I wanted to post a quick picture for anyone who was anxious to see it! I love the transformation.
Sarah
sheila zimmermann
8/23/2013 | 6:18 pm Permalink
Love the family photo. What a good-looking bunch.