Jut and Linds

Unannounced, I gave up blogging for lent, and the last 40 days have given us a lot of time to accomplish some things. Now I’m full of stuff to write about and can’t wait to fill you in on all the excitment happening around here! I’ll start with the house, and then come back with some wedding updates!

So awhile ago, I showed you pictures of the house’s current state, and told you we would be having a paint party with my parents. Well, it happened, and we are totally in love with the results! I’m back with pictures, and I hope you like the difference as much as we do!

First I should show you our house color scheme! I based it off of Jackie’s from Teal and Lime, because I love every single square inch of her home! Obviously I was destined to find her blog exactly one day after deciding to paint our living room gray and teal! I did revamp it a tiny bit to fit our tastes, and came up with something we both love.

 Now onto the before and after photos!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, all of the paint is Velspar’s Signature Color Interior Satin Paint Plus Primer, from Lowe’s.

In the living room, we chose Vintage Teal for the accent wall around the fireplace, and Sharkfin for the other three.

It’s a fabulous shade of dark, without being too dark, and makes the room feel so much cozier than the sky blue that was in there before. The gray pops against the white trim and newly replaced white outlet/switch covers perfectly, and I’ve been having a blast finding lime green, yellow, and teal accessories to throw around. Thank goodness for wonderful (and cheap!) places like TJ Maxx, Homegoods, and IKEA, and websites like Joss and Main!

Of course we’re not even close to calling this room finished! We definitely want to get a big sectional and I think we’ve finally figured out what we want to do with the fireplace. I cannot wait to see how awesome it looks when we have the budget to do everything!

In the dining room, we ended up with a happy accident. We want to install a chair-rail, so we decided to do the same dark gray from the living room on the bottom, and a lighter gray on top. We originally chose Autumn Fog for the top, but the guy at Lowe’s mixed us Pelican instead. (The site swatch gives it a brownish tint, but it’s actually a super light gray.) When we got home and started painting, I kept saying it looked really light compared to the tester we had painted, but everyone kept telling me it would dry darker. About a week later, I held up the paint swatch to the wall and realized the mistake. Fortunately, we don’t hate the lighter shade, so we’re going to leave it for now. My only concern is that in darker lighting conditions, like going up the stairs, it looks very blue. Hopefully changing out the light fixture at the top of the steps someday will help that.

Next up in here I want to install the chair-rail, cover the chairs, and add a piece of furniture under the one window. Right now we get home and throw everything on the dining room table. It’ll be nice to have a designated spot to put our keys, headphones, bus passes, and anything else we happen to pull out of our pockets! Plus, we could always use some extra storage for serveware and such. (We recently bought the piece of furniture, and it’ll be my first true DIY experience, so I’m giving it it’s own post, coming soon!)

In between painting, we’ve also checked a few other things off of our master list of house upgrades, so here are a few more photos, and an update of the list.

We got new mattresses! We’ve finally upgraded to a queen from a full, thanks to Levin Furniture’s Clearance Warehouse. After much deliberation, we went with a Sealy Gulfside pillow top with a split box-spring, and we’re sleeping better than we have in years! (It is much harder to get out of bed now, though!)

We got a patio furniture set, which came in handy when we hosted Justin’s family for a cookout, I see many more cookouts in our near future! We also replaced the mailbox, since our old one was leaky and making all of our mail soggy every time it rained. I plan to paint the wood a darker color, and we added our house numbers to the pole, which I obviously can’t show you :) Maybe now visitors won’t pass our house twice before finding it!

We replaced the outside light fixtures, by trading for the ones on Justin’s mom’s house. These look so much better than our mismatched/broken ones!

We also hung our monogrammed door knocker, that Jay and April got us for Christmas, which I can’t show you a picture of because it has our last name on it :)

Our washer and dryer finally arrived 5 months late! (It had been on backorder since Black Friday!) Brandon and Jeremy visited and installed it for us! Thanks guys!!

We also replaced both toilet seats, and had a plumber come fix our upstairs shower issue. Turns out, our flipper installed the pipes backwards, so hot is cold and cold is hot! Super lame, but we’re going to leave it alone for now, until we can afford to redo all the tiling around the pipes.

Of course, even after all of that, we still have a million things we’d like to do around here! Here’s an updated master list to keep you in the loop:

As of 3/13/12

Small/Medium Stuff:

• Change doorknobs and deadbolts
• Hang door knocker on front door
• Line kitchen cabinets and drawers
• Line linen closet shelves
• Window blinds (13/16 complete)
• Install bathroom fixtures
• Install closet system in small master closet for time being
• Drylock basement
• Paint every room (2/9 complete)
• Paint all trim throughout house white
• Paint banister
• Refinish fireplace
• Putty nail holes in trim throughout house and paint
• Fill holes that were cut too large (Around light fixtures, outlet covers, etc.)
• Frost the kitchen side door
• Replace faucet and cabinet knobs in downstairs bathroom to match other chrome
• Replace light fixtures in upstairs bathroom to match other brushed nickel
• Replace fan covers in both bathrooms
• Replace upstairs toilet seat
• Replace downstairs toilet seat
• Caulk around tub and shower
• Fix upstairs shower
• Replace trim around upstairs bathroom window
• Replace trim around kitchen window
• Replace all outlet and switch covers to white and turn outlets rightside up (8/? complete)
• Re-install overhead lighting in living room
• Re-install outside lighting on side door
• Replace outside light fixtures on front doors
• Fix outside lighting around second front door
• Change outside light above garage to motion detector
• Install light switch at bottom of basement
• Create a frame gallery in dining room (similar to this, from YHL)
• Plant evergreen trees along backyard line to block view of neighbor’s garage
• Replace the mailbox
• Remove clothing line poles from backyard, fill holes
• Install chair rail in dining room
• Install crown molding in dining and living rooms

Big Projects

• Fence around side and backyard
• Create walk-in closet from attic space off master bedroom
• Build deck off back of house above driveway
• Change living room window into door to deck
• Finish basement
• Mudroom
• Laundry room
• Half-bathroom
• Entertaining Space w/ bar
• Install French Drain if needed for basement
• Landscape both front and backyard

Furnishings to save up for:

• Fireplace screen and tools
• Window Blinds (3 left)
• Washer and Dryer
• A queen sized bed. We’re tired of sleeping on a full!
• Bedroom furniture
• Patio furniture
• A big U-shaped sectional for living room
• Large area rug for living room
• Coffee table/storage ottoman for living room
• Cupboard/counter piece for upstairs bathroom between dual sinks
• A buffet type furniture piece for under dining room window

So that’s what we’ve been up to for the last 40 days! We’re finally turning this house into our home, and having such a good time in the process!

xoxo

 

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