stair gallery

It took a few weeks, but I finally got it done. I've been dreaming of this since we decided to open up the stair case! I've been collecting and saving these frames for about two years now.

Brace yourselves... and don't judge. I might be going for the world record in the category of "Number of Photos Displayed in a Single Dwelling". They're all over my house, but I like it that way.

Let's call this the before:



After:
We love it!!! I love the way that photographs instantly personalize a space. I had some helpers, who were so excited to see the pictures of our family and some of their art work go up on the wall.



I heard my oldest boy (he's almost five) tell a buddy as they were headed down to play: "Hey! Look! I made that house! It's my house I made for my mom... and she HUNG IT UP!"

It put a smile on my face to see him being so proud of something he made, and so pleased that it was on the wall for all of us to enjoy.




I love the pictures, but this little set of three little hands is probably my favorite part right now.

Most of these pictures where already in the frames, just waiting for a spot to be displayed, although, as you can see, I have a few empty frames waiting for new pictures. I'll get to that soon (I hope) I have a few in mind.

Gallery walls can be tricky. I kind of approached this in a haphazard way. I just dug all of my frames out of the closet where they were being stored and started playing with them on the floor. I made a newspaper template (a la young house love, what a great idea!) of each frame and then taped them to the wall before I drove in a single nail.


I ended up moving things around a little, but stuck with the initial placing I had come up with on my floor. The hardest part was starting (as usual) and once I got going it went up fairly quickly.

I love that it helps to tie the upstairs to the downstairs, it makes it feel a lot more inviting. Now I can't wait to get going on personalizing the basement.

I was initially planning to paint all of the frames white, or a mix of white, green and blue frames. My hubby votes to keep the whites and mixed woods just as it is. So far a few of my friends who have also seen it vote to keep the mixed look. I could go either way. What do you think?

the basement!

When I was hospitalized in April, we were really, really close to finishing the basement. By the time I came home in May, the carpet was in and most of the left over things were done. I've intended to show a little peek of the basement for a while now, but I've been on a bit of a blog hiatus of sorts. I just don't have time to sit at the computer any more!

We have been enjoying this space for the last few months though! I LOVE the extra closet space, it's fun to have a place to hang out and play together as a family, and I look forward to making the space cozy and decorating it up, it's still very utilitarian and quiet plain right now, but it's another thing on my "things to do when life settles down and I have free time again" list. We have some loose ends, little bits to finish off here and there, but it's pretty much done.

Anyway... here it is!








The built in bookshelf shown below has already progressed. We finally found time to paint the bead board back. It's looking great! I'll share that another time.

The stairs are my favorite part of the whole basement!





Guest room/possible craft space? Still deciding if I want to take over a corner of this room for sewing and crafting. I made that comforter the year I met Scott (8 years ago) with my own two hands and my sewing machine. It's been in storage for most of our marriage. I pulled it out and decided I'm not sure if I'll end up using it anyway, but for now it's better than just a sheet.


Keepin' it real. This is what the toy room looks like 80% of the time. And it's ok with me. They've been having a lot of fun in there!


And here's a preview of the next big thing for us:
Yep, we're certifiably insane. This is just a piece of it though. Removing that door frame going down the stairs left a spot where there was no flooring. That's okay because we've got plans...


When we bought this house, we knew we would be wanting a larger dining area. The time has come. With three little fellas, we now need a larger table than the little 4 seater (with adorable x-back chairs) that was our very first furniture purchase together just after we were engaged. We are maxed out. We want and need a larger table with room for our growing family (and room to expand for when we have guests). So... we're adding on the the back of our house and making our dining room larger! It's going to change the whole look of the back side of our house, and I'm so excited for the possibilities it opens up for our kitchen.

I've disliked the tile from day one, and with the addition in the works, we decided it would be a good time to rip all of that tile out, along with the light colored carpet in the bedrooms, family room and living room. We'll replace it with a dark hardwood that will blend with the wood on the stairs. We had hardwood throughout the entire upstairs in our old house and we loved it. I can't wait for this project! We're in the planning stages right now, and hope to start sometime in the spring. But for now, back to the basement...

We love it, it's been so nice to use all of the space in our home instead of just living out of half of it. This was our second basement finishing in a two year time span. I'm happy to say, we'll be enjoying this one much longer than we did the last. The office still has some work going on, but I'll for sure share it as we get 'er done!

basement progress update: post # 954... or something like that

An explanation of sorts: I'm having to press the pause button on my whole life right now. Long story short- On Thursday, April 21, I started going into pre-term labor (my other two were early as well) upon arriving at labor and delivery found that we had a premature rupture of membranes, which means the water had broken and I was slowly leaking fluid. I was only 25 weeks at the time, so it was really scary. They got my contractions stopped, pumped us full of antibiotics and now I'm here on hospital bed rest until my baby boy is born. We are hoping that's not any time too soon. I'm having a hard time being stuck here, unable to care for my kids and my home, but it's important that I give this baby more time to grow so he can be healthy. So here we wait. My hubby is doing an amazing job of holding down the fort, we have lots of help from family, friends, and neighbors and we're going to be okay. I'm married to a most amazing man, who visits me once sometimes twice a day, is working from home and taking care of our kids most of the time, and holding our little family together. We have gained a lot of strength through prayer and appreciate any prayers offered in Baby Noah's behalf. He is strong and so far looking well and healthy.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the work has continued on the stairs. I had actually prepared a blog post that morning I ended up in here, to update the progress and obviously never finished it, so I'll attempt to do what I can from here, with what pictures I have available. Carpet is scheduled for this week and it's making me a little bit crazy that I won't get to see it all until after the baby is born and I get to come home.
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So here is what I intended to post about 10 days ago...




This is what I walked in to find while Scott was getting his tools rounded up last week to go down and work on the built-in shelf in the basement family room. The boys saw him gathering his stuff and quickly ran to get their tools too.

Scott and I were talking before bed the other night about how we've always had some big house project going on since we bought our first house, 9 months after we were married. We wasted no time ripping up the flooring in that house, re-doing bannisters, moldings, doing our first nursery, painting every wall in every room, painting the kitchen cabinets white, getting rid of blue counter tops, putting in a back yard, a garden... the list goes on. Then in our second house, it was our first basement finishing project, and a few upstairs things, but mostly downstairs. We finished that basement a few months before putting the house up for sale and moving on (because we're nuts) and then came this house. Our second basement finish in just over two years. Not to mention the endless projects upstairs, the painting, the bead board, the trims, the kids rooms, the shutters, the door, the yard... You get the idea. Talking about it made us tired to think about it. It might be insane, but we're just happy working on things together. I've said before that we often feel like the Pioneers. Always building, always working, making things work and getting it how we like it, then moving on and starting over. We say it jokingly, because I guess we get some strange fix out of all of it.

The whole point is that for the first time in over 6 years of house tweaking, I think I've finally found the one project that I'm just so tired of that I can hardly stand it... and that is this basement. I'm so tired of it I could seriously cry. We're so close, and have been for like a month now. We've had some crazy delays and it's just the last tiny bit left, but it seems like it's taking forever. Our stair parts where delayed by nearly two weeks because the parade of homes is coming up and the mill that makes the trim parts was really slammed with orders, the wood flooring for the office was on back order and had to come from China, it took forever, little things like that have really made what should be the home stretch feel like a marathon.

Last week we had some good progress, however. The door that goes downstairs got ripped out, and the stair parts came (hallelujah!) and the stair work finally started!

The first thing was the demolition of that door going down to the basement. We're going for "light, bright and open" and that door just doesn't fit the bill. By the time these stairs are finished and spiffied-up it would be a shame to hide them behind that door.
so... down it came! Don't worry, it's going to look great when it's all done, but being in construction mode is always ugly.
The boys sat at the top of the stairway and talked our neighbor-contractor's ear off for most of the afternoon that first day. They asked questions, but mostly told him he was making a big mess and that he was going to be in big trouble for "breaking" the walls and stairs. I heard him tell them "Sometimes you've gotta make a big mess before you can make it look pretty!" Carter didn't buy it, but I like the thinking behind that... pretty much the story of our lives.
They busted out their tool boxes and goggles and went to "work" right along with him. It cracks me up to hear them chattering his ear off.
My little workin' men have been having a ton of fun with all of this.

Here's a little in-progress peek at the built in that Scott's been slaving away over.
I had been picturing these baskets in the bottom, so he put that bottom shelf in first just to accommodate them. I plan on putting extra blankets and pillows in them for comfy movie nights in the family room. There will be two more shelves in the middle, the shelves and sides will be crisp white and I'm thinking about using some of my left over armoire paint for the beadboard back, just to make it pop a little. I can always paint it white later if we don't like it, but I can see it in my head and I think it will be great.

We officially ordered and paid for the carpet last week, it should be in any day. As soon as those stairs and the banisters are in, we're good to go with the carpet. Hopefully we'll wrap this all up in the next few weeks.


UPDATE:

Remember the before:


And here's what has been done while I've been here in the hospital:




Eeek! I'm so excited that it's making me crazy! The treads are gorgeous cherry, they will be stained dark, the trim pieces and banisters will be white. I'm loving it so much! My husband sent a bunch of pictures to my phone and I can't get the rest of them to work with blogger, if I were home it wouldn't be a big deal, but for now this will have to hold everyone over... not that you were all on pins and needles over this like I have been, but ya know.

We're so glad that we had this part hired out, with everything going on, it's so nice to know that work is still being done and that this basement will get done one way or the other. We had planned to do the painting and staining on our own, but decided that under the circumstances it was best to just get it done quickly and get that carpet in, since it's sitting in a warehouse ready to go.

I'll continue to update from here as much as I can, and it's kind of ironic that I'm not going to get to see it in person for a while, but it brings me comfort to have the project winding down. I need to get out of here and set up Baby's room, but it looks like that's not going to happen for a while.

office peek and our pillow picks...

Progress news! We found the prettiest bamboo about a month ago that was exactly what we wanted for the office floor... the bad news- it was out of stock and it comes from China, so it took about a month to get here. The good news is it came in this week and Scott got right to work laying it...
It's beautiful! Slightly distressed and hand scraped, we love it! He's done a great job putting it down, all that's left are two rows you can't see in the picture on the far right of the room and the closet.

The other good news is that the carpet installer came and got an official measurement yesterday. As soon as the stairs are done we're ready to get the carpet installed. We're waiting on a few stair parts to arrive and then we should be good down there. If all goes well, we're looking at maybe another week or so. WAHOO!!!

And now back to the pillow talk...

I was so surprised to see the poll so heavily weighted to one choice. Not surprisingly, it was the one we liked the best too...



Yep, it's the orange, blue, brown combo! Reassuring to know a lot of you liked it too! I still like those bold red stripey pillows a lot, but might have to find some other place to use them. :)

I designed the red/blue/bold stripey scheme first, then for fun threw that orange one together. I was surprised when we both really preferred the orange. I wasn't really thinking we would go orange, but it works beautifully with that shade of blue, it's nice and warm, a little unexpected and just the dose of fun that our young family needs.

As for the votes, we had a little problem with our poll... for some reason it re-set itself yesterday, like started over at zero sometime late morning, so I don't know the exact number of votes, but I can say that when I saw it Wednesday and Wednesday night, B was winning by a lot. We were somewhere around 50-ish votes and B was winning with about 70% of the vote. This morning we're at 44 votes- 8 votes for A, 28 votes for B and 11 votes for C. Wednesday it looked like A was in second place, so I really wish we had the numbers for all of the days combined, but it's safe to say that choice B won with between 60%-70% of the vote for both of the days that it was counting.

Some of you mentioned you wanted to know the choice I didn't like at all... for me that was choice C. and it wasn't that I didn't like the pillows, because I really like the more rectangle pillows and the monogram pillow of course as well, I think it just didn't appeal to us because we're so "blue and green" everywhere upstairs in our main living area that I'm trying to do something different in our space in the basement. The blue is about the same blue I've used throughout the house, so it ties it in with the colors upstairs, but the orange is something new, and we like that!

Now I've got to get those fabrics ordered and get to work! :)

Thanks for humoring me and playing along! It was fun to hear from many of you, and fun to see what you prefer too!

basement progress update!

*Don't forget to scroll down and enter the CSN Stores giveaway, it ends on Thursday morning!*

We had a really productive, basement lovin' weekend! I'm just now getting around to sharing all of the stuff going on, but the good news is, most of the trims are cut, nailed and caulked. We have a ton of painting to do, but we can handle that! We still need to go carpet shopping, and our stair treads and banister parts have been ordered and work on that should start in the next few weeks (we hired that part out).


The playhouse now has a cute little door, we're re-working the plan for the play house a little, I'm not sure exactly how it's going to look when it's finished, but I think it will be fun. Notice the little doorway on the left, that doorway leads into a little hallway like a "tunnel" that connects into the main area of the playhouse, the kids already love running around in circles, in one door and out the other. We put little lights inside the tunnel area and everything (It's hardly a tunnel though, an adult can stand up straight and walk through it, but the boys think it's magical and that's all that matters!)

Scott has been hard at work adding craftsman details, and everything is going to be light and bright. This little built in was a last minute whim, it was supposed to be a closet with a door, but it's on the same wall that our TV will be on. We decided to turn it into a built in shelf and I'm so happy that we did! Scott built a base and trimmed it out, next come the inside shelves. I'm deciding if I want the back painted white like the rest of it, or if I want to do something fun with color on the back... it could be really great. Thoughts?


The biggest change down there has been the office. We took the covering off the glass door (details on that in another post) and taped off the area where the wainscot will be (I promise we measured, and it is on a third, although in this picture it kind of looks like half, I promise it's not) and selected a paint color and painted the top part of the wall.

Are you ready for this?




Waaaahhhh!!! It's way out of my comfort zone, I usually go for light bright neutrals, but I'm really liking how it's looking! The color is Martha Stewart School House Slate. We mixed it in Olympic low VOC eggshell finish. I freaked out when Scott put the first swipe on the wall, remember my painters remorse problem? In our first house I learned quickly that I really don't go for darks or even midtones. I like light paint. This kind of made me twitchy as I watched it go onto the wall. I don't know why the turquoise in Carter's room didn't bother me, it's a bright color, so I wasn't as nervous, but this is super dark for me. Lucky for all involved, I have zero painters remorse this time, I really love the color!

We spent Friday night down there, Scott painted while I peeled that horrible protective stuff off the glass doors. At one point, he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the wall behind me. I looked up to find this:
What a guy. :) We always feel a little nerdy when we admit to people that working on a project is as good as a date night for us, but it really is. We both really enjoy building things and making our house better for our family, and we have a fun time talking and laughing about silly stuff while we do it.

The plan is this: We are laying dark bamboo on the floor, we'll keep the same desk we have upstairs and I plan on bringing in some grays, lots of whites and who knows what else to accent it with, but here's a little idea board I threw together to kind of show where we plan on going with this:



A tiny bit nautical, but not overwhelming nautical. We want to display some pictures and maps from our favorite trips and vacations on the walls.

Here's the big question though. We are thinking we should paint the ceiling a muted down version of the wall color, a kind of grayish blue, just so it's not such a harsh transition between the dark slatey blue walls and the pure white ceiling, but at the same time, I kind of like the clean white ceiling and Scott is talking about doing some fancy trim work like this:


Which would be de-lish. If we did that, we would probably do a light gray toned paint inside the boxes to make the trim work pop. That's something we can add later though. Right now we just need to get to the carpet phase before I go mad.

The last and smallest detail is that we took out an ugly wall mounted globe light in the stairwell and replaced it with this beauty:
I'm dying over it. For the first few days I would open the door and just gaze at it (the door will come off as soon as the stair work starts for an open and airy transition to the stairs). We still have to touch up paint around it, but I couldn't bear to leave it out of the basement update.

Anyway, that's what we've got going on down there! When we first saw this house we were over-the-top excited with the potential we saw in the basement, it's a daylight basement, and it really is nice and bright down there, the big windows make it feel less like a basement and more like just another part of the house. We can't wait to get 'er done and start enjoying it!