The Finished Living Room

My first priority the day that all of our stuff was delivered was to unpack, place all the furniture, and then decorate our living room.  Since it is really the main living area, I knew that we'd be spending lots of time in the room, so it was important to get it ready to go as quickly as possible.  48 hours later, here is what the finished product looked like:

One of my favorite things in the entire space is my coffee table.  If you remember from an earlier post, my hubby and I found the table at a lighting store (of all places! lol) called Lee Lighting in Huntersville.  We were there on a trip to find light fixtures for our bathroom, but when I saw that they were having a 50% off sale on furniture, I knew that this gilt and mirror table had to come home with me!  It's just the right proportions, and I think it makes the room.

Don't you love how my little guy Donut is snuggled up on the couch? lol He just loves this room... I swear that dog might as well be a cat as much as he likes to sun himself.

The rug is something I picked up from the 75% off sale that Rugs USA was having back in October.  I wasn't sure how it would blend with all the other patterns in the room, but now that it's in, I like it.  Plus, it was a steal, which makes me like it even more. :)

The bookcases are from Target (circa 2007), and to make them look less cheap, I removed the back lining so that you could see all the way through the shelves to the wall color.  After they were accessorized, you can hardly tell what they were before.

I made most of the pillows and slipcovers in the room with fabric that I got from a local store, but the chevron pillows (and lampshades) are from Target.  The teal fretwork pillows are my inspiration for the entire room, and I ordered them from Caitlin Wilson Textiles.

I'm also super excited about our wooden monograms that just came in from Southern Proper Monograms. 

We ordered two: a larger one for our front door (which I will post after we get our new door put in), and a medium sized one for our sunroom door.  I spray painted it black with Rustoleum (good for outdoors).  Because there's no way to hang the monogram from the center without it tilting, I had to improvise and get creative with some wired ribbon.  The finished product is pretty cute!

Don't worry, we are replacing that ugly doorknob and lock-set.  I want something that has a more decorative lever handle... hopefully we'll get that done soon!

I'll be posting more of the rest of the house soon!

Kitchen Update

Sorry I've been blog-absent.... moving has been crazy!  It will never cease to amaze me just how much paper and cardboard you have left over after you unpack everything.  But after all is said and done, we are FINALLY in the house and it is starting to look like home:)

Here is an update on the progress with our kitchen remodel:

** UPDATE **

To see our styled and finished kitchen, visit my home tour:

UPDATED FINISHED KITCHEN

 

Our home was also featured in Charlotte Home & Garden magazine (Spring 2014) -- you can see that article here:

DIY In Plaza Midwood

Getting our countertops in and our dishwasher/stove installed was quite a process, but the kitchen actually looks like a kitchen now that everything is in!

 

I especially love our ROHL faucet.  Finding a polished nickel faucet that worked in our kitchen was a pain in the behind (and cost a fortune!), but I'm really happy with the one that we chose. 

When I decided to save money by using hardware from Home Depot (Martha Stewart line), I wasn't sure if they would look cheap next to everthing else in the kitchen..... but the other options were $80 each, versus $5 each for the Martha Stewart ones, so I figured it was worth a shot.  After they were installed on the cabinets, they ended up looking pretty darn seamless with all the other polished nickel fixtures. 

We found our kitchen chairs at Furniture Row in Charlotte, and I think they fit pretty well with the overall look of the room. The chairs are actually counter height, since both our desk and bar area are 34' high.  They came with black cushions (yuck!), so I recovered them with some fabric that I found at Hancock Fabrics for $7.  Fortunately, the fabric is made by Premier Prints, so I'm having this lady on Etsy make matching roman shades for all of the windows.

I'm not done accessorizing yet, but I think i'm going for a mixture of glossy white and shiny silver accents.

 

(P.S. - I'm super glad my husband talked me into having under cabinet lights installed....

totally worth it!)

I'll stop being a slacker and try to be better about posting more house updates this week! :)

Our Big Floor Surprise

So.....

During the course of our renovations, our original inlaid wood floors in the kitchen have become scratched and damaged (severely scratched in some areas).  So much so, in fact, that my husband decided that he wanted to refinish them right after the cabinet installation was completed.

Our floor refinishing guy Chad showed up the first day, and he sanded all of the top poly coats and the stain off of the floor to expose the raw wood.  And guess what he found?  Our floors are actually Brazilian Cherry.

That's right.  Brazilian Cherry.  Allow yourself a moment to let that sink in.

Yup!  Holy Crap!!  We were pretty much shocked.  I mean, first of all, where on EARTH did these people get the money in 1941 to put in Brazilian Cherry hand-laid parquet floors?  (Backstory: Our house was built by the wealthy old-Charlotte Victor family for their newlywed daughter and her husband back in 1941)  Pretty crazy stuff.

We decided to do a light ebony, which is several shades darker than the floors were before....but not too dark where it doesn't fit with the rest of the house.  It came out nice, don't you think?  The final super shiny poly coat goes on tomorrow, then we are good to go :)

Our light fixtures for the bathroom went up today, and they look pretty sharp!

It's going to be interesting to see how all of the fixtures blend together.  Everything is polished nickel, but the light fixtures are a lot more modern than the vanity hardware and the faucets.  Hopefully everything ends up blending well.  I'm excited to see what it all looks like when the faucets and towel bars go in on Monday.

Have a great weekend! :)

We Have A Kitchen!

Well, at least we have part of a kitchen! lol

We had a break for Christmas, but since then it's been super busy in the house.  Our kitchen cabinets are now in, and they are beauuuuuutiful.  

Our cabinets are the KraftMaid solid maple Torrington style, and we purchased them (as well as the installation) through Home Depot. I wasn't sure about the whole thing at first, but trust me, they do a great job; it's worth every penny.

You know what they say, it's "all in the details", so I really tried to put a lot of thought into the small things that make a subtle difference in the overall feel of the room.

Glass "X" Mullion doors:

 

 

High Double Crown Molding:

 

 

Polished Nickel Pulls (Martha Stewart Living from Home Depot!):

 

 

Roll-out Spice Rack and Storage drawer:

 

 

Built-In Cutlery Organizer:

 

 

Trash/Recycling Pull-Out Drawer:

 

 

We are still waiting on a few things (like one of our glass doors is on backorder), and the shoe molding and some trim still needs to be installed, but you can finally get an idea of what the finished product will look like.  It's so neat to see all of the research, planning, and hardwork starting to pay off!  Next stop....Carrara marble countertop installation next week!

 

Bathroom Renovation: Update

 

WHEW-- what a week!  Here are some updated pictures of the progress on our bathroom renovation.

A lot has been happening, and as you can see, you're beginning to get a better picture of what the finished bathroom will look like.  The initial coats of paint are up, and the vanity has been moved into place.  Right now, we are waiting for the mirrors and new faucets that I ordered to arrive, so we can complete the plumbing and then install the light fixtures.

I found these mirrors at Pottery Barn for $249 each.... you would NOT believe how hard it was to find polished nickel mirrors.


The faucets that came with our vanity ended up looking cheap and were chrome, so we had to find replacement ones.  I ended up choosing the same style and brand as the one I selected for our kitchen, in polished nickel.  They're made by ROHL, and were $440 each.  We ordered ours from Hughes supply in the Charlotte/Matthews area.


We are also adding custom cabinetry doors to the bottom of our alcove niche, which will match the woodwork on our vanity.  I just realized that we didn't have enough storage, and adding some doors to the niche will really give us more room to store the bathroom stuff that isn't suitable for display!

We had some issues with the tile installation, which is why the shower area is left out of the pictures.  Our contractor Matt is on top of getting the tile fixed and re-installed, and i'll post more pics of that when it's finished.

For now, i'll leave you with a picture of our custom dining benches from Ballard Designs that just arrived yesterday!  Happy Holidays to everyone!

 

Luxe Design Inspiration

This room make me think of the greek key trimmed carpet that I bought for our living room.... I love the opulent fabrics and the navy and plum tones of this room. *SIGH*

Style Watch

I stumbled across this today on pinterest, and fell head over heels.  So classy, retro, and fresh.



Where on earth did she get that skirt?  Oh, and can we talk about the glasses? Must find.

Our Home Reno: Making Progress!

We are officially more than halfway through our bathroom renovation project!  There were plenty of interesting little surprises during the demolition phase (like the rotted floor underneath the bathtub!), but now that we have walls up and a tub in place, things are really starting to take shape. 

The marble top of our damaged vanity.  I wanted to KILL the delivery guy!

This week is going to be a really big week for the upstairs bathroom as far as aesthetic changes go:  floor tile and shower tile begin to go in tomorrow -Tuesday-, and our replacement vanity should be here by Thursday (the original one was damaged, so they sent me a new one).  I already have all of the accessories like towel rods, towel holders, and light fixtures/sconces ready to go, and I think that once they are installed it will really put the finishing touches on the room. 



Our GC, Matt :)

Our contractor, Matt (of Stirling Group in Charlotte), has been heading up this project for us and has been fantastic!  Coincidentally, he is also our neighbor in Midwood and lives only a few doors down, which is really convenient.  He has been super patient with me and my five zillion questions, and his design taste and attention to detail has surpassed even my ridiculous standards (for once! lol).  Since I don't have a General Contractor for all of the other projects going on in the house, it makes it even more apparent what a huge blessing it is to have a GC like Matt doing our bathroom.  Advice to any of you contemplating a major home improvement project: find a great GC!  Ask friends, colleagues, etc.... word of mouth is usually going to be your best bet. 






Donut rambling around our demolition kitchen

On top of our ongoing bathroom adventure, we have also made huge progress in other areas of the house!  First and foremost, our old kitchen has been demo'd and taken out.  Instead of paying the kitchen installation people to do it, I decided to take a different route.  Habitat for Humanity has something called ReStore, which is a store where they sell used items for home renovation projects.  The profits from these stores goes directly to Habitat, which they use to fund the building of homes for people in need.  I decided this was a no-brainer:  donate all of the appliances, cabinets, and countertops that came with the house to Habitat for Humanity!  Bonus.... they removed everything for the house for free, AND we get a tax write-off. 

It looks so different now without anything in it....it's almost hard to imagine what it's going to look like.  But it's a really good thing that we took the old kitchen cabinets out, because there were a lot of things going on behind it that were dangerous and not up to code.  Our new kitchen cabinets get delivered this Friday, so the installation should start next week.  I can't wait!!!!

I also had all of the plaster in the house repaired recently.  There were tons of cracks all over the house, especially in our living room and master bedroom.  Now that the repairs have been done, you can hardly tell.  We had the painters come in last week, and they repainted everything but our foyer and kitchen.  It is AMAZING what a difference new paint makes.  I swear the rooms look bigger and brighter.  Not all my paint choices were a hit on the first try (lol).... I had a originally picked a medium blue for our larger guest room, but it turned out to be hideous once they had it on the walls.  A few trips to Home Depot later, and I had a new light blue-ish/aqua that I ended up loving instead.  At first, I was second guessing my dark muted gray choice for our bedroom, but after mulling over it for a few days, I decided that I love it.  I think that it will look great paired with all the crisp white linens and our mirrored furniture.


Dining Room



Front Guest Room



Master



Master Fireplace



Small guest room



Living Room
(we also had a lot of carpentry work done in this room, and this built in nook was refaced)



Sunroom

I think we are finally at the point where I can visualize what the finished house is going to look like, and all the hard work is starting to pay off.  New pics to come as soon as the tile is up and kitchen cabinets are in!!