Laying It Down

After looking at a subfloor for over a month it was a welcome project to lay down flooring. We had purchased this flooring when we first moved into the house. We chose a laminate option in a pecan color. We didn't want to try and match the original 100-year-old hardwood because we knew it would never look right and knowing that the kitchen was already going to be a style changer in the house, we didn't mind such a difference.

We got our flooring at Home Depot at a great price. We chose a floating floor system for the simple install and for the fact that it can be easily removed if someone after us were to want a change. We chose a much thicker plank than what we have in the rest of the house. The original hardwood is just over 2" and runs front to back in the house. As another precaution to avoid the potential "matching" issue, we ran the kitchen floors opposite in a right-to-left direction. 

Because nothing about this house has been simple, we had to deal with a leveling issue before laying the floor. When the subfloor was originally laid it overlapped the old floor where the kitchen addition and the original house meet. Under the walkway in the photo below was the very obvious lump. With help from my Dad, the plywood subfloor was cut in place and a self-leveling cement was poured to fill the gap removing the original lump. In the picture on the left below, you can see the seam between the subfloor and cement. 

   

We thought it would be fun to leave a note hidden somewhere in the house. What better place than under a floor we hope will be there for years to come! 

 

We started along the sink wall. We made sure to put flooring under our appliances so they could easily be pulled out. We learned that was necessary when we first moved in and had to pull the dishwasher out. The original flooring was laid up to the dishwasher and it was miserably hard to get the appliance out of its cubby. We didn't want to run into that issue again, so we made sure to complete the flooring under both the dishwasher and refrigerator. 

   

We started with a full length of flooring and from there decided on a system. We didn't want it to be an every other row pattern so we did a three row pattern instead. It's still a bit more perfect and planned looking than I prefer but overall we had very little waste and it's very clean looking. 

         

You can see in one of the pictures above what the view was from standing in front of the sink through to the front of house at this point in the project. We feel we made the right decision on floor color and layout when looking through the house as a whole. As we move forward we are working on updating the entire feeling of the house. We are going from lots of warm colors and flat paint to cooler colors and a mixture of texture!

We are happy with the outcome! It makes me say "Ooooo lala, look at that pretty, hide-all-the-doggy-dirt, flooring" whenever I walk in the room!

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More to come, as always! Check back in again soon!

Topping It Off

In continuation of our kitchen project (which we've talked about here and here) our next step was cabinet fronts and countertops. Believe me when I say that there is nothing simple about the initial process of building the cabinets. Now of course, it's doable with patience but it's not simple. Thankfully, Ikea gives some relief towards the end and makes the process of hanging and installing fronts very simple. It's almost a click-in system, with few screws for support, which at this point in the project was very welcome. Nothing like an easy finish. 

You can see above where we were after the first day of installation. By the end of the next working day we had closing doors and drawers. We waited to put the pulls on for quite a while because we couldn't decide exactly where we wanted them, decisions decisions. 

The next step was the countertop. It was a bit scary to start cutting because we had a certain amount of space to cover and only so much countertop. At first we were going to join the corner by butting one piece up to another. My Dad mentioned that because of the wood grain we wouldn't be pleased with that and so we changed our minds to the angled corner cut you can see below. In order to make sure we did everything correctly, we used some 1/4" plywood to create templates that we could lay on top of the cabinets to ensure we were making correct cuts! Way better to make a mistake on a $10 slice of plywood than a $100 slice of butcher block. Practice makes perfect after all. 

   

Hunter and I watched through the window with Star Wars characters cheering on my Dad and Rob as they made the scary cuts. Always best for me to stay away during these moments, I tend to be a gasper when things can go wrong. Of course they made all the right measurements with the help of their template. With all the pieces cut, they were laid out, screwed in from the underneath and glued together at seams.

 

Once all the counters were secured we moved onto giving them a finish. We did quite a bit of research about this. We had to decide if we wanted this to be a true working butcher block or just in appearance alone. We liked the idea of a full seal which would remove our ability to stain or make water rings on our new surface but a lot of the products that we found and read about weren't food safe. While that might work for some people, we were not comfortable with a non-food-safe surface in the kitchen especially when the kiddos are involved. We ended up conditioning our butcher block counters instead of sealing them; this is something that we have to do once in a while but it's no harder than applying lotion after a shower. It makes the counters resistant and water pools on top instead of soaking right in BUT rings and marks do form. Thankfully most of those marks are easily removed with a light hand sand (read: wiping counters with sandpaper) and another coat of conditioner. While making our choice we read that wood, because it is porous, will eventually "fill up" with the conditioner and actually become waterproof like butcher blocks in butcher shops used to! We liked the idea that it wouldn't be such virgin wood forever and it wouldn't only get prettier as the time went on. 

At this point we were so pleased to have a most of a kitchen again. We still had finishing touches on the cabinets in the form of finishing sides (above cooktop and in corner) and adding pulls but the overall feeling was beginning to come together. It was so nice to have a sink on the main floor again - it's amazing how much you can miss that! 

My Dad was so helpful during the countertop process, he's awesome and teaches us so much! Hunter also LOVES when my Dad comes over - he gets to have a bit of play time in his work truck and spend time with his Buppa!

Up next is flooring! Stay tuned!

life as a family of four

On January 25th our family grew, we changed, and our hearts expanded. We met our #littleray at 11:39am. Our not-so-little guy is a joy and we are so thankful for him. His arrival via c-section is not what we hoped for but knowing that the Lord is completely in control gave us peace no matter the method of our son's arrival. 

The most wonderful sight so far has been seeing Hunter be a big brother to Jax. He was so excited when he met his little brother at the hospital and now, a month later, he is so sweet and helpful! As a mom, I wondered how he would react, I cried about him not being my little boy anymore and worried that splitting the time between them would be so hard. I wish I had known that all of that would fade almost immediately. My joy as a mom has never been greater and though our time together has changed, it hasn't lessened or been diminished at all. 

Our dynamic as a whole family hasn't changed as much as we anticipated. We have heard so many versions of the story that starts "the hardest transition is..." with people varying between first child, second, etc. Mostly, people agreed that the transition to two was the hardest but Rob and I have to (kindly) disagree. Switching from life as a couple to life with a baby was startling, wonderful in many many ways, but certainly a change from the life we were used to. We went from living life with very little schedule or second thought of starting a DIY project or going to dinner, to living between naps and playtime and enjoying life as a family! When we brought Jax home, we were already totally adjusted to life with a kiddo but we proceeded warily for the first couple days with the thought on our minds, "remember what everyone said." Other than the discomfort of recovery paired with an on-the-run two-year-old, life didn't veer too far off course. Thankfully. Within a week it felt like Jax had always been here with us. Yes, we are sleeping less and changing more diapers but we weren't startled this time around; our norm isn't so glaringly different. 

One of the most interesting things we've discovered about having two kids is how completely different they can be. It seems almost impossible at times that these boys are both ours and I'm sure we will be surprised more and more as they grow up. We feel blessed that both our boys were super laid back in this infant stage but Jax is a whole different kind of chill. While he likes to be held (what baby doesn't) he's really cool with everything - he sleeps through Hunter's playful banter and dinosaur stomps, he eats more easily than Hunter ever did at this age and he lives life with eyes wide open - seriously, the kid naps far less than most infants. We also don't think they look alike. We saw ourselves in Hunter from the beginning but are just starting to see glimpses here and there with Jax. Overall, the resemblance is slight. Hunter never sported the grumpy old man baby face but Jax wore it often in the first couple weeks which honestly charmed us to no end. Their habits are different, their personalities are different, their faces are different but they are brothers through and through and we can't wait to see them grow together! 

This life is a blessing. Everyday is a gift and we are so thankful for this family of ours.

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We love to hear what others have to say about their experiences!

What would you say your hardest transition was?

Any parenthood pointers you'd like to share?

#littleray has a nursery

Our Christmas break was full of fun and family and productivity this year! It was so nice to have a whole week home with Rob and our little guy. Although we took turns being sick throughout the week we still enjoyed plenty of time with our families celebrating Christ's birth, a wedding, and the new year! 

Last night we finished littleray's nursery. It's a great feeling to walk by and see it completed. We are ready for him any time now! We can't believe that the time has come so quickly and we are in the final weeks of eagerly awaiting his arrival. 

This space came together just as we had imagined it would and we love it! 

We talked in a previous post about our ideas and color scheme but we still weren't sure where everything would end up and how it would come together. We changed a couple of our original ideas, but that's par for the course whenever we decorate a room!

First of all, let me say that painting with such a dark color of green is a bit scary! It ended up looking lush and lovely but it required two (thick) coats and after the first coat I was, admittedly, shaking in my slippers. It's weird to see that intense color rolled onto a white wall! I almost shied away but I'm glad I rolled with it (pun intended!)

The dark green adds a nice intensity to the room that is otherwise pretty light and bright. I decided to keep the branch hanging lighter so that it would pop off the wall. By using a yarn with variation in color I was able to keep it looking a little more "natural"; I chose to leave the bottom uneven for the same reason. We know that it might not be able to live above the crib forever - once littleray has grabby hands - but for now it creates a pretty and rustic picture! 

  

Opposite the crib are littleray's cabinet and changing table. We are thankful that we can use these pieces for little clothes and baby items and keep the small closet for toys and older boy clothing storage. It's nice to have all the little clothes kept behind closed doors and in drawers because even though they are caaaaaute, they can tend to look a bit messy. 

   

We wanted the room to holler 'boy' while still holding to our neutral tone from our first son's room. By mixing hard and soft patterns with warm and cool tones, I think we accomplished our goal. This fun yellow/lime chair adds brightness to this windowed cubby along the same wall as the crib and it's oh-so-comfy! We opted for soft watercolors paired with a heavy metallic arrow so neither would feel too prominent. The top watercolor will have littleray's name once he is born, but for now it will be blank until we make our announcement! 

   

On the other side of the crib, across the room from the comfy chair, there are cute little stuffed animal mounts alongside our favorite saying. Our first son has this saying in his room too and we thought it was perfect to have both our boys know that we love them to the moon and back! The wall mounted animals are from target's fall collection, I think I ended up grabbing them for less than $5 each on sale which is always a perk when decorating a room! You can see above that there is also a mounted stuffed bear near the comfy chair in the picture above, I thought they were too sweet to pass up!

We decided to skip the mountain shelf that we mentioned in our ideas post. It would have lived where the watercolors are now so we thought it would get a little crowded and displace already existing items. Didn't seem worth it to make something from scratch when we already had the goods to fill the space. We are also waiting on the crib skirt to be delivered (thank you amazon!) and then we will be 100% done with this room. We are so thankful for the generosity and love people have shown for this baby boy already, we all can't wait to meet him!! 

SHOP THIS ROOM:

{Paint} Glidden Universal Grey and Hunter Green

{Crib Sheets} Target

{Crib Skirt} Dwell Studio

{Pillows} Tootie and Tallulah's

{Rug} Home Goods

{Grey Handled Baskets} Home Goods

{Grey Geometric Baskets} Target

{Watercolor Prints} Home Goods

{Metallic Arrow} Home Goods

{Bear Head Mount} Target Similar Product 

{Love You To Moon and Back} Tootie and Tallulah's

{Crib/Changing Table/Dresser/Shelving} Bellini (Ours are secondhand but the company makes other beautiful pieces!)

*This post includes affiliate links. We were not paid to say anything nice about these products we just like these things and want you to know where you can get them too! 

the clock is ticking

As I write this (or part of it) my sweet two year old boy is napping and I can feel baby #2 doing flips and kicks like a crazy little ninja. To say that we are excited for this little one is an understatement and the time is really flying! 33.5 weeks and our little guy is growing like a weed, so much so that my Braxton Hicks contractions, which were non-existent with our first son, are definitely a real life factor! 

Needless to say, we have started preparing for our littlest boy's arrival. Let me assure you though, it's a much different preparation than we did for baby #1! With our first, we were so prepared with the nursery being practically ready by this point in my pregnancy. That is so not the case this time. We are as prepared as we can be as a family but physically this little guy's room is unpainted, obviously undecorated and unfurnished (though we have the furniture and will be picking up soon!). Last week I decided that I would at least start washing all the baby clothes so that even if he didn't have a room to call his own (were he to arrive early) he would at least have clothes to wear! Oh little brother, we love you more than you know but it's much harder to get things done now that we have a kiddo running around! 

This momma does have a good idea of how the nursery will end up though. At least I am good at making plans! Ha! We decided that we wanted another boyish room but had a hard time getting our son's room out of our head. We love the grey/wood/orange color scheme for a boy but we wanted these brothers to each have a space of their own (for now at least!) We decided to use a much, much lighter grey and a dark green tone. I was choosing between greens and when one had "Hunter" in the title I couldn't help but choose it! 

I painted a corner to see how the colors would meld together when they go up and so far so good. The dark green will only go on one wall and a window cubby while the rest of the room will be the lighter grey. I'm not usually certain about the lighter colors but once it hit the white wall, I knew it was the right choice to warm up the space. Again, this room is painted with a flat white paint (like the rest of the house) and it's so scratchy... who even uses flat paint for a whole room?? A fresh coat of paint will go a long way to modernize this room! The picture below is one coat with a paintbrush, I think that once the green is applied with a roller it should be nice and smooth! 

We are going a bit more rustic in this room than we did in our first son's nursery. A bit more texture mixing for a cozy feeling that will be different than the feeling one room over. With some wood framed watercolors, a geometric wool rug, wooden accents and metals mixed in, we are excited to see what happens as everything comes together. Below you can see the first thoughts/purchases for this room! 

After some additional decisions, purchases and a whoopsie-two-year-old-accident that landed one of those framed prints on the floor with broken glass (no worries, no one was hurt!) we have honed our design and landed on a final idea for the room. 

   

The chair was a gift from my mom and it's so comfortable! The colors needed to be taken into account for the room because it certainly isn't neutral, though not quite as dark as the photos above are showing. The rug - while neutral - is a nice fun pattern that will liven up the space while being a cozy space to play with our boys! The broken glass was removed from the frame (which is harder than you would think!) and we are going to put this little one's name over it. We didn't want to give away any spoilers so I laid out "BOY" for now to give the general idea. And who doesn't love a little stuffed taxidermy creature, man oh man they are so cute! 

We also have a couple DIY projects for this baby's room. We wanted to make a few things with our own hands since we did that in our first son's room with the arrows above his crib and his side table! We are going to once again make the wall decor that will go above the crib and instead of a side table, since the space is configured differently, we are going to make a shelf that will hang on the wall to store the necessities of rocking chair time! 

   

These photos will serve as our inspiration but we will be making them our own based on color and size requirements for this room. We like how the yarn wall art is rustic but soft which will reflect well on the watercolors and other art we have ready for this room. The shelf is far from traditional and adds a little flavor while being completely useful! 

We will be starting on this room little by little in the next days! Hopefully at the end of the next five or six weeks when this baby is ready to meet us, we will have a space all his own that he will live in and love for years! 

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For those of you who have been following along, here is a sneak peek of the kitchen. Yes, we are still putting in the finishing touches so the full reveal is yet to come but we wanted to give a little glimpse into the kitchen we are daily living in (and loving)! This photo was taken weeks ago so it's a few steps behind our current situation, but the counters are so clean and pretty so I had to use it! ;) 

That Annoying Part in the Middle

And so began demolition on the kitchen. What was supposed to be drywall removal in a small corner (where Rob is cutting out drywall in photo below) to check for water damage, turned into a much larger project. First, we took that wall out from walkway to inner corner to make sure water hadn't spread further than we first assumed. Thankfully, it hadn't and replacing some studs was all it took to shore up the area. We did find a "fun" secret door (the old garage exit pre-kitchen-add-on) that wasn't sealed up correctly when the original construction had been completed. My Dad was so so helpful in this process because he knew just where to stop or dive a little deeper into a problem so it was solved the correct way! Dads are fantastic! 

   

After this wall was torn apart and the studs were repaired, we started removing the cabinets. Our hope was to remove cabinets and *snap* just like that put the new ones in their place. Well of course that isn't what happened as you might have read in our previous post but we didn't share how gross the situation was. 

    

Take a nice long look. Couldn't you just shed a tear at the awful sight of mold/mildew, improper plumbing and water damage? We could, I'm surprised that we didn't, but we certainly could have! The top left photo was our first glance... It was right as we pulled the dishwasher and first cabinet out. Our first reaction was to hope it got better as we continued cabinet removal but with every cabinet that we took out, our hopes sunk more and more. Behind the sink we could see that there had been some major water damage that the previous owners hadn't properly cleaned up (not really a surprise at this point unfortunately) and the drain plumbing hadn't been installed correctly. If you can see in the picture with Rob working on the floor, there was a very noticeable water mark on the floor so it was obvious some sort of flooding had occurred. Thankfully, that underlayment wasn't at all soft or mildewy, so we were actually able to leave it in place. 

As we moved along with the cabinet removal, we learned that at one point there had clearly been some sort of small rodent infestation. Now, let me note, our home is not disgusting or filthy and there are no longer rodents living in our walls but boy-o-boy, at one point... I don't know how the previous owners didn't hear them. It wasn't just something we found under the cabinets either. Every piece of insulation that we removed created some sort of "fecal rain" - gross I know - but it fell down on Rob and my Dad every time a run of insulation was pulled out of the ceiling. [Many many showers were taken during this part of the project!] It isn't something that we knew about before this construction started, so ignorance was bliss for a while, but now our house feels so much cleaner and we have such a greater peace of mind that everything is sealed up tight and is nice and clean! 

   

Once all the cabinets were removed, we had our first "while we're at it" conversation with my Dad. He's great at giving us options that we wouldn't have thought about; the soffit above the cabinets was the first topic we needed to make a decision about. We hadn't realized that this soffit was just a style decision made when when kitchen was constructed, but Dad did. We thought that it would make the room feel larger to extend the ceiling to the full size of the room so within an hour or two max, we had the soffit out! 

The next decision was whether or not to replace the ceiling. There were two factors to this decision: one being the ability to re-center the lights and fan since the soffit was now gone and the second being the knowledge that the ceiling was probably icky and poop filled. YUCK. So it seemed like the right decision. We would be able to reconfigure lighting to what we wanted it to be and it would be much cleaner, both great perks! The picture below is post dry-wall removal and pre insulation removal but the room already looked larger than before! 

After this, we removed all remaining drywall (except for a small section on the left wall). Rob and I got to work, with masks on of course, cutting and installing drywall in all the newly open spaces. We also sealed the old door area so that it couldn't be an entrance for little creatures if that had been their entry point. If you haven't had the pleasure of filling gaps or cracks in your home, let me tell you how awesome Great Stuff Foam is; it's so easy to use and honestly it's kind of fun. It expands to completely fill gaps and once dry, it's hard but can be trimmed if expansion gets in the way. We don't get paid to say this stuff, we just really like it!  

   

  

Once all the new insulation was in we started to feel like we were on the upswing of this project. When demo lasts much longer than expected it can start to feel like no progress is being made. With our lighting newly centered, pendant cans in place (a new addition for us) and all the insulation in place, we were ready for drywall to be installed. This is not a do-it-yourself project for us, we always call the best guy we know, Bill! He's super honest and trustworthy and does such fast, awesome work! The drywall process is so exciting because the space goes from construction to looking like a legitimate room again. Never have white, splotchy walls looked so great to us! 

We decided to freshly paint the ceiling and put one coat of primer over the walls before doing any other insulation so we didn't have to worry about splatter. Ceilings are the worst to paint but it's much easier when there is no need for drop cloths. 

   

Once the paint was dry, we were so happy to start hanging cabinets. The Ikea cabinet system is so smart - they give you a rail to hang on the wall so you don't have to worry about leveling each cabinet. Once the rail is up, the cabinets pretty much hang and clip on. The system is much lighter and much easier to manage without putting a million holes in the walls. Our little guy had a fun time watching his Buppa and Daddy doing work with all the fun tools and even got a popcorn treat from the hardware store!

We are almost ready to reveal the final kitchen, but it's a work in progress for a little while longer!

Two Weeks turned Two Months (and counting!)

Oh boy, when they say "allow more time than anticipated for larger projects" they aren't kidding (whoever they are). After seeing our house for the first time we assumed we would leave the kitchen in a very similar state for a long time. As you can see in the pictures below, it wasn't too bad at first glance. Upon moving in we decided to simply do some cosmetic upgrades to cover up the current look by painting cupboards, replacing the weird vinyl floor and eventually replacing countertops. [We replaced the cooktop immediately, you can read about that here!]

   

Well, we started those projects... I got to painting the cupboards before our things were even moved in and while it's not my favorite project ever, it's definitely a doable one with some patience. They turned out nicely and seemed to update the space significantly. 

      

Even after we were feeling settled into the house and the cabinets were starting to take shape with their new color, it just didn't feel right. We didn't like how obviously painted they looked when they were open - as the inside of the cupboards remained the original wood color while the fronts and doors had been painted. You can also see above that we were dealing with a really nice countertop and flooring (can you sense the sarcasm?). Altogether it just wasn't right and felt like a bandaid instead of a solution. 

After living for months with half painted cabinets while we made some decisions about the space, we chose to purchase new countertops and complete the painting. Off to Ikea we went where it just so happened the solid wood butcher-block color that we wanted was 50% off. We were off to a great start when it came to the kitchen budget. We has previously purchased flooring on sale and now this! What a cheap renovation! Are you scoffing at our naiveté yet?

   

While at Ikea we noticed one of their room displays that was as close as I could possibly imagine to a dream kitchen. It had the big farmhouse sink (that was proving to be impossible to install in our current cabinets) and the grey color scheme; to us it was dreamy! We figured it would be fun to use their 3D kitchen layout planner to see what the cost would be and then make an educated decision based on price and not emotion. Home we went (with countertops in tow since they would be part of the plan no matter what) and we used nap time to plan out our kitchen cabinet swap. It ended up being something that we could afford and with a sale/promotion they had going, it was more cost effective than usual.

So there we were a couple days later, in Ikea making the biggest house purchase we'd ever made. We were so excited! After all, how hard could it be to demo the existing cabinets and replace them with the new ones! You can scoff again. Swapping was our goal, but when cabinets were delivered and we started demo we realized it just wasn't our reality.

   

Stay tuned for the next steps in this "two week" turned two month project!

**Spoiler: This story has a happy and beautiful *swoon* ending!