Making it all fit

Now that we have lived here for more than a year the basement has undergone some renovation, reorganization and most recently we've changed it's function.

When we first moved in we used the basement as an office of sorts. Rob's computer was down there as was my crafting desk, so we used the space to work on projects and hang out while the other was working. It wasn't decorated, there was barely any furniture and it felt like a dark basement. It was a waste of much needed space in our small home. 

Over the summer we decided that we wanted to have some part of the house, other than our bedroom, that was carpeted. We figured with a baby on the way we should have some space to put toys and let a babe romp around without fear of falling on the hardwood or marble flooring. The basement seemed like the best option since it would mean that we wouldn't have to cover any of the original wood floors. Plus the existing basement carpet was horrendous so it was the perfect choice. Below is a picture from when the laundry room flooded, yet another reason to rid the basement of it's old floor covering. 

The original carpet in the basement was directly on the cement floor so it was hard as a rock. We called Empire and it was a simple process that was started and finished in two days. We chose a very neutral color but added padding and a deeper plush to the carpet itself; much more acceptable for a baby to crawl all over and the change made the basement feel more like a part of the house. 

   

You can see in the picture on the left above that we left the original carpet 

on the stairs because we plan on refinishing with a rustic wooden stairway. 

Once the carpet was installed, we needed a place to put the furniture that had been in the den because that room would now be the nursery. This is when we had to do some problem solving, without getting rid of any furniture we had to add a whole new room to our house. 

Rob's desk moved up into the nook in our bedroom where the dogs beds used to be. Moving his desk created space in the basement for the futon and one of the black side tables that was formerly in the den. We also took the tv and buffet from the living room and moved it one floor straight down. Now we have a living room on the main floor and a family room in the basement. The black cubicle unit is now part of an entertainment unit in our bedroom and the only piece we retired was the red chair... it had seen better days. 

The transition happened little by little but now it seems like this is the way our house should have been set up all along. We stretched the little bit of space we have as far as it will go and we are very happy with the way it feels now! 

a step in the right direction

We are getting so close to the big bathroom reveal, there are just a couple of things that need to be accomplished before we show you the new vanity, etc. We decided that posting an "along the road" post about the bathroom would alleviate some length that the full post could take, so here is a snippet of what we have finished, what we are in the middle of, and what we have yet to do! 

Finished: 

1. The bathroom plumbing:

More on the install later but the water is running and we don't have any leaks!!

2. The Toilet Paper holder is installed:

We took down the ugly gold and silver original, puttied the holes it left behind, painted everything white again, and then installed the new holder. Even simply upgrades like this can make the room feel like new! 

   

3. The "towel bar" wall is mended:

Because of the new vanity, the old towel bar didn't make sense in the bathroom and well, it was just plain ugly. We took down the original and instead of adding anything in it's place we just repaired the wall by puttying, sanding and painting it back to white! It's nice to just have some fresh white wall space in a small bathroom like ours! 

As you can see in the first and third pictures, the space between the wall and the "counter" shrunk from about 10 inches to four inches. Hence, the awkwardness of a bar. 

   

In process: 

1. Laundry Chute makeover:

The laundry chute, our new must have house inclusion (we LOVE it), was looking a little sad and needed a pick me up. First, we scrubbed the metal to get it nice and clean and to rid the frame of most of its rust. Second, we removed the handle/latch and taped off the door. Finally, we painted the outside edge with a small paint brush in order to spare ourselves from streaking. As for now only the outside frame has been painted and the door still needs a coat or two but it's already looking much better! 

      

2. Medicine Cabinet:

With our new vanity the existing medicine cabinet is looking dwarfed and yellowed. The new crisp white porcelain sink creates a true point of color reference for the cabinet. We don't want to buy a new cabinet yet, and we don't want a gaping hole in the wall covered by a larger mirror either (we like the storage space) but something has to give. Our answer: paint! We haven't decided if we will go white like its surrounding walls or dark like the base of the cabinet but we do know it's getting some paint lovin' this week! So far we have removed the door and used liquid deglosser, a sanding agent, on the frame to ready it for paint! 

   

   

Coming up: 

1. Sealing the shelves: 

We have noticed that the shelves we refinished for the bathroom (here) collect a lot of dust and are hard to clean because we didn't use a sealant on them. We are going to use a water based sealant so we don't have to air out the bathroom (and house) for days after applying. 

2. Changing out the light fixture:

We don't like the fixture in the bathroom but it does give great light to the vanity area. We know we are going to need one that is generally the same shape etc, but we would like a bit more of a modern flavor. 

3. Taking down shower door: 

The shower doors have been a "take down" since the very beginning and we would like to eventually live with a curtain in it's place. We are most likely going to take the doors down before we retile the bathroom and just fill in the screw holes for the time being. 

Now you can see where are at, definitely in process but making great steps toward the finish line! Keep following us this week to see what we will come up with next! 

What did all of you work on over the weekend? Anything exciting, big or small? We'd love to hear from you! 

seeing how far we've come

We always have an up-to-date list of what we've accomplished so far on the blog, but sometimes it's fun to take a look and compare the pictures of the original house (at move in) with our new and improved look in each room. The first picture of each "series" is the original, pre-move-in look and anything that follows is what we have done to the house! It's exciting to see it put together this way and really see what the differences are - let me tell you, paint is our best friend - i've said it before but it is amazing what a little paint can do!

Front Yard:

• Move house numbers to other side of door
• Re-do porch and walkway
• Re-landscape - Sod front yard
• Move mailbox
• Install flag and hang it
• Repaint the exterior of the house
• Repaint front door
• Repaint shutters

Back Yard:

• Dig out old garden beds
• Weed existing garden beds
• Remove white rocks
• Move hydrangea bushes away from house and to the back yard
• Decided what to do with shed - tear down and rebuild
• Install raised garden beds
• Plant vegetable garden 
• Re-finish swing
• Change fabric on swing and bistro set seats

Living Room:

• Change out curtain rods
• Hang new curtains
• New rug
• Paint living room / choose color
• Create walkway between living room and dining room
• Replace baseboards
• Hang art
• Paint inside of front door
• Add lighting

Dining Room:

• Change out curtain rods
• Hang new curtains
• New rug
• Re-upholster dining room chairs / choose fabric
• Hang art
• Organize closet for more storage
• Change closet door to be a glass "china cabinet"
• Paint dining room / choose color
• Baseboards
• Choose and hang light fixture

Hallway:

• Hang art
• Change the coat closet from a rod to hooks
• Change the shelves in the linen closet - real wood instead of pressed wood
• Paint the ceiling / choose color

Bathroom:

• Take down original shelving behind toilet
• Hang new shelves and decorate
• Hang Shower Curtain
• Re-attach fallen tiles in shower/tub
• Add hooks for towels and robes
• Organize closet behind door with baskets
• Replace sink pedastal with vanity style
• Replace fixtures / toilet paper holder / towel bar

Spare Room / Den:

• Paint den above chair rail / choose color 
• Change out curtain rods
• Hang new curtains
• New rug
• Arrange collage wall
• Hang art
• Add hanging bar to the inside of closet / maximize storage
  

Kitchen:

• Paint jars and cubby
• Build butcher block table
• Install new cooktop
• Hang pot-rack
• Install new hood
• Tile behind cooktop
• Hang art
• Paint underside of cupboards 
• Add shelf above cooktop
• Add knobs to cupboards

Finished Basement:

• Replace carpet in basement
• Remove carpet from stairs and re-trim
• Paint basement / choose color
• Complete ductwork that connects to living room vent

Laundry Room / Unfinished Basement: 

• Clean existing shelves
• Build laundry organization
• Create shelves for Rob's tools / work bench

Upstairs / Bedroom:

• Strip the carpet from the stairs
• Refinish stairs with a pallet wood look
• Hang curtains
• Organize closet
• Replace carpet upstairs
• Hang art
• paint ceiling
• paint walls
• new bedding
• create a bed platform

Thanks for keeping up with us!

Until next time,
Lindsey 

our first splash of paint

We did it, we picked a color, made the commitment and painted the whole dining room. WOOT!

Before I begin with the painting process, I wanted you to see where we started. Stage one included simply putting things in the room where they belong and making it look as homey as possible. You can see my attempt to look settled by setting the table and hanging one measly curtain in the far right window; my attempts were in vain. Stage two included adding some more furniture, hanging art and adding some substantial curtains. Definitely a step in the right direction but still unfinished and lacking in depth. The gold curtains and the mustard rug with all the wooden furniture left the room looking like a golden cave, a bit "dull" for our taste even with the white walls.

Before this dining room, the only rooms I had ever painted in full had been those in our previous two apartments. If I'm being completely honest, I didn't care much about straight lines because we only had to deal with my paint job for less than a year! I'm not saying that I did a terrible job painting in our apartments, it was still home for us after all, but trying to get a perfectly straight wall/ceiling line was virtually impossible.

This time I did my research, found out the best ways to edge in and paint and got the proper equipment. My favorite home renovation blog is Young House Love. They are full of such great ideas as they are working on their third house in about five years! They have tips and tricks for us first timers and they make us laugh in the process. Thankfully we were starting with white walls and while some people would still use primer, we decided to simply wipe down the walls and let the paint do the covering.

     

     

After I gathered everything I needed, I began edging in with my new brush and used my trim cup to make it easier to keep my paint close while laying on the floor for the baseboards and on a ladder for the molding! One thing that I learned from my "research" is to keep paint only on the edge of the brush that is facing the molding - that way there is a clean line and no worries about pulling paint and leaving some wall uncovered.

     

Let me just tell you that if you have small hands like I do this brush is PERFECT. I'm sure anyone can wield it well but with that small flexible silicone handle as well as the nice stiff bristles, it was made for small handed people like me - I was hard pressed to go "out of the lines!"

It took me about 7 hours to edge in and go back over all the borders of the room. It only took me about 2.5 more hours the next day to paint the full walls with a roller! Two coats was all it took for a nice clean finished look!

We are so happy with the paint and color that we chose: Benjamin Moore "White Water", Super Spec in Eggshell Finish. Not only is it a beautiful color that looks great in the room but we snagged it for a mere $10/gallon at our local paint shop due to a mis-order! The price might look prettier on the walls than the paint does, ha! 

After only about 10 hours of painting we are so satisfied with the final product... Drum roll please! 

We love it, it makes all the golds and browns in the room really pop and completely negates the gold cave feeling we were having before. What a welcome change!

We accomplished some big projects this past weekend and are looking forward to starting some more soon! If you want to keep up with what we are crossing off the list you can see all that we want to do and have already done here!

As always, thanks for reading and following along with us!

Until next time, Lindsey

simple changes that make a big difference

WARNING: you're in for a long post today!

Sunday was a day filled with projects for Rob and I. We tackled some of the shorter, simpler projects that we had been delaying on because we never wanted to open the can of worms on these projects (which was silly because the proverbial cans were all so tiny). Well, now they are finished very nearly finished and what a difference some simple changes can make! Let me just tell you - things are feeling fresh at the Rebhan house - woot!

We completed three tasks:

1. filling nail holes from previous owners curtains, etc and our decor changes
2. taking the inner molding out of the old bedroom doorway (that is now the secondary entrance to the dining room)
3. repainting the inside of the front door and all of the door's trim

We started the day with projects one and two, three was added on as we started patching and painting and oh my, what a difference that painted door makes!

Project 1: 

There were lots and lots of holes around the house from temporary decor solutions and "mis-hung" pictures/frames, as well as from all the old curtain rods the previous owner had installed.

Now when I say "curtain rods", I use the term loosely because they were more the bracket and telescoping rod variety that end up being covered in six layers of paint before they are ever taken down or replaced. Needless to say, it was not easy to get the 10 brackets (whose screws were completely stripped) down off the wall.

Once we managed to get everything removed, we used putty to fill all the holes. I prefer the kind that goes on pink, that way I can and make sure that I filled everything properly. I also use my hands to apply it to the wall for nail holes, but a putty knife does come in handy when you are really trying to smooth out a divot!

After we spackled everything, we waited for all the pink to turn white and then we sanded away. It doesn't take much power to sand these little areas so we just used a couple scraps of sandpaper and hand-sanded. I always like to hold a damp paper towel under my spot sanding so I don't have to clean up after! After the sanding, I just painted over the holes and "waaaalaa!" clear white walls again. It really is the simple things.

Project 2:

When we took down the wall to create the walkway (you can see that project here) between the dining room and the living room, we also took down the old bedroom door. We figured that eventually we would refinish the doorway so it no longer looked like a doorframe, but a walk-through; no one would ever know what we had done (hee hee). Well we have been done with the walkway for about two months now and well, we just got around to refinishing the trim. Thankfully the way door frames are put together, it's not hard to take them apart!

Rob only needed a hammer, a crow bar and some sand paper to get this job done! Now that we have done some projects around the house, we always appreciate those that don't require many tools and tricks!

 

As you can see from the "action shot" above, a few swift hits with the hammer and that molding was popping right off. Sometimes it amazes me how easy it is to take apart a house, ha! It took Rob about five minutes to get the molding off the sides and top of the door frame. Once the big pieces were off he had to go back and get the little splinter leftovers that were being held on by the layers and layers of paint that doorway had seen over the years. As you can see in the picture below, there was a lot of paint scrap left behind!

Once Rob took all the scraps off, all that was left to do was sand! Again, it wasn't a job for the power sander; he was able to take the remaining paint bumps and smooth them out to be level with the frame just by hand sanding.

After that, all there was left to do was paint the frame white! For now, we have sanded down the hardware "holes" and have painted them white. We are eventually going to fill them with wood, putty and paint over them again but we didn't have time this go round. Honestly though, even though we have one more step in this project, we are happy that we got what we did out of the way - it already makes a big difference! We will take a picture of the finished project when all the paint has dried and the holes have been filled!

Project 3: 

Project three snuck up on me while I was doing project #1. I was painting over a hole next to the front door and it hit me how ugly and tan/brown/yellow the front door was - yuck! So without thinking twice I just ran my paint brush over the door and now, the rest is history as they say.

The lighting in these pictures isn't great but it doesn't take great lighting to see how ugly and dirty our front door looked from the inside... not only was the door an ugly tan color, the molding around the windows (which is plastic, ew) was completely yellowed from years of sun and wear. I had never painted a door before so I wasn't about to try and paint around all the knobs and locks. After removing the lock and door handle, I also removed the plastic frame from the inside.

Here is an up close view of the window molding... can we all say it together now? EW! So yellow and so dated looking because of it. To be completely honest, I hadn't really looked twice at the front door before because there were other things to be done - but boy am I glad I looked a little closer on Sunday. After removing all the molding, I painted the door with a paintbrush for two coats and then rollered on the third coat to make it nice and smooth! I used an eggshell white that I had laying around the house - same as the walls - so it just blends right in!

I didn't want to hand paint the molding, figuring the plastic would get all streaky and that would frustrate me to no end. So I chose to spray paint... I love spray paint! Let me re-phrase, I LOVE spray paint, but I hate the spray paint that I chose for this project. It had a terrible sprayer and my table in the basement as well as my arm got covered in paint. boo!

Even though it was messy, it was worth it because the frames look 100x better than before! So crisp and clean, with a little sheen to boot!

After letting the spray paint and the door dry for about two hours while we went out and celebrated with some friends on their engagement (shout out to Jordan and Danielle, congrats you guys!!), we were ready to put the door back together

The window glass is actually just held between the two plastic panes (one on the outside and one on the inside) with a bunch of screws, so the process to take it apart and put it back together is not a hard one! 

After everything was put back together, it was an amazing difference! What was once blah and brown is now crisp and clean! Thank goodness for a little white paint :)

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and loved ones and we wish you a prosperous new year! As always, thank you for following along with us! 

Until next time, Lindsey and Rob