Rebhan Renovation 2.0

So here we are again. Two years and some months after buying and moving into our first home we are making the leap again. We are moving on from our sweet little bungalow in Royal Oak to a lovely colonial about two miles away. We started this process thinking it would be a long slow one (our choice because we were just "looking" HA!) but after our second Saturday of visiting houses, we found "the one." It was a pretty immediate feeling that Rob and I both had about this house and this doesn't happen simultaneously often (read ever!) There was no convincing us that this house felt like home from the first step in the door. From the layout, space and park-like yard to the hardwood floors and crystal doorknobs (swoon!) we were hooked.

Our new house is settled in a cute, eclectic neighborhood and from what we can tell people love their properties. They are manicured and well kept but not in a creepy Stepford way! We are hoping there are families behind those doors and people who don't mind our rowdy family moving in!

  

The house is totally move in ready BUT needs just enough cosmetic updating and DIY to make it the right fit for us. We love projects and are so excited to get our hands dirty again! We already have plans for our first projects, pre move in and long term ideas. We have decided that we are going to approach this move in a different way than we have before. Because we have more space we are going to load one room in the new house with all our boxes (except the obviously designated ones - Baby Room for example). This way we can put things into rooms as needed instead of feeling stuck with items in certain rooms. We are hoping this will alleviate the cluttered feeling we have now. More than double the space should help too!

Our color scheme is decided (subject to change of course!) and we have a whole new outlook about this house! We are going a little more modern and cooler in color for a cleaner feeling. We want the outside charm to translate inside in some ways but maybe not the most expected ways - stay posted for our first projects!

We have under three weeks left in our first home and we are getting antsy to get moving - literally! We are thrilled to have more space and a more conducive layout for our family, but we are definitely going to miss our little bungalow too. Bringing our baby boy home, seeing him learn and grow and amaze us daily, family gatherings and so many more beautiful memories will be physically left behind but we will never ever forget these awesome years. Our biggest upset is leaving our amazing neighbors, it's actually upsetting to think about - guys, they are amazing! They have become friends and fellow parents (our boys are three months apart) and they will be missed terribly in our daily life - who will we have yard-to-yard chats with? We only hope that we aren't too obnoxious when we text them wayyy too much after we move (sorry Jen! haha).

With only 14 days until we close on our current home and 16 until we close on our new home, we are just overwhelmed with excited energy and boxes. There are boxes everywhere at our house right now!!

Check back in as we make this exciting move, we will be renovating again soon and will have lots to post about!

Until then,
Lindsey

some color inspiration

Walking into a paint store, looking online at colors or shopping at home depot (with their terrible lighting) is an overwhelming event when you are in need of paint for your home. It's so hard to think about a two to five inch square as a color that will cover your whole wall.

To alleviate any pains of paint purchasing on your part, we have put together a fairly comprehensive paint palette for any style of home. I know people who would use every color in one category and others who would mix the categories up! It's all about your personal style and what makes you LOVE your home.

Before we show you our choices, we wanted to share some advice that we learned a while back: It's easy to fall into the trap that every room in the house should be a different color - even if they look good in the scheme of "matching" - but in reality all those separate colors create some serious home A.D.D. ha! Use a color to complete two adjoining rooms (ie. kitchen and hallway) to create some serious flow for your home!

We decided to use Benjamin Moore as our source. We love the quality of Benjamin Moore paint and have known these colors to be pretty true to their swatches. Needless to say, any color from any company can change based on the individual circumstances: primer used or not used, base color, wall condition/type, etc..

We compiled six different categories for your inspiration!

 COOL BOLDS

COOL NEUTRALS

WARM BOLDS

WARM NEUTRALS

WHITES

BRIGHTS

Imagine these colors not only on walls, but trim and ceilings, as accents, back splashes, furniture and more!

What's your favorite and where would you love to use it!?

we're moving up... about five inches

This weekend was chalk full of activities and projects. We spent time with both sides of our family, played games, had dinners, and really enjoyed ourselves! In between all that good family fun, we worked on projects around the house, mainly upstairs, and scored some awesome deals on items for our home!

One of the things on our to-do list has been getting our bed up off the floor. We have been waiting to either build a bed frame or find one that we liked and in the meantime (the past four months) our box spring has been right on the floor. It doesn't really make sleeping any different but the bed is lower and it's hard to vacuum close by the bed. Adding a bed frame was always in the playbook for us, we just weren't in any hurry. 

Once in a great while I check Craigslist just to see what's happening out there and what may be available. Nine times out of ten when I do this, I don't find anything but that one time of ten is when I find something that we actually need that is in great shape, for an unbeatable price. Enter Wendi and her craigslist posting for a bed, chair, night stand and dresser all for $280 bucks! We don't need a dresser or night stand because of all the built-ins in the room but the bed was exactly what we were looking for and the chair was a perfect addition that we didn't know we needed wanted. In total the bed and chair were supposed to cost $110 (according to the original ad) but she gave them both to us for $100! Both pieces (valued at around $300) are in almost perfect condition and if we hadn't said anything, you would have thought they were brand new! 

Rob managed to fit the whole bed (disassembled) into the Torrent with the chair, what a guy! It was definitely a squeeze but we made it home. After some painting [we'll fully reveal that excitement in a post tomorrow] we were able to assemble the bed and waalaa! the room was transformed. For some reason, Rob and I equate nice bedding and bedroom furniture with the idea of being a grown up - who knows where that came from - needless to say, we were feeling mighty grown up last night when we stepped back and took a look at phase three of our bedroom process! 

     

     

Rob did most of the assembly while I handed him what he needed (and took pictures of him working). It wasn't hard to put together and thankfully the people we bought the bed from had opted to separately buy the slats for under the box-spring, always a nice addition. Once the bed was assembled we tipped the box spring and mattress back down and made up the bed. 

   

We like how the light wood offsets the darkness of the room and with the addition of the chair, it has something to match. Currently the built in drawers and railing around the staircase are a sort of dark cherry colored wood, but eventually those will be repainted and the natural wood look will be gone for good! Also the carpet, the purplish blue "elephant in the room", is being completely ignored during this process because it isn't going to last very long - our color scheme is designed with a wood or cork floor in mind. 

   

We are very pleased with the "final product" for stage three of this bedroom makeover. The chair and the bed tie together with their light wood, the fabric on the chair goes perfectly with the color scheme of the room (it's a burlap-y tan), the paint is working exactly how we wanted it to - here's your sneak peak at tomorrow's big reveal, and because I can't just leave a corner without flourish I added some empty gold frames for interest! All in all a successful weekend and a great deal! 

Did any of you snag some awesome deals this weekend? Take on a fun house project? Share what you are up to with a comment on this post! 

Until next time,

Lindsey 

*** In case you were wondering, our nosy pups were safe in their cages during this process so they didn't get into something they shouldn't. "How happy were they about that?" you may ask. Well, let me just say that Oswin is in fact not sleeping in this picture. When I got near her to take a picture, she closed her eyes in protest. Yes, she is that dramatic! As soon as she heard the camera noise she perked right back up and looked straight at me. WHAT A GOOBER. 

the forgotten room

After posting yesterday and going through all our progress we realized that we had never shown you our spare room / den area. It's funny to us, since our house isn't that big... how could we forget a whole room?! 

We think that because the room was a storage room for so long after moving in and because it's not a main living area where we spend a lot of our time, it was easy to over look. Oddly enough though, some of our favorite and most personal decor items rest in this room! 

So there you have it, almost three months after everything was placed and adjusted and hung up, we present our spare room / den!

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In our last apartment we had a second bedroom that we used as an office. We made it as cozy as we could while still having to look at computers, shelves of craft materials, and piles of finished wood signs, etc.. Needless to say, it wasn't as cozy as we would have hoped for a spare room and our guests usually ended up on the couches in the living room. 

In our new house we moved all the office stuff and one of the larger, more comfortable couches down to the finished part of the basement to create our offices and a hang out place to work without sitting at a desk. (We haven't even shown you the basement because it's still in shambles.) 

Thankfully, because of the space the basement provides, we were able to use our second room as a combination spare room / den. As you can see in these pictures (taken before we even moved in), the room has some added interest with the wainscoting and chair rail. It's a little odd to have these details in a spare room but we think that the previous owner used this room (bedroom 2) as the dining room and bedroom 3 (our new dining room) as a spare bedroom. Confused yet? 

    

As for now, the walls are still all white but we may be changing that soon. We know for sure that we will leave the wainscoting as is to give the room a base and then add a color above for some contrast. The color will fall into our house scheme, but we aren't sure of what end of the spectrum. Stay posted to see what we choose! 

   

When it came to furnishing this room we were able to use what we already had. Always a perk for furniture that would otherwise go into storage and for us and our wallets! 

• Futon: Lindsey's futon from college that had been in storage for the previous two years we have been married and now it gets to see the light of day again! We appreciate it's function as a bed for guests or a couch, in its upright position, for some extra hang out space. 
• Side Tables: These were the night stands from our apartment bedrooms, we like using these in this room because it gives a little more guest room comfort. 
• Red Arm Chair: This chair had a home in the living room of our first apartment and our bedroom in our second apartment. It's broken in and perfect for reading! 
• Floor Lamp: A hand me down from Rob's parents that has served us well the last two years. When we moved into the house, I got a new shade that matches the decor and gives the lamp an updated style. 
• Cube Storage Unit: This is a newer addition that we only had for the last year in our second apartment. I love all the cubbies because it's so easy to display simply things in a fun and less "bookshelf" kind of way!
• Carpet: The carpet is a hand me down that we decided to flip over and use the back side for display - this method definitely wouldn't work with all types of rugs, but it's always worth a look!
• Curtains: These were given to us by my mom, she had them extra in her linen closet and they were a perfect match for this room! Thanks, Mom! 

Lots of sentiment is held in this room! Above: you can see how we have decorated the cubby unit with 7+ of our favorite things; it's so fun walking into a room and seeing things that make you so happy. Below: On the left you can see the wall above the futon which is where we display our wedding photos in collage frames along with other odds and ends we use to decorate. On the right you can see our very cute dogs how we kept the seating chart from our wedding day and now use it as large wall art in our spare room! 

   

I'm so happy that you all finally get to see our cozy little den, we're sorry it took so long! It's a great area for hanging out with the pups, reading a book or hosting a guest. We are thankful that we can now have a space like this in our home. 

Until next time, 

Lindsey 

snazzy sheets (and comforter and pillows)

We haven't taken much care in renovating or redecorating our bedroom since it is out of sight, out of mind from the rest of the house but the time has finally come and we are ready to start doing some work upstairs. 

When we moved in we just picked up what we had in our old apartment and set it down in the new house, no thought involved and not much care taken. In the beginning we decided that things were nice enough and it was just the place that we sleep and dress, not a lot of hang time upstairs. Now, we are ready to adjust our view and make it just as lovely and cozy at the rest of the house! 

The room is a bit odd due to the fact that it's a bungalow. The ceiling is angled because of the roof, which creates lots of hassles that aren't typical, but we are excited about what could happen with color and depth! 

  

As you can see above, our bedding was fine - not a lot of character and kind of "eh" (to us at least). For the most part the room around the bed needs to be revamped, as you can see when looking at the undecorated built-in, but the bedding was our starting point! 

I made my way to Target, my first stop for most things home decor related (second only to Home Goods), to see if there were any signs of a good deal! 

I ended up walking out with a new comforter and shams (both Threshold), a new set of sheets (Thomas O'Brien), and a new fitted sheet for the box spring (RE). We use a fitted sheet over our box-spring instead of a skirt for the bed. 

Target has some cool designers represented in their home decor line (my favorite is currently Nate Berkus) and the Threshold brand is always good for a nice piece or two (or three, etc!). 

Overall, we like the new tone the bedding sets in the room. A little more "grown up," if bedding can represent such a thing! 

Mmmmmm... look at that texture. I mean really, hubba hubba! I liked the color, we always like grey in our bedroom, but I loved the shabby chic and yet classic look of this comforter. 

     

And calling all lovers of pattern and texture, don't you just love this combination!? Well, I do! The sharp graphic design of the Thomas O'Brien sheets on the left perfectly complements the softer Threshold comforter on the right. Thankfully Rob is also down with this bedding change - I definitely made an effort to keep my girly side out of these decisions. After all, it's his room too!

We hope you like the change! We have only created a small difference with the bedding, but it's definitely a start.

As always, thank you for following along! 

Until next time,

Lindsey 

**The decorative pillow on the bed is going to be changed out once I finish my next project! Stay posted!

making progress in the living room

The dining room has probably undergone the most changes so far in the house. First we ripped down one of its walls to combine it with the dining room and secondly it has been decorated and redecorated more than once. 

In our apartment we had space for two full size couches because of the open layout and the length of the space but in this house we simply don't. Now, part of the redecorating and rearranging included a layout in which we tried to include both couches but it was too frustrating and tight. As you can see in the layout below [generated by floorplanner], having two couches in the living room was way to smooshed. Even though the room is fairly large, the walkways and front door pose a problem when trying to fit furniture - there aren't a lot of layout options.

I just went crazy one day; so frustrated trying to move around the coffee table and between the overbearing furniture I started to move things around. I ended up with one couch in the middle of the house with no home, ha! We like to say it's all part of the "process" so we don't feel like crazy people! The lighter couch that ended up with no home, is now housed in basement. We decided to keep the maroon leather couch upstairs due to the shape, size, and color! We don't even have any real pictures of the first layout because it never felt right... we knew it wasn't going to last.

 

This is the only photo I could find with the light couch upstairs. If you can use your imagination, the front door is directly to the right of the couch in this picture, the coffee table is just below the frame of this shot, and the TV is where Rob is looking. All in all, not a good situation.

After we removed the couch, we had a lot of empty space. Not enough for another couch or even a loveseat but we knew we wanted more seating. I found a oversized chair at Tootie and Tallulah's that fit the bill! It matched our color scheme and just fit perfectly in the space - plus, it is so so comfortable (as Taylor, Oswin and Harlee are so graciously modeling for us!).

After a couple adjustments and side table switches we came out with a good layout with lots of walking space as well as floor space for our two crazy creatures. My mom was a huge help during this, helping pick out curtains that fit the room and moving everything to its perfect spot!

The walls in the living room have seen many pieces of art and different corner displays, the lighting has changed, frames have been switched, curtains have been swapped and the odds and ends have been added and removed. All in all we are very happy with this current arrangement! 

 

Standing behind the couch, with the front door to your right, this is the view of the living room. The wall above the TV still needs some love and the lighting needs to - yet again - be changed.  All in good time!

 

Standing in the dog's bed (pictured above) this is the view from living room to dining room. The collage corner to the right was originally in the boring white corner from the picture above. We like its new home much more! **please look away from the clutter on the dining room table!

 

Again, standing behind the couch, you can see the over-sized chair and the leather ottoman that we added for seating as well as the art we chose to hang in the living room! 

The thing we are liking most is the flux of everything. Nothing stays in one place and it doesn't have to. The two large pieces of art (which we had framed locally at Greene's Art Supply in Birmingham) were originally meant for the dining room. After one look at the new arrangement, Mom and I decided that the "it is well" art would fit better in the dining room while the architecture pieces fit perfectly in the living room!

We are still going to paint this room and we may or may not already be underway with that project! Results to come later, we are still deciding if we like the color!! 

Thanks for reading, until next time, 

Lindsey

adding a kitchen shelf

When we retiled the kitchen to make way for the hood, we were left with a big open space between the counter and the newly installed hood. It looked much nicer than it had before we took the giant microwave out, but it was still missing a little character (and storage space). Lindsey keeps the oils, salt and pepper, etc. in a wooden box behind the cooktop but it has to be moved every time we cook so it doesn't burn... not a great situation. So she came up with a solution: since the inside of the cupboards had to be painted white anyway, she wanted to make a little addition of a shelf between the cupboards. Now, when she first suggested this to me I was worried about a full shelf over the cooktop, thinking that the heat wouldn't be a good idea under the shelf... understandable right!? (Lindsey says: "He often acts as my common sense, ha!") Once she made it clear that it was only to be about 4 inches deep I was on board!

It's fun to make something out of nothing even if it's a really simple project like this one. We felt somewhat more proud of this project than others because it was an idea that started in our minds and came out exactly as we wanted!

I started by measuring and using my awesome miter saw to cut the pieces that the shelf would rest on. Because it isn't a very wide space and the wood we were using was good quality we didn't need to anchor the middle of the shelf. The shelf is 3 3/8 inches deep (quite a random number but it was half of an existing scrap of wood) and about 34 inches long. 

         

I used a drill bit to make pilot holes in the wood blocks as well as the adjoining cupboards in order to make screwing in the screw a bit easier. My first block install went fine until I put the screw in - the wood split, proof that even "easy" projects can be a bit frustrating. I was thankful that this happened on my first go-round because I could start fresh! 

       

After I got the blocks flush to the bottom of the cabinets and attached with no splitting, it was smooth sailing. We had planned to just attach the shelf with liquid nails (our favorite adhesive so far) and start painting. The plan would have worked brilliantly had we not run into a slight leveling problem. It wasn't any measuring or installing on our part, the cabinets are actually about 1/4 inch off from one another and when you are looking at a long "straight" shelf that isn't straight - it's quite noticeable.

All we had to do was add a scrap of wood with the liquid nails, wait for that to dry and then putty in the gaps! Not really a whole lot of extra work, just some unexpected problem solving! 

  

 

Far left: liquid nails to hold left side of shelf, Middle left: liquid nails with added piece of scrap,

Middle right: caulking the gaps, Far right: the side with the added scrap has been filled and caulked

Once everything dried and the shelf was set into place, it was time for the first layer of paint. As you can see, Lindsey does all the "make it pretty" work as she is a bit better at it than I! We used Glidden eggshell white paint which matched the kitchen cabinets. After one layer of paint, it was very clear that more than one layer of paint was required and the "unfinished" edge of the shelf needed to be sealed between the first and second coats of paint. 

Once the putty sealed fully we were able to finish off the painting and "set up shop" with our new shelf; so far so good! 

We have had a busy weekend - just wait and see what we have coming up next. 

Thanks, as always, for reading and following along with Lindsey and I as we refinish and set up our home! 

Until next time, Rob

I just had to add on this picture that Lindsey took while I was cleaning some duct tape off our front window. Our dogs are so fun!

It's hard to see, but that is Oswin's silhouette and Harlee is down in the darkened left corner. 

ding dong

Well here's the truth, we have a door bell that doesn't work at all. I don't know when this happened or if the people before us disconnected for a reason unknown (crazy dog, annoying noise, etc) or if one day the door bell just stopped working... all I know is that it surely doesn't work now.

This isn't a post to tell you how we got the doorbell to start working - hopefully one day we will be able to figure that out - but instead how we made the inside pieces a little more bearable to look at day in and day out!

When we moved in, the door bell was exposed in the hallway with no cover. After looking through all the closets and basement shelves, we did find the cover but it was discolored just like the thermostat we just replaced.

We figured that it was a silly thing to have missing but also silly to re-buy since the one we found in the house was perfectly useful, but unfortunately suffered from being the wrong color.

Nothing a little paint can't fix!

In retrospect, we should have taken a picture against something white because the cover doesn't look that bad here, but you'll have to believe us that it was ugly! Lindsey just used white acrylic paint and a sponge brush to paint over the plastic cover. It took about three coats for it to be smooth, without streaks.

Here you can see the difference between the top that Lindsey already painted and the original color on the sides.  She was using some old mail for her drop cloth since sometimes she says her actual drop cloth creates more of a mess than it's worth.

After three coats it was looking mighty fine and dried very quickly because she used acrylic paint; we always suggest going with acrylic for quick and easy projects - cuts drying time in half!

Once the cover was dry, all we had to do was hang it back on the wall. It simply hangs on the black chime box (as seen in the first picture) so it was no trouble at all to hang. Boy, what a nice change for the chime to be "hidden" on the wall instead of an eye-sore.

So simple and free, our favorite type of project!!!

Just a simple task that changes a wall.

Until next time, Rob and Lindsey