May 15th, 2013
the beginning of a looong project….
finito!
this project came with a lot of hard labor and a side of panic. having never had marble tile before we, a bit naively, went with white grout. it took all of about 5 minutes to learn that that was not the right choice. turns out white grout on marble looks really, really dirty and does not come clean. no matter how much you try or wish or stare at it. and it’s hard to put a lot of time, money, and energy into something like this and not be blinded by all but the dirt. it was kinda making me crazy.
we realized we should have chosen a gray, something that will hide the specks instead of spotlight them. we chose charcoal and you-know-who spent about 9 hours with that grout removal tool getting it all out. (major husband love) it takes a fair amount of strength and as steady of a hand as you can so i was the caulk remover and cleaner and we worked the weekend away. although i (and he) immediately knew it was the right decision, when we started the clean up process and the tiles weren’t coming quite clean and the imperfections in the marble that had previously been hidden by all of the white were now glaringly obvious with the charcoal, a few worry lines might have been added, along with a gray hair or three. it was a lot of work to then not know if it was the right decision after all.
he said, don’t worry. i worried. he re-caulked, i worried less, we cleaned more. and then today, magic (literally). a lot of elbow grease, some marble cleaner, and the coup de grâce, mister clean magic eraser. that eraser wiped aways all last feelings of worry and fret. the marble is back to being super shiny and white, no more dirty lines of grout, totally worth it.
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: diy floor grout, diy marble grout, marble
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
May 8th, 2013
the perk of everything in a home not being finished asap is living with things and realizing what is not working like you thought it would. our original cabinet plans called for a vintage fridge that had no ice maker; so we planned to install an ice maker under one side of the island, and on the other side a 2 drawer dishwasher. and then what really happened (best laid plans and all). the dishwasher was a disaster, didn’t work, took forever to get refunded, and in the meantime i decided i never want another dishwasher; one empty hole. prior to that the vintage fridge went down in flames and enter brand new (with ice-maker) unit; no under the counter ice maker needed anymore, hole two.
the stackable washer dryer that previously had to go next to the sink could now be moved into our new empty spaces; which was apparently meant to be because they fit like they were made to go there all along, a little haha from the universe and our going the long way to get there. anyway. the cabinet that had been built to hold the w/d was disassembled, the sink now has a countertop next to it (hallelujah!) that can hold a dish drain for my hand washed dishes (not missing a dishwasher one little bit btw), and the silver lining is slow (even when it involves a re-do) can be just the thing you need. sometime in the near (distant?) future, our newly acquired counter space will have a concrete countertop to match the island and our farmhouse copper sink will finally have a home (besides the car, the bathroom, anywhere we can put it and not run over it). not earthshattering mind you, but one more thing off of our to-do list. (;
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: asko washer and dryer, diy
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
April 11th, 2013
we are cozy and warm and living in high cotton in our little home.. and with the ever recurring snow, thank goodness! this fireplace was a definite splurge, we looked at lots but mendota was the top recommended (at least for high elevations) and was one of the few fireplace companies that offered interior straight walls (like you would see on a traditional box fireplace). almost all of the other models we looked at had angled interior walls with a very small back space that was awkward to us. although no one is going to mistake ours for a real deal wood fireplace we wanted to mimic one as much as we could, and we for sure picked a big unit for the size of our house, but we though go big or not at all!
we initially wanted a gas fireplace with an open front but because of high elevations and co2, without a regular chimney and flue we would have been both illegal and at risk. we were disappointed but in the end we are loving our new fireplace and this baby puts off major heat. the first night we had the neighbors over to help us christen it and we hadn’t quite figured the settings out, well we lasted all of ten minutes before having to shut her down. which of course made him and i a little panicky that we had just spent some major dollars and ten minutes at a time was going to be it? oof. he figured it all out the next day though and serious relief, we didn’t even voice how concerned we were to each other until after the dilemma was solved
so that’s our last big purchase for awhile (we hope) but by no means even close to the end of diy’s around here. the fireplace is obviously many steps away from being finished.. he’s going to build us a big fabulous (i’m showing him pinterest photos left and right) mantle and enclosure, so stay tuned!
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: fireplace diy, home diy, mendota fireplace
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
April 9th, 2013
we are pretty much head over heels for our newly painted doors. we want to bring as much of the south to our little western home as possible and decided early on that any and all paint colors chosen would be from the colors of historic charleston collection, which includes an all time southern favorite, charleston green.. our interior door paint choice. the exterior is rhett pumpkin (peach is one of my favorite colors) and we can’t stop talking about how much we love such a small detail! i love when something little can make such a huge impact.
the frames were very gold, which i loved in our last house but with a wall of 10 it was a bit liberace in this tiny space. we’re making a collage wall with photos from our travels and nothing was popping inside the frames, they stole the show and then some. so five coats later we’ve got hi-gloss white just waiting to be hung by the husband (i’ll post again once we sift through the thousands of photos and decide which to frame first).
this is the diy stuff that we love, from start to finish in a day or two and no hard labor required. later in the week we’ve got another big diy to share, we think you’ll love it….
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: charleston green, colors of historic charleston, diy, duron paint
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
April 3rd, 2013
ladies and gentlemen, we have fire!!! after a couple of hotplate years, we finally have a stovetop. immediately christened by husband with fake bacon (don’t knock it, when you don’t eat meat, fake bacon tastes good). we really wanted a big permanent griddle and this was the largest we could find on a residential unit, we won’t make pancakes for five at a time on it but we love it all the same. after cooking on an electric plate for so long we keep saying to each other.. look how fast that cooked! it’s amazing! funny the things that are so so fabulous when you’ve been away from them for awhile, although i’ve never cooked on anything even close to this nice before.
so there you go, one of our big home surprises we’ve been working on, and next week we have another to show, it’s rocking our world too, we’re feeling very lucky these days.
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: diy, stove top
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
March 7th, 2013
this is not a particularly exciting or difficult diy, obviously. switching of knobs may be the easiest thing we’ve done at this house. the putting together of the dressers was a whole ‘nother matter though. and yes we did have extra parts left over after assembly. straight to the trash, if we don’t know what they were meant for now we certainly won’t know later. the real challenge was finding dressers that were not too deep or too wide for the spaces we had available on each side of the bed, and drawers were a must (which we filled immediately). of the many, many dressers i looked at from vintage to new i only found two that fit. these from ikea and another one from jonathan adler, that was of course amazing and also like $2000 apiece. it was a tough call but ikea won. the knobs are from the magic wonderland that is anthropologie. i had planned to paint the knobs that came with the dresser but these were fancy, and on sale, and no paint job would look as cool as these.
anyhoo, lest you be worried, much bigger diy’s are underway. husband is hard at work….
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: anthropologie, camp1899, home diy blog, ikea
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
February 26th, 2013
not exclusive too but very southern, crystal chandeliers. so of course we had to have one, which may turn into two the way my lighting search is going. i am constantly in shock at lighting prices, i’ll see a cool (but simple) looking pendant/chandelier and scroll to the price, $2500, what??? seriously. but anyhoo, we ordered this all crystal beauty and the husband put the many pieces together along with some extra chain for length from a local lighting store (if you’ve got tall ceilings think about ordering chain from the same source as your light, we were lucky to find some same day..) and then bada bing bada boom, we’ve got light! this is one of our small diy’s, at this very moment the husband is working on one of our soon-to-be-revealed big biggies!
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: all crystal chandelier, diy chandelier
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
November 15th, 2012
before leaving edgewater (and taking a big break on the house stuff) we pulled together one last diy for our master bathroom. (we shared with tinkernation first.. we guest blog every now & then, here’s our previous post if you missed it. and if you haven’t checked out their site poke around a little, tons of great posts for all kinds of diy’ers)
we wanted to have a one-of-a-kind bathroom sink cabinet and decided early on to go vintage; we found this restored beauty in boulder, colorado and splurged a teensy bit. the sink and faucet were a steal online which helped even out the cost of the dresser and the mister could do all of the customization so overall it was a good deal. to see the full step-by-step go here. if you’d love a really original piece we definitely recommend this project, it’s a very doable d-i-y!
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: diy blog, small home renovation, small homes, tinkernation, turning a dresser into a sink
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
September 17th, 2012
did i mention we have new neighbors? things have been a changing on our little block. a renter moved out on our street and we’ll soon have a new, more permanent neighbor, we are so happy about this. and beside us a couple moved in who have already become such good next door neighbors.. although they did want to put a privacy fence up first thing so hmmmm?? haha.. it was actually a project in the making. dave (working hard in the above pic’s) and the husband made quick work of it, minus one small rain delay. we now have a privacy fence running almost the length of the property on one side, stretching over to the house. on the opposite side of the house we need to add to an existing privacy fence that runs half way up the yard and also stretch it to the house as well. it’s on the yard to-do list for ??? it’s amazing how much bigger we both felt it made our side yards seem. he and i are already dreaming & scheming on what we’re going to do over there.
we had a very full weekend, can’t wait to share later! what about you? do anything fun or productive?
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: camp1899, denver blog, denver colorado, fence diy, home diy blog
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
September 6th, 2012
in case we’ve given off the false impression of the glamorous life around here (i can hear you laughing already) i thought i’d show you just how glam some of our projects are. (; we tease about mr man’s hoarding of tools. yes he uses them for work, and renovating, and… but do you need 50 screwdrivers, 12 razor knives, 18 rolls of tape, 7 tape measures, 6 levels, approximately 387 drill bits, you get the idea. and that’s not even counting the big stuff like the air compressor, table saw, nail gun, and so on. so we laugh about hoarding and i wonder how many times in our lifetime we can organize the same tools.
but he did get rid of a few screwdrivers (fifty was no exaggeration), and we did consolidate a lot, and can you believe every last thing fit into that teeny tiny trailer with even a smidge of room left? usually (before this project) you opened the back gate of the trailer with long arms because you just didn’t know if an avalanche was going to come hurdling out like an overcooked sausage flying out of it’s casing. and he does do a lot of amazing things with those hoarded tools of plenty so no real complaining (as long as he doesn’t outgrow the trailer).
Filed Under: D-I-Y
Tagged: camp1899, diy blog, hoarding, home diy blog, tools
*please & thank you* link back to us if you re-post something you see here.
Older »
