New room=new endeavour

A while ago we mentioned that we had painted the guest bedroom and finally put it together for our friend Tracy who was in town.  A few months, later, a seed planted by that same friend has led us to become hosts on AirBnB!  Our cool-hued, comfortable guest room is now for rent and it's been a fantastic experience so far.

We hadn't fully detailed this transformation yet, but an on-a-whim listing put this and a few other dangling projects on the front-burner quickly. It's definitely a big motivating factor for both of us to finish up our lingering projects sooner rather than later now that we are opening up our doors to welcome in strangers from across the globe.   A photographer from the website came over the other day to take professional photos of our home, and once we have our hands on those, we'll be happy to share.  We haven't seen them yet, hopefully they look good!

Oh, hello...

Just sharing a picture I took this morning out on our back porch.  I had such high hopes for a thriving herb garden to boast about by this point in the summer, but hot sun, black thumbs and bad kitties have left us with a limited supply of basil, marjoram and mint.  

I am happy to see my hanging planters from West Elm finally being put to good use, though.  I bought them last year with the intention of getting some long viney sort of plants to put in them, but as I mentioned, I'm not the best with plants.  For now, I'm happy to give some flowers from a bouquet that MJ surprised me with two entire weeks ago a second go around with some pink flowers mixed in.  We stole the pink ones from a church parking lot around the corner last night during our walk.  

I know we promised updates about our renovation projects.  We'll get to it.  For now we are busy enjoying the summer with lots of grilling, laying on the beach and exploring our new neighborhood.  (Not to mention working, going to school and an internship and doing lots and lots of homework.)

I don't like caulk.

To reiterate, I don't care much for caulk.

The Never Ending Debate

Today at Home Depot, MJ and I decided to split up in the paint section.  We were each to pick one color (and one only) and present it to the other and then we would decide between the two.  At moments I would turn around to ask him a question, and he'd hide the color in his hand so I couldn't see it.  When we did the big reveal, we saw that we had chosen almost identical colors.  What you see above is what we came up with.  No joke.  His pick is on the left (Chinchilla by Martha Stewart Living) and mine is on the right (Classic Silver by Behr).  For the record, we went with Classic Silver, though I think it's obvious we would have been happy with either color.

We are painting the front guest bedroom and setting it up so that our friend can stay the night next week without having to fall asleep facing a crayon covered wall.  It may seem dangerous that we both have the predictable tendency to lean toward gray when picking colors, but I think it's a good thing that we're on the same page.  Yes, we painted our bedroom gray, and yes we each moved from apartments that were mostly gray, but so what?  We know what we like.  I am not worried that our house will turn out monochromatic and dull.  Besides, we have a LOT of yellow tile to cover and salmon colored trim to fix before that would ever happen.

Speaking of yellow tile, the bathroom is coming along nicely but we are still stumped as to how to cover it all up.  If anyone has any ideas that don't involve wainscoting or completely tearing out the wall, we're all ears.

Unauthorized photo blog post

Mid-wall sand for the third pass in the bathroom. Soundtrack: Metallica. (Jackie's at school!)

On Decision Making

The trouble with having so many things to do is that it gets hard to see the whole picture and prioritize.  Yes, we want to be able to use the kitchen space more effectively and stop digging through boxes to find the pan/dish/etc. that we need in order to prepare a meal.  But, we also want to finish painting the rooms so that we can feel like when we put things away they can stay there.  We started categorizing every idea we have as High Priority Projects (HPP) and Low Priority Projects (LPP), but even still, the sheer length of the to do list sometimes gets a little paralyzing.  Yes, we actually use that lingo in normal conversation.

I admit I have a tendency to defer most decision making to MJ when it doesn't matter to me, probably because I don't want the blame if whatever I decided ends up being horrible.  This applies to anything from where to go for lunch, what to make for dinner, what color should we do the trim, do we get the chrome or brushed nickel faucet?  I know that isn't fair.  This is our home that we live in together and so we have to make our decisions together.  (I'm hoping someday he forgives me for choosing eggshell finish instead of flat for our bedroom.)

Anyway, this weekend, we decided on the fly to head to Ikea and just DO IT.  Knock one thing off the list.  We are sick of not being able to fit half of our things in the bathroom vanity, and in general just having the world's ugliest bathroom.  We flipped through the catalog and planned in our heads a few key purchases.  What we came home with was a brand new sink, cabinet and faucet, two mirrored medicine cabinets, and a collection of other random little 'necessities', because who doesn't need a new set of stainless steel spatulas and coconut scented candles?

Part of the problem with on the fly decisions is that it's easy to get in way over your head.  We thought we were just buying new things to replace the old things but once we took a look at the actual project, we realized there was a lot more to it than that.  We still wanted to paint and put in a new floor, and do we do it halfway, and wait to do the rest?  Or do we just dive right in and do all of it at once at a higher initial cost, and bigger chaos?  

We opted for just going for it (before and after coming next soon!).  Yes, it's more work, but I think the resulting serenity of having one room that we completely love is a much bigger payoff than stopping halfway and having that future project looming in the future.  

Master Bedroom (term used loosely)

Our first priority coming in was fixing up our bedroom.  Not only was it important to establish our resting space, get the mattress off the floor and out of the way of everything else (we spent a few more nights sleeping in the office than we were planning on), but it was also the easiest project to tackle.  

Before:

We started off with some nasty baby blue walls and creaky uneven pergo floors.  Also not pictured were some electrical sockets jutting out of the walls, and backwards wiring on the light switch.  

 

After:

We painted the walls a dark gray, and the trim a bright clean white (Paramount and Silver Leaf by Behr).  Halfway through painting the walls, we looked up and saw how nasty the ceiling was, and decided it was best to be thorough, so ran out to get a basic white ceiling paint for that as well.  Made a world of difference.  Never neglect the ceiling.  We also chose to paint the closet doors the same color as the walls since they take up so much space and it made a big difference - it would not be the same room if those doors were white.  

Next came the bed.  MJ basically deconstructed and reconstructed his old bed frame to custom fit the tiny amount of space we have, and then we shoved the mattress in and forced it to fit.  While it's our "master" bedroom, the room we chose really isn't any bigger than the other bedrooms in the apartment.  The width of the room is approximately 81 inches.  A standard queen size mattress without a bed frame is 80 inches long, and the configuration of the room pretty much demands that we put the bed in longways along that shorter wall.  So yeah, its a tight squeeze.   Someone has to climb over the other, which seems annoying but actually isn't that bad.  I have struggled with insomnia, and I think a dark and cozy cave is the way to go for me when it comes to a bedroom.  

 

We still have a number of things to finish but for now we're at a good point and are happy with the change.  Now if only everything else could be so easy!