DIY
The Idaho House: 7 Months In
We bought this home in Idaho 7.5 months ago and I still have yet to get our "Idaho House" tour tab filled. So this weekend, I finally buckled down and snapped some in-progress photos of where we are to fill up that tab this week. Every once in awhile I like posting these photos here […]
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May 5, 2014
DIY
DIY Faux Soapstone Countertop
We're diving head first into updating our current kitchen!! After we recently finished the floors, our cabinets are looking more orange than ever and we left a disposable table cloth on our island in place of a countertop. Eeeks. Although we are planning a full kitchen remodel next year (??), painting our cabinets is an […]
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April 29, 2014
DIY
Installing Baseboards in the Nursery
Are we behind on the nursery? Ha! With Greta, we had her nursery ready with 2 months to spare. We're down to a week over here and we still haven't put the crib back together since moving our furniture back up last week. We're buckling down this week to get it done hopefully before she arrives. First on […]
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April 7, 2014
DIY
Reconfiguring the Kitchen
Prior to tackling the floors, our kitchen extended into the dining area. It was always a little puzzling to us why the pantry was in the dining "room" when there was a blank wall in the kitchen. The only answer we could come up with was that 20+ years ago the builder accidentally made the […]
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April 2, 2014
DIY
Removing Grout Haze the Easy Way
Although we showed you the "finished" floors in yesterday's post, there is one part of the process that we haven't covered--grout! In my post about Tips for Achieving Realistic Faux Wood Tile, I mentioned that "opting for a grout color a shade darker than our tile will keep things looking more natural." Our grout lines were the […]
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April 1, 2014
DIY
Faux Wood Tile: The After Photos!
We're so excited to share with you our finished floors today! Replacing almost all of the flooring on our main floor (we opted out of doing our master bath since we'll be tackling a full renovation in there next year) was daunting beforehand, a lot of work during, but now we're on the other side […]
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March 31, 2014
DIY
Slow and Steady Lays the Tile
Y'all wanna know what I've been working on lately? Shhh... it's a secret... Psyche. Not a secret. Everyone knows. Floors. Floors, floors, and more floors. As you can see from the above photo, Saturday we made serious progress in the great room. But, here's how my daily schedule breaks down: 7am: Wake up, get ready […]
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March 24, 2014
DIY
Tips for Achieving Realistic Faux Wood Tile
This weekend, with the help of a few friends, we started laying our faux-wood tile floors and made some real progress, extending from the entry into the nursery, half bath and starting in the master bedroom. The process is slow, but exciting! Now that we can see the actual end product, our spirits are definitely […]
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March 17, 2014
DIY
Things We've Done besides Work on the Floors this Week
I know, I know. We're a broken record over here lately talking about our flooring project. The project has consumed our lives in almost every way. The goal was always to have the project done before the end of March, and I am happy to say--right now, I think we're on track to do that. […]
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March 14, 2014
DIY
Tilemageddon and the Point of No Return
Right now we're in the "what were we thinking?!" phase with this project. We just started week 4 of what we're calling "tilemageddon" and we haven't even started laying tile yet. We finished up laying a second subfloor of OSB last week, and this week the concrete board is going down. It's a back-breaking long […]
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March 11, 2014
DIY
A Glider and a Revamped Ottoman
Last week our glider for the nursery arrived! I shared several I was deciding between here and ended up going with one I didn't list--the Graham glider from West Elm. I almost went with the Sweep Swivel chair that I depicted, but after learning it just swiveled and didn't glide, I decided on the Graham […]
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March 5, 2014
DIY
A Sneak Peek at the Floors
It's been a really hectic week over here. I thought I could get a painting in, but I am glad I didn't push it. I haven't been feeling the best (pregnancy-wise) and Greta, Charly and I were stuck in the basement all week while the particle board sub-floors covered in mortar were being torn up […]
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February 28, 2014
DIY
Upgrading the Boob Light
Our home has standard height ceilings. We have looked into having the great room vaulted, but at a staggering cost of no less than $30K due to the way our roof is supported, our 8' ceilings are suddenly looking a-okay. But the boob fixtures, you know the ones, are not okay and we have them everywhere. Chances are, you […]
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February 27, 2014
DIY
Snowballing Projects
Last week, in this comments portion of this post, reader Jacqueline wrote: In a similar vein to your post about painting the ceiling, do you think now would be the time to paint the cabinets too (if you’re planning on doing that as an interim step to replacing them eventually)? Or is that just tackling […]
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February 26, 2014
DIY
Why Particle Board Subfloors Are Bad
Let me first preface this post by saying, DIYers sometimes get a bad rap. But honestly, sometimes we earn it. We cut corners, we find shortcuts, we think to ourselves "Oh this is good enough. You aren't going to see this or that." Even Jules and I have been guilty of this in the past. Nothing that […]
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February 24, 2014
DIY
Tilemageddon: The Removal
Monday we were able to get all the carpet torn out of the main floor and the tack strips up and last night tile demo started. When I say "we" unfortunately I am excluded from all the fun while trying to keep this baby of ours in and Greta downstairs. But I did peek up […]
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February 20, 2014
DIY
On Painting (and paying attention to) Ceilings
Two days ago, I had the realization that now would be the ideal time to paint the ceilings on the main floor of our home. It was one of those circumstances where I almost chose to ignore the aha moment because painting 1700 square ft of ceiling sounds about as fun as...what is the least […]
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February 19, 2014
DIY
The Beginning: Demo Day 1!
Our day started early on Saturday, waking up in our bedroom to our normal house that we've lived in for the past six months. But the difference was, Saturday was the beginning of demo to prep for our new floors. As I mentioned in this post, we are replacing all the flooring on our main […]
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February 17, 2014
DIY
A Heated Flooring Update
It has been an intense 3 weeks since we pulled the trigger on going for faux wood tile for our first floor instead of hardwood (as well as a few other options we looked at). A few of you asked how the process was going, so while we are technically still in the same place--womp […]
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February 12, 2014
DIY
Ikea Tarva Dresser Makeover
Since the nursery doesn't have a closet, we really needed a dresser--which is actually completely fine because I, personally, prefer itty bitty clothes in drawers anyway. Our friends bought the 6-drawer Tarva dresser from Ikea and it didn't fit in their space so we offered to buy it from them after our local Craigslist was […]
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February 3, 2014
