One of the things I did early on was design our bedroom closet organizational system.  We knew we wanted to work with the white wire shelving we used in our old house.  I know there are tons of systems out there, but we liked it for it's price as well as the option to reconfigure.  I actually reconfigured our old closet a couple times while living there to better utilize the space.  And, we completely redesigned the office closet into a nursery closet easily using the same rail system.

 
I had wanted to try the Pax system from Ikea, but all my designs either didn't fit our dimensions, or didn't maximize the space we did have, so I went back to the wire systems.  I knew I wanted to incorporate drawers (I like drawers way more than shelves - in all organizing situations), so I looked at The Container Store since I loved their wire drawers in Archer's closet above.  Anything was going to be a vast improvement over the one sagging clothes hanger/shelf situation that we started with. 


I inputted our dimensions and they're planning tool asked questions like was it a male or female, or combined closet, and then what types of doors.  Then it gives you a couple premade designs.  You can modify it a little like adding in more long hang space if you have more dresses (I do not), or shoe storage for example.  I had to be very cognizant of where the drawers were because of the bi-fold doors.  I needed them to line up with the openings to be able to open fully.  After some tweaking, I came up with this design.


Because everything is 2' wide, I knew I could switch the pants hanger and shoe drawers (the shoes lined up right where the bi-fold doors were so they wouldn't work in that location), I just wasn't able to change the design online to show this.  Because I made this while I was 8+ months pregnant I didn't want to drive to the nearest store and spend time designing with someone so I just bought this whole premade design and also some extra drawers and shoe drawers to switch out in our final design.

To prep the closet, Mike skim-coated the walls after removing the old shelf/hanger and to even out the texture, and installed the base trim before I painted everything.  I like to use semi-gloss in closets because it adds a little more forgiveness to all the bumps and scratches that happen when you're moving things in and out.


It was actually at this point that we realized that adding a light inside the closet would be really helpful.  Mike wakes and gets dressed while I'm still sleeping and usually uses a headlamp to get his clothes out of the closet so he doesn't wake me or Finn, who's still sharing our room.  That's love right there!  Having a light inside would mean he doesn't have to wander around our room with a silly headlamp and creates minimal disruption.  It was relatively easy because there's an attic above where Mike ran some wire to the new LED light and added a switch right out side the doors.  He installed it above the closet doors, so it kind of shines at (as opposed to down if it were mounted on the ceiling) the clothes.
   

The installation of the closet system was pretty easy, but I will say, Mike was not a fan of the "Easy Hang Standards" as their called.  Basically you screw in the top rail and then just hang those rails off of it, they don't get screwed to the wall.  Because they're not attached to the wall, they can swing and shift, even after adding all the components like shelves and rods.  Maybe once you add clothes and more weight they don't, but Mike didn't like that idea and drilled and attached them to the walls.  We later found out they make wall clips so you don't have to but for free we can just drill holes too.

I did go back to the store to return the extra drawers and things that I switched (like switching out a high heeled shoe rack for a regular shoe drawer) and grabbed some extras like shelf liners and a valet rod, because I'm fancy, ha!

We were able to install everything in an hour or so, and we can't wait to load it up with all of our stuff.  Mike keeps pushing to start putting everything in there now, but I know it'll be easier to paint all the trim without worrying about our clothes getting splattered.  Patience is neither one of our virtues!



This is our first time using a complete Elfa system and we had to make some modifications for personal preference, but I really like the system.  We also probably could have made it cheaper by utilizing different systems like we did in the old house (like the rails and hanging supports from Home Depot) and only purchasing the fancier items from The Container store (like the drawers and extras).  But, at 8 months pregnant I didn't have the brain capacity for that type of designing so it is what it is!

Because we were restricted by the doors, our design wasn't centered and after a lot of thought I decided to put the long hanger behind the left wall.  I don't wear dresses that often so it made more sense that way.
 

This left about 18" empty on the right side.  The online design tool only lets you design 104" wide, so I didn't have anything here.  Mike pointed out that we could extend the top hanging rod and gain a little more space, duh!  We had to go back to the store to get the extra pieces, and by a happy accident our laundry basket fits in that space on the bottom!


Next closet on the agenda is Archer's "big kid" room so I think I may suck it up and head up to the store to design it since they don't offer a premade kids closet.  I want lots of shelves and drawers so that the boys can grow up putting things in the proper place.  Hey, a mama can dream, right?!     

Heading back up to the bed/bath project, one of the major decisions we had to make when redoing these rooms was the trim. This was particularly important because it would be what we would replace the entire house with one day, so no pressure!  I needed to pick the base molding, (somewhat easy), as well as the casing molding, (so much more difficult than I thought).

The base was somewhat easy because we knew we wanted to beef up the 3 1/2" dark-stained base the house currently had. We came from a charming 1927 house with most of it's original trim and loved the large base molding.


I didn't want to copy this exact style and found a similar style that I thought was more appropriate for our new home's style and age.  Instead of the 7 1/4" height, I went with 5 1/4".  Still substantial (and much better than the builder basic), but the shorter style felt more appropriate for this 1970's home.  The cheapest I found locally was from Lumber Liquidators.

We actually bought a piece similar to the old style for different project and you can see the difference between the two.


We're working smarter, not harder, on these remodels and bought everything pre-primed.  It's saving me tons of time and that's a hot commodity over here!

For the window and door casings, I struggled for awhile on the style.  I couldn't find a lot of inspiration out there, mostly because the rooms I looked at were styled rooms and the trim details usually gets washed out in all the pictures.  It wasn't until I noticed the casings in Young House Love's Instagram progress photos of their duplex that I found the style that I wanted.  It's a simple Craftsman style casing, without the top casing cap (illustrated below).  I loved the simplicity, and it worked well with the base molding.


Since we started in a room that had two large door openings (the sliding exterior door and the 4 bi-fold-door closet) Mike needed to come up with a method to create the profile while using readily available pre-primed pieces.  That's the reason we bought the 7 1/4" base shown above, it came in 12' pieces which he needed.  He ripped that down and used it for the top casing.  We still have to sand and paint everything, but here's where we're at right now:


We also are updating all the doors.  We went with a three-panel shaker style solid core for the doors and think they'll not only update the style of the house, but provide some necessary sound proofing as well.  We haven't had many instances of brothers waking each other up with crying, but I'm not risking it!

Once every things painted, we'll be adding matte black hardware.  I'm excited to try something different.  Even though I loved the black doors in our old house, this house needs more lightening up, and I think white doors and trim will make everything look completely different and updated.     

The last time I mentioned the bed and bathroom progress was a few months ago to show the demo progress.  A couple weeks after Finn was born, we found our groove again and Mike started building the rooms back together.  Mike's rebuilt everything and is in the middle of tiling the bath and I've painted the walls and will start on the doors and trim soon.



There was a lot of work that went into these still-very-much-in-progress shots above though.  Mike started by redoing most of the plumbing and electrical in the bathroom, and because we had most of the fixtures picked out, he also added in blocking for extra support before adding in the drywall.  This isn't necessary, but with careful planning it's really helpful and reduces drywall anchors.


We've got the towel bar on the left above the toilet and the vanity and mirror on the right.

Once he had finalized everything, Mike wrapped everything up with drywall and cement board. 



It's hard to get a good shot of the color right now but, I chose Sherwin Williams Moderne White. It's a soft white with a slight green undertone.  I wanted almost white, but enough warmth to let the white trim contrast. 


I'm more conservative with my sheen finishes and always use flat on ceilings, semi-gloss on trim, doors and in closets, and satin/eggshell on walls.

In the bathroom I painted the walls Sherwin Williams Spare White, the same color I used for the white walls in Archer's nursery in our last home.  It has less green than Moderne White and a little cooler in my opinion.  Everything looks very yellow right now due to the waterproofing, but even that bright yellow is still less yellow than when we started!


Mike had already finished the tile on the shower floor and I love the small white hexagon with contrasting grout.  You can also see the start of our ledge/shelf.  This was the compromise after countless discussions after I told Mike I wanted a niche to put shower stuff, but also make it low enough to put my foot up to shave my legs.  Mike wasn't a fan of the niche for various construction reasons, and we were concerned with sound carrying through the wall which is shared with the nursery.  There is nothing more important to me than my babies' sleep!


We'll have marble tops on both the ledge and the shower step and white subway tile in the shower.

On the bathroom floor, Mike has already finished laying the black hex tile, but first he installed the heated floor coils.  To offset the thickness of the coils and the areas where there is no heating (behind the toilet and beneath the vanity) Mike did a thin layer of thinset to even it all out for the tile. 


The flooring was actually installed last week and I'm really loving all the materials in this tiny room.  Mike hopes to start on the shower walls soon because then it'll be a lot less strenuous tasks to wrap the room up!

Some of the major tasks to finish are the trim around the room, installing the closet system, replacing electrical outlets/switches, and lighting.  Since Mike is working on this pretty much any free moment he has or after the boys go to bed, he had to get creative with his efficiency and brought the chop saw upstairs with a hood that hooks up to the shop-vac.  


It took a long time for me to allow Mike to test the babies' sleeping abilities, but we've appeased the baby sleep gods because throughout this whole reno the babies have slept through almost everything without issue!!  I can't believe it, but we're thanking our lucky stars and trying to get as much done as we can while they sleep so we can cuddle and hang with them while they are awake.

I've got some doors to paint and Mikes got a date with his tile saw, but we hope to have some more major progress done in the next week or so!

It’s been slow-going on the bathroom/master bedroom project, even though we are t-minus 6 weeks until baby!  Mike has found the time to demo the room though and I thought I’d share because it already looks so different.

He started with the fixtures – vanity, lights, and toilet (we actually moved this to the downstairs powder room because it was brand new and both an elongated bowl and handicap height).  He then took the shower wall out, which just as we thought, opened the room up to seem twice as big.


After that, he took everything down to the studs and took out the tile floor.  The shower plumbing was built out from the wall (my thoughts are that they used a standard shower pan and this was built to fit), and so he removed that wall as well.  He’ll move the plumbing into the interior wall and we’ll build the shower the entire width of the room.

The biggest difference is the removal of the pocket door.  We’ve thought of every scenario to keep this as opened as it is now (even as crazy as just framing out the opening so the room is always open – even for two very comfortable married people like ourselves, that still seems weird), but the fact remains the best option is a pocket door even if it’ll close the room back up.


What you also can see to the left of the photo above is the first attempts at that wallpaper removal.  I spent a couple hours with a tiny garment steamer trying to remove the paper.  It seemed to work really well at first with the piece right next to the sliding exterior door (I’m thinking there was some moisture issues with the door that helped the paper come off easier), turned into a nightmare with the piece next to it.  The fact that I was using a dinky garment steamer didn’t help either.

I was getting completely discouraged and even thought of hiring it out (which I imagine would be extremely expensive, since it’s such an awful job), until Mike volunteered to help one night.  His method of removing all the leftover pieces from the area I already worked on was to wet it down as much as possible with a damp rag and peel it off.  I suggested a water bottle and our method was born.  Most of the room came off relatively easy, just a lot of spraying and a lot of patience, but of course when we got to the last wall, which happened to be the exterior wall, we had some hiccups.  A lot of water later, and we had all the wallpaper off and found ourselves in a very lilac hued room!




Then we had this corner, which just happened to be the spot we ended on.

You can see glue marks and drywall paper peeled off in some spots.  I have to sand the whole room and then I’ll do a primer coat with some Kilz, before Mike goes back to skim coat the more stubborn spots where the drywall peeled.  The reason for the Kilz first is to that the moisture from the skim coat doesn’t leas to bubbling and more peeling.  While it’s only necessary in the spots he’ll skim coat, I don’t want any residual wallpaper glue to seep through the paint, and I’m not feeling this lilac color, so I’m going to make sure it’s getting well buried!


   To add even more hiccups, there’s water damage under the window that will need to be replaced – the drywall and the window.  The windows are old and single paned and we knew we would be replacing them, we just planned to do them all at once in a couple years.  This one and the bathroom window are getting replaced during this phase because there’s water damage and we might as well!

We’re down to the wire before baby comes so I doubt we’ll be finishing this project before then, (Archer keeps catching bugs at the sitters and sharing with us knocking one of us out for a week before getting something new and sharing with the other parent), but we’re going to keep trekking and working on whatever we can!

I’m excited to share my favorite room in the house.  I’m grateful I love it so much because I spend the most time in there these days #hello3amnursing!


Thanks to the short lived office redo, we started with a blank slate and white walls. 


I had a general plan and theme (ha!) and started with the major components – crib, dresser, chair, and rug.  I chose a lot of white furniture, knowing that anything dark would be too heavy for this tiny room, and because of that I wanted to add some visual interest to one wall to break up the white.  I painted the only full wall a deep blue with left over paint I used for a piece of furniture that lived in the office for such a short time I have no photographic evidence! 

I bought the rug first and was lucky that the left over paint worked well together.  The wall took two coats, and because it was furniture paint, it had a pretty decent sheen to it, which I normally wouldn’t choose for a wall, but now that I’ve discovered how messy everything can get with a baby I’m not too upset over the extra protection next to the crib!

Once the main furniture pieces were in place it was just adding in the accessories. 


We added a bamboo blackout/cordless shade (above the light diffusing honeycomb shade not shown), some acrylic picture ledges for books, a shelf above the dresser, and another shelf next to the crib.



The dresser is from Ikea, and while it’s not specifically a changing table, but I prefer the extra height for changing Archie.  The felt ball garland from Hobby Lobby was placed there temporary because I was going to cut it up to use for a mobile above the crib, but the kid stares at that for a good 20 minutes every morning and it’s enough time for this mama to brush her teeth and hair and therefore it’s staying forever!

The triangle shelf is an awesome find from World Market and besides hiding the camera and the white noise machine, it’s basically decoration, but the fun part of a nursery is that kids toys can be the décor!  


The light box was a gift from my mom and besides being perfect for parties, it serves as a nightlight.


The closet was one area we didn’t skimp and our son literally has the best organized and most expensive closets in the house. 


Back when we moved in we used the cheaper ClosetMaid systems from Home Depot and Mike set up this closet supports 24” apart. 

This was a happy coincidence because I really wanted elfa drawers from The Container Store for the nursery and wouldn’t you know they’re 24” drawers, that after some research online, I read from others would fit the ClosetMaid support system we already installed!


We bought the drawers, a shelf and hanging rod from The Container Store and was able to reuse one of our shelves.  The finished picture above shows a better angle so that you can see the closet is deep enough for the drawers to open inside.  We have so much organization in this nursery I started hanging up random onsies that could easily be folded inside the dresser. 


While the main elements are pretty basic, the accessories have that collected/well-traveled look Mike and I wanted, and the textures (like the sheepskin and woven baskets) and whimsical items like the llamas have that Tibetan Sherpa vibe Mike specifically wanted.


The room is tiny, but has a big personality while still feeling as though it compliments the rest of the house.

Below is a list of the major sources:

I have a confession: I hate spray paint.

What’s more is I’m not very good at it. This doesn’t mean I don’t use it; there are projects that just require spraying, rather than brushing. But I’m impatient: I spray too close, too much, and don’t wait between coats.

The last thing I spray painted was a larger frame for my ‘All the Cool Kids’ print above the fauxdenza.

From afar, it’s a little more copper’y than gold, and close up, there are definitely some drip spots even though I showed restraint and did several light coats.

When it came time to paint the frames Mike made me for some quick brush stroke art for our bedroom, I wasn’t excited to get the gold spray paint out again. That, and winter has finally showed up in the Northeast and it was snowing all weekend.

I searched Pinterest and found this pin with an oil-based product from Rust Oleum. I sent it to Mike while he was running errands, and while at Ace he found their brand equivalent: Ace Artistic Finishes Metallic Finish ($8 for a 1/2 Pint). I didn’t want to make him run around more, so I figured I’d give it a try.

I wasn’t going to do post on these frames exactly, but while I was painting the frames, I realized how awesome this stuff was so I took some iPhone photos.

The paint looks like liquid gold leaf and is very opaque even after only 1 coat.

I actually ended up doing 2 coats mostly to even out the frames (I may have gotten a little lazy when I was sanding these because it was so cold out in the garage) and 1 coat of shellac to protect after it dried overnight. 

I love the gold sheen and will definitely use this paint on smaller paint projects.  I even like it better than the Martha Stewart Gold Metallic Paint that I used to makeover my mouse pad because of the coverage and in my opinion it’s got a better sheen.  Hope this helps those spray paint incompetent, gold-lovers like me!