11.22.2009

re:read

i love books! love reading them, love being surrounded by them, love libraries, love bookstores. so, we decided to get these billy bookcases from ikea to make our den look and feel more homey, lived in, and loved. :)









this room still needs work, but this goes a long way towards the feel of the space. now i just love this room! one day these shelves will be completely full of books. :)

as you'll see, we left precisely enough room to the left of the unit to add one more of the single-wide bookcases at a later date to fill the entire wall.

window caulking & painting remains in progress.

happy thanksgiving!

10.24.2009

re:cover

trim work continues -


we have the perimeter of all 3 doubles plus the triple window trimmed out, and just need to cut new pieces for the spaces between the windows.

and we've made a couple of furniture purchases via craigslist...
1. a pair of chairs for $100:


i bought some fabric to recover them for $28 and voila:




one day i may paint this chair a fun color, and i was hoping to find a more punchy or funky pattern to make these chairs less formal looking, but didn't find anything just right, so this will do for now. charleston is sadly deficient in fabric resources. does anybody recommend any online sources for modern fabrics?

2. a pair of MCM dressers for $100 that just need a little TLC...




just another project to add to the list! this will be my first experience refinishing furniture. wish me luck!

10.15.2009

re:boot

hello again!

the in-laws are coming down for thanksgiving, so we have a new deadline fast approaching, and little by little we're making big progress on trim work!

we made a door for the storage area under the stairs..
before:


during:


after (with primer coat, before finish paint):


so, opinions: should the panel areas be painted the gray of our walls, with the trim/baseboards to be white, or should this entire area be painted white as it is now with the primer coat?

we've also been working on baseboards and trimming out the windows!









all of the single windows are now trimmed out and in various stages of needing to be puttied/sanded/primed/caulked and painted. that's 17 windows + the small kitchen double window down, and just the 3 double windows + 1 triple window to go.

sanding casings (my least favorite part):




we also filled in the gaps in the corners of the upper kitchen cabinets, and just need to match the paint of our cabinet faces to finish these out:

before:


after:


and last month we scored this old salvaged door from the Historic Charleston Foundation warehouse sale for $10:





it's actually made with real beadboard, and we're going to have to add a couple boards to make it as wide as we need, so then we'll probably paint and distress it to hang on some barn door hardware at our pantry, inspired by this (from cottage living):


and we're currently contemplating ordering the doors for our bedrooms. the problem is, it'll cost us a little over $800 to get the 3 doors within the next couple days - to get them installed before Thanksgiving, or we can save a little and spend about $550 to get them in 6-8 weeks (not in time for the in-laws visit) - so therefore no point in ordering them now. anthony doesn't want to spend the extra $250 - that's the cost of another door!

see, we're very deadline-oriented people. which reminds me, i should just schedule my first ARE exam so i'll actually start studying. breaking work-related news coming soon, hopefully...


7.31.2009

re:start

a sneak peak of the window trim...










5.27.2009

re:stock

so, i'm the latest casualty of the economic downturn.

it happened last friday. i felt like it might be coming - work has been scarce, so we've been trying to save rather than spend on the house over the last few months. charleston architecture firms have been hit hard, so it may take a while to find another position.

in the meantime (downtime?), i'm doing a lot of soul-searching, which is a slippery slope, to be sure. but not a topic for a house renovation blog... :)

3.26.2009

re:animate

i know, i know... it's been a while. we took the winter off. i guess when you gogogo for a year-plus, you get burned out.

in the meantime, i have started studying for my architectural registration exams. i'm jumping into the deep end and starting with structures, and my brain finds the material to be like an alien intruder or foreign object and is fighting to keep it out. but i digress...

we're finally ready to get going on the house projects again. the big projects (especially the master bathroom) are going to have to wait for proper funds, but we can do some small stuff. like the trim... check out this nifty drawing my awesome architect-husband did:



it's a color-coded trim take-off for finishing out the rest of our baseboards and door & window trim! we need four more 5'x12' sheets of mdf to rip down. time to get back on the wagon!