Lightening Up the Living Room

After gawking at the projects completed by my sisters this summer – recovering chairs, painting loads of furniture, etc. – I was inspired and reminded that even though I often feel like we are crawling in the house project arena, we actually are making progress.  Namely, paint progress. 

Is there an official name for paint-sample crazed?  Ironically, we ended up going with a color not even sampled.  Let’s just say I was getting a little antsy…  Truth be told, our small group meets weekly in our home, and trying to over-explain our walls week after week…yeah, totally embarrassing. 

Oh, and of course, we first painted our walls a lovely shade of blue/grey before I snacked myself on the forehead in a paint-fume induced haze, muttering, “Self, you’re forgetting your neutral-lovin’ roots!  No need to stray too far from a good thing.”  Thankfully I’m married to a laid-back man. 

It’s really difficult to tell in the 11 pm lighting, but the blue color – as much as I loved it – felt too cold for me once it was one our walls.  I liked it, but it was more of a crush that I knew wouldn’t last beyond six months.  If you’re wondering, the color above is Benjamin Moore’s Blue Nelson cut by 50%.  I’m keeping it in my back pocket though – as it really is a great color!

Here’s where we landed after swapping out our buddy Nelson for a creamy neutral – Sherwin Williams’ Natural Choice.  We debated over about 15 shades of tan, grey, and everything in between.  But this room needed something different – perhaps because of the lighting?  It’s a long room with windows on only one side, and for some reason, every color we tried felt too heavy and dark – even the color we used in our old house and loved (Valspar’s Oatbran).  According to the color swatch, Natural Choice is considered a white.  Since it covers so much wall space though – kitchen/dining/living room – it reads as a creamy tan with enough yellow to keep it from being fleshy and enough grey to keep it crisp.  I’m smitten.  And it feels good to know that we won’t be painting these walls again any time soon. 

While we had our brushes out, we also painted the ceiling, trim, vents, paneling, doors, and fireplace brick.  We tried to do most of it while Liam was napping or down for the night – which meant many late nights for a few weeks.  Plus, the previous wall color was dark enough that we needed to prime first. 

A look at the before and after.

    

Our goal was to lighten the room while still maintaining a cozy feel.  I’d say mission accomplished.  : ) 

Showers of Blessings

Recognize that hymn, anyone?  ; )  Last weekend I was able to spend a few days in Indiana with some of my favorite people on the planet.  And I traveled solo!  Is it weird that sitting in an airport with a book and berry white hot chocolate in hand felt like a little slice of bliss?

Hannah & Caleb are getting married in August, and their showers were super personal – filled with décor, food, gifts, and games that reflected who they are as a couple.  Loved getting to spend time with them and the rest of our fam!

 

House Tour #2

We are officially living in our new-to-us home!  And we are loving it.  In spite of the random boxes, clutter, disorganization, and a looming list of projects, we are happily settling into life on the west side of Colorado Springs.  And yes, there really is a huge difference between the east and west sides.  We narrowly escaped the east side…  If you’re an east side lover, forgive me!  I will always covet your easy trip to Homegoods and World Market.  : )

Several people have asked for photos of our new home, so after much procrastination, I’ve decided to give you the official tour – complete with many digressions, excuses, and over-explanations.  Without further ado…

The front of our house.  Fun fact: four bunnies live in our front yard and Liam loves to chase them around.  He gets pretty miffed when they bound away, as he can never quite seem to catch them…

The entry way just inside the front door – head straight to the kitchen, left to what will eventually become the office, right to the loooong living room that we’re not totally sure what to do with…, or up the stairs to our many bedrooms.

The someday office – yay!  Think work space/craft room.  We can’t wait to remove the chandelier, add some serious shelving, and get ourselves organized.  I’m more than ready.  Disregard the bazillion paint samples.  I have no shame when it comes to trying out colors, and I would rather spend $3 on a sample than $30 on a gallon of paint that isn’t right.  As it turns out, finding the perfect shade of blue/grey is nearly impossible!

Wish I’d had better lighting when taking these photos – but an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in right when I was snapping away.  This is the lengthy living room.  We plan to use it as our more formal dining area and also as a playroom.  Down the road, I’d love to build in some bookshelves for more of a library feel, and eventually we’d like to add hardwood flooring so that we’re not crunching food into the carpet.  For now, our eat-in kitchen is working great, and we’ll just use this area when we have guests over.  Oh, and someday we might even furnish the rest of the room.  For now, Liam has full reign.  : )

Our kitchen looks out over the backyard and deck, which is lovely.  It’s a very nice kitchen, but I have to say that the dark cabinets and counters/backsplash aren’t really my jam.  We’ll live with it for awhile before I do anything drastic – partly due to finances, and partly because I just can’t bring myself to paint perfectly good cabinets.  Yet.  We shall see what the final verdict is. 

Oh gas range, how I miss you!  Someday you’ll be back. 

I also love that our kitchen connects to an eat-in area and the living room where we spend quite a bit of time (not that we’ve been sitting on our laurels much lately).  I’ve never had a kitchen where I could see into another room so easily, and I love being able to cook and keep an eye on Liam at the same time. 

The eat-in area overlooks the deck and backyard.  It’s so nice being able to eat dinners outside with such ease!  Thank goodness for a $50 Craigslist patio set – and for the sweetly naïve woman who didn’t realize the value of her patio set.  I have no idea how I managed to snag it before all of the other Craigslist vultures out there…

I’ve been calling this the fireplace living room.  I heart it.  It’s been fun playing around with the built-in shelves, too.  Gotta love decorative spaces that Liam can’t reach. 

The back deck.  It’s raised because we have a walk-out basement.  I love the pergola and cannot wait to hang some white bulb lights.  We’re holding off for now due to the crazy hail storms we’ve had lately.  Go away hail!  You’re ruining our ambience.  Oh, and forgive the crazy mismatched wood.  My dad (aka: Superman) and Matt (is it terrible if I say Superman in training?!  I have to say that my hubbie has come soooo far in the handyman department since our wedding day).  They worked their tails off replacing rotted boards and redoing the spindles.  I love how it turned out, but sadly, we have to wait to paint/stain it until the pressure treated wood dries out, which means it likely won’t happen until next summer.  So we’re living with an ugly but very functional and safe deck.  I’ll take it! 

This next photo is a bit ironic.  The deck originally had benches installed instead of spindles.  Since Liam was nearly giving me a heart attack whenever he climbed on the benches (I thought he was going to throw himself to the ground below), I asked Dad and Matt to take them out.  It was a nag to replace them, but now that the hard part is over, we’re really happy with the decision.  Funny how I then placed a bench where the old built-in benches used to be!  It hasn’t been an issue so far…

Here’s a peek at the back of the house.  This is not the most flattering shot,  as it was taken while they worked on the deck. 

Oh, and here’s the powder bathroom on the main level.  I sold the mirror that the previous owners had in there, so we are currently mirror-less, and the light definitely needs to be raised.  Here’s a little secret…I am dying to put wallpaper in this bathroom!

Okay, heading upstairs to the master bedroom.  At the moment, we are loving the light that comes into our room, and the fact that we both have nightstands.  We could barely fit one nightstand in our other bedroom, so it’s a welcome change.  And if you’re wondering, yes, the nightstands and dresser are all used, and they all desperately need paint.  Soon, hopefully. 

Master bathroom.  Odd fact: the shower/tub/sink area are completely separate from the toilet.  Our hunch is that back in the day the owners decided to expand the size of the bathroom and closet, so they reconfigured the layout.  It’s not too bad (after all, we’ve never had master bathroom, so we’re feeling pretty swanky right now), but we’d like to live in this house for a long time, so someday it may get a bit of rearranging from us, too. 

I never thought I was a tub girl until this one… While I’m not a huge fan of the gold fixtures and tile countertops, the size of this tub is perfect.  It even has armrests!  And it slopes perfectly in the back.  Ooooh, and I put my bubble bath in a pretty glass bottle, which makes it all feel more lux.  : ) 

Liam’s room

Purple kid’s room – complete with polka dot curtains.  Yeah, that’ll all have to go…

Pepto pink room.  : ) 

And a fun cubby for kiddos.  I’m thinking this would make a pretty killer reading nook someday.

Kid bathroom.  We’re planning to remove the glass shower door, because it’s pretty cramped giving baths in this tub.  Don’t even get me started on all the tile.  Again, stuff that is totally functional for now.  I have definitely been spinning my wheels on how to redo it on a dime, though.  Habitat for Humanity’s Restore might be our solution, since you can get all kinds of great used stuff there, including countertops – for super cheap. 

Here’s the basement living area.  We like the walk-out doors and how it actually gets quite a bit of light.  Oh, and those aren’t dead bodies on the floor (as my father-in-law so casually implied).  They are curtains that I’m trying to sell.  : ) 

Built-ins – a little awkwardly shaped, but nice to have nonetheless.

Wet bar/laundry area

Guest bedroom – please come visit!

Storage room

Basement bathroom

Well, you’ve now seen the completely unedited version of our house – laundry, toys, paint swatches, dead bodies, and all.  If our first house is any indication, we’ll be wetting our paint brushes soon.  But, it’s nice to know that we’re in one place for hopefully the long haul, so we plan to take projects on in a more long-term manner. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Moving On

Since it's been forever since last picking up my blogging pen, I suppose it makes sense to fill you in on what's been happening since October of 2013. How about a little time line to make it easier on the eyes?

*Sold our bungalow on Franklin Street

*Moved in with generous friends for about a month while we waited for our rental house to open up

*Moved into the rental house while we figured out permanent housing

*Spent 3 weeks in Indiana with family over Christmas

*Jess immediately jumped into a new role as director of the children's ministry at church after arriving back in CO

*At this point we were actually in the process of building a new home on the east side of Colorado Springs

*Mom/Grandma visits for a week

*About a month before our new home reached completion, we found a pre-owned home on the west side of the Springs (where we had initially hoped to live) - looooong story short, we were able to terminate our new home build and are currently under contract with a well-loved home on the west side

*Cousins Andy & Brigitte crash at our place for a week after returning from 8 months in South America

*We will officially close on the west side house at the very end of May – until then, we’ll continue to live in the rental house

If I were to fill in the gaps with the reality of this last season of life, I'm sure the words "stress," "busy," "uknown," and "crazy" would pop up quite a bit - along with "excited," "joy," "thankful," and "surprised." After seaching for months and months, we did not expect to find a pre-owned home in an area that we love. Believe me, we looked. Sometimes we would even schedule a showing on a house, only to find that just hours before the house went under contract. Without going into all the details, let me just say that the way everything worked out in the end was absolutely unbelievable to us - and so, so cool. And in case you're feeling bad for the builder of the new home - don't. They are basically told us that they're going to sell it for a lot more money than what we would have paid (they gave us some pretty sweet deals, which was part of the reason we started building with them). In the end, it probably worked out even better for them.

Our new-to-us home was built in 1973, and while it's not shiny and sparkling new, it's also not a fixer-upper like our first house. Knowing us, we'll still put in plenty of sweat to make it feel like "us," but we're looking forward to more cosmetic work this time around. You know, like paint and pretty knobs - stuff like that. We'll be sure to post photos of the house and keep you updated on the changes we make, but mainly because that's just part of our life, not because the entire blog will center around house projects. It'll be a mix of family, friends, and home - just the type of things that should go together, at least in my book. : )

And not that I'm expecting our life to be enough of a draw for you all to follow us on Instagram, but Liam does make some pretty cute appearances. You can find us at: jessbraham. Thanks for being part of our journey!