Band Room Update

One of our main considerations in house hunting was that there was a music room.  Matt has a lot of music gear (and I have a little) and we needed a place to store it and practice.  Like everything else downstairs, we kept putting things there and forgetting about them.  Soon it looked like this:

Why yes, that is my wedding dress!  And a bunch of boxes, and old doors, and other clutter.  So we cleaned it out and ripped out the trim and floors.

Better, right?  Matt and I wanted to go with a fun, bright wall color to energize the room.  We chose Maple Leaf by Behr.  Here's how it looked after I painted it.

 

Today I added trim.  I still need to fill the holes and touch up some places, but I think it's looking pretty good.  

  

I think the paint looks a little bright in these photos, and it looks darker in person.  Once the carpets get installed (hopefully in the next couple of weeks) it will be finished!  I can't wait!

Family Room Inspiration

I am so excited for our family room.  Like, really excited.  We have been living in the house for 1.5 years, and during that entire time our family room has been a storage/work room.  If we want to watch TV we have to cram into the office, which has become extra crowded with the addition of the dogs. 

Our goal for the family room is to create a comfortable, relaxing space with plenty of storage.  We will be adding carpet, to make it softer and warmer, and we just placed an order for a new sectional!  We chose the Axis sectional from Crate and Barrel.  It's large enough that everyone (me, Matt and the dogs) can fit comfortably.  Although I'm sure the dogs will still lay on top of us like they do now.

As for the storage part, we decided we're going to add some built ins to the area around the stairs.  My inspiration for this came from Remodelaholic.  I have been drooling over their amazing custom built ins since they posted about them a year ago.  So most of my plans are based off of what they did.  I even bought similar hinges since I loved the look so much! 

Image from: Remodelaholic

Obviously ours aren't going to be as extensive, since we don't have the space, but hopefully they will add a lot of storage to the room.  

The color I chose for the space is Delicate Mist by Behr.  My friend Kaylie from Life on the Treeline offered to come over and help me paint, which was awesome, and we were finished in a few hours (vs. the entire day it would have taken me to do it myself).


Delicate Mist is a very light blue/gray.

I also installed a new light fixture.  I got the Calypso surface mounted fixture from Ikea, and I think the scale goes a lot better with the large room than the previous one. It also holds one more bulb than the previous fixture, so it has a higher light output.

Our to do list is still pretty long, but it's getting done!

First Level Renovation Update

Even though I have been MIA from the blog world, it doesn't mean we haven't been working on our house.  Matt and I have actually been really busy in the past few weeks, and are finished with the demo process and started on the re-building.  This weekend we will be ordering flooring, carpet in the family room and band room, and tile in the hallway and bathroom. 

Originally we were planning on having stained concrete floors in the hallway and bathroom, but after taking up the layer of tile, we found another layer of flooring.  It is vinyl tile, and with the age of the house we're assuming it might be asbestos, so we tried really hard not to break it while we were taking it up.  In the bathroom someone had already taken the vinyl tile up, and there is a black adhesive stuck to the floor, so we decided it would be best to just put down new tile. 

Here are some photos of how the house looks right now.

Family room painted with Delicate Mist from Behr.

Band room with the ceramic tile and trim stripped.

Hallway with the walls primed.

Powder room with all fixtures removed.

 So obviously we have a lot more work to do, but we're getting there!  Hopefully in a couple of months we'll have a great finished space to relax in!

Happy 2013!

This year I'm all about out with the old and in with the new.  After a pretty crappy 2012, I'm hoping to play catch up this year and get to where I want to be, both with the house, personally and professionally.  So I have 13 goals for 2013.  I've divided them into different categories.

House Related

1) Finish the first pass on the inside of the house.  I know, this seems like a lot, but we're actually doing pretty well!  We're currently reno-ing the downstairs (I'll update more on that soon) and after that we just have a little trim to do upstairs.  Easy peasy!

2) Go through the house and purge every closet, drawer and cabinet.  We have too much stuff, and I hate clutter.

Health/Fitness

3) Run a sub 30 minute 5k.  I started running a little over a year ago, and since then I've run 4 5ks, 2 10ks and 1 10 miler.  But I am slow.  So I want to work on my pace this year and try and pick it up. 

4) Complete a half marathon.  Another running goal!  I had signed up for a half marathon last November, but due to several different issues I had to scale back and ran the 10k version of the race instead.  This year I want to run the whole 13.1 miles.

5) Get to my goal weight and maintain.  I've actually lost 20 lbs since last year, but I am having a really hard time losing the last 5-10lbs.  I kind of got off track over the holidays so I need to get back into eating healthy and exercising this year.

6) Have a general physical, dental cleaning and eye exam.  I am so bad with keeping up with doctors appointments.  I am overdue with all of these and need to get on that!

Professional

7) Get my LEED AP.  I have already applied to take the exam, and I got accepted, so now I just need to actually study and take it. 

8) Do five speeches for Toastmasters.  Last year I had a goal to do 3 speeches, and I finished by June and then haven't done one since. I only need 5 more speeches to get my Competent Communicator.

9) Take the GRE and apply for grad school.  I would really like to get started on my MBA, because I'd like to graduate by my 30th birthday (in June 2016).

Personal

10) Change my name.  This is super embarrassing, but I still haven't gotten around to changing my name since getting married.  Two years ago.  I will do it this year!

11) Start an IRA and contribute the max.  Matt and I are pretty behind on retirement, so we need to increase our savings.

12) Make 3 changes to decrease my carbon footprint.  I tried turning the water heater down this morning, but after a very cold shower this morning I decided to turn it back up, haha.  We already make an effort to reduce energy usage and waste, but I know there's more we can be doing.

13) Don't buy any clothes in 2013.  This will be the most difficult for sure.  It includes shoes. 

So there you have it!  It looks like I will have a busy (and hopefully productive) new year. 

And hopefully I'll post more, too, but we all know how well that went last year :)