HGTV Wannabe!

So, with all this time spent sitting around on my rear-end, thanks to my foot surgery, I'm surfing the web like a FIEND and trying to find things to do to keep busy and motivated in 2009.

Idea of the Day: Become a Designer for the Day on HGTV!!! So..., being the adventurous gal that I am, I fired off an email with a couple of pics and a link to this blog in the hopes that I will get the chance to put my creative energy to work and be a Designer for the Day! How cool would that be? How much fun? How exciting?? How... absolutely TERRIFYING! I love it!

I think they'll call tomorrow... ;) HGTV ~ Here I come!!!

Shameless attempt to show my sassy self!

Fireplace Facelift

When I first moved in, the den was a sort of key lime green color that I didn't dig and the fireplace left a little something to be desired...

The fireplace had no mantel, which I wanted and just lacked any style in general.
That was all about to change...

I found some guy on Craiglist to come put rock around the fireplace.
I think he did a FABULOUS job!
And the mantel I had custom made by Pat Steele - this amazing artisan who I met at the monthly flea market in Nashville.

And this is the finished product!!
I LOVE my new fireplace!
The only thing left to do is install my new fireplace logs,
curl up with a good book and a glass of wine,
and ENJOY!!!

Kitchen Upgrades on a Budget!

If I had loads of money, I'd completely remodel the kitchen but since I don't...

I just decided to do some painting and refinishing and put up some much needed shelf space.

This was the kitchen when I bought the house...

The countertops were in terrible condition - they had burned spots on them and I didn't care for the color on them.

The cabinets were also white and had ugly hardware on them that prevented 2 of the drawers from opening properly...

They all actually sag toward the left which makes me crazy but is not correctable until they are totally replaced so I just have to deal with it.

Also, as you can see, there are no upper cabinets anywhere in the kitchen which makes for some serious storage challenges...

First, I painted the cabinets and put on new hardware...




Then, I sanded and refinished the countertop...


This was done by priming, using 3 different paint colors with a sponge roller and then polyurethaning the heck out of it!

My New Half Bath!

The original half bath in the house was down 2 awkward stairs on the way to the basement. It was inconvenient, ventless, dark and smelly and to say I loathed it was putting it mildly. I truly hated that bathroom. I pretty much refused to use it. So, as part of the hot tub trade, I had a new half bath plumbed in where the W/D used to be. I also traded more passes for the tile work, drywall, pocket door and electrical. The result? It's one of my favorite things in the house!

When I bought the house, this was the utility room.
It had this beautiful stained glass window which I wanted to showcase
so I moved the W/D to the basement and turned this space
into the new Half Bath!
Check it out...

The linoleum on the floor was in bad shape so
we had it ripped up and laid down some tile.


Here's the tile being put down...


This is the pocket door and the exposed brick
where the sink will go...

The bath was painted a beautiful golden yellow.
We were installing the toilet and sink this day
which was much more difficult than it should have been...


Here you can see part of the stained glass window and the
super cute chandelier I had installed!


The sink was mounted into the bricks but the pedestal
didn't work with the pipes
so I got creative and made this little grass
and bamboo thingamajigger...


This is the finished product...

More Bedroom Improvements

We exposed brick from the original fireplace chimney throughout the house. We also made this interesting nook for handy storage and display and still have a functional closet!

Here's Nat peeling off the drywall to expose the brick...

Halfway through the project...

And here's the finished nook! Love it!!

My Deck Improvements

Another sweet trade I made was exchanging buddy passes for lots of work around the house. The biggie was having my deck pressure washed and re-stained. This was my deck before...

And this was my deck afterwards...


Nat, 2 Mexicans and a Wheelbarrow dug out under the deck and poured a 4" slab of concrete for some sweet storage!
They also made a double door for easy entry below the deck

A fresh coat of opaque stain makes the deck look brand new!




I had these stairs built just a couple of weeks ago.
It completely opened up access to the back yard and I LOVE THEM!!!

Upstairs Floors

The floors downstairs had been refinished but the floors upstairs needed quite a bit of help, as you can see from the picture below....




I decided to do them in a dark walnut stain. Here's the work in progress...


These have actually turned out beautifully! It took awhile to get them done and I slept on a blow-up mattress in my dining room for a couple of weeks but it was all worth it in the end! They're GORGEOUS!!

Bathroom Transformation

When I first moved in, the bathroom looked like a giant box of Giorgio Perfume...

Somebody actually took the time to paint all these stripes!




It' s now a much more relaxing place...

Sherwin Williams is my New BFF!

So, this is what my house looked like on the day that I first saw it...

Pretty cute but simply landscaped and a fairly bland color

This is the living room looking into the den/kitchen area
Beautiful hardwood floors!

The Dining Room

And this is what it looks like now...

The Front View



The Living Room with D/R on left





The Dining Room

2 Mexicans and a Hammer

I always like to say that 2 Mexicans and a Hammer can change the world and I don't think I'm far off the mark with that comment. The fact of the matter is these guys are HANDY! They're quick, hard working, industrious and tend to know what they're doing. For my money, give me 2 Mexicans and Hammer anyday and I'll be happy with what gets done. Of course, it doesn't hurt when you have a completely selfless, fairly handy boyfriend around the house as well. So between the 3 of them, things got done relatively quickly, if not painlessly...

This is where we knocked out the wall between 2 bedrooms.

Framing in the walk-in closet at one end of the master bedroom.

Insulating and drywalling the closet.
What an incredibly dusty, horrific experience to try and live in...

Thank God for Craiglist!

So I put an ad on Craigslist. It read "I need a plumber - You want a hot tub. Let's make a trade!"

I was inundated with phone calls. Who knew hot tubs were so popular? When I bought my house, I had a hot tub on my deck. See below...

Knowing myself, I would never actually use this thing and it would simply sit out there taking up a lot of space and eventually breaking down. So I swapped out lots of plumbing work in exchange for my hot tub.

I had my leaky kitchen sink repaired, water run to my refrigerator, my W/D relocated to the basement and a new half bath plumbed in. I also had a new vanity put in the upstairs master bath and my pedestal sink relocated to the front porch as a planter...

This is my new vanity in the Master Bath


This pedestal sink used to be in the upstairs bathroom. It's cute but I'm a girl with a LOT of stuff and I needed some extra storage space! So this became a cute planter by the front door. Everyone loves it!

All this wheeling and dealing with no money changing hands!
What a bargain! I love Craiglist!

Renovation Begins!

So Nat and I moved in and promptly began renovating. It went something like this... Wanna knock down a wall? Uh, sure. Which one? How 'bout... that one? Alright. Here goes...

My house started out as a 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath with incredibly small 10x9 bedrooms upstairs. The bedrooms were so small and the closet space was nonexistent so we decided to knock out a wall and make a large master bedroom with a walk-in closet at one end and then have another guest bedroom. Some people would argue that turning a 3 bedroom into a 2 bedroom is a bad move and, well, maybe they're right but it was the right move for me. My house is not that big to start with (slightly over 1500 sq ft) and it's not the sort of house that's conducive to a big family anyway so I think a 2 bedroom 1 1/2 bath house of that size is pretty perfect. At least it's worked out so far...

Here we are knocking down the wall...