Category: Current House

August Acronym

Published on by Our Humble Abode1 Comment

Hello and happy Labor day to those of you in the U.S.  Hope you’re having a great long weekend!

Almost done: This is the story of our lives, nearly finished projects.  In August, we made a lot of progress in the main bathroom.  We’ve added a Sky Tube for natural light, trimmed out theroom, and got everything painted.  Just have to build false drawer fronts and we can call the bathroom a wrap.

Uprooted:  A few walls and a floor.  One load bearing wall in the garage which we replaced with a beam, and the wet bar in the pool house is seeing a little demo, too.

Getting into sewing: I busted out my sewing machine to make drop cloth curtain panels for the living room and dyed them for a moody look.  Then I turned plain striped fabric into an X patterned pillow.

Unveiled:  The finished roof, shiny new garage doors, and how I make mood boards in Photoshop.

Small projects:  Adding the tops to our entertainment center base, fixed our broken couch, and V started tearing off the kitchen wallpaper.

Tried new things:  Norwex cleaning cloths (love those!) and a new Mohawk Home rug (also love!).

And now we’re in September.  Where does the time go?

What did you cross off your list in August?  What are your plans for September?   Are you excited for hot cider and apple crisp?  I know I am!

Gimme a Giveaway: Mohawk Rug

Published on by Our Humble Abode392 Comments

This giveaway is closed.  Thanks for entering.  See who won here.

A few weeks ago, I received a Mohawk Home rug to review.  We’ve lived with it and I’m happy to say it holds up well to our family and is easy to clean.

Of course we were excited to snag a free rug, but we are equally excited that Mohawk Home is giving a rug to one lucky reader, too!  You can choose any style that tickles your pickle.

Perhaps something thick and plush, like this Shimmer Shag:

Something bold and colorful like Tropical Acres:

Neutral with a playful pattern, like Granite Transitional:

Pretty Modern Botanical:

A colorful faux bois Cyclone Rug:

Or you could get a runner in the same Cambridge style we chose:

As you can see, there’s something for everyone and every style. So poke around the various retailers because selection does vary slightly at each store.

The Goods: Any rug 5 by 8 or smaller, $150 or under rug from Mohawk Home.

To Enter:  Leave a comment, which can (but doesn’t have to) include our Just for Fun question.

Just for Fun: To walk all over one of these rugs, tell us where you like to take a walk.   Through historic neighborhoods, admiring the homes?  On a sandy beach, picking up shells along the way?  Anywhere, as long as you are alone?

For additional entries:

1.  Subscribe to the Mohawk blog, then leave us a comment.

2.  Like Mohawk Home on Facebook, and leave another comment.  Get another entry if you write about this giveaway on their wall.

3.  Follow on Twitter @mohawk_home, and, you guessed it, leave another comment.

4.  Subscribe to Mohawk Home’s You Tube page, then leave us a comment.

Contest Closes: Thursday, September 13th at 11:59 pm, central time.

Number of Winners: One!

Ships: Anywhere in the United States.

Other Info: We will select the winner using random.org and announce on Friday, September 14th.  Good luck!!

X Marks the Spot

Published on by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

For a while, I’ve really wanted to make something interesting using striped fabric.  Specifically, using stripe fabric cut at an angle.  While I can’t make my vision come to life right now (hint: it involves a bedroom; don’t be dirty), I can make a version.  Actually, I got my butt in gear after seeing this pillow, shared in our latest Etsy fav round-up.

I started with a green and white fabric I bought at Ikea and a piece of plain card stock from my stash.  To minimize damage if I screwed up, I decided to make a 14 inch square pillow cover.  Then I cut my card stock into an 8 inch square, which gives me a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

To make the cool x design, I measured a green stripe and marked the center with a little tick mark at the top and bottom.

Then I placed my square template on the fabric, lining the corners up with the tick marks and traced the edges.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Maximize your fabric by placing the squares right next to the other, slightly staggered in height.

Cut out the squares and place together to form an x.

Now pin the top two together, and the bottom two together like this, right sides together, keeping the stripes lined up.

Sew along the edges, then pin those pieces together, keeping the stripes together.  I decided to use a gray faux silk backing with an exposed zipper bottom, but you can choose your backing and closure type.  Envelope closures are super easy.

Originally, I planned to sew a second for the slipper chairs in the family room, but the green didn’t mesh well with the chair color.  Now it lives on our bed.

The splash of color in our otherwise unchanged and boring room makes me smile.

And I like the faux silk shiny backing.  You know I can’t resist shiny anything.  I did mess up though.  For some unknown reason I put the zipper along the whole bottom.  I should have cut it down and centered it, leaving fabric in the corners for crisp edges.

Oh well, I guess that’s bound to happen when I’m sewing while watching White Collar.  Can’t. take. eyes. off. Matt. Bomer.  Seriously, he’s not even hot, he’s gorgeous. So I guess because I made this pillow while watching him, I’ve got a little piece of him in bed.  Bahahaha.

What do you think of this design?  It would work with any stripe size or color, too.  Do zippers trip you up, too?  Maybe you’re just a fan of White Collar?  Or Matt Bomer?  I am!  I am!  Haven’t seen Magic Mike, but anything with Matt is a sure hit with me.

More Doors from Mordor

Published on by Our Humble Abode7 Comments

Okay, the doors didn’t really come from fictitious Lord of the Rings Mordor.  What doors am I talking about?  Two new garage doors.  Our old garage doors were dented, bent, and blue.  Not to mention, they were terribly insulated.  Because the garage is a tuck under, it’s also heated and cooled.  So insulating the space as tightly as possible should save us some money on our monthly heating and cooling bill.

And, I’m pretty sure someone hit each with a car on several occasions, and it wasn’t us.  Basically, the doors had seen better days.  Before getting pricing, I had my eye on a modern style carriage door.  A local garage door company came out and gave us quotes on various door styles.  This style would cost about $1,550 per door, including installation.  Ouch.

Then Ben heard it wasn’t as well insulated at the standard raised panel door.  So it came down to price, efficiency, and the fact that our doors aren’t easily visible from the road.  And the raised panel style won in all departments at $1,650 for both doors, installed.  Two installers came here yesterday to get the job done in a few hours.  Behold, our new, white, well insulated doors.

Sure the doors look better, but we’ve got a lot of exterior work to make those shiny new doors fit in.

But, they’re not dented and that’s what counts.  Haha.  New weather-stripping should help keep mice out of the house, too.

Oh yes, we’ve had a few mice already.  This shouldn’t come as a shock considering the location, but it still grossed me out.  We’ve already caught two (while nibbling our bananas!) and if there were more, they seem to have left.  Ahh, the life of a DIY blogger is glamorous.  Wink.

I’d never really given garage door styles much thought before this.  What about you; do you have a preference?  Or just prefer something functional, regardless of the look?

Contingency Plan

Published on by Our Humble Abode9 Comments

It seems like every project we plan to tackle requires at least two steps before we can get to it.  One thing contingent on another. For example, before we can paint our bedroom we have to scrape popcorn ceilings and install new trim.  Now we’re gearing up to install new windows on the back of the house.  Windows arrived last week (more details to follow) but we have a few things to do before that can happen.  Of course we can’t leave anything as it is.  A few weeks ago, Ben’s aunt and uncle visited.  They noted how strange it was to climb up three steps in the pool house to get to the wet bar, only to go down three more to reach the patio.

We always thought it was different, but that really got us thinking.  Why not lower the wet bar area, making it level with the rest of the pool house and therefore level with the back yard?  Yes, let’s eliminate the steps entirely.  So that’s what Ben did on Sunday.

For men, demo is the best part.  The fun part.

Smashing things, prying up pieces, and making piles of scraps.

It seems this little area was quite over built.  But Ben likes a challenge.

Being the smartie he is, he got the car jack from the garage and used it to hoist up the joists.

When the mood strikes, he’ll finish the demo work.  But how is this necessary?  Well, in order to make the inside and outside level, we’ll have to lower the sliding door by a foot or two.  So the raised wet bar has to go so we can bring in a concrete cutting guy to notch out the foundation.  Then Ben can install the new sliding door at the lower height.  See, one thing hinges on the other.

For the time being, we’ll have a demoed, unfinished space.  When we get around to remodeling the kitchen, we hope to reuse the stove, granite counters, and sink in here.  Ben will make new cabinets before that so we’ll have a functional, but small, kitchen in the pool house while we renovate.  Also, we won’t feel guilty using the oven in the summer because we won’t heat up the house.  But we’ve got one more iron in the fire.

How many different projects are you working on right now?  Are you starting to prep for fall?  Kids going back to school?