Category: Guest Bedroom/Library

Open Season

Published on by Our Humble Abode27 Comments

Ben’s happy about hunting season.  I’m excited for painting season.  Okay, it’s really not a season, more of an itch I need to scratch.  A desire to make this house feel more like us, and less like the previous owner.  And what bigger, cheap, and quick change than paint?  So I’ve hoarded samples and painted swatches on the walls.  For the guest bedroom, I’m set on yellow, though it is proving to be difficult.

On the far left is Anjou Pear by Ben Moore (which I got for the boys’ room, but tested in here, too), middle is Willow’s Gold from Dutch Boy and the right is a 50% tint of Willow’s Gold.  During the day, I loved the middle color.  Sadly, the CFL bulbs turned the pretty greeny-gold to key lime at night.  More swatches, this time in the tan-ish gold department.  I think I’ve pinned down a color from the chips shown.

Finding a pale, muted green-blue-gray for the north facing family room is really hard, too.  Now I’m considering painting the living room a blue-green and use Wood Smoke in the family room.  The blue colors seem to look better in brighter, sunnier spaces.

I have made some paint selecting progress.  Anjou Pear by Ben Moore for the boys’ bedroom.  During the day, it reads as a warm green, but at night it takes on a more muddy green.  Against the tan it looks a little crazy, but the striped curtains tone it down.

And I’m gearing up to paint all the doors Squirrel by Behr, color matched to Glidden.  Actually, I’ve already started.

The dark color should hide dirt and grime, and the muddy gray modernizes the shiny brass door handles.  We’re happy with the quality of the six panel doors, but some of the grain makes the doors look a little like plastic.

Sun rises and sets are stunning this time of year, too.  Here is a shot from last week, with a perfect crescent moon.

Hope all our fellow U.S. residents have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Laboring on Labor Day

Published on by Our Humble Abode20 Comments

Nope, not pregnant.  No new baby here.  I’m talking about windows.  Now that all most of the windows are in, let’s go inside to take a look at the difference the new windows have made.  First, check out the kitchen in all it’s 70’s wallpapered, oak, bay window goodness.

And now with the sliding white window.

Making this window flat lets in so much more light, and the window seems bigger without dividing it into three sections.  Oh, and the fact this window actually opens.  Go figure.  The same can be said for the breakfast nook window.  Before, V and E used the bay window as their personal dance floor/kitchen/play room.

Despite shortening the window, I think it feels more open.  Perhaps not having a mass of dark oak helped?  Whatever it is, I’m liking it.

Just a breath of fresh air to see a lighter, brighter kitchen.  Removing the ugly wallpaper definitely helped.

In the family room, we replaced the two stationary side lights with shorter double hung windows.  Hooray for air flow.  For some reason, I always feel guilty putting furniture in front of windows.  So this arrangement works better for us.

Also, I think the shorter windows feel more intentional and less like “this is a door, but let’s just take off the handles and no one will know.”   The window height actually matches, instead of looking like someone scored a lot of assorted windows on Craigslist and made it work.

Oh, and these windows and doors are so quiet to open and close.  The old door squeaked and squealed.  Ben is a ninja leaving in the mornings now, sneaking out the quiet door.

While window shopping, we discovered most energy-efficient windows have a low visible transmittance thanks to the UV blocking coatings.  This concerned us, because about 50 or 60 percent of light makes it into the house.  Luckily, we don’t see a drastic difference.

To gain egress in the bedrooms, our city requires 5.7 square feet with a minimum opening of 24 inches tall by 20 inches wide within 44 inches of the floor.  The original height of the bedroom windows was fine, but our casement windows only opened about 18 inches by 4 feet.

To use the same brand and line of windows throughout, our only option was a large (4 foot wide by 66 inch tall) double hung window.

Luckily, our windows sit about 19 inches off the floor, so we didn’t have to use tempered glass.  Wahoo for saving a little money.

These are my favorite windows.  I love the cute courtyard feel of the back yard.

And from outside, the windows are almost the same size.

No more awkward bay windows bumping out, either.

Ben used three layers of 2 by 4s to get the windows out.  When he wraps the house in insulation, the siding will sit flush with the edge of the window.  Using the 2 by 4s is a simple and strong way to support the windows while extending for the future insulation layers.

Now to get the insulation on the outside and frame the windows on the inside.  Of course we’ll keep you updated on our progress.

What do you think of the new windows?  Have you gotten new windows recently?  Did it make a world of difference?  Both in looks and monthly savings?

Brothers from Another Mother?

Published on by Our Humble Abode11 Comments

I hope you all had a fun and relaxing Labor Day weekend.  If you didn’t, I hope you got some work done, like we did.  Our weekend started with a bang, literally.  Ben finished demoing the pool house wet bar with the help of his trusty hammer Meowmeow.  Thor has Mjölnir, Ben has Meowmeow.

Do you see the resemblance?  Sure, Ben can’t grow hair, but he can rock a mean hat.  Though Ben rarely wears a cape.

{unedited picture via}

For now the doors are awkwardly low, but that will change.

A little more digging and knocking down the stone wall to go.  Then we can have someone come in, cut the concrete, and we’ll have a ground level opening to install the new door and window.  Ben will build a lower header to make these the same height as the rest of the house windows.

Thor Ben and Handy Sammy started in the kitchen and worked their way down the line to the rest of the windows.  Taking out the bay window wasn’t terribly difficult.  Some prying, hammering, and wiggling and it came out.

After installing the kitchen window, the big window in the breakfast nook came out.

The original bay window sat about six inches off the floor.  We don’t consider our patio a view, so we decided to shorten this window by about a foot.  Ben built a short wall to raise the new window up to the header.

Saturday afternoon brought on an unexpected complication, this:

So many problems here.  First, someone cut out the rim joist.  Bad. idea.  Unlike Nike’s slogan, just don’t do it.  Then, some genius ran plumbing for the solar panels outside, only insulating with thin foam.  And we didn’t have any support for the window.  Good thing those solar panels aren’t there anymore.  Ben cut off the water lines inside the house and replaced the cut rim joist.  We also shortened the stationary panels on either side of the sliding door, so he built a short wall to raise these windows to the headers.

The sliding door at the back of the house is the first of six we’ll have in the house and pool house.  So, it was a good learning experience.  After reading the instructions, install was easy enough.

I guess the panels are crazy heavy though.  Oh, we found another no no when removing the old door.  Wiring for the scones doesn’t come from the floor or attic.  The right sconce is looped from the left over the door.  Fortunately Ben didn’t cut at that door to get it out.  One more reason those have to go.

Soon, Ben will start wrapping the house with insulation.  To accommodate the added depth, the new windows have supports made of three 2 by 4s.

While we love all the new windows, our favorites are the two larger bedroom windows.  For egress, these double hung windows are 4 feet wide by 5 1/2 feet tall.  In a word, huge.  And fantastic.  The guest bedroom window is about ten inches closer to the floor than the original.

And the boys’ window is about 18 inches closer to the floor.  

An outlet right below the boys window was in the way, so Ben turned off the breaker, cut down for the window and added an outlet on either side.  A nice little two for one special.

Now we’re really excited to get the pool house windows cut and installed.  That means this whole window process is done…until we’re ready for the other three sides of the house.  This is a nice stopping point as the back of the house isn’t easily seen.  And it will give us enough to do before winter sets in without being rushed.

Bring on the insulation and siding.  And tearing up the back yard.

Because this post is already long, I’ll share pictures of the windows tomorrow.  Until then, tell us what you did over the long weekend.  I saw a lot of camping pictures on Instagram.

Move In Ready

Published on by Our Humble Abode21 Comments

On Friday, I mentioned we moved in to the mountain house, as Ben calls it.  I think a moment like that deserves a celebration of pictures.  So, here’s the mountain house, filled with our crap, I mean furniture.

The entry isn’t huge, but we have a rug and storage bench for putting on shoes.

Our old sectional, which lived in the theater room at the first house, fits in the new living room with plenty of space.

We arranged the furniture to face the television about 2 1/2 feet from the window wall.  I have high hopes for bookshelves on either side of the window and a window seat between.

Small end tables and a bookshelf turned entertainment center work for now.

Ben built that bookshelf for V’s nursery and we’ve had it in the basement for the past few years.  It is the only piece of furniture that can serve this purpose until we get a chance to build a proper entertainment center.  This also means Ben’s kick butt surround sound system is tucked away for the too small shelf.  Once we finish the bathroom, we’ve got this on our to do list.

Okay, enough of my whining.  Here’s our empty dining room.  The stool and lantern are for the deck and the chairs are there as additional seating.

Some day we’ll buy or build a large table to go in here, but that’s not a priority.  Right around the corner is my office.  I’ve got my craft and shop supplies in the lower cabinets and lots of electronics on the desk top, but it’s totally functional.

Jack has deemed this her spot, so I tossed a few towels down to keep her cozy until I can make her a little dog bed.

Then there’s the kitchen.  Oh, the kitchen.  Even though this kitchen is at least twice the size of our other kitchen, we’re quickly learning the main cabinets are poorly laid out.  Not as much storage as it appears to have.

So we’ve been stashing most kitchen stuff in the giant pantries.

That pretty French door fridge above?  I hate it.  Ben packed up all the food from the fridge and freezer at the first house on Friday.  The fridge contents fit without a problem.  However, the two drawer freezer couldn’t hold an entire box of frozen foods.  As I tried to cram everything in, getting more and more frustrated while cursing the LG designer I started crying out of annoyance.  The stress from packing while watching two little boys and unpacking had gotten the best of me.  Luckily, we have space in the utility room for a chest freezer, so Ben bought one yesterday.  Rant over.  Check out the breakfast nook we’re using as the dining room.

That large window is a great place to watch the wild life in the back yard.

Friday night we had five deer visitors, right off the back patio.

It was chilly over the weekend, so Ben built a fire and we roasted marshmallows right in the family room.

Figuring out a layout for this room was tricky.  We have several traffic patterns; one from the stairs, another from the hall, and a third to the sliding door.  This works best, keeping everything centered on the fireplace and windows.  Too bad we don’t have close enough outlets to plug-in the lamps.

I’ve moved my books from the old office into the guest bedroom.  The pile on the bed is my sewing machine and 20 yards of fabric for curtains.

We’re still working on the main bathroom, so we’ll share pictures soon.  Floor tile has been delayed and should be here tomorrow.  The boys’ bedroom layout is very similar to their old room, just a few feet wider.  Here’s V’s side, complete with a dresser due to the lack of organization systems in this house.

E’s side is so bare right now, but he does have a faux Jack to keep him company.

The last bedroom, our bedroom.  We sold our bed to the buyer and we’re using the old guest bed for a while.  Ben hates the headboard covering the window.

I finished painting the closet over the weekend and put our clothes away.  Instead of a pile of clothes, we’ve got a stack of empty bins.  Wahoo!

Ugly master bathroom with an awesome steam shower.  Still ugly despite a few accessories.  I guess putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it pretty.

You want to see something that really isn’t pretty (and kind of stresses me out)?  The basement.

It’s funny because we’ve gained square footage over the last house, but we’re desperately lacking built-in storage.  Not to mention we’ve lost two bedrooms (hence the mattresses) and practically two bathrooms.  The main bath is under construction and the basement bath is just gross, leaving us with the master bath.  Eventually we’ll get there, but I think the basement will look like this for a while.

Ben and Handy Sammy hauled over the washer and dryer, too.  The plug for the dryer isn’t the same as the outlet though.

So that’s how we’re living in the new house.  I’ve off to pack up the few remaining things at the old house and then I’ve got some sewing to do.  Mama needs black out curtains in hopes of getting the boys to sleep past 6:30.

What did you do over the weekend?  Do you have a sewing project in your near future?  How about a move?