Category: Our First House

Our first house, a 1960 ranch home.

Feeling Peacock-y

Published on by Our Humble Abode9 Comments

Our basement bathroom is sort of boring.  Lots of beige and white with some green.

I want to change that, but we’re not replacing the floor or repainting.  So, how can we add character without hours of work?  By adding interesting elements, like cute deer hooks for towels, and color, of course.  You probably already guessed which color we chose to add based on the post title.  If you’re dense, we chose peacock blue.  Why?  Because blue and green look great together and the adjacent theater room is sea blue/green.

This all started with a harmless trip to Ikea in December when I snagged a set of three Limmaren bottles.  We use the clear bottle in our bathroom for mouthwash and love it, so I decided to fill the blue bottle up for the basement.

For another splash of peacock, I bought a three dolla hand towel from Target.

So far, so good.  I still have to convince myself Ben to paint the mirror a similar shade.  I have no qualms about painting the mirror, because I definitely don’t like the current finish.

But, do I use spray paint with limited options?  Maybe the same color we used for the shelving?  Or a more boring route, ORB to tie in with the other fixtures?  Or old-fashioned latex for a custom color?

I have about 10 ideas swirling in my brain for art, but I need to try some things out to see what I would like best in the space.  I know I want something long and narrow over the bath tub, but would it look strange to have another long, narrow piece over the toilet, sitting on the shelf?

That blank wall to the right of the toilet bugs me, but eventually we will finish the steam shower under the stairs so a door will swing out toward that wall.

More color to come, but I haven’t decided on other items.  This rug from Urban Outfitters is fantastic, but could be too busy in the space.  And it’s a simple cotton rug and Ben would hate that it doesn’t have a non slip backing.  However, the size and price is right.  You know what they say, “If the rug boot fits.”

Usually a shower curtain would add a ton of color, but we don’t need one because we have a tub only.  However, a small window sits above the bath tub.

 The window is the same size as the other small windows in the bedrooms.  Could we treat is sort of like the window in the basement bedroom?

Would it look odd to hang a boldly colored, fun patterned curtain there?  While I’m showing you the basement bedroom, you should know that they saw some changes yesterday.  I’ll share more on that next week.

What would you do?  What other ways do you add color to a bathroom?  Any art placement ideas?  How much is too much in a bathroom?

Worse for Wear: Dining Table

Published on by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

As much as we love our kids, we don’t love the scratches, scuffs, dings, dents, stains and other blemishes they leave around our house and on our furniture.  To keep it real and show how items in our house have held up (or haven’t) to two rowdy boys, we’re starting a new series, Worse for Wear.  You know how fashion bloggers have “What I Wore Wednesdays”?  Consider Worse for Wear the home owner equivalent.

I thought the best place to start is our DIY welded steel and marble-topped dining table, our most popular post.

A year ago, the freshly spray painted legs looked like this:

Here are the legs as of yesterday:

And now, for a closer look:

I don’t know how they did it, but the boys have slowly chipped the paint.  Fortunately, we had anticipated this, so it should be easy enough to lift the marble top off, sand and repaint. 

Luckily, the marble top is still as perfect today as it was a year ago.  No scratches or stains.  And, the chairs look great thanks to the perfectly imperfect dented factory finish.  Overall, we’re very pleased with the durability of our new dining set. 

How about you?  Which furniture pieces have held up the best?  The worst?  Which did you expect to get trashed, but didn’t?  Who causes the most damage in your family?  Kids?  Dogs?  Husbands?

Simple Solution: Shelf Life

Published on by Our Humble Abode5 Comments

When we last left off with the theater room entertainment saga, we had just installed the sliding doors, going from this:

To this:

But, we still didn’t have shelves to store the toys.  You see, we didn’t know exactly how much space the sliding cabinets took up before installation, so shelves had to wait.

 

Then, Ben cut two pieces of plywood to length and depth, minus 3/4 inches.   Why subtract 3/4 of an inch?  To leave room for two strips of 3/4 inch thick by 1 1/2 inch tall MDF to finish off the front shelf face.  Ben simply nailed the thin strips to the front, puttied the nail holes and seam and left the shelves to dry.  Then, I sanded the putty down for a smooth surface and used a spray primer (because I’m lazy and we had it on hand) to cover the board evenly.  In an un-Amanda fit of craze attempt to branch out and add a fun splash of color, I applied two coats of Rustoleums Lagoon blue spray paint to each shelf.

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However , I neglected the undersides, end and back edges.  Because A, I ran out of paint.  B, the undersides are not visible unless you’re two feet tall.  And C, I’m lazy.

We’ve just doubled our usable storage by getting toys and blankets off the bottom shelf.  As a bonus, the dark paint won’t show scratches and scuffs as easily as white.

What do you think of the added color splash?  How do you add color to your home?  Pillows?  Art?  Paint?  Have a storage problem you could solve or have solved with additional shelves?

Thread House Numbers

Published on by Our Humble Abode43 Comments

I don’t know what I did before Pinterest.  So many fantastic ideas in one place, I finally have a motivation to get things done.  I have Pinterest and Young House Love to thank for today’s post inspiration.  YHL offered up a Pinterest challenge, so I thought I’d take part.  What did I make?  Thread house numbers, inspired by this pin.  We have house numbers on our mailbox, but we’ve been told they’re hard to see.  To remedy that situation in a stylish, non-traditional way, I thought a DIY thread project was in order.

To start, I painted a scrap piece of MDF and created a template in Photoshop.  If you don’t have Photoshop, you could print large numbers and make dots with a pen to mark the nail holes.

Then, gather tons of one inch nails and pound them in.  Here’s a tip: to keep the nails the same depth, use a 1/2 inch piece of scrap lumber to pound against.  Here’s another tip: if you are terrible at pounding a nail in straight, try this around your husband.  If he’s anything like mine, he’ll get annoyed with your stupidity struggling and help finish pounding nails for you, at a much quicker rate, too.

Because the nails I used were white, the hammering scuffed up the surface.

With the nails in place, spray paint your MDF and nails for a crisp white look.  This is what happens when your three-year old steals your camera.  Apparently my spray painting is pretty interesting to Vincent and Jack.

Now, use a heavy-duty thread to wrap around.  If you’re keeping this inside, plain thread would probably work.  Start by cutting a long piece, tying one end to a nail and working from nail to nail in a criss-cross pattern.  I waited to wrap the edges until I had filled in the center.

Once wrapped, tie the loose end around another nail.  I wrapped several numbers and propped the board up to see if they showed up well.  I decided to add a second layer to darken the numbers.  It helped to make an even more random cross pattern to fill any gaps.

Much better.  It was time to hang my masterpiece.  I attached a picture hook to the back.  To keep the numbers from getting damaged, I placed several 3/4 inch thick pieces around the edges while hammering.  A three-inch wood screw holds tightly against the house.

I like the interest the depth adds.

The price wasn’t bad, either.  We had all the supplies on hand, making this project completely free.  MDF from our basement trim, white paint leftover, thick thread from Ben’s leather sewing machine and tons of nails left from the previous owners.

Goody Goody Home Goods

Published on by Our Humble Abode11 Comments

Yesterday, we shared that we are visiting family and friends in Minnesota.  Of course, we visit with people, but we also like to visit stores and restaurants we don’t have in Montana.  So, my sisters, the boys and I took a trip to Home Goods.  Fortunately, I won a $50 gift card from Thrifty Decor Chick last fall.

Upon entrance, we were greeted by a lovely and extensive array of lamps.

This wire lamp is essentially what I attempted to make for the boys’ room, but failed miserably.  Obviously, it can be done.

These cut out tree lamp is pretty, and it would be a perfect Halloween decoration.  Seriously though, there were so many pretty lamps.  Like this rain lamp:

And this floral cut out lamp, which I think would look great in a little girl’s bedroom.

A white faceted base with a poppy fuchsia shade is cute and playful.

Small, modern cube lamps with rectangular shades are a fun way to light up a room.  My sisters and I drooled over this forest green/natural linen combo.

I tried to convince myself to buy this small purple lamp for our main bathroom.  It was only twenty bucks, but we don’t need more clutter on our counters.

I drooled over this white ceramic lamp.  Sort of Jonathan Adler-esque, no?

A white horse head as book end?  Yes, please.  I don’t need it, but I tried to get my sister to buy it.  Sadly, he didn’t come home with us.

If we ever finish our patio, no, we haven’t even started on it, I would love to add a few colorful oil lamps for mood lighting.

Of course, candle lanterns would be cute, too.

 

A silver faux crocodile bath set would look posh in any bath.

The clearance section was fantastic, too.  I loved the large, bold pattern and colors of this painting.  It was roughly 3 feet by 4 feet for only 40 smackeroos.

Of course, no Home Goods trip is complete without pillow shopping.  Here’s a fun textured pillow.

These large peacock patterned floor pillows are fun and only $25.  I did convince my sister to get one.

And one of these large pillows.  I love the fun pattern.

 

The pattern on these pillows is so fun, right?

My sis and I had a small pillow fight over these two.  The black is raised velvet and the inserts are down, for only 20 each.  Now, I’m cheap when it comes to pillows, but I could splurge on something this pretty.

So, wanna know what I’m bringing back to Montana?  A few glass items, including this three-tiered stacking organizer.  I don’t know where it’ll end up, but I liked it too much to pass up.  It was 17 bucks, but I had a gift card sooooooo, it was free to me.

I also snagged a large glass cylinder vase for $12 which I think I’ll use in the laundry room.  In the clearance section, I found a brushed nickel adjustable height desk for 5 bucks.  The adjustable metal shade doesn’t stay on, but I’m hoping to inspect it further when we’re home to see if Ben or I can come up with a reasonable solution.