Wine Room

Chris primed the wine room/breakfast nook that is located off the kitchen this week.

You can see the lovely faux paint we are covering up. They also painted all of the beautiful wood trim metallic gold. We decided the easiest fix is to paint the kitchen trim white. It is such a shame.

Inspiration

This is a pillow we picked up at Ikea today. It was only $9.99! These are going to be the inspiration colors for the rest of the pillows for our new couch which is being delivered on Monday. It also pulls in the colors from the living room art.

Erica is always too match-y. This pillow exercise will be fun and unmatched as possible. Stay Tuned.

Ready for Absinthe

We are going to Absinthe at Caesars.
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Soda Tasting at Coke Store

Tiff and Emily ready for high fructose corn syrup intake for the year!
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Tastes of the World

16 International Flavors
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Aaah Las Vegas

Girls weekend in Vegas. Drinking a mojito at Serendipity 3. Mmmmm.

Tomorrow is Earth Day - Get Free Coffee

On April 22 Starbucks is inviting everyone to bring in a reusable mug or tumbler and get a free brewed coffee or tea. Your choice of brew, hot or iced. If you can’t bring in a mug and don’t want to buy a new one, just request your coffee or tea in a “for-here” cup and Starbucks will pick up the tab.

Tumblers and travel mugs will be available for 20% off on Earth Day, April 22.

Good to Know: Anytime you bring in your own tumbler or travel mug to a participating Starbucks, you get 10 cents off your drink every day.

The Big Chandelier Unveil

We bought new candle sleeves without fake wax drips at Home Depot and sprayed them. We decided to go with white, round bulbs after Erica spied this article on-line. The bulbs make the whole thing more modern.

All lit up. Can you say ooooh, aaaah?

Total Cost: $26
2 Cans Spray Paint - $12
Candle Sleeves - $6
Light Bulbs - $8

The second can of spray paint is barely used. Must think of another project and put it to good use.

Instant Pantry

We did't have a pantry. It was a bummer. Here is where we have been storing our food for the past few weeks - between the stove and the refrigerator. Nice, right?

Luckily, just past the kitchen on the way downstairs, there is the perfect little pantry inlet. We checked into getting a custom cabinet for the space and the cabinet guy at Home Depot guesstimated ~$1200. That sounded pretty crazy to us. So, we opted for some paint and pantry depth Closet Maid shelving.

Here is the finished product. Immediately to the right is the kitchen. We are going to hang a tension rod and a nice 98" curtain with grommets from Ikea to hide everything. Maybe some day we will put in a nice cabinet, but until then this will more than do.

Eventually all of the kitchen and stairway trim will be painted white to cover the faux gold paint that is there now. Erica is so sick of painting she could puke, so she primed and painted just the bare minimum to get the pantry area ready for shelving.

Going to Town on the Yard

Turning on the Sprinkler System. After all of the adventures with broken toilet, dryer, and dishwasher (all working now) so far, Chris was very leery about the sprinkler system. We couldn't test it during inspection since it was winter time, so we had to take the word of the seller which we have experienced isn't very good. The good news is the back yard sprinklers are up and running. We haven't figured out where the water turn on is for the front yard yet. We will have to call the company who services the sprinklers and get it figured out.

The back yard grass is in need of some TLC. I think we can thank the dog who used to live here for that. Pam picked up 10 pounds of dog poop (not an exaggeration) out of the yard. We are forever indebted to her :)

Chris demolished an overgrown evergreen bush in the back corner of the house. The tree on the side of the house also got a good trim. Eventually it will also be completely gone.

Edging the front yard. This alone has made the front yard greatly improve in the looks department. Thanks again to our helpers, Jim and Pam.

Tocabe

We are eating at Tocabe, an American Indian Eatery, for the second time in 3 days. It is just down the street from the house.

Think "Native American Chipotle" - tacos, stuffed tacos, and nachos. The best part is the traditional Native American fry bread. They also serve ground and shredded bison which is good.

Here is a picture of our fry bread nuggets and fry bread with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Chris wanted half of it plain so he could put honey on it.

Chandelier Make Over

Remember this beauty? It was just hanging in the dining room waiting for us when we moved in. Chris despised it and wanted it gone, but Erica saw potential. The same fixture is at Home Depot for $99. Whaa? It is a heap of cheap plastic. Wouldn't pay $10.

The transformation involved some fun $6 spray paint and removing ALL of the lovely plastic crystals. To finish the prep, we removed the candle sleeves and taped over the bulb connections.

Here it is now, hanging in our garage. Erica was so excited, she drug Chris out to the garage first thing Sunday morning to give it a once over after it had dried all night. Chris says it looks better in person, which it does - it is an exact shiny, hammered match to the spray paint cover above, which unfortunately is not captured in these pictures.

We need to buy another can of paint to touch up the cord and ceiling plate and we might spray the white, cheap, wax-dripped candle sleeves the same color.

Look for an After picture soon. We can hardly stand the suspense ourselves!

Entry Way

Entry way painted Stone, complete with art.

Front door and entry way closet.

Sunday Morning Cappuccino

We painted the dining room Cappuccino. This was also a Restoration Hardware color that we had color matched at Home Depot into their Behr paint. This color will also eventually be in our back stairway and pantry area off the kitchen.

Pardon the mess around and on top of the dining table, we are figuring out where we are going to hang our art. This is what the living room looked like last night:

I think we have the pieces we are going to use in the entry way, living, dining, master and kitchen thought out. Unless we change our minds...

Living Room Progress Pictures

Before picture just in case you forgot the awful red. Red paint was slopped all over the baseboards, dripped on the floor, and painted on the stone around the fireplace. Aargh.

Comparison picture to the one above. The entryway will eventually be painted the same Stone color as the fire place.

Don't mind the box of art that we have not been able to hang yet because of all the painting. Did you notice the new super white vent cover above the TV? Nice departure from the cream vent that also had red paint on it. We are watching Scrubs, so that is a man in a hospital bed on the TV.

Not the best light, it is not really this dark. It will look so much cleaner when we have the sectional. All of this furniture will go down to the basement eventually. We still haven't decided on window coverings. We did hang an old white paint tarp/shower curtain in the front window for privacy temporarily.

Love Lucite

Digging the idea of a lucite coffee table. What do you think?




Pictures from decor pad and apartment therapy.

Order Up

We bit the bullet and ordered our sectional from Ikea on-line last night! Shipping charges were surprisingly reasonable. Our tentative delivery date is May 6th. Here is a picture of our purchase that I stole from where else but this post on Young House Love.

Now that the living room is painted, and once we have the sectional, all we have yet to do is hang our art and curtains, get a new ceiling fan with lights, and accessorize.

Fireplace Paint

We decided to paint the fireplace a lighter color, Stone by Restoration Hardware. Chris picked up the paint on his daily trip to Home Depot. This time they did have some trouble matching the paint. They made 4 different gallons before Chris finally picked the first gallon as the best match.

The slate color looks very different in different light. Sometimes it looks more brown and other times more gray.

Chris has just declared the living room his favorite room of the house.

First Coat

Erica was a little nervous that the color would be too dark. It is on the dark side, but we LOVE it. Well, Erica really loves it, and now that the first coat is up, Chris likes it too - he says it looks "rich".

Some nice white curtains will really make the color pop.

Slate

We are painting the upstairs living room Slate by Restoration Hardware. We had it color matched at Home Depot. We also had them color match 2 other colors (to be unveiled soon) and they did a great job with them all.

Here is a picture from 7thhouseontheleft.com. They painted their office the same color:

Erica is doing all of the painting and she is a little sore. Chris has been doing other important things, like fixing the upstairs toilet which was leaking into our downstairs bathroom. Long story short, there was no flange, and they jimmy-rigged the toilet in an idiotic way. The entire upstairs of the house was staged and no one had been using the upstairs bathroom for a long time. The minute we moved in there was a problem. Luckily the water only got as far as the drywall on the ceiling downstairs. It is still not good, but it could have been worse. Thanks Jim, for coming over yesterday to assist. We still have to run to Home Depot today for the 3rd time for this project, but then everything should be good as new.

Prepped for Paint

Primed the living room today.

But first, we took down the sconces above the fireplace.

Making a List

List for Home Depot:

Light Bulbs
Primer
Paint & Supplies
Tape
Spray Paint
Ceiling Fan
Spackle
Hole Patch Kit

Excited to get to work!

Before Pictures

Dining Room. Erica has plans for that fake plastic chandelier.

Raspberry Red Living Room.

We will have some progress photos for you after this coming weekend.

Sectional Shopping

Stopped by Ikea tonight to look at sofa sectionals for the upstairs living room. We really like the Karlstad. Young House Love blogged about their sectional hunt and picked the Karlstad, or Karl, as they like to call it. After checking it out in person, I am totally sold on our very own Karl in Sivik Dark Gray.

Three really great things about the Karlstad:
1.) The entire couch is slip covered, so you can wash it or even change the color all together if you want something different. Red at Christmas, anyone?
2.) It comes in a sectional that can be put together however you want. The long side can be on the right or left and the add-on chaise can also be placed on either side.
3.) The price. This couch is about 1/3 the price of anything else we could find. Reviews tell us it holds up over time and it has a 10 year warranty.

An Ikea is coming to Denver this fall. Not sure what our time line is for a sectional purchase. Right now we would have to order it on-line and have it delivered. Or, wait and buy it in Denver and deal with the 7 big boxes it comes in.

First Night in the New House!

Yesterday we worked at the house for the entire day. Pam, Jim, and Cori also came over to lend a hand. They headed up some yard work - removing a huge vine that was overtaking the front of the house and removing a rickety old structure that was attached to the house and "covering" the patio.

Sarah and David stopped by with their 8 week old twins to see the new place and one of Chris' coworkers Alex, and his wife Kristin also dropped by to say hi. They all live within 10 blocks or so of us now.

The dining room, living room, master bedroom, and kitchen are now looking like rooms that belong in a house. We will be posting some progress photos very soon.

The neighbors right next door to the north, Derrick and Mariah, are very friendly and out going. She is a dermatologist and he is finishing up his PhD in Atmospheric Science. They have a little girl named Adelaide. The neighbors two to the North had us and Derrick and Mariah over for drinks and a cook out last night. Their names are Ben and Ana. Ben is a civil engineer and Ana is the morning news anchor on Channel 7 news here in Denver. They all own golden retrievers.

The entire neighborhood has been nothing but super friendly. Even John, the crazy NHL Zamboni driver who lives down the street, who grew up in the neighborhood, and seems to know a lot about our house in particular and old owners of its past, comes off as likeable and not creepy. Likeable even when his dog had the diarrhea in our front lawn while we were unloading the POD.

So far so good. We are definitely loving the house and very grateful for some old and new friends in the neighborhood.

The POD is Empty and the House is FULL

Today the fun really begins, putting everything in its place.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERICA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Rippin' Up the Carpet

We worked late at the house last night. The kitchen and wine room have been unpacked.

The carpets in the upstairs bedrooms have been ripped out. The hardwoods look pretty nice. The floors in the rest of the house are much lighter. We wish all of the wood was darker like this. Having all of the floors stained and refinished is definitely on the to do list for someday down the road.