Guest Room {Mis}adventures

I was full of anxiety and stress beginning March 8th due to the fact that the guest room needed to be painted before March 31st. I needed something in a hurry! I had no clue to color scheme and no inspiration jumping off point. I usually design based upon favorite picture(s), painting, fabric or whatnot. I once used a border wallpaper I loved as a jumping off point for designing a whole guest room and bathroom in North Houston. I had a blast with that one as I had no deadline.

The guest room is also going to be the gaming and exercise room. It will also have access to Satellite TV; so, people can watch TV. The hookups are there; so, why not?

I decided to try to decorate with either video game(s) or red, white and blue theme (which is both patriotic and Mario). I wanted something green in there too. Do not ask me why. I just did.

My favorite video games are anything Mario, anything Sonic (the Hedgehog) and anything from Link (The Legend of Zelda).

I had nothing for pictures to hang in there; so, I went shopping online and came across an Etsy seller that goes by the name of RoomB31 that made some cool video prints and the majority were from favorite games of mine!

Dan helped me choose seven small prints. When they arrived, I went shopping for things including paint colors and some cabinet handles.

I chose the color Admiration P340-1 (top color of paint chip card) for the walls and Reviving Green P340-3 (bottom color) for the cabinetry.

Note: The colors on the site links I provided may not run true to the colors on the paint sample cards provided within the store. At least, they are not accurate on my laptop. But, I provided the links to give you an idea of what I have chosen.

I also took Dan to see some cabinetry pulls (handles). I was having trouble choosing between three different pulls. Dan made the final choice and I really like what we chose for both the coloring (copper tone) and the fact the detail on the handle reminded me of The Wind Waker (The Legend of Zelda) game.

We completed painting the entire room (including the ceiling) by March 22nd. Lest you think I did not lift a finger, here I am with no shoes (just socks), raggedy baggy pants and an old shirt:

It is a terrible, terrible picture of me; but hey! It's proof! Ha! I actually painted most of the ceiling while Dan did the tedious painting.

Once the walls were painted, we could breathe and relax just a tad and return to other unfinished projects around the house.

Some nice young men came in and installed some partial cabinetry on April 1st. Dan purchased the paint I had chosen for the cabinetry one night after work. I came down sick in the night of April 2nd and ended up not being able to help paint over the weekend. I was pretty miserable and felt so bad for not being able to help out. Dan was a good sport and besides, I am not a very good painter. I think he might have been relieved that I was not painting. Ha!

Anyway, I walked in after he painted a first coat on the majority of the cabinetry and immediately hated it. The color made me want to puke. It was way too much yellow and not enough green. I made a huge mistake and felt so upset. This was the first time I could not visualize a color within a room on account of the fact the colors I picked are downright weird.

Here I am sick without a fever (thank the good Lord) and needing to go into town to pick a darker color. I was feeling so miserable; but, I was determined because the painting needed to be done as soon as possible. When we reached the store, we went directly to the same color family as the wall color. With Dan’s help, I ended up picking Anime P340-5 for the color of the cabinetry.

When we got home, I crashed and he painted. Once a coat of paint was put on, I was immediately happier with the color choice. The painting of the cabinetry was finished late on April 5th.

The top color of the left card is the wall color. And amazingly, the cabinetry (darker) color is a perfect match to some colors in the pictures I used as an inspirational jumping off point.

The young men returned on April 9th and finished the installation of the cabinetry including hardware along with the pulls (handles) we chose. Dan finished the touch up painting the following weekend.

I had taken pictures; but, anything I took after April 12th was lost as my camera died and the data on the compact flash card was corrupted. So, the final picture will have to wait until I get my new camera.

I have since shopped for and purchased bedding. We also replaced the ceiling fan. The room, in spite of it being incomplete, is now ready for guests to crash (sleep in). Several days notice in advance is required so that we can pick up stuff and make it safe for guests. After all, the house is still a work in progress.

DIY: Laundry Room

I have been negligent about taking pictures of our DIY or remodeling efforts around the house. My pictures show the lack of effort. But hey! At least, I took some!

11/2/2014

We bought two old cabinets from Habitat for Humanity Restore for $15 and $30. We first cleaned them up sanded them down. The wind was too much on this day to start spray painting.

11/4/2014

I went shopping for new knobs for the cabinets. The bottom color on the paint chip is actually on the pantry walls! The small orange-yellow is the color of the "new" laundry room and the gray is the cabinetry color! That pig was actually a knob I adored; but, I did not buy the item. (Picture was taken with my phone at the store.)

11/12/2014

Dan was in between projects and wanted something to do. So, I suggested dismantling the one lone shelf and start painting the laundry room… It is more like a closet than a room. But hey! It works for us.

12/3/2014

12/3/2014

Prepping and setting up to paint…

12/3/2014

12/3/2014

I was worried when the clouds started rolling in. The cabinetry was almost dried when we decided to take them inside. It’s a good thing we did because it started to “spit” rain during the process of moving them indoors.

12/22/2014

Cabinets hung up. Almost done!

12/31/2014

12/31/2014

12/31/2014

Shelves put in! The Laundry Room is finito! I am extremely happy with the changes. It is more functional and have tons of storage now! The empty space to the left of the cabinets is space to hang things. And yes, I do have stuff that is better off hung.

All in all, we estimated the cost of this remodel to be between 60 and 65 dollars (USD). The cabinets were $45. We bought paint and new knobs. The rest of the supplies were reused such as the shelf and ledge we pulled out of the laundry room and screws we had in our leftover stockpile from previous projects.

The only thing we might do later is change out the lighting. I want white or more natural lighting instead of the ugly yellow one.

DIY: Master Closet (Remodel)

I have been going through my clothes and stuff in the Master closet most of last week. I temporarily relocated my clothes I kept to a guest closet. I found a dozen jeans that were buried and tried them all on. Much to my surprise, they all fit me well! I ended up discarding a pair into the Goodwill box due to the fact it was outdated. In fact, the Goodwill box is now overflowing.

On the past Sunday (September 6), I was at a standstill concerning my room with the A/C being broken. It was too dang hot in there to do much work. Dan has been working in the mornings on making units for a built-in to hold my fabrics and more. But, it often gets way too hot by 10:00 A.M. to do much work. At least, for me it does. He works until around noon out there in 100 degrees (Fahrenheit).

I was actually out there with him ripping up a pallet in the early A.M. and got so overheated that I started to feel sick. I dragged the hose, pointed the sprayer up and let it rip. Now, that was fun! I felt like I was standing in a gentle rain and I actually saw a rainbow! Ha! Anyway, I soaked myself good, took a break and then started the hard work again. By 10:30 A.M., I had enough and went indoors. The cats were indoors long before me. Smart animals.

After lunch break and a Doctor Who episode, I headed to the Master Bedroom closet.

{Before Changes}

Do you see that closet rod? It is so dang low that the bottoms of my Maxi dresses were laying on the floor. I hated that along with a few other things.

{During}

I thought I could do it all myself; but, once I got to where I needed to remove the angle bracket which holds the rod, I found that I could not remove the screws. I enlisted Dan's help and it turns out that he himself had a hard time removing the screws too!

Once Dan got involved, he helped from thereon. It was nice having a helper. Actually, it was more like me helping him with me as the boss. Ha!

Anyway, I carefully removed the entire shelf system with the intention of reusing everything. I basically took the angle bracket, rod, and the end ledgers and moved them up to the top shelf. It is the same height on Dan's side.

Once that was completed, I cleaned out the rest of the closet with Dan's help. It was so nice having him there helping me!

{After}

I forgot to take a picture before loading it up with my clothes and I was NOT going to unload it all just to get a picture. It looks much nicer now and I am more at peace with the closet itself.

So, how much did this cost? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, if sore muscles is a cost, so be it! I did not want to spend a cent and was able to keep (reuse) everything.

Now, if we have another useless weekend (where I cannot work in my room due to the A/C), I plan on tackling the laundry room! (I can see Dan groaning from here. Stop that Dan! Ha!)

Dry Fitting {Desk / Beading Station}

Dan has been slowly slaving away in my room. He has installed window aprons, casings around openings and doors, the detailed craftsman style headers, etc., and etc. Yes, I helped. A little. Ha!

We decided to work on installing the desk / beading station first. Do not worry. It will not look like this when we are done. You will not see that ugly backing of the cabinet amongst other things. This is just a before image.

We purchased both the doors (the countertop / desk surface) and the cabinets from Habitat from Humanity Restore at excellent prices. The doors are solid wood and were $30 and $15. I have to tell you that I LOVE shopping at the Habitat stores.

There will be some minor work done to the cabinets themselves to make them look nicer in this room. I will not go into all the details in this post as I do not want to spoil the surprise. I know some of you have a real good ability to imagine how things will look in the end if given details.

Dan cannot really see what I envision for this space and how I want things done; but, just seeing this staged and seeing things in my mind's eye is getting me excited! One step closer to having a beautiful and functional space!

Making Decisions == Headaches {True}

{About the title: '==' is a relational operator meaning "equal to" in a programming language (C++). In other words, does making decisions bring on headaches? In my case, the title evaluates as true. Yes, I am being silly playing around. I miss programming; but, I do not miss the rat race that comes with the career.}

I have a framed picture that Dan bought me years ago. It used to hang above our fireplace in our north Houston home. It is now going to be placed in my room. This piece is the inspiration for colors within the room. As you can probably see, the wall color is an extreme close match to the background color of the picture.

I have colors chosen for a project; but, I cannot decide between the top two middle colors. (The green color is for another project).

I was looking at them Monday night and was thinking that the rose color would be best. However, in the light of day yesterday (which is when I took this picture), I really liked the purple. Yes, purple is not one of the colors in the painting; but, it coordinates. At least, I think it does. And besides, purple is one of my favorite colors. (The other favorite is green).

The problem is what is really the best color to choose? Hmmmm... I dislike making decisions like these as it gives me a headache. I think it is the stress of wanting to get it correct (pleasing to the eye) and yet, making me happy at the same time.

The Garage Conversion V {Flooring}

You can see the previous post here.

We picked up the flooring on January 19th and starting putting it down on January 25th. I could not wait and opened up a box immediately to look at the flooring.

It turned out prettier than I imagined from the itty bitty floor sample in the store and I was thrilled.

We first laid down underlayment for approximately half the room.

We then began laying down the floor. The first several rows is always the hardest.

Custom cuts around closets always slows the process down.

And, around outlets. Yes, I have an outlet in the floor! It's going to be perfect having this!

From here on, work went at a steady pace and abruptly came to an end when we hit the doorway between the kitchen and the room. The door was an exterior door and the threshold was giving us fits. We decided to shift our focus to doing some work outside because the weather was beautiful. In the meantime, we discussed and debated the problem and eventually decided to get a new interior door.

It turned out that due to the height of the tile, flooring and threshold, the new doorway casing and the door itself needed to be trimmed. I have seen DIY shows where this was done and Dan did exactly what I have seen on those shows. It turned out perfect! By the way, we kept the exterior door and it will go to the shed or chicken coop we plan to build in the future.

Replacing the door meant having to do some tile work because the old threshold was HUGE. Thank God the previous owners left behind the leftover tile from the kitchen and bathrooms. We had kept and reused the tiling tools from a job we did in the north Houston house.

Cleaning up the tile adhesive.

As you probably already saw, Abby Gail was Dan's little helper. She was fearless and into everything.

Mixing up the grout. We choose the grout color that closely matched the existing grout in the kitchen. It was all from memory. Actually, from my memory as Dan does not remember details like I do.

Abby Gail was begging to see what he was doing.

So, Dan let her have a look. She was then content and went on exploring the yard.

Once the grout was put down, we sought to get some threshold. Shopping for the new threshold was a nightmare. Apparently, the company that makes this floor does NOT make the matching threshold we needed. It was frustrating. But, Dan persevered and found some that is a close match to the floor. This process took a couple of weeks.

Not bad considering what we had to work with.

By the way, we are planning to get someone to come out and clean all the kitchen and bathroom tiles and reseal the grout. Honestly, I do not think sealer was ever applied.

The last row of flooring! March 16. 2014.

We are very pleased with the floor.

We are now working on priming and painting the new door, casings, baseboards, etc. and etc. I will have to do a blog post about what I did to the door itself (the kitchen side) because it was so plain!

The Garage Conversion IV

It is about time I did an update, correct?

You can find the previous post here.

Started Building the Closet on 11/10/2013

Putting up the drywall on 11/16/2013

Door frame is put up on 11/17/2013.

As you can see, the drywall on closet has already been taped and mudded. It took several weeks of deciding on what to do about applying texture. A contractor cancelled the job and then Dan decided to do it himself. We rented a machine and the job turned into a major event; but, he persevered and got it figured out. I am really proud of him.

Priming all walls started on 12/21/2013

As you can see, Dan used a spray painter to cut the corners. I tried using it and let me tell you, it takes a lot of effort to use the toy as it is heavy! By the way, priming the walls took a lot of effort, paint and time as the new walls just sucked up the primer. We vastly underestimated the amount of primer we needed due to this fact. But, we eventually got it done.

Painting all walls on 12/28/2013.

We also used the spray painter to cut the corners in this step. I went with a color called Soft Candlelight (Glidden; GLY16).

From here, we were very disorganized. We could not decide what step to take next. We eventually decided to order the flooring and that was on back order. Dan realized that the A/C and Heating can be installed now that the room is essentially complete. So, he called them to come give us a quote. We decided to go with the quote...

A/C and Heat was installed 1/11/2014.

The lighting was horrid on this day. So, the picture is awful. This is what it looks like looking out into the room from the kitchen. The A/C and Heat unit was bigger than what we wanted; but, the unit quoted was not in stock; so, they gave us an upgrade for free. We will not argue with that. I can always bling it up if I want to in the future as it is ugly. But, it is functional. The guys did an excellent job of installing the unit for us.

We picked up the flooring on 1/19/2014 and started putting that down on 1/25/2014. That will be in another blog post.