Dressed up walls

I finally made the trip to Ikea to get some curtains and curtain rods. (Side note: NEVER go to Ikea on a Saturday if you can avoid it. Seriously. Ugh.) Anyway, I purchased the Ritva curtains at 118" length. They were $34 per pair, very reasonable! I have nine foot ceilings and wanted to be able to hang my curtains high, so the 98" ones ($24) would be just a few inches too short. I will have to eventually hem these down a bit.  

 I am very happy with the curtains and I think they really bring your eye up. I did not install them yet on the bay window because my dad and I will have to finagle some special way to hang those rods. That will hopefully happen soon, though. 

I got these baskets at Ikea (here) and really like them! I also got the Rens fur rug. Not exactly sure what I will do with it yet but for now it's hanging out in the basket. 

 I am really liking how the dining room is coming together... but it seems a little too "50 shades of grey" for me at the moment. I need a little color in the room and I want to make it a little less formal.

I also got the curtains up in the living room. The furniture in this room sits really low so I am particularly happy to have the curtains to bring your eye up to the ceiling. I feel like my house just got a pretty dress :)

I also have plans for these curtains. I want to do some sort of trim like the ones here:

(source)

(source)

Dining room transformation

The dining room renovation is nearly complete. It is not yet decorated, but that part may take awhile. The dining room took forever to get finished because not only was there water damage in the ceiling that needed fixing, but there was also a set back where we had to take down the ceiling to change the pipes to be up to code. 

BEFORE:

These two pictures are from when we first got the house; untouched color and everything.

DURING RENO:

It became clear that the ceiling would need major work. It was wavy, cracks, uneven--just bad. My dad took on the project himself (I helped here and there where I could). We also traded out the old knob and tube electric for modern electricity ;)

After we got the ceiling drywall up for the second time, it was time to mud the drywall and paint. With the holidays, this project took longer than expected (common theme?) and so this was the view to the dining room for awhile.

The place was sealed off and paper on the floor. I think the dining room had paper on the floor for... 5 months? It was a long and never ending project

AFTER:

Over the past two weeks, we finished painting the room and hung the chandelier. The room looks great. I spent some time cleaning the floors too.

Decorating has not really started yet in this room and I think it will be awhile, but it's nice to have somewhere to sit and eat!

Entryway design board

I created a design board for what I am thinking I want my entryway to look like. 

If you have read any of my other posts, you may have noticed that I post a lot of design ideas but relatively few posts about the design actually implemented. Why, you may ask? Not really sure. I'm coming to find that getting the look that I want is really expensive. Even if I buy things that are deeply discounted!  Also, my house is still unfinished. There is crap.everywhere.seriously.everywhere. And dust! And bags from unpacking! Nothing is even close to being finished. Also, real life tends to get in the way.  

My goal for this weekend is to get some of these things if I can find them, to clean up and unpack more, and to take some pictures!

Living Room Design Board

Made this design board last night when I was babysitting my nephew. I've been MIA from the blog, but only because my family has had to take some time off working on the house. We are back at it now!

Living Room

And here is the dining room design board that I created a few months ago:

Dining Room

Entryway is painted!

The entryway has finally been painted and the new light is hung. It has been a long time coming because of the repairs and because we have gotten distracted on several other projects. 

Before:

Here is a before picture from how the house looked before we bought it. The floors and wood detail are beautiful, but there was a LOT of work to be done on the plaster. Cracks everywhere. We also got rid of the random "chair rail" near the ceiling. 

Here is the view from the front door. Unfortunately the floral carpet has not yet been ripped up. We are waiting to do that until the end so the floors don't get damaged. We aren't too worried about spilling plaster or paint on this flowered beauty. 

During: 

Here are some photos of the renovation process. The walls got patched up and we put down painters paper so we don't damage the wood floors while we are doing all of the repairs. 

Stairway walls had to be entirely removed and re-drywalled. 

 My sister came and helped with the painting :)

After: 

Paint on the walls and light is up. I kept going back and forth about this light, but since we waited so long to hang it up, I can't return it and therefore it IS my light. No negative comments because it is staying! (kidding...kind of?). We painted the entryway with Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. It was actually Behr Paint + Primer tinted to that color, and luckily we only needed one coat of that! 

 Gracie had to inspect everything, and she approves. 

 I got the chandelier from overstock (here). 

I'm so happy to be done painting the entryway. We needed to have a room that was nearly complete because everything else is gutted and ugly and it was getting kind of depressing. Now we walk in the front door to fresh paint and a light!

Paint in the kitchen

Paint is on the walls in the kitchen :)

Also got a call yesterday that the family room furniture I ordered is in! They are going to hold it for a few weeks until I can pick it up. 

Bar exam in 11 days!! Yikes.