Kitchen

I think this is the most used room in the whole house. I cook and bake in here, it's also where most my dance parties happen! It's the heart of the house. 

It was also the first room that was renovated so I don't know why I never posted it before. Maybe because it's not exactly 'finished' in my eyes. I've been looking for the perfect vintage wall cabinet. I haven't found it yet and I don't want to buy one from IKEA, yet. But this is the kitchen now. 

When the house was bought I wanted to replace the backsplash. So I took down the old one and this is what I found. 

Omg gross!!! And yes, that is black mold. It was awful. We got it professionally removed and started building the kitchen back. 

New insulation new mold resistant drywall. Everything. Then I went to Ikea and got cabinets and put them together myself. I saved a lot of money putting them together myself verses buying cabinets that were already put together. And all the boxes fit in my little car :) 

I also got this great farmhouse sink and wooden chopping block countertop at IKEA too. 

I put up small subway tile as the backsplash..... This is what it looks like to live in a construction zone. HA. 

 

Then the other side needed to be finished off.....

 

Hahahahaha. This is DIY home renovation at its finest. But hey, it worked ;)

I still have to get that cabinet but other than that it's finished! I even put in the dishwasher :)

The microwave was also taken down off the wall and I put these shelves  up. 

This kitchen definitely took some blood, sweat and tears. But I think it came out alright. 

Now I'm going to get it dirty and bake some delicious desserts for Thanksgiving, yum! 

XoXOXxo

Stephanie

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Dining Room

Since the episode of 'The High Low Project' that I'm going to be on will air soon (November 30th!!!) I figure I would finish posting the renovations I've done to the house.

That and I'm kinda running out of projects to do, if anyone needs help, with ANYTHING, let me know! 

The dining room was one of my first projects to start in the house. I figured that room needed the least amount of work done to it. I just painted the trim and sanded and stained the floors. 

The trim was a awful color it kinda reminded me of Creme Brûlée that has some mold on it :-/

So I found this amazing inspiration photo and decided to go to work! 

It took me about 2 weeks with all the taping and not to mention having two insane little boys running around..... 

I also painted the inside of my china cabinet pink. I mean PINK! I went to the hardware store with a Barbie pink in mind. Like, if they had a paint color there named Barbie, I probably would of bought it. 

Then came along the painted yellow piano and the D.I.Y curtains . 

Throw in my heirloom quilt as a table cloth and you got my dining room :) 

Too bad it's never used. Now it's more used as a place to put my luggage and clothing ;) 

Ugh I'm so disorganized. Hahaha. You should see my actual closet, it's a mess. 

Have a good weekend :)

XoXOXxo

Stephanie

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Guest Room

I haven't been planning on doing anything to the guest room but I went to a estate sale and that changed everything. I was driving back from the store on Friday and I saw there was an estate sale right down the street. I obviously had to go! You never know what you can get at the estate sales around here. I live around a lot of very old, very large houses.

Beautiful.

This house is actually for sale. Who wants to be my neighbor?!? 

So I go into the sale and I go directly down into the basement, all the good stuff is down there. And there it is, the Pottery Barn desk I've been wanting for a year!!! And it was only $150!!

Waaahhhhhhhht?!?!? 

Totally amazing. So I shoved it into my Jetta and drove home. It was like playing a game of Tetris to get the desk in my car, but luckily I was born in the 80's :)

So I came home and found some paint and got to work! The guest room was a bright blue color. 

Before-

I painted it a really light blue, it's so light it almost looks white. Then I put the desk in and rearranged the furniture. 

After-

I think it is so relaxing. I totally see myself sitting in here and reading a book. 

Maybe I'll take a nap in here today. I'm going to a video premier tonight with one of my girlfriends, so I better rest up. 

Have a great Monday :)

XoXOxOXo 

Stephanie

Foyer

My bird wallpaper I ordered from Anthropologie came... A while ago actually. I couldn't wait to put it up but almost a month later it was still in the box. And a month after I put the wallpaper up I still haven't posted the pics. I am a true slacker sometimes.
This is what the foyer looked like when we bought the house.

And this is what it looks like now!

I first took down the wood that was covering the original glass windows. Total 'Rehab Addict' style, 'why would they cover that up!?'. It made a huge difference just opening that up. Then I primed the walls and painted the molding. I really wanted to paint the trim black, like the bathroom, but Tyler said no. Party pooper. But he did come up with painting the vent cover a different color. I was down with that. He wanted to do it green. Ummm maybe not all green, so we settled for a green nob.

Then we go to install the new light fixture I bought and the wires are old and cloth covered.
I swear this house is the worst sometimes. Ugh.
My electricians :)

Sometimes I wish we would of bought a newly built house. Maybe a condo in Brooklyn. I could just pick up the phone and have someone fix everything for me. I wouldn't even need to take my trash out or cut the grass and collect leaves. Life would be easy.

I'm just glad it's done. Every time I used the front door I was like, ewww gross!
Now I smile and want to hug the wall!! I love it.
I can't forget my bird door knocker, I am the crazy bird lady ;)

I hope you like the before and after :)

XoXOxOXo
Stephanie

Magic mirror on the wall

Its a lot easier to update your bathroom than you might think. As long as your have enough tile to do it all. Unlike me who had to get more twice. Ugh. Bad planning on my part. But it is super easy to put tile up.
You can do it in a weekend if you plan right.
The bathrooms in this house are pretty small. I guess in the 40's they didn't need a lot of space.
So adding tile up the walls gives the illusion the room is bigger.
And if the kids draw on the walls with my makeup it's easy to wipe off.

I eventually want to put up this wallpaper. I'm totally in love with it!

It's by House of Hackney
I think it should be called 'Party Animal'.

To get started I had to chip the tile off in order to have the new tile line up perfectly.

Then I drilled a board into the wall to insure my line was completely straight.

I tiled up the wall to 50".
Finished the bottom and then grouted.
You need to wait 24 hours after putting the tile up to grout it.

I continued around the room.
Going around the radiator.
I had to move the sink. Please remember to turn the water off! Same goes for the toilet if have to move it.
Kept tiling and grouting until you're done!

The bathroom look like this when we moved in.

Till one morning while I was taking a bath I looked up and noticed mold on the celing.
That led to me getting mold removal experts to test everything.
We had mold.
Our master bath was leaking causing mold in the kitchen downstairs. And our 3rd floor bathroom toilet was broken and that caused mold in the bathroom underneath.
Everything in our house was original. Toilets, sinks, fixtures, everything.
Our roof was even leaking.
It was a mess!
They removed the bathrooms and the mold. And we hired contractors to put them back together quick.
Well what we thought would be quick. We had both showers demoed and only had a mini tub to bathe in on the 3rd floor. Did I mention it was June and super hot on the 3rd floor. Not comfortable. So we ended up 'showering' in the backyard. With a hose.
Our neighbors probably thought we were crazy!
So they put the bathrooms back together. It only took 3 months!
It was a super simple design I came up with.

All white.
I thought I could keep it clean and switch out any paint or wallpaper I wanted.
Well it was a little to boring for me. So I decided to add the tile.
It's a work in progress. I hope you like it :)

XoXOxOXo
Stephanie

Home is Wherever I'm With You

Hello everyone!
This is the first entry of my new blog! Yaaayyyy! I've been wanting to do this for a whole year now. This is so exciting for me! (Please bare with me as I have no idea what I'm doing and I need to bug my husband to do my graphics :))

We bought our house almost one year ago. My husband works in Manhattan. We knew we had to be close to public transportation but it also had to have a great school system. So we found a great area but now we would have to get a "fixer-upper".

We bought the Money Pit house. No joke.

In less than a year we put on a new roof.
Completely renovated 2 out of 4 bathrooms.
Replaced half of the kitchen.
And ripped out a hot tub. But more on all that later.

I have been working on it non-stop. It's hard to get stuff done when you have two kids under the age of 5 running wild. Did I mention we have two boys?! So I could go without saying its complete chaos around here 24/7. We also have a boy dog, Sir Roderick Buttersworth aka Buddy :) Throw my husband in there and that's 4 guys in the house. I'm totally outnumbered!

This first post is going to be about the small powder room I just finished doing. It is small and old and we weren't going to completely gut it. We already had to completely gut two other bathrooms when we first moved in because of mold. So gutting another bathroom right now is not at the top of the list. Maybe a little more down the road.

This is how it turned out...

So between making lunches and diaper changes I try to renovate the house. This bathroom has been the most recent accomplishment (not counting the painted piano because its not finished yet). We took down the wallpaper that was already up- it was little yellow roses-awful! Scraped the wall clean and primed the walls. I also painted the ceiling because its easier to do before the new wallpaper is up and it just looks nice. I put up a new light too. My wonderful friend Andrea also helped me paint the doorframe to match the new dark window frame. The paint is called Beluga.

This is what the bathroom looked like before-

I knew we were going to keep the floor and wall tile. We also liked the old vintage sink. We got a new toilet when we moved in. The old one was attached to the wall ( crazy old toilets to which I have never ever seen in my life till now) and it left holes in the tile. I need to fix the holes or find the tile to match :-/
So I looked for a wallpaper that would kinda go with the 40's yellow tile and pinkish floor.
I fell in love with this vintage Peter Pan wallpaper.

But it was a little more than I wanted to spend on this bathroom.

So I found this on Anthropologie.

I look at wallpaper as art. Or if your house was a person the wallpaper would be your favorite outfit!
So this is my outfit for when I go to Europe ;)

I definitely find myself just hanging out in the bathroom starring at the wallpaper. Haha!
I hope you all like it.


Xoxoxo
Stephanie