Camouflaging the Coat Closet

One of the goals for our house is to re-route our front walkway, which currently goes from the sidewalk to the porch and front door, so that it curves from the porch and front door to the driveway. This would allow us to begin utilizing our front door as our primary entry way, as opposed to the side door. As we get closer to spring and summer, this plan is slowly becoming more of a reality.

However, in the mean time I am able to work on other indoor side projects for this larger outdoor project. The first of which is changing the appearance of what you see when you walk in the front door - the coat closet.

We love having a coat closet and even a nice contained (albeit small) entry way. But the view into the house when the front door is open, and especially as you walk into the house for the first time definitely leaves something to be desired. Don't get me wrong, I am a self-proclaimed coat fashionista and so they are very nice to look at. But we just didn't want a mass of coats to be the first thing you see when you walk into our house.

My solution to camouflaging the coat closet

After we rearranged the way in which our living room curtains were hanging, we had an extra curtain panel. Combine that with the tension rod that the previous owners had left in the bathroom,

and voila, you have lovely drape coverage for our coat closet!

So now when you walk in our front door you will see this

As opposed to this

The best part is that I was able to accomplish this look using supplies the we already had in the house AND it matches the look of the attached living room, so the flow is maintained continuous from room to room!

Media Masters

I am fortunate (or financially unfortunate) enough to be married to a self-proclaimed electronics guru. My husband loves his electronics, especially as they relate to movies/TV and computers.

Our home is currently graced with the presence of a

• 42" LED flat screen TV
• 22" LED flat screen TV
• up-converting DVD player
• bluray player
• HD digital DVR cable
• 7.1 sound bar & sub-woofer 
• terabyte media hard drive
• Xbox 360
• 2 laptops (his & hers)
• desk top computer w/2 flat panel monitors

And we still have yet to complete the second floor master bedroom, which I am sure will have plenty more room for even more electronics. Hopefully our bank account survives!

Since moving into our first house, we have slowly been working out the logistics of owning so much electronic equipment. I (finally) recently got our 42" LED flat screen TV mounted on the wall above the fireplace - saving us a ton of floor space in the living room -

but we have yet to acquire a media tower with which to organize our electronics and complete the look. 

Until now...

We found this lil number on Overstock and thought it would be the perfect solution to our media problem!

Just to give you an idea, this is what we're going for

Yes, it's only a rough idea - but I think you get it.

We placed the order this morning (only $2.95 shipping!!!) and will hopefully find it on our doorstep and then in our living room sometime next week! Stay tuned...

Hello My Name Is

Katrina... and I have a bedding addiction...

It's been 72 hours since my last bedding purchase.

I had the urge to buy a new bed set today, I'm still fighting that urge :-/

No but seriously - look at this bed set

(image source: West Elm)

How gorgeous is this set?!?!  

And maybe these pillows to accent

(image source: Overstock)

I really like the gray and yellow combo

Ok, ok, ok!!! I know, I know I have a problem! I mean I've been pining over the Pottery Barn Painterly Paisley set forever now, and I finally got!!! I ordered it from a PB outlet seller on Ebay for 30% off, and received it in the mail today - and yes, it is as spectacular as it appears on the website. But this new set - this new set, has the potential to be just as spectacular! And how will I ever know if I can't have it?!?!

So tell me... what is a girl to do?!

You knooooow... I could use a new bed set for the [soon to be] guest bedroom once we finish and move our master bedroom upstairs to the second floor... ;o) Just sayin!

PB Penny Pinching

I've been eying the Pottery Barn Painterly Paisley bedding set for a while now.

I'd love to put it in our new master bedroom :o)

But I was having a real hard time swallowing the $240 price tag for the duvet cover and shams! I would still need to buy the actual duvet insert, that price was just for the measly lil fabric cover alone (ugh).

So on a whim I decided to check Ebay to see if anyone anywhere else in the country had been able to snag it for a better price at a PB outlet store, because unfortunately there are none in this area :o( And low and behold, someone was funneling TONS of Pottery Barn outlet items at much cheaper prices. Luckily the auction that I was interested in was a Buy It Now, and I snagged this lil number for only $189 + free shipping!!! What a friggin steal!!!

This is a fabulous start to completing my inspiration room

Items from the inspiration room (nightstand and lamp not included) were purchased from Crate & Barrel, totaling:

$957.45 + $95.75 shipping = $1,053.20 (yikes!!!)

My comparable room, featuring items from the Pottery Barn Outlet and Walmart, breaks down to the following:

duvet cover & shams     $189.00     from PB Outlet on Ebay
coverlet & shams          $49.88       from Walmart
bed skirt                      $16.00       from Walmart
curtains & rods             $57.92       from Walmart
---------------------------------------------------------------
total                              $312.80 (ahhhhhh, much better!!!)

Getting my dream bedroom for less than 1/3 of the cost = priceless

I could not be more excited about this design and the amazing price! Now I just need to find some nightstands, lamps, chairs, and an accent table to complete the room. I'm hoping to complete the entire space for less than $500 - wish me luck :o)

8hrs & 21mins

That's how long it took us to gut and completely clear out the second floor of our cape cod. If you caught my post from yesterday, then you know that our industrial roll-off dumpster was delivered Friday and has been parked in our driveway all weekend. We were hoping to get the job done in a couple of days so that we could get rid of the lovely dumpster come Monday, and by some miracle it actually happened! We were busy Friday night, so nothing got done - but we worked for several hours straight on both Saturday and Sunday, and we managed to get the entire job done in approx 8hrs and 21mins!!!

If you'll recall from my previous Looking Up post, 

this is what our second floor looked like when we bought the house

and now it looks like this

Once we ripped everything down and cleared it all out, we were able to take some measurements and make a plan for the remodel. Looking at the above photo -

• We'll start by raising the ceiling ~ 6 inches
• Next we will remove the solid barrier railing (seen in the bottom right corner) and replace it with a more open traditional spindle railing...
• Along the left wall of the walkway into the space, we will build some book shelves into the wall...
• In front of the stairwell and railing we will have a small seating area...
• Beyond that (on the far side of the chimney) will be the bed placed against the left wall...

Here are some different decor ideas that we are considering...

(gray & yellow)

(teal & cream)

On the far wall we are going to build his and hers closets on either side of the window 

with a window bench and storage below that

Here's the floor plan

This week we will begin with the electrical work - rewiring the overhead lighting, installing outlets and light switches, etc. We will also be reinforcing the existing floor with screws to stop the creaking and squeaking caused by the unstable nails that are currently holding everything together. Then comes the corrugated plastic ventilation system, insulation, drywall and carpet! Voila!

It's Here

We're getting ready to do demolition on the second floor of our cape cod, and our industrial roll-off dumpster arrived this afternoon.

If you'll notice the placement - we're hoping the be able to just throw the debris out the second story window into the dumpster (this should be interesting). We'll be tearing down the old walls, which are made primarily of plaster so they're coming down in smaller pieces and hopefully making it easier to potentially accomplish the aforementioned task ..::fingers crossed::..

We did a little bit of pre-demo work last weekend, just to get an idea for what we were up against. 

Here's what we accomplished thus far

Once the pile on the floor started approaching my knee level, we decided it was time to order the dumpster. This weekend will be spent removing the electrical work and then tearing down and disposing of the rest of the walls/ceiling. We're hoping to have all of this accomplished by Sunday night, so that we can get rid of the dumpster and begin rebuilding.

Pottery Barn

We've been looking for a large piece of art for our living room wall - the other day I finally came across something I thought might work:

Circles Wall-Mount Votive Holder from Pottery Barn

We wanted something fairly large and not too busy - there's so much going on in the room already, and we wanted the TV to remain the focal of the room. I think we accomplished that

Plus, it matches the pattern on our throw pillows! Perfect!