#lovehome

Inside Our Christmas

| The Bee Life

Last weekend was full of decorating for Christmas! And with continual tweaks being made (always) I wanted to share with you our red and plaid Christmas wonderland!

The Dining Room
I wanted to keep the decor simple but still make a big impact and fill the space. I created depth by layering the plaid table runner and the greens.  I used extra bulbs to fill the glass vases and sprinkled some votives throughout for some nice mood lighting in the evenings.

Ornaments
We have a super tall skinny tree in our dining room as well, this tree is used for all of our ornaments, mostly B’s and one’s we’ve collected together.  I have yet to inherit all of my childhood ornaments from my parents, but then I think we will need a much bigger tree! I love opening the ornaments every year, they all have meaning and memories built behind them.

Cozy Living
The Merry Christmas sign was inspired of course by something I found on pinterest and one of my wood crafts! I hand painted the lettering, and used 100-year-old wood from our attic, it’s pretty hefty. The polar bear also holds special meaning, although it was a lucky find last Christmas season – my grandma used to have a ledge of polar bears, and it wasn’t until after she passed I truly appreciated that sentiment and wished I had asked for a few of hers.

The Tree
Here it is!  Our first REAL tree! She is a beauty.  Lots of lights and gold and red accents to trim the tree. And of course an angel as the topper (she was tough to find!)  – the last missing piece is a tree skirt.

I love being able to enjoy the house decorated, last year we were just moving into our house on December 13th – so throwing some decorations up and the fake tree was all we managed amongst the other chaos!

Merry Christmas!

Attic Update – 4 Month Check-In

| The Bee Life

Our 4-monthAttic update!
Well in case any one is loosing sleep out there, here is an update on our attic! hehe. Since my last update a month ago; it’s been nothing but insulation.  B has been doing an awesome job at insulating the place, adding baffles and making sure everything is “properly breathing.”  Insulation is a messy and time consuming job, but the end is in sight!

Drywall started this weekend, and the space is looking like a room again!  Last week we made a Lowe’s trip and tried to pick up and order a lot of the finishing touches for the attic, like paint, blinds, closet doors and the drywall! So now it’s really getting there.

A few of the questionable items, like what we are going to do with the floor have been cleared up.  We are going to paint it a light grey and call it a day, we bought durable gloss paint for a more heavy-duty finish. We are also hoping to put some sort of carpet tred or runner up the stairs to soften the squeaky steps.

I have a few more fun projects up my sleeve for finishing touches, I’ve made good progress on re-beading our chandelier, and am sketching some DIY plans for our custom wing-back upholstered headboard.  Another part I can’t wait to get doing is customizing the walk in closet with useful shelving and making the most of the “small” space.

We’ve put two-solid days in this weekend of drywalling and will continue nightly after work.  B’s brother and dad will be in next weekend to hopefully finish up the last of it!

Keep your fingers crossed everybody! We are getting there!

Front Door Makeover

| The Bee Life

If you may remember, I was having quite the dilemma figuring out which color to paint our front door.  After much deliberation and making sure B liked the choices too, we decided on… <drum roll please> … on Sherwin Williams, Commodore!

The Color
Before
Before
Door knocker – Painted/Before
There is hope!
Progress!

We went from blah to blue! And it looks awesome.  I think the part that makes this blue pop even more, is the life I restored back into our original door knocker.  It too had been painted the same ugly tan color as the door… the original brass knocker… painted! I couldn’t believe it! Nicole Curtis would be proud of all the elbow grease and extra effort I put in to restoring this.  My initial thought was to just spray paint it gold – but I just had to try and get all the (2-layers) paint off and restore it to it’s original, gorgeous glory.

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How did I get all of that paint off? Boiling water soaks and SOS/Brillo pads, a lot of them! It was tough getting around all the detail in the top, but I kept on and it totally paid off.  Next steps is to swap out that storm door with a full glass storm door – as much as I would love to ditch it completely, I like having the front open for a breeze in the summer and guarding the cool wind and snow in the winter.

This was such an instant upgrade and I’m so pleased with the way it came out, better than I thought!

Attic Update

| The Bee Life


Well we first started our attic work in the end of July – we are now nearly approaching October and we still have a lot of work that needs to be done, but finally after a delay we have progress happening again!

We had a minor hiccup finding someone who could finish our electric work, but hopefully that will be complete tonight. Then the fun begins: insulation and dry-walling! Both will be a first for B and I – and it honestly all sounds a little daunting! Especially lugging everything up to the 3rd floor, but winter is fast approaching so we will need to keep moving quickly and make sure we do everything right.  We’ve received a number of opinions by professions so I know we’re on the right path.

A few things that we hadn’t accounted for was needing to hire someone for our electric (our neighbor was helping us out, but schedules just got busy), so that was an added expense. We are also waiting to receive a quote on refinishing our floors, however they’re pine and painted – apparently two not so great things, sooo I am sure the estimate will be far beyond what we expect, so we need to figure out plan B and plan C. Do we just put in new floors? Or do we just paint our current ones again? I’m not sure yet what we will decide yet. Another to-do is finishing our chandelier, I got one for a steal from Lowe’s for $15, it was an old display fixture that had some broken strings – I’m going to switch those out, just need to buy my supplies!

The list of to-do’s isn’t getting any shorter, in fact it keeps growing! But I am excited to be making progress and ready to get some things complete!

Do you have any tips for dry-walling?

Mums. Plaid. Boots. Pumpkins.

| The Bee Life

Ever since Wednesday, the beginning of Autumn, it’s now acceptable to decorate for fall! Here are some of the essentials for fall. And it comes down to the basics, Mums, Plaid, Boots and Pumpkins.

Beyond adding mums to your front foliage for a last bit of color on your porch- pull the colors of mums into your home to brighten the darker nights.  Sherwin-Williams’, ColorSnap app allows you to pull colors from any photo and find the same color, it’s amazing.  Use these as inspiration in DIY projects or painting your pumpkins!

Thanks to Target, Plaid is covering every other commercial accompanied by catchy songs we loved from our past. If you haven’t checked out Target’s Plaid section, please do – you’ll fall in love with at least one or five things. Promise. But instead of going overkill in everything plaid, here are some other ways to incorporate plaid in this fall without giving your house or wardrobe a complete makeover.

Plaid - Essentials
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05

Boots! As much as I love a good knee-high boot, I am really loving the bootie look for this fall – classic, easy to put on, and versatile with jeans, tights, and dresses!  Here are some of the boots I have my eye on this fall.  Of course, having a great pair of rain boots for those dark nights is key too.

Boots_Fall Essentials
01 | 02 | 03 | 04

Pumpkins! Of course, you can’t forget about pumpkins! One of the most important things when picking out your pumpkins is getting a variety of sizes, small pumpkins can be great around the house as accents or focal points in your centerpieces.  Larger pumpkins are great to serve as the supporting cast to your mums.  Creating wooden pumpkins for an easy DIY helps with cost year over year, and can allow for updates and custom pieces in your home, inside or out.

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/decorating-ideas/g240/natural-halloween-decorations/#ixzz2fSPGhttc&i
http://dandelionsdragonflies.blogspot.com/2011/10/front-porch.html
http://www.occasionallycrafty.com/2010/10/one-last-fall-craft-2×4-pumpkins.html

It’s hard not to love fall, it’s one, if not my favorite season for many reasons, but especially the ones above!

#weekendhangover

| The Bee Life

What a weekend! It was so busy, and so much fun – so many awesome things happened.

The big focal point around the weekend, was celebrating my aunts’ wedding – yes you read that correctly aunts, plural.  They decided to get married last month, just 2-weeks after the big Supreme Court decision.  So finally on Saturday we got to celebrate their marriage with family and friends.  Family started pouring in for the weekend Friday night with festivities starting early Saturday!

I was the designated photographer for my aunts, so I was busy popping around to all 170 guests making sure everyone was photographed, not to mention the group shots and cake cutting!  The cake cutting was about the only ‘wedding reception-esq’ thing that happened, besides an open bar with endless drinks.

The night ended over at our house, with some more drinks and a smaller crowd of the family – I was happy to host everyone around our dining room table.

Saturday also was a big day for B’s family, his brother and sister-in-law welcomed their first little girl, Avery into the world. She is the first grandchild, so it was a big deal!  We went to the hospital Sunday afternoon to meet her and see the new mom and dad!

The weekend was full of close family, good friends, lots of laughs and more memories to add to the books.  Moz even got to meet her new cousin, Findley (my aunt’s new puppy).  It was a nonstop weekend full of fun. I definitely have a weekend hangover to start this Monday off.

Front Door Dilemma

| The Bee Life

Ever since I realized I was able to paint our beautiful original front door … I say realize because the inside is still original but for whatever reason the previous homeowners decided to paint the outside facing 100-year old door! And because of that, I now have had the ongoing dilemma on what color to paint this door.  We have a neutral colored house (tan with off white trim), so I feel like we have a pretty wide range of options… which also makes the decision much harder.

So beyond going on Pinterest for inspiration, I used the Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap app to look at a range of colors that I’ve been gravitating too. Finding the right shade of whatever color we end up choosing is important, and ColorSnap allows an ease of browsing along with saving the color swatch right on my phone!

The Color

I have looked at a few fun colors too, like a bright orange, or even a deep purple.  But I think going with something more practical.  But just when I think I am leaning towards one color over the other I change my mind.  I think I am just going to have to go for it!

Help! Any suggestions? Advice?

Thanks in advance,

House Hunters – Attic Retreat

| The Bee Life

One of the things that we loved about our house was the attic.  Especially after we had seen a dozen or so homes with not so great attics and just as bad basements.  In our city, 100 year old homes are the standard, no cookie cutter houses here, but with that when you find a gem you have to move quickly… unless pure fate is on your side. So when we saw our bright open, massive attic space we instantly had dreams of making it our master… our own retreat.

Beyond just the furniture which we have some loose ideas around, as seen in my previous post House Hunters – Bedroom Retreat.  One of our larger projects was to raise the roof! Not literally but we wanted to raise the ceiling.  Having a 6’6″ boyfriend with a 6’7″ clearance… doesn’t leave a lot of head room. hehe. So this past week and weekend, we have been removing the ceiling and all of the insulation to see what was up there.  We were able to gain 6-inches of clearance, which is better than having B’s hair brush against the ceiling. Some electrical needs to be reworked and we need to figure out insulation. From there it’ll be drywall and finishing touches.

I can’t wait until it gets finished, I’m so excited for my walk-in closet (which I am sure I’ll end up sharing with B, because I’m too nice). The second thing I am most exited about it is getting a king sized bed. Surprisingly (or not) we don’t even have a queen size for as tall as B is. Beyond those things; the ideas are endless with finishing touches and organizational ways to fit within the attic space. Here are some ideas we’re hoping to replicate:

Banister for an open look: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/an-eclectic-and-cool-south-aus-138993#_
More storage options for sloped ceilings: http://www.andreagary.com/photo-gallery.html
Optimal Closet Space: http://designingmainstreet.com/tag/sloped-ceiling/
Hidden Storage: http://thehousediaries.com/blog/2015/1/7/jan-7-big-bedroom
Awesome ceiling detail: http://www.decoist.com/2014-07-08/slanted-ceilings-design-ideas/

Can’t wait to show off the finished photos, although I’m thinking this is going to take some time! I know our goal is to get most of this complete by the winter!

Transformation Tuesday no. 8

| The Bee Life

This past week, B and I did a quick and easy DIY makeover – this has been in the works for a few years now.  B had these sort of hideous black shiny dressers with golden knobs.  Although not that pretty, super functional and great to have. So we finally refinished and painted them!  The knobs got updated too, the cheapest route – because if any of you know knobs/light covers, etc. are the most expensive items that add up quickly!  If we wanted to replace all of the knobs it could cost almost $200 (on the high-end)… not the point of an easy, inexpensive DIY.

We grabbed some spray paint and started sanding to get as much of the shine off as possible.  The sanding was probably the hardest part – B tackled this like a champ.  I was the go-to spray painter – after two coats they were good to go! Not only are they more our style, but they open up our room so much more, we no longer have these glaring shiney black pieces staring at us! I bought a table runner to place on top so that our TV and items won’t mess up the new paint.

It was such an easy, and relatively inexpensive update, we are both so happy with the way it turned out.