Fixing Up My Dining Room

With the upcoming wedding, I wanted to make a few changes around my house-- mainly, in the dining room.  I never did take "before" shots of the room because I hated it that much.  It needed some major changes in my eyes.  And I wanted to spruce it up with some new furniture since I'm having about 100 or so guests coming to my house for our wedding.

That being said, I need to be clear: I am on a very strict budget.  I wanted to improve my dining room, but we couldn't afford to go out and buy new, fancy furniture.  That was about the time I became obsessed with Craigslist.  Seriously, I love it.  I can't get enough of it. 

My hunt began with finding a dining room buffet.  Even on Craigslist, buffets run anywhere between $150 to $400!  Not in my price range.  So, I ended up searching "dressers" and I came across one that had potential.  Here is the before shot out in my yard, right before I sanded it.  Please forgive the fact that it was on its side!

It's blond...

And it's ugly!

Yes, yes, call me crazy.  Steve definitely did.  But I saw potential in this piece when I found it on Craigslist!  I loved its little legs and clean lines.  It reminded me of one of my favorite shows, Mad Men.  And at $15, I couldn't beat it!  This dress/buffet is SOLID.  It was made by the Dixie Furniture Company back in the '50s (well, no kidding with the decor!).  I decided to sand it and paint it a solid color.

Here it is sanded and primed, looking better already!

And here it is now, sitting all pretty in my dining room. :)

I'm loving it!  And the best part is that it all cost me under $50 to purchase the piece and give it a make over.  Steve even likes it now!  A little creativity and elbow grease goes a long way.

I'll be sure to share the office section make over soon.  It's still in a state of disaster, so no pictures of that yet!

In terms of the wedding, things are moving right along.  Steve and I finally got our marriage license this morning (talk about waiting last minute! HA!).  It's nerve wracking stuff to organize everything from the ceremony to the pictures to the dinner... in order to keep under our $10,000 wedding day budget, a lot of responsibilities fall on us.  I still have a lot of crafty things I need to do for decorations and my house needs to be cleaned badly! :)  But, I have all week and all next week to do it with the help of Steve, my mom, and his parents.  I'll be sure to post a few blogs and let you all know how its moving along!

Peacing out,
Nikki

Happy Independence Day!

Acrylic painting by Betty J Roberts

This weekend has been an interesting experience for both Steve and I.  It is our first 4th of July in a new, country neighborhood, and the holiday is celebrated very differently out in the stix. :)

On Saturday we were invited to our neighbor's picnic.  Steve had already met all of our neighbors before, but this was my first time.  Everyone was really nice and comfortable to be around.  We ate some great cookout food and sat around and talked.  There were tons of kids running around, young married couples, older married couples... straight out of a hip version of a Norman Rockwell painting.  You could tell everyone was very much involved in their families and overall community.  It was really nice (and foreign for me) to see!

The fireworks have been going off around our home everynight since Thursday.  These fireworks are NOT just your little dinky bottle rockets and firecrackers.  Oh no, that is not the country way!  These are serious, massive-ass fireworks our neighbors are setting off nightly.  And it is hell on our dogs.  The past two nights we've had to drug them just to get them to calm down.  Poor Camper and Pilot... it's been rough on them.


"No more fireworks, pleeeeeeease!"

  On an extremely happy note, we got our windows in!  These windows are an early wedding gift from Steve's parents.  (Thank you Sue and Charlie!)  Check out the pictures!


Our new windows showed up this past Friday.  I was happy just seeing them in our house like this!



Charlie (Steve's stepdad) came over to help on Saturday.



Picture of window in our living room before.



Picture of living room window after! :)  SO MUCH BETTER!



Window in bathroom as Steve was working on it.



Window in bathroom after!



Living room all finished!



Lovely new window in our kitchen.

  I know buying and putting in windows is no small venture, but I honestly didn't realize how big of an impact new windows in our house was going to be.  It has made ALL the difference in the world!  We have all of our windows open and fresh air is coming in daily.  It has been heaven!  And what's even better is the number of stink bugs coming into our house has decreased significantly.  It is definitely a win-win situation. :)

I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!
Peacing out,
Nikki

Visit my new official website at www.grandirstudio.com.

Slowly but surely...

The front porch/deck is coming along.  Here is what it looks like today:



Front of our house (note Camper running away from the sound of thunder)




To the right of the house



Right side of house

With the combination of rainy weather and lack of funds, the project is progressing very slowly...but surely! 

Peacing out,
Nikki

All Work, No Play

The work never really seems to end, and it doesn't look like it is going to for quite some time. 



Steve and Charlie working on our front porch/deck

 When I say "work" I'm referring to just about everything in my life right now.  My artwork, the work on our home, the work on our wedding, the work at the pet resort... the list just continues!

The easiest thing to feature on my Blog in terms of work is our front porch/deck.  Makes a nice visual, huh? :)  The wood Steve ordered for the framing is extremely heavy.  Thank God Charlie has the heavy equipment to move it around.

This deck is going to be MASSIVE.  And I love it!  It will be nice to have the extra square footage outside.

And did you happen to notice the new color of our house!?  You can definitely see it on this shot (left side of the house).  It's mostly painted.  The paint sprayer broke on Steve, so that is a big reason why finishing it up is on hold now.

For some reason Camper loves going under the trailer.  Maybe he's hiding from the work?  I wish I had the life of a dog sometimes. :) 

Oh vell... it's back to work time.  I've finished two more paintings today.  I would ideally like to get 4 done.  We'll see!

Peacing out,
Nikki

The Wheels Are In Motion...

Steve is attacking the outside of our house.  And it needs it--badly!  Here is what it looks like right now.



The construction site is back



The roof is gone!




Can't wait until it's finished

 We're trying to choose exterior paint colors (if you noticed in the pictures).  The siding is in decent shape, and it will save us a ton of money to just paint it.  Can you believe this house was painted a very dark brown 30 years ago?!?  This green olive color is what it faded to!

We are between two colors.



Top color: Hardware from Sherwin Wlms; Bottom color: Link Gray from Sherwin Wlms

It's tough!  We both love the colors, so at least that worked out.  Now it's just between the two.  Any opinions???

Our plan is to paint the house first, and then Steve will build our porch.  We ordered the wood, and it should be coming within 2 weeks or so.  Here is a (very hard to see!) roped outline made by Steve for the porch.  It will wrap the front and the side of the house.



Can you see it?  The rope is yellow, and there are stakes in the ground

I'm excited for the end product.  I'm looking forward to sitting on my porch on a pretty summer evening.  Oh, who am I kidding... I can't wait to buy me a ping pong table and put it on my massive porch! :)  Game on!

Of course our kids are helping us out today...

Yeah, right.

Enjoy your Sunday!
Nikki

Stairway Renovation Reveal

Since I didn't share a renovation reveal last week, I figured I definitely needed to post something dramatic this week.  In my opinion, it doesn't get anymore dramatic than this. :)

Here is a shot of the stairs before our renovation (Warning: I wasn't as a devoted picture-taker as I am now, so some of these before pics aren't so hot).


This picture was taken from the second floor hallway.  The hardwood floors were painted brown.  The trim was painted a sickly yellow.



Looking down from the top of the steps.

Side view from the living room on the first floor (during renovation process). 

The previous owners LOVED color.  Every room in the entire house was painted something bold and loud.  Steve and I debated on tearing out the entire staircase and putting the stairs somewhere else.  At the end of the day, we figured it would just be too expensive and too frustrating to change the stairway layout.  The current stairs were in great shape.  They just needed some paint!

Here is the after.


Hallway from second floor, same shot as the first picture above.



Close up of spindles and railing.

Looking down from the top of the steps.



Looking up the steps from the bottom.



Side view from the living room downstairs (opposite angle from the "before" shot).

I would have liked to have gotten a wider shot of this, but Steve is currently putting tile floor in our laundry room (THANK GOD!).  So, it is a MESS everywhere else downstairs.  I'll have to post that another time.



Here's a close up of my sewing machine/table.  I got it at an antique store in Peters Twp for $20!  Love it!

 

My little watering can piglet from Ross Dress For Less

Cool antique I picked up not too long ago at an antique store in Heidelberg



My other little piglet sleeping away while I snapped pics of my stairs :)

Anywho, I am really happy with how the stairs turned out.  Steve and I need to get a stairway runner to go over the steps for our older dog, Camper.  He has a tough time going up and down hard steps.  Poor guy!  I'm still shopping around, but the best place I've found so far is Natural Area Rugs.  I've ordered seagrass area rugs from them, and I'm REALLY happy with them.  They take a beating, which was really necessary for our house.  Between the dogs and Steve, a nice dainty rug in our house would never stand a chance.  The best thing about these durable rugs is that they are natural and completely affordable.  The custom stair runner rug I'm looking at is around $190.  

It would look like this:

Luuuuuuurve it! 

Gotta get back to work!  Thanks for reading!

Nikki

Just Another Random Sunday

Today is Sunday, April 3rd, and all I have to say is: Where the #*@! is Spring?!?!?!!?!?

Seriously, I am SO over this winter thing.  I'm really ready for some green and flowers.  Plus, our house is freezing cold 99% of the time (the furnace was the overall victorious one in its battle with Steve).  I'm not a huge fan of hot summers, but I'm actually looking forward to some warmer weather.  It will allow me to actually move around in my house without wearing ski pants and gloves.

With the colder weather, it's been feeling like a lot of days are in slow motion, and today was no exception.  With Steve as my personal motivation coach, I've been getting off my butt and doing some much needed work around the house.  Here is a lovely picture show of what I did today (aren't you thrilled!?!).

MORNING: Awoke at 7:30 this morning (after hearing my alarm go off at 7), and dozed on and off until about 8.  Dragged myself out of bed, got dressed, and went downstairs to eat a big bowl of Raisin Bran (Post is my brand!).



I like my cereal to sit in the milk for at least 20 minutes so it is good and soggy.  Yes, I know, I'm weird.


Sat, digested, and watched this for awhile.

It's an addiction, I tell you!

Talked to Steve's mom about starting work at her pet resort this coming Tuesday.  Should be interesting because I will be tagging along with her to the animal shelter to pick up some dogs and cats to try to adopt out (I hope I don't cry there!).

Afternoon: Went outside and took a picture of our "front porch" to show you all.

Ready to be framed!

Decided to once again attack the brush piles that line the side of our driveway.

I was dragging a lot of branches to the burn pile, going back and forth to get more and more. 

Burn pile

Steve jumped in and started to help... with his new lawnmower!

Lookit!  He is SO happy!

Camper was obsessively trying to dig an animal out of its hole.

"What?"

Noodle (aka Pilot) just sat and watched him.

"What?"

Our neighbor, and his dog who looks like a fatter version of Camper, were outside for a bit.  Pilot and the dog stared at each other for a while.

"Once again...what?"

Close up of neighbor dog... just like Camper but with 20 extra pounds!

Meanwhile, Steve and I worked at those brush piles until we got most of them cleaned up.

Much better!  Look at all of those railroad beams.  I hate those!

Here is the burn pile after we were done cleaning up the brush piles.

That will be a hell of a fire. 

So, here I am now, inside (and cold), blogging away.  And that will pretty much be the extent of my Sunday.  Needless to say, I cannot wait for the Summer so I can comfortably decorate my home or go swimming and have more luxurious pictures to share with all of you!  Until then, you'll be viewing our burn and brush piles.  Woo hoo.

Summer, anyone?

Peacing out,
Nikki