Moving on!

Ch..ch.changes! "Lot 26" is officially no more. We have moved out and rented that property. My grandfather's home that I have inherited is also no more! It was sold this past January to an investor, who has continued to renovate the home. It unfortunately remains vacant.. We have since moved into our dream home here at the beach. I can't decide if I want to create an entirely new blog or just continue on here under a new name. We shall see! :)

Floors!

We ended up hiring a flooring company to finish out our floors. Our "friend" who was helping us out with our house hasn't shown up for a month, and is not answering phone calls. We have been living in chaos for the past month with only sub flooring exposed in most of the house. We haven't been able to unpack much or really get settled in our new place, which has been extremely depressing.

Today, we finally got a little relief. We now have a kitchen floor, a finished living room, and an office floor. We got a little of the furniture arranged and some of the boxes unpacked and relocated. It doesn't seem so hopeless anymore! The living room we have partially painted, since a lot of the boxes were up against walls.

We should be able to get so much done now!

Progress

I decided to re-name the blog from Sanding Block to Lot 26, as this is our lot number in the mobile home park. And it just sounds way cooler.. :-)

Today, I painted our master bathroom. It's a tiny tiny space, but still took a while to do because of all of the corners, and painting around everything. We finally decided on Icy Blue from Valspar. It's a beautiful pale aqua/turquoise color that's very vibrant.

Our living room floor is almost down. One more session ought to finish it. Yay! We decided on Beach Sparkle for the living room walls, also by Valspar, the darkest sample on the same one as the Icy Blue. The master bedroom will be the "middle color" on the sample, Cincinnatian Hotel Abbey.

Originally, our color choices were all over the place. We were tossing around the idea of painting our bedroom gray or a dark plum, but for some reason, those colors just weren't happy or calming enough. We fell in love with Beach Sparkle for the living room, and decided to go with the whole swatch. Now it's just hard to decide what do do with the office and secondary bedroom. We wanted a pink office for so long, but I'm afraid that it will look too bubble gum, looking from a blue living room to a pink office. Choices choices.

We're in

Moving day came and went with a lot of stress. We were not really prepared for this move and it showed. It took about 6 hours to move a 2 bedroom (third story) + storage garage to our three bedroom mobile home. Most of the time took was loading the truck. Unloading only took the last 45-50 minutes. Then, we had to make countless trips back and forth over the next two days between the apartment and the new place because they sent us the wrong size truck.

During the move, the bottom of our mattress was punctured. Not a huge hole, but non the less it happened. I really didn't think it would affect the mattress, but as luck would have it, the moving company ended up refunding us a little over $100 because of the incident.

Our cats have been doing very well in the adjustment to the new place. Only one of them hid for two days, the rest had little to no anxiety about moving.

The rest of the living room floor is going down tomorrow, as we are having to do a section at a time and move the furniture around to the finished areas. The couch has been at the re - upholsterers for the past week and should be finished sometime within the following week or so. We have also decided on a paint color for the living room! It's been a time of great anxiety, and this place will always be a work in progress, but I think the worst is over and the fun is about to start!

Moving day..

With moving day looming tomorrow, stress is high in our little apartment. Everything is a wreck. Neither one of us has moved more than twice before this, so we really don't know all of the little tips of the trade. We are both serious procrastinators as well, so this doesn't help the situation.

Another thing that is adding to the stress, is the fact that our mobile home is no where near complete enough to move in comfortably. The flooring was all stripped away, leaving the exposed subfloor in all the rooms. We ended up having to gut both bathrooms because they both had bad leaks and were causing mold. The leaks were so bad that they damaged the back half of the trailer. It would have been wise to walk away, but now we are stuck with it.

We were assured by our real estate agent that the only problems in the home were cosmetic. Wrong. Don't trust your realtor for anything except to do paperwork between buyers, sellers, and lenders.. No matter how small, or no matter if you think things look sound, no matter if you are paying with cash.. It's worth the few hundred bucks for the piece of mind to know what you are getting. The mobile home's previous owner had spent a lot of money covering up problems instead of fixing them.

Thank heavens a lady I work with has a master carpenter for a husband and father in law. They have been very helpful in doing all the repair work for a great price. Since we hadn't anticipated such serious problems in the bathrooms, it pushed the renovation time a lot longer than expected. As soon as we bought the trailer we mistakenly turned in notice with our landlord here at the apartment, which only gave us a month to get everything ready. I wish we had another month, even though it would have cost the extra rent money.

We are going to have to live in a construction zone for at least another week or two, with no finished floors except in the bathroom. Fortunately I think they will be able to get one working bathroom by tomorrow so we can at least shower and use the toilet.

At least we will have some amazing memories and before/after photos.


Guest Bathroom - The shower stall was painted black!

Master Bathroom. Again, with a weird painted shower stall.. When we tried to clean it, the paint scraped off. I'm not sure if the previous owner bathed or cleaned or what... The room is so small it's impossible to get good photos.


This is the kitchen. Pretty nice at first glance. The "wood" countertops are fake, the tile on the floor was applied with thin quickset grout without preparing the subfloor underneath. They just laid the tile on top of the old linoleum. Good layout though. The cabinets are built ins. If we stay here long enough we are going to knock them all out and go with Ikea cabinets or something.


Here's the living room. This is the realtors photo of the previous owners stuff. It is actually a big room. Ugly mirrors on the opposite side though, bolted to the wall. Below are the bedrooms, again realtors photos. The carpet was so nasty and stained, it was one of the first things we ripped out. They are nice size rooms, 12x12 or so, so they should fit our furniture fine. Can't wait to paint!



Well, off to do some more last minute packing...

not so fab..?

Our new (to us) mobile home is turning out to be quite a mess. Of course, the number of things that are wrong with it keep going up and up. DW and I went over on Saturday and ripped up the old carpeting and laminate floors in the living room and bedrooms. We discovered a lovely water leak and termites that have damaged the sub floor! Unfortunately, it's too late to turn back now, since we paid for the place in cash and it was an "as is" sale. In my "careful" inspection of the house, I did not notice any structural problems. Chalk it up to one more of life's lessons. Our friend who is doing most of the repairs for us thinks he can keep it well within the budget without a problem, even with the plumbing repairs. He came over yesterday and did a walkthrough, and is going to give us the full rundown as soon as he finishes pricing out everything. He is even going to paint it for us. He has a sprayer so it will just take him an afternoon. We decided that would be best so we can move in quick, then we can take our time and do room by room makeovers.

I still see the place as our little diamond in the rough, even though we have some unexpected problems. I know we can make it a wonderful home.

Pre-fabulous

We are closing on the perfect mobile home on May 14th. It was very inexpensive, about 2-7 thousand dollars less than everything else we were looking at.

It needs new heating/air unit, paint, flooring, and the bathrooms need to be ripped out. Luckily, we know a carpenter who is going to help us do a lot of work. We will be doing the painting ourselves, and of course all the planning. Move in day will be on or before June 30th so we have some time to do the floors, paint, and at least one bathroom before we get in. Fortunately, the kitchen is in fairly good shape and just needs to be cleaned really well. I have pictures saved from the MLS taken by the realtor but I feel better about posting my own "before" pictures. :)

As soon as we get this place under control we are going to try to work on my grandfather's house again. We both have too much on us to handle everything all at one time.

Busy!

The house finally closed on March 30th, after a lot of jumping through hoops. I owned the house with my Mom, and after a lot of disagreeing, we finally settled all the money last week.

S. and I are spending a fortune on rent every month, and since she lost her job last fall things have been getting tighter and tighter.

We have decided to buy a mobile home with the money from the sale of my house, instead of trying to get a loan (that we couldn't afford anyway). We understand there are pitfalls of owning one, but at least we can get out of this apartment and start saving some dough!

I am doing a lot of little diy projects lately, which I will share when they are through.

Sold!

The house we had on the market finally sold! I still have one more house back in NC that I have to do something with. Hopefully I can rent that one soon, as my uncle started the bathroom renovations on it this past week.

The young couple that bought the house was really fell in love with the place, due to all the hard work my family and I put into it.

I'm looking forward to moving on here, at the beach, and buying a place we can really call home. A fixer-upper of course.

Funky chicken

Funky chicken
Originally uploaded by Renovations, art, and other photos

All he needs is some paint and a little love..

A few projects

I have been puttering around with a few projects over the past couple weeks, in my free time. Free time is sparse these days since I got that promotion I've been aiming for!

I really do love working for Goodwill. It's a very tactile job, and challenging in a physical and mental way. It's neat to see everything come in and get sold for a good cause. It does suck to see something cool get sold, that you would have bought had you not been working.

These are all Goodwill items that were in terrible condition, that I have transformed for well under $20 per piece.

A chair: Painted red with Glidden's Red Geranium, in
a distressed finish and recovered with Ikea fabric
.


Two picture frames. The oval frame's back was cut up by it's previous owner. I spray painted the frame white and used chalkboard paint on the glass. Now it's a chalkboard. It's place of honor is over the buffet in the dining room to write notes or menus. The square frame was missing it's glass, so I decided it would make a perfect cork board for notes. So, I cut some cork tiles to fit the space, and glued them on a piece of cardboard. I then covered the cork with a piece of Ikea fabric, using staples to secure it. The frame was simply primed and painted.

Paint and Plants

My life has changed a lot over the past few of months*, and I've not set aside the time needed for this blog. Now that things are a little calmer I am hoping to write a little more often.

I've gathered lots of materials and lined up a bunch of projects, but I have only finished a few. In the works are a couple of chair redos, a lamp, some picture frames, and a desk.

A couple of projects that I have managed to complete are as follows. All these items were found at the Goodwill where I work. Goes to show what paint can do.

This great magazine holder. First I sanded well with 150 grit paper. It took two coats of satin paint, leftover white and aqua I mixed together, painted with a good quality brush. Designed the whale on a sheet of paper then redrew and painted it in white. Then I distressed the entire surface by sanding again, and finished with wax paste. :




This next one was done exactly the same way. It is a little plaster medalion, painted gold originally. I simply painted and sanded to distress it.





And on a non paint note, check out how much these plants have grown!





So anyhow.. I look forward to sharing my other upcoming projects. :)







*got married, grandfather passed away, working to get a promotion, among all the other little things that happen in one's life..

Before and After Chair(s)

Before and After Chairs
Originally uploaded by Renovations, art, and other photos

I purchased these chairs for $5 each at my local thrift store. In their "before" state, they were badly spray painted black, and the seats were recovered very sloppily several times. I recovered the seat with Jessica Jones Peapod fabric that I purchased from J Caroline Creative.

Redoing a chair like this has to be one of the quickest, most effective diy projects. Simply unscrew the cushions, and remove the old fabrics. Use the old fabric as a pattern and cut your new fabric. Staple the new fabric on to the cushions, stretching as you go, keeping the designs straight. Repaint the frame, priming first, and sanding in between coats. Screw the cushions back on, and you are done.

House Renovation

This October will be two years since I inherited the "Brick House". My uncle, my dad, and myself have been working on fixing it up it since last July. It has been a slow battle, but I thought I would share what we've accomplished so far. I am proudest of the kitchen. We used Duron's Silvermist on the walls, and plain white for the cabinets.





The master bedroom hasn't changed much, just lightened up the walls from a dark peachy tan to Duron's Kilim Beige.



The guest room looks worlds better, from a horrible bright blue that would hurt your eyes to Duron's Divine White.



The living room was off white, and looks similar to how it does now, but before, it had a very unsafe fireplace. The person that built the house never finished the chimney and we also had some very bad leaks around it. Since the house is so small anyway, we had the chimney knocked down and walled up the fireplace. Now, it it a suitable space for built ins, cabinetry, etc. I have not decided on a color for the living room yet, but I am thinking a light sage green.




The bathroom is the next biggest project after the kitchen. It needs to be completely gutted. Here is a before shot.




I can't take all the credit here though. I enlisted the help of Chris Kauffman of the blogs Just Beachy and CK Interiors to help pick paint colors and sort of shape the way with how to make the interior of the house look nice. She is amazing. Her style of decorating is perfect for my little house. We've come a long way but have a long way to go. I will definitely be glad when this project is over. For more pictures go to my flickr page.

Picture Frame Before/After

Since I started my job at Goodwill, you can imagine all the cool stuff I find. One thing was this awesome little oil painting. It was in great shape, just needed a little cleaning and a coat of aqua paint.Vintage frames have great designs but usually they're made of gold plastic. Don't pass a frame by just because of color though, paint it!

Vintage Finds = Cool DIY Projects to do

I was fortunate to pick up this chair for only $9.99 at Goodwill! I am going to paint it white, and get it reupholstered with yellow and white fabric. It is quite comfortable, and such a bargain, considering all the accent chairs that we were looking at to purchase new were $200+

On another trip, I found these awesome lamps for $8.99. They are an identical pair, one pictured here. They are really huge, probably 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall. Not sure I am feeling the shape of those shades. They at least need to be recovered, but I am thinking white drum shades will make them look a little more modern. The bases are a little rusty, but that's nothing a little elbow grease and spray paint can't cure.

Orla Kiely Canisters

We picked up these two canisters at Target for a steal! They were in the clearance section for under $5.00 a piece. We didn't buy them at first, since they were a little pricey. But now they happily house our brown sugar and rice. I had read some reviews on Target.com that people were unhappy with the fact that the lids don't quite fit. Ours didn't want to fit at first either, but I found that if I messed with the rubber seals enough, they would eventually fit flush.

Green Thumb?

I grew up in the south, and for many years my mom worked part time on a vegetable farm. She always had a very green thumb so we always had a plethora of plants and flowers around the house. I never really paid too much attention to plants until recently.

When my mom moved away, she really didn't have room to take many of her plants with her. So, my grandmother and I took them all in. I ended up with a 50 + year old snake plant and a 20+ year old Holiday Cactus. The snake plant was about 5 feet tall and about 100 pounds including the pot.

Mom repotted them in plastic pots a few years ago before she left. Because I really didn't know how to take care of them, the plants ended up almost dying. I think because they were so old and big, the plastic pots they were in were not allowing water to drain away. I purchased new pottery for them all and some cactus soil, which drains better than regular potting soil.

When I pulled out the snake plant, the roots were very fragile and tiny, and the middle of the pot was drippy sludge. I took away all the baby plants from around the outside, and potted them by themselves, then the base plant went in a huge pot of it's own. The Holiday cactus had gotten so bad off, I was only able to save about three full sprigs and pot them.

After doing a lot of reading on the care of plants, I am happy to say the plants have made a full recovery. When Sam and moved, I kept the pot of snake plant "babies" as it was smaller than "mom". Grandma ended up with the bigger plant, as we decided we could not get it up 3 flights of stairs.

I placed the plants outside on our balcony and they love it. The weather during the summer is about 80-90 degrees F, and they get indirect light all day. I water the Holiday plant (aka Thanksgiving or Christmas Cactus.. This one blooms in March-April..) weekly, or until the pot dries out. With the weather being so hot, it has a tendency to dry out pretty quick. This photo shows all the new growth that has appeared during this spring and summer. Again, this plant started out as three tiny sprigs!



Here is the snake plant.. The taller stalks unfortunately weren't doing very well from being in standing water. After about a month of being on the balcony though, I noticed that the plant started shooting out baby plants of it's own. The babies have grown about 1-2 feet tall now, and I opted to cut the drooping leaves. I am hoping the cut leaves will be buried under the baby plants one day. Or I may separate the babies back out after they get more established. The green and white variegated leaves are the babies and the dark leaves are the parent plant. It gets watered about every 2 weeks.


Nursing these plants back to health inspired me to go pick up a few more plants for my balcony garden. They had a lot of lovely cacti, so I made my own mixed pot for about half the price that the store was charging. I also picked up a Jade Plant for about $5. It was in a little plastic pot, so I re-potted it also with the cactus soil in a ceramic pot. They also had a very interesting Echeveria, that is sort of pink and lavender in color. Pretty sure it's an "Afterglow" variety.

All of the little succulents seem to be doing really well. The Jade plant and Echeveria enjoy sun and being neglected so I water them every week or until the pot dries out while it's so hot. The large mixed cactus pot I made does not need to be watered too often. Every two weeks or so. I usually go by feel and weight of the pot instead of a schedule on this one. All of the plants have put out a ton of new growth since they were purchased, so I am guessing that I am doing something right. Now I just have to figure out where the heck to put them once the weather outside gets too cold for them!

Something I knew only recently is that really healthy Jade Plants have red tips. After mine turned really red, I was getting upset because I thought I killed it! Nope, it's doing fine. The trick with succulents is to let them have lots of light, and only water them when they are really dry.

I have found that taking care of these plants is very relaxing and rewarding. They make our balcony seem more welcoming and pretty, without having to spend a ton of money on seasonal plants.

Happiness in a flat pack - our first trip to Ikea

Our apartment is terribly unorganized, with clutter all over the place. We had to downsize when we relocated, and didn't quite get rid of enough stuff.

With the clutter driving us crazy, and just not finding what we need at Walmart and Target, we decided that a trip to Ikea was finally in order. This past Memorial Day ended up being the perfect opportunity to visit our closest Ikea (4 hours away).

We knew it would be really busy, but it was really our only chance to take the trip within the next few months. My first and only purchase to date from Ikea was the white PS locker for DVDs/CD's. I ordered it online and couldn't be happier with it.

We got into the city the night before and stayed at a Hilton. Believe it or not, it was one of the cheaper hotels in the area. Wow, was the room nice! Very posh. Since it was a Sunday, and after 7 when we got there, there really wasn't anything to do. So we induldged in room service (also a first) and made a romantic, relaxing night in.

The next morning we checked out and drove to the Ikea, ariving there just before 11. When we drove by on the exit ramp and saw the building for the first time, we both got a little overwhelmed. I knew it would be big, but wow!

We got a fairly decent parking space and went in to the store. Since neither of us had eaten anything that morning we went upstairs to the cafe. I tried the Swedish meatballs (served with cream sauce, mashed potatoes and liggonberry jam) which were great, especially for the price of $4.99! I also had the apple (pie?) dessert, which had good flavor but the crust was mushy. Sam had the salmon with vegetables and the daim torte. She loved the salmon, but I thought it tasted too fishy. The torte was amazing!

After lunch, we stayed upstairs and toured the show room. It was so crowded we could barely walk. It reminded me of an ant farm. But that's what we get for going on a holiday! We were really amazed by all the displays. The room plans were really well thought out and functional.

We tried out a lot of the furniture, but I really didn't find the sofas and chairs all that comfortable.

Everything looked awesome, and the prices were unbelievable. But, I think I will stick to my ugly green living room furniture right now. There was such a swarm around the Poang chairs, we didn't even get to go in that section.

I was really impressed by the kitchens. They all had such lovely clean lines, so functional and really modern. I am used to the country and traditional kitchens that are on display in Home Depot and Lowes. My next house will definitely have an Ikea kitchen.

I was also really impressed with the bookcases, lighting, and tv storage. Everything was really cool looking and well made. We made it to the bedding section and tried out the mattresses and pillows. The pillows that we have purchased previously were from walmart, and cost under $10. We both have chronic neck and back pain and it went away when we tried out the GOSA RAPS pillow. It was like laying on a cloud. Looking at the price tag was a little bit of a shock. We debated and wrung our hands, but we decided to get two of them.

After an hour or two in the showroom, we went down to the marketplace. We bought tons of Kassett boxes, a Fira box, a Snack box, some shelving, the PS low locker in white (who dosen't own one of those these days!), several yards of fabric, and a few odds and ends. The only thing I didn't expect to buy were the pillows. We checked out and loaded up our car.
Since it was 4:30 by then we decided to get some more Ikea Food. Sam got the meatballs, and I opted for a buffalo chicken wrap. For dessert, we had the almond torte and chocolate cake. Everything was wonderful, like before. Since we are big dessert people, and everything being
so inexpensive, we felt justified in eating all those sweets. :) Then of course, we had to check out the frozen/packaged food section in the front of the store. We got a Daim bar, some lingonberry jelly, and lingonberry drink concentrate. Finally we left to go back home at 5:30 PM.

To any other Ikea first timers out there I would like to give the following advice:

Try the food! Don't be put off by the fact that it is frozen/mass produced. Think of it like any other fast food restaurant. Some things are gonna taste a little processed, but some of it is really great. Especially the tortes.

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes.
Allow 4+ hours to properly tour the whole store. The place is enormous.

Don't be put off by the "flat pack" concept. Everything I've purchased has been really easy to put together, and I am no carpenter.

The store was really busy at 11, but was a lot quieter at 3:30. That may be more a holiday/weekend thing, and I'm not sure about how things are in the evenings.

Try before you buy! Sit on the furniture, lay on the mattresses, etc.

Don't bother looking for sales people to help you. I saw 2 on the floor the entire time. Not that you really need help, everything is pretty well laid out and self explanatory. The furniture warehouse section is self serve too, like the rest of the store. We had a good time wrestling our PS cabinet down off a second shelf.

All in all, I loved Ikea. We can't wait to go back. The products are fun and affordable.

Orange Candle Holders

I had been lusting over these orange candle holders at Pottery Barn. But I'm a tightwad and the smallest size holder ( 6 inch or so) was $20. I think the biggest was $35 or $40. Thanks but no thanks..

Then I saw these cheapo brown candle holders at Walmart.com . They had a nice shape, and were $18 for the pair, and they are nice and tall. I bought them along with a can of orange gloss spraypaint and went crazy.

If I did it over again, I would prime them first, but I think they turned out great! I am on the lookout for a couple more candle holders with a unique shape to them, but paint them in the same orange, so I can play around with different arangements.