Sort of a room

Today I'm posting another picture from our house. I guess I'm a tease because it's not even a room but a closet. Our closet to be exact. I know that a closet is not that exciting but I'm really happy with what we've done with it. Also, it's the first room to be completely done. We do have rooms that are livable and to people may look completely finished but there are still some tweaks and such. Anyway, if you wish to humor me with this closet thing, here it is.

The closet in our bedroom is along the same wall as our bathroom.

It also has a pocket door like the bathroom. Again, my camera whitens things out quite a bit because this picture was taken when things were green. I promise. This is one side of the closet before we did anything to it.
The center of the closet. The metal thing on the wall was a tie rack that folded out.
Here's the left side of the closet before we moved in.
As you could see there were two racks for hanging clothes which may be enough for somebody but for Cory and I it was not enough. I like to hang the majority of our clothes because 1. the clothes don't get wrinkled as bad, 2. I can see the clothes better and they are more easily accessible when hanging and 3. I don't like folding too much.

Cory & I were also coming from living in two apartments that had pretty good closet space. Especially the last one we lived in (thank you Brink apartments). Our closet was huge!

The closet's first order of business was taking the shelves and rods down. My mother-in-law, Jeanne, and I struggled with a few shelves but eventually got them all down. After that, Cory spackled the holes left in the wall and then we sanded them down and primed the walls. Then we painted the closet Glidden's Misty Moonstone (just like our bathroom)

Next we installed four hanging rods. Two on each side.

By doing that we double the amount of clothes that could be hung up. When people have come over and seen the top rack they ask me if I can reach that high. I actually can reach the rack (on tip-toe) but don't really need to on a regular basis because the top rack holds my fall/winter clothing. I will switch it out when the seasons change. If any of you were interested in that. Cory on the other hand dresses from both racks but he can reach the top one with no problems.

After we hung the rods we actually moved in the house soon after so we moved our clothes into the closet and had plastic stackable shelves in the middle.

Recently we purchased much nicer shelves to go in the center of the closet which Cory quickly installed. Here they are:
And here's what they look like now. I didn't take a picture of our small plastic shelves, but it was pretty sloppy and crowded.
Oh yeah, and if you'll overlook the junk (ie: purses & suitcases) Cory installed some shelves above our clothes racks. He actually did this before we installed the center shelves but I never took a picture of that.
Here's the shelf over his clothes.
I know it's just a closet but it feels so good to have one space in the house completely done. I feel like we utilized the space fairly well which makes me glad. Unfortunately, I have to put my coats and jackets in another closet but we have the extra closets for now. :)

Thanks for stopping by and reading about our closet. I hope you have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend. :)

I've lost my mind

So, I totally think the paint fumes are getting to me. I guess I dreamed I posted this blog before but noticed that I had not tonight. Two weeks ago my family welcomed a new member. My sister, Angie, got married! Guys, for real I thought I wrote this blog before and I also thought it was a rather good post...I wish there was a recorder for your dreams. I also hope that whatever fumes are making me hallucinate won't have long term effects.

Anyway, on June 10th(a day after our anniversary) Angie married Brendan at a family friend's house on the lake. They were actually married on their deck while the sun was setting behind them. It was beautiful! Brendan & Angie chose to get married in front of very close family. It was just my parents, me, Cory, my grandparents, and Brendan's parents & brother. It was very intimate and really nice. I'm really glad they let me be a part of their big day. I'm very happy for them and their new life together. Now, I just need to figure out how to get them to move a little closer so I can see them more often :)

I present to you "The Gunn's" (cool last name, huh?)

Very Pinteresting

I know that most people have known about and have used Pinterest for a while now but I am just getting hooked. If you have no clue what I am talking about then check it out here.

I am a very visual person and really appreciate pretty pictures. Since I was in middle school I would tear out magazine pictures that I liked. Usually they were pictures of interior decorating ideas,wedding inspirations, yummy looking foods & their recipes, funny advertisements, and of course, cute animals. The house and wedding pictures I would put into a folder for when I needed them (ha, my taste changed quite a bit by the time I did get married). The other pictures I would tape on my door or put on my bulletin board. Then in college I advanced to finding fun pictures on the Internet and instead of printing them out I would save them into folders on my computer. I still do that to this day. I actually have been pulling from some saved pictures for house ideas now.

A few months ago I read about Pinterest and saw that it was a website that you could save the pictures you liked on an online page. It seemed tempting but I thought I would just stay with what I had been doing. Then I realized that when you save or "pin" a picture that it would link back to the source where you saw it. When I saved pictures on my computer I wouldn't always write the website where I found it which caused frustration when I wanted to possibly see directions for how to make something or if I wanted to site my source. I also realized that if my computer crashed I would lose all of my saved photos. I try and back my computer up but you know how that goes...

So, last week I finally joined (it's free) and I L.O.V.E it! If you "follow" me on there I apologize for pinning like crazy! It's just so fun! I love that when you pin something it says, "Success". It makes me feel like I did a good job :) Anyway, if you're not on Pinterest, I encourage you to do so....and you can follow me so I'll know to follow you :) Oh, and if you check it out and see my page don't think that you have to just post pictures of house things and animals. You create your own categories. I've seen people who post books they love, childhood memories(tv shows & toys), cars they want, hair cuts they like, photography inspiration, music they love, wedding ideas, clothes for their kids, places they want to go, favorite movies, and so on and so on. It really is great!

Well, I'm off to go "pin" some more. I hope you enjoy your weekend and happy pinning!

I think that this will take you to my page (click here) if you want to check it out to see how it looks.

Mostly Finished Room

Today I am finally posting a picture of a room. I’m starting out with a small room and it’s not a drastic “before & after” but it’s a start of sharing. This room is our master bathroom. Our house was originally built in 1941 as a two bedroom 1 bathroom home. In 1960 the owners added on which made the house 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It’s funny to us that with their new addition they chose to make a smaller bathroom than the first. The master bedroom is rather large for a room from the 60’s and the closet was (I am told) big for the time as well. I’m not really sure of the reasoning, but we’re making it just fine with the smaller bathroom.

Here’s a picture of the floor plan (please remember this is NOT to scale) to show where the location of the master bath is.

As you can see from the floor plan there is not a graphic of a door swinging open. The door that leads into the bathroom (as well as the closet) is a pocket door. Pocket doors have always been a favorite of mine so I was so happy to see that this house had some. Here’s a picture of the door BEFORE we painted anything.

My camera’s flash really whitens things out. The door and walls are actually painted a light pea green color. Kind of like this color:

I don’t think I’ve shared this tid bit of info on here before but every room in our house, with the exception of one, had a very monochromatic theme going on. Every room was basically assigned a color and every surface that could be painted in the room was painted that color. I kid you not. The walls, the base boards, the crown molding, the window pane dividers (don’t know the name for that), the wooden blinds….EVERYTHING! The ceilings were even painted a lighter shade of the chosen color. The bathroom was no exception. I’m not a great photographer and wish that I had taken better pictures of the before but here’s the left side of the bathroom (again, before we painted).

We were fortunate to have creamy white tiles in our bathroom, especially since it was added on in the 60’s. You can notice the green trim around the window.

This picture is to the right of the shower. The green stands out more in the bathroom. This is the color that the door was painted and also the bedroom attached.

Notice the cabinet is even the green color. Also, this picture was taken on our second viewing of the house which explains the "hasn't been flushed in 7 months toilet". I should have lowered the lid.

The first thing we did in the room was to paint the ceiling white. It’s amazing how just painting the ceiling a different color than the wall really opened the room up. We used white ceiling paint that was tinted pink while wet. It's a great product that I highly recommend. I took this picture while the paint was still drying so that explains the pinkish color.

We then painted over the pea green surfaces with a very light bluish gray. It’s Glidden’s Misty Moonstone...which Cory is still making fun of me for calling it Misty Moonshine to people who asked what color it was. Honest mistake :)

Next we got rid of the fluorescent light bulb fixture. Not only was the fixture not that cute but the light it gave made you feel like you were in a garage. It was really dark feeling at night.

Here's the old light:

And the new one:

Then we had to change the shower head because the old one leaked pretty bad which meant it sprayed the ceiling when it was turned on. Here's a picture of the old shower head:

The new one is a little bigger.

So here it is in full. There are still some things I would like to do, like add a hand towel rack closer to the sink, hang some pictures, and find a nice bathroom rug but it’s useable and that’s what counts.

Thanks for stopping by and if you read to this point, I’m sorry for being a rambler. J Enjoy your day!

Roman Shades

The other day when I was looking at Apartment Therapy's blog I saw a link to a tutorial on making roman shades with mini blinds. I had been searching for some roman shades to go in the master bathroom but had not had any luck with finding what I had in mind. I had been looking for some neutral colored fabric that had a linen or burlap texture. I had looked into making my own but my sewing machine has been on the fritz and I have lots of other house projects going on to devote time to sewing and constructing my own. When we bought the house there were large slat aluminum blinds in the master bathroom. They were fairly dingy and I wasn't crazy about having blinds in the bathroom because I like to have the window exposed during the day. (I realize I could pull the blinds up, but then they're bunched up at the top). So when I saw this super simple tutorial I was stoked.

Here is the link to the tutorial on ScoutieGirl's blog. I'm not even going into all the steps (there were just 5) because she did a great job explaining.

All you need is a pair of mini blinds, or in my case, the large slat blinds that I had fortunately not thrown away yet, some fabric, and some fabric glue. Yes, that's right just glue, NO SEWING!!

(The picture makes the blinds look whiter than they really were)

Here's my new shade!
Rolled down:
The last picture was taken while some of the glue was still a little wet. There aren't any spots on them now.

Now I can bathe in privacy! Yes, we didn't have anything covering the window since we've moved in. Don't worry though, our bathroom window is too high to peak into and it's set back far enough on the house that anyone driving by can't see in.

If you're looking for some shades then I highly recommend making them this way. It took me about 45 minutes to make these and 30 minutes of that was the drying time.

House Layout

I am finally getting to a place where I can post some house pictures. (I apologize to my friends who live out of town and have asked for photos). My hesitation with posting pictures is because I would like to have a room completely finished but have found that this house is a work in progress. That being said, I may post multiple pictures of the same room from time to time when something gets updated or maybe rearranged. Things are finally finding a place here and I'm excited to share it with you.

Before I begin posting some rooms I wanted to show a layout of our place. When I am teaching the Housing Unit at school I like to let my students use an online floor plan maker. In the past I would use SmallBluePrinter.com but this year I found another website that I like a little better which is Floorplanner.com. Both off these websites are free and very user friendly. The Floorplanner one actually renders your drawing to a 3D model, which is pretty neat.

Growing up I constantly drew floor plans of my dream house on paper. I remember one of my best friends, Lindsay, and I would stay up late drawing floor plans of mansions that we would want one day (and share with J.T.T. & Rider Strong, of course). :) I love that I can still make floor plans but now it's much easier online. Anyway, as soon as Cory & I bought our house I made a floor plan of it to help visualize furniture placement and color schemes. Now, the one I have made is not to scale. I know, I could measure each room and make an accurate to scale house plan but I am lazy AND I actually made this one night on my computer when we were living in the apartment and it was mainly from memory.

So, here it is! I will reference back to this picture when I eventually post pictures of a room (to explain where it is).

Now, it's no mansion with some former Tiger Beat hunk (remember that magazine?) but it IS my home that I share with the love of my life...and I'll take that over any mansion any day. :)

P.S. If you click on the picture it should enlarge it. Then you can see that we have quite a few doors.

It's come to my realization...

I have realized that I post cute animals or animal related stories a little too much.

I have also realized that I compare many animals (mainly dogs) to Falkor from The Neverending Story.

I also have on many occasion compared very cheesy pizza to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pizza.

The pizza on that show always looked really cheesy and delicious to me. Which, why were turtles eating pizza anyway? And while I'm pondering about this show, isn't it a very specific title (teenage mutant ninja) and also strange that a city welcomed these "mutant" turtles and relied on them to save their city from Shredder (and BeBop and Rocksteady)?

Wow, I think the paint fumes have really gotten to me tonight. I hope everyone is doing well. :)

Totally Cute

You may have seen this video already because apparently it's been on the news but I wanted to share it anyway. My sister, Angie, came in town tonight and showed this to me and I totally melted. Supposedly the kitten was having a nightmare and the mommy cat gave it a hug. People have negated this theory but you can't deny that this video isn't so sweet. Enjoy! (at around the 30 second mark is where the hug happens)