I created a design board for what I am thinking I want my entryway to look like. 

If you have read any of my other posts, you may have noticed that I post a lot of design ideas but relatively few posts about the design actually implemented. Why, you may ask? Not really sure. I'm coming to find that getting the look that I want is really expensive. Even if I buy things that are deeply discounted!  Also, my house is still unfinished. There is crap.everywhere.seriously.everywhere. And dust! And bags from unpacking! Nothing is even close to being finished. Also, real life tends to get in the way.  

My goal for this weekend is to get some of these things if I can find them, to clean up and unpack more, and to take some pictures!

DIY Porch Urns

I had been looking for two black urns for a few months for the front porch, but nothing was cheap enough catching my eye. I ended up spotting two stone-like urns at Gordmans that were the perfect size, and I knew with a little spray paint they could be perfect for my front porch. I didn't notice that one of the urns had a little chip in the back making it only $9.99, so the two urns were around  $40 total (originally $29/ea)! 

My mom has a space in her basement dedicated to spray painting (she refinishes furniture for a living), so we set these in there and she helped me get them all covered. I used Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze. I didn't use a primer beforehand because the material of the urns was fine without it. 

And here is one finished! I love how they turned out. 

It was actually snowing in this picture if you can see!

Happy Holidays!

Progress in the bathroom

Brief update! Who knew being a lawyer and renovating a house would make me so busy ;)? We got the bathroom tiled this week! Looks great, although we don't have a counter top for the vanity and the toilet isn't installed. When the project is done, I will post better pics with details. For now, here is a little photo grid with the transformation. 

Happy holidays!

Living Room Design Board

Made this design board last night when I was babysitting my nephew. I've been MIA from the blog, but only because my family has had to take some time off working on the house. We are back at it now!

Living Room

And here is the dining room design board that I created a few months ago:

Dining Room

Before and After: House Painted

This title is a little deceiving. We finished painting the front of the house. We will be working on the sides as time permits. Luckily, the body of the house has a similar light shade, so it is not immediately noticeable that the sides of the house aren't painted. 

The front of the house was painted with one color: Benjamin Moore Victorian Garden. The body of the house was painted at 50% strength, and the top peak of wood siding was painted with 100% strength. 

I absolutely love the color. We were a bit worried it would look super green, but it is a greige-y green and its perfect! Here are a few more photos of the process:

We also hope to add some dark shutters to bring in a little contrast. Possibly black or a very dark charcoal gray. 

All in all, very happy to have this part of the house painted so that more of the focus can be returned to the inside. More details to come :)

OH MY GOSH

Camp Ave & the technicolored dream house

The exterior of the house is sad, in a chipping-paint, leaning-sideways-porch kind of way. Of course, there are a lot of grand plans that we have for the exterior, but they have not been the priority. However, we have been thinking about paint colors. We have been hoping for a mud color--something darker than the current color, but not too dark. Possibly with a hint of green.

So obviously, we had to try out a bunch of colors...on the front of the house. 

We tested several colors. On the left side, from top to bottom, is 1) Benjamin Moore Victorian Garden at half strength; 2) B.M. Senora Gray at double strength; 3) B.M. Victorian Garden.  On the right, I am not quite sure of the colors--one of them is Sherwin Williams Curio Gray, and the light green shade is Senora Gray by B.M. at regular strength. 

Up close, we really liked the Victorian Garden at half strength. It has the green tones, and was not super dark. 

So my parents decided to paint the whole front of the port part in order to see how the color looked and to cover up that patchwork. 

At this point I was really liking it!

So the next day, I came back during my lunch break to check on the house. I was shocked, I seriously could not see the difference between the old light color and the new! In the pictures, it is visible (albeit BARELY visible). 

(hello, color, are you there???!!)

So in the end, Victorian Garden at half strength is probably not going to work. It is a tad too light, and we want to see a bit of a change...something a few shades darker. Not too dark, but not this light tan. My suggestion was getting the Victorian Garden at 75% strength? 

At least the front porch looks a lot better now that the paint patchwork is cleaned up! 

Have you ever painted a stucco house? If yes, did the paint dry a lot lighter than you expected?