Coming Clean and "Un" Done . . .

Ok, so you have heard me whine and complain that I have started many minor home improvement projects/room renewals, without actually 100% completing them!! I decided to lay it all on the line and share all the rest of my started-with-the-best-intentions projects. No other explanation needed, here goes:

Upstairs outside porch and our go-to room this time of year . . .

Great space, colorless and sad!

You might remember me sharing bitching about this project -

Painted, but nothing else done!

My pantry before . . .

My playroom-turned-craftroom (again, almost!) . . .

Definitely some promise and maybe a light at the end of this tunnel??

Who can forget my family room?

Close, but not quite a cigar!

The entryway to our home . . . 

Sorry for the dark photo but this is BORING!

And the front hallway closet . . . .

Yes, it's all our photos I plan on putting on DVD . . .  someday (said wistfully in my head). 

The garage . . .  need I say more?

I have organized this space at least four times since living in this house.
The next time will be the last time!

Our sad little stairwell hallway (but love the portraits of the girls done in Paris) . . .

And the master bedroom retreat (it's clean but I am sick of this look!) . . . 

The wasted-space-we-now-turned-into-an-office . . . 

 And my sweet Olivia's room  . . . 

Started with removing the popcorn on the ceiling before repainting and decorating.

A small sitting area on the third floor . . .

 And lastly, the laundry room . . .

Ok, to be fair (and make myself feel a little better), I am showing you these rooms on their worst days. They don't all look like this on an on-going basis and many of them, I have already started their changes (and they have been cleaned up but yucky photos always make for a more dramatic reveal!). 

Therefore, I am sitting here on a Saturday night, fighting to stay awake at 8:08 p.m. (in my defense, I am at the end of a pretty nasty 3 day cold and spent the better portion of the day selling Girl Scouts cookies), so I can pick my oldest daughter up from a birthday party and I was just reading my blog and getting depressed reading in almost all the posts about my Befores and no Afters!

So, from here on out, no more projects started without completion (until I at least make some headway!)!! I promise it to you, and more importantly, to myself! Since the weather has been so nice lately, I am going to tackle the upstairs outside porch and backyard first. I mean really, who wants to wait until Florida summer kicks in. My hair frizzes in the humidity. Hand to my heart, I promise you, an AFTER coming soon, but that is for another post!

Simple Filing Cabinet Makeover . . .

Ok, so I had this bright green filing cabinet. Actually it's an antique. This filing cabinet has been with me since I was at least in high school when I had the coolest Lifesaver-themed bedroom E.V.E.R.(many, many, many moons ago!). It has gone to college with me, on to my single life, moved into my first house with my hubby and now rests in our 2nd home.

This is what my bedding used to look like - cool eh??
Notice how the filing cabinet matches nicely?

I don't want to get rid of it. It's actually quite useful and holds all our important paperwork but I didn't want it to continue sticking out like a sore thumb in our multi-desk-office-that-is-not-quite-done-nor-may-it-ever-be! So I woke up last Saturday and decided I needed to be productive. I wanted to get the office done before school starts so I was Mission Mommy - what my girls call me when I get on a roll. I headed to the garage to look at my paint choices and decided to paint the cabinet the same color of the walls so it would just blend in. Then I wanted to use some fabric for the front of the drawers - it would be brilliant (finger tips tapping together while evil laugh is heard)!

I wanted to get a super good coat of primer on it so I added a second coat. The problem is waiting for each coat to dry so being in a productive mode, I folded clothes AND watched the Olympics at the same time - talented, right? Primer dried, time to move on to the paint. When I opened the paint can, I realized I was low on paint and had to run and get more (not on my original plan but a girls gots to do what a girls gots to do)! While I was there, I did discover this bad boy paint brush and bought one for my future painting needs!

Isn't this cool? It's bendy and also allows you to screw in a handle to the bottom of it
for higher paint jobs! I got mine for $18 at my local Dyco.

Back to subject, and to my first coat of paint. Obviously I left the front non-painted since I was going to cover it with fabric. I am so smart!

Then I pulled out the fabric that I have had for several months and have never used (unfortunately that is typical of me!).

Love this!

And this is where I encountered another problem. My drawer pulls are the indented kind with no screws to hold them in place so I can't remove/replace them so I must go around them. Well, my fabric is almost like a burlap and you can pull the strands so cutting a hole in the middle for the handle just didn't work. On to Plan B.

I was going to paint it like the rest of the cabinet when my oldest daughter suggested painting the drawer fronts chalkboard - brilliant!

Just a few touch-ups and then wait for it to dry. Once done, we slid it back into place, next to my daughter's desk and ta-da!

We are moving the printer to a small table (that doesn't currently exist!) but now is resting comfortable on the shredder I bought a couple of years ago and is still in the box - oh vay!

I think the cabinet looks great and fits the bill perfectly. Time to finish this office with school starting in just over one week, but that is for another post!!

Work Has Begun . . .

Ok, so my Go To Guy (GTG) arrived with his helper and they started on a couple projects before beginning the ceiling.

I haven't shown these photos to you yet because I keep waiting to be completely done and do a major - Ta-Da - reveal, but at the rate I am going, that won't happen until I file for social security!! Here's the scoop in a nutshell. This was a guest/miscellaneous room. With the exception of some dogs, this room wasn't used much! The girls had a homework station downstairs in the playroom but they didn't like being down there on their own. We decided to make this room an office x 3.

This closet turned nook, served as a bar.

I added my desk to go in the nook.

My first (and last) attempt at painting Chevron stripes.
Was going to do the whole closet but decided it would be too busy
and too much work. Project done! 

I have added more to the walls and got a lot more organized.
I will show that off in the final Ta-Da!

They added power to my closet-turned-desk-nook. This took them 5 minutes but will save me a lot of aggravation!  I hated having the cords visible as you can see in the above photo.

As you can see, they also hung my surge protector/multiple outlet holder on the side of my desk. This is the side that has the opening. I previously labeled each cord. This is crazy convenient! No more climbing under the desk, pulling each cord to see which one moved. Genius if I do say so myself (but it wasn't my idea, thanks GTG!). Three shelves are also going to be added in the left corner of the closet.

Here's the room with the doors and trim now removed.

Yes, recovering the pink desk chair is on my To Do list.

Remember, here's the room before.

Much more open now. Looking to add glass doors down the road.

Just have to find the right set. 

 And the ceiling work has begun.

Of course, the air vent was in the way so we had to move that.

Luckily, my GTG was prepared for that and had

everything he needed.

The wood paneling is on, and the beams that are currently there,

are supports for the real beams that will be installed.

 First beam up!

We decided to add just a single plank, not a beam around the outside.

I think it will work perfectly.

Unfortunately, my GTG had another project he had to work on this afternoon but they will be back tomorrow and hopefully can knock out the rest of the ceiling. I, unfortunately, have some more staining to do, but I keep reminding myself, the money I save doing the staining myself, can help me afford more projects. I keep saying that over and over again!


So, hopefully you like the progress as much as I do. Can't wait to show you the finished work but that will be for another post!