I know everyone is dying to see at least one semi-finished interior room! To be honest, most of our rooms are still "in process". We've posted an update about our laundry room, including our tone-on-tone paint job, which is proving very popular, but we haven't quite finished any other room as most of them still need to be painted and/or repaired and/or both! However, we have completed all of the heavy lifting (literally) in our new office, minus accessories! But before we dish the goods, you have to know where we came from. Here is a pretty nebulous before:
Not much to look at, right? It may be hard to see from the picture (as it is rather small on blogger - this page will be moving in the coming weeks to a more robust website), but we had a Painter in residence prior to our takeover! In fact, judging from the grubby fingerprints on the door jamb, I'd estimate this artist's height at around 3 feet tall :-). This was definitely a multi-talented artist, utilizing acrylic paints, crayons, and colored pencils to boot! The artistry was evident around the room, including on the closet doors:
This artist's mastery was not limited to the static arts. Our base moldings also were recipients of this artist's treatment, perhaps in the form of *martial* arts. Needless to say, this room was in need of some serious repair work (did I mention the house was a foreclosure?). So here are a few pictures of the after artistry on behalf of J&L, two budding homeowners just trying to make it happen.
The iMac Workstation, where most of the Tell'er All About It magic happens
The newly painted closet doors, courtesy of J's artistry
Our PC workstation, lovingly housed in the heaviest piece of furniture in our home,
ironically contained on the second floor!
Our brand new base moldings, upgraded from dowdy MDF planks to
substantial and carved MDF! How do I love thee!
So what else did we change? The wall color, for one. Remember the Builder's Buttercream Flat paint that I love so much? (that was a joke, by the way) Well, that was in this room as well. I painted this room by myself over a period of two days in Glidden's Water Chestnut - such a delicious name, don'tcha think? I was able to cover up all of the dirt, paint, and Crayola to a warmer, but less yellow-y color. In fact, I love it so much I bought 2 more gallons of it and I can't wait to paint another room in that color! We may be in Water Chestnut overload before this year is done...
When we started to prep for paint, we realized that the base moldings were not worth saving. The builder used cheap MDF "planks" at a meek 3.5 inches around the entire house and the ones in the Painter's Paradise were in desperate need of a paint job to say the least. Since the previous owners took all of the touch up paint with them, J&I made the executive decision to just rip out the old baseboards and make the office our first attempt at replacing the baseboards throughout the house. With a fresh coat of paint and a more substantial 5.5 inch base, the room feels rich and luxurious! And check out the hubs' awesome handiwork on the exterior corner in the room with caulk!
We also painted the interior of the closet as it was also painted in a "flat" finish, which meant that every scrape of a hangar over the past 4 years showed up like a "Who's Who" of bad wardrobe and paint choices. And since we brought in a new tone on the base molding, we also painted the closet doors to match.
And perhaps our greatest achievement in this space was moving our 300+ (?) pound computer armoire from the garage up to the second floor. It took the combined efforts of both J&L from Tell'er All About It and L's Mother just to get it upstairs - and neither my Mom or I are professional movers! The most fascinating aspect were all of the neighbors who stopped what they were doing just to watch! You know what they were thinking - "We should get a video camera just to have evidence that there really *are* people buried under that Armoire in the front yard!" Really, we shouldn't have been able to get it upstairs. The weight alone was daunting, but the shape is just absolutely ungainly, particularly with a 90 degree turn and a rectangular shape that doesn't fit on a square landing. But we did it! And my arms and legs are still aching from the strain! However, we may advertise this as a selling point when we go to sell the house - Armoire FREE with purchase! Phew!
So there ya have it! Our updated (yet still unfinished) office! It was an adventure! More to come, so stay tuned!
xoxo,
J&L
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