Storage Room COMPLETE!

It's about TIME we finish this darn storage room project. EYEYEYYE! This one was a real dewsey - not because it was necessarily hard, but because it took a lot more effort than we were anticipating. This area in our home is located in the addition that was put on the house in 1960. The owners were incredibly intuitive to OUR needs and opted to add a full basement under the two story addition vs a crawl space. THANK YOU! When we purchased the home, it was a completely raw space: cinder block walls and a poured concrete floor. The previous owners used this space as storage and we chose to do the same.

There was definitely the option of using this space as a 5th bedroom or office. All it would have taken was a bit of framing, insulation, drywall and some electrical work. But all of that together would have boasted a pretty hefty price tag (not to mention code would have demanded an egress window be installed)...and frankly, we needed the storage space. So we opted to keep the space raw but freshen it up a bit and give it a bit more finished feeling.

Over the winter, we epoxy'd the floor with a kit by Rustoleum from Home Depot. It's about $60 and covered the roughly 225 square foot area. Here were a few pics of that little endeavor.



Next came painting the cinder block walls. We could have done something creative in the space, but personally, I wasn't trying to turn this into anything ground-breaking. I wanted it to feel clean and bright and give a nice backdrop to the colorful storage bins. So we used bright white masonry paint from Home Depot.

This 'masonry paint' is said to be a primer and paint in one, so it wasn't necessary for us to purchase two different products for the one space. It was, however, necessary for us to buy 6 cans of it in order to get two decent coats on the raw cinder block. If you've never painted raw cinder block, it's a CHORE. The block walls might as well be sponges as the paint seems to disappear as you roll it on. Now is the time for me to offer up HUGE, huge kudos to my handsome hubby for single handedly taking on the painting of the entire room. What a guy! Where was I you ask? Where else...CLEANING!!!!!

Once the walls were finally painted and the room was starting to take shape, we explored shelving solution ideas. We thought about building them using lumber and plywood, but ultimately decided we wanted something a bit more polished. Next we considered the idea of using the same shelves we used in our last storage room, which were wall mounted pantry shelves.

However, mounting them would be difficult on the concrete walls (there were studs installed behind the pictured shelves in the basement in order to install the drywall). The other thing we were trying to figure out is how we could invest in something we could take with us if we moved (the pantry shelves would have been around $750 to provide us enough space and that doesn't include the framing that would have needed to take place). We ultimately decided on these shelves from Home Depot that are free standing and easily disassemble should we decide to jump ship.

In all honesty, the first one took us about an hour to assemble and we were at eachother's throats by the end of it. Luckily, we got better at it and by shelf number 6, we were down to assembling them in about 5 minutes and high fiving the whole time! The shelves are completely adjustable which is awesome and we also had an abundance of leftover shelves. We may opt to use them in the garage, or just keep them nearby in case we ever need them. The dimensions are 72" tall by 48" wide by 18" deep. They work perfect for our space!

So, here you have it, the official afters of our storage room.




Of course in the coming weeks I hope to get my labels updated and other little label worthy signs posted. By the way, everything is organized in a progression we figured of birth to death starting with 0-3 month baby girl clothes and ending at gun ammunition. That gave us a good laugh. And as you can see, we have plenty of space to grow into. Now all I need to hunt down is a clothing rack to hang our spare winter attire seen here.

SO relieved to have this project behind us. Next we'll be moving out to the yard and garage and will wrap up house renovation #2 with a laundry room refresher:-) In between those, ALL kinds of fun;-)

Where to begin?

Ugh. Blogger confession: I seem to have misplaced my blog time. I've been out of town for the past two weekends in a row sans kids, and this week I've returned to my not-been-disciplined-or-told-no-in-two-weeks children. Eyeyeye. They are whiped out and I am too. So...it's been a little crazy getting back on track here.

Here's my other confession: keeping my house clean and keeping up with laundry is taking up ALL of my spare time. I'm so fortunate to have two great sleepers for kids and their 6:30pm bedtime is right up there with winning the Powerball in my book. Despite the fact that I don't go to sleep until at least 11pm, for some reason, I am having a hard time accomplishing much in the 4 1/2 hours I have to myself each evening. I have so many projects going on that I'm having trouble getting anywhere with any of them. Here are a few of the things I've been working on:

- Gloria's wall hanging - it STILL isn't finished!

- Rosemary's coordinating wall hanging - it's about half done

- Rosemary's birthday party invitations - a princess tea party theme

- Basement storage room - it's 5/6th's done being painted...UGHHHHHHHH...just need to finish it (that's tonight's goal)!

- Basement light fixtures - installed the new ones...BIG TIME BOO. Had no idea they were flourescents and they ruined the basement in the flip of a switch. Need to return them and hunt down new ones.


So, while there are all kinds of things underway over here, none of them seem to be getting finished. And what did I just take a break from writing this post to do? Photograph stuff in the garage that needs to be listed on Craigslist. WHY? When did I become so A.D.D.? The underlying problem here? I have no list. I work best off of a prioritized list helping to keep me focused and on track. Clearly I'm no good without a list and am becoming incredibly frustrated with my lack of accomplishments lately. You'll be happy to know that my kitchen is sitting a mess right now and I have clean laundry waiting to be folded, yet I've prioritized reaching out to my faithful followers because YOU. ARE. IMPORTANT!

So what would be next after I finish allllllllllll of these projects up, you ask? Tackling this puppy:


The laundry room. Eyeyeye. In the coming days, I'll do posts on each of the above projects and I can tell you all about how much fun painting raw cinder block is (sense the sarcasm because I'm doing my best to lay it on thick;-) Let's just say that Jeff just cracked open paint can #7 on the extremely modest sized storage room!

So, stay tuned as I promise to get back on track with you. I miss you (and frankly, I NEED you;-)

Good news & Bad news.

Remember my little cup turned bathroom tumbler that I picked up at Anthro the other day?

Well, Rosemary's chugging got the best of her and my poor tumbler is now just a pile of glass shards. Jeff says we aren't ready for a glass tumbler in the kid's bathroom. I said that I AM ready for a glass tumbler in our master bath. Being that they are the same bathroom...let the great debate begin.

On to the good news! The main floor powder bath mirror is ORDERED!

I was able to negotiate $50 off on my ebay purchase which put the mirror into my desired budget. Yeeks! It says it takes 2 weeks to ship...I'm hoping that's not the case, but with free shipping, I'll happily keep my mouth shut!

I know I still owe you finished pictures of the wall hanging I was working on for Gloria's room. But the truth is, we hung it in her room and I immediately decided it didn't belong in there. I think it would be cuter in the playroom downstairs. So, until I can get around to moving it, I'll have to keep you in suspense. The problem with Gloria's room is that there is very little uninterrupted wall space in her small room (here's an old pic for your reference).

Between windows and wall angles, my 40" installment looked cramped no matter where we tried it...except over her crib which is, simply put, a death sentence for my handmade wall art. So, my plan is to make a coordinating piece for Rosemary and use them to balance the art in the playroom. Now if I could just get around to making another one...eyeyeye! Stay tuned!

Ladies Update.

While my blog is intended to be my oasis to carry on about everything home related...it just wouldn't be right to not include the occasional update on my two favorite girls.

This summer has been all about fun in the sun! Last summer we were pretty bogged down with an incredibly fussy infant, a home for sale, a closing, a move, a new home search, etc...but this summer, Rosemary has grown out of napping and Gloria can survive on one nap a day which means our days have been rather free to get out and explore summer in the city. I try to get the girls out for one activity a day. More than that seems to send them spiraling into crabby person syndrome and less than that means we all go stir-crazy. So each day we make a point of taking an adventure together - whether it be to a park, to meet a friend, to a pool, to a zoo or museum, etc. We've had an absolutely wonderful summer!

Rosemary is starting preschool this fall and I am so unbelievably excited for her.

Personally, I'm feeling completely overwhelmed at the idea of my daughter venturing out 'on her own.' However, those feelings are completely overshadowed by how independent, out-going, social and friendly this child is. It would only be a disservice to her to not offer her this opportunity - and for that, I am proud of both her and myself! It isn't easy letting go, is it. Rosemary will also be starting a dance class this fall. She'll be taking a ballet/tap combo class and I am giddy with excitement for her. Today, her and I went on a special outing to purchase her first pair of ballet and tap shoes. I hope she is even a fraction of how excited I am for her.



Gloria is hysterical.

Really...she has us laughing all of the time. She is still extremely particular and still prefers to be carried at all times (which of course isn't possible and is therefore deemed unacceptable by her).

Still not walking and although wishing for a walking toddler seems like an oxymoron, when said walking toddler is in the 103rd percentile for weight AND height (and head size), it's only practical to beg her to walk as carrying her is becoming...how you say...difficult. But, she is my little snuggle bug. No matter where I'm sitting, she'll do everything in her power to climb into my lap. When she gets tired, she'll lay anywhere - usually in the middle of the floor where the most traffic is flowing. She's talking ALL the time, many of her words are starting to come out crystal clear. As for the others, we usually have a pretty good guess as to what she's implying.


Overall, life is good and we have so much to be thankful for. The store remodel is coming to a close this week and while painting the storage room is underway, life has slowed down for us drastically. We are looking forward to investing in a few pieces of furniture in the near future, but in the meantime, we are so enjoying this house and the little family that it holds!

The little things.

If you are anything like me, you can get excited about the smallest thing. And I, am literally excited about the tiniest little thing...a cup.

I love browsing home stores - in fact, I am usually dressed like a homeless person in the grubbiest of clothes, hair undone, makeup smeared...but as you know, I love keeping my home in tip top condition. Of course, this is at the expense of every other area of my life. On my 'day off' this week, before heading to my local Caribou for a bit of free wifi blog reading, I slipped into Anthropologie to check out their latest home collection. I found this little beauty for our upstairs bathroom.


My mom always had a tumbler in the bathrooms for a late night glass of water, but because I don't have a matching bath accessories set, I've sort of just collected pieces that are pretty and purposeful as I find them. So this one slips right into my little collection of doo-dads I adore.

Rosemary seems to have taken a particularly strong liking to it and can often be found in the bathroom chugging water. Anyway, for $6, it's a fun and fanciful piece for our master bath, family bath, original bath, only getting ready bath:-)

I am SOOOOOOOO excited about the piece I'm working on for Gloria's room. Stay tuned for final pics tomorrow...yippee! In the meantime, here's a sneak peek!

Powder Bath Glam.

It's no secret our main floor powder bath is lacking in the mirror department. In all honesty, I haven't really been missing a mirror in there. With Rosemary being potty trained, I've been thankful to have one less thing to clean in that bathroom since it's one that requires a daily disinfecting. But, my need to double check whether my not done hair is presentable enough to go in public led me to search the world wide web along with every Homegoods in town and here's where I've ended up.

I was quite certain I wanted a gold framed mirror. I found lots of PLASTIC, gold framed mirrors but I just couldn't stomach the echo of the plastic against my wrapping fingertips when I tested the mirrors durability. Not to mention most of them seemed to have cracks and other imperfections in them from shipping and what not. I decided to check out eBay to see if I couldn't find a vintage gold mirror. The dimensions I am working with are tricky being that the pedastal sink it will hang above is only 21" wide. So I needed it petite in width but still plenty lengthy. And then came you:

COME ON - a gold gilded iron mirror with a BOW on it? Yes, please! The price is a little steep for my liking, so I'm working with the seller to see if I can't get a little deal. I'll keep you posted! Sure would love to see it adorning the petite powder room wall someday!

Window Treatments.

The main floor window treatments are IN! They actually went in last week but due to our ever infuriating internet issues, I had to wait to share them with you until I could make a quick escape to my neighborhood Panera. The good news is that all our issues will be fixed (BY LEAVING QWEST) on Wednesday when the new folks come to get us up and running again. So please do hold on because I have much more fun to share with you.

So - back to the window fancies. If you remember, we did two different types of treatments on the main level. In the family room, we did Hunter Douglas honeycomb shades, matched to the trim color in order to have them 'disappear' when in the open position. I absolutely love these! I had never even considered these until my friend Jenn suggested them. I just felt they were far too modern for my liking and I liked the look of the wood blinds better. But these are great because they really do provide 100% privacy and are virtually undetectable when upright. Hunter Douglas was having a promotion for a FREE upgrade to the cordless variety - so all you do is push these up with the lightest touch of a finger. Glorious in a home filled with curious kiddos like my own!




In the family room, we did the woven wood romans by Hunter Douglas. I love them. The colors are absolutely perfect and I love the added texture and tone in the room. A WELCOMED change from my normal sea of white. These do not provide 100% privacy, but we figured this was ok in the dining room where we really aren't hanging out on a regular basis. There is the option of lining them, but we really felt like we wanted to be able to have them down with the light peeking through during the day vs full darkness.




Other items on the docket: final mudroom re-reveal with all of the hardware finally installed! Also final sod pictures, playroom decor and two new fancy wall-hangings for the girls rooms by yours truly. Oh FUN!