Saturday, December 20, 2014

Yard!

Now that we've announced we are going to have a baby (yay!), we have our first project underway for her - a new and improved front and back yard to play in.

A reminder of what it looked like before, with those crazy juniper bushes...



Thanks to insane amount of rain recently our yard thinks it's spring and not December, but unfortunately it's all weeds... so, not so nice. 




Mismatched uneven pavers, wobbly broken bricks, and a fence that is broken at the front (held together by a bungee cord, *cringe*)...


Close up of the junipers...


We've just starting spray painting projects right on the stone...



The "hidden" side of the house that steadily collects everything we have dealt with that still needs dealing with...



The old koi pond in the backyard, long neglected. We tried to dig it out one day, but it's just goes down too far (and we are tired)...



Demo day 1! The Soto guys hacked at the juniper bushes for hours to get rid of them (YAY) and then scraped clean the stones, weeds and whatever else lurked (including the ant hills that have been the bane of our existence for the last year... but now they are scrambling for a new home anywhere they can, eek)


Clearing out the stones in the back...



Saving whatever we can salvage and reuse...


Day 2: soil drop off!


Yes, we still have a few pumpkins...


A new front! Its starting to make some sense around here...


Soil for the sod going all the way to the back. The ground has been graded and is nice and even now... 


The right side of the house. It will have brick placed all down the right side from the gate, straight back to this part of the fence here (which is actually a hidden storage area). Then we can wheel bikes, strollers, and trash to the back, and maybe make a little lounge area around it...



This will all be sod. I cannot wait. It kind of looks like we are going to start farming now...



The sectioned off areas you can see on the left and rounded around the back will be left with soil for us to plant our veggies, succulents, flowers, and eventually, a tree. Exciting!


Again, the right side of the house will be all brick and the fence will be fixed...


That's it for now. It's a ton of work. I am sooo glad we're not the one doing it for a change. :)) We can't wait to see what happens next~ 

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Front details

Sometimes it's just about the little things. Tocco has spent the last two Sundays scrubbing clean these original fixtures and painting them to match the house (the "MAIL" imprint has irregular spacing on the original, so I guess it'll stay) and updating our outdoor light. Little changes, but pretty cute ones.





Saturday, November 22, 2014

1 Year!

One year ago today we moved into our beloved purple house (not that we liked the purple part that much...) I cannot believe how much we have done to this house in a single year. In fact, there are only two surfaces in the house unchanged- the fireplace and the wooden panels running up the staircase walls. Everything else - ripped up, patched, repaired, covered, removed, colored, caulked, demoed, sanded, converted, painted, rewired, plumbed (is that a word?) etc, etc, etc. Also, loved. I love it here. If you haven't come over yet, you. are. invited! And don't think that we are done... that yard will take the next year. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Bathroom: After!

We are SO happy to have this bathroom completed, and we really love it. It took about 4 weeks of complete construction to change every last piece of it. You can refer to the previous posts for the "befores" but think pink, peach, old wood, dirty grout, bad lighting, and the '70s turned up. We wanted something light and airy and I think we got it. 


My favorite part might be the vanity mirror area. Wood and white are like a dream to me, so it makes my heart flutter seeing these two together. The vanity is from Ikea, and we loved that it was the exact size for the space, a glossy white, and the big sink so pretty and a cool shape (I should have taken a few photos before we "moved back in" to the bathroom, but you can imagine it). It feels really open and the vanity was designed to be floating on the wall, without any legs (more on that later). The mirror we got from West Elm and we instantly knew we wanted it. I love that it's not a traditional bathroom mirror, but more of a hall mirror, and the mirror too is floating, on the acorn wood. It definitely warms up the space. We changed the light from one of those disco strips to kind of a cool pharmacy style that went with the retro/new vibe. 



We went back and forth about the floor tiles. The ones we ended up with I love, and are the exact color I wanted, but finding a charcoal gray matte tile in the right size (and enough of them in stock anywhere) was harder than I thought! I was afraid we'd have to compromise and get black, or white, or have to mix up the tiles with something else. About three floor tile purchases and a dozen configurations of design later (thanks to the designer in the house) we arrived at this one... wouldn't you know, the simplest choice of course. They're from Daltile, and feel really cool beneath the feet. The subway tile is just a classic one. This is one place where I wish we had been present for the install because I wish I could see the subway tile with white grout instead. Like if I could snap my fingers and see it one way and then the other and then make a choice I'd be happy. But I do like it. I'd just like more confirmation. :)


This little plant stand and plant friend makes me happy (even though they're crooked for their photoshoot ;). It makes the bathroom feel - shocker - fresher. It's nice to have pretty greens in the room. Oh, you can now see on the right that the vanity has gotten himself a little leg, like a pirate. Tocco woke up in the night convinced that he could hear the caulk cracking around the floating vanity and that it was going to crash to the ground. So in the middle of the night he went down to his workshop and cut these legs to keep the thing stable. Then we spent the next few days mulling over a solution (get a new vanity, build a cabinet around it, attach legs - what kind?... )


One huge simple improvement was just getting rid of those bent up plastic tan blinds and replacing them with new white ones. That alone changed the bathroom and the light by about 40%. As for the framed picture, I like to call Tocco "Salty" because he's always coming back from the ocean covered in salt. So when I found this print I bought it for him but really had no idea where to put it. It comes with one called "Slurp" so obviously they're meant for the kitchen, but I think it makes sense here, like washing away the salt. Here I can also mention that instead of replacing the tub we had it refinished and it really is like a new tub in there! Save your money. 



In the before pics, you'll see that the shower has been reconfigured. That half wall on the left used to be a full wall and the shower head was above it, so you'd enter the shower and face left. We wanted to make the bathroom airier and have a lot more light in the shower, so we got rid of that wall, and put in a new rain shower on the back side, so when you get in you wash up facing out and it's really nice to see the window light. Big improvement. It feels like you're more a part of the full space when you're in there and it's less like showering in a dark closet. The shower glass was a fun splurge, custom thick clear glass and the door has a nice weight to it so you feel a "whoosh" when you open it. 


We put shampoo storage boxes in the wall of the shower (and tub) so we didn't have to clutter up the the floor or hang one of those racks from our new shower head. In the future, I'd put another smaller box above or on the other side for a bar of soap, Clarisonic, razor, or whatever little things you keep in the shower besides large bottles.



The other print for the bathroom I've loved and had hanging around for like a year is this one. A handful of surfers just hanging out waiting for their next ride. I like the little colors in this, and how relaxing it is to look at when I brush my teeth. 


So by now we've decided that the solution to the vanity problem will be to create a structure with legs to help support it in case it gets too heavy for the wall. But not those legs that go with the vanity. Tocco built and stained a custom version over the weekend




And I have to say, I like this better than just having it float. It just feels better having it anchored. Any fear of this thing ripping out of the wall has been eliminated. Always good.



Best part: organizing the drawers and products...





Fun stuff. Hope you like it too!








Monday, November 10, 2014

Upstairs Bathroom: Before and in progress...

We have done so much work around the house lately. I keep wanting to update the blog, but then it seems like an ordeal to organize the massive number of photos I've taken (photos on three cameras, and to upload them onto a barely working computer isn't super fun). But finally I'm getting there! Let's start with a reminder today of what the bathroom looked like on the day we toured the house. Pink, wooden, dirty grout and the little teeniest toilet!




Click through for more photos...