Taking It Easy For Easter (Kinda)

It's Easter weekend! Memories of running outside in colorful dresses, hyped up on candy and chocolate have come flooding back. We kind of did the same thing today by going for a hike in the woods after a very carb-loaded breakfast of waffles and muffins (some things just will never change). And of course, we squeezed in a few projects because we apparently can't stop.

All week after work I spent time prepping some wood to make shutters for our bedroom. We have two small windows in that space that just needed a little something, and they're too small for drapes, so I came up with the idea of making shutters for them. They were pretty easy, just tedious and time consuming because I wanted them to have a distressed finish. They required some sanding, beating up, staining and chalk painting. I'll go into more detail in another post, but here's a quick (and poor quality) photo I snapped while Josh held them up to make sure they worked. I kind of adore them.

I've also been working on getting our dining room in order and getting some of the little details finalized. I've been picking out some photos on Etsy, but had a hard time finding frames that I liked. As per usual, I had a picture in my head, and no stores sold it. So, I made it. I bought an unfinished frame at Michaels, and spent the week staining, painting and distressing it. I also bought a burlap matboard, and was thrilled with how the whole thing came out. I'll probably be repeating the process for a few other picture frames in the space. 

As for Josh, he's been working on prepping our bedroom entrance to the bathroom. It's all we can really do right now while we wait for our flooring to come back in stock. It's not very exciting, but it is hard work. I'm happy he's doing it, and I'm on the couch right now eating a rice krispie treat.

Speaking of rice krispie treats, all of that said, it's been a very relaxing Easter weekend filled with lots of yummy treats. I hope you all had the same kind of weekend, and here are a few moments from ours:

Half-Done Bedroom & Dining Room

While Josh has been working so hard on finishing our master bedroom, I started to re-do our dining room. It began with an innocent "Oh, I'll just do a few small things to spruce it up a little" and it'll be ending with a pretty decent makeover because one thing lead to another, which lead to everything else changing.

Let's start with the bedroom.

So far, Josh has removed all the vinyl wall paneling, jointed all the drywall, knocked down the wall that created an entrance to our master bath, installed the new window trim and put up the new ceiling.

Here are some photos of its current status:

New bedroom ceiling and window trim.

Wall down for our bathroom entrance.

We're hoping the floors come within the next two weeks, but they're currently on backorder (boo!), so we might be in a holding pattern until then. Sad face. But, until then, we have some time to go door shopping so we can cover up this big hole and, like, shower with a little bit of privacy (it's been an interesting week since this wall has come down). We'll be installing a sliding door with a rail system, and I'm kind of way too excited about it.

Our dining room is also coming along. This weekend, we got the chandelier of my dreams up (like, I've literally been dreaming about it for longer than I'd care to admit). We need to swap out a chain piece after the bronze spray paint on it has dried (currently, we have a very stylish neon orange one in its place). But, she's sooooo preeeeetty.

New dining room chandelier. Twisting on all those crystals legit took up an entire Friday night. Totally worth it.

We also ordered two of our new dining chairs, which will be arriving this week sometime. We decided to go with two formal upholstered chairs for the heads of the table, and then go for unfinished chairs, painting/distressing them different in colors for the remaining seats. A few weeks ago, I was able to paint the walls, and this weekend I finished painting the ceiling. I also started to re-do the huge windows in that space by ripping out the old oak trim and framing pieces, and distressing/staining new ones to install this week. Future plans for this room also include mounting a chalkboard to the side wall where the thermostat is, as well as building some really lovely open shelving to display photos and dishware. I feel like I'm already in over my head, but it's honestly so worth it since this is probably my favorite room in the house. I've been itching to take on these projects since moving-in day, so bring it on, dining room. Bring.It.On.

Filling Our Bedroom With Animals

This week, Josh has been busy prepping our bedroom walls so they would be ready for paint this weekend. So I had some rare free time to plan projects rather than actually doing any projects. So, I started to map out our bedroom wall collages.

It's no secret that Josh and I love animals. Seeing them makes us happy, so we decided to hang up photos in our bedroom, and bedroom hallway, of some cute little faces to greet us every day. Most of our own photos - family, wedding, and travel photos - will hang in our downstairs hallway and living spaces. So these animal photos, well - they're just for us :)

I've been bookmarking photos of animals on Etsy for years, and now that our hallways is pretty much done, I'm in the process of laying out which prints to buy and how we're hanging them. While narrowing everything down, and getting Josh's opinion (he likes the squirrel photos the best, by the way), I also found some really lovely photos of one of our favorite places on the Cape, and a cute little saying. Here's some inspiration and what our wall may look like soon:

Photos top to bottom, left to right: Boardwalk, Fox, Squirrel, You're My Lobster, Deer, Deer, Owl, Deer

I mean, how cute is the little owl? And the little squirrel? I can't take it.

This weekend I was able to finish painting the walls of our bedroom (yay!), and next weekend, Josh is starting our plank ceiling. We still have so much work to do in that space that it's a little overwhelming. But, the thought of being able to sleep in our actual bedroom in (hopefully!) a month is some seriously good music to my ears right now.

Current bedroom status.

The Door Knob That Will Always Make Me Happy

I've been spending my week giving new life to an old door that we found in our house. I don't know exactly how old it is (it could only be like, 10 years old for all I know), but it was in rough shape and needed some love. The doorway leading from our bedroom hallway to our actual bedroom was, umm, not good. It was pretty basic, and even a fresh coat of paint wouldn't do much to give it a face lift. But, the paneling on the door we found - perfect!

I started by sanding the crap out of this bad boy, and spackling a few imperfections. It had some pretty thick layers of old paint, old spackle jobs that weren't smooth and a few cracks that needed some patching. I left a lot of the deeper dings and knicks to keep its character, though - wear your age proudly, ladies! Once it was sanded, I started to paint it the same color as our trim (Benjamin Moore White Dove) and, as per usual, it was an instant improvement. Especially because the door was like, three colors when we found it.

But, my friends, the most exciting part was the hardware. We replaced the old brass hinges with bronze ones, and ... drum roll please, got a fancy pants door knob.

When I think door knobs (something I never thought I'd say), I immediately think Alice in Wonderland (as with most things in my life). Like, I can't have a door knob unless it has some resemblance to this guy:

Photo courtesy of Disney Wiki

Thank the lord that Josh accepts this about me, and let me get whatever door knob I needed in my life, which brings me to this:

Before & After

Before & After

It doesn't have a face and it doesn't talk, but it sure is pretty.

But, in all seriousness, I do love it. I initially thought I wanted a crystal knob, but Josh was leaning toward the porcelain, which ended up being the right call (go, Joshy!). I love how the white porcelain ties into the trim and door color, and the bronze adds a lovely visual interest, and also ties in with all our fixtures. So now, I, of course, need these knobs in all the upstairs bedroom doorways.

We purchased this knob on GoingKnobs.com. It's from Nostalgic Warehouse.