Before & After: Garage Closets...

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm just slightly obsessive compulsive. SLIGHTLY. Fortunately my OCD has rubbed off a bit on Mr. P who is the self-proclaimed Master of the Garage. So today's mission: garage organization!

We're fortunate to have two massive cedar closets in the garage. I think you're supposed to put your mink coats in there but since I have no mink coats we use it for other things. Mr. P (a.k.a. Huggy Bear) chooses to keep his minks elsewhere:



Anyhoodles, some $30 plastic shelves from Menards (the best home improvement store ever...you can get a socket wrench and Cookie Crisp and Sham-Wow all at the same place) and we've transformed the closets from this:





To this:





Hey! That's where the Christmas tree stand went! I was looking for that!

Before & After: The Kitchen

We'd already completed round one of the kitchen remodel, peeling off wallpaper and repainting. But it wasn't quite right. The ugly faux-wood laminate floors were making me crazy and the color I'd chosen for the kitchen walls - though pretty - was a bit bland for the space. And I am, afterall, one spicey Latina...bland just won't cut it.

This is what it looked like when we FIRST moved in:



HOT. MESS.

This is what it looked like a month later:



Cute, cute...but not quite right.

And this is what it looks like now:





Ay chihuahua! That's one eh-spicey kitchen, no?

I'll tell you all about the new floors in the next post. In the meantime, gaze upon my neon blue walls (the color is called Mermaid Treasure...) and love them.

Before & After: The Dining Room...

OMG guys! We scored big time! Mr. P and I had been on the hunt for dining chairs. For weeks we searched high and low but just couldn't find something we could both agree on. Mr. P wanted comfortable leather. I wanted something modern and clean. Design Assistant Magnus wanted something made out of rawhide and pigs' ears. (he's so "out of the box," you know?)

The few chairs we did like were way out of our price range. (oh how I long to be in a position to spend $600 on EACH chair...but we needed six of them...and we also need to pay our mortgage and eat on occassion - this body doesn't just happen on its' own, you know? it requires a lot of attention...and bacon.)

I had just about given up when Mr. P, ever the crafty bargain hunter, emailed me a link to a Craigslist posting. Six brand new Pottery Barn chairs for the low low price of $350. For all six! I cannot make this stuff up! We drove to the sellers' home, hopes high but still feeling the sting of a recent Craigslist buy gone wrong. (in the immortal words of George W. Bush, "fool me once...shame...on you. [long awkward pause] If you fool me you can't get fooled again.")

But look! They're fantastic! And they work perfectly in our room! First let's remember what this room used to look like:



Sweet lord...I'm having chest pain just remembering it. Deep breaths...here's what it looks like now:





Dinner is served!

Before & After: The Hallway

We are equal opportunity house lovers - each tiny crevice in our home gets the royal treatment. Well except for the master bathroom which currently looks like the loo in some sort of horrible P.O.W. camp. We'll get to it one day but until then I'll just have to dream of my Kohler BubbleMassage tub. But as Mr. P is constantly reminding me, we must first finish tackling other less glamorous projects.

Did I mention that the Kohler BubbleMassage tub has 120 airjets and a variable speed-blower? I don't even know what a variable speed-blower is but I know that I want it.

FOCUS, MRS. P. Where were we?

Right. Less glamour. Hallways.

One main hallway connects all three bedrooms and the guest bathroom to the living room. And when we moved in, the master bathroom could be accessed through the bedroom and through the hallway. The previous owner had used that bath as another guest bathroom. As for Mr. P and I? Well we decided that we didn't want to share that bathroom. It's not that we're selfish - no. It's just that we have a lot of crap, have complex and off-putting grooming rituals, and, well shed a lot. There, I said it. I shed a lot. I hope you're happy now.

Long story short, I don't want to have to clean up every time someone sets foot in my house. And I don't like the idea of the A/C repairman having access to my make-up or seeing my collection of mini-shampoo bottles stolen from hotels. (I know, I know - don't do the crime if you can't do the time.) It's just creepy, okay?

Anywho all of that is a long way of saying that we decided to seal the door. And by "we" I mean Mr. P with a lot of moral support from me. Here's the before:



It's like the pathway to Blah-ville, no? Well here's the after:



The paintings are from a fabulous Brooklyn-based artist named Steve Keene who was introduced to us by our fabulous friends in LA. (shout-out to Sharon and Jeff!) Steve's philosophy is that art should be like CDs - anyone should be able to afford it and you should be able to change it out as often as you want to. When you visit his web site (http://www.stevekeene.com/) you can choose between two sizes and then Steve will mail you whatever he happens to be working on that day. That's it. You don't get to pick. You don't get to dictate subjects or colors or materials...it's basically a control freak's worst nightmare.

But grouped together like this:



It adds the perfect pop of color to an otherwise dreary hallway!

I would venture a guess that it'd also "go" well with a Kohler BubbleMassage Tub. Because really everything looks good surrounded by 120 airjets. EVERYTHING. Sigh...if only Kohler believed BubbleMassage tubs should be like CDs. Life is so cruel.

Before & After: The Fireplace

Sometimes less is best.

Sometimes. Not always. Definitely not when it comes to chocolate, sequins, James Bond movie marathons or DSW. I could go on but you get the point.

Less IS best when it comes to mismatched fireplace design.

Behold our fireplace. A too-small colonial-style mantle with a modern stone face, a cheaply made built-in unit on one side and beige carpet.



Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

We struggled over how to fix the mantle. Replace it with some reclaimed lumber? Build a box over it? Paint it black? Ignore it and pretend it's not there? Tempting. In the end we decided to simply remove it all together. We hung our favorite painting over it the fireplace, added some accessories and cleaned the dang thing out (note to homeowners: a little shoveling of the ashes and some Windex go a long way). Paired with our new wood floors and kick-butt furniture layout and voila:



Now THAT'S a fireplace!

Before & After...again: Master Bedroom

I can admit when I'm wrong. Sometimes. Or I can at least admit when there's a better way to skin a cat. (What a gross phrase, huh? Some masochistic pre-serial killer probably came up with it right before hacking the heads off his sister's Barbie dolls and setting them on fire.)

But I digress.

Mom poo-pooed my Target sheets and make-shift master bedroom design. And so we hit the mall, the fabric store and our friendly neighborhood Thrift World in search of a way to make it better.

Let's revisit. Here's what the room looked like when we first spent the night in it.



Quaint, no? Sort of East LA chic.

Well we made it better with furniture and a bed and paint. (yay paint!)



But let's face it. This hodge-podge of mismatched furniture was sort of funky and cute, but it was a small step up from a dorm room. We could do better! We could have - gasp! dare we dream? - a headboard! And matching sheets that didn't come from Target! (not that I'm knocking Target...I love me some Target...some of my finest ensembles were created at Target)

BUT (and there's always a but) we still had to stay within our budget which is, ahem, tiny. Hence our visit to Thrift World where we found a headboard for - WAIT FOR IT - 98 cents. No, I'm not kidding - look at the receipt:



Add $28 to rent a U-Haul truck to get it home...



...and we've got ourselves a good starting point. Next we hit Dillard's for a super linen sale. And then it was on to Hancock Fabrics to find some coordinating fabrics for a bedskirt, throw pillow and headboard. We hit the jackpot!

Now to reupholster - there were two layers of fabric, each lovelier than the next:





I was tempted to keep this one but stained pastel paisley is SO last season.

Big thanks to Mom the Sewing Queen and Design Assistant Magnus for "testing" out all the fabrics for chew-resistance and softness against his nether regions. A little elbow grease and good sense and we're left with this:





I can't wait to sleep in it tonight! And Design Assistant Magnus and his nether regions are just going to have to find another place to park themselves.

Before & After: Guest Room #2

Things I love about my mother:

1. Her unconditional love no matter how crazy I try to drive her. And believe me when I say I try HARD.
2. Her quirky sense of humor.
3. Her cooking skills and patience with my lack thereof.

But possibly one of the most admirable things about the woman who gave me life is her ability to sew a bed skirt in under 15 minutes. Her proverbial kick in the pants got us feeling quite rejuvinated about home improvement. And together we decided to tackle the second guest room.

Let's take a trip down memory lane and see what it used to look like, shall we?



One word: Meh. Nothing great and nothing horrific about it. Sort of vanilla. No wait, I take it back...I love vanilla. This is more like...well like a plain rice cake. Nothing great, nothing stomach-turning.

The inspiration for the room? Mr. P's passion for surfing. As you may imagine there isn't a TON of surfing in Omaha. (shock! dismay!) So we decided to surprise him with a fun room that pays homage to his passion and makes our guests feel totally radical dude.

Voila:



If I may take a moment to toot my own thrifty horn, notice the black lamp on the nightstand. Here's what it used to look like:



$2 at a yard sale. $4 can of glossy black spray paint. Shade recycled from another lamp we had.

Toot, toot! Okay, now back to the room:







Design Assistant Magnus has never seen the ocean but he's pretty sure he would really like surfing and therefore approves of the room:



Surfs up!

Changing a light fixture...

Last week Mr. P and I decided it was time to add some pizzazz to our dining room which is still chairless. (sigh...) We decided that a new chandelier would be just what the doctor ordered. Perhaps you'll remember what the old one looked like:



Not bad, right? Just not as eye-catching as we wanted it to be. We picked out a new fixture and Mr. P decided to hang it himself. Only we decided to do this at 10pm...and we had to cut the lights for safety. So at about 11pm this is how things were going at our place:



Not good. But then we discovered the GENIUSES at DoItYourself.com and from then on it was smooth (-ish) sailing! Check it out!





P.S. Mr. P insists on putting Design Assistant Magnus' squeaky cheeseburger on my gorgeous palm-leaf platter. Why must he torment me?

More landscaping updates...

We removed ONE MORE unecessary shrub as recommended by the brilliant amateur landscape artist Blake.

Check out the difference! Here's the before one more time:



And here's the after:

Before & After: Half-bath remodel...

The 12-Step Program Bathroom Remodel.

Step 1:
Well it certainly has potential! Hunter green checkered wallpaper really isn't THAT bad. Isn't wallpaper back in style? No? Well no matter. We're going to spruce it up and it's going to be great! Yikes...I think this wallpaper is making me dizzy. Does anyone have a paper bag?



Step 2:
Nobody panic - look how easily this wallpaper is coming off! HOORAY! We're saved!



Step 3:
WHY GOD, WHY?!? We spoke too soon. A rotting wall hidden by the wallpaper. And come to think of it, I hate this sink. Breathe...just breathe - in through the nose, out through the mouth. We'll just replace the rotted wall. Yeah, that's what we'll do. It'll be great!



Step 4:
@%%@$!&%!!!!!!!!!! DAMN YOU WALL! Okay, come on man - get it together. You can do this. Where's that Home Depot book? Ah, here it is. "Chapter 12: Drywall." Um...hmm...yeah, not really helping. Time to call Dad.



Step 5:
Whew! Okay, that was dicey but with Dad's help we got the wall out. Now for a little plaster over the mildew-resistant drywall and voila! See? I'm all OVER this! I rock!



Step 6:
"Hey, Mr. P? Where'd you put the sink and toilet? Ah, I see...well we do like to leave a lasting impression on the neighbors."



Step 7:
Yikes. Even Design Assistant Magnus is embarrassed.



Step 8:
Out with the old light fixture...



Step 9:
And in with the new.



Step 10:
Now it's time for a little paint! Think Mr. P will notice it's lavender? [fast forward 15 minutes...] Mr. P: "Hey, is this PURPLE?"



Step 11:
New sink, toilet and hardware make all the difference!



Step 12:
Add a few accessories, replace the baseboard and voila!



We have lift-off! (Whew! SO much better than the "Port-A-Potty of Last Resort")