Bonus Room | Built in Shelves

FINALLY posting this! :) Better late than never. 

This project, though on the list, kind of came on suddenly in August.

I just HAD to do something about the empty nook, 

and during a "quick" trip to IKEA, 

I had a fateful encounter with the IKEA Kivik Chaise Lounge. 

I couldn't get the lounge out of my mind... 

I obsessively stalked Craigslist for a good deal and got lucky!

I found 2, for $300!!!! 

The covers were not in good shape, so we got 2 new covers in Dansbo White.

IKEA Kivik Chaise - $350

Thus commenced my speedy pursuit for a cozy reading nook!

Cue the husband and his power tools for assembling the shelves. :)

We started by getting some nice pine wood, furniture quality, and 

stained in with watered down paint to give it a white look, 

while still allowing the pretty grain to show through.

I did a 1 part water, 4 parts paint mixture. 

I brushed on the stain in long steady strokes with the grain, 

then wiped it off after a minute.

Pretty much by the time I was done with one, 8 foot, section it was time to start wiping.

Pippa insisted on being in the photos... 

It turned out exactly as I was hoping.  

White, but with the beautiful wood grain still visible.

I love the way the light enters the room.  In the morning (top photo, below) the sun rises directly through the opposite window and you get this beautiful glow.  

Then in the evening (bottom photo) the whole room becomes golden.  

It's now very peaceful and perfect for reading a book, 

doing work at the desk, or practicing some yoga in the middle of the room! :)  

PS- we used the scrap wood from our pergola end cap cuts as the shelf brackets. 

They were the perfect size and shape!

This is the next project nook!  

I will be painting/staining and possibly reupholstering

 the furniture in this corner of the room. 

Here are a few photos from before we painted and decorated.

Taken when house shopping. 

Gluttons for Punishment? No way!

Last weekend we were able to make some good progress on a few projects. 

We finally had some grass growing!!!

It was just brand new baby grass last weekend, but we keep giving it TLC, 

and are very hopeful about having some grass by Summer! :-D

It did rain on Saturday, but the temperature was beautiful

and (in our minds) it was only a light drizzle.

Please note the lovely flooding that occurred:

We like to call it a rain garden.

Plus, the sun came out after we were finished 

and we were able to take a nice stroll around the neighborhood 

with a completely healthy Pippa!

Sunday on the other hand.... was sunny, but COLD!  

I might have been able to take the cold, but not the wind.  

It was too miserable for me to do much outside.  

So instead, we picked up our Pergola frame wood, 

cut our Garden Box pieces, and finished the 

last few touches to the Kitchen China Hutch!

While in the middle of our patio project, a nice neighbor pulled up along us, 

rolled down his window, and told us we "sure are gluttons for punishment!"  haha

Even though it was raining when he said that,

and we were shoveling a cubic yard of gravel into wheel burrow loads 

to spread out as a base to our patio... 

it didn't strike us as punishment at all!

All finished with the gravel.. next up, posts and sand!

Although some of our tasks might be difficult, 

they seem far from punishment! :) 

At the end of the day, our hard work is so rewarding that

 it feels pretty darn good to revel in our progress! 

One day soon, we'll be able to take more weekends off 

and enjoy everything we've been working so hard on! :)

Bi-Polar Snow Day

Today we spent our second snow day in awe at the amount of snow that was still falling on us.

We were acting like we had never seen snow before, and 

Pippa was beyond excited about the prospect of more winter play!

It snowed into the early afternoon and after dropping nearly a foot of snow 

the sun came out and it started to melt! 

We spent our sunny hours getting some more of the quarter round in and finally getting around to organizing the house and taking our "After" photos of the floor in the living room and kitchen.  

The downstairs guest room and dining room are still getting the finishing touches.

  

New Floors: Part 2 - Kitchen/ Living Room

Kitchen After 2.0: Paint and New FloorsLiving Room After 2.0: Floors

Renovations in Review

Since we moved in this past summer, we have been relentlessly making over our new home.

The first few weeks in our home were spent painting everything in sight! We painted walls, trim, wainscoting, cabinets...


Kitchen:

Dining Room:

Living Room:

Master:

Guest Room:

Then we fenced in our yard, planted 13 trees and shrubs, and tilled up most of it to make it level.. now we pray they will stay healthy and grow big!  The next phase of our yard plan is to plant grass this spring, build a patio and pergola, and put in a vegetable garden.

We also managed to painted our bonus room before Thanksgiving and are well on our way to making it a zen mediation/yoga retreat with a small office area. (I wish I had taken the After photos during the day for comparison; the walls are truly more creamy than yellow, but oh well!)  Eventually, we will replace the carpet and get around to organizing the decorations.

Our next big project is installing new laminate hard wood floors on our first level.  We hope to have this finished before New Year's day!  We'll be busy bees over the holidays. :)