To Paint or Not to Paint....

Ahhhh....I love home projects.  They keep me up into all hours of the night scouring the internet for ideas and inspiration.  Hubs and I have decided to finish our basement. After toiling for the past two years over whether or not to do it, we've decided to bite the bullet. 

We made the decision based off of a few things. One, we knew we wanted to finish it before we sell because houses in our area sell so so much better with finished basements.  And if we're going to do that I want to enjoy it for the next few years while we're still here!  Two, I feel like we will be able to get a good price with the economy the way it is now, and I am happy to give someone a job for a couple weeks. Third, the hubby needs a man cave.  I can only take so much ESPN.

So, within the next couple of months we hope to get this project going. We have went back and forth over doing some of it ourselves.  I still think we will do some of it, but, mostly we will have professionals do the job.  I don't want it to become a 3 year project. However, that doesn't mean we won't try to cut costs in some areas.

One of the ways we were thinking about cutting costs was to paint the basement ceiling as opposed to dry-walling or drop ceiling it.  Here are some inspiration pics.  I don't know where I got these, so sorry for the lack of credit.

I like the more industrial look.  I think after all is said and done, it is still a basement.  It will also save us a TON of money.  Our basement is close to 1500 sq ft.  So to ceiling all of that....well....we're waiting on the estimate, but it's a lot.

Has anyone ever done this or know someone who has? I think the biggest drawback is going to be the noise between the two floors.  But, I'm not sure how bad it would be. This is one of the first decisions we have to make because it is the very first thing you do.

Ahhhh!!! Decisions!!!

A Decorating Dilemma

Yesterday I found this really fun blog called Serenity Now.  Right now she is hosting a Decorating Dilemma's party.  Basically you post pictures of problem areas in your house that you would like some decorating advice on. What a great idea!  

So, the part of my house that I struggle with is my kitchen.  Here's a couple of picture of what it looks like right now.  

I love how open it is because my house is not the biggest.  I feel like if it were more closed off, it would just block things in. I also like the white dishes...because...well that's what I have :) I don't really feel like buying new dishes, but I also kind of like the continuity of the white. However, it just seems kind of dull.  

Do you think I should put some stuff on top of the cabinet? I know there are some glass serving things up there now.  I don't really like that.  I feel like I either need more stuff...or less. Ahhh...these are the things that keep me up at night ;)

Also..what about this thing?

Do you think it would look better with bead board instead of frosted glass? It's not like what's inside is pretty or anything...

Anyway, I am open to any and all suggestions!  You won't hurt my feelings if you say change a lot!! Thanks in advance for the advice!

Too see more decorating dilemmas check out Serenity Now!!

Also! Friday I am having a giveaway in honor of my 100th post!  Please come back to enter!!!! Hint...you'll be the cutest greenest shopper at the grocery store :)

Have a great day!!

Projects of 2009 Party

Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality did the most wonderful post about the projects she did around her house in 2009.  She had 10 to post, however, she probably could have done 50.  So ambitious and creative! While I don't have that many, I thought I'd share what we did do.  

1.  Master Bedroom

This is a room that we actually just finished and I haven't done a post about yet.  I think I may do a separate post in a couple days showing more of what we did.  I don't have any before pictures but you can see the color of the walls in this picture from when we were redoing the master bath.

Before Color:

After:

Like I said, check back in a week or so to see more pics of all the projects we did. I'm going to do a bit about repainting laminate furniture. For a little run-down though we painted, made a headboard, added new bedding, bought a new dresser, added a new picture from the Ann Arbor Art Fair, added window treatments, and redid some end tables.

2.  Headboard

Here is a pick of the headboard that we made out of a door for the Master Bedroom.  We didn't have one before.  I really like the headboard because it's attached to the wall and my favorite...it only cost $22!

3.  Guest Bath

You can see the official post that I did about it here, but this will give you an idea of what happened in this room.

Before:

As you can see, there were wood floors in the bathroom....Who knows. 

After:

We replaced the wood floor with a dark slate tile, that you can see in the link above.  We also framed the mirrors out in white, painted the walls grey, and added some accessories.  The candle sticks are gone now and have a new home in our bedroom :)

4.  Powder Room

This is one of the rooms I don't have a before picture for.  It used to be a very deep red.  There was also no mirror on the wall and no blinds.  

After:

Obviously, this still has some left over Christmas decorations :) However, we painted, added a mirror, wood blinds, and did a wall of fabric panels.

5.  Spice/Paper Closets

Oddly enough, this is probably one of my favorite things I did this year. Moving the spices freed up so much much space in my kitchen cabinets. I love the paper door too because now I don't have so much floating around the rest of the house.  I painted each door panel with many coats of magnetic paint and put the spices in magnetic jars.  Voila!

6.  Kitchen Sink

Again...no before picture.  It used to be a stainless sink that was VERY shallow and had a standard faucet.  I'm so glad we replaced this so I don't give myself a shower every time I wash something other than a fork!

7.  China Cabinet

As for the common theme, there is also no before pictures of this.  I would kill for some though, because this was honestly so much work!  It used to be a light (ugly) brown that was really dull and bland.  The panels on the front were more than not fun to paint :)  I also added some new pulls to the doors.  

8.  Master Bath

This is another re-do that some of you may have seen before here.  These are some peeks of what we did:

Before:

The wall color was a burnt orange, there were molding wood floors (gross!), and again just pull-down blinds.

After:

We painted the walls a very light blue, changed to small octagonal tiles, added wood blinds, and accessories.

9.  I'm tired.

10.  I'm going to take a nap.

Now go check out some more projects at Rhoda's blog here!!

Have a great day!!

Spring Decorating

So I finally got inspired to do some Spring decorating! We have only lived in our house for a year and last year I hardly got a chance to unpack before Spring was over. Here's what I did:

First up on our tour (I'm a dork), is my wreath that I made last year.  I kind of became obsessed with making wreaths.  It's actually really easy and fun!

Ummm...yeah another wreath.

I found this little tiered serving thing at a craft show.  This woman and her mom find antique and retro plates and make them into serving pieces. It's called "Tiers to You". How cute is that?  I really love their stuff!

Here's where I had a lot of winter stuff that finally came down.

Last, here is half my kitchen.  I want to do something here but I'm not sure what.  Any suggestions?

Happy Spring,