House Progress: Entry & Living Room

Happy New Year! I'm back sharing a few more photos of our house progress. This past weekend my cousin hosted a baby shower for baby girl at our house. She lives a bit further away, so we decided this would be closer for the guests. It was a nice push to put a few more things together around the house...especially since baby is coming in around 8 weeks!

Also, the nesting is definitely kicking in here and there these days, so it was nice to put the energy to good use. We are not doing a nursery for now since we know baby will sleep by us for a long time, so I'm organizing and decorating other areas of the house.

First up was the entry. The entry still needs a rug and lighting, but it's nice to have a mirror up and a little console. This desk was my great grandmothers that she passed to me years ago and was sitting at my dads house. I decide to strip, sand, and paint it for this space.

The little bench was an antique Japanese chair that had an extremely high back. I found it at a thrift store for about $5. We removed the back and covered it in a stripe fabric.

Oh, and if you need lemons, come on by! We have about two buckets worth :)

vase

Here is the before: 

In the living room (which was clean for the shower!), I finally put something up on the walls and got a mirror for over the fireplace. I've collected prints over the years from different antique shops, the Alameda Flea Market, and most recently I shopped Chloe Warner of Redmond Aldrich Design sale where I was able to grab a few more. I also picked up the mirror from her sale. 

vase, bowl, planter, rug

I mentioned this in the last post, but we are still working with all our previous homes furniture other than the coffee table. This window area drives me nuts right now, but it'll get done eventually! And I just noticed our coffee table is too far over, we probably moved it for the shower :) 

I'll continue to share more photos as we make progress. I might take photos of where we are at in the bathrooms, kitchen, and living spaces as well. Although not all shots will be pretty, the blog is a nice place for our family to have a little journal of progress!

House Progress: Living Room

Sources: Rug, Stockings

I'm trying to hold myself accountable to sharing more pics of the house since moving in! Here is a shot of the living room. I wish I would have taken these the day after Thanksgiving when our tree and wreath were still alive...that's the downfall of rushing out to get your Christmas tree, but I love to extend this time of year as long as possible ;)

We haven't done much other than: 

• Paint the walls and fireplace
• Remove the drapery rod
• Change the flooring
• Replace the baseboards
• Replace the outlets (this makes a HUGE difference in a house and I highly recommend)

All the furniture is from our previous place (including throw pillows which we really need to upgrade) in Tiburon other than the coffee table that we found at an antique store in Sebastopol. Chris actually saw it first and I kinda passed it by but I quickly came back around! I love it. 

Sources: Rug, Stockings

Long term would be drapery, new seating, fix the fireplace, and a few other things (the biggest of them being behind this photo is a wall that we will take down opening up to the kitchen). What we have will work for now, we definitely need some art on the walls. And if you're wondering how we keep it white (most people do), we have slipcovered seating, and as far as this rug goes, it definitely gets dirty. Santa is bringing a spot cleaner machine which I'm excited about :)

Here's a quick reminder of where we started: 

It's always amazing what paint can do to a space. I think the fireplace being white opens up this space a ton. Our TV is where the lamp is in this photo if you're wondering where it's hiding.

Here is looking towards the Dining Room which is just to the right of the windows. 

Before shots of that wall and the dining area, shared in this post. 

I'll try and share more again soon. I love having this diary of what we've gotten done over the months. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

House Progress: Dining Room

Sunshine! We haven’t seen you in a while. Love how this room gets the morning light. Also, I know I shared lots of before pics of the house but never any since we’ve moved in. Honestly, we haven’t done too much so there isn’t a ton to share, but I’m going to start posting a few pics of before and after thus far! See this room before below. Nothing new here but paint, floors, and we removed the doors separating this room from the living. All of the furniture, etc. is from our old place. Someday we’ll install lighting so our guests don’t have to eat in the dark ;)

New house: Phase 1 Projects

We are so thrilled (and blessed) to have purchased our first home! Leaving Tiburon will not be easy - we practically wake up in paradise daily - but the idea of setting roots in our own place is very exciting! After months of trying to purchase in another area of the East Bay - we are heading back to our hometown of Walnut Creek, California. This market is crazy and we kept losing out on several offers so we decided to switch up where we were putting our offers in - and it worked. We were both raised in Walnut Creek (met in the halls of intermediate school) and loved growing up in this town. It was a smaller town then -we didn't have a Neiman's - but it's still a very charming place to call home and we are grateful.

Our 1400 square foot ranch style home was built in the 1960's and needs a lot of work. We have so many plans for it- but like everybody- budget constraints will keep us from doing all of our projects at once. Keeping things organized- we have set out a timeline of projects we will conquer and over x amount of time (of course things will get shifted around - new things added - projects removed - but having a plan in place is key).

Thankfully my dad is a contractor (slash- already screening my calls -ha) and is generously offering to give advice and help us on some key projects (thanks Dad! and Sorry in advance!). I'd love to document our process on the blog for a diary of each project along the journey to making this house our home. Plus- I love a good before and after!

I should preface these posts by saying I am by no means an interior designer, a decorator, or an expert in this scope of work - so this should be a very interesting process for you all to judge. My only experience is growing up in a house with a contractor- life experience (constantly decorating on my own- my sister and I use to re-arrange our furniture on a weekly basis)- a few interior design classes- retail gigs in the home furnishing world- and a corporate job at Restoration Hardware where part of my job was helping people reselect items/offer minimal design advice in the Contract Department (Hotels, Restaurants, Office Buildings, etc.). I expect some mistakes to be made (hoping for not many) and lessons learned!

Without further ado... here are some before photos to give you an idea of what we are working with. This house is a big blank canvas (yay!) and my mind is racing with soooo many ideas- but I have to keep organized in this moment and stay focused on only these first phase projects. Unfortunately-  I don't live in Waco, TX - so this is going to take a while :)

Lastly, we have not spent much time in this place/moved in yet so we expect many more tiny projects to make their way into the first phase!







The first photograph is from google maps - and the second is from the listing. They had just put a fresh coat of paint up.

Keeping budget in mind through all of these projects, our only exterior projects in the short term will be to: 

1. Remove the large shrub 

2. Paint the shutters 

3. Paint the door

4. Replace the roof :(

5. Add a few plants/flowers

Next up is what I'm calling the family room or "fireplace room". You walk through the entry and immediately to your right is the kitchen- but if you walk forward and to the right you end up in this room:

Phase 1 of this room will be to: 

1. Tear out the carpet and reveal the hardwood below (fingers crossed it's salvageable- we will know soon) 

2. Paint the walls and baseboards

3. Paint the fireplace and sand down the mantle/stain to lighter

4. Remove double doors

5. Remove shutters (far right second photo)

6. Remove drapery rods

Walking through the double doors- you end up in what I'm calling the "dining room" for now. 

Phase 1 of this room:

1. Paint the walls
2. Paint the ceiling/kitchen ceiling
3. Remove the double doors
4. This floor does NOT have hardwood underneath so we will be tackling this project on our own with guidance from my dad. This will be a very inexpensive option as Phase 2 of this room will be that the wall separating the family room to the kitchen will be torn out.
5. Lighting swapped out with something inexpensive (temporarily) until we gut the kitchen
6. Remove the rod

Next up is the kitchen: 

Phase 1: 

1. Paint the ceiling

2. Paint the cabinets

3. Paint the tiny pantry closet

4. Paint the small area of baseboards by door

That's all for the immediate moment on the kitchen because it will be eventually gutted. Knowing myself - I'l wake up one day and start DIY-ing the ish out of this room despite it's eventual demise. 

Bedrooms are next. They all look about the same other than the closets. This is the Master. Through the left door is a small walk in and the right door is the Master Bath. 

Phase 1: 

1. Paint the doors/casings and baseboards - keeping this wall color for now 

2. Tear up the carpet and refinish hardwood floors 

The Master Bath. Across from the vanity is a tiny shower and to the left of that is a tiny linen closet.

This entire bath has to be gutted next year so anything we do is just to freshen it up in the meantime: 

Phase 1: 

1. Remove wallpaper

2. Remove Medicine Cabinet and towel holder

3. Paint Walls

4. Paint Vanity 

The Hallway bath has to be gutted as well: 

1. Remove towel bars

2. Paint walls

3. Paint vanity 

Again-  this entire bath will be gutted next year so we will not do much other than paint.

The backyard: 

The best part of the place is the large flat backyard. We looked at a lot of places with minimal yard so we are stoked to have this much space. We think of something new every single day for this yard! We have very big plans - but for now - nothing is happening here for a long time. We will do some very small inexpensive things but these aren't even built into phase 1 projects yet.

The other very unsexy phases of this project that you can't see but have to be done: 

Phase 1: 

1. Roof replacement (you can see it but it's not sexy)

2. Drainage

3. Small foundation work

Phase 2: 

4. Plumbing

5. Duct Work

We have our work cut out for us! Excited - scared - and overwhelmed all at once but looking forward to moving forward. Will check back in as we complete some of these smaller projects. 

We move in at the end of the month... wish us luck!