Time for a Furniture Refresh?

 It's been a while since I last shared new photos of our Living Room during my "Five Year Refresh Week", but I've seriously been thinking about a furniture refresh ever since when it comes to our couch/sofa situation- and I mean seriously like it's officially scribbled in on my to-do list.

Currently, we have a leather sectional that we purchased in 2008 when we lived in our condo downtown. It actually was the first big furniture purchase we made together (awww!) and it still is a very nice sofa...  but as you may have noticed, that sectional doesn't fit into our living room due to the sofa/chaise positioning and we have been using each section separately.  If we had purchased the sectional with the opposite layout- chaise on the right, sofa part on the left (facing the sectional); it could have worked in our house just fine.  - wa-wa -

Yep.    I know.    It's kinda really janky :(  

Perhaps we had grown "house blind" to how odd it probably looks to everyone else?  Regardless, we've come to the realization that it's time pull the trigger on buying a (real) new sofa! 

I have been digging the look of the Chesterfield style sofas and thankfully, Alex is onboard with this look too... Ahhh, always feels like magic when we just happen to agree on design/style choices!  Really though, there's something nice about that classic tufted look that seems to fit our style...

Images via The Rustic Modernist | The Little Green Notebook | Veranda Interiors | Pinterest | Elle Decor | Pinimg | 47 Park Avenue

I've been doing a lot of online research but I hope to get out and do a little shopping this weekend to see what my options are.  As for our current/old sofa, we will likely list it on Craigslist since we can't fit it anywhere else in the house.  Kind of a bummer but at least we can use that money towards a new one!  Now, I'd love to hear your ideas/suggestions/recommendations since this is a larger purchase, ya'll better give me some tips...

Where would you shop for a new sofa?
Would you buy online without seeing it in person?

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A special thanks goes out to our friend Amber for keeping it real and telling us that our sofa situation is strange :)  we always appreciate your wise insight... and Alex always knows you are right :) you have secret mind powers!

Living Room 'Blah' Update Part Two: Finishing Touches!

Ready for Part Two of this little redo? (click here for Part One)  I know I am!  After adding window treatments and a few finishing touches, our Living Room is sooooo not feeling blah anymore!

 I had to show a comparison to all the other 'befores' of our Living Room.  Alex and I felt kind of proud or a sense of accomplishment when we compared it to how the Living Room looked when we moved in.  Crazy right?!?!

Of course the paint, flooring, and DIY mantel were the BIGGER changes which lead us to here...

But now the room looks totally refreshed and really we only did three things:

1. Added window treatments

2. Changed the color scheme a bit with new decorative pillow covers (DIY ones!)

3. Moved around the furniture

In Part One, I detailed how we made our own DIY curtain rods from wood dowels & brackets and I am happy to now show you the full look!  What do you think?  Looks like..... a curtain rod right?!?   Again, the rod & brackets for the three windows only cost us $33.77!

For the pillow covers, I was loving the new shades of blue Restoration Hardware featured in their Small Spaces catalog... but I certainly wasn't going to pay $49-$59 per pillow cover.  Instead, I popped into Joanne's and found the perfect shades of blue fabric to make some pillow covers the DIY way. 

 I picked up about two yards of fabric, one yard of navy blue and one yard of a light blue. Luckily, the navy color fabric I found was just a remnant and only cost $2.50!  The lighter blue fabric was $6 for the yard. So, although my fabric isn't Belgian Linen, my pillow cover fabric totalled just $8.50! Nice!

I took the fabric home, measured up the pillow inserts for each cover, and starting cutting the fabric.  Then it was time to start sewing! (click here for a tutorial on pillow covers) I made six covers with the two yards of light blue & navy blue fabric along with some faux linen like fabric I had at home (see photo on left- those pillows reverse to the linen-like fabric).

 I know they are just solid colored pillows, but I love how they turned out! The blues added a subtle pop of color our living room desperately needed!

Our last little change was moving around the furniture, specifically our broken up sectional couch.  I think I mentioned sometime before that the configuration our sectional worked in the condo we lived in previously, but sadly not our current home.  So, it's not ideal but still a nice couch and someday we'll get new furniture.  Anyway, we had the chaise on the right side of the room before....

 And swapped it with where we had the love seat part of the sectional.

 Here's another 'before' look to illustrate the furniture move...

 I think this layout looks better and it actually gives us more seating room, bonus! 

 Who knew those simple changes would make such a difference?

I think our Living Room has been cured of the blahs!

So what do you think?

Are you digging the changes?

Living Room 'Blah' Update Part One: Adding Window Treatments

Alex and I had a pretty productive weekend!  Aside from working on my two chair reupholstery projects (mentioned here and here), we got around to another small project we've been thinking about for a while now- the Living Room!  

Our Living Room has had severe case of the blahs lately.  I know that isn't really a scientific word for what bugged me about the room but it just felt really blah whenever I looked at it.  You know what I mean?  Sure, I change up the fireplace mantel seasonally but the room has remained pretty much the same since our big original redo three years ago.... BLAH!

 Alex and I agreed it was time to spruce it up a little bit.  Nothing too crazy or expensive, just a few small updates, one being window treatments... finally!  I admit, we are waaaaay overdue for adding in some nice window treatments.  Anytime I looked at pictures of the Living Room I would think "Ugh, we need window curtains, the room looks unfinished".  So, we finally tackled this long overdue Living Room need and in order to keep the cost down we did it DIY style of course!

Our Living Room has three windows- two smaller ones on each side of the fireplace and one large size at the far end of the room.  We took measurements for curtain rods and needed two 60" long and one 111" long.  When we checked the typical stores for these curtain rods we realized that the rods themselves were going to cost a lot, especially for the 111" long window. Prices for the 111" size ranged $40-$50 and then for the 60" size $25-$30....  $100 bucks just for the curtain rods, barf!

So we came up with our own DIY solution.  Total cost for the curtain rod + brackets for all three windows =  $33.77!!!  About 1/3 of what we would have spent, love it!  Alex's brainy idea was to cut wood dowels from Home Depot to size ($1.29/ft), paint them white, then hang on a bracket ($1.49ea).  Sounded pretty simple to me.
 
For the curtains, all I wanted was something white/ light to brighten up the room against the darker gray paint. I thought about adding a pattern and in the end couldn't commit to one so I went with the solid white Lenda Ikea curtains. They have a nice little striped texture to them and you can't beat that $19.99 price for a set of two panels.  We bought just two sets for a total of $39.99.  Since the two smaller windows didn't have much room on either side to fit a lot of fabric, I figured I could cut a single panel in half down the middle and turn it into two panels.

Aside from turning the two panels into four, I sewed rod pockets on each panel since I didn't like the fabric 'tabs' on the top of the Lenda curtains (see curtain link above, shows the icky 'tabs') and hemmed the bottom of each panel.   Then, Alex and I painted the wood dowels and Alex mounted the brackets.

We plopped the altered Lenda panels on our DIY curtain rods and watched the room begin to transform! I can't show the whole look just yet, the rest of the room is changing up too and I don't want to give it all away.   As for Part One of our Minor Living Room redo- it was just a simple little update and I am glad it came with a simple price tag of $73.76... less than those curtain rods alone.

We'll be finishing it up tonight and taking some 'after' pictures! Can't wait to show you the difference!



Have you changed anything up in your house lately that had a case of the blahs?

Revisiting Our Fireplace DIY Projects: Building a Mantel For Under $100 & Mounting a TV to a Brick Fireplace

  It was brought to my attention a couple weeks ago by one of our readers named Jackie (thanks Jackie!) that our posts on Building a DIY Mantel and Mounting a TV to a Brick Fireplace were leaving out a couple very important details.... like where the heck are all the cords, cable box, DVD player, etc???

REALLY GOOD QUESTIONS!  How the heck did we miss that???

I can only say that back in June of 2010, I was VERY new to blogging and I think I was better at confusing people with my typos and run-on sentences than I was at accurately describing our projects. Yep, even blogging takes a lot of practice! So, I'd like to revisit these projects and shed a little more light on how we got our precious TV working with all the TV accessories/gadgets.  Also, I think this is a challenge for many people that live in older homes. Heck, a 1920's home certainly wasn't designed to accommodate a location for a TV and all the necessary electrical outlets (another big challenge on this project).

Before I start I should give you a better idea of our Living Room layout.  
And just for fun- did you know this is what our Living Room used to look like?

The fireplace is centered between 2 windows on the left and the staircase is to the right.  At the end is a large window and then an archway where this photo is taken from.

With this layout, we were left with no other options for the location of the TV.  It had to go on the fireplace, but that was fine anyway since the fireplace is the focal point of the room. 

Here 's how we mounted our TV to the brick:

We picked up a wall mount at Target for $80 and the mason drill bit at Home Depot for $12. Alex measured out the location for the mount where he would need to drill, and marked each spot. Sadly, I do not have more pictures of this process, this was before our blog existed so I didn't document everything. The only thing I took a picture of was Alex wearing my sassy BCBG shades during the drilling since we didn't have safety goggles on hand :) It was hilarious and I didn't want to forget this moment! 

I bet P. Diddy or Dirty Money or whatever his name is would drill wearing stunna shades too....

Sorry, I couldn't help myself

It took Alex a while and a LOT of pressure to drill as deep as we needed for the wall mount.  BUT... we got the TV up!

 Then it was time to build a mantel so we could help hide all the crazy cords (and decorate it for each season of course)! In between, we also ripped out all the old icky white carpet then sanded and refinished the wood floors underneath... oh and we painted those peach walls gray too!

Back to the mantel... again, this is what the fireplace looked like before (and how crazy messy the house was, ick!).

Here are the DIY steps for building a fireplace mantel:

To start, Alex picked up 1x2's, 1x3's, 1x4's, to create a frame to stick the wood to. Alex used Loctite Power Grab construction grade adhesive to bind the wood to the brick.

Then he added 1x8's and 1x10's of pine as the face of the mantel. Note: pine chosen over plywood because it has a finished grade. He used the same adhesive and 1 and a 1/2 inch wood screws.

We both picked out the trim for the top of the mantel (which was the fun decorative part). Then Alex nailed all of the trim in, taped off the mantel, and then started painting it to match all of our white trim.

Here is the finished product!  Much better right?  So inexpensive too! we didn't tally up the cost for each piece of wood and paint at the time but we know it didn't cost more than $100, might even just be $75?

(photo from our Fall 2011 mantel decor post)

Now, where are all the cords for the TV?  Where's our cable box and DVD player?

Take a closer look at the left side of our mantel, notice anything new?

If you spotted this little notch in our mantel you WIN! Just kidding, but that is our little 'cord' secret.  When Alex built the mantel he carved out 2 notches for the TV cords, one at the top here and one at the bottom where they come out.

Now, this part is hard to explain since I didn't get photos back when Alex was actually working on it (again, pre-blog existence) so bear with me.  The cords come out at the bottom left side of the mantel where Alex drilled a hole into the floor to route the cables into the basement. They travel along the wall and come back up through another hole behind this big Ikea cabinet (I guess they don't sell this exact one anymore? Can't find it online)...

Behind this cabinet is also where the nearest electrical outlet was, so even if we had somehow put the cable box closer to the mantel there still would have been cords to run from the wall.  Inside the big Ikea cabinet on the middle shelf (behind the glass part of the door) is where our cable box & DVD player sit. The whole set up is nothing fancy, and we don't have a lot of other fancy pants TV electronics in there so that helped to make it easier (although I think Alex still wonders how he can get the surround sound to work in our house).

 All in all, it wasn't the easiest thing to figure out when we got the house, but happy it works for us!

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That wraps up how we were able to make a modern TV function in our old 1924 Dutch Colonial with a DIY built mantel and drilling into some brick!

It was kind of fun to take a look back at our house early on.  Reminds me that we have put a lot of work into it to make it special and our own!

If you are curious about the original Living Room posts from June 2010 here are the links. Be warned they are confusing and a bit messy!
Living Room: Before and Afters
Carpet removal, sanding and refinishing wood floors
Building a DIY Mantel for Under $100
Mounting a TV to a Brick Fireplace

Linking this project up!!!!


 

A Bit of Freshening Up in the Living Room

Well, here's to hoping that the 3rd time is the charm when it comes to rugs in our living room.  We haven't had the best luck in the past with rugs (I blame our 2 rambunctious pups).  A couple weeks ago we started noticing that our 2nd rug wasn't looking so hot, and there seemed to be no amount of cleaning that could help it very much.  Sadie then sealed the deal when she got overly excited and piddled all over it.  So, I was on a hunt for rug #3.  At this point I just thought, I need something simple, durable, and lower in cost (in case I was going to throw it away in less than a year). So, I hit up Ikea and picked up the 5'5" x 7'7" Egeby rug for $79.99.  Here is how the living room is looking with it now.

In case you are wondering, this was what the living room looked like with rug #1

Here was rug #2

I'm really happy with the new rug, seems pretty sturdy and I love the natural woven look.

Here is a closer look at the texture and light linen binding around the edges.

Since I was taking pictures in the living room I thought I'd also show this guy again.  I got a lot of awesome comments in the post I wrote about this vintage Military Crate I found in an antique shop.  I even heard from a gal living in Kaiserslautern, Germany with her husband that is in the Air Force.  He said it might be a foot locker that soldiers would store their belongings in before being deployed.  I also got a comment tying in Magnolia, MN!  Isn't the blog community amazing!?!?!

Anyway for now we haven't decided on adding the legs or not, but I put a stack of vintage books on top and I think it is looking very nice in that corner of our living room.

Still not sure what I will store inside, but I am sure I will think of something! Time to go help Alex hang that window, we totally procrastinated this weekend :(

Our First Real Fire In Our Fireplace!

We had a crazy snowstorm last Saturday (which I blogged about here).  I mentioned that we were going to have our first fire in our fireplace (we were really in the Christmas spirit because of the snow). So I had to write about the experience! Again, my fears were the smell, the dogs getting in it, the TV falling off the brick wall, ruining the DIY mantel Alex had built, and of course burning the house down (that didn't happen of course since our little blog is still alive).  Earlier in the day, we grabbed fire wood and Duraflame Firestarters from Home Depot and a new Fireplace Tool Set from Target.

Before Alex and I had our first fire, he did a little online research about using a 90 year old brick and morter fireplace (click here to learn about some neighborhood history) and discovered that the main concern would be airflow up through the chimney (and obviously not burning our house down). 

First, Alex checked out the flue damper control (we shined some light on it). He had to make sure that it was in the open position so that the smoke could exit and create an updraft into the chimney.

Alex then heated the chimney with rolled newspaper to ensure that there was enough of an updraft to pull the smoke out of the chimney once the fire got started.

Once he added the kindling and had a small fire going, Alex used a flashlight to verify that all the smoke was going up and more importantly out.  Thankfully it did, I hate smoke smell!

(My job? I stood by with our fire extinguisher in case of emergency!)

Thankfully, no emergency situation! 

Once the fire got going, it created a warm cozy atmosphere in our house.  We both sat down in front of the fire to take in the warmth and listen to the crackling sound coming from the hearth.  It was a really memorable moment for Alex and I. We had never experienced having a fire in our house, it was amazing, like learning our house could do something we didn't know it could do! Finally, we knew the practical reason why a fireplace was a requirement in our home search.

As we sat by, we thought about what it must have been like in 1924 when the house was new.  Minnesota winters are brutal, I wonder if the Friedson family (the first family that lived here, I wrote about them)  stayed warm right by this fire?

Once we were done sitting by the fire, to make it all more perfect Alex and I turned on 'The Holiday'.  It is our favorite movie for the Christmas season (and no it isn't a chick flick!).  We always find ourselves loving Arthur and getting caught up looking at the details of Iris' English cottage (I would kill for that blue tufted velvet ottoman in her living room).  I love looking at the house details on Hooked on Houses.

It was the perfect cozy night at home!

Living Room Update: Goodbye Storage Ottoman, Hello Antique Trunk to Store Our Junk!

I was just dying to somehow get 'junk in the trunk' in the title of this posting, but then we figured people googling 'Kim Kardashian' might end up at our blog, HA!  So, we found the perfect home for the antique trunk I scored for $39 in Stillwater.  We removed the small storage ottoman from the living room and replaced it with our new old trunk.  It's much cuter and matches all the trim in the room as well as the fireplace mantel.  Not to mention it certainly fills the space better!

Here is the opposite view, I still have our tray on top that we use for food, drinks, and magazines along with a blanket to add some texture.

For kicks I thought it would be fun to post updated living room pictures since we have changed more than the trunk since I took living room pictures (living room redo pictures all shown here).  Here is the 'before' photo from the MLS listing. Beige paint, icky carpet, and dirty fireplace, oh my!

Ahhh, much better, this is how our living room is looking today.

So this was the older living room photo after our redo.  The main changes being the addition of the trunk and removing that rug.  We loved that rug, but Rocco and Sadie started using it as their main play space (since it is hard to get traction on slippery wood floors).  The black and white rug began to get fuzz everywhere, and it became impossible to keep clean.

So, we chose a more natural looking low pile rug (no fuzz)!  Since we seem to be in love with all things natural and linen looking, this rug was perfect for us.  I also like the fact that it is more neutral. All the seasonal decor that will be going up for the holidays won't have to coordinate with a rug, instead the rug will very easily coordinate with all of the holiday decor! (sorry it is dim)

Only a few more weeks until Christmas decor, I can't wait!

Living Room: Mounting a TV to a Brick Fireplace

Since our fireplace was the main focal point of the living room, it made no sense to put our TV anywhere else, it would just make the room unbalanced. So we decided to mount our TV to the fireplace brick.

All you will need is a wall mount for a flat screen TV and a brick drill bit.  We found the mount at Target for $80 and the brick drill bit at Home Depot for $12.  Once it was time for Alex to get drilling, we realized we didn't have any safety googles on hand. So, I grabbed the next best thing... my sassy BCBG shades! 

Doesn't he look fabulous drilling....

The drilling did take a lot of time and pressure, Alex had to throw a lot of weight into the brick to get the drill bit through, but it all worked out!

Sadly, this was all done pre-blog creation, so I missed getting a shot of the mount itself. But, here is a look at the TV after being mounted. (sorry for the blurry picture, this was also before we had a nice camera) 

  *** Update 12.15.2013 ***
I wrote a new post about this project with more details on the electrical and cable cords, check it out here:  /hammersandhighheels/2011/10/revisiting-our-fireplace-diy-projects.html

I thought I should also update this post with a nicer photo!  Here is what the TV looks like mounted today (during Christmas time I should note!).

Living Room: Building a Fireplace Mantel for under $100

There is nothing that adds charm and warmth to a room like a brick fireplace, so how can you make it even better? Adding a mantel! It is easy, and adds more interest to your fireplace, really makes it the focal point of the room. Here is a photo of Alex assessing the situation...

 

To start, get 1x2's, 1x3's, 1x4's, and begin to create a frame to stick the wood to. Alex used Loctite Power Grab construction grade adhesive to bind the wood to the brick.

Then added 1x8's and 1x10's of pine as the face of the mantel. Note: pine chosen over plywood because it has a finished grade. Used the same adhesive and 1 and a 1/2 inch wood screws.

We both picked out the trim for the top of the mantel.  Alex nailed all of the trim in, taped off the mantel, and then started painting it to match all of our white trim.

Wow, our house was so dirty and dusty with all the work going on, yuck! 

Also, glad Alex didn't have a plumber bum issue in this photo :)

Here it is! Our new mantel (with a newer less blurry photo)! It really made our living room more whole! Also, it helped to hide cords from the TV... SUPER BONUS!!! Alex routed the cords under the boards (he made 2 cut outs at top and bottom to route cords in and out of). I also love that I have a mantel for pictures and decor!!!!

Update- 9.30.2011, Upon reading this post and looking at the blurry photos, I think this needs a rewrite and more details, stay tuned!

Living Room: Removing old carpet, sanding and refinishing orginal hardwood floors

Here's a look at the orginal MLS listing photo of the living room.  The carpet wasn't in very good condition and we knew underneath were beautiful hard wood floors waiting to come back to life!

So, the first thing we did was paint the living room. No drop cloths needed since we knew the carpet was next to go!

Then, we got to work on removing the carpet.... Rocco even helped!

Here is a photo is process... to the right what you see IS the hard wood flooring, however during removal we found that it was painted dark brown at somepoint in time. Another fun surprise (sarcasm font). But at least we were going to sand and refinish anyway, just makes the before and after MORE dramatic!

Here is a close up of the dark brown painted floor against our already finished floors by the staircase.

I don't have pictures of Alex in process doing the floors (wa-wa, also this was all done before our blog existed).  But during this time I was out of town for my wedding shower and bacholorette party in Michigan! My hubby is pretty amazing and sweet, I came back home to glorious, shiny, breathtaking, beautiful hardwood floors!

According to Alex, this is a project that took 2 days to sand the floor (both 12 hour days) and 1 day to coat with the polyurethane. Here are Alex's DIY steps after carpet removal (and added quotes from him I enjoyed)...

Alex rented 180lb belt sander from Reddy Rents and took "5 minute belt sanding class".  He purchased plenty of belt sandpaper to remove "deadly 40 year old lead based brown paint".  Then he got to work sanding going length wise along the wood using 32, then 50, then 80, and then 100 grint sand paper going over the floor again and again to eventually to make the wood "smooth like a gymnasium floor". After getting the floor even and smooth, he primed it and removed loose dust with Mineral Spirits and a damp cloth. He did this at least twice to make sure the surface was completely clean and he made sure to open the windows or else he "would have gotten high". 

Next he had to apply the oil based or water based polyurethane (we used oil to match the rest of our flooring). To apply the polyurethane coat, he had to do 3 coats, 4 to 6 hours in between coats, then it had to set for 72 hours before any foot traffic or furniture can be placed.

That's it!!!  Love the new look!

This project cost around $400 for us total. It will totally depend on the size of the room and the cost of water based polyurethane is twice as much per gallon than the oil based. Also, if you do this project on your own, it will likely cost a third or half the price of hiring a professional. It might take a whole weekend, but the floors will look amazing!

The Living Room: Before and Afters

This post will feature only our before and after photos, I will follow up with the 3 other big projects that were included in this room which are:

1- Carpet removal and wood floor sanding and resealing: /hammersandhighheels/2010/06/living-room-removing-old-carpet-sanding.html

2- Building our fireplace mantel: /hammersandhighheels/2010/06/living-room-building-fireplace-mantel.html

3- Mounting a flat screen TV into a brick fireplace: /hammersandhighheels/2010/06/living-room-mounting-tv-to-brick.html

So to start, he is our first 'Before' picture, this was actually that original picture that was in the home's MLS listing. Note the carpet and BEIGE walls... if you look at a lof of our before pictures, the WHOLE HOUSE WAS BEIGE!!! Not even good neutral beige, this was that pinky peachy beige... just bland! Another challenge, since this was the only large common space, we knew we would use it as a TV room, so where would it go? The only logical space was on the fireplace, which created another challenge with the cords, DVD player, sound, cable, and of course our beloved video games (admit it, you still love old school Nintendo, and I kept my collection of Super Nintendo and N64 games!), and this isn't a very big room, so we had to be creative with the space for our furniture and decor. So again, the Before....


And After! We removed the icky carpet and refinished the wood floors (separate blog), mounted TV, and Alex built a new mantel, which is perfect for picture frames! We got a large hutch that stores our TV electronics, the cords run inside our mantel and under the baseboard trim, so we have plenty of room for all our DVD's, games, cable box, DVD player, etc. Such a good purchase, it again is IKEA, don't knock it, you can get good stuff there! It was a pain to put together and weighs probably twice as much as I do, but our living room wouldn't have been workable without it.

Here is another 'Before' picture, this taken from our little sunroom on the other end of the living room. Obviously this was after we moved in and our remodeling chaos had begun, so excuse the mess.

BAM!!! How gorgeous!
And the last 'Before' picture, this is taken from the dining room into the living room. Rocco was investigating some painters tape at the time, he found he LOVED tape during our rennovation process, every room we painted we had to keep him away from the tape or it would disappear!

Tada! So much better! Really is home sweet home now!

PS- we just linked up to the Lettered Cottage's Linky Party! Link Up!