Basement Reno Part II, III, IV, Eternity….

The title of my post is exactly how I feel. My Husband and I started this project in early January and I am happy to say as of April 5th we have finished! AMEN to that! It feels like an eternity ago that we started. There were lots of up and downs but the room survived, our marriage survived, and I’m happy to have our finished product.

Below are the photos I took throughout the past 3 months. We have moved furniture in but I still have small things to do with the room to make it nice a cozy before I post our FINAL Photos!

Enjoy our handy work!

Basement prior to Reno. UG-LY

Ceiling Tear down

Drywall UP

Ceiling painted along with two brick tiled walls. We did keep one wall Original.

Yellow On.

Laminate Flooring Down.

Trim up and baseboards in with wood filler

Trim and baseboards sanded, Caulked along top near ceiling, and Painted

Goodness. I’m tired just looking back at it all.

Basement Reno Part I

The Green Pinky Series: Starting Seeds Indoors

 

Hi friends! Today I wanted to share with you some tips for starting your own garden seeds indoor. Growing up I lived in a suburban neighborhood in a home with a lavish flower garden on every side of the house. The last thing I wanted to do was to help my mother water the flowers. It wasn’t until high school when I took a plant science class that my love for horticulture started. The idea that I could put a seed into the soil, water it, give it some fertilizer, and magically see it grow over the next few months caught my heart and I’ve loved it ever since.

“The Green Pinky” is a play on words. Everyone that knows someone who can keep plants alive will usually refer to said person as having, “A Green Thumb”. But here is a secret… a  gardeners secret. We’ve killed plants… sometimes we continue to kill plants even after years of experience. That’s how gardeners learn the art. You could do everything right, and then a pest takes over the entire crop. So then next year, you spray for the pest or use other non-chemical methods to make sure that pest doesn’t take over this years crop. You make mental notes or write down what worked and what didn’t. Everyone’s growing environments are completely different and no one starts out as a master gardener.

If you aren’t a green thumb yet, no worries! It takes time and practice… and of course remembering to water your gardens.

5 Minute: White Chocolate Oatmeal Craisin Cookies

Basement Reno: Part One

Welcome to the dungeon. It’s dark, smells, and I’m fairly sure there are creatures living in this room of our house. The photo below are from 2012 when we first moved into the house. The space has a few things going for it, if you can get past the ugly look of it.

1. It’s a very large rectangular space!
2. There are cedar built in closets on one end of the room that currently house my out of season clothing and holiday decorations.
3. It’s an EXTRA finished room that we can utilize. Our house is a 3 bedroom ranch, G takes up the smaller room of the three as an office so really lets say a 2 bed ranch.

We knew when we bought the house that the basement would be a great space to re-finish. It could be an additional space for guest, an extra lounge area, or a play room for future kids.

This 70’s look will just not do though so we rolled up our sleeves 3 weeks ago and started to demo the room.

Here are a few clearer photos of what we have to work with here.

• Brick Décor walls
• Dingy Ceiling Tiles from 1970 – the previous owner cut some holes in them
• Scuffed Cement Floors
• Green Windows
• Florescent lights that you have to flick on and off about 5 times before they actually kick on.

Here’s our plan:

1. Tear down tiled ceiling and replace with drywall and paint white
2. Replace lighting fixtures
3. Replace two prong outlets with three prong
4. Paint 3 out of 4 walls (Leave the better of the 4 walls with the brick to incorporate some uniqueness to to space)
5. Paint Closet Doors and Drawers White and replace hardware
6. Paint and replace Ceiling Trim
7. Paint green window white
8. Lay down wall to wall wood flooring
9. Put up a half divider wall to separate the space
10. Paint oak furniture currently in space to up date them 

So far we have completed numbers 1,2, & 3. No small task!

Do you guys like the couch that is in the top let corned of the photo above. We spent 2 hours getting that piece of crap out of the basement. The previous owners left it, how kind of them to do so. We later realized they left it because it LITERALLY didn’t fit through the door. We had to smash it, stomp on it, and cut it with a saws-all. So glad its gone!

Now here are the photos of the current state of our basement ceiling.

Here are some thoughts so far into the project.

We have never put up drywall, it’s not the easiest to work with, and it’s super heavy. There is NO WAY we could’ve done this project without a drywall lift.

Going into this project my husband and I agreed that this was NOT a project that we would kill ourselves trying to complete in a few weeks. We agreed to take it slow and get what we could get done each weekend without the added stress.

Putting up drywall is not the hardest part… spackling the seams is. It has taken 4 coats of spackle to get the ceiling to where it needs to be. You can not rush the process and if you do you will be unhappy because you will be able to see all the seams through the paint.

I’m not a professional. It’s NOT going to look perfect and that’s okay because we saved a heck of a lot of money not hiring a professional.

This weekend we are moving onto PAINTING! I know some of you hate painting and you would be right there along side my husband in that hatred but I love it. I get quick gratification of turning something ugly into something beautiful in the matter of hours. Paint can do that. It can completely transform a space or old dresser with just a little time and patience.

Have you taken on a project this large or would you rather pay someone to do it?

Country Kitchen

Welcome to my kitchen! It’s taken two and a half years but I finally have the kitchen that I’ve always wanted. A quaint county kitchen with a hint of charm.

When we first moved to this house we did not have a kitchen that was anywhere near what I had envisioned. It was straight out of 1970. The cabinets were a laminate cream color with faux wood trim, the counter was a mustard yellow, there was old tile backsplash behind the range, and the hardware was old and tarnished.  

   

Right away we took care of the counter by purchasing a Rustoleum Kit. You can see that project here. I get that a lot of people are into retro but I got some negative comments in the past for covering up the yellow and here is all I’m going to say. This is my kitchen, not yours, I bought it, and that’s that.

After we covered the counter I decided to remove the cabinet closers above the regular kitchen cabinets. Opening them up and added corky wine bottles with some other touches added some nice touches to the area.

Last winter I decided to paint and get new hardware for the kitchen. The bottom cabinets kept a pull while the top cabinets were replaced with a knob by filling the holes with wood filler. In order to complete this project without losing my mind, I did a quarter of the kitchen at a time. It took about 2 weeks overall.

I also decided to cover up the old tile with tin tiles. It was easily done by placing it with double sided tape over the old tile. I spent the extra money on tin trim to make sure it doesn’t look half done.

The final two touches came this weekend when I decided to get rid of the curtains that came with the house and replace them with fabric roman shades I made myself. I also have been dreaming about a butcher block to add to the space for over a year and found this one at Ikea.The kicker was I had to wait 6 months to drive the three hours to Minneapolis to pick it up! Ikea shipping is out of this world!

So here it is a newly refreshed kitchen for around $800. (Our original quote for new counter tops and cabinets was $4,900)

1. Counter = $250.00
2. Tin = $50
3. Primer for cabinets = $40
4. Paint for cabinets = $40
5. Misc= for painting = $30
6. Hardware = $150
7. Fabric for curtains= $60
8. Butcher Block Island = $199

Before

After

With a little elbow grease, some patients, and a little Pinterest your money can go a long way. The only others things that I would love to change in this room is the laminate flooring and the brown kitchen sink.

Until then…

What would you change in your kitchen?

Getting Techy: Domain, Disqus, & Link Within

Today I wanted to point out some new “techy” things that I have added to the site over the past week.

The first thing is the obvious deletion of the .blogspot.com! The recent www.simplyadapting.blogspot.com is now “Simply” www.simplyadapting.com 

I had been looking into buying my own domain for quite awhile now and decided to take the dive when I saw that Go Daddy had a coupon for domains. I figured this would be super difficult to figure out but honestly I got it up and running without any headaches. I’m not going to sit here and say for un-tech savvy bloggers out there that this was an easy task. It was easier for me because I’ve been half-ass playing around with HTML code since I was in middle school. Yes… middle school when “Angelfire” was the site to be on. As long as you can follow directions you will be fine. I’m no genius at HTML, I just know the basic codes to look for and how/where to copy and paste code in correctly. For Go Daddy you won’t even be playing with code, it will be more of syncing your blogger site with Go Daddy and vise versa.

garden 2014

 

“If you want to be happy for a lifetime, be a gardener” – Anonymous

At the age of 28, I realize that having a garden has filled a piece of my sole. There is something about sowing that first seed, watering, feeding it, & watching the plant grow into a thriving, living, beautiful life form that completes you. Knowing that when you harvest your crop that you had a hand in sustaining life.

This summer has been absolutely amazing for the Iowan Gardener like myself. We had record rainfall in June with below temperatures in July. I can remember last year having to haul my garden hose down to the hill and across the yard every other day to keep my plants from wilting and dying from the 90… 100+ degree temps. This year I have been away weeks on end due to work trips and have not worried once whether my husband would remember to water the garden, nature did it for me.

Gardening has always been a hobby that {G} and I enjoy spending time on together. We usually split the chores in the garden. {G} tills and helps sow the seeds. I water, plot out the garden, and transplant the seedlings into the soil. {G} fertilizes and sprays for pest. I maintain by stringing tomatoes, cutting back vines, and spread out the straw as mulch. During the harvest season we like to walk down to the garden in the evenings and talk about what has changed from day to day. We also enjoy harvesting the crop together.

I believe that couples that garden together share something special. I can see it in my best friend who also has a husband that shares a love of gardening. Like us, they work together in maintaining, harvesting, and canning their crops. Many of us use different strategies… Organic… no spray… spray… alternate practices but I believe that’s why our relationships thrive. Call my silly but I believe that Conversations/ Discussions about how you will grow your garden can compare to many discussions you have about other things in your marriage. How do you prepare for other events in your life? How to do care for personal property? How do you set aside time? How do you deal with set backs and disappointments? There is so much joy and pride that goes into gardening that can reflect in a relationship.

This week our first round of red potatoes were ready to harvest. We have never planted potatoes before so we weren’t sure what to expect. I can’t find words to express our excitement when we dug and had whole, red, bug free, beautiful potatoes in our hands. We were giddy with excitement and couldn't wait to cook them up for supper. What a way to bond. What a special moment to share.

Home made potato salad. Potatoes from the garden and eggs from our chickens.

Since I love my garden so much I wanted to share it with you. Here is a little tour of our garden.

West side of garden. Potatoes, Melons, Pumpkins, Broccoli, and Peas

East side of Garden. Cherry Tomatoes, Big Boy Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Peppers

Broccoli

Jack be Little Pumpkin

Watermelon

Potatoes

Peas

Cucumbers

The Fruits of Our Labor.

Coming from living in a suburban neighborhood I couldn’t have told you the first thing about vegetable gardening 10 years ago. My mother is a green thumb in floral gardens. Beautiful gardens that wrap the house and the curbs, ponds with lily pads and Hostas as big as your body. But never vegetables. I learned over the years through FFA involvement in high school, becoming an Ag major in college, and working at the Horticulture farms about technic. However, in all honesty, garden is trial and error. You can’t expect perfection in your first garden. Plants will die. Sometimes in the first week. You learn, you read, and you try again next year. Just give it a try, I bet you will surprise yourself.

If you ever have questions about gardening I’d be happy to try and answer them. I’m not an expert but I think we’re doing pretty well.

Happy Mother's Day

Just popping in to say Happy Mother's Day to all those wonderful Women out there with the best job in the world! 

I'll be spending my weekend painting laminate kitchen cabinets. It may sound like a pain but I'm am so excited to FiNALLY be working on a project that I've waited two years for. Time flies!

Please don't pay attention to all the clutter! Don't we ALL struggle with this? That's why we have cabinet doors :)

Enjoy the weekend!

Benjamin Moore: Palladian Blue

On Thursday I broke the news that I am in the mist of making over my bathroom, you can read about it here.

My inspiration came from Pinterest of course. I was searching for Benjamin Moore paint colors and came across these beautiful photos and knew Palladian Blue was exactly what I wanted.

Fresh. Clean. Bright.

Remember this is what I am working with.

My husband was a little skeptical about painting since he sort of likes the country theme. I had told him when we bought this house that there was a lot that I wanted to up date in the house and with going with his home choice I would get free range on projects around the house. So this was GOING TO HAPPEN.

Here were my first few steps I took last week when I got home from work.

1. Trim painted white (Check)
2. Ceiling painted white (Check check)
3. Walls Primed (Check)

As always the most Tedious part in the painting process is taping and removing light switch panels, towel racks, and anything else you will need to paint around.

Above is the first coat of paint. This is my first time painting with a Benjamin Moore product. The first thing I noticed was the scent.

Oh wait.. there was no scent!

Cheaper paints often put out harsher fumes and for the few bucks more I spent on this product, I love that I didn’t smell anything! The paint was also a better quality, you could tell by how smooth and thick it was.

I didn’t want a super shiny surface so I choose eggshell as my base. Usually I go for semi gloss paint/primer in one. Eggshell has a sheen to it without looking shiny… if that makes sense?

So here is the final reveal of our bathroom in Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue!

I would still like to put up a little wall art but that’s another day. I have some little up-cycle projects that need a home. Also, I found the coral towel set and basket at TJ Maxx for a steal.

I know some people are super picky and would ask why I would paint a white ceiling and white trim when the Cupboards and toilet are an off white. Here is my answer…

Because I can. I actually think that the cream, white and blue go together rather nicely. I don’t have it shown in the photos but I found a super chic off white bath mat that is place in front of the shower which I think ties it all together.

I couldn’t help but to keep walking into the hallway last night to check out my new bath. It just makes me so happy to finally have another room in this house that fits my personality. Also, the hubby liked it too

If I could give anyone who has bought a house a bit of advice it would be this…

Don’t keep rooms that you are “okay” with as part of your décor, for less than $100 you can make it over with a fresh coat of paint. A house feels more like a Home when you put a little more of YOU into it.

Sweat, Paint, and all.