Welcoming Back Character

I could never live in a house while it's being flipped.  I know some people do it and it's a great way to save money, but Hubby and I are too much creatures of habit.  With our entire 500sf second floor displaced to get the floors refinished, our routines are severely outta whack. But OMG the floors kind of look amazing now. Once I pulled up the carpet, pad, and plywood, the floors were looking a bit worse for wear and I wasn't sure if they were salvageable.  Big gaps, nails everywhere....

But that's why I called in the pros for this part and didn't attempt a DIY.

It would be creepy if I hugged the floors, right?

Hubby's office, my office, and the majority of the hallway are sanded, patched, and shiny and newly refinished.  We were lucky enough to be able to patch with old salvaged pine pieces from our realtor's own antique floor (thanks Amy!!) and you can barely tell!

Hubba hubba, am I right?  Perfect color and patina.  We had him darken the floor just a bit with a Golden Oak stain and it was totally the right move.

Starting today we'll be able to start emptying out the bedroom onto these floors so I can pull up the carpet and plywood and do the same in there.  Sadly, though, that means we'll be a little off kilter for the next week or so too, but at least once the floor is done, it'll be done!

Did I mention the stair treads are getting refinished and the railing is getting an update too?  Hubby's still not sure why I'm insisting on this part, but the railing has bugged the bejeezus out of me for 4 years.  That orange, bowed wood, 90s railing feels so out of place to me in a house from 1900.

I'm still contemplating reusing the spindles, but certainly not the newel post.  Those are getting an update... or a regression, I guess would be more appropriate.

I found this pretty pair of antique newel posts at an architectural salvage warehouse in New Hampshire and I already feel like they belong in my house.  Right era, right level of detail, right scale.  Now I just need to patch them up and build up the bottoms a bit so they are the right height for a modern railing.  I never make projects easy on myself.

I can't wait for the stairs and floors to be set!  4 years of daydreaming about no more wall-to-wall carpet and a 'new' vintage-styled railing.  Hubby's understandably eager for me to start on the next flip, so I'll stop making new project for our own house.  I'm apparently an addict.  I can stop whenever I want..... I swear!

Pockets and Tacks

My tiny little office really needs an injection of usefulness.  If you remember, this is my pseudo-desk area on top of my IKEA expedit cubbies.

It (along with the rest of our second floor) has BIG plans in store for this winter after my darling Millie is through with renovations.  I'll give you a hint.  It involves a long awaited allergy-friendly flooring switch-up.  Until that catalyst starts a new slew of renos into my house, I need to make this tiny room work.  It serves as my office, our extra TV room, and our rarely used ellipticals home.  With the ball rolling on my interiors business, Copper Dot Interiors, I need a place for notes, lists, swatches, ideas and inspiration.  All this has been cluttering the little bit of desk that I do have and causing me to avoid using the desk all together.  Kind of defeats the purpose.

Luckily, a few errands and a few hours later, I put together exactly what this space currently needs to function: a fabric covered bulletin board, complete with pockets.

Not only was it a very gloomy weekend here and all of my photos were dark and gloomy, I still haven't figured out a way to take quality photos in this itsy space.  There is one window, but with the homes orientation, not much natural light comes in.  One day I'll figure it out and WOW you will my stunning office images.  Until that day, I'll photoshop them until they don't look weird.

So, bulletin board!

I'm impatiently eagerly awaiting finding the PERFECT frame for this... something like this bulletin board on The Everygirl:

but until I come across that gem, I decided to work with that was available- a $6 thrift store frame.

The poster got sacrificed to the DIY gods.  In addition to a large frame- mine is 2'x4', I also used cork board tiles, a tube of rub n' buff, and my chosen fabric.

The frame got disassembled and the foam core backing got reused.  I used the double-stick adhesive squares that came with the cork tiles and stuck them onto the foam core.

Once the surface was covered, I trimmed the cork on a few of the edges where it overhung the foam.  Next, I sprayed the whole area with spray adhesive.  This helps the fabric grip and not bubble or wrinkle, but it still allows for repositioning.  The fabric is much dreamier in person.  It's the perfect texture with a slight natural fleck in the color.  I wish it showed more in the pics.

The pockets are created by folding the fabric- the deeper the folds, the deeper the pockets.  I knew these would be necessary for function and keeping clutter off of my desk top but not out of mind.  After the fabric was placed, the spray adhesive held well enough to allow me to flip the foam core/cork board over and staple the fabric around it.

Magically, while I created the bulletin board, the plastic faux wood frame suddenly turned to gold!  Ok, not so suddenly or magically.  After disassembling the frame back at step 1, I used rub n buff in antique gold to make the frame shinier and less fake-wood-looking.  Once my board was wrapped and my frame was goldified, I popped the board back into the frame and used high-tech duck tape to hold everything together on the back.  I used my favorite 3m picture mounting strips to hang it (not sponsored, just love them) and voila!

Since this is most likely a temporary frame until the right one pops into my life, I'll most likely be reworking this along with the entire room in the near future.  I can see the room now, new desk chair, paint, window treatments, rug.... she'll be a beaut!!

Until then though, I have a super functional and easy on the eyes DIY fabric covered bulletin board!

Office Glitz

IKEA's pretty devious if you ask me.  Every time I end up there to buy a flip house kitchen or such, I end up spending money on my own house as well. After drooling over this lamp for 6 months,

my resistance wore down.

It fit's perfectly in my office.  Not too big, not too small, and just enough glitz.  Check out that cord and gold accents!  Well done, IKEA!  (it's also available in silver, but the white just called to me)

I also purchased drawer inserts for my office's expedit cubbies.  I've tried to keep flip reciepts and paperwork organized with just open shelving, but it hasn't been pretty (read: looks like a bomb went off).  Once I got 4 sets of drawers home and assembled one set, I noticed an issue...

As you may know, IKEA's expedit line has now been replaced with Kallax.  Same product, but a little sleeker.  And, apparently, slightly whiter.

Not kosher.  It wasn't close enough to be the same and not different enough to be different, if you know what I mean.  The way I saw it, I had 2 options.  Go back to IKEA and pick up the drawers in the wood tone...

... and IKEA's 35 minutes away and at this point was a weekend.  I don't do IKEA on weekends...... I like myself too much to do that to me....  so where does that leave me?

Paint them, naturally.

I went with a light gray- just gray enough to add a bit of contrast to the white and get away from the clashing white tones.

Some fancier brass pulls are in these drawers future, but until then, I also sprayed the knobs gold.  Can you tell how excited I am for the weather finally to be nice enough to start painting outside again?

Once I get the office organized once again and tweak a few more small things, I'll give you a full office update.  Until then, I'm totally excited to have a little bit more style in this tiny room.

Well, I'm off to meet the contractor at Grover!  Happy Monday!!