Renovations

So let's go ahead and say it.  Renovations suck ass.  They are kind of one of those things that make you super happy and want to punch yourself repeatedly at the same time.  It's also a great way to feel like an ATM.  I imagine this is what it's like to have teenagers.  I mean, you know you're going to have to shell out some cash, but you still kind of feel like, "YOU WANT HOW MUCH FOR TWO GALLONS OF PAINT?" Now, you want me to buy you lunch too? Then you say things your Dad says, "What am I, a money tree?"  These things of course aren't said out loud to the nice contractors, but instead said to your 22 month old who you're grateful can't repeat full sentences yet.

Here is another fun thing about buying a house, you don't really notice the details until you're actually in the house for more than 20 minutes where you're not preoccupied with things like, is that mold?, man that new water heater is NICE! So you start to notice things, like there is a decorative light plate on ever switch, outlet, or anything that can have a plate.  AND, every single one is different.

This is 5 out of 38. 38. 

Yikes, where did they even get these? I mean, that is some effort.  I can't knock it, whatever makes you happy.  I'm kind of surprised they didn't take them with them.  These guys had to be some coin.  (I've been watching too much Breaking Bad) First thing I did, was buy the $1 plus plain ones from Home Depot.  Then after looking at a billion blogs, and picking out my color scheme when I got to the house, I had no idea what to put where.  I had to call in the big guns, my mom.  Thank god for mothers, she helped tremendously.  Then she went with me to the paint store, then another one because Google is bad at telling us which stores actually have Benjamin Moore paint.  10 gallons later, and a hefty bill, things started happening. 

Here are some before and afters as of today:

Charlotte's Room before:

Yellow, yellow is hard to kill.

 I wanted to do something sophisticated, and not pink.  So I decided to copy a woman in Menlo Park's bathroom, that my mom did her version of, so I copied that specifically.  

BM Paper White on the walls, kind of a grey/white and then BM Ocean Air on the ceiling, more pics to come of that when it's more done.  I think I'm going to add some light pink curtains, and with her white furniture and soon to be big girl bed.  I'm in love. 

Master Bed before

Sherwin Williams Sea Salt, I'm OBSESSED with this color.  It's so beautiful. More and more pics to come.  If I could, I'd paint the entire house in this color but that's lame.

 

This is guest room/future baby's room

BM Revere Pewter, the perfect greige.  I wanted something in this room that would be good for either a boy or girls room (if we are so lucky) but was still sophisticated to be a guest room for now.  I'm so happy how this room turned out.

 

Before room will be the office. 

 Not the best picture of this, but I went with BM Coveting Grey, I wanted something a little darker, but still light and airy.  

Staircase going upstairs

Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of pictures of this hallway/staircase.  We knew there was oak floors under the carpet both going up the stairs, in the hallway and the master bedroom.  After living in so many rentals, we want NO carpet in our house.  It's just disgusting.  With the dogs and baby, it's so much easier to clean a wood floor.  We were just stoked that this was under the carpet.  It was a main priority for me to have these carpets removed and the floors sanded and stained before we moved.  I was worried about having to move all the furniture downstairs for this to happen.  Also, I didn't want Charlotte to be around the fumes.  The railings are also completely out of date, and super scary.  I could just see Charlotte going right through them.  I'm not totally sure how they passed inspection.  After talking to several contractors, to get them up to date, we had to add at least one railing in between each railing.  The height of the railing was 28 inches high.  Apparently, the railings now a days are at least 34 inches high, so that needed to change as well.  The hallway, along with most of the house was a nice beige color, and I really wanted that to just be a crisp white, but with a grey undertone.  If you've ever picked out paint, you know that white is a bitch.  There are SO many whites, so, so many whites, and they can really go either way on the wall.  

I went with SW Elder White with BM Super White for the trim.  HOLY CRAP I LOVE IT.

OMG Elder White, you complete me. 

Here it is as of today, carpet is gone, floors are sanded, things are happening.  Tomorrow we start staining.  The downstairs is almost done being painted.  The beast of the fireplace gets painted in the next couple days.  I'm so excited.  I've been to the paint store every single day this week, even with bronchitis, and it's a pain in the fanny.  I keep having to tell myself that it's only a week or two and then I won't have to do it for a while.  But, it is SO worth it. More posts to come of the rest of the house.  Then, we'll move on to how to make IKEA furniture look expensive. 

 

Poooooop

Don't worry, I'm not going to draw diagrams of what your poop should and shouldn't look like.  I don't give a shit (get it?! haha).  Over the last couple weeks, Charlotte has been obsessed with poop.  It all started with her sweetly announcing she was pooping.  So cute coming out of that little person. A few days later, there was a few olive pits on the ground, and she ran up to me a said, "Poop, poop!!" So cute, and not intelligent at all.  Then things turned for the worse.  Every time we went outside to let the dogs out, she screams, "POOP!" regardless if the dogs are present or not.  Every time I go to the bathroom, if she doesn't bust the door down, she screams "POOP!" from outside the door.  I get it, we all poop, we don't need to scream about it.

This past weekend, we took our normal walk with the dogs to the park.  They had mulched around the swings.

Of course, what does Charlotte think it is? Poop.  Refused to walk on it, to be fair I wouldn't want to walk through poop to get to a swing.  After trying to convince her it was just trees, a complete meltdown ensued.  After calming her down, we continued on our walk and she just had to hold Penny's leash.

 
You can probably guess what happened next.  Penny pooped.  This was the first time Charlotte has seen it coming out of the source.  Oh man, her face, a mix of sheer horror and amazement.  We spent the rest of the 15 minute walk talking about poop.

At one point, during a bathroom break-in, she stuck her hand behind me while I was on the throne.  Is this chick for real? Not cool Charlotte, didn't you mom teach you manners? 

Is she ready to potty train? Does she know what peeing is? Isn't she a bit young? Help!

Andy took her to the park yesterday, because she could still go on the slides because it hadn't been re-mulched.  Of course, it was re-mulched yesterday.  For the love...

Updates!

Things have been crazy over here in the Power's household.  I posted a bit ago about an appraisal gone bad, and am happy to report that we wound up getting the house!  We closed last week, and are currently landlords until middle of the month sometime.  We have about 2 weeks until our lease is up on our condo in Ann Arbor, which gives us just a bit of time to do some updates.  We've decided to rip up the carpet upstairs, we found out that there are oak floors under there.  Then sand and stain them, and paint the entire house.  Over the last two weeks I've gotten a hard lesson.  Picking out paint colors is SO stressful.  Luckily, my parents are at the tail end of renovating their entire first floor.  My mom pretty much did all the research, now I'm just copying her. 

I wanted to make the house calm.  Also, neutral and appealing to the masses.  The other issue I'm finding, that in the world of Pinterest and Houzz, how do you make a decision? Oh I love this color, but what's this pin over here? What if I like that better? It's never ending.  I finally had to tell myself to put the mouse down.

Here is the color pallete as of today:

From left to right: Sherwin Williams Urban Bronze, Sherwin Williams Dovetail, Sherwin Williams Sea Salt (my fav), Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter, Sherwin Williams Eider White, Benjamin Moore Wickham Gay, and Benjamin Moore Ocean Air

I'm thinking of doing the back door in the Urbane Bronze.  (Thanks Pintrest)

I've also discovered some wallpaper, that I've fallen head over heels for.  I always thought of wallpaper as old and stuffy.  I was SHOCKED at how far wallpaper has come.  I'm thinking of doing one wall in our bedroom with this lovely:

 

Then a late night pinterest search, I came across this:

We already have the molding in place in our dining room, so a little high glossy white paint, with that wallpaper on the top. !! I'm obsessed!  I have not been able to find the wallpaper in the Sherwin Williams store, so if you know it, hook me up.

I'm also pretty excited to annouce I'll be teaching at Pure Barre Grosse Pointe! The studio has not yet opened, but the construction is started and we're all VERY excited.  I spent a few days in Spartanburg, SC last week for some training.  Had a blast, meet some great ladies, and learned a lot.  Spartanburg is an interesting place.  You can get a sushi roll with asparagus, beef and cheese (I of course ordered it, and report it to be not that bad) 

I'm loving summer in Ann Arbor, we've been having a blast playing outside, with water tables, BBQs and a variety of pools.  We also had an awesome last minute trip to Traverse City.  Charlotte has moved on from Frozen to Tangled, things are looking up all around.