Window Treatments!
We've been in a sort of decorating desert lately. We're still in saving mode so we can pay for the entire basement out of pocket and we're oh-so-close to reaching our savings goal!
As a little reward for months of savings, we decided to finally get curtains for the living room. We've been rocking shades-only for over a year now, so it was time to add some warmth and texture to this main room in our house.
Standard disclaimers, excuse the mess in the before shot and the missing ceiling light that started on fire!
Before
After
The curtains are Henny Rand and the rods are Lummig, both from Ikea. It's hard to tell in these broad shots, but the curtains have 3-5 different shades which make those squiggly lines. We've noticed how the mix of colors compliments and brings together a lot of the tones in the rug and although the pattern of the rug and curtains are quite different, they don't seem to compete with one another.
We ended up getting only 3 packages (two panels in each) and used only one in the corner, stretching it between the rods. This not only allowed us to save some mullah, but it made the corner look less crowded than it would have with two panels meeting up there. The panel in the middle (behind the love seat) is actually tucked in behind the radiator. We're debating cutting and hemming it to the height of the radiator cover so we could actually draw the curtains closed, but again, are waiting to see if we ever will really want to do that.
We're also a little worried we hung them too high but everything we've read and heard in the decor world is that you can't hang them high enough! This height also happened to be exactly high enough to make the curtains almost-but-not-quite touch the floor and neither of us wanted the job of hemming 6 panels! So we're going to give it a week to grow on us before we decide if we'll lower them. What do you think? Has anyone else added or changed curtains in a room lately? Do you have a perfect rod height or hem height to share?
3rd Annual Bungalow Blog Tour
We're participating in a blog tour created by a fellow Minneapolis bungalow blogger, StuccoHouse. Be sure to follow the links for the next and previous blogs on the tour and send them some comment love if you like what you see!
Hello to everyone making the rounds on the Bungalow blog tour, this is Mike and Katrina and we're newbies on the tour. In fact, we're newbies to Bungalows in general having only lived in ours for a year. We didn't know what a bungalow was when we started house hunting. We knew we wanted an old house with lots of character which we found out is called "Arts & Crafts", we knew 1.5 story houses fit our budget which turned out to be called "Bungalows and Tudors", and we knew we wanted a house we could do some work on which turned out to be called "every old house"!
Our house hunting ended when we found this 1920 Bungalow in Minneapolis.
Moving in
We jumped right into fixing it up. We spent the first week in our house prying up 2 layers of linoleum in the kitchen to reveal the original hardwood floors.
The next week we sanded, stained, and sealed all the hardwood on the main level. It didn't take long for us to realize how much work DIYing an old house can be but how rewarding the work is when it's done!
Redecorating
With some of the grunt work out of the way, we moved on to updating some of the cosmetics. We finished the kitchen, the first major room renovation of our house.
We removed the forest green carpet and redesigned the master bedroom.
And transformed a universe themed bedroom into a guest bedroom.
p.s. Yes that's the same bed frame in both pictures, it's a long story!
Loving an old house
Along with redecorating the house, we've run into our share of old house problems. I think Bungalow roofs were specifically designed to encourage ice dams because we certainly had our fair share! We've learned a lot about stucco, plaster, balloon framing, knob and tube wiring, radiators, and boilers. It's a good thing we're fascinated with old houses or this whole ordeal might be frustrating!
Along with learning how old houses work, we've also learned about our house and it's history. It's had several owners in it's 91 years and it's a constant reminder that we won't be the last ones to live here. It motivates us to do things right not only for our own satisfaction but for the longevity of the house and for the next owners.
Going forward
Our to-do list is longer now than it was a year ago. Every time we finish a project we think of two more! We still want to tackle the exterior of the house, landscaping, and redecorating the remaining rooms but first we're refinishing the basement. So far we've made a plan and finished demolition, from here it's building and trying to put our own Arts & Crafts finishes on the space to help it flow with the rest of the original house. Hopefully by the 4th annual bungalow blog tour we'll be finished!!
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out the other houses on the tour!
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Mommy, I’m scared of the basement!
Last weekend was demolition weekend, here are the results!
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| Before |
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| After |
Sometimes you've got to take one step back to take two steps forward. I'm not sure how many steps we took backward this weekend on our basement, but it was enough for Katrina to now be scared of the basement and our entire 'dream' for it! Don't let her band pose (see below) fool you, she's more than terrified that those sea-foam green walls and asbestos forest green tiles will never leave or be covered well enough for the basement to be an enjoyable space some day. As for me, I'm more charged up than ever to get to work on making our dream for this space a reality!
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| Katrina's "band" picture. Notice how they're always in front of brick walls?? |
Smashing it up
I can honestly say there's no art to demolition. A bunch of friends and family came to help out (thank you soooo much!) and we all landed on our own ways to take walls and sheet rock down. They all worked for the most part since at the end of the day everything was taken down! The only tips we have are for safety:
- Wear a dust mask or respirator, sheet rock makes terrible dust
- Watch out for electricity. I made marks on the walls where wires were and whether they had power or not. We shut off the correct circuits before we knocked down walls or ceiling.
- Watch where you step! Nails end up everywhere.
- Watch out for other people, especially when everyone is swinging hammers.
Here's are some pictures from along the way.
Getting rid of it
Katrina and I both hate the idea of filling land fills with things that someone might be able to use so filling a huge dumpster with everything was out of the question. We were able to sell the plywood that was used for the sub floor and have it hauled away the afternoon of demolition. We piled up most of the dimensional boards by the curb and posted them for free on Craig's List.
I have no idea why someone would want old 2x4s with nails sticking out but if there's one thing I've learned from living in Minneapolis, it's that people will take anything for free. If you don't have any luck on Craig's List, try freecycle.
The one thing we didn't think anyone would want was the sheetrock we tore off the wall. It was in small pieces and pretty much unusable. Dumpsters are expensive so we thought about bagging it up and throwing it out a few bags each week for the next few months. That sounded awful so we were super excited when we heard about Bagster Bags. We bought the bag for $30 and Waste Management will come pick it up with a hook for $90 more. It's a little expensive but a lot cheaper than a dumpster. We got the 3 cubic yard bag and found out it's smaller than we thought! We started throwing sheet rock in the bag and it was full before long. We ended up having to take everything out and organize it better. In the end it fit all our sheetrock but it's a good thing we weren't trying to throw out anything else because we were out of room!
By the end of the day most of the demolition was finished, the discarded materials were gone or awaiting pick-up by our curb and we were exhausted! There are still a million more projects to do, but we're thankful we have this one checked off our list!
Cost breakdown:
Our budget for demolition was $300. We spent:
- $120 - Bagster Bag + pick up
- $65 - A demolition bar, plastic sheets to seal off the work area, and safety gear
- $0 - Giving away 2x4s and 1x4s
- -$100 - Selling the wood from the subfloor
Total: $85 ($225 under budget, woo hoo!)
Did you check anything off your list this weekend? What sucked up all your energy or helped energize you for the week to come?
