Jumpin' Back Splash

It's been a busy, but productive week with the house projects. J tackled our kitchen backsplash installation and managed to git'er done within about 24 hours.

We like our kitchen, although it's fairly standard Ikea so doesn't always feel super high quality. We thought adding a tile backsplash would make it feel more custom, while also protecting the walls from our abuse food spatter.

After considering the many (many) tile options, we landed on white subway tile. Our cabinets are a grey-blue, so we didn't want to do anything too busy or colorful. White subway tile is crisp and classic. It is also very inexpensive at under $2 per square foot, a big plus.

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We also love the classic, yet modern look of a grey grout. Not to mention its grime-hiding abilities. I feel like white grout never looks particularly clean even after you bleach it. 

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We decide to use mesh-mounted tiles to make the process faster and easier. You can see the webbing in the photos below. Highly recommend! Since the space needed a fair amount of edging, we decided to go with a low profile 1/4 round instead of a chunkier bullnose trim. 

J applied the mastic to the backs of the tiles and adhered them to the wall. The mesh comes in an offset pattern, so that part is easy. He used spacers between the panels to ensure everything was even and that there was the right amount of room for grout.

After letting the mastic cure over night, J applied grout. We went with Polyblend in Pewter, a nice medium grey. Here is the backsplash post-grout, but pre-wiping.

Once we were done, it looked like this. You might notice that we removed the small piece of wooden trim which used to sit at the back of the counter so that the tile sits flush. 

Subway tile glamour shot! Ready for a closeup.

DIY Sliding Barn Door

One of the first projects we're tackling in the house is adding a door to the guest bedroom closet. It's one of the biggest closets in the house and typically jammed full of stuff. Great for us, but not so nice for any overnight guests.

Fast forward a week or so after move-in, and the closet looks like this. 

When we bought the house, the room was painted bright yellow. First step was to paint everything a fresh white (Kelly Moore Swiss Coffee) before we moved in. 

There is not enough room for a traditional door, but we didn't want to an accordion style door since it seems too flimsy. In the end we decided on a sliding barn door like this:

realslidinghardware.com

We love the rail system in this example.

House Tweaking

J built the door using a bead board panel and simple 2x4s. He did this while I was at the grocery store (so no pictures), but it was a fairly quick and inexpensive project (maybe $50 all in). The key was the bead board panel (about $40 at Home Depot) since that simplified the whole door-building part of the project and made the door significantly lighter than if we built the whole thing from 2x4s. 

J had the panel cut to fit our closet door at Home Depot, then cut the 2x4s into the 5 trim pieces needed at home (3 horizontals and 2 diagonals). Next, he put it all together using nails and wood-glue. Any gaps were filled with wood-filler, although we like the rustic look so nothing looks too perfect. 

We looked into buying sliding barn door hardware -- there are some gorgeous options out there, but they seemed crazy expensive (from $150 to $900!). In the end, we used the helpful tutorial at A Little Bite of Everything to make our own. There are a lot of tutorials out there, but this one was easy to follow and had the look we wanted. 

To tie in with the other colors in the room already, we decide to paint the door a rich blue-grey similar to this Glidden Blue-Grey Slate. The room doesn't get a lot of direct light, so it adds some nice depth without appearing too dark. 

 We love how the blue picks up some of the grey tones in the rustic wood door

The barn door slides behind the main door to the room, so we put a stopper on the floor to keep them from bumping into each other when both are open. We also put rubber bumpers along the baseboard so the barn door doesn't scrape the wood when in use. 

The finished product! The door hardware was also from Home Depot, a simple Everbilt Black Heavy Duty Gate Pull for $10.

All in, the door landed us around $125 including wood ($50), paint ($25) and hardware ($50). We're pretty happy!

WELCOME HOME!

After many months searching and a fairly long close, J and I are thrilled to start 2014 with our new house! Since the blog is going to chronicle all the work we're doing to the house and the property, I thought the best place to start was with a little house tour.

These pictures are of the property while it was staged. Please excuse the iPhone quality images!

The house is on 1/3 of a acre with mature landscaping. We love the large magnolia in the front yard!

As you come through the front door, the living room is on the left with a hallway to the bedrooms on the right. We love the high ceilings in the space and the wide-plank wood floors which extend through most of the house. 

There is a partial wall between the living and dining rooms, which you can see in the picture below. It's open on both sides, but blocks most of the light coming into the room. It's also painted an interesting shade of green. Needless to day, we can't wait to demo that thing out! 

Here is another shot of the living room taken from the far side of the dining room. We love the fireplace and chunky, rustic wooden mantle.

The dining room is one of our favorite spaces in the house. It has huge french doors leading to the backyard, lots of light and high ceilings. You can see the back of the partial wall on the left.

Just beyond the dining room is the kitchen. It's actually a pretty good size for a galley kitchen, with concrete counter tops, lots of storage and a Viking range. Win! 

The prior owner is taking the fridge with her, which is ok with us since her fridge is smaller than standard size. One of the house's quirks is that the space for the fridge is unusually small, so no normal fridges fit. It looks like they installed a counter which was too long for the base unit, and extended it into the fridge space leaving a  3" overhang. If we have the concrete trimmed, a normal fridge will fit so will be an easy fix. 

Here's the kitchen from the opposite angle so you can see how it opens into the dining room. You might notice that there is no "surround" encasing the refrigerator, which we definitely will be adding for a more custom look.

Beyond the kitchen is the laundry/mudroom. We love that it opens onto the driveway so we can easily bring in groceries and other essentials from the car.

The master is just off the kitchen/laundry room. It's clearly an extension (note the concrete floors), but we love the airy space. You can't see it in the photo, but there are french doors opening onto the garden. You also can't see the neon green accent wall behind the bed -- painting is in our future! 

Master bathroom. We love this space and don't think we will be making many changes, beyond accessories and adding a second towel rail.

There is also a second bathroom next to the guest room. Again, not many changes here beyond accessories and a glass shower door. Will be a nice upgrade from the too-short curtain!

And there you have it! We can't wait to get started with our updates. Our plan is broken down into short term (pre-move to 10 days in), medium term (30 days) and long term (6 months).

Short term updates:
- Remove wall between living and dining rooms
- Paint walls
- Paint trim (currently a dirty off-white)
- Replace plugs and switches with white (they match the trim)
- Etch glass door in master bath (not pictured, but our bathroom door had a large pane of glass in it so you can see your spouse using the facilities - nice feature!)
- Decorate (hang curtains and art, replace a few lights, buy some new furniture etc.)

Medium term updates:
- Trim concrete counter to fit new fridge
- Build fridge surround with upper cabinet
- Install tile backsplash in kitchen
- Replace bright gold door hardware (only on a few doors) with oil rubbed bronze
- Add closet doors to master and guest rooms (a feature our house lacks)
- Install glass door in guest shower

Long term projects:
- Build guest cottage in the backyard
- Add patio or deck in backyard
- Landcape front and backyards
- Plant kitchen garden
- Re-gravel driveway

I'm sure more things will pop up, but that's it for now! Phew.