We Are Men

Ahh... the joys of some piece and quiet and a little time to work.

My dad stopped by the same weekend as the infamous "girls retreat". It was great it gave us guys a chance to get together to get some good work done on a house. My dad and I decided to start by tearing down all the junk in the bedroom and and making it look nicer.

These are the "lovely" colors we started with

As you can see there wasn't a whole lot to work with in the first place, between the green shag carpet and the fake wood laminate walls, we decided to tear it all out and refurbish what we could. Taking down the laminate wall was pretty easy. We didn't even need tools.  I just grabbed the corner and just tore it off. Too bad the rest of the work wasn't that easy...

The wall after taking the laminate off

After removing the carpet we got a chance to inspect the wood floor underneath. Thankfully it was the original hard wood floor. We realized instead of replacing the carpet we could just refinish the floor. Thinking about it was the easy part, there where a couple of problems with it. First, one of the boards was missing from the floor. It turned out that we would have to fit and finish a new piece of flooring. Second, the old carpet we tore out wound up being stapled directly to the floor so I got to spend a few hours on my hands and knees tearing out the old staples one by one. By the time that I was done I wound up getting pretty good and tearing them out and had a nice sized pile of staples. Sadly, we didn't take any photos of the piles.

The missing part of the floor, after we ripped out all the Spackle that was standing in for the actual floor

But we being Anderson men, were able to make short work of the problem and get a new piece of floor after running to Menards.  I'll skip some of the boring details, but we eventually we finished it and got the new piece of floor to match up.

Replacement floor

Before we started on the floor, we decided to finish the wall, the one idea that I wanted was to insulate the wall for sound proofing.  It would make it easier to sleep when people where being loud in the next room (i.e. me). It turned out to be extremely easy to install.

Insulation just shoved in

With a little more elbow grease we where also able to install the new pieces of dry wall, which I was surprised to find that they weigh much more than expected.  

My dad attaching the last few screws

We also got to start mudding the cracks and sanding to make it nice and even. 

Love that my dad is tall

The next part turned out to be the really fun part. The sanding. We rented a floor sander and started sanding thinking that it would be a nice easy process, it turned out that we had a few obstacles. Because the floor was never cleaned in the last 20 years or so (judging from when green shag carpet was last fashionable), there was a bunch of gunk on the floor that wound up ruining the sanding discs, we needed to take a couple of trips to the store to grab more.  After a few hours of sanding, staining, and finishing we had a great new floor to show off along with a nicely matched wall.

After all that, in the words of my dad, Mr. Fix-It Mark, "Isn't this nice?"

"Isn't this nice?"

Let Them Eat Cake (Steak or whatever)

For anyone sitting around saying, "We can't afford to go out to eat because money is tight." (aka me) Here is your chance! I want to thank My Milwaukee Mommy for this amazing deal at Restaurant.com. They in no way paid me to say this, I love just their blog because I may not be a mom yet, but I love saving money!

Now through August 10th, you can save 70% off at Restaurant.com! Depending on the restaurant you choose and their discount, you could be getting $25 worth of food for $3!!!!!! Use the promo code MENU to get the deal. Go for a fancy night out and try a restaurant usually out of your price range.

Max and I scored brunch at one of our favorite hangouts the Red Dot on Milwaukee's Eastside. Saa-Weet! Poutine anyone?

Please let me know where you get discounts! I'm curious about all these fine eateries!

Living Room Accent Wall Revealed

It's partial reveal time! Horray!

With my design background I have never been scared of color. That being said I also knew that I could possibly go overboard if I didn't have some boundaries for myself. In the living room, I wanted the room to have a feel of action but also a place to relax. Doing this would take a little bit restraint no to go crazy. I was inspired by this Pintrest from HGTV, a mostly neutral room with an accent wall of color.

Source: hgtv.com via Maureen on Pinterest

Using Glidden's Color Palette option, I did a little bit of color exploring. I knew I wanted a blue dining room but also knew that when I knocked out the partition wall the two rooms would need something to tie them together. That brought me to a matching accent wall. I already had the free paint from Glidden's giveaway so I was good to go.

I know what you are thinking, "Alright! Just show us already!"

Voilà! The living room accent wall. I finally incorporated some gold lamps that we already owned to give the room a more neutral feel with better night lighting. A project down the road will be giving them a fresh coat of paint and new shades.

Here is another view with just the lamps.

For this past Christmas, I received/chose these curtains as a gift from my mother knowing that I wanted them to be shown against a bright color to bring out their opaqueiness. They look gorgeous here.

The rest of the walls in the living room I plan to paint a light beige color (to yet be determined) that is a little darker than the curtains.

Cost of this update thus far:

Curtains (gift) - $0

Paint (online freebie) - $0

Lamps (already owned) - $0

White trim paint (already owned) - $0

Curtain rod (already owned) - $0

FREE

Here is a growing list of we need to do yet to the room:

- Knock out and fix partitioning wall between dining room

- Paint the rest of the walls the TBD beige paint color

- Fix-up and/or paint shelving units

- Add art work

- Incorporate some sort of house plant

- Get all carpets professionally cleaned

- Add area rug to room for balance (chevron maybe?)

- Paint or replace the rest of the trim

- Add fun throw pillows to room (orange maybe?)

- Add a few fun accent pieces

- Arrange shelving units visually

- Add fun side tables

Man looking at that list looks exhausting! Oh well, all in good fun!

How have you incorporated color without going color crazy?! If you have, how did you tone it down?