Bookcase Desk

With hubby's home office almost done, I've finally had some time to work on my little corner office! I really didn’t want to take up too much room but I did need a space for all my shop supplies, a functional yet pretty space. With a crazy idea in my head I began searching for a bookcase. To my surprise, I stumbled across the discontinued HENSVIK Bookcase in good condition for $35 on Craigslist! I purchased the bookcase and covered the backboard with some fun gray and yellow patterned fabric. Then I purchased a pair of table legs and mounting hardware ($15) from Lowes. The next step was finding the perfect piece of scrap wood. Hubby had the brilliant idea of checking the “As Is” section at IKEA and sure enough we found an off-white ADEL kitchen cabinet door for $3.99! Now came the hard part (not too hard though), turning all of these pieces into a functional Bookcase Desk!

Hubby installed the table leg hardware (the table legs come ready to screw in to the hardware). After measuring the depth of the bookcase, we added two notches to the kitchen cabinet door/desk top making it easier to slip into place. We added a 1 inch piece of wood to the inside of the bookcase which was screwed into another 1 inch piece behind the bookcase to support the back edge of desk top. I spray painted the legs with Valspar's satin finish paint. We slipped the desk top into place and screwed in the legs. After getting all of my supplies organized, I now have my very own Bookcase Desk!

        

HomeGoods: Teal Ceramic Lamp

Our new home has a 6 foot entryway wall between our living room and our bedrooms, which I love because I’ve always wanted an entryway table with a large mirror (just one of my many décor fantasies)! We ordered an entryway table about 2 weeks ago (it should be here any day now) and I’ve been looking for a lamp to complement it ever since. I looked online and at all my favorite local home décor stores, but on Saturday I finally found the perfect lamp at HomeGoods in Westchester. Isn’t it gorgeous!

Teal Ceramic Lamp

Retail: $80.00

I paid: $39.99 at HomeGoods

Storage Totes!

Throughout the years the hubby and I (and now JD too) have collected so much stuff; when we moved into the house we managed to not only fill the garage but also the extra bedroom/office with to say the least, stuff!  This weeks mission is to organize the extra bedroom/office and The Home Depot has made it easier, less expensive and a little more stylish. Now thru January 20th 2011, The Home Depot is having their Winter Storage Event and these 20 gallon totes are on sale for only $4.88, they come in some really nice neutral colors too! I bought a bunch of them last night, but I think I may just stop by HD and pick up a few more.

We Love Crown Moulding!

The day after we painted the living room we had crown moulding installed, we'd considered doing it ourselves but sometimes when you want something done right you have to call a professional! My friend Chris and his dad are contractors and when I told him we were buying a house Chris was more than happy to give me some useful DIY tips and some very reasonable quotes on a few things we wanted to do around the house, including crown moulding. Chris accompanied the hubby and I to HD Supply and we picked out our crown moulding and a few days later his dad and uncle stopped by to install it. They did a really amazing job and our living and dining room look fabulous, even the seller came by and was amazed at how nice it looked, I bet he's regretting selling this gem in the rough now!

Crown Moulding by: C Pinel Painting, Long Beach California

DIY: Painting Wood Paneling

As soon as we were in escrow the hubby and I started mapping out all the things we wanted to do to the house when it was ours; it was definitely move-in ready but it just needed a few touches of our very own! Since we plan on entertaining a lot (we already had an impromptu game night two days after we moved in), we thought we would start with the living room. When the hubby and I first saw the wood paneling in the living room of our new home we considered leaving it as-is, but within about a week of trying to figure out how we would decorate a room with wood paneling we looked up some tutorials and decided we would paint it, which was way more cost effective then ripping it out. Painting wood paneling sounds hard, but in fact although time consuming (waiting for the paint to dry), it's pretty easy to do. The day after we received our keys we officially became Do-It-Yourselfers and painted the paneling and the whole living room ourselves and we're so glad we did, now our living looks bright and big! Here is how we did it.

We cleaned the wood paneling with TSP spray, then filled in all the holes and cracks with caulking. We removed all the wall plates, put down a drop cloth and secured it with painters tape. We did not tape off the ceiling because we were having crown moulding installed the next day, but we do suggest taping off the ceiling prior to painting.

We used a roller to apply a thin coat of oil-based primer to the paneling and since our wood paneling has grooves we also used a paint brush to primer those grooves.

Once the primer was dry, we applied a thin even coat of latex paint with a paint brush to the grooves and then used a roller for the entire wall.

Once our first coat of latex paint was dry, we applied one more coat of paint for a flawless look. Now we were ready for crown moulding. Stay tuned...

Safety 1st: Clear View Stove Knob Covers

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts, but this weekend has been extremely hectic; we moved out of our apartment and into our new home and we haven't even connected our modem yet (thank God for my iPhone). I have tons of things to post about, including a whole bunch of pictures, but I wanted to start with something important, safety! In the last month or so JD learned how to open the baby gate we had installed in the kitchen of our apartment, so we decided in our new home we would toddler proof the kitchen, continue to teach him about things being hot (he already understands that the heater is hot and completely avoids it) and send the baby gate on a vacation. We have purchased a few new safety gadgets and Safety 1st's Clear View Stove Knob Covers are definitely one of my favorites. Our new stove doesn't require us to push the knob in when lighting it, this makes it very easy for JD to turn the stove on by just turning the knob, so these knob covers are perfect, they are inexpensive, very easy to install and of course toddler proof. I'll be posting a few more safety tips soon, so stay tuned!

Our New Home

I really wanted to announce much sooner that we found a house we love in October and were in escrow, but it would have been a real downer if things fell through, so we've been keeping it a bit of a secret until we were absolutely positively sure the house was ours! I haven't actually mentioned that we were thinking of buying a house, because we honestly weren't, but somehow one crazy idea turned into another and we did!

Back in April a really nice townhome (we had been eying for a while) became available in my parents complex. We contacted our friend Veronica who also happens to be a Realtor and told her we wanted to put an offer on the townhome and so with her help, we did; but sadly a month later the seller went with another offer and we became the "back-up" offer, so we just decided to wait and see. Fast forward to December, the townhome still hasn't been sold!

In September the hubby and I had somewhat of an epiphany; we both just started great new jobs, we were already pre-qualified to buy a house and we had been willing to buy that townhome a few months before, so why not just get serious and keep looking for a house! We started working with Veronica again and starting touring homes; townhomes, little homes, big homes, fixer uppers, you name it we toured it! But on October 11th the search ended.

The house was described as a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, turnkey, great starter home in a nice neighborhood, it featured new dual pane windows, refinished hardwood floors, a nice layout, a beautiful backyard with a covered patio, fruit trees and it was absolutely move-in condition! It just sounded too good to be true and unfortunately it only had 1 bathroom (once you live in a 2 bathroom home, it's a bit hard to go back to just 1), but we decided to tour it anyways. Hubby was working late that night so he asked me to tour the house while there was daylight and take pictures. I asked my mom to meet me at the house and the minute I pulled up to the driveway I became nervous, it was really cute. When my mom and I walked through the front door, we were both very surprised, it was clean and bright and after touring the entire house, I couldn't disagree with any of the homes listing descriptions! I took tons of pictures and before leaving the house my mom and I knelt down in the living room and prayed, asking God for guidance.

I hurried home and uploaded the pictures I had taken, emailed the hubby and waited impatiently for his response. When the phone rang and the caller ID read the hubby's work number, I became even more nervous, I wanted him to like the house as much as I did. After picking up the phone and talking to him for about 5 minutes, I realized I had nothing to be nervous about, he was totally interested in the house, he asked if there was electricity (there was) and if so could we tour it together that same night; I told him JD and I would be ready and he could swing by and pick us up after work.

He picked us up and once again I was touring this house I had already fallen in love with just hours earlier. I tried not to say much, I just wanted to see the hubby's reaction as he walked from one room to the next; JD on the other hand ran around in his pajamas opening every door, drawer and closet and stomping on the hardwood floors amused by the echo. After touring the backyard and the garage, I finally mustard up the courage to ask him what he thought of the house, he responded “ I love it, let's put an offer in!” That night we put an offer on the house and by that Thursday we were officially in escrow.

Well today was finally that day we had been waiting for, today we received the keys to our new home. Now the fun begins, hope you guys will follow along in next chapter of our lives as we turn a house into our home!

These are the first pictures we took of the house back in October