Before & After: Guest Bedroom

The guest bedroom originally doubled as an office and a toy room. And when we had guests, they slept there.  You can imagine the sweeping "edits" we had to do to the room each time we had guests - cleaning up toys and papers and making room for a queen-sized air bed. Good times!

This is what it used to look like:

Now it's a dedicated guest room and I took a chance on the color because well, I don't sleep there!  Also, check out the shutters...part of my "vision."  The color turned out better than I thought and the hardwood floors give it a really nice clean look.  I kinda wish this was my room.

P.S. I know you're all much more interested in "NotAnnika". Don't worry - more to come!  xoxo

Before & After: The "Big Room"

Before the remodel, our kitchen had an attached family room that we really used more as a living room.  Our living room, in the front of the house, was bigger and was better suited to our TV and general living space. When the new house was conceived, I was really looking for a way to incorporate the kitchen more in our lifestyle - basically, I needed to be forced to cook. And one way was to have the TV and the life of the house in one room - the "big room."

It's not a novel idea, but was for us. Neither Chris nor I grew up in a house with a combined kitchen/family room, so we looked forward to having it in all one space. The result was the house was pushed out to its side, to make a bigger kitchen and the back of the house was slightly pushed out for our "breakfast nook." (Which is really where our kitchen table is...we don't just eat breakfast there - we eat lunch and dinner, too. :))

Anyway, here's what it looked like before:

Note the upper cabinets over the island that really doesn't allow anyone in the kitchen to interact with the family room. It sorta sucked.

The one thing I loved about the old kitchen space was the flooring - hardwood hickory. LOVED IT. It was what we designed the new kitchen around and I love it just as I did 3 years ago. That was a pleasant. We switched out white appliances for stainless steel, white cabinets and a darker brown island. I also insisted on Caesarstone countertops - though granite can be really beautiful, in all the houses we had toured during last summer when we thought we might move, *everyone* did granite. I also love the matte, smooth look of the one color.

Let me know what you think of the finished product - this is by far my favorite room of the house:









The only issue I have with this room is a lack of color. I only have one wall to add some...so still working on that. Donations welcome. (Just kidding, that would be rude!)

P.S. Halloween pictures of Annika to come....stay tuned.

Before & After: Doors

Our front door was very old, had a 70s style sidelite that had to go (sorry Laura) and it also was held up by tape since it was used to break in many years ago (before Chris and I lived here...and I swear we don't live in the ghetto, just bad luck).  We painted the inside white a while ago, and it looked ok - but needed to be improved.

We actually get a lot of compliments on the new door, and I love it too, but surprises me that others seem to like it...we looked online for weeks and every door seemed sort of stale...boring, etc. I kept coming back to this one - after it was all said & done (ordered online pre-hung, installed by the contractor and stained by the painters) the cost was very fair. We had a larger budget for the door, so to come under was pretty exciting...and very, very rare during this experience.

Doesn't it just say "Welcome to our home"?




Bonus: You can play the "where's Annika" game in the last photo.

Before & After: Annika's Room

Annika's room went away with the demo - the side of the house where her bedroom was turned into a longer hall leading to the extra bathroom and two bedrooms.  It's still a trip when I head out that way as I think "how far does this thing go??" I don't have pictures of the old hall, but please trust that it was much shorter.  This is what it looks like now:

To the far left you see a door to the new bathroom and if you go all the way and turn right, you run into an orange paradise. I have heard horror stories of parents letting their 3 year old select the color for their bedroom, and let me tell you....I understand them. Annika's first choice had been a bright green. And I'm making it sound nice. Then she shifted to purple - which I am not a fan of - then finally orange. Yellow is her favorite color, so I think she wanted a change. A reminder of what her room used to look like (when it was a nursery):



And this is the result of much...orange:





In this last shot, you can look up and see her loft. The loft was a big deal for me - how fun would that be as a kid?? We still have to get the ladder and rail installed, but I think it'll be a while until she ventures up there...it's high.

Before & After: Guest Bathroom

As promised, some photos of the remodel. A quick summary of what we did:

- Every room was touched in some way (new double-pane windows, new baseboards, fresh paint in every room, new carpet and flooring throughout).

- Some more than others (completely remodeled kitchen and family room, new master bathroom, extra bedroom and extra bathroom).

- Exterior lightly touched (new paint, landscaping in progress).

So, without further ado, here's what our previous guest bathroom looked like...you'll note the maroon-ish paint, older looking built-in cabinets and white tile (you can't see):

The older guest bathroom was just a little out of date - I liked the color a lot, but the cabinets were...old.  So, to keep costs (relatively) down and to still get a new look, we bought a pre-made cabinet from Restoration Hardware (we got a great deal, though they have the worst customer service in the world and I will never recommend them to anyone) and matching mirror and medicine cabinet and we designed the bathroom around that. Using the floor tile from the other bathroom and the laundry room, and a different paint, we changed the look:

The result makes it more modern all the way around. Unfortunately, we didn't have the budget to update the shower (simple white tile and weathered glass doors) but we did get a new toilet...I'm sure our guests will enjoy that piece of knowledge.

More to come!

Bigger house, smaller wallet

Some of you may know that our house is undergoing a remodel. The plan is to add an extra bedroom, extra bathroom, remodel the master bath and kitchen and a few other things here and there.

So far, it hasn't been so bad. The workers are outside most of the time, framing the parts of the house that are exterior to the current interior (does that make sense?). They come early every morning and wake up Annika, who says at that moment, "I don't like the construction workers!" But as we leave each morning, she gives them a big smile and says hi. Fickle pickle, that one.

We get some commonly-asked questions about our remodel - I'll do my best to answer them.

Q: Why are you doing this?
A: Our house feels small with a Momma, Daddy, Baby and her four thousand toys.

Q: Why don't you just move into a bigger house?
A: Many of you may be familiar with the Bay area housing market and school districts. Long story short: We're priced out of our own area, and remodeling is actually more cost effective. Oh, and I live five minutes from work.

Q: Does Annika understand what is happening?
A: Oh yes, for the most part. In fact, this weekend we need to move her out of her room into our office/toy room because they need access to that side of the house. She is pretty excited about living in her toy room. She also thinks it's very nice of the construction workers to "make us a bigger house."

Q: Will you be living in the house throughout the remodel?
A: Heck no! Much, much love to my ridiculously generous in-laws.

Q: Will your house be totally "fly" when it's done?
A: Heck yeah!

Q: Have you ever used that Port-a-Potty in a pinch?
A: EW!

Q: So, you're making a bigger house, with an extra bedroom and bathroom...ummmm....do you have something to announce today?
A: No, I do not. Bur for the record, Annika says that she would like a baby sister, and "you (meaning Momma) can have the baby brother."