One year

A quick update because today was the one year anniversary of buying my house! I can't believe it.



I know sometimes I go on (and on and on) about how this town isn't my favorite place to live, but it is home. I also know that as much as all of the previous places I lived were temporary, this place is too. But it's a longer temporary, if that makes sense. I know I've said a lot recently how it doesn't quite feel like "home" yet, which really makes me sad. My last apartment did...so hopefully my thoughts will change. I also think that I've been taking my little place for granted. In order to make it feel like home, I need to treat it like one - and not slack on the cleaning!

What's next? A toss up between the guest room (the easiest and least expensive project - painting and one or two pieces of furniture), the upstairs bath (second most expensive - a new floor, toilet, mirror and vanity, and probably a Bath Fitter-type creation for the tub/shower. And let's face it, I'll probably repaint/decorate it), or the kitchen (the most expensive and most daunting project - new cabinets, countertops, etc. - too much to even think about. We shall see.

Gallery Wall

I feel like gallery walls are the new thing right now - I've been seeing them all over Pinterest. Even before I saw them on there, I found the idea for a gallery wall, probably while browsing ApartmentTherapy.com last year. I attempted one at my apartment, using pictures from a trip I took to California a few years ago - Yosemite, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Painted Ladies. These pictures are sitting in a closet right now because I'm unsure of how to attempt a gallery wall a second time around. I have a couple questions. First, I have a pretty large empty wall in my living room. It's the wall that faces the TV, above the couch, so it's not the most looked-at wall. Is this a good wall to use? Do I need to fill the whole wall? Second, do all the pictures need to be cohesive? I would love to use the CA pictures, but I don't have very many other destination-vacation pictures. Even if I did, can I mix vacation pictures? I also have a ton of pictures of friends, but I have a lot hanging already...maybe when I have a family I'll have more pictures to add to it.

Here are some links to my favorite gallery walls:

http://www.projectphxhome.com/2011/04/frame-wall.html
I like the letter in this one. If you look closely you'll notice the frames are empty. That's what I picture mine looking like for a while!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/decor8/6129227815/
This one gives me a great idea of color, as my living room is a pretty similar blue.

http://ahomeinthemaking.blogspot.com/2011/09/create-gallery-wall-sources.html
I love this one, with all the different, unique objects they included.

Hopefully someday (soon) I'll start/have a gallery wall to show off.

Well - it's DONE! I can't believe it all came together so fast, but my dad and I finished the downstairs bathroom remodel in 3 days. 3 days!! The decorating bug caught me. When I moved in, I thought I'd just paint the room, as evidenced here. Here are some more before pictures.

We started the project on a Saturday morning. First, we took out the toilet and the old vanity, which fell apart pretty much as soon as it wasn't in place. Then we ripped up the existing floor, which was a peel and stick tile and took the mirror down from the wall.

After everything was removed from the bathroom, we started on the floor. I had wanted a wood floor in the bathroom. When my dad and I went to Lowe's to look at all of the different choices of laminate, I noticed that the more expensive brand and the one we went with - SurfaceSource (68 cents a square foot!) looked identical. That sold me! The bathroom is a low traffic area that I didn't think needed a heavy duty expensive floor. After some work with a laminate saw, a mallet, and lots of measuring, the floor was in:

The last thing we did that day was install the toilet.

Day two, we worked on installing the vanity, trim, and painting. I'm SO happy with how it all turned out.
 

I found the vanity at Lowe's - on sale! Lowe's, if you cannot tell, is my store of choice for home improvements - it's also where I got the toilet, mirror, paint, etc.

Here is the finished product:

What do you think?

Kitschy kitchen

Nothing much new to report over here on my little street. Spring has sprung - in some places - and it was gorgeous last week. It's getting a little colder again, but that didn't stop my dad and I from picking up some plants at Lowe's last night. Hostas, some purple heather and some golden cyprus (I think that's what they were - black thumb over here that knows nothing about plants! I picked by "that one looks pretty." Then my dad and I came home to check out what I already had planted that was blooming - more hostas! I'm going to have the best garden. Let's hope the weather is perfect so if I forget to water it once or twice (or a lot) it'll be fine :)

I'll share some pictures of the finished kitchen, complete with new kitchen table. I know I posted some pictures before here, after everything was completed. I honestly can't remember the name of the store I got the table at - it was up of off 309 by a lighting store. However, I do remember that I got the framed painting at Rice's. I didn't expect to find anything like it there! Let me know what you think.

The wine bottle pictures have traveled with me from my first apartment, through Manayunk, through Ambler, and now here. They're very ME - there's no way I wouldn't put them up. The sun/moon and chili pepper pictures are a shout out to the time my family spent in New Mexico when I was little (the sun/moon was actually purchased at Mexico in Epcot, shhh!)

MIA

I know I've been totally MIA lately. 2012 has been a bit stressful so far! Things have definitely calmed down after the first two months of the year, and now I'm beginning to wrap my head around what I still need to do around the house and the projects I want to take on. Since the weather has been so nice, the first thing that comes to mind is my garden. It's small, but it's there, and I want to fill it and watch it grow. Once the time change happens, I'll pay more attention to the sun's patterns to decide what to plant and where and when.

I made a decision this weekend that I should pick one area in the house I want to work on - bathroom, kitchen, etc. and just finish it, head to toe. Now that I have the basics down in here, the colors, furniture, etc. it'll be easy to do that. So, what comes next is picking the following for the downstairs bathroom - the first (and in my mind, the easiest - though saying that could really jinx me!!):

a new vanity
I'm really liking this style (from Home Depot):

but my pipes come up from the floor in the bottom left so I'm not sure that'll work. It's so nice though! Once I figure out what can fit there I'll be more prepared to make a final decision on a vanity.

a new mirror
What's there now is a large, simple mirror with no decorative elements. And it's hung crooked on the wall. Not cool. I'm leaning towards something like this (from JCPenney):


Then I want to get new flooring. My dad said there's peel & stick wood flooring that Home Depot and Lowe's sell which would be easy to install in such a small space.

So this is my little inspiration board for my powder room. I did a before and after post here so once the whole project is complete, I'll do another update!

Hope everyone else's year is going well. I'll post more pictures of new stuff around the house once I clean. Maybe that'll be the push I need to get everything straightened and clean around here!