Floors!!! Part one: sanding

So we finally decided...

source

This is special walnut on the main floors and dark walnut on the stair case. Isn't it lovely? We realized that with short ceiling and darker furniture, our nice and airy house would be dark and an scary.  Here are some progress pictures...

The stripped banister, brought back to life by a full day of work by my tireless mother-in-law and hubby. Thank you. Thank you. 

The red oak, 2 1/4 herringbone floors all sanded up. Yeah :) This floor makes me really happy. 

Two of many samples the flooring guys showed us. 

The best thing we've heard in a while? "Wow. You guys should have your own company. These floors are professionally done."  I will take it. lol

While that was going on upstairs, Matt and I tried to get some last minute supplies. 

And I am working my magic on walls, sweating away in this 103 degree, non-airconditioned home. 

Thats it for now. Hope you all enjoyed July and are ready for school. Matt starts back up on Monday! Where did this summer go???

xoxo,

Mrs. in love with my floors

Hardwood Flooring

Well today is a great day! After weeks of hard work we are finally able to take a break as our hardwood floors are being restored. The best part? Its not us doing the work! Hallelujah!

With that said we are looking for color choices for our 2 1/4 red oak floors. I prefer super dark, walnut floors but I am concerned about the home feeling swamped and closed in. Any suggestions, comments, concerns??? Anyone have dark floors and regrets it?

I need a choice asap. So feel free to tell me what you all think.

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xoxo,

Mrs. sleeping in and loving it

How to make industrial cage lights

Sorry for being MIA. We were in Maui and Oahu for two weeks, which will be detailed later. As soon as I got back I was attacked with sinus/allergy issues and I have been a lil miserable.  (Double ear infections, blurry vision, itchy eyes, migraines, bloody nose, itchy throat) Its also made worse by the fact that I cannot get to sleep until 3 am each night since I guess I am still on Maui Time.  This California Valley is sucking the life out of me. :)

So, since I am out of it and not wanting to write, I thought I'd show you a great site that details how to make industrial cage lights.  It meets two specific criteria that is important: its vintage (styled) and is functional. They would look great in a variety of rooms but they make the most sense to me in my art studio.

As much as I would love to buy them ready to go, spending $100 ea at Anthropologie seems a bit ridiculous. $100??? So I have been searching on my off days for DIY ideas and finally ran across this great DIYer, Creede, who featured his ideas on this fantastic site that you should check out. I mean, it really is great! Depending on where you get your supplies, you could realistically spend between $5-10 each. Now that is a deal I can get behind.

Sources: (A)  (B)  (C)  (D)  (E)

xoxo,

Mrs. sneezing away

P.S. Thank you so much for the sweet comments and nominations! When I get a chance to breath, I will check it all out. :) 

A wedding and a weekend away

Okay so we did a LOT of traveling this weekend and met up with some of our old college friends.  We were all over the place: from Sacramento, Sonoma, Napa, Camp Meeker to everywhere in between. 

While Matt was busy helping set up the reception hall, I slipped out and met up with my dear friend Harmony and her lil one. We both were each other's bridesmaids and she definitely lives up to her name. That woman is a gift from God. 

The adorable church that has no airconditioning. 

Taking a weekend off from housework brings out the silly. 

I definitely was not in proper wedding attire. We heard ahead of time from the guys that it was going to be extremely hot, so I dug through my shopping bag of clothes purchased for our trip to Hawaii, (did I mention that yet??) where I had a few cotton beach dresses and found this one.   Oh well. :)  Yes we are headed to Hawaii this summer. I CANNOT WAIT.

Some cute things we saw at the wedding...

Chalkboard seating chart, paper polka dot runners, wildflowers in thrifted vases, milk glass pedestals with cupcakes and a threaded monogram on wood near the "candy shop" table.

Another threaded heart for the gift wrap table, advice cards on the tables, wedding cake for two and some hanging baskets at the church... 

Some other great things we saw were pictures of the bride and groom's parents on their wedding day. It was a really neat, personal touch. 

We stayed with a few others and cleaned up the reception hall and then treated ourselves to homemade ice cream at Screamin' Mimi's in Sebastopol with Matt's sweet friend David. omg. I had some amazing Cinnamon Crumb Cake ice cream that was wicked awesome.  The next day we packed our bags quickly and ran to a little Orthodox mission for church and then headed over to meet more friends at Sonoma's Sunflower Cafe.  

My preggers friend, Katherine.  Poor thing had to leave the wedding early as she was having contractions at the wedding. Did I mention it was hot? 

Well, you probably won't hear from me anytime soon... Back to work!

xoxo,
Mrs. sweating profusely 

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Be your own decorator and design a room

Hello! I hope you are having a great week. I just wanted to pass along this fantastic site I just found. It is a great program called The Make Room which is an interactive room planner that you can customize with furniture, decoration and even technical data such as lighting and wiring.

Its simple to use and best of all- free! They don't require a login although I think its preferable if you want to save your room plans.

The Make Room site

Here is my living room that we "decorated" online this morning. I cannot believe how easy this program is to use. Remember drafting supplies and their crazy stencils? I had tons of those as a kid when I was interested in becoming an architect.  Technology is just too cool. 

In the brief time I was using it, I didn't see a fireplace symbol so I just enlarged a bench seat to the approximate size. Double click items to clone, recolor and resize. 

Okay...back to remodeling. Off to go put on my coveralls and conquer the day.

xoxo,

Mrs. designing away

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Father's Day Gift Ideas

Celebrating dads can be a bit difficult after years and years of giving repetitive gifts. I think I have given my dad about all the golf related items you can find. But I am still an old fashioned girl with a love of all things classic. 

Here are my must haves that I think most guys at any age would get a kick out of.

1. Dress him up with a leather belt, wallet, etc (image source) 
2. Give him a fantastic vintage camera (etsy print source)
3. Tobacco Pipes (etsy shop)
4. Vibrams to run, kick box, hike "barefoot"  (source)
5. A 1954 vintage Sunbeam Motorcycle (source)
6. Snazzy Bow-ties (source) (vintage ones on etsy)
7. DAD belt buckle (etsy shop)
8. Take a cue from a dad of many...Brad Pitt's Newsboy Hat (image source) 
9. Take him to a game...of course it has to be the SF Giants (image source) 
10. Shaving Set with Straight Edge Razor, Brush, Leather Strap  (source) 
11. Temporary DAD tattoos to show your love (source) 
12. Antique Books from his favorite authors or subjects  (source)

What are you doing for Father's Day???

xoxo,

Mrs. daddy's girl

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A few updates

Do you ever have a day where you are like, Good Lord! This is taking forever. Yes, we have had that times 6 months. 

These are the current projects that are in the "during" stage and unfinished as of yet. 

We added the same trim "apron" we did on the windows to the top of this doorway. It still needs a final top green coat but so far, I think it adds a great vintage quality to the entryway. 

The front door before and during. Blue paint is just a first coat- and will be finished in green.

The former dining (which might just stay that way) had an entryway removed. On the other side of this now closed room will be the refrigerator. Matt commandeered boards from the kid's room upstairs and did a great job installing them. Momma dear painted them and I am in the process of texturing.

Whole house fan... all I can say is that it works...its loud and maybe a perfect cover for when we want ... ah hum, alone time in the future.

My dear hubby went along with my crazy plans. There was dead space with a venting system remoded between the right wall of this bathroom and the master bedroom. We decided to pimp it out with storage solutions to maximize this small space. The top left will have recessed shelves. We added electrical outlets so that we can plug in a radio until we afford speakers.  

The bottom left area will be divided between a trash compartment and a tilt out laundry hamper.  

We had our electrician add a hot water supply line to the toilet area for the addition of a bidet attachment. In the future we could always add a cloth diaper sprayer when we have kids. Necessary? No. But totally awesome. I think until us crazy Americans visit Europe we just don't understand what we are missing. :0)

Hubby came up with this one all on his own. For whatever reason this boxed wall area had literally nothing behind it. All the other cute cut outs have some sort of storage or drawers so Matt decided it was a must to cut it out. In one day my amazing hubby built out the floor, insulated the pitched ceiling and floors and then my amazing Mum came over and installed hardwood flooring.  Awesome!!! Hello shoe storage. :) 

Last but not least is the herringbone floor my mom and I installed. Isn't it a beauty? A few rows in I was like, "Oh I got this. This is silly easy."  Um... I have crazy cuss words going through my head even now. It was hard and NO way would I do it again. But will I love it? YES!

As you can see...we are making progress! 

xoxo,

Mr. and Mrs. worked to the herringbone

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