My First Feature and My Beautiful New Banner!

The cabinet that I redid was featured today on one of my most absolute favorite blogs, Burlap & Lace! Check it out! She has amazing style and a beautiful blog!


Burlap & Lace

And, take a look up at the top of blog and take a second to admire the wonderful handiwork of my friend, Justina! She created that fabulous banner for me and she's working on a button too! She is the best!

Things I Love Right Now

For some reason this first picture keeps uploading the wrong direction, but this is the top of a chest I bought at a garage sale a few years ago. It needs some TLC, but it's beautiful and it's going to be one of my projects in the next few months.

Each side of the chest has the same design.

I purchased two of these off of Ebay for 99 cents! I researched them when they arrived and found out that they're Depression glass made sometime between 1880 and 1923.

I am so completely obsessed with these apothecary jars. They come from Sears and I will be buying them as soon as possible!

I think that these will be perfect in our bathroom. We have a towel rack right now (a perfectly boring, standard metal rack) but I think I'd like to replace it with these.

I also love that my Mom and her fabulous boyfriend took Joey and I shopping yesterday for his early birthday present! We got all the tile for the bathtub, backer board, thin set, grout float, a bucket, a mixer thingy for the thin set (I'm technical, I know), Kilz, a gift card, and a toilet! So basically, they bought us about 85% of the bathroom. All we need for the bathroom now is the flooring, tile for the back splash, new hardware for the shower and sink, grout, and potentially a new sink pedestal at some point!

We need to finish sorting the house, but as soon as that project is finished, Joey will be able to start demolition on the bathroom and I'll keep trucking along with priming and painting!

Small Changes

Please excuse the terrible photo quality. I'll be borrowing my brother's camera for awhile to fix this problem!

Could that possibly be real paint? Why yes, yes it is! We haven't done much  painting, just a swatch on a couple of walls, but I am in LOVE with this color. We can't get the paint on the walls until we've painted the ceilings. And we can't paint the ceilings until we've removed all of the previous owner's belongings, which is not something we thought we were going to be responsible for and it's slowing down the process considerably. However, this weekend we did get some work done!

Yesterday we got tired of sorting and packing, so we worked around everything to get some more of our remodeling done! 

Here's the back door before we did anything to it. We will be replacing this door entirely, but we want to paint it to match the house for now so that it isn't an eyesore when nothing else is that color! We won't be replacing the doors for awhile because we have more pressing items to purchase first (new flooring for the kitchen and bathroom, new kitchen sink, complete remodel of bathroom, etc) so this will keep things looking nice until that time! So far we've only primed the door, but it should get its first coat of paint tomorrow.

Joey got to work on caulking some spaces that needed it. I really didn't think it'd make that much of a visual difference, but I was stunned when he finished!

Before

And voila! This wall is going to look amazing after we paint it. I can't wait!

After

Here's Joey hard at work...

The trim looks so much better now too. I took a before/after picture to show the difference! It looks so much better without that gap!

Before: Left, After: Right

While Joey was being super productive, I was also hard at work. I went to work painting trim and door frames here and there all over the house. I did some in the kitchen, some in the living room, all of the bathroom, and most of the hallway!

My high tech painting gadgets.

 
Here's your first look at the hallway (and mine too, that's the first time there has been a lamp so I could actually see it!). This picture was taken from the living room looking toward the bathroom. The first two doors are both closets and the farthest back doors are each bedrooms. This hallway is wired for light fixtures, but there isn't currently one in there, so I improvised with the lamp! The paint for this area will be that pretty blue!

That's all for now. We've made a time line for the rest of our progress for the next few weeks, because move-in is rapidly approaching! We move in 23 days on July 20th and have so much to do before then!

Leave me a comment, if you wouldn't mind! They make me happy! ;)
 

More Updates soon! And I need your opinion!

Hi everybody!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated. We've been very busy with work, school, and trying to sort and pack up both our apartment and all of the previous owner's belongings that are in the house. We're getting ready for a massive garage sale in a couple of weeks and recently getting things out of the house has been more important than actually painting or fixing up the house. Luckily, we're making great headway on cleaning out the house and we'll be back to fixing it up in another week or so! We're buying more paint and supplies tomorrow to help us get ready. So, look for another update soon!

Also, I need some opinions. Right now I've temporarily changed the name of the blog from "Home Sweet Laborious Home" to "The Nest Project", mostly because the first name was a huge mouthful. What do you think? Or do you have any other suggestions?

Giveaway from Kensington Cottage

Kensington Cottage is doing a great giveaway with some amazing items! Go check it out!



http://kensingtoncottage.blogspot.com/

Treasures

Joey and I went on a massive garage sale/ antique store spree on Saturday that lasted no less than 6 hours. We had a blast driving all over Lawrence searching for treasures. I have a very clear idea of how I want to decorate the kitchen. This is the only room that I have such a defined plan for, probably because it's the only room we've really worked on at this point!

Because the walls will be blue and the cabinets and island will be white, I want to do a take on an old country kitchen. I want clean whites, lacy curtains, and antique pieces. Depending on my mood and the season, my plan is to have yellow or pink accents.

Here are some of the pieces I've found so far that I'm in love with. Not all of them will be displayed at once, but I will have my great-great grandmother's buffet when I move in (pictures later) so I will be able to store the rest of them in order to decorate by season!

This is about 4 inches tall and adorable.

The view from the top. I love the edges.

The plan here is to paint it white. I don't like the current color, but I love the shape.

I am completely in love with this pitcher.

These are adorable little glasses.

This looks so good on that white corner cabinet.

I have 12 of these and tons of ideas.

Vases for flowers.

And that's all of them so far! I spent less than $20 on everything shown here (including the other 11 mason jars not pictured). I'm still looking for white plates to make a plate wall with. I'll post pictures once everything is up and decorated!