Let The Renovations Begin!

Maybe it has something to do with the winter time and the fact that I want to be inside…ALL.DAY.LONG. The bug to change the world has hit me…or actually maybe starting a bit smaller is key and that has led me to begin renovations on my home!

As you know I completed the guest rooms minus a few decorating items but at least those two rooms are done and the doors stay closed until people come to visit (hint, hint!) On to the bigger projects where I actually have to focus and take my time because these are the rooms that people actually see a lot more.

First up is the living room!! Pinterest inspiration struck again and I decided with this house I really need to stay in-tune with myself and my style. I am a “coastal” girl and I should just allow that to happen! Light blues, creams, and seashells galore! Gotta bring a little bit of the ocean into my mid-west life here. Thankfully, the German husband of mine is just cool with whatever I do! 🙂

So I saw this picture on Pinterest which you can find it’s original place on the House Of Turquoise Blog here. This is the idea! And although I can’t exactly do it JUST like that it was a great start for inspiration!

Previous walls in the living room were in my opinion dark blue. Nothing wrong with dark colors, it just started to depress me. There is only one large window and two smaller ones in this room. Not a whole lot of natural light pouring through so it was important to me that we lighten it up…A LOT!

I fought with the idea of paint colors and finally landed on THE color. Glass Slipper by Benjamin Moore. I spent hours searching for the right color but every one of them was either too “baby blue” or “too dark.” This color by Benjamin Moore has a hint of green in it so its not going to give you that newborn baby room look.

So all in all it took me to do the entire room in about a week! I know, that seems insane but first, I was all by my little self doing this. I had to take SO many breaks because I also have dog duty and other house duties to attend to. On top of that, I’m scared of heights so being on a ladder was just REALLY challenging for me!

End result – Exhibit A:

Harley loves his new space 🙂 He’s going to be 5 tomorrow! Everyone say Happy Birthday to this sweet, cupcake!

End Result – Exhibit B

So as you can see this simple change turned the room into something different. I actually like to sit in there all day now. No…wait, I actually don’t sit around all day. I’m off doing very productive things because that is what housewives do! 🙂

I painted the panel above the fireplace white because I’m having a hard enough time figuring out what to put there. A picture? A clock? An abstract piece of art? A canvas print? It’s not easy! But at least it doesn’t look like its a focal point anymore. So maybe whatever goes there won’t be THAT important.

Also, I painted ALL of the molding…ALL of it.  I couldn’t bare the thought of trying to scrub out all the crayon marks, old pizza, and several other questionable substances I found in my journey.  Another reason why I shouldn’t have children…my OCD does not allow for ANY messes! But doing that simple little thing made this room look like it was just built. Almost. It gave it all a bit of much needed makeover and I’m feeling complete!

Next up: DECORATING!! Will be added a bit of greenery, end tables, lamps, curtains and something for those shelves and above the mantel. Its all getting there! Slowly but surely!

Then on to: DINING ROOM/KITCHEN! Will be adding backsplash, brightening it up as well, and re-staining the cabinets! Wish me luck!

Anyone have any ideas for the space above the mantel? Would love to hear what you got!!!

Until next time, Readers!!!! xoxoxoxoxo

A Writer’s Heaven

Finally….a place for me to sit and do what I LOVE to do most! 🙂 AN OFFICE!!!

I know I’ve been talking about this for months and how excited I am to show you guys. It’s still not 100% yet but I’m working with the small space. Got the furniture bits in there and now it’s time for all the decorations/plants/etc. So…Here it goes!

After much discussion I decided to go with dark gray walls and white furniture. Seems to be “in” for the moment so I went with it! Funniest bit was I worked forever on painting this room. First coat didn’t really dry as dark as I wanted but I was ok with it. Went back to the store to get more paint, started painting and found they were two totally different colors. The girl who mixed the paint the first time around completely gave me the wrong shade of gray. THANK YOU, MORON! So, I decided to leave the largest wall as the lighter gray and the rest as the dark gray….and this is what we have!

Walking into the office you see (right side wall is lighter gray)

Then we have the cubed bookshelf. It’s my stock of English books! 🙂 And a few of Toblerone’s. I told myself I would go back and read all of these again. Doesn’t hurt! I definitely need to add to it though, no empty spaces!!!

This picture is amazing. Everything old is what I want in this room and this is a scene of NYC in 1932. Not sure you can see it so good because of the glare (SORRY!) but the harbor is missing quite a few buildings and this is long before World Trade Center was built. Back before all the terror and Prohibition was just ending. Just a great piece if you ask me!:

And of course this is my favorite part so far. Right now there are pictures of my grandparents and family – all B&W pics of course. It was these pictures that gave me the idea for the room so I went with it. I felt I needed a special place for them to be displayed. Soon this will be overflowing with them and from Toblerone’s grandparents too. Just have to make the copies but it will be all different sized frames all overlapping one another…chaotic…because that’s what family is. A whole lot of love and chaos and in this case – a mix of cultures and memories:

So, that’s what I have so far. I’ll be adding more vegetation to the room to add some color to it but for now it’s my little hole in the house. It’s my sanctuary to write and have peace of mind. It may not be anyone else’s Heaven but for me…it does the trick as far as inspiration goes.

Let me know what you think and what ideas you have for other decorations to liven it up a bit!

Until next time, Readers!!!! xoxoxoxoxo

An Update From Germany

Let’s see, where to begin.

1.) Our Garden situation. Ha. I realized there is no possible way for me to write this in a nice way. The company that was supposed to come JULY 1st (!!!!!!!!!!!) obviously did not. It’s been 17 days and during those 17 days we had a heck of a time trying to get in touch with the owner of the company. He screened our calls, didn’t return messages. We turned on “stalker mode” and called 4 or 5 times a day. Finally, a not-knowing secretary answers the office phone and gives us the dudes mobile phone number. HA! I’VE GOT YOU NOW, SUCKER!

Well, he fed us a million excuses as he choked on his words in fear. Saying that one of the workers was out due to a sick father, another worker had some other ridiculous thing like he lost a leg in a bread cutting accident. Who knows. Needless to say, the dude said he would call us on Friday (that was two days ago) with a full report and a date of when he would be able to start. I’m sure you guessed it, he didn’t call. I’ve decided every day he goes without calling or starting, I’m knocking off 500 Euro from the contract of 21,700 Euro. At this point, he’s down to 15,000 Euro. I hate unreliable people. It’s not my thing. Either way, it needs to be done by August 27th because I’m throwing a big party here and I promised people the jacuzzi would be up and running. And it will be – god willing!

2.) My language classes – you know the one that is for a year, 25 hours a week, 5 hours a day, every day – will start in the beginning of September when the school holiday is over. I thought I was looking forward to it and a bit of me is, however, it’s just an awful long time to be in a classroom when I have enough to do at home. I mean, seriously, I would rather be cleaning or something like that. (I have housewife syndrome!)

3.) Because of the undisclosed reason that is keeping me quite busy lately I’ve decided that since I won’t be traveling much (our trip to the US has been cancelled for now due to this as well) I will do a typical 30 day Blog challenge. Why not? Get to know the sugar behind the spice, ay? So it’s a new topic, every day for 30 days. I may change a few of them because I think they are ridiculous.  I will start this next week I think on Wednesday or Thursday probably and go from there. I regret to say that the majority of my blogs for possibly the next 6-8 weeks won’t all be about Germany and all the sites and crazy ways of the Germs, but I want to give you something! So, like it or not, thats what you’re gettin! 🙂

4.) I’ve decided to ask around and find the best and easiest way to make an Erdbeerkuchen  directly from a German because I have a lot of traffic checking out my blog on the matter in which I didn’t get into specifics. I only threw around my frustration with reading directions in German and took pictures. So, that will be coming soon as well!

5.) I’ve been dying to show you guys the outcome of the office here but it’s not entirely finished. “We’ve only just begunnnnn.” (Singing the Carpenters in my head) The painting is done and all that but I really didn’t want to show you guys until all the pictures were on the wall and we had shelving and what not. We have a desk, a chair, a rug, and the rest is boxes of books that need a home! I may show you the before and during. At a later date you get the “After and completed pictures.”

6.) I’ve decided to find some sort of Blog Ads – brings in more traffic and the like. Anyone have any good suggestions? Ones that are free would be better obviously! 🙂 This would also motivate me to write more if I knew I had people coming to the site!

Thats the update for now. I’ll be writing more later. I PROMISE this time!

Until next time, readers!! xoxoxoxoxo

Pink…Purple…Green…Red…EVERY COLOR!!

Paint. Not my friend.

Growing up I was given the liberty to pick and choose the color I wanted my room. Now that I have the option to pick and choose what my house will look like, I suck at it.

Here’s the dillio….our entire house is Stark white. I’m talkin’ hospital, gives you an instant headache, kind of white. Barf. Naturally, this needs to be changed, STAT! Starting with the most used area – Living Room/Dining Room.

We worked hard for two days straight (12 hours each) to make sure the walls were perfect. The walls are not what we have here. They are more like a stucco type wall, not flat, with lots of little tiny areas that don’t get covered with a paint roller – so I found out. Great. After two coats and going back over it with a small brush to fill in the tiny white spots, and a serious case of joint pain, below is what we ended up with!

BEFORE:

So this was me trying to get a quick shot of what it was before but we had already started. So the paint there, you mix your self. No fancy handy-dandy mixing machines like we have here! WTF! So…the paint for the lighter wall came in a weird yellowy small bottle that you mix with white paint and water until you have the correct color. It wasn’t EXACTLY what I was looking for so I may end up going back and changing things around eventually but for now we’re going with a Pinot Noir Red on the accent walls and a creme brulee on the rest. YUM!

AFTER:

This is looking at the living room from the dining room. So we painted the chimney walls red (3 small walls) as well as the main wall where the TV will go. The rest are all the creme color.

This is looking at the dining room from the living room. (Oh and thats the soon to be hubby!) It’s a little dark but you get the drift!

I have a lot of ideas for the many other rooms in the house which I will be putting WAY more thought into now that I know how this whole thing works. I’ll be glad when it’s all done and we can sit back and relax in our amazing Jacuzzi…Give me it!