Gallery Wall

The last time I showed you my office was not only months ago (and last year!) but it had a big blank wall.  I finally took care of this problem, it only took me forever.

The blank wall on the right

Playing around with the layout on the floor

It really wasn't as difficult as I make it sound.  I wanted all of the photographs to be in black and white and all frames to be black and varying sizes.  It took me a while to acquire all of the frames I wanted and figure out which pictures to use.  I ended up going with most of our wedding pictures but in my opinion they're the most expensive pictures I will ever pay for so they better be everywhere!  For a while I had all of my frames up with the stock images in them, this was kind of funny for when we had guests over.

Somewhere in my Pinterest travels I saw someone use toothpaste to hang pictures and this is the best method ever.  If I only remembered where I saw this I could give that person the credit but let me tell you how great this is.  So many times I'm stuck measuring and making a hole and find out I was off by just a tiny bit.  This way, you put a dab of toothpaste on the hook for where the nail goes on the back of the frame.  Then, you place it against the wall where you would like it, leaving a dollop of toothpaste where your nail needs to be.  This takes out all of the guesswork.  I will never measure again!  Some frames required two nails and in this case I did the same thing for both hooks and then used a level, this way I knew the distance between the nails.

So here it is..

Have to have my city scenes of Baltimore and Central Park

The office is finally getting there!

Office Makeover Part 1

I had given myself a goal to paint my office in September and believe it or not, I did!  We had the stickiest weather so I didn't want to put my furniture too close to the wall without being certain it was dry.  My office is now worthy of showing you my progress!

So what was I working with? The room wasn't too bad but it wasn't anything to fawn over either.

I know, it looks a mess right! When you don't love the room, you don't really feel the need to clean it up before you put pictures of the mess online.  It became somewhat of a storage room where we put the things we weren't sure about.

We painted it "Smoky Charcoal" by Glidden and I absolutely love it.  I have yet to purchase a tester and see how I like it before going for the gallon so I got lucky again.  Its a very smart idea but once you get me to home depot I really don't want to go home, try it, and come back...I guess I'm just lazy.  So, we got to taping, then got to painting.  Then I sat in the middle of the room and waited for it to dry because I was just so antsy!

I bought 2 Billy shelves from Ikea in black-brown and got to setting them up.  They are much nicer than some of the other furniture I have purchased from them in the past.  They even have a cut out in the back for where the moulding is/would be.

I had piled all of my frames and books in the guest room and now I am trying to sort through the mess.  Here is my office as of now.  It isn't done yet but it looks a heck of a lot better than it did before.

What do you think? I think I followed my inspiration for this space.

This office chair has got to go! So big and bulky!

Reese loves looking out this window with my little bench

I still have a lot that I want to do but I wanted to share my progress so far!

My next project? I'm thinking the basement bathroom, I'll give you a better idea when I nail down my idea.  I'm not sure if I can get it done in October but heres hoping!

Today is the Day!

Last night, not only did I catch up on my DVRed shows but I cleared out the office so I can paint it today.  I should really thank all of those expensive movie channels I pay for, if it wasn't for them not adding any new movies I would have probably put this project off again. So, thank you!

I haven't even made the trip to Home Depot yet but seeing all of my things in the hallway and this empty room are motivation enough! I haven't fully decided on my color yet, I'm hoping I will fall in love with something when I get there.

So here I am, in my empty office scoping my Pinterest "Office" board for some final inspiration while listening to Third Eye Blind.  I know that once its painted I will want to go on a shopping spree but I'll have to fight the decorating urges.  We bought bookshelves from Ikea months ago and they've been sitting in our room, still in the box, ever since.  To defend myself, they were out of the other 2 shelves I want so I'm still waiting for them to get them in.  It also helped us keep Reese from army crawling under our bed after she got "fixed."

Wish me luck! To be continued...

September Project

It has been busy in the Batcave for the remainder of the summer.  What have we been up to? That is a very good question.  To sum it up, we took a trip to the beach, did some mild spring cleaning, our little Reese got herself "fixed" so she won't have any Reese's Pieces, and Batman is getting ready for a new school year..this time with Kindergartners!

At the Beach with Batman

Reese with her Party Collar

Remember that feeling for the first day of school we had when we were growing up? I miss that feeling..some of them at least.  I also miss the feeling of waking up and seeing that it was a snow day!  I felt bad for Batman and then I got over it!  He was lucky enough to have the whole summer off while I woke up and drove my hour commute to work. I won't lie, at first I thought I would hate it but it was convenient being able to e-mail/text him with "Hey can you pick this up for me?" or "Can you vacuum the living room?"  Then I think about how lucky he is to have a summer off! Yes, teachers work very hard and the poor boy taught first grade without air conditioning in the humid Maryland weather, but months of vacation time must be nice!

The end of his summer was filled with lesson-planning and setting up his classroom.  I was put to work to set up some of his posters for around the room and I took my time making it perfect!

I think my new thing is to work on a project a month and my next project should be the office.  This might motivate me to get a little motivated to finish a room for once. So, my inspiration...

Source

We took a trip to our Ikea last night to get the Billy and Benno shelves and of course, they are out of stock on the Benno shelves.  They said they wouldn't be getting them anytime soon but the store an hour and a half away has them.  So what do I do? Wait it out and hope they get them? Make the trip to the other store and hope that 2 fit in my car? Order them online and pay the whopping $40 for shipping? I'm so torn!

Source - this one I found on Pinterest and I can't seem to access from the link.

When I lived with my parents my room was red and black with a pale yellow wall so I have lots of decor already.  This time I'm thinking about making the whole room monochromatic and having red accents.  My latest dilemma is how dark to go with the grey wall.  My furniture is black-brown so I don't want it to be too dark of a room but some of the darker grey's are just so intense, I love them.  What do you think?

Tour of the Batcave

It is so exciting when you buy your first house.  Actually, I'm sure its exciting every time.  Then you realize all of the bad things.  Packing, its never-ending and so hard to stay organized instead of just throwing everything into a box. Unpacking, its great having help but they end up putting things places where you will never find them again and ask you questions the whole time, I have yet to find my pasta strainer and I'm Italian..I need it!  Then, when you're all settled in, you want everything to look perfect. Perfect doesn't come right away.

Our House!

I had tons of dorm room quality things that I had acquired through my college years.  Most of those things weren't worthy of keeping.  We had to buy so much and ended up getting some just for now furniture.

Our house was vacant when we first looked at it.  We had to envision everything with our belongings and its really hard to imagine furniture that you don't own yet.  Considering that we had to start from scratch, we've come a long way!  Let me show you what we fell in love with...

Living Room

Our living room was so hard to figure out!  We only have 1.5 useable walls for furniture.  Its a really big room but its long and narrow.  More to come on that later.  How about those curtains...eek.

Our deck is pretty big and I love our patio below with the swing.  We now have patio furniture and a grill!  We also have a shed which has electricity, crazy right?

The Basement

The Batcave!  This is where the football games will be watched.  I don't have any say on this room so this will be interesting.  It will probably be sports memorabilia on all walls.

Main floor bathroom

This bathroom isn't terrible but I am not a fan of pink.  This was the first room painted and I love it!  I'd show you but I'm still on the hunt for accent pieces.  I hope to show you soon!

Kitchen

Our kitchen, pretty self explanatory.  Nothing amazing but more than we're used to.  The house we lived in while we were in college didn't have a dishwasher so we are so happy to have one! We also didn't have AC so this is like posh living.

Master Bathroom

The bathroom is pretty small.  It has a tub to the right but as of now, this room needs some beautify-ing.

The Office

Master Bedroom Vanity

I love having this in our house! At one point Batman asked me what we would store there.  Isn't he cute for thinking we would put things there? Allll mine!

Guest Bedroom

These next few pictures have some furniture in them.  The earlier pictures were from the appraisal and didn't have these full rooms.  This is our guest room.  All it has now is a bed and things that need to be unpacked.

Master Bedroom

Our room is really big for a townhouse.  I love it! The curtains have been changed and some updates have been accomplished.  The comforter is from Macy's by Martha Stewart.  It was a black friday purchase that I got for more than half off.  The curtains were included as well but I'm not the biggest fan.  The sheets that were included are so thin that when I pulled them up, my thumb went through.  I'd recommend the comforter but if I didn't get this for so cheap I would be so upset with the quality of the sheets.  I can give you a glimpse soon but keep in mind that this is our room, I want it to be perfect so that means I will really have to map out what I want to do.

Kitchen

Some decorations in there.  The table was my great-grandma's.  My Dad refinished it and it is beautiful.  This picture doesn't give it justice.  We also have a leaf for it, with it in it fits in the entire space.  The chairs are temporary, we are looking for something stained espresso (or to be stained) but we need narrow chairs since we are limited with space.  The shelf is also another one of my Dads creations.

Back Patio

So now you have seen our house and can follow us as we make it more of our own.  In a dream world it would have hardwood floors.  I am having the hardest time adjusting to these white carpets.  I grew up with wood floors and boy are carpets a lot of work!