What is art? Are we art? Is art art?

Name that 90's sitcom.

One of my biggest challenges when decorating the house is finding large scaled, cost effective and sentimental art.  Typically, I can hit 2 of the 3 requirements with ease, but all 3?  That's like finding a unicorn.

For instance, I love me some Home Goods and I might be able to find a large, beautiful piece to display, but I have no sentimental attachment to it.  It's just a cool picture of a boat with a monkey as the captain that costs 200 bones.  Or maybe I've got a great picture of my boys to show off but if I blow it up to fill a large void, the 16" tall heads floating above the couch end up haunting your dreams rather than warming your heart.

Well spoiler alert: I found my unicorn.

As any woman of my age does, I was perusing Pinterest for inspiration and found this post.

Fun, right?

I loved the bright colors, the size and the cost.  $8 for a couple packs of shims?  This had potential.  But as I read the tutorial, I kept having the thought that perhaps they'd made this more complicated than it needed to be.  I was very much:

(Full disclosure: I don't think they are dumb at all.  They're obviously creative and fun.  I just think this meme is perfect in every way.  If you don't get the reference, let me enlighten you.  I implore you to click that link.)

I'm not going to recreate their tutorial here, but I will tell you what I did differently.  First, the angles they created were cool, but our house favors a more mid-century feel and I wanted something more in line with that style.  

Plus, what's easier than cutting 45 degree angles with your miter saw?  NOT cutting angles with your miter saw.  Smarter not harder, folks.  The shims are wedge shaped so I was going to get some cool relief pattern by leaving them as they were so I just skipped right on ahead to painting.

Here's where the sentiment came in for me.   To the closet I went, grabbing all the old spray paints I'd used for projects of yore to create my color scheme.  Because I'm a weirdo, my memories are always tied to colors.  True story, if you were to name an NFL, NBA or even MLB player, I would most likely name the color I associate with that person.  That's because somewhere along the way, I saw the uniform they played in, and my brain cataloged that person with that hue.  Then, by process of elimination, I could tell you what team they played for.  It's a weird talent but not one that I've honed.  It's just the way my brain works.  I couldn't tell you what I ate for breakfast this morning but I could tell you the exact shade of orange that the daybed in our old beach house was from when I was 6 years old.  /tangent.

So that being said, as I pulled out each can to paint the shims, I remembered the places they were used.  The bubblegum pink was used to paint a colleague's office as a prank.  The orange was used to redo the chandelier at the Glenwood house.  The blue was used on a project for my sweet friend, Kristine.  I loved the idea of tying all of these memories into one piece.  And the best part?  I already owned the paint so it was FREEEEEEEEE.

I laid out a couple of pattern options and decided on a more staggered look.

Pretty good...

CHICKEN DINNER.

The other part of the tutorial that didn't make a lot of sense to me was gluing these babies directly to the wall.  I'm not sure how that would ever be a good idea.  So I bought a piece of 2' x 4' x 1/4" birch plywood that was a nice large scale and adhered the shims to the board.  That way I could hang it, move it, take it on trips, etc.  I think it put me back about $7.  So if you're playing along at home, this project ended up costing about $15.  (Update: add in the cost of the bolts to mount it and we're up to $17.)

So on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I painted.

Once everything was dry, I laid out my pattern, balancing all the colors throughout.

Nick trimmed off the ends with our saw but they are honestly so thin, you could do it with a box cutter or even an exacto knife.   We pre-drilled some holes at the corners and put the bolts in.  Husbo had the genius idea that if the shim cracked at all where we drilled the hole, a washer would cover that up.  And it gave the mounting a little more substance visually.

Token bolt-tightening action shot.

And the angels sang.

I realize it might not be everyone's jam, but it sure is mine.  The living room is pretty neutral in color (on purpose...so I can adapt it from season to season) so this pop of fun is just what she needed.  And for under $20?  SHUT YOUR FACE.  I walk by it every so often and try not to stare but I can't help it.  She's a hot tamale.

In my heart of hearts, I believe Lisa Turtle would approve.

Our Date Nights Are Trips to Lowes: Part One

As our last post would indicate, we bought a house.  A fabulous, vintage, 1962 mid century ranch that kisses Downtown Raleigh.  We've actually been a little surprised by how little we miss our old house because we really did love it there.  But this place feels much more like us and we're having a lot of fun dreaming up the renovation plan.

I'm laughing as I think of how ambitious we were to keep up with this blog every couple weeks to track the progress.  Let's get this out of the way: there's a lot to be done in this place.  We moved in just over a month ago and we've got years of work ahead of us.  (Sigh.  Years.)   But we make a "top 5" goal list every Monday morning and so far, we've tackled everything on the list each week AND kept up with all the recent episodes of Scandal and The Americans.  Priorities, y'all.

So we figured the easiest way to throw an update together would be with pictures.  They're worth 100 words.  Or maybe it's 1,000.  I'm not sure of the conversion rate these days.

Exterior (before we moved in):

Girl, you ashy.

Exterior (now that we're here):

Groundbreaking...

Can we take credit for stuff blooming?

The only change we've made so far is replacing the house numbers and entry light.  (It's worth mentioning that before we moved in and the first week we were here, the entire house had to have a new 200 amp service brought to it and all the receptacles needed to be grounded.  So that pretty much took over the house for the first days so we could feel sure we weren't going to blow anything up or start a fire.)  

Old brass light: out.  

Crazy Sexy Cool globe light wired for damp conditions: in.

The new digits.

We've removed a bit of yard art and discovered a butt load of carpenter bees in the back.  So if anyone has experience getting rid of those things, I'm all ears.

Entry (before we moved in):

Entry (now that we're here):

One of the lights was broken in the shipment.

Another giant brass fixture bites the dust in lieu of this sputnik light.  And since we get the question a lot...it's from Lowes.  And it's cheap.  Or, it WAS.  It's gone up in price since we bought it.  (Considering there are 18 Edison bulbs that come with the fixture that are typically $6-$8 a pop, that means the actual fixture itself only cost us about $20.   See how I justify things in my head?)  We have also begun the long process of changing all the almond colored paint in the house to a more modern gray.  (Sherwin Williams Repose Gray, if you're curious.)

The hallway (before we moved in):

It's a beige bonanza!

The hallway (now that we're here):

As if it were plucked from my dreams, there were hardwood floors under 80% of the existing flooring in the house.  New carpet had been put down with in the past couple of years, so while normally, carpet skeeves me out, this stuff was super clean.  So, we kept it in the master bedroom, den and Carter's room and ripped it up in the living room, hallway and guest room.  It had to be refinished but we got a great deal from a dude. Happy to share his info for those in the market.   

In this here hallway though, we still need to paint (thus the tape), install new lights and hang something epic at the end of the hall.  I'm thinking an oil painting of Nicolas Cage.

The living room (before we moved in):

The living room (now that we're here):

This room has probably had the most work since we've been here.  We've ripped up the carpet and refinished the floors, replaced the light fixture and painted.  We've also put things in our built in (swoon!) and are beginning to accessorize.  So besides C's room, it's definitely gotten the biggest facelift so far.  We still have plenty to do in here (namely some structural support stuff under the fireplace, touching up trim and installing shoe moulding) but we're happy with the direction of this room.

Speaking of...

Carter's room (before we moved in):

That yellow was actually way brighter in person, if you can imagine.

The end of the original house ended at his room and you'll notice that awkward window in the top picture to the right.  The den is on the other side and so it just let in some secondary light (and noise) into the room.  I decided it was much too awkward for the layout so we removed it.  And by we, I mean Nick and his dad.  

I was still loving the navy from his room @ Glenwood so I used it again here.  And used the same taping technique, just a different pattern.

Nick made a pattern out of foam core and then we just tape, tape, taped.

 His room still needs a few finishing touches: touch up the trim, swap out the lights on his fan for something less tulip-y, get a small colorful rug for in front of the bookcase for reading (and to break up that sea of off white carpet), clean some older paint off his closet doors and figure out what type of lamp to put in the corner.
___________________________________________________________________________

And now I'm tired of typing, you're tired of reading and there's a cheese & salami log calling my name.  We'll cover the rest of the house in another post.  Probably.  Or just have all of y'all over to see it for yourselves.  MEGA HUGE PARTY!

(This was clearly Nick's suggestion.)

Farewell, 705.

Today was a big day.  Carter is officially 6 months old.  HALF A YEAR, Y'ALL.

But that actually plays second fiddle to the bigger news of the day: closing on the house.  We are excited to finally jump into the pool of home ownership but we are definitely sad to be leaving our current digs.

I moved into this house back in 2008 with my good friend, Bryna.  We moved in knowing we'd only have 6 months to love this place, as the landlord was planning to raze the entire block to put up million dollar brownstones.

Economy tanks, project falls through and our home was left standing.  Two roommates and a wedding later, Nick moved in when we got married in 2010. (Let's not forget the foreclosure notice on the front door weeks before the wedding that led to a new landlord, with whom we went nearly 4 years without any type of legal documentation of our living in the house.) Now it's 2014 and I'm flooded with memories.

We brought Carter home from the hospital to this place.

 We've had 5 epic Halloween parties here.

Police and SWAT teams have surrounded our house (twice).  We've had countless friends and family members over for meals and game nights.  We've held Bible Study here and prayed for our City in this place.

I spent countless (i.e. 9) months, sick in our bedroom, as our little dude grew in my belly.

We danced almost every night in the kitchen to the Motown channel on Pandora as we cooked dinner together.  We put a new concrete skim coat on the counters in the kitchen among countless other cheap (or free face) lifts.  If I total up the number of times I've painted in this house, we're looking north of 15 times.  God bless my husband.

We love this house.  We are going to miss it tremendously.  But the adventure before us is grand.   Oh man...it's going to be fun.

So before we officially close the chapter on this place, we took a house tour video to show Carter one day.

For you nosey folks like me, I thought I'd share.  Remember, it's narrated with the intent of sharing with Carter one day, so don't judge my weird voice.  (Full disclosure: my voice is just strange.  I'm blaming this on talking to the baby but I sound like a nasally valley girl 90% of the time.  I'll own it.)  It's 6 minutes long so don't say I didn't warn you.

We'll miss you, 705.