Update: The Bar

The bar is back in the Giants room and it's done!  Just looking for some bar stools now. 

You can see what it started out looking like without paint HERE.  My father-in-law did sand it down before we painted and stained it.

We got the bar at Superior Thrift in Stockton.  We painted the bottom of it, stained and put a polyurethane on the arm rest part, and then laid down baseball cards and put a resin over the top of it to set it. 

This barstool is used in our kitchen island..  I'm looking for something black and/or orange, I think.

 

We were really worried about laying the resin.  We googled and watched youtube videos to make sure we didn't mess it up because we had 1 chance to get it right.  I think it turned out great!!  After doing this, we realized that the people that messed up theirs probably weren't following the directions on the box.... so follow the directions exactly and you shouldn't have many issues.

A few tips that I can give you from our experience: 

• We used this resin: Famowood 1-Quart Glaze Coat Gloss Polyurethane from Lowe's and follow the directions EXACTLY.  If you don't, you will mess it up. This was just the right amount of resin for the top of our bar.  I believe it covers 8 sq ft and that's what our bar is.
• Somehow tack down the cards/objects so they don't float when you pour the resin.  I used a spray adhesive.
• Make sure you have someone else with you to help because it starts to set pretty fast.
• Use 2 of THESE and 1 of THESE to make sure you are pouring in equal amounts of the resin solution.  One for each parts of the solution (1 qt), and a 3rd one (2 1/2 qt) to mix them together with a paint stick, following the directions EXACTLY.  Did I say that yet??
• The resin will go through cardboard.  We couldn't worry about that too much since we were using cards.  We didn't have another choice.
• Have a blow torch handy.  When the resin dried, bubbles will form.  If you lightly put heat on the bubble, it will pop.  This will only happen while the resin is wet.  Once it's dry, there's not much you can do.
• If you have a dog or two like us, we found a few pieces of dog hair in the resin as it was drying.  We were able to pull it out with tweezers before it dried.

Here are close-up shots of the cards:

 

Ask any questions you have about the resin or staining and Lucian and I will get back to you on our experience with it.  We will help as much as we can!  I know how intimidating it can be.

Sarah

Giants Room: The "Before"

Sorry, I'm doing this backwards, but I was just too excited about the "after" pictures to wait!  And there's way too many pictures to do it in one post.

This room might have been our favorite so far.  I know that it is definitely our most used room now.  

The Before:

I can't find better pictures of the walls, but they were paper bags glued to the wall.  No joke.  Who does that??  The carpet was forest green.  We were NEVER in there before.  I'm sure you can guess why.  It was so dark and drab.  

From the kitchen (before it was painted) to the ugly room -

To get to the "after," we started with a plan.  That only my dad can read and understand.

 

Then the supplies.  We only shop at Lowes.  The other store is crap.

The walls started to get torn down.  There were layers of paper bags, wallpaper, plywood, dry wall, plaster, and lath.  I might have forgotten a layer.

This room was, at some point, and add on to the house.  We aren't sure in what way.  This part was original.  I believe there was a sink and medicine cabinet where the rectangle cut out is.  Our neighbors said they had a sink there before they added on to theirs.

Part of the crew.  Dad, brother, and father-in-law.

If only we could have found this wallpaper again to wallpaper the whole room.......

 I think this was one of my favorite finds.  This was originally a doorway to the outside (most likely) or a closet.  There was a window on top of it.  I wanted to get it out to re-purpose it another way, but we couldn't get it out.  One day I will find plans for our style of house so we can see what the original layout was!  That will be an amazing find one day.

 

We also found these two pictures hidden in the wall.  I don't know who they are, but it it had a date marking on the back of Aug 74 (I believe).  This is what our backyard looked like in the 70s.  

After the walls came down and new drywall was put up, the flooring was put in.  

That ugly green carpet HAD to go.

The After: HERE

Thank you so much to all our helpers!!! 
Dad, Fred, Joe, Vincent, and Donovan!! 
This room wouldn't have gotten done without you all.  Seriously. 

XOXOXOXO

Sarah

Before and After: Austin's Room

This room was THE worst room in our house.  From where we started to where we are now, it doesn't even seem like it is possible for it to be the same room!

Here are a few pictures of the lovely room when we bought the house.  I'm not sure why this wood paneling was ever in style.

And even better.... look what's under the wood paneling!  Other parts of the wall under the paneling had a floral wallpaper.  Some spots even had holes in the wall.  What theme were they going for in this room???

Obviously with the holes and really old wallpaper, we couldn't keep the plaster that was currently on the walls.  The plaster was ripped out and this is what the lath looked like.

After some holes were patched and part of the ceiling was repaired, drywall was put up, the walls were textured, and then painted.  Here is a before and after:

And another.. Those newspapers are from the 1980s!

My father and I also made a custom closet for Austin.  The original closet is the top left picture.  The bottom left picture is with the custom closet in and the picture on the right is after it was painted.

And finally.. all the "after" pictures.  The quilt was handmade by my Aunt. It's so perfect for his room!  The letters were bought from a seller on Etsy, she had them all cut and sized like they are, I just painted them.  The crib was also Addison's crib.  I am so glad that it stayed in such great shape!

The chair and table are from Ikea and I made the floor pouf pillow.  There were ugly mini blinds in the room before, now we have these great faux wood blinds that are about $25 each from Walmart.  We are slowly replacing all the window coverings in the house with these blinds. I love them!

I love the pictures I have above his changing table/dresser.  The one on the left was ordered by my mom.  The 3rd jersey from the left is number "22" with the name "Neely."  The picture on the right is the front page of The Record after the Giants won the 2010 World Series.  Another cute little addition to his room is the knobs on his dresser.  They are baseballs!  I got them from Hobby Lobby.

Here are the letters up close and also a canvas I painted for his room.  My Aunt got the inspiration for Austin's quilt from this canvas that I made.

All we need now is baby Austin to arrive!  At the most, we have 14 more days left before his arrival.

-Sarah

Living/Dining Room: Updated Pictures

I didn't have the final pictures of what our dining room and living room look like with our furniture when I posted last week.  Here they are now:

Living Room

From the entry foyer to the living room

The couches are from the Ashley Homestore.  They are SO comfortable!

 We still need to clean up the soot on the fireplace, but I like it the way it is.  Lucian, on the other hand, doesn't.  Maybe someday we'll update it, but as of right now it's staying like it is.  

The TV stand is from World Market.  I really like that style.

Living room to dining room 

From the dining room to the living room. I just got the rug on my amazing Home Goods run.  It was perfect for this room.  It really lightened it up and completed it perfectly.  The coffee table and side table (hidden) are both from World Market also.  

What we love best about the rooms that we don't use very often are the pocket doors between the living room and the dining room.  There is also a pocket door from the entry to the living room, but it doesn't close all the way yet.  We still need to work on getting that working.

Now to the dining room pictures.  I think this might be one of our favorite rooms.  We love having people over for dinner so it's fitting.

Dining room

From the living room to the dining room

New dining table and chairs- YAY!  Love it!  It is from the Ashley Homestore.  We have two slipcover chairs and 6 regular chairs.  The fabric is a cream and light grey.  The rug in the room is one my mother-in-law has had for years.  It's about as old as the house and we actually love it!  Even the spots that are worn down.  It gives the room more character.

I really like our window seat.  There was a really old gross cushion here before, so it needed an overhaul.  I went to Morgan's Fabrics on Fremont and got two 1 inch cushions for $10 each.  At Joann's, it was somewhere around $60 or more with the coupon.  I wasn't going to pay that!  Morgan's also had the batting to make the edges and cushion softer.  I got the fabric from Joann's with a coupon.  Here's the link for the cushion design that I was going off of.  Of course it's a Pinterest find.

http://pinterest.com/pin/195484440047721835/

 Our two built-ins.  The one on the left I'm using for barware on the top and the bottom drawers I have linens and serving trays.  The one on the right is for crystal.  I was surprised one day by my mother-in-law who had filled it for me!!  I still want to do something different with the bottom since it's such a big space, I'm just not sure exactly what yet. 

Our favorite part of the room is probably our chandelier   I tried to take a good picture of it but it wasn't really working with the amount of light in the room.  In the next two pictures, you can see the details of the chandelier.  It's beautiful.  We got it from LampsPlus.com. 

Chandelier with the light off.

Chandelier with it on.  Isn't it beautiful??

The last project that I added to the room is a picture frame board.  I spent about $5 on it because I had most of the supplies to make it already.  The picture frame is from the photo booth from our wedding, then I put nails in various spots on the back, and twine to wrap around the nails.  When it was wrapped enough, I tied off the twine and then hammered the nails so that they bent sideways to lock in the twine.  It took me about 5 minutes to make and it's really cute in our dining room.  I got the idea from a friend of mine.. she got the idea from Pinterest.

The next updated rooms I'll post are of the kitchen and then I'll show you the bathroom before and after pictures.  Just need to do some final touches to it before I take the final after pictures. 

- Sarah