From Pink to ...

What was formerly a little girl's bedroom has now been transformed into a spare bedroom fit for grown-ups. Color of choice: Tree Bark Grey.

Before:

After:

can someone say DEMO!?

Earlier this week...

My mom got started painting some of my bedroom dressers with espresso... they're naturally birch which I'm not so much a fan of. Work in progress.

mom finishing up the first coat of espresso!

Weekend Accomplishments...
While I wish I could say more, I did no more than merely finish painting the utility room and painted some of the trim on the dining room entry door which still needs finished.

showing off the rest of my family room / entertainment space... loving the wall color!

utility room before painting

getting started on the utility room painting

The Result!

However... I do have some noteworthy mentions from this week...

A - I finally found lamps (Marshalls, $39.99 each) for the living room! I love them. They have cream/greyish shades and the base looks like tree branches. I bought two, which I plan to sit on my Great Grandmother's sofa table my mom is generously letting me use. Along the way, I also picked up a neat bowl (Marshalls, $5.99) wrapped in branches that I can use to hold mints or candy, or perhaps just decoration. I was having quite a successful shopping trip on Monday.

My new living room lamps + decorative bowl

B - Tonight, my mom's handyman Nick came over to take down the kitchen cabinets. At first I was a little hesitant as my mom, Adam and I struggled to get them to budge but apparentally, all we needed was a 240 lb man with a lot of manpower. He made it look so easy! His son Noah also helped picked up the pieces, talk about a cutie. We have one piece of cabinet left to remove, but Nick will need a saw as the cabinets were installed before the plumbing. Which means the cabinets don't have holes cut for the shuts off, so we need to saw them to make space. Nick has Thursdays off from work, so if all goes as planned - we may have new cabinets in place by the end of the week. This would be amazing considering the kitchen is the biggest project so far! He definitely is looking for some projects to work on ... so we may just add to his list: adding tile in the bathroom, pulling up the back carpet, installing the plumbing spring door, adding the extra fence and plenty more. He also offers great prices. Just to take down the cabinets he only charged us $30. I definitely know my mom and I couldn't have done it ourselves.

Kitchen when we bought the house


Before the demo began...

one cabinet down ...

our handyman nick removes the counter top


demo'ing of the other cabinet begins

... and then there was one.

To be continued ...

And lastly ...

Just to plug my love of Tremont...

A Cookie & A Cupcake makes a mean salty caramel cupcake.

The peanut butter lover wasn't too bad either. :)

Peanut Butter Lover (left), Salty Caramel (right)

spring has arrived ... #pressure

Accomplishments for this weekend include ...

• Finally picked out a paint color for the backroom with the bar. It's called 'Hope Chest". Can I just say, LOVE? It's a greyish color with some purple and brown tones. Perfect. I think I might like it more than the purple in the dining room. I got 2 1/2 walls painted... 3.5 more to go. I don't think a quart of paint is going to cut it.

Hope Chest (left) and an unsuccessful brown match (right)

Before Painting:

After Painting:

• My mom (along with my nephew) helped clean up the yard, it's starting to look a lot better. I imagine now that my nephew knows about the house, the whole world will know. Talk about being bombarded with questions yesterday, haha.

Loaded leaves and debris from the yard

Clean Deck, Yay!

• The refrigerator and dishwasher have been removed! talk about a pretty pathetic looking kitchen now!

My appliance-less and floor-less kitchen.

• My friend Lee and I finally got my L-shaped computer desk put together. I'm still not sure exactly where it will stay, but for now it's in the bedroom. Next comes the printer stand.

Lee hard at work on my new desk

My new computer desk, fully assembled

• Doorbell is installed and up and running. Thank goodness the new one I bought actually worked. The former owner took the doorbell unit itself, so I bought a wireless set with two buttons. Now I'll just need to have Chet, our electrician, removed the "wired" buttons from before. I have a westminster chime at the front and "ding" at the side. Kind of wishing there were more options.

Oh ... and i met the neighbors on all sides of me... we'll leave that for my next post haha!

out with the old ... literally.

plans for this evening/weekend include ...

• removal of the refrigerator and dishwasher, to which i say "on with the kitchen renovations!" these two appliances were left at the house when we bought it, but don't work and frankly, bt my mom and i, it will be a struggle to move ourselves so my mom contacted someone to come out and take them.
• my neighbor chet will (hopefully) finish up the lighting tomorrow. crossing my fingers, so necessary.
• build my ikea entertainment center. my initial attempt was disastrous. i think this is a man's job. (adam, halp!)
• participating in my first cleveland garbage day. i swung by home depot and picked up a 45-gallon trash can on wheels ($29.97). hoping toremove someof the debris (kitchen flooring, yard leaves and such) for pick-up tomorrow.

updates coming shortly...

Oh look, here they are!

so in continuation from yesterday ... little was accomplished. :/. the appliance collector never showed and when my mom called to follow up, she got a voicemail. i attempted to install the wireless doorbell I bought from Lowes, but couldn't get it to work. thinking it could just be me (as I've had little luck with house projects on my own thus far), i had adam take a look when he arrived later. lucky for me, it's the doorbell and not me. phew.

we took some trash out to the curb (mainly flooring and the old toilet), so that is a win i suppose. adam came over late in the evening to lend some manly strength (i'm

nixing the use of the phrase "man muscle" from here on out, i didn't realize how dirty it sounds) to help me build my ikea entertainment center. i must say, the building went just fine and my main setback was I guess I used the wrong piece in the first step. However ... I think the e-center might be a little small for the space I was going to use it. Not that all entertainment centers are created equal, because I realize they're not, but I expected it to be proportionate to a standard room size. It needs to be a little taller and perhaps wider... maybe I can create the illusion with a shelf. oh lordy, no winning this week. hopefully, we'll have some more lighting up and running this evening ... on this very rainy cleveland day.

Fully assembled Ikea Entertainment Center

before i forget ... earlier this week, my mom installed a mini vinyl blind ($3.96, Home Depot) for the side entry door. talk about a difference. all the blinds in the house are white, so i bought a white blind. however, the door itself is somewhat off white / cream so i'll have to paint it to match. but still a huge improvement from the hideous curtain that used to hang there. see below.

Side entry way, pre and post mini vinyl blinds. Thanks Mom for the fine work!