Diversions & Renovations

There’s nothing like gutting a few rooms in your house to keep your mind busy and not obsessing over the adoption process you feel like you've been entrenched in for years.

This all started a little over a month ago when my husband decided he wanted to get a designer to help us with some rooms. To give you a little background, we live in 200-year-old house that always needs work. Last year we focused on painting the outside of the house, and now, it was time to take a look at some rooms on the inside. Believe me, I never thought we would hire an interior designer to help us (it sounds like such a DB thing to do) – but it has actually been an eye-opening experience. She has picked things out that I never would've even looked at.

If someone told me I would wallpaper my entryway – I would have told them they were nuts. I mean wallpaper is so 1970’s and 80’s. Well, let me tell you… grass–cloth wallpaper is genius. It’s rustic and elegant and gives the room so much texture. It’s hard to see from the picture – but it is pretty kick ass. Now I want to grass-cloth my whole house!

We also decided refurbish our front door, which is one of my absolute favorite things about this house. Here’s a picture after the woodworker started to tear out the side paneling.

And here's a picture of our new light fixture and another angle of the grass-cloth. (I am a big fan)

The other room we decided to completely re-do is our mudroom. I wish I had a before picture, but basically, it was a cluttered mess. One of the closet doors was unhinged, which would periodically come crashing down on the dog if you weren’t careful – and speaking of dogs – my French Mastiff, Charlie, had complete reign over the space, which meant lots of drool and lots of hair.

So we decided to rip everything out and start from scratch. First up on the agenda was a new heated floor because that room was frigid! Here's a before and after of the tiles. Now we are  just waiting for some paint, the California Closets, the new “steam” washer and dryer (so excited for those!) and some furniture.

We’re also updating an upstairs bedroom that will double as Ken’s office and an open room downstairs that will be my new office. Ken's room is almost there. You can see the new rug and paint color (Benjamin Moore - Nocturnal Gray). We just need some furniture to arrive!

The good news is that this project has really taken our mind off the adoption. The bad news is – all of this is supposed to be done before Thanksgiving. Oh, and did I mention that we have 35 people coming over. Yikes!

But then again, our designer lady has promised us it will be done. So fingers crossed and stay tuned for some updated pictures.