The Goodies

We are entering the home stretch of the painting project and let me tell you, it could not come any sooner!  This has been a long haul - 3 weeks to be exact.  It has not been easy to have a house in complete disarray with a 15 month old, but we made it through the hard part and can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Before we show you some "after" photos, we thought it would be fun to share with you some of the new goodies we will be showcasing now that the walls are refreshed.  First off - the paint.  We have a bit of an open floor plan in our townhouse so we needed to choose colors that complimented each other.  The kitchen/downstairs hall/upstairs hall are one color and the living room is another.  After lots and lots and lots of deliberation, here is where we ended up:

Kitchen/Halls - Revere Pewter | Living Room - Stonington Gray

 

They are very similar (especially on the computer screen!), but in person, there is a nice difference ~ especially in different lights.  

 

When you paint, it makes a room feel like it is brand new so we embraced the new feeling and decided to add some new decorating elements into the mix.  The first is a new pop of color in the living room.  I'm a big fan of a gray/yellow combo so when I saw this rug on the Garnet Hill website, I knew it had to come live with us.

 

 

We rolled it out last night and it looks amazing.  We decided to go a little bigger than our last rug and I'm glad we did because it truly makes the living room look cozier.

 

Some other new additions are on the ceiling in the form of light fixtures.  We moved into a house that had lots and lots of light fixtures.  All of which were not our taste.  We replaced a few with recessed lighting and purchsed these beauties for various locations.

 

 

We like to think of the styling as contemporary with a twist with the twist being that guy in the lower right hand corner.  We decided to go with an industrial feel in the stairwell to jazz it up a bit. 

 

Playing off that industrial feel, we updated the curtain rod in the kitchen to this puppy in the brushed nickel.  We really liked the way the industrial looked against the modern so we went with it.

 

 

 

There are still a few more things on the list to acquire like new lamps for the living room, new curtains for the kitchen and some new throw pillows, but all in all, we are in good shape.  It's really starting to come together and we just can't wait to see the finished product!

 

Disarray!!!

That is the word that would describe our house right now.  The official painting party has begun and boy has it gotten messy around here. And I fear it will get worse before it gets better.  But that is okay because when it gets better, it is going to be AWESOME!

Our trusted painter came by yesterday and started prepping the ceilings and walls making significant progress as he spackled and caulked his little heart out.  Things are very polka-dotted around here, but I hear that it is a fashion trend for Spring, so we are good with it.

Oh and that hole in the wall with the cord hanging out...that was where the security system panel that we did not use lived.  We are VERY happy to be rid of it since it was completely non-functional and quite the eye sore.

Today Jerry the Painter was back and put our sample paint on the wall so we can be confused choose our colors.  Because we have an open floor plan, we are doing the kitchen/halls/stairwell in one color and the living room in another.  They need to complement each other since things are quite open around here.  This is view of the space from our couch (and an obvious old pic since James' Jumperoo has been in storage for quite a while now).

We know we want a gray for the halls.  And not a blue gray.  A gray gray.  Here are our options:

All these wall samples have done is prove that we are more confused than EVER!!  It's hard to tell on the computer screen, but the top 3 colors in each picture are more blue gray. The bottom 3 are more gray gray in person.

We also want a complimenting gray in the living room.  Here are the choices:

We like the dark but are nervous it is too dark.  Again...the computer makes the colors look more blue than they really are (sorry about that!).  DECISIONS DECISIONS!!

We have some time to mull.  Jerry will not start painting the walls until Monday so we can live with the options all weekend.  I'm sure we'll change our minds about 107 times before we make a decision, but we are positive that two of the colors on the walls now will be our colors.  We just have to pick them.  Wish us luck!

Out with the Old and in with the Newel

I have been dying to type that for days!! Woo Hoo!!

So we are doing a little project here at the Mangiaracina home and while we typically like to save the blog post until the project is 100% complete, we are just too excited to wait. 

We mentioned in a previous post that we will be starting a painting project and that is the truth.  It just hasn't started yet.  Before the paint gets slapped up on the walls, we needed to take care of something that has been bothering us since the day we moved into the house. 

The bannister. 

You are probably saying to yourself, that doesn't look so bad.  And it doesn't.  But if you were here and saw it in person, you would see that the construction is anything but good.  It is totally wobbly and the parts used are not solid or sturdy.  Plus it is not our style so it was time to go. 

Enter Doug Kidd.

This is the guy that has done some amazing stuff around our house including our windows and sliding doors, our front window bench, our pantry drawers and countless other projects.  We brought him in a few weeks ago to get an estimate on the bannister along with a few other small projects (more on them later!) and he called us during our 8 hour drive Monday to tell us he was ready to get started on Operation: Update Bannister.

We did our part of the mission - we ordered the beautiful solid red oak square newels for both the bottom and top of the stairs.  And in case you were wondering, the newel is the big base at the bottom of the bannister that keeps things secure. We learned a lot about the anatomy of a staircase during our newel search! 

Doug brought the rest of the parts and got started on transforming our space.  It was easy to pull the junky bannister down and we were happy to see that the parts were in fact screwed in and not glued to the walls and floor. 

After running a few errands, we came home to this:

Which soon became this:

And this:

The finished product is so gorgeous and it is not even painted/stained yet!!!

You may also notice that in addition to replacing the bannister newels and pickets on the upper and lower levels, we also added a handrail along the right wall to complete the function and look. 

Now that this sucker is in place it is time to get the painting party started!  Because of the size of the job and our recent lack of time to do anything other than chase James around, we decided to hire a painter. 

Enter John Montgomery. 

This guy has done many jobs at casa de Quartuccio and works closely with Doug so we are confident he is the right man for the job.  He will be painting the entire first floor (kitchen/hall/living room), the stairwell leading upstairs, the upstairs hallway, all of the ceilings, our master bedroom ceiling and James' bathroom.  Whew.  And I didn't even mention the outdoor job he is doing but that is another post for another time. 

We are still figuring out paint colors and will have some samples on the walls as early as next week.  We also are changing the light fixtures which we will share with everyone when they are all up and running.  Lots of stuff going on and all of it is exciting. We can't wait until it is all complete because we truly believe it will make our house look fresh and clean.  Stay tuned!!



The Newels Are Here! The Newels Are Here!

Perhaps not as historical as "The British are Coming", but no less exciting.  :)  We have a little project up our sleeves and a key component of it arrived today.  More details to follow as things get underway, but to wet your whistle, the project includes this:

(the newel - not Ed!) and some of this:

This is a project that we are PSYCHED about (shout out to you Ms. Emard Ratner!) and can't wait to share the details once they are ready.  Now its off to BM to get some sample cans!