Bare No More

Since the basement has been getting so much attention lately, we thought it was time to spread the love and turn our attention to the large blank wall that lives above our couch in the living room.

Since buying the place, we have been back and forth on what to do with the space.  For a while we thought about putting a large mirror up there. We searched for something and when we came up short, we sort of shelved the project and turned our attention elsewhere.

Then I saw this photo and it inspired me.

I loved the idea of a gallery wall over the couch - I just needed to convince Ed that it was a good one. He is not a big fan of lots of holes in the wall - especially freshly painted perfect walls.  But after showing him this look and sharing with him the ways we could make it work, he happily came on board.

The first task was to source the photos and items to highlight on the wall.  We wanted to have more than just photographs to give the wall a little variety.  The first thing that came to mind was a piece of James art.  The kid comes home daily with armloads of artwork and of course because we are first time parents, we save everything!  After digging through the enormous box, we found this little gem and thought it would be perfect.

Another no brainer was the metal "M" that we purchased at a local art shop in Carytown, Richmond when we were there last summer.  It had been sitting in the bag in our coat closet waiting for the perfect place to live and now it is happily perched on 2 skinny nails.

During this hunt and gather phase, a Groupon for discounted canvas prints arrived in my Inbox so we decided to take advantage and order some of our favorites.  I love how even though they are photos, they add a bit of texture and dimension to the wall.

So, after months of months of collecting the frames and photos and keepsakes and then waiting for a day when both Ed and I were home alone with James occupied elsewhere, we now have a gallery wall above our couch.

We are really happy with how it turned out, and it wasn't without lots of planning.  We actually mapped out the frame positions on the floor to make sure we liked the configuration before nailing them to the wall.  

We knew that we didn't want a linear pattern - too hard to hang and get it right.  Instead we went with this collage-style look and are pretty psyched with the end result.  The best part was that when James walked in the house later that night, he went immediately to the wall and started naming everyone in the photos.  LOVE!

Oh - and since we had all the supplies out, we hung this lovely in the kitchen.  You gotta love Julia Child!

Bon Appetite!

Bannister Revisited

You may remember the trials and tribulations of our first floor bannister.  Well, it was time to tackle the basement bannister and with limited funds, we had to revise our plan of replacing it to match the upstairs model.

Enter semi-gloss white paint.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, re-painting something old makes it look brand new.  It can take a tired, old bannister from this...

... to this:

Not too shabby.  :)

Ed tackled this puppy while I was in New York attending Toy Fair so it was an awesome surprise to come home to.  In addition to this guy, he also painted the hand rail attached to the wall just above:

The paint job really pulled the entire look of the space together as it mirrors all the beautiful white moldings throughout the basement.  It's all coming together!!

We Didn't Start the Fire

But we sure did make it pretty again.  And by we, I mean Ed - the super hero of saving sad looking fireplaces!

We have one in our basement and up until a few days ago, it looked like this:

Not so terrible in this photo, but up close, it was dirty and peeling and had an awful gold door.  

Not cute.  

When the door came off, we were served up some of this:

Really not cute.

You gotta love the previous home owner who painted around the door rather than take the time to take the darn thing off!

Well, it was nothing a paint can and some brushes couldn't fix.  Super Hero Ed to the rescue! He spent lots of time stripping the gross caulk from the brick and cleaning out the fire box, but once that was done, he revived this ugly duckling and made her beautiful again.

Since these photos were taken, we adorned her with a new fireplace screen obtained from Target - photos to come during the big basement reveal, but here is a preview of the screen:

I have to tell you, I'm not a big fireplace person because I am deathly afraid of having a fire in my house.  But now that our fireplace is so pretty, I might consider a toasty, crackling fire on a cold, cold night (not uncommon these days!).  After a proper chimney inspection and cleaning of course.  What I am most excited about is styling the mantle.  I have some ideas in mind and have started collecting items and can't wait to get everything up and running.  Who knew a fireplace could be so much fun!

Let There Be Light Fixtures!

It's birthday week around here and we are working overtime to get the house ~ more specifically the basement ~ ready for the big day.  We had hoped to host the main event in our newly renovated basement, but because our James is Mr. Popular, we have outgrown the space so it's off to the LRR Rec Center we go.  BUT that does not mean that inquiring minds will ignore the basement so we are determined to finish it.

Lots has happened since the last post, but with Toy Fair 2014 taking up 100% of my time for almost 2 weeks, it was impossible to update everyone.   One of the most exciting additions we recently added to the space are the new light fixtures in the halls and main room.  As with the rest of the house, the light fixtures in the basement were builder specials and had to go.  I mean what the heck is with the spire on the bottom of these guys?!  Talk about a puncture wound waiting to happen!

We decided that the main room needed something big and bold. The original plan was to install 2 rows of high hats, but with the time crunch and the ample amounts of electrical involved, we shelved that idea and went with these instead:

Aren't they AWESOME!!  I found them a few months back when we were updating the first floor, but they didn't really work with the look up there.  But they are PERFECT for our basement space.  I can't tell you how much I love these guys - I think they are my favorite part of the basement so far.  

  

As for the halls, we went with a basic flush mount - just a little more our style vs. the 19th century look of the original fixtures.  It's amazing how a simple update to some light fixtures can transform the look and feel of a space.  Love, love, LOVE!

It's Coming Together

This phrase has been the theme of the basement renovation and I have to say, it truly IS coming together.  As of this past Monday, all the walls and trim are officially painted.  Fact:  painting trim is a giant pain in the @ss! We happen to have a lot of it (baseboard moldings, crown moldings, fancy door moldings), so it took what felt like forever and a day.  But it is finally done and it looks great.  It's amazing how a fresh coat of white semi-gloss paint on trim can refresh a room.

Also done are the new outlets and switches.  One of the fatal flaws of this house were old, dingy outlets and switches.  When we first moved in, Ed and good friend Rob replaced every single one of them on the first and second floors.  It was quite a task which included a few electrical zaps for both of them, but once finished, it made such a difference.  Yesterday, the outlets and switches looked like this:

And today they look like this:

A low cost upgrade with big visual bang!  And speaking of visual bang, check out this hottie at work!

On tap for tonight (post James going to bed, of course!) is the moving of the new furniture into place, the updating of the horrible light fixtures (more on that in a separate post), cleaning of the paint drops off the floor and maybe painting of the bannister.  The list is never ending...but it's coming together!

Five Easy Pieces

If you went to UVA or visited Charlottesville you may think I am referring to the delicious sandwich from the famous Little John's deli.  Sadly, I'm not. But I am now craving it!  What I am referring to are some key furniture pieces that we have "easily" scooped up for our basement transformation.  Going into this project, we knew we wanted to create a cozy space that was casual and chic, but not spend a ton of money on it.  We started sourcing furniture at local stores as well as online and ended up finding some great stuff.

Easy Piece #1:  Sectional Couch
The basement is being divided into 2 distinct sections:  play area and TV area.  Since it is not a large room, we need to make the most use of the space and we thought a sectional would help us accomplish that by offering ample amounts of comfortable seating as well as act a natural divider between TV viewing area and James playing area (which we know will eventually be mashed into one space no matter how hard we try!).  Enter Bob's Discount Furniture.  We had been to Bob's a few times when living in NY and were really happy when they started opening stores down here. We paid them a visit a few weekends back and fell for their Venus II sectional model.

Not only is it a simple, clean couch, it was also very reasonably priced without being total crap that will fall apart in a year.  The best part - all the ice cream and cookies you want!!  James was a fan of that - as was Ed. :)

Easy Piece #2:  Entertainment Stand

I had a vision for what I wanted in an entertainment stand from the get go.  I wanted something that was solid, sturdy and tall enough to withstand the hands of a toddler and a tv-watching dog.  I also wanted something that had a good amount of storage to hide toys/games/books of said toddler and tv-watching dog.  And my final wish was for it to have a rustic, almost reclaimed look.  A pretty tall order, but my dreams were answered when I walked into Home Goods - hello gorgeous!

This beauty was all that I wanted without a Pottery Barn-styled price tag. It was probably the first time that I made a purchase like this without Ed being present to give it a thumbs up, but thanks to photos via text message, he was just as much on board as I was.

Easy Piece #3:  End Table
Because of the configuration of the room, we are in need of a single end table to house a lamp and some other goodies.  After securing the couch and measuring the space, we were able to get something fairly sizable and in my head it would be something unique, but simple.  The Home Good Gods shined down on us again and offered up this pretty piece:

It's hard to tell from the photo, but behind the little cut-outs is a mirror making it both rustic and chic at the same time.  It's also a door that opens to reveal oodles of storage which is a big plus.  The price tag was a little more than I wanted to spend on an end table for the room, but I figured it was worth it to have an attractive piece that also served up ample storage.

Easy Piece #4: Ottoman Coffee Table
This is a piece that I had been eyeing for some time and has actually been sitting in our basement for quite a while.  I first spotted it on my favorite DIY blog, Young House Love.  After doing some research, I found it for a whopping $800.00 and put it out of my brain then and there.  No way I was going to invest that much into an ottoman.  Then one day, while browsing the Joss & Main website, there she was for 75% off the rack price.  Uh - yes please!

I scooped it up then and there and we have had it for several months in anticipation of the basement.  It's a big piece measuring 25" x 25" and the best part is that it opens up offering major storage.  Are you seeing a theme here??  Full disclosure - we are still deciding if we want to keep this monster or try to sell it on Craigslist to get something a little smaller and not as matchy matchy with the couch.  We will make a final call once everything is in place.  I already have a back-up in mind (of course!).

Easy Piece #5:  EXPEDIT Bookcases

So technically we don't yet have these in our possession, but we will once we make our way to IKEA in the coming weeks.  Here is the inspiration:

We are going to get two of the 2 x 4 Expedit bookcases in white and fill it with some red and teal baskets for all of James' stuff.  The did is small, but he sure has a lot of crap so this will be one of the ways that we attempt to contain the crap.  The plan is to set them up in a similar manner so that we can also have his little table and chairs and a refrigerator along the same, not-very-long wall.  

So there you have it.  There are still some other items to get in place including a book case, a mirror and screen for the fire place area as well as some other decor related items, but I'd say we are well on our way to having a stylish and functional basement family room/play room!

Now You See It...Now You Don't!

It's renovation time again in the Mangiaracina house - yippee!!  The basement has been a thorn in our side for a while now so we decided that it was time to ship it into shape.  The motivation?  James' 2nd birthday party of course!!  To be honest, we have been wanting to convert the basement into a family room/play room rather than an oversized storage space for quite some time.

Now is the time.

In order to accomplish this feat, we apparently had to make it look like a tornado went through the space.  Good Lord - is that a mess or what?!

But, the best part of this mess is that is just the first step in making the basement a gorgeous, usable space rather than a dumping ground.  

The real first step was to remove the kitchenette that lived on one of the walls.  

We had decided pretty much as soon as we moved in that we would never really use it and would rather take it out and open the room up a bit.  So, one recent Sunday morning we dropped James off at Grandma and Grandpa's house and got to work.  

The kitchenette wasn't high quality so we figured it would be easy to remove from the wall.  And thanks to a trusty drill and some Mangiaracina muscles, the upper cabinets came down, no problem.  

The bottom cabinets were just as easy - but we did have to deal with some plumbing.  Luckily Ed knows a thing or two about pipes so dismantling the sink was a breeze.

As you can see from the above photo, removing the kitchenette did leave us with a hole in the wall and some missing baseboard molding.  Nothing a quick trip to Home Depot couldn't solve!  Within minutes the hole went from this...

... to this:

No problem, baby!  You can even see from this photo that Ed replaced the baseboard molding as well.  That part wasn't as seamless, but it wasn't anything an electric sander couldn't fix.  

We felt such a sense of accomplishment once the wall was free from the eye sore kitchenette.  Instead of trashing it, we are donating it to ReStore - a Habitat for Humanity program where you donate building and household items that are then sold in one of their local stores with proceeds going to the charity.  I'd much rather someone benefit from this thing rather than dump it in the trash.

The catch?  You have to get said items outside for the pick-up.  That meant Ed and I dragging these not-so-feather-weight pieces out of the house.  

In the freezing cold.  

With all the snow.  

Definitely a work out, but it's done and ready to be gotten.

As James would say, "buh-bye"!  Next stop on the renovation train: Paint Town!