Fortune Cookie Friday 009

If you haven't noticed, there have been no posts this week. That is because we have been installing our new vinyl tile kitchen floor! And guess what, it is finished and it looks awesome. I can not wait to share it with you guys on Monday. If you follow me on SnapChat (@jonesvilleblog) you have seen a sneak peak of it yesterday and I am going to share another one at 7pm tonight! Since the floor is done, all that is left is to put the cabinet doors back on with the hardware. Our plan is to do that today and tomorrow and move in this weekend!

This Inside Out Bedroom has given me some inspiration for the poster bed that we are getting via hand-me-down.  It's not nearly as modern as this black square one. Ours is a dark wood, almost cherry like, with tapering posts on the corners. I'm pinning alot of idea for DIYing a bedframe and headboard but I think we need to get into the house before we start thinking about that. 

Some Kitchen Inspiration: Devol Kitchens

We have some big kitchen projects in the works! The biggest of them being laying the vinyl tile floor we got last week. While those are underway, I thought I'd share a company that was a source of inspiration for me while we were planning our kitchen. Devol Kitchens is an English company that does kitchens, bathrooms, interiors, and flooring that your dreams are made of. They perfectly mix Shaker and English styles, leaving it modern and classic looking. My favorite part of this entire company, and part of what makes them so classy, is the velvety look they get from their flat paint. ChrisLovesJulia talked about the importance of paint sheen in their Podcast, especially in the kitchen. Sadly ours ended up being a semi-gloss coated with a satin top coat so they aren't quite as flat as I would like. Not to mention that low to no gloss don't get as dirty as glossy sheens.

During our planning, I was struggling with whether or not to do a color, a two toned color, or just a neutral like I talked about in this post. And that was all because of photos like these. The deep velvety emerald green is so enticing. The functionality of the kitchen is not anywhere near realistic for us, but it is still beautiful nonetheless. That marble countertop/backsplas must have cost a fortune and I'm sure was worth it, they're incredible. Having an art ledge in the kitchen is probably unrealistic, or so I thought at first. As I looked through the rest of the photos, I realized that this is England, and houses/apartments there are smalllll. You can see a corner of a table or island thing in the photo, but from another angle you'll see that it is their dining room table! Yes, they eat right in the middle of their kitchen. So realizing that wall space is probably limited, I can see why it could be in the kitchen.

I chose a tuxedo look for the cabinets in our kitchen, but I still love the look of a clean neutral space. These beige velvet cabinets leave the room feeling light and airy. The amazing glass cupboard is a great use of space, especially when it is paired with a clean marble counter top. Speaking of beige, Sherwin William's name their 2017 Color of the Year and it is "Poised Taupe." It is a very warm gray with beige undertones and it's awesome. In the store it is actually warmer than it looks on the website, so always see colors in person. That little green fern is just adorable too.

Replacing the Hallway Light with a Modern Flushmount

When we got the house, all of the fixtures were either fan lights or 80's flushmounts. I'm all for retro, but these were not pretty. The hallway had two lights in it, but once we took them off, we realized that one of the set of wires was live all the time. That means that it wasn't intended to be a fixture but rather something like a smoke alarm. We decided to take out the non-working light and install the smoke alarm back. That left us with one flushmount to light the entire hallway. At first, I was looking at these CB2 flushmounts because they are gorgeous. But since there was only going to be one light, I could justify have a light with sides like that, I needed something that would light up the entire hallway.

We ended up with this Globe Brushed Nickle Flushmount from Home Depot. The only downside was that is was brushed nickle and not matte black, like the rest of the house. But since the fixture was only $17 ( !! ), I decided to spray paint the base a pretty matte black finish to match the theme of the house.

Here is how the hallway looked like before we pulled up the carpets and painted, refinished the floors, updated the doors, and put down the quarter-round. It was pretty gross and the light did nothing for the space.

And here is the totally transformed hallway with the flushmount light. The black looks better than the nickle would have and the globe lights up the entire hallway.

Fortune Cookie Friday 008

Did you guys see the new counter tops we had installed last week? They look awesome and we're excited about progress. This weekend we are going to finish prepping the kitchen floor and install the vinyl tile we picked up in this post. The only thing I have to decide on is what pattern looks the best. Staggered, straight, with the grains going the same way, or just random, and I can not make up my mind!

Fall is here and it is still hot in Georgia, which is pretty typical. All the girls are getting their Pumpkin Spice lattes and getting out their boots. Everyone is putting out their pumpkins, acorns, and leaves. I like Chris Love's Julia's post because she transitions her home into Autumn through subtle and not tacky changes. In her living room below, she changes out some colors, puts out some branches and acorns, and replaces greens with fall foliage. Stuff that feels like fall but doesn't make it tacky. This Apartment Therapy article on Subtle & Sophisticated ways to decorate your front entry is anything but subtle (haha!).

Updating the Outlets and Vents

The one great thing we noted about our house when we were looking at the first time was the ample amount of outlets. There is at least six in every room plus at lest 2 vents and were all either almond colored or an odd metal finish. Vents are expensive and we didn't feel like buying 40 covers, so we decided to just grab some spray paint and update all of the outlets and vents. We used Rustoleum Satin White we picked up  for $6 and Rustoleum Clear Semi-Gloss for plastics for $4 from Wal-Mart. So for $10 we changed a small feature in our house but made a big difference.

After we took off all the covers and vents, we made sure to give them a good cleaning before we laid them out to be painted. A few of them didn't get a good wipe down and started to bubble up because the paint didn't have a good surface to stick to. We did two coats of the white and then two of the clear. The clear spray paint just ensures that scratches won't peel the paint off. You can also prime the pieces first if you don't buy the 2-in-1 stuff. Young House Love did that in their Updating Hardware post.

Favorite Finds for September

Our flooring situation has changed. The quote for the sheet vinyl came back with an insane prep and installation fee, so we decided to look for other options. We ran to Home Depot to return some things and decided to look at the vinyl tile. To our surprise we found this Carrara Marble vinyl tile that I fell in love with. My original kitchen mood board had wood flooring that I thought we could match to our hardwoods. But after we refinished them, we just could not find one that matched the beautiful grain that came out. That's when we decided to go to a local store and have them install some of their sheet vinyl. Unfortunately, they only had a medium gray tile that I could settle for even though I was looking for a white one. So when we came across this vinyl tile at Home Depot that we could install ourselves for 1/4 of the sheet vinly price, we immediately made a decision. Yesterday we leveled the floor underneath and are going to install it this weekend. Yayy! Wednesday we'll share our updated vents and outlets that we DIYed. P.S. There is a 30-50% off Home Sale at Macy's for 48 hours!

Since I don't have any new renovation pictures to share, here is a few cute items for the upcoming fall season. You can follow my Pinterest Favorite Finds board to see all the past items I've posted about and some that I will link to in future posts! I'm seriously envying the duvet for our new king bed and am going to DIY that awesome chalkboard art. The Rewind Champagne candle is one of the best smelling candles I've ever some across. They make candles in all kinds of wine scents and they smell crazy good.

Hand art / Candle /  Turkish rug / Basket / Rug /  Duvet /Throw 

 White Soap Dish / Black Soap Dish / Waste bin (silver version) 

Installing New Modern Kitchen Counter-tops

Today is the day, we finally got our new kitchen counter tops installed! Here's where we got them and the new cabinets in. It's hard to believe that just a few days ago we had the 70's vibe counters that were gross beyond belief. We also installed the sink and faucet that we got from Home Depot and pulled up the ugly vinyl. That took about an hour and a half and resulted in some sore backs the next day. The faucet turned out better than I had hoped. I was worried that because we settled for a satin nickle finish, it wouldn't match the gold we had planned. But after doing some research on how to mix finishes and reading Studio McGee's post, I had some confidence that it would work out.

Here is what the kitchen looked like before.

And here's what it looks like now with the new counters.

Fortune Cookie Friday 007

Update on our progress: today the electrician and Internet guys are at the house doing their thing. Yay for internet! The electrician is putting in an outlet in the full bathroom because it didn't have one (I don't know why). Next the counter guy can come and then the floor guy! Now for the usual other stuff for today.

This bathroom picture from Kate La Vie' post is giving me a bunch of inspiration for our half bath off of the master. When I think of tiling, like most people, I think of a straight edge where it meets the wall. But this picture blew my mind. Laying the tile in a herringbone pattern and leaving it unfinished gives the space a texture and a pattern at the same time.

Updating Old Hollow-Core Interior Doors

Things are coming along you guys! This week we have gotten all the outlets and vent covers repainted and put back up. I am putting the last few top coats on the cabinets and we got the plumbing leak fixed. The floor and counter guys are supposed to come in the next week, and then we can put the sink and pendant in. It feels like we keep saying we're so close to moving in because I say it every time, but now we seriously are. Waiting on other people just stinks because you have to work around their schedule. Thankfully, the Internet guy is coming tomorrow, so I can watch Netflix while doing stuff. 

Does anyone else have an old house with old doors? Yeah, I'm talking about those cheap hollow-core doors that have yellowed over they years but you don't want to spend the money to replace them. Well, that's where we're at. Interior doors aren't as expensive as exterior doors, but they are still too expensive for us right now (this one at Home Depot is beautiful). So we decided to skip the new stuff and just revamp our old stuff. The process was pretty simple; we just painted the doors, painted the knobs, and then painted the faux-knob housing. The inspiration behind painting the knobs to look like they were sitting on plates was this knob at Home Depot. After I put the knobs back on the plain white door, it just looked like a painted hollow-core door. With the faux-plates, it looks just a little bit nicer and livable until we can afford to really invest in good doors and knobs. We used Sherwin William's Extra-White trim paint in semi-gloss, the same stuff we used for the trim. I picked up some black matte spray paint and a top coat for $10. Here are the steps we went through, and you can to, to update your old hollow core doors.

1. Paint the doors. Obviously.

2. Paint the knobs with color and top coat. Taking them off the doors will make it 10x's easier. I used some spray paint I picked up at Home Depot for $10.

Putting Down Quarter-Round

We are getting anxious to get in this house you guys. So anxious, we just ripped out the old counter top and sink before we were done painting everything and moved some of our stuff into the bedrooms. No sink obviously makes things more difficult, but it felt like we were getting somewhere. After the last coats of top coating go on the cabinets, we really only have to have the vinyl and counter top guys come out before we can start moving stuff in, eek!

After the floors were refinished here, we were going to put quarter-round down to polish it off. The house came with some pretty hardwood natural quarter-round, but after taking the whole of it out we decided to buy new ones. It seemed easier to buy it than try to repair the ones we had broken, try to get the million and one nails out without breaking them more, and then painting them twice. In lieu of the hours it would have taken to do all that, we decided to scrap the old ones, run to Home Depot and get 200ft.(61¢ per ft.) of primed quarter-round for just $120. It was well worth the money. Auston lined up and painted them all trim white with one coat, and installed it over the weekend.

Here is the living room right after they refinished the floors, with no quarter round. There is a gap between the floor and the baseboards, making it look unfinished and a nice place for bugs to hide (ew!).

And here is part of the room with quarter round installed.

Fortune Cookie Friday 006

In case you haven't seen, Target is having a huge 30% off home items. I snagged this adjustable floor lamp that I have been eyeing for the living room and this double lamp for the office. Lamps are perhaps the best thing to happen to homes since electricity. Registries are such a wonderful thing becuase you can use them even after whatever event you got it for. I keep all ours we did from the wedding up to date just in case someone needs a birthday, Christmas, or whatever occasion gift idea. I love giving presents and I think registries are a great tool because you know you're getting something the person really wants.

Speaking of gifts, do you ever want to send someone a small, cute, personalized and inexpensive gift for any occasion? Greetabl is here to rescue you. They make a small box that you pick the pattern of, fill it with whatever gift at whatever price point you want, and then put in a personalized message and pictures. The gift giver in me is just jumping for joy. They have the best taste in patterns and gifts they offer, and give you great advice if you don't know what to write in your message.

Currently, I am dreaming about a cozy bedroom like this one from Room&Board. I usually don't like canopy beds, but this modern wood looks amazing in the fresh white room.