Upgrades!

It has been an awfully long time since I last posted anything, and I am as dismayed and disappointed as some people have expressed to me that they are. Sorry. The truth is, on the home-improvement front, not a lot has really been going on since early November (when I last posted, though that was not a home improvement post). And on all other fronts, LOTS has been going on, and we've been busy. On top of that, the winter hours and lighting made it difficult to take photos, since it wasn't so bright and well-lit in the morning before work, nor was it light out at all by the time we got home at the end of the day. And our weekends have been busy. All of this is excuses, but also explanations. And that said, we have done some stuff, and it's all been in the upgrade department. So, here I am at long last with a little post regarding our recent upgrades.

First, in the fall we updated the second bedroom with a day bed, which serves as a couch during the day/when we have no guests, and which has a pull-out pop-up tucked below it so that two people can sleep comfortably when YOU visit!

(I also waited to photograph it until I'd done all my pillow shopping. I have one more pillow to buy - I have a pretty cover and just need the stuffer for it. It will go in the middle there, front row. It'll be worth it.)

Then we treated ourselves to a trip to the 21st century and got a new TV in our bedroom! Woot!

(It's a Bravo marathon kind of a day...)

So inspired by that purchase were we, that we also upgraded the TV in the living room. You can now enjoy a 55-inch movie experience thanks to the TV and new stereo system Dave installed:

(Millionaire Matchmaker Marathon Sunday. Forgive me. You can see two of the speakers for the stereo there in front of the screen - there are two more on the bookshelf on the back wall)

And then we rearranged the living room a bit, and moved the couch off the wall, pulling the living area closer together.

(cozy)

We're planning to get some taller bookshelves and to find a long console-like couch table (under which we'll have some storage something or other) to go on this back wall under the mirror where the couch used to be:

And finally, the most shocking upgrade of them all for anyone who's been in our home in the past five years... we have a microwave!

(what?!)

Look at us crazy folks go. We do have some more upgrading and actual work on the dock. Some more furniture updates are in the pipeline, and then a bathroom update (one, not both yet), and a balcony refresher are definitely lined up to go. And somehow we'll do all of that before our most dramatic HSS upgrade to date...

(I'll leave it at that for now!)

Paint Selection: A Process

We are in a saving-for-the-next-big-demo phase here (both bathrooms need re-doing), so all the updates/fixes/tweaks we have planned for the foreseeable future are smaller-scale. This includes (at least): changing light fixtures, stripping remaining wallpaper, scrubbing off wallpaper glue from walls, putting up art, maybe some furniture upgrades, curtains, and painting.

I don't remember paint selection for the three areas already painted (hallway, kitchen, living/dining room) being so stressful. But maybe I've just put it all out of my head because of the intensity of the trauma. Somehow I doubt that. But we can't settle on a color! We can't even come close to narrowing down a color group! Some people know that we've said we're painting the bedrooms several weekends in a row now, and yet somehow, neither bedroom is even taped off or primed at all. That changes this week! We are set and determined to paint at least the multipurpose second bedroom this coming weekend. SET AND DETERMINED! HELL-BENT! It's happening. As you can see, all that has to be done is the selection of a paint color. Here are the paint color chips we've "narrowed" to (for both bedrooms)... Note, we'd like to have the paint purchased before the weekend so we can just get started and finish as quickly as possible... we'll see how that goes:

(easy to narrow, as you can see)

Here are four general color ranges grouped off:
 

AAAAAH! Remember: SET AND DETERMINED! HELL-BENT! It's happening.

Carpet!

On Monday morning, when we left for work, our two bedrooms (and more specifically, the carpet in our two bedrooms) looked like this:

Second Bedroom

(you could call this carpet color... Literally Dusty Rose)

Master Suite

(you could call this color... Dingy Mint)

And remember this old flooring... you might recall it from the old front hall... well, it continued on into the Master Suite hall and closet...

So that was Monday morning. By Monday evening, when we returned from a long day of work, our two bedrooms (and more specifically, the carpet in our two bedrooms) looked like this:

Second Bedroom

(this color is called... something Mocha - we can't remember exactly)

 

 

Master Suite

(this color is called... something Cocoa -- see explanation above)

 

 

And that hallway?

(she's a-carpeted, too!)

All the way into the closet:

(cold Chicago winter mornings? no problem.)

ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING US?! SO MUCH BETTER!