My New Favorite Store. . . Craig's List

I have a friend who has nearly furnished her whole house with fabulous finds off craigslist.com.  I had looked on occasion and found nothing nearly as great as some of the things she had found. . . .

. . .until now.

Meet my new farmhouse sink:

Shaw's Original Farmhouse sink!

To make the deal sweeter, I spent about a third of the original price!  Happy day!  I wonder what else I can find. . . 

. . . excuse me while I go shopping.

My Family Room is Making Progress. . .

Here is a picture of my family room after we put up baseboards and painted them and the mantel white.  I love it.  Now if I can just find a way to bury those sconce cords. . .

Decisions, Decisions. . .

Even though I can't put a rug on my hardwood floors for weeks (to let them cure and all that) I have been shopping.  I have two rugs that I am considering and need a little input from you--my lovely readers.  My kitchen/family room area is all going pretty neutral--white cabinets, soapstone counters, dark floors, white subway tile, near white walls, and white molding and mantel.  I even think I will do natural linen roman shades in the family room windows.  The furniture will be neutral as well. So I want to bring in a little color.  And since I have these lovely blue depression glass dishes that will show in the new glass front cabinets, I am thinking blue.  Here are some of the dishes:

. . . and here are two rugs I have been considering.  On is more than three times the price of the other--can you guess which one.  And which do you like better.  (I have a lot of contemporary/ transitional furniture and would like to bring in a few traditional elements.

So, what do you think?

It's Love. . .

These pictures may look just like the last ones, but now they are done.  and collecting dust like crazy. . . but we won't think about that right now.  Now we will just admire (and try not to notice the continued lack of baseboards and furniture).

We will be returning furniture, putting up baseboards, and painting the mantel this week, so I will post pictures soon with more progress.

Wait for it. . . .

WAIT--before you look at the pictures. . . okay, now that you didn't listen and looked anyway, imagine these lovely dark floors (Which look a little lighter and more varied in person--like the first picture) with white cabinets, and tall white baseboards.  The mantel is getting painted white too.  Oh, and the window trim will be white also.

These are with the first layer of top coat.  He will do two more coats to make it very durable.  I can't wait!

Okay, now tell me what you think so far.  I can take it.  But keep in mind that I love them.  So HA to all the floor places that told us it was too hard to do!

In the heat of the moment. . .

. . .we gutted our office.  In fact, the room was cleared and the carpet was half gone before my brain shouted. . .  "Before pictures!!"  I am sure I have a picture of my office somewhere, but I will have to hunt it down later for the final reveal.  So here is the first "during" picture:

And a few more of the office floor going in:

I decided to paint the room while it was empty.  The new color is called Whispering Wind.

Rather than tearing out the old wood on the threshold and weaving the new boards in we decided to put in threshold board and change directions.  I really like how it turned out.

We had hardwood in a large portion of the house but wanted to add it to the entire main floor.  It is 3/4" thick red oak.  We added more of the same with the idea of refinishing them in a really dark stain.

Midway we realized we bought more wood than the office needed so we tore out our family room carpet. (The idea was to do that floor--and the living room--when we re-do the kitchen in a couple months, but spontaneity's a good thing. . .right?)  Anyway, too late now.  

More pictures of the progress:

The living room will have to wait, however, because it currently looks like this:

We rented an orbital sander to remove the old finish and prepare the wood for stain.  

12 hours later we called it a day.

Here is a little of Rob's handy work. The marble on the fireplace surround was lower than the wood, so Rob made a frame with strips of oak and beveled the edge that butted up against the marble.  I love it.

We had a dark stain mixed up and tested it under our fridge.  First coat. . . too light.

Second coat. . . too heavy--and not drying well.

Panic sets in. . .phone calls are made.  Three wood finishers turn us down saying dark stains are too hard (what were we thinking?  Oh yeah, I think it was something like, "We can do anything!").  Moving on. . . breathing deeply. . . finding acceptance.  Better to have fabulous floors than not needing to say "I did it myself" due to the obviously unprofessional job.  Besides we did a lot ourselves.  

So reinforcements arrive tomorrow.  He is going to use Glitsa Stain in Sable with three layers of Swedish Finish.  Wish us luck!