While all that was going on

A side project we had going with the same team doing our addition was to give our existing main floor rooms a facelift. Two small details on the main level had been ones on our to-do list for a while.

D has been bothered by the fact that a few rooms on the main floor of our house have crown molding, which he really likes, while others do not. We made sure we added it to the sunroom when we had that remodel done, and he wanted to add it to the rest of the rooms too. And now the work crew was already tasked with matching the baseboard, door and window trim for the addition--so why not throw some crown molding in, too.

And I have forever wanted the doors in our house to match. Most of the first floor doors were plain doors, while the upstairs doors (and, randomly, the two closets in the guest room) had panels in them. The plain doors were beat-up and generally unattractive, and I'd occasionally try to find a handyman (what is the gender-neutral term for this? handy person does NOT sound right. maybe just a general contractor?) to install some, after doing some research to learn that door installation was no easy feat and not something we wanted to tackle ourselves. So while they were ordering custom doors for the addition (pocket doors, in that case), we added this to the pile.

You can guess this added up to a very expensive and very expansive side quest.

The molding:

A few "before" and "after" pictures in the two rooms we decided to trim: the office and the guest room:

The crown molding was wide enough to interfere with our existing air vent (which, as a reminder, had been above a window but is now above the entry into the new addition) so they sort of carved out a little niche for it. I...don't love it. But I didn't have any better ideas and we certainly weren't about to cut the ceiling and move the vent an inch just for this. And honestly, I really never look up and see it.

Taking a closer look at the line where the ceiling meets the wall also made me hyper-aware that we didn't always do a great job with painting the edge. Yet another thing that crown molding solves (well at least if that crown molding is pre-painted).

Take a moment to admire all those corners!

More corners, no molding:

With molding!

To give you an idea of how very disruptive this felt, here's a "during" picture. You can see the lovely molding going up but also how all the furniture is in the middle of the floor covered in a tarp (at one point, I needed to get something in one of the dresser drawers, so that was fun).

In the end, we're very happy with the look. It makes the house feel more consistent across rooms. Much like with the doors, which now also all match. Onwards!

The new doors arrived, all custom ordered. And of course since we have an old house, each door had its own unique fit issues they had to deal with on-site. In total, we swapped out 6 doors (three doors off the hallway for the bathroom, guest bedroom, and office; the pantry closet; the bathroom closet; and the office closet). 

We got new doorknobs too, since the old ones weren't worth salvaging. Many had paint all over them and they felt light and cheap. We went with Schlage knobs, and the bedroom and bathroom ones have a lock on them. We have a few more to install, actually, in the doors that we did not replace. But that's a post for a different time.

Here's the teeny pantry door that is so narrow, it only became a three-panel door.

And here it is now! It's a heavier door (we didn't get fully solid doors, but we were upsold on a slightly heftier model from our original choice and we couldn't be happier--they're the perfect weight).

Here's the "before" view of our bathroom and office doors. You can see that they're not bad, but they are very plain. These doors were wood, so that was nice, but they were hollow and light and pretty beat-up. I felt that swapping them out was no huge loss to our home.

And here it is now. I think the panels look a lot better.

This picture above does depict how we did not quite get the right white. The white is Chantilly Lace, described as a "go-to" white, a decision supported by many blogs we had read in advance when trying to pick the best white for our addition trim (in semi-gloss) and hallway (no record of which finish we decided on and they didn't leave us extra, ugh). We were wary of "warm" white (whites with yellow undertones) since our home is all grays and blues. But yes, this white turned out to be quite white. TOO white. And yes, our new addition hallway is VERY bright. It showed us that most of the things we thought were white were actually white with yellow undertones. Oops. This is noticeable next to our IKEA liquor cabinets in the kitchen and in our main floor bathroom too. It's also doing our dingy towels no favors.

Nonetheless, we are happy with the result. The doors feel solid and look much better. The trim classes the house up a bit more. They had both been on our to-do list for a long time and we had just lacked the ability to find someone to do the upgrade. (Once we even came close, with a handshake deal that fell through.) So it feels good to have this done.

A tale of two bathrooms

To continue the tour of the new addition, it's on to the bathroom. Or bathrooms, as the case is here. Remember that in order to keep the window in our existing bathroom and avoid having to move our AC unit, we split the bathroom up so that there are rooms on both sides of the hallway. You can get an idea of that here in our last post from 2024, in the first picture. We used the same decor on both sides (tiles, paint, finishes and fixtures, etc.) so that they look like one coherent whole. Or that was the goal at least. You'll notice from that post that the pictures don't look all that different than they did just before we moved into the space--bathrooms don't require the kind of filling in that a bedroom does. But still, we've accessorized and made it our own.

Here's the view "from the toilet" of our....powder room? We don't really have names for these split rooms. It's the one with the toilet in it. Still loving the wallpaper a year later and thrilled that we were able to find something to put on the shelves (with them being exposed and in the room with the toilet, we didn't really want to store towels there, and open storage for toiletries would get messy, so we went with pure decor--two samovars and two Asian vases--that had been calling out for a nice place to live. And the color complimented the room perfectly).

We were able to use the curtains that had been in the office, so that was a good repurposing. And a year into our Toto Washlet I can say it was definitely worth the splurge.

I don't think I really need to explain what all the buttons do but let me tell you it is great. The only problem is that even with the lid closed, it definitely makes noise sometimes in the middle of the night randomly.

And sometimes, it makes noises not-so-randomly. The cats are fascinated with this toilet (especially in the dark when the two sets of lights both on the side and in the bowl are lit. I believe they think the toilet is trying to communicate with them. It definitely makes using the bathroom...interesting.

The other half of the bathroom also looks a lot like it did a year ago. We are still living with our mismatched chrome medicine cabinets because buying new doors was too expensive. I barely notice them. Mostly. The heated towel rack, the second of our three bathroom splurges, also has proven to be a great feature. Even in the summer, I like coming out to a slightly warmed towel (that then continues to heat and dry up after my shower). It's also amazing for drying handwashing laundry.

Inside the shower, it's spacious and the bench makes shaving easy. It's dark, because the light is controlled by the steam shower and therefore can only be turned on when the steam shower is on. If we had known that was how it was going to work, we would have demanded a different set-up. But we can drop the steam shower temperature to something like 55 degrees F so that it doesn't produce steam to get the light on when we need it. Annoying, but workable.

Here's a picture of the steam shower panel, and our third and final splurge. I am not using it this time of year, but I turned it on most showers in the winter to supplement the water temperature (which seems to cool dramatically in the pipes, despite our attempts to insulate them--a future project, I suppose).

And with that, our addition tour is over. Next time, we'll start showing off all the other many projects we've spent the year working on!

Closets with a view

Time for a tour of the "closet" hallway of our bedroom--we really don't know what to call this space. As a reminder, it's behind the wallpapered wall that our bed is on. The whole section is made up of IKEA PAX units built into the wall. There are four in total: three along the main wall (seen here) and then a fourth on the side (where I'm standing to take this picture).

We put a slim sofa table along the opposite wall (Yamazaki Home). It was smaller than we imagined it to be, but it works pretty well and is low enough that we can hang relatively long things from the hooks we installed along the top of the wall. Plus of course I have my original IKEA step stool (no longer available, sadly) to help me reach the higher shelves in the closet. All of it is in the light wood we're sticking to in our bedroom.

A lot of thought went into choosing the blinds for the two windows in here after, all the drama the last time we bought and installed blinds. In that effort, the trade-off between terrible and cheap-looking ones vs. those that cost a small fortune was....not ideal. This time, we found options that were pricy but not overly so (and ordered swatches and then waited for a sale), and we're quite happy with the outcome.
 

They are Bali Blinds roller shades in the black-out fabric named Silver Fox. Funny enough, that was the color I picked without any swatches in hand, and it remained my favorite after seeing about a dozen little squares. It looks sort of like a linen or slub cotton and does a good job of blocking light. The west side of the house doesn't get a ton during the morning, of course, but every bit helps when trying to sleep in on weekends.

Both pieces of furniture tucked in under the window are ones we bought down from upstairs (my jewelry chest and a dresser). I would love to replace that dresser with one that looks very similar but has more functional drawers--these are cheap and hard to open. I've been on the lookout for another maple or birch piece with similar height. The mirror was one I bought for the guest room a few years ago. I think at some point we will replace it with one that rests on the wall and takes up less space, but this fits the decor for now and I'm glad we've been able to make-do with so few new furniture purchases (for cost reasons as well as sustainability). The kids have been using the hallway area with the mirror at the end as a runway for trying out new fashion!

Here's a glimpse inside the PAX closets for an idea of how we're using all the organizational features in the system. We're using the hanging bar, stationary selves, pull-out drawers with both opaque and clear fronts, the pull-out shoe shelf and the pants bar (hard to see, but it's on the right above my shoes). They do certainly make it easy to cram a lot of things in there. And yes, for the record, I have PAX units and D has just one. But he's making it work.

And of course it's all by the light of this cute little chandelier (and some can lights, but that's boring). I had to add a little glamor

Next time, the bathrooms, which look remarkably like they did last July because, well, they're bathrooms and don't require much furnishing. But I'll show them off anyway before moving on to the projects we've been keeping busy with in the rest of the house.

Where to begin? Primary bedroom

What an almost-year it's been The blog fell so far behind with all the work we've been doing that it was hard to pick up again. We have done so much to the house that three of our pre-existing rooms are nearly unrecognizable as each change led to more change (yay domino effect), and all of it had to get done within a pretty tight timeline. Combine that with slowly furnishing and accessorizing the new addition in waves (obviously we needed things like the bed and the window coverings quickly but could take our time on things like throw pillows and rugs). And so now, about 10 months after the project's completion, it's time to show off all our progress.

When last we left off, we were at this stage in the process (this is the last picture I posted, from July 2024). Family visiting from out-of-town at the same time as a sick kid meant that we had to move in quickly to redistribute rooms. Thank goodness our visiting family was able to help move furniture! (I still don't know how they got my dresser down the stairs and around the turns...)

One thing I did not document last summer was our decision making process on staining the floor. We were excited that for the addition, thanks to the step-down from the office, we didn't feel compelled to stick to the same yellow color on the rest of our floors. The carpenter gave us a few options. Of these two, both quite natural and with minimal tint and we went with the one on the left, Bona NaturalSeal, with even less warmth in it. The product description says it is a floor sealer with the look of unfinished wood. It has a satin finish so it clearly looks "finished" but in a very muted way with no color. We're very happy with it.

So fast forward to some pictures many months later, when we got not only the big items in the room but the little details as well. Besides being undecided on potential artwork, our room is decorated and done.

First, the bed wall. After some skepticism on my part (I wasn't sure I was ready to give up built-in under-bed storage), we got the Thuma Classic Bed in natural. The construction was as advertised and pretty fun to build. The pieces lock together without any need for nails or screws.

The mattress is a natural latex mattress from Latex Mattress Factory. It has organic cotton batting and a wool cover, so it's right up my alley. It came in three layers that we customized for ourselves. The company representatives made it sound like assembling it would be easy, but getting them unrolled and into their cover was very challenging. Since this one has different densities at different layers to better support us, we can only rotate it, not flip it. Also a king-sized latex mattress is no joke--the thing is massive and impossible to lift. Even lifting the corners to make the bed feels like a massive undertaking. We updated the covers on our throw pillows and I added a beautiful bolster pillow I found deeply discounted at Crate & Barrel. The duvet cover is from IKEA. I loved it so much we bought a second one for when the cats inevitably destroy this one. The colors just worked perfectly with the room.

The purple trunk in the corner is this trunk that I bought over a decade ago in a light matte blue and had in our upstairs bedroom. I chose Benjamin Moore's Purple Lotus (Sherwin Williams has a very poor selection of purple shades), but I wish I had gone one shade warmer in the paint chart as it was a bit cooler and brighter than I wanted (despite the color being described as "smoky"). Coating it in gray, just like I did when it was blue in our upstairs bedroom, helped a lot.

Our new nightstands took some time. They needed to be relatively small and we didn't already own a set, using a shelf attached to the wall upstairs because of the baseboard heating. These turned out to be finds from Target done in a pressed tin. I swapped out the nobs to amethyst depression-glass ones instead of the boring silver ones included. They don't hold very much but they work well enough.

Turning the angle a bit, an IKEA Holmstrup rug (that, sadly, was a "last chance" buy no longer available) in a style I love--the new "pebble" rugs I've seen in a few places are usually all wool (yes please) and feel very plush underfoot.  I clearly went all in because the small one on the side of the bed just peeking out of the top picture is a Pottery Barn version of the same style.

We started out with some expensive curtains but returned them because they didn't block enough light, opting for something random from JC Penney's instead. The inner curtains are IKEA Matilda that already have holes in them thanks to the cats, so at least they were cheap. The sizes didn't quite match so I did some aggressive shrinking in the washer and dryer before hanging them up and they still stick out from under the door curtains and drive me a little crazy.

I found a beautifully framed silver mirror at an antique warehouse and bought a purple Turkish lamp for ambience. It is resting on my original dresser from our upstairs bedroom. The painting was upstairs too, and the pinks worked well in the new room.

I was going to describe the closet area but I think this post has gone on long enough, so I'll save that one for another time. Hopefully in less than a year.

It's happening, almost

It's been hard to post because while we've made some steady progress, the amount of mess in the room has increased, making things look more unfinished than they really were. Over four days a couple weeks ago, the crew came in and cleared everything off the floor (no easy feat itself), then sanded, stained (twice), and applied a top coat to the floors. I meant to get a picture but then they promptly put paper back on top of it and re-made their mess (after giving it three days to fully cure).

Then they wallpapered (YAY!), but the floors were such a mess that it was hard to capture the effect. At one point or another, it got cleared out enough that we felt it was safe to let the cats explore the new space in the evening, after the work crew was gone. But it still didn't feel picture-worthy.

And then, FINALLY, they cleared everything out. And we are...done. Ish. We have a small to-do list with the crew of small things that need adjusting and, biggest thing of all, one of the last items to be installed turned out to be broken:

This is the wall panel controller to the steam shower, which, unfortunately, goes IN the shower. So having it not work and removed means that the entire shower isn't usable yet (note the big hole with wires coming out). It will delay our inspection and full completion of the project. And, well, we HOPE that it's the controller that was faulty. Because otherwise it's something more serious--the wiring or something? So let's hope that once an identical controller arrives and the electrician comes to install it, we are back in business.

In the meantime, besides our "punch-list" of (mostly) little stuff and the lack of inspection, the space is done. So while I continue to be bummed about yet more delays, it's worth finally taking a moment to show you this beautiful space.

First, the bathroom (again, with non-usable shower):

The blue vanity isn't as blue as we envisioned and the medicine cabinets will continue to mock me with their chrome finish until/unless we try to dull it, but it is really lovely. I started cutting drawer liners and setting up the shelves in the medicine cabinets to the right heights, and thinking of what to put where.

The toilet room/WC/powder room was wallpapered and we couldn't be happier at our choice (and how it complements the paint! The paper is Rifle Paper Co. Peacock wallpaper in periwinkle.

The closet hall has four PAX units (one is on the wall next to the camera). Right now they are completely empty inside, waiting to be customized, so I'm sure we'll write a longer post on that as we begin work on it. I'm absolutely delighted by the chandelier that I insisted we install there (we had to find a tiny one that wouldn't interfere with the door swing, though it turned out we could have gone bigger in the end).

It's hard to see from this angle, so here's the stock photo (Edvivi Arietta from Lowes). It has real glass crystals that we quite enjoyed fastening to the metal frame.

And finally, the main attraction, our bedroom itself:

The wallpaper was the one we decided on in March, A-Street Prints in Arian Silver Inkburst (I don't see ink bursts, I definitely see something more organic like dandelion fluff).

We've taken to heart what they said on Thursday and, since this picture was taken, have already set up the bed and hung curtains. We hope to be sleeping here by the end of the week, inspected or not.

Steps forward and steps back

The last few days have been a flurry of activity. We have outdoor lights and outlets and they painted the concrete. We did our best to match the roof gray, to avoid having a lot of extra grays since we already have competing tones in the siding and the deck. It's hard to tell how well we did. We picked Benjamin Moore's Deep Space which looks very neutral gray in the swatch but seems a tad blueish to us in person. We had to pick relatively quickly so did not have a chance to test it out with a larger swatch:

Even this picture of foundation concrete, metal roof, and paint swatch shows a very neutral gray, and. yet the foundation definitely gives off blueish vibes. 

Inside, we have a ceiling fan now, with a proprietary down-rod. We loved this Generation Lighting Orbis fan (52'') and of COURSE it apparently had to have an incompatible down-rod diameter to every standard "just grab one off the shelf" one. So we had to special order it. We picked up a 2' and a 3' rod. And then the box with the 2' rod in it was...empty! I guess 3' it is! We also have our hardwired smoke detector and all our recessed lighting. We have also discovered that our vault is high enough that we need to find a new ladder for if we have to actually reach any of these things...

Moving to the walk-in closet area, I got my cute little chandelier and the units have been built-in and painted (some discrepancy over the doors being painted to match so they could blend in with the wall--which we wanted, given that we just received a hefty price tag to do that so...we'll be doing that part ourselves). Still, forward progress!

Our powder room finally got a sink today:

And our shower room got overhead lights in the shower and the heated towel rack. There's an issue with the Kohler valve that is BEHIND THE WALL. The plumber says it is leaky and so we're working with Kohler to get a replacement. Which will mean having to bust through the wall and replace it (they claim they can go in from the drywall side at least, and not the tile side). And you can see a hole cut into the wall near the ceiling for the shower lights installation that will need mudding. So many walls to mud and remud...

And so we're making progress. It seems like there is always a step back for every few steps forward, but we are undoubtedly moving forward. I am so ready for this project to be done!