Our Brick Ranch

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Goodbye

We have moved, and Our Brick Ranch is currently for sale.
So many memories. My babies took their first steps in this house. I'm so grateful I started this blog so I can look back and see everything we accomplished, and remind myself of the things that were just too much when I try a new project ;)
Goodbye Old House!!!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Merry Christmas

So there was a small hole in the wall. And these little girls dumped the contents of my purse down the hole. Repeatedly. And one day I'd had enough. I'd been dreading this wall because there was an actual crack in the drywall running all along the bottom and it all needed to be fixed. Then I got this bright idea! I had wood leftover from the bathroom ceiling. So we slapped it up at full length which left a small sliver up the right side there.

We ripped another piece for the corner trim to finish it off.

This was perhaps the easiest project in the entire house and the one that had me swooning the most. Every time I walk into the entryway I sigh. It's my happy place. All it took was pine tongue and groove flooring, two bottles of adhesive and a nailgun! Then I white washed it. I had a bunch of leftover white paint. Found one with half missing and added some water and brushed away. From what I'd read it said to wipe it down after a few washes, but I liked it better when I just left it so I just brushed it in real good and DONE!

Fast forward to.... I KNEW I wanted my christmas tree in the entryway especially since that wood wall was off to the left. Since we have 2 year old twins we did only plastic and paper ornaments this year. A lot of which we made ourselves.

2 days later..... Where are all the lower decorations?!?!

One week later? Yeah....

So now the tree is behind a babygate, in the kitchen, by the garbage cans. Looking pretty bedraggled tree.... twins'll do that to ya.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Meeting Young House Love!

Dan and I headed out to Rejuvenation in Portland today and I got to meet John and Sherry Petersik of Young House Love at their book signing.

I was so excited all day and I even wanted to bring my painting socks for Sherry to sign (as a gag) but my husband forbade me stating that was disgusting and please don't make that poor nice lady sign your nasty sock. Ha! They were super sweet and even recognized my name from a few comments I'd left on their blog. Check them out! They are absolutely hilarious!

Painting the town RED!

I LOVE red. Red is my favorite color. But I've always had a problem with using it. I can't imagine having an entire wall red. But I've recently become more comfortable with spicing up the kitchen. Piece by piece it's been transformed into a "Me" space.

I got one of these for Christmas.

So I had to instantly rearrange everything to show her off! I really think I need a red coffee pot now. Of course the old one still works perfectly so it's a tough decision. I really want this one. It matches my lovely toaster!

Today I'm heading out to Young House Love's book signing in Portland and it's had me thinking of all of the things that were inspired by their blog. When we first moved in we painted our yellow brick fireplace white after seeing how beautiful theirs looked. We have a hallway of floor to ceiling photos just like theirs but in black frames instead of white. And I've recently started some projects from their book.

I remembered a post they did recently about failed projects and thought hey, why not.

So here we go.

It all started with this project. We had this ugly gray electrical box and I thought it'd be nice to blend it in, but it was in the middle of two colors and I couldn't choose so I decided to make it artwork. Originally I thought I'd paint the frame white or black, and then paint a picture inside. But I'm a terrible artist. So I ended up using this red and white shelf paper I found on amazon for super cheap. I loved it so much I thought why not bring some of it into the kitchen? I'd done it in rental kitchen's before as a temporary wall paper that just comes right down so I thought it was a super idea.

Cue the Wop Wop Wop music. Or what my husband calls a Hardy Har Har. I installed it on the shelf above the sink, and had my hubby cut a thin plate groove on the back of the shelf for the pink depression glass I'd inherited on my wedding day from the ladies in my Mother's family. I guess it's way too humid in that room or the paint is too slick because this is what it's ended up looking like.

Back to the drawing board!

Laundry Room Update

We hung the ceiling planks just like we'd seen on The Lettered Cottage. I know they recommended painting them before installing, but I couldn't decide whether I wanted to paint or stain them and there were huge holes in the ceiling from the plumbers that were very heating inefficient. So I slapped those planks up there anyway. It'll be interesting painting them above my head but it's a very small room so I'm not too scared!

And we picked out paint! These are actually just our sample swatches but I decided to do one side with a stripe and one without. Hubby picked the white stripe so hopefully we'll be on that soon! I'll get back with the names of the paint. I stashed them in the garage already and can't remember. But it's by Sherwin WIlliams and we'll be using the Harmony no VOC version.

The cabinets are also all in but we still haven't decided on a countertop. We've been surfing the re-store regularly but nothing has grabbed our eyes.