Phase 1 of the Garage

This post is not very exciting at all. However, I wanted to start documenting the process of building our 24'x24' garage. So you can see the transformation, I have been taking pictures like a mad woman. I am so excited to get the snowboards, wakeboards, pedal bikes and all the other items that belong in a garage out of the house! One of these days the project will be done. Worst case scenario, it will be done April of 2011. That is when my permit expires. :-) I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be done before it snows!

Above is the back yard just after it was staked out for the cement slab and the footings.

Then they dug it out, leveled it and put the frames around where the cement was to be poured.

Then they poured the cement! You can see where the 2 car garage door is going to be (right) and the little dip on the left will be a door for us to walk in and out of. Aww! I am also excited for all of the privacy it is going to offer. We will no longer have to look out our backyard and see that house. So exciting. The cement was poured about 1 month ago. While waiting for the builder (my busy father) we are making use of the large cement patio/garage floor:

A little FAW gathering (Friday after work) celebrating a long week with a little "Pong."

5 Star Guest Room

What better to do with an extra room than transform it into a guest room? I am sure that guests who have a free place to stay wont be choosy, but my goal for this room was to steer clear of the boring guest room that is a hodge-podge of extra things around the house. I wanted this to feel more like a high end, boutique style hotel room, so my guests have the 5 star experience (in a 1,200 square foot house that is a bit of an oxymoron). Nonetheless I was going for something like this:

Now that you have an idea of my inspiration, let me warn you that the space I am working with is very small. It didn't appear to be until I got the queen size bed in the room and realized I need to be frugal with my design. Here is what we were working with:

There is one of those pesky snowboards that belongs in the soon-to-be garage. I had the dresser and nightstnd left over from college, so wanted to make sure to reuse them and add some spice to the room with the bedding and artwork. I painted the right wall a charcoal gray and added charcoal curtians on the window seen and the window on the left side (not pictured). I found a chic headboard and some bedding to add a punch to the room and so far I have this:

It is still a work in progress, but is coming together nicely. I just ordered 2 Picasso prints to have framed on the charcoal wall.

I am also on a quest for a shelving unit for the right side of the bed. Once finished I will re-blog the final space. Hopefully by then I will have a new camera to take high end/boutique style photos! :-)

Sweet, Little Puppy Room

So yes, we have a puppy. And no, you probably would describer her as "sweet" or "little" but those two words do fit perfectly when describing her bedroom. Yes, she has her own bedroom, where else are you going to fit a 70 pound doberman? First, I just cleared out a space in an extra room for her crate and freehanded some branches on the wall. As you can see below, that wasn't enough:

So, when I purchesed my beloved zebra chaise lounger for my living room (future post) I ended up with two extra little brown chairs, and what a better place for them? I also found a small table, lamp, a little picture of her and some brown sheers to drape the windows:

So as you open the door to her room you see this quaint little sitting area. On same wall as her door is the kennel, drapped in a brown quilt and topped with a canvas stretched with some golden-yellow fabric to serve as her headboard. This room is right off the bathroom, so we also use it to store the clothes hamper. Puppy doesn't mind!

So when she is not watching Jesse ride:

Or watching Ashley run:

Or hanging with her friends (lol):

You will find her relaxing in her sweet, little puppy room.

Bathroom Picture

My lonely little bathroom had nothing hanging on the walls. The walls are painted a cement shade of gray, which I love against the white woodwork, tub, sink etc. The shower curtain I picked out is mostly white with a few large poppy-style flowers at the bottom in shades of gray, taupe and grassy green. When I came across leaf-cutout place mats in the clearance isle at Pottery Barn, I knew I could make something happen with those. So I purchased them, then went to a thrift store and found a frame large enough for one of the leafs. Below you will see the transformation.

Ugly frame with ugly, matted poster and ugly set of shelves. I removed the hilarious house picture (obviously) and painted the frame white. It has the cutest little flowers etched in the wood and looks adorable now. I also found some light blue (splash of some extra color) backing for the leaf and started working some magic. The little set of shelves turned out quite cute after a fresh set of white paint and some minor repairs. However, it did not fit in my tiny, little powder room so we ended up filling it with Scentsy stuff (warmers and scented waxes) and donating it as a silent auction item to the Relay for Life. Below is the final piece:

Clean, simple with a total cost of about $6. Exactly what I was going for. One happy blonde.