Never Done.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching and we were hosting the family meal as well as having friends stay with us - who are AMAZING cooks. Our kitchen is not the best room in the house. The bright turquoise color I chose was a serious lapse in decorating judgement and our spices were in complete disorder. Last Sunday night, Jason and I filled all the pretty chrome storage jars we bought that afternoon up with the random bags of beans, rice and dehydrated veggies that were piled up on the bottom rack. This opened up Pandora's box. After weeding out old spices we re-jarred and labeled everything and added an awesome floating shelf above the stove to hold our 'top shelf' spices, oils and condiments. It was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L...except that it made the wall color even more out of place.

I woke up at 7:30 the next morning and went straight to the hardware store to pick up paint. By the time our out-of-town friends showed up that night, we had a warm and inviting kitchen...and we cooked up some delicious feasts!

Home Away from Home

Jason took me down to visit friends in Austin for my Birthday a couple of weeks ago. By the end of the trip, we all shook hands in going in halvsies on an old Airstream trailer. Our plan is to gut it and turn it into a dorm/lounge that we can use on the Wells family land near lake Texoma. Two weeks later, let me introduce to you our 1971 27 ft Overlander Airstream that is currently settled in our back yard. It's been gutted and scrubbed down. Now for the lipstick and rouge~

The Art Loft

I have always had some sort of space where my art supplies are stored...and some sort of space where I can make art. The problem was, the space where I stored supplies and the space I made art in were two separate spaces.

We have a little loft in our house that was built over the garage. It is tucked away which made it the perfect dumping ground. Anything that we could not find a home for ended up there...including the cat box and the 600 National Geographic magazines dating back to 1951.

Over Labor day weekend, we changed all that. We found homes for the randoms, slapped a new coat of paint on the walls and ceiling and gave ALL of my creative supplies a well organized new home. I see ALOT of art making in my future :)

Adding a bit of Reality

I spent the day refining my Vision. Jason likes seeing examples...so do I.

Dreaming

This morning was the first spring shower. Between that, the sporadic warm weather days and a shock of blooming bulbs, I'm itching to get outside and dig in the dirt....instead, I drew up my plan with my handy dandy computer drawing tablet. It was almost as fun (without the backache tomorrow)

New Renovations

Okay, so it's been a while....I've actually been chastised for the length of time that has lapsed between this post and the last. In my defense, it has been very busy for the inhabitants of the Wellstead....lots of work and play.

The first phase was getting our new room ready...we turned the garage into our master bedroom with a spacious laundry room/closet.

Jason and I have been promising the kiddos their own rooms by Christmas, which didn't exactly work out, but over the holidays, we began renovations and I am glad to say we are finally at a (momentary) resting point.


(ignore the messy bed)

The next step was turning our old room into Tillie's new room:


I can't tell you how much FUN I had getting her room together. The big reveal is tonight :)

Once we can see the floor in their current room, we will give Jesse a makeover for his room too. One step at a time (breathe).

ROCKS!!!

Jason just scored me a ton of rocks...the kind that all the structures are made of in Medicine Park!!!! Now the wild little shady nook is looking a bit more cultivated. Not too much, though.

New Addition

Well, the corner chair that replaced the aging recliner did not make it. Although it was prettier than the barka-lounger, it was not up to Jason's relaxation standards...so I decided to buy him a new, comfortable AND pretty recliner for Christmas. He LOVES it. I picked it up on the 23rd and decided to give it to him early, since I had no place to hide it. He had the perfect place to kick back on Christmas day.

Hopefully we can find a new space for the old chair. I've been hauling that thing around for too long and spent too much time sanding and re-staining it to put it out on the curb.

Our Awesome Antique Store Find

The day after Thanksgiving Jason and I set out for Kansas City to visit my cousin and his family. They took us on a tour of downtown KC, one of the places being an antique store...a FOUR STOREY (yes, that is how you spell it. Thanks Google.) antique store. Ten feet through the front door I spot an awesome little coffee table. Jason reminds me that we have thousands more square feet to explore. After two hours, we return to the coffee table - which is STILL awesome - and decide to buy it. YAY. Now we have a place for our coffee cups and feet!

kid's room

Although we painted Jesse and Tillie's room back in May, it has taken a while to get all the decorating wrapped up in their space. We put up 22 pieces of art and finally found a home for the colorful paper lanterns that were purchased for our wedding decorations (the rain kept us from using them that day).
With the help of Jason's mom, we set them up with an AWESOME bunk bed. So far, they are splitting time up between the bottom and top bunk very well. When the time comes for them to have their own room, the bunks split up into separate beds...although I have a feeling that we will end up buying another bunk bed to make sleep-overs easier.

The Evolution of a Space

I love how spaces fill up and grow into themselves...and how the light is a part of it.

The plants LOVE their new home.

The Last Room...for now

It was a rainy Sunday and I had HAD IT with our dreary little bathroom. The faux tile wainscot and the yucky tan, high-gloss walls made me want to get out of there as quickly as possible. A bathroom should be a sanctuary...so that is what I made it. A TEEEENY-TINY sanctuary.

While Jason had some boy time at a friend's house, I painted and found a home for the artwork that had been waiting patiently in the workshop for months.

This change even makes the mustard yellow linoleum floor look decent.

Our Creative Space

We have a space, apart from the house, that was the deciding factor for us purchasing this property. The moment we saw the backyard workshop during the walk-through with our realtor, we both immediately looked at each other and said "This is it!" Unfortunately, this was the last space to get situated.

Now that it is situated, we are having GREAT FUN in this space: fixing cars, doing craft projects, BBQ-ing, tinkering and anything else that can be done in a giant workshop.

Spaces We Pass Through

When renovating an entire house, it's the spaces we pass through that get put on the back burner. Our hallway is a perfect example. This was the last space that had (for over a month) paper still covering the floor, which was like walking on a medium grit sandpaper. We left for a weekend trip to California to go to my sister's wedding and I wanted to have it done before I left because I DID NOT WANT TO RETURN TO AN UNFINISHED SPACE.

It's a good thing I completed it because I got tonsillitis on our vacation and now I'm holed up in bed, but I can peek out the bedroom door and see our lovely hallway and that makes me feel a little bit better.

Now Milo has a new favorite resting spot.

A Bit of History

To begin with: as of today, we have been in this home for one month! With all the progress we've made, it seems like much longer.

When Jason and I began our home search, it was very important to us that we be the perfect people for whatever home we end up buying...that the owners would be excited about passing the torch to us. It did end up happening this way for us, although the passing of the torch was bitter-sweet. Tracy, the seller and grandaughter of the previous owners, gave us this picture and a letter detailing some of the history of this house and the people who lived within it:

Jason and I knew that this house was very loved and had alot of love within it and we are honoring this spirit when we go through our renovations...like keeping the original wallpaper in the bedroom closets to remind us of the history here and planting around the existing plants in the garden beds. I sent the blog link to Tracy so she can continue to be a part of this home's evolution.

This morning we received an e-mail from another grandaughter, Diane, who spent much time in this house as well...here is some of her letter:

Hearing your words, reading your blog... gives me such pleasure and joy. The love, time, and energy you've put into making the house your home -- it is wonderful that you have shared it and included us in it. We are so happy to know that the house is alive with joy, laughter, love, children... my grandparents would be extremely happy to know that such warm, loving, special people get to enjoy a home in which they found those things -- and more.

Thank you for allowing us to share a part of your family's history. Of our family's history. You have done amazing things with the house -- things we thought of doing to "keep it in the family". But I think it is just where it belongs. God bless your family. Your home. Your future. I know you will find such joy and gifts in that house. In your marriage. Your lives. Take care of one another -- my grandpa would slip his arms around my grandma's waist as she did the dishes, standing at the sink looking out at the garden. And he would whisper to her. "I love you." And she knew this to be true. With her whole heart.

Blessings to you, again. And for the disjointed nature of this note, and the changes in subject mid-sentence, I apologize. As my son tells me, "I must have seen something shiny." Perhaps it was my tears. Of joy. Knowing that you love the home as much as did / DO, we.

Our neighbor, Dock, and I are battling over which one of us is the 'luckiest person in Oklahoma'. I think I am but he's got 55 years more than me so I'll let him keep the title.

Little Victories

Now we are down to the nitpicky stuff that is hard to find spaces for. Our kitchen's storage is strange but there was a 5 ft. wide empty space to the right of the stove and underneath some really high overhead cabinets that had great potential. I found the table at the Habitat for Humanity Restore for $10 that fit the space PERFECTLY and there was just enough room overhead for pot and pan storage.
Jason bought a closet rod, some metal rings and "S" hooks and VOILA! Efficiency is AWESOME.

Finding a Niche

Through this moving process, I've discovered that Jason and I have very different packing techniques. He packs quickly and sorts out the mess later and I sort through the mess before packing so the unpacking part is less stressful. I've not decided which is better but I can say that creating niches has been slower going since everything is in different boxes.

This is a photo of the shelf by the front door...for mail, change and keys to reside. I've never had a space like this before and I find that I lose stuff less. We used to have a catch-all box that was like Christmas every time we cleaned it out: "So THAT'S where that's been hiding!" was a common statement.

We still have a lot of niche creating left...but this is my favorite part.

New life to old stuff

Eating as a family is very important to us but that old "re-gifted" dining room table had to go. We found a 1950's chrome and laminate kitchen table at the Habitat for Humanity's ReStore that screamed for me to buy it for $10. I repainted it with chrome spray paint and we found a 4x8 piece of beautifully veneered wood and put the two together to give that old table a whole new life for a total of $55.
The aging barka-lounger didn't make the move either, so I put our new orbital sander to use to sand and then re-stain this mid-century modern chair that I rescued from a dumpster quite a few years back. I stored it in my garage because I had nowhere to put it but I knew a gem when I saw it...even though it was (cosmetically) in dismal condition. When I moved in with Jason, our dog Jasper used it as his favorite teething toy.
With a few dollars in Rit dye, I dyed the cushions from a faded wheat color to a subtle chartreuse. Total cost $10.
I don't know if this chair will make it either...he misses the comfort of a cushy recliner.

Before and After

Our living room

before (midpoint, really):

after:

before:


after:


In between space:

before:

after:
(we still have crown molding to install)

Our dining room
before:

after:

before:

after:

We still have the bathroom, kitchen, loft, den, hallway and workshop to do but t's good to have something (almost) done.

The Fun Part

Man was I nervous about this part. Jason decided to stick around outside the house while I primed the entire interior with a spray rig.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly...but if I never have to do this again I would be grateful.

Our hard work is beginning to produce tangible results...