Italian Inspiration: Venice

A year ago today we were in Venice, Italy, blissfully unaware of the major life changes that were headed our way in the next year! Last night we were reminiscing about our fantastic Europe trip that we took last year and wishing we were anywhere else but here. Since our daughter was born we haven't traveled anywhere and we are getting the bug big time. We are working on getting her passport so that we can share the world with her. She needs to see Venice, and soon!

Just in case you aren't headed to Venice today but wish you were, here is a little something to keep you occupied for a few minutes. *Tiny disclaimer: these photos may insight a full-out, kicking, screaming, fists-a-flailing, I-just-want-to-jump-on-a-plane-right-now, giant hissy fit. If this happens to you, I apologize in advance. Take a deep breath and eat some chocolate (dairy-free, soy-free if you're like me!)*

Motivation

Renovating an entire house has it's ups and downs, periods of frenzied activity where you feel like the projects are practically ticking themselves off the to-do list and periods of sheer laziness where it would take an asteroid colliding with your precious new roof to actually get your rear in gear and repair that gaping hole (or paint that room, or put in that new french door that has been sitting in the garage for a year, or finish that crown molding and base board that you purchased last fall, and on and on.) I think you know what period we are experiencing around here (ahem). And the reason?

Everything about this tiny little person makes us weak in the knees, from her hilarious laugh which sounds more like a cough, to her crazy little kicks and wiggles when she sleeps. We just can't get enough of her and find ourselves mesmerized by her every sound, which is why she eats into our 'project' time! Not to mention that by the time we FINALLY get her to take a nap (really? you only need a ten minute nap at 10 weeks?) the last thing we want to do is pull out the air compressor and shoot nails into the wall. So, very little has been done around here....until now. We just got the motivation we needed. We found out a few weeks ago that our I-don't-really-think-it-is-necessary-to-sleep-EVER daughter has some pretty severe food allergies. Because I am choosing to continue breastfeeding (I'm stubborn like that) we are now faced with some big changes to our lifestyle. Cutting out dairy, eggs, soy, and meat from your diet means that the eating-out options are slim to none. No more last minute runs to Cafe Rio or Yanni's, no stopping by Cafe Trang for a take-out noodle bowl. Now we spend our time at the grocery store reading every...single...label. Don't get me wrong. I have always loved to cook, but cooking with an infant is no easy task. So we often opted for take-out. Well those days are over. I am now cooking everything from scratch (prepackaged foods often contain dairy, soy or a combination) and am spending more time in the kitchen again. 

So, we have turned our attention back to the kitchen (again!) Here is the progress so far: 

The view from the dining room before the walls came tumbling down.

Same view without the walls

Sheet rock is finished and bead board goes up on the ceiling (my absolute favorite feature of the new kitchen, but more on that later)

This is what the kitchen looks like today. We still have a long way to go before we can proclaim it "done" but we are already loving the way it is turning out! Mr. is going to be working on trim this week and then we will paint the cabinets and walls! It's overcast and yucky today, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post more pics. These are definitely "in progress" shots, no beautiful "after" photos just yet!

Until then, have a happy wednesday (or whatever day it is where you're from!)

Behind the Scenes: Nursery Renovation

I always love a good after, the final reveal, the finished product. But I also love to see the work that went into making a space beautiful. I think it helps for future projects as well, because once you've seen the steps that it takes and then see it all come together, you can then look at a "before" space and instantly know how to transform it. So if you're weird like me and are interested in the behind-the-scenes footage, then this is for you. 

If you have been reading for a while, you will be well acquainted with how our cottage appeared when we first purchased it three and a half years ago. Teal and pink pretty much sums it up, and not in a good way. You also know that we had some serious space problems. Both bedrooms came with one tiny closet each, which meant that my clothes were stuffed into the closet in the master bedroom and Mr.'s clothes were stuffed into the closet in the guest bedroom (very inconvenient). So we started Project Pepto to create space where we really needed it most. After all there is no such thing as too many closets. 

This sketch shows the layout of part of our cottage before renovations began. 

This next sketch shows the changes that we have made to the floorplan. To see the dining room renovation go here and for the master bedroom closet renovation go here.  For this last phase of the project we closed off the old closet from the master bedroom side and opened up the space on the other side of the guest bedroom (which is now the nursery) to create a larger closet which is way more usable.

This shows what the room looked like when we bought the house. Yep, teal. From top to bottom. 

This picture shows the tiny size of the closet before. It was three feet wide.

 Here is the guest bedroom after we knocked down the wall between the two closets and created a larger opening for the new closet.

This is what the floors looked like after we took the walls down. We ended up replacing the entire floor so we didn't have to worry about patching the old hardwoods.

The closet after the opening had been patched and primed by Mr. New floors are finished.

Closet shelving going in.

The closet shelving is finished and Mr. works on trim and molding.

Molding is finished and paint goes on.

New lighting is installed.

New doors finally go in. I initially thought that I would put curtains behind the glass doors, and that is my back-up plan for when H turns out to be messy and not keep her closet OCD clean like her mother!

This shows our master bedroom closet doors that we installed when we finished that phase of the project. We decided to match the doors in the nursery to lend some continuity to this crazy cottage. It may seem like an odd choice to put glass doors on a closet, but I love it. It makes the rooms seem larger, more open. 

These knobs were original to our 1940s cottage. The backplates on the master closet doors were also original to the cottage and were spray painted to match the hinges. When it came time to finish the nursery, we wanted them to be similar but we didn't have any more backplates that had been salvaged. What to do? Our favorite architectural salvage yard saved the day (I'll have to do a post on that place someday, it's amazing). They had the exact same ones that had been original to our cottage, so those got a coat of spray paint as well and installed on the nursery closet doors along with two more knobs salvaged from the cottage. 

So there you have it - a condensed version of the whole renovation process on the nursery. In case you missed the reveal you can find it here. 

Nursery Reveal

Wow! Time flies when you have an infant! Our little one is already four weeks old and she completely rules the roost. Between staring for long periods of time at her adorable long eye lashes, to whiling away the evening hours rocking an inconsolable baby with reflux, it is hard to get anything else done around here. But alas, the reason I am here today: the nursery!

The whole concept of the nursery started with these watercolors. When I was eleven I wrote a short story about a tree. A few years ago my mom and I thought it would be great to turn that story into a children's book and she graciously offered to illustrate it for me. I knew the second that I found out I was pregnant that these pictures would be in the nursery no matter what gender our little blueberry turned out to be. I picked my favorite nine pictures and wrote the story on the matting inside the frame. Mr. loves to read the story to little H when he changes her (that's his unofficial job - and he is great at it!)

The rest of the nursery evolved from the watercolors. I found this idea for a bird mobile and turned it into a stationary piece of art for the wall instead of a mobile over the crib.

I found the chandelier at Ballard Designs, and it is definitely my favorite item in the room. Mr. installed a dimmer switch so that we could turn the lights way down at night to prevent waking little H during changing time. 

I bought this reclaimed teak bookshelf years ago from my favorite furniture store that is sadly no longer in business (Campo). H's uncle brought the dolls back from several business trips to Japan, the old doll was mine when I was little and was given to me by my grandmother (H's namesake), and the little pink elephant was made by me - my first foray into making stuffed animals. Not easy!

This closet wraps up the final stage of project pepto. More on that later. 

This was a dress that H's namesake made for me when I was little.

Perhaps I should take off the chair slipcover and steam it? Meh. Who has time for such things?

You might remember this piece from when I painted it? We thought it would be nice for little H to have something of her namesake's in her room (she was named after my grandmother, did I already mention that?)

I hope you have a lovely weekend! Stay tuned for behind-the-scenes shots of the nursery renovation...