Geeking Out on Floorplanner.com

Grab a cup of coffee, this one's a mouthful.

As our hardwood floors sit acclimating for the next couple of weeks, and we make progress on painting, painting, painting the main level of our house, my head is busy pondering furniture for our living room.  Our home has always been a mish-mash of hand me down furniture. It's always bothered me, but as a renter I wanted to put our money towards purchasing a house. I didn't want to spend money on furnishings that might only fit in our rental. So we were the dumping ground for any and all hand me downs from my family. Which is fortunate, because otherwise we would have been sitting on camp chairs.

Not having any furniture that we're attached to and invested in, while unfortunate looking, is actually a good opportunity. It means we get to start from scratch. We can buy a room full of pieces that fit the space, are size appropriate, the materials that we want, etc. For this reason and the expense that will be involved, it was important for me to start coming up with a plan early on. I wanted to make sure we make the most of our furniture choices, and that they serve the purposes we need. So, months ago, I turned to floorplanner.com.

Floorplanner.com allows you to enter your own room measurements, room features (such as windows, stairways, doors, etc.), and then play around with different configurations (the furnishing colors are not representative of final choices, I just utilized the options they had). I took an odd level of enjoyment from being able to see everything mapped out so clearly and proportionately. It makes my expensive furniture decisions feel a little bit more…worthy? Successful space planning is key to a great looking and feeling home.  It encourages flow, conversation, and intimacy. It allows you to get the most from your square footage. Basic access on the site is free, and I was able to play around with several configurations. I've gone back to the site regularly to update pieces as I think them through. Want a peek into how my thought process has evolved? Too bad...you're getting one.

Here is where I started: Option #1.

That gigantic couch is seated in front of what is now our planked wall.   That grey rectangle on the lower wall, is the estimated dimensions of what will soon (okay, nothing happens soon when it comes to our house) be our living room built-ins featuring our flat screen, storage and open shelving. I knew that I wanted to float some of the furniture, just a bit (having it just off the wall "floating" in the room). So I pondered this layout for a while.

I realized that I didn't like such a large sofa weighing down our long wall. It was reading as a little over bearing to me. 

I drafted up Option #2 for kicks. It features a arrangement that is completely floating in the space. While I love this configuration when I see it in homes, I just didn't think it was right for us. Because of  how things are centered in our living room, I thought it just left too much dead space that I wasn't really sure how to utilize. 

For Option #3, I got the idea to play around with a large sectional as an option for the main seating area. A sectional (while it is a dreaded word to some), would maximize seating capacity, and would be just as cost effective as the cost of a couch and two chairs. And istead of the large over bearing sofa to fill the expanse of the planked wall, my next go-to were two over sized chairs. So here she is, numero tres:

The over sized chairs are Chair-and-a-half's to be exact, measuring 53" wide, as opposed to a more average 36" size.  I got to thinking they would create a nice reading or conversational sit-and-have-a-glass-of-wine-and-not-be-staring-at-the-tv zone.. Oh, and I definitely needed to add in an area rug to define that space from the larger seating area (soon, I also became obsessed with a vintage flat weave kilm rug at our entrance to help enhance the "foyer" space, so you see that added above as well).

The yellow squares you see are ottomans. Something in a print to add some fun. We'll be able to move those around for additional seating when we have friends over.

In my daunting hunt for the perfect affordable worn brown leather sectional sofa (more on that in a post soon), I decided I had to be flexible. Perhaps something like this would work: Option #4.

One disadvantage of purchasing a large sectional, is that it may not travel very well with us to our next home. And, if I ever did get the urge to move things around in here, I wouldn't be able to. A sectional largely marries you to a configuration.  So perhaps two sofas would fit the bill, and provide just as much seating?

We also, through the course of our pondering and planning, decided that our entire fireplace space will be gutted. Yep. When Jon begins his flooring project, he's going to be demoing all of the stone and we'll be tossing out that 1980's far-too-large and brassy pellet stove. Honestly, I'm not sure what the plan is for our future fireplace, but I know it will look much better and be more space appropriate.

I can't wait to come back and talk more about my hunt for the right pieces that will be fitting into this puzzle. The hunt has been underway for months, and I think I'm on the brink of some final selections. How about you? Did you think through the layout of your furniture? Do you feel like your maximizing seating as well as flow and intimacy? I'd love to hear!

Quincy May's First Birthday Brunch

Somehow, I feel as if I am generally more tired and overwhelmed then most moms out there. Our life is blessed, but sometimes I am left feeling more exhausted then joyful or grateful. I unfortunately am not super-charged, can work all the time, cook organic dinners, and always be the hostess with the mostess, mom. I wish I was, but I am not. So, as Quincy's birthday approached, I knew,  if I was going to pull anything together it had to be easy, and I had to make decisions quickly. I vowed not to look at pinterest, and the overload of done-too-well birthdays out there. I wouldn't become stressed. I would put together what I could, and that would be that. 

So I decided on a birthday brunch, with easy breakfast foods, that would fit in midmorning before most toddlers had to be down for their naps. I decided on peach, gold, pink, and ivory as my jumping off point. With cold winter temps and a modest sized house, we invited just some of our closest friends and family, hoping everyone would fit under one roof. And then I  just ran with it. 

I purchased invites designed by this Etsy seller. Then I printed and packaged them myself. 

Then,  of course, we ordered hardwood floors (and no, we have not yet gotten around to painting the ceiling). The originally estimated three week delivery time was bumped up to one week (ONE WEEK!). Meaning, obviously, that our living room looked like this two days before the party. Obviously.

While thoughts of canceling danced through my head, we persevered. Q's party had to go on. So Jon stacked hardwood. I decorated. And we got it all together in the nick of time. That may or may not be hardwood flooring stacked in the back of that photo. That wall, however, may or not be white, instead of peach (insert smiley face).

For brunch, I laid some wrapping paper down the center of the table. 

I mixed and matched lots of white dishware that we had on hand.

I circle punched miscellaneous papers from my craft closet.

And…I sprinkled a few extra Quincy heads around…for good measure.

The food was easy. I recommend it. 

I put together a few yogurt parfaits in some glassware that we already had.

Picked up a few goodies from our local bakery.

Homegirl was not about to bake up homemade muffins. 

Come on.

Whipped together some mini frittatas the morning of.

With bacon and cheese, clearly.

I  made a glittery birthday banner, meanwhile getting gold glitter in most crevices in our house. 

And there was a mimosa bar. 

That I failed to take pictures of. 

I apologize.

I was busy having a mimosa.

Quincy was a doll, as usual. 

And Nolan was so excited to have friends over. 

He kinda-sorta thought it was his first birthday party.

I considered giving her a first hair cut before the party. 

Naaaah.

Always the picture of content sweetness this one. 

And, she enjoyed the cake, to boot.

We attempted to get Nolan in this photo with her.

Despite his great attitude, he would not oblige us with a photo.

Nope, he dive bombed his face into a hidden nook.

That child.

We call her Mince, Wince, Quince, or Q May. Pretty much any name other then Quincy. She is a dose of sweetness everyday. She prefers her dada over her mama, both of which she says out loud. She crawls, with little interest in walking. Missy has two teeth, and likes to eat anything other then baby food. She can spot a spec of play dough on our carpet from across the room. And will eat it. And proceed to drool blue. And girl has no interest in sleeping through the night. None, whatsoever. We could not be without her. She made our family feel so much more complete.

Our Living Room Plan: Part Two

I've known from the get go, that the blue-gray carpeting in our entire house would have to go. Its underfoot in all areas, less the kitchen and bathrooms. That makes for a lot of blue-grayness up in here. We're fortunate that it's in pretty good shape and ist's well padded. It certainly helps keep our tootsies warm, and has been a nice cushion while Quincy has been learning to crawl and for all of Nolan's tumbles. But the color of it is unfortunate. And the fact that it's in the dining room (to be fair, the previous owners did not have young children), is unfortunate. Luckily, Jon and I were on the same page when it came to the carpeting. It had to go. And going it is!

       The first thing I did was to explore lots of images

of flooring to figure out exactly what I wanted.

I consistently liked the same thing:

Flooringmylife

Medium warm-toned floors.



Unknown Source, Houzz

With rustic character.

Unknown Source, Houzz

And wide planks. 

Unknown Source, Houzz

I found lots of inspiration of warm wooden floors

paired with whites and neutrals.

Milk and Honey Home

From all of the images I was drawn too,

I found that most (if not all) featured White Oak.

Ballard Designs



 With this in mind, we went and saw our uber knowledgeable friend at a local store and she gave us the low down on all of our various options (we did stop by another local retailer to compare samples, but were under impressed by their knowledge and genuine interest in assisting us). We decided pretty instantly that we wanted real hardwoods as opposed to engineered hardwood or laminate. We're traditionalists like that. From there, we were able to determine what we wanted pretty quickly. We decided on a Character Grade White Oak. Character grade is on the more affordable spectrum of hardwoods, as it receives less processing, leaving it with...character. If we had deeper pockets or if this was our forever house, we might have gone with an Antique or Reclaimed floor option, but those are on the pricier spectrum and we'll be able to achieve a similar look with this. Our 1980's home is dying for some character, so bring it.

 The widths of the planks were actually a harder detail for me to decide on. I was immediately drawn to wide 7" planks, but they didn't have the same magical effect on Jon. So we considered all 5" planks, all 6" planks, or a mix of 3", 5" and 7" wide planks. In the end, I thought the mix of widths was too busy for our small house and so we settled on 5" (apparently the wider you go, the more unstable the flooring can be, and with the variables in our climate we decided to lean towards the safe end). Here's how she was looking in the shop when we went in for one final visit (slightly blurry shot, as I was juggling two kids):



Did I comparison shop? A bit. It's my nature. I was happy to be utilizing a local shop who gave us loads of information and I know will be happy to assist with any questions during our installation process. While I know I could find better deals online (although one of the biggest online retailers had them on back order until 12/14!), I wasn't willing to make this type of purchase online. I needed to feel the product. Stand on the product. See pictures of recent installs done with this wood. I'd rather pay a bit more for a sense of security and confidence, then risk such a big purchase through an unknown seller.

After pricing everything out and talking through the installation process, we decided that it would be best to first tackle the living room, dining room, kitchen and half bathroom. Yep...our whole upper level is getting the hardwood treatment. In another year or two, we plan to tackle the stairs and downstairs hallway. I love the look of hardwood on stairs with white risers, and I can't wait to have a set myself. But while Quincy is crawling and toddling, and while so many of our friends have small kids and babies, we figured a softer and safer set of stairs is probably a smarter option.  

      
The downsides of all of this is that we'll be installing them ourselves. This will save us thousands but it's going to drag the process out a bit.  And in addition, these hardwoods will have to be sanded and stained in place. Ugh. Are you getting the sense of how long this process will take us? So please, bare with us.

Deciding on the stain is going to be another huge hurdle for us. I'm hoping to pull out the brown undertones, as opposed to any yellow/orange/or red undertones. So that will involve some stain play, in our house with our lighting, once the wood arrives. From what I've been advised, sanding is a messy process, so we've avoided hanging curtains or any additional frames/art/accessories because it will ALL have to be removed when we sand and stain. We've also put off purchasing any furniture until after the hardwoods are in, because all furniture will have to be stored in our garage…in the winter. So the less furniture to move and store, the better.

These beauties are being ordered this week, and after arriving in a few weeks will need 2 additional weeks to cure in our house. So, we'll keep ourselves busy with some other projects at hand in the meantime. This is our first venture into the worWhat about you? What kind of hardwoods are you consistently drawn too? Dark? 2 1/4" planks? Hand scraped? Do tell!

Switch it Up

We're working towards updating just about every square inch of this house. What that means for me, is I am constantly thinking about four steps ahead of any decision I am currently making. Is the ceiling fan that I love going to work well with the living room wall sconces I was leaning towards? Is this pattern getting repeated too many times in the house? If the chair is this color, should I consider a different area rug color, which may not compliment the other rug in the space. Get my drift. 

I want our house to flow. I want there to be consistency and repetition from room to room. I want decisions to look intentional and complimentary. And this comes all the way down to light switch plates. Riveting stuff here people, I know.
       
This house has an amazing array of light switch plates. It's impressive actually. There's no rhyme or reason to them. Cheap plastic white ones are right next to metal plates with bears on them. There are silver ones next to bronze ones. For someone who boarders obsessive compulsive at times, it can really throw a girl out of whack.

I'll have to address my general feeling about

the orange peel texture walls at some point too.

I'm fairly certain it's a bear, because people try to

incorporate bears in any possible way they can in Tahoe,

but it looks slightly bobcat-esque to me.

And then, of course, the good ole' stand by.

I snapped these pictures pretty much from just our dining room.

But my favorite of all of them, is this beauty.

She may just end up framed as a moment0. 

And she speaks volumes about the need for updates in this house.

Here was a certain three and a half year old boy who was following me around the room

and did not quite understand

why his mom was taking photos of our power outlets.

After we finished our behemoth planked wall, I just could not bite the bullet and purchase the economical .99 cent plastic white switch plates. I just couldn't do it. There is really nothing wrong with them, but I couldn't convince myself that there was anything right about them either. So I did what I do best, and I comparison shopped for white switch plates. I was so happy when I came across this option, on sale. They were several dollars cheaper then the comparable option I found at target, as well as at several other online retailers. I placed a big order, based on all of the various types of configurations and quantities that we needed. I purchased enough for all of our needed living room and dining room switches and outlets. They kind of add up. There will have to be a phase 2 and 3 for the bathrooms and downstairs outlets.

Then I had to wait. I waited and waited. Who knew you could be so anxious to receive a box of switch plates. Leave. It. To. Me. They arrived. They're up. And they're glorious (okay, as glorious as switch plates can be). They were the crowning jewel that we needed for our plank wall.

They have clean lines, and a nod a traditional detail, which I like.

I guess I need to go and clean all of the actual switches now...

Aaaaah…so much better. 

My obsessive compulsive heart can rest a little bit better at night now. 

Anyone need some secondhand light switch plates?

Rolling Out Our Living Room Plan: Part I

       Let's have a little chat about our main living floor, shall we? I've shared bits of it lately, but I thought I should reveal to you our overall plans for the space.  It might make it a tad bit easier for you to follow along with us these next few months. 
       We use to love entertaining. In our rental (and before we had two blessed children), we had people over for dinner one to two nights a week. It was standard for us. We had the energy. We were able to get beyond how ugly our rental was. But now, we've been homeowners for over six months, and we've only hosted people to dinner two or three times. Granted, we are generally exhausted, but more so, we are kind of embarrassed of our house. It's sad, but true.
       Our house features a reverse floor plan, with the bedrooms located downstairs, and the living/dining/kitchen on the upper level when you enter the house. You find this layout in our area a fair amount, as lots of homes are built onto hillsides. The verdict is still out on whether we like the layout of this home (certainly wasn't what we set out to buy), but we're making it work for us at the moment (and don't really have a lot of other options, now do we). Because the living room is the most important area of the house, we actually did need to live with it for a while so that we could discern what exactly the best design plan would be. I think we (or more like, I) have a really strong plan of attack devised for the space now and I'm DYING to roll it all out. But as I've learned, it's step by step, and it will be slow going.

 Here's the before shot,

taken while the sellers were packing up.

They had a love of house plants.
They offered to sell us that entertainment shelving unit...but we kindly passed.

Here are a few other angles of the space, 

since we've been living here.

I didn't bother staging these "before" photos because this is our life at the moment,

(staging would have involved time and energy).

toys, dog, paint samples and all.

I'm cringing for you.
That door pains me.

The view from our front door.

For the love of old hideous fireplaces. That thing has Got. To Go.

Outdated fan anyone?

       I knew the space had potential from the day we first saw it, and I try to see it in that light every time I walk in the door. Soon after moving in, we realized that nice furniture and some new light fixtures wouldn't really disguise the biggest problems in the space…the flooring and the peach walls. And no amount of pretty pillows or cool area rugs would take away from theses glaringly obvious issues. 
       So after tackling some little projects and making some small purchases the first few months, in November, we started on two things. We began the daunting task of painting this level of the house and we went shopping for hardwoods (cue the choir!!!).
       The existing paint color is a peachy, yellowy, creamy bunch of ugly, commonly known as "builder beige". It reads very differently depending on the wall and time of day. I decided that white was the route we would take. But Not. So. Fast. Apparently choosing the best white paint color for the job is no easy task. I sampled whites for weeks. WEEKS! They were all even starting to look  the same to me. 

Over on Instagram, I shared my white paint laboratory.

Choosing the right paint colors, is an absolute science!

I picked up several of the most popular, designer picks for white, 

and tested them out in four (4!!!) different spots in our main living floor. 
 I figured why not go with a white that was a favorite of a designer-
something already tried and true. 

First off, many of them read differently from wall to wall do to lighting and shadows.

Here you can see how crazy peach/yellow/orange the current color is in comparison.

Second, some of the most popular recommended whites

(Benjamin Moore White Dove, Benjamin Moore Decorators White) 

read as gray or blue on our walls. 

I couldn't believe it. 

I was determined to get it right. 

It would basically be coating most walls in our house (and the ceiling).

So as I narrowed it down, I painted larger and larger swatches.

      What I realized, is that I needed a creamy warm white, with no grey or blue undertones. It's cold and freezing here half to the year, and I want our home to feel warm and embracing, rather then blinding and stark when people walk in the door. So I finally decided on Benjamin Moore's Marscapone. It's a creamy, almost Ivory White, with more yellow undertones then grey. I had to make a decision, I was losing my sensibilities. We started painting in November, and yet still, only portions are done. Our plan is to continue tackling the paint issue and have it completed by the time we install the floors (the magnificent floors!!!). 

       Here's the color palette that I've been playing with:

       White will clearly be our jumping off point, and it will be layered with lots of greens, blues, beiges, and grays. We'll be warming up the palette by layering in lots (and lots!) of natural fibers (i.e. baskets, area rugs, wicker) and antique brass. Black will work as a really nice clean contrast to the white, and will repeat itself through most of the light fixtures. These colors are choices that I'm attracted to time, and time again. 

       Next up, I'll be sharing with you our floor selection and the images that we were inspired by, but for the time being I thought I should show you the mood board that we're using as we piece together this area of the house. Drumroll….

       Can you picture it? I can…and I'm dying to see it come to fruition. I'll break down this board more over the coming months, and we'll see how it all evolves together!