Kitchen Design | Myrtle House

Ahh, the kitchen. Arguably the single most important room in a house. Unfortunately for older homes, kitchens are quite small. Considering the fact that most kitchens used to be detached from the main dwelling in case of a fire, I will take a small kitchen inside the house over an outhouse any day. :) Opening up the wall between the dining room and kitchen in the Myrtle House helped, but I am hoping that by sticking to a lighter color palette, we can make this room feel even bigger. The colors and finishes in the kitchen are actually pretty similar to the master bath design plan (hey, I know what I like), but I think this will help create continuity in the house. So here we go, my budget-friendly kitchen specs.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

We are re-purposing almost EVERYTHING in this kitchen, including the existing cabinets. We will add trim to these to create a Shaker look, and paint 'em up a glossy white. Can you believe that countertop is laminate? Me neither. Such a great option if you are going for a marble look but don't have the marble budget. Again in here I am going with chrome fixtures and oil-rubbed bronze accents. That Antique Bronze Pendant is gorgeous, but I plan on finding an old brass one to re-finish. I am so excited to get started on this kitchen!

You Are Never Too Old | Life

As 30 steadily approaches (I will be 27 in July), I always think two things:

"How did that happen so fast?"

and

"I am not ready for 30!"

A couple of years ago, I found a life timeline I had made for myself when I was a freshman in high school. Here is how it went:

20 years old: Get married

20-23 years old: Work in corporate design firm

23 years old: Have first child

24 years old: Start own design firm; buy dream house on the beach

Oh, 14 year old Elizabeth was apparently a big dreamer and thought 24 was pretty old since my life goals ended there! I am glad a few of these goals haven't come into fruition yet (I think if I had gotten married and had babies when I was 23 years old I would be going through a quarter-life crisis right about now). Although, living on the beach doesn't sound too bad... I think 22 year old Elizabeth was a lot more sensible when I graduated college and went on to find work in a field I was not thrilled with (retail/buying) because I thought that I no longer was able to make a new timeline. Bad economy + looming student loans + interior design degree = you take what you can get.

However, now that I am a bit older and (hopefully) wiser, I realize that it doesn't matter how old you are or what kind of situation you are in, it is never too late. Take it from wise mister C.S. Lewis: "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

Angie Makes

Maybe you have had this dream ever since you can remember, but life threw you a few curve balls and you never got to follow through with said dream. Or maybe you went to school and got a job in the career path you thought you always wanted, but now five years into your awesome corporate job, you hate it. Doesn't matter. It's never too late.

Will it be easy? Probably not. You will have to take risks, usually financially, and work really hard. But, if it is something you dream about doing, I can't find a reason why all of that stress and hard work wouldn't be worth it.

Still not buying? How about an example. :)

Exhibit A. Harriette Thomson - 91 year old marathon runner

Adorable little Harriette has not been a runner her whole life. In fact, she didn't start her running career until the spry young age of 76. Even with many health issues, Mrs. Thompson has powered through and raised over $90,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (a group close to her heart as her brother died of lymphoma). From Harriette: “You’re never too old to do it,” she said. “I started my first marathon at 76.”

So whether you are itching to make a career change, pack up and move to a different country, or just pick up a hobby you don't think you will be good at, don't think you are too old to try something new. Go ahead and become a professional beekeeper, or move to Thailand, or start training for the Badminton Olympics. It will never happen until you start. And let's face it, you're not getting any younger. ;)

Down with the Wall | Myrtle House

So if you follow along on Instagram, you may have seen we got the wall knocked down! Woohoo!

If you can recall, here is what it used to look like. So dark, so small, so gross. Blah.

Let there be light!

This is going to be a prime entertaining space... eventually. :) Still more demo to do in the kitchen (upper cabinet and counter tops are coming down), but we are starting to see this room shape up. We plan on keeping the base cabinets (I couldn't get rid of those flour bins!) so I foresee lots of paint in our future.

June Goals

Month six of 2014... what?! We are about to start the latter half of this year and I am having trouble comprehending this fact. While we are no where near where we thought we would be by this point, I think we are optimistic for the next six months. May was fairly productive, even though we experienced some hiccups along the way.

Myrtle House

• Remove all wood paneling (so close to having this done) - $0 - DONE
• Remove carpet and vinyl flooring - $0 - DONE
• Deliver wanted items to Brian's mom's house - $0 - Kind of done. Still one item to delivery that was too heavy for me and B alone.
• Get all of the debris to the dump - $40 (gas) - DONE
• Remove hazardous waste - $350 - DONE (Actual cost was $500)
• Repair windows - $300 - Not quite yet
• Have Jake (our contractor) do walk through for estimate - $0 - DONE
• Start to fix foundation (!!!) - $500 - Not quite yet

We spent three of the five weekends in May at the Myrtle House. The other two were spent in Raleigh since we had family in town one weekend and the other weekend we attended a friend's wedding. Considering what a crazy month it was, I am happy with the progress, even though we didn't cross everything off of the list.

One of the most exciting/daunting tasks from this month was meeting with our contractor, Jake. We are so fortunate to have him close by. He is an AMAZING contractor and good friend of Brian's, so we trust him 200% to give us an honest opinion and accurate quote on some of the work needed. Luckily, his estimate of work to be done fell pretty much in-line with our guess, so there were not too many surprises there. That being said, we are getting close to the point of handing off a lot of the work to Jake and his crew to get it ready for us to take on the more cosmetic tasks. This whole process has taught me a lot (so much so that I really need a whole post dedicated to it) and I am relieved and excited to bring in an expert for a lot of the more important structural work that Brian and I just aren't able to tackle at this stage. June will be a slower month, as we are getting to the stage of planning and communicating with our contractor on how to get the ball rolling. Here is what is on the agenda:

• Finalize financing options*
• Create an electrical plan
• Create a to-scale floor plan
• Donate old clothes and household items
• One more trip to the dump
• Measure broken glass
• Look into home owner's insurance
• Drop off item at Brian's mom's house

*While we had hoped to be able to save all of the renovation costs ourselves, it is just not a feasible option at this point. It would take us three times longer than we had planned for us to save enough and unfortunately, that is just not an option right now. We do still plan on contributing about half of the renovation budget ourselves, but will need a loan to cover the other half and make sure we don't over-extend ourselves in case of an emergency.

The posts this month might be a little sparse and boring (apologies in advance) but the nitty-gritty legwork needs to be done. Hopefully soon we will have photos of the place looking different instead of just us cleaning it out. :) Here are some of my favorite Instagram photos from May!

Magnolia in my parent's yard

Leaving the Myrtle House

Blue mason jars from Brian's grandmother

Uncovering the hardwood floors!

Master Bathroom Design | Myrtle House

I love picking out bathroom fixtures. I don't know why; maybe it is due to my affinity for marble. I have always dreamed of having a luxe master suite complete with double sinks, wall to wall subway tile, and a gorgeous marble floor. Well, then I woke up and realized that is not going to happen on this girl's shoe-string budget. Luckily, there are many bathroom fixture options that look like my dream bathroom at a fraction of the cost. Here are some of my favorite budget-friendly bathroom fixtures. I even managed to squeak some marble in there! :)

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

Another thing I love about these options is that they are up-to-date yet still appropriate for a historical home. It always looks so bizarre to me when there is a 1910 Victorian house with glass bowl sinks and super contemporary fixtures. It is like eating hot chili for lunch in the summer - doesn't work well together.

When designing on a budget, I think it helps to splurge on an accent tile. I plan on using the combination of black tile liners and marble accent tiles in a strip along the top of the vanities and into the tub surround. This will instantly make your bathroom look more expensive and not set you back too much since you are using so little material.

Where do you shop for inexpensive bathroom fixtures?

Demolition | Myrtle House

With the long weekend, we were able to get a few things knocked out (literally!) at the Myrtle House. We were able to rip down the rest of the wood paneling, dropped ceiling, and ceiling grid. We also started demoing the wall in between the kitchen and the dining room. This wasn't in the original plans, as I like to leave older homes in tact as much as possible, but after spending more time in the house, I realized the kitchen is pretty small, closed-off, and is super duper dark. One thing I hated about the Brooklyn House was that the kitchen was away from the living room, so anytime we had company, I was always stuck in the back in the kitchen. Not so fun. So, the wall comes down!

Here is the view from the living room when you first walk in. The blue wall is the one we are demoing (obviously :) so there will be a clear shot from the living room to the kitchen.

The ceilings are back to their original 9' height and it makes such a difference. The dropped ceiling was a pain to get down, but I am so glad we did.

Let there be light! The kitchen is smaller than the dining room, so the wall will not be completely gone (part of it is the exterior wall).

Really old wood. The siding on the left is the exterior wall. Looks like we will be adding insulation!

The beadboard ceilings that we are keeping are in great shape! Can't wait to paint these up a creamy white.

Hm, I don't think this is the proper way to plug in a light fixture.