Thrift store success

Can I just say I love thrift stores!!!  I know it's become oh so trendy, but it's something I support, I think all benefit from re-using items, being frugal, etc.   Well today's trip was very successful.  I spent $12 and got 5 jars, 3 knives, a glass mixing bowl, a food chopper, and an immersion blender.  I'm very proud in case you can't tell.

2nd Bedroom is painted!

The bathroom is still in progress.  It's close, just needs some caulking and touching up around the shower.  Unfortunately the old rusty stack of drawers I found on craigslist to use as storage is an inch too wide for the space next to the washer/dryer.  I'm way bummed and need to figure out how to get some storage space in the bathroom still.  But I did just go ahead and get the 2nd bedroom painted. We went with the color "smooth stone" by glidden and we really love it.  It's a pale grey although you can't always tell in my crappy pics.

Here's the 2nd bedroom before

Another before shot, we got rid of the broken armoire

starting the wall color

love that grey

After

After

 I'm so excited about this room.  Although I'm sad it's not going to be a very "pretty" room.  We'll be using it for our closet and storage space.

Current nightstand

So we have an old wooden crate we're using as a nightstand at the moment and I love how old and rustic it is. 

Maybe I love sleeping next to old rusty nails?

One down, One to go

We got one of the rolling racks done!  Yay!

 

 

Here's a shot of the casters.  We just ordered some off etsy that are from the 1920s? I believe.  They were a little smaller than I thought but not bad

Seriously love the stain!!!!  In case you're interested it's dark walnut by Minwax.  Love it so much we'll prob use it on everything.

Eventually they'll go into the second bedroom but for now it's in the living room as we still need to paint that room.  But we (mostly Chaynce, ok just Chaynce) made this from scrap materials so we only paid for the stain and casters. Score!

Rental Progress/Update

Remember how I had this lofty goal of getting everything unpacked/painted/updated/pretty a month after we moved in. I was soooo wrong.  But I have to tell myself we really have gotten a lot done in the last month.  We got Internet!!!  (which was actually a huge process as we didn't have phone lines in the house for dsl and we're kind of in a dead zone for mobile broadband but we got lines ran to the house and finally got it all set up for not too much money. Yay!)

The first room we tackled was the front bedroom which we'd be using as our room.  We got it painted finished sewing the duvet cover and moved our bed and TV in there as not much else would fit in such a small room.

 We went with a medium grey paint and antique white trim/ceiling.  You can't see how nice it looks in this pic but this is the only pic I have right now. We love the flour sack duvet cover, we got it from H&M and added some material to the outside as they only had a twin size.  We need to add more pillows and find another set of pillowcases but that stuff has been moved to the end of the to do list along with adding decor for now.  There's just too much else in the house to do.

Next we went to do the bathroom.  It's been a much bigger process than the first room. 

Right side of the shower before

Right side of the shower cleaning out all the rotted/crumbling stuff

Clearing out all the nasty at the top of the shower stall

Left side of the shower, same story.  Don't you love the rotten floorboards?

The bathroom is mostly done now.  I need to do another coat of paint but there's been much puttying/silicone/scrubbing/caulking going on in there.  It's going to look infinitely better and I'm excited.  We also were able to find some old rusty metal meat drawers on craigslist that we're going to be using for a storage cabinet next to the washer/dryer that I'm really excited about.  It was also only $5/drawer so very cheap for something vintage industrial that we love.  I'll post pics when we finish the bathroom.

Other than that we've been winterizing the doors, got a microwave, got a couch, got the shed cleared out (mostly), got a lawn mower, one rolling rack is almost finished (I'm hoping tonight), and I think we'll try to paint the second bedroom this week (fingers crossed)

Rental house BEFORE

Ok we have the keys.  I took over the first small load in my car this morning, don't tell Chaynce I'm taking a break to take pics and post them and it'll all be ok :)

Front of the House

Pic from entryway, and I will be taking down those curtains

Back half of the living/dining/main room

Right as you come in the front door and look right, the first bedroom

First bedroom, these are tiny.  hence they're hard to get a pic of much while inside the room

More first Bedroom, we will likely be using this as our bedroom as it's the room with a door

This is the second room, we'll be using it for the rolling racks and dressers and probably a broom closet but that's not at the beginning of the to-do list

Other half of the second room, it has the bathroom off of it, and that isn't our armoire, we'll be getting rid of them

As you walk into the bathroom

The bathroom is narrow and very difficult to get a picture of this side but a stall shower and stackable washer and dryer

Kitchen, the most "current" room in the house

The other half of the kitchen and the back door

The backyard right as you come out the back door, that is the owners dog posing for the pic, they're scrambling trying to build a dog run at their new home.

back side of the house, that cellar door just leads down to some storage space and the water heater

Side yard

More side yard, there's a clothes line.  Not my thing but I like the added character

the back of the shed where we have struggling grape vines and the back alley

Well there you are.  The house was built in 1920 and definitely has an aged look to it.  These are all pictures before we put anything inside so there's definitely some stuff we need to clear out.  I'll be jumping headfirst into a million projects.  I think first is rolling racks and painting the front bedroom.  However, I work weekends so I prob won't start till next week.  I'm really excited to document our progress though.

Closet Planning

So we're on the brink of moving.  We are attacking it tomorrow.  It's a few days later than planned but that's how those things often go.  I'm planning a lot of before and after pics soon and as I go along (I plan on decorating this place to my hearts content).  It's a little house, very little.  In fact it has zero closets.  I've been spending a lot of time trying to plan how to handle this.  It's a two bedroom so we've decided on one room being a regular room and using the other room for closets/clothing storage among other things.  We thought about getting those enclosed closets from Walmart as they'd fit our needs but I hate the idea of buying it and using it while we're here and then having no use for it and likely just throwing it away.  So I've come up with some better ideas.  What we'll most likely do is this:

I came up with this as I've finally "defined" a decorating style that we both like: Vintage Industrial.  Just knowing this is helpful.  I can google image search all sorts of ideas and we agree on about 90% of things.  I don't know how to express how AMAZING that really is.  Anyways I google image searched vintage industrial closet storage and found this.  We agree, we both like.  But even better we can ultimately re-use them for any future retail endeavors of mine.  And they can be used to decorate in future spare rooms.  They feel like more something we'd keep and use rather than just have a temporary use.  In our searching we also found this idea...

We really like this idea too but I doubt we'll make it.  It's just too simple to do the other one.  But I thought I'd still share the idea.  

Initially I thought I'd want just one large rolling rack but I've decided it'd be more aesthetically pleasing to do two smaller ones and go with a his and hers idea.  I love the aged wood on the bottom you can stack shoes on.  There are tons of variations you can do with switching up different pipe fittings or adding more wooden shelves, for now the plan is just a basic rolling rack like the picture but it won't be too challenging to switch it up later.  Cool right?  I'm ready to run with it, too bad we're right in this packing/moving business.