Donald's Office

As you enter our front door, if you look to the left you'll see our dining room, to the right is Donald's office.  It is an open study with no doors or anything to block the view so I want it to look nice.  Donald has been wanting a place to read and study, too.  Over the Christmas holidays we finished his office.

Here's how it looked....

And here it is today....

Once again, I refinished the honey-colored floors to a dark walnut (but this time by "I" I mean the teenage boys from church I hired to do the work).  Below the chair rail the walls were painted plantation brown and above the chair rail the walls are "creamy."  The trim was painted the same semigloss white as the rest of the house.

We already owned the desk and filing cabinet, but pretty much everything else is new to us.  The bookcases along the back wall are IKEA.  The leather recliner on the right and storage piece on the left side are from a furniture consignment place here by League City.  The linen drapes are from High Fashion Home, an interior design store in downtown Houston.  The rug, lamp, and clocks are from Home Goods.  I would like to find one more clock for above the bookcases...maybe in a different shape.

I came home from a night out the other day to find Donald sitting in his recliner reading and I was so happy that he has a little spot all his own to read and study and think.  And I'm so happy to walk in the front door and not see the room as it was in the before picture above.

So, how's the laundry room coming along???  The walls are painted, the freezer is in, and the broom, mop, and ironing board are hanging on the wall instead of cluttering the ground.  Now, I'm waiting for the weekend for Donald to run to Lowe's in the truck and pick up a storage cabinet.  Then we'll build the folding table and I'll show you pictures.

Dining Room & next project on the list

     Here's the dining room, so far.  I refinished the floors from a honey color to dark walnut.  The walls were painted blue.  The jumping off point for all the colors in the house are the window treatments in the living room.  They are from World Market and I really like the gray-blue background.  I found a paint chip that matched and all the blues are along the spectrum of that paint chip.  The dining room is the darkest.  I loved that the house already had lots of trim everywhere, but I thought the way it was painted was a little outdated.  So, from the chair rail down the walls are a white semigloss.
     I made the window treatments.  After searching the typical fabric stores and a few decorator shops around the Houston area and not finding anything I liked enough to fork out hundreds for, I ordered the green floral from fabricguru.com.  I'm happy with the results and the fabric was only $7.95 a yard and free shipping.  I ordered fabric for a few other window treatments as well. 
     The table was my splurge.  I saw this table several years ago at Pottery Barn and fell in love.  Donald thought I was crazy for wanting a table that seats 12, but we've already filled it up a number of times.  I bought the table when it was on sale (and for some reason the sale was even better online than in the store) and I had a 20% off welcome to the neighborhood coupon making the price a little more reasonable...about $1200.00.  Well, the chairs Pottery Barn stages with the table are about $269 a piece.  The chairs would have been more than the table and I wasn't in love with the chairs like I am with the table.  So, after an extensive search and lots of debating and mind changing, I decided on these white chairs from Overstock.com.  They cost $75 a chairs.  Much more to my pocketbook's liking!  I only bought 10 chairs because I want the end chairs to be something different.  I'm keeping a look out and when I find just the right thing I'll snatch up two more chairs.
      The light fixture was a dated brass fixture.  I found this one on sale at Lowe's.  The electricians put the light fixture and the cans on separate dimmers so I can get just the lighting effect I want!
     Now the room is mostly finished.  I still need the two end chairs. And I've been looking at yard sales, consignment stores, and craigs list for a china cabinet and maybe a side board, too.  I'll wait until I get just the right deal to pick those up.  Also, the room needs some art.  I want to find something that picks up the green in the curtains.  If I go too long without finding something I really like I'll just paint something myself. 
     Here's a before and after.....

     Now my next project involves my laundry room.  As we moved in, stuffed got shoved in the laundry room and forgotten about.  Then, as I've worked on projects more stuff has gotten stuck in there.  It is a messy, unorganized jumble.  And did I mention it is pumpkin orange....the old owners left behind the paint cans and the color is called pumpkin orange.  A funny thing is that around the outlets and such you can tell a good part of the house was pumpkin orange at some point.  Then our teenage neighbor girl was over one day and was oowing and aawing the master bedroom.  She said it seemed so big and airy.  Then she told me when her best friend lived in our house the master bedroom had been painted black.  I wonder if the house was black and pumpkin orange at the same time!
     I digress... here's a picture of the laundry room and adjoining hall as they currently are.

     My plan is to paint the walls of the hallway creamy, the same color as the living room and office.  I want to add cubbies along the wall for shoes and a coat rack above for coats and backpacks.  This part will be simple enough.
     In the laundry room, I think I'll paint it blue (since the painters bought about 5 gallons too much blue).  The floors are vinyl with a little blue pattern on it.  If we ever change the flooring in the bathroom next door or in the main living areas, I'll change out the flooring in the laundry, too.  But, for now it's not a priority and it's in good condition. 
     I'll add a pantry, something like ClosetMaid makes, to store tools and supplies I frequently use plus warehouse amounts of paper towels and toilet paper.   We will also be adding a deep freezer to store meat and other things we would like to buy in bulk.  In the space next to the washer and dryer, I'll build a folding table with storage underneath for laundry baskets.  The washer and dryer stay until they go kaput and then they'll be replaced with large capacity front loaders.  The cupboards above the washer and dryer already provide nice storage, they just need tidied up.  I also need to find a place to hang brooms and mops and things to get them off the floor and out of the way.  Lastly, to pretty things up, I'll add some kind of window treatment.  The view is of our side yard fence so anything cute will do.  And, I saw a sign that said, "Welcome to the Laundry Room, Now Drop Your Pants."  I think it's funny and may vinyl letter it above the cupboards.
     Maybe I should focus on the nursery for now, but I figure with a baby on the way, I will be doing a lot of laundry and I would like to have it organized and functional before she arrives.   I better get to work!