Before & After Sneak Peak #2! Four More Previews of the New House Makeover

Step by step things are progressing at our new Yucca Valley home. While no one room is completely finished, I’d say we are 83% of the way there indoors, 40% outdoors. Below is a little Before & After Sneak Peak of 4 of the rooms In Progress…(see the first 3 Sneak Peaks HERE) Full room reveals coming soon! SUBSCRIBE to see it all.

LIVING ROOM BEFORE…The vaulted ceilings in this room are about 24′ tall at the apex, with 20′ walls on the low sides, which were visually cut in half by the old red paint and (hello 1980’s!) wallpaper border. The borders were removed and the space was painted in Sherwin William’s Ultra White. It instantly opened the space up and now shows off all the beautiful wood beams (which you’ll see in a future post) and makes the ceilings soar high just as they should.

LIVING ROOM AFTER (IN PROGRESS)

I’m going for an artsy rock n’ roll sort of vibe in here with a Timothy Oulton influence. Eventually the art on the gallery wall will reach all the way to the ceiling. The sofa is new (thanks to a Wayfair “open box” deal) as is the magenta chair (also Wayfair). Everything else we brought with us from the old house. Except Gozer the Gozarian, whom we adopted about 3 months ago. This sweet little frug (part Frenchie, part pug) has claimed the chair for his throne, and we don’t blame him one bit. (Art: The “Black Heart” painting and the little drawing in the red frame are by Sandi Calistro, the Lucian Freud study painting I did in college, the “Satire Lounge” piece is by Kym Bloom, the red Yumiko Kayukowa print came out of a book, and the rest of the art are thrift store finds.

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ENTRY BEFORE

I know it’s hard to see it in the before pic, as there was a huge stair unit there that we had removed and replaced it with a simple loft ladder (there is a sleeping loft over the entry which you’ll see on a future post). The only real changes here was the removal of the odd stair unit and painting the main wall white.

ENTRY AFTER

The red acrylic box was an alley find we brought with us, and the beautiful raku pot I found at Collector’s Corner in Palm Desert for $20. The jack rabbit coat hooks are from Etsy. (And Jiva’s ratty old hat adds the perfect desert touch πŸ™‚

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THE GREAT ROOM BEFORE

This crazy house is made for entertaining (which we hope to be doing a lot of post-covid) and has a very large great room in addition to the living room. We hope to host art events and small concerts in here eventually. Before, the green color was well, rather awful, and like in the living room cut the tall walls visually in half. We had the green painted over in the white, all the doors and windows black (Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black), and ripped out and replaced the ratty old carpet (Home Depot). (I apologize for the crappy before image, it’s all I have).

THE GREAT ROOM AFTER (IN PROGRESS)

Being that we want to host events in this room, I wanted a lot of open, low seating. I opted for sectional seating so it can be moved around easily. I looked for months for good-looking sectional seating and finally settled on Pottery Barn Teen Cushy Lounge Sectional Set as an affordable option. In a perfect world I’d have the Roche Bobois Mah Jong sectionals, but until someone hands me an extra $30,000 this is a great option at a tenth the price. The vase pair was a local thrift store score ($10 for the pair), all the leopard print pillows are from Etsy. Art: The “Space Whale” photo print I had printed on metal by Costco (it came out great!) with permission from the photographer. (We were married in front of the Space Whale at Burning Man in 2016 so it is a very special piece to us). Everything else we brought with us from the old house. Carousel painting is by Lonnie Hanzon, cat paintings are by me, crow and skull piece by MadTatters.com, and the resin pieces installation by Lauri Lynnxe Murphy. The other piece is a Goodwill find (I do not know the artist’s name).

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The MASTER BATH BEFORE

All we did in here was paint out the dark oppressive walls and ceiling white, which opened up the space beautifully, and replace the faucets on the sink and tub (which needed to be replaced due to leaking) and added new cabinet knobs. We left the beautiful old vertical wood posts untouched. It has a wonderful spa-like feel now. The light coming through the glass block during the day is marvelous. I did add lots of plants, some brought with us, some new.

The MASTER BATH AFTER (IN PROGRESS)

There is so much more to come! Please subscribe to see it all.

Holidays at the New House Part Deux…plus the First Big Project!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

As promised, here is the outside of the new house gently done up for the Holidays. You may recognize the decorations from previous years at the old house, all recycled here this year. The one new addition is our delightful Christmas Goose, a curbside find (ie: free) here in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. I’ve named him Gustav the Goose (yea I know, I’m a dork :-). He is lit by a section of led rope light. (I just poked it up through the hole he has in his feet πŸ™‚

Also FIRST BIG PROJECT REVEAL!Β  We had new steps and a gate put in a couple weeks ago. We love what it does for the entry to the house both functionally and aesthetically. We are planning to add wall caps to the new concrete walls as well as paint the house a coordinating grey in the spring and will also refinish the deck. Here are the before and afters, during the day and at night.

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We Moved! First Holiday in the New House…

2 months ago we moved from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s been a crazy whirlwind but we are finally starting to feel settled in our new city. There is still a ton of work to do, lots of painting, wallpaper, landscaping etc. etc., and of course I will be blogging lots of “Before & After” projects as things progress. It’s been a big challenge as we have seriously down-sized (the new house is much smaller) and got rid of at least half of our stuff in the move. It’s been good for us πŸ™‚ Even though I havn’t had time to do any painting yet, I just had to get some holiday decorations up. It’s definitely scaled down after our over-the-top Denver Victorian, much more streamlined. On the bright side, I can do it in a day instead of the 2-3 days it took in the old house. You’ll see that most of the decor has been “recycled” from the old house. The only new holiday stuff are some stunning flowers and fresh greens from good ol’ Trader Joe’s (I wouldn’t have moved here if SLC didn’t have a TJs πŸ˜‰Β  I spent a total of just $29 on 3 bunches of flowers, a bunch of greens, and cedar garland, and got enough goodies to make 3 flower arrangements and had enough greens left over to spread around the house. Oh and a tried a couple waxed amaryllis bulbs on the dining room table (also from TJs, $7.99 each) and I love them! Zero maintenance, perfect. TJs is the BEST place for flowers!

 

I will get pics of the outside in the next couple of days. In the meantime, enjoy. Happy Holidays!

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The entry to our house is actually what was originally the back of the house. Long story, but they apparently moved the street some time ago, so we live in the Backwards House πŸ™‚ For now our front door is a sliding glass door ( we may change it to French doors in the future). The front room serves as an entry and my art studio. More pics in the near future, I promise. holidayhouse2017o

I spoiled myself with a lovely flower arrangement and an orchid on my desk. (all from TJs) It’s the perfect spot to work at, with a view of the yard and the city and mountains to the West.

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A Fabulous Red Shelf For the Bedroom…Free!

Another fabulous Alley Find…someone threw out this great red Ikea shelf unit just a block from the house, and it works great in the bedroom. The bottom shelf was broken off, but easily repaired with glue. Gotta love free! My neighbors toss out the best stuff πŸ˜‰

(all the stuff on the shelves we already had. Matchbook art by artist friend Paul Moschell. The black hand is a recent thrift store find for $3. See more of the bedroom projects on the Decorating link.)

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Found Mail Box Victorian DIY Re-Style (and it was FREE!)

Found Mail Box Victorian DIY Re-Style

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OK, I know most of you probably don’t have gee gobs of art supplies lying around like I do, but even if you had to buy the supplies for a project like this it would be pretty cheap. I found this old mailbox abandoned in an alley near my home, and I used supplies I had on hand to fix it up to match our Victorian house so this project didn’t cost me a dime…

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