SLAB IN THE FACE!

I'll admit that Adam and I are no different than anyone else who dramatically swoons over those beautiful as well as pricey, organic modern examples of furniture art.  We too, think to ourselves and for the most part accept the fact that, "We'll never be able to afford something like that!"  When coffee tables are around 4Gs, who could?  Well, recently we have made one of those "unobtainable beauties" and have listed it on Etsy for under $500!

Wait a minute, back up!  We are starving ingenuitive designers, surely we can muster up enough resources and skills to take a reclaimed wood slab from the wood pile to our family room.  of course we can!

Actually, it all started when Adam received a call from a guy that said that he had a huge tree which had fallen down a while back and was in need for it to be cleared.  Once Adam arrived at this guys home to take a look and decide if in fact he wanted to physically saw and remove the slab himself, it didn't take very long to make up his mind.  The slab was from a old maple tree and had to have weighed 100lbs.  I wasn't with the hubs when he went to pick up the wood, so when he brought it back I kind of felt bad for his bad back because he ended up moving it by himself!

Here's what the slab looked like after he got it home (ignore the other wood in the background that we are hoarding for other future projects).

Originally, the slab was a lot thicker.  Since this was an experiment, Adam sliced the slab in half with the chainsaw.  We figured that there was plenty to go around!  As you can see, this is about as raw as you can get!  You may be asking yourself, "Do they really see furniture when they look at something like this?"

Well, we do understand that when hand crafting, nothing is ever fast or easy, but eventually you do start to see the light of day!  Here's a photo showing results from chiseling the bark off and after the first round of sanding.

Then, there was more sanding to do...

And more sanding to do...

After countless hours of sanding over the course of a week, Adam finally reached the finishing stage, where he applied two coats of medium walnut Danish oil, and a top sealer coat of polyurethane.  After the slab was all nice and finished, Adam made three hairpin legs out of solid steel rod and we coated them in a brass metallic paint.

And here is our final result!  We could not be any happier with our organic modern outcome!

Until next time,

A + B

BREAKFAST NOOK DREAMIN'

Oh, how nice I think it would be to sit down in our cozy built-in banquette to have our Sunday morning breakfast as a family.  

I guess the dream of having a close-quarters, eat-in style breakfast nook could possibly be a bit claustrophobic for some, however I'll take the risk and hopefully see for myself one day (soon).  To think of it, I may very well wish for my "personal space bubble" as the kids are spilling drinks and splattering food all around me (which is almost a certainty), but I guess that is something to anticipate and keep in mind with our design of a "modern banquette".

As of today, we haven't physically begun the project (unless you count my wheels spinning as a start).  But today something abrupt did manifest; I moved our current table out of the kitchen and onto our screen porch for no other reason than, I'M DONE WITH THE SHARP CORNERS AT OUR TODDLERS'S HEAD-HEIGHTS AND THE GLASS TOP, THAT COULD CRACK AT ANY TIME.

SIMPLY DONE with that lethal table!!!!  Today I made my mind up that it's time to move on to greener pastures!

This is where the table was [Photo taken before painting and adding new chairs].

Here's what the table looked like right when I made the decision this morning to say, 

"Bu-bye!"

So now, this is our current situation.  Lethal table is gone, but now we have an empty nook.  Well, I'm just going to savor the possibilities (hopefully that won't take too long!)

And this is where the table is hanging out for now (on our screen porch with some other undesirables)!  We'll probably put this stuff on Craigslist.

As I am thinking about the banquette possibilities, I found some of these cleverly-designed and eye-catching banquettes that are giving us a bit of inspiration as we mull through this transformation process.

If you have any images or ideas to share, please do so!  Would like to hear what you think so far!

Until next time,

A + B

OUR "STARTER-STORY"

We honestly feel like we struck gold when we finally found this 1968 brick ranch!  Actually, we began the house hunt a year before discovering this fantastic home.  The wait was long, but we were patient.  The patience paid off because I think that we both could not be happier to have stumbled upon this house which ticks all of our needs boxes!

Our new location is perfect (less than 5 minutes from the grocery store), there's lots of mature trees for shade and privacy along with gobs of space for the family to grow (without looking like an obnoxiously huge home).

The only problem, the house was aggressively rocking a granny-style!!!  I'm talking wall borders, powder blue and mauve paint.  Oh, the kicker to this granny shack, included scallop trim with dusty floral window treatments of swags and cascades in practically every room.  First thing we did after we got all of our things moved into the house was address the curb appeal by painting the shutters and front door along with adding a storm door.  We took the shutters from a hunter green to a classic black and updated our front porch with new planters and a welcome mat.  Read about update here.  After that quick re-do, we moved on to other painting projects around the house. Take a look for yourself. 

[THE NEST] 

We still intend to overall the landscaping by doing some yard leveling, adding new plants and a french drain.  Ideally, we would love to tear up and re-design the walkway and porch.

[FOYER THEN]

[FOYER NOW]

Read about update here.

[DINING ROOM THEN]

[DINING ROOM NOW]

Read about the update here.

[MASTER BEDROOM THEN]

[MASTER BEDROOM NOW]

[MASTER BATH THEN]

[MASTER BATH NOW]

[GUEST ROOM [1] THEN]

[NURSERY NOW]

Read about the update here.

[GUEST ROOM [2] THEN]

[BIG BOY ROOM NOW]

[HALLWAY THEN]

[HALLWAY NOW]

[HALL BATH THEN]

[HALL BATH NOW]

Read about update here.

Counter, floor, cabinetry and plumbing fixtures still need to be re-placed...

[KITCHEN THEN]

[KITCHEN NOW] 

(THERE IS STILL A LONG WAY TO GO HERE FOLKS!)

Kitchen Improved?  We think Yes!  Is it finished? Not Exactly. Still need to re-place appliances, door fronts, counters, back-splash, floor, and would like to add a built-in banquette in the nook area and walk-in pantry.

The fact that paint can give you the most bang for your buck was the obvious first step into transforming our living spaces from drab to fab (for us)!  Since we are still a relatively young family, and the tots can tear up a room in the matter of minutes, we decided to execute our room transformation in phases. Phase 1 is always a big brushstroke of color.  Phase 2 involves some renovation/construction work like building add-on's and re-placing big furniture and equipment.  Phase 3 always involves big and pricey overalls, like flooring and counter tops/ cabinetry replacements.

Of course with the kiddos being so young, ages 4 and 1, we aren't in a rush to gut everything ourselves now.  We've been concentrating on Phase 1 for the last two years. Our plan: as our little fellas grow and become a little less destructive, we'll focus on some of our bigger projects (like the kitchen and finishing out our Master suite in the upstairs attic). However, just by updating our living spaces (with paint) in as much of a cost-effective way as possible, we can at least live in a beautiful home that doesn't scream "Granny's Place"!

Special thanks to Urban Compass for inviting us to participate in their "Starter-Stories" feature.  They have a very unique real-estate service for finding starter NYC apartments in neighborhoods that match their clients' tastes and personality.