Be Our Guest

Tags

dreaming, guest room

I was going through photos today and realize I snapped these back in December before guests came and never ended up posting them.

Here’s the current state of our Guest Bedroom:

It’s still a cobble of furniture and things that don’t quite fit in other rooms, but it’s clean and spacious and has the best view in the house. We love our IKEA guest bed (now $100 cheaper than when we bought it). It’s a twin bed when you need it be and a king bed much more often. The 3 storage drawers are great — we hold off-season linens and extra towels in them. Our night stands are solid wood and remnants from the McKee house – (purchased at Target back when they had that cool world-market week in the summer… Remember that? I think it’s no longer…) The
French farm animal prints are from the St. Charles flea market, and the rug from Lowes.

Not too shabby, given what we first encountered:

This room shares the upstairs bathroom with the room we’re using as the Master, and we sometimes wonder if it might be nice to relocate the Master to the first floor (where the Library is) and open it to the downstairs bathroom. Positives would be taking advantage of that great view, having a 1st floor MB with ensuite, and possibly being able to (I know, it’s a dream) have French doors opening to our going-to-be patio. Negatives would be upsetting the circular flow of the downstairs rooms and potentially not having enough space for parties etc., since we’d only have the kitchen, dining, and living rooms. We probably won’t make any hard and fast decisions, but it’s always in the back of my mind as a possibility.

Another (big budget) guest-friendly idea is a bit grander — taking part of our enormous barn and making a guest quarters. Having a guesthouse / ‘in law apartment’ is quite common here in New England, and it’s crossed my mind that it’d be nice to have something finished in there with a bit of privacy for guests. It could also double as a short-term rental/vacation space or great place to stay for guests who want to come hang here for an extended time.

Just thoughts and dreamings!

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Kitchen Evolution

Tags

floors, kitchen

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated around here. Between preparing for Thanksgiving away and a busy work holiday season  … and hosting out of town guests  … keeping this updated has fallen behind.

We’ve made lots of fun updates in the past few weeks. Ready for a kitchen update?

Here’s what we it looked like when we purchased it:

The first order of business was to open up the wall into the dining room:

Planning on taking cabinet space from the wall for the dishwasher, we needed some more storage in the room. We decided on assembling an island in the center of the room. We used a few cabinets from Ikea as the inner shell, and built custom shelving behind.

Next, we worked on new oak countertops and appliances. 

With the sink, faucet & dishwasher in, it was time for a fresh coat of paint.

Jed installed new island lighting over the finished product – our island with soapstone countertops and barn beam supports. We also decided to paint the ceiling boards white for contrast.

Since that photo in last summer, the kitchen progress more or less grinded to a standstill. We added some art here and there, but the glaring sore spot in the room was the floors.

They hadn’t been sanded or stained in years, and it was high time for a refresh.

As we did with the dining room, we rented a sander from Home Depot — this one wasn’t a belt sander (which we thought would be too aggressive on our old pine floors), and instead opted for a walk-behind random orbital sander. We had to hand-sand many of the dips and edges the larger sander couldn’t reach.

And the end result?

Voila!

Winter Wonderland

Tags

decorating, holidays

We’ve done a bit of holiday sprucing around here — and I decided to start with the bedroom.

:::

I actually had this flannel sheet set from Target on my christmas list, but crossed it off and decided to buy it myself to enjoy this year! It was super affordable at just $25 (on sale!) and has held up through several washings so far with no colors bleeding. I also love how there are little ‘H’s’ in the middle of the snowflake!

:::

And… our little tree! I really wanted to cut one from the property – and this little guy was the only variety we could choose from! His little companion is downstairs in the kitchen (hey, they were free!) and I just love how it’s just strong enough to hold a few little ornaments. We’ve secured it in a vase surrounded by bricks.

And – my ornaments to match the sheets (didn’t plan that!) They were too big to fit on the tree, so I decided to put them on the bottom with Rudolph — a mainstay of our childhood Christmas!

:::

I hung a bit of greenery around the doors outside and the barn as you can see in the new header, and it looks quite festive if I do say so myself! Happy Holidays!