BIG plans for the guest room!

There are a few rooms that have been SERIOUSLY neglected since we moved in, while we focused time + energy [let's be real - I really mean money] on the rooms that people see the most. The stuff that's on the blog, and that I actually want to share.
One of those rooms is the guest room.  The poor, neglected, still-beige guest room.  The last time it was on the blog was for the Six Month Post - I didn't even deem it necessary to include it in the One Year post!  So here it was last fall, after we had lived here at the Haus for 6 months:

And I guess I didn't really want to include it in the One Year post, because little had 'officially' changed, as far as purposeful design.  In all reality though, it did change - this is how it looks today.  [just keeping it 100 on the blog - I'm sure all of you have neglected rooms that look the same.  ....please tell me you do!] 

The treadmill has its home here, along with a TV & an old PS3 [because how do you spend an hour on the treadmill without streaming Sex and the City to keep you company?]  Along with all of my wrapping gear that I parked in here at Christmas, some random stuff that needs to go to Goodwill, and a dresser [and a headboard with bedrails, that are just out of the frame] we recently inherited.
It's pretty much a mess.  Doors are closed at all times to minimize embarrassment.
BUT!  Its time has come!  In our continued effort in the aforementioned 'Battle of the Beige' we've waged at the Haus, we've decided to spring for new - NON BEIGE - carpet in the master bedroom, guest bedroom, and hallway.  All rooms that will make a HUGE impact. 
I went carpet shopping at the same local place we bought our hardwood flooring, and brought home a palette of swatches to see which is best:

I picked a low-pile carpet, in a pattern mix of berber and cut berber, for a nice subtle pattern that has an organic feel.  While choosing the perfect color, I held it up in just about every room, in every light, against the wood wall, the stone wall, and the marble floor, to make sure everything was perfect.  I of course was looking at the greys in the palette [you know, because of the 'Battle of the Beige'] 
I settled on the bottom left swatch, named 'Destin' because it's super classy like that.  It's a nice neutral [but still warm] grey, that suited just about everything.  Light to brighten things up, but not too light that we'll also have to wage a war of the 'Battle of the Puppy Prints' everywhere. 
I can't wait to see how it brightens up our room, how it looks when you see the end of the hallway carpet against the marble floor, and how it transforms the guest room to make it look 'ours.'
In addition to the new non-beige carpet, I'll also paint the walls [because over a year later, they're still - you guessed it - beige], and I'll paint the wedge of wall above the wood & painted walls a really bright white, to keep it light and airy in there [they're also beige, just a lighter tone of beige.  But....beige.  How many times can I say 'beige' in one post?]
I'll also be adding some new, thought-out furniture, instead of using the hodge podge of hand me down stuff, and leftovers from the old house.
Just to get an idea of how it'll look all together, I did some crude photoshopping to see how the new carpet and wall colors will work in there, along with some new furniture. 

Check it out!

What do you think?!

Yep - you guessed it - I got knocked up [4 months pregnant now, actually!] and the new, purposeful furniture in the guest room will transform it into a nursery!  [as soon as I found out I was pregnant, the new carpet jumped waaaay up the list of 'to do' around here]
I photoshopped some stuff in that I know will be in here, or just a general idea of it.  MidCentury [duh] with an eclectic mix of colors, patterns and textures for a comfortable boho vibe.  I think :)
This is just the 'gender neutral' version - we'll actually find out next Thursday if it's going to be a Girl's room or a Boy's room, and then after the carpet is installed, the fun can begin!

Stay tuned for updates!

Grand Entrance

The long driveway of the Haus of Pane is marked by a beautiful mailbox. See?

Yeah.  Pretty far from that.  Nothing against a plain white mailbox - it gets the job done - but this one has clearly seen better days.  It's almost always missed when I give directions on the phone, thus the driveway is missed, and pizzas get cold while waiting for the driver to find the house.  And it must just be invisible to everyone, because I'm certain it's been hit.  A lot.  Last fall I noticed the door was open, tried to close it, and it didn't line up - so I think it was hit overnight.  The door falling open was a constant issue too - our mail would sometimes be wet inside of the mailbox.  Not just damp from raindrops while exposed between the post lady's car and our box - letters would look like they took a swim in a pool for half an hour, then made their way inside the box to sit in their own puddle. 
It didn't take long before we had had enough, and vowed to rectify the annoyance as soon as the ground thawed. 
[fast forward to April, when the ground thawed]
We sketched out a few ideas of stuff I had floating in my head - I wanted it to look MidCentury Modern [or at least reminiscent of that style] but not break the bank.  Did you know that the really cool mailboxes out there can cost a few hundred bucks?  For JUST the mailbox?  I love this one, but I'm certain that's just the box.  Post is sold separately.  And I'm just too much of a tightwad for that ;)  So! I designed something that could incorporate a normal-priced mailbox, and add some decorative bits for pizzazz [people just don't say pizzazz enough].  Said decorative bits were to be simple, but large enough to incorporate large numbers [so people can, you know, see them] and I wanted a nice angle to echo the angle of our gorgeous house.
Once we decided on a mailbox - super simple design in classic black - and a post [nice and sturdy in case it gets hit], and decided the decorative bits would be made from 1x8 boards, I made a crude sketch in Illustrator [to scale, of course] to make sure all the numbers were going to work out:

Brandon set up shop in the garage and did all the cutting, and I did a loooot of sanding:

Then there was priming and painting and drying [photos MIA.  but I'm sure you can imagine what painting looks like]  We went with the same grey as the house, so everything matches!
We picked these numbers [which look a lot like these Neutra numbers but a whole lot cheaper]

And then it got a little weird.  The installation calls for drilling a hole a little larger than the screws, put the screws in the number, put a bunch of silicone in the holes, then dropping the numbers & screws into the holes.  So you basically glue them onto your house [or, in this case, 'decorative bits']
Problem is, the screws were longer than the thickness of our boards, and they'd stick out the back, so we just decided to glue the things on, sans screws.  Taking out a step is always fun.
Seems good so far!  I'll of course keep you posted.
THEN!  After two weekends of solid rain that foiled our best laid plans, we finally had some sun on a Sunday afternoon.  And my digger got to digging.

"Oh, no!  Sorry, Brandon I guess I'm just bad at digging - and you're really good at it"  ;)

He dug the hole with a post hole digger, flattened the area around the decorative bits to make room for it to spread out and be even, and then mixed the cement so the whole thing is more permanent-like.

For a few hours they existed as equals, though everyone that passed the two of them knew they were far from equal.

And - on a Monday morning - I killt it.  

[then my digger had to work super hard to get the base out of the ground - turns out it was about 3' long, all underground.  I was legitimately shocked.]

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Soon after, Phase 2 happened - the prettification of the mailbox!

To set it off, and to keep the grass from getting tall and obscuring our beautiful numbers, we made a pretty rock bed all around.  We chose white marble rocks, because they fit with our clean look, but were also surprisingly cheap!  $3.78 a bag, and while it took 5 to fill up the bed, that's still less than $20 to make it look super fly.

Add a perimeter of paver stones to keep the rock bed in check [about $1.15 each] and it's done!

The mailbox itself has a magnetic closure, so no more door hanging open!  And the flag is metal too!  Feels nice and sturdy.  And if you see the back, you see the brackets my metalsmith [Brandon, as I mentioned in the previous post] made and powder coated in black.  The brackets are attached to each board with screws, each board is attached together with hidden dowels, and they have a 90 degree turn which is attached to the steel post.  This thing isn't going anywhere.  [And if someone hits our mailbox now, I kind of really hope it does damage to the hitter's car.]

This summer the grass will fill in, and in the fall I'll plant some bushes around the box and on the other side of the drive [for symmetry, of course], and we'll finally have ourselves a pretty entrance!

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Everything seemed perfect for a week, then we both noticed a few times that one of the paver edges looked wonky.  One time I fixed it, and once Brandon fixed it, and it happened again.  Which means our mail lady is running over our it with her mail-mobile. 

This means war.  I have ideas for defense/retaliation.

Curb Appeal updates!

...even though you can't really see the front of the house from the curb ;)

So!  It's been really quiet over here lately, but it's not because we've stopped work on the house - it's because 1) I owe you a biiiiig post on the kitchen, but that's overwhelming.  And there's one more thing I want to fix before it's ready..... and 2) there have been a couple of smaller, fun projects, but the majority of our focus right now is going to some larger [and therefore expensive and not as fun to talk about] projects like new carpet [!] and paving our driveway.
BUT!  It's Spring, and as usual, I spruced up a few things with some plants!
I've been dreaming up some rectangular metal planters for the front, to make more of a defined edge to the top bit of the porch [a few people have fallen off of the step because they don't see it, so I think maybe some definition may call more attention to it.....maybe?  Side note: the house has been here since 1968.  If I know 4 people that have fallen off of it, how many over the life of the house have fallen?!  Or is it just the circle of people I know?]  I even sketched up something for Brandon [my metalsmith] to make for me so I wouldn't have to spend $400.  On metal boxes that will get filled with dirt. 
However, on a recent trip to Chicago [and therefore IKEA] we ran across these great black planters!  Not as square as I had wanted, but dang if they weren't cheap - $35 each.  So they came home with us!  And I filled them up with dirt. 

From the left we have: calibrachoa, something called lantana, rosemary, verbena [in a gorgeous purple!], and something called bacoba.  Should fill out nicely and be all drapey and flowery :)

With mom's help [and her kick in the pants] I also added some mulch around the naked boxwood I planted last fall, and edged it out with some stones we got for $1.25 each for another project [you'll see that next week!]

And we got a door mat!  It took me a while to find one that's wide enough for the double doors, wasn't ugly, and cost less that $1,000.  I love the look of coir mats, but just couldn't find a wide one that didn't have a frilly pattern on it.  And getting two at IKEA and putting them side by side would be cheap, but also look messy.  So I got this one, and it fits the bill nicely!  No more random dirt and mud should sully my foyer floor.

Last spring when I spruced up the flower bed, it looked like this [hello, weird pink & yellow house!]

And last fall I cut back the roses all the way, because they were pretty disobedient last summer.  Just a mess of branches all sticking into each other. But I think I should have maybe not done that....  Because now they just want to spider out.  They look really healthy - loaded with buds - but just.....low.  Does anyone know what kind of rose this is and what I should do with it?

Anyhoo.  Back to what the entry looked like in January of 2014, when we bought the house:

[yikes] [...see what I mean about needing an extra long mat for the double doors?!  that puny thing looks sad. and off-center.]

And now, this!  Painting the house and the doors reeeeally make the big difference.  But also, flowers!

Looks good, but now all I can see is the other things i was to upgrade [or "buy"]:

Brass knobs to really pop against the doors [but I want REAL brass. Not brass-plated or brass-colored steel. Apparently I have expensive taste in door knobs.  Who knew that was a thing?]  And a new, super cool, modern light fixture.  But the nice, big, two-bulb [one up, one down] kinds are a couple hundred dollars.  And I need three.  Some day.... [or maybe I'll get my metalsmith on that.]