What Ana Does

I pondered the color for this fireplace trim a mighty long time. But now that we have the sofa oriented to the fireplace, with the TV mounted above, I was even more motivated to pick something. And, sometimes, the obvious answer is the right answer. Navy! Like everything else in the room. Duh. So I pulled the extra wall color out and used it on the trim.  And here's some progress pics ...  And the white trim that was original looked like this.  Simple, but it's a dramatic and noticeable change to the family room. Now I'm just styling out the mantel.  A good quarantine project.  Here's the progression of the fireplace !

That's how the conversation started on the car ride to the grocery store.  We were talking about the staircase in our house covered by this green carpet with a lattice pattern -- a choice the previous owner made. It's never been something we like or would pick, and we have had many conversations about removing it.  Cue the Memorial Day weekend -- four days off of work and no place to go. Sounds like the perfect time to rip out some carpet.  RISK? That's always the first question I ask myself. What's the risk if we pull this carpet up? If the wood underneath is in ok shape, we paint it. And paint is relatively inexpensive. If it's a disaster, we hire someone to install carpet in a much prettier color, and we've done the demo work for them and painted the spindles, railings and moldings. So all in, it's a low risk DIY project.  Over the four-day weekend the demo went great. Super easy. And the wood underneath was good. Just pine but paint-able after some sandi

So, the saga continues. I didn't like how the Pottery Barn table was holding up. It was already full of glass rings and the veneer top was pulling up in a corner. So I sent it back. After another exhaustive search, I found a second Pottery Barn table that's solid wood and looks like it will hold up a bit better. And was a better size. And I could exchange for the one I returned. The downside: it's on back-ordered until August! And I can't live without a kitchen table until August. Especially with all of us home ALL THE TIME. The solution: I bought a very inexpensive table from Target that I could get delivered in just a few days. It's actually really nice for a $250 table. And it's heavier than I thought it would be, so it will do until August. (Though, at 60" it's a foot too small for all of us to fit.) Yeah ... the kitchen table story continues ... Related lists: - The last post about the kitchen table when I THOUGHT I was do

Entering our third month of quarantine and there are certainly things I'm liking and disliking. ⤊Curbside Shopping - I just order something (Micheal's for crafts, Pet Supplies Plus for dog stuff, etc.) and I pull up to the store, call them, and they deliver my order in my trunk. No interaction. No awkward checkout conversation. Bam. It's dynamite! ⤋ Grocery Shopping - We'd rather reserve the online grocery pickup options for high-risk groups, such as the elderly, so we're making a big grocery shop once a week -- usually on weekends since we're both working full time. I dread these trips. People in masks, some in gloves and more, avoiding eye contact, this hollow look of the apocalypse in their faces. Gah. It's unsettling. Once the initial panic subsided, and there was no sign of a real food shortage (at least in our area), the experience has gotten better. But it's still a stressful trip. ⤄ Working From Home  - Juggling is really the name of the

Nope. Couldn't go through with the tile project. Too messy. Too risky. Too crazy. So I "leaned in" to the peel and stick tile I already had up and went across the whole wall behind the washer and dryer. I even had a trim piece that could span the top and make it all look super cool and finished. So ... now to finish figuring out the shiplap wall. Hmm. The color just seems off. Maybe white? Back to the basement to wade through the colors I already have to come up with a plan. Never a dull moment!

It was around mid-March that we were sent away from the office and asked not to return. Staffers who could work from home, were shipped off to do so. I grabbed all that I could and haven't been back to my office space. Since working from home, I'd been sitting in a corner of my dining room table. The location made sense because: a) the girls did school work on the other corner of the table, so I was there for help and to keep them on task. b) Dave took the office and spends most of his days on conference calls with the doors closed. And c) I could keep an eye on the dogs and all the other activity going on in the house. But lastly d) I could look out the window at my backyard. Sigh. It worked for awhile but, lately, I've been finding that I get UP so many times through the day (see the list above and it's easy to understand why). And getting myself resettled each time was annoying. And now my hours are increasing, so I really needed to figure out a more permanent sp

Remember the basement cabinets from my basement project a few years ago? Here's an image when they were just installed to jog your memory: They're IVAR cabinets from IKEA. Dave put them together and the contractor who finished our basement attached them to the wall with these cute little legs. I got caught trying to decide what color to paint them and just stained them an awful color ... that honestly made them look dirty. (WHY!?) Here's that post . Not sure why I called them "fabulous." Anyway, quarantining has us spending lots of time in ALL the spaces in our house, including the basement and I thought an easy project would be to finally paint them. Dave really wanted some light, not dark like the bathroom, and I just didn't want them to be white. I brainstormed a hundred different ways to paint them ... with designs and a few colors and so on but finally decided on a color from Magnolia Home.  In this image, you can see the "dirty" stai