What Ana Does

When we last saw the back hallway (AKA boot room) it looked pretty good. Lots of hooks, new floor, fun gallery art. But the issues were many: I wanted a wood element to warm up the space. The new shelf was the wrong color ... but really it was the walls that were the wrong. They were just "off" the blue cabinet color.  So, obviously something had to be done. And with Leah off to college, I needed a 1-weekend doable DIY project that I could focus on.  Off to Lowes for $200 worth of shiplap and new pine boards for the hook rails.  Demo started! All the rails came down easily. The wall to the right of the garage door (on the left side of this photo) needed to go white, so I primed that a few times to cover over the erroneous blue.  Shiplap install time! Went up pretty quickly once I started chopping. I wish those half pieces/cuts were on the bottom of the wall, instead of the top, but I'll know better for next time!  I put three coats of the ("SW: Denim") blue pain...

Just so good!  I'm so happy with the final result of our back hallway. Removing that wall... just the thing. And I added some fun framed art along the top to bring UP the eye (don't look at all the shoes on the floor) and add a ton of character.  An English boot room? For sure.  Ok, I'd be remiss if I didn't think about the next "phase." Because, as much as I love this, I'll be tempted to add a small cabinet in the corner so I have a countertop to drop keys and mail. But that's likely well down the road.   Even Pepper loves it.  If you missed the evolution of this space ... and it went through several iterations before we got to this ... you can check out this blog tag . 

As mentioned, we found some extra budget and made all my back hallway dreams come true this month.  This is where we started. Note the awful pink "terracotta" floor tile that was cracking in the laundry room. The door to the left is the garage, the powder room is to the right. And that door at the end is the coat closet. And the laundry room door is at the end to the right.  Make sense?  My beef with this poky hallway is this closet and this wall. It cuts the floor space into nothing, and if it was gone, it could be an awesome little back ROOM.  Don't worry, this is one of three closets back here. Remember the coat closet at the end? And the laundry room has a closet, too, and cabinets.  We need to remove this wall. And as much as I teased Dave about doing it ourselves, he wasn't buying it. So I made this little drop zone to make the best of it ( here's the post here, for more details ).  So the simple PLAN: Remove the closet, retile the floor -- all the w...

 One of the DIY merit badges I've been excited to earn was as a tiler. Every show and contractor/construction guy I've talked to has been insistent it's an "EASY" DIY. "You can totally do it," they say. But I never had the opportunity to give it a go. A nice easy low-risk project.  Until the powder room!  I gathered up my courage, watched all the how-to videos, picked up all the supplies needed (about $250 with the tile) and took a deep breath ... and just GOT WENT FOR IT.  Everything is figuroutable, right!?  It was easy, though there were definitely lessons learned. And quick solutions I had to come up with. But I would very confidently tile another small wall.  First, here's a photo of the IN REAL LIFE mess of a room mid-project. It's important to be OK with creating a mess. Tiling is messy.  Here's the room after the tile is up (took about four hours) and the clean up. Hauling clean water in and out of the room was the worst part. I'l...

The downstairs powder room is really coming together much faster than we thought. After an initial text with our contractor, once we had all our materials picked out and our vanity delivered, he was able to fit us in THE SAME WEEK due to a two-day hole in the schedule.  So BAM! In two days they removed the old vanity and floor tile and had to new floor down and vanity nearly installed. Ugh, there was a minor plumbing issue that got resolved on day 3, so on day 4 they officially installed the vanity and were done.  Here's where we started, to where we finished off with the contractors ...    Also! I was able to sell the old vanity on Facebook Marketplace for $350!! That was a solid piece of granite, people! And got it out of our garage in less than 24 hours. A new record!  Next up ... TILE!  

 Just a few more updates from the back hallway. And here's where we currently stand.  (Will I be buying a third dark gray basket for the top shelf? Yes, yes I will.)  So last weekend I painted the pinky/terracotta floor tile a matte black. Other than not being able to step on it for a few days, it was one of the easiest DIYs and cheap -- about $70. Looks just like the black tile in the kitchen. Unless you stare at it, it's a total dup.  I always forget what a huge difference flooring can make.  Then I decided to paint the interior of the closet/drop zone to match the rest of the walls in this hallway. And I love how it turned out. That oversaturated blue on the beadboard ... it's so good.  I also finished that lower shelf and found bulbs for the ceiling fixture that is SUPER BRIGHT.  Here's a quick walk through the progress of this much-used space ...  I wish I could have taken down that wall, but Dave was not interested in a demo project. Maybe s...

There's a dropzone next to the garage door and close to the kitchen that wasn't working for us. So it was time to fix it.  It was once a closet with doors, but there are two other closets in the same hallway so we pulled off the doors and moved in the dresser for storage and spot to drop keys.   But the shoes just piled up around the dresser. And we no longer stored kids' socks next to the door. Or masks. And the top of the dresser wasn't large enough to drop off the mail, purse and keys that I need it for. See? No longer working. So I came up with a plan ...  I tried to convince David to demo out the wall on the right, to add some extra breathing space with the garage door, but I couldn't get him to agree. Regardless, we need a longer countertop, some extra shelves, and a bunch of baskets for allllll the shoes in this house. So many shoes.   Once I cleared everything out, I repainted and attached all the shelf bracing using some scrap wood I had in my gara...