Well House- Working it out

The well house has been used mostly for a play area and storage space since we moved in.  We have been tossing around ideas of how we want to update & use it for the long term.

With the boys getting older, and focusing on sports more, we decided to make it into a little gym.

Now that the kitchen renovation is done, we decided to start working on putting it together.

The first step was to clean it out...  a lot easier said than done!  

We've moved most of this stuff out to go for a yard sale or to donate.  

My gold antique loveseat was moved into the parlor (I will update photos of that room soon!)

The secretary desk has been moved into the living room, but we need to re-veneer the front of the three drawers.  That will be a winter project!

My antique Lincoln couch is still in the corner out there.  Not ideal, but it needs to be re-upholstered, and I want to keep it safe & dry (and it is too heavy & long to move to the attic).   

There will be more updates to come... 

We've picked out the paint colors, but this past week has been too hot to be painting out there.

The rug is in good shape (we peeked underneath to see if there were hardwood floors, but unfortunately, it's just plywood sub-flooring)

For now, we've moved the exercise equipment in:

The built in shelves will provide some good storage in there.

Here's a list of what still needs to be done:

-painting

-re-run the electric

-install heating

-decorating 

-adding equipment

Happily, the boys have been out there using it already!  I still go to the real gym to do my group classes, but this gives me another option to get a workout in.  It's a lot of fun to work out with the kids!

Foundation Finishing

There were still some things we were wrapping up, but it was weather dependent... one of those was the stone facing in on the new foundation.

Original house foundation

Our contractor ordered the stone that we all agreed would match the original house foundation the best.  I thought it would come in sections, but when delivered we found it was all individual stones!

First they had to prep the smooth cement of the new foundation, so that the stone blocks would adhere...

One thing I didn't realize was that you apply it from the top down, rather than from the bottom up.  I guess to keep from dripping cement on the pieces as you lay them.

Here we are with the left side stone in place

 At the end of the second day, we had the largest section done.  Here it is, with the grout not yet in place...

They continued to work their way around the back of the house, then came back a fourth day and did the grouting...

Happily, this is now completed!

You can see that the grass is filling in.  We have future plans for a patio, but we have to put more thought into that, so we just put down grass seed for now.

Next up is painting the exterior.  We've selected the colors & the company to do the work... they have us lined up for August (weather dependent, of course!)

Cleaning up! (The Laundry Room)

I can't believe the last blog post on the laundry room was when it got painted.  For quite a while, we had it functioning, but not looking so pretty.

I had lots of decorating plans for in here though!

Here's where we are now!

Well, that's with everything put away.  It's usually more like this... (I will admit I did remove several laundry baskets filled with dirty clothes out to the hallway for the pics!)

Having the laundry room on the same floor as the bedrooms/bathrooms has been a game changer!  No more baskets of laundry waiting to be folded, or piles of folded clothes waiting to go upstairs, on the first floor. It truly saves time & effort.

I like that there's enough room for me to leave the iron board up.  I use it to sort clothes when I'm folding.  I'm also wearing more items from my closet because the decision isn't based on what doesn't need to be ironed!  It's not such a hassle to quickly press off a blouse that needs it, rather than pass right by it.

The shelves above the washer & drier were from the local home improvement store.

The old wringer was strategically placed on the washer to hide the hose connections in the back.

I still am annoyed with the plumber for placing them so high up.  Speaking of the plumber... he never did get the laundry room sink installed.  That's still sitting on the floor.

Can you tell the plumber was the one part of the project that I completely disliked?

After fighting to get him to fix the upstairs heat from November until June ('cause who needs heat all winter!?!) we're just glad to be rid of him. In addition to poor workmanship, he gave me the creeps.

Anyway, enough of that- back to the happiness of the finished laundry room!

This little guy is a clothes line...

On the wall above the ironing board, I hung up some cross stitching and sewing items.

On the wall behind the door, the blue cabinet fits nicely.   It holds all of the laundry detergent, drier sheets, etc.

I put some hooks on the wall to store extra hangers.
I still need to figure out something for the wall above the blue cabinet.

When the door is open, you don't even see that stuff.  

View from the hallway

Some detail shots:

Master Closet- FINISHED!

As I posted about the accent wall stencil, I was looking back and realized that I hadn't put up any photos of the finished master closet!

Here's the view when you enter (from the master bathroom)...  details on the print & stockings hanging there can be found here.

Looking back towards the doorway from inside the closet...

we hung a cabinet for holding perfume & cologne behind the door.

Once inside, Mike's section has been organized.  We placed a couple of baskets up top for hats & small items.

The vintage shoe shine kit (wooden box on bottom left) was a find at an annual rummage sale!






If you were to spin around the room, you'd next come to the vanity that I fixed up a few months ago.  And then my clothes.
























When you stand over in front of the mirror, and look back... you can see the other blank wall that I had to work with in here.  (To the right is the doorway into the master bathroom).

We decided to put the hooks I found at a recent yard sale here!

I also picked up the clothes hamper that mimics the accent wall pattern.

Accent Wall in Master Closet

From the master bathroom, you look into the master closet at a blank wall.  I considered filling this with hooks and hanging my scarves & chunky necklaces there, but was worried this would look messy & cluttered after a while.

This before photo is quite a bit before... the moldings & doors weren't installed yet!
But it's the best shot I had that shows the view of the closet wall from the bathroom.

I decided to do the same stencil that I did in the little hallway off the other side of the bedroom.
Instead of metallic purple on gray, I decided on silver over the purple wall.  But I used the same method, so feel free to check that post for more details.

This project was on the back burner, so to speak... so it took months to complete.  I had the stencil drawn out before Thanksgiving.

The wall is 4 feet wide, and just under 8 feet tall.

I bought 6 little bottles of the paint, but only ended up using 3 of them!  I found success using the little paint brushes- easy to control and stay in the lines.

Over the last 4 months, I squeezed this project in between work, kids' sports practices and other house projects (usually getting just 1-2 hours in at a time).  

The pattern took three coats of the silver to look really solid.
The first coat was the most tedious, but it got easier & faster with each additional coat.

The print was a yard sale find from two years ago!  I paired it with a brass hook & hanger that my mom gave me, and a vintage pair of stockings that were my grandmothers and were packed away, new in their tissue paper.

Here's the new view from the master bath...