The Capers Goes Blue

After 6 1/2 years of living in our cute little yellow house, Chris and I decided it was time to give this Cape Cod an upgrade.

The yellow siding was made of aluminum and had seen about 10 too many Syracuse winters. The color was faded and chalky and worst of all, the metal itself was pitted and stained in many places, as you can see on either side of the door in the picture below.

So we got some estimates and chose a contractor to give this guy a facelift. But before you see the finished house, check out the in-between pictures. For weeks, whenever I looked at the house, I just had to keep reminding myself that "the middle makes no sense."

But finally, after a very long process (we started getting estimates for the siding in May and it's now November!) we are finally done and the house looks gorgeous,

Check out the before again! It's crazy how different it looks!!

Ignore the little yellow vent above the window. I'm going to paint that to match the siding.

The back porch received some extra work too. Look at the difference!

The front door is way better too.

But we definitely need to put in some new stairs. These brick ones are officially the worst feature of the house. The Capers deserves better!

Here's a few more angles of our big blue beauty.

Yep, still need to paint the garage to match. That's a spring project though.

Can you believe it's the same house? Do you love it as much as we do? We're thrilled with it and it's definitely got us excited to tackle a few more projects in the spring.

All Through the House

Once the Halloween party was over, I must admit I took a bit of a break with posting anything new. That bash definitely wore me out, although I didn't just take it easy. Once I put away all the Halloween decorations, I was left with a unique opportunity in many of our rooms. There was nothing up on the walls. The floors and walls and everything needed a thorough cleaning, so I decided it was a good time for some updates.

My first task was the bathroom, where I repainted and put new hardware on the cabinet. I meant to put up pictures, but well ...

Hopefully sometime soon.

But this past week, I finally made it to my biggest undertaking: the living room. My mom and I had painted this room right after Chris and I moved in 5 years ago, and it was ready for a fresh coat of paint. Here's what it looked like after all the decorations came down.

I thought I wanted to paint it blue-grey, but once I got some paint samples up on the wall, I realized I don't actually like blue-grey. I guess I just like the idea of it. So I got more samples, and well, thus we have the picture below.

I went with Benjamin Moore's "Revere Pewter." It's a greige color, sort of a taupe. Mostly grey with a beige undertone. Here's a blurry in-progress picture so you can see the color change.

In the end, I have to say, I love it. It's a very popular color, and I actually found out about it on Pinterest because tons of people use it in living rooms. I probably wouldn't have picked it out on my own. On the paint chip it looks beige, and I don't like beige. But on the walls, it's beautiful. Very rich and sophisticated looking. Definitely a grown up color (says the woman watching A Christmas Story while she paints).

I also took time to caulk all the trim at the ceiling and baseboards. You can see gaps between the trim and the ceiling if you scroll us. But after a little caulk and some paint touch-ups, voila! No more gaps or cracks. Instantly made this room look a lot less dated.

Here's a shot I took the morning after I painted so you can see it in natural light. I was worried it would blend in too much with the couch, but it's actually just enough contrast that it works but is also very calm and cozy.

I waited a few days for the paint to cure before hanging some pictures over the couch. I decided to continue the warm and cozy look for the holidays.

Ok, so the giant octopus is neither warm nor cozy, but come on, I can't get too sappy with my arrangement. Gotta have a little personality ...

Oh, also, the "Be Merry" sign on the bottom left is just a gift bag I found at Target and hung with a push pin. I thought it rounded out the grouping for the holidays and was cheap and will be easy to swap out after Christmas.

I was waiting to put this post up so I could also share pictures of our Christmas tree in our freshly painted living room. Chris, Ripley and I made the trek up to Beckwith's Family Christmas Tree Farm to cut down a beauty. We do this every year and it's a favorite tradition of ours, and we were excited to share it with the pooch.

As luck would have it, today was also the day of the North Syracuse Christmas Parade, so we took a break from decorating the tree to enjoy the festivities.

But we eventually got back to it and ended up with this beautiful tree. The tree skirt is new this year. I found it at Christmas Tree Shop and I'm really hoping the cats don't ruin it. We tried to keep the ornaments up a little higher this year to help pooch resist the temptation to pull them down and chew them. So fingers crossed. 

Once again, we don't have a single generic bulb or ornament on the tree. Every ornament was given to us or we bought together as part of our holiday traditions. It's so nice to see a tree full of so many happy memories. And so many of the ornaments remind us of our family, which is awesome.

Hopefully my next post will be coming a lot sooner than this one did. We're still working on Christmas decorations and I have yet to overhaul the kitchen and some other rooms in the house, so there should be lots to show you!

But in case I don't write again until December 25th, Merry Christmas everyone!

Forgive Me for Stair-ing

It's hard not to stare at our made-over staircase now. It's just so fresh and so clean. And so pretty.

As I mentioned in the last post, my best friend Katie came out for a visit and offered to help with a DIY project. We had discussed the staircase before, so we decided to just go for it. Here's what it looked like before:

The wood is actually really nice and it's a very well made staircase. It's just a lot of wood. And an ugly orange-y stain that has seen better days.

Not to mention the carpet squares that were stuck to each stair...

Obviously, those were the first to go. They peeled off pretty easily, but we had to scrape the residue away and give the whole staircase a good scrubbing.

Once that was done, it was already looking a lot better. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but in person it was a big difference to get rid of the carpet.

Next step was taping so we would end up with nice clean lines.

And finally, we were ready for primer. Because of the nasty stain, it actually took three coats of primer and two coats of paint-and-primer-in-one to cover it. The stain kept trying to seep through, even though we sanded it down a bit.

Here you can see what one coat of primer looked like. Still had a ways to go.

But once we were finished ... wow. What a difference. I love love love it now. It really makes the house look a lot newer and cleaner. And the white also highlights some of the really nice details on the staircase as well.

Here you can see the extra trim piece that sits below each step. It's a subtle detail but I think it really helps to make the stairs look more stately and substantial.

I'm still trying to figure out what should go in front of the stairs now. It's so crisp and clean looking that I hate to put the brown/cream color chair back in front of it. So if you have any suggestions ...

We were also debating about painting that column at the bottom white and extending the white paint up the handrail. Not on the very top piece, but the three-inch piece below it that connects to the column. We couldn't decide so we decided to leave it wood for a while and live with it. I have to admit that I'm getting more tempted to paint it. What do you guys think? More white on the rail and column, or leave it alone?
I also love seeing that beautiful wood grain instead of the carpet on the treads now. So much nicer. And yet again I feel myself wanting to refinish my floors to bring out that wood grain and improve the color some more...

But for now, so happy to have my pretty white staircase. Let me know what you think!

Finally Cleaning Up That Paint I Spilled

One of the funny things about DIY is that sometimes your project isn't about tackling something NEW. Sometimes, it's about fixing your last mistake, again.

Remember when I painted the back porch and added trim and got it looking so pretty ... only to spill a huge amount of grey paint on the wood floor?

Well, that's how it looked for months and months and months. I just had no idea how to fix it or what to do about it.

But then, this weekend, I was finishing up two end tables that I had sanded down and painted for my boss. The little scrap of sand paper was still on the counter, and as I was walking outside, I noticed and suddenly a light bulb turned on in my head.

The back porch is unfinished wood. I think it was pressure treated, but it doesn't have a stain or finish on it at all. Why not sand it down? So I tried a little experiment with that little square of sandpaper...

And it worked! The paint came off!

That's when I decided to bust out the big guns. Well, actually just my palm sander, but definitely more heavy duty than a sheet of sandpaper.

And I gotta say, I am so thrilled. Just look at that beautiful floor!

I even removed the paint drops that were there when we moved in and the ones I made since we've been here. This floor is better than ever now!

Isn't she a beautiful little porch now?