Friday, September 16, 2016

Sunroom Situation

It’s no secret I fell off the blogging band wagon for a couple years.  The downward spiral started when I got pregnant with Jackson almost three years ago and that first trimester just zapped all energy.  Between the standard first trimester exhaustion, working full time, and then of course chasing after the other two boys (~18 months and 3 years old at the time), I didn’t have it in me to blog.  I’m not even in the same arena – or even planet! – as the big name bloggers out there, but what I do know is that each post (even on this little ol’ blog here) takes a LOT of time.  Creating digital content, staging the photos, taking photos, editing photos, and posting it on a website (all on top of doing the actual DIY work) was just too much for this pregnant mama at the time.  BUT!  I didn’t totally stop all DIY.  That still kept going, albeit at a slower pace.  It was the posting part that stopped.




That said, I’m thankful I had the foresight (most of the time, at least) to still take photos along the way so I could come back to them later.  Most of the photos aren’t staged or super perfect, but I’m thankful for them nonetheless because they captured a moment in time and I simply love looking back at the journey and the progression of our home along the years.

So now that I’ve put you to sleep (ha), this update is all about our sunroom.  When we bought our house almost 3.5 years ago now, we were super thrilled about the sunroom.  The previous owners had converted it from a 3 season room into a bonafide piece of the house extending off the kitchen.  It’s got windows for dayssss that make it so light and bright.  Also, when you’re standing in the sunroom looking into the rest of the house, it has an amazing line of sight into the other four main rooms on the first floor (family room, office, kitchen, and dining room) and with little ones running around, this fell into the pro column when we were looking to purchase.  The downside was the wall color in the sunroom.  It was a pretty bright shade of yellow that wasn’t really my particular taste.  Also, that hanging pendant….oy.  Here are the pics we took during our home inspection which contain the previous owners’ décor.  I’m showing these ones since they most clearly depict the room color and the built-in eating nook.




The good news is that painting gives you so much bang for your buck so I was excited for the possibilities.  Also, it became pretty apparent after about four months of living in our home that the custom built-in eating nook just wasn’t working for us.  And if there’s one thing I’ve learned and I’m not afraid to execute on it's this: make changes in your home to make your home work for YOU and YOUR family.  Don't feel bad or guilty (like I did for a little bit) for wanting to change something that someone else invested a lot of time, money, and effort into if it's not working for YOUR family.  At the end of the day, you're the one that has to live there now!  We already had a dining room, plus we have a kitchen big enough to fit our ‘everyday’ table so having a third eating area seemed like a poor use of space for us. Perhaps another family would LOVE this.  And that’s cool.  It just wasn’t for us.  And don’t even get me started on the amount of finger prints smeared all over the windows when we’d try to eat there, the food on the window sills, or the little toddler boys that just.can’t.sit.still.while.on.benches.

First, we sold the table  on Craigslist and then Eric removed the benches (also Craigslisted).



Despite being as careful as possible with the removal, there was still wall damage to be dealt with.  Fun times, but nothing multiple layers of spackle couldn’t tackle.  #rhymesfordayz





We also removed the colorful pendant light and Eric installed a standard recessed light to match the other three in the room.  We sent the pendant off to a new home via Habitat for Humanity’s Restore.



Then came painting.  I was five months pregnant, it was three days before Christmas, and we were hosting Christmas Eve at our house, but I’ve always thrived under a deadline.  Brace yourself for this super attractive photo complete with paint respirator to protect the babe.



Here’s what the room was looking like after one coat of Benjamin Moore’s Edgecomb Gray (it ended up needing two coats to cover fully):



And what I don’t have photographic evidence of is another switcheroo that happened between the finishing of painting and today.  We moved the dining table back to the legitimate dining room (weird, I know) and turned this into our casual/comfy sunroom.  I’ve done about three full room switcheroos in the few years we’ve lived here and finally I think we’ve landed on a good arrangement.  Though, I say that every time.  #optimist   Here’s our current sunroom situation:



Check out our snake plant....affectionately named 'Rainbow' by the older boys.  I transplanted it into this adorable woven basket that I found at Target (on clearance!) after gaining inspiration from the amazing Chris Loves Julia duo. If I could, I'd probably copy their entire house.  Julia's style is so on point.  #fangirl




Much better, right?!  In the category of keeping it real, there’s usually a large bin that contains toys I moved out of the photo (ain’t no one want to see some obnoxiously bright colored toys) but they’re here…they’re frankly everywhere.  Sigh.  But we have enough of our everyday candid family photos that capture the chaos so I’m not worried about not having that documented somewhere.  ;)

I still have plenty to do in this room one day like window treatments of some kind, a new rug, artwork, new ceiling fan, a new console table (the wine buffet belongs in our dining room but we specifically wanted something pretty to look at in the meantime until Eric can build us something for this space), some accessories…but all in due time.

I’d say for about $100 in paint, supplies, and the recessed light…it definitely provided a quick fix. Cheers for the weekend, friends!

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