Lost in Restoration

A baby girl is coming, let the nesting begin!

My office is being turned into a nursery and I am moving to the basement. This drawer used to hold stacks of order forms but now is home to stacks of tiny outfits. I found the dresser at an Estate Sale (that's what people in the historical part of KC call a garage sale) It cost $50 and a can of black paint brought it out of the 80's. We plan to use it for a changing table and baby storage - well not the actual baby, just her belongings.

We have ordered the Eames Rocker but are still considering the Giraffe wall covering (wall paper). The red gingham will be the bedding design. The circular rug is from the Danish designer Normann Copenhagen.

Window Coverings: Curtains

It took me 4 attempts at hanging these curtains before they were in the right place - word of advice make sure to confirm with your wife before you drill holes in plaster.

In addition to the curtains we added a silver lamp seen in the left corner of the room and the starburst shaped mirror on the right. We still need a rug and maybe a small bench below the mirror (to hold booze). BTW rugs are ridiculously expensive, no wonder someone stole "The Dude's" rug

Not sure what function this curtain serves, but I guess it softens the window or something like that:)

Patio Restoration 3: Yardageddon

Mark used the jackhammer like a surgeon uses a scalpel, he cut around the windows to the walk out basement with ease.

Breaking stuff.

He knows what he's doing.

He doesn't.

We decided to take out the entire patio; old and new. It was a good decision, the previous patio did not drain properly and was installed incorrectly.

A decision was made to grade a major portion of the yard. The yard had a large hump in it that forced water back toward the house.

So much for all the grass that was planted in the Spring. Tearing out the hump was an easy choice to make it will ensure we have a dry basement and piece of mind for years to come.

The next step will be to pour gravel (ordering about 20tons) and fine tune the grading.

This is the view from the ground level looking out of the basement walk out. The project will primarily be worked on over the next few weekends (excluding 4th of July weekend) so stay tuned as it takes shape.

The best gifts are the ones you make: especially if there not ugly

My dear friend Alisa hand made this pillow as a house warming gift. I love the awesome wood grain fabric and cool little tag as an accent - she even sewed in a zipper, grandmas everywhere would be proud! Thank you, I hear she also makes curtains:)

Fun with font, we had to "Man-Up" this girlie chair.

From the spectacle shop to the dining room

Still looking for that perfect dining room table. For those interested this one is for sale along with some matching chairs, not shown.

I love these Danish farm house inspired chairs - a clean and classic way to do dining chairs without the all the rod iron and overstuffed cushions that surround many of the tables seen on "The Real Housewives of insert city here"

They were built in Temple, Maine. The pegs are designed to work WITH the natural characteristics of wood and can simply be hammered back into place as it expands and contracts. Thanks Specs Minneapolis for these wonderful chairs and all the hard work selling the worlds most beautiful spectacles-

We will begin to remove the concrete and regrade the site this weekend. My brother Mark will be heading up the project, thanks to him for taking on this massive project. Can't wait to show you all the final photos!

Patio Restoration 2: 2 Jackhammers, 4 sweat soaked shirts, and a sprained wrist later

Wow, if you run a jackhammer for a living I commend you for all your hard work!

I ran the rented jackhammer on 95 degree day until it started smoking and wheezing and didn't have the energy to punch through a paper bag - much like jackhammer, I was drained and the job was only half finished. I loaded the defeated, grease-soaked hunk of steel into my station wagon and headed back to Home Depot for my next victim.

It's pretty self explanatory: Plug in, stand up jackhammer, push button and try to handle the 60lb hammer as it crushes through heavy concrete. The hardest part is pulling the device out of the mud once it punches deep into the ground below the concrete.

It's hard to tell from the ruble, but this will be built into a flower box or herb garden.

Hopefully I never have to do that again!

Patio Restoration 1: Taking stock of the project

The natural stone wall is original and the contractors added the new concrete. We plan to add a stamped concrete overlay to match the natural stone wall.

We are going to tear-out the broken concrete and add a new stamped concrete patio with a fire pit.

Like the house the patio is in terrible shape, but has potential to be wonderful.

The basement is a walkout, which will be great once we have something worthwhile to walkout on.

New Living Room Furniture

The sofa finally arrived! Special order so it took awhile, but well worth it. In many design stores special orders can take 6-8 weeks to arrive.

Jaclyn from Urban Dwellings was a great help with the layout and suggesting furniture. The sofa, love seat, chairs, coffee table, in tables and accent pillow are from her store in the KC River Market. Sybil picked up the artichoke lamps from Marshall's.

This coffee table was a STEAL, it had some easy to repair cracks and was about 90% off!

We will add some much needed accessories by putting in more personal pieces acquired over time of instead of filling it with random, meaningless objects. However, curtains are needed soon, maybe a gold color. Thoughts? Anybody want to sew? Just kidding about the sewing, well kind of...