Upcycled desk for teen

I love finding projects on the side of the road.  I can’t be the only one who does, I mean, people put things out by the curb for free so often now, someone must be picking the stuff up ( not just me).   My family mostly thinks I’m crazy, but after I turn my find into something spectacular, they usually change their tune.   This is especially the case with one of my most recent projects.  It was actually easy, as the piece just needed a little tlc and once I convinced my oldest, it would be a great addition to her room she was redecorating and shared with her ow great he piece could be, she did most of the work.

It’s funny, when I picked this piece up, there were two separate pieces of furniture by the road.  It was rainy and I realized I could only fit one in my car, so I chose this one.  Honestly, I really kind of wanted the other one, but this one was more manageable to load by myself and thus, that is how my oldest got a cute, perfect size desk in her remodeled room.

Really the only things we did was give it a good cleaning (I almost always clean things with a vinegar water mixture), secured a few loose pieces with wood glue and then primed and painted. 

Her new room is a mixture of blue greens and bluish grays, very ocean like, so we decided (I convinced her) that a pop of bright yellow would be great, like the sun bright on a cerulean blue sea.  To tie it in with the room, we also put up yellow chevron curtains that we got for next to nothing at our favorite big red store – Score!

She is pretty happy with her updated room, fresh, quirky and
clean, just in time for her High School years.

Master Bedroom - First Phase

The first major renovation we did in this house, is reconfigure our master bedroom.  For a master, the room is small compared to many giant master ‘suites’ in new homes, but size wasn’t really the main issue.  The closet was.

We also did not like that the entrance to our room was directly at the end of the main hallway where the guest restroom is.  So, in reconfiguring (I'm trying really hard to find some in progress pics of the renovation), we took out a small linen hall closet, our main (but highly unfunctional) master closet, and moved the entrance to the room.  With these changes, we gained space, a more private entrance and the ability to arrange or rearrange our bed as we want.   Have I mentioned I'm a chronic furniture rearranger?

So, you may be wondering, why the heck did you take out your one and only closet??  Looking back, it was a crazy move, but one I am so glad we did.  As I mentioned, we gained valuable room space and were able to make a cute sitting nook.  We bought and assembled PAX wardrobes from IKEA that we have use for the last 4 years, along with an awesome revamped dresser we painted in lovely purple gray.

We also painted and ripped out some disgusting old carpet.   We painted 3 walls an arctic blue and one wall a dark gray for an accent.  We considered leaving the concrete in the room, but found a great deal on some carpet tiles that coordinate perfectly with the colors in the room.  These tiles are easy to remove to clean and have an added warmth, concrete would not provide.

The space and has been calm and serene and overall a nice room to be in, but we have realized that an actual closet would be nice.  So, hence the reason this post is called phase 1.  We are currently in the process of ‘phase two’, which is adding a hopefully luxurious walk in closet that will hold our PAX wardrobes, some extra shelving, a valet for charging and some open shelves.  Add rich laminate flooring, a flokati rug and a chair and you see our vision?  Hopefully it won’t be just a vision for long and I can update everyone with a phase two post with pics soon!

Updated modern loft banister

The very first project my husband ever completed in our house, was before we even moved in.  He ripped out the standard, boring banister in the loft, which is right above the living area and replaced it with a modern/mcm large slatted wood banister.  It’s funny, because I’m not really sure why we decide to do this, of all things, as the first project on a house, which 6 years later still has more projects we want to complete, than I can count on my hands, but we did.  And honestly I’m glad, because if we wouldn’t have done it then, it may never have been updated.

While we knew there were lots of updates we wanted to make to this house, we didn’t realize at the time, that every project, even something as simple as changing out a light fixture, would involve fixing something that was done incorrectly by previous owners or builder. 

Before

I guess with an old house, it is to be expected, but at the time we didn’t fully realize it and it was quite frustrating.  But back to the banister.  You can see it was a simple, standard turned wood banister.  Now, it is warm, rich wood that creates a sense of privacy in both the loft and living area and creates the aesthetic of a modern space.

As with most of his early projects, the hubby came up with the design and orchestrated its completion mostly on the fly.  Thank goodness he is so handy, precise and patient!

Materials used:
1/4 or 1/8" thick sheets of plywood cut into slats and stained
Metal pieces

Modern Mailbox

This is a post from another blog I had a few years back.  This pin has been fairly popular on Pinnterest, so I wanted to share it on this blog, since the main theme here is all of the updates we make to our home.

Post from [P]inspired on March 2012

So as promised, this first post is about one of the first things I found on Pinterest (sort of). After going back, I have realized I am not sure I actually found the inspiration for our new mailbox on Pinterest, but it was actually one of my first pins. In the beginning I was actually scouring the Internet and blogs for specific things I knew we wanted to change (i.e. modern mailboxes), rather than repinning other people's pins.
At that time, I was looking up from the computer every 5 minutes and saying 'Honey, you have to look at this'. One of the things I made sure he absolutely looked at was this mailbox I had come across on ModFruGal.

Since we moved into our new home a year and half ago, we have quite disliked the mailbox. It was a little blue house with a bird on it or something like that, I obviously disliked it so much I have already blocked it out. I guess it went with the styling of the house the people before us were trying to achieve, but it didn't work for us.

After showing Loren the picture and blog of the inspiration, he came up with his own styling, details and way to do it. I have no idea of the specifics of the how to and I seriously doubt he will sit down and document them. Sorry. :-(

But, being the creative and resourceful guy he is, he let the picture and styling percolate and came up with a beyond superb new mailbox that fits us perfectly.

The execution didn't exactly go as planned. After having a drought for well over a year, we recently have had a lot of rainy weather and while this is good on almost every level, this is not good when trying to do an outdoor diy project. So after 4 or so weekends, numerous visits from a curious neighbor wanting to know how it was going, unknown number of trips to the local hardware store, 3 layers of stain, many cuts and re-cuts and redesigns we have a fabulouso new mailbox. One that even a 5 year old commented on and our youngest (who is 4) proudly replied that her Daddy made it. Sometime during the first week of it being completed, my husband asked if the mailperson had left a note saying anything about the mailbox. I laughed and told him 'No', but then that got me thinking.

Now I don't know how the mailman feels about our new mailbox or if he drives up to and fills so many per day he doesn't even pay attention to them, but it made me realize that just by verbalizing something we are thinking, we could really make someone's day. How many times have you thought, 'oh, her hair looks good', 'he really is such a good parent', or 'I like what they have done with their yard', but never said anything to those people? If you are being honest, probably quite a bit. Think how much better you would feel if you received an unsolicited compliment on something you had done and were proud of or maybe just a compliment on your lipstick. Either way, I think in a small way the world would become a better place, just because two people would feel better. I guess this goes along with the 'pay it forward' philosophy, but it is also just the golden rule, "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all", flipped. So go to the flip side and change that to 'If you have something nice to say, say it!'.

Life on Tottenham Ct.

Welcome to Life on Tottenham Court!  While this is not my first time at attempting to maintain a blog, it is in reality, my first truly focused one.  My other endeavors were to document things with my children and maybe to try to track my initial fascination with Pinterest.  While I still love my kids and Pinterest, I realized that FB is a great place to document special events, pics, and memories from my personal life and when I go to Pinterest, it is usually for DIY how to’s, decorating inspiration or recipes.

As I would search for how to’s or research ideas, I realized that here in our house on Tottenham Ct., we have done most, if not more, than people are posting about on their blogs and I wanted to share it with people like to me who are creative and open minded to their updates and like a little DIY. 

Most of my posts will be documents of updates we have made to our home, though I reserve the right to post some personal DIY crafts (sugar scrub anyone?), and maybe some Haikus. Thank you for visiting and I hope you return and enjoy the experiences I will share.

-Kate