Our One Year Housiversary

Though things may have been quiet on this little blog space, they certainly have not been quiet at 203 Clay.

First things first, this past week has been a difficult one for the family. John's maternal Grandmother, Evelyn Caudill, suddenly became very sick last week and passed away Wednesday. :( It's been an emotional past few days but we were able to see her and spend a little time with her. We took our instruments to the ICU and played some of her favorite bluegrass songs which she absolutely loved.

As I've mentioned before, this house has been a family-wide project. Ev and John's Granddad checked in on us each week (she even asked about the house earlier in the week) and they have given us much-needed advice and support. Ev and John's Mom Theresa hung the wallpaper in the laundry room, pictured below. It's a special bonus that the people we love have all had a hand in putting this house back together. It is definitely bittersweet but we have good memories knowing she was a part of this house project.

So, with her in mind, and in our hearts, I'll continue our house update. 💓

The laundry room looks amazing, don't you think? Theresa & Ev can wallpaper like nobody's business! It looks so good. If you're wondering where our colored windows are, There was some shoring up that needed to be done on the back wall of the house and soon the purty ones will be hung in front of the airtight storm windows. Although now we all think this is really pretty, too, and John thinks we should just keep it like this. Why is it so hard?! GAH.

Wallpaper close-up.

The month of April is our house anniversary, the one-year mark since she became ours. Happy anniversary to us! What's more, there's a relative end in sight...so they say ;) Not too much more to do before we can move in. Yes, I just said that.

p.s. Don't forget to check our Instagram account in between blog posts because it's a lot easier (quicker) for us to post there with odds, ends, and little updates. Withdrawal-crisis averted, right?

So, the majority of our work lately has been painting trim. All the trim and crown molding were put back up, nail holes to fill, sand and paint over. And there's a lot of it. John says he'd rather die penniless than to paint for a living if that tells you anything at all. We're in a painting purgatory, in other words ;)

The end goal was to make sure most of the finishing touches happened so the flooring guys could come back to sand the original hardwood floors in the front of the house.

Painting side story: About a month ago, I had the opportunity to go on a little working getaway. The renovations were making me a little crazy (like really crazy...I'm sorry, everybody) and the break from the house was a much-needed one. After being gone a week, I got back into the painting groove but still felt a little overwhelmed with everything we needed to do.

And, don't you know, when I wasn't paying close attention, I moved the ladder over just a bit and a tray of paint dropped onto the side of my head and all over me. I nearly lost my DAMN MIND.

The aftermath. Sorry to see you go, Wildcats shirt!

This week our floors got sanded. Check Instagram for an action-packed video ;)

The front bedroom.

Carpet padding carnage. There was a huge rug in the front bedroom that we decided to leave to help save the floor during the renovation. We knew it would be hard to get up the padding underneath because it was stuck to the floor. Honestly, this moment seemed so far off in the future that it seems astonishing we're actually here. That thought gave me renewed energy yesterday as I scraped green padding ick off the floor. Some came up easily and heavily trafficked areas were more of a challenge. Look at that pretty floor underneath, though!

The ick.

The floor guys had better tools to get the rest of it up, thankfully. Much better, yes?

And now just look at this room. Wow! We learned that the front rooms (entry, living, bedroom) are all poplar. The music room is pine, and my little office floor is oak. Who knew?

The floor in the music room is also underway. Hey! Look at that mantle!

This room, as you know, is painted in guitar tones (hehe) so naturally, the mantle got the same treatment. The inspiration for the color was Jeff Beck's Oxblood Les Paul, for all you guitar nerds scoring at home.

The color of the guitar is a deep maroon/reddish brown, which really complements the gold walls. Ours turned out a little more on the chocolate side, depending on the light, but who doesn't like chocolate?!

This room is ready for pickin'.

The poplar is really gorgeous.

Here's a look at the first coat of polyurethane on the floors. It looks incredible. They came back today to apply a second coat and they also installed most of the thresholds which helps complete the look. What do you think??

While I'm thinking about it, the pocket doors in the living room are now working better. Our friends Greg and Tyler, who came over to work on the kitchen, did us a favor and got the doors on track — literally. They slide in and out much easier now, instead of getting stuck or not working at all. They worked some magic one day and poof they were fixed. At least that's how I imagined it went.

John worked really hard for a couple of days priming and painting the doors and they look great! I helped some but he did most of the work. Now my job is to clean up the hardware and they'll be good to go.

Oooo 💗

Now about this ol' kitchen. We thought a light neutral would be the best course of action on the walls. There are already some bold color choices around the house, so we chose a color called "Ashen Tan."

Kitchen wall color — Ashen Tan

Once the room was painted, it was time for the kitchen to be put together. Major kudos to John's Mom once again because she masterminded the layout of cabinets. We know when to get out of the way and let the professionals do their thang.

We used a combination of cabinets that we bought at Goodwill in Lexington and original cabinets from the old kitchen. The old cabinets were of good quality and still in great shape, so, fortunately, they could be used. As for Goodwill in Lex, it's a good place to explore if you like that kind of thing. They get all kinds of good stuff, including architectural salvage. It's worth visiting from time to time! Just judging from their Instagram account, the Cincinnati Reuse Center gets a lot of cool salvage items, too, but I haven't gotten up there yet.

The diamond pane cabinets were another pair old doors we bought at a local antique store and had cabinets made especially for them. In love.

In this big room, we are going to put a pair of old corbels up to help break things up a little bit. The photo below is a mock-up so we could see what it would look like. I'll post a photo next time once they are restored, painted & up. Hopefully, we'll have the main lights up in the room, too, for the full effect.

Do we like? Yes!

Initially, we had a mossy green color picked out for the cabinets but ended up painting them "Dark Night" — the same color as the trim in the front bedroom. The mossy green color was almost identical to the dining room color and left us feeling unimpressed. We wanted more "punch" in the kitchen. Theresa (a mastermind, I'm telling you) noticed a piece of the blue trim propped up against the wall & thought it would be a great compliment to the colors in the dining and laundry room. And, she was right. It looks fantastic with the dolomite marble countertops we picked out.

John's excited about his gas stove!

It was so exciting to get the sink out of storage and finally install it! The faucet we got at Lowe's.

My little office is coming along. To be honest, it's the one room that's gotten a little neglected just because more important projects had to be done first. The 4-inch tongue and groove boards and larger crown molding on the ceiling really give this small room a certain kind of polished look. John says it looks like an officer's headquarters on the 1700s frontier which is the best compliment I could get! The wainscotting will be finished soon and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

The front bedroom looks great and is shaping up to be a calming, zen kind of bedroom. "Dark Night" is an interesting color. Looking at the paint in the can gave me pause because it has deep teal undertones...you wonder how it will dry. On the trim and cabinets, it's a beautiful, deep navy blue, which is exactly what I was going for.

I also painted my clawfoot tub with that same 'Dark Night' color. On the metal tub, it became a deep lagoon kind of teal which looks really cool.

Here she is ready to be placed in the bathroom:

If you haven't seen the feet up close yet, check these out! My friend, Ashley, is an insanely talented painter and she owns The Blue Rose in downtown Mt. Sterling. She offered to help me with my clawfoot feet because I had this crazy idea and needed some assistance!

After going down the Pinterest rabbit hole looking at clawfoot tub feet, there wasn't anything that spoke to me. I thought, "wouldn't it be cool if..." but I never found anyone else who tried my idea. Each set of feet I saw were solid colors.

My diabolical plan was to have cosmos-inspired claw balls. Umm...that definitely sounded awkward and weird. Just humor me! Below is the picture that provided some inspiration:

You may remember a few months ago, the feet were stripped of all paint and then I spray-painted them bronze. Once they were dry Ashley told me to bring them down to her shop and she worked her magic!

Head over claws in love!

So, it turns out that the master bathroom has a very (unintentional) dreamy Alice In Wonderland kind of feeling to it.

Here's your first clue:

What if there was a company that manufactured this wallpaper and that wallpaper ended up on a wall in our bathroom?? You just wait!

I hope y'all have a great week. There are more updates to share and I hate to make promises I can't keep but will try to post again soon.