House of Witz: Where We Are Now, Room By Room...

In my last post, I described my feelings regarding our home and how they are slowly evolving. I also shared photos of what the house looked like when we moved in. The only room missing is Miss Madeline's room. They did not take a picture of it for HAR.com and it was so hideous, it never occured to me to snap a quick photo. The original color of her room is hard to describe, but this is my best effort...a combination of medium chocolate brown and olive green. Gross, gross, gross! On top of the wall color, EVERY piece of trim, door, crown molding, chair rail, kitchen cabinets, etc. in the entire house is about 10 coats of high gloss paint. This becomes a huge problem because every time you barely knick or scrape any of these pieces, huge areas of paint start to peel off. It makes a horrible mess. So, back to the Madeline room story. The color of the crown molding and chair rail was a miserable cream (I think that it was just really dirty white!), so it needed to be relieved of it's layers and given a fresh, bright coat of white paint!. Because of the high gloss paint, we had to scrape every inch of paint off of the crown molding, chair rail, window frames, closet and bedroom doors. That alone took 3 weeks. The pictures below is where we are now. (Please ignore the cluttered toys and such! We will be redecorating and going through all toys very soon!)

Madeline's Room

Charlotte's Room

(These beds, nightstand and dresser will be painted a creamy white!)

The Small Wall of Pictures That We Have Started

We Rearranged Our Living Room and Love This So Much Better!

From the Dining Room Looking Towards the Study

It Took Many Coats, But YES, That Is A White Ceiling!!!

(My husband and my father made my mantle for me!)

Den Looking Toward the Dining Room

Looking Out the Sliding Glass Door Into the Backyard

(Excuse the dog nose fluid and slobber on the doors!)

Den Looking From Sliding Glass Door

Our Master Bedroom

We took down the crown molding in the master bedroom because it resembled a castle! I have never seen anything like it in a "commoner's" home. The chair rail will be coming down as well because of our wall-hanging bedside tables. On top of it all, they are that awful creamy (dirty white) color and of course, coated in 10 coats of high gloss paint! This room is still absolutely a work in progress. We will be putting a taupe color of some sort on the walls and when I find a fabric to fall in love with, I will make curtains to adorn the windows. Speaking of curtains, you will see below a picture of some white curtains...that is our closet! My Mother is so not a fan of the concept of curtains instead of a door, but we absolutely hated our bi-fold doors! They would get stuck everytime you opened them and would wake up Madeline. Anyway, they were ridiculous, so until Mr. Witz and I can decide what we would like to do to hide the clothes, shoes, purses, bags, hats, etc., we chose some curtains from Ikea. Cheap and easy.

Above our chests, we are hanging some 3 month portraits that we have of each of the girls wearing the same Petit Ami pink dress and in almost the identical same pose. We are also going to replace the knobs on the chests to "dress" them up.

Walking Into the Master Bathroom

Notice the curtains in the far right of the picture? That is where our washing machine and dryer are located. They are the same Ikea curtains as are in our bedroom. They did not build this area out deep enough for any washing machine/dryer, so doors are not possible. The machines stick out too far, so curtains were really our only option to hide the laundry "stuff".

My Wall of Crosses

We have left the girls bathroom the same color. It matches the multi-green mosaic tiles on the floor. We have just added a stark white shower curtain and pink towels. (oh and of course, Dora!) I am just waiting for PBK to give me something that I cannot live without and then I will redo their bathroom.

The Formal Living Room - Otherwise Known as The Playroom!

Right now the wall color for the playroom, kitchen and "walkway" is a light grey blue. We plan on painting all of the light blue Ralph Lauren's Cymeric Silver (which is the master bath color). The navy blue wall will either stay the same or be painted a beautiful, deep plum color. We still have not decided...

From the Dining Looking Into the Playroom (and Front Door)

One of My Favorite Walls in the House

A Little of Everything In This Picture

The Ikea Black "Grid" - Houses the Girl's Toys and Some of Their Books

From Playroom Looking Towards Dining Room and Den

The Dreaded Kitchen

I have very little counter or cabinet space. The appliances are awful (with the exception of the new dishwasher that I insisted on upon moving in) and white. The countertops are dirty (no matter how much I scrub them, they still feel gross). The tile and grout is disgusting and ugly. I know, short and choppy here, but there really is not too much to say. Horrible, horrible kitchen. Ugh... We keep talking about updating, but there is NEVER a good time to destroy your kitchen when you are a stay at home mom and have two toddlers! I am baking several times a week and cook two to three meals a day, so it is looking like now is a good time.

Looking from the Walkway Into the Kitchen

From Playroom Looking Into the Kitchen

Looking from Kitchen Into the Walkway (Notice Our Beautiful Sideboard and Hutch? Had to Be Purchased to House Baking Dishes, Etc. Since I Have No Storage!)

The Dining Room

Our dining Room is a work in progress. Since it is part of the "old" house, the electricity is not updated in this room. Did I forget to mention in my previous post, that 2/3 of the house's electricity has not been updated. Our course, we are taking care of that, but until it is done, we cannot update fans, lighting fixtures or add any new ones either. What am I going to do with that big blank wall you ask? What I really want to do, is to knock out part of the wall and add a window, but the Mr. and I are not too sure how much money we want to sink into this house since we do not plan on staying here too much longer. Most likely we will buy an oversized mirror to give the illusion of more light. We also plan on purchasing a chandelier and I have found several on Overstock.com. Again, not wanting to spend too much money here either. The wall color is Ralph Lauren Neutral Brown (always has been one of our favorites), but we are missing our old neutral pallette and are considering going with a beautiful cream. Ryan also installed the chair rail, but we still have some work there.

From Kitchen/Walkway to Dining Room

Wall with the Master Bathroom

Our Beautiful Dining Room Table (It Has Two Leaves and Can Seat 12 to 14 and Has Come In Very Handy!) Pottery Barn Rug 9x12' (We Bought the Blue to Coordinate with the Slate Flooring - Not Necessarily the Best Plan)