I switched out the dress form that was in here from the one in our master bedroom — the purple (and pink dress on it!) form works much better, and the wire one will work just as well beside our nightstand. I’ve also stolen the curtains from Jason’s office, feeling they were too girly for his space (and he very much agreed!) as well as the bookcase, standing it length-wise to conserve space.

I am still debating on colors for the full daybed sheets, which is why I chose not to show it (and keep it as a surprise!). I also now have big plans to create my own daybed with the help of a co-worker (the same one who built us our amazingly waterproof outdoor storage bench!) we are going to recreate my love of the pallet-style daybed fit for a full-sized mattress instead.

Above the desk, I am still deciding on whether or not we want to do a bulletin-board or chalk board. So many people are now using chalk boards in their homes, especially in the home office. But… the parallel bulletin boards look great too! Hmm…

Courtesy of Martha Stewart, marthastewart.com

Ballard Designs August 2010 Catalog, ballarddesigns.com

I had been debating between three colors, one too orange, too cream.. but I think we found the perfect yellow.

“Sunbeam” by Pittsburgh Paint. I have already posted about how much I love Pittsburgh Paint earlier when we changed colors in our main bathroom. We mixed a gallon tonight in Pittsburgh Paint’s Pure Performance line and tomorrow morning the painting begins!

We also rented our Compound Miter Saw, too.

For a 24 hour rental you can rent this baby for around $30, not too bad.

Jason and his friend Chris measured and cut the boards for each section of the kitchen. They used a scrap piece of wood to fine tune the angles for both corners, but Jason said the miter saw made cutting the angles very easy.

We didn’t put the boards in place permanently just yet because 1) I want to paint them white beforehand and 2) we ran into a small problem.

Amateur Problem #1. When you measure the height of said board under cabinets, make sure the height is the same throughout the kitchen. We found out the hard way that the cabinets in front of the sink dropped slightly lower than the rest of the cabinets.

It already looks better! Goodbye ugly vinyl! I’ll be sure to post an update on the finished look once the paint has dried and we’ve got them into place permanently.

P.S. Zoey has finally figured out Charlie’s best sleeping spot (our 2nd couch, where all of the throw pillows end up on most of the time!)

Zoey & Charlie

Except this one, when I was painting the door and hallway.

We were happy to sell the unit for $50. First of all, it was a much greener option. We could have paid to take it to the dump, but instead we were able to find someone who wanted to fix it up and re-use it! We hope we can continue to do this as we start to update the rest of the appliances in the house.

Now that we are saving up for a wedding as well as home renovations,  Jason and I want to start narrowing down our monthly budget, and one of the areas we can definitely streamline is the amount of money we spend on food when there is only two of us. Jason, thankfully, is just as ambitious about our new budget and is also looking forward to eating more healthy and learning how to cook new meals by rethinking about how to use what we already have in the pantry.

For example (although I will admit neither of these can be considered really healthy for you, I am still very excited I took something from our fridge and stretched it further than we usually would use it) we have had these blueberries for a while, and even though I try to eat fruit consistently I was afraid they would go bad before we finished them. So a few mornings ago I was ambitious and made blueberry pancakes and tonight, I baked blueberry cobbler for the first time with Jason’s help (he suggested the icing).

STC Blueberry Cobbler:

- 2 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

- 6 tablespoons of butter

- 4 teaspoons of baking powder

- 2 cups of flour

- 1 1/2 cups of sugar

- 3/4 cup of milk

- Enough cinnamon-sugar to top the cobbler how you like to.

Directions: Set oven to 375 F and grease an 8×8 pan and mix in blueberries with vanilla and lemon juice. Mix together one tablespoon of melted butter and 1 cup of sugar together, then add to blueberries. Set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and rest of sugar together. Melt the rest of the butter and mix in with the flour. Slowly add the milk until you get the consistency of really wet dough. Once you let the batter sit awhile (five minutes or so) spread it over the blueberries, making sure you have a few holes to let the berries breathe a little. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over the batter. Bake for around 25 minutes and you’re done!

P.S. Continuing progress on the guest room…

I was very happy because we went shopping and bought a brand new, LG enery-efficient washer and dryer.

They are so beautiful. They chime. They don’t make any noise, even during the spin cycle!  They are also energy-star rated and energy-efficient. Here’s the streamlined beauties in their new home:

Does this make me feel old when I am this excited about laundry? I hope not.

Please remember, these walls were considered a great color when Jason and I moved in. In retrospect, it is way too bright and tropical for our tastes. Bennett seemed to enjoy it.

Here is the beginning stage of our home office corner, where we can stay organized with billing and other important files. It will help to keep these separate and out of the way of Jason’s deejay setup in the office room.

(The dress form was given to me by Jason’s grandmother, and I am still figuring out where to display it and to place it properly so please forgive its awkward pose for now)

We plan on getting an electrician in to remove the outlet from where it is and actually put it inside the closet to hide the modem.

We actually aren’t quite sure what to do with this corner. The TV will be leaving soon (a co-worker is going to take it off our hands since Bennett did not want to take it with him, and we really don’t need the TV in here) so we are still at a blank here.

This corner will hold the future daybed! All of the shelves and the bulletin board will be removed (I may add a different style shelf later on above the bed) but that is also where I have pinned yellow colors to debate.

I’m leaning towards colors in the third row of each paintstrip, such as Pittsburgh Paint‘s “Cornmeal,” “Bright Laughter” and “Butterfly Bush.” I still need to see what the colors look like in afternoon lighting. This guest room will get more sun later in the day than in the morning and I am fearful of the yellow becoming too neon at any point (that would be nauseating!)

Hopefully color decisions will move quickly and this weekend the green will be gone! Once the bed is moved in, I will update you all on what the office looks like without all of its extraneous items where they belong.

Let’s end with a puppy update.

We are also very excited about having another room in our house again. I had mentioned a long time ago that we needed to desperately organize our office, and I’ll be honest it hasn’t gotten much better since then.

But! I have a few ideas brewing, and a lot of inspiration to draw from. We have realized that having Jason’s deejaying and a personal home office in the same room doesn’t work very well. We plan on creating the guest bedroom into a home office as well with a smaller desk and the printer, so Jason will have more room for his DJ set-up.

I have always wanted a daybed somewhere in the house, something like this from Katie at bowerpowerblog.com. This is her dressing room:

Katie's dressing room from bowerpowerblog.com!

Isn’t it beautiful? So comfortable looking, too! I am going to try to recreate a similar idea in our guestroom but with a full-sized bed. Yes, a full-sized bed. Most of our friends are couples that stay over, so I need to make sure it is comfortable enough for two people but can also be a hang-out for us in the house as a daybed.

So where do I turn to for a full-sized bedframe? Ikea, of course! Meet the Rebbenes leg frame for only $89.99

So simple and streamlined, I could use this as our base and mimic the daybed frame with bolster and other decorative pillows and linens. I’m leaning towards white and light, similar to the sheets in the master bedroom.

I’ll also be moving our white chair, the Ikea Skruvsta, which hasn’t had a home since we removed the second desk from the office, into the guest bedroom and create a small home office where we can organize our bills.

I’m still looking for a small, slim desk for the office. I’ll let you know when I choose a paint color. I’m debating on pale blue or pale yellow.

Also, here’s a sneak peak of what else we’ve been up to here at STC:

Elfa Freestanding works like any other organized closet system, except it has feet that are able to hold the system up without the support of a wall. Plus, their catalog makes it really hard to resist.

Photo courtesy of Elfa

We bought a basic system with two closet rods of varying length and a top shelf to put all of Jason’s sweatshirts. It is the perfect solution for our closets, so we tested it with our master bedroom one first. Here is the result:

What a relief to be organized again! A little over a month we have suffered with clothes in piles all over the bedroom, but thanks to Elfa Freestanding we finally have our bedroom back.

This is tough when you want to hang something on your wall. Like a picture. Maybe a shelf.

Maybe a shelving system for your clothing inside your closet that needs to hold both his and hers.

Well, no matter what type of anchors we have used — our closet shelving does not hold. A few days ago, as I was blissfully sleeping in on a day off, I awoke to the loudest bang and realized that instead of it being in another room it was just beside me in the master bedroom closet.

One entire rack fell down, crashing onto the other and sending clothing, anchors, and rack support everywhere. I was awake for the rest of the day, to say the least.

So we are on the hunt for a better solution as we ponder how to reinstall drywall (yes, it’s that bad!) and also where my camera may have gone off to, so I can finally show you a picture of the damage it did. But stay tuned as we research! We are leaning towards elfa, but are hesitant on the pricing of their freestanding closets.

One problem at a time, right? That’s never the case.