It’s done!
Posted: April 7, 2013 Filed under: DIY, home, Home Decor, Landscape, remodeling, Uncategorized | Tags: animals, architecture, bathroom, bedroom, decorating, DIY, dog, dogs, ferret, flooring, hipster, Home, home decor, home decorating, home improvement, home remodeling, home rennovation, house remodeling, house rennovation, kansas, kansas city, kitchen, landscape, landscape design, love, paint, pets, prairie village, remodeling, rennovation, tile 2 CommentsIt’s a little over a month after I wanted to have my house listed but it is now officially done! After many many months of hard work I am so happy to say everything is finally finished and I finally feel like I can breathe! I’ve done a lot of touch up jobs and a lot of small things that I won’t bore you with. Here are a lot of before and after pictures! I’m just finishing up some paper work, figuring out pricing and looking to have my house listed by the end of this week!!
Enjoy…
Now to the inside…
Well…I believe that covers it, minus the basement and the garage those look the same…
I did however replace that bottom section of the garage door that is rotting and I removed some shelves from the basement to open it up a little more…
This house has become my life for the past 15 months. I have put A LOT of blood, sweat and tears into it…literally. Even though my time with it is very close to being over I’ve have learned a lot through this project and I hope that whoever lives in it next will continue on with what I have started. No matter where I am or where I’m living a little part of me will always be with this house. I’m ready to move on and start the next journey in my life and am excited to create a home in California again. Until then, for the next few weeks, our heart are anchored in this little cottage we call home…
Finally…
Posted: March 3, 2013 Filed under: DIY, home, Home Decor, Landscape, remodeling, Uncategorized | Tags: DIY, dog, ferret, Home, home improvement, home remodeling, home rennovation, house, house remodeling, kansas, kansas city, kc, prairie village, rennovation 4 CommentsWell I may have not posted since the summer but I definitely continued working through fall and winter. I’ve gotten A LOT done since my last post so I’ll try to get most things caught up to speed. Last time I posted I was in the process of landscaping and ripping up my back yard. My yard was a dirt and hay disaster for the fall and into the beginning of fall. With a lot of watering and some fertilizing I was able to grow a much nicer, bigger and improved backyard!
and this is how west felt about it…
Things are starting look just as good inside as out!
Another major project I took on was the upstairs bathroom. It is the only full bathroom in the house so I wanted it to be nice, clean and look new! The peach walls and mildew stained tub just weren’t cutting it for me anymore!
Here are a few pictures of the bathroom before…
The first step of this bathroom was ripping that disgusting linoleum up that was on the floor. When I started to take it up I got pretty excited because they had a pretty unique and cool tile underneath. I knew it was only a matter of time though before I found why they would cover up tile with that nasty stuff…
sure enough I they had an area beside and behind the toilet with no tile at all. I knew it was too good to be true!
I had the walls in the bathroom and the tub all refinished and I installed new tile on the floor. I also painted the walls and cabinets and changed the original lighting fixtures. A complete bathroom remodel but it made all the difference it the world! It was so nice being able to take a shower in a bright, shiny, clean, new bathroom!
For some reason this is the only picture of my bathroom I can find so I will have to take more and upload them tomorrow. This is your teaser…and even though I was stoked about the new tub I knew there was one boy who was going to miss his “ship”…
…jasper seriously loves jumping in bathtubs more than anything. i call it his ship and someday i will write a children’s story called “captain jap and his magnificent ship.”
If that wasn’t enough I still have more! Next was the kitchen floor. I had finished the kitchen a while ago but the one thing left to do in there was get rid of the disgusting floor…
Luckily this floor was super easy to take up. Literally did it in about 20mins, while my dinner was cooking. Typical Friday night!
After that was up it took me a few days to install the new floor. I had a rough time at first because I decided to not read the instructions and just figure it out myself. I wasted a bit of the product but eventually I learned. I saw where a good tool to use would be these…
They worked alright but not great. However now I have a giant ass pair of scissors!
Again I will have to upload more pictures because this is the only one I have and it was taken before the trim was put back on. Gives you an idea though and looks way nicer than it did! Overall this was a really simple fast project. I may have lost a pinky nail while doing it but for me…that’s not that bad!
I’ll post one last project for the evening and hopefully update the rest later this week.
I patched and painted my bedroom finally! You’d think that a bedroom would be someone’s first priority but for some reason mine got the back burner big time. One weekend I finally decided to give it some TLC though…
before was boring and terrible…
I really did a terrible job of taking pictures of the aftermath of my projects. These two were taken before I scraped the windows and hung blinds. I apologize my my messy bed. #thisisreallifefolks!
There is a better picture of my mint green accent wall and to I brought in a special model to show it off even better….
He wears it well! He also wears this well…
and this…
I promise there will be another post later this week! I have much more to show and projects that I have done. I’m putting this beaut up for sale in about a week. It’s been a great past year here and my boys and I will miss it very much! I’ve put a lot of blood sweat and tears into this house. As well as my heart and soul. I hope the next owner will love it, appreciate it and take care of it as much as I have! It’ll be hard to leave but we are ready to get back to our other “home”…California!
Until then…our hearts are anchored in this little cottage we call home!
Hammocks, Birthdays and Summer…
Posted: August 25, 2012 Filed under: cooking, DIY, food, home, Home Decor, Landscape, remodeling, Uncategorized | Tags: anchor, berries, cake, cap cod, coffee, cottage, design, dog, dogs, farmers market, hammock, hipster, Home, home decor, home decorating, home rennovation, house remodeling, house rennovation, interior design, jeep, kansas, kansas city, landscape, landscape design, love, outdoors, outside, prairie village, remodeling, strawberries, summer, west 2 CommentsWell by now I think it’s safe to say I suck at this whole blog thing…I’ve just been too busy working hard at enjoying the summer…
Once again there has been a lot that has gone on since the last time i posted…
I turned 26! Yeah that’s my birthday cake. Go ahead and be jealous. It was beyond awesome.
The 4th of July…
And apparently my name has been changed to Trish. I know I mumble but come on…how do you get Trish out of Gretchen?
As far as the house goes, it has had some major changes as well this summer. Especially on the outside.
A few pictures of the house when I moved in…
And the back before a little demolition…
West enjoying his patio one last time…
My backyard looks huge now! It also looks like a petting zoo currently. Waiting for a little cooler weather so I can start growing some grass. Right now its just a bunch of dirt and hay.
And for the front…
This single picture says it all. The landscape is still not 100% complete. Still have a little bit of planting to do but it’s definitely made a HUGE difference so far!
As always, our hearts are anchored in this little cottage we call home…
M.I.A…
Posted: May 31, 2012 Filed under: cooking, DIY, food, home, Home Decor, remodeling, Uncategorized | Tags: cooking, decorating, desk, DIY, dog, food, hipster, Home, home decor, home decorating, home rennovation, kangaroo, kansas, kansas city, kitchen, local, love, nature, office, pasta, prairie village, remodeling, rennovation, road, sheep, table, trip, vegetarian, vintage, west, wood, zoo Leave a commentWow, I’m finally getting around to update another post. My apologies for going M.I.A. In my defense I have been pretty busy doing things like…
finding trees that resemble E.T….
going on road trips…
feeding sheep…
crossing paths with hungover kangaroos…you get the point.
I unfortunately haven’t had much time to work on the house but I think things might be slowing down a bit so that’s a good sign! Like I said I haven’t done much but I finally finished the desk for my office and got it in place, and the whole “getting it in place” was not easy. Solid wood doors are extremely heavy and large and carrying it up a flight of stairs is not a fun task. I’m fairly positive that door weighs more than me so needless to say it was an interesting experience trying to get upstairs to the office! I loved the way it turned out and there is no way you can beat a $4 giant desk!
The bench and the chair are new additions which I got for free as well. A few weekends ago it was “big item pickup” in my neighborhood, so for me it was like heaven. Everything people set out as there trash soon because my treasure! My garage is now full with things I may never find a use for but at the time I felt like I had won the lottery.
Another great find from the large item pick up was an old flowerbed that with a little work I turned into a coffee table.
All it took was a good cleaning, some sanding, removal and tightening of a few screws and a piece of glass. Only $46 was the final cost!
Other than that not to much else has been done as far as improvements on the house, but I will say, going to the farmers market every weekend is allowing the kitchen to get some great use…
…yeah, it was as good as it looks!
The house is still a long way from being done but one thing is certain, it’s filled with good food and great love!
Our hearts are anchored in this little cottage we call home.
Allergies, Baby Birds, and a Stairwell
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: DIY, home, Home Decor | Tags: allergies, anchor, animals, architecture, baby birds, bird, cottage, custom, cute, DIY, dog, dogs, hipster, Home, home decor, home rennovation, house, house remodeling, house rennovation, jasper, kansas, kansas city, michelleswork, Mid-west, missouri, nature, paint, prairie village, puppy, remodeling, robin, stairs, stairwells, theanchorcottage, vintage, west Leave a commentSo…it’s been a pretty crazy week. My grandmother was in town for her and my mom’s birthday, I was sick for a few days, West made a trip to the vet because he’s been itching like a maniac. In a panic I gave him a little hair cut in attempts to figure out what was causing the itching…
turns out he’s just allergic to the mid-west. Sorry for the shave buddy.
Annnd I’ve been taking care of baby birds…
The eggs in my back yard haven’t hatched yet, in fact it’s gone from 4 eggs to one…I’m loosing hope that that last one will survive. 😦 But there were three baby robins that hatched in my parents front yard. After finding out that only 25% of baby robins make it through the spring due to lack of food and human tampering I took it upon myself to give the mother worms everyday. Had to make sure her babies were staying healthy and growing. She got to the point where she recognized me and would hop over towards me when she saw me cause she was hoping I had worms.
It worked cause in only a few weeks those crazy birds were getting antsy and ready to take flight…
And within a few more days one by one they left…
So cute…going to miss those little guys. I feel like a proud second mother.
As far as the house goes I’ve been busy getting a few projects started. Probably the most exciting for me is, I got a desk! I picked up a free solid wood door, that is ridiculously heavy, and I picked up a pair of saw horses at an estate sale the other day for $4.
Put them together and I have myself a $4 desk!
The door had a gross boring finish on it that wasn’t really my style so I’ve been working on “distressing” it and making it look more natural. As of right now I’ve just been sanding the finish off so the grain the the wood is more prominent.
Still have work to do on it but I’m super excited about finishing this and getting it up in the office.
I also started painting the hallway. I originally was going to do a different color for the hallway. To mix it up instead of having the white everywhere. I decided on a color called silver mink. It was still light and settle but had a pop of color to it…
Naturally the hallway was the same blue that was all over the rest of the house.
Luckily I just bought a tester pint of the silver mink because I ended up changing up what I wanted to do with this area. I had a little chalkboard paint left over from the office and so I decided I was going to accent the actual steps instead of the walls…
With the stairs being black the walls definitely needed to be white so keep it from looking like the stair way to hell.
I went to the craft store and bought some stencils and chalk and decided to number the stairs…
eventually I think I will paint the numbers so they don’t have to touch them up all the time.
I took off the huge iron rail that went up the stairs and patched that as well. I think this will help open up the space which is essential since its the first thing you see when you open the front door to the house.
This is just after one coat of paint. So work is still in progress. But it’s a big difference from the blue. I have custom hand drawn silhouettes of me and my boys that are being drawn by the amazingly talented Michelle Bandach (http://michelleswork.com/ please check out her stuff) that I can’t wait to hang in this stair well.
I apologize that everything about this picture looks drunk. The numbers and the whole picture. Looks like I was falling over as I was taking it. The numbers need to be measured and leveled this was just a rough draft to get a feel for what it will look like. I will try to post before and afters tonight or tomorrow once I finish painting the while and getting the numbers straight! And I promise to take a straight picture.
Until next time, our hearts are anchored in this little cottage we call home…
The Office Continued…
Posted: April 14, 2012 Filed under: DIY, home, Home Decor | Tags: anchor, bird, cottage, DIY, dog, dogs, Home, home decor, home rennovation, house, jasper, kansas, kansas city, love, missouri, office, paint, prairie village, records, rennovation, retro, robin, thrift, vintage, west, yard Leave a commentFinally! It’s done! Being painted that is…
I finished painting to office last night finally. It looks a thousand times better. Now, I just need to furnish it. Its crazy to think about how people furnish their homes. Especially very large ones. It’s expensive enough to buy a home and then trying to furnish one is a whole nothing huge expense in it’s self. It’s ridiculous! I’ve am having to furnish the majority of this house because I didn’t have much moving into it. When I lived in California I had an extremely small studio that literally had a desk, a dresser, and a bed. Now I have to somehow manage to fill a two bedroom home. Since my budget is still extremely small estate sales and thrift stores are my best friends. The only problem with those is you have to be patient. You can find some amazing deals but it may take you a while to find exactly what you’re looking for, but if you do. Its worth it!
In my last post I showed a mirror and a couch that were recent finds. I also found an amazing chair at goodwill the other day. This bad boy cost me $30 and I love it…
A few other steals I have found are these…
The lamp was a HomeGoods find for $20 and the bar set was in the clearance section at Home Decorators, and the furniture piece is an old 1960s Magnavox record player cabinet that I got for free from some friends of mine who were moving to Nashville. They said it didn’t work and it was too big to take so I gladly took it off their hands and put faith in the little fellow that I could get it to work. Sure enough all it needed was a new needle (which actually came with the record player) and to have a good bath and I got it spinning 45s in no time!
I love this thing and I love even more that it was free!
So back to the office…here are a few finished pictures! I’m on the hunt for a large, but not bulky desk, for the right side of the room and a nice futon for the left side. I want to incorporate some other sort of sleeping space so not all my guests have to share a bed with me and my pups.
I really happy with the way it turned out now I just can’t wait to get it decorated!
In other news…
still waiting for the baby robins to hatch but mama is taking good care of them,
I have a lot of what I think to be rhubarb growing in my back yard,
aaand my neighbors apparently don’t know how to mow their lawn. lame. although it makes mine look better its getting a little out of hand. I’ve mowed 3 times and they have yet to.
Last but not least I must mention the two best deals I have yet to find and they will certainly be hard to top…
Jasper was free because someone was trying to get rid of him and West was a birthday present for my 23rd birthday.
Even though they were free I would’ve given everything I had for these two boys. They are priceless and always will be.
our hearts are anchored in this little cottage we call home…
Tired…
Posted: April 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anchor, california, coffee, cottage, couch, DIY, dog, dogs, eagle, family, Home, house, house remodeling, house rennovation, jasper, kansas, kansas city, love, mirror, missouri, office, paint, prairie village, remodeling, rennovation, sleep, theanchorcottage, vintage, west Leave a commentI’ve slowed down a little bit this week. I’ve been exhausted. I think all the work and stress is finally starting to catch up with me now.
Looks like I’m not alone.
Thankfully I’ve had an overwhelming good response to my blog and it’s really helped me stay on task and focused. Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to check out my journey.
Also a big thanks to the two following things for waking me up and keeping me energized everyday…
The mini keurig! I don’t know where I’d be without it. Thanks mom!
and my daily alarm clock. If he wasn’t so cute he would drive me nuts in the morning.
I’ve continued to work on the office. Painting should be done by Friday which is exciting. It’s taken longer than expected because I’ve had to put three coats of paint over the bottom layer of the room that was painted navy blue. The hard work is paying off though and its looking great. I can’t wait until it gets done and I can get things organized in there!
Not the best pic but a quick reminder of what the office looked like before.
The walls in this house are insane. On average, per wall, there are probably about 10 nail holes. At least 40 a room. I have no idea what the people had on their walls before I lived here but it is crazy. Several holes are much larger than a nail too, so there is no telling. Those are two walls from the office. It definitely required the most patch work so far.
Excuse the clutter on the floor. All this other work has left me unpacking very very slowly. As you can see half the room is done and looking good!
On another exciting note…I got a new couch. This is probably my favorite estate sale find so far! I love it and I can’t wait to get the family room done so I can showcase this bad boy!
It huge and incredible.
One more great thrift store find was this mirror…
note: this picture is taken off the internet because I can’t seem to find where the before picture of my mirror ended up, but this is what my mirror looked like when I purchased it.
and after…my $10 thrift store find looks brand new and the boys liked it too…
We will leave it on that note and a hi-five to another successful day…
I found the easter eggs…and the bunny
Posted: April 8, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anchor, bunny, DIY, dog, dogs, easter, eggs, Home, house, kansas, kansas city, outside, paint, park, prairie village, remodeling, rennovation Leave a commentHappy Easter to all those who celebrate it and for those of you who don’t hope you Sunday was relaxing, enjoyable and spent with loved ones. Even though it was Sunday and a holiday there was no resting for me. I started the day off at one of my favorite places in the world, the dog park. It’s always a good vibe filled with the best creatures on earth, the dogs that is, not the humans.
West decided to play with the largest dog I have ever seen. That dogs head came up to my breast. He was insanely amazing.
After the park we came home ready to work on this lovely day. My parents brought over a chain saw and cut down a bunch of dead bushes and what not. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t need to be anywhere near a chainsaw so I spent the majority of the day wandering around the back yard discovering new things. It was a successful Easter because of these two discoveries…
I found real easter eggs and…a moment of silence please…
the easter bunny. poor fellow. R.I.P.
After those exciting and tragic discoveries I was done with yard work for the day.
Next step was starting to paint one of the bedrooms which will be the office. Yes, there was plenty other things I could do but my ADD had me starting on the office…
One quick tip I’ve learned from painting: line your paint tray in foil it makes for a much easier and quicker clean up. That is the one down fall to painting…the clean up takes for ever!
This is the office before. white on top and go figure, a shade of blue on the bottom. At least the navy was better than the blue downstairs.
I’m painting the office white again minus this wall. I put chalkboard paint on top and white on bottom. I’ll post a better picture when it’s light out and the paint tape is down. Eventually my desk will go against this wall and the chalkboard paint will work great for an inspiration wall!
Another successful day down.
I will leave you with this sweet face and crooked paw…
man he is cute!
Curb Appeal…
Posted: April 8, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anchor, DIY, dogs, Home, house, jeep, kansas, kansas city, lights, paint, prairie village, remodeling, rennovation 1 CommentExciting things went down at the homefront today! I’m exhausted and I’m surprised my limbs still work. I may have to amputate my arms at some point… Regardless the house is finally starting to really look great, or at least the outside is! This past week I’ve had painters here painting the exterior of my house. This was the one expense I had to splurge on. There is no way I was about to take upon that challenge myself. Instead I found a nice guy named Jose and his posse to helped me out. Not only did he paint he even left me two packets of diced jalapenos in my back yard. Good ole Jose…
The paint job was worth every penny though. It’s unbelievable how a few little things can transform a house.
This is the first picture I ever took of the house. I was driving by in my car. I’m not sure how I ever thought it was cute to begin with. It kind of looks like death. Literally it’s dark, creepy and has a weird eerie look to it.
Before starting the exterior paint I had to do some work on the garage. I had to replace the bottom panel and get new springs and cables so it could we in working condition.
That was the bottom before it was replaced. Rotting and disgusting. I didn’t take a picture of it once it was replaced but you will see in the following pictures. Turned out looking great!
Now onto the paint…
After day 1 my house was looking even more like the leper of the neighborhood than it did before. Poor thing…
Day two brightened things up a bit…even all my windows. This was actually really convenient cause for one night I could walk around naked where ever I pleased. (I haven’t had blinds or window coverings since I moved in. Only a week ago did I get one for my bathroom window. Until then I was showering in the dark to spare my neighbors from my naked body.
The house was looking better but how those stairs and door need a serious makeover too.
luckily they got one and by the time Jose and his boys packed up my house looked like this…
So that leads me to today. The house was looking so much better but there are still some things that need to be done. This morning I woke up, ate a bagel, drank a cup of coffee, popped an anxiety pill and headed off to home depot. I grabbed some supplies, some new light fixtures and new house numbers and got to work.
First light was hung easily and successfully. (yes that mailbox will go eventually too)
Second light was a little more difficult. My biggest issue was that I needed a ladder to reach it but I didn’t have a ladder so I resorted to the next best option…
The peej ladder!!! (peej is jeep spelled backwards, that’s what I call her) That’s genius right? No, still with the jeep pulled up I’m only 5’4″ so my arms were above my head the whole time, and the WHOLE time was a LOOONG time. The round base of the fixture I bought was bigger than the one that was up before. I unfortunately didn’t have any tools to cut the shingles so i plugged in an electric sander and sanded it down…for a long time. By the end my legs were shaking and I didn’t have feeling in my shoulders anymore but I finally got it up.
My last task of the day was to hang new house numbers too and those were a breeze compared to the garage light. Even thought it was a lot of work those few little things make a huge difference in the aesthetic of the house.
There are still things that need to be done to the outside. Shutters, caulking and patching a few things, landscape is a must, and a new mailbox are a few things off the top of my head. Having painted it really changing the look of the house and has made a huge difference. Not only in the way it looks but in my pride for the house. This things is slowly becoming my baby. I have feelings for it, and I’m excited about what else it to come!!! so are these two…
Now where to begin…
Posted: April 6, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: DIY, Home Leave a commentDuring the purchasing process I had several sleepless nights. My mind was all over the place with more than enough ideas of what I wanted to do to this house. One major problem was I had zero experience in the home improvement department. Not only did I not have a clue at what I was doing, this is my first house and I have no idea what it means to be a home owner. I have quickly found out it isn’t as easy and stress free as it looks.
I closed on my house and received the keys on January 25. I got a silver key key chain, a pen and this cute little card. It was official now…
My excitement didn’t last too long after opening the door for the first time. Suddenly I was extremely overwhelmed. All these ideas and I didn’t have a clue where to begin. I thought I was in way too deep. I still think I’m in way too deep. With determination on my side though I decided I might as well start with paint since it was the one skill I figured I would be able to pick up the quickest.
With that being said, first things first, I started with the entry room/living room…
Oh, and that God awful white cabinet jetting out into the floor…not sure what that’s all about but it is disgusting and was soon to become a nightmare.
The previous owners of this house definitely had a strange fetish with this blue color. It is everywhere! Literally everywhere.
The house isn’t that large and the living room is narrow. It also has no overhead lighting in the room so its pretty dark and depressing. I would have loved to have put in new ceiling lights to brighten it up but my budget for renovations is extremely low and my goal is to make this project as cheap as possible. So after several hours of scraping, patching and sanding the walls, I headed down the street to the local paint shop and came back with a 5 gallon bucket of benjamin moore white dove and started getting to work. (white walls, boring I know but it’s the best and cheapest way to making look a lot bigger and brighter. Plus I love the idea of having a clean blank pallet to work with)
I got a little excited and carried away with the paint and the roller but my lack of any skills at all came back to bite me in the butt. I discovered you were supposed to “cut in” the edges of the walls first before covering the rest of it. Thanks to that small tip my walls got 3 fresh coats of paint.
Quickly I got the hang of painting and luckily I had a fan that stood by my side the entire time…
Unfortunately I was already sick and tired of painting and I hadn’t even made a dent in the house yet. What in the world had I gotten myself into??
The Anchor Cottage 