Before & After: Hardwood Floors

When we bought our house, the oak hardwood floors were in bad shape. The living room, dining room and back hall were stained a dark cherry that the previous owner did on their own, which means there were swirl marks from the sander and the corners weren't done properly plus there were scratches galore. The front bedroom (our guest bedroom) floor was unstained and a gorgeous color but had some pretty rough spots. The back bedroom (our den) still had carpet, which we tore out on our closing day, and again the floor was unstained but was a big mess with water damage and scratches. We thankfully found an amazing guy to refinish our floors at a remarkably reasonable price and since we had a month overlap with our lease we had all the floors refinished before we moved in. It was by far one of the best investments we've made in our new house!

The living room.

The dining room.

The guest bedroom.

The den.

Yesterday morning, I dropped my mom off at the airport. She was in town for a week and as usual was a big help around the house. We organized half of the basement, which will make doing laundry much easier and started painting the upstairs bedroom. I'm still painting away upstairs and my back and hands are definitely aching, but it's already looking sooooo good!

xxMaria

Fireplace Makeover

The house is back to its pre-holiday state. Yesterday, I took down the tree and all the decorations and rearranged the furniture. It's always a bit dreary after all the pretty lights and greenery are removed. As I undecorated the fireplace, it dawned on me that I had yet to post photos of how the fireplace looked when we first moved in. As you'll see below it wasn't a pretty sight. The brick was painted a weird beige that matched the walls and the grout was painted cream. There was also a huge mirror set on a track and very outdated fireplace doors.

how the fireplace looked during our walk through

Because I'm impatient I decided to tackle painting the brick first. I used gripper primer, same as what I used on the bathroom tiles, and then two coats of semi-gloss in white. After that was done, Cole and I needed to figure out how to remove the mirror, which let me tell you was the trickiest step in this whole makeover. The tracks on both top and bottom made it very difficult. Cole eventually bent the metal on the top track enough to give some wiggle room. Once we removed the mirror, we were left with huge black splotches of whatever adhesive was used to hold the mirror in place. It looked like a bunch of bats had flown straight into our wall. I should also mention that the second hardest step was removing the doors. Poor Cole had to have his head and half his torso in the fireplace to unscrew the old soot corroded bolts. He definitely wasn't too happy with me after that, but now agrees that the fireplace looks so much better without.

1) the bricks painted and mirror removed; 2) the black blotches scraped off; 3) the wall spackled and glass doors removed

My next goal is to replace that ridiculously ugly ceiling fan!! Oh, how I loathe it.

xxMaria

Any Way the Wind Blows

I found this vintage Gunne Sax dress Saturday afternoon in St. Paul. The minute I got home, I put it on and asked Cole if he was free to snap some photos. The fit, color, style- everything was just perfect! It has a very renaissance/prairie vibe that reminds me a bit of Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. I'm not exactly sure why I'm drawing that conclusion, but there's something about the vivid red color and velvet triangles on the bodice that screams Juliet.

Photos by Cole. Thanks, darling!

Vintage Gunne Sax dress: thrifted
Old locket: J.Crew
Tights: Target
Boots: F21

xxMaria

Dear Creatures Spring 2013

I can't believe this is already happening but here I am dreaming about spring in the middle of January. The latest Dear Creatures collection is definitely not helping matters. It seems I can never resist the siren song of their adorable dresses. Looking at these photos I can almost imagine the sun beaming down and the feel of a warm breeze. Spring will be here before we know it...right?

Photo Credits: Dear Creatures

xxMaria

DIY Hot Water Bottle Cover

This diy project has been on my to do list for about a year now. I hemmed and hawed over the idea of cutting up this vintage sweater. It's always been a bit unflattering on and even had a few moth holes, but I loved its gorgeous fair isle pattern so much that the thought of ruining it, made me cringe. Over the holiday break, I decided enough was enough, the sweater would be perfect for my hot water bottle and yesterday I began the project. After doing a little research, I found this tutorial that I tweaked a bit but still used as an overall guide. Once I completed the cover, I realized that I hated the little tail on the bottom and decided to cut off the rubber hook hole and restitch the bottom by hand. :)

What you'll need:

• an old sweater that's been felted (machine washed and dryed)
• hot water bottle
• paper and marker for tracing
• needle and thread
• button
• sewing maching (you could do all the stitching by hand, too)

1) trace the bottle; 2) add a cutting line 3/8" from the original; 3) mark two lines for your top and bottom pieces to create a fold over;

4) pin pattern to fabric and cut; 5) your three pieces;

6) I machine zig zag stitched the edges of the two fold over pieces to stop fraying(not pictured); 7) I then hand stitch under the edge of the top piece of the fold over for a more finished look (this step can be skipped);

8) after pining all the pieces right sides together, I carefully machine stitched. This part was tricky since the sweater was so thick and I had to help push it through. 

9) after all the machine stitching was done, I snipped a button hole on the top layer and stitched around it; 10) I sewed a leather button on the bottom layer.

front & back

xxMaria

Old Fashioned Mayflower

How were your holidays? I hope you're enjoying a wonderful start to 2013! Cole and I have spent our time off together enjoying breakfasts at our favorite diner, cross country skiing across our lake and in the woods, along with nightly fires in our fireplace. I'll be sad when Cole has to go back to work on Monday.

In other news, I'm doing a guest post today! The lovely Mandi asked me to guest bartender on her blog, Making Nice in the Midwest! Head on over to find my most favorite classic cocktail recipe. Btw, it's also Mandi's birthday so be sure to send some love!

Photos by Cole. Thanks, darling!

Mayflower Dear Creatures dress: Emerging Thoughts
Tights: American Apparel
Old Blimey oxfords: Seychelles
Old locket: J.Crew

xxMaria