Nest Decorating & Designs by Tamar

what's new around the house

We have been changing and updating tons of stuff around the house, this summer we  gave the whole house a fresh coat of white paint, we updated the kitchen and added a new farmhouse sink,  marble top counter sourced locally here in Vermont and and new range hood and back splash, in the living room I moved things around and changed the pillows and colors and the rugs were sent to cleaner for a good deep clean, we are planning on getting a new coffee table, I am imagining a big square table made with reclaim wood inserted into a black steel frame with steel legs...we might have to built it ourselves...

xox

We built a shed and all about making space

We have been seriously suffering from a lack of space for some time now, with our boys all back home this summer, the two older ones just done with college and transitioning into their new lives and jobs, still not making enough money to rent and planing on traveling soon (our middle son) and one going back to grad school next fall (our older son) and our youngest in college still for the next three years, our home is like a train station/storage/dumping ground for all their stuff!!! ughhhh....I love it when the house is neat and clean and there are no messy parts anywhere...but alas that has not been the case for sometime now, it seems as though every time I get one room all cleaned up and sorted another room or space gets all messed up all over again, I know I should feel blessed, they love to live at home and and we all get along wonderfully and I do feel absolutely blessed! but the mess! Right now we are completely updating the downstairs bathroom, (blog post to follow when we are done) the laundry room is a disaster area and the garage....yikes...I won't even go into that! and then there are tons of guests in and out all year long too not to mention some serious photo crews that seem to love taking pictures of our home...the house just meeds to look less messy! 

So we built a shed and we love it!

We found it on the Costco website on sale! it was a weekend sale and marked down by a lot, so lucky!! at first we thought of renting a mini storage but when we did the math we realizes that getting a shed made a lot more sense.  Luckily I had an in house three generation family building crew here this summer, my husband's dad who is a contractor, my husband who is a fantastic DIY builder and fixer upper and our son Mikey who is studying Architecture at Pratt, a great way to get some hands on building experience for him this summer although he is not completely new to this and spent a few high school vacations volunteering and building with Habitat for Humanity.

The crew

Ronen on the left, Amnon (Ronen's dad in the center) and Mikey

We chose a shady back spot under a tree right by the veggie garden

building took about 2 weeks, it was no easy task (Ronen and his dad measuring out the platform)

 

the finished platform

 

 

The walls are up!

 

and roof

it then proceeded to rain for about 3 days and construction was halted

 

the doors installed and the shed is being painted, I chose white exterior paint with a red for the barn doors, black hardware and a dark slate grey ribbed steel roof.

 

Ronen installing the steel roof ordered from Lowe's 

 

the three generation "crew" putting in some last touches (I swear I didn't coordinate the color scheme here..)

 

next came the stairs made from an old piece of wood that was lying around the garden forever, we also chose heavy weight white vinyl lattice for the bottom, I would have loved to go with painted wood but the winters here are too harsh and the vinyl actually looks just fine.

look how cute! I am so excited!

last part was a little landscaping, I planted hydrangea and Salvia on the visible sunny side

and voila! all done, so much more space freed up at home!

xox

 

 

 

 

 

The Kitchen Renovation

 

Our kitchen has gone through quite a few changes in the last 10 years, when we moved in to this house the kitchen was pretty much hideous, so bad I have no photos .... darkish pink colored walls with a wallpaper surround fringe, a "European" formica kitchen and formica counter tops, dark blue tiles that were ok but very chipped and a black sink, in short a mish mash dated mess! ! over the years we replaced the cabinets with white Ikea cabinets (love them and they are still holding up like new) we replaced the formica counter tops with the Ikea butcher wood counter tops and removed the top cabinets and put in open shelving. This all happened in 2007 and you can see the post about it here.

The kitchen went through many more changes since that blog post 8 years ago now but I was still not mad about the dark tiles and black sink, they made the room look smaller and dark.

After rethinking the renovation for months and on a very small tight budget we finally got around to it. We saved a ton of money by doing all ourselves  and Ronen my sweet husband did all the work! everything! I just stood around and watched most of time and cleaned the mess and fed him. Our son Jonathan helped too when heavy lifting was needed.

So here is what we did:

1. Removed old dark chipped tiles, yeayy!

2. Speckled and Sanded the walls 5 times! until completely smooth with Easy Sand 

3. Painted the walls, shelves and window trims with Olympic Ultra White

4. The counter tops were stained and had water damage, we don't actually cut on them so we decided to seal them, we used Waterlox products, 4 coats of sealer and one coat of Satin Finish, the results are amazing! you will need to this in a well ventilated space (we used our garage) and wait for 24 hours between each coat! it takes forever but well worth it.

5. We removed the old sink and replaced it with the Ikea DOMSJÖ Double bowl Farmhouse sink, I love this sink!!! it's beautiful and huge and very comfortable to work with.

6. Replaced the leaky faucet with a new one we found on sale.

7. We replaced the old low hanging dated light fixture with spots.

8. Since we removed the tiles behind the stove and our old range hood was not really functioning at all (I only used it for the overhead lights) we bought a new range hood at Costco with a matching stainless steel backsplash, I love how it looks and it's super easy to clean, we opted for the cheapest one and it works great!

9. Decluttering... I went for a much cleaner look this time and removed lots of my little chockas that were accumulating dust and completely un factional, I left everything I use on a daily basis, gave away some stuff, and kept some stuff for the kids future kitchens.

 

 

The new Range Hood and backsplash

The new Farmhouse sink and faucet

 

some of our vintage plate collection

 

our open shelf pantry in the back of the kitchen

Happy Spring! xox

A room Renovation and transformation

 

When our kids left for college we decided to turn the downstairs room into a guest room. I love this room it has the best light from two large windows and it's perfect for house guest allowing them some privacy.

Here is the room in it's first phase  (notice the up side down map...it was a funny joke for a 14 yr old..he is now 24...)

This is what it looked like when our second son used it when he was in high school (he is now a senior in college) I made him a bright red headboard and he decorated his walls with his older brother's beautiful photographs.

The walls were in bad shape and the heating base boards were in very bad shape, Ronen took them apart, scrubbed them down with steel wool, cleaned them off and spray painted them outside with a first coat of anti rust spray and them with white spray paint to match the new white walls.

We chose True White in an egg shell finish by Olympic from Lowe's for the walls.

Here is the room after the renovation:

 We painted the long shelf white which immediately made the whole room seem bigger,  I reupholstered the red headboard and made a few new pillows with fabrics I got at Joanne's. The Granny Square blanket is very old, not sure where I got that probably a yard sale, the rose quilt and two side tables are from Homegoods. The two bedside lamps are from Etsy, they are both vintage. I haven't put up the art on the wall yet, it takes me a while to get up the courage to put nails in a freshly painted wall but I am starting to collect some pieces I like and think about how to hang them, you can see them lined up behind the bed.

Here is a before and after photo

 

 

xox

 

 

 

Our House- First published Nov.18th 2014

 

Up until A few weeks ago Ronen and I were busy planning a major renovation in our house, we had everything figured out, we would completely open up the main living spaces to create a big loft like space, we would move our beloved Ikea kitchen to a different bigger corner with a giant island, we would knock up our low ceiling and put sky light windows in, we would build a porch and get new giant windows with black frames, we have a Pinterest Board New House with tons of inspiring photos and ideas and this amazing house as a major inspiration, did I mention new sidings as well? yes, our new house was beautiful...until we got the cost estimation...oh boy...well that's not happening, not now anyway..so, to cheer myself up I walked around the house and took some new photos reminding myself how lucky I really am and the house looks just fine as is...we just might start with a little kitchen renovation for now...I will keep you posted.

xox

Downstairs Floor Renovation

Ever since we moved to this house almost 7 years ago we dreamed of a new floor solution for the downstairs that is mainly used by the boys and their friends, the TV and Daniel's bedroom, our 19 year old who is away in college.

The existing big tile floor had an awful color and always looked gritty...yeach...it was also freezing to the touch in the winter and felt wet from condensation in the summer, is short very unpleasant.

The new floor is called Golden Aspen Laminate Flooring, the color is warm and lovely and feels nice to the touch, the color also mimics the feel and color of the hardwood floors in the rest of the house .

It was easy to install (the boards just click together) and the price was very affordable, but this space was not a weekend project...more of a week's project and Mikey our 17 year old helped a lot, so definitely a good project to work on with a willing teen:)

We love the results, the space feels cozy I love going downstairs to watch TV, it's super easy to clean and the boys LOVE IT!

BEFORE gritty looking tile floors :

Ronen covering the tiles with a plastic moisture barrier

Here you can see that they started in Daniel's room in the back

AFTER: The NEW floor and a new rug!

xox

Mini Bathroom Renovation

We did a little mini bathroom renovation last week, We removed the old green formica vanity top that was painted way too many times and replaced it with a simple white cultured marble one, perfectly fine for a tight budget and looks great! we also replaced the old dated faucet with a new brushed nickel one (I love it!) and raised the shelf a bit, finally we painted the bottom part of the wall a fresh coat of white and left the upper part as is, I love the different whites and it makes the room look a little wider. We still need to re-align the doors and we're done.

Little things make a big difference. 

Before

 After

By the way, by "we" I really mean my sweet patient husband who did all the work...I just re-decorated when it was all done...

xox

Living Room

I know you must be very bored with hearing about our living room again and again, but after purchasing this lovely chair from Homegoods last week we got an appetite for a more serious living room makeover thinking it will probably take a few more months, we've had our furniture for over 15 years and they were in a very shabby (but not chic) state from years of wear and tear, 3 children and a very naughty puppy.

While scouring Craigslist this week (I'm addicted...) I couldn't believe my eyes! someone was selling an Ikea Ektorp set of sofa and chair with 2 extra slip covers still in the box, the set is in perfect condition after spending 3 years in their formal un-used living room!! It was nothing short of a miracle...I love this set and we've been contemplating ways to purchase and and bring it home without much success (the closest Ikea is in Boston which is 4 hours away and the Montreal Ikea is too expensive...)

So, to make a long story short we bought it and brought it home yesterday, the old set is down in the kids "zone" making a new very cozy space down there for all of us to watch movies and TV (photos to come soon).

Here is our new fresh looking living room, I am happy.

xox

Studio Re-Do Before and After

Well my lovelies, I hate to admit it, but it has come to this:

An overcrowded, overloaded horrible mess! I've been so busy these last months that I couldn't take the time to get organized, so I just ignored it until yesterday when something just snapped and I couldn't stand it anymore! so I went out and got some good size storage boxes and I carefully packed up all the supplies I seldom use (which was A LOT) down they go to the laundry room, stacked up and easy to reach when needed.

Then once all that was cleared out, I completely re organized and tidied up EVERYTHING! it took the whole day and evening but it was totally worth it! I can breath again...!

I'm especially fond of my new re-purposed box, perfect for holding my postcards and business cards

xox

Wallpapering the Closet

I finally decided to actually do something fun with my ever growing collection of vintage wall paper and this weekend I created the pattern I want to use for the closet door in our bedroom, it's not actually glued yet and there is some tweaking to be done, but I am happy with the results...I might actually not glue it at all, this way I can play around with the patterns and move the pieces up and down...we'll see.

 

I would however appreciate some tips on how to actually glue it down if I decided to do so, should I use wallpaper paste? would I need to coat it?

xox