New Home Tour: Kitchen

01/25/2013

Well, I suppose it’s about time that I start giving a virtual tour of our new home. Y’all were so patient and encouraging during the building process and now that we’re getting more and more settled in, I’m feeling ready to start sharing some rooms. Let’s kick this thing off with the kitchen, which is quite possibly my favorite room of the house. I’ve been challenging myself to take over more of the family cooking and I’m starting to really enjoy it…due in part to how much I love the functionality and atmosphere of this room. Everything ended up just like my plan with a few additions thanks to our friend Andy at Markraft Kitchens.

When I walk through the front door, this is my view of the kitchen.

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Having an open shelf for cookbooks was on my dream kitchen wish list. We also have a medicine lockbox (DCS requirement) for our daily vitamins and tissues. Ali won’t leave anything on this shelf alone.

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I was originally going to get silver stools but I decided we needed some color up in here. Our countertops extend out about 12″ there for casual conversation with friends while we’re cooking.

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Another dream kitchen wish list item: a corner cabinet facing out under the bar toward the dining room. It ended up being the perfect spot for Lucy’s food and accessories, and her water bowl is very close to the sink. Perfect.

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This section of cabinets is the pantry, coffee/tea bar and home of the small appliances.

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Another dream kitchen wish list item. This coffee/tea bar turned out even better than I had envisioned. We use this everyday, many times a day.

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I prefer to keep my microwave and toaster oven hidden so he’s where they live. I’m so glad that Andy, our cabinet guru, found a way to make this work for us.

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That door there is our coat closet.

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We’re planning to add a tile backspace eventually. I really love the light we get in this space.

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Our architect, Ryan Thewes, was so thoughtful and thorough with his planning of window placement. The clerestory windows let in a ton of light, mostly indirect. We never need to turn lights on during the day.

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Besides the cookbook shelf, one open shelf for our everyday dishes and glasses was at the top of my dream kitchen wish list. BAM. Exactly how I wanted it!

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This was a last minute addition to our kitchen plan: a pull out drawer for the trash and recycling. I’m so glad we did this. It’s really practical and I like that it’s close to the front door (the one on the left) where we walk in with the junk mail and go out with the trash.

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I’m getting used to cooking with gas. My favorite part of the Whirlpool White Ice gas range is the knobs.

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So that’s it, my dream kitchen!

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Sources:

Floors: natural, unstained, utility grade hickory
Cabinets: walnut-stained cherry and white thermofoil sold through Markraft
Countertops: Kashmir granite
Appliances: Whirlpool White Ice
Pendant lights: IKEA
Big A: ReAbide
Stools: Tabouret on Overstock.com
Love Bacon print: Matt Butler on Etsy
Wall color: Greek Villa by Sherwin Williams

If I skipped anything you’re curious about, just ask!

6 Comments | Art, Art: house tour, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Art: new home build | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Instagram House Tour

12/26/2012

I love the Instagram community. It’s got to be my favorite iPhone app. A couple of my MCM followers requested an IG house tour so I’m obliging little by little, as rooms are decent enough to share. Since it might be awhile before I’m ready for any kind of more substantial (finished/decorated) house tour with real camera photos, I figured I’d share them here, too.

Kitchen

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Dining Room

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Master Bathroom

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Living Room

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What I’m now calling my work room (tri-purpose: office, craft, laundry)

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This room is also tri-purpose: Den/Playroom/Guestroom … sort of. It pretty much just looks like a playroom for now. One day it might become a bedroom. I’m trying to confuse you… is it working? Let’s just call this the den:

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Hall bathroom

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Master bedroom (we’re shopping for furniture)

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Jason’s studio

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The future kids room has become kind of a catch-all. It’s the only room we have left to unpack and clean up. Besides hanging art everywhere else and coming up with some storage solutions in my office and the garage, we’re settled!

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Are you all sick of seeing photos of our house yet?

6 Comments | Art, Art: house tour, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Art: new home build | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

We’re Home!

12/11/2012

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Friday was moving day. It felt so different than when we’ve bought houses in the past…we would close at a title company, get our keys and let ourselves into our new, empty house. This time we’ve been in and out of the house almost daily for the past 6 months while it was constructed. On Friday Jason was cleaning the windows while I moved a few things over from my parents house. Then the last inspector from the city came and we paced around nervously while he walked through the house. Our site supervisor Scott put the last of 4 final inspection approval tags on the kitchen counter as he walked the inspector out. And that was it: we’re allowed to move in! Jason and I looked at the 4 final inspection tags on last time and gave each other a high five. Go time.

We met the movers at our storage unit and spent the rest of the day—the rest of the next several days, really—slinging boxes, moving furniture and unpacking. We are physically exhausted but oh-so-happy to be finally in our new home. I had hoped to sneak over early Friday morning and take final photos of a clean, empty house before we started moving in but it didn’t happen. Why? Because early Friday morning the tile guy, Peanut, was finishing grouting the fireplace and the bathroom; John, the painter, was doing touch-ups and Scott, our site supervisor/problem solver extraordinaire was putting the final touches on our front porch railings. In other words, the house was not clean or empty.

When we arrived back to our house, my mom had set up sloppy joes in her crock pot for us, as well as dropped off a bunch of food to get us through the first couple of days. She’s the best!

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After her afternoon nap, my parents brought Ali down to check out her new room. She hasn’t seen most of this stuff since she was 7 month old…so basically, she’s seeing it all for the first time. Who needs Christmas gifts!

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She was so excited about all the “new” toys that she climbed into her toy box.

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…and assembled:

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The first morning in our new house!

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On Day 2, my sister-in-law Ginger came over to help while my niece Eliza played with Ali. After they left, my parents and Jason’s parents helped us unpack and move more things from my parents’ house all day. It’s so wonderful to have such an awesome family to help us! I was too preoccupied to take many pictures on Saturday but I did snap this one of Ali. Nana (Jason’s mom) was unpacking a box with Ali and found some of my sunglasses…

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Day 3 in our new house: Sunday.

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Ali seems to really like her new room. It’s one of the most complete rooms in the house. All that’s missing are things that hang on the wall: pictures, book ledges, curtain rod, etc.

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Ali also seems to love her playroom (AKA the den) and it’s nice to have 2 rooms in the house that are mostly kid-safe.

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The hall bathroom is for Ali and guests:

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The living room is pretty much a big mess because the two couch pieces of our sectional and an armchair are being used in a home staging project. They’ll be back in a few weeks. I’ve been meaning to write about that. I’ll do that soon…

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Meanwhile, this is our makeshift couch: a pile of old blankets and pillows on the floor. Lucy approves.

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LuLu can be a very anxious dog but she seems to be adjusting really well. To my knowledge she hasn’t peed on anything or had any seizures so that says a lot for her.

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The kitchen is almost mostly complete, however it’s still a big mess because it’s the heart of the house. (Note the tool box and cleaning supplies on the counter, the step ladder in the dining room.)

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I really, really love how the kitcehn came together.

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We’re planning to add a tile backsplash at a later date.

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The coffee and tea bar is pretty much my favorite thing ever.

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After three days of hard work, we decided to use our last bit of energy on Sunday night to set up the TV so we could properly relax. It involved a mount that fixes to the concrete fireplace with a floating shelf below the TV. I’ll tell you about that later. We don’t have cable or internet yet, but we could use the DVD player so we found our box full of Seinfeld DVDs.

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Random: Any Nashvillites interested in a beautiful, big, heavy gold vinyl sleeper sofa? I was planning to use it in the den but it’s too big for that room so we’re selling it. It’s on craigslist for $100. Sold! Thank you to Mark and his wife. I hope you enjoy it!

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8 Comments | Art, Art: house tour, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Art: new home build, Art: new home nursery, Family: Lucy, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

House Tour: Master Bedroom

09/20/2011

Master Bedroom

If you were reading this blog prior to our kids room tour on Ohdeedoh, you may remember that once upon a time I was doing a house tour series. I started with the living room, then the kitchen and dining room, then the studio, the hall bathroom, the hallway and cloffice, and the master bathroom and laundry room. I haven’t yet shared the master bedroom because we have an embarrassing lack of night stands. There I said it. I’m ashamed about my alarm clock sitting on a pile of books. However, since it’s been several months now and we STILL don’t have night stands, the house tour must go on. Or something like that. (And just watch, we’ll probably end up finding the perfect night stands this week.) I’m swallowing my pride. Here is our (bedside table-less) master bedroom:

See, I’m too ashamed to even post these pictures full size…

Moving on.

Another embarrassment of our bedroom… the dresser with the missing drawer. We got a lot of good suggestions here and we haven’t done anything about it yet except add balance by replacing another drawer with a basket.

Who let those kids get married?

Jason’s mom made us this cross stitch as a wedding gift and it fits right into our fluffy cloudy white bedroom. (That was my goal… light, airy and clean like a cloud. Not like a sterile laboratory.)

I fought against the idea of installing a ceiling fan. I voted for a capiz shell chandelier. But it really does make a huge difference in keeping our room cooler.

There. That wasn’t too painful I guess. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of a complete master bedroom to replace these with by the end of the year.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

House Tour: Master Bathroom & Laundry Room

08/22/2011

Master Bathroom

Oh man. So much to say about this room. And most of it has already been said. Once upon a time this room was a bedroom. The people who renovated the house before us quickly turned it into a bathroom with a washer and dryer in it. Basically it looked like a bedroom with hardwood floors, a washer and dryer in the closet nook, small shower, pedestal sink (zero storage) and a toilet in a little room. We re-renovated it into a much nicer and more practical master bathroom with a huge (4’x5′) hand-tiled shower with duel rain showers, tiled floors and a sink vanity made from a vintage piece of furniture. And, we did it ALL ourselves. If you have a few hours to burn, you can read all about our renovation project here.

Laundry Room

One of the best parts of the master bathroom renovation was creation of a separate laundry room. I remember having this floor plan epiphany while I was driving home from work one day. Originally we were just going to put doors in front of the W&D, but as the designated laundry-doer, I really wanted a walk in laundry room. Clearly, it’s not finished yet. Projects of higher priority caused us to stop when it was functional and say “good enough for now.” I have plans, though. Plans involving a craft/sewing table and prettier storage baskets for the shelves. Hopes of tiled floors (using the same tiles as the bathroom that we have in storage.) Dreams of attached drywall, mudded, primed, painted…

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Posted by mahlbrandt

House Tour: Hallway & Cloffice

07/27/2011

Hallway

Ah, the hallway. It’s so utilitarian. Attic access in the ceiling. Smoke detector. Carbon monoxide detector. Thermostat. Air intake. Doorways…

A couple of black and white photographs of Jason and I from my college photography class back in 2003 (shortly after we got married) hang on one wall. They’re not excellent photos but I like that I shot them with an old manual film camera and developed them myself.

At the end of the hallway hangs this brass tree. I spotted it on an estate sale website a few years ago and Jason was able to find it for me. I don’t remember what he paid for it… maybe $40? My relatives from Sweden wanted to buy it from us when they were visiting.

Cloffice

I actually spend a lot of time in this hallway thanks to my cloffice (closet+office). I wrote about the original transformation from a coat closet into a home office earlier this year. It hasn’t changed much since then, except that the hallway was painted SW greek white.

When Jason removed the closet door and doorway to give me more elbow room, there was a strip of the original hardwood floors missing. We came up with this simple solution of inlaying a piece of wood and painting it with white trim paint. I like how it defines the space and it has held up well to 6 months of chair rolling.

The desk is not very deep. It works well for using the computer and not much else, unless I move my keyboard, mouse and laptop stand out of the way. I love having two monitors, and though I think side by side would have been better, this works. I don’t believe I mentioned before that the desktop is removable; it’s sitting on two wooden rails and tightly wedged into place so it doesn’t move. We didn’t make it permanent because there is an access panel to get to the plumbing of the hall bathroom tub on the back of the closet. See it there behind my pen cup?

It feels as small as it looks. Or maybe it looks bigger than it feels. It’s a pretty tight work space and I find myself paying bills on the couch and blogging from bed more than I used to when I had a regular home office. But, this solution was so worth it to free up a bedroom for our future kids. That little cardboard owl cup serves as my waste basket. My printer was relocated to the living room bookshelf. I traded my scanner for a slim design that can slip onto the top shelf of my cloffice, between my portfolio and my storage boxes. The best thing about it being small is that I can’t afford to let it get messy.

7 Comments | Art, Art: Closet Office, Art: house tour, Art: interior design, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

House Tour: Hall Bathroom

07/19/2011

Hall Bathroom

Guest bathroom. Kids bathroom. What do you call it in your house? Our house has a couple of unique features that caught our attention the first time we saw it. Besides the angled front wall of windows in the living room and there is also this downward angled vanity in the hall (only original) bathroom. The countertop was replaced with concrete and a bowl sink before we moved in. Jason added different knobs and painted it gray. Together we laid the slate tile—our first tiling job! The tiles and tub, originally pink and blue, were painted white before we moved in. We also changed the light fixture and added a shower fan. The wall color is Sherwin Williams Softest Green.

Step stool from IKEA for children to read the sink.

I really like the concrete countertops. We’re thinking about trying out this technique ourselves someday for our master bathroom or kitchen.

Rub-a-dub-dub.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

House Tour: Studio

07/12/2011

Studio

Jason’s music studio is located just beyond the living room and dining room. It was once a den with wood paneled walls but was listed as a bedroom when we bought our house. It’s gone through a lot of changes since then. The floors have been carpeting, painted (unsalvageable) wood floors, black VCT tiles, and most recently bamboo flooring. Last year we removed 1 of 2 closets and added a wall to create 2 different rooms. (You can read about it and see before pictures here.) There is now a main studio control room and a second utility room (sometimes called the mudroom, storage room, “loud room,” or auxiliary room.)

The studio doesn’t get blog mention very often because Jason protects his instruments and equipment like they’re his own children.

The poster on the wall is Jason’s great-grandfather Carl.

We got this vinyl (naugahyde) sofa at an estate sale. It’s a miracle Jason and I didn’t get hernias moving it. It weights a ton. Or close to it. The footstool is from craigslist.

Jason spotted this elegant wood lamp as we were driving past our favorite thrift store. We later rescue the shade off a hideous lamp at an estate sale.

Utility Room

The purpose of the second smaller room was originally for recording purposes but has also become a useful storage space for tools, paint, unused equipment and empty cases. And other random stuff. Yes, this room is certainly not done (nor is the doorway leading to it from the main studio room). But, here you go.

That door that leads to the back deck is wonderful! Perfect for moving gear in and out. No scuffed walls in the living room or hallway like our last house. It’s also very convenient for studio guests coming and going. And now that we’re keeping tools in there, it’s handy for outside projects.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

House Tour: Kitchen & Dining Room

06/27/2011

Kitchen

Our living room connects to the kitchen and dining room. Just before we bought our house in 2007 it was fully renovated. The original hardwoods throughout the house were refinished, some walls were removed, everything was covered in a fresh coat of paint. The room the presumably had the most floor-to-ceiling changes was the kitchen. The cabinets are from IKEA. The countertops are square foot granite tiles. The floors are 2-ft travertine tiles. I love that it’s open and airy. It never feels too small to me, except when we have parties and everyone ends up standing around in the kitchen. (Why is that?)

Dining Room

Yes, it bothers me that the light in the dining room is not centered over the table. It’s even worse when the table is extended to it’s full length. Someday we’ll get around to fixing that… and probably changing the light altogether. It’s a small dining room but it works. The walls in the dining room and kitchen are Sherwin Williams Greek White. The door there leads into Jason’s studio (which used to be considered the den).

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House Tour: Living Room

06/21/2011

We’ve been doing a lot of projects around the house including painting and rearranging. After doing a tour of our kids room, I realized I’ve never really done a tour of our house. So, here is our living room, freshly painted in Sherwin Williams Greek White and Hep Green…

It’s always hard to tell in photographs but this room is actually an irregular pentagon shape. The wall with the windows is angled. It’s quirky and makes furniture arrangement interesting but we love it. It’s probably most obvious in the picture below.

Our newly refaced faux fireplace that no longer has skull-cracking sharp corners.

Sources: Bookshelves and TYLOSAND sofa are from IKEA several years ago and no longer available. (Can’t remember the name of the shelves, sorry.) Everything else is from estate sales, yard sales and thrift stores. We got the three American By Martinsville tables at a thrift store for $5 a piece—one of our best finds. They’re worth 20-50x that according to eBay sales we’ve seen. I fell in love with the triangular clock at an antique store. Unfortunately it needs wound once a day and ticks really loud so it’s mostly just decoration. The painting was done by Jason and me several years ago on Valentine’s Day so we call it the Love Painting. I made the “Lovely Day x 3563” poster for Jason as a gift for the 10th anniversary of our first date. Back then he wrote me a song called Lovely Day. Jason found our front door at a local salvage yard and refinished it himself.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

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