Laundry Room: Before & After

11/23/2010

Would you like to see a quick half-done before and after? I’m in the process of renovating our laundry room. It’s an extension of the master bathroom remodel that we finished a few months ago. I’ve been wanting to put shelves above the washer and dryer. The first step was to paint the walls back there … but I couldn’t paint the whole laundry room because the other half of the room doesn’t have finished drywall. One thing at a time. So here’s the washer and dryer area before.

And here it is after / now. It’s not really done. I need to go through some of this stuff with Jason and decide what we can get rid of an what can more to the shed because I was hoping to store some other things on these shelves and they’re already full! We probably have 15 gallon cans of paint, most of which have less than a quart of paint. I’m not sure we really need to keep all that…

I have lofty dreams of storing a tub of fabric and my sewing machine in here as well as our games and a box or two of hats and gloves. Hmm … stay tuned.

3 Comments | Art, Art: bathroom renovation, Art: before & after, Art: interior design | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Owls, mushrooms and flowers

11/22/2010

Over the Summer, Jason and I picked up several small pieces of art at an estate sale with pressed flowers, mushrooms and owls. (Closer up pictures here.) At another yard sale we found these plastic owls. I got tired of seeing them stacked up in storage so I made a hasty decision to hang them in the hallway as a collection. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. What do you think? Too busy? I’m not sure what else to do with a bunch of tiny frames.

The baby owl is living in the hallway with the art but I decided to put the mama and daddy owl in our bedroom, above the cross stitch sampler the Jason’s mom made as a wedding gift for us. Someday I’ll put the baby with the mama and daddy… you know, when it makes sense.

1 Comment | Art, Art: interior design, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Family | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Design Lounge

11/15/2010

My company moved to a new office space several weeks ago. (Yes, that’s the 4th location in 4 years if you’re counting.) In the designers’ area there is a space large enough to create a lounge. Our manager suggested that the other designers and I come up with furniture ideas and present them to our boss. Here’s what we came up with, all in the $850 range:

#1: $841 Mid-century sofa from Urban Outfitters, TULLSTA chairs in white from IKEA, African Suns rug from Urban Outfitters

#2: $841 Mid-century sofa from Urban Outfitters, TULLSTA chairs in white from IKEA, Chenille rug from Urban Outfitters

#3: $827 KARLSTAD sofa from IKEA, TULLSTA chairs in white from IKEA, JORUN rug from IKEA

My two fellow designers and I decided that we liked #1 the best. Except that one design homie didn’t like the rug and he suggested red chairs instead of white so they won’t show dirt as easily:

#4: $841 Mid-century sofa from Urban Outfitters, TULLSTA chairs in red from IKEA (no rug)

I just saw while I was posting this that the Chenille rugs from Urban Outfitters are on sale for $19 … hmm. Maybe I can convince my bosses that we need one of those. Or maybe I can convince Jason that we need one in our house!

3 Comments | Art, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Kitchen Coat Area

11/03/2010

Since we lost the hall coat closet to my new home office, I decided to do a mini makeover of our angled kitchen wall. I once had big plans to turn this into a wall of pegboard on the bottom and cork tiles on the top. Apparently a lot of people liked that idea because it’s one of my most popular post. Maybe we’ll still do that someday but for now, I repurposed a small coat rack from IKEA, painted it the same teal as my home office nook and hung it below my Are You Happy? flow chart. Quick easy solution.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Home Office Part 4: Decorating & Customizing

11/02/2010

Since my last update on the coat-closet-turned-home-office I have (all by myself!):

• painted 3 walls teal … with a brush, using watery old paint. It took 3 coats.

• hung my second monitor on the wall. Jason? Please help me re-hang it straight and centered.

• mounted under cabinet lights below the shelf to shine on my desk. Currently the right one is shining on my monitor because it’s not centered. Jason…?!

• hung my silver @, my bulletin board and clip board for quick inspiration and fun designs

• relocated my printer to the bookshelf in the living room where it’s connect to our airport extreme so we can access it wirelessly. The brown fabric box below the printer holds all the printer paper and accessories. Apparently I have a mess of cords that I need to do something about.

2 Comments | Art, Art: Closet Office, Art: graphic design, Art: interior design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Me | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Home Office Part 3: The Coat Closet

10/26/2010

A home office in a closet can be a great solution when you don’t have a room to spare. We have limited closet space but we do have a 46″ by 24″ coat closet in our hallway across from the door to our bedroom. Before discussing my revelation with Jason I immediately started sketching out where everything would fit and where I could put everything that was currently in the hall closet: coats, hats, gloves, scarfs, extra blankets and pillows, vacuum, tools, cans of paint, lightbulbs and other odds and ends. Once I had a plan, I took my idea to corporate for approval. (Joking, but it does help to have a well thought out plan before presenting my crazy ideas to Jason.)

He was fine with my plan! Over the course of a few Saturdays when Jason was out on tour I managed to move everything out of the hall coat closet. Coats are in the closet of the spare room (for now anyway), extra blankets and pillows are in tubs in the attic, and the rest of that stuff is in our new but not-yet-finished laundry room. So on to that empty hall closet …

With Jason again gone on tour I decided to tackle this job on my own to 1) keep myself busy, 2) keep up the weekend warrior pace I’m used to when he’s home, 3) impress him with my renovation skills, and 4) get it done. When we had Jason’s giant birch desktop cut at the hardware store last month I had the guy trim one of the offcuts to 46″ so it would be the right length for my desktop. I used scraps of wood from Jason’s old desk to make little wood ledges on the side walls of the closet to hold up an additional shelf (the top one was already there) and the desk top.

For now my printer is on a crate to the left of my computer with paper underneath. I’m going to come up with another solution since my desk surface is limited.

6 Comments | Art, Art: Closet Office, Art: graphic design, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Home Office Part 2: Closet Offices & Inspiration

10/21/2010

I saw an ad for Unplggd’s Roundup of Home Offices In a Closet one day and had an epiphany. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I know people put home offices in closets. That could be the perfect solution! (Between the time of the epiphany and the time of this post, one of my sweet blog buddies, Julia, actually suggested I try a closet as a home office solution. Great minds think alike! Heehee.) Here are some inspiration photos I found:

(All images from Unplggd’s Roundup of Home Offices In a Closet and here and The Black Hole Home Office)

The only hitch: our 55 year old house doesn’t have a whole lot of closet space. The two original bedrooms (master and my office) have closets with sliding doors—not large, not walk-in, and packed with stuff. The third bedroom (Jason’s studio) has a squarish walk-in closet full of musiciany things and is frequently used as an isolation room for his amp.

But wait, we have one more closet … the coat closet in the hallway!

*****

See Home Office Part 1: Small Homes Require/Inspire Creativity if you missed it.

5 Comments | Art, Art: Closet Office, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Jason’s Studio Before

10/14/2010

I shared some pictures on Monday of the not-quite-finished main part of Jason’s studio remodel. I was able to find a few before pictures but the rest must be on a different hard drive. When we moved in the room was carpeted. (I can’t find any of those pictures.) Then our cat peed on the carpet various times in various places and we ripped it out and threw it away. (I hate cats. And carpet. Sorry to anyone that I just offended.) Under the carpeting we found that the original flooring had been painted some some kind of white something. It was dirty so we painted it with Kilz. Then we painted it chocolate brown thinking maybe it would match the rest of the house. It didn’t look good. (Again, can’t find any pictures …) Then, we decided to do the whole room in black VCT tiles. Cheap, durable, dark … good for a room that people are dragging amps and guitars and drums in and out of. As this room has evolved into less of a practice room and more of a full-blown home studio a real remodel was desperately needed. Here are some pictures from the previous state:

We love this gigantic, unbelievably-heavy gold vinyl mid-century sofa bed. Besides weighing as much as a car, it’s really long and in the original floor plan of the room there was only 1 option of where it could fit. Right smack in the middle of the room facing the door to the living & dining room.

Jason’s brother’s drums lived in the corner of this room for about 3 years.

Jason’s desk was fitted into the space between these 2 closets covering an impractically high window seat. Not conducive to proper studio monitor acoustics.

This is without a doubt Lucy’s favorite room in the house. She always keeps her toys in here. When Jason is working at home she’ll curl up on the couch or under his feet. Sidenote to a sidenote: I HATE this leather shag rug. I thought it was a bad idea from the beginning. I remember when Jason picked it out at the store and I was distracted on the phone with my sister and couldn’t say “What are you thinking? How are we going to clean that thing?!”

Lucy also loves to look out the backdoor. It’s a window just her height. I always imagine she’s waiting for him to get home from a tour. (Actually, here she seems to be staring at that guitar, doesn’t she?)

The original floor plan was this:

The new floor plan is this:

It’s amazing how much bigger this space feels now that it’s cut in half. Even the main space feels bigger than the old space. Jason took out of the closets which allowed us to fit that giant couch perfectly into that nook. The space behind it is half the impractically high window seat and half a ledge that will eventually be shelves on top. The smaller room, “the loud room”, will be used for storage and tracking. It’s still needing insulation, sound absorption and drywall; shelves; lighting; rug; etc.

I’ll have some finished after pictures whenever the room is fully finished. Don’t hold your breath – it might be a few months. Check out Monday’s post if you didn’t see the pictures of the mostly-finished main space.

1 Comment | Art, Art: interior design, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: modern design, Art: music, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Home Office Part 1: Small Homes Require/Inspire Creativity

10/12/2010

We have a three bedroom house. One room is used as a bedroom, another is Jason’s studio (he’s a full time musician) and the other is my home office. We plan to have kids someday, we’ll need another bedroom and if you know me you know I like to plan ahead. (Remember my post about the addition we’re planning to do … in 10 years or so?) Therefore, I’ve been pondering for a while now about where I could relocate my home office.

(LUDVIG $120, CYRIL $199 and JONAS $150 from IKEA)

I love this corner desk that Jordan Ferney created for their living space. They have a modest size home and therefore have to be creative with their space. This room is a living room, home office and a playroom! The desk is from IKEA but Jordan made it much prettier! (Sidenote: I also love these posts on her son’s closet bedroom and wisely planned toy area! Seriously smart and creative use of space.)

IKEA sells a ton of home office options. Even more compact than the armoires above, I’ve considered one of these for a spot on the wall in the living room or maybe even our bedroom.

(IKEA PS $59.99)

But the living room is crowded enough already and how would I concentrate on work if someone was watching TV? And I hate the idea of bringing my work into our restful bedroom. And with this or with an armoire, where would I put my printer and second monitor?

This is not going to work …

3 Comments | Art, Art: Closet Office, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Jason’s Studio Remodel

10/11/2010

I gave you a glimpse of Jason building a wall a couple of weeks ago. Then last weekend a snapshot of bamboo flooring installation. And, of course, there was the big poster print we ordered of Great Grandpa Carl. We’ve had a little secret remodeling project going on. Jason (and I) turned his roughly 13’x22′ two closet home studio into a two room studio. The main space now has one closet (he took out the second one) and is his main work area, about 13’x11′. The other space is for tracking and storage and it’s not finished yet. It will probably be about 13’x10 when it’s done. Here are a few pictures I took of the almost finished main studio space:

I didn’t take many pictures of the floors because Jason hasn’t had a chance to do the quarter rounds yet but we’re really happy with how the solid bamboo floors turned out. They were on sale at HD for $1.99/sq ft! We left the black VCT tiles in the other room since it’s more of a work room. We haven’t figured out what to call each room yet but we’ve been calling the small room “the loud room.” I hope the main area can stay this neat and organized. I love to leave the door open so it extends our main living area and feels like a lounge.

By the way, I’m pretty sure this is the 4th kind of flooring we’ve had in this room since we moved in 3.5 years ago. Maybe later this week I’ll scrounge up some before pictures from the various states. The first flooring—carpeting—probably didn’t even last long enough for any photographs.

3 Comments | Art, Art: interior design, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

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