First DIY Project

I know that many of you are DIY gurus, but for me and my husband we're neophytes in this area.  Here are a few pics of our first project--changing out the light fixture in the morning room. What a difference a light makes!  Oh, and I got the fixture for $79 at Costco!

Before pics

AFTER

New placemats from Homegoods and Hurricane candle holders from Pier One. 

Birds of a Feather...

I think peacocks are a beautiful bird. I had the pleasure of seeing a peacock in person while on vacation in Hawaii. The bird is so royal with their colors of green, blue and gold!

I've decided to use a peacock palette to decorate my dining room. I had so much fun finding items to go along with my room at my favorite store, HomeGoods. I also found a few items at Pier One too. Here are a few pics of my finds:

Peacock Feathers, Cynthia Rowley Gold Vase, blue/green glass sculpture, and Broyhill silver serving tray from HomeGoods.

Peacock inspired plate/patter made in Turkey from HomeGoods.

Abstract Peacock painting from HomeGoods.

Jasmine scented candles from Pier One.

Lamps, silver Domaine peacock statue, and peacock picture from HomeGoods. Feather lampshade decorations from Pier One.

Ottoman from HomeGoods.

Closeup of feather lamp shade decorations found at Pier One.

I'm most excited to have my talented friend, Alexis, upholster my chairs. I took a trip to South Philly (Philadelphia's version of NYC's fabric district) and came across a beautiful chenille fabric that I will use on the back of my chairs. I will accent  the back of the chair with silver nail heads as well.

Fabric for dining room chairs.

Here is a sample of what I plan to do with my dining room chair with the fabric and the nail heads.  The only differnce is my chair is not curved like this one, it has a square back.

 

 I can't wait to get this project going, it will transform my furniture and give a custom look to the room. I'm looking to do an accent wall with wallpaper. I have not found the wall paper yet, but I will keep you posted. I'm thinking of something silver and maybe with a light geometric print.  The painted walls will be a misty, silvery grey. We will also add crown molding and I'm playing around with having raised panels to this room as well. But as the project unfolds, I will keep you all updated.

Besides decor, we finally added some molding and trim to the house.

Crown Molding added to the two story foyer and boxed wall trim work added.

We also had the ceiling painted a bright white in the hallway.

Right now we're not able to paint because it was suggested to hold off on painting until we have our floors replaced.  So once our walls are not that ugly flat white, the trim on the wall will pop. My idea is to place mirroring art images in these spaces and to contrast the inside of the square with a darker paint color.  I think we'll be using some type of beige or neutral tan on the walls and maybe a darker darker grey inside the box. I'm also going to have a cornice made by my friend Alexis for the foyer window. My idea for the window treatment will look similar to this one:

 

Fabric swatch of what I'm thinking of using for the foyer window treatment.

We'er also getting a quote to get the basement finished too.  I think both the painting project and the basement may be culminated by the spring.

Here are some more pictures:

Zgallerie linear chandelier that I plan to purchase for the dining room.

Lamp I purchased at Pier One for our master bedroom.

Up close pic of  the lampshade decorations found at Pier One. This is the floor lamp in my daughter's room.

 



Example of Alexis' work making cornices

Floors Update

Thanks everyone for all your comments and suggestions too. I spoke to Advanced Flooring the sub-contractor Ryan works with and this is what they told me:

1. They will be replacing the carpet in my daughter's room.
2. They will be replacing all the hardwoods.
3. They are waiting on an outside contractor/inspector to examine the issue with the creaking.
4. As for the other floor issues, they're going to need to pull up the carpet again and investigate. They will also assess the carpet to see if that too will need to be replaced.
Finally,   they're not sure if its the material, the sub-floor or the installation as it relates to the hardwoods. I only wished that if it's not the material that we could save some of the hardwoods so that I could use that to finish my family room and not to kill anymore trees (yes, I'm such a humanitarian...lol).

So, either way, it looks like my creaking floors will greet all my guests for Thanksgiving next week. There is good and bad to that, as my SIL stated, now I don't have to worry about folks messing up my new floors.

Happy building and decorating!

Nursery Unveil!

Finally, here are pictures from my daughter's nursery.

Dresser and Changing Table.

I love Etsy!  Nothing like a personalized clock.

Am I setting myself up?  This sign was a great $3 find at Ross. This is on the front of her bedroom door.

HomeGoods door hanger. Every baby needs a robe, right?

Our reading corner.

Toy chest.

Another Ross find!

Target changing table, a closer view.

HomeGoods Poodle Nightlight.

This fun little storage box will hold more books!

Paris stand from Marshall's and pearls a gift from my sister to my daughter.  Mirror from HomeGoods!

Another Etsy item!

Gallery wall.

Target glider. It has a matching ottoman in the same color. It's extra comfy!

Ceramic Eiffel Tower piggy bank.

Do you hear, what I hear?

So  awhile back I said that during our 10 month inspection it has been concluded that our hardwoods would need to be replaced based on creaky floors.  Well, here it is mid November and guess what? The floor has not been replaced and now I have sunken floors under my carpet too. Can you say that I'm feeling a little pissed right now!

I think we've been more than patient and now I'm starting to lose my coolness.  The truth is I had a contractor come and look at my floors and he said that the flooring is quality--otherwise, it's good stuff, but that the sub floor that Ryan Homes uses is CRAP. He also stated that just about everyone in our community (or those of us that bought Ryan homes) will have a flooring issue because the sub floor is made of OSB (I don't know what that is), which according to the contractor is more like a "floating" material where floors are not able to be full nailed down to, hence the creaks. How many of you have creaky floors--let me know, and sound off here!

In other news,  I will keep you all posted on what is going on but let's hope that this situation gets remedied fast or as R. Kelley said, "I may catch a case."

Happy building and decorating...

On a Blog Roll Today!

I just posted and here I am again with a second installment!  I wanted to address the change in my blog name and even the color scheme. First, I've been fiddling around for years with the idea of doing home decorating.  I know my husband would like for me to spend someones money over my own or better yet for me to get paid to go to HomeGoods to scout out fun home accessories.

For years friends, neighbors, and work colleagues have encouraged me and complimented me on my  natural and innate eye for decorating and organization.  I decided that I'm going to hunker down and make this passion of mine a business. So, Dee Wright Design was born!  I also figured the best way to showcase my talents and skills is to share it with all of you, my very best blog friends, yup you didn't know that you're  all  my VBBF's?

Therefore, I gave my blog a little face lift and a new color scheme, my latest color combination obsession is pink and orange; isn't pretty?  I even freshened up the title with "One Room At a Time" , cute, right?  Honestly the phrase, one room at a time has been my mantra with  moving into a new home that I needed to fill.  As I go forth and decorate our home, "one room at a time", I'm going to take you my VBBF's with me!

My posts will start to focus on the rooms, the finds, and the organization of my ideas.  I hope that these future posts will inspire you and help you with your own decorating conundrum. I vow to at least blog once a week...no more long weekly hiatus' for me.  So, since I just did two entries in one day...I will do a post by next Friday. In my next post, I will share my final room reveal of my daughters room. Until then... happy decorating and enjoy the weekend too!

10 Month Inspection...

Once again, I've been missing in action. A ton of things have been going on in our lives.  First, we lost my father-in-law a month ago.  Although he was sick with a chronic disease that was managed by doctors and  through medication,  his death came sudden, it was unexpected, and was not caused by his disease but rather by an aggressive form of bacterial pnemonia.  We're still grieving and missing him a lot. My Father-in-law was a self made man and a quiet leader.  He taught us many things, but I think his greatest lesson was to love the Lord, work hard, and love your family more.  We'll take those memories and lessons with us Pop-Pop...gone, but not forgotten!

In the midst of all of that,  we had to complete our 10 month inspection and we're still going through the process.  Although we initially did not find a ton of things that needed repair, we did have some BIG issues that needed to be addressed.  Below, please find our list of concerns:

1. Weather Stripping on garage and front door need to be replaced
2. Nail pops (not too many but don't you know after the drywall repairman came out a ton appeared...karma is a beyotch!)
3. Grading of our backyard.  This seems to be a common issue with Ryan Homes, all I can say is what's up with that?
4. Towel bars and toilet holders are crooked and need to be secured.
5. Creaky wood floor---This is our BIG concern and an outstanding issue (more to read below).
6. Master Bathroom vanity door needs to be secure/aligned.
7. Uneven/sunken floors beneath the carpet.

As I said the list is not that long but some of the issues on this list are HUGE!  So, here is the deal about the creaky wood floor:  when we first moved in we were told by our PM that creaks in hardwoods is normal. Our PM further told us that the hardwoods would swell in the summer--hence the creaks would fade and that during the winter the hardwoods would shrink and we'd here creaks between the space.  Ok--I get that, and when I started hearing the creaks during the winter I thought nothing about it. Well, the creaks continued during the summer and they have become far worst to the point of creaking followed by a popping sound.  When the RH inspector came to our house and walked the floors, I could see it written all of his face that this indeed was not good.

He took the issue back to his manger and then two weeks went by and we did not hear anything back.  I spoke the the RH inspector and  inquired about the floors.  The RH inspector said that he HAS NEVER seen or had this situation before but in all likely purposes the floor will need to be replaced. I think the issue here is not Ryan Homes but the contracting company they hired out to do the work.  We're scheduled to have the flooring company to inspect the floors on Monday...so stay tuned on this one. The other flooring issue is that the sub flooring is sinking in certain places under the carpet, so the same flooring company will take a look at this on Monday as well.

I've read many posts from others and their inspection experiences. I agree, that my experience with buying a Ryan Home was for the most part enjoyable.  However, I think if there was anything they could do to make their company even better is to have a two year inspection window.  I know that will never happen and it would take more time and money probably away from them but I already  know that more things will most likely pop up and you guessed it, it will be our headache to handle it.

I already noticed that my outside shutters, doors and trim will probably need to be repainted by next year.  I'm not sure what paint products Ryan uses but the quality is not great.  But I guess this is what home ownership is all about--maintenance and repair!

Happy building everyone!

Back to Work...

Well, I'm back to work. I can't believe that 4 months flew by since I left the office for maternity leave.   Now real life begins as a working mother, and guess what?  I'm TIRED!!!  However, coming back to work will afford me a few luxuries that I've missed.  Such as, I can stay current on the news, blog again and make sure that bills are paid on time (didn't know how much I depended on the bill pay feature of my bank).

Coming back to the office will also get me started on some big projects for the house.  First, we will say goodbye to white walls!! I know that many did not wait until 10 months inspection, but we did.  I'm glad we did so, as I would be really annoyed seeing my nice painted ceiling and wall ruined by a nail pop.  Speaking of nail pops, did anyone request that they fix the nail pops with screws?  I heard that just nailing it back is not a long term solution but screws very well could be the remedy. 

Additionally, I'm super exicted to have Alexis Ellison, a gifted seamstress and designer to come by our home for a consultation tomorrow.  Alexis is gifted and uber creative.  She will create custom window treatments for my daughter's room, our room, the dining and family room.  She will also reupholster my dining room chairs. So stay tuned for upcoming pics of her work.  

Once I get my colors together, I will be at my favorite store on the planet--HomeGoods to look for some over sized art pieces for our foyer.  I am just salivating thinking about the fun I will have in looking for art, choosing fabrics, and selecting paint colors and molding. In the meantime, happy building and decorating!

Trim De La Trim

A way to make a home look custom is to add trim and molding.  When purchasing our home, we didn't think twice of adding the trim package from the builder. Then when I viewed other neighbors homes I had a case of trim envy!  Later when speaking to my neighbor, I learned that the trim package was under $4,000 dollars--not a bad price.  But in hindsight, I'm still happy that we elected not to go with the builder, as I found a trim company via my friend, Dena that does phenomenal work. Home Trim work, visit their web page:  http://www.hometrimwork.com/.

Here are a few pictures of their work.  I  lifted these pictures from their website.  This trim work appears to compliment our home.

I really like the wainscoting going up the steps and the trim on the walls on all these pictures. 

I also visited a model home for a custom built home.  Man, talk about a beautiful home.  The home starts at $1.4 million, so you can imagine what this house looks like.  Funny thing, the woman selling the million dollar home used to work for Ryan Homes and lives in a Savoy--how funny is that!

I confessed right away that there is no way I could afford that house and my main purpose was to capture ideas for decorating.  She was real cool about my honesty and told me to feel free to snap photos and look around.  So, I took some pictures of items that I liked, more trim work and a coffered ceiling, which I'm not sure if I want to add it to our dining room or office space.  Either way, a coffered ceiling is major bucks, but looks so beautiful.  In addition to trim work, I really liked the wallpaper in the house.  They had this cork looking one in the basement bathroom and some other textured wall paper.  I'm thinking at this point of adding wall paper to our dining room, powder room, and maybe the master bedroom.

Here are pictures from the million dollar model home excursion:

Coffered Ceiling

Crown molding

Trim work in the dining room.

This is the cork like wall in the bathroom--very cool and I like the texture.  I may try something like this once we finish our basement bath. 

Took this picture because it reminded me of our two story foyer in our home, the Savoy.  I also like the idea of framing twin art pieces in the hallway. 

I like the size of this tray ceiling…another idea minus the medallion for our dining room. 

Loved the tile in the bath and the very modern fixtures. 

Sleek fixture.

I liked the lamp with the tray ceiling here…it is transitional. A look that I'm going for in our dining room. 

This is wall paper!   The flash on my camera did not capture the color but again, I  liked the texture of the paper. 

More textured wall paper!

I liked these built-ins.  This is actually a sitting area in the master bedroom.  But I think this is something I would like to do in our office or basement space. 

Hard to see in the picture, but this vanity is all blinded out!  Jeweled knobs…loved it!

I'm so excited that we're approaching our year mark and can finally paint!  I know many of you painted already, but we wanted to wait until nail pops and settlement happened in the house.  And to date we see most of our nail pops in the bathroom and bedrooms. I also see a lot of settlement on the trim going up the steps.  

Either way, we'll be picking out paint colors, wall paper and trim work in the next few months. So stay tuned for pictures as we go.  In the meantime, happy building!