Happy Thursday Guys!

I can't believe we are already at the second week of the ORC! As a newbie, I am really happy I chose to tackle a smaller room. Balancing work and life, learning to navigate a blog, taking pictures...PHEW...I have a new sense of admiration for those who have been doing all of this all this time! It is way harder than it looks.

If you recall from Week One, we had three walls of 1950s orange bookcases. As they were brought down, we slowly introduced much needed natural light into this room. Our backyard has several large trees which causes a problem for our north facing rooms.

As I mentioned in last week's post, there were a few surprises during the demo. The first surprise (which we figured out prior to the demo) is that there was a closet behind one of the built ins. There is another door to this closet that can be accessed in our hallway so we decided to close up this entrance to have more, very much needed wall space.

Surprise number two:

Oh heyyyyyyyyy there, window. We had NO IDEA that you were hiding behind that orange bookcase! Now this was a VERY pleasant surprise!

(Quick shoutout! All of the major construction in our home is being done by Distinctive Home Solutions. If you are in the Indianapolis area, I highly recommend them. Sean (one of our contractors who has also become a great friend) was kind enough to always snap me progress photos since I am at work when the magic happens.)

Since the walls came down, there has been a good amount of progress made, but also one regret. I will touch on that in a bit.

The espresso floors were installed and our ceiling light was added. I choose the Vega Brushed Brass Flush mount light from CB2. I was in love with the frosted round domes, brass finish, and the price point was perfect for our budget.

The brass etagere was my very first purchase from an antique store back in 2012. At that time, our house was almost all IKEA (rolling eyes). If you are a fellow Hoosier, you must check out Midland Antiques located in downtown Indianapolis. It is an old warehouse filled with all sorts of goodies. I went there specifically looking for this piece. After an hour of walking around and exploring, I started to leave when I saw something glisten. Underneath about 400 vases, books, and other items, stood my beautiful baby. I slowly walked over with the expectation that this would be at least $1000, BUT I WAS WRONG. I remember the exact amount I spent, $243.00. I was ec-sta-tic!

All the windows in our home will be replaced as we renovate each space. These are the original windows from 1954 and they are in rough shape. You can see dried out caulk along the edges and I am pretty sure if I sneezed, it would fall out.

We have been working with Pella Windows and have chosen an unfinished interior/black exterior and will be painting the interior part (black) ourselves. I do not recall the exact savings but it was several hundred per window. Luckily I have my very own painter....my husband, Chris, who handles all of our painting needs.

Now, back to the regret. Paint. There is not a home DIY task that I despise more than painting. Nothing. I was really excited to come home and find that my husband had finished painting the walls and the ceiling. 24 hours later I realized I hated it. It was too dark. It felt cold. There was no warm undertone to the paint.

I politely requested he repaint the room in the same off white color we had in our living room. Well folks, he pretty much laughed in my face and told me it would "grow on me". I guess I have another item to add to my "to do" list!

Most of the items that will be in this space are already owned, but I have been on the hunt for a rug for a long time. I swung into my local West Elm since they had their 20% off sale this weekend and came across this rug on display when I walked in:

I found this blush pillow in the store and threw it down to see how it looked with the rug. My chairs are this same blush color and I have been going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth with rugs. Do I go dark? Do I go light? From far away, this appeared to be a solid, but close up this was a tweed style mix of various colors with the plushest ivory fringe on the end. I LOVE me some tassels or fringe on rugs.

I took a few laps around the store, kept coming back to stare at the pillow/rug combo and finally inquired about the rug and price.

Wait for it....an 8 x 10 was $319 + 20% off for a total of $255 ! SOLD!

The downside is that I have to wait for it to be shipped to the store. I just need to be patient for a couple of weeks and then it will be here for the install. I have plenty to do till then!

Next week I should have some big updates to share:

New paint color
Windows
Furniture (if you saw my Insta-Story today, you got a sneak peak)
Curtain rods and maybe even curtains. Maybe....

Thanks so much for visiting! Be sure to checkout the other participants over at Calling It Home!

xoxo

Saher