booooring!

I admit it, things are pretty boring around here at The Pinkerton Projects right now. I think I've been hit with a bad case of the winter blahs, which at best, makes me totally unmotivated and uninterested in pretty much everything.

I haven't updated on the office project b/c it hasn't changed much yet. The walls are half painted and there are still boxes everywhere. I'm working on it though and today I'm focused on painting the window area on the other side of the room, which is technically our formal living room. I'll show you the "before" shot the realtor took - it's kinda the same now, but a whole lot messier!


*sigh* Look at all that green stuff outside the window! Certainly looks nothing like that now! Anyway, all that trim is getting painted and the walls are becoming yellow-ish. I've got some white curtains hung already, but will be improving those over the next few days before I share them with you.

One exciting thing that's taken place recently was the purchase of new bedroom dressers for the master bedroom. We got a great deal on them and I'm so excited to have purchased *new* furniture that doesn't require me to rebuild it or repaint it first! We decided not to purchase the matching mirror, so I'm on a mirror hunt right now. Once everything is in place, I'll be sharing better pictures. I've been using a point-n-shoot camera recently for snapshots and I apparently need to read the manual b/c nothing is ever in focus!



Anyway, just wanted to pop on here with something so you'd know I was still alive! Once I get all the hard work done, I'll have lots to share!

office update

Just wanted to pop in and let you know the desk is in! Looks pretty good! Now we need to do some serious filing, cleaning and organizing. Here's a little sneak peek...


Have a great weekend!

Operation: Rainbow Bright {studio/office BEFORE}

Operation: Rainbow Bright has been on hold with all the holiday hullabaloo going on, but we're gearing up to get things moving again. The next big space to be overhauled is the formal dining room which we will be using as an office and studio (for sewing.) We are severely lacking in storage for this space and of course, the budget is pretty much nothing, so we have a lot of work to do!

I have been super busy with my sewing lately, so it has been even messier than usual and it is driving me bonkers! I absolutely can't stand it anymore, but I don't really have a well thought out plan. We have some basic ideas, but for the most part, we'll be winging it.

Here is what the space looks like now. As I mentioned, it is technically our formal dining room, so we have a chandelier that needs to be replaced with something more appropriate. The biggest challenge with that and with painting is going to be the vaulted ceilings.

Oy! It's embarrassing!

There is an entrance into the kitchen back there to the left near where {E} is standing, and the formal living room is behind me. You can also see my ghetto window-shade aka a piece of paper taped to the window to block the sun. It shines directly into my eyes when I sit down to sew in the mornings. I *need* a window treatment now that the house next door has sold. Don't want the new neighbors peeking in at my mess!


This is where I've been working. It's our old dining table, but I think I'm going to switch it out for a different one we have sitting out on the porch that's a little more country (I intend to paint it a fun color.) The major change will be along the back wall. We are planning to create a semi-built-in desk using closet doors we've removed in other rooms. The desk will run almost the entire length of the wall and Scott wants to create an "L" shape in the corner to the right. Above the desk, I plan to hang wooden shelves that we brought with us from our previous house. Soooo, total cost of this project is pretty minimal so far! I do plan to purchase file cabinets to place under the desk. Here's a little visual I drew up for you. :)


This is Scott's side of the room. See how much crap needs to find a home? A lot! It has pretty much looked like this since we moved in almost 6 months ago. You can see here where he wants to create the "L" shape which would extend the desk to that window (my sewing table would have to move back a little.)


Next to his desk, we have an old microwave stand that is currently acting as storage for all our "home school" stuff. The plan is to get new dressers for our bedroom so that we can move our pine armoire down to use it for fabric storage and home school storage.


Since this space is so open to the rest of the house, I want to really make it special. I want to find cute storage boxes and baskets for all the junk. Here are the few little things I have gotten/made for the space so far. I've covered a chair in one of my favorite fabrics from Heather Bailey.. I love, LOVE it! It's so fun with greens, reds, yellows and pinks. I also made some pillows for the sofa, which I intend to slipcover in white. White curtains have also been in the works. I found these damask print hat boxes on clearance for about $2 each! They make great fabric storage!


Right now the walls are the cappuccino color that the entire house was when we moved in and the trim is dark wood. We have a nice neutral yellow-y color for the walls and the trim will be painted white.

Across from the work area, I have my ironing board, which is crucial to the sewing that I do, but is an eye-sore and clutter magnet. I think I'd like to find an old long credenza, buffet or dresser to put along that wall with some nice prints above. I'm planning to swap out the old ironing board for a table top board.


That darn chandelier is always in the way, can you tell? I'm surprised none of us have whacked our heads on it. lol

If you have any good decor suggestions for this space, please share! I have a good idea of the type of look I want, but I'm not settled on the specific elements just yet. I keep thinking that making the back wall a focal wall by using a bold color or pattern would be fun, but I'm ready to get started and don't have a plan for it, so it might have to wait until later. To get an idea of the shabby chic/vintage/whimsical look I love and will be working towards, you can check out Heather Bailey's studio HERE. I love her fabrics and pretty much everything she does! HB, you are my hero!

Hopefully I'll be posting "after" shots soon!

the halls are decked!

I feel sooo bad I haven't been blogging this holiday season! I have just been sooo busy and also a little frustrated that my house isn't further along than it is. Despite the mess and boxes, and things being half painted, we decorated just as we normally would. Our new house is a little different from our last house, so we've had to change things up some, but it's been fun. I'm looking forward to next year, when the house will be DONE and beautiful, and we'll have gorgeous handmade decorations for every nook and cranny!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of our holiday decor. I will take "real" pics tonight, after I find all the pieces to my tripod. lol Our neighborhood also puts out candlelit luminarias on Christmas eve, which I'm very anxious to experience and photograph!

Here is our lovely tree! I promise, I'll get better pics of it tonight, after Santa drops off the presents! It is only about 6 ft tall, so I wasn't able to get *all* my ornaments on it. The other problem with real trees is that the branches don't hold as much. We've also had about half our lights go out on it, so it's a good thing I really pack them on there! I always do white lights and then one string of colored lights, just to keep it fun.


I let the girls have trees in their rooms, and let them decorate them themselves. I sent them to their rooms with a basket of ornaments and they did the rest themselves. I was so impressed with how they did! I think next year we might get some fun pink tinsel trees for them and make coordinating ornaments for their rooms. :)



In the kitchen, I strung snowflakes in the window and lined up our gingerbread houses over the sink. I am hoping to really elaborate on these ideas next year!

Of course, the stockings are hung by the fireplace, waiting for Santa to fill them. (No picture b/c Scott's is missing - it needs fixing and fast!) On the buffet, I have our little village set up. The kids have enjoyed playing with it, after I tell them repeatedly not to, and making a huge mess of the fake snow.


And on the outside of the house, we've hung wreaths on the upstairs windows and lights along the garage. This pic is from a couple weeks ago - we are expecting about 18 more inches of snow over Christmas! Our Christmas tree is in that big window, which is our formal living room.


I have to say, this year has been SOOOOO much better than last Christmas, when we were struggling through our first few months of an 10 month unemployment. I am so thankful that things are better this year and I am very much looking forward to next year. As I was preparing for this Christmas, I came up with tons of ideas for vintage and handmade decorations for next year! I am hoping to hit some after Christmas clearance sales to get supplies. Fun, fun!

Merry Christmas to you all! I am planning to post again with fancier pics! Gotta find the mount for my tripod first! lol :) xoxo

Have a seat in our Purple Paradise!

Last week we had exciting things happen at the Pinkerton house! The guys we hired to help with the scary hall bath, RW Handyman Services, finished up their work and it was transformed into a Purple Paradise! Like everything else, we aren't completely finished yet, but it is soooooooo much better than it was!

You can check out all the before pics in THIS post, but here's a shot to refresh your memories:

That huge toilet paper holder was hiding a huge hole in the wall, by the way. lol And here's what it looks like now:

MUCH better!

One of the major things that RW Handyman Services did was install a shower in the tub with a new surround. I was thinking we'd get something a little fancier for the surround, but I made the mistake of walking away while the order was placed and my dear husband picked this one after finding out the one I picked was a special order. Oh, well. It's nice and new and clean! The shower is great - I've already tried it out, even though this is the kids' bathroom. I will be shaving my legs in here for the rest of our stay in this house so that I don't feel like I'm bent in half in an upright coffin in our master bath shower stall. haha! Really, what were they thinking when they came up with those stand up shower designs? There definitely was zero thought given to shaving legs in them.


The shower curtain is something I'm excited about. I found these gingham curtain panels on clearance at Lowe's for less than $1 each, so I stocked up on them knowing we could find uses for them. For the shower curtain, I just sewed two of them together, side by side and added little button holes at the top to put the hooks through. Not perfect, but definitely good enough, and at $2, who is going to complain??? Not me! Since we saved money on the curtain, I let the girls get these fancy glass knob hooks to dress it up.

When I find the time, I'll make some fabric yo-yo's in blues, purples and greens to add as polka dots to the shower curtain. The girls LOVE anything with yo-yo's and I think it will add to the girly/shabby chic look we have going on, while incorporating some of the other colors in the room.


We found this super cute rug at TJMaxx today. LOVE it! The purples don't match exactly, but we'll tie it in with those yo-yo's. You can see our pretty new (vinyl) floor that the guys put in for us. The floor is not level (like, by a lot!) so vinyl really was the best option for us.


Remember how the old vanity was covered in the oatmeal texture??? bleh!! Well, now we have a new one! I LOVE it!!! Nice and white and clean, except for the blue marker Phoebe wiped on there after coloring clothes onto her naked self. I missed it before I took the pic. lol We went from having a vanity that was 22" deep to one that's only 19" deep. I thought I wouldn't like the narrower version, but I actually love the way it gives more space to the room and it seems much more streamlined and modern.


The faucet is new and doesn't flood the counter top now! The kids have been playing in the sink every chance they get. Apparently, they've never seen a sink stopper that works because it's the greatest thing ever to them!

In this pic, you can see the now un-scary linen closet. It's full of tools and junk right now, but I can't wait to put my linens in there! You can also see that we need to re-hang the doors and finish painting the trim. It will all happen this week. Promise!


Today Sarah and I hung some pictures and things on the walls. I have this great faucet *thing* that I've never had a place for, but it's very cute in the bathroom. I also let her use some of my favorite paintings. In this collage, you can also see the knobs we got for the cabinet. I wanted to get glass knobs like the shower curtain hooks, but those suckers are almost $5 each! We got these for $1.75 each and they will fit in fine.


Aside from making the yo-yo's for the shower curtain, we are planning to embellish some towels with ruffles like these awesome Shabby Chic towels at Target. They are pricey, but I know I could easily make something similar and we can use whatever colors and fabrics we want.

So that's the new bathroom!!! I need to finish painting and touching up, but I'm so happy with the way it turned out! Seriously, we wouldn't even go in there before! Now we have to tackle the rest of the house, which looks like this right now:


It will be done by the end of the week. Promise!

fine dining with feathered friends

Operation: Rainbow Bright is moving along. Our bathroom project is just a day away from being finished! This week I also got some things finished up in our eat-in kitchen dining area, which is our only dedicated dining space for now (the formal dining room is our office space.)

I admit, I am not very inspired by kitchen and dining spaces. It's hard for me to come up with creative ideas that will work together, but I came across this wonderful idea to make fabric birds and mount them on a branch, and I knew it would be perfect for our space. The bird pattern is by Spool and can be found here. I made a bird to represent each person in our family. The girls had a blast playing with them before they went up.

Oh, and I have made the executive decision that the ceiling beams are getting painted (white.) We have someone to do it, we just need the cash. I keep trying to work around them and make them less noticeable, so we are gonna paint those suckers! It will give the kitchen a very cottage-y look (we've seen it done in other houses.)




We have a very large window and I wasn't sure what type of window treatment to do, so we went with an inexpensive patio shade (which I'm not sure I love, but it will work until I decide.) We don't need a ton of privacy from it, but it would be nice to have something to cover the window at night when it's easy to see in.


I also hung up some decorative plates that I've been collecting. I LOVE them and am so glad I have a place to display them now. I intend to keep collecting and continue them down the wall.




The plates compliment my teapot collection, which is now over the sink. I'm still working on unpacking, so there may be more to add to the display. It's all just sort of thrown up there for now to get it out of the way. LOVE my new Alice in Wonderland teapot!


When we moved from our old house, I made the decision to replace our dining chairs. The table was in ok condition, but the upholstered parsons chairs had been trashed by the kids. Originally, I wanted to go with some sleek, modern chairs from Ikea to contrast with my cottage-y/shabby things, but they discontinued the ones I wanted! Plan B was put into place, which was to collect old chairs and paint them all a fun color. Unfortunately, finding chairs is not easy! Tables = easy. Chairs = not easy. I scoured craigslist.com for a while until I found someone selling a collection of 6 chairs + a table for $60. We wound up using 4 of the chairs and the table will probably go out on our covered porch. Scott's mom found this great table with 2 leaves for $5, so I had her get it and I freshened it up with some 3-in1 stain. (Our old table is now my sewing table since it doesn't have the leaves.) She also found the two end chairs for us for $3 each! I love a bargain!



In the plate picture, you can sort of see into our family room, which is a few steps down. Just wanted to prove it's a mess!!! lol It's next on the list - I've been working on it. It's a super dark room because of the covered porch, but we're making progress with brightening it up.

cue the 'Jaws' music....

This is our "scary bathroom." And boy, is it ever! At some point in the recent past, this house suffered some damage from a (rumored) busted pipe and it was fixed up by one of those restoration companies. Somehow, the fixer-uppers (who didn't really do that great of a job) forgot about the main hall bath! Many of the supplies were sitting in there, but nothing had been done to it. Anyway, today we started renovating it! We've hired some help since there's serious plumbing involved, and today they came and gutted everything. We are very excited b/c it's basically been unusable since we moved in and we've all been sharing our small master bathroom.

All of these pics are clickable if you dare to view them larger! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here are the realtor's pics of what it looked like when we moved in. Yup, that toilet was that gross. I thought it was stained from hard water (the house had been vacant for quite a while) but turned out to just be scum! GROSS. Hey realtors...you will sell a house faster if you make sure the toilets aren't scummy! Can you imagine how many people just turned around and left after seeing that? It definitely wasn't a selling point for us! Somehow, the toilet wound up being the only thing we didn't have a major problem with. LOL


The biggest problem for me was that the sink faucet leaked like crazy when you turned it on. The inspector didn't quite convey the severity of the drippy-ness in his reports. You turn it on and water goes everywhere! An easy problem to fix IF we could have replaced the faucet. However, there were no shut-off valves under the sink! We kinda need those, so that's where it became a project beyond our abilities.


I talked Scott into just replacing the whole vanity after I had the chance to inspect it a little closer. The cabinet was in poor condition and some not-very-savvy person put some sort of gross texture, the color of oatmeal, all over the entire thing INCLUDING the hardware/pulls. Ummm. Don't ever do that!! I might have been able to save it if I could have replaced the pulls, but after looking it over, I decided it was worth it to just get a whole new vanity cabinet and counter.

Next up is the tub. It has no shower, which we didn't realize when we bought the place...but an easy fix for someone in the know. The grout/caulk was cracked along the top of the tub, but the biggest issue was that the hot/cold was backwards on the faucet. You turned on the water, thinking you were getting cold, but you got hot instead! Big problem for a kids' bathroom! And apparently, it has been that way since the house was built 30 some odd years ago. Crazy. Needless to say, I haven't been using it for fear of the kids burning themselves somehow, so it's been the cat carrier storage area.


Also, the flooring around the tub was pulling up and discolored.


Again, the flooring was pulling up in the linen closet that's at the end of the tub. VERY gross and creepy, so our linens have been living in my bedroom closet. I will be very happy for them to move out.


And now the bathroom looks like this:


Much better already!!! We've purchased all the new stuff and our contractors expect to be done by the middle of next week. I will, of course, share the after shots with you when it's done. Goodbye "scary bathroom," hello purple paradise!