Lighthouse Lane Railing

The Lighthouse Railing

So I am kind of stuck up and like nice things. I also don't like paying a fortune to have nice things. I do know that I really don't like sheet rock half walls. I like the elegance that comes with a railing. Although it is not a main feature of the house or the first thing you see when you come in; it really opened up the hallway and made it feel bigger.

I priced newel post but was unimpressed with what I was offered for my money. So I  built the newel with a solid sheet of oak finish plywood. I then cut to the measurements I wanted and trimmed it with simple clean lines. When tearing out the old wall it left a hole on the wall where it had once lived.  In order to patch the wall I decided I would just build a newel on the wall to cover up any discrepancies. I painted with a gloss white and clear coated.

 

I then added the iron balusters.I started in the center and moved towards the edges. I lucked out here because I had balusters left over from random projects over the years. They were covered in garage dust and muck so I touched them up with some black paint. 

This total project cost me around $100, and I did it over the weekend. Although not the center point of my house or a huge elaborate railing it really adds to the modern elegance that I was shooting for.

 

Thanks For Stopping By You can also visit:

My Pinterest Page

Christmas Time

 Christmas Time

Every Christmas for the last four years I have been away for most of the season working. I was out of state or just out in the field. So lovely wife, who is very frugal and very good at it, will take on the task of taking care of all the Christmas shopping. She makes sure my kids have what they need as well as always gets them what they want or something close to it. She also takes care of what I need as well as her own. I never feel its fair what she does for me. I appreciate it though so every year I try to do something for her to show that I care and just so there is something for her on Christmas morning that she was unaware of. I scour the pages of pins on her Pinterest account and I will pay attention through the year and keep notes in my phone or my tablet. She is one of kind so I try to be a one of a kind. So today on this Christmas day I thought I would share a few projects that I came up with over the past few Christmas's.

Our last house didn't have a fireplace. She absolutely loved having a mantle to decorate per season or for holidays. I didn't make anything elaborate I did create a simple and affordable shelf.

It was really simple. I found this clock on Black Friday at my local Hardware store. It is a 30" clock so I tailored the shelf for scale with the clock. The battle with project is that we lived about three hours away from any real good home decor stores. I had to run into Salt Lake one day and I used this time to hit the stores and find the accessories that I felt completed the ensemble as well as fit our taste and the feel of the home at that time.




The So here is what I came up with she of course, loved it but it did get changed and altered as time went by. Sorry about the glare. At the time when I started taking pics of things it was to post on Facebook to show people I didn't really think I would be writing about any of it. 

 So as for this year I have had to work every day of the week except Saturday's so I haven't had time to do anything for her. I also had no Idea what to do for her so until about two days ago I had nothing. I always want what I do to mean something and to show that I appreciate what she does for me.  Luckily I think it came to me. I got online and started checking prices and putting in orders. I had no idea I could get it done so quickly nor as cheap. 

So here is my big empty wall it sits adjacent to the love seat in my family room. I felt that it needed something. I wanted to fill the space with something subtle that didn't take all the attention away from my feature wall but still added its bit so I did.

So here is what she woke up to this morning. I was going to put them in a box and let her open it then I decided that it what be kind of fun to just hang them up where I wanted them. so she could see what I had in mind.  

Here is what is hiding beneath the wrapping paper. I taped off the wall so I can paint it tomorrow a lighter gray so that the contrast of the white pops. It is simple but it fills the space and reminds me of happy my family is. I am painting tomorrow and will try to a photo that looks good once its done. I think it is going to look quite incredible.
This  morning I woke and went to the paint store and had them shake my paint that has been sitting around my house. I painted the wall where the pictures are. Now that I am done I wish I would have gone a few shades darker with the gray. My wife however disagrees.



 It is subtle but the three tone paint really helps the pictures pop. I took some photos of how I get straight paint lines and not having your paint bleed on to the ceiling or trim. I will link it here once I get it uploaded.

The Rental Property

The Rental Property

This is rental Property that I just recently sold. I purchased this little guy for around $80000. It was a foreclosure and was in need of very little TLC.   It was only 1350 sqft. I liked this house a lot because even though it was small it had a great layout and it had really good walk in closets. It just needed a little paint new floors and some simple touches to make a little different from the others in the neighborhood.

Before we sold we updated the outside. It was really simple we removed the old vinyl shutters. They were faded by the sun. We put in a new front door and painted it with a complimentary color that also had some contrast. The vinyl siding was a gray so we went with a really dark blue gray.  Then we landscaped with simple bushes mulch and sod. 

The day we laid the sod down is when we received a full price offer

Here is the shutters I built. I use smart side because it has the wood texture but it has the same qualities as Hardi board. These are really simple to build. 

So here is the kitchen before. really plain oak cabinets white appliances, no microwave, and a whole lot of YUCK!.

I trimed the island with bead board and trim then painted it black. I sanded and painted the cabinets. I added a microwave over the stove so I needed to build custom cabinets to accommodate accordingly. You can also see that I tore out the old laminate floor. I replaced all my main walk areas with a hard surface. I do this to save on maintenance of replacing carpet constantly.  

The living room also had a lot of blah moments. we removed all the oak laminate trim from the house and replaced it with new mdf. We added new carpet and did a three tone paint job throughout. 

The after you can see the difference. It turned out really nice. 

 The dining room before.

Dining room after.

So added twice the space to this closet by utilizing the high ceilings and building custom closet system with multiple rods.

The master bathroom wasn't huge but it still needed some update to match the rest of the home. I found this tile on clearance at one of the box stores for like .06 a tile. so i installed it on a 45 pattern cleaned everything up and painted and the bathroom felt fresh and new.

All in all I put maybe $5000 into this home. I owned for about three years and was renting it out for 2 of them. At the end the market was really strong and the house had doubled in value and it was time to say good bye.

Check out some of my other homes that I have fixed and sold.

Including The Project house I just started @ The Little House on Lighthouse Lane

You can also visit my 

My Pinterest Page

The Little House on Lighthouse Lane

The Little House on Lighthouse Lane

When looking for our next home, I was getting discouraged easily. The market here is very strong. Every house we wrote an offer on either went under contract as we were looking at it or it had multiple offers. When I look for real estate to purchase I always look for something that is priced below the market and something that needs a little DIY. I am not afraid of a little work or a lot for that matter.

The listing for this house was priced pretty well for the information given. 3 bedroom 2 bath with 1600 sqft up and another 1600 sqft unfinished in the basement. Which equals about 3200 sqft total.  The home was built in 2004 and was actually in really good condition. The Kitchen had maple cabinets double ovens and all stainless appliances. It had tile throughout ( although not through all major traffic areas) it was pretty decent. Plus I can use my imagination and build anything I want in the basement.

After going under contract and getting our appraisal it came to our attention that the house was actually quite a bit bigger than was listed. 250 extra sqft up stairs and down stairs for a total square footage of 3700sqft. This equates to more instant equity when I moved in.

Here is a list of projects for The Lighthouse Lane house.

Remove all carpet and install new.

Adding a fireplace-
 The Lighthouse Fireplace

Knocking out the half wall by the stairs and installing a railing.-
The Lighthouse Railing

Feature wall in family room-
The Lighthouse Feature Wall

Back splash in the kitchen - 

Install wood floors throughout

Done: Pics coming soon

Finishing the bedrooms in the basement

Theater Room in the basement

Game room in the basement

Kitchenette in the basement

Basement bathroom

Shed out back

Garage (maybe)

I plan to do a how to and progress photos for each project I tackle.

Thanks for stopping by you can also visit:

My Pinterest Page
<script async defer data-pin-hover="true" data-pin-color="red" data-pin-tall="true" src="//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script>