Before and After: Board and Batten Transformation

Wow guys. How deep do I get into this? We have so massively overhauled the front downstairs portion of our house plus the staircase and upstairs hallway that I don't know where to begin. I guess a quick review of all that it entailed, in order:

1. Changing out old interior doors for new ones
Our back hallway was a sea of old doors with old hardware and most of them didn't close, had large gaps in the jambs, etc.

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Semi after

You can't tell but it brought us into the 21st century. The door guy was awesome but he does not do finish work, so Jason had a ton of painting and touching up to do (which he did some time after this picture was taken). I'll also note, all the doors had dated gold hinges and the knobs to the bedroom doors upstairs were gold too. We i.e. Jason changed every single one to a nice new silver. Because consistency.

Ok off to a strong start here.

2. Waiting patiently for the right piano and grandfather clock to come along (key decorating pieces)

Our foyer is kind of useless. I think I've talked about this in the past. What was once the original living room is now just a pass through to get upstairs which makes it hard to furnish. 'Tis a minor detail that no one plays the piano (yet) - when the right baby grand came along (holler at Robyn for that one!) I hired movers and it came home with us.

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Then I found the perfect floor clock on Craigslist. Nevermind I had to drive to Connecticut to get it (the things we do for love!). Then I had it painted.

Before and After

3. A new chandelier

The one that came with our house was not my favorite. What WAS my favorite was this huge wooden orb chandelier hanging at Jordan's furniture for $1,500. So what did I do? I bought a knock off from Home Depot for $400 that was kind of a gross brown and then had that painted too (by the same guy in the same color as the clock)!

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After

4. Crown molding upstairs

We have a double height entryway that has always been begging for some fancying up. Right after New Year's we had a very large snowstorm coming and a snow day had been officially declared. Around 9 am, the first heavy flakes were starting to fall. In a panic, foreseeing we would all be stuck in the house for HOURS, and with nothing to do, I said: 

"Omg today would be the perfect day for you to finally do the upstairs crown molding!" and Jason was like "But I don't have any of the materials." 

"Pshhh. So? The snow is only just starting. Go to Home Depot right now! Go babe! It's a race against time but you can make it!"

And while the roads were worsening by the second and everyone in Home Depot was frantically buying shovels, salt, and sand, Jason was marching out of the lumber aisle with strips of crown molding over his shoulder. That's just how we do. 

5. Painting

There's not much to this one. We hired painters :D In one day the walls went from the pre-existing beige to Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray @ 75%. Who loses sleep over paint colors? 

Since Jason was planning to do the custom board and batten shortly (a hybrid of roughly 56 inspiration pictures from Pinterest I had collected) we only had them roll 2/3 of the way down.

6. Refacing the fireplace

In the middle of the woodwork project, on a random day at a random time, Jason said "Well, I might as well re-do the fireplace now too."
"Wow! Awesome honey! Should we go look at some tile like right this instant? Yes, yes we should!" :D

Safety first

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After

7. Board and Batten installation
This, my friends, is everything. This was so involved and so extensive that I'm going to make a separate post about it. I have to, it deserves it. But this lucky post will see only the befores and gorgeous afters. Ready? Per usual they are a little off. I'm not a professional or anything.

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After

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And some general lovely ones:

There is just beautiful woodwork everywhere! I love, love, love everything about it. It brings our living space up so much, to have this board and batten winding through the first floor, up the stairs and framing all the hallways. As I said, this project will soon have a post of its own because Jason did so much work on it, but for now I should think this is the most solid before and after post I've ever done. All the above steps were way more involved than I let on (i.e we had to re-do the frame wall after the new paint, cut our tiles to custom sizes for the fireplace, etc.) but of course Jason makes it look easy. So annoying. 

Next up: laundry room and guest room.

(What? You don't think we're finished, do you??) Happy weekend all!

Alex is Fourrrrrrrr!!!

OMG. Alex is four! And boy does he know it. We've been counting down to his birthday since mid-January, that's not even a lie. Since he is such a regular on the birthday party circuit, he was oh-so-aware that his turn was coming. Luckily he did not have any huge requests so I did what I wanted to do which is invite MY friends over lol. Between us we ended up with 8 boys ages 4-6, from 5:30 - 7:30 pm on Friday, March 16. At our house. Accordingly, I sustained what I'm certain was an alarmingly high blood pressure the entire time.

So let's talk about Alex's day! He went to school with his Birthday Boy shirt on and some brownies for his class and came home wearing a crown. Naturally.

Then he got to open some presents with Jen...

He took a nap to recharge and then we set up the party.

You know what is funny? Hysterical, in fact. Somewhere in a deep part of my brain I was like "Oh, I wonder if all the boys will want to do a craft together. Let me just set some markers out so they can sit and color when they get here."

BAHAHAHAHA! Even I can't believe I ever thought that. I'm embarrassed to admit it. No, what happened was, the boys all tore around the house, wielding swords, fighting, hitting the balloons, rolling around, pillaging the toybox and it was chaos in its purest form. Each kid cried at least once, the moms refereed between precious sips of wine and if that doesn't sound like the perfect party I don't know what does.

While the boys were confined to their seats, we sang (tell me that is not the most enthusiastic cheer you have ever heard at the end :) my heart melts) and then we did these confetti wands that I thought would be fun (and were!) but cleaning up after them was insane. Try to pick up all the sand off the beach and that's basically the equivalent. Here is the video of the fun and here is the video of the savage aftermath (I selfie'ed it!). You guys, I'm still finding these little blue pieces of paper. They even made it into the toilet.  

We did a funny group photo:

and then it was over! People started to get their shoes on and guess what happened. The goodie bags came out and all hell broke loose for the 34th time that evening.

Shoes came off, playtime started again, and the moms were like, welp, guess we should have more wine ;)

Overall it was just what I thought it was going to be (madness) but also the perfect thing for Alex. He had everyone's attention and was so, so happy. We did family time afterwards,

and by the time I cleaned everything up I felt like this balloon.

Just dead on the floor.

Alex's pediatrician appointment is next week so I'll do the nitty gritty stats post after that, but for life as we know it going forward, Alex is...

!!!!!!