#i forget how long ago this was originally posted on the first blog. its gotta be closer to 10 months at this point

[brightlilies-a]

   headcanons i’ve written before but get to repost/rewrite 1/??:    1.0 gridanian politics and your local keeper boy’s childhood.

   this deals a lot with racism and xenophobia, because both are very prevalent in 1.0 gridania. if that bothers you, please don’t read this! it’s not something i slap into my interactions, but it is something i find necessary to address with regarding albi’s character because it is in his upbringing.

   i’m gonna start with a mini-history lesson that really is a massive watering down of the actual subject. there’s entire chunks of the history missing, 1.0 didn’t do the greatest job of explaining it as it was & 2.0 only barely scratches at it since the game started moving away from conflicts between the playable races.

   specifically before the calamity happened, keepers of the moon were essentially persona non grata to the gridanians. some lived within the city for some number of various reasons, including finances, inability to hunt, lack of a tribe, need of medicines, etc., but many chose to live within the twelveswood proper according to their cultural lifestyle. those of whom lived in gridania proper, though, alongside the duskwight elezen, were often subject to a considerable amount of racist commentary and beliefs that did not extend to their seeker or wildwood counterparts.

   of course, their conflict with keepers really stems from hunting laws. under the elementals’ watch, hunting was only allowed within select regions of the twelveswood, and this was formally recognized through laws that restricted hunts to those lands. hunting outside of these selected regions was considered poaching, and seen as an act that would upset the elementals’ will. which seems reasonable when you’re a group of hyurs and elezen that actually deal with the elementals on a regular basis and have similar views of society, but the keepers migrated in much later by following the hunt, and their lifestyle is wildly different. as a result, gridanians tried to force their laws and way of life on the keepers, the keepers refused because it infringed on their freedoms and culture. therefore, gridanians and keepers do not, for the most part, get along.

   some tribes, like albi’s, would acquiesce and accept the gridanian hunting laws in a show of good will and in the interest of maintaining harmony/avoiding conflict, but for the most part, gridanians would see keepers in general as poachers and threats to the elementals’ will. it didn’t help, either, that a keeper-based gang known as the coeurlclaws rose on the back of the gridanians’ mistreatment of the keepers who lived in the city proper/keepers who had nowhere else to go, and began attacking twin adder/wood wailer sentries and poaching with the intent of making quick coin that was more often than not used to help their own families.

  among the many, many ways the gridanians made their dislike of keepers very evident, though, is in referring to them as savages, and otherwise treating them like they’re uneducated or disloyal to gridania itself. best example really comes from the archer quests with silvairre and leih’s interactions, such as

   and albi had to deal with that a lot once he moved into hyrstmill after the calamity. hyrstmill is a hamlet mostly populated by wood wailers and their families. after all, as it is a supply outpost for the god’s quiver. which means a forestborn, tribal keeper moving into their home was generally not seen as a good thing, and due to the distance from the main city, the calls from the seedseer made to accept the keepers who had been displaced by the destruction done to the twelveswood were more often than not simply ignored since few were of the interest of calling the behavior out.

   he never quite got used to the insults slung at him, much less to the number of times that, if he found himself cornered by the other children in the hamlet, the very real fear that he might actually die would settle in if he couldn’t find other ways to immediately escape. far be it from him to tell an adult such was occurring, though, since they’d likely not believe him or insinuate worse of him for saying their children were capable of it——not to mention their ability to live in hyrstmill as it was relied on them not being problematic, so very often, for his mother and sister’s sakes, he’d take the blows in silence.

   as such, he takes considerable, real offense to being called a savage. (consider it a slur for him and his people, basically, because it is used a lot like one.)

   which is, coincidentally, the empire’s favorite word to call the eorzeans in general. so most dealings with the less open-minded of their rank involve a lot of albi biting his tongue. however, the treatment he endured also fits into why albi doesn’t consider himself gridanian, and how he, if asked, will say he’s a forestborn from the black shroud.

--- bonus, because this headcanon is on a related subject so i can smash it in easily even if its a weird transition.

   however, for much of his childhood (well, up until the age of 14), these are things he had the blessing to never really come into contact with. his tribe, prior to the calamity, was from the peacegarden, which is a region of forest located in the north shroud near the hamlet of hyrstmill as of 2.0, but in 1.0, it existed in a slightly different area (pictured below). currently, it’s not accessible as the land changed considerably after the calamity, burying certain regions while exposing others (cough,palaceofthedead,cough).

   still near hyrstmill, but a sizable distance compared to the stone’s throw it becomes after the calamity happens. which means albi lived outside of society’s reach, actually within the twelveswood and a part of a small tribe of fellow keepers. and being that far out came with its own benefits—many of which were that he rarely encountered other people and therefore didn’t have to deal with the prejudice outside of the twin adder units and wood wailers dispatched to survey the area—but also with its own problems. as of 1.0, the peacegarden was located in an area riddled with strong monsters, but it also featured one other problem: its proximity to the ixali beast tribe. in fact, the ixali were close enough that there was an unused dungeon designed and intended to be placed within the peacegarden littered with their banners. in later patches, these ixali would even be poised to invade hyrstmill from time to time (much like one of the existing FATEs today, but on a far larger scale), and so the threat they posed to a small keeper tribe was great, indeed.

   so, to recap, albi grew up in a small, isolated tribe that consisted of three families: his own (the mahzu), his cousins’ (the fhorga), and another family (the rutkhu). and important to keep in mind is keepers are traditionally raised without fathers present, so the only males in the tribe (who would be exiled upon their reaching adulthood) were actually albi’to, his older brother albi’a, and the rutkhu son, kahli’a, which means the keeper philosophy regarding males was instilled into him pretty early on.

   in other words, to dream of anything grand as an adult was literally only going to be just that: a dream. but as long as he remained young enough to still be considered a child, he could make himself useful to the tribe and learn the skills he’d need for later on when he was forced to wander by his lonesome. the idea of expecting gratitude or respect was squashed altogether – and he heard it plenty growing up as the youngest of the tribe, often in the form that he didn’t know anything because he was a boy or because he was a child.

   despite this, he never really had a strained family life. he was attached at the hip with his brother, but his relationships with his sister and his mother were rather close as well. he was friendly and on good terms with his twin cousins, sehye and tohsah, as well as the tribe chieftain’s youngest daughter, ahte. the chieftain, kahli, and her eldest daughter, pahje, were less friendly, but in the end, it was only on matters that required counsel that he was shunned out, to which albi never really took to heart.

   returning to the point i made earlier, the threat of ixali attacks was relatively high, but being from a tribe meant that inquiring assistance from the wood wailers or the twin adder simply wasn’t feasible. they had to manage to be self-sufficient, even in the matters of their own defenses, which led to a focus on matters of stealth and, among other things, a proficiency for climbing trees to get out of the flightless ones’ reach. it didn’t keep them wholly away from conflict with the birdmen, as one such instance would claim the lives of both albi’s father and his aunt when he was only two moons, but ultimately, their ability to hide, as well as living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle managed to keep the number of casualties to a bare minimum.

  remaining on the topic of those not in his tribe, when it came to the hyurs and elezens that ventured far enough into the wood to find the keepers, there weren’t many. occasionally, their tribe would venture out with the specific interest of trading with merchants to get materials they otherwise couldn’t, but talking was done by those older than he was. his job was always to carry things back, to not speak, to not prolong their time among strangers. the cost of this, though, is that he never got enough practice to learn how to speak well among people outside the tribe, hence his use of contractions and lack of enunciation… only strengthening some individuals’ opinion that he was just another savage wildling of the wood.

   but he did occasionally, out of curiosity, wander near hyrstmill with his brother to observe things — try to understand the people that were so quick to talk down to him. hyrstmill at the time was busy and full of adventurers. it still lacked a proper aetheryte, yet people would still appear, oftentimes offering to help the hamlet against the threat of the ixal, which was… a strange concept to the miqo’te. gridanians accepting help from outsiders? it seemed unlikely, yet it was happening.

   for every adventurer that would make it to hyrstmill, however, was another that would find themselves utterly lost within the labyrinthine structure of the shroud. and those who find themselves lost tend to find themselves marked with woodsin and a target for the elementals, which only makes things harder for the denizens of the wood as the beasts get enraged and lash out. so, very often, and without telling anybody, and without talking to these stranded peoples, he’d take a page from his brother’s book and go out of his way to guide them back to the gates of civilization —— back to where they could be cared for without endangering themselves or others.

   so, y’know, he’s a strange boy. he wholly understands they don’t like him, but he feels compelled to help since they’re, well, helpless.

[kinkymagnus]

Hi! Love your stories!! <3

I just wanna start with I am not transphobic (I know it sounds cliche...) but I am just curious about fanfic authors who write Magnus as trans.

Most of the time I shy away from trans!Magnus fics because for me its hard to picture it when he is male and when I try to read a fic I will get thrown off once I read sex scenes. I love your stories of sub!Magnus (let's be real there is no other kind <3).

I am always afraid to ask (hence the anon ask) cause most of the time anyone who loves trans!Magnus will get really defensive and start getting really mean when it's a general question or opinion and I just wanted to get your take on it.

hm ok. well. i really don’t love the wording of this question. but i like to try and take questions like this that i think are more borne of ignorance than malice and like, engage with them. i don’t think i’m morally obligated to, though, and people you may have said something like this to and reacted negatively, well, i don’t blame them at all. i’m not exactly feeling sunshine and roses about it, either. 

under the cut bc this is long

first: starting with “i’m not transphobic, but--” isn’t cliche, it’s a sign of someone knowing they’re about to say something transphobic. or trying to excuse themselves and distance themselves from any blame. and so on. it’s not like “oh everyone says that” it’s “i read that and immediately know i’m about to put up with some bullSHIT.” like, the fact you put that little disclaimer there means you KNOW IT NEEDS ONE. 

second: “it is hard to picture if when he is male” hm. ok. so. right here you’re assuming trans men =/= male. magnus having a vagina = not man. that’s very much being transphobic.

but let’s give the benefit of the doubt. let’s say you didn’t mean it like that. you might be confused just because you’re so used to cis male magnus, it feels off when someone suddenly describes something that doesn’t fit what you’re used to. it’s like when i read a fic and it mentions magnus’s dick or whatever, and i’m always surprised, and find it hard to picture, because at this point, i’m so used to trans magnus that way i write it. or it might be even something like... 

ok, here’s a weirdly specific example. i read the alex rider books as a kid, and there’s a character who is described as white and red-headed. in the recent tv adaptation, she’s a black woman with long dark curls. i’ve never been good at imagining characters in my head when its just books, so the imagery i’ve attached to this character is the tv show version of her. so now, if i go back and reread the books or read fanfiction for alex rider, every time they mention her red hair or something that makes it clear she’s not black, i’m a little startled, before i remember, oh yeah, originally, she was a redheaded white chick.

so let’s say that’s more the feeling you’re getting: you’re so used to cis magnus, seeing trans magnus is a little moment of surprise. 

........so what?

your options here are:

don’t read it and be quiet if it bothers you so much

keep reading and deal with the surprise i mean is it really that bad to have a momentary “oh yeah lol” moment? and you might even stop being surprised eventually if you get used to it lmao

i don’t think it’s a big deal to be a bit thrown off when you remember that this person’s version of magnus doesn’t have a dick or whatever. but that’s kind of something to keep to yourself. read it or don’t, but there’s nothing wrong with it. it’s not weird, it doesn’t make magnus less male, and if you don’t like it, don’t read it.  

also, you say “i’m afraid to ask” but come to think of it, you haven’t actually.... asked a question. just “like your fics. im not transphobic BUT... trans magnus is weird because i can forget he’s supposed to be trans until the sex scenes, and then it throws me off because he’s supposed to be Male. it’s weird. i love sub magnus. i’m afraid to ask because trans magnus fans are mean and defensive when you say lightly transphobic things. what’s your take?” 

i mean, is the question the whole “i’m curious about fic authors wrote magnus as trans”? like, what about us? most of us are trans and we love magnus???? idk what you want to know buddy? why people would EVER headcanon magnus as not cis? like, there are lots of reasons for that one being he literally could not possibly be our definition of the western cis male given that he was born like 4+ centuries ago on an entirely different continent . like, really, if you want to know why we headcanon him as trans i’m sure you could read through our blogs and find a bunch of shit 

and anyway it’s like, ok, 1. trans magnus isn’t just about the sex, but that’s a lesser issue.

2. again, no question being asked here beyond a general “what’s your take on this” (this being....”trans magnus weird”? or “trans magnus fic authors...thots?”?)

3. finally to get tho the last part of hmm yikes wording is the “anyone who loves trans!Magnus will get really defensive and start getting really mean”. the word choice here sure does say a lot. 

“defensive” and “mean”. if you’re going up to them and saying “trans magnus confuses me during sex scenes because he’s male!” then yeah, people might get a little upset. and defensive? either a) implies you’re on the offensive, or b) implies they’re like, guilty somehow, they’re being defensive and cagey. 

like, coming out with some casual transphobia or whatever and then playing the victim when people are offended and react....not cool

and just... look. calling someone out for being transphobic isn’t being mean or a bully. and no one’s saying you have to like trans magnus, no one’s holding a gun to your head and making you read our posts and fics. but if you’re going to read our posts and fics, don’t be a dick about it. 

and genuinely, like, i know i’ve focused on the bad here, but like, thank you, i’m glad you like my stories, and hell yeah sub magnus rights. and i don’t think you’re like a bad person or someone trying to be malicious and hateful or something, but like.... my dude PLEASE think about this shit and how you’re wording things like. jesus 

i think the highlights here are 

yes trans man = man

man with vagina = still a man

trans magnus having sex via a cis man’s penis in his vagina = gay sex between two males

people might get defensive or “mean” if you say things to them that are kinda transphobic and that’s understandable. they aren’t aggressors or your enemies for reacting like this.

no one is forcing you to like or read trans magnus content, it’s okay if you don’t, but if so just don’t, you don’t gotta say anything just don’t read it 

there are lots of reasons someone might headcanon magnus as trans 

and headcanoning him as trans isn’t weird, gross, or wrong in any way

honestly headcanoning him as cis makes less sense but that’s another talk

also saying “im not transphobic but--” doesn’t absolve you of any transphobia following it 

[jaybug-jabbers]

Top 3 Generations: Gen 1 - Gen 5 - Gen 7

Top 3 Human Characters in Pokemon: N - Guzma - Cheren

(Warning: this post contains LARGE SPOILERS.)

Soooo. Back in 2010 (holy butts, seven years ago), gen 5 came out with Pokemon Black and White. I fell utterly in love with everything about the game. Without a doubt, I hadn’t enjoyed playing a pokemon game that much since Red and Blue. The number of new pokemon was insane (the most new pokemon introduced in any generation, even gen 1), and the designs for all these new pokemon were fucking fantastic. The UI was sleek as fuck and a sheer joy to use, the sound effects and music were truly lovely, the locations were so different and creative, and imparted a true sense of travel like the games before never did. They really felt like little ecosystems you were stepping into. The lack of old pokemon made it truly feel like an exciting new world, and everywhere you looked, there were awesome new things. We got our first female Pokemon Professor (about time!), who was really cool, and most exciting of all … we had AN ACTUAL honest-to-god decent plot and fleshed-out characters.

That was always a weak point in the pokemon games. Gen 1 gets away with not having fleshed out characters and a very simple plot because it was the first of its kind. It was still a novel concept. And the relatively simple plot was iconic– archtypal. It allowed you to imagine all kinds of things on your adventure, your childhood imagination filling in the gaps. But it’s a reasonable thing to expect future pokemon games to start introducing new, interesting plots. However, that … took a while. For the most part, Pokemon was too afraid to stray from their formula, and so they recycled the same basic plot until it became extremely tiring to hear the same thing over and over again. They stuck with a minimalistic plot with very little variation, and extremely shallow, 2-dimentional characters.

In my opinion, B/W had a far more complex and unique plot. The writing was actually solid (dialogue is usually another weakness in these games, tends to be pretty awful) and the story was truly compelling. It looked at the pokemon universe in a new way, asking questions the games never dared to ask before. And, holy cats, characters with some actual dimensions? You had multiple rivals for once, and they were actually interesting in their own rights. For the first time, I didn’t hate or feel intensely indifferent towards my rival and actually felt like they were people. That’s not to say they were perfect or intensely complex, but for once, they had some degree of interest and appeal to them.

You’ll see one of the characters I listed as my favorite was Cheren, one of your rivals/friends. I related to his nerdy, logical style much more than the scatterbrained Bianca, but I did feel a fondness for both of them. The character I listed as my top favorite, though, was N.

I was intrigued by this guy the moment the player character meets him and his quirky theme music plays. He was a truly fascinating mystery to me, and I looked forward to running into him again and again. Something about this character really caught my imagination on fire. (Heck, to such a degree I even ended up writing a fanfic. I hadn’t written fanfic for anything in years.) They continued to develop his character and I was enchanted– the scene in the carnival where he asks you to join him on the ferris wheel still stands out in my mind so clearly. It was a rush of fascination and fear and curiosity (I recall shouting at my character to not join him on the wheel, ahaha, ‘Are you crazy?!’ yet simultaneously wanting to join him). That’s another thing I forget to mention– he was a truly tough trainer to go up against, so it was a little intimidating, and I recall training hard, worried about the next unpredictable time I’d run into him.

The climax and resolution of the plot didn’t disappoint, either. I definitely think he’s the most interesting character in a main series Pokemon game, and I was happy as buttery butts that there was a sequel to Black and White. I know my intense love of Gen 5 places me in the minority. But I stand by my reasoning.

In my mind, Gen 6 was a step back in a lot of ways from Gen 5. The plot and the writing for the dialogue was total shit again, and I hated your irritating rivals, which I think were supposed to be patterned after the formula of Gen 5 but just fell flat. For a 3-D game, it sure had 2-dimensional characters. I know a lot of people praise gen 6 for its technological advancements, but to me, that’s one of the least important things. Gen 6 tried to recapture the feeling of travelling great distances and entering mini ecosystems, yet I found its city intensely frustrating to navigate (whereas I found Castelia City very intuitive and fun) and it just didn’t have as much charm. There were very few new pokemon introduced, and completing the National Dex with ALL current pokemon to that date was quite the daunting task. The best thing about X/Y’s plot, quite frankly, was its post-game story, done in chapters with the Looker character.

(Note: I never picked up ORAS, so unfortunately cannot give my perspective on that.)

Then came Gen 7. I’d say it’s probably my third favorite generation, at least at the moment. The technology admittedly is nice– damn those graphics are nice. (I realize at this point, the 3DS can barely even handle the graphics; for example they originally had planned on walking pokemon following you like in Heartgold Soulsilver and that’d be SO COOL but the game would not have been able to handle it without hardcore lag) And the character models have normal proportions, (unlike the rather extreme chibi-proportions of Gen 6), which I gotta say looks really nice. The movement is so smooth, and ride pokemon are incredibly enjoyable to use and free up the need for HM slaves/HM move slots, which I think most people agree is a smart modern change. The game is just beautiful to look at, no denyin’.

It’s also a bit of a fresh breath of air, though, when compared to some of the more formulaic gens. The tropical theme was novel, and the Alolan forms gave a fresh new look at some old pokemon. They actually were bold enough to depart from some of their precious formula and try new things, abandoning traditional gyms and experimenting with totem pokemon and ally pokemon. I fully embraced these changes. The writing and plot are also quite decent, as are the characters! And that’s a huge plus. The more organic style of the routes and various points of interest on the islands does sometimes make navigation a little difficult (hard to recall where stuff is), but it suits the theme of the game well. Shiny pokemon were made easier to hunt in this gen, and quite frankly, I’m OK with that. I know hardcore shiny hunters may not agree, but I never ran into a shiny before Gen 7 and had very little interest to hunt them at such crazy odds. In this gen I actually get to enjoy some shiny pokes, though. Was Sun/Moon too easy? Yeah. The difficulty curve was definitely pretty low. But that’s probably my biggest complaint about the games.

You’ll notice in my list above, I have Guzma as my second-favorite human character of all Pokemon games. And how! Incidentally, Team Skull are easily my favorite villian team of all the games. (Plasma would be second.) I legit find myself considering getting a lil Team Skull necklace. Anyway, Guzma is frickin’ great. It’s not JUST because Bug type is my favorite type and he’s a bug boy. Although that’s a pretty nice bonus. <3 I also loved Gladion a lot! I actually liked him a lot more than his sister.

Anyway, this, err, this post has gone on for plenty long enough already tonight, so I’ll wrap things up for now.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Feb 24, 2017.

[phoenotopia]

2019 December Update

The game is officially playable from beginning to end!

That battle has concluded...

Soon begins the war! But first, a brief reprieve for the holidays.

And I must throw in the usual caveats. We're still playtesting, we're still polishing, we still gotta get age ratings, more red tape, etc etc. And most importantly, we need to figure out the launch strategy. Think Megaman, charging his shot for 5 and a half years... We're not allowed to miss at this point. It has to HIT.

Luckily, we're in a relatively stable position where we don't have to rush the game out immediately. It's not LAUNCH or STARVE - it's... take some time to aim a little. We don't want to launch in the shadow of a bigger behemoth game, and we don't want to launch completely unknown either. We have to build up the game's media presence, which has been neglected so far. I know it's annoying to have to continue to wait... but please bear with us a little longer!

Here's what we've been doing for the past couple months.

---------- THE SCRIPT ----------

The script sits at over 80,000 words. I didn't realize the significance until a teammate told me that that's actually as long as a novel! I looked it up, and sure enough, it's a little longer than the first Harry Potter. But unlike Harry Potter, hardly any of these words are wasted on, pffft, narration. It's all juicy dialogue!

(Some of the game's golden nuggets of dialogue)

There was actually a lot of mundanity getting to the end. Pirate, acting as my editor, caught tons of errors and inconsistencies. One of the most recurring issues had to do with capitalization. I like to capitalize things, often inconsistently. Some common questions that arose:

Why is this text highlighted yellow, and this one highlighted blue?

Why is this monster name capitalized, but this monster not?

Why is this item capitalized, and this one not?

... and so on!

All very mundane issues, but all very necessary to tackle. And there was a TON of 'em. (em vs 'em was another thing we had to make consistent). I actually did some research to see what capitalization rules Zelda had. From what I could tell, when it comes to animals and monsters in the Zelda universe:

All monsters are capitalized

All regular animals are not capitalized

The Cuccos are special, and ARE capitalized

(a collage of Zelda pictures I assembled to study)

In the Zelda universe, all regular items are lowercase, but highlighted blue when mentioned in a quest context (e.g. "butter", "hylian wheat"). Items can be uppercase, if they are special named items (e.g. "Sheikah Slate"). We adopted similar rules as Zelda in some cases, and deviated in others. For instance, in the Phoenotopia universe, there isn't a clear distinction between animals and monsters - that fish monster is really just an animal that happens to be the alpha predator in its natural habitat. So most entities are lowercase, but "big deal" entities can be uppercase.

(we made a formal document to consult whenever a question regarding capitalization arises)

---------- A SAMPLING of QUEST AND CHARACTERS ----------

A lot of new quests have arisen in our great writing effort extending over the past several months. And with it, new characters, big and small. I'll tease a sampling of some of them here (warning: some light spoilers ahead):

My favorite new quest is undoubtedly our game's new "Trading Quest". This one takes inspiration from the Zelda series - the trading quest similarly has you roaming the world and its towns in search of needy people who desire a particular item. Deliver them the item they desire, and get a new item. Do this 10 times, and the ultimate weapon awaits you at the end.

I tried some things to vary up the formula. Some NPCs don't reveal what they need right away - steps have to be taken to get them there. It's also possible to go down the wrong route in the sequence, and have to double-back. We try to keep it interesting.

---------- LOOT PLACEMENTS & GAME BALANCING ----------

A great effort was also spent towards balancing the game this past 2 months. Because even one good healing item, easily obtained, can throw the game's whole difficulty off-kilter. And this same principle applies to other areas, like the money economy and player powerup options. Altogether, they form a very delicate ecosystem for enjoyment.

One of the recent things I did for this game was put down exactly where each heart ruby, energy gem, and moonstone could be found. And this was actually a rather involved process because you have a limited number of rewards to distribute (you wouldn't want the final max HP count to be a weird number like 297). Put too many rewards in the beginning, and the late dungeons would have no rewards to offer. Put too much in the end, and the inverse happens.

I found myself going back into earlier areas and plundering their rewards to fill the later areas. And then to ensure a relatively even spread of rewards within each area themselves, I drew crude maps of the dungeons & their reward spots, so that they could be studied from a bird's eye perspective.

But it was still not enough. With NPC quests and towns also taking up their own allotment of the rewards, I found myself running low on things to distribute. So I went back to the books and upped the number of rewards across the board. Before there were 44 Heart Rubies to collect - there are now 55. Before each Heart Ruby boosted your max HP by 5, but now each one now boosts your max HP by 4, so your final max HP count would still end up the same. It's kinda similar to what happened with Twilight Princess, where they broke with tradition and made 5 heart containers required to gain a new heart instead of the usual 4. Overall, the final tally for treasure to find is:

55 heart pieces

30 energy gems

108 moon stones

Who's crazy enough to collect them all?

---------- BADGES / ACHIEVEMENTS ----------

As one of the game's finishing touches, there's a menu for BADGES - they're this game's version of achievements. This is an ongoing task that we hope to stamp out this December. A few favorites of mine from the original flash game will return ("Pillow Connoisseur" is among them).

(The menu looks like this before any badges are earned)

I allocated slots for just 33 badges, so we're selecting the badges very carefully. We got rid of most of the fluffy ones that appeared in the flash game - we wanted to reduce the number of badges that you would earn automatically for just playing the game (so no more "1st boss", "2nd boss", "3rd boss" achievements). We're aiming for a healthy mix of easily earned badges, hard earned badges, collectathon badges, secret fun badges, and so on.

The badges have another twist - they bear miniaturized portraits of characters from the game! In the initial brainstorm mockup phase, I wasn't really fond of the badge designs. You got a medal of a heart because you collected some hearts, and you got the medal of a moonstone for collecting moonstones, etc. It just seemed so... expected.

(various badge mockups)

How could we engage the players on a more fun and deep level? The idea came - what if we attached pictures of the people you meet on your journey? And these people's stories and character would have a connection with the achievement? That could keep the player guessing which character would come attached with an achievement, or even reveal a hidden detail about the character you didn't know.

---------- MUSIC ----------

Will has just one more task to do. And that's to recut the song for the trailer. One of our other goals for this December is to make a really good trailer... again. There's actually 2 other trailers we cut and never made public for reasons. Maybe I'll talk about them one day in the post-mortem.

Since this may be the last conventional update, we wondered with which song to best leave the audience. And we decided that the most suitable song is "Sanctuary". It's a song that the player will often encounter often when they happen upon a quiet resting place in the world.

There's a little story behind this song. Two and a half years ago, I linked Will the Earthbound song, "Buzz buzz's prophecy", and told him, make a song like that!

In response, Will made "Sanctuary".

Give it a listen HERE. What do you think? Did Will hit close to the greats?

---------- FAN ART ----------

Three fan arts have come in the last couple months. I display them here proudly:

Another submission by Cody G! Gale looking shy as she flashes the V sign for the camera. I like how Cody G's art is continually evolving. Note the additional detail on her eye, and how her hair is drawn extra fluffy. Very nice!

Shafiyahh is another consistent contributor, and made one in the spirit of Halloween. I really like their costumes! Gale as an angel, and Lisa as a demon, fittingly captures their relationship, since Gale is the responsible one and Lisa is the troublemaker. So cute!

A contribution from a new artist, Negativus Core! Wow, Gale looks so bada-- here! We often forget about Gale's tough side due to the cutesy graphics. This is probably how her enemies see her. And the gummy (slime) is a cute touch!

---------- FINAL NOTES ----------

Similar to last year, this will be the last update for a while. If things run too slow, I'll post a status update come end of February 2020.

It's possible, and this is a BIG IF, that something notable happens sooner than expected - like we're going to a con or we have reason to drop the trailer sooner than later. If so, this blog will update earlier than expected. BIG IF. Otherwise, it's end of February till next you hear of us.

The game's development has reached a new uncharted territory. We're going to take the time and figure out exactly what our next steps are. In addition, we'll still be doing some playtesting and script polishing. And we'll be taking a break too. It is the holiday season, things move kind of slow around this time of year. We'll enjoy the company of our family and friends.

Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[naysaltysalmon]

I’m back!

Upon my return from China, I noticed there were a lot of things weighing me down... that I can just throw the fuck out.

I could expound upon all of these in great detail, but it really would be pointless. And I wouldn’t be able to cover it all anyway. So instead I’ve decided to make a post of every icon I’ve used for my online persona over the years.

The reason for this is... at the end of the program I attended, we had an entire week of silent meditation. We weren’t allowed to talk or communicate with anyone in any way, including gestures, eye contact, or physical touch. So, during this time I had the realization that the stories I’ve been interested in have been my main source of comfort over the years. No person, place, or thing has felt more permanent to me than this.

However, permanence is an illusion, as the Buddhists say (I stayed in a Buddhist monastery in China, in case you’re wondering). My interests have changed over the years -- from the first fandoms I got obsessed with, to my interests now. I may still adore the series that I enjoyed as a child, but definitely not in the same way.

Coming home, I realized... I no longer want to attach my identity to one character or series. That’s why I’ve decided to make this post. I want to reflect on all the egos of my past, on what they have meant to me, so that I can let them go. I’ve been clinging to a folder of them for too long.

To anyone who’s been here since the very start of my blog, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is an acknowledgement of my transformation from then until now.

And so:

Breadward Elric. My first Internet icon, which I had for 2 and a half years from May 2011 -- 2013. My blog was originally entirely FMAB content, created in January of 2012, and while this format didn’t last the entire time that I had this icon, Breadward saw me through the majority of my early anime and video game obsessions. He jump-started my personality on the Internet as a fanfic author, a blogger, and an artist. I will never forget him... ;~;

Comrade Führer Tamama. I had this icon for 8 months in early 2013 -- early 2014. What can I say? Tamama’s passionate personality resonated with me, especially when he was finally able to be in control (in the episode this particular screenshot is from). Gotta get those cola oceans pronto!

Yokoso waga tainai e [Welcome to my Womb ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]. I had a phase during the summer of 2014, okay. But I still love this maniacal snake’s crusty ass, fite me. I admire KagePro immensely for the popularity and development it gave characters in song format. Of course, favorite of those characters was Kuroha, a snake whose only desire was to keep granting wishes so that he could survive. Add a touch of murderous intent and you have the complete package -- I won’t deny he appealed(appeals) to my wild side -- okay moving on.

KeroTama hugge 👀. I had this icon for about 4-6 months in 2014 before the Hunter x Hunter phase hit. God, I shipped them so hard *facepalms* It was funny though, it’s like KagePro hit me like a hurricane during this summer and then I went right back to being KeroTama trash. Amazing.

Softly Smiling Pika. I kept this icon for at least 9-10 months at the end of 2014 -- early 2015, until I found Owari no Seraph. Kurapika was definitely my bae at the start of my HxH phase -- and in many ways he still is. The current arc gives me this sense of nostalgia of being a 15-year-old again, deeply in love but too in denial to see it. Watching him as a young adult, I see how far I’ve come, how I could have ended up... since I believed myself to be most closely alike with Kurapika at the time. And now I know that’s not the case... I remember debating between many other Kurapika icons and finally choosing this one because I dearly wanted to believe I too could find my happiness in the friends around me, even if it seemed all was hopeless behind the scenes.

Yuu babe. I had this icon for 4 months in the middle of 2015, I remember. Yuichiro Hyakuya was an underappreciated dorky genius at the time, much like how Gon is in HxH now, except... Now in the series... *deep sighs* *clenches fist* I still love his piercing citrine eyes and the dynamism of this icon/pose though.

Cuties T^T (MikaYuu edition). Mmm I kept this icon for a while, something like most of 2016, at least 6-8 months, probably more like 9 or 10. Looking back, I still wonder how/why the author was a fucking coward and didn’t make MikaYuu happen. We coulda had it aaallllll...... Anyway, this is when I was writing Ebony & Ivory, my most popular fic to date, so I was reveling in the reputation I gained from that. This icon was me accepting that while I was no longer friends with my best friend from middle school to 11th grade, I would still pursue my own happiness in the perfect relationship that I saw in MikaYuu. *nods* It’s fitting.

Caught Child². I shared this and the next couple of icons with a friend that I met online, who used the Gon equivalent. I think we shared this one for about 3 months of 2016. This is when I became re-obsessed with Hunter x Hunter and realized how much I had changed between 2014 and 2016. It’s an obsession that’s more or less carried onto now, and redefined my adulthood, as I see my progression as I refer back to HxH for guidance to this day.

Content Chompy Boye. I love this icon. I kept this icon for a long time, something like 5-6 months in December 2016 -- mid-2017. The colors of the background contrast with Killua’s white hair, pale skin, and dark muscle shirt... I still used this icon on other websites until just a few days ago (when I most recently changed my icon) because I thought it looked the best backdropped against the format of other websites. I love this scene in the series, though; while (human) Palm is chattering on about her worry that Gon and Killua will be able to defeat Knuckle and Shoot in time, Killua continues to eat without a care in the world. It’s a mood I feel at least once a day, whether while eating or getting a back massage -- as if that ever happens -- 11/10.

Pizza Devil Brat. I like this icon a lot and kept it on a few websites for longer too, but with the way I edited it, the green background becomes a little too headache-inducing if you stare at it too long, so 8/10 -- okay no more out of 10 ratings, this isn’t that kind of post. I believe I kept this icon for about 3-4 months in 2017 and possibly early 2018 as well. From the same scene the previous Kurapika icon came from, this remains one of my favorite scenes in the entire series for its serious undertones over the light happiness that underlies Gon’s, Killua’s, and Kurapika’s (and Leorio’s -- but he’s not in this scene) interactions with each other throughout the series.

Grumpy Gem Gremlin. I was sharing the last three icons with that friend, including this one, with the Phos equivalent (more or less). I think we only kept it for about a month or month and a half in 2017 or beginning of 2018 before switching to the next one. Cinnabar’s desire for a purpose and closeness to others despite her poisonous nature... is definitely something I can understand and relate to.

Sad Gem Child. Damn, I think we’re all still waiting for the day Gormie realizes Aechmea’s a creepy sugar daddy and dropkicks his ass into the ocean where the Admirabilis can decompose his cloudy body like he doesn’t deserve. When will Land of the Lustrous return from the war? I’m still waiting, Ichikawa. Anyway I think we kept this icon for about a month or maybe two in 2018, not long at all.

Gay Childe™. Look, this is one of the gayest scenes in the entire series and it’s right after my favorite episode(s)/scene(s) in the entire series (so far) and it’s not even acknowledged by anyone. Just. Holy Fuck. Anyway I think I kept this icon for about 6-8 months to cap off 2018. And this is where the Big Breakup happened, where my friend decided to choose an icon that deviated from mine, but I kept this icon for a lot longer due to what this scene means to me, placed after/during my favorite episode. ;v;

And finally, BoMH (Blood on My Hands) Pika. I used this icon for 8 months from the start of 2019 until just a few days ago (approx. 8 months). This icon was originally the cover for a Kurapika fic that I started back in 2015 and ended up discontinuing because it was pretty slow-paced, and thus unpopular, which made it become difficult for me to write. But I got all the way up to 97k words before I quit, simply because of the freedom and joy I felt in creating all the OCs that I fit into Kurapika’s journey as he searched for the Kurta eyes after the Yorknew City Arc. Looking back, I’m proud of the planning and commitment that I succeeded in undertaking with this fic -- it was about halfway done by the time I stopped writing it -- and I feel I want to return to this concept one day. Even if the arcs were pretty formulaic at times and, well, boring, I wanted this icon at the start of 2019 to be a new person separate from my recent past matching icons; a representation of my ability to reconnect with my past, but to no longer be afraid of it; to be proud of it, but still recognizing the not-so-good parts, laying it to rest by no longer avoiding it.

My icon now, as I’m sure you can see... is nothing like those I’ve used thus far. I definitely have no intention of moving away from anime or my past. I simply wish to redefine who I am in relation to them, rather than being defined by them.

...I’ve discovered a lot about myself over the past 2 years since college started, more than I ever thought possible. I discovered a lot while in China, too. And I need my online persona to reflect that in every form, as I’ve done every time there was a change.

Thank you all for being with me on this journey: for following me, for reading my posts, for liking my art, for talking with me and blowing up my notifications on every platform...

I’ll be pursuing the next chapter(s) of Human, TIDU, and other works soon. ^.^

[seanpatricklittlewriter]

The Movie Post

Greetings and salutations, true believers. I haven’t posted anything in a while other than shameless book promotion stuff for #FourthAndWrong, and for that I apologize. I always say I’d let you know if anything good happened immediately, but nothing good has happened. The new book is out. A few people who have read it told me they liked it. It’s not selling well. Lack of sales means a lack of reviews, which only helps it not sell faster. It’s all a vicious cycle. At a certain point, you have to remember that you’re only writing books because some tiny voice in your head won’t let you stop, and you just throw your hands up and let everything else fall as it may. For the first time, I’ve actually bothered to try real advertising. I’m giving advertising on the Kindle lock screens a go. I’ll let you know if actually works.

 In the meantime, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts while puttering around the house, going for walks, and ignoring the gym. (I gotta stop ignoring the gym…) If you haven’t watched “Ted Lasso” on AppleTV yet, I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s one of the best shows I’ve watched in a long time. Great writing. Great characters. Great story. Very uplifting and wonderful. One of the show’s writers, creators, and stars, the wonderful Brett Goldstein (who plays the gruff Roy Kent on the show), has a podcast called “Films to Buried With.”

 I started listening to his podcast because I enjoy him on the show so much, and I’ve found out that I enjoy his podcast as much as the show. He’s a genuinely sweet man, and he gets comedian and actor friends to guest on his podcast. The show’s conceit is that Brett invites guests on, tells them they have died, and then gets them to relive their life through the films that meant something to them. It’s a fun little chat show, and a solid way to waste an hour while you’re getting through doing the dishes or mowing the lawn.

 It’s precisely the sort of podcast I would love to be on. I’ve always said you can judge your level of success by what people invite you to do. I always said I’d know if I “made it” if I could ever get invited to be on one of the podcasts I enjoy, rather than trying to wrangle my way into someone else’s podcast or blog. So far— this has not happened. That should tell you what level of success I’m stuck at. I don’t get invited to the movies by my imaginary friends. But Brett encourages people to share their ideas and opinions on social media, anyhow. It’s a fun way to play along at home, tell other people about the podcast, and start conversations around your favorite movies. Stories bind us together. They give us common ground and build bridges toward strengthening relationships. If you meet someone new, you can tell if you’ll get along with them by what films they enjoy. So in that spirit, I’d like to answer the questions Brett asks his guests by discussing a few of my favorite films. If you’d like to play along in the comments, please do. I always love reading about what other people think about movies, books, or music. I won’t bother going through the death/afterlife conceit he uses, but I recommend listening to a few of his podcasts if you enjoy this sort of thing. It’s a fun little premise he uses to generate the episodes.

 --What’s the first film you remember seeing?

         I remember bits and pieces of several films from my childhood. I remember the Muppet Movie in the theater. I remember seeing The Black Hole. I remember a lot of little chunks of a lot of Disney animated films. But the movie that sticks out in my head is “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” It was 1981. I was six. I remember going to see it on a Sunday matinee with my family. I remember it was packed. People were literally sitting on the floor in the aisles. We got three seats someplace, but I remember my dad having to sit in the row in front of us. I don’t remember a ton about the movie the first time I saw it other than being scared of the pit of snakes and the melting Nazi faces. However, I remember the iconic moment when Harrison Ford pulled the gun on the swordsman and shot him. I remember the audience reaction and thinking, “That’s a hero.” I’ve long been a Harrison Ford fan. Between Han Solo and Indiana Jones, he played two of the most iconic heroes of my childhood. When I wrote the TeslaCon novels, I made no secret that my protagonist, Nicodemus Clarke, was just a shallow rip-off of Indiana Jones. It’s funny, but to this day, in my head, if you ask me what a hero looks like, it’s always going to be Harrison Ford.

  --What’s the scariest film you’ve ever seen?

          The scariest film I’ve ever seen is Kevin Smith’s “Red State.” It’s a movie about a religious cult that’s very reminiscent of the Westboro Baptist Church, David Koresh/Waco compound, or any of the other extremely far-right Christian separatist movements. It’s scary because there are many, many of these gun-hoarding compounds, and the movie, while extreme, is not too far off from possibility. Michael Parks plays the leader of the family at the heart of the film, and his performance was award worthy. He was truly terrifying.     As an aside, prior to Red State, I always told people the movie that scared me the most was the original “The Amityville Horror.” Basically, I saw the scene where the poltergeist made the drop-sash window fall on the kid’s fingers and nearly sever them, and that was it. I had the same drop-sash windows in my bedroom, and I was scared of them from then on. I’d like to say that I outgrew my fear of drop-sash windows, but I’m 46 and they still skeeze me out when I see them. A movie I saw 40 years ago warped me forever.

  --What’s the movie that made you cry the most?

         I used to not be someone who cried at movies. However, years of thyroid issues and depression have messed with my response to emotional moments, so I do get teary nowadays at movies. Emotionally speaking, it’s not sad movies that get to me. It’s movies where someone overcomes something difficult. Especially sports movies. The ones that get me the most teary-eyed now are movies like the first “Rocky,” “Hoosiers,” “Miracle,” and “Rudy.” I also get teary-eyed at points of bravery to the point of stupidity. The best example of that is the climax and denouement of “How to Train Your Dragon.” Strangely enough, when a movie does something that is supposed to be a tear-jerker moment to the point that it panders to the audience, I don’t cry— I actually get angry. Anything Nicolas Sparks has ever had his name attached to, for instance. It’s maudlin, and it doesn’t deserve our respect.

  --What the film that made you laugh the most?

       This is not going to be a popular answer. If I was a little more erudite, I’d say something like “Airplane” or “Blazing Saddles” or “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” However, I didn’t see any of those in the theater originally. I was home, watching them on video. While they were funny and some of my favorite movies, I did not really do a ton of laughing while I saw them. I went to see “BASEketball” with my sister, and the theater was packed. Something about seeing a movie in a crowded theater heightens the emotional impact of jokes, and for whatever reason, that movie put me on the floor a couple of times. It’s a silly movie full of cheap laughs, but I remember hurting as I was leaving the theater. My sides and cheeks were sore. Second on that list was the movie “Bridesmaids.” I don’t think I’ve laughed harder at any movie than the scene where they all get diarrhea in the bridal shop. Especially Melissa McCarthy: “LOOK AWAY!”

  --What is the sexist film you’ve seen?

         For me, I will never forget seeing “Bachelor Party” on HBO at a friend’s house. Monique Gabrielle’s scene is probably the first time I saw full-frontal female nudity in a film. It burned itself into my brain. I probably have a thing for redheads to this day because of that scene. The rest of the movie is very wild and funny. It was one of the launching blocks for Tom Hanks’s ridiculously amazing career. But that one moment stands out as one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.

  --What film did you used to love, but now it’s not that great?

         Pretty much anything with “Rocky” in the title and a number following it. I still enjoy them, but Rocky III and IV, especially— not that good. I used to love them. I used to watch them whenever they hit TV, but now I only need to watch the first “Rocky,” and maybe the final fight in “Rocky II.” Anything else, I can leave out. They just feel a little overclocked at this point in my life.

  --What’s a film that people and critics panned, but you enjoyed?

        “Goon.” It’s a hockey film written by Jay Baruchel and starring Seann William Scott. It didn’t get wide release—almost straight-to-video. It didn’t get great reviews. I think Metacritic has it around 60%. But something about that movie hit me, and I love it. I suggest it to people all the time. It’s got great performances. It’s a solid flick. It’s not going to overwhelm you. It’s now one of my comfort films. When I’m bored and need something on in the background, I will often choose “Goon” or its sequel, “Goon: Last of the Enforcers.” The sequel was not as good as the original, but it’s still worth a watch. Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt is the villain in the sequel. He’s extremely good.

  --What’s a film that people love, but you hate?

        Hands down: “Avatar” or “Titanic.” Something about a lot of James Cameron films just don’t work with me. I think it’s because they’re too grandiose. They try too hard. Also, the scripts are just there to get him to the big, visual set-pieces. They’re thin on both character and plot. I can’t stand either of them.

  --What’s a film that means a lot to you, but it’s not because of the quality of the movie (i.e. you saw it with someone and it’s special, or it has importance to people around you, etc…)?

       Easily, “The Man From Snowy River.” This is a family favorite. I grew up watching this flick, and I made my daughter watch it when she was younger. I will never get tired of it. I probably watch it maybe three or four times a year. There’s just something about the cinematography of the climax when Jim goes down the mountainside on Denny’s back. It’s always breath-taking. Also, if you watch “The Man From Snowy River,” you see what my dad always wanted his life to be. Most boys’ fathers want their sons to be doctor or lawyers. My dad wanted me to be a cowboy.

  --What film do you relate to the most?

        “Clerks.” I saw “Clerks” when I was a senior in high school. Rented it from a local video store. I saw two dudes who were outliers in their social group working crappy jobs and dealing with the mundane nothingness of life. It hit me right in the gut. I resolved to do something better than that. So far, I’ve failed to do so, but I keep trying.

  --Empirically speaking, what is the best film? (Not necessarily favorite film— but what film do you think is the best film ever made?)

         I have to say it was “Lawrence of Arabia.” The casting was amazing. The cinematography was incredible, unrivaled, really. The story was excellent. And the ordeal of the entire filming process was without peer. What they went through to make that movie, hands down, makes it the best film ever made. The scope of the film alone is mind-boggling.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a close second, but that’s technically three films, so I went with Lawrence of Arabia.

  --What film have you seen the most?

         I have watched “The Muppet Movie” a ton. I still love the movie “Roxanne.” I have also seen “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “The Quiet Man” more than any single person probably should. If I had to think about it and pick one film I’ve seen more than other…it’s probably “Meatballs.” Growing up, my sister and I watched that flick a thousand times. I can probably recite it from memory. It’s also one of the films that cemented an undying loyalty to Bill Murray.

   --And finally: You die and go to heaven. And in heaven, they ask you to pick one film that summarizes your life, one film that makes people understand you, or a film you want people to watch to help them know you better. What is that film?

         Nothing has had more influence on my life than the movie “Ghostbusters.” It defined me in several ways: my love for comedy, my love for the paranormal, and my love for snark and snappy comebacks. I loved Ghostbusters so much that I watched it on a weekly basis. I ran the audio cables from our VCR to a tape deck and recorded an audio copy of the film to play on my Walkman while I road the bus to school every day. I still have the film memorized word-for-word. I will often let my eyes go a little weird and turn to my daughter and say, “Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!” To know me is to understand Ghostbusters on a molecular level. I owe that movie a lot.

  Anyhow, this was a fun way to waste my night. I encourage you to play along. Answer some or all of the questions Brett asks his guests. I highly recommend listening to a few episodes of “Films to Be Buried With” on your favorite podcatcher app. And if anyone out there knows Brett Goldstein, please let him know I’m available to guest on his podcast. Until next time—Thanks for reading.

--Sean

[purpletigerblog-blog]

Deezie Brown talks about the importance of branding, the need for genuine music platforms, and speaks on Kevin Abstract.

Purple Tiger Blog: Thanks for getting in touch with us on such a short notice. We've been rocking with what you have going on for a while now, so it's pretty exciting to finally get to speak with you.

Deezie Brown: Absolutely, it's always a blessing when platforms not only reach out but genuinely support up and coming artists. These types of resources play a huge roll in the future of local musicians, and I'm glad you guys are doing your part by pushing the envelope and creating a blueprint for other platforms as well. 

Purple Tiger Blog: Most definitely, so with no time wasted, let's get straight into it. You already know at Purple Tiger we are really huge on content! Content means more than anything to us. I know you're involved with Here Forever Media Group, which is a powerhouse when it comes to creative content. So with out a doubt, content really matters to you. Please share with us some key components of Deezie Brown that help shape the creative content of your art. 

Deezie Brown: Yeah I've been working with the guys over at HF for about 3 years now and it's crazy seeing the growth, my focus in the creative process is basically using my addictions to describe my pain. I think one of the key elements to my vision is my addiction to the fashion lifestyle. We hear all the time from artists and public figures bragging about these types of pieces, but it's not everyday you hear someone saying they don't want these items, they actually need them to cover the pain mentally. What if the the industry had brainwashed an individual and painted a picture of what success looks like for them, this would be the solution to dealing with it for me. Purple Tiger Blog: That’s interesting. I'm sure you've caught some flack about this already. Has anyone ever brought up the name Kevin Abstract to you in response to your helmet? And what's with the helmet anyways?

Deezie Brown: Funny you ask that. Kevin Abstract was actually brought to my attention by my label mate and close homie Proz Taylor a couple months ago. Though the helmet may force you to see similarities, if your someone who doesn't judge a book by it's cover and critiques the artist by every element they have to offer including there Image, presentation and of course they're actually sounds then you'll be able to see the difference between us two. A lot of people forget that Daft Punk are the originators of this also just for shits and giggles. All in all I use the helmet to mentally provide protection from everything the industry has to offer in the most creative way possible. People can't judge what they don't understand.  It's also a good conversation starter.  Purple Tiger Blog: If there were a total of 3 things you could change about the music world for indie artists, what would it be?

Deezie Brown: I think the amount of good platforms and resources ratio to PR scammers is way off. You've got artist like myself that have been chasing what I would call “freedom and happiness” for quite sometime and there's nothing more annoying than someone saying that they can provide assistance to your journey when in reality its only to bend your pockets for 0 results. Another thing I'd like to see is a better support system between local artists. I'm in no power to justify how this should look because I need improvement in this area as well, but what I will say is it definitely needs some adjustments in order for us to see a little bit more progression as locals. Lastly and I think this may only apply to hip-hop artist what others may be able to relate as well in Sub-genres. When you think of Rock music you think of Punk, Metal, blues and etc. but in the hip-hop world we are stuck with one place to Distribute 20 different styles of rap music. There should be no reason you type in hip-hop on Spotify And a Kendrick Lamar record is followed by a Lil’ Yachty joint. No disrespect on either artist I think there's a time and place for both individuals at some point but the content and imagery the younger generation of rap are displaying doesn't blend with the message that every other rapper is trying to get across. I think the younger generation can agree with me also when the tables are turned, we got Trap & Hip-hop/Rap that's two genres to fit who knows how many rappers into. Something gotta give soon. 

Purple Tiger Blog: I feel like there are artists falling out of the sky these days. Some are really good, many are forgettable. These days, it takes much more than just talent, sometimes even more than hard work. I know a few acts who've established themselves by other means. I've dived into exploring some people just from the look of their album cover, a promo clip of a video they were prepping to release, even the particular wardrobe in their default picture. How important do you think it is for artists to have proper creative direction and branding? 

Deezie Brown: Well your creative direction is the first thing people see kinda like a book cover. Im really big on not hitting play if an artist can't respect the value of artwork. Choosing your creative director can vary between a lot of things but for me it's quality and turnaround time, along with communication, this goes for both parties. Also how you carry yourself plays a big factor these days it's really up to you on the presentation, but the cool thing is there's a audience for every artist. 

Purple Tiger Blog: What are some of your short term and long term goals as an artist?

Deezie Brown: For me a short-time goal is effectively branding myself . Creating something that people see and instantly think of you.  I feel that long-terms goals should be coming up with ways for your brand to grow. If you 100 followers make it a goal to grab 200 in two months and so on after that. Another long-term goal for me would be finding ways to provide your fans and supports with your music not depending on blogs and other outlets. This has been the hardest thing for me and my guys and it's still a ongoing process but I think it's get information for every local artists. People should be coming to you for your content unless there's really good relationships you have built with platforms so you're not paying for blog post.

Purple Tiger Blog: Awesome. It was great to chat with you and get a little insight to your methods and artistic beliefs. Great stuff. Hope to have you back soon to chat about some more topics.

Deezie Brown: Most def, thanks for having me.

[endlessarchite]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[truereviewpage]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt

[statusreview]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! published first on http://ift.tt/2r6hzQy

[interiorstarweb]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! published first on http://ift.tt/2uiWrIt

[billydmacklin]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! published first on http://ift.tt/2BedaSe

[additionallysad]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! http://ift.tt/2D8c9Mf

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

[lowmaticnews]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! published first on http://ift.tt/2hUI8pL

[lukerhill]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled!

But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, we love the old wood here. In fact, we stripped doors and floors to restore it! But this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues that had built up). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!”

This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.

[vincentbnaughton]

Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away).

First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re auto-pilot even when we’re not there). Hallelujah, the house finally looks lived in! I mean, except for the whole it-has-no-landscaping-and-I-desperately-need-to-sand-and-stain-the-front-door thing. Also I still want to paint those white blocks behind the lanterns to match the house. Someday…

lanterns / wreath / house numbers / doormat / siding: SW Mellow Coral / ceiling: SW Breaktime / trim: SW Pure White

While things are far from finished, things are even farther from where they were this time last year. This photo is from almost exactly a year ago, and looking back is a nice reminder that wrinkly curtains and an unfinished pantry are far smaller problems to work through than THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE BEING TORN OFF. Here’s that whole story if you missed it (yup, we literally had to have 500 square feet removed and rebuild from scratch).

SO YEAH. It’s looking a lot better at the end of 2017 than it did at the end of 2016. And weirdly enough that picture makes me excited to get started on the duplex, because as much as I love having finished walls to decorate and finished floors to arrange furniture on, the process of planning (and dreaming about) all of the potential that’s fills the air during a big demo/rebuilding project is oddly addicting. Can’t wait to share our duplex progress as soon as we have our plans approved and all of our permits pulled! But back to the pink house, where I’m walking you guys through every room in a little video tour of sorts: If you can’t see this in a reader, click through to view it on our blog or you can view it here on YouTube.

If you can’t watch the video right now, I’d definitely recommend dropping back in and catching it when you can (a video is basically worth a million photos and I pretty much cover every crevice and explain a lot of extra stuff I couldn’t squeeze into this post).

One recent update, after months and months of debate, is that we finally pulled the trigger and painted the railing. The vertical balusters had all already been painted (SW Stone Isle), so it was just that top rail and the post at the end that were “wood.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes in a second. It’s hard to see in this picture since that front post is getting hit with a ton of light through the open door, but we went with a deeper gray tone (SW Perpetual Gray) that’s about 3 shades darker than the trim, so it accents the post and the top rail without being too crazy and compete-y with the standout stars of the entire house (those stained glass windows).

I know what some of you are thinking. NOOOO! How could you disgrace such old beautiful wood with paint?!?! Well, this railing had been covered in a thick paint-like brown stain that showed zero grain and was sticky, roughed up, and ruined in a bunch of places (covered in paint splatters, spackle globs, and decades of other issues). After attempting to sand it down, we learned it was a darker redder wood – meaning we’d never be able to stain it to match the lovely heart pine floors. So, we reasoned that a fresh coat of paint applied nice and evenly was a heckuva lot better than its current state. And it really does look glossy and lovely in person, which makes us incredibly relieved.

The good news is that we don’t have any shortage of wood tones in this house. We have original heart pine everywhere (we stripped and clear-sealed all of the original doors that we could, brought the original floors both upstairs and downstairs back to their glory, etc). This house’s middle name could be wood. Pinkie “Wood” House. Wait that sounds bad. Forget the middle name thing.

Down in the living room, we added this cool wall-mounted bookcase, which instantly made us both say “Ahhh! It looks like an actual room people live in!” We also got to hang some cozy white curtains which need DESPERATELY to be steamed and hemmed. They’re Lenda curtains from Ikea– I just cut off the top tabs and make sure to wash them to pre-shrink them before hanging. We also have them in our home office and love how washable and easy they are. Also, my secondhand brass grasshopper (aka: Brasshopper) is a total badass and I love him more each day.

bookcase / blue pillow / curtains / rods / similar brass grasshopper 

Also bought a rug from New England Loom (if you don’t follow them on Instagram you’re missing out because they have so many lovely secondhand rugs to be discovered) and the colors and patterns and antique feeling of the rug is PERFECT for a room that will be assaulted with food and sand and everything else that a rental living room has to deal with, so I have high hopes for it holding up like a champ (seeing as it is decades old already, that really does inspire confidence). That pretty blue pillow is from this Etsy shop (I love all of her pillows) and the pink one is from Target a while back. And you guys know the sofa is the Ikea Karlstad that they no longer make, which is a straight up travesty.

We also updated the light in here to this gleaming beauty from West Elm. The old light was a one-bulb fixture that we hung and immediately said “this room needs way more light.” We love the juxtaposition of this leggier modern light and the old-looking medallion (which is actually from Home Depot – shhh). And the old brick chimney that we discovered behind the wall and exposed is probably my favorite feature in the room, along with the giant windows (this room is 9′ tall, so the windows are easily over 6.5′ feet tall – that’s taller than John!). Don’t mind that TV on the floor. We found something we think will work for in there, just gotta get it out there in our next car load. #AlwaysRoadTrippingWithFurniture

rug source / chandelier / ceiling medallion /curtains / rods

The kitchen came a long way too, with the quartz island going in (it’s Pearl Jasmine by Silestone and we LOVE it so much) and a working sink. Cue the choir of angels! You can hear two ways we saved money on our quartz counters in Podcast Episode #74, which also covers why our original plan to do butcher block there didn’t work out. There are still some things missing though. Mainly, the backsplash that we’ll add after we hang the other missing element: shelves on either side of the stove under the sconces (probably two per side, not sure yet but we’ll keep you posted).

stools / quartz  / butcher block / cabinets / range: secondhand refurbished / trim: SW Stone Isle / walls: SW White Heron

The back door was blue for a hot second, which some of you might have seen on Instagram, but as the room came together more John and I both realized that the same gray as the trim (SW Stone Isle) would let the pink stove do her thing and be the accent in the room that she has always been destined to become. Plus, we have a blue chippy door leading to the mudroom nearby, and one blue door + one pink stove is… enough. You know I didn’t love painting that door twice, so if I did it, it had to be done. Ha!

green vase / wood cutting board / wood stand / hanging rod / hood / kettle / sconces / pink salt & pepper

Upstairs the bedrooms are coming along with some art up on the walls, layered cozy bedding, and even headboards. HUZZAH! Still need to hang all the curtains up there (once we do that the headboard will look exactly as wide as the window because we are tricky tricksters). Stay tuned…

rug / large art / lamp / side table / striped blanket / headboard / fan

This is another view of that front bedroom, which is the largest of the four (the bunk room is teeny tiny and the middle bedroom and back bedroom are just fine but not giant). It also has that exposed brick chimney that we discovered hiding behind the wall, and next to it you’ll see my favorite craigslist find of all time that you might have already “met” on Facebook or Instagram when I shared a quick shot of it this weekend. Yes, I really did find an inlay piece of furniture on Craiglist, and yes, it’s currently selling for $2,000 on Restoration Hardware (I got it for $400!). Insert that screaming cat emoji face here. Seriously, it’s the score of a lifetime, and I’m going to share the whole story, including how I fix up a few missing inlay spots soon. So… stay tuned. Again.

And before we move on, that sconce looks crazy small above the dresser (we just hung it as a placeholder and it’s looking like a placeholder, so we’ll probably get a wider double-sconce for that spot soon). Anyway, on with the tour! Or should I say “roll the next flashback!” This is that wall a year ago. Same house. Just nekkid a year ago versus clothed now. With walls. You get what I mean.

And now, the back bedroom. Aka: our room whenever we stay there! Although the front room is the largest and has that lovely exposed brick, the back bedroom has its own master bathroom (complete with my big beautiful clawfoot tub) and it has its own stairs that lead up to it, which are surprisingly useful. We originally thought those back stairs would be more of a fun thing for kids and a cool historic detail to preserve, but we weren’t sure we’d actually use them very much but we go up and down them all the time!

rug / fan / leather stools / striped duvet cover / pocked doors: SW Riverway

One of our bigger projects this past weekend was this built-in dresser that we added to the nook behind the pocket doors that you see above. We love gaining some storage and function in that formerly blank area at the top of the back steps, and there’s more than enough room to pull out the drawers and take like five steps back before you’d fall down the steps (you know I’d be the one to bite it all the way down these steps, so we have to make sure these things we’re adding won’t curse me later).

dresser / mirror / wood top / door color: SW Riverway

John would be quick to point out it’s not complete. We ran out of nails for our nail gun, so the trim still needs to be attached, caulked, etc. But basically, a Malm from Ikea fit pretty perfectly in the space, so we made it look even more built-in by removing and reinstalling the molding around it (see below) and adding a few skinny filler pieces to each side (scraps from our kitchen install). We also popped some leftover butcher block counter from downstairs on top to tie into the pine floors and we’re also planning to add some leather pulls to it to tie in the stools at the foot of the bed (you can see them in the shot two photos up). Can’t wait to finish it up and share the final pics!

Next let’s move onto the master bathroom, which is easily my favorite room because I get to soak in that big ol’ tub after hours of DIY and it feels so freaking good every time. Except for the first time. I had sort of a false start in there (more on that in this podcast) but now the tub and I are bros and only happy things happen when I’m in there. And the kids love it too.

marble table / floor tile / accent floor tile / wall hooks / blinds / tub color: SW Riverway

I’m basically salivating while looking at this because we’re back home and our house has two bathrooms that we still have to redo and two tubs that are about 10″ deep (half of my body sticks out like an iceberg) so I’m itching to add a deeper bathtub into my life here at home.

The hall bath is still my boo too, thanks to my favorite vanity ever. The top is tiled with marble and the rounded wood drawers make it look like a furniture piece we converted to be a vanity but it came that way and WE SALUTE IT because goodness knows we have other stuff to keep us busy. Still on the list: making built-in bunk beds, building out the pantry and the mudroom, tiling the backsplash, landscaping, etc, etc. That big round silver mirror is an awesome (and recent!) HomeGoods find (the same one in brass hangs above our mantel at home) so if you’re looking for one in either color, try HomeGoods. Target also has a really similar one that’s slightly smaller and thinner in gold.

vanity / faucet / drum stool  / light fixture / floor tile 

And although we haven’t built the wall to wall bunkbeds in our small-but-mighty kids room yet, we did hang art. And that’s half the battle, right? (Nope, half the battle is being halfway done with the bunkbeds, but let me lie to myself for a second, ok?). That cute colorful painting is from our dear friend Lesli Devito (remember when we house crashed her wayyyy back here) and if you don’t have one of her paintings or prints I highly recommend getting one. The door also got a sign that says Mermaids Welcome and it made my whole life to hang it up (also we took a poll among a bunch of kids and basically everyone is cool with mermaid and pirates, but don’t get me started on how split the group was on dolphins).

marble table / mermaids welcome plaque / art by Lesli DeVito

So there you have it: a tour as of yesterday of the beach house (remember: watch the video! it has approximately 98% more info than some pics and captions can convey). Also, we hope you have a very happy holiday surrounded by the ones you love and delicious food and all the mermaid-related memorabilia that your heart desires. And if you have a tub where your entire body can be submerged, know that I, for one, now know what I’m missing and am deeply deeply jealous.

P.S. To see the entire process of fixing up this beach house (from floor planning and demo to tiling and tiling and tiling and getting the floors redone) here’s a full category of beach house updates for you to flip through.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Beach House: End Of The Year Tour! appeared first on Young House Love.