"Dwight, get out of my nook!"

We couldn't resist using the quote from The Office to aptly title this post on our dining nook.

Today, we finished our adorable nook! I still want to work on the paint finish... I found little hairs from the mohair roller on the bench seats. I read online that in order to get rid of those, you basically have to "wax" new rollers with painters tape before using them.

Anyway, here are some photos:

The L-shaped bench seats roughly 5-6 and has added storage under the seats. Eventually, we would love to have a plush cushion for the top, but it's beautiful and comfortable as it stands. More details on the nook project to come.

We'll be ordering and making a new trestle table this month to go with the nook to avoid bruised knees on our standard 4 leg table. We looked for one online, but the most affordable table was about $800. So I went to Etsy and found a DIY trestle table kit for $200, we just have to buy some 2x8's for the tabletop and attach them. We estimate that the whole table will cost $324. Way cheaper! 

We want to finish the table to look like this one Crate & Barrel sells for $1,099:

Another project we worked on today...

We had several bathroom floor tiles left over so I did the math and it was the perfect amount to finish the floor base instead of using MDF baseboards. It worked fairly well, but we were delayed due to grout issues. I bought 2 wrong shades of grout from Home Depot before we called the tile company in Auburn to get the exact match. 

It looks so finished! Still more haze to clean off and sealer to apply, but what this meant for us was that we were able to reset the door, add door trim and finally lay the last pieces of laminate in the hall with the transition strip in the doorway. It also means that our guests can use the bathroom with privacy... no more gap around the door where the trim was missing.

Here are some other things we've been working on:

Window trim and our gorgeous shades are going in. I wish I had a photo of the horrid furniture blanket we had hanging on some sad nails for privacy over our bedroom window, so you could see the vast improvement.

We also received this generous gift from my parents. We had been admiring this piece painted by one of our friends, an amazing artist, for months! We even visited it in a local coffee shop. Well, now it adorns our cheery wall above our much loved coffee bar!

For those who have been asking... the backsplash tile has been ordered! Stay tuned!!

Remodel day... 132

We have had a few breaks between projects. In the meantime we are working on finish work. And finish work is painstaking and time consuming. Brandon has been working on lots of trim and baseboards.

It's been a very difficult few weeks and the area of our home where we do the most living was looking dreary. So this weekend we decided to change that. I found some excellent accents at Homegoods including my favorite thing: my yellow ginger jar! Today, we had help from my parents and JP. We decorated, repainted a wall, painted doors, and Brandon worked on our bench for the dining nook. The new space makes me so happy! I'm so proud of Brandon working in the evenings, the weekends, and all around his work schedule to get things accomplished.