Our Little Beehive House Tour

Home Tour Of Our Little Beehive

Cassity and I "met" when our blogs were nominated for an Apartment Therapy Homie award. I'd love to have her over for some milk and cookies, but she's a bit busy right now, what with toddler and a new baby in the house. So I thought I'd have you all over for a little house tour and some virtual treats.

Welcome to Our Little Beehive! We've done a bit of work to the exterior of our home, namely replacing the windows in the sun room; replacing the bright blue shutters with more traditional black ones; painting the front and side doors black; installing a fence around the corner lot to give us more of a "back-yard" feel; building a giant shed with cute little windows; burying all our gutter drain lines; jack-hammering up half of the driveway to make more lawn; and covering the entire lot with several inches of mulch in an effort to grow a new lawn from scratch.

Come on inside and help yourself to a chocolate chip cookie dough truffle or one of the other delicious treats we whip up for you every Tuesday.

Be sure to check out the cute little heart shaped dinner bell that we hung in lieu of a door bell as you step through our front door and into our living room.

In here we took the wall color from traffic light yellow to the palest of grays. We're in the process of painting the trim ultra bright white, which is making the walls look much less baby blue in the afternoon light and much more like the gray I love. We also removed the glass door/brass fireplace screen and replaced it with a simple stainless screen. I sewed insulated curtains for this room and the adjoining dining room and made our sweet dog, Feeney, a matching dog bed cover.

From the living room let's pop through that glass door to the right of the front door into my office, which was once a horribly neglected, uninsulated porch with windows that did not open. We removed a fiberboard ceiling to reveal original bead board; insulated the ceiling and floor; added soffet vents and other necessary items for the insulation; installed the eight windows ourselves; salvaged old trim and worked in new trim and molding too; added a supplemental heater so I can just heat and cool this room during the work day; painted the old stained paneling and door (oil primer was a must!).

You'll enter the office into the sitting area of the room where I make phone calls and S and I chat about our days when he gets home at night.

Separating the sitting area from my desk is a cabinet where I keep all of my favorite books alternated with baskets full of office supplies.

On the desk side of the room we hung my new favorite piece of art from Jen Ramos of Made by Girl. Truer words were never spoken.

And in the far corner behind my desk is a tall, skinny bookshelf, which also full of baskets of office, files, cords and other officey stuff.

From back in the living room, let's head to the dining room where my favorite chandelier of all time hangs above our dining room table.

In here we took the walls from traffic light red to the same pale gray in the living room, with one shade darker gray below the chair rail. We're in the process of painting the trim in here too (and everywhere else in the house) and also painting the gray below the chair rail a few shades darker to ground the black picture frames hanging on the walls. I sewed the drapes that match those in the living room with heavy, insulated lining, which has given our old windows a little boost in efficiency while we research our replacement options.

My favorite part of our dining room (apart from the chandelier) is that it is open to both the living room and to the kitchen, where we hung a pot rack from the ceiling joists over the breakfast bar separating the two spaces.

In addition to the pot rack, we also installed nine recessed lights on a dimmer; hung a seeded glass pendant above the kitchen sink; installed a low-profile disposer in our extra deep sink; installed under-counter LED lights; wired properly grounded outlets; painted a few times; painted the back door leading out to the driveway and back yard; and are in the process of choosing a white tile for the back splash.

Let's go back into the living room and upstairs where we have our one and only bath and three bedrooms, or as I prefer to say, two bedrooms and the dog's room. As you walk up the stairs you see our display of five of our favorite wedding photos in giant frames.

In the stairwell we adjusted the railing on the wall so it is at the same angle as the baseboard molding. It was one of the first projects we did since the mismatched angles drove me nuts, and because we had to take the railing off and cut the box springs to get our queen beds upstairs. In the upstairs hallway we changed the light fixture to what was supposed to be a pendant light from Ikea that we "hacked" to a ceiling light.

To the right of the stairs is our little bathroom where we've installed a very tall shower curtain rod; painted the walls and ceiling; modified our toilet to dual-flush; replaced the medicine cabinet; and installed a new light (six times).

We also added monogrammed hooks for our towels behind the door.

At the top of the stairs and through the door on the right is our master bedroom. 

In here we painted from dark green to another shade of pale gray; removed an outdated ceiling fan; hung a simple drum pendant light; and I sewed a pair of matelase window valances after discovering that long curtains meant I couldn't get to my side of the bed. We also installed a closet organizing system in the small closet.

Next to the master is our guest room, which is where I keep all of my clothes. In here we painted, twice; removed a ceiling fan and hung the same simple drum pendant as the master; installed a closet organizing system; and sewed the curtains.

I love this view from our guest room toward the hallway and our wedding photos.

The last room upstairs is the smallest of the three bedrooms and is our dog Feeney's room. He has separation issues so instead of taking up valuable space in our house for a dog crate, we gave him his own room. I can't explain the irony in that statement, it was S's idea and the whole plan works well for the Feens.

In here we removed another outdated ceiling fan and replaced it with an Ikea pendant that we adapted to hardwire. Since this is a dog's room we decided to make it a little more playful, so I sewed valances from elephant fabric and made a matching dog bed cover for Feeney.

The elephants go with my elephant collection (go Jumbos) that I displayed on the built-in shelves that, along with the inside of the closet, I painted bright turquoise.

Let's go back downstairs and into the dining room where stairs from a little hallway lead downstairs to our den and my sewing room. In the hallway on the way to the stairs you'll see where we had to cut into the wall the get to a hidden junction box to fix an improperly grounded outlet in the kitchen. We've since repaired the huge hole. (Please don't hide junction boxes!)

On the way down the stairs are the shelves we use as a spice rack. With such a small kitchen, we have to use every bit of space the house allows! I painted the wall behind the shelves the same color as below the chair rail in the dining room, and will likely paint them again soon. I also painted the stairs from dark brown to light gray with glossy white risers.

In our den we have an office area for S, who is a pilot and prefers to do his flight planning while sitting on the couch in the living room, a sewing area for me, and a TV area with a futon to accommodate extra guests. In here we painted; replaced insulation behind some of the paneling; ran wiring out to the office through the ceiling; and ran new circuits to several outlets (we've replaced all the outlets in the house to matching white ones and electrical upgrades everywhere is an ongoing project).

We'll replace the window this spring as soon as it gets a little warmer, which is why the trim is missing, and I'm in the process of sewing a new cover for the futon.

The other half of our basement is a utility room with our pantry, washer and dryer and all the stuff that doesn't fit in our kitchen. We replaced the exterior basement door this winter and now we're just beginning to renovate the unfinished portion into another bedroom, bathroom, laundry room and smaller utility room. 

If you walk out the basement door and up a set of stairs you'll be in our new back (side) yard, which we created by fencing in an area of our side lot. The driveway used to lead all the way to the back fence (long enough for 5 cars!), but after we built the shed we removed part of the driveway to make it a two car drive and planted grass and these arborvitae for some additional privacy.

That concludes our tour of Our Little Beehive,

thanks for stopping by. We're constantly working on new projects so next time you stop by maybe we'll make you some cookie dough ice cream or perhaps a cupcake to celebrate the completion of our basement renovation.

Come again soon!

**Would you like your home tour to be featured on Remodelaholic?  

If interested please email me remodelaholic @ gmail.com (minus spaces) 

with several images of 3-4 completed rooms and we will let you know if we can work it in 

(this would be a special guest post that is written exclusively for Remodelaholic! just FYI

If you want to check out our featured post rules please click here)