help us save a church!!

i know i haven't written in a while - but you should be used to that by now! what have we been up to? buying stuff for the bathroom (seriously, don't you love rejuvenation?). chad finished redoing the siding on the garage bump-out. not to mention he finally finished the fence!! pictures to come.

the real reason i'm writing is to inform any local readers about an eastside church that is being threatened for demolition. i've lived on the eastside of Indianapolis almost my whole life. i have driven by this church a million times. i was a matron of honor in my best friend's wedding in this church. guess where this picture was taken from.....the parking lot of a walgreens. take a wild guess what is proposed for the spot where this church has stood since 1914? a cvs. gross!!!!

help us save the church! if you are local and you have a connection to this church and you want to make a difference in saving history then please write a letter to the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission by November 3. even better, attend the public hearing on November 4 and tell your story in person!!! read about this issue here.

new couch

it was requested that i show a pic of the new couch in our living room. i apologize ahead of time for the poor lighting in the pictures. which is why i'm taking a photography class!

here's our old couch. still in good shape for the most part. now it will reside in my mom's cabin in the woods. don't ask. it was her couch to begin with anyways. and for her hospitality at letting me/us use it for the past 9 years, i threw in the couch cover we've been using, as seen piled in a heap on the couch. how nice am i?

here's the new couch. seriously, so sorry for the lighting. this room is so weird that i can't get the lighting correct with my point and shoot camera. you get the point though, the couch is much more our style. although it was bigger than i expected it to be. we almost could not move it through the front door. which made me laugh - the thought of nice leather couch on the front porch was funny to me.

one day when we have the floors refinished, the custom made tables and the walls painted i'll take a better picture! until then i will be happy with this major purchase out of the way!

another step in the right direction

we went to buy our bathroom tile this past saturday. again, for the third time, we left the store without making our huge tile purchase. but this time it wasn't because of money. we were advised to have a meeting with the guy who will be laying the tile before we make the purchase - to make sure we are ordering all of the pieces he needs to install everything correctly. i mean, this isn't tile laying on home depot's shelf so i think this was great advice!

so .... since we were on that side of town we decided to stop by a couple of other stores. and we ended up buying a couch. very spur-of-the-moment. it was at a local furniture outlet store so it was a good deal. the same couch we've looked at for years but half off since it was a floor model.

we're so excited we finally purchased grown-up living room furniture!! we've been relaxing on my parent's 20 year old ethan allen couch i used in college. granted, still a great couch, but very cream/blue/peach (can anyone say 1980?) and very flowery and well, not ours.

(now if i can just work on getting rid of those 15 year old hand-me-down ikea tables.)

guest bedroom

last weekend chad's best friend and his wife came to visit. which meant we had to get the guest bedroom in working order. there is no plaster on two of the walls in our guest bedroom - only exposed lath. we bought drywall to finish off the parts with no plaster about four months ago. too bad by last weekend the drywall (some 12' long) were still sitting in the same place - blocking access to the bed. i suggested just setting the Little Giant next to the drywall so they could climb the ladder over the drywall and into the bed. chad did not think this was funny.

instead we just moved it to the side wall, cleared out the tools and the baseboards, and cleaned.
and you know what? our guests didn't complain (not to our faces anyways).

the other (*sigh*) issue about staying at our house is the fact that our bathroom still hasn't been renovated. we have to turn the toilet on and off at the valve in order to flush. poor guests. i had to leave them this note on how to use the toilet. JUST the thing you want to see after a long flight. haha!

bathroom accessories

we've finally purchased some items for the bathroom renovation project. how much do you love rejuvenation?? seriously.

we bought these lights and shades to flank the medicine cabinet.

we bought the metal shelf shown in the picture below. we're going to place it in approximately the same place as the picture too. our bathroom will be arranged very similarly to the one shown below.

we also bought coordinating towl rack and ring and some really cool arts and craft style house numbers for the garage.

a unique table

for those of you that read this blog i think you know that at irvington bungalow, we seem to do a lot more planning/wishing than actual purchasing items or finishing projects. why stop now, i ask you?

for years i've been on the hunt for furniture. mostly living room furniture and mostly for years because we have not had any extra money to actually buy the furniture yet. but also, it is because i want to have furniture that reflects our style, the period of the house but also pieces that not everyone has in their own living room.
as i've mentioned several times we have some beautiful, old weathered barn wood we're using for an outdoor table. i'm hoping to have some leftover for a living room table. something a la this:

from sundance, mentioned here in a previous post.
or this, below, from pottery barn.

when in doubt, google. the other day i typed in something akin to: handmade metal welded furniture. what popped up but Fosterweld. and can you believe that he is located right here in Indy? i emailed him to see if the table would be something he would consider creating for us when the time comes. so far, he has been so nice and down-to-earth. i think it would be so cool to have such an original piece of furniture in our living room!

outdoor lanterns (for my fictional outdoor dining space)

once i get started thinking about something, i tend to obssess a bit. can't help it, it is just in my nature. so i keep thinking about when my outdoor table is finished (come on, chad!) i can't wait to have outdoor parties.

a few years ago we bought some oil rubbed bronze string lanterns for the backyard. they're still in their boxes in the basement. the other day i bought paper polka dot paper lanterns that are super cute. i was trying to find pictures online for both of these lanterns and ended up finding a ton of other really cute outdoor lanterns. check them out.

all of the above i found at walmart.com. the top set looks super versatile because they could go with almost any decorating style. and how cute are the tiny coleman lantern string set? those are solar LED. maybe i should get them for my mom (she just bought a fixer-upper cabin in the middle of nowhere). the last image is of martha stewart paper lanterns that don't light up. that doesn't stop me from loving them. they would be great hanging from the ceiling of a baby room or for an indoor party.

finding the LED colemans made me groove on the idea of hanging solar LED string lights in the backyard. here are some interesting ones i found surfing the net (when i should be working).

i like the above because they are plain and simple and, again, versatile.

these are a little more decorative. the bottom two images wcan be found here and here. the last picture is handblown glass but i would want the amber color - more cozy and warm feeling.

and i my absolute faves are these lanterns handmade by an etsy artist. although they are no longer in her shop.

i want, i want, i want...

these chairs to go with my outdoor barn wood table chad is going to make me. i posted about the barn wood we inherited last fall for the table. you can see the wood here and what the table will look like.

i love how they are old timey looking. from crate and barrel. you can find them here. we'll probably have two benches and then two of the chairs.

and this umbrella, probably in an orange, red or green, from pottery barn.

and i want to put this on the table with candles in it. i found it at an antique store a couple of weekends ago.

walls like pottery barn

for once i've looked through a pottery barn catalog and said: wow, this looks like my house! instead of, ugh. i wish my house looked like this.

check out the wall in this bathroom:

in this pic the wall looks stucco or something but in the catalog it just looks like an old plaster wall. discolored and cracking. when i saw it, i felt an instant kinship. could pottery barn be coming around to our sense of DYI style? is it possible that the residents of irvington bungalow are actually trendsetters and not just a couple of old-house loving, idealistic, lazy, too-many-projects-not-enough-time/money/energy people?

take a look at my pottery barn walls:

but, wait. we have them in the living room too:

really. you have to have a sense of humor or the fact that my walls have looked like this for five years would drive me to tears on a daily basis. i have to go submit my house for the next PB catalog now.

kitchen voyeurism

my mom just had her kitchen remodeled. love it. i'm kinda pissed because this is exactly the style and color of cabinets that i want for our kitchen and i REALLY hate to do something on my house after someone else i know does it. it's just so unoriginal. however, i really love the cabinets so i might have to make an exception. they were handmade by an amish guy in northern indiana. i wanted to use the same guy (i am NOT opposed to using the same contractors) when we get around to the kitchen but apparently our cabinets are going to be handmade by a non-amish guy that lives in irvington bungalow.

things i like about the cabinets: handmade locally, the color, the inset doors, the shaker style doors, the hardware, the crown which actually mimics an older cabinet that was installed too. you can see it if you scroll down.

my mom probably would not be too happy to see this picture of here on the web. however she won't know because i'm pretty sure she doesn't even read this blog. i wanted to show how, even though the kitchen is small, they made the most out of the space.

this was an old cabinet my mom has had for years. i love how she incorporated it with the new cabinets.

love the compact, red stove. really great accent.

symphony in the park

last night was one of the great summer traditions in irvington. the indianapolis symphony orchestra played in ellenberger park. it is so fun to sit outside with friends, family and neighbors, drink wine and listen to the orchestra - all for free!

more landscaping

although there are a thousand projects to be started, completed or somewhere in between, the main focus this summer has been starting the bathroom remodel and the landscaping. more about the bathroom later, this post is about the landscaping.

chad has been busy implementing his landscape plan developed a few years ago. time and money have forced us to complete it in stages. last year it was the part of the back yard, part of the south side yard, and the north side yard. this year is continuation of the back yard and the south side yard. hopefully next year will be the front yard.
the above pictures show the back yard, the newest bed in the lower left corner and then a new tree, a river birch, with flowers given to us by chad's aunt. the bed in the back left is still under construction. it's our "holding cell" for replacement plants at this point.

this is the side yard. we have three types of hydrangeas in three different beds (hydrangeas are my favorite). currently i have tomato plants and some herbs in this new bed in the side yard but they will be gone at the end of the summer. i'll have to find a new place for them next year!

flowers from our yard

isn't it such a great feeling to display a vaes of flowers cut from your own yard? this is my favorite vase, too. bought it at the penrod art fair last year. love the color.

My Fundraising Page

My Fundraising Page

Warning! This post has nothing to do with the house.

I'm running a half marathon in the fall (which is major news for me) and I'm also raising money for cancer research as a team member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you would like to contribute, learn more and find out about my progress then follow the link above.

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paint decisions have been made (finally)!

does anyone read the onion? omg. i think it is SO funny. if you have ever struggled with decisions regarding paint then you have to read this article: "Study Finds Paint Aisle at Lowe's Best Place to Have Complete Meltdown". i was laughing so hard when i read it because it is so so true.

anyways, i thought that would be a good lead in to tell you that we've FINALLY made our paint color decisions for the living and dining rooms. we have even bought the paint. this should make me feel more comfortable that these will be our final decisions but we have already bought paint for these rooms and never used it. oh well.

the problem was finding the "right" shade of green for the living room. while our LR is large for the size of our house, we have really dark and wide wood trim throughout. chad wanted a darker green shade while i wanted a lighter shade. in the five years we've lived here we have managed to never paint the walls but to adorn them with about 8 shades of green and two shades of yellow.

the paint swatch collection has actually increased since this picture was taken in 2005. but the wall pretty much looks the same.

we've decided on a two valspar paint colors from Lowe's. Epic for the LR - a dark-ish green/tan color (very similar to the 3rd color on the right, above) and Lyndhurst Estate Cream - a super light creamy-yellow for the dining room. hopefully we'll be painting in a few weeks!

rain, rain go away

the rain we had over memorial day weekend didn't stop chad from planting in our newest bed.

don't i need this for the porch?

we have more room on the porch so i've been wanting to add a glider for a while now. i can picture me lounging and gliding...gliding and lounging. i'd like this one. it matches the rockers we have already so we'd just have to stain and assemble.

i'm not really sure how comfy it is because i've yet to actually see it live and in person. and, or course, i'd have to have a cushion for it. i'm thinking this for the cushion:

and this material for the throw pillows for the glider and also some lumbar pillows for the rockers:

we could do all of this for about $300, a little elbow-grease and some of my mother-in-law's fabulous sewing skills. don't you think i need it??

a clean slate (or concrete, rather)

this weekend will be five years since we moved into the house. it's hard do believe that this is possible. minus the groovy wallpaper and layers of old dirt, irvington bungalow virtually looks the same.

that is not the point of this post. over the weekend we borrowed a powerwasher to clean the front porch.

a few weeks ago i stripped and painted an old ikea table that was in our living room housing a defunct printer. here it is before:

i painted the table the same color as our backdoors. we loved our front porch before but now we really have a great little space to sit, unwind and watch the neighborhood go by this summer.

pedestal tub

craigslist to the rescue again! we've been looking for an old pedestal bath tub for our bathroom remodel project. we almost bit the bullet and paid a few hundred for one at a local salvage yard. but considering how much it is going to cost to have it refinished we didn't. and good thing! chad found one on craigslist over the weekend. we bought it for $45. now we're going to transport it to st. louis for some one-of-a-kind refinishing technique. don't ask.