Friday, June 29, 2012

A Little Garden Teaser

There are times the Goddess of Domestic Productivity (Minerva of the Vacuum, I like to call her) abandons you completely. I'm here, but where is she? Between getting used to a new job (which is going GREAT, by the way), trying to wrap up a few little home improvement things, and get ready for our family summer vacation, I'm not getting anything done, including the laundry that needs to go in those suitcases in less than 48 hours.

The last week has seen swelteringly hot temps in my Midwest town. My garden has been looking just as sweaty, hot, and disheveled as I have, and the glare from the 115 degree heat index sun is not great for taking photos. It's too bad, because I've been wanting to share progress with you. After my son put in the new garden wall here, we've been steadily working eradicating weeds, defining beds, and mulching. We're not done with the front yard, but we're done with a significant portion.

Since my garden and the weather weren't cooperating for landscape portraiture, here's a few individual shots to show you that yes, we're starting to come along:

These are some kind of penstemon:



And this is a daylily from my sister's garden in Georgia. Plants from loved ones make me happy!


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Lamp Love Link: Tiki Brown

Whoops! So busy getting ready for my vacation south that I almost forgot it was Wednesday. Since my mind has been pondering what to do with a ratty backyard screen porch (glued-down carpet, mauve paint, ceiling leak) I thought I'd have some fun picking out some tiki-themed lamps. I liked these little fellas, from Etsy seller luola:

                           Source: etsy.com via Laura on Pinterest


Yup. I think all they need are some shades in a loud orange or green and they'd light up a porch in more ways than one.

I'm on a lamp buying moratorium for a bit now, until I've managed to land the ones I've got into their permanent homes. I know. Discipline is no fun at all!


Monday, June 25, 2012

Renovation Odds and Ends

Perhaps this post should be titled "Renovation Loose Ends," because I'm at it right now.

After my week of getting things done on my "Little List," I'm at a stopping point, pondering what to do next.

I've cleaned up an entire chunk of the front yard garden, and I'm only awaiting good light to photograph it so I can blog about it. We're currently going through a swelter of hot weather, and all the sun does is glare, glare, glare down all day--not so good for catching a garden in its best light. I'm hoping you'll see the progress, though I have a long way to go yet!

One of the things I did that week to cross stuff off my list was backtracking on a poorly done paint job in my bedroom. Now I'm sidetracking on another concern-- electricity. There's a couple of outlets that no longer sit flush with the wall because of the drywall sheathing, and another one that, well, here, take a look:


A: What is that hole on the upper right? Does this freak you out as much as it does me?
B: Bottom right switch goes to....nothing I can discern.
C: Left switch is supposed to operate the light at the end of the room, which it does...about 50 percent of the time, meaning there's a short somewhere.

I'm also without light in the closet:



Both the socket and the pull string broke out of the ceramic fixture in the closet. The fixture either needs rewiring or replacing. Again, I'm not qualified, and a little freaked out.

I decided that before any more painting or surface finishing could go on, I needed to call an electrician. Honestly, I've got a list of about 3 dozen small items like this all over the house. I need to do the safe and right thing before I can get on with the fun stuff.

After blogging....okay, after whining... about the state of my main floor bathroom and finally getting some functional floor in there, I've decided to get proactive instead of just gritting my teeth and bearing it until I can afford the big remodel. I'm going to paint, and see about getting a different sink/faucet set up, and new light fixture.


                                                                     Source: sherwin-williams.com via Laura on Pinterest


The aqua paint color can stand in for the aqua tile I hope for some day, and getting rid of the "airport landing strip" lighting will improve the atmosphere too.

I also stopped into a flooring store today. I was feeling bold and spendy and thought, "if progress doing it yourself is at a stand still, get a hire-it-done job started." Alas, my heart got set on the wrong thing. Pam over on Retro Renovation had a couple of years ago mentioned a 70s style flooring from Tarkett that would have been perfect for my 70s style kitchen cabinets. Tarkett called it Antonia Spanish Tile and it looked like this:

Image source and link: Tarkett online catalog




I loved it in the taupe brown. But it's been discontinued in both colors. Too bad. Now I'm back to the drawing board picking something out, so no progress there either.


A trip to Georgia to visit my sister is coming soon. I'm going to take that time to regroup, make a few more decisions, make a new list, and schedule some more work. Psychiatric advice from readers also welcome!





Thursday, June 21, 2012

Mid-century. Just Not Modern.

After owning a Mid-century home for a year and spending time in the blogosphere with other people who do too, I've learned that once again I'm not quite fitting in.

Not really on purpose, like from burping at tea parties or failing to impress the popular girl--though I've been guilty of both social gaffes at one time or another. Lord help them, my family can't take me anywhere.

No, it's more from buying into the Mid-century home ownership adventure at the opposite end of the era from where all the excitement is. The era as an architecture, design, and fashion movement is roughly from 1933 to 1965, and it's as if the timeline is a street where all the swankiest parties happen at the 1950-1960 addresses. You know, the homes with the ranches and glassed courtyards and butterfly roof lines. Down here at the quiet beginning of the lane, the 1930s, the houses are still wearing last era's party dresses, Colonial Revival. Like this:

Source: flickr.com via Laura on Pinterest


But when people talk about what geeks them up in Mid-century, they're talking about Modern. Like this:

Source: flickr.com via Laura on Pinterest


They're getting all giddy about amoeba coffee tables with hairpin legs. Starburst clocks. Ash blonde furniture with clean lines. Those poor Colonial Revival ladies just can't compete with these new Mid-Mod girls.

On the 1930s end of the street folks stick with those cottage gardens:




While the 1950s-1960s get to work with suburban patios and indoor-outdoor space: 




I'm not fussed about it. I've always been drawn to the 1930s, and I'm comfortable down here at the quieter end of the street. I think the furniture's more comfy cozy too, though admittedly not nearly as swanky looking. It's true. A 1940s Hepplewhite dining set is going to look more at home in my house than some Saarinen tulip table. The richer, clearer colors of apple greens and royal blues popular in Art Deco fit more in my home than the tropically inspired fruit punch colors of the Atomic Age. 


I'm finding that the quieter, more traditional, Colonial Revival style persisted in various forms into the 1970s, and for that reason those styles of furniture mix well into my home. And I suspect that for many people, it would have been these styles they were buying all along. The Mid-Century traditionalists from the 1930s and any of the decades after were not cutting-edge people. They didn't throw their money away on fads. They made pot roast every Sunday, drove a ten year old Buick, and bought their living room furniture from Montgomery Wards. They voted for Eisenhower, and didn't think much of Elvis or Jerry Lee. 


Now when I'm up the street at my neighbor's houses, I enjoy the rad design, the fun colors, and the cheerful demeanor of those decades. I'm just as geeked as they are over pole lamps and Heywood Wakefield furniture. I really am. I love to see how their Atomic Age ranches shine with the sparkle that was that era. 


Me, I'll walk back down the street to where it all began. Yes, in modest Cape Cods and cottages. But we had Kit Kat Clocks, and Myrna Loy and Grant Wood and E.B. White. I'm perfectly at home with that.







Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Lamp Love Link: Sea Green

Aqua, sea green, jadeite, whatever you call it--don't you love it? I do. At whatever end of blue (robin's egg) or green (copper patina) it ends up.

Source: etsy.com via Laura on Pinterest


These lamps, featured for sale on Etsy, are just perfect in so many ways, including the aqua. The shades are lovely and don't compete with the era or the design of the lamps. The lamp bases themselves are unusual and have more of the Art Deco motif found in earlier lamps than the Atomic designs found later mid-century. The seller, ILoveLamp1965, is a new one which looks as though they are making new vintage-look lamp shades; which is a very, very good thing. There aren't enough vintage "shady" people out there doing their shady doings!


Saturday, June 16, 2012

Some Progress in the Bedroom

My home improvement project week two weeks ago also included backtracking to fix a problem I'd discovered with work I'd already done: a painted bedroom ceiling.

This is nothing but pure aggravation, since I'd already started in on a floor painting project in there, and then realized one morning, as the light was pouring in the window, that my paint job had missed spots, and was streaky.

Here's what it looked like:

On the left, unretouched photos of the evidence. On the right, arrows highlighting the paint streaking, with a visual re-enactment of the homeowner's discovery. 
With an east-facing window I knew I was going to see that every single time I woke up in the morning. I knew it would bug me forever. So with a heavy sigh, I added "repaint ceiling" on my list of things to get done. Again.

I blame this product, on the left below:


See how it says on the left hand can "you won't miss a spot?" Yeah. Not so much. In theory the colorant, which dries white as it dries, prevents missed spots while you're painting because you can see a color better than layers of white. While you're painting you look at all those vaguely lavender pinkish stripes and say, "oh, but it's all covered, it'll dry out all right." But it doesn't. With colorant in it that gradually changes as it dries, there's no way to tell what's a thin spot any better than before, and in my opinion it's even harder to see. I will never use this or any similar product again. I will stick with the product on the right, the just plain, traditional ceiling paint.

And while we're on the topic of How Much I Hate Painting Ceilings, lets also talk about its sub-topic, How Much I Hate Ceiling Paint. This really isn't specific to the brand shown here, and for the most part I consider Valspar a good quality paint that I use often. But I fail to understand why ceiling paint has the consistency of nearly WATER, making it drippy, runny, difficult to work with, and a major mess. Regular paint, even the plain ones without pigment, have more thickness or "body" to it than ceiling paint. It clings to the brush, the roller, the wall. Why can't you have that in a ceiling paint? It seems like that thickness and cling would be even MORE desirable when painting an overhead space instead of a vertical wall. It makes no sense to me.

Now that I'm done huffing about ceiling paint's general lousiness, here are a few pictures to get an idea of how this room's come along since we moved in. My bedroom is really two rooms, a larger space with an alcove for the bed. It's the alcove we're trying to get shaped up, so I can move the bed into it and finish the rest of the bedroom space.

This is how we started:


You can see the mysterious black stuff on the floor that we found under three layers of carpet and pad, and the damage done to the walls removing the dark vinyl paneling.


Above is a shot of the room after the subfloor had been sanded, the walls sheathed in a fresh layer of drywall, and joints taped and plastered.



Above is the room with finally non-streaky ceiling and walls (which are a soft gray) and the floors which are spattered with ceiling paint (I used drop cloths, but we still had some mishaps. The subfloor already had a coat of floor paint primer on it in dark brown that I'll have to redo, but it should go fast and I'll be ready to start the floor, which is going to include stenciling. 

Still yet to work on in this photo is the outlets, and I need to have an electrician come in and check the wiring in this room. It's concerning me. I also need to clean up the window and the window trim. 

Now that I've gone back and corrected my mistake, we're ready to go back to our regularly scheduled home improvement, already in progress. Here, that means a floor stenciling project. With any luck, still yet this summer! 

Friday, June 15, 2012

Some Progress in the Bathroom

Please do not take this as a Grand Before and After, or what they term on television design shows "the Big Reveal." If I were to call it either this post would fail to live up to its billing and you'd all be sorely disappointed. Instead consider it a snapshot of a room in progress, like you're just stopping by for a quick visit, trotted down the hallway and noticed in passing that hey.....

There's a new bathroom floor in there!

During my recent week of home improvement projects, a neighbor who is a plumber and handy with the other trades too came on over, tossed my toilet into the tub for a few nights, slapped down some new plywood subfloor and vinyl tile, and got this bathroom a for real floor.

Those of you who've been with me from the very beginning (and I thank all three of you!) will recall that when I moved in, the problem with my main floor bathroom was, erm, many-layered.



The first layer was a layer of carpet tiles, which I did not photograph because I have no intention of portraying graphic content on this blog. They were that disgusting.

Next was what you see above, the crumbling layer of mauve tile (at the back near the toilet) and then the dried glue encrusted and warping plywood subfloor. The above picture was taken shortly after all the approximately two dozen moving in plumbing disasters, when my friend Dave came and put in the first new and fully functioning toilet in my house. At that point there was no time to address the floor. Some people have fire drills. I have potty drills.

Later most of the plywood was removed, except for a square around the toilet, to reveal this:


This was at one time perfectly, amazingly great floor.....before it had nail holes pounded into it from the subfloor that went over it. So it wasn't really salvageable.

This bathroom has multiple problems besides the floor, but I don't have the time or money right now for a serious and total remodel. But the fact remained I needed a floor. I decided to put down an inexpensive option that would hold me for a few years until I could swing the big project.

Longer ago than I care to admit I bought some serviceable, dirt hiding, vinyl peel-and-stick squares at the home improvement store, buying out the last of a discontinued 88-cents/square foot tile at a discount.

My neighbor, great person that he is, had that floor down in no time, and looking better than I thought it possible considering the less-than-stellar quality materials.


Here's a closer view:


You know how you get one problem taken care of, one thing in the room improved, and instead of feeling better, you feel even LESS satisfied with all the other things that are bothering you? Yeah. That happened.

This is in NO way to discount either a) my friend Dave's grand heroism. He rescued a lady in crapper distress; or b) My neighbor's work. Every time I step onto smooth, clean flooring in this bathroom I am so eternally grateful it looks good and the carpet tiles are gone.

But the bathroom is a smokey lavender mauve hue that is muddy and uninspiring to me, and I bought an inexpensive Wally-World shower curtain JUST because it coordinated with a color I don't like. Not a good choice.

I've been contemplating what I can also do in the short term to give the room a retro feel without giving it the expensive gutting it deserves.

Perhaps instead of that blah lavender we could have some tropical turquoise:

                                                       Source: sherwin-williams.com via Laura on Pinterest


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Lamp Love Link: Glass and Silver

Source: etsy.com via Laura on Pinterest


This week my lamp love took me wandering into my already proclaimed history dweebiness as well as in a direction I seldom go: highly breakable. The stunning beauty above is currently on sale on Etsy with seller Borealman.

I've been meandering around doing casual research on Art Deco. My house was built when that design era was winding down, but I find it intriguing. The design movements running up to Art Deco, like Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau, were either reactions against or outgrowths of high Victorian style; Art Deco seemed to be the first real wave of Modernism as we recognize it today. I like how the world took a bunch of French Artists' vision of how beautiful the world could be at a world's fair in Paris in 1925, added some industrial design, some Bauhaus and Mies Van der Rohe, and then a little later shook it up in a cocktail mixer with Frank Sinatra and the Space Race and came up with Mid-century Modern. How cool is that?

This lamp is everything Art Deco was meant to be--smooth, almost automotive sleek curves, glamorous looking, symbolic of wealth. All of which translates into "far too nice to come live at my house."

My four boys aren't destructive on purpose (and I've met such children, more's the pity), or even excessively wild, but sheer numbers and the business of life dictate that there are days when my house is going to look like it's been sacked by Vandals. Yes, I do have ceramic lamps, but they can take a few bumps now and then. This lovely object deserves a home where quiet music plays, and people have swank dinner parties. Not my house.


Sunday, June 10, 2012

Happy Birthday-Anniversary


Today we are one year old. And seventy-three. Let me explain.

Last year at this time, I was sitting in a bank board room signing papers for an hour, while my real estate agent Jean and my loan officer Sarah smiled on. They were really rooting for me, knew how much this meant to me, and it was with genuine congratulations when they handed me the keys to my new life, my new home.

So happy first anniversary of home ownership to me. It has been a year of joy, relief, dirt, paint cans, ibuprofen, and the beautiful support of family and friends. I'm a lucky (and tired) woman indeed.

But the house that means so much to me is 73 years old. Since I have no idea exactly when the first lucky owners of this sweet Cape Cod turned the key in the brand new lock, I've decided that I should also mark this home's birthday every year on this day too. It seems like the the thing to do. Happy June 10th to me, and to my house. Happy Birthday Anniversary.

Between all the project work that's been going on around here, the end of an old job and the start of another, the end of the school year, and the usual comings and goings of the family, I didn't muster efforts in time for a party. But I think this calls for one, with cupcakes and streamers and cool drinks on patios. I'm going to plan for just such an event in honor of the 2/74 Birthday Anniversary next year.

And you're all invited, I promise. I'll have a cupcake just for you!


Finally, A Home Office


Last week I made a list of things to get done on the house. Since I wasn't supposedly doing anything insane like making a list of EVERYTHING that needed to be done to the WHOLE house, I called it my Little List.

Yah. Well. I'll point out that two of my last five posts were about alcohol consumption, and one was about cookies. I'll let you figure it out.

I still made too ambitious a list. I've learned in the last two weeks that a "little" list for me should look more like this:

1. Paint that wall. Just that wall. Sometime before you are forced to sell and go into the nursing home.

End list.

The "take-away" from this (besides a few extra gray hairs and an awesome sangria recipe) was little lists, even given an entire week's vacation, need to be SMALL. Like, three items with time built in for extra trips to the hardware store, attacks of neuroses, and random dumb crap. Seriously. You need a dumb crap margin. Who knew. Now I do.

One thing I did get done was conquer the clutter in the room off the foyer of the house, which we call the Front Room. It was the only place I was likely to find the workspace I need to do my part-time freelance writing. But it's also a portmanteau, a room that's also got to be a little bit library, a little bit coat room, and let's be honest here, a little bit "I don't know what to do with this (fill in the blank), so I'll just dump it here" room. That's why there's a big fat loveseat stuck in there with a future elsewhere and in the meantime being used as a coat rack.

[DISCLAIMER: What follows is a collection of photos that set my teeth on edge. Photographing a dark wood paneled room at any time of the day is an endeavor made of fail, and it's been noted I'm not a photographer to begin with.]

You saw the before photo. It's the one place where a bad picture is actually okay, because it contributes to conveying the overall badness of the visual:

You can tell a successful gal lives here.
I removed some remaining carpet tack strip left behind in the move-in frenzy, cleaned, organized, put down an new rug, hung art, rearranged furniture slightly and got rid of a vintage kitchen cart that was NOT working as printer stand, though it was working great as a garbage stuffer and toe-stubber. The room was put together with items I already had (the rug is the big exception), and that determined the color scheme. However, the aqua, coral, and pear tones seemed to make the wood paneling less stark feeling and more homey.


I took down the broken shutters and put up cafe curtains, which were refitted from a handmade curtain from another use. The dresser moved from one wall to another. It was $15 from a yard sale a few years ago, repainted by me; the replacement knobs were ridiculously more expensive than the dresser itself. The chair is $5 garage sale find, painted and re-upholstered by me.

Here's another before and after, from the opposite end of the room:
I wouldn't have been entirely surprised if we'd found D.B. Cooper hiding in the mess on the left.
This sofa will be moving to the basement lounge room when it's done being remodeled, and a desk will take its place when the family computer moves into this location. (Hey. I TOLD you this was a portmanteau room). The quilt is one I dragged out of a barrel full of farm implements in a barn somewhere near Bay City, Michigan. It was in near perfect condition, and I paid $20. The pattern is called New York Beauty. The bolster in front of it was made from an antique runner, but I've decided right now while writing this post and looking at that photo it doesn't belong there. Too lacy and fussy.

Below are the fabrics used in making the cafe curtains, both from Michael Miller from a few years ago:
What the poor lighting and less-than-stellar photography fail to convey is that the colors in the fabric are a little more subdued than they appear, and the carpet just a little brighter. The colors in both blend perfectly in reality.


Above is a little desk detail. The desk is a little Arts and Crafts oak desk. The photo is of me and my sister from a few years ago. I love it because, well, we cleaned up better than usual. The rock is shaped like the letter "L," and my sister found it for me while we were on the trail along Cabin Creek in the Buffalo National River in Arkansas.  The two aqua planters/vases are unmarked though I suspect they are McCoy. The one on the right holds business cards, paper clips and bits and pieces. The little wood duck is a hand carved piece from my Great Uncle Leonard.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Making Whoopie.......Pies

Chicken courtesy of my sis Dyan. Bawk!

I woke up early this morning, before it got hot, and decided to do some baking. Around here, summer time is whoopie time....whoopie pie time, that is.

I don't really know why. They're kind of sticky and need refrigerating no matter what the weather, and warm humid days don't really help. But there you are. Whoopie pies are for summer.

If you're interested, I make the whoopie pies from this recipe over on the Taste of Home website, and you can go there if you want to get your mixer on. I will say I don't do the cooked flour frosting, as my children don't care for it. I usually mix up a buttercream frosting with some marshmallow fluff in it.

For those of you who thought I had something else in mind, I give you Eddie Cantor from the 1930 film "Whoopee." See? One spells it differently even. Now get your mind out of the gutter, and contemplate the ruffly get-ups on those ladies. It makes me itch even thinking about it. I think I'll stick with whoopie pies.




Friday, June 8, 2012

Summer Sangria

Enjoying your summer? 
A lovely summer Friday afternoon On the Doorstep!



Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Lamp Love: An Orphan Finds a Home

This week's Lamp Love is about learning to love something that is bestowed upon you rather than chosen. Namely, this lamp:

Picture this in a room with avocado green flocked wallpaper. Go on, I dare you. 
This lamp belonged to my Great Aunt Elizabeth, who, god rest her soul, was smart as a new suit but didn't know much about decor. Or at least, not enough to know that this lamp was a bad idea. I have no idea when it came into her life, but I'm judging the late 1950s to the early 1960s; it stayed with her, a permanent fixture of Aunt E.'s living room, until it came to me. I'm not sure how I ended up with it, but I think it was mainly because no one else would claim it. That's okay. I like it now.

I like it mostly because it's just such a perfect example of what was going on in lamps mid-century, where more+too much=better. This thing has got a brass base and speckled ceramics and that oval, scalloped design thingy on the side, and some metal trim and the curlicues, which I presume you could hang crystals on if you really wanted to put on the dog.

The shade has become my favoritest lamp thing ever, because I've never seen anything quite like it anywhere else:


It's not just the beautiful weave of the shade fabric, but metal and plastic ornamentation attached. It's like over at the lamp factory they decided to tchotschke the tchotchkes, and out came this beauty.

I've had the lamp for a few years, and dragged it around, never quite knowing where to put it. I think part of the problem in growing to love it was its overwhelming beige-ness, which is hard to place in a household full of color.

The front room turned out to be just the place for it. It provides a nice, light contrast to all the wood paneling in the room, and the dark wood makes the unique fabric of the shade stand out to notice. It's sitting on a wood stool so that the shade doesn't severely overhang my small work desk, and it seems like it has found a home. It's like the slightly crazy relative you never know where to seat at the Thanksgiving table. Proper positioning is essential. I think I've found it with this one.

Monday, June 4, 2012

The Front Room: Before and Way Before

My biggest goal to tackle during my so-called Little List Week was recovering a home office space in the front room.

The front room is a 15 X 9 foot space to the immediate right of the foyer, with an eastern window on the street front of the house. In the first year of living here, it has become the non-Hogwarts version of the Room of Requirement. If you're familiar with the Harry Potter series of books or movies, the Room of Requirement is both whatever anyone needs (broom closet, secret meeting room) or the perfect place to get rid of anything (ruined magic experiments, cursed objects).

While I can't claim to have used it as a secret meeting room or as a dumping ground for ruined magical items, the front room has become a jumble of backpacks, shoes, coats, brooms, books, and even a plastic sword or two. After a year of shifting piles of possessions taking over and retreating from this area, it was time to get it shaped up.

This room has wood paneling that used to be pretty nice. I'm not sure if it's cherry or maple veneer, but I believe it was installed in the 1960s, and was reasonably well done. I think it may have been stained darker than its original shade, and it is now unfortunately pretty messed up. I'll explain by way of giving readers one Way Before photo:


This photo is from the stash I found in the kitchen junk drawer, which I blogged about here. It's dated on the back "1968." As you can see, it was panelled with built-in book cases and cupboards to hold a TV. It stole space from a broom closet that originally ran behind the television wall. The dark panel across the top is a purple frieze fabric to cover stereo speakers. There are shelves to house the stereo components behind the cupboard door to the left of the TV. Note the Encyclopedia Britannica and National Geographics on the shelves, and the barometer on the wall!

Now one of my Before photos:


This is the same wall from a slightly different angle. One of the previous owners sawed an unfinished hole in the paneling to get a giant flat screen TV in the wall, and left it gaping when they moved out. In front is a love seat I've destined for another location but in the meantime became a mountain of winter coats, school backpacks, and......please don't look too closely. I'm appalled that I'm even putting this in a blog post. For lack of a better solution to that gaping sawed-out hole, I put a tension shower rod and an old bed sheet across it.

At the other end of the room I give you another Way Before:


There's a whole bunch I like about this photo: the tailored, swanky looking couch, the welted box pillows, and I LOVE that lamp. At the beginning of last week, my Before photo looked like this (I'm wincing with shame):


Um. Yeah. I let the filing get a little out of control. A little. To the left we have a printer on top of a vintage kitchen cart, which proves why open shelves are a bad idea for me. Also not liking the broken shutters.

What do we like about this room?

Well, the wood paneling we're learning to love. Honestly, it's growing on us. I'm still debating what to do with the sawed-out hole in the old television wall. And I'd kinda like the broom closet back. While I decide how to repair that, I've still got to make this a livable space.

We love the floor. It's vinyl composition tile in beige, brown, and white streaks, and in mostly good condition.


We also love the ceiling, which is vintage acoustic tile. I love the bubbly pattern and the ivory color, which keeps the room from being too dark and overbearing.


Later this week I'll show you my After photos with new curtains, some art on the walls, and things VASTLY tidier. Wednesday's Lamp Love will feature the vintage lamp that found a permanent home in the front room. Later this week I'll also blog about progress in the bathroom and the upstairs bedroom. Check in often!


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Summer Sunday

My "Little List Week" is almost over....and I'm taking some well-deserved time to enjoy a summer weekend.....

I believe red wine goes with almost anything, including a feeling of accomplishment.

How'd it go?

Well. Not as planned. Does anything ever? Did I get a lot done? Absolutely. Everything on the list? Not even close. Am I happy? Overall, yes. I think the week went well, and I can't wait to photograph and blog about it.

Until I catch up Monday, enjoy your summer weekend!