Dining Room: Part 2

Note to readers: the past couple of days have been pretty horrendous with the news from CT.  I won't tell you how or what to feel, especially since I can barely express my own feelings about it.  Thoughts, prayers, good wishes to everyone.

Way back around the time I started this blog, when I had about two loyal readers (rather than the dozen I have and appreciate now), I shared some dark, dank photos of our dining room.  Even painted a light color, it was sadly shadowed and drained any positive energy a person might have.

This year, after reading about how bold colors are often a better choice for rooms that lack natural lighting, we went for a bright yellow.  And now you, lucky reader, get a full view of the room in its current state.

The room has been through a drastic metamorphosis, and that's not to say it's become an ugly bug.  Instead, it's cheery..and no longer suited for dining.

It's hard to visualize properly, but the room is a glorified hallway from the living room to the family room.  The footprint of the basement indicates that the family room was an addition (gloriously wired and half-assed constructed by cousin Larry), and that's why there's a room in the middle of the house without any good natural light.  Because we have a glorious table in the kitchen well-suited for daily and formal dining, we decided to transform the space into an office/rec room and moved the awesome pub table to the family room for puzzles and other fun stuff.

You'll see our motley collection of furniture and wall-hangings, most of which were gifts or craigslist (free) rescues (note: the map was hung months ago and that's why the placement is awkward. We don't know where to put it and the plaster is kind of delicate there, so we'll leave it for now).  The desk looks great up against the bold yellow.

And the wardrobe, which we just painted "New Grass Green" (Glidden), adds to the fun of the room.

The kids' desk now fits right in.

We left the trim both white and wood toned to complete the eclectic look.

The fan is a place holder for something more attractive--the price was right (free) so that's why it is there now since the old fixture hung down way too low and was not adjustable enough.  (I always think of my friend Jeffrey from college when it comes to free stuff.  He was a vegetarian unless the food was a gift.  Free steak? No problem. Free fan? Up it goes!)

The art, however, stays.  I love the pieces.  The baby on the left was a gift from my artist friend because she said the baby in it reminded her of Winslow. The burnt orange and lime green stripes go well with our furniture, and I have a feeling that anything more mainstream would look kind of goofy here.  And then, of course, there's the funky portrait my mom found on the side of the road...I can't stop looking at it, so she'll keep on guarding the hat collection atop the wardrobe for now.

And one day we'll have more decorative items and accessories...not now, though.  Anything of value is almost immediately touched by sticky fingers and sometimes completely destroyed within a matter of seconds, so we'll go minimalist.  It felt dishonest to post photos of fussy decor when we all know I don't live like that at all.

So a last look at BEFORE:

Great table, great art. Sucky everything else.

AFTER:

 Even if it's not to your taste of gray and white and beige all over, anything is better than the dull and dreary "before".  I find myself sincerely whistling a happy tune every morning as I descend the stairs into this cheerful room.

Sources/Details:
Wardrobe {free from friend}: Glidden's New Grass Green
Desk {free off Craigslist}: Clark-Kensington Paint plus Primer's Incandescent Red
Kids' desk {$50 from vintage market}: Came painted that way
Walls: Glidden's Warm Gold
Rug {heirloom}: Turkish wool

Sharing over at Savvy Southern Style, The Shabby Nest, and No Minimalist Here.

No fall garden, no Tiramisu, but there will be light fixtures!

We came to a tough decision a few weeks ago.  There will be no fall garden planting.  The drought has gotten worse, and I don't have the patience nor the money to water.  So the bare spots shall remain bare.

I've also come to the toughest realization of my life.  I cannot eat Tiramisu.

I know.  I can't believe it either.

For years,  I've been unable to tolerate coffee--my stomach starts seizing within an hour of drinking a cup--but coffee-laced desserts seemed to be okay since the amount is so miniscule.  But no longer.  Goodbye, my Tiramisu.

Perhaps that's unfair. I haven't figured out if it's the caffeine or something else that causes all the distress, so I guess I could try decaf. But that seems to be akin to eating tomato-free pizza. It's okay, but it ain't pizza.

Therefore, I shall comfort myself with photos of things that make me smile (other than the fam and the animal life around here).

Hate the candle thingies, but love the structure.

A little metal twin bed. Perhaps for Drew?

Beautiful!  Maybe for the dining room, but I'll have to find $58, which will take an entire year to raise if I rely solely on "profits" for the blog.

Anywho, have a great weekend!  I hope you never have to abstain from your favorite dessert!

Posts in Queue

I love the word Queue.

I also love rain these days because we've had so little of it.  So imagine my delight when I woke up this morning to see this on the bush outside:

Not dew, but rain!

 And now I know how to bring it on.  Yesterday it was so hot that our AC started freezing up, blowing not-as-cold air, getting weaker and weaker.  So to cool off, I sat down at the pian-er to play and sing a few tunes.  Within minutes, it started to rain.

So yes, it's now finally proven that I am in control of the universe.  And I'd better start taking care of my vocal chords because it's going to take some serious singing to bring on some serious rain.

Anyway, since we've established something I've known all along, I can tell you the excessive heat has put a damper on the blog posting. I know, weird, huh?  But I've had some things ready to talk about for awhile now, so I'll show you some of them.

Awesome hamper I got for next to nothing at a used furniture market.

New paint color in the dining room.  This is the only corner that isn't covered in stuff, so more pics will have to wait.

Easy tomato preservation--I promise to get the post up soon so you can start dealing with your harvest.  You want to save some of it for the dead of winter, right?

Other things in the pipeline:

I got a fabulous new hair color and went really funky last weekend. My only problem is that by the time Ryan's home to take my photo, I'm wilted on the floor moaning for more ice to be poured down my shirt.

I have a few shoutouts for some prizes I've won recently in Bloglandia.  Hopefully this week I can finally show some gratitude rather than merely being gratuitous...

The old carpet that wasn't

The stairwell to the master bedroom is steep, creaky, and most certainly not up to code.

It's also nigh unto ugly.  Of course, it could've been worse...

...like the previous owners' carpet from the first listing of the house. The carpeting extended into the family room, the small downstairs hallway and the stairwell.  The home was on the market for 6 months in this state.  The family then ripped it out, revealing hardwood in a couple of rooms.

Really special.

For the past year, I've cursed the carpeting on the stairs because I thought it was old and dusty and I knew that it didn't allow me to shut the door in the dining room.  Since I've been getting enough Vitamin D lately (thank you, summer), making my energy levels soar, I decided that it was time to deal with that shaggy mess once and for all.  I called in the calvary.

Before.

Thankfully, Ryan was up to the task.  All I did was ask him to start pulling it up.

Once he got it all up, I asked him when it was made.

In 2011.  That awful stuff is practically brand new.  Infuriating!  I even kind of knew it was relatively new and still felt a little mad.  What made it worse is that the staples and tack strips required about two hours of labor for a space that is quite small.  There's also leftover rubber stuff that had been glued to the stairs. Who knows how old that is, although the lack of finish on the tops of the steps makes me think the rubber is original to the house.

Rubbery stuff, holes in the wall on the left.

After.  I mean, Progress.

For the rest of the house,the upside to the new carpet is that at least we're not living with animal smells or other owners' spills and such.  The downside is that the carpet will not last very long in the other spaces.  It's matted down and looks so aged, despite its relative youth.  Unfortunately, pulling it all up won't quite work because it's not hardwood underneath (it's an addition and probably has just subfloor).  So we shall have to wait for a windfall (please, if you're rich and about to die, put me in your will for posterity's sake.  Let's say you're named Amelia.  We'll name the family room floor the Amelia Memorial Hardwood Floor in your memory and a few hundred blog readers will see it and think kindly of you).

Anyway, now we have to make the stairs pretty.  We're happy that the door closes now, and I actually love that it's a bit noisier heading upstairs because it has been too easy for the kids to sneak up on us in the mornings.

We'll repair the holes and try to deal with the leftover rubbery stuff.  I'm thinking we'll paint them a light color. For now, though, I really like the rustic, needs-work look. I prefer it to the cheap carpet band-aid style that it had going before.

Your thoughts?

Punishing Work: Trim Painting

I've decided there's a special place in hell where really bad people have to paint trim for eternity. Window trim, to be specific. When I say "really bad people" I'm thinking of folks who confuse they're/there/their all the time. Get it right, folks, and you'll be spared such torture.

What trim am I talking about? The living room windows and baseboards, of course.

Before.

Without the "period" window treatments.

Three coats of stain blocking primer and two coats of thick paint later (Glidden Duo in Crisp Linen White), and we're just about done.  I think we still have a little touching up to do, and then there's the painter's tape removal, which will require a knife so I don't peel off a layer of paint.

Notice how the walls look so much more attractive with the white trim.

Almost finished.

That dark picture is with our new moody Cayman Bay paint!  

Just kidding. We had a power outage last night, and this is the living room with no lights on in the morning.  Cave, even with light paint on the walls.

Baseboards.

We also painted in the dining room, including the door to the master bedroom.  

Door to the upstairs. BEFORE.

After.

I had been railing on the doors recently, demanding we find new ones.  But with a fresh white, I can live with what we've got...for now (P.S. looks yellow in the photo--it's bright white in real life).

And here I shall address the naysayers who are screaming at their screens, "How DARE you paint over that beautiful dark trim!"

I hate to break it to you this way, over the internets and all instead of face-to-face, but the trim was in sad shape.  It had been refinished at some point by a well-meaning amateur.  You know how you're supposed to apply stain and then wipe it off?  There was no wipeage to be seen.  You can see the brush strokes from the stain on every last window and door in the house.  Then Cousin Larry applied shiny varnish to enhance the lovely (strange) strokes of brown.  Beautiful from afar and ugly as you approach.

Anyway, the dark stain was bringing our house down.  The white trim has lightened the feel of the two rooms so much that I could almost live with the color on the walls except that now I have spackle and paint samples all over them.  So there shall be new paint.

To conclude I will give you a few tips on painting trim:

1) Do it first before painting the walls, that way you'll use less tape.

2) For the windows, if you have those little panes, start with a totally fresh brush. If it's a used brush, cut off any crazy bristles.

3) Use as little paint as possible for those tiny pieces.  Drips will be a problem when you're putting coat after coat, so the less paint the better.  At the same time, use enough that you get decent coverage.  

4) Start with the little crevices first and end with the long strokes on the larger trim.  It's so satisfying to put in those long strokes after needling into those corners and nooks and crannies.  Consider it a stretch after doing 100 leg lifts.  

5) If the wood is very dark, buy the thickest and nicest stain blocking primer you can afford.  Last year, I tried out the "green" Kilz and honestly, it sucked.  We used the Kilz Premium this time, and it's a much better product.

6) If you have more money than I, outsource this work to a professional. Or buy new windows that don't have the intricate detail!

Still left in the living room: Wall paint, ceiling installation, crown molding, and finding a large piece of art.

Testing Paint Colors

When you pick paint colors, how do you do it?

What I used to do: Go to the paint store, preferably right before closing since I decide at 9:30pm that I have to paint a wall TONIGHT.  Go through a few tiny paint chips.  Buy a gallon of one color.  Try it out on the wall when I get home and since I've already spent $25 on a gallon, I use it whether I like the color or not.

These days, the paint stores have made it easier on us.  First of all, the paint chips are often quite large to give consumers a better idea of what the color looks like.  Better yet, though, they have made small paint samples inexpensive and easy to acquire.  A 7-8 oz jar (around $3) is enough to put several large squares all over the wall so you can test the color. You want to make sure it doesn't clash with the Picasso, right?  So instead of jumping in both feet first, you can buy a few jars and try on that apple green or sky blue.

Near the front door.

I recommend trying the colors out in multiple locations.

Next to the lamp.  And also on the back wall near dark furniture.

 You'll want to see how it looks with natural light as well as with lamps and overhead fixtures on.

On a wall in the dining room.

Why bother?  Well, I'm so glad we tested out the Warm Gold in both rooms because in the living room, it is lemony and almost florescent.  In the dining room, photographed in the last picture, it is much warmer, almost like mustard.  

I also held up some art pieces I own to make sure the colors go together well.  One painting didn't look so good with the gold, so it will have to be in the living room instead.  

The Warm Gold will definitely go in the dining room now, and the Cayman Bay was a hit for the living room.  While the blue is moodier than I had expected, I wanted something dramatic, and this shade fits the bill.  So now we're in the process of covering up holes and taping the windows for primer.

P.S. If you'd like to see the paint chips and examples, see this post.

Living Room Paint Colors

I've been fantasizing about paint colors recently.  Our living room gets very little light, so I've been trying to decide the direction we want to go in.  This website recommends putting bright colors in dark rooms, and after experimenting with a pale blue in the dining room, I'm inclined to agree.

It now feels like a dark hallway in an old hospital.  Lots of shadows.

So I'm looking away from the grays, pastels, and neutrals, and reaching for bold.  It'll totally be a stretch for me since I've never ever painted my kitchen Peacock Blue or my old apartment in Atlanta turquoise.  Nope, that was another Starr.

Anyway...one possibility is Cayman Bay by Behr.  You can see it on someone's wall on the blog Hairy Shoe Fairy. Just scroll down a bit and you'll see it.  It is a really lovely color.

Source

Robin's Egg by Glidden is also gorgeous.  Might be a little light, although the actual paint chip is pretty bold.

Source

Another favorite is Warm Gold by Glidden.  The paint chip online is so totally off, I won't even bother.

The Rooster and the Hen

We have a test pot of the gold color, so we're going to put some up on the walls in both the dining and living rooms to see how the light reflects.  Yellow is a cliche for dark rooms, so that's why we're going to give it a try first.

Bold is the word of the day.  Any other suggestions?  We've vetoed orange tones because of a terrible failure with terra cotta a few years ago.  Otherwise, the sky's the limit.

Dining Room: Part 1

One of the first rooms we've begun is the dining room.  Why? Because it's dark.  Because we spend a lot of time there. And most importantly, because it's the smallest room in the house (except the bathrooms).  A quick win, right?

As is the case with most of the house, the dining room is a blast from the past, except not in a vintage, could-be-in-a-magazine kind of way.  You might call the look musty-cave, possibly a great trend in the dark ages, but not so nice right now.

The 'before' pictures really won't tell you much (think bland beige), so I think we'll just include the 'after new paint' photos.  Unfortunately, you can't see the wall color that well because of the low light, but one day in the distant future, we might be able to upgrade the room from cave status.

Our new-to-us British pub table fits beautifully in this space. The chairs we were gifted after posting an ad in the classifieds begging for free furniture--we got a free table, six chairs, two couches, and a very large china cabinet.  Only the chairs remain.  Not my style, but I have a few ideas to spruce them up.  

The color on the walls: Martha Stewart's "Opal".  The color is stunning.  Light grayish-blue.  The paint, though, leaves much to be desired.  Runny, poor coverage.  I recommend color matching to something more substantial if you like her colors (found at Home Depot).

Lovely painting by Carol Scott, a New Orleans artist I've known since I was young.  You might wonder, "Why is the painting on its side? What was she thinking????"  Well, right now, that's how I like it.  Carol told me I could put it however I wanted on the wall (I mean, she hangs her work from the ceiling sometimes), so I did.

I considered putting a big mirror, but my favorite design guru Sarah Richardson warns that you have to be prepared for the reflection the mirror will give you.  Since that would be a dated, country kitchen at this very moment, the mirror can wait.

You can see that we'll have to put in some quarter-round.  And paint the baseboards. 

Feast your eyes on the ceiling. Yeah, it's awesome because it's lower than the original. Who wouldn't want to drop 8 foot ceilings? Insane people.  7.5 feet is perfectly adequate.  And ceiling tiles that remind me of a hospital are quite possibly the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Seriously, the ceilings will go back to their former glory. Some day.

Stylin'.

The light fixture really is cool, though.  It has a secret.

You can pull it down to the table.  

Fantastic!  We can make the room even darker!  Yes, we'll put in a poker table and invite Brad Pitt and George Clooney to come smoke cigarettes with us and scheme to rob the local casinos.  Or we'll take up coin collecting. Or start painting miniatures.  This type of lighting is perfect for such activities.

So, as you can tell, the dining room is nothing but a slow project, just like the rest of 'em.  In the meantime, I've got a call in to "Prehistoric Interiors" magazine to see if we can be featured in their next issue.