Category: house

Painting the first batch of trim – this is the stuff we were able to salvage from the room before we started the walls and the windows:

Next steps: buy the rest of the trim, measure it out and miter the edges, and then another round of painting…

Here’s the shopping list (all 41 items of it):

Not the smallest task ever…

I was in the mood for a project when I got home, so I finally tackled swapping around some of the units in our closet. (This is one of those posts where I am VERY proud of home improvements that I can’t take good photos of…) The house came with some sort of pretty nice IKEA closet organization system. The sections are each 38” wide, plus there’s a half-width one, and a set of shelves built into the wall. One of the 38” wide cabinets is only 2/3 of the normal depth and holds shoes (until today, just Kevin’s) and has mirrored doors. Three sections and the little half guy belong to Kevin, two sections (that actually form an L) and the shelves are mine, and there was a no man’s land section in the middle across from the door that neither of us wanted/managed to claim. Here’s my side before:

And Kevin’s side before:

The no man’s land wasn’t particularly attractive, and obviously it didn’t take advantage of the space. The floor-to-ceiling shoe cabinet with the mirrored doors filled up a huge portion of the doorway, and it was hard to get far enough away from the doors to actually see yourself in the mirror. The closet is truly enormous (we think it’s a converted fourth bedroom), but it was kind of claustrophobic and more functional than pretty.

Once I figured out that the shoe cabinet was the same width as the other cabinets, the solution became obvious: I moved the shoe cabinet shelves and door to the no man’s cabinet, then redistributed the other pieces. I took the sliding sock rack, removed the grid insert, and moved that over to my L sections so that I’d have firm surface other than the floor. I removed the slide-out pants holder completely. I moved the clothes bar back 6″, so that we can still hang things flat behind the shoe racks if we want (remember that the shoe cabinet was only 2/3 depth). Both Kevin and I have put our shoes in the cabinet (along with our ski boot bags), so I was able to move my hanging canvas shelves down to the lower bar, where they’re less noticeable. And now the room is so much better! And, SO much lighter – I didn’t realize how much moving the mirror would brighten things.

Also, we now have a 20″ x 42″ corner next to the door with nothing in it. We were pleasantly/extremely surprised to find the wall behind the shoe cabinet in actually decent condition – we’ll still have to do some resurfacing and repainting, but it’s limited to a 6″ band across the longer wall – really minor compared to expectations.

And now we get the fun of deciding what to put there – definitely something on the wall (maybe a mirror, maybe décor?), and then storage of some sort. With perhaps a pretty vase on top. I’m leaning towards deep shelves that we can put baskets of things in. In any case, it will take a little while to raise funds and make decisions – I’m seeing lots of browsing Crate & Barrel and Etsy in my future… 🙂 Wish I could say I minded!

In other news, I’m investigating wheelbarrows and compost. I’ve found good leads on both fronts, but if you have any Seattle-area recommendations on what/where to buy (or not!), I’m all ears!

Before we’d even finished moving everything over from our apartment, I painted two walls in what’s now dubbed the “fish room”. Once you set up the tank, you can’t really move it, so to [revent some fishtank disaster I was up till 2:30 painting, it dried, and we stripped the blue tape as we were filling the tank.

The other half of the room has been partially taped, waiting to match, since the third week of October. Oops. When we realized we’d be replacing the window, I decided to wait a bit longer. But on Thursday, I finally got psyched up to finish. Here’s the room all taped (at 11 PM) – really the only way that you’ll be able to tell the progress of over-painting “Harsh, Ugly White” with “Vermont Cream” is for me to show you the blue tape lines.

… and :

… and :

“Ooooh.”

Edging and painting took about three hours, and washing the brush and roller about another 30 min, so I was up past my bedtime for a work night. But it’s finally off the list. And I’m so, so happy about that. It kind of makes me want to finish the two master bedroom walls stat so that I can get that same feeling of accomplishment and happiness there.

Once we had a rought draft via software, it amused me no end to use the couch cushions to sort out the particulars:

So much easier than heaving around the sofas!! Especially since Kevin and I have never mastered the art of the “team lift” – too many cooks. Such the perpetual first-borns.

We’ve just kept pushing back the carpet install date for the family room so that we could finish painting, but it’s finally here. Here are a few last pictures of the old Barber monstrosity for posterity.

Facing east:

Facing west:

Lucky we weren’t counting on hardwood floors to refinish – just ugly plywood sub floor! Though I guess for how cold this room is, carpet’s the way to go.

And then after:

And:

Like the paint color? We’re so happy with it. I can’t wait to get trim up, and the paint’s impossible to photograph (esp with a digital camera and nothing to really focus on), but we’re so pleased. Kevin keeps having his momentary “not dark enough” doubts, and I keep having my “too yellow/green/brown/dark/light” doubts depending on the sun and the time of day, but we both think on the whole it’s intriguing and perfect, and the colors work very well together. (phew.)

We’re so pleased. Carpet was on Kevin’s list from day one, but somehow I missed it at first. Apparently I was excited enough about the trim and appalled enough by the paint that I didn’t even notice the carpet, either during the initial home viewing or during the walkthrough. The carpet cleaners showed up at the same time we did for the initial viewing, so we know it was professionally cleaned. And beyond salvage. Once we knew that, we didn’t lay down sheets for the resulting drywall work and painting, but most of the stains that you see in the photographs were there before we started. What a mess.

The new carpet is SO cushy, soft and clean. We could write odes to it. We waited a day or two to move in the TV and couches. My great concern (already somewhat justified) is that we will avoid that room: pretty, new, expensive rug & couches = no use for fear of demolishing them. I’m forcing myself to settle in, but it’s so not the habit.

Kevin washed the kitchen windows.

I can’t tell or convey how pretty and shiny they are – you’ll just have to imagine. So bright!! I’m thrilled.

In forever “one forward, one back” mode, the window pane that we were hoping was just dirty is definitely failed (that opaque one at the far upper right). We got a quote for doing the whole huge garden window at the same time that we did the rest of them , but it was enormous ($10K++. gah.) I’m still not clear what this window’s failure means. The ones in the family room, we replaced because they were actively leaking copius amounts of water into the family room. If this one is just foggy (as opposed to actively raining ruin on our home), we might ignore it for a bit?

One coat of paint in, the room is looking awesome. We had a major paint chip powwow on Sunday, comparing a 2”x1” sample of carpet to 3”x1”paint samples and trying to extrapolate that to an entire room. Rather absurd. We managed to narrow down to three options that we liked for both the carpet and couch interactions, and then used the fireplace brick as the final color determinant. The winner was something called Sand Fossil, and the trim, chosen in the waning afternoon light, was Creamy White. After a round of edging and a round with the roller, I’m pretty impressed. Not only is it a lovely color, but we decided in under 30 min, without antagonism (it’s a very pleasant surprise to me how acrimonious all of the house decisions have been. We don’t have the same color or style taste at all, and yet we keep ending up with easy, wonderful decisions. Either we’ve landed on a perfect stylistic vibe, or Kevin has been graciously and enthusiastically giving in to all of my whims. Not sure, and I’m certainly not challenging it, but I’m enjoying the non-battles.)

This picture is more evocative of my love for Kevin than my love for painting (especially edging!!), but at least he captured the moment.

I was listening to the Oscars and he shortly after started mixing Grasshoppers, so at least the amusement factor was high.

It’s so daunting to post pictures of paint color, since it’s such a personal aesthetic. We were going for classy, and at the very least, coordinated, and I think we’re awfully close if not there, but I’m envisioning a massive blog-world shying away especially after the light and bright white nothing from the last post. I probably would have been just as happy leaving the room primer-white (I say Fresh/Clean/Bright, Kevin says Sanatorium and runs for the hills – he’s probably right, but I love those blank, empty walls), but I think this color was a great choice. It’s a little bit more mustard than I expected, but in the evening under the lights it looks green, which I love. And I just can’t wait to see it with the trim and the carpet. The two motivating factors for this room were something dark & dramatic enough to make the trim pop, and something bright enough to capture every glimmer of sunlight. And that was tempered by having something that would accentuate the couch color and wouldn’t make us cringe relative to the orangey fireplace brick. A tall order. And yet, the fireplace looks so much more lovely, I like the color on the walls, and I can’t wait for the trim.

Kevin has a Better Homes and Gardens software suite that we’ve been using pretty continuously to map out our house. I’m such a fan. One of the best features (if not the most useable, I may still revert to graph paper) is a furniture placement option. Our family room has to be one of the most awkward spaces I’ve ever seen, but it’s big enough that it gives us some flexibility. (You can tell that the previous owners felt the same way – the room was such a hodge podge of couches, a tv, a treadmill, a child’s computer and kitchen and play room…) We have nice big furniture to fill the room, so now it’s just a question of placement. Ideally, the couch and chair face not only the tv, but don’t block the fireplace. It’s such a weird, big room — I think the only way we can really make it accessible and welcoming is by setting up zones…

But, the starting point is just where to put the couches.

Option 1:

Option 2:

Any other ideas??

The TV needs to go along the bottom wall, since that’s where the jacks are. (I laughed. Kevin’s been angling for a bigger TV for ages – long before we found this house – and I’ve been resisting, as usual. A combination of cheapness (thrift?) and general opposition to buying TVs. But the to-scale diagram of the room with the to-scale tv makes it look like a 12”. We still won’t be buying a TV tomorrow, but I was amused enough to call him in and concede the point. Our 3-ft wide TV is puny compared to the room.)

We’re thinking we’ll also do a reading corner in the upper-right corner by those windows, or perhaps a puzzle table. It looks teeny compared to the room but it’s a 5½ x 7½ foot space, so it’s not that small.