Living Roomarama: Part the First

Well, hello, after quite the hiatus. So we haven't blogged in a while, but we haven't done anything to the house in a while either. Months, actually. I think we burned ourselves out a little what with all the activity back in the Spring. So anyway, here we are; the garden has given us pounds of okra (and died), the ladder golf has been played, many a beer has been drunk--you get the picture. I think we're finally ready for another go, and the living room is first on the list. We kind of left it to languish after the move. We filled it with boxes of books, slapped ourselves on the back and told it we'd see it when it got cold. Occasionally we sweep up dog fur drifts or turn on a light to make sure the power still works. Well... now it's cold, my sister-in-law is claiming the furniture we put in here because it wouldn't fit anywhere else, and we're thinking it's time to give it some attention. The furniture is going to be the big part. We're excited to free up the space in here, but whatever we get to replace what's here will be the first living room furniture we've ever bought ourselves. It's odd what you notice when it's yours to buy, not just to get along with. Apparently we have all sorts of opinions about sofas we never knew we had. So the furniture thing is pending. In the meantime, we found a rug we liked, so... we have our "inspiration piece" or whatever HGTV calls it these days. It's very large, and woolly, and is making the living room smell like sheep. Behold, the unfurling: The Cap'n sniffed it, lay down on it, and looked bothered (as you see). The picture is dim, but it's sort of weathered shades of red, light blue, teal, eggplant, mustard... lots of possibilities. It's from Pottery Barn, and as of the moment, can still be seen here. It was on super-duper sale and I think they're out now. Here's their picture of it; I think ours would look like this under florescent light, or something: So.. here we are. We have a rug. I'm thinking of painting the walls a cinnamon-y/burnt-orangey taupeish color (if that doesn't make sense, I liked the way the dog looked lying on it. Didn't Lowe's tell me they could match "anything?" A gallon of "grumpy golden retriever mix," please.) I'm finally going to replace the curtains that were here when we moved in, I just don't know with what. More to come!

Dear Blue: It's not you, it's me.

So, an update on the kitchen. I last left you with an oh-so-tantalizing teaser about painting the newly-installed textured wallpaper. Mom and I worked hard on getting it painted before moving weekend, but that ended up learning me some lessons:

1. The cheapest paint you can find is thin, drips a lot, and doesn't cover well. Which is, you know, why it's cheap.
2. That wallpaper sucks up a lot of paint. You need more than you think you do.
3. The right blue is really hard to choose. I was going for a lighter-toned gray/cadet/robin's egg blue, that wouldn't be too dark or overpowering and wouldn't look pastel. Then you have to worry about it looking too purple sometimes, or too green... Anyway.
4. Our kitchen has about twelve light sources, and every one of them makes the color look different. (The overhead lights, the light over the sink, the range light, the window... not to mention the shadowy areas under the cabinets.) I found a color I was happy with in one area, that looked wrong in two others.

I was trying to be adventurous and use color and all that, but in the end, the color I'd spent so long choosing was all "It's a Boy!" powder-blue, which managed to make the taupe in the rooms on either side of it look pink. So we stepped back a bit, and in the wee hours of the morning the night before the new floor came and the move was to begin, we repainted it a safe cream. Here's a wall, against the new floor, RE-painted in Ralph Lauren, "Chalk White:"

I have very carefully not shown you pictures of the opposite cabinets. They're topped with, we think, handmade "butcher block" countertops (2x2s bolted together, apparently). They had a dark stain on them and a crazy-thick layer of shellac, which wasn't in too great shape. I'll save the rest for a post with pictures, but they have undergone a magnificent transformation, thanks to the combined efforts of the Mr., my sister-in-law, and my father-in-law. The countertop that IS pictured is laminate with an edging that matched the old countertops; our hope is to replace that whole thing with a stone or solid-surface top. That way, we get to keep the great wooden countertops, but we'll also have a harder-wearing surface. More to come!

The Guest Bedroom: Before & After

Alright! So after a slight hiatus (more on that later), I've got a whole mess-o-updates to make. As promised, here are some before and after pictures of the Guest Bedroom: Before The Mr. and I taped and primed it, it was a light purple-y gray:

...and it had a cream-colored berber carpet:

Mom and I then painted it a very light green (Valspar, "Sweet Kasha"):

... and then The Mr. and I ripped out the carpet. The Mr.'s mom and dad helped us remove the old carpet padding staples, tack strips and some strips of double-sided tape goo. The final result (pre-move-in):

I think it's quite the improvement! I'm really happy with the color, and the hardwood floors are beautiful. We waffled about ripping up the carpet--even though our preference is hardwood, we really don't mind carpet in bedrooms and despite being slightly dingy the berber wasn't in terrible shape. It is, actually, still with us:

NB. Find out where the nearest dump or recycling center is prior to tossing large amounts of refuse on your porch. Anyway, we took the gamble and the hardwood is in pretty great shape. We'll have to figure out something to do with the threshold between the room and the closet; there's an area there that either didn't get stained with the rest of the floor or was stripped at some point. What do you think? Miss the purple?

Updateration

Okay, many apologies for the delay. Until yesterday, there hasn't been much to report; the Mrs. took a break this weekend to visit with her parents (and, apparently, refer to herself in the third person). However! Mom and I were industrious yesterday evening, and between sunning on the back patio and watching the dog try to decide which bush to make His Fort, we got the guest room painted! Pictures forthcoming; we left before it had dried and lest my blog readers believe us to be a) horrible painters or b) fans of the "mottled" look, I decided to take pictures during our next visit. The color is an interesting one; it was the top swatch on a Valspar sample that went all the way down to a deep olive green--"Sweet Kasha" is the color name, whatever that's supposed to invoke. (Sidebar: have I mentioned that I almost painted the kitchen "Moby Dick?" Being the paint-company color name-er must be interesting.) Anyway, the color reads as creamy white when it's not next to something that's really white, but next to the white trim it has the slightest trace of spring green. I'm pretty happy with it. The walls had been a peaceful lavender-ish gray, but since all of the bedding and such that we have for the guest room is green we figured we'd do well to change it. I think that's it for now, but here's what's coming up:

• The Guest Bedroom, before & after
• The Great $5 Chandelier experiment
• Painting the Kitchen, or: 'Adventures in Hiding the Goofs I Made Whilst Trying to Trim Wallpaper With A Dull Blade.'

Excited?

Wallpaper, or: "Sometimes it's there for a reason."

The previous owners of our new house had pretty great taste. The wall colors are nice, neutral and understated (not to mention well-painted). The trim is a nice creamy white, even the window treatments I'd have probably picked out. In the kitchen, though, below a piece of trim about four feet up the wall, was a faux-tile wallpaper (...that I rather famously thought was real tile--yes, until I actually touched it. Score one for the wallpaper). I'm not a huge fan of wallpaper, so first item on the agenda: down she comes. We highly recommend 'WP CHOMP!' brand wallpaper stripper, which not only works well, but is fun to say when particularly large parts of paper fall off with little effort. ("Narghnarghnargh-wp!-CHOMP.") It also smells like Bacardi O, but I don't recommend drinking it. So.. the problems arose the more paper we got down. It turned out that the backsplash, the wall next to the refrigerator, and the wall behind the stove used to be tiled. How could we tell? There was still a good bit of grooved adhesive on the wall. I have no idea how old it is, but it's pretty petrified and chemicals haven't seemed to make any difference. You'd be able to see the texture under the paint we'd picked out. We thought briefly about sanding it--as messy as that might be--but in the end, decided that the slim chance that the stuff contained asbestos was worth pursuing other options. 'Other options' turned out to be 1) removing the wallboard and replacing it, or 2) recovering the areas. Since we'd like to retile at some point, but can't afford it immediately, we opted to 'recover.' Beadboard, likewise, is a little expensive for our needs--so we decided to go with a paintable wallpaper. Yes, wallpaper comes down, and more goes up. That might seem inefficient, but I'm telling myself that this stuff is 1) made to be painted over, and 2) mostly vinyl, which sounds good from a kitchen-cleaning perspective. It's available in a lot of goofy textured patterns, but we took a chance and went with one that's supposed to look like pressed tin. I was surprised by how well it went up, actually; I've never hung wallpaper before and I think we managed to do it pretty well. (The true test will be when we go back this evening to see how it's dried.) Here are some pictures of a wall, still wet; once it's painted, the contrast between the raised vinyl parts and the backing won't be visible, but for now it looks kind of interesting. A closeup: From the other side of the room: Next steps are painting, and a good washing-down of the floor and baseboards (wallpaper goo gets EVERYWHERE). Oh, and don't underestimate the the dangers of wallpaper: I managed to sustain my first home-improvement related injury from the stupid trim guard. Post-painting pictures to come.