This is our downstairs bathroom. When we moved in, it was a strange brownish orange (which might be called “baby crap” depending on what your baby’s been eating) and had a dolphin-covered disposable shower curtain.
I had never seen a disposable shower curtain before. Turns out they are actually quite useful.
We had leftover paint from the family room and kitchen, and this bathroom is right off of those two rooms, so it made sense to continue on with that color.
But wait! There’s more! In an effort to make it look like this was not the same old thing over and over again, I painted some stripes on the walls. This involved some (sort of) careful measuring, blue painters tape, and a handy laser level. One thing I learned is that a textured wall makes it difficult to get a nice crisp line. In order to prevent the paint from seeping under the tape into the lower levels of the texture, you need to make sure you firmly press the tape down into the divots so there is no seepage. Here is the finished product.
The color, that is. Actually, now that I think about it, we’ve never had the fish in the kitchen either, and given Steve’s distaste for it, we probably never will. So interpret how you please.
Back to the point of this post, when we moved in, the walls in the family room and kitchen looked like they were dripping with Pepto Bismol. We took care of the family room first, and the kitchen was next on our to-do list. Here’s what it looked like before:
It doesn’t look like it should be too difficult a paint job, because there is not a whole lot of area to cover. As usual, it didn’t quite turn out that way. The tight spaces and numerous corners made it very time consuming. But it turned out fabulous.
Doesn’t it look like a different room? I think the green paint looks so much nicer with the blonde wood cabinets. The ceiling still needs a coat of paint, and I look forward to getting rid of the rug under the kitchen table, but already it is so much more pleasant to be in the kitchen and family room now.
It’s back downstairs for a look at another one of the rooms we spend a great deal of time in: the kitchen. You might recall that the family room sits right off the kitchen. They are actually totally open to each other. And that means that the Pepto-Bismol pink paint that coated the family room goes right on through the kitchen.
We don’t have huge plans for the kitchen. Other than the color, it’s been great (particularly since the size of our old apartment kitchen was pretty similar to the size of the center island in this kitchen). The amount of counter space and storage is like a dream. The kitchen table, chairs, seat cushions, and rug were all left by the prior owner, and we really like the table. We’ll paint it to match the family room (ok, we admit it, it’s well under way and there will be after shots soon), hopefully switch out the round rug under the table and chair cushions, and replace the dark brown electrical outlets with something more in line with the color scheme of the room (either white or perhaps a wood tone to match the wood of the island where they are located).
Here is the completed paint job in the family room, with all the furniture put back in place. We recently got a new tv stand and audio tower, largely because we wanted the use of our coffee table/make-shift tv stand back.
In the works for this room: New curtains; new stain on the coffee table; new-to-us couch, and a few other things.
Aside from the peek at the WC in the master bathroom, we haven’t shown you anything upstairs and it’s time to change that. So we’ll show you where you would stay if you came for an overnight visit. These three shots give a good sense of what the room looks like from left to right as you step in the door.
We have no real plans for this room yet. The only use it’s seen is me taking a catnap one afternoon when the master bedroom was prohibitively hot due to the sun beating down on that side of the house. It’s not a five star accommodation (yet), but it is certainly workable. In fact, it’s probably one of the least offensive pastel colors in the house, so we are not touching the walls anytime soon. I actually did give the room a minor tweak while I was taking these pictures. Can you spot the difference?
Yup, all I did was remove a curtain panel. I think the lines are more simple and clean this way. We’ll probably do something with the small window curtains too, but that would involve a sewing machine we don’t own yet, so I’m sure it will be a while.
In The House Always Wins: Create the Home You Love–Without Busting Your Budget, author Marni Jameson takes readers through the process of creating a home by sharing her own home-ownership experiences. She shares the struggle of creating a stylish and inviting home that is functional for her family, offering up what she learned from her mistakes as well as advice from the pros. The result is an entertaining read than first-time home owners will find helpful as a guidebook to creating and maintaining a home.
Although Jameson is an award-winning nationally syndicated home design columnist, her stories humanize her and demonstrate that even people who deal with home design for a living are prone to the same issues run-of-the-mill folk face in appointing their homes. She details agonizing over the multitude of different floorings available to choose from at the home design center, as well as the disaster of fly-by-night landscapers taking off with her money after creating a giant sink hole in her yard.
Like any contractor, Jameson begins with a foundation, building her book from initial decisions a homeowner must make that can be expensive, time-consuming, or down-right impossible to change. For example, location is key, and it does not matter how richly appointed an interior is if you hate the city you live in, and that is not easily changed. Similarly, finishes like flooring and cabinetry are very difficult to change, but at the same time can have a huge impact on what you can do with a space, so they need to be chosen carefully. Once you’ve got a backdrop to work with, she brings in furniture, providing insight into buying quality pieces that will work for you without getting ripped off. Finally, she discusses accessories and other finishing touches that make a room feel warm and inviting. She even provides information for holiday decorating and specific-purpose rooms. And all of this keeps in mind the fundamental process of determining one’s own personal style and keeping it in mind so as not to be swayed by fads or styles that may look great in the showroom, but ultimately will not appeal to the homeowner over time.
The book does lack a level of specificity. I found myself from time to time thinking, “ok, I see this is something I need to look into, or watch out for, but how do I do that?” However, given that it covers such a broad range of topics, this is a minor shortcoming. One book cannot possibly cover in depth each and every topic Jameson addresses. This is not so much a how-to book, but a general overview of what a homeowner will need to know and/or learn in order to be successful in creating a pleasing environment. In other words, it might not have all the answers, but it helps you figure out what the questions are and where to start looking for answers.
Overall, this was an enjoyable, quick read that provided a considerable amount of useful and interesting information about choosing a house and appointing such that you get a functional end product you are happy with. I would certainly recommend it to anyone just starting on the process of creating a home.
It’s time to share a little bit more progress on the family room painting project. I’m happy to say we are probably about 2/3 done now. We tackled the outer wall with the windows last weekend. This area required a lot of prep work because we had to remove the blinds and hardware and tape of the windows. Sounds pretty obvious, but the prior owner didn’t bother, as evidenced by the pink paint here and there on the blinds, outlet covers, and wall switches. The room actually looked great when we removed the blinds early in the morning. It felt really open and you could gaze upon the gorgeous backyard. That feeling did not last long into the afternoon as the sun started beating in. It was brutal trying to paint in the scorching heat with the sun glaring in! Here’s the work-in-progress. I believe this is actually just after the second coat was finished, so we were just waiting for it to dry so we could remove the painters tape and put things back together.
And here’s the finished wall. Of course, there still is one large pink corner left in the room. We’ve saved it for last because it’s the corner housing the television and components, and it’s not going to be fun to untangle that mess of cords and get it out of the way to paint without fear of drips on precious AV equipment.
Fingers crossed we can do that last corner all at once. My hope is that it won’t be too bad because there aren’t a lot of windows or edges so it should go quickly. Of course, my hope with the window wall was that it would go quickly because there was not much surface area to cover . . .
Our latest project will give you a sneak peak into part of our master bathroom. We have a water closet separating the toilet from the shower, tub, and sink area. The prior owner had a littled faux stained glass action going on. But look closer. She didn’t just apply a decorative window film, she cut the film into a mosaic-style design before applying it. Oh, and isn’t the flourescent green paint fabulous?!?
Needless to say, we removed the decorative film, as well as the lovely valance. Of course, that left us with a wide open view straight into the neighbors’ house, which happens to correlate to the neighbors’ wide open view into our bathroom. Our answer happens to be more window film, but not of the stained glass variety. We chose a textured glass pattern that blurs the view but still lets in sunlight.
The process is pretty simple and fairly inexpensive. The roll of film cost us about $20 and it covered this window plus half of another bathroom window. To install, measure the window and cut the film to size. I urge you to do a better job measuring than I did (you can see a sliver of window around the edge that didn’t get covered by film). Make sure your window is clean, and spray it with water with a few drops of liquid soap mixed in. Peel the backing off the film and wet that down with your diluted soap/water mixture as well. Apply it to the window and wet it down on the outside one more time. The third round with the spray bottle is to lubricate the outside so you can smooth it out and press out any air bubbles with a squeegee (a small one was included with the film kit). And then you’ve got what looks like a textured glass window, but for the uncovered edge. 🙁 It still does the trick as far as privacy goes, though.
It’s time for part two of our house tour. This is our porch.
The seller left us this all-weather wicker seating arrangement. My brother tells me it’s quite comfortable and a great place to sit and relax. Unfortunately, I have not been blessed with an opportunity to do so.
There’s definitely potential to make this porch more inviting. I’d like to put some outdoor cushions on the wicker seats to add color and comfort. A small side table to set a drink or a book while lounging would also be great. Add a small area rug to define the seating area, and you’ve got something.
