Things I'm thinking about

Refinishing the kitchen cabinets. It's not on the list of 2011 resolutions but Rustoleum just came out with a new cabinet system that requires no stripping or sanding.

Maybe a nice unglazed linen finish?

But then I would want to regrout the countertops and finally put in baseboards, and paint the kitchen door . . . and you see where I'm going with this. But it's tempting. Anybody have any great ideas for what color I could do that would go with both the floor and the countertops?

Garden therapy

I had an absolutely terrible day but the sun was out and it wasn't raining so I pruned the roses. I have TWENTY FIVE of them in the front yard and my sweet neighbor has been taking care of them for years. She came to me last spring and told me how much she loves those roses, and how she took care of them when my house was abandoned for four years, and oh-by-the-way, she wouldn't be taking care of them anymore. She was cutting me off.

I rewarded her years of selfless volunteerism by not pruning them and letting them get leggy and unruly this summer. It was bad.

I made up for lost time by doing a hard prune. Really hard. I checked out a book from my library and downloaded a guide from the Portland Rose Society, all of which was too much to read, so I just tried to make them look like the pictures.

And everyone on Facebook was like, "They'll be great! Roses love that!" so I'm sure everything will be fine.

I have closet envy

Despite the fact that I'm a fairly techie person, I still greatly prefer paper and pen for my to-do lists. My very favorite is the back of an envelope. My purse is full of crumpled, discolored sticky notes that say things like "paint trim!" and "harissa?" They are like tiny time capsules of what I was cooking and what I was working on in the house at that moment in time.

Last winter, when I was so burned out on home repair, my to-do list said only "One Tree Hill" and "cookies." It was glorious.

I recently found one of my to-do lists from that first summer in the house. On that list was "paint front hall closet." I never did get around to that and I figure I should do it before the boy moves in (he actually owns things like raincoats and umbrellas). I painted it a crisp white because it's a dark closet and white would look good, right?

Then I saw what Sara over at Russet Street Reno did with her closet:

HOT DAMN. I went white swan when I should have gone black. And now I sort of want to paint the closet again. How beautiful is that?

Because I'm a sucker . . .

Because I lack sense, I'm painting the bedroom. Again. For curtains that I may or may not even sew at this point.

I'm totally over painting at this point. Except that I sort of really want to paint the hallway--but it would be easy! No furniture to move, a half gallon of paint, and a couple of hours of work. And then I'd really for reals be done with painting. Except for the basement staircase. Then I'd be done. And maybe the entryway. 

I can't stop; send booze.

And in the days of yore they would retire to the parlour and fight.

Remember this painting?

 

It really wanted to be in the newly painted living room. It also wanted a better photograph, but you win some, you lose some.

Please don't anthropomorphize the paintings; they hate that.

I think it looks so much better against the olive green wall.  A while back the boy asked me about picture rail hangers and I wondered why I hadn't thought to use them before. Picture rail hooks hang from your ceiling molding, which means no holes in your plaster for nails or hardware. And they make it a snap to move artwork around. I found House of Antique Hardware online and ordered these sweet little hooks for about $2 apiece.

They arrived this Saturday so Greg and I spent part of the evening fussing with them. He's an engineer so he was doing things like figuring out the hypotenuse and I've been around paint fumes too much so I was doing things like getting super annoyed that he wouldn't just let me hang the thing freestyle, making small adjustments to lengths and placements a thousand times. That wall isn't going to gouge itself, you know.

I am super bad at letting people help me with home improvement, unless it is the brute strength kind of help. It didn't go very well.

But eventually some combination of math and stubbornness prevailed and we got both the huge rooftop painting (two hooks) and my Battlestar Galactica prints (one hook each) hung from the molding.

Again, this is a terrible photo but they look great in person. I'll post better pictures once the living room is finished.

On head injuries and birdhouses

This last Saturday I helped some friends who were laying tile in their family room.  And by "helped" I mean I demanded that they invite me over so I could learn how to do it, incessantly peppering their contractor-father with annoying questions.

 

Guys, aside from not yet seeing the finished project, working on someone else's house is so much fun. You don't have to feed anyone, or clean up afterward, or even be particularly useful.  You can just whack your head on a granite countertop while vacuuming and hope no one notices.

I actually did that. I'm clumsy! Really, really clumsy. I often run into things or accidentally slam my hands into passing objects, but I just keep walking in the hope that no one notices. I forgot I'd even hit my head until later, when I got a really bad headache. I spent most of Sunday in bed while Greg, like a saint, ran to the store to get me saltines and Advil. I think I actually gave myself a bit of a concussion this time (fun fact: you're not supposed to take ibuprofen if you have a concussion!).

I went to work the next day and I was really fatigued and my head really hurt and my coworker was like, "Why are you so dumb? Go home." I took a monster nap and slept a full eight hours that night and the next day I felt like a new woman. I was so well rested! I was in love with the world!

And I wanted birdhouses.

I'm very much like a magpie--I see something shiny and I become totally focused on it. Because of this, I don't let myself buy something on a whim. I have to go home, think about it, and make sure I really want it. And nine times out of ten, something new and shiny pops up to distract me. But I've been thinking about this photo that a friend LeAnn Locher took:

Yanked with permission from Flickr.

It's been in my inspiration file for a while now. If you haven't seen her blog before and want some serious garden inspiration, head over here. How great is that? The idea of putting just one birdhouse in my yard seems so lame now. I think some sort of structure over here would look great.

This corner has been challenging; it has TWO trees that previous owners tried to cut down, only to have them sucker back to life. It's badly in need of evergreen elements. It lacks anything with height, except when I forget to trim the mystery willow (one of the trees they tried to kill) and it grows a bouffant.

Wouldn't it look better with a pine there? Or maybe a wax myrtle, like the rep from the Audubon Society suggested? And ten birdhouses? Putting a bird on it is so over, guys. Put a BIRDHOUSE on it.

How I learned to embrace the early ranch.

On some design blog or another I found mention of a book called "America's Favorite Homes: Mail-order Catalogues as a Guide to Popular Early 20th-century Houses" by Robert Schweitzer. They recommend it for homeowners who don't know the style of their home. Hey, that's me!

My house was advertised as a bungalow but that didn't seem quite right. According to the book, a bungalow (small b) is a generic term for any small home, so I guess my house qualifies. In contrast, a Bungalow (large B) must meet the following criteria:

1. One- to one-and-a-half stories high. Two-story houses should be referred to by their Stickley name: Craftsman.
2. No basement.
3. Roof sweeping over verandas (that's a fancy name for a porch, I believe).
4. Interpenetration of inner and outer spaces (Any guesses to what this is? Keep it clean!).

They quote the architectural academic Marcus Whiffen as saying,

"The true bungalow is a small, single-story house; the attic space may be made usable by a solitary dormer or by windows in the gables, but anything approaching a full second story disqualifies the building for the title of bungalow in the sense that was recognized by the builders and owners of this type of dwelling. The adjective Bungaloid is applicable also to the numerous houses that do their best to look like bungalows while having a second story--houses "built along bungalow lines" as they were called." [Schweitzer, p. 151]

Whiffen sounds like he'd be a hoot at a party.

So my house isn't a bungalow. And it's not even a bungaloid because I don't have two stories. So I flipped, flipped, flipped and ran into this picture.

 

Holy shit, guys, THAT'S MY HOUSE.

The roof lines, the placement of the chimney, the abbreviated front stoop (which they call "clever"), the wraparound windows . . . that's my house! The picture comes from a 1945 Sterling catalog and the style is a postwar or early Ranch. The house pictured above was called "The Marleen" and it was described thusly:

The Marleen Home is charming and modern--both inside as well as outside. At a first glance, it seems impossible to build so beautiful a home for so little money.  But Sterling Engineering skill, plus Sterling efficiency methods have achieved in this modern streamlined house, a distinct triumph of which we are justly proud. Also note the charming front door entrance with the clever seat arrangement. The door is of the flush plank design.  For the exterior side walls 3/4" x 10" wide siding is furnished.

The floor plan is everything that could be desired. It provides for a large pleasant living room with the modern treatment of the windows. A nice size dining room is included as well as a kitchen nicely located. Floor Plan "A" provides for two good sized bedrooms with a connecting hall to the bathroom and each with plenty of closet space as well as a linen closet conveniently placed. Floor Plan "B" is identical to that of Plan "A" except that it provides for a well arranged third bedroom. And note the modern treatment of the windows in the bedrooms.

Truly a home you will always be proud of.

 Nice sized dining room with a kitchen nicely located? Check.

Two good sized bedrooms with a connecting hall to the bathroom and each with plenty of closet space as well as a linen closet conveniently placed? CHECK.

I like how frequently they admonish you to "note the modern treatment of the windows." Upon realizing my house is not, in fact, a bungalow, I felt like I had just found out I was adopted. But then I realized Sterling was right. My house is, indeed, truly a house to be proud of.

Now my house was built in 1938, seven years prior to The Marleen. So clearly Sterling is a bunch of copycatters.

Spring fever!

I've been so starved for action in the garden that I've been running into the backyard when I get home from work and scanning the ground for emerging bulbs.  Since it was only January I was always disappointed.

But!  Yesterday things were happening!

Simple minds = simple pleasures, you guys. February 3rd, I'm gonna kiss you on the mouth.

I'm slowly making progress

The living room is starting to look less like a construction site.

The rug is Sakura from West Elm.  Window coverings as vexing me more than I should let them.  More on that later. 

Do we like?  The white fireplace looks alright, ya?

I have a very exciting life.

I recently spent an evening detailing my dishwasher.  I know, my life is very glamorous.  I saw a how-to on Apartment Therapy about it and I immediately wanted to do it.

Cleaning sends me to my happy place; I'm weird like that.

There was a lot of scrubbing with a toothbrush and the running of a wash cycle with white vinegar, and then I pulled out the panels and decided to try the almond color instead of the white.

I also could have picked avocado green, brown, or mustard.  We had an avocado green fridge growing up that felt so old and uncool.  Now? I think the green looks so pretty.  I remember when we got a new almond colored refrigerator WITH AN ICE MAKER and how I felt like my family was finally catching up with my wealthier friends. Again, I'm weird.

I think it was my friend Sarah who suggested trying to find stainless steel inserts for the dishwasher so it would match the rest of the appliances.  I looked online but they were really expensive, at least on the manufacturers' sites.  But! eBay had panels for $30.  Why didn't I think of looking on eBay before?

I'm probably not fooling anyone into thinking this is a new dishwasher but it least it sort of matches now. And you guys, it's *so* clean!

Habitat! Sweet habitat!

I did it!  The Audubon Society certified my yard as backyard habitat! 

Getting this entailed a bunch of stuff (all of it here) including turning 5% of my available yard (and boy do they measure) over to native plants, disconnecting my downspouts, having a birdbath, practicing integrated pest management (no pesticides), and removing aggressive weeds (like all the Himalayan blackberry).  I had to bicker a little with the woman at the end over heuchera and whether it's native (turns out it counts as a native plant).

There are a lot of benefits to getting certified (like insanely cheap native plants) but I mostly wanted the bragging rights. And I'm still enough of a hippie that I dig being part of a program that is trying to encourage habitat for native species.  It also helps that native plants in the northwest are so pretty.  I'm really excited for everything to start growing again this spring so I can see who decides to fly in and visit me.  This last season was mostly hummingbirds (yay!) and crows (boo).

The rep from The Audubon Society said my front yard would a good contender for a rain garden.  A rain garden harvests the storm water from your property and, instead of dumping it in the sewer, directs it to a densely planted area that allows the water to naturally percolate into the ground, much like it would in a forest.  They offer free classes in Portland so I think I'll sign up and look into it. 

 

Image lifted from here.

I'm so excited!

Quick update on the living room

I spent all day Sunday painting the ceiling and trim, which is a terrific way to spend a lot of time doing something unpleasant with no real visible change.  But then my car door busted and I had to take it to the shop, so I got a bonus day for painting.  At least this time you could tell I had been doing something in there.

Here's a quick reminder of what it looked like before:

I had to repatch an area over the fireplace where I did a bad job the first time--that white stripe will be going away soon.  I'm really digging the white on the fireplace and the brighter white of the newly painted window.  

After I finished painting for the evening I somehow ended up obsessively scraping paint off the wood floors with a razor blade.  All of my floors look like this because the previous owners couldn't be bothered to use dropcloths. 

And the fact that I feel the need to do this is the number one reason that they will have to drag me off to the loony bin someday.

Because nothing can ever just be *easy* with me.

So, about those bedroom curtains.

I ordered a swatch of the fabric I posted last week, only to find that it really has an olive undertone that makes the bedroom paint read really minty.  It was disappointing.  I was holding up different swatches to the wall and *all* of them were making the paint read mint, actually.

The boy was like, "Why don't you just paint your bedroom?"  Oh Greg, you can't put ideas like that in my head or it riles up the home improvement demons!  So yeah, now I want to paint my bedroom.  Again.

Now, the path of least resistence would be to paint the room something that goes with the curtains I currently have but no, goddamn it, I love this fabric and I want to waste my time and money sewing new curtains. And the fabric looks really nice with the paint in the spare bedroom!

Effing home improvement demons.

Money well spent

Sometimes I do things that, if a girlfriend was describing them to me, I'd be like, "Girl, what are you thinking? Don't do that," but then I do them anyway.  Hiring my coworker's husband to do some work for me was one of those things.  The bathroom fan has gotten really REALLY noisy lately and I suspected that the duct in the attic had rattled off the motor body of the fan.  I made my boy go up in the attic with me because of the SPIDERS, OH MY GOD SPIDERS.

We found this.

They actually make clamps to hold ducts together and I believe they're quite inexpensive.  But why waste $.60 when you can just duct tape everything together?  When I had the vents put in the roof my coworker's husband, who works as a licensed contractor, set up the duct for the bathroom fan. He apparently decided this was the correct way to do it.

We pulled off the failing duct tape and put new duct tape in the same place. If it's good enough for a licensed contractor, it's good enough for us. What's the worst that could happen?

The big picture

I've never storyboarded (is that even what it's called?) before, but this is sort of the master plan for the living room.  Until, you know, I change my mind again.

And I think I agree with the majority below: the fireplace should be white, even if it will show smoke and soot.  Hey, my fireplace doesn't work anyway!

Help me pick a paint color.

I like to paint a large area when I'm waffling over color choices but I think the color swatches, combined with the 6 existing paint colors, skidded right past "helpful" and right into "confusing." The walls will be the olive green you see on the lower half of the wall.

It looks sort of awesome the way it is, no?  *Sigh.*

But seriously, which looks better? Dark gray or white? Or something completely different?

poll by twiigs.com

Update!

Rachel makes me realize that I haven't specified what the color scheme will be in this room.  This is the inspiration photo for the room:

The rug will get swapped out for a light blue one and there will be pops of red.  So I'd like the fireplace to have some drama  . . . but more of the black-white spectrum kind. And of course I'll put a bird on it. :)

Things are happening!

One of the things on my wishlist for my reveal was for the living room to be painted and the mirror above the fireplace be removed. When the house stager informed me that she'd have to hire painters and a contractor to remove the mirror, I told her to forget it and just focus on getting me furniture. 'Cause I paint and labor for free.

I had no idea what was behind the mirror--it could be water damage, an exposed fireplace, an envelope of money . . . who knows. I conned the boy into helping me remove the mirror this weekend.

The mirror was really heavy but it came down pretty easily.

Then we just had to remove the wood structure behind the mirror.

Next I just have to clean, patch, sand, and prime that area, and then I can get started on painting the living room.  New year's house resolutions, I WILL OWN YOU.

Great sadness!

The weather gods decreed that the sedum planter is yard trash.

At some time during the night that leaning bit of gate fell over, squished my mock orange and took out my little shabby chic drawer of sedums.  You'd think I'd learn and finally put that bit of gate (which I intend to turn into a compost bin) in the garage but, no, I just leaned it up against the fence again.

Ha ha, weather gods! I have another bathroom vanity drawer in the basement! And I never learn my lesson!

New year house resolutions

1.  Sew new curtains for the bedroom, using this fabric:

2.  Finally paint the living room.

3.  Replace the mortise box on the front door so we could actually use it.  Did I ever mention that we have to go in and out the kitchen door because no keys came with the front door and the locksmith declared it super expensive to fix?

4.  Replace the back porch steps.

5.  Replace the side fence.

6.  Paint the patio slab.

7.  Draw up a master plan for landscaping the front yard.
8.  Remove the rhododendrons and azalea from the front yard.

9.  Paint the exterior of the house.  Quit laughing.
10.  Put in baseboard and window trim in the basement.