The Dining Room

This was one of our most recent transformations, from early 2016. We were hesitant about taking down the grasscloth wallpaper that we'd both oddly grown to like, but it was the right call for the room. And the light fixture just went up in July, like a week before our buyers saw the house the first time. Took almost eight years, but I finally bested my nemesis, the hideous dining room light.

There used to be a wall there, remember?
That was dumb. So we removed it.

 

Fun fact: I picked that dresser in the following picture out of someone's trash on the way to work one morning in Bend. Because we lived in a studio and I didn't have anywhere to store it, I carted it around in my car, until it was Thanksgiving and we had to drive to the airport. Then my friend Cam agreed to take it, and he carted it around in his car for a few weeks. Nice guy. Finally, I refinished it when we moved into the Bend house. I've loved that thing ever since. And Cam is glad I live three hours away and can't pawn off my trash picks on him anymore.

 

Want to see more? Check out the other rooms on the house tour tag:
Bedroom
Kitchen and entry
Jo's office
Upstairs and upstairs bathroom
Downstairs bathroom
Outside and the "we sold the house" story
Dining room
Living room

All photos are Rachel Southmayd's work: Pixy Prints Photography

Fresh white + crown molding for the dining room

We've been working hard on a last push of projects with the intention of either selling or being happier living here (leaning hard toward the former, though, much to everyone's surprise), and removing the grasscloth in the dining room was one project I'd been avoiding.

I partially thought it would be a lot harder than it was, and I also came to really like the grasscloth, despite my initial spouting about how it would be one of the first things to go. (This house has taught me to say less, because I have ended up eating a lot of my words about it.) 

 

 

So anyway, around the beginning of the year, Todd just decided to go for it and started taking down the wallpaper. It turned out to be a lot easier than either of us anticipated, and we had the whole room clean in two days or a little less. It was well worth investing in a wallpaper steamer all those years ago; it made the job as clean and easy as wallpaper removal can be.

(Anybody want to buy a china cabinet? I'm unloading it!)

I also used a drywall mudding knife to remove the paper and get a really clean swipe at the plaster beneath, which meant a lot less scrubbing to remove old glue before painting. The door to the paint closet still needs to be painted.

We discovered at one point that the trim was this color on the right in the photo below. GROSS. You can also see the vaguely mauve color of the trim next to the hinge, before we painted it 7 years ago. WHO PAINTS TRIM MAUVE? omg.

Just for fun, here are a couple of 8-year-old pictures from the first time we looked at this house. I have 36 pictures from that day in April 2008 and I look at them and seriously have no idea what I was thinking. Apparently I saw potential that I can't see anymore looking at them. Eek. Our realtor Linda is in the first one. She unwittingly named this blog when she declared the house to have "loads of potential" :)

 

Before we ripped out the wall to the kitchen, replaced the windows, finished the floor...

 

Just this week, the crown molding was finished. We still have to paint the ceiling (again) and replace the light fixture, but we couldn't believe what an enormous difference the white made in terms of how spacious the room felt. It felt like all the walls took a step back. We weren't expecting it to make that big of a difference.

But at least in some situations, that's what a nice bright coat of white will do for ya. For those wondering, our go-to white in this house has been Behr Swiss Coffee. It's slightly warm and slightly off-white, but not very much. 

 :)

The First of Many

So I quit my job last week. I guess I quit early in February, but my last day was last Friday, and I find myself with a generous amount of free time in my current state (on sabbatical, as I've termed it). On my way out the door, I was threatened by at least three of my coworkers that I better make good use of my time and provide them with reading material. Here we go... 

As it happens, this month is devoted to me knocking out a TON of projects. I don't have afters yet, but I have some befores. To qualify for the lists (one for each of the following rooms: my office, living room, downstairs bathroom, kitchen, powder room/entry) it has to be a project I can tackle by myself and it has to fix a problem that annoys the crap out of me whenever I'm in the given room. Lot of painting (bleh). 

Here's an in-progress of the hallway that connects the bathroom, living room, our bedroom and my office. All the trim and cabinetry is going from Antique White (left) to Swiss Coffee (right). The Antique White is more ivory and the other one is off white but much crisper. I wasn't exactly planning on painting all the trim (just my office), but once I started, it just looked right. UGH. There are so many great things I have coming in the next few weeks. 

Another thing I dealt with on Sunday was this lampshade. I got the shade on clearance a few months ago, but it didn't have a spider...the metal thing you use to connect it to a lamp. So I solved two problems: Using bolt cutters, I chopped up a shade that I've kept because it's "nice" but I dislike very much and used the spider from that to make a shade I do like! I also got my toes wet with the blogger favorite Rub'n'Buff and rubnbuff'd the base of that lamp.

Side note: I love that lamp. I got it at a thrift store last year with the intention of just using it for its parts. It's ceramic, so I figured it'd be easy and fun to bust up with a hammer. It had this weird gold floral applique and the white was dingy. I had a passing thought that some stripper would probably dissolve the applique and turned out to be right. Once that was gone, I hit it with a coat of glossy white and now I have this great mod lamp!

In the four days I've been hard at work, I pretty much ripped apart my office. There are five cans of paint and so much assorted project stuff lying around... it makes me happy. Right now. Probably less so when I have to clean it all up. There are a few already-completed projects in this shot, and I am super excited to post more about them soon!!

Oh, one more thing. Pretty sure I've picked a dining room light fixture. IT'S FEATHERS!!!!!

Downstairs Miscellaney (and a Tomato)

This has been a quiet, lay-low kind of weekend. We were in Bend last week, which was great fun, but also apparently draining. I dragged myself around all day yesterday, never completely shaking off feeling groggy. It was not a shining weekend of productivity. But last weekend was, between the dining room chairs and the pillows (more on those later).

So this is just a hodge podge of what's new this month (that I may or may not have mentioned before). First up, I snagged a couple of these artichoke candles on clearance at Target for $3 each. They'll be fun to move around. 

 

The dining room is looking worlds better, with the chairs and the newly constructed moss ball. One benefit of cutting down the oak in the backyard was the abundance of moss I harvested (sometimes I pause and realize I sound like a total headcase. Maybe I am. What kind of a lunatic harvests moss? I  have two bags sitting in the kitchen just waiting for inspiration to strike.)

I used said abundant harvest to create this moss ball, which is living in my little greenhouse. I feel like there's another word for this thing, but I can't think of what it is right now...

Here's the dining room looking into the living room. Other than the kitchen remodel/wall removal project, the last couple of things in here are some bold curtains, crown molding and a new light fixture. It's massively improved over where it was.

 Finally added a rug to the living room, picked up from World Market when we were in Bend last week. I LOVE having a rug in here. I also love this particular rug; we have a smaller one in the bedroom that migrated from our master bath in the Fishhawk house. I'd been considering layering a cowhide under the wing chair and ottoman (right side of the image) but I think it might be kind of overkill now that I can visualize it better.

 Ok, now, the pillows. This is the project that spawned the re-covering of the dining room chairs. I made some pillow covers out of napkins last year, and I was lazy and used Stitch Witchery instead of sewing them, and the fabric was more stretchy diagonally one way than the other, and they just never looked very good. Plus, they were green. Worked well at the last place, not so much here.

So probably six years ago, I acquired several large pieces of corduroy in the Garment District in LA. Two navy and two white. I've had them squirreled away, unable to commit them to a project. The day finally arrived last Saturday: they were destined to be pillow cases. (Well, like half of one piece of navy. These are pretty big pieces.)

I used the cord on the front and dropcloth on the back and sewed them this time, and darn it if they don't just look AWESOME. Some of my best sewing ever. This picture doesn't show them them all that well, but they'll be playing a supporting role from now on.

Penultimately, a couple of shots of my office, just because. Still work to do; I want to mess with the curtains, hang some art and finish assorted detail work on the trim, but mostly I really like it. The color on the crate under my desk is "La Fonda Fireberry" because I guess Valspar thought that just "La Fonda" or just "Fireberry" didn't capture it sufficiently.

Couch is a few months old. We got it shortly after moving back, and it is a vast improvement from that Ikea sleepersofa. I think Todd still secretly rejoices that thing is gone and he never has to move it again.

 And lastly, the tomato: a large golden slicer. I am about to eat it for dinner tonight. Yum.

Dining Room Chairs. Finally.

In March of 2009, we bought this dining room set on Craigslist. It was an adventure off into the middle of nowhere. Four and a half years later, I might have gone a different direction with style, but I do like this set still. It's classic without being too ornate.

What I've never liked is the upholstery on the chairs. It was ugly when we bought the set and the chairs were cream.

 I didn't redo them sooner because 1) I didn't realize how cheap it would be and 2) we moved; no reason to put new fabric on them when I wasn't going to be around to enjoy it. So they have been like this for four and a half years...

...getting progressively more grubby. Because seriously, who other than a crazy person upholsters chair seats in cream?

Anyway, last weekend I had sort of an "if you give a mouse a cookie" moment. I started in on a few other projects, and while cleaning those up at the dining room table, I thought to myself, "Maybe I'll just flip this chair over and see how hard it is to take off the seat." So I did, and it wasn't that hard. But then I had a chair with the seat detached, and I thought, "Maybe I'll just try to remove this hideous chair cover." So I did that too, and that was a huge pain.

That stuff was like Kevlar. You could have a very bullet-proof army of grandmothers outfitted in that fabric. I only took the fabric off one seat because of what a nuisance it was to remove. I just went over the others. Easier that way, too, because I didn't have to be careful about repositioning the foam as I stapled.

Anyway, this is the end result. SOOOO much better.

 

Oh, and it's outdoor canvas, so it will resist staining (and mold and mildew; let's cross our fingers we don't have to deal with that in the dining room.)

What's New, Part II

Since there was plenty of light to still take some decent pictures, this is a much better update. Starting downstairs, with the dining room... I'm thrilled that the dining room table is finally cleared off and everything is put away. Some of it ended up "put away" in the guest room (more on that later) but at least I'm not walking past it 10 times a day.

Side note: love having trash dresser (the white one, behind the dining room table) downstairs so I can see it. I thought we wouldn't have space and it would have to live in the guest room, but it doesn't!

 The dining room is far from perfect, though. There's still this situation. Three things wrong with this picture: 1) burnt out lightbulb, 2) paint job, 3) THAT THIS ABOMINATION OF A LIGHT FIXTURE IS STILL IN MY HOUSE.

 I also put the books back in place a few weeks ago.

 I read somewhere that there's nothing like moving a book collection to make you rethink having it in the first place. So true. But they do look good.

 This is in the living room. It's one of the first pieces of art I've hung, which is kind of a big deal because I had hardly any art, period, when we last lived here, and very little actually hung. Paint needs to be touched up below the picture. It's a stolen sketch from One Kings Lane; I saved the image, turned it into a vector graphic and blew it up to the perfect size for the $3 clearance frame it's in. Stolen art is so satisfying.

Lastly, for this post, these are some of the colors I'm considering...

For this closet off my office, in which I've stuffed my decrepit stairclimber. (Bad light, bad pic, whatever.) Obviously this is where I work out, and I think it'd be fun to paint it a super-energetic color. I love purple on walls, but fuchsia or tangerine would complement the navy in the office proper. We shall see. I have plenty of other priorities at the moment.

Salvaging is saving, in a manner of speaking

Never one to pass up the opportunity for free stuff, I insisted we stop at a house we passed on the way back from the gym that looked vacant and had two mountains of stuff out front. (Transcript: Me: Look at all that stuff! Todd: That looks like a huge pile of trash. Me: FREE trash! Pull over!)

From the piles, I snagged a curtain rod and a nifty little table (with a broken leg, which someone had taped to the body for future repair). I wanted to go back for the shutters, but couldn't think of where to put them.Though it's a rather unworkable color of pistachio, I have a can of spray paint and I know how to use it. I glued the leg back on with my construction-grade adhesive, and it's currently drying in the kitchen. I'm pretty jazzed about it. Has a lot of character, with the cool metal feet and musical instrument-looking midsection. Also, you know, FREE.

We kicked off the new year on the right food, house-wise. I suggested painting the dining room ceiling, which you may remember from earlier posts was looking especially crappy due to the freshly painted trim. I'd also gotten dining room curtains that I was eager to put up, but that first required painting the curtain rod and finials, so we just went for it.

As usual, this turned out to be a much bigger pain than I anticipated. There were a few spots where the grayish paint was flaking off, and it was nearly a 1/16" thick, if not more, so I thought we'd just sand it down to match. Wrong. In addition to making a mess, I'm pretty sure it looked worse after than before (for those keeping track, that's the opposite of the desired effect). I then decided to spackle it, which kind of worked, except that the infernal gray paint was texturized, to the textures didn't match.

At this point, I was irritated, so I just painted the ceiling (using glossy paint, another mistake). As the ceiling dried, I could see another coat would be in order, and opted for flat paint this time, which helped a lot in hiding the texture issues. I only took one picture of the whole mess...and it looks a lot better in person. The funny section around the light fixture is the old color, then the bright white was the first coat. The final color is slightly creamier. It really helps brighten the dining room, though. and that's what the curtains look like. I'm going to dye them navy blue; you can see the tester swatch almost in the middle of the picture hanging from the top of the cabinet. Todd and I are both big fans of the curtains. It's great to not feel like you're being watched whenever you're in the kitchen or dining room.

Last few things to do in the dining room:
1. Put up crown molding
2. Re-upholster dining room chairs
3. Replace horrific light fixture

Christmas Edition

It was my own tradition, growing up, as soon as we returned from the big family Thanksgiving dinner, to decorate my room for Christmas. The past three years, I haven't really had Christmas, at least not in all its month-long crafty sparkly glory. Three years ago, we were getting married, plus there were finals and whatnot. Two years ago, I was working fulltime, which left little time for festivity, and I lived in a 400-sf house, which left little space. Last year, I was half living in my in-laws' house, and half moving, and we didn't put a tree up until two days before Christmas.

So, you see, I have three years of backlogged cheer, plus a WHOLE HOUSE I get to decorate this year. After Thanksgiving dinner, I kept with tradition and headed for the nearest coniferous tree in sight, a small potted Austrian pine I put on the front porch for this express purpose.It's on the left in this picture. Please also note the wreath, (functional) icicle lights, and garland which I made myself with a whole lot of clippings from the mountains (more on that shortly).

Friday, I lost no time diving into the holidays. After making a huge mess in the guest room with lights and assorted decorations, I slowly began carting things downstairs (to the sounds of the holidays on my "xmas mix" playlist wafting through the house, naturally).

I swapped out the centerpiece on the dining room table (still need pillar candles for those holders) and the porcelain balls on the teak console for this SWEET silver footed bowl with a scalloped rim and little snowflake cutouts that I nabbed at Collector's Market last year. I will be filling it with either pomegranates or clove-stuffed oranges and posting a picture soon. In the background, you can see the red and white tablecloth Mom got me a few years ago!The glass bowl got relocated to the coffee table and filled with these mercury glass balls from Anthropologie (a few years ago...been hanging on to 'em).The mantel got decked with a great fake garland (Michaels clearance, last year) and it looks way more awesome than the picture.Then I got into the crafty side of fun...wreath-making. Never done it before, but I clipped a bunch of holly and cedar branches off the trees in back and made two wreaths Friday and three today. I hung one on the bathroom door (below), the coat closet, and one on my office door. I have a few others I'm still undecided on where to place. They smell great!

Today, I informed Todd that this is my favorite time of year because it involves many of my favorite things: bad food, candy canes, decorating, presents, and rigging. It's likely that many of my old roommates will chuckle at this, given my inclination to install hooks and other creative storage devices in our houses. Anyway, I rigged the garland (see below) on mug hooks. The garland was strung from clippings gathered yesterday on our Christmas tree-picking expedition.
and here's the garland. I added cranberries after I took the picture.Speaking of....This is a picture of me with the tree. (For those wondering, yes, I wear that hat in public, and yes, people do tend to stare at me. Say what you will, but I stay nice and warm.) You buy a permit for $5, then head for the hills where you can cut down a tree. We went with our neighbors up the street, Wayne and Cody, and cut down our trees. It's a little on the sparse side, but they all were. I'm hoping once it's decorated, it'll look more filled out. The shape is perfect, though.I think that's enough Christmas cheer for one post. Stay tuned though, there's way more to come!