Another pretty little tray

A few weeks ago, I made a little tray out of scrap wood. Then I decided to go poke around the flooring section of Home Depot and discovered they had 4x12 carrara marble tile, so I bought a bunch of that. I picked my favorite one and used the remaining mahogany I had to make this little tray for the kitchen. I LOVE carrara marble, but it's so fragile that it would have driven me batty having it in the kitchen as countertops. So I compromise and use it as an accent wherever I can.

I went with a darker stain, so it wasn't quite so orangey as the first one (though I love the vibrancy of a natural orange-toned wood.) I thought the dark would complement the color of the marble more. 

I also used spray lacquer on the marble and the wood, so any olive oil drips wouldn't discolor the marble. So far, so good.

It's so pretty; it makes me happy every time I look at it.

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!!!!!

The saga of the kitchen trim

Yesterday afternoon, it was broiling and humid outside so I decided to work on something inside. The kitchen trim has been grating on me for a while, so I grabbed my caulk gun and went to work. I dislike this project because it's multi-step and the parts that need to be done first aren't very gratifying, like caulking unprimed wood. Anyway, here's the window over the sink before. 

Before from straight on...you can see the wood on the sides and top. 

And here's the icky shape the trim was in. Now unfortunately, because we are suspicious that we likely have some lead-based paint somewhere in the 72 years of layers of paint on this casing, I wasn't going to sand it. I used a lint roller (you laugh, but it works!) to remove any loose paint and gave it a wipe with a damp paper towel before Kilz-ing it. 

This is after I primed. I told you it wasn't very gratifying. It does look better in person, and there's a nice crisp caulk line along the counter all the way around that painter's tape. That is gratifying. 

The trim around the kitchen window is now primed, which is a wild improvement that's hardly visible on camera. The rest of the trim is either primed or painted. What's annoying about that project is that it doesn't really look significantly better, it just doesn't look crappy anymore. That's what nobody tells you (ok, my parents both warned me) about renovating old houses. So much of it is just bringing it up to a certain baseline of acceptability before you can start improving on anything. 

I also did some more serious work styling the shelves that flank the windows. I had some random stuff there, but that's pretty much what it looked like: random. stuff. 

 Still a work in progress...

 And we'll see how far I get not killing the succulents I've started collecting. TBD.

I love this. That aged french florist pot and little Delft creamer pitcher. It has a small tray and a sugar pot that it goes with. Maybe I'll pull the other pieces out and put them on a shelf too. They're in my china cab right now. They were my grandmother's pieces.

 I'm becoming a bigger fan of identifying what I love in decor and filling spaces with that. It's evolving, but I find myself drawn to rustic wood, aged terra cotta pots (shocker), blue and white pieces, anything cobalt blue, crisp white finishes against dark wood especially with green plants...

One of the decor blogs I follow posted a palette of her colors throughout her house, and I like that idea. Given the moment of crystalizing my own tastes I'm having right now, I created my own whole house palette:

It's a lot, I know. But somehow it's working, I think because it's usually offset with some metallic (gold or mercury balls) and a "big" texture: jute, woven baskets, wood. I usually don't go with all the colors in one room; our bedroom is cobalt, yellow and tangerine with lots of white. The living room is red with cobalt and navy accents and a heavily textured jute rug. The dining room is navy, white, moss green (literally, moss...) and a little orange, again with heavy texture from the grasscloth wallpaper. 

The guest room, kitchen, entry and powder have had me stumped for a while because they're like the inverse of the other rooms: where I've had major color backdrops to work with, this is white, with white cabs and dark floors. Pulling in the pots and the greenery is helping me crystalize. I've been trying to figure out how to pull in cobalt and orange or possibly lime for the downstairs rooms, but haven't gotten there yet. 

Upstairs I'm still stumped, but that's ok. It's a process, and I finally feel like I have some kind of framework after this weekend, when I spent hours on Pinterest distilling what I was drawn to in certain images. It was a good and productive exercise for a groggy Saturday. It's weird, turning it into more of a science. Everything I've done with this house so far has been freehand and by some combination of chance and my eye for things, it's worked together. I think this is a good move and will help me start finishing rooms so I can stop thinking about them and just enjoy being in them. What a concept...just living in a house :)

And lastly, our most expensive investment in a while. Here's our lovely new roof. We opted for a lighter color for better energy efficiency. I'm working on adjusting to it. Kind of wish it was a little darker, but I'll get over it. I just realized how actually horrific our back yard looks here. I've gotten used to it (a particular type of coping us renovators develop) but wow...what a mess. That's going to change soon though. 

P.S. Have you ever seen a bluer sky than that? That's Oregon in the summer, folks. It's so blue you can't even look at it. You just can't beat it. 

Small Necessities

Finally, after four years and nine months, I installed a tp holder. It's Threshold from Target and I can't find it online. When the vanity was first installed, I couldn't stand the thought of drilling a hole in its beautiful walnut side. 

We had a really annoying toilet paper stand that fell over all the time, and then we moved. Upon returning, we just left the roll on the counter. The counter's not that big though, and it gets cluttered quickly, so I drilled a hole and went for it before I could change my mind. 

I love freebies

Todd's aunt is moving to Hawaii, and is consequently clearing out her home in Portland. This means that there's McD family stuff headed our way. I am most excited about this amazing gen-yoo-ine antique steamer trunk. Given the age, it's in very good shape (and still has nifty little organizer inserts that I'm sure I will make use of soon). I decided to use it as my night stand, as I go about duplicating the room that the June or July BHG blatantly ripped off from my brain. If this picture looks familiar, that's because I have a white duvet and antique botanical seashell prints and blue walls and random oceanic paraphernalia littering my bedroom! I couldn't believe it when I saw that page.

They did, however, give me an idea for a black headboard, which I am still designing. If you're confused about the trunk connection, you have a good reason. While there's no trunk in that picture, there is antique stuff, and so I'm working with what I've got.

I also fixed something that's been bothering me for two years and nine months. I, having never purchased my own dust ruffle before, didn't know they came in different lengths. So I picked the wrong length, and have since had to engage in a war with getting the dust ruffle to look decent every time I rotate the mattress. It's always an ugly thing, and it's never ended well. I recently discovered that there's such a thing as iron-on hemming, so I bought some, and voila! The right length!
I also decided to take the plunge and hang a few pictures in my office. They look a little funny where they are, because the big one really should have gone over my couch, but then I wouldn't have been able to look at it. So the big one's over the computer, and the little one is over the couch. It's a little weird, but it works.

Lastly, this is kind of random, but I found this awesome piece of scrapbooking paper and I'm going to frame it. It's this sweet map of Europe. (You can just call me the queen of cheap art.) And I have some little cut dahlias in a bud vase. They're cute, and deserve a picture.

You heard it here first

I'm going to make a prediction: citrus, and especially orange, is due for a comeback. I have no basis for this, other than the fact that I like it, but I've been right about these things before. I love how the bright pop contrasts with the icy blue and quiet white of the bathroom. And who doesn't love a little citrus? The middle of a nasty recession is just the time to decorate with some cheerful color. You can't look at an orange without feeling just the slightest glimmer of happiness or hope. It's not possible.

So when whoever calls decorating trends starts yammering about citrus, you can smile at the bowl of oranges on your coffee table and think to yourself, "I knew this was coming." Juuuuuust wait.