The Blue Room

Here are some truly horrible befores of our master bedroom with their current counterparts. I removed several layers of wallpaper while the downstairs bathroom was being renovated in 2008/January 2009. While I was steaming wallpaper off the wall with the headboard, I noticed a big wet patch on the closet wall. At first, I didn't think anything of it, but then realized...hey...I haven't been working on that wall. That can't be good.

It wasn't, but not as bad as it could be. The upstairs shower was dripping, the shower pan leaked and (naturally) the drain was clogged, so it had finally collected enough water to leak through the ceiling and into the closet below. I emptied the pan with my shop vac and asked the convenient present plumber to cap the leaky pipes upstairs. Problem solved. Plus it made wallpaper removal just a bit easier on that wall.

This room went through a few iterations before I settled on the blue with black and white and pink. I intended to include a few more punches of fuchsia with some art but never got around to it. The vent above the bed made it tricky to figure out where to hang anything.

(Like any self-respecting man, Todd insists that I keep a vase of fresh hot pink flowers on his nightstand. Obviously.)

All photos (except the awful befores) are Rachel Southmayd's work: find her at Pixy Prints Photography.

Want to see the rest of the house? 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

Bedroom crown molding

This project was actually knocked out in March (I think) but I've just been enjoying the results and failed to report on them. Years ago, shortly after we moved in, I told Todd I needed his help for 15 minutes to hang crown molding in our bedroom. He was wary, but I swore up and down all I'd already made the cuts, and all he needed to do was just hold it while I tacked it in place.

Six hours later, we called Trevor. It took him plenty of time to hang it, due to none of the right angles in the room (or house, for that matter) actually being 90 degrees. Also, the cheap molding I bought at Builder's Bargain, despite being marked the same size, was in fact a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch varied in size. So it was fun times all around.

And then even after it was up, it still looked like this, because I had some brilliant idea to double it into the wall and touch up the paint. Considering that this plan was hatched in January of 2009, and this picture below was taken in March of 2016, you can reach your own conclusion on how well that went.

AARRRGH. Seeing this falling asleep every night really made me twitch. Just seeing the picture STILL makes me twitch.

But, now... check it out!!

One more annoying before...

And after.

 SO MUCH BETTER!!!

Foiled

I'm going to guess it was back in March that I ordered some foil and glue with intentions of taking on this project. Every time I thought about it, I just couldn't muster the interest in trying it. Craftier pursuits don't exactly intimidate me, but it's not really my game the way building stuff is.

So I put it off until this quiet Sunday, and the result was almost exactly what I was hoping for. That never happens. I'd like to take one more crack at them and see if I can get them more heavily foiled, since they look a little more distressed than I wanted. Overall though, pretty awesome.

And now when I see things like this in stores, I think to myself, I know how to do that.

A Master Bedroom Update

I've been working on pulling the master bedroom together according to the plan I created a few months ago. I've gone so slow with this that it doesn't seem like much ground has been covered, but looking at these pictures I realize I've knocked out probably 75% of what I want to accomplish.

Here's what's new:

• Rast hacked nightstands. I'll have to get a better picture of those when it's not late afternoon. I LOOOVE having drawers instead of a cluttery trunk top. The bottom one is just storing shoes right now.
• Closet curtains. The rug placement makes it hard to get them the right length. They're fine for now. 
• New quilt, Freddy's special
• Pineapple lamps with new shades that I made
• Faux fur pillow cover. An Ikea "tejn" -- the $12 fake one, safety-pinned around the bolster pillow. Kind of ghetto, but it's getting the job done.

Still to be finished: art and figuring out how to make those euroshams silver. And I need to rewire Todd's pineapple lamp, because it doesn't work. Good progress. I'm really liking all the changes and think some new art and bright accessories will be the perfect finish.

But the new nightstands look pretty good, and I love that pop of pink and bit of sparkle in the candles. I mean, pink and sparkle while anchored with blue and white? What's not to love?

Master Bedroom Plans and Schemes

The master bedroom has never been a done deal. The color offsets the general lack of thought that's gone into this room, but other than the headboard and curtains, I haven't made much headway. Not for lack of trying, but until a couple of weeks ago, my creativity was kind of stuck. I finally got unstuck though and started working on this board.

Unstuck feels much better than stuck. Here's the plan:

• Art. What I have over the bed is actually a single piece I PhotoChopped as I was playing around; it's from Laura Dro Designs and is part of a collection of amazing ikat pieces. I love her work and have been trying to figure out where one of her prints might belong in the house.
• I've already painted the pineapple lamps (I took pictures but they seem to have vanished...which is always rather unsettling). Next, figure out lampshade situation. NO ivory.
• Gonna hack some Ikea Rasts and paint them (probably) a weathered black.
• Bought canvases to do some painting. Unbelievable deal at $6 each at Joann's.
• Silver leaf the dropcloth euroshams so they have kind of a weathered silver finish.
• Get one of those fake sheepskins and make a pillow out of it.
• Already have the quilt, great deal at Fred's a few weeks ago.
• Planned accent colors are yellow, orange and fuschia, which Todd has agreed to.
• Replace the light fixture. I actually think I might be able to sell it; it's a vintage capiz shell flush mount and it's actually kind of cute, just not anymore in this room. Couple of the contenders are on the board. I'm still shopping. 
• Paint trim/built-ins at some point. This will be a big job. 
• Need throw blanket. Still haven't figured out what that should be.

Luckily, I still like the blue a lot. Can't wait till this one is a wrap, but the process has been a lot more fun lately. 

That time we tried to turn our pool into an infinity pool

And other bedtime stories. Kind of. First, let's start with a picture from a couple of weekends ago of the Wood River, our favorite canoe trip. Gorgeous day, hot and sunny with perfectly clear water. Super fun time with Alyssa and Mike.

Next, I finally finished our master bedroom headboard that I started last summer. It was pretty much finished, but the screws and washers in the tuft holes (technical term) were still visible.

 

They don't really look very obvious until you compare to the "after"...

And now, the part where we address the title of this post. We kind of left the faucet running on the pool all afternoon. Until 8:30. 

When I went out and discovered this water totally overflowing out of this filter thing, into and under the pool shack and out into the garden. 

Next! We're having the roof done. This is not a very fun way to spend a very lot of money, but we had perhaps another year or so before it really needed it, and we figured it'd be better to get it done before things start leaking (like our garage did during an extended spring rainstorm).

Thought it was kind of funny the guys left all their stuff on the roof to come back tomorrow. Water, nail guns, etc.

They also left their truck in the front yard. Now that we don't look like total bumpkins all the time, it's more amusing to do it occasionally.

Oh, right...here's the reason the dang thing was so expensive. That's one of the layers of old shake roof. Under which there was no plywood. Do you hear that noise? That's the cash register, adding zeros. Ka-ching, ka-ching...

Closet Organization: They Don't Call It Labor Day fer Nuthin

I've had a vision that plagues me, every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. A vision of a closet that's not full of stupidly wasted space. Instead, this is what I see:

It drove me nuts. UNTIL. I woke up last Saturday morning and decided this was the day. I'd been hatching a plan for better using the space in the closet, with its one dumb pole and skinny shelf that was making my leather bags droop.

As closets go, it's not that bad for its era (predating the master suite with walk-in, unfortunately for me and my herd of Coach, Minkoff and Rowley). It fits most of what we need to stuff into a closet, and I have an extra closet in my office that is a walk-in for overflow and formal clothes we don't use very often. There's also a row of cabinets (pictured below), in which we store out-of-season clothes--basically an entire wall of storage. But still, I hate wasted space, so I assembled my team:

• Super Wonderbar
• Hammer
• Ear muffs
• Assorted painting supplies
• Drill
• Faux Dremel Multimax (from Harbor Freight)

And went to work on the closet. Demo was pretty simple...

Although removing the two-inch nails that secured the shelf support to the wall left a number of these. Love working on a house with plaster walls. I wasn't anticipating having to spackle a bunch of holes...

...before glooping on a couple coats of paint to cover the unpainted strip the shelf support was concealing. Oh well. I managed to get two coats of paint on thick enough that I didn't need to do more, using perhaps the worst painting technique I have ever executed. (For those late to the game, this room took tinted primer plus four coats of blue for the mesmerizing cobalt you see here.) It involved a hack saw, a mini roller and the paint can. No tray. I'll let you wonder about that one.

Anyway. The weekend was a blur of touchup paint, rather unsuccessfully priming and painting the melamine panel that now divides the shelving from the poles (stupid primer said no sanding, but I should have known better than to believe it), LOTS of measuring repeatedly and an equal amount of leveling and adjusting.

Most of the materials used are from Lowe's, HD and Builder's Bargain, the motto of which I have mentioned before: "B-grade building materials may not meet code." How could you not love a place with that kind of winning marketing? However, four pieces of material were from somewhere much more interesting. The shelves were, in a former life, our kitchen cabinet doors. They had a lot going for them in terms of shelving.

• already painted
• flat and not warped, and already acclimated to the house so shouldn't warp in the future
• kitchen to be demoed soon anyway
• removing doors makes things a lot easier to find in kitchen
• very sturdy (3/4"-thick plywood)
• FREE.

It took me most of the weekend on and off, but we now have a closet that makes maximum use of the space and features mostly level shelving and poles. (The top pole slopes down to the left.) There's even extra space for hanging bulky stuff like hoodies that we'd both wadded up and stuffed in our dressers.

Now I can enjoy my pre-sleep and coming-to moments in peace, instead of being jarred by an unthoughtfully designed closet.

Next in the crosshairs: that alcove above Todd's built-in dresser. The only thing I've done to it is removed the wallpaper, and it's looked really pretty crummy since I did that four and a half years ago. Also, curtains or doors or something. Probably curtains.

Project Report

I've had a few projects in the hopper for the downstairs bathroom the last couple of weekends. Of course, we painted it white a few weeks after we moved back. The ice blue had lost its appeal for both of us, plus the crown and ceiling had always needed at least one more coat of paint, so we did it all one color (Behr Swiss Coffee in semigloss). Minimized taping, which was great.

Unfortunately, the paint ended up really gloppy and drippy and kind of looks awful in spots. I haven't yet tried fixing it. I have, however, tried distracting from it. So far, it's working! Here's what it looked like before...

and after. Much better. I haven't finalized the shelves, still messing with styling and art and whatnot, but love the distraction from the crapped up paint. But wait, it gets even better than that... 

 Because here's another before...

And after! (I pulled down the sconces to paint them. Don't worry, they'll be back soon for more pictures.) Mirror is framed!

 In the process of that project, we discovered that our bathroom wall curves in as it goes up. You can see it if you look closely on the left side of the mirror. This makes it extremely difficult to hang a frame so it looks level. Even when it is level, it looks a bit wonky. Seven unnecessary holes in the wall later, voila. 

My original plan of staining ended up not working, when the wood filler I got stained a very different color from the wood, and then the wood took the stain unevenly. Top and bottom were different shades than the sides. I sprayed it brown and then used some blackish glaze so it didn't look like my mirror was framed with Hershey bars. It actually blends unbelievably well with the walnut from the vanity. I wish I was talented enough to plan these sorts of things, but it was a happy coincidence. 

There's another project I finished, oh, probably two months ago now: the headboard. I upholstered one for our house in Bend in navy blue canvas, and it worked really well in our oatmeal-colored room. Here, not so much. Plus almost as soon as I finished that one, I realized I love tufting and should have done that. 

 So I did. This was not a super-fun project. It was hot upstairs. I went the nuts and bolts route, which meant very sore fingers for jamming 57 bolts through 57 holes and screwing on 57 nuts. But I'm really happy with it. Not a perfect tufting job, but for a first try, not too bad.

 I'm still working on figuring out what to hang above the bed for art. Thinking maybe five or six square frames with TBD images. Also still trying to figure out what to do about bedding. The navy blanket is functional, but we're kind of feeling some yellow and orange as accents. I've been into quatrefoil and trellis patterns for a while, but haven't found anything yet I want to invest in.

 The lamp on the dresser is going to get switched out eventually, once I find something else. In that corner on the right of the image above, I've ordered...ugh...I can't even believe I'm saying this...a fake palm tree.

 I've killed one palm tree so far, and have another that's not hanging on by much in rehab out on the patio. Steady diet of sunshine and Miracle Grow is doing it wonders. Anyway, the corner needs some greenery. The room's not quite big enough to hang art on every wall; it just gets too cluttered. We both like the palm tree, but not the investment of buying a new one every three months. Hopefully this doesn't look like complete crap. I'll report back soon.

Lastly, for the bedroom roundup, are the Ikea Ritva curtains from a month or two ago. You can see them better a few pictures back, but this gives a better sense of their length. Like, 105 inches or something for a very reasonable $60. Awesome. Our ceilings are 98 inches, so no standard curtains now that I've adopted the high-n-wide method of hanging. It really classes up the room.

Surprisingly, they're linen and rather lovely. They diffuse the light nicely in the morning without making it darker than it is already (the blue absorbs a lot of light). Oh, one other thing... THE FLOORS. We had the floors finished in the bedroom and it looks great. Once the kitchen/laundry room are done, it'll be all wood downstairs, except for marble in the bathroom). Three different kinds of wood, but still.

And tomorrow, the tree guys come. We're sad to be losing the oak on the left, one of the two large branches of which is rotted. The guy said, "it could be like this for another 40 years, or it could fall on your house tomorrow." We decided against taking our changes, but cutting down a big tree is pretty much always sad.

Unless it's a stupid magnolia (right) that drops leaves every day of the year, smothers flower beds and craps up the pool. Then you can't get rid of it fast enough.

Trimming trees is decidedly not among the more fun ways I've come up with to spend a couple grand, so I'm hoping that all the other trees look really good after they've been shaped up. We have five other huge old oaks, a large cedar, another magnolia in the front and a mimosa. And some weird tree we don't know the name of, also in front. They're all getting ridiculously long-overdue haircuts tomorrow. Progress :)

Water stains and other small wars

I finally got fed up enough with my office ceiling to paint it. It's one of those things that I notice all the time and it annoys me, but I HATE painting ceilings, especially after my experience in the dining room in January. Anyway, my office had some pretty gnarly water stains on the ceiling (which we think came into being pre-1995, when the roof got redone. You can see water stains on the shake shingles in the attic), which I semi-successfully painted over.

I say "semi" because apparently, painting over water stains is no picnic. I would have known this if I hadn't decided beforehand that people who whine about painting over water stains just don't apply the paint thick enough, and bothered to do a quick search about it. After the paint started refusing to stick to the plaster, I did just that. THEN I applied another coat of paint, extra-thick. Results:

Not bad! Definitely an improvement, especially after I....

That's right...bleach. In the course of my Googling, I ran across some savvy mom who recommended wiping water stains with straight bleach. I would NOT recommend doing this on any wall that's not white to begin with. But we had some water stains on the ceiling of our bedroom, which happens to be directly beneath the upstairs bathroom. This is the other ceiling-painting project I've been avoiding and stewing about. It's only a relatively small area, but I figured matching the paint color would be impossible, so I'd have to do the whole ceiling.

The bleach was worth a shot, and it WORKED!! I put on my protective eyewear, grabbed a glove, and took my cup of bleach and sponge into the bedroom. A few wipes later, and the stains were gone. The ceiling's slightly whiter than the surrounding areas, but I can live with that.

I also "fixed" our vacuum cleaner, which had developed an odd habit of working for 7 minutes, then slowly turning off, by removing the world's biggest clump of dusty crap that had lodged inside it.

One more thing....

Last Sunday, we brought back enough mulch to finish covering this bed in our side driveway. Minus those prickly juniper bushes and plus a little mulch, and it's looking a lot better.