My Office

This was a winner, with the gold foil and tan wallpaper. I don't recall whether Mom helped remove the wallpaper, but she flew out and helped me hang the nautical chart wallpaper above the chair rail (that wasn't installed until a year or two later). We have always loved the floor in this room, really pretty 3.5"-wide red fir planks.

The lighting on the day we did pictures was really tricky because it was raining but then the sun came out just as we were getting into the office, but things ended up balanced out pretty nicely.

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

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

Office Closet Redo... Finally

I've always loved my office closet. It's big, has tons of storage space and has a cool window. The floor is distressed, which I kind of like. What I never liked about it was its bleh tan color. But that's gone now, and all the little cracks from settling are caulked up. It looks much neater now. Let's have some before and afters, shall we?

Before

 

After

 

Before

 

After

Before

After (obviously I still have to paint the built-in dresser, but isn't the contrast amazing between the old "white" and the new white?)

And one other thing I did was string the power for our modem around the door, because I got tired of tripping on it. We should probably have just had an outlet installed in the closet, but this is a decent second best choice.

The Office, Pretty Much Done (!!!!)

This day, like every other "it's finished" day, has been a looong time coming. Not only is pretty much everything on my March sabbatical list for the office checked off, but I did a few bonus projects too. (Out of school for eight years, still looking for extra credit.) 

First, the picture ledge. I've wanted something above my desk since we move back two years ago, and I batted around all sorts of ideas. I have this great original piece I got from One Kings Lane three years ago and have yet to frame. It's on top of the crates on the shelf on my desk, where I've been trying to protect it from getting bent or scraped up. It's kind of big though, and I felt like if I did a gallery setup (another idea) that it'd overwhelm the whole thing. It's a fairly large space, but not huge, and just to the right of the lamp will be filled in once I get a monitor. My computer sits on top of the crate in the middle. So I scrapped the gallery and the single piece.

Then I happened upon someone talking about a ledge out in the blogosphere and thought, I could TOTALLY build one of those in like two seconds. More like 30 minutes including finishing time and an hour to install because I was tired and stupid (always a great time to start drilling holes into your wallpapered wall...) but luckily Todd came to the rescue with a great suggestion on how to hang it and saved my wall from many unnecessary holes.

Plus I have a bunch of already-framed art that needed a home. That's not counting the lighthouse watercolor all the way on the right, painted by my talented late grandmother, that I haven't yet put in a frame. Nice associations with each one, all gifts and things that make me happy to look at. Perfect for right above my desk where I spent a decent about of time looking.

I also moved this seashell print so it's centered above the cabinet. Its previous position was a foot or so left, which was where it lived when the room was configured differently. It took me about 3 minutes to move it, and it'd been bugging me for months. I have no idea why I drag my feet on easy fixes like that.

Side note, maidenhair ferns really need even indirect light. I had the one in the terra cotta pot on a shelf on my desk where it got light from the window and the back door, and it grew into this really demented-looking shape, half of the stems pointed at the window, the other half at the door. Hopefully I can rehab its shape.

The fern on the left is a type of Boston fern, which I've heard are rather notoriously fussy plants. This fluffy version is awesome. When it needs water, it just turns a lighter shade of green looks a bit pathetic, and then I stick it in the tub and give it a good soaking. I got it as a teeny start four or more years ago (an indication of its hardiness, since I have for sure killed more ferns than I've kept alive) and now it's almost two feet wide with no signs of slowing down. If I put it in a bigger pot, it might take over the whole room. The dimension of it doesn't really come through on camera, but it's so wild and textured, I love it.

 So, here's my office. I'm calling this one done for now, though I'll probably never stop tinkering.

Lastly, in honor of Easter Sunday, a line from my favorite Khaled Hosseini book, The Kite Runner: Come, there is a way to be good again. Hope this and all of your other days is filled with the spirit of redemption.

Transitions

I knocked out almost everything on my office list this month. One of the last items was making and installing a transition for my outside door. It looked like this since we had the "new" door put in ... over six years ago. It has driven me crazy. 

Argh. That's old "Great Stuff" foam filler, which, for the record, doesn't wear well as a threshold. Just in case you were wondering.

It was a bit of an undertaking; I had to rip one of the red fir floorboards I'd saved from upstairs at a 45-degree angle so it fit all nice and neat.

But now, finished :)

Goodbye, Antique White

Years ago, shortly after we moved into the house, we needed to do some touch up painting on existing off-white trim and built-ins. I evidently didn't know you could get a custom color match and used my own high-tech method of eyeballing paint chips next to said trim. (All things considered, it didn't work too bad.)

My fatal flaw was that I didn't consider the fact that I strongly disliked that ivory color, and considering we were, you know, redoing the entire house, it was in my power to decide to paint it a different color. Live and learn. It borders on tan with the amount of brown mixed in, and it really doesn't do the bolder wall colors many favors.

I can pretty much tolerate it in the living room, and the bedroom is next on my hit list, but it was driving me redneck crazy in the office where everything else is white. It was all very incohesive, which bothered me because the office is otherwise the most-finished room in the house. It's decorated and accessorized just how I want, so this one massive, glaring "detail" really needed to change. There were a handful of other issues that were grating on me, too. They're noted in this marked-up picture.

 Window casing painted. See how the crown and chair rail is so much darker? Not anymore!

 Closet doors, for contrast. BLEH.

 And after, with their cute little coral Anthropologie hardware. Anthro has the best hardware.

Removed tiny bits of wallpaper that we left on the wall when we removed wallpaper about five years ago and replaced scratched screws on outlet and switch plates, which makes a surprising difference in my little OCD brain. I also slapped a bit of paint on the old ivory outlet (the actual plugs). If you go fast enough with the roller, the paint doesn't get into the holes, which I'm guessing most electricians would say might be a bad thing.

 Mmm...that crisp white against the navy makes my heart happy.

What else... painted the nuts and bolts on the light fixture so they blend better and finally touched up the ceiling where the old fixture was. We put this in almost two years ago. Sometimes I move slow on the things that annoy me the most. What you'll notice from this picture is that there is no dirt halo around the base of the fixture and that you don't see two silver bolts sticking out on either side of the base. It just looks normal.

 Painted the white wall with a fresh coat of more-scrubbable eggshell finish, instead of the primer (possibly just a dead flat paint) that was there (again, from five years ago). It was in rough shape, whatever it was. Lots of holes, some bad, unsanded spackling...it just needed a fresh coat of white.

Not fully put back together, but looking so much crisper.

I've felt thankful every day that I've had this time to knock out all these projects (and there are more to come I'll be posting in the next few days). I'm actually kind of excited now to start working again in my finally finished, not-annoying, cohesive office.

Pool shack, patio projects and curtains

It's that time of year...the time when I turn my attentions outside and start doing all sorts of outside projects. Like spray painting pineapples on outdoor end tables. These turned out pretty well, although my stencil work was kind of sloppy. Sharp edges are hard :/

On my time off last week I built this table for the pool shack. I adore my Kreg Jig. The top and shelf are "salvaged" cedar. Does it count as salvaged if your neighbors call and offer you their old fence and pile it in your garden utility area and you use it several years later? I say yes.

I was on the fence (heh) about whether to stain it or just leave it natural and opted for the later for now. Can always go for stain later if I want. Pressure treated legs should last a good long time.

 So now this is what it looks like...

 Pretty good from where it started before I cleaned and vacuumed and cute-d it up! The pool shack is much less "scary" than it was before. (My dad referred to it as scary. Fair enough. There were a lot of spiders.)

Additionally, I added some additional fabric to the curtains my mom made for our Pasadena apartment years ago. They're the striped part on top. I also re-hung the rod so it's closer to the ceiling. Additional height really opens up the room.

The fabric is what I upholstered the ottoman with. It doesn't really look all that great in the pictures, but the extra seam isn't noticeable in person and they're much more billowy and full looking. It ended up being a bit of a time-consuming project, which involved an unplanned visit to Joann's for thread, but I'm glad it's now done and the curtains are back in place.

 Lastly, tune in next time for what I did to this table (it was much less pleasant in real life than this picture might lead one to believe).

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.