Bücher

Some of you will be horrified by this confession, but, when we moved in, we didn't organize the books. We just threw them onto any old shelf willy-nilly, just wherever they would fit.  CHAOS.  The house was still under construction, schedules were weird, the Shelfy Nook was still a hole in the wall.  You know how it is when you move into a place - no matter how well-laid your organizational plans, priorities shift on the fly. Plus, if you're doing any DIY in the process, there's always a good deal of Scope Creep to handle. 

Last weekend, once the Shelfy Nook was complete, the house underwent a weird transformation: suddenly the floors were covered in books, as if there had been some horrible library explosion.  It was terribly confusing for the one cat and one dog who absolutely abhor any environmental disruption, and a playground for everybody else.  My roommate is the resident bibliophile (I prefer e-readers, myself; though I do adore really old books), and she quickly took charge of the sorting and categorizing, handing armloads to me to shelve when she was done.

We are now officially surrounded by books - organized books. Whew! That only took three months.  See:

The aforementioned Shelfy Nook, on the west side of the living room.

A bookcase by the windows in the living room, on the east side. 

To the south, behind the primary seating area, is just about my favorite piece of furniture - also filled with books.  Here is where we put the nifty old stuff, and small collections/series.

On the north side of the room is the shelving unit that houses all the DVDs...and there are books there, too.  We're surrounded! (Which is okay by me). 

Two narrow shelves in the "dining room" (don't eat bikes, kids).  You'll see these again, soon - this room is one of the next items on my to-do list.

Yet another cabinet full of books, this one in the breakfast nook, full of cookbooks (Roommate Sylvan is also a fabulous vegan cook and pastry chef, and has even written a couple of cookbooks of her own). 

This is another room on my to-do list, by the way.  So much to do!

















Not shown: yet another shelf full of books in Sylvan's room, a couple of boxes of music books and costuming books in the craft room, and the few selections I keep in my room because I like looking at them (a boxed complete works of Jane Austen, and a set of tiny Yale Library Shakespeare study books bound in fabric, which I adore).


Everybody have a great weekend! 

Blue Paint Makes Everything Better

Last weekend, while everyone else was doing the holiday thing, I painted the living room. And the dining room. And two hallways. And the entryway.

Technically, I did more than just paint.  In what ended up being almost exactly 24 hours of work, spread over three days, I...:

• filled nail holes and caulked in the new baseboards, which were installed by the tile guys but not finished (why? no clue)
• primed the baseboards 
• primed the walls, from floor to ceiling, including the 12' vault in the living room
• cut and installed cleats in the shelfy nook in the living room
• painted the walls in the aforementioned spaces
• built shelves for the shelfy nook

I think I must've moved nearly every piece of furniture I own.  Some of that stuff is HEAVY.  Also, I'm not finished yet.  While I built shelves for the nook, I still have to sand and stain them.  So I'll have a shelfy nook update for you soon.  In the meantime, here are a couple of random shots of the other areas I painted:

This is one end of the living room, and the little tiny "hallway" that leads to the master bedroom suite (aka Gigantic Craft Room of Doom).

As lovely as this morning sunlight is, it's fleeting, and barely penetrates the space beyond this corner.  There's a serious issue with light in this house.  Time to learn to embrace lamps.

The "back" of the living room, behind the couch.  That's a lot of wall to paint, especially from the top of a ladder.

You can see the difference here between the light coming in from the kitchen windows, and the near-black shadows in the center of the picture. The neat thing about that is that all of the walls, at times, look like they're all painted in different colors, depending on the time of day.

The wall color, by the way, is Sherwin Williams' Tradewinds, which is a soft, pale blue with a touch of green in it.  I heart it.

EDIT:  wait, no it isn't - Tradewinds was what we used in Sylvan's room, and on the test wall in the living room.  I ended up swapping it out for something with a wee bit more green in it - Behr's Urban Raincoat.  

(Also on my never-ending to-do list: that empty aquarium. It's a bit of a running joke - it's been empty for years.  But it made a great terrarium for fake spiders at my last Halloween party).  

This is the dining room, aka "Room of Lost Furniture" aka "Laura's Guitar Crap Storage & Bike Workshop" (sadly, this particular bike, which is my favorite, is down with a serious case of Bearings Crud. Don't worry, though, it isn't terminal).

I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what this room is going to end up looking like.  For now, there's just stuff in it that has no place else to go.

This room has crown molding for some bizarre reason, even though exactly zero other spaces in this building have any.  I painted them the same color as the walls, to help minimize the fact of their existence - they just looked weird in there all by themselves.


 There's a lot more to show you, but there's also a lot more work to be done before I can do that.   I need to finish those shelves, for one thing; and there are still a lot of bare walls in this house, since I was waiting to hang things until after the big painting was done.

Then there's the dining room.  Hm.  My roommate wants to put a writing desk in there, which is going to be cool.  Also, there's futon just to the right of what you see in the picture that I've been trying to sell on Craigslist, but it turns out that Craigslisters are a bunch of flaky, flaky people (seven offers, all ghosted at the last minute? The hell?) I'm sure this surprises no one. As soon as it's out of the way, though, this room is going to get some serious attention.

But first: I have shelves to stain. After that I think I'll turn my attention to The Purple Glitter Situation.  But more on that later.




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Bonus: Hall Closet

This is nothing much, but I love my hall closet, and I'm happy to see it each and every time I open the door:

It's teeny:  only 6x2".

Coats on the far right.

A hanging shoe organizer given to me by a friend, into which I've organized my re-usable shopping bags (Austin has a no-plastic policy; this is all we use here).

Hats and purses on S-hooks across the rest of the rod.

Vacuum (and Shark floor steamer, which you can't see in this picture, but which is AWESOME and I highly recommend it if you have tile).

And a bin of larger bags and backpacks on the floor under the shoe bag organizer.

Up top on the shelf is Halloween stuff, and games.

This is one of two closets in the house which both still have the original carpet, wall color, and wire shelving that came with the house.



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Living Room Sneak Peak II

Oh, and then there was that long, low shelf that was in the front hallway, full of shoes and bags and whatever the hell else people would just chuck on top of it:

Yeah. That thing.  I LOVE IT.   And it was useful in the front hall, but the color wasn't my favorite, and I really wanted it where I could see it all the time and appreciate it.  It's one of those cheapie, screw-together things that breaks down flat.  Dorm furniture before Ikea, before Sauder.

And it really, really wanted to be black:

Holy crap, what a difference.  I love it even more!

So where does this, and the china cabinet library fit into the room at large?  Keep tuning in...



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If You Guessed "More Lighting" You Win A Prize!

Not really. Sorry.

So back to that bug- and cobweb-covered porch light from the other day.  The one I took down:

On the other side of that door were two mismatched hallway ceiling lights.   Kinda like this:

I painted the yellow gold brass collar black years ago, don't worry. 

And this:

this one I ...um...moving on. 

Yeah. Not so much.  Two different kinds of light bulbs. Two different qualities of light. Two different shapes, sizes, and sets of shadow.  The hex light wanted to be repainted like the fluted fixture was, but it's metal is actually fused somehow directly onto the glass and I can't get it apart.  I have yet to feel the need to undertake the ridiculous amounts of taping-off it would require to paint this bastard.

Anyway, so I put the fluted bowl up on the back porch for the time being, until I figure out what I really want to do out there.  I disassembled both porch fixtures (first pic, both identical), sprayed them both with a fresh coat of Rustoleum's "hammered" black metal finish, and put them up in the hall:

NO, not THAT kind of black metal...

Sorry for the EPIC FREAKING SUNLIGHT coming through the front door there - this hallway is a freaking cave, and you couldn't see anything when I actually turned the lights ON to photograph them.  Derp.   I suck at this.

But the little porch lights are cute!  I'd rather have pendants in here, something artsy and neat, but for now, at least I have two fixtures that match!

Moving on ...


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Door Envy

Ever since I painted my hallway doors black last weekend, I really want to replace my laundry room door with something like this:

(via Pinterest; image from No. 29 Design)

Wouldn't that be awesome?  And yeah, you'd be able to see my dirty laundry and cluttered shelves...but that's what glass-frosting spray is for, right? :)

that one. 

Dear Craigslist...


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Black Hole To Black Door*

So, about that hallway.  While priming the bathroom and all the trim and doors, I did the same in the adjacent hallway.  The trim there was also in need of a refresher, and the color in that hallway! Ugh!

Actually, it was a lovely color, in and of itself - a deep, shadowy olive green.  It was pretty, but it was WAY too dark for a teeny tiny hallway that gets absolutely *no* natural light whatsoever.   I completely forgot to take a "before" pic, but imagine a hallway where this thing might live:

So the entire thing got primed:  walls, trim, doors, ceiling, and even the attic hatch.  Then nearly all of it got painted in the White Clay, just like in the guest bathroom:

that's the bathroom door at the very end, then clockwise, the
guest bedroom and sewing room.  Around the corner on the
left is the hall closet. 

sewing room door, and laundry room on the right

Pretty! Bright!  HUGE-looking, after seeing that cave-green for several years!  But there was one more step - which you may have guessed if you noticed that the doorknobs on all the doors are taped off.  After seeing stuff like this on Pinterest for the past couple of years, I couldn't resist anymore:

bathroom door straight ahead

That's the same near-black that I mixed up from leftover  black and charcoal paint that I used on the dressing table in my bedroom, and the little candlestick table. I also removed the gold-colored brass doorknobs and spray painted them all silver (mostly - at the time of that picture, I still had one to go).

laundry on the right

This and the bathroom, together, took me about three hours on Thursday night, about six hours on Saturday, and about four hours on Sunday.  NO MORE PAINTING EVER OMG!  *falldowngoboom*




*  Know what made me giggle the entire time I was planning, and painting, and blogging about these black doors?  The Black Door is the name of the vampire night club in Austin, TX, in my favorite vampire novels, The Shadow World, by Dianne Sylvan.  So now I have like, five secret vampire night clubs in my house.  Six, if you count my front entry, which is also black.   (^_^)

Hall Overhaul

Remember that mirror I got in December and hung in the hallway between the living room and bedroom?  I adore it.  And I LOVE having a mirror in that hallway.  The table and stuff in there...not so much.  It was a placeholder, until I figured out what to do in that hallway.

Before

I've also missed having a big art wall in the hallway, ever since I did it a few years ago.  And I adore vintage-looking botanical prints, but each time I try to pull off an arrangement of them, I end up hating it, usually because of the frames.  I have about a half-billion of them, and nearly all of them are black.  

I loved the bronze-y color of this mirror frame, though, and the way it works with the wall color.  And I just happened to have a metallic spray paint that yields just about that exact color.  So...

After

I LOVE the frame color!  And all the prints I found (for free, around the internet. Yay color printers!).  What I'm not sure about is the arragement.  I didn't move the mirror at all, just hung the prints around it.  I think I'd like to slide the whole thing over to the left and put another row of botanical prints down the other side of the mirror to balance it out.   I'll do some more thinking about this.  For now, it was free, quick, and easy, to change it up.  Fun! 

I think my favorite thing is that no matter which way you're looking, the mirror reflects a plant, so it fits right in, hehe. :)

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Peek-A-Boo!

There are a LOT of things going on in Laura-land this month, including lots of little bits around the house; but as always (er, lately), I remain too bogged down in my costuming schedule to get much around the house finished so that I can show you.

But here's a wee bit I did over the weekend.  I'm preparing to gut my bedroom closet and re-do it.  Part of the equation is moving the door mirror to the closet door from the small hallway between the living room and bedroom.  I really like having a mirror in that hallway, though, so I picked up a new one over the weekend to stick there, since I didn't have one large enough for the space.

That's also the Victorian plant stand that I'm in the middle of refinishing.  It's not done yet, but it won't be a big deal to put Garden Buddha on the floor for a day when I'm ready to finish refinishing it (it's been scrubbed, partially stripped, and sanded smooth.  It just needs a stain touch-up and to be re-sealed).  Garden Buddha still has a broken arm, but, for the time being I'm just imagining him as the Bodisattva of amputation.  ;)

I like that.  I do not like, however, the way these two small tables with things hanging over them are so similar, and so close to each other.  It feels like doing a double-take every time I look towards this doorway.  

I also miss this:  

Not the colors, but I loved having that hallway full of artwork and photographs.   And I liked this whole-hallway collection far better than the more linear and cleaned-up version I did when I first painted the living room gray: 

  

So I'm thinking of going back to the giant gallery collection thing in that hallway, around that new mirror.  I'm just not sure of exactly how it's going to go just yet.


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I DIDN'T DIE, I SWEAR.

In fact, after a necessary break from house-y stuff during which I sewed my ass off for the SCA, I've gotten back to work around the house.  (Finally).

Thing #1

I picked up this mirror from Goodwill last week for $5.99.   It's meh.  Nice wood, not crazy about the color, or the style, to be honest.  But it was six bucks, and the right size.

zzzzzzz...

But with a couple of coats of plain ol' black paint:

hey, look:  potential!

You guys remember the long entry hall, right?

long hallway is long. 

coat rack from salvaged headboard

 





















I flipped all this business to the opposite side of the hall (the coat rack was already on that side, actually), and hung the new oval mirror next to the "Moroccan" one that was already over this "landing strip" shelving unit.

YAY.  I like this so much better.  It feels more balanced, and everything is all on one wall together.  I can now use the outlet that was hidden behind the shelf before.  And, best of all, the two mirrors catch light from the dining room and bounce it down the hallway, so it's not so cave-like with the door closed.

granted, I'm shooting against the light here,
but this is about how dark it normally is. 

Yay!

The only thing I didn't move was the picture frame that was up there. I'm not sure what to do with it just yet, but I'll let you know.  Meanwhile, check out the awesome light patterns the two mirrors throw onto the opposite wall!

That. Is freaking cool.  I think this wall needs some art - something big, not this little Buddha painting all by itself.  I'll have to come up with something that will be enhanced by the nifty mirror reflections.


Thing #2 tomorrow...



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Wildebeests: Nice Rack (Part II)

Remember this bit o' headboard from Friday?

And the front hall with the hook and wad of jackets and scarves?

After: 

door open for light

 Couple of cuts, some paint, some decorative glass knobs, some wall anchors - voila!  

Green glass knobs from World Market*.  There are two of these, and four other styles/colors, all mixed in there together.   Hee. <3

(See what I mean about the carving not being even, in that last picture?  Must've been a cheap headboard, LOL.  I don't care.  I love my new "old" coatrack thingy). 





* You know, they have some amber-colored ones, too, that I didn't like at first...but now they haunt me.  I must find an excuse to use them for something.  Possibly even...*GASP*...drawers! 


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In the Great Hall

A bit about two of my three hallways, while I work on things this week to actually post about.

1. Entry hall, from front door to dining room/kitchen/living room/"back" hallway 
2. "Back" hallway: to guest room (music room) & guest bath, craft room, coat closet, and laundry/garage
3. "Bedroom" hallway:  to master suite

(3) Bedroom hallway 2009

I'd originally painted this hallway dark to keep it "out" of the living room, also because this deep purple was a paint mixing mistake - but I LOVED it and wanted to look at it all the time.

(3)  2010 living room paint job & less-is-more hallway art

When I painted the living room (and the entire free world - living, dining, kitchen, and entry hall) last year, I incorporated the bedroom hallway back into the room with the same paint color - which I like quite a bit.  I also got rid of the big picture arrangement and hung just a few related pics under a painted-on "picture rail".

(Now, I adore the bust that you see in the bedroom hallway, but I hate the pedestal it's on, and I don't like either of them where they are...but I'm not sure yet where the bust's new home will be).  

And here's the entry hall:

(1) Looooong entry hall

(1) Landing area on the left as you walk in

(1) Artwork on the opposite side

You can consider this last one a "before" picture, also.  I like the artwork here, but I'm not done playing with it yet.  The canvases need new hangers on the back so that they'll hang straight;  I'm also thinking of painting a "picture rail" on the wall to match the one in the bedroom hallway, but I'm not sure about it yet.  

The coat hook behind the door is going away soon;  and the inside of the front door is getting a paint job soon, as well.  Just as soon as it stops bloody raining, so I can leave the door open so it can dry without thoroughly humidifying the house!

Also, the blue ceilings in the entire house are going away as soon as I can muster the troops to paint nearly 1,500 square feet of ceiling (white).  Awful job, painting ceilings.  But that's a story for another post. 




*  Wait, where's the #2 hallway?  I don't have any pictures of it, because...I don't have any pictures of it.   It's, um...green.  And it's dark.  Which is why I don't have any pictures of it.  And because it is also a story for another post. 

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Arch, Arch, Baby

Vanilla Ice??  I know, I'm sorry.  Lacking in the creative title department this afternoon, it seems.  (Probably need more coffee).

hallway between living room/bedroom

My house is full of these arches - well, in the common areas, anyway.  I've painted them different colors, I've painted faux molding around them,  I've painted bricks around them...

kitchen/living room pass-thru, 2006

I've painted the insides of them a different color than the walls.  I've hand-drawn little botanical border motifs inside them with a *Sharpie*   (which looked awesome, but took about forty-eight coats of primer to get it to stop soaking through once I decided to cover it up).   I've hung things in front of/behind them:

entry hall into living room

Matching pair in a white/green living room a few years ago...

late Winter 2007

For about five minutes in early 2007, the arches and  the dark "wood" floors inspired me to try go pseudo-Spanish in there.  It didn't last long.  Seriously, it was like a month before I scrapped the whole idea as a "nice place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there" - but that period was when I built my "salvaged wooden beam" fireplace mantel, which I really, really love. 

back when a hollow box was a truly daunting project

So, all of this to say that I'm thinking about doing something with my arches.  I don't know if I'll paint the insides of them again or not.  Nothing's really grabbing me about that lately, even though it's been on my mind a lot.

However, a year ago or so, I cut out a paper template traced from the doorways, sized it to one of the windows in the living room, and taped it up there behind the blinds, to see if I could mimic the look of an arched window to match the doors.  I wasn't expecting much, but I loved the way it looked, and had always planned to go back and try it on all the living room windows, and then take a more permanent stab at it if I liked it.

I may go ahead with another paper mock-up this week.  Especially since it's entirely possible that I'll be getting new blinds in there soon.  Santa brought me a gift card to my very favorite store! :o)


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