Master Bedroom Revisited

It’s been a while since my last progress post… and I’m still working on compiling some info to write the second half of my last post about Sears kit homes. In the meantime, I think two rooms are pretty close to “done”… or at least Phase 1 is nearly complete. Since the last time I wrote about the master bedroom, I have basically completed the outline that I wrote in this initial post.

As a reminder, here’s where it stood at the last update:

We moved our furniture in and I painted the room a cool, oceany blue (Behr #HDC-AC-23 Provence Blue). I installed Ikea’s Ranarp sconces and hung Popchartlab’s “No Sleep Til Breuckelen” print.

I was still waiting for some nice curtains to go on sale and was hoping to DIY the closet drawer pulls to look a little more special without spending thousands replacing all of them (large pulls in three bedrooms would have cost about $5k… nope.)

Since then……

I got those West Elm curtains on sale and hung them on these nifty arrow-end curtain rods from Overstock. I might need to add some backing to keep extra light out, but for now they’re fine. I love the added pattern in this relatively neutral room. M thinks they’re too visually busy.

I also spray painted the existing pulls in the closet. It would cost a fortune to actually replace them, so even though the shape is still kind of meh to me, at least now they look enameled and a little more substantial and vintage than the original Ikea brushed stainless look.

I used a coat of black spray primer and 3ish coats of black glossy spray. I picked a heavy duty one so that I won’t have to worry about the finish rubbing off (I think it was this Rust-Oleum Professional High Performance Enamel Spray). I love the black-on-white look.

Inside the closet pulls are more of the same. I still hate the knobs so they’ll get replaced as soon as I find something I love. Otherwise, faux enameled black it is. The birch interior of the closet bugs me but not enough to break out the stain/paint. At least not right now.

I still really really want to add a white and black flokati rug but I can’t get myself to pay that kind of money. Especially in the summer. Especially with a puppy in the house. But one day… maybe. We also still need a full length mirror. Working on it…

And in case you’re wondering, M does actually own clothing. He just uses the closet in the guest bedroom.

That’s all for now! Some other progress and more history on Sears homes coming soon!

❤ v

Let there be light!

Exciting stuff has been going on here for the past few days. We were both hesitant to bring in any contractors for at least the first few months, just so I could get everything kind of situated and then figure out exactly what needed to be changed and in what order. And I’ve been tackling some quicker projects myself, like painting bathrooms and dining rooms, fixing up the bedroom, and planning some landscaping. But last week we finally brought in two trusted contractors– a carpenter and an electrician. The carpenter, a friend, will be helping out with some more complex projects in a few months, but we put the electrician right to work, changing out four ceiling fixtures throughout the house.

All of the light fixtures that came in the house are OK… most I recognized from the Hampton Bay aisle of Home Depot. Yawn! But some online shopping and three hours later, we’re making progress to eliminate the boring, snooze-worthy fixtures from the house. Obviously nothing in the house was even close to original. I could have gone with reproductions but decided to go with something a little more fun.

Let’s start in the entryway, which is a really small area with a cluttered coat rack and the smallest bathroom of all time. I would have loved to do an entry chandelier here, but the house honestly probably never had anything grander than a single bulb flush mount. So I grabbed a Restoration Hardware farmhouse light when they were on sale a while back. I wasn’t positive if it would go in the living room, entry, or the top of the stairs, but once we held it up it seemed to be a pretty good fit here. And please excuse the mess, etc… this area still needs a LOT of help.

The farmhouse looks great, I think… but we also discovered that we’re going to do a lot of paint patching. Why people don’t remove light fixtures when they paint a ceiling, I will never understand. The entryway will all be painted soon, so we’ll just leave it like this for a little while.

This was also when we discovered that we do indeed have the original 1928 wiring throughout the house (I knew we had it in the bathroom from when I replaced the sconces but wasn’t sure exactly how old it was or if it was safe). The electrician assured me that it was perfectly safe as long as it was in good condition, which it was. He also noticed that the lights all had grounding wires running from the switches, which means someone was paying attention when they started making improvements.

The next light was the bathroom. I had already switched out the sconces and painted, so as a reminder here was the lower part of the room:

You can’t even tell in the photos how bad this light is. But finding a replacement wasn’t easy– the switch in the bathroom only controls the sconces, so the new fixture had to have a pull cord that reached from the ceiling without knocking into/damaging the shade.

I wanted to get a matching porcelain one to the sconces but couldn’t find one with a pull cord, and those can’t be custom ordered. My alternate idea was to get a vintage cut crystal pendant, but again the Etsy shopowner said he couldn’t add the cord. I had to custom order this one in oil rubbed bronze from Rejuvenation, but they kind of screwed it up and without our wonderful electrician would have never been able to get it working ourselves. And honestly, now that it’s up, I’m not so sure about it. I think I need to spraypaint the inside of the shade white to make it look more like the porcelain sconces– it’s just super harsh and bright right now. I also might just order a new shade… we’ll see. At least it’s better than it was.

And finally… the super fun one! When we first saw the house, it had a decent looking pendant in the dining room. Not my style but kinda cute. During negotiations, the seller asked if he could take this light with him, and since we had planned on probably replacing it anyway, just let him have it. He ended up installing another light when he moved out– I guess this was what was there when he bought the house a year earlier. And while it was nice having some type of light in the dining room (as opposed to him just leaving a hole in the ceiling), there is NO way this one was going to stay. Is it the worst thing ever? No. But for such a central room, I knew we needed to do something special in here.

I came across Stimulight on Etsy and held out for a few months before finally biting the bullet and ordering one. And then it sat in the box for a few months because I knew I couldn’t do it myself. I actually probably would have attempted the other fixtures on my own if I hadn’t known I’d had to call an electrician for this one, but that turned out to be a blessing because I would have been on the floor, crying, wrapped in electrical tape and bruises if I’d tried to do any of this myself. Even the electrician left the house punctured and bleeding. This is a tough fixture to hang! It looks AMAZING though, and even though we knew we would have a dining table under it (and could therefore hang it a little lower than usual since nobody can walk into it), we decided to hang it a little on the high side so that it wouldn’t compete with the french doors  and built-in for visual interest. I think it’s absolutely perfect for this room– I can’t imagine anything better.

The final light was for the office, and I didn’t know if we would actually get around to ever doing this one. I’m going to write a full post about it, so I’ll save the photos for next time.

That’s all for now! I’m super excited to have broken the barrier of welcoming in a professional… maybe this renovation will be easier than the last one after all.

Cheers,

❤ v

[insert backyard pun here]

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about landscaping. Which is weird coming from a person who previously would have called a sidewalk planter with a tree stump and a few rotting cabbages “nature.” But I guess being a homeowner and getting excited about seeing our front and back yards thaw and blossom has changed my perception.

We always talked about wanting a garden. Not anything we could totally live off, but maybe a few fresh veggies we could clip right before dinner. I always imagine wearing a white apron and channeling Martha while doing this, although I’m sure it would actually be sneaking around the house in my pajamas hoping the neighbors don’t see, and then turning around and seeing that the dog has eaten all the tomatoes. But it’s worth a try.

The tough thing about gardening is that you have to start thinking about it while there is still multiple feet of snow on the ground. Some seeds take 8-12 weeks before they’re ready to be transplanted outside, so the garden needs to be planned and supplies ordered in February. At least that’s what it seems… I wouldn’t take my gardening advice on anything at this point. IANAG. Anyways, our biggest concern was keeping our future seedlings away from the dog. She has been digging up the previous owners’ garden since she came home with us, so we knew we couldn’t just plant things in the backyard like normal people. Luckily we do have a south facing front yard that she can’t access, so we’re going to try and keep edible plants in window boxes and flowers in the ground around the front walkway. I’m sure we’ll get other peoples’ kids/dogs running through so I don’t know what will survive here, but it’s all we’ve got right now.

Eventually we might fence off a garden area of the backyard, but for now, we’re only working with the front. Since our front yard currently looks like this:

…I had to reference a photo from when we first saw the house (October). I honestly don’t even remember it ever looking this green and lush.

So here’s the current plan:

-trim down the front hedges

–build and install two window boxes for the bottom front windows, and plant any edible sprouts

-extend pavers to make room for lounge furniture (and, uh, buy lounge furniture…)
-refinish shutters (they are in worse condition than they look)
-add a carport?

 

-plant wildflowers and maybe some tall grasses facing the street

-since the front yard is southfacing, this would be a place where we could work during the day and get maximum sunlight. We might eventually add a front fence, just for some added privacy. But that definitely won’t happen for at least a year or two. You know, once we already have a fully matured garden and Martha is begging to come over for dinner. Then we’ll talk about a retaining wall or a tasteful fence to keep the riffraff out.

We already have seedlings planted– a few types of flowers, mint, tomatoes, strawberries, chives, and lettuce. All from Johnny’s, as were all our seed-starting supplies. I’m hoping to have the window boxes complete by mid-May to replant them outside.

————-

Meanwhile, here’s what we’re thinking for the backyard. I already shared this post about inspiration for the back deck as part of the dining inspiration, but I think I’m starting to prepare to actually do some of it. As a reminder (mostly to myself, but also to you) here is what the yard used to look like before we bought it, and before it was covered in multiple feet of pure ice:

-add a small fenced portion for future years’ gardens, probably about 2/3 of the depth of the garage (see above)-build a bonfire area, hopefully with a built-in pizza oven and seating

-add string lights to the deck– need to add height, similar to this tutorial

And to prove that we actually have made progress since that Dining Inspiration post, I don’t think we need to do that retractable awning. Sunlight isn’t really a problem, with all the large trees and north orientation. I think it would be more trouble than it’s worth. And we did receive a very nice patio heater from M’s mother, so I can mentally check that off our list (thanks Patty!). I also ordered some outdoor dining furniture and the string lights, so I’m not lying when I say it’s all coming together! Well, I might still be lying a little bit.

Cheers!

❤ v

Master Bedroom Progress… for the love of Ranarp

Weirdly enough, the tiny master bedroom of this house is probably the reason we ended up buying it. Not because of the super bland color palate, normal-sized windows, or annoying sloped ceiling, but because of the closet. We had given up the house hunt for the winter (our lease had a clause that we couldn’t move out from Nov-Mar) but I was still curiously opening my Zillow emails, just to see what was out there. Most of the photos of this house made it seem modest and quaint, but not super special.

But a photo of the corner of the gorgeously done master closet really made me take notice that someone had truly put some effort in, so I dragged M to the open house (even though he wasn’t interested when I showed him the listing). Sure enough, we left in silent agreement that it was the one. Not because of the closet, but because of all the other little touches, the layout, the neighborhood, and the feeling of relaxation we got while inside.

(For the record, that’s a sliding barn door… the top bar pulls down to eye-level, and there are 12 drawers and another cabinet on the left side that you can’t really see in this picture. All the drawers quiet close. All extremely unusual for a 1928 Sears kit house that is otherwise mostly well-maintained yet original.)

If this closet hadn’t been there, or even if it hadn’t made it into the top 10 photos, we probably never would have ever stepped foot here, and yet here we are.

Anyways, ramblings aside, I didn’t expect to do much in here. The closet is great, even though I would like to take all the pulls off and spray paint them to look enameled… but that’s it. We just moved in our furniture and ignored it.

Then while M was out one evening, I made a snap decision and broke out the primer. Our headboard is kind of sage-grey-beige and I hated how it clashed with the lavender-gray-blah walls.

I had already grabbed a paint chip of Behr’s #HDC-AC-23 Provence Blue and knew it was the way to go. It’s a little on the dark side, but it’s still coastal looking and light, and it made the white trim pop. Two days later, I had primed and painted two coats. We put the bed back where it belongs and, once again, I thought it was done.

And then a few weeks later we brought home a Ranarp floor lamp from Ikea for the living room. It’s really perfect for a house like this– visually light yet not bland, a little unusual, and with antique touches like the black and white braided cord. When I saw that there was a sconce in the collection too (and that it was $20!), I added it to the ever-growing list and eventually picked up two while we were visiting M’s parents in Virginia a few weeks ago. I also ordered this “No Sleep ‘Til Breuckelen” print which combines M’s love of weird maps and the history of New York with our house’s Dutch roots. I think the wall needs two other pieces to flank the print… it’s a bit too small right now.

The Ranarp sconces were ridiculously easy to install, even though everyone’s favorite blue-and-yellow store fails to package them with screws or anchors. Luckily I had some extras and the whole project only took about an hour.

I absolutely love the detail in these sconces! Good job Ikea!

The only thing that’s left in here is to spray paint those cabinet pulls a black gloss and order the curtains. I’m waiting for West Elm to run a sale…. pretty please?

Anyways, I love the room and the journey it’s taken so far. What do you think?

Cheers,

❤ v

Bathroom Progress!

We’ve been in the house for about two months and the first room I’ve really tackled (aside from a quick paint job) is the bathroom. I outlined in this post some of the issues and inspiration, and I mostly kept to what I’ve posted so far.

Here is what the bathroom looked like during our initial walkthrough:

And right after move-in:

And here is what it looks like today:

Obviously the biggest change is the paint color. It took a coat of Kilz Low-VOC primer and two coats of Behr “Watery” (#HDC-CT-26) on the walls, and a coat of Behr “Snowfall” (#W-F-600) on the wainscoting. The color is lovely and really removed a lot of the caveyness from the room.

After the first coat of primer, it wasn’t looking too pretty (sorry for color balance… removing the two sconces left me with only one (very warm) bulb in the whole room, and I’m not smart enough to take pictures during daylight hours). You can also see in the photo below that the door frame was actually never painted, just either stained white or covered with a very thin coat of cheap paint. It bugged me from the moment we moved in, so getting to the point where I was painting it was such a relief.

Anyways, primer. I should have used a second coat, but I was scraping the bottom of this can (literally) and, being the great planner that I am, had no way to get more for at least a week. So I just let it dry overnight and went ahead with paint.

I also removed every single piece of hardware– towel bars, hooks, ring, pulls, hinges, latches, etc– and patched those holes. None of the (ugly) nickel stuff was in a good spot, so the replacement pieces will all be in different locations. Might as well start off with a clean slate, right?

The rusty, paint-covered old hardware was another fun project.

I don’t want to say that I’m channeling Nicole Curtis, but I do believe that if the hardware has lasted in this house for 90 years, there is no reason it isn’t good enough to stay for another 90. I soaked everything in baking soda and hot water, but what resulted was not what I’d hoped. Instead of being a beautiful polished brass like the hinges in the dining room, the hardware was all rusted out and appeared to have been chrome plated at some point, but now was just a rusty mess.

I sanded them all the way down and found something I’ve never seen before– the latch part was solid brass while the base was steel. Nifty! And even though part of me just wanted to leave it there, the other part really wanted a matching bathroom, so I covered the brass parts with painters tape and sprayed the rest oil rubbed bronze. The hinges were in various amounts of disrepair and were mixed… some nickel, some brass. So I sprayed them all to match. I didn’t really want to alter anything original, but considering half of this stuff definitely isn’t (one of them is broken, two are stainless, two are brass), the least I could do is make it all match and move on (reproduction or even salvaged replacement stuff is expensive!). Meanwhile, I ordered some bronze and ceramic pulls from Restoration Hardware for the bottom half of the linen closet to match.

Once the old hardware was removed and the necessary holes were patched, I went around all the wainscoting with a sharp blade to cut away the dried, torn old caulk. I don’t know what happened in this room or when the wainscoting was installed (definitely not original) but I was just happy to see no visible water damage or mold when I peeled back the boards, and so I cleaned it up, tacked it down with a few extra nails, and recaulked. A few days later, I added a new coat of paint, and now it looks so fresh and clean.

The tub is still a work in progress. We haven’t had any contractors at all in the house yet, so I have no idea what we will eventually do here or really what our options are. So in the meantime I replaced the plastic tension rod with an ORB curved one (to match and give us more space) and ordered a tension caddy for storage. If and when we tile, we’ll replace the tension caddy with wall mounted shelving and maybe replace the shower curtain with a glass door.

The bath cart is Ikea’s Raskog, and the new sconces are from Rejuvenation. New overhead light is coming from them as well– it needed to be custom made because of the pull cord. The ceramic plate cover is from them too– I bought one for the light switch below the right sconce but of course it doesn’t fit so I need to cut down the wainscoting (or just spraypaint the existing plastic one… we’ll see).

And of course the new furniture, which was restored from it’s previous home in a washed up doily B&B…

The total cost of everything so far is around $500. Not bad, eh? Most of that is light fixtures… those things are pricey! There is still plenty to do (like re-hanging the towel rods, changing out the pocket door hardware, installing the ceiling light…) but it’s progress at least!

Cheers,

❤ v

New Old Furniture

One of my initial conundrums was filling the awkward spot next to the bathtub with something other than an Expedit (photo of previous owner’s set-up)

I briefly looked around at hook/shelf combinations but really thought we needed closed storage space for things like toilet paper and extra tissues, candles, shampoo, etc. But I didn’t want to spend much since the humidity in the bathroom is usually bad news for furniture. I couldn’t believe when I had the opportunity to walk through an old hotel that had closed and buy a few pieces at bargain-basement prices from the new owner. One piece was actually a TV stand, but it had the right dimensions and closed shelving, so I offered $30 and was accepted!

One thing I didn’t check while measuring was the actual condition of the unit. The lighting was dark and I was rushing around from room to room. When I got it home, I left it in the garage for a few weeks before actually inspecting it.

The condition was pretty appalling. Most of the other pieces from this trek are in wonderful condition considering their age and heavy use, but this one did not have that luck. Aside from being absolutely disgustingly filthy (below is the pile of paper towels used from just trying to clean it with oil soap), the large cabinet had been painted and other parts had been badly patched and stapled back together.

The large cabinet had also been (badly) painted kelly green at some point in the distant past.

But it was still a solid wood piece of furniture, and still a good price. It just meant I had to paint it– something I kind of hate doing to (mostly) unpainted antiques, but there was no way to clean this up.

I sanded it down, removed all the hardware, and spray primed (I covered the cute wooden wheels in painters tape for this step). I used the leftover navy paint from the dining room built-in project (Behr Nocturne Blue #HDC-CL-28)– it took three good coats to be totally solid. I also painted the insides of the drawers…. figured the only way to get it really truly clean was to coat it in paint after drenching it in soap (and then adding liners for good measure).

So much better already!

For the pulls, I wanted to match the style of the furniture, and the bathroom, but also be a little bit playful. Since the piece is so dark, I opted for brass instead of oil rubbed bronze (or cut glass, which was another option and already exists in other parts of the house). I wanted it to be a little bit regency, a little bit MCM, and a little bit deco/colonial. The pulls are from Lee Valley and the knobs from Anthropologie. I love them both.

If you’re wondering about the original hardware, it was 100% crap. Two of the pieces broke as I was (gently) removing them. They are like aluminum foil thickness and also not very nice looking. Out you go! (intact ones will get donated to the ReStore in case someone else needs a replacement or something). The brass hinges and door catch are original, though… just cleaned with some sandpaper and steel wool.

And just for fun, here’s the final cost breakdown:

Vintage TV stand: $30
Two drawer pulls (Leather Hardware from Lee Valley): $21
Three knobs (Streamline Knob from Anthro): $18
Paint (Behr #HDC-CL-28 leftover from the Dining Room): $0
Total: $69.00

So there you have it! I love it, do you?

Full-room photos coming soon.

❤ v

Dining Room Inspiration

The new house has three things I’ve never had before: a dining room, a backyard, and a garage. Growing up in New York City, people just didn’t have these things. You had a 4-seat compact table off your kitchen (if you were lucky) or a breakfast bar in the cramped kitchen space, or, if you’re like us, you eat on the couch in the living room. It makes for kind of an awkward thanksgiving dinner.

Our last rental had a pretty big kitchen, with plenty of room for a small dining table (it gets cramped if we actually try to seat 4 people, but usually it’s just us two). I use the table as a kitchen island as well, since I always find myself needing a little bit of extra counter space. One of the weirdest things about planning this new house is that it has both a dine-in breakfast bar and a totally separate dining room. Craziness!! (pic below of seller’s set-up)

The idea of decorating a room like this is totally bizarre to me, but it’s a really fun space! Since you only ever spend an hour-ish a day in here, and the only function is to have a table and chairs, a lot of people are more creative than they would be in their bedroom or living room.

The one thing we’ve already had a disagreement on is the light fixture. I’m so fascinated by statement lights in the dining room– because it’s really the only place where you get to hang a light fixture at eye level. My brain associates that act with art, and therefore the fixture must be the statement of the room. Or something. Also I really just like urchins and dining rooms are the only place where you don’t end up with them stabbing you in the eye.

Before you say anything, yes, the pendant in the past owner’s space is nice. But it was not included in the sale… boo. So we actually do need to find a new fixture for in here. As far as seating, I hate to say, but I actually love IKEA’s Stockholm dining collection. And I’m thinking if we keep the table and chairs neutral, I can go a little crazier on colors and decorations. Right? Right?? Right.

Not only is there a 6-ish seat dining room (maybe 8 if needed), but there are french doors that open to… my first ever patio!

I see us dining out there a lot or just sitting out with a latte, so in my grandest imagination, I’ve started considering indoor-outdoor dining spaces.

The patio isn’t in great condition. It’s on the north side of the house and there’s a big tree that keeps the area in the shade, which has made a lot of the posts rot out. So it’ll need a little TLC, but I don’t want to put too much money into it just in case we decide to add an extension. I also definitely want to paint the lattice so it doesn’t look fresh off the truck from home depot. (sorry for the glare, better photos coming soon!)

I’d also love to add a retractable awning and a portable heater. Not to be used at the same time, of course. I’m thinking that little lip above the french doors would be a good spot to build in a Markilux awning, like this:

I never really thought about wanting an outdoor space while we were house hunting. It seemed kind of silly to buy a place for the yard in an area where it’s chilly most of the year. But I keep imagining different possibilities, and honestly it is nice enough most of the time to sit out with a cup of coffee and a chunky sweater.

Can you tell I’m getting excited?

❤ v