State Of The Bedroom Address

Well, it's been a solid two months since we started demo on the third bedroom project and nearly a month since my last post.  We've been very busy at work (I won't bore you with the details) and we're also experiencing the appallingly early beginning of the rainy season.  Our old sofa is now sitting squarely on the third bedroom's still-unfinished floor along with a chair I scored when my friend M moved cross-country (more on both of those later).  All of these things sort of combined to mean I have absolutely zero acceptable photos of the now-painted walls and ceiling in the bedroom.  Either we're too busy or it's too dark out or I'm too embarrassed by our lack of progress to photograph it.  But today I'm sucking it up, so get ready for the first (crappy) photos of the paint job.  And I have to say, I'm very proud of my drywall.  To badly paraphrase classic horror villain Jame Gumb, I'd hire me.  

First, let's go back to the beginning of this project just to remind ourselves of how it used to feel in this room.  I present this photo without comment:

Now, if you'll pardon the dark photos, a bit of before and after...

Northwest corner then:

Northwest corner now:

 
North wall then:

 North wall now:

 Ceiling then:

 Ceiling now:

 So in case you're wondering, yes, I totally painted it almost-white.  It's actually the same color as the living room (Behr's Irish Mist), and once we get some nice glossy white trim going on in there, it should look a bit more like the pale gray it actually is; here's an old shot of the wall color / trim color contrast in the entryway.  Hi y'all!

The only reason the ceiling color and wall color appear so identical in the above photos of the bedroom is that it's dark in there right now.  The Pacific Northwest is tough for interior photography, and/or I have no idea how to artificially light a space before photographing it. 

So what's left to do?  A lot.  

First, flooring.  We're hoping to tackle that soon, but we need to get the old sofa out of there.  I've found a buyer who wants to come get it next weekend.  

[So, yeah, side note: after a couple of days of sitting on the new couch, we noticed that the giant gap in the cushions magically closed up-- the manufacturer assured me it would happen, and it did-- and the down has relaxed quite a bit, which makes the thing really comfortable.  Photos next time I clean the living room, I promise.] 

Anyway, the flooring I found was both budget-friendly-ish and a really close match to the hardwood in the rest of the house; like, it's close enough that I'd put it in the kitchen right next to the original flooring.  We've got the underlayment and we're ready to get started as soon as possible, but when you live in a 1350 square-foot house, there just aren't a ton of places for your old sofa to hang out.

After flooring, trim.  And that's going to be quite the project.  To make a long story short (too late), there are some big molding challenges in here, and we're going to have to get creative.  One of the many things we need to address is the pipe that feeds our outside spigot-- it sticks up through the floor and exits the house under the big window.  I'm currently leaning towards using this IKEA Besta unit to cover up the problem; I'd need two of those and one of the matching half-width ones to span the wall under the window.  They're available with pretty Shaker-style drawers; so they'd make GREAT storage if we chose to go that route; we could also go drawer-less and use the shelf space since, as two academics sharing 1350 square feet, we are under constant threat of being buried beneath a pile of books.  We'll add trim to make them look built in (there'd be a three-inch space on either side we'd have to cover with trim, no big deal) and I think they'll look nice and intentional rather than DIYed-because-of-the-spigot.

That's all for now-- tonight we're off to hear an author talk about his memoir, "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City."  Living four blocks from a major university definitely has its perks.

Thisclose

Please pardon the lack of a weekend post-- I've found, as it happens, that I'm a terrible blogger.  I can really only post once or twice a week, as:

1) this blog is about our house projects and in order to write a post I must first complete a project, 

2) I have a full-time job that requires a considerable amount of my energy, 

3) blogger.com doesn't work with my iPad for some reason so I have to use my husband's laptop to post, 

4) we live in a place where it's generally pretty dark (hence its attractiveness to roving bands of sparkly-skinned vampires), and there's rarely good natural light to photograph completed projects, 

5) our camera is old and crappy and takes HIDEOUS yellow flash photos, and its shutter speed is too slow to go flash-less unless there is glaring natural sunlight flooding the space (see number four), and

6) a lot of the projects we do aren't cool or glamorous enough to warrant an entire post.

But this week's lack of a post wasn't due to any of those reasons.  It's because we actually took a quick, desperately-needed vacation to Northern California's redwoods with some friends this weekend.  It was great-- we stayed in a cute bed and breakfast and hiked miles and miles through old-growth redwood forests.  We walked along a herd of grazing elk (it was the only way to get back to the car) and, post-hike, ate an awesome alfresco feast of bread and cheese.  Epic two-day vacation if I do say so myself.

And now we're home, a little sunburned and pretty tired, to enjoy a week "off" between semesters (it's not really a week off when you have to grade finals and make syllabi for the next term's courses, is it?).  And I was really, really happy to walk into the new, fresh, white-ceilinged, fully-baseboarded, Groban-walled guest bedroom.

As always, please pardon the shitty quality of these photos:

Which brings us to the next set of decisions: what the hell are we going to put in this room?  As I may have mentioned once or thirty-seven times, this furniture is beat.  My mom and I were discussing the other day that we have a tendency to keep furniture we hate, and we decided it's time to make some changes on that front.  Mom stepped up to the plate by getting rid of an enormous armoire that had been hogging all the real estate in one of her guest rooms, and now it's my turn.  Presently in the guest room and soon to possibly make their debut appearances on Craigslist are:

1) The dresser you see in the top photo above.

It has three big drawers that make it entirely impossible to be organized-- who only has three categories of clothing?  Other than that, there's nothing wrong with it, and I really don't dislike it but I can't make it work in that room, so I think it's going to get the boot in favor of a low, six-to-eight drawer midcentury modern piece to go on the long wall.

2) The little side table in the second photo.

I use it as a desk and vanity, and it's just too damned small to be of any use.  Its tiny drawer is crammed with crap, and the basket underneath it (which holds my blowdryer, makeup bag, and a tangle of cords and phone chargers) looks sloppy.  I'm hoping to find something cool to use in its stead.  Ideas?

3) The futon you can't see in any of those photos, but it looks identical to this:

It's not horrible, and really, it has to stay for now because we're not on the market for another queen-sized bed.  But just for the record, I don't like it.  It came with my husband.

4) The rug that's in there.  

I actually really like this rug, but I don't like it in this room.  So it's off to the third bedroom too.   Eventually.

I'm kind of attached to the little bookshelf sitting under the window-- it used to hold my grandmother's Encyclopedia Brittanicas, and now it holds all some of my Spanish literature books from grad school.  It's kind of nice to see Pepita Jiménez every morning while getting ready for work.

Several months ago, I went to turn off the overhead light in the guest room, and the switch broke-- meaning that the light was still on even though the switch was in the off position.  Normally I'd totally try and fix that myself, but not in this old house-- we have an electrician coming on Wednesday to take care of a whole host of electrical issues / ugly lights.  So anyhow, new ceiling fixture going in there this week.  

And the hunt for new furniture is on!

Be Our Guest

I've got to admit that the guest bedroom has been bothering me for a long time.  When we moved in, both the ceilings and walls were badly damaged and painted a shiny, yellow-brownish white.  There were no baseboards, and the quarter-round that was there in their stead had been abused by countless sloppy paint jobs.  But I thought that once I painted the walls, I'd stop getting that sad, icky feeling when I walked in there.  It didn't happen.  I tried rearranging the furniture (all of which I hate), thinking that might change the vibe.  No dice.  I tried the big jute rug I bought in October, hoping that maybe a nice neutral ground was all it needed.  Nope.  

But this weekend I figured out what was so awful in there.  I'll provide the following photo and see if you're smarter than I am:

I'd tried all my tricks: new wall color (which I like), fresh white trim, new blinds, you name it.  But if you look at the picture above you'll see what I now know was the root of all the evil in there:  the ceiling color.  Here's another view, this time over the entry door, so you can see the contrast between the trim color and the ceiling color:

I knew it was bad, but I didn't know HOW bad until Friday, when I second-coated the walls (just one month after finishing the first coat-- whatever, I don't have a lot of free time).  Then I moved all the furniture into the center of the room and began to cut in around the vents and the walls.  Here's a view in which I've cut in with the new white ceiling paint.  I think you'll agree the difference is drastic:

Please forgive if the paint has a bit of a pink tinge-- it goes on pink so you can see where you've painted, then dries white (brilliant!), and I was too excited to wait for total drying before I took the picture.  I mean, it is a HUGE difference.  

Yesterday I cut in again (the ceiling clearly hadn't been painted in a long time and it was pretty thirsty) and first-coated it.  Again, once I realized what a major change it was, I couldn't stand to wait for it to dry completely before I photographed-- but I think the following photo, pink-tinged and all, shows how much more light the room seems to get with its new matte white ceiling:

[And don't worry-- that boob light is on its way out.  The light switch in that bedroom died, and we don't want to mess around with the electrical in this old house (last time we tried to change a fixture, we found ELEVEN WIRES stuffed into a junction box, and I'm not trying to burn this place down) so this week we're calling the electrician to 1) hang our new dining room fixture, 2) fix the guest bedroom light switch, 3) hang the guest bedroom fixture I bought months ago, and 4) uncouple the electrical outlets from the sconces in the bathroom so we can change them out for something slightly less hideous.]

Today, I second-coated the ceiling and here it is drying in all of its pepto-pink glory:

  

Oh, notice anything else new in that photo?  BASEBOARDS!  We're half-done with the install at the moment-- we sprayed some Great Stuff (jury's out on whether or not it is actually great) in some HUGE gaps between the wall and floor on the south wall, and now we have to wait for it to fully cure before we can install baseboard over it.  Here's a picture so you can see what I'm talking about:

 

See it there at the base of the right-hand wall?  When we sprayed it we didn't realize it needed eight hours to cure-- we just got all excited after we pried off the ugly quarter-round and started spraying it in there-- and you can't sand it flat until after it cures.

So I was hoping to have a completed guest bedroom to show you tonight, but I think we'll be baseboard-ing that wall tomorrow.  After that, curtains, rug, maybe cute slipper chair, maybe I sell the old furniture on Craigslist and buy myself a cool midcentury dresser or a nice antique writing table.  Slow and steady wins the race. 

Gettin' Busy in the Bedrooms; or, Groban

I've accomplished a lot decor-wise in the master bedroom over the course of the past seven days.  I think at this point we're going to call it done reno-wise, even though I still want a new duvet cover.  Want want want want want.  Anyhow, this photo-- a view from the hallway-- shows some of the progress:

Check out our new baseboards!  Aren't they pretty? 

Also, I moved my great-grandmother's painting and hung up a painting I did several years ago-- it's that top one there.  That's the house we lived in in New Haven.  The painting itself isn't exactly amazing, but I like the colors and it goes with our stuff-we-love-for-sentimental-reasons theme in the bedroom.  Like  that Windsor-y chair that my grandmother found somewhere and refinished (well, she stripped and refinished the top rail and painted the rest black)-- the only other place I've ever seen chairs like that was at Greenfield Village in Detroit, where Henry Ford exactly recreated the Thomas Edison's lab with help from former Edison employees.  It's full of those chairs.  So as far as I'm concerned that is DEFINITIVE PROOF that my chair is from the original Edison lab.  Don't even try to convince me otherwise.

And you're also seeing one of my four new charcoal-gray velvet curtains.  I went to World Market-- which is a totally boss source for inexpensive, long-wearing, light-blocking velvet curtains-- and picked them up today.  When I got home, I moved the brackets so they're now about 11" out from the window on either side as opposed to about 4" before-- I didn't want the curtains to block any light during the day, and this way they're completely off the windows when open.  Then I switched out the curtain rods for some more substantial ones I already had and reattached the finials from the old rods.  The finials' screws were a little too small for the new rods, so I wrapped the screws with some Teflon pipe tape (the magic of owning a home with old crappy plumbing = you always have random plumbing supplies that are useful for other projects) to make them fit.  Next I gave the curtains a once-over with my handy steamer (I quickly learned while working in retail that if you don't have a steamer you don't have jack-- seriously, they're not expensive and they are LIFE-ALTERINGLY convenient) to knock off the wrinkles, and voila.  The above photo makes them look sort of purpley-black, and all the other photos I took are too blurry to use, so I'll have to add something later.  But really, it's an improvement.

I've also been busy in the guest room, which I've been studiously ignoring since we moved in-- I just haven't been able to decide what to do in there.  I finally picked a paint color that isn't exactly greige-- instead, it's a blue-greige that my friends have nicknamed "Groban" because that's a good combination of "gray" and "brown," and it's also the last name of a famous person.  The color is really Behr's Pensive Sky, but I'm going to go with Groban.  

In order to apply the Groban (I first-coated last night), though, I had to do a lot of prep work.  For the past week, I've been painting the trim and trying to make some sense out of what's happened to the walls in there.  Here's a picture of what the west wall looked like after two applications (and subsequent sandings) of drywall mud-- spackle wasn't man enough for the divots in these walls:

   

All that white is joint compound.  And the color you see in the corner and on the walls is my main man Groban.  You see, someone had filled some of the enormous divots, but s/he applied the spackle with some sort of notched trowel and then failed to sand the patches.  So basically it looked like the walls were covered with little Ruffles potato chips.  And also tons of other divots that weren't filled.  And whoever drywalled this room evidently didn't know that you have to tape the joints, so you can see a horizontal line where I had to re-fill the seams between two pieces of sheetrock.  Yesterday morning I made a final sanding push (which was HORRIBLE because I hate sanding).  Here's what I looked like when I finished.  Check out my dusty hands and jeans and slippers and gross ponytail and all the sand-dust on the floors:

Photos of Groban coming tomorrow!

The Epic Saga Of The Entry Closet

I thought when I started the entry closet project that it would take, like, three hours and then I could do a nice fatty gratifying blog post with a major (if not earth-shatteringly important) before-and-after.  But, like so many things in life, that is not at all what happened.  Here's a quick timeline of the closet project, followed by a disappointing "after" photo.  I'll explain that later.

Friday, January 4:

I return to Oregon following our epic national tour, and I decide to paint the inside of the entry closet.  This'll take no time at all, right?  I spend the evening looking at entry-closet makeovers on the Internet and struggle to stay awake until 9pm-- I'm still on East Coast time.

Saturday, January 5:

I wake up at the crack of dawn (East Coast time again) and make a plan.  I'll take the two shelves out of the closet and clean everything thoroughly, then I'll give everything a quick coat of primer (I'm pretty sure the walls have never been painted, and the supershiny barf-colored trim paint might be oil-based).  Then I'll be ready to hit the Home Depot when it opens-- I'm out of trim paint and I need to pick out a color for the walls.

So I try to remove the shelves.  For four hours.  They are wedged in so tightly that there is no possible way to coax them out.  At one point I manage to finagle the bottom shelf so it's now on top of the top shelves.  [I still have NO IDEA how I did that-- I somehow crossed the upper ledger board?]  I'm sweaty and I've swallowed a lot of the old gross dust that's been falling down while I attempt to wrangle the shelves.  I bang on them with a hammer.  I contemplate sawing through them, but they're pretty sturdy and I know that'll take a million years.  At noon, I give up and start priming the back of the door and the trim.  When I finish an hour later, I try to unwedge the shelves again.  Not happening.  So I start priming around them.  It is not efficient.

By bedtime I've succeeded in doing nothing but forcing the shelves into a crazy configuration-- they are all suspended well above the ledger boards at weird angles.  [I now wish I'd taken some pictures, but at the time I felt too stupid to break out the camera.]

Sunday, January 6:

I wake up and decide that-- even though I think it will be entirely pointless-- I'll have to try pulling the ledger boards off the walls so I can maybe angle the shelves enough to remove them.  Miraculously, after removing just one ledger board, I'm able to yank them all out within thirty seconds.  I prime all around where I wasn't able to while the shelves were stuck inside, then I head to the Home Depot and pick up my trim paint and get some samples of peacock-blue paint.

I finish out the day by first-coating all the trim and the tops of each shelf.  I paint big squares of two different peacock blues on the wall.  I pick one.  Now we're getting somewhere.

Monday, January 7:

First day of a new semester.  I bounce stumble out of bed at 6am and spend the day edifying the next generation.  When I get home at 2:30 I change into my paint clothes and second-coat the trim.  This is taking a lot longer than I thought.

Tuesday, January 8:

After teaching a full day, I go back to the Home Depot to get a quart of peacock blue.  Our town has recently banned plastic bags and paper bags cost a nickel, and of COURSE I've forgotten my reusable shopping bags, so I struggle to carry my freshly-mixed paint, a new roller head, and a little mini-roller (I've always wanted one) to the car.  While I fish for my keys in my pocket, I drop something in the parking lot.  Is it is the roller head?  Nope.  The mini-roller?  Not a chance.  It's the quart of peacock-blue paint and IT. GOES. EVERYWHERE.  The nice people in the Home Depot assure me that this "happens all the time."  Right.  They mix me another quart of paint.  Thanks you guys.

I get home and first-coat the closet.  The paint vanishes into the walls immediately.  Argh.

Wednesday, January Jones 9:

I second-coat the closet walls and third-coat the trim after teaching, and I once again watch the paint disappear upon application.  I'm starting to tire of staring at the entire contents of the closet, which are spread around between the living room, dining room, and guest bedroom.  Why is this taking so long?

Thursday, January 10:

I give myself the day off.  I get home from work and pass out facedown on my unmade bed.  Later we meet some friends out for drinks.  It's nice to get out of the closet.

Friday, January 11:

I have a long meeting in the morning and spend the rest of the afternoon writing recommendation letters for various students.  Get home and second-coat the tops of the shelves.  Meet another group of friends for drinks in the evening.

Saturday, January 12:

After third-coating the closet, I'm relieved to see that no further coats will be required.  I stain the closet bar and replace the shelves, which fortunately are easier to install than to remove.  I hammer the ledger board back into place.  After waiting for everything to dry, I realize it's much too dark to photograph the results.  Not because it's late, but because it's winter in Oregon.  There is no such thing as sunshine.

Sunday, January 13:

Still no light to take a good photo, so I settle for this absolutely dreadful one instead:

 

Despite that fact that this is an awful photo, I'm really pleased with the final result in the closet.  I need to pick up some nice wooden hangers and stage the whole thing, and someday when the sun returns to the Pacific Northwest I'll take a few real photos and post them.  So expect to see that in, like, July.

In this shot I took before I reassembled the whole thing, you can see the little sliver of color from the sofa:

And a little reminder of where we started:

Eeeeeeew.

Our Dirty Enormous Secret

So far on the blog you've mostly seen our public spaces-- the living and dining rooms, bathroom, and master bedroom were the first things we wanted to tackle when we moved in because they're the places where we spend most of our time.  It's felt like slow going, but we're constantly amazed at how different those rooms look-- they've all been painted, the living room had a major fireplace / hearth makeover, the bathroom got a new vanity and mirror and baseboards and hardware (and lost its soffit), and in the master bedroom we've changed the closet doorknobs and the ceiling fixture and also ripped out a weird doorless cabinet.

But now, with the entry closet / distraction project in its final stages (just waiting for the paint on the top shelf to dry before we can pop it back in), we've been thinking a lot about where to go next.  And we're thinking it's time to tackle the Dreaded Third Bedroom.  

So far I've carefully avoided showing any photos of the third bedroom because it is just. so. ugly.  I mean it is UGLY.  Don't believe me?  Well, here you go:

Yeeeeaah.  So.  

The third bedroom was once our house's garage until some enterprising former owner decided to "finish" it.  It's accessed via the laundry room, which is off the kitchen, so the first major issue with the third bedroom is that it's kind of in a no-man's land.  At the moment, its location is a point against it-- it's all the way across the house from the other bedrooms and there's no bathroom nearby-- but we have big plans for this baby.

But before we get to all that, let's talk a little more about its major malfunctions.  First and foremost, its biggest downside is that it looks nothing like any of the other rooms in the house.  It's kind of like two different houses-- one cute 40's bungalow and one butt-ugly 70's basement-- are spliced together.  The third bedroom has paneling and carpet and acoustical tile where the rest of the house has plaster and hardwood and coved ceilings.  Second, at the moment it's completely useless as a bedroom-- those paneled walls aren't even insulated.  Third, it's not a huge space-- I'm estimating maybe 12' x 14'-- so it's not quite big enough to serve as a combination queen-bed guest room and office.  And as you can see, at the moment we're using it as a storage / junk room.   Here's a view through the laundry room (where I'm drying some of Ray's flannel shirts) and into the kitchen (where the closet shelves are drying):

See that uncarpeted square in front of the door?  That's pressboard tile.  Oh, you've never heard of that?  Me neither!  It's under the carpet too, and it's not even glued down, so when you walk on the carpet you sort of squish around.  So weird.  And there's also this:

 

See that brick pad on the floor there?  When we first looked at the house there was-- no joke-- a red chimenea sitting on it.  The chimenea was illegally installed and not vented to the outside, so it was removed as a condition of closing.  We were not sad to see it go.

So why tackle this room now?  

First off, this is a part of the house that we're not using at all, and that makes it a good candidate for a reno for three reasons:

1. If it takes us forever to get it done while we work full-time, that's okay-- at the end of a weekend of reno we can just shut the door and forget about it during the work week.

2. We'd like to be able to use it as an office, and while we're not currently planning to add to our family, we'll need a guest room if we do. 

3. We've thought since the minute we first saw that house that fixing the third bedroom would be a really important update for resale purposes.  If we can't use the space, neither will the next owners, and we don't want to give future buyers any excuse to not love the hell out of this place.  It's a decent-sized chuck of our square footage, and it needs to be be an attractive selling feature despite its odd location in the house.

Another reason we're eyeing this space right now: of all the major renos we need to do (kitchen, rest of bathroom, laundry room), this should be the cheapest, easiest, and most DIY-friendly.  We don't need to move or add any plumbing or electrical or HVAC, and not a lot of finesse is going to be involved.  We're not naive enough to think it's going to go 100% smoothly, but we feel like we can handle most of the work on our project list:

PHASE ONE:  DEMO

We'll rent a Dumpster and remove every surface in the room.  Gone will be the paneling, the acoustical tile ceilings, the filthy carpet, the brick pad that once supported the chimenea, and the pressboard tile floors.  To be honest, this is the only phase that worries me-- if the ceiling tiles turn out to contain asbestos, we'll have to put the whole project on hold because we don't have the extra scratch to pay a pro for asbestos remediation at the moment.  And we'll probably have to have our first jackhammering experience in order to get the brick pad up.  And I can't even imagine what sort of fresh hell is probably hiding behind that paneling.  But we'll get it done.  Right?  Won't we?

PHASE TWO: INSULATE & PREP

Walls and ceiling will both get some new insulation so the place feels less like the inside of a freezer.  The floor will likely need to be leveled.  Fun times.

PHASE THREE: PUT 'ER BACK TOGETHER

Sheetrocking shouldn't be a huge hassle in here-- the ceilings are fairly low and we should be able to drywall them without renting a drywall elevator.  We'll be dealing with big sheets of drywall that have nice factory edges for once, so the taping and mudding will be manageable.  We'll trim the windows and doors with the same kind of millwork that's in the rest of the house.  We'll use peel-and-stick faux hardwood or laminate (whatever we can find to closely approximate the oak in the rest of the house) on the floors and finish them with nice baseboard.

Not sure when we'll get started, but I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, here's a teaser shot of the entry closet in all its peacock-blue glory:

More on that tomorrow.

Trapped In The Closet

Do you love R. Kelly like I love R. Kelly?  Okay, well, I don't really love R. Kelly (though I do have some very fond Remix-To-Ignition memories circa 2002-2003) but this was the first post title that popped into my head so I went with it.

We are finally home from our long trip, and we're so happy to be back in our sweet little house.  We really, really missed it.  And we were also pleasantly surprised when we walked in and realized that the bathroom wall patch actually looks MUCH better than we remembered it looking-- over the past three weeks, it had morphed in my head from not-100%-perfect to absolutely horrible, and when I saw it again in person, I paused to literally pat myself on the back.  Okay, so there are a few places where I'm going to have to sand the enormous chunks of rogue orange-peel texture off, but all in all I'm really proud of what I did.  It required like 37 pieces of drywall and nothing was level, and I had NO factory drywall edges to work with, and given all that the end result looks pretty professional if I do say so myself.  And all my fears about the slate hearth looking awful were allayed.  I'm stupid.  Nobody else would ever in a million years see the tiny flaw that's been keeping me up all night.  So I guess sometimes you need to get away to realize that you're actually doing a good job and all your hard work is paying off.  Phew.

When I walked through the front door (for the first time in nearly a month!) on Friday, I had already half-formulated a plan for a nice little side project: the entry closet.  It's getting an interior paint job as part of The Year Of Living Colorfully-- I'll never commit to bright colors on the walls (I've seen a few too many episodes of House Hunters to fall into THAT trap) but I thought maybe I could handle one bright closet.  And the entry closet was in sad shape.

All the trim inside every closet in this house was the same color when we moved in.  I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I'd like to think the paint chip was probably labeled BABY VOMIT.  For your viewing pleasure:

  

Anyhow, you can see it has some good features-- it's a decent size and it has two very handy shelves resting on ledger boards; I'd already removed the closet bar when I took this photo but it's nice and sturdy-- but it is also utterly filthy and hideous.  The drywall was unpainted and had sixty-odd years of stains from muddy boots and God-knows-what.  The trim was a lovely shade of barf, the shelves are half-painted white, one of the ledger boards was yellow (why?).  And this leads us to yet another one of my neuroses / weird fantasies, which is  that someone really important is going to come over (like the university President or the actual President, who has some family in our town, or maybe the Queen of England because I don't know why) and I'm going to have to open the entry closet in front of this person ("Your Majesty!  May I hang up your jaunty Phillip Treacy hat?") and he/she is going to be horrified.  

That's the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night, no lie.

So I decided to paint the woodwork in there to match the rest of the trim in the house (off-the-shelf Behr Ultra Pure White) and then I went crazy and bought some peacock blue for the walls.  I thought it might complement the pops of peacock in the rug:

At present there's one coat of primer and one coat of trim paint on everything, and I've cut in with the blue.  Not too shabby considering today was the first day of a new term and I'm teaching four classes.  Next up: staining the natural-wood closet bar dark (saw this on someone's design blog ages ago and it really looked sharp), rolling the walls with peacock blue, second-coating the trim and shelves with glossy white, buying some nice matching wooden hangers, and photographing the closet for the big reveal! 

The Thrifty Gourmet-- Chinese Edition

You know when you've been trolling Craigslist FOREVER, hoping to find a set of 4-6 Chinese Chippendale dining chairs within driving distance that cost less than $550 per chair (looking at you, Jonathan Adler)?  Like, a lot less?  Because you don't have several thousand dollars to spend on trendy dining chairs?  But you sincerely doubt you'll ever find them because everyone knows they are worth a ton of money and that's why they're upwards of $1000 per set on eBay?  And why would anybody sell them for cheap when they could make a ton of money instead?

Well, maybe you don't know about that, but I do.  We've been living here for a nearly two months with no dining chairs, which probably wouldn't be a big deal if 1) we weren't staring directly at the dining room every time we sit on the sofa, which is where we've had to eat dinner since we didn't have any dining chairs, and 2) we didn't have an epic list of people whose dinner invitations we need to return.  And the chairs needed to be small (the dining room is 10' x 10' and the table is only 48" round), but not so small that a man couldn't sit comfortably.  They needed to be visually interesting since the open dining room can be seen from basically every other room in the house.  And they needed to be cheap.

I settled on Chinese Chippendales because they are SO HOT RIGHT NOW (aside to Zoolander fans: Hansel) plus Tori Spelling has them in her kitchen and I love Tori Spelling.  Is that weird? 

After weeks of obsessive / fruitless antiques-store-, thrift-store-, and Craigslist-stalking, I finally hit the jackpot.  Four Chinese Chippendale-ish chairs for $75 in Salem, OR.  A mere hour away! We picked them up immediately.

Couple of problems: one, they were cherry red.  Nothing against red really, but the shiny lacquer was just taking the whole Chinese thing a bit too literally for my taste.  Second, the red paint was in pretty tough shape.

 Our grill looks like a sad little gray ghost in the background.  Ha!  Also note the old hearth tile it's sitting on.  Awesome.  

 Bit o' damage in the paint finish.

I'm not sure what color they'll wind up in the end, as we have a lot of other, larger color-related decisions to make-- upholstery on new sofa we will someday get, new upholstery on corduroy chair, rugs, etc-- so I defaulted to my standard choice of gray.  Two packs of extra-fine-grit sandpaper, a whole Box o' Rags, and three cans of Rust-oleum later, this is what we're working with:

A herd of wild dining chairs (plus bloody-looking rags used to wipe 'em down after sanding) in captivity on our deck.

They still need more paint-- a couple of them need some light repair before the final coat, and I ran out of ammo before I fully finished spraying the last chair-- and eventually they will get cushions upholstered in something awesome for maximum Tori Spelling / Jonathan Adler-ness.  But for now they're looking pretty comfortable in the (completely unstaged, artless, accessory-free-for-the-moment) dining room. 

Definitely not loving the enormous glare from the odd desk-lamp-y light fixture in the dining room.  I've got big plans for you, buddy.  And by that I mean I'm throwing you away.  Or maybe taking you to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store where perhaps you'll be adopted by a family of people with horrible taste?