Shades of Green

In my attempts to make this blog somewhat of a resource for you guys and not just documenting the excruciatingly slow progress that we are making, I want to share with you some of what I learn in the process.  For those that know me, you know it took a long time for me to pick a color to use for the stencil for my office wall.  I probably had close to two dozen different color swatches taped to the wall for several weeks.  I had two groups of colors, the more muted greens from the Ben Moore Historical Collection and more vibrant greens from their regular Color Preview Collection.  I was torn between feeling that I should use a muted color since the pattern itself was so bold and my usual love of more saturated greens from the first half of the twentieth century.

The bolder colors won out.  I decided to go with Stokes Forest Green and apply the paint in a brush-y streaky sort of style to soften its intensity.  I promise I'll have pictures soon.  Despite these colors looking like a color palette from Coastal Living with my current monitor settings (nothing against Coastal Living, they're just not my usual style) I swear the actual color swatches look just like colors I've seen in old houses that haven't been updated or even painted in 70 years.  There were two other greens, Egyptian Green (2043-40) and Green Gables (2041-30), that seemed like authentic early 20th century greens to me, but they were way too bold for the room and got eliminated in the first round.

So that's it, if you are looking for a green that comes from the time between the World Wars, here are seven good ones to choose from.

Office progress

Well, we've been working on my office for the past few weeks. So far we've painted the walls and trim a crisp white and the ceiling is pale blue to match the adjacent dining room. We still have to prep and paint the windows sashes-sticking with the white for those. I'm planning on stencilling an ikat pattern on the wall behind my desk. I just have to pick a green. I know the design blog world has moved beyond ikat patterns, but I wanted something "brocade-y" that worked with the Art Nouveau/Edwardian/Downton Abbey elements in the dining room but also works with the somewhat tribally rug in the office. Once it's done I think it will look really cool. Hopefully this week I can choose a color so we can wrap this up next weekend- then I can start styling it up so I can take some real pics.


In the meantime, this is the chaos that we are living with in the dining room since it now houses everything from the dining room and the office and probably some other stuff too. I'll be happy to see this cleared out.

Remember Me?

Remember when I used to blog here even if it was only a couple of times a month?  Yeah, whatever happened to that?  It's been five months already!  I suppose you're wondering what the heck I've been doing (you weren't actually wondering that, but it's my blog so I can imagine you were).  Let's see...  In addition to the three jobs I currently have, we've been doing lots of work in the yard.  Unfortunately I have no pictures to show for it because it has mostly consisted of moving plants around and since it's November, none of them look nice enough to photograph.  We transplanted all of the nice perennials from that flower bed that cut the back yard in half into our tiny front yard and planted grass in the back.  Hopefully in the spring we will have a front yard that looks like a cottage garden and a back yard with enough contiguous open space that you can actually use it!

I've been trying my hand at flower arranging.  Though admittedly that hasn't taken up enough time that I could even think of using it as an excuse for not blogging.  I've been learning a lot from reading the Flowers A-Z column on Design*Sponge. While doing some yard clean up a couple weeks ago, I gathered some clippings from the yard and put together this arrangement.

I'm really happy with how it came out.  Unfortunately it didn't last very long which brings us to the newest addition to our little abode.... KITTY!!!!!

Yes, we adopted a new kitten named Olivia.  She's adorable, a bit of a mush and a little terror around the house.  As you can see she doesn't stay still long enough to take a picture and she doesn't like to leave anything alone including flower arrangements. She is driving our other curmudgeonly cat nuts.

Also, I've been spending way to much time on Pinterest, like way too much time.  You can follow my pins from the button on the top right of my blog.  Also I've started listing links for old house renovation resources in the middle of the right hand column.  I figure some folks may want to know where (besides yard sales) you can find cool stuff for old houses.  I'll keep adding more as I find them.

So, how has everyone else been the last few months?  Is anyone still out there?  Hello?....  Bueller?...

Wow!

I usually try not to post too many images from other blogs- partly because I figure you've seen them already and partly because figuring out the original source of an image can be a real pain in the a**. This bathroom however, was too awesome not to share with you. It's from a house call over at Apartment Therapy. I love the vintage tile and the wallpaper that arches right over the ceiling, plus the orange robe (?) hanging from the door completes the 1920s color scheme.

Damn you Ikea!

One of the things I had planned on doing in our living room was replacing the tv stand with something with more storage and could blend into the backround a bit better. Since budget is tight as always, I was planning on getting the Lack shelf in white from Ikea so that it could hold all of our electronics and dvds and not compete with the other furniture in the room.

Here's the shelf in Victoria's old apartment from sfgirlbybay

A few weeks ago I noticed that there was an error on the page on the Ikea website. Last week I went down to Ikea and discovered that they had discontinued it and they didn't have any left! I can't believe it! It's one of their classics. Now I'm not sure what I'm going to use instead. I want the look of a low white bench that can run behind whatever chairs I wind up getting for the room, and I'd consider making something but I really don't need another project.

Any ideas?

Dining Room

Here's a few spring changes that I've made to our dining room. A few happy tulips on the table,
a branch I brought in after doing some pruning outside,
and a new/old bar cart that I practically killed my hands stripping and repainting over the weekend.
Is it too early for a drink?

Weekend Finds

So this weekend I found myself at two of the best estate sales I think I've ever gone to. I say I found myself as if I had no idea of the Saturday morning routine that got us there. Anyway, I got a bunch of paint by number paintings for only $5. There was one more of a seascape, but I gave that one to my aunt for her beach house. The moose (moose!) one is my favorite because it isn't finished so you can still see some of the numbers. I'm not sure where these are going yet, but I'm sure they'll find their way into the rotating art collection in the house. The moose one will probably get stored until next winter since I'm not sure I'll want to look at snowy scenes in the summer (I don't even want to look at the snowy scenes outside my window right now!)

Yes, that is an incredibly large desk lamp, well floor lamp really, but I thought it was too cool to pass up. I'm pretty sure I saw one of these on one of those all white Scandi-blogs recently. The Aalto-esque three legged stool (though it looks two-legged in this picture) was found a another sale. I'm not sure where he will wind up. I have a feeling some major furniture rearranging is going to be happening in the near future.


And yes, I finally found a pair of matching lamps for my office desk. They are shiny, but slightly pitted brass which I'm totally okay with. I like that they show some age. Please ignore the shade, I just grabbed something to see what size will look best. I'm thinking a natural linen drum shade to tie in with the dining room which is connected to the office. They'll wind up costing more than the lamps themselves. Now I really have to get moving with painting the office!

I did get a few other things, an art deco hand mirror, a necklace and an opalescent glass container (which you can see a bit of in the first picture), but they aren't nearly as cool as these. There was also some gardening done this weekend, but now it's snowing so... well... crap.