yay or nay : white walls

Source: designsponge.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

If you spend much time on pinterest or design sponge, as I do, you may notice that most of the spaces highlighted in the past few months show white walls. Variations on white, of course, but white nonetheless.

I'm a fan of different gradients of white in a house because I think it sets a sweet background for furniture and art. Hawk hates white (he couldn't even stand the basement hallway when it was painted last March) so we avoid it in the house, but I like it for a room here and there. I especially like how this couple worked big wall color into a house with primarily white walls.

I think the white thing can and has been overdone in recent weeks, though. And it's interesting to consider how Pantone's Spring 2013 color forecast will influence what we do in our homes.

Source: pantone.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

What do you think? Yay or nay to white walls in a home?

icj,
`j

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ombre curtains & changes in the nest

Good morning!

I recently came across this bedroom design renovation on that ever-popular, tried-and-true site DesignSponge, and I'm positive I can pull off an ombre creation sometime this late spring or early summer. Which will give me time to figure out what colors to use.

Aren't they lovely? They're from Anthropologie and this version is currently out of stock, or discontinued, who knows. But I must respectfully say that they are not worth $200+ for both panels. Come on, people.

So I'm going to try to make it happen.

Don't believe me? Well, we're making some changes around here at the Hawks' house. Here's Hawk late last night, beginning to cut our living room:

Some just in time for Baby Obie's arrival--which should be in 4 weeks, give or take a day.

• The carpet will be installed in the basement this Wednesday, which means the basement will be done aside from decorating. Holy mackeral, batman.
• We're ordering a new living room rug from Crate & Barrel. I scoured the web in search of another just like it and found only those with a x3 the price tag attached. Yuck. So I feel we're making a really good decision with C&B.
• We're painting the living room. Oh yes, we are. And after that, most likely after newborn matters have settled into the infant stage, we're also painting the dining room, the stairwell and hallway, and full bathroom. Yes, we painted everything only 2.5 years ago. But what is the point of a starter home if you can't play around? Besides, I now hold firmly to the design rules mentioned in this post.
• We're purchasing furniture for the living room since we're using almost all hand-me-downs or cast-offs or a combination of both and we-had-this-in-college. Yes, we are in our 30's. Or at least Hawk will be next month and I hit that brilliant milestone in 2010. 

I can't wait to show you an updated basement, the new living room color once it is finished, and the rug once it arrives!

Have a lovely Monday, friends.

icj,

`j

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coffee table redo: you know you're nesting when...

Yesterday was my last real day of work. Though Ace hasn't arrived, I've begun taking my maternity leave. I need to be back by a certain day in January regardless of when Ace arrives, so rather than waste time in the office (I worked ahead to finish everything through the end of January) and lose some of that time off, I decided enough was enough: I am staying home.


But before going into work yesterday, I got antsy. I took one look at our coffee table and decided: today is the day! I am finally going to paint the coffee table.


So I did.


Here's what it looked like before:

And here it is today.

I used the same primer and paint (Behr mixed to Sherwin Williams Alabaster) that we've used throughout the rest of the house. One coat primer. Proper drying time. Two coats paint with 4 hour drying time in between. Success! And I used that foam roller I've loved since the kitchen redo.

I really need to figure out how to take more appealing shots with my point-and-click, but you get the idea. It makes a total difference in the room! Brighter, cleaner, more composed. Now all the room's wood materials are either very dark or painted white. We love it. I thought Hawk would come home and shake his head in dismay (I wouldn't have blamed him), but he really likes it! 

Keep entering the giveaway. You have until midnight tonight!


icj,
~j

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kitchen update part III

Today's post is about hardware. As you can see in the photo below, our original kitchen cabinet hardware was spiffy. 

And by spiffy, I mean, 70's.

You can also see that fabulous radio/CD player that was stashed under the window cabinets. 

So after a couple of coats of paint and primer, our cabinets took on this look:

And to paint those cabinets (see more on that here), we had to remove every screw, latch, and pull. Here's a small collection, just to give you an idea:

From piles such as this, I identified 4 different sizes of screw:

and sorted them into manageable piles for later work:

We considered repainting the existing hardware, but nixed that idea in a jiffy. We were willing to paint the hinges (it took me 7 minutes to remember just now what they're called) rather than spend money on them---after all, this is our experiment/transition kitchen until we can afford to redo the entire thing (a.k.a., pipe dream).

First, I laid out half of the hinges on one of our extra Crate & Barrel boxes:

We sprayed with this primer, in white, because we figured with all the use they'll get, we wanted that paint to stick "good":

Which created this effect after one coat:

We applied two light dustings to get the desired effect.

Then, we applied a metallic spray paint to get that "older, but still sharp" look that works with a more cottage style, in black.

The after effect:

You'll notice at the bottom of the photo, there are strips instead of hinges. We knew we wanted to leave some of the cabinets open, and the shelving involved metal adjustment strips. We didn't want them to be visible, so we painted the suckers.

We chose to paint all hardware the same, which I mention just in case anyone thinks we're amatuerish enough to paint the white cabinet hinges white and the black cabinet hinges black.

More later this afternoon!

icj,

~j

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kitchen update part II

Thanks for checking out the kitchen update part I yesterday! We're on to part II.

Most opinions offered centered around an entirely white paint job, but I figured this was the time to experiment! I searched a number of sites and magazines, and when I saw this photo, I knew I had my inspiration:

via theletteredcottage

After pulling off the cabinet doors and hardware and painting the walls with a satin Behr Limestone, I pulled out the drawers to prime and paint. Here they are with the first coat of primer:

Then, I yanked out the marble-looking contact paper that coated each drawer. Here's a side-by-side before-and-after shot:

After ripping it from every drawer, I had two piles like this in our dining room.

We placed them face up in the dining room to air dry. You can see the remnants (or beginnings of) the kitchen on the floor. We used the same Sherwin Williams Alabaster (mixed at Home Depot by Behr) on the drawers and cabinets that we used throughout the whole house on trim, chair rails, and ceilings.

Here are the top cabinets with two coats of Alabaster. Note to readers: we had two coats of primer and 2-3 coats of paint! The older wood drank everything right up, and to ensure that we didn't miss anything through each coat, we applied an upper coat to lock things in place.

Also, and this is important, I used a foam roller on everything in the kitchen. Mom Hawk got me hooked on foam rollers when she taught me to prime the cabinets (yes, everyone needs a real lesson from an experienced painter!). Here's my baby now:

I ended up using it's big sister in the green and blue rooms, though I wouldn't recommend using it with colors like blues and reds because the colors are so finicky, and foam rollers tend to cover well but pick up paint that has already been laid down. 

Now, if you went back up to the inspiration photo, you might have noticed that it showed a black kitchen. We're getting to that in a moment. 

I knew I wanted one set of cabinets to stand out. At first I thought of painting the bottom cabinets on both sides of our galley a pale french blue, but after I saw that photo, I went bolder. Here's the funny part---Layla of theletteredcottage has recently painted her black cabinets with Alabaster tops and pale blue bottoms! What are the chances!

Anyway, I was struck by her application of corbels to the base of the black cabinets. It made me think of an old built-in cottage kitchen. So we chose to single out one side of the kitchen, and one area of that one side: the cabinets surrounding the window.

Here is after three coats (the first two were satin, the second was a semi-gloss):

Alright, that's a good dollop for one day. Join us tomorrow for Etsy Friday, and next week, we'll explain painting tile and show you the final photos!

Well, final in that we haven't fixed that light hanging above the window (it still looks exactly like that) or those hanging from the ceiling, and one of the shelves needs to be cut down to size. But people encouraged us to show the in-progress shots (thank you Anna!), so we're gonna do it!

icj,

~j

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kitchen update part I

the Galley kitchen: straight, narrow, efficient, and somehow still quite inviting. We have a very small kitchen and yet, when we have guests (even 40 at a time) the majority gather in our itty bitty galley kitchen.

Before: When we inherited our galley kitchen, it looked like this:

The previous owners took very good care of the place, but it still harbored either the original cabinetry or the 70's version.

It also sported an evergreen tile backsplash, under-cabinet radio, and tons of counter space. . . That last one was a bit sarcastic.

Here it is from another angle:

We couldn't afford to do a full renovation, and frankly, we weren't even sure what we would want to do just yet (other than bumping out the back wall).

So we did the next best thing: we painted. We changed hardware. We stripped the inside of doors. We painted tile.

But first, we moved in. This is what it looked like for the first few weeks, and it drove me crazy. You can see in the background we had already begun to paint the dining room (the green is gone) and having the kitchen in such chaos, with it looking so much like someone else's, I couldn't stand it.

Thankfully, my family complied. I spent a day clearing the cabinets of their doors and hardware. And we opened a bottle of Dr. Hawk's choice wines. Here are the boys, posing for all their glory.

Then, Mom Hawk showed me how to properly prime the cabinets, and I got to work.

We painted the walls (forgot to take photos of that phase) which you can sort of see in the photo below. The color is Limestone by Behr. It looks rather gray here but in true light, it has a hint of green that gives the room a lighter, brighter feel.


And placed the first-coat painted cabinets here:

And here:

That's about all we can handle for tonight (don't want that browser crashing with all these photos). More tomorrow!

icj,

~j

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it's all in the way you look at it

Well, no, it's not.


Since we purchased this home, we've learned a great deal about lighting. More than any other material, paint changes from light to light. And we're not just talking daylight to nightlight. We mean that paints can practically jump colors from location to location.


Mom Hawk paints a lot. A lot. Her house, her friends' houses, and now her family's houses. So she knows a heck of a lot about looking into the light. When we were trying to decide which color white to choose for our ceilings and trim, we thought it would be a cinch. She had some extra trim paint from her house, so she brought it over and began to paint one corner of the ceiling. When Jen returned, WOW. It looked yellow. Not white, yellow. And yet in her home, it pops a bright white!


Our favorite youngsters, Sherry and John, were the first non-family members to give us an idea of how important it is to see paint chips throughout the day, at the angle you'll paint them. So if you're painting on the ceiling, you have to tape it to the ceiling:

younghouselove

So one Friday afternoon, Mom Hawk and I (jen) grabbed up all the white paint chips (a.k.a. color stack) from the paint stores and ran around the house in different lights trying to figure it out. We chose a very happy, clean, muted, eggshell sort of white: Alabaster from Sherwin Williams. We also took her advice and grabbed the semi-gloss version (also what YHL discovered after a few tries).


Remember a few weeks back we mentioned how the green room was transforming here? And how I matched the wall? 

Remember how we complained about this light?

Yuck yuck yuck!

And it made our green room look like this?

Drumroll, please....look what a distortion it causes compared to natural light!

That natural light shot has not been adjusted in any way other than to add our tag. Here's another angle:

And the natural reveal!

Crazy, isn't it? I find that with that nasty light, we rarely enter the Green Room. But in the daytime (when we're home during the day) we keep ducking in to take a look because it's so light and inviting.

And it isn't just about taking a photo during the day vs. night. It's really just a bad light! So to eliminate any further issues when we change it out, we plan to purchase a few, test them, test different light bulbs in them, and only then make a real decision.

Thank you for being patient with our lack of posting this week! We're back in full swing.

icj,

~j

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no green thumb, but one green room

Hawk calls it his "man room". I call it the future-nursery (should we be so lucky). We both consider it the office. Why we need an office, I don't know, but we're going to have one and we want one. And what else are we going to put in it at this time? Right. So it's an office.


Here are a few in-process pics:

Note: the room used to be purple. PURPLE. And we took these photos at night, so the green looks a wee bit like a Sour Apple Jolly Rancher. I swear it looks better in person. In light. And yes, HE chose the color. He loves this room the way I love the kitchen.

Here's Hawk "cutting," as Mom Hawk taught us:

A completed wall: Hawk "cut" and J rolled.

Hawk admiring his handywork. Where did the word, "handiwork" come from? And why must it be spelled with an "i" instead of a "y'?

No, I had NO idea that I matched the wall color. Ugh. I'm a jolly rancher...

More on dinner party prep tomorrow. Check out YoungHouseLove's comment below!

...(oh, that looks REALLY green...I swear! It's better in person. In daylight!)

icj,

~j

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color me shady part 1: r e d r u m . . .

Our first painting decision and greatest painting dilemma came in the form of a red room.  Jen's  favorite color is red, Hawk finds red dining rooms classy yet bold.  We knew it had been done in just about everyone's dining room since 1997, and many a mover-friend remarked, "Well, at least you'll fit in," but we still wanted to go ahead with it.  Here's an example of the color Hawk had in mind:

Here's more of what I had in mind, minus the stripes---think overall look:

painting lesson #1:  Think as a pair and go with what you like as a couple, even if it is unoriginal.  We received a lot of friendly criticism (mostly from my home-owner friends), but we forged ahead anyway and are grateful we made that decision.  The question for homeowners shouldn't be, "How do we make this totally unique and new?"  I believe it should be, "How do we take pride in our work here, what do we want to convey to those who visit, and what do we actually want to see everyday?"  We knew we wanted our guests to feel warm and comfortable in our home.  We wanted to see life from room to room.  And we wanted to do the work ourselves.  For us, the decision to go red was a no-brainer.


{the devoted detail} When we first moved in together (after our wedding) Jen thought she would have the say in the majority of decorating, but we soon discovered that Hawk also wanted a say in the look and feel of the house.  The male-female territorial stereotypes were clearly not holding ground here.  After a little humbling reflection, Jen concluded this: What would I rather have in 20 years: a home that always reflected one person in the union (lets say for argument's sake that Jen is an incredible decorator), or story upon story of the struggle it took to make it our home and the evidence of a family?  So even though her shade of red was better (wink wink), we concluded that the unified front made for a better home for us.

In coming posts, I'll include a photo of the original dining room as well as some of the reds we considered.

upcoming painting lessons: {sneak peek}  painting lesson #2: where's waldo?

~j

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