Dare I say we were PRODUCTIVE this weekend?!

Sometimes we don't have any plans for the weekend, no one to visit, nothing to do, and that's when Phillip and I look at each other and say, "FINE, LET'S FINISH THE STUPID [insert house project here]." And we're in bad moods about it too, because as nice as finishing house projects is, neither of us are what you would call "handy" and it takes forever and the kids get in the way and we disagree and that's why we probably shouldn't start them in the first place. 

But anyway. There was no small amount of shock when we finally built the ultra cheapo but uber functional bedside tables I picked up at Fred Meyer six weeks ago. 

AMAAAAAAAZING!

I bought two of these on sale, rushed home, opened the box and saw that 1) it was missing the little bag of hardware and 2) the instructional diagram was about one hundred times more impossible than Ikea instructional diagrams. So I boxed it back up, shoved it in a corner, forgot about it, lost the receipt, yeah. Until this weekend when Jack and Molly were headed to a playdate RIGHT NEXT to Fred Meyer and I started to feel guilty. They let me exchange it without giving me a hard time, probably because they knew what a PITA it was going to be to put those suckers together. 

But I think they look nice! At least they are a huge improvement over the pine TV tray-type tables we were using as nightstands. Haaaa, classy. Also, that's probably as uncluttered and un-dusty as the top of that table is ever going to be. I clean up for the internet. 

The PLAN for our bedroom is to get rid of the giant red couch and get a KING SIZE BED. OH YES. I HATH DECREED IT SO. This bed is Phillip's from the College Days and the some of the slats are broken and it's all chipped and unhappy. I want to get maybe a [king size!] black upholstered bed and add a few more pieces of supah fancy white Hemnes bedroom furniture. We have the tall dresser right now, but I'm batting my eyelashes at the long one. 

Okay, but we put the nighstands together while we waited for the PAINT to dry on the WALL HOOK TRIM. 

Did I not tell you I started a pre-K? 

Phillip bought that piece of trim eons ago and I bought the hooks eons ago, but we left everything in the garage. AS WE ARE WONT TO DO. Anyway, I made a stink about it starting yesterday and we finally got it up this afternoon. We had to mark up a lot of area with pencil, drive to a friend's house to cut the trim, get out the trim paint YET AGAIN, but it was fairly easy for us House Novices. We even managed to screw it into a few studs, totally on accident. Woo!

I still need to get a few things for the entry way walls, but otherwise it's done. No more paint or furniture or rugs. I'm quite happy with it too. All the storage choices are working out, there are decidedly fewer shoes strewn about and I'm hoping the same for coats now that the hooks are up. AND the bench is almost always available for sitting and shoe taking off/putting on. Goals: accomplished! 

I thought my next project would be Emma's room. Hers is the other bedroom on the main floor besides ours, it has huge windows and great light, high ceilings, and a Pergo floor (the only part of the house that does, curiously enough. OH THE QUESTIONS I HAVE.) I *think* I want to paint this room a darker gray (the grays I chose for the hallway and my bedroom could also be described as a "sort of dirty white?") with a lot of bright white and hot pink accents. Eventually it will be Phillip's office OR, if he feels like it, at some point I could switch out Jack for Emma, the girls would be downstairs, Jack would be upstairs and we'd keep the larger bedroom (and attached bathroom) downstairs for the office/guest room. I don't know. If I think about it too much I get all STRESSED which is RIDICULOUS because YEARS! We have YEARS! BUT WHATEVER. I think a real gray would not be too dark at all for that room and would easily accomodate Baby Girl decor, Grade School Boy decor, or Husband's Office junk. 

However! Pulling that off is overwhelming. I paint while the baby sleeps, but how do I paint if the baby is sleeping in the room I want to paint? HMMM? Maybe I should wait until she's not in the crib anymore? All the baby furniture - basically a super stained upholstered rocking chair and a much abused and half-broken Ikea dresser/changing table - needs to go at some point. Maybe I should just wait and do a Toddler Girl room? MAYBE I AM JUST COMING UP WITH LAZY EXCUSES?

In the meantime I am plotting a Pinterest-Approved Gallery Wall:

Tres boring.

This is where I used to have a shorter brown hallway table and 3 canvas frames over which I stapled obnoxiously bright and flowery fabric. It... worked? It was something? I guess. Turns out that table looks awesome in the entry way and functions much better down there. I went and bought the table I originally and always wanted for that space - the super narrow Chloe foyer table at World Market. Tis awesome. In the corner I stuck my Goodwill chair that I painted coral back when I wanted a desk and coral accents in my bedroom. (This was pre-red couch.) But all over that wall, which is quite... expansive (bad picture, but it goes up pretty high) will be FRAMED THINGS. Of all shapes/sizes. Mostly white frames, but with a few dark brown, and lots of (obvs) yellow and aqua in the pictures. I have photos, prints, Etsy printables, and artwork that isn't necessarily working in other parts of the house. I have a lot of frames already and I hope to just spray paint them white to save money. I started gathering them all up (you can see them stacked under the table) and I'm hoping to get started on that this week. I have MANY large blank expansive wall spaces in this house, but this is the only one that I really feel could pull off a large-scale gallery wall, sort of asymmetrical and not-strictly-matching, but Highly Organized. At least, that's how it looks in my head. WE SHALL SEE. 

(Oh, by the way, this is at the top of the stairs - entry way below, living room to the left, Emma's room to the right, taken from the dining room. The kids like to run laps around the stairwell. I have a weird house.) 

The Aquaway

I want you to know that I just wasted several hours of my life searching my phone and computer (and Facebook profiles and blog posts) for Before Pictures and I only found TWO. I am BEYOND IRRITATED by this. I really really wish we had somehow 1) found a way and 2) thought it IMPORTANT enough to keep the pictures of the listing from when we BOUGHT the house. Those would be worth it for the minty green living room alone. ALAS, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THOSE ARE. 

Here's the entry way before I painted it the first time, last November or December (I can't remember.) 

You can't really tell (OBVS) but the walls were kind of a yellow green color. There's a Crayola name for it, but it's not lighting up in my brain right now. MUCH of the house was this yellow green color, pastel and kind of sickly. Not my favorite. Or even close. WAIT. Now I'm wondering if these are pictures I took while the new paint was DRYING?! GAH GAH GAH

WHATEVER. And then here is the entry way AFTER I painted it Boring Cream (which was really the only color I could think of, at the time) but before I painted the doors white.

Not HORRIBLE but definitely not awesome. And I knew that as soon as I was done painting. But, you know, I had a TWO-MONTH-OLD, I wasn't going to paint the stupid entry way AGAIN. 

(The bench, which is awesome, is from World Market. The sconces are the cheapest ones at Lowe's. The coat rack is from my parents' house in Italy. The basket on top was originally full of cheese and chocolate and bread and given to me at the hospital after I had Emma. The pictures on the wall are of my old street in Italy, a street map of Venice, and random Chinese scenes we collected on our trip. Also artwork from that famed and noted artist Jackson Cheung.)

Fast forward to the summer: I painted every single stupid door in my house (except bedroom closets) white. I would find my picture of the Door Painting Assembly Line on my deck from the summer, but I already wasted too much time on the entry way. Anyway, that was an improvement. I didn't do a spectacular job or anything, but the doors are seriously nothing special and looked a lot better. I did not, however, paint the edges. I was tired and had stopped caring. SUE ME. 

Fast forward to THIS past Christmas: I knew I wanted a COLOR. Hence the AQUA ANGST. (I love it. So there.) I thought it would look awesome with the white. So I painted all the trim in the entry way, plus the first stair railing, THEN I painted it a COLOR.

TA-DA! 

Old bench from World Market, white Hemnes shoe cabinet from Ikea, coat tree from Ikea, rug from TJ Maxx, pillows from World Market (I bought them to go on my couch last year and didn't like them, they've lived on a shelf since then), white mirror from Target. 

This is not really how it was supposed to be arranged - I wanted the shoe cabinet in the hallway, a chair on either side of the coat tree, but the shoe cabinet was a little too wide for the hallway and it didn't fit (if we also wanted seating) on the wall underneath the sconce in the corner. So. It's where it is. It's also screwed into the wall, per Ikea's instructions. It's nice to have a little shelf there (that's the door to the garage) and I'm looking for pictures to put above it. I wanted the white mirror there, but they are two different whites (THE HORROR) and the mirror was actually too high to be useful (for me, anyway.) 

As for the BENCH... Phillip was all, "just put it in front of the window!" Which works, but it BUGS ME. I would prefer two chairs that are sort of angled towards each other. What do you think? The bench just barely fits on the wall where the door opens. By which I mean the door opens wide enough to use, but hits the bench. So I don't know. I like the bench and I like as much seating as possible (we are a no-shoes-in-the-house house), but obvs it has to LOOK RIGHT. This doesn't look quite right to me. 

And the RUG. BAH. I really really like the colors and pattern of this rug and it was cheap so it's staying. But putting anything on the floor is a huge pain in the butt. I've told you about our Pine Needle Issue before. We sweep constantly (okay, we sweep before people come over) and any rug or floor covering is going to get in the way, never stay in place, be filthy, etc. BUT it looks COLD and BARE without a rug. Anyway, this one is terrible, it's slippery, it doesn't stay in place, it's too small for the space, BUT I like the patter and the colors, it looks okay if I shove it in front of the furniture and not pretend it's a rug for the whole floor, and it's easy to shake out. So. It stays for now. 

The last things I need to do are buy faceplates for the light switches (the old ones were cream - unacceptable) and put up the white trim and hooks on the wall in the last picture. We've purchased these things, we just haven't put them up yet. Of course. That's where the kids will hang their coats and backpacks and other assorted annoying junk. 

I wasn't sure I would like the coat tree. I REALLY LIKE THE COAT TREE. We are also actually using the coat closet. I KNOW. 

I knew I would like the shoe cabinet. Phillip has been anti-this shoe cabinet for YEARS. Who knows why! But we've sort of exhausted all of HIS preferred options, and in the last several days I've heard him marvel once or twice, "All the shoes are put away!" It's kind of a weird piece of furniture, but it looks clean and it's easy for the kids to use. Infinitely better than the shoes in the bench or the metal rack we keep hidden in a hallway. 

So there it is, internet, The Aquaway TM Emily Cassee. I need thoughts re: chairs vs. bench, if chairs then WHAT chairs, what to put above the shoe cabinet, rugs. GO. 

P.S. if you look VERY CLOSELY you can tell that I finally painted the edges of the doors (the ones you see in the entry way, anyway) and I painted them AQUA. HA.

House Projects That Would Embarrass A Proper Lifestyle Blog

I keep thinking that I am going to do this grand Before and After post with my bedroom. And my living room. And the room off the kitchen that we don't know what to call, but since I painted it aqua blue we call it The Blue Room. And pretty much every other room in this house. 

But none of these rooms are finished! I am despairing that they ever WILL be finished. (Although, when I think about having a Finished Room I get a little bit anxious because WHAT WILL I DO THEN???) 

So anyway, I decided that I am fooling no one, and it's not like I am taking GOOD pictures anyway, so why not just post some stuff and call it good. ALLRIGHTY THEN!

(Please excuse the INCREDIBLY POOR quality of these phone photos!) 

Here's what I bought today:

I was looking for something subdued in blues and yellows and grays. I think I found it, don't you?!

I plan to cut this into three pieces and wrap it around:

Thank you Jo Ann coupons!

Basically I am making Cheapo "Art". My first idea was to put up a bunch of fabric covered frames/canvases on the gigando wall behind my couch. My second idea was to put up two fabric covered frames on the wall next to the TV by the piano where there's a big unhappy blank spot. But when I got home I decided this fabric was a little MUCH in that corner, and I am no longer into the lots-of-fabric-behind-the-couch idea, but I do have another spot that needs something with color:

We call this space: Where All The Storage Boxes Go To Die.

This is what you see when you climb the stairs to the main floor of our house. A giant blank wall and a giant blank space. My plan for this space keeps changing, but right now I am thinking a skinny console table where I would like to have some sort of trinkety display (which will probably, in reality, end up being a display of keys and wallets and phones.) And I am thinking of hanging my Cheapo "Art" above the table. Bright! Cheery! Not fighting for attention with all the other stuff in our living room! I love it. 

(As for console tables, I like this one, but I am also thinking something from Goodwill or Craigslist painted a mustard yellow or a dark teal or something I couldn't get away with in the main room.)

Then I thought I'd show you my curtain "headboard". (Do you like how all of my decorating choices are in quotes?)

Phillip hates this, btw. "It's like there's a WINDOW. That's WEIRD."

Whatever. This was CHEAP and EASY and makes a huge difference in blank wallness. When I went to Target to pick up another curtain panel (see pictures below!) they were OUT. And this entire color group was on CLEARANCE. And I PANICKED. But they had a tablecloth! For five dollars! So I bought that and a curtain rod, also on clearance, and drilled that sucker into the wall myself. The tablecloth was turned into a curtain with the magic of an iron and that hem tape stuff. TA-DA. Yes it bows in the middle because it's just one panel and I didn't want to cut it, but I sort of like how it bows? Shut up. 

But see the giant blank wallness?

Mess courtesy of J. Cheung and "Quiet" Time. More quotes! Am on fire! 

I was not a fan of moving our couch into our bedroom. I spent an entire day rearranging everything and finally came up with this scenario. I still don't love it, but it's so much better than before. I mostly hate that it's CHERRY RED and the other color I wanted for this room was CORAL or PERSIMMON. And I painted my nightstand CORAL or PERSIMMON and had grand plans to find another nightstand to paint CORAL or PERSIMMON but NOW??? I don't know. I also can't find a nightstand to paint and/or buy. So. It's all moot anyway.

"Oh!" we said when we first saw this house. "A balcony off the bedroom! Think of all the reading we'll do at an adorable patio table!" Because we forgot we live in Seattle where you can't go outside. Ever.

The other end of our bedroom. The couch used to be in front of the window. I know. It was terrible. Oh and in case you were wondering (and do you even have to ask?) 99% of the stuff in this room is from Target. The other 1% is Ikea. Except for the bed, which is from the Phillip Cheung Bachelor Collection circa 2000. Oh, I guess there's also the CORAL or PERSIMMON painted nightstand, which is one of the many trillions of things the previous owners just left hanging out in the house. WHATEVS.

Speaking of things I painted:

You can't tell, but this is WHITE and AQUA. LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN MY HOUSE. 

Here's that giant cabinet I bought on Craigslist a while back and painted white. I have before pictures somewhere. I will post them one day with the after pictures. This is not the after picture. First of all, I need to DECORATE somehow, but I have no idea with WHAT. I bought those little turquoise lamps at Marshall's. Not that you can tell what they look like. And the cabinet actually has these ornate doors to cover up the drawers, but I haven't painted those yet. So this is the Not Yet After picture. Deal? 

Oh WOW these pictures are awful. I'm sorry. Next time I will use my real camera (not that this will improve my photography skills). And I do have before pictures somewhere. LIFESTYLE BLOG FAIL! 

 

 

A blogged Pinterest board

Master Bedroom

Curtain Headboard

• black curtain rod, at least 70" long (cheap at Target)
• coral/white fabric (chevron? paisley-ish?)

Nightstand

• Rast dresser
• coral paint (MS Persimmon Red?)
• black knobs

End of Bed Bench

• the door the sellers left wedged between the fridge and the pantry cupboard
• foam
• table legs
• coordinating fabric (same as curtain headboard? same as window curtains?)

Some sort of small console table for my jewelry box

Living Room

Wall O' Bookshelves (And Television)

• Built in Billys? Have not decided where this falls on the scale of One to Bat$%&# Crazy.
• Ask our friend the contractor PM if he thinks we could pull this off.
• Include fireplace? Does that move it farther up the scale?

Seating That Is Not A Couch

• This chair

Finish painting doors for the white Craigslist cabinet

Decide on floor lamp or table lamps

• If table lamps, I need another small console table to wedge behind the couch
• Perhaps someone will buy this for me

Phillip wants curtains. These would have to be GIGANDO. A print in blues/grays/yellows.

Something to put on the blank wall. WHO KNOWS WHAT THIS WILL BE.

Emma's Room

Paint? 

• currently a sagey green that looks half decent with pink and white
• could repaint turquoise and haul in a ton of yellow?

Dresser/Changing Table

• get a new one? (because the drawers are starting to stick)
• spray paint white until we get a new one?

Bedding

• Probably plain white (or plain yellow?)

Rug

• Stupid pergo floor is 1) cold and 2) hard on my feet. What is not super expensive?

Something to put on the blank walls. AGAIN. WHO KNOWS WHAT THIS WILL BE. 

 

Blargh!

Resolutions Day Five!

Soooo for THIS resolution I planned to have a certain PROJECT all FINISHED so I could post PICTURES but, er, YEAH, that is not going to happen. See previous posts re: baby who does not sleep during the day. 

Resolution: I want to do more DIY stuff! Inspired by Pinterest, Elizabeth Nebraska, and spray paint, I am now more interested in what I can fix up from craigslist than I am in the newest West Elm catalog. I KNOW! TIS CRAZINESS!

I bought that giant buffet thing and I spent most of last weekend deglossing, priming, and painting. Unfortunately I still have a long way to go. I have the frame and drawers 95% finished, but I think the doors are going to take me another weekend or two. This is okay. I did not underestimate how long it would take me to do this. In fact, I may have even OVERestimated. I was thinking I might finish this thing in, you know, JULY. But now I am thinking March. February even! WHO KNOWS!

Something about having a new house that is mine all mine and knowing that I am never going to move again in my entire life so help me God makes things totally different. It's really fun and kind of exciting to think of all the ways to fix up the house and decorate. What was I reading the other day - I think the Caitlin Flanagan article about Oprah in the Atlantic? Something about men never understanding what a house MEANS to their wives. If it were a Reads and Recommends Friday I would find this for you, but today I am lazy. You lose. 

I picked a pretty big and not-so-easy project for my first real Redoing A Piece Of Furniture project. I'm ashamed to say I have drips, and not on the trim or fancy doors, I have it on the SIDE OF THE CABINET, a nice flat surface where there should not be any drips. But that side is at a weird angle in the garage and it's harder to reach than the other side and blah blah blah IT'S GOOD ENOUGH. (This will be the reason I will never, for example, go into a Furniture Refinishing Business. Drips! I do not care so much!)

Pictures, obvs, at some further date. 

Phillip and I are watching Portlandia, by the way. I'm not sure if I get it or not. Actually, the very beginning, where Fred Armisen is telling Carrie Brownstein about this alternate universe called Portland and it's all chock full of Northwest stereotype one-liners - THAT was funny. The rest of it is funny or I don't get it and think it's weird. POSSIBLY LIKE PORTLAND ITSELF!

Portland seems to be more "authentic" than Seattle, although I'm not really sure what "authentic" means in that sentence (or in many sentences, to be honest.) I think we have too many rich people up here. Maybe they cancel out the feminist bookstore owners. 

Speaking of rich people (NICE SEGUE) (HELLO STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS!) I went to a Catholic school open house this morning and DEAR GOD the stuff the parents asked the principal... I guess "pompous" doesn't necessarily equate with "rich" but dudes, one guy busted out the the word "pedagogy" in his question. AND I AM PRETTY SURE HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT THAT WORD MEANS. It was ridiculous, is what I'm saying. EYE ROLLY at the very least. 

Right here I could segue into a blog post about how I know entirely too much about the back end of teaching to go to school open houses and not FREAK OUT about how I may be missing some piece of back end information that will clue me into the way things REALLY go down. BLARGH! But I won't go there! Not right now, anyway. I have another Portlandia and a Weight Watchers Giant Fudge Bar staring at me. 

Happy Resolutions Week! THE END!

Because I am not yet ready to debrief Christmas...

...let's discuss my all out flaming desire to go back to painting something. 

I think it has to do with the fact that the new couch is way bigger than the old couches, and I had to push it farther back in the room. That meant I gave up a lot of the behind-the-couch space where the kids play. (The room is weird, and it seems like this is really the only way to position the couch: sort of in the middle of the room!) I used to be able to keep (read: hide) a lot of toys back there, but now there's only room for the play house and some of Jack's Trio blocks. And it's just cramped and I don't like it and I'm not sure what to do about it SO LET'S JUST MOVE ON SHALL WE. 

Obvs I need some sort of living room toy storage. I've been hankering for this Hemnes console, since it matches the TV bench/bookshelf/glass cabinet we bought to form an "entertainment center". 

Nothing special, but with some colorful baskets it screams I CAN STORE ALL THE TOYS! Doesn't it? 

But I am not in LOVE with our "entertainment center". We bought those pieces because we desperately needed something to put the television on AND we didn't want to spend a lot of money AND we couldn't really agree on what we wanted. The grand vision for that space actually involves custom built ins to span the whole wall, hopefully with a fireplace and lots of bookshelves and cabinets. Maybe when we win the lottery. Which would be after we win the lottery to remodel (read: totally redesign and rebuild) the bathroom situation. SIGH.

All that to say maybe I don't want to buy another Ikea thing to match the Ikea things with which I am not in love. ???

So I've been trolling craigslist and I am SORT OF in love with this. In a glossy white? Or even a dark teal? A mustard yellow? I am not afraid of color, people! But did you see how it opens with all those DRAWERS? I am loving the drawers. WHAT DO WE THINK, INTERNET? Can I pull it off?

But it's $200 and I've never painted a large piece of furniture and I just don't KNOW. It's kind of OLD and ORNATE for me, but if it were a COLOR I think I would love it. 

This is why I am going out to Goodwill this morning, also St. Vincent DePaul, to see if there's anything else out there. Again I ask: WHO AM I?

This isn't the only project on my mind today. I am very much intrigued by this DIY bar:

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Jessica on Pinterest

 

I have nowhere to put such a thing, but it looks FUN and I'm all "Maybe I could give it to my sister for her birthday!" except I am PRETTY SURE my sister is not into thrift store furniture refinished by an amateur, esp an amateur she is RELATED TO which means she would have to TAKE IT and PUT IT SOMEWHERE lest she hurt my tender wittle feelings so OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A BAD IDEA. 

I also want to paint/redo the long dresser we use for a changing table, because I am RATHER UNHAPPY with the mess that is Emma's new room. The room itself has lots of potential - high ceilings, big windows - but I have a crib, a rocking chair, a twin bed and a huge dresser crammed in there and nothing fits right and I don't love it and I've decided that a dresser/changing table redo will be the Magic Solution. 

But again: HAVE NEVER PAINTED A GIANT PIECE OF FURNITURE. 

Also, I think one of the drawers is kind of permanently warped. What would be the point of refinishing THAT. I should be looking for a new dresser/changing table too, huh!

If I were very brave I would talk Phillip into going to Ikea today, because I want to buy and paint RASTs for our nightstands. This idea is my favorite:

Source: nouveaustitch.wordpress.com via Maggie on Pinterest

 

Those are the perfect colors for my bedroom, even! 

What else... oh, I'm looking at all the refinished china hutches, because one day I shall have one. I'm looking at lamps and end tables and I'm realizing that I like everything old and refinished in a COLOR than I do everything new and WOOD-colored and I swear, one day I'm going to wake up and realize I live in some sort of primary-colored badly-painted preschool.