Lighting Woes

I was trying to take updated pictures of the house this afternoon, and granted I didn’t pick the time of day that is best for taking pictures of the front rooms in our house (which is just as the sun is starting to set), but the impending thunderstorm kept trying to thwart my efforts.  These are some of the better attempts, and I also updated the guest bathroom’s after shots in Our House (though I’m sure I’ll change those again soon).

Dining RoomAs I mentioned before, we switched the hutch and the bench that used to be in the entryway. Those piece of art leaning on the bench need to have frames made with shoe molding and hung (probably on the wall above).

HutchWe moved the hutch to the wall in the “entry way” (aka- the wall you see when you walk in). We plan to paint this Valspar’s Dolphin Cove with a blue or green color for the back panel because that isn’t dust outlines you see, that’s white over-spray from the painters my in-law’s hired to paint the bathroom in their guest room (which is the former home for the bookshelf). We may even add doors to the bottom piece one day.

Fireplace in LibraryWe didn’t do a whole lot to this yet, other than paint the room it’s in and add some things to the mantle. Eventually we’d like the fireplace to be done in flagstone, but since we haven’t been lucky enough to uncover any in our yard like Katie over at Bower Power and Sara at Russet Street Reno we have to wait until we win the lottery save up enough money for that project.

Living RoomOh living room, the love-hate relationship I have with you and your small windows & wood ceiling is demonstrated nicely in this picture… This room in a pain in my backside to take pictures of because of a) the lovely beam running through the center of the room, b) the fact that wood ceiling just makes the room look too dark in general, and c) the squat, poorly sealed 70s windows installed when this was made into a room in the first place. There is a list longer than my arm of things I’d like to do to this room eventually (and shockingly enough this list doesn’t actually include ripping the pine boards off the ceiling).

We Joined the Club!

The White Ceramic Animal Club, that is (except that I’m pretty sure that this one isn’t actually ceramic).

Although we liked the white ceramic animals seen in Young House Love and Bower Power, I wasn’t convinced we would join the ranks… until we found this little beauty at HomeGoods for twenty bucks earlier this summer and knew that he needed to live on our mantle.  Usually we’re more members of the Colors-seen-in-nature Animal Club (ok, so I don’t think that’s actually a real club… yet) as demonstrated by the natural colored horse behind the elephant.  And by usually I mean “this is the only white ceramic animal in our house… so far”.

Fisherman Sconce

Ok, so I totally love this sconce, but that is not the point of this entry.  Someone in the blog world was looking for something like these. Problem is I don’t know a) how recent the post was, b) who it was or c) what their budget is.  I happened upon their blog but can’t find it again to link them (you’d think I would have put that bad boy in my blog roll).  Life is sad!  Here’s hoping someone stumbles upon this post and knows what/who I’m talking at about to link them back to these beauties…

$69.00 at Pottery Barn Kids (comes in pendant as well)

Dining Room Remix

Everything old is new again.  That’s why bellbottoms and aviators came back, right?  And while some things should stay in the past (like shoulder pads and acid washed jeans), our dining room layout was beginning to be a little cramped… so we moved the hutch… again.

I mentioned yesterday that not everything in the Our House section is 100% accurate right now because I have been too lazy it has been too dark to take pictures when I get home from working ridiculous amounts of overtime. I’m still waiting for this weekend to get updated pictures, but I thought I’d explain at least one of the changes we made.  So for those playing along at home our dining room went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

And then it looked like this:

(Please excuse the backpack on the floor in that second shot, I didn’t realize it was there when I took that photo.)

While we liked have the hutch stacked bookshelf & secretary (to quote Young House Love we are “work with whacha got” kind of people) to store out dishes, we wanted to have “a little swinging room” in the words of my husband. So now the hutch has moved to the wall directly in front of you when you walk in and the bench that was there moved over to the wall where the “hutch” was. I know, I know, I said that the reason we moved it was because we wanted more room, but it works out because the bench isn’t nearly as tall as the hutch.

And truthfully (although don’t tell Robert because he won’t want to help me move the furniture. again. Oh hi, honey!), I’m tempted to move the hutch to this wall:

I’m just not sure how I’ll like the table sticking out into the room further (even if we turn it length wise. again.)

I hope you’ll forgive me (us) for not having perfectly up-to-date photos yet, and take this post as a peace offering.

It Has Been Five Minutes Since My Last Confession

Ok, so I did just create the Our House and Source List sections (and yes, they have kitchen pictures now- score!), but I should mention that we have actually moved some things around since those photos were taken… That’s right, I used pictures that I had previously uploaded to my Facebook page. Hopefully my one reader people who get here by accident don’t hate me for my blogging faux pas!

I plan to take some even more recent pictures of the way out house looks when I have good natural lighting this weekend. And because it’s another faux pas to blog without posting pictures, I leave you with this photo of how the library used to look, back when the hutch was used as a bookshelf and the current tv console was used to hold back issues of ReadyMade, and a photo of the kitchen when all we had done was paint twice and change out the cabinet hardware.

New blog!

In September of 2009 we proudly added our names to our house’s long list of owners. Built in 1955, the house came with an even longer list of previous DIY projects and renovations, some of which were better than others. We loved the fact that our house had gone from the original 1220 square feet to 1851 square feet and the original hardwood floors throughout most of the house, but there was more poorly done tile work, mini blinds and contractor’s beige than you could shake a stick at. There was also an awful lot of dust, dead bugs, dirty windows, and general grime, thanks to the owner before us flipping it rather than actually living there. We brought a small posse to one of our last walkthroughs and so R’s grandmother (think of her as Emily Gilmore, but nicer) spoke up and got the house cleaned within an inch of its life.

After the eviction of said funk, I began (lovingly) attacking the house with paint before we even moved in, and pretty much haven’t stopped tweaking it since then.