Category Archives: House

Cramming it all in

Posted on by

I knew that I wanted my new living room to be a robbin’s egg blue ( not sure why I knew that, but once planted in my brain it wouldn’t budge) so that is how it played out. And of course, WHITE CEILINGS! I also did an accent wall along the hall with the same yellow as the kitchen. The whole thing is very cheerful, even in depressing gray winter.

But once the paint was done I needed to arrange the furniture and decorate. Turns out that what I thought would be a room practically designed for my furniture, nothing really fit at all how I hoped. And I was scratching up the floor moving things around all the time, not to mention making my back sad. My biggest problem is that I LOVE my furniture and I wanted anyone who came over to see all of the awesome pieces I have. But not enough space, so what would get booted to the back bedroom? My orange couch, which was my first grown-up furniture purchase? Nope. Where would people sit? The ugly blue chair or ugly green chair that I inherited from my grandparents? They are too prefect with the wall color and age of the house and where would people sit? The old tv or old stereo (also inherited). Super cool and great talking points, so they have to stay. Shelves hold plants and plants are a must, especially in front the big windows. My desk? Also holding plants (and I’ve had it since junior high and am so attached). Ugly Coffee table I inherited from Deacon? Where would people put their beverages? The little white cabinet? It looks perfect under the thermostat with the $700 lamp on it. Sigh.

In the end, the awesome armoire got booted and people will just have to put their coats in the real coat closet and games can go in the back room and pulled out when needed. It still feels a little crowded. Future project is to rethink, but for now I’m OK with it.

The wall hangings also went through several rounds of rearranging, which made me feel super guilty about putting nail holes in my freshly painted walls, but I’m over it.

armoir

It looked good but couldn’t stay

living room

Getting things arranged

mom living room

Mom by the little white cabinet and Rex painting

living room

The armoire is gone but the art still needs work. And a rug to pull things together.

The Bathroom Blues

Posted on by

For being such a small room, the bathroom actually gave me a pile of trouble. Started by PAINTING THE CEILINGS WHITE (once again, poopy taupe is a terrible color, especially for very tiny rooms).  The 2 bathrooms in the old house were dark brown with cobalt blue accents and pale blue with lime green accents. So to save money on towels and accessories,  I decided that the walls should be pale blue but with the primary color should be the cobalt and I could throw in the lime for extra splashes of color.  All fine and good. Except the paint color I chose was more of a baby boy’s room blue and looked bad. I didn’t want to buy another gallon of paint so I just mixed some ceiling white into the current blue and gave it 2 more coats. Actually turned out looking ok.

bathroom storage

No storage at all except for a narrow ledge and a medicine cabinets

Paint done, I needed to do something about storage — there was officially none except for a small medicine cabinet and very narrow shelf. And nowhere to hang a toilet paper holder. I found one of those standalone jobs easily enough but finding any sort of shelving in brushed nickel was ridiculous! Once again, if I know what I want, no one has it. Finally found the shelf at Bed, Bath and Beyond in Vancouver and the narrow rack at Home Goods out by the airport, but it took several weeks for trolling around and getting very frustrated. Finished it all up with metal wall candle holder I stole from my mom when I moved to Vancouver 10 years ago, some plants and all of the extra accent towels. In the end, I think it looks good and it is proving to be very functional.

blue bathroom

Finding both the rack on the counter and the shelf were a big adventure — once again, if I want it, it must be completely unreasonable

blue bathroom

The bathroom after paint (pale blue) and decorated.

Ceilings should be WHITE!!!

Posted on by

I moved into the Kimball house the last week of September (I considered it a late birthday present) and it didn’t take me too long to figure out that taupe is the worst color in the world! I looked that the house on one of the hottest weeks of the year but now at the shorter days of fall, the poopy brown walls were just depressing and made the rooms feel small and dark. And CEILINGS SHOULD BE WHITE!

I’m a whore for fun wall colors, so I decided that it made more sense to paint before unpacking most areas.

I started in the kitchen:

Kitchen before paint

Kitchen before paint

Kitchen before paint

Look at the fancy new fridge! It is huge inside.

And now it is yellow:

yellow kitch

Kitchen painted yellow and the cabinet doors removed

yellow kitch

Kitchen painted yellow and coat hooks and all decorated up