It's amazing...

...what a little paint did to boost my love of our house.

Best Change to your Home .09 |  Exterior paint (finally!)

The original colors weren't bad, they just weren't *us* and I've been planning on changing them ever since moving in two+ years ago.  This summer we finally made the change and couldn't be happier.  We chose a gold-yellow and a light cream/yellow for trim, with black rimming the windows + black doors and garage door (eventually we'll replace the door with a vintage wood one with a warm finish).  It's classic and warm and looks good in the bare winter and the lush summer.  (Benjamin Moore custom paint mixed by our friendly neighborhood paint shop.)

After:

Before ^

. . .

Best of .09: Change you made to the place where you live.  What about you?

Show and Tell Wednesday

It's Wednesday, my favorite day, and I feel like some show and tell. So here's a look at another corner of my world, one of my favorite rooms & where I tend to head when I have some time. We made one of the bedrooms into a project room for everyone (but when the kids are at school it's mine! all mine!).

^

We call this room the studio,
which is really kind of pretentious
but it makes me feel all creative and writerly
so that's what we call it.

^

Here's where we keep all the supplies:

paper, stickers, markers, photos, stamps, etc.
The kids do homework here or cut up paper into tiny, tiny bits.
They love it but they're not all that great at cleaning them up.
(I picked them up today so Stie wouldn't feel compelled to fly across the
country and vacuum them all up. Hey...that's a good idea!)
Pictures leaning on the walls because
I can't actually decide where to put them
but they make me happy the way they are.

^

We got a couple of round tables
so the kids could do homework cafe-style
or leave out a game of chess or scrabble.
The wall over there will hold a big bulletin board.
Once I decide which fabric to use to cover it. Sigh. Decisions.

^
Here's my desk.
(Hi neighbors!)

^

my creative sister made the photo mosaic of me and my parents
from a childhood picture taken in Peru
I love this photo of Sam and pumpkins

^

a small wooden tray
holding a jumble of photos and postcards and quotes I love

^
Stack of books I love
because I'm trying my hand at writing stories
and sometimes I just need to be reminded how the masters do it
Paper box holding paper clips, etc.
Glass of water because I'm shunning Diet Coke
from my life right now. Sadly.

Work counters, white tables, chair, lamp, rug, and desk from Ikea. Other things just picked up here and there.

Inspiring my decorating this time around

For months I've been collecting photos of interiors that inspire me (if I'm honest, I've been doing this for years + I had the mountains of magazines I recycled when we moved to prove it). I was sorting through them, deciding what paint colors to go with when I noticed a trend.

Gee, do you think I like white?

We decided to go ahead and try for a Scandinavian/modern country look (or as Greg calls it, warm Danish, which always triggers thoughts of flaky buttery goodness and makes me hungry) since our house has that cottage kind of feel, light with punches of color.

The painters came today and I think I'll love it. Hopefully. I'm sure I will. Actually I'm having a little paint choice remorse because, compared to the oranges and greens and deep mauve we inherited with the house, it's looking very light. I'm becoming the teensiest neurotic but then I go back to these photos and I know, once we hang pictures and the furniture finally comes, it will all work together.

And, if not, (she says cheerfully) we can always paint over it...I'm very fickle that way. What can I say? Like Fanny in Mansfield Park "I have no talent for certainty."

Home sweet {quirky} home

It's always an adventure (sometimes painful, sometimes fun) to turn a new house into your own. We knew going into this one that there were some...shall we say...quirks that we were inheriting. The previous owner is an artist and she definitely used the house as her canvas. Before we start painting and redoing, I had to share some of the unique aspects of our new home. As my humanities professor always said, "different isn't necessarily bad...it's just different!"

1. (Starting at the top left.) This light, like many of its friends throughout the house, has been painted over...shade, cord, everything.

2. Likewise EVERY PLUG in the house. Not just the faceplate, mind you, but also the actual, wired, plug-goes-in-here thingie. I think this will require a bit of electrician work.

3. Look closely and you will see the kitchen mural of a big daisy, very Farrah Faucett-like with the wind blowing the petals back from its face. I'm sure if I were an adolescent male flower, I would want this on my bedroom wall but since I'm not, it's going to have to go.

4. Another mural that is directly across from the main entry to the house. Before I got a chance to take the picture, the kids (okay, I helped) took off all the fake jewels that were intermingled in the mural. That's right, I bought a home with a bedazzled wall. When we first walked through, there was a little pedastal in the lower left corner with a fairy on it.

5. (next row) This isn't so bad, actually. The colors aren't me, though, and I think the way the chair rail molding zigzags up the staircase is a little distracting so we're going to take it down.

6. That's right, folks. That fan is painted: the paddles and the fixture itself. I'm very excited about this room, though. It will be our project/homework room. We just got several IKEA pieces that will house all our art-sewing-craft materials, etc. Then we'll put a couple of tables in the middle of the room with stools. I'll post after photos in August once it gets painted, etc.

7. This is the little fireplace in Sam's room. Nice, huh? Well, here's the quirk:

8. It has tiles with soft-core romantic scenes on it. Yeah, we'll be at least painting over those.

9. (next row) This is the view from the master bedroom, through the see-through french doors, to the master bathroom. Clearly these people haven't heard that a little mystery, a little privacy is a good thing.

10. Another mural, this one in the master bedroom complete with glow-in-the-dark stars.

11. Also another painted light cover. It kind of defeats the purpose of lights, doesn't it?

12. Finally, this is the fireplace in the family room. I actually kind of like the harlequin-style painting on the mantel and my kids love it. Maybe this quirk will make it through. For now.

Stay tuned for the next installment...things I *love* about the new house.