the stencil post

Ok. So the stencils came, and gorgeous.


I did a few sample boards that I'd painted with the background color, and again, gorgeous. Though it did take us (and my us I mean ME) a while to figure out the layout issues with the registration marks.

What can I say, I'm easily confused. JBB pointed out that the registration marks made for evenly spaced medallions. Aligning the little top/bottom bits on the side of the stencil with a top/bottom bit on a previously done completed motif makes for an allover pattern--which is what we want.

So the samples of metallic paints. We're torn. O all knowing blogosphere, what do you think? Left or right? (and please ignore the bit on the right where I did part of the motif over an already done motif)


I think I am leaning toward the left color-wise, but depth wise, the right is much better. maybe mix a bit into each?

Hallway photos

Here are photos of the downstairs & upstairs hallways, which are approaching typically-messy-room status instead of we-live-in-a-storage-facility box-ladenness.

Downstairs hallway sans desk. FWIW that cabinet/bookshelf is vintage IKEA if you can believe it. The first IKEA in the US opened outside of Philadelphia in the early/mid-80's, and my parents went to town on the place. We have two of these cabinets -- the other one we hung some stemware rails on and converted into our bar.

Here is the upstairs hall. No major changes but I did swap out the light fixture, and we put down a nice rug my parents gave me way back in college. I promise we do own furniture of our own, it's not all hand-me-downs. Unfortunately one of the things I am responsible is that weird chest thing in the hallway, which is IKEA, four drawers, and needs to go away sometime soon.

progress, of a sort...

so this weekend we made some progress on the hall.

the hall you say? what was wrong with the hall? Why, nothing was wrong with the hall, I say.

We'd just never gotten our acts together to get my 5 foot cherry desk out of the damn entry way. That is no longer the case. Saturday, after the nice cable man came to hook up the cable in our bedroom (thank GOD--I am just too lazy to get up and go downstairs to indulge in my crappy am tv tendencies), JBB and moved the desk up to the room that will be my office when the devil wallpaper has perished.

It took about two seconds to realize that yeah, we'd have to take the top off to get the sucker up the stairs. First off, it's 5 feet long. Second off, it's solid cherry, so it's really heavy. Luckily, my dad made it for me years ago, and is ingenious when it comes to nifty little tricks, and so the top comes off. It's held on by little L-shaped pieces of cherry that are screwed into the top, and fit into routed slots on the braces so the wood has room to expand and contract. And, thank god, they slots and L-pieces are both numbered. Otherwise we'd have been royally screwed.

So now we are back to our lovely entryway system with a bookcase with cabinet on the bottom, recycling bin, trash bin, and shredder. SO much better.

And as our own little reward, we finally got the stencil I'd ordered for the dining room in the mail! But that is another post, hopefully with pictures.

How do you know if a contractor is ripping you off?

We are now deep into the land of contractors, and I am lost without a map -- how do I know if I am getting ripped off? We are getting about 25 new or replaced outlets/switches/fixtures, and I have an electrician estimate that comes out around $95 per. How do I know if that is a fair deal or a total ripoff? Any thoughts?

More generally, here is where we are in contractorland:

1. Chimney people come on Thursday to close up the gratuitous hole in the kitchen, clean the flues, and seal up the firebox so we don't set the house on fire. The good news: we don't have to replace the sagging brick hearth. Quoth the chimney guy: "I've seen worse."
   
2. Plumbers kick off next Tuesday by replacing our entire stack from 3rd floor to basement. Right now it's 4" iron which sticks out the wall in ridiculous ways; we are having it replaced with 3" PVC that should stay in the wall where it belongs. From there he will move to kitchen and the other stuff in the house.
   
3. Tree guy gave us a first estimate. We are going to:
   
   
   
   • Prune back the front lawn magnolia so it doesn't swamp the house;
     
   • Cut down the front lawn cherry tree, which is a) ugly and b) in its declining years; and
     
   • Raise the gigantic back yard maple by around 20' by cutting off the large low-hanging branches. This will make a huge difference, since as-is today, the lawn is barely visible from the house because of those branches. Our neighbor hates this tree -- apparently it doesn't get leaves until May, and doesn't drop them until December.
     
   
   
4. Electrician will hopefully be lined up once I figure out the fair-price problem, listed above.
   
5. Carpenter to set up the fake wall -- still need one, hopefully will make some calls in the next couple days and get that going. I am kind of counting on the fact that building one stud wall should be trivially easy work for a decent carpenter.
   

I think I'm broken

first there was the toe.

then there was the migrane this week.

and now I am all stuffed up.

Seriously. I am broken yo.


i sat around sick for much of the weekend, save for some kitchen floor mopping and hall and stair rug vacuuming. Yay for clean! Jbb installed a new hall light upstairs. I sat on the stairs to the third floor keeping him company, sniffling, and peeling the white paint off the door in large 6" sheets. See, I'm a picker by nature, and I can even begin to describe how immensely satisfying to peel off the sheets of paint like sunburned skin. (and I'm pretty sure this is a coat that was done within the last 5 years or so, so no lead paint worries)

Apparently, before they painted the doors white (without, mind you, sanding or priming the previous coats), they'd painted the doors metallic silver. oooh, shiny.

the pics of the bathroom

because really, it does defy logic. It is the amazing, wonderous who-the-hell-would-frame-a-clawfoot-tub-with-a-wood-enclosure bathroom!

It looks a million times better here, scraped, primed, and painted in oil paint, than it did before all peeling and crappy and NO CAULK. Dude. Who doesn't caulk a bathtub?

Here's another, this one starring Milo in Motion:


And while we're at it, here's a shot of the pipe coming part of the way out of the wall. Also, not really caulked. But hey, painted!


Hey, look! Milo likes the caulk and paint job!

the return of pictures!

jbb uploaded the pics that were on the camera last night, and so now, I can bring you pictures! In color! Whoo!

First off, the living room, featuring everyone's favorite Benjamin Moore color, Shenendoah Taupe!

The color is pretty accurate here. The photo also features the brandy new spraypainted silver Cape thrift store lamp, the black also-from-the-Cape lamp (anyone want to guess what the base is made of? Mom, don't spoil it for anyone else), Milo the orange kitty and JBB eating dinner. I didn't do the picture rail, because we'll be adding crown molding shortly (I hope).

Now, who wants to see what our kitchen looks like at the moment?

Hey look! it's a mess, but there are no more packed boxes! whoo!

And finally, the two-tone, soon to be three toned dining room. These pics didn't turn out great, and the color isn't really representative of what it looks like in real life, sadly.


This was the before:


And soon we'll be adding the stencil to the top half.


Sadly, no pictures of the fully furnished bedroom, featuring everyone's favorite Ikea product Pax, quite yet. (though Jenny Wren, they're coming up next)

color!

the dining room, she is painted! Kinda.

Mom came over yesterday and put the second coat on the top half (Benjamin Moore, Cameo White) because I cannot climb the ladder because oh yeah, I fell down the stairs and busted my toe real good. I am a klutz, I know.

While she was second coating, I cut in and rolled the first (of several) coats of BenjMoore's Raisin Torte. Oooh pretty dark red... that needs three coats to cover. Ehh, could have been four. About halfway through, mom lapped me and took over the cutting in, while I finished rolling. Then we left the sicky JBB to his own devices and hightailed it up to my brother and sister-in-law's house to see their super cutie new kitten Fig. Oh the cuteness. The cuteness! It kills!

So the second and third coats of raisin torte didn't get done until today, but damn they look good now.

And now, because I really didn't need what was left of my sanity, we're going to stencil the top half. And when I say "we", I mean me and if I can sucker my mom (we're both crazy anal in very similar ways). See, with the contrast between the cream and the red, the top half needs something a little darker or textury. Yeah. I caved. I ordered it.


I think I'll do it in a bronzy-goldy color, so it's tonal but still with some contrast and not too overthetop. I'm also now debating painting the fireplace bricks black, and I've already ordered swatches of fabric for drapes. You'd think as a seamstress's daughter, I'd be used to the price of fabric per yard. You'd be wrong. This stuff is pricey, even discounted!

At some point, the room will be as Dramatic as a 16 year old Sondheim-obsessed teenage girl. Love it!

additional pictures of walls! with! color! forthcoming, as we have yet to find the cable for the digital camera. It's in a box. Somewhere. I think.

I will be your beast of burden

Things I have carried since Tuesday afternoon (with minor poetic license and some gaps):

1. Ten bookboxes out of the corner to make room for a rug in the living room
   
2. Ten bookboxes (same) back into the corner once the rug was down
   
3. Nine broken-down dish crate boxes into the basement
   
4. Eight armloads of flattened and rolled-up packing paper into the basement
   
5. Seven swans a-swimming (er, one cat a-biting)
   
6. Six boxes of old papers and magazines from one corner of the basement to another
   
7. Five suitcases from the basement to the 3rd floor
   
8. Four book boxes from the 1st & 2nd to the 3rd floor
   
9. Three loads of laundry from the 2nd floor to the basement and back
   
10. Two tall IKEA Billy bookcases from 1st to 2nd floor (one corner, one narrow -- corner units is HEAVY)
    
11. Two more bags of trash into our slowly-filling (unattached) garage
    
12. One microwave that I used to reheat leftover Chinese food.
    

the return of the vacationers

Well, we’re back from the mini vacation on the Cape.

I painted the damn tub surround on Thursday night (oil paint really isn’t that stinky, or else I am seriously brain damaged from the fumes), and then drove to Eastham that night.

The weekend consisted of much sleeping and lazing about, not so much swimming as it was chilly and drizzly, and many many hands of Onze. But there was much rejoicing at the fact that the cape house, though old and beat up, had a kitchen! And there were no boxes to unpack!

We visited my aunt and uncle who have a house in wellfleet that they rent out most of the summer— wellfleetrental.net Yes, I am totally pimping them out. But the house was gorgeous and very comfy and outfitted with Fran’s artwork

Plus I picked up a great heavy lamp at a thrift store and painted the crappy faux brass a much prettier faux matte silver.

And once we returned to jersey, JBB found the microwave!! We have a semi-kitchen! Or at least the ability to heat items in non-metal containers! Whoo!