Archive for March, 2008
Table For Two
We’re pleased to bring you another exciting transformation, this time in the form of a table. The story begins when we purchased an old rickety game table at a thrift store for twenty bucks two whole years ago. We hated the old scruffy square top, but immediately knew the chunky wooden pedestal had potential. For a while we just topped it with a bigger square of wood and painted it black so it could serve as a dining room table. But it was eventually replaced with a rectangular one when we shifted the dining room into the living room, and the ol’ table happily lived in the garage for a while.
But with the warmer weather blowing in, John and I were just talking about how nice it would be to have dinner outside sans bugs and we realized that sunroom + table = dinner outside sans bugs. So we picked up a round tabletop for 40 bucks at Lowe’s and popped it onto the pedestal of yesteryear and presto:
Then all it needed was a coat of oil based primer, two coats of white semi-gloss paint followed by a few light coats of water based polyurethane to keep it food and drink friendly. And the best thing is that we had four of these fun Eames-esque chairs in the garage just waiting to be recycled in some form and two of them work perfectly for our new dining nook in the sunny sunroom (they used to be blonde wood, but we painted them to match our table).
And for all you big picture people, here’s the wide shot so you can see it in context:
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White Hot
We’ve have a hypothesis: around 75% of the stuff we bring into our house is white. And what better way to substantiate this theory than to share some of our latest and greatest home purchases. First, one of our favorite finds of all time- a playmate for my concrete greyhound V-day present from John.
Another amazing Home Goods find, our jumbo ceramic pooch was only $29. Which puts it around $436 cheaper than this almost identical version from Perch below:
Score. And now he can guard the sunroom while his concrete older brother keeps an eye on the living room.
And while I was toting our new four-legged friend around the store, this little gem practically jumped off the shelf into my arms. I’d actually seen exactly the same delicate ceramic votive holder in a gift shop a few weeks ago for sixteen buckaroos but I passed it up. Good thing I did because this one only ran me $4.95.
Moving right along, next we have our new favorite kitchen accessories that were a b-day prezzie from my best buddy Cat. These adorable glass containers (which I think are from West Elm) can hold anything from bath soaps to peanuts to candy, but of course we filled them with stuff that’s white: flour, sugar, and salt.
And now for an update on the ever-growing wall of (white) frames in our third bedroom. You can see we hung my absolutely priceless b-day silhouette of Burger and also added a black and white sketch of our house (top right) and a funny computer illustration of Burger drawn on my Facebook graffiti wall by my crafty friend Heather (top left).
In summary, our theory seems to be pretty accurate, although we’re majorly coveting this super fun rug from Pottery Barn (in blue) so there are certainly exceptions to the rule.
Initial Reaction
Ok, I’ve rambled about monograms and personalized initials a few times, but this time they hit closer to home. As in we actually brought a few into ours. Other than the makeshift monogram above our bed and a few P’s here and there, we’ve never actually introduced our first initials to Chez Petersik. Until now. In celebration of our newly refreshed black and white bathroom, we decided to add a few personalized accessories.
Please allow me to introduce our cute new bathroom towel hooks courtesy of Anthropoligie (only $12 a pop). Identifying my towel has never been easier:
And for only six beans each, we also grabbed these Anthropologie mugs, which hold some handy dandy cotton balls and floss. Gotta love when storage looks this good:
The last exciting addition to our master bathroom revamp has nothing to do with letters but it’s too good not to mention. We finally replaced an old ho-hum white framed mirror with this swanktastic beauty, discovered at Home Goods for a staggering twenty nine dollars. I know, we couldn’t believe it either. Looking at ourselves has never been more fun.
Hue Knew?
While celebrating Easter in Northern Virginia, my parents dropped a copy of The Washington Post in my lap that featured a BIG collection of articles on the blog world’s recent love affair with paint color. Blogs? Paint? Yes please.
The lead article focuses on two colorful blogs. (And no, Young House Love wasn’t one of them- but you can read about our own adventures in wall color selection here.) The first blog, Color For Your Home, is authored by several home color experts who dispense rules, tips and even personalized advice about color selection for the interior and exterior of your home. The second blog, Hue, is less about what to put on your walls and more about color’s impact on our lives – from what products we buy to, well okay, what we paint our walls. Both are definitely worth a look.
But back to the Washington Post feature. While there, be sure to check out all the items grouped under this story. You’ll find some pretty useful paint info including the difference between “eggshell” “satin” and all those other finishes, how to steer clear of an ugly exterior paint job and required reading for the paint enthusiast.
Our favorite feature, though, was the list of designer’s favorite paint colors. Can’t say I’d let all of these guys pick paint for my house (can a person who loves “Nacho Cheese” paint really call himself a designer?), but it’s always fun to see what the experts have to say. There’s a preview below, but you can click here for the full graphic.
Dryin’ To The Oldies
A recent bout of spring cleaning turned into an archaeological dig when Sherry uncovered this piece of ancient history:
Ok, so it’s no dinosaur bone, but who expects to find something this dated in their own filing cabinet? What we had stumbled upon was the installation manual for our old – wait, scratch that – REALLY OLD dryer, which has since been donated to make way for our new front-loaders. (Below is the only pic we have the old stuff, which was taken mid-demo. It was too ugly to photograph otherwise.)
Somehow we didn’t see the manual during our first flip through the files we inherited from our home’s previous owner. But based on the vintage illustrations and old school Sears, Roebuck and Co. logo we were able to determine that the manual (and therefore the ol’ Kenmore dryer) was from the 1950s. Which means that our former laundry appliances were probably original (!) to our 1956 house. We actually shouldn’t be that shocked. As Lowe’s was hauling our dryer away to be donated the guy was rambling about how he’d never seen such an archaic appliance with actual cinder blocks built right into the base to keep it from scooting around.
Admittedly, I now feel some pangs of guilt for letting go of such an “antique”. But we’re sure there have been just a few significant dryer developments in the last half of a century, so we can certainly appreciate that we’re cleaning our clothes in less time with less noise while using less electricity. Oh and the new front loading version is also a heck of a lot easier on the eyes.
