Decorating Lessons
The 8 Month Difference…
After yesterdays first house vs. current house comparison, this comment from Jess definitely got our wheels turning: “I think its an unfair comparison to put 8 months of work at the current place up against 4 + years at the old. You should have compared current photos from this house to what your old house looked like 8 months after you moved in there!!” Well, that’s probably not quite fair either, since we’ve definitely learned a ton in the last five years of homeownership (and also spend a lot more time doing house stuff these days since this DIY diary of ours is our job)… but we’re game! It’s Friday. But oh boy is this walk down memory lane going to amuse you. Just picture us quietly cringing over here as we bare all.
See, eight months into owning our first house, we still didn’t even know how to properly paint trim (I painted all of it in the entire house with flat paint only to learn it should be semi-gloss and then had to redo it all – and yes, it was torture). But the beauty of this post is that it’s a good reminder that houses take time. And sometimes they look crazy. Which is probably why some of the completely unfinished rooms in this house don’t make us want to cry as much as they did in our first house (back when we thought homes were supposed to be done the week after you moved in). Now we know better. So just for fun, here’s how our first house looked around eight months in (which was only about eight months before we started this ol’ blog to track the progress of our big kitchen renovation for friends & family members). Oh and you can scroll back to yesterday’s post if you want to peep the final first house pics (or compare this roundup to our current house’s eight-months-in progress). Just didn’t want to bog this post down with 50 more pics and crash the site like I did yesterday. Oops.
Front Yard, First House (8 Months In):
Our front yard was kind of just a forest when we moved in. But in eight months I did manage to clip all the trees that completely blocked the view of the house from the curb so neighbors could sneak a peek (yes, there really was a house back there). Project Tree Trimming was one of those let’s-surprise-John-when-he-comes-home-from-work projects that I did with a lawn chair and a branch cutter. And yes, the mister was shocked to actually see the front porch from the street.
Front Porch, First House (8 Months In):
This was a few weeks after I clipped up the branches. I took a saw to the fully slatted wood screen door and cut a big “window” in it just to break things up. Then I painted it yellow and hung an embarrassingly lame twig and faux lemon wreath from Target. Oh yeah and that thing hanging next to the door was left by the previous owner. It was a wood plaque that looked like a cutting board with a pineapple and the word “Welcome” painted on it. Very country cottage-y. But I loved that thing for a good year.
Living Room, First House (8 Months In):
Oy. That’s really all I can say. The sofa was a hand me down from a family member. The iconic college dorm coffee table was an Ikea find. Everything is way too small and way too far apart. There’s a square of faux-stone linoleum in front of the door. It’s all sorts of horrible. Living with this room for a few years taught us that creating two zones in the long-ish space (a dining area and a living area along with a console by the entryway) filled the space in a more functional and not-crazy-sparse way.
Kitchen, First House (8 Months In):
We were pretty active in the kitchen within eight months of moving in. We got all new appliances (Frigidaire from Lowe’s, which we carried over into our big remodel about eight months later) and painted the cabinets (Brown Bag by Glidden), replaced the hardware (with cheap Ikea stuff) and painted the faux brick backplash (Wishes by Glidden). It still looked like a hot mess in there, but it was our mess. Come on, you know you like those awkward serving spoons hanging from the metal range hood that’s not actually over the stove.
Dining Room (Future Bedroom/Nursery), First House (8 Months In):
We had lots of fun with this room, even though it wasn’t very functional (a room that barely accommodates four people does not a dining space make). We actually built that table ourselves (using a thrift store pedestal base and a giant piece of wood screwed in from below and then painted glossy black). I also spray primed and painted the old chandelier white (it used to be brass) and replaced the long pointy fire-shaped bulbs with modern round ones. But my favorite little adventure in there was painting the area over the chair rail with tiffany-box blue paint, and then using chalk to draw subtle leafy branches on the wall. Crazy yes, but lots of fun (I even used a spray fixative from the craft store to keep it from rubbing off). More on that project here.
Master Bedroom, First House (8 Months In):
Yikes, this room was baaad. Much like the living room everything looked really sparse. And yes, that’s a printer/fax machine hiding on the floor in the corner. Freelance copywriter from home = actually faxing things pretty regularly. But there’s no excuse for having it on the floor in the bedroom. And the too small art and too low bed with nothing else going on to fill things in around them kind of kills me. Thank goodness for living and learning.
Oh yeah, this bathroom phase is like looking back at photos of a really bad haircut in ninth grade. I thought painting the trim black around the window could look really cool and Domino-ish… but no. Not happening. So I painted it white again and removed the swag (which was actually a pashmina that I still wear to this day – and giggle when I remember its past life). Ah, much better.
Guest Room, First House (8 Months In):
So… eight months in meant we painted the room but that’s it. Still no bed for guests. We were saving our pennies and focusing on other areas, but we eventually got a full sized bed as a hand-me-down a few months later. Hooray for sleepovers.
Den, First House (8 Months In):
Bad news bears. Seriously, everything from the white bedsheet that I actually stapled to the underside of the desk in the corner to the crooked-looking painted paneling but unpainted brick makes me cringe. About a month later we painted the two brick walls the same color as the two paneled ones and it started to move towards the room that we know and love (but it still took a while to work up the energy to tackle those beams).
Laundry Nook, First House (8 Months In):
This is a terrible shot of the space that would someday become the laundry nook because it’s aimed at the floor, but I was terribly proud of the peel & stick vinyl tile that I laid down over grody old yellow sheet linoleum (that always looked dirty no matter how hard I scrubbed). Of course about a year later we’d remove those bifold doors to open the laundry area up (and to avoid door wars between the bifolds and the door to the sunroom) and add wood flooring throughout the entire hall, half bath, den, and kitchen. Oh but you might notice that I put little glass knobs on the bifolds to make them more palatable until those later phases. It’s the little things.
Half Bathroom, First House (8 Months In):
We knew that giant boxy sink vanity needed to be switched out for a smaller pedestal sink to make the tiny room feel a lot less crowded, but eight months in we were pretty scared to take that on (a little googling revealed that we had to cut into drywall to find studs to secure the back of the sink basin) so we put it off a few months longer. But we did paint the walls the same tiffany box blue that we had in the dining room (with flat paint, which was a bad call, btw- now I always use semi-gloss in bathrooms & kitchens) and replaced the toilet (it was avocado green when we moved in). And I replaced the knobs and the grungy old fabric on the window shutters (but later removed them entirely because natural light was much needed).
Sunroom, First House (8 Months In):
We actually did a fair amount of work in eight months in here. We got that wicker daybed as a hand-me-down and then got a hand-me-down twin mattress for it (and used regular old twin sheets from Target to cover the mattress and make that odd little skirt in the front). We also used a cheap-o lack table from Ikea to create the scrabble table (we just topped it with a larger tabletop that came with the thrift store pedestal that we used to make the dining table). We also stained the concrete floors a color called “tuscan gold” – which I later grew to hate because it was a bit too orange-y in direct sunlight (so we painted it a glossy chocolate color to tie it into the hardwood flooring throughout the house).
Patio, First House (8 Months In):
This patio was labeled as “needs replacing” during our inspection, so we knew it was on its last leg but thought we could live with it for a little while. But when my mom visited a few weeks before our backyard wedding and said she feared for guests’ safety (and pictured them all breaking their ankles on it) we decided to spend some of our saved-up “house fixing fund” to pay a pro to redo the whole thing over the course of three days (since it was just a few weeks before the wedding and we feared a giant half-finished disaster if we took it on ourselves). Knowing just how hard laying a patio is from doing the one at our current house, we’re still very happy we hired that one out so we could plan the rest of our wedding without that monkey on our back.
Back Yard, First House (8 Months In):
During our walk-through I glanced through the window in the old dated dining room and saw this. And I nearly lost my breath. I remember thinking “all this could be ours?” – I just thought having all this space would be awesome (the deep woods beyond the planted part was also part of the acreage). At first we loved the park-like setup above (and kept it pretty much exactly like this for the wedding (you can see how we set things up here), but eventually we grew tired of weeding the long pea gravel path and pruning the bushes and trying to use the tiny patches of segmented grass for incredibly mature things like extreme frisbee and chasing the dog, so we eventually craigslisted the gravel & bushes (folks dug them all up and hauled them for us in exchange for them being free) and we laid down some grass seed for a nice flat grassy yard in front of those deep woods. And Burger thanked us repeatedly for the trouble.
So there you have it. The state of our first house around eight months in. Thank goodness for the whole learn as you go, trial and error thing. It might not be the quickest way to a complete makeover, but I’m telling you – there’s something to it. Eventually you get there. Heck, it’s still the exact method that we use today (we just know a bit more about what we like and what type of paint should be used on trim and in bathrooms). So rejoice if your house is only a shadow of what you long for it to be. That stuff takes years, at least it does for us. So just keep trying things and learning about what floats your boat and eventually you’ll get there. Oh and don’t forget to enjoy the ride.
Nine Dolla Pillows + More Free Art
We all know I have a pillow problem. And true to form, I couldn’t resist grabbing two of these boldly striped 26″ x 26″ euro pillows for just nine bucks a pop when we came across them at HomeGoods. In my defense, John walked off and came back holding them, so he might have a pillow problem too. But come on, $9? For giant 100% cotton euro pillows? Sold. In our house, pillows are definitely nomads, so these guys could end up doing a little tour (hitting up the guest room, the playroom, and even the sunroom or living room). But right now we’re loving them in our bedroom with the similarly toned flower & berry prints from Alaska that we hung a few weeks back:
It’s sort of like adding a completely temporary boldly striped headboard without doing anything more than spending $18 and tossing them on the bed. No muss, no fuss. And no commitment. We really like how they work with everything from our garage sale botanical art and the lighter toned greeny-gold curtains to the green potted plant on the other side of the room and even Sir Ram. Because when you stop to think about it, what really works with a giant ram head over your bed? Am I right? Oh and as for the smaller greeny-gold pillow, it’s sure to pop up in other places too, so it’s not always destined to be layered with the new striped pillows for those who object (although in person it’s really nice pairing that further ties in the curtains). Here’s a wide shot of the very unfinished side of our bedroom:
I know, I know. That picture looks crazy. So check out all the doodled changes that we’re planning to make as we go:
To further expound upon my doodles:
- We hung the twig & berries art on the same center-line as the ram (just so they wouldn’t look like they were riding high and because the lamp shades only overlapped the written flower/berries names and not the illustration) but once we get new night stands that are hopefully taller (since those old living room side tables are way too low and don’t have any concealed storage) we’ll probably scooch everything up a bit.
- The ottoman is necessary for Burger to get in and out of bed (yes, we pander to him, although we refuse to buy doggy steps) but it’s a little short and chunky and dark (although it does tie into our leaning mirror and dark chair) so we might get/make something lighter and longer (perhaps with dark legs but a lighter fabric top).
- The wheat colored lamp shades sometimes read as a little dirty since the bedding, trim, light fixture, and door are so white. Mehaps a little makeover or upgrade is in order.
- We’d love some sort of big chunky cabinet to the left of the bed for function, balance, and to make sense of the odd little nook there.
So that’s the long-term plan in there. And just as new additions to a room often inspire some tweaking (ex: in a surprise turn of events our twig & berry art spurred us to lose the ol’ printed duvet cover), the addition of the new striped pillows sparked a little art tweak on the other side of the room. Ever since we added the matching framed botanicals by the bed (along with the matching wall plaques on either side of Sir Ram and the matching new striped pillows at the head of the bed) the horse art somehow slipped from feeling nice and balanced (since it had two different items under it – a chair and a dresser) to feeling a little too balanced and mirror-image since it was one of many things that were now in pairs…
So because we were itching for a little less symmetry (while still wanting to maintain some semblance of balance to help the new-ish chair and the very old dresser relate), we decided to play around with stuff that we already had to see if we could come up with a free alternative:
- Down came the horses above the dresser (which now reside in the playroom but will hopefully find a permanent place somewhere else down the line).
- Up went two differently sized old Ikea frames that we had sitting in the playroom, waiting to be hung for almost 8 months.
We immediately liked the less symmetrical arrangement but the oddly mismatched frame colors weren’t doing it for us (one was a clashy reddish brown and one was white). And since the botanicals looked so good with a little oil-rubbed bronze spray paint I decided to quickly pop the glass/art out of them and give them a few thin and even coats of leftover ORB. You know, so they’d tuck into the room a bit more and look more integrated with the stuff going on across the wall. So outside I went with my sexy spray painting socks (see those here)….
… and soon enough the frames were bronzed and beautiful…
Then I needed something to put in them. So I dug through the old art stuff we already had and found a simple little green dandelion print from Ikea (it used to hang next to our front door in our first house). I also decided to make some always-appropriate-for-a-DIY-couple’s-bedroom “paint chip art” with old Ralph Lauren swatches that I had in my basket (yes, I have a paint swatch basket since I hate throwing them away, which is also where I house all of my paint decks except for my favorite one that hangs in the hallway). Home Depot doesn’t even sell Ralph Lauren paint anymore, so I figured “recycling” the old swatches was better than hoarding them or just trashing them, so I pulled out all of the little colored squares…
… and just used tones that reoccur in the room so it would tie in (I didn’t need something that screamed since that would compete with the botanicals and the remaining horse photograph over the leather chair). I was left with a little pile of browns, grays, blue-grays, greeny-yellows, soft sand colors, creams, and whites. So I just arranged them in a gradient from darkest to lightest (this photo was still a work in progress since I switched out a few of the chips that stuck out too much or looked out of order).
Little loops of scotch tape on the back of each one held them in place on four pieces of card stock that I taped together to create a big 16 x 20″ background to fit the frame. Ta-daaa.
We love that the paint chip art looks like a pixelated photo and the dandelion pic is a nice little “neutral” touch in the room as well (so it all layers in nicely without conflicting too much with anything else on the walls). Yay. We’re fans. Although we’ve learned that art posts are definitely the most not-everyone’s-boat-is-floated-by-the-same-stuff kind of thing. But we sleep in that room and we like it mucho. Hurrah! Clara’s favorite part? The pig of course (she runs into the room squealing “piggy!” and pointing while oinking). Very cute.
For another version of paint swatch art, check out what we did with leftover swatches in our old office (on our postcard ledge) and drop in on Jessica Jones’ awesome paint chip art project here on How About Orange.
Oh and since I’m in a doodling mood, here’s a bit more about why we did what we did:
See, it’s not as perfectly balanced and mirror-image-ish. But it still kind of goes. And it’ll work a lot better after some tweaks over time (get ready for more doodling)…
… like this…
We really like that the white mirror in the nook relates to the glossy white window trim, and the art hanging on either side of it is dark enough to feel balanced but not exactly the same size/shape anymore. So that’s where we are.
Who knows what else we’ll change as we go though. We’re definitely fans of the trial and error method (since we never seem with it enough to get things right on the first try, haha). Although this corner view is still my favorite for some reason. Probably because the mirror reflects a ton of window-light and the big chandelier is floating overhead with the neutral-ish-but-not-white curtains, the dark moody leather chair, and the horse art in the background.
So anyway, it’s nice that something as simple as two cheap-o pillows and some fast & free art swappage (I must be in a free art mood this week) could add a bit more interest while taming the super-symmetry that seemed to build and eventually boil over as we added art and accessories.
Have you guys bought cheap-o pillows lately? Or decided to switch out art and accessories as you toss in other additions and slowly build a room? Any favorite pillow sources in general? Oh and has anyone out there gotten it totally right with everything from the furnishings to the accessories in one shot? That must be amazingly serendipitous. We’re more of the learning as you go slash bumbling along type. Haha. But at least we didn’t break anything this time…
Kinda Blew My Mind
I was watching Sarah Richardson (Sarah 101) the other night (thanks DVR) and she mentioned that at the end of a makeover she has usually used around 10-14 fabric textiles in each room that she does.
And as the title of this post suggests, it totally surprised me. Doesn’t that sound like a lot? Of course she’s an expert when it comes to layering prints and patterns, but I couldn’t imagine a “regular Joe” going into a fabric store and walking out with 10-14 swatches that they were going to combine. But then I realized that she was counting the upholstery fabric on chairs and sofas and headboards along with curtains and a ton of accent pillows. So while vegging in the living room at 11pm while watching that very show, I looked around and counted all of the fabrics going on…
Karl The Sectional’s dark gray fabric (he’s from Ikea) = 1
The faux leather seat of our desk chair (from Target four years ago) = 2
The curtains (from Ikea in April) = 3
The linen-like fabric on the ottoman (from Marshall’s) = 4
The faux sheepskin draped over the ottoman (from Ikea last year) = 5
The green zebra pillows (from West Elm about a month ago) = 6
The printed pillows that I tea stained (from this etsy shop) = 7
The textured felt pillows (from Crate & Barrel last year) = 8
The branch pillow (from Ikea a while ago) = 9
The faux cow pillow (from Ikea a while ago) = 10
The shag mohair pillow (from Target a few months back) = 11
The soft champagne-y metallic pillows (from Bed Bath & Beyond years ago) = 12
Twelve! Who knew? Granted a lot of those fabrics are more tone on tone/textured than brightly patterned (thanks to the colorful rug and art going on). But it’s really interesting to think that we sort of subconsciously mixed all those materials together (although we didn’t exactly have things upholstered and tailored for us a la Sarah Richardson).
So it got me wondering how many fabrics you guys have going on in your living space. Is it in that 10-14 range? Way lower? Way higher? For some strange reason I’m dying to know how things stack up at everyone else’s house. So much so that I tossed in this survey:
[poll id="33"]
Tell me, tell me! Also, doesn’t Sarah have awesome blazers and what appears to be very glossy and perfect hair? The woman has style for days.
Psst- Pretty little pic of Sarah Richardson found here.
Mistakes We (Hopefully) Won’t Make Again
Q: I have an idea for a blog post. “Design mistakes we won’t make again.” As I look through pictures of all the beautiful work you’ve done, I’m thinking of choosing many similar styles & purchases. But then I wonder, over time – did you ever regret a design choice? – Shannon
A: That’s a good one. And now for 1,970 words on the subject. We’ll start by saying that we definitely don’t always know what we’re doing when we do something (us = so not experts) so we just try to take things one day at a time and learn as we go. We make tons of mistakes. You’ve just gotta feel your way around and course-correct along the way. Doing something, even if it’s a bad something is so much more of a learning experience than doing nothing and being frozen in indecision. So here are a few live-and-learn mistakes of ours that come to mind:
1. Buying an expensive-for-us Pottery Barn sofa. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to buy a sofa without seeing it in person (and sitting down on that baby). The reason we got a PB one for our first house’s den was because we ordered a cheaper sofa from target.com and then it arrived and it was terrible. The scale and proportion was all wrong and it was hard as a rock. Thankfully it was fully returnable, but we were left feeling like “maybe you have to spend a lot on something to get something good” so we saved up and ordered the PB Basic sofa after sitting on it in the store (to the tune of around $1300 with delivery at the time).
But in all of the 3+ years that we spent with it, we never really loved it. It’s totally just one of those personal preference things but it always felt kind of baggy and frumpy. Here’s a less glamorous glimpse of those top cushions from this old old old post from back in the day:
It just never felt/looked as nice as the living room sofa that we actually paid $400 less for from Rowe (read about that here). Even Karl the sectional (who is three times bigger) was less expensive! He’s also more comfy and looks more like “us” than our old PB sofa (which we craigslisted for $500 before the big move). So I guess the lesson that we learned was that just because something is more expensive, it’s not always better.
2. Black trim in the bathroom. Bad idea. But I’m glad we tried it. I had this cool graphic Domino vision and it was not just working. But it only took about two hours to paint it…
… and then unpaint it. And it didn’t hurt to eliminate a few other odd items like the blue plastic shower curtain, my blue pashmina window treatment (that was definitely a work with whatcha got oddity), and those funny old shutters on the windows (among other things).
So the black trim was definitely a mistake worth making, just to learn that it wasn’t the right move so we could get past it and find out what we really liked. Turned out white on white on white made for a nice spa like effect until we could reno the entire bathroom (up close the original tile was a disaster, so it sadly couldn’t be saved).
3. Not bringing enough furniture into a room. Like our stark and completely non-functional living room in the early days:
This mistake was pretty easy to remedy over time. We just saved our pennies and slowly added items to fill out the long skinny never-used-it-at-all room. Here’s here’s how it looked a few years into the whole evolution (adding a dining area off of the kitchen was a lot more functional, so we used the room a lot more).
4. Going too crazy with our whole house color scheme. At first we thought every room called for a different color of the rainbow- read more about that here).
The black trim bathroom debacle taught us to try something, even if it doesn’t always work out. And this is more of that lesson. Slowly over time we tried a bunch of colors, identified the ones we loved best, painted over the rest, and ended up with a sea-glass inspired palette for our first house that was really welcoming and serene.
For our current house we’re in the mood for something a bit more moody, risky, and sophisticated (who wants to clone the same house twice?). Could be awesome. Might suck. Only time will tell!
5. Dinky, not-big-enough items. Even if your space is small, we’ve learned that lots of small furniture or art & accessories can actually make it feel smaller (and more cluttered) – at least through our eyes. Yup, we’re definitely fans of a nicely sized sofa or a large scale art item to add a little something extra. Some might say we like things too big (that’s what she said), but the drama of a giant light fixture, like this one in our current bedroom…
… or an oversized vase, like this one in our hallway…
… seems to add interest and presence to spaces that might not feel as special without them. Whatever tickles your pickle I guess (one more time, that’s what she said). Of course when Clara gets a little bigger we might have to nix the giant glass objects, but we’ll cross that bridge hide that vase when we get there. Ha.
6. Growing grass everywhere. A bag of grass seed is definitely cheaper than a bunch of bushes, and the easy-care regional grass that we use doesn’t need much water or weeding once it’s established (we don’t use fertilizer or sprinklers or anything). But it’s still a lot to mow. It used to take John at least an hour and a half to mow the front and back yards of our first house. And in the summer it would grow like crazy so it definitely ate into our “fun family time.”
Keeping a more naturalized landscape with a few areas of grass for the pup and the kiddo(s) is more of the plan when it comes to this house. So we’ll definitely add some grass in a few places for t-ball and picnics, but we hope to leave other areas au naturale (and add low maintenance wildflowers, grasses, ground cover, etc).
7. Not relying enough on craigslist and thrift stores for furnishings. Some of our favorite items, like our old living room coffee table (which is now being borrowed by John’s parents), the white slipcovered chair from the den (which now lives in the sunroom), the white pedestal table from our old sunroom (which now sits in the living room by the window) and Clara’s old dresser (which still resides in her room) are secondhand finds that cost less than $30 each. Yup, we paid under $120 for a giant 6-drawer dresser, a large white pedestal table, a crisp slipcovered armchair, and a two tiered glass and iron coffee table. Insanity.
We’re so glad we didn’t end up dropping $200+ for each thing from a big box store. And since moving into our new house we’ve added eight dining chairs from craigslist (scored for just $25 a pop) along with two $35 chairs from a secondhand shop, and all of the fun thrifted finds seen here. Secondhand treasures = yes please.
8. Not building things. It’s not that hard. Even though we’re the first to admit that it sounds intimidating (it took us three months to work up the nerve to tackle our latest build). But everything from our custom door-topped desk and our postcard shelves to the book ledges that John made in the nursery were so affordable and doable when we think back.
And now that John’s tackling our 140″ console table (he’s still hard at work – details soon). There’s something sweet and poetic about making furniture together at home (even if you’re just the cheerleader, and even better if you’re the one slinging the drill). Petersik-style romance is building something under your own roof (or outside in the yard). Sawdust + teamwork (even if it’s just me watching Clara and cheering John on while he works) = amore.
9. The whole matchy-matchy crime. In our first house we learned that we love a mixture of dark wood and white painted pieces along with brown faux leather upholstery mixed with white slipcovers and and even a few soft painted pieces (like a celery toned bookcase or bench). And in our current place we’re having fun switching things up by adding more boldness, different wood tones, and even things like gray beams or deep saturated walls. But one thing’s for sure. We’ll never have a room full of furnishings that are all the exact same wood tone or the same upholstery fabric. It’s just too much fun to switch it up with things like a green luggage-rack-turned-side-table (see how we DIYed that here)…
… or create a two-tone dresser like Clara’s (that we DIYed here).
10. Buying things that don’t work with anything else in our house. We thankfully never bought a giant piece of furniture that didn’t fit in with anything else that we own (other than the PB sofa we never really loved), but we’ve definitely picked up pillows and accessories that never felt quite right with other items in our house (and eventually they made it into the Goodwill/yard sale pile). Read more about trying to avoid grabbing tons of stuff that doesn’t work with the rest of the stuff that you already have here.
11. Refinishing the floors of our first house with traditional materials like oil-based stain and polyurethane. It stunk for months. We both got headaches for weeks and it felt really unhealthy, even though we ran fans and cracked windows (even in the dead of winter). Thank goodness it was two years before Clara was born (read more about that floor refinishing process here and here).
Moving forward we’d only use green products like just-as-amazing water based stain and eco sealants that aren’t full of nasty VOCs and odors that hang in the air for months on end (a local place called Eco Logic here in Richmond sells that stuff, which we plan to use when we redo our floors someday).
12. Buying a boob lights (yes, that’s a technical term). Or buying any interim item for that matter. For us it’s usually best just to wait and get something amazing that we love when we can afford it instead of rushing to buy something just to fill space until the real purchase is made later (read more on that here). We bought a boob light for something like $10 to get rid of the old never-used ceiling fan in our first house’s tiny guest bedroom.
The switch instantly made the small space feel ten times bigger, but we later switched El Boob out for a nicer long term fixture (learn how we made it here):
So if we really plan things out we’ve learned that we can save a step or two (and some money, even if it’s only $10) and not introduce boob lights to begin with. Or any other just-for-now-and-we’ll-upgrade-later item.
And so ends our little hope-we-don’t-make-these-mistakes-again-but-will-probably-make-others roundup. Of course all of these “errors” are subjective. You know what they say: “one man’s decorating ooops is another man’s decorating booyah.” Wait they don’t say that? Oh well. These are just a few of the things that came to mind when we looked back and tried to come up with “stuff we don’t wanna do again.” We’re sure there are probably fifty other decorating and renovating whoopsies looming in our future. But I guess I’ll be corny and say whisper “bring it on.” How else will we learn what we love (and don’t) if not by trial and error? Happy mistake making to one and all!
Feeling Floored
We’re trying to soak up all the things that we love about this house before we move on to our next big project, and we realized that our floors make us inordinately happy. And it’s not just the fact that they’re mostly hardwood in a nice mocha color, it’s the whole cohesive flooring thing in general. Seriously, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth (because it honestly sounds like I’m a motivational speaker or someone who takes design way too seriously) but… cohesive flooring is a game changer. Really. It is.
Our house used to have eight different flooring materials and seams. Think about that for a second. Eight! All on one modestly sized level. Talk about chopping things up and making them feel even smaller. There was faux stone linoleum in the laundry nook, yellowed vinyl tile in the half bath, a sheet of dated blue linoleum in the kitchen, thin ratty carpet in the full bathroom, faux parquet linoleum flooring in the den, another thin ratty carpet in the sunroom, and hardwoods in about the other half of the house (thank goodness).
You can see a few more floor before & after pics here (although admittedly we weren’t the best at taking photos back in the early days). But the point is that now our entire house is all dark solid hardwood (some that we installed during our kitchen reno, and some that we got refinished to match those new hardwoods) along with a similarly toned mocha marble floor in the full bath (there’s the same mocha hardwood in the half-bath to keep everything cohesive).
It’s amazing how much more of an open feeling it lends to the whole house. Of course it’s totally a subjective thing (and we can see how it’s fun to play around with different flooring colors and materials if that’s you thing), but as far as this small home full of small rooms is concerned, similarly toned seamless flooring was one of the best decisions we could have made. So we thought we’d pass that tip along to anyone else who’s slowly but surely working with a small space full of an inordinate amount of linoleum, nappy carpet, or faux parquet. It might not be the cheapest home improvement undertaking, but you can find some pretty great deals. We got our new hardwoods cheaper than most laminate flooring that big box stores sell thanks to Lumber Liquidators, and we only paid $1.50 a square foot to get our existing stuff refinished. The point of this diatribe? Life’s too short to live with crazy mismatched floors.
And so ends a weird little Friday morning brain dump of sorts. What’s up with the floors in your house? Do they all match or have some sort of relationship with each other? Does every room in your house have a different floor personality? Come on, the least we can do is see this weird floor tangent through…
