Our Current House
Dishing It Out
Ack! We’re speaking at the Portland Home & Garden Show today, so pardon us if we’re spotty and slow over here (picture us sweating bullets, emphatically flailing, and trying not to blurt out nonsensical things like “pickle jars!” and “take that baby to the market!“). When it’s all said and done we’re sure we’ll have at least 2-5 mortifying stories to tell ya.
As we mentioned on Monday, before we hopped on a plane yesterday, we tackled our bisque colored dishwasher. And let’s just say the stainless one is a crowd pleaser (we like it, but Clara loves it). We’ll get to that in a moment.
We had been telling ourselves that it would be better to do this once the new floors went in (so we didn’t accidentally trap it behind the new cork boards or something). But then we realized that was a dumb excuse because we could just slide it on top of a few cork planks so it would be the same height as the rest of the floor once it goes in. Plus if the new dishwasher box stayed in the office any longer we’d risk it becoming a permanent side table substitute in there. It does have a large surface area after all (so things tend to pile up on top of it)…
We have never installed a dishwasher. It freaked me out a little bit because it was plumbing + electrical + tight space. Not to mention that I didn’t want to ruin a $380 appliance in the process. But after watching a few videos on YouTube, I was feeling a bit more confident about it (this one and this one were particularly reassuring). So when Clara went down for a nap on Sunday we gave ourselves a little pep talk and dove in.
First up, we turned off the hot water supply and electricity to the dishwasher. Embarrassingly enough, this step alone took us a good 15 minutes because our breaker boxes (we have two) weren’t labelled correctly and it took us lots of trial and error (and trips to the basement while on our cell phones to communicate) to make sure I wasn’t going to electrocute myself.
With the water and power off, I unscrewed the access panel along the base of the old dishwasher. Prepare yourself for some less than clean floor photos. Sorry. (There’s been a lot of DIY action going on in here, so the old vinyl floors aren’t exactly pristine).
Here’s the view behind the panel. Looks like a party, right?
Using a wrench I unscrewed the water supply, keeping a rag handy to catch some leftover H20. This too took longer than expected because of the cramped space.
With the water supply off, my next step would’ve been detaching the drain hose from the disposal under the sink. I didn’t do this (yet) because I had already detached it under the dishwasher just because it was in the way of my wrench. And at this point I was trying to undo as little as possible just in case I needed to retreat (i.e. give up).
All of the plumbing was disconnected, so next up was electrical. The wiring is all encased in a little metal box that was removed pretty quickly with a little screwdriver action.
From there I just unscrewed the wire nuts and, just like that, I was done with the electrical parts of the old dishwasher.
Now I just had to focus on getting the dishwasher out of its home. First up, lowering the little adjustable feet so that it wasn’t so tight against the bottom of the countertop. Don’t mind the dinged up baseboard – we’re waiting to caulk/putty/touch that up until we install the new cork floors and add new quarter-round. Then it’ll all get gussied up.
Next I had to remove where it was screwed in. In most cases I think dishwashers are actually screwed into the underside of the counter. But ours was screwed into the cabinets on either side (maybe because we used to have granite counters?). I just popped off a little plastic plug and unscrewed away.
A shimmy and a shake later, and our bisque buddy was no longer clashing with our cabinets and counters. Oh, and even though these aren’t the new floors, I still pulled it out on a piece of cardboard for added protection and easier sliding around.
So we were left with an empty hole full of new dishwashery potential.
Before the new dishwasher could go in, though, I wanted to make sure to prepare for the new floor. So I roughly cut some pieces of our new cork and slid them in there so that the new dishwasher would sit at the height of the new floor, not the old one. Because if it sat behind the new floor boards it could make getting it out for repair or replacement very difficult (or impossible) down the line.
With the floor boards ready, out came the new energy efficient dishwasher (which we bought among a bunch of other on-sale appliances back in October).
It was at this point after reading the (very confusing) directions for the new dishwasher, that we realized that we needed to swipe a piece from the old one – a 90-degree elbow – to help route the water supply line into the dishwasher.
I’m not sure why these just don’t come in the box (I would’ve been super annoyed if I had had to go to the store just to buy one), but whatever. At least it gave me the opportunity to learn it’s WAY easier to work on a dishwasher when it’s pulled out and accessible on all sides. See – even the lighting for photos is better!
With the elbow attached, I could reattach the water supply line. Lucky for me, it was long enough to do this with the dishwasher still pulled out. Sure made maneuvering the wrench easier!
Here’s the point where I had to disconnect the old drain hose from the disposal and reattach the new one. Theoretically I could’ve just attached the old hose to the back of the dishwasher. But if one of my new connections were to leak, I wanted it to be the one under the sink (where I can see it) and not the one hidden in the back of my dishwasher.
Plumbing attached? Check. On to the electrical. I learned through this that I was missing a strain reliever on my wire, so I did have to run out to the store to grab one. It basically holds the wire in place at the dishwasher’s electrical box, removing any strain on the actual wire connections (since we don’t want those pulling apart!).
I attached the strain reliever, screwed the wire nuts back on to attach the wall wire to the dishwasher wire, and reattached the box cover. Then I held my breath as I went back down to the basement to turn the power back on and make sure my electrical work actually, well, worked.
Houston, we have liftoff.
I also turned the water back on and watched all my plumbing connections to make sure I didn’t have any leaks. Good thing I checked. I did have a small one around that 90-degree elbow. I had to detach the hot water supply, give the elbow another 360-degree spin and reattach everything. Then – after another leak check – I was good to attach this baby to the underside of our counters. Whew.
And just like that my friends (and by “just like that” I mean “three hours later”) – we had a new dishwasher! As Sherry mentioned in her post on Monday, it’s really nice to have something stainless on that side of the kitchen because it makes for some nice balance (the old fridge was almost right next to the old dishwasher, but our new arrangement makes for a better work triangle and looks better too).
And speaking of washing things, Clara got a hold of a paper towel while we were snapping these pics and went on a “wiping” spree. I don’t think she managed to wash any dishes but, well, you’ll see how much ground she covered…
Balance has finally been brought to our appliance triangle, and our dishwasher no longer looks dingy next to our white cabinets. Good stuff.
And the installation process wasn’t nearly as bad as I had prepped myself for. Sure, it did take a bit longer than I had hoped (though it did include one unplanned trip to get that strain reliever), but what project doesn’t?
Here’s the view from the office. You can’t really tell in this picture, but it’s also nice in person how the stainless finish plays off of the sink, faucet, and our new mercury glass pendant light.
And it’s worth mentioning that this has the same protective finish that keeps fingerprints off of it (more on that here). It’s very helpful in our household, since a certain someone’s cleaning techniques still leave a bit to be desired.
Functionally the dishwasher is pretty much the same as our old one. But I do love the added timer countdown on the front of the machine and the note that actually says “clean” when they’re clean (no more calling to each other across the house to ask if they’re dirty or not).
Oh, and you may have also noticed in these pictures that we’re sporting a new dish towel. It’s from Target, and we thought it was a fun addition. Clara agrees.
Who doesn’t love a little black and white chevron? Especially with soft penny tiles in the background to set it off.
Again, Clara’s on board with the decision. Can you tell someone recently learned to smile for the camera on command? “Can you show me your teeth?” has become a very handy phrase around here lately.
Has anyone else ever tackled a dishwasher installation? Did you have smooth sailing? Was there that obligatory unplanned trip to the hardware store? Did it take longer than you thought? Was there a tiny but correctable leak? Did you just learn how to smile on command?
Psst- To see what we did with the box that the dishwasher came in, check out Young House Life today.
Duck, duck, duck, duck…
goose!
And horse.
So apparently my little self-imposed Dude Get On That Already challenge is just a sick joke where the universe tells me: “hey crazy lady, stop hoarding animals in the playroom.” But at least I’m getting things off the floor in there and up on the walls of the rest of the house so they can actually be enjoyed (or that’s just the denial talking). So without further ado, two more thrift store finds from here and here. Yes, this week was a double whammy of getting on that, since no painting was required. And they’re both over a year overdue. Another big surprise. So it was time to get these guys up on the wall (especially give the untimely death of our dear friend Ramsey).
I made John hold this so you can see the weird way we hung him up in the right place and at the right angle with just two nail holes (instead of ten while we scooched him around to find the right spot and cursed ourselves for not making some sort of a template). We just stuck some painters tape around him (sticky-side out) and poked holes in it where the hooks for the nails are (just stabbed the tape with a pen there).
Then we held it up about an inch from the wall and moved it around until we liked the placement. I stood back about 8 feet to judge while John did the moving-around thing. Once we liked the placement we shoved him up against the wall so the painters tape stuck…
And then we pressed it against the wall firmly around the back of the ol’ bird to make sure it would stay on the wall.
Then when we pulled our little $8 thrift store duck off.
The tape became a little duck-hanging template. See how our little pre-poked holes are left stuck to the wall to show us exactly where our hanging nails need to go (and on the exact right angle) to hang this guy?
So here I am hammering those babies in (this guy’s really light, so no screws and anchors were required). Once the nails were in I just ripped off the painter’s tape while screaming Kelly Clarkson.
Behold:
Yes, the concrete greyhound underneath Sir Duck (an old V-day gift from the hubs back in 2008) is further evidence that I have an animal problem.
But seriously, how bad-a$$ is this guy? We love that he’s flying towards the front door. And if the rest of the dining room weren’t full of secret book projects we’d share more panned out pics to show how the dark wood tone picks up on the big chunky dining table nearby. Soon hopefully.
Now onto matters of the iron-horse kind. From the start we had plans to hang this equine delight in our bathroom with a towel through the ring. So a year after adopting him for $7 from a Delaware thrift store I finally did. He looks a bit lackluster now because the room is a big white box, but once we get around to painting and tackling some other updates we think he’ll be downright dapper.
It was fun to keep both of these guys au naturel. I mentioned the possibility of painting them both back when we bought them last year, but I think we’re moving into a phase where sometimes we just like things with some texture and some timeworn “patina” (aka: as they are). But you know I’m still no stranger to the ol’ spray paint can, so I think it’s one of those 50/50 things. Ya never know if I’m going to spray paint you or leave you well enough alone (or hide you in the playroom for a year, apparently).
How have we not had a hand towel hook in the hall bathroom for the last year? That’s the main bathroom that all of our visitors use. Yeesh. Glad we finally got on that. Our towel just used to lay in a heap next to the sink, but now it has presence. It has pizzazz. It has animal magnetism.
In summary: our bathroom has 99 problems, but a towel hook ain’t one.
I’ve actually been thinking a lot about the five million upgrades that we’d like to do to this bathroom, so maybe it’ll be next on the ol’ agenda (after we finally finish off the never-ending kitchen makeover). Oh and since folks have been asking if we’ll have anything left to do once the kitchen is done (ha!), here’s just a smattering of the bigger projects that come to mind (along with about a million smaller upgrades/projects as we go):
- We have not one, not two, but three full bathrooms that are untouched and in dire need of some upgrades
- We have a sunroom that has seen zero action since the day we halfheartedly plunked random old furniture in there (aka: move-in day)
- We have an untouched playroom full of pillows, fabric, more animals (?), and goodness knows what else that we’re planning to turn into a useful kids bedroom/playroom
- We’re going to convert our carport into a garage
- We’re going to build a pretty major walk-out deck
- We’re going to paint the porch, remove the scallops, stain the concrete, and box out the columns for a fresher look
- We’re going to hang crown molding in a bunch of rooms that don’t have it
- We’re going to add some wainscoting in the hallway (not the frame hallway, the other one that leads to the three non-master bedrooms)
- We’re going to refinish our wood floors
- We have a slew of 30-60%-done rooms that we’d like to someday finish, like the living room, the master bedroom, the guest room, the dining room, etc
- We have a full-blown front yard, side yard, and backyard makeover on the agenda (we like to tackle those slowly over time, like we did at our first house)
- We want to build some outside entertainment for beansie, in the form of a sandbox and/or a playhouse or playset
- We want to double side the fireplace between the kitchen and the living room
- We even daydream about bigger projects down the line, like changing the roof-line to add some peaks to the front of the house (to match the ones in the back, which were added when they did an addition in the 70s)
So yeah, there’s lots to do! But back to the fact that I need Animals Anonymous. Do you think Animal Hoarders is going to show up at my house? If they do, they’ll just get to chat with our house-sitters since we’re currently on a plane to Portland. Haha. The joke’s on them.
Speaking of our currently-in-flight status, we’re most likely going to post the second post of the day a little early (at noon EST during a plane change) and then won’t be available to approve comments between 1-6 EST while we’re on our second leg of the flight, so bear with us if there are only a few comments for five hours and the rest are hanging out in moderation! We moderate so we don’t miss questions (when thousands of contest comments roll in early in the week, it’s easy to lose them otherwise), but they should pop up eventually!
Have you guys finally hung any art or bathroom accessories that you’ve been meaning to hang for, oh, over twelve months? Let’s commiserate.
Lightening Up + Heading Out
A while back we bought this light for $29 at the Pottery Barn outlet. We originally planned to hang it over our sink “someday when we redid the kitchen” but then we got our oil-rubbed bronze pendant lights for over the peninsula, and although we love mixed metals, we just thought this silver + mercury glass light didn’t jive with them. So we started thinking about hanging it in a bathroom or something.
Then I asked tall John to hold it up as if it was hanging over the sink and surprisingly the shape was perfect. But the silver neck, black string, and silver ceiling cap were all wrong. But the glittering mercury glass shade was perfect (it tied into the chrome faucet and the stainless appliances and hardware). It was like a roller coaster. Perfect, all wrong, perfect. So I decided to call on my good friend ORB (oil-rubbed bronze spray paint with built-in primer) to take care of the all wrong department…
I figured giving it the same finish to help tie it into the other lighting over the peninsula was worth a shot.
A few thin and even coats later, I was left with a glossy oil-rubbed bronze fixture…
… that I couldn’t wait to hang above the sink and rinse dishes under.
I gave him a full day of drying time, just to be sure everything cured up and then up he went. It’s pretty cool how the dark finish helps balance the room and ties the pendants together, even though their shades are really different.
The new guy over the sink is sort of the “bridge” between the ORB pendants and the stainless/chrome/silver items touches in the room thanks to the gleaming mercury glass.
With our new stainless steel dishwasher installed (we actually did that this weekend by sliding a few pieces of cork under it without having to do the rest of the flooring quite yet – just have to take pics and write that post!) the room has even more balance now, since we have a silver thing on each side of the room. We didn’t plan that when we redid the layout, but it’s nice that it ended up that way (the dishwasher and fridge used to be sort of next to each other before we moved the fridge across the room).
Oh and we get requests to take photos of light installation but it’s rough to do since one of us holds the light while the other one wires it up (aka: no extra hands for photo or video taking) but if you search light installation videos I think they have a few good ones on youtube.
The little hexegons on the mercury glass shade make me really happy. I honestly think this fixture looks so much better with dark hardware to complement the cool silver shade. It’s so pretty and sparkly yet the dark tone sort of grounds it and makes it feel substantial and luxe.
We totally could have gone with another $60 outlet pendant over the sink like the ones over the peninsula, but there’s something really fun about having a light that goes, but doesn’t match exactly. And it’s a bit smaller in scale, which is kind of nice since the sink is a little less open and giant than the big ol’ peninsula.
Here are some “it’s on” shots for ya:
Now onto the “heading out” portion of this post’s title. As many of you know, we’re psyched and honored to be speaking at the Home & Garden show in Portland, Oregon this Wednesday. Which means we’ll be traveling for a lot of this week (hence us doing lots of projects this weekend, like the already-installed dishwasher, so we have lots to share with you throughout the week as we travel, speak, and travel again). We’re flying all day on Tuesday and are booked to be there pretty much all day on Wednesday the 22nd (from 5:30am to 8pm with just a few breaks for blogging and eating) and we’ll be giving an invite-only blogging seminar in the afternoon (they’re in charge of who gets invites, so maybe check their site/Facebook page for those details). But at 5:30pm there’s a Meet & Greet in the Smart House Remodel in Hall D. Anyone can show up for that, but they suggest your register. We’d love to meet you guys there!
Burger is actually staying back (with a house-sitter of course) since we thought it might be too stressful for him to travel there and back without much down time – but Clara is coming since we’ll actually have John’s mom and dad with us (they have family out in Portland so they decided to join us, which is a fun and very helpful plan).
So please forgive us if this week of posting is erratic and wonky! We’re going to do our best to get posts up at the regularly scheduled times, but there will definitely be moments when we’re in the air or at the show when we just can’t hop on and answer comment questions or get the next post up – so it might get a little funky. We tend to approve comments as we answer questions, so if you submit something and don’t see it pop up, we’re likely just waiting to get a moment to answer it or haven’t seen it yet!
But we can’t even tell you how excited we are to check out Portland (neither of us have ever been, but we have a list a mile long of things to check out, and of course we’ll blog about our home-related adventures during our fleeting two-day trip). Oh and to ensure that we’ll fit right in, we’ve been watching clips from Portlandia.
Sounds like a solid act-like-a-local plan, right?
In all seriousness, I’m not the best with public speaking, so feel free to cross fingers/eyes/toes for me. I’m skeeered. But I’m sure I’ll survive and have at least ten highly embarrassing stories to tell you guys when it’s all said and done. We’ve even been prepping Clara for the flight. More on that here. What did you guys do this weekend? Any ORBing or lighting bid-ness in the hiz-ouse?
Ram Down!
Remember our dear sweet never-hurt-a-fly Ramsey who watched over us in a not-creepy-at-all way when we slept?
He was a beloved member of our household and even inspired Burger to do yoga.
Well, Ramsey will be missed.
And yes, it totally felt like this tragedy of yore all over again.
Except John didn’t draw a depiction of the event…
… because it actually wasn’t John’s fault. But yes, yesterday we bid a fond farewell to our TJ Maxx find when he somehow popped off the wall in the kitchen where he was temporarily hanging for a book vignette above the fireplace. No one was even in the room to attempt to catch him on the way down. It pains me that he died alone. John’s even a little sad too. He was a good little ram. And we loved sleeping under his all-knowing gaze very much.
We were doing so well over the last three weeks of photo-shoot madness. A house full of cameras + people + equipment + secret projects + extra furniture/accessories is definitely like Catherine Zeta Jones trying to slither through those red lasers in that scene in Entrapment (you know the one). Except more lurchy and uncoordinated. Which is why it’s no surprise that on our second to last day of shooting (yes, today is our very last book shoot day after three full weeks of photography here at our casa!!!) Ramsey was our first casualty. Poor guy. What not-creepy-at-all ceramic animal will we hang over our bed now? We’ll just have to wait and see who catches our eye. But for the time being, there’s a hole in our hearts (and on our wall) for our dearly departed Ramsey.
Speaking of the end of our book shoots (can you believe our last book process post was three whole weeks ago?) we thought it would be fun to share a few pics from the last 21 insanely exhausting yet completely amazing and exhilarating days of essentially turning this pile of paper…
… into a holy-cow-it’s-real book that now just needs to be laid out/designed, sent off to “the printer’s”, and will be available for preorder this summer and out this fall. Ahhhhhh. And you know this little ol’ blog is just about whatever’s going on at our house (projects, broken ceramic animals, miscellaneous photography-related chaos), so we had to alert you to the latest (both in ram-related injuries and photography progress). As our shooting marathon draws to a close, we have shot over 2,000 photos (!!!) out of which 200-ish will make the final cut (we got lots of angles and progress pics and variations of things, so for every ten shots that we took, we usually just kept one). We even shot three different cover concepts yesterday – all of which we managed to worm our way out of (haha, we were so freaked out by the idea of seeing our smiling mugs on the cover of the book for years to come). They all came out really great – especially without our awkward faces in them – so we can’t wait to see which one they pick.
And you know over-sharers like us want to spill those pics and deets rightthissecond, but alas, we’re not allowed (gotta save it for fall when the book is out). So without further ado: here’s as much as we’re permitted to divulge when it comes to the chaos that was our lives during these past three weeks. Um yeah, the playroom has secretly been painted about nine times. Not kidding.
Different parts of the room got different colors that we assigned to spotlight specific shots/projects/vignettes (so the whole book isn’t full of Moonshine and Sesame and the other few colors in our house). So yes, part of the reason we’re tackling more Dude, Get On That Already challenges is definitely because all the items that used to live in the playroom have been offset into other rooms while we paint/shoot in there (the sunroom, guest room, our bedroom, and the dining room = crazytown). In keeping-it-real news, about four colors into it we got sick of repainting. Haha.
But oddly enough by about the eight and ninth ones it felt like second nature. Last night we even stenciled one wall for a special shot that we’re taking this afternoon. Yowsa. What will we do with ourselves when we’re not painting the playroom walls every few days after Clara goes to bed?
There was also gluing, taping, spray painting, dyeing, stenciling, staining, and a bunch of other secret DIY bid-ness going on. And we had to protect our hands for process shots throughout so we didn’t look – as Clara would say – “messy, messy, Mommy!” – hence all my dark nail polish as of late (to hide the grub under my nails) and John’s Dexter-ish rubber gloves.
Clara had a lot of fun checking things out (and yes, those are my snazzy spray painting clothes, complete with fuzzy red socks). The photographer’s name is Kip Dawkins and Clara loved following him around squealing “Hi Kip! Hi Kip! Hi Kip!” on repeat (kind of like kids asking “are we there yet?” every two minutes on a road trip). By the end of week one she not only knew everyone’s name, she could identify their cars when they pulled into the driveway (“Marcie’s car! Kip’s car! Susan’s car!” was a normal morning refrain) and was surprisingly good about keeping a pretty safe distance while still enjoying all the action. We’re so grateful this insanity didn’t completely wreck Clara’s life (and very very thankful for John’s parents, who snuck off with her whenever things got really hairy). But she did amazingly well with so much “change” at home – in fact, I think she might ask where everyone went when they stop coming by every day.
Here’s how we shot some of our pics to demonstrate how a few of our projects were done mid-process. The bigger ones got laid out on the floor and shot from further away. That white thing in the background is a “seamless” so the process shots look simple and uncluttered, while most of the after shots are things that we “styled in situation” – meaning they’re somewhere in our house to give those photos some environment (ex: on a table/on the wall/in a room/near a window or door/outside/etc – but they’ll probably only look vaguely familiar as being in our house since so many things like furniture arrangements and wall colors and accessories have changed). Oh and the thing over us is a reflector to keep the lighting consistent throughout the book. I liked to pretend it was a sail and we were out in the tropics on a boat. I guess I’m just as guilty of daydreaming as Clara (who saw fishies here).
Burger was also pretty cool with all the new folks and extra stuff in our space. Look, here he is perching on disembodied Karl like it’s no big deal. We worked him into the book like a champ. What’s a YHL book without some quality Burger shots up in there?
It was at this moment about a week and a half into shooting when we realized that our house hadn’t looked this crazy since moving day. Yup, that’s our guest bed in the corner of the living room. We carried that thing all over our house for different shots. It became kind of a game. Where can we put the bed next? The funny thing is that the bed shows how giant this room really is. It’s a gymnasium-sized room.
Here’s that same guest bed up against the back of the fireplace, completely blocking traffic. That finished book shot is actually one of our favorites. It was two projects in one being shown in that picture (neither of which are visible here of course). Oh man, is it Fall yet? Can’t wait to show you guys.
Look, no more bed in the corner, but that’s a drop leaf table back there. We had some dining scenes to shoot and since we have a giant round table we had to borrow a regular rectangular one from a local shop for the day to make normal shots easier to snag.
Oh and look, that’s not our sofa! It’s another borrowed-from-a-local-shop item that we used for a few vignettes. This sofa also shows how giant Karl the Sectional is (we have eight of those pics hanging above Karl, as contrasted with the three over this standard-sized sofa).
So to the crew who are practically like family after nearly a month of “living” with us: thanks for everything! And to you guys for bearing with us while we’ve juggled this and the kitchen redo and the bean and “the bug” that tore through our house earlier this week and all of our Portland prep (which means we were a little slower on comments from time to time): thanks for understanding! And to any and all varieties of dark chocolate: we couldn’t have done it without you! Hey, when you don’t drink coffee you have to grab a little zing of caffeine anywhere ya can.
Have you guys broken anything lately? Or completely turned your house upside down? Or gotten to know a group of total strangers over the course of a month to the point that you know their favorite music/food/color/quotes/movies? It’s so crazy how much has happened since Christmas. Is anyone else still scratching their heads that it’s mid-February? How did that happen?
Psst- You can check out our other three book-related posts over the last year here, here, and here.
It’s A Lady!
That’s what Clara said when she woke up and saw our freshly hung real art in the kitchen. It was cute. And we laughed. And then she squealed “She’s swimming! Look, fishies!” which are most definitely not in there, but the girl has quite an imagination. So hooray for imaginary fishies.
I described this gal as “real art” because it’s actually our first big art purchase ever. It’s a large print of an original oil painting by an amazing Etsy artist that we just couldn’t get out of our mind. And at $195 it was definitely a splurge for folks like us who usually frame free art that we make ourselves or hunt thrift stores and garage sales for cheapo options, but we figure that we’ve done a lot of things to save a really significant amount of money on our kitchen (like reusing our cabinets/sink/faucet, getting pendant lights from an outlet and a range hood on craigslist, reselling things like our old granite and over-the-range microwave on craigslist, building our own fridge surround/hood cover/open shelving, getting on-sale tile and clearanced out cork and installing it ourselves, buying inexpensive lab stools from a school supply shop, etc).
So yeah, it took a bit of rationalizing with ourselves and saying “dude, you have saved money in so many other places, and you love this art and don’t have any real art in the entire house yet- just take the plunge already!” So we did. And it feels good. In the words of Katy Perry: No regrets. Just love.
So yes, we’re calling it our V-day gift to each other (and our beloved kitchen). And it was icing on the cake when Clara got excited about it too. Burger has yet to react but we’ll keep you posted.
Doesn’t our lady swimming with imaginary fish look especially cheerful with two pink tulips leftover from book shoots (yup, those are still going on – they wrap this Friday and today we’re actually shooting cover stuff – ahhhhhh). As for framing our lady, I’m sure one day we’ll man up and pay to have her professionally framed (they always seem to have those 50% coupons at Michael’s) but sometimes it’s a better balance for us when we spend in one area and then work a bit harder to save in another. So for now we have framed it really inexpensively ourselves, just by getting a simple black frame for $21 at Target and a $4 sheet of archival-quality mat-board at Michael’s (they sell it in their framing department for anyone else who wants to try DIYing it).
This entire framing job was just $25 (for a 31″ x 25″ finished piece!) thanks to already having some white Rustoleum Universal spray paint (the kind with the built-in primer). Yup, I’m completely predictable. You know I spray painted the heck outta that frame (after removing the pane and the backing and laying it out on a piece of cardboard outside). Then I just cut down the archival mat-board to fit the frame and placed the print centered in front of it.
So unlike a pro framing job, this mat isn’t a cut-out window that you look through to view the print – the print just floats right in front of it in the middle, with an equal amount of mat around it to beef it up and fit the frame. The luckiest accident of the whole thing is that the mat-board has subtle gray undertones while the print and the frame are bright-bright-bright white. It actually makes for a nice balance since the soft gray-ish coloring in the mat relates to other softly-gray things in the room (the penny tile, the appliances, etc) and the bright white of the print and the freshly sprayed frame ties into the glossy white molding/trim, our counters, and the dishware on the open shelves.
We love that our print (on archival paper with an archival mat, no less) can always be upgraded with a proper frame down the line, but for now it slips right into the room. And it’s refreshing. Like a big ol’ glass of lemonade. Or a dip in the pool. This is actually how we frame a ton of stuff (like all of the things in our hallway of frames, for example) so although it’s not the fancy way, it works for us. Art is definitely one of those highly personal things though, so this method might be heresy for some folks out there! Just do whatever works for you and your house and cover your walls with stuff that makes you smile.
We have to admit that real art is definitely addictive. Our little swimmer lady confirms that sometimes a wall splurge can make you pretty dang giddy. So we’re definitely hoping that the occurrence of saving up for art that we love isn’t just a one time thing! What have you guys been framing lately? Do you have a favorite framing method? Do your children see imaginary fish? Let’s talk.
