A little inspiration...

Every room and space in this house blows me away and gives me some much needed inspiration! I think I'm ready to start redoing the downstairs! :)

Chimney Sloppins

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!
We are as lucky
As lucky can be

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-oo!
Just one more fire
And our house mighta gone ka-BOOM!
(And the cleaning was just $90
So that's lucky too)

Now as the conditions
Of chimneys ar' strung
The state of our chimney
twas on the bottommost rung

25 pounds of creosote
Seems like a lot
An' said me good sweeper
If 'at stuff gits hot

It'll blow up your chimney
And burn your house down
And out in the drizzle
You'll slap on a frown

So heed my good words friends
'Tis worth spending a buck
If your creosote ignites
You'll be shit outta luck

So call your good sweeper
Have him bring his broom
And scrape sweep and chisel
Out potential doom

Now that our house won't be reduced
To ashes and smoke
In this 'ole wide world
There's no 'appier bloke

Chim chim cher-ee
Chim cher-oo!

Out with the gold, in with the new!

We (and by we I mean David) replaced the hardware on all four interior doors on the main floor this past weekend. It was one of those small projects we kept putting off in lieu of more important projects and then kind of forgot about. But while at Lowe's the idea popped into our heads and we bought the goods. After the installation was complete, we were amazed what a difference a small detail like hardware can make and wished we'd done it months ago. It looks like we put in new doors! The hideous gold knobs are gone and replaced with oil-rubbed bronze (love it!) sets that match the exterior door hardware we installed this summer.

Let the Landscaping begin!

We planted our first tree at the new house, a cute 5' tall Japanese Maple. We stumbled upon the great deal while at Lowe's buying items for other projects. As it turns out, Fall is a great time to buy trees at 1/2 the normal price. Lucky for us!!

Fireplace Season! So Cozy...

In the spirit of the fast approaching winter, we had a cord of wood delivered for use in our fabulous fireplace. The pile doesn't look like much, but it took two of us 3 hours to move and stack it all!

And here's Poof enjoying the cozy fire :)

I can almost taste it...

We have final plans for the garage and will be applying for permits this week!! Keep your fingers crossed!! Here's the plan if you're into that sort of thing...

Relaxation & Renovation

Not a lot of blogging has been going on lately, but we've been busy. We've been working on many small projects which I'll blog about shortly and we also took a two week vacation to the Redwoods, Lassen National Park, Mt. Shasta and Crater Lake. I'll post a link to our photo album soon.

Judge this book by its cover!

Exterior painting has been completed! Thanks to Enrique, his associates and 60 gallons of primer/paint we have a whole new house. :) The pictures don't do justice to how dirty and damaged the paint was "before", but the yellow trim was bad enough on its own.

The colors we picked are based on historically accurate colors by Miller Paint. The house color is Rain Barrel and the accent red color was Shaker Red. We had Lowe's match the paint samples, and used December Starlight from the Lowe's brand as the trim.

For the primer we used recycled primer which we stumbled upon at Metro (in Portland) while picking up our composting bin. It worked great and is REALLY, REALLY cheap. I would highly recommend it.

Here are some before and after pics (click on the images to enlarge):

Here you can see the enclosure we had built to hide the A/C unit and close up the space under the deck. It's actually two large gates which still allow access. Another Enrique special! :)
The bare South Wall of the house is where the garage will be added....hopefully this Fall but perhaps not until Spring. We do have final drawings that I'll post soon!
And our own little slice of heaven on the deck off the master. David installed our hammock we picked up in Nicaragua a few years back:

Liveable Rooms! Liveable Rooms!

After nearly 3 months of non-stop work, our upstairs rooms are liveable and beautiful (if I do say so myself!). Rather than drag out all the details of the work we completed, just know the blood and sweat is buried within the postings of this blog. Without further ado, here are some before and after pics of the upstairs.

Master Bedroom:

Office:

Guest Bedroom:

Hallway:

The Built-In:

From Fail to Fabulous

One of my favorite lasting impressions from our home inspection was our inspector's take on the retaining wall pillar that stood next to the crumbling front steps. He took a photo and labeled it 'Retaining Wall Failure'. It was like a potentially good FailBlog.com entry but without the fail part. The pillar hadn't failed, it was just leaning towards failure. The kitchen faucet was a fail considering it didn't work at all when we moved in, but he didn't take a picture of it and label it 'failure'.

To rectify the situation, we recently had our local handyman Enrique work his magic on the steps and the pillar. He pressure washed all the moss and dirt off the wall and steps, repaired the pillar, patched the steps and repaired the cracks. Enrique never ceases to amaze us, he did a fantastic job! He succeeded where the pillar failed.

It's a Jungle Out There!

This past weekend, we attacked the garden area in front of the house. David, Susan (David's mom) and I pulled A LOT of weeds, small trees and random crap from the front garden. Under all the overgrown bushes, plants and weeds there was a cute solid brick border along the entire length of the garden.

We were surprised it only took the three of us a few hours to get the planters to a state of normalcy. The next step is to till the soil, add some nutrients to it and start planning some plants! Yippie!

Here's what we started with:

Here's what it looked like half way through:

Here's what we've got now: A real garden area ready for pretty plants!

Thanks for all your help Susan!

Rags to Riches

We are ALMOST done with phase 1 of painting/redoing the upstairs, just a few windows to put back together and then I'll post some before and after pics! In the meantime, I am happy to report that we've installed all the light fixtures in the three rooms and the hallway.

We had help from Enrique (who is our new home improvement BFF...I'll post more about him later) to install all the ceiling fans. For each fan, Enrique had to install a mount, attach a 2"x4" cross piece between the joists and secure the fan bracket to that. The master ceiling fan installed easily. The office and guest room fan took quite a few installs to get them to be 'noise-free', but eventually they were in!

David turned into Mighty Electrician Man and installed the hallway fixture and the guest bedroom fixtures. If you look real close on the before pics you can see some serious classy cob webs.

Guest room before and after:
I love that the smallest room in the entire house had TWO five-light fixtures...did they really need the light from 10 bulbs in that room??

Master before and after (and the office looks the same):

Hallway before and after:

Meet My Nemesis

Every day. Multiple times a day. I hear the song.....the song of the Ice Cream mobile. The song that is sure to become the soundtrack to my nightmares.

I'm sorry but a mini-mobile full of ice cream driven by someone who can stand listening to that song over and over and over and over again doesn't scream 'kid-friendly. It screams CREEPY! I wonder how much I could pay the ice cream mobile to NOT drive within a three block radius of my house ever again?? I thought we'd done well buying a house that isn't near train tracks or on a bus line...but it never occurred to me to check the daily ice cream mobile route.

A Mean, Green Earth Machine

And....we're back! After many weeks of traveling, a wedding (congrats Nick & Kurstin!) and hosting company I'm back in the blogging business.

Today I fulfilled a little fantasy I've had since we moved to Portland, I'm officially a composter! In my mind this means the veggie gardens that will (hopefully) exist by next summer will be bountiful and uber-organic.

Word on the street lead us to Metro after hearing they had a great composter for $39 with a retail value of $80. And indeed, Metro had the Earth Machine at that great price and we snatched one up (ours ended up being $46 because we got the aerated bottom add-on which helps keep critters out). One of the label reads 'The Earth Machine: 21st Century Home Composting'. So...unfortunately I have to report the composter is not period-correct for our 20th century home, but what can you do? You can't win them all.

We got the compost batch off to a good start with kitchen greens, yard greens and yard browns. Yeah, that's right. I know all the fancy pants compost terms and I'm not afraid to use them.

The first compost:

I also want to say a hello to Leslie, Zack (sp?) and their adorable dog who live just up the street. I had the pleasure to meet Leslie as she was walking by the house this afternoon. Her, Dave's mom Susan and I were chatting when she realized she recognized our house from the blog. Who knew, people ACTUALLY read this! In a VERY huge coincidence, Leslie had also been to Metro today to buy The Earth Machine...happy composting Leslie!

The Fav Lamps

Now that our living room is free of our giant Cal King bed, we were able to arrange furniture and get the TV mostly set up. A while back, we bought a Tiffany style Arts & Crafts floor lamp, and after arranging the furniture yesterday we realized the one floor lamp doesn't give off enough light for the big room (there are no built-in lights). I decided the best additional lighting option would be to get the matching table lamp. While at Lowe's last night, I picked it up! The lamps are an amazing deal for what you get. My favorite feature is the 4 watt candelabra bulb in the center of the stands. When the other bulbs are turned off, it gives off a beautiful low-light glow. We also have both lamps on dimmers (one of David's obsessions). They are available at Lowe's in-store and at Lowe's.com

Moving on up....Master Bedroom done (well, mostly)

The master bedroom is painted and we moved our bed upstairs last night. NO MORE SLEEPING IN THE LIVING ROOM! WHOO HOO!

Master Bedroom: BEFORE

Master Bedroom: AFTER
(sans the window treatments that will be put up this weekend)

Master Window Treatments...Mastered

After days and days of research, online searches and shopping, I have managed to find a window treatment solution for the two windows in the master bedroom. We wanted a double-drape set-up with a light-blocking thick outer curtain, and a sheer white inner curtain. Since the windows are set far apart from each other, we needed a panel for each window and individual drapery hardware for each window. For the outer curtain, our specifications included a 'look' that would work all year round, fit with the 'cool' color theme and coordinate with the green on the walls, not white (David's request), blocked all the light and added insulation. I looked at 'affordable' drapes all over town including Pier 1, Bed Bath & Beyond and Fred Meyer. I was incredibly disappointed in what I found as far as colors, quality and length (we needed a longer-than-standard 91-96" length).

So, I headed to Pottery Barn where I knew I would find some good options. I was pretty set on linen or cotton drapes, but after I saw the DIVINE texture and softness of Pottery Barn's velvet, I HAD to have it. They didn't have the exact drapes I needed the store, but I was able to order them from potterybarn.com in 96" length and in Pewter, a beautiful silver color that will look perfect with light green walls and add richness to the cool color theme. The drapes are currently on sale for $129/panel (down from $149/panel) and I had an additional 10% off coupon making them $116 each. Totally worth it for drapes you'll use every day and stare at as you drift off into sleep and wake up each morning. They arrive this Friday and I cannot wait to install them! Here's a preview:
The next (seemingly easy) difficult task was to find drapery hardware. The hardware had to match our oil-rubbed bronze window hardware and switch plates, have widely spaced screws on the mounting bracket to support the weight of the velvet drapes, be a double rod set, and not be ugly. Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware have beautiful hardware sets, but at $159 and $219 respectively per set (and we need 2 sets), they cost more than the drape panels! That's where I draw the line. I ended up finding the winner at Lowe's. Made by Allen + Roth, it's the double rod Meridian Bronze Drapery Set and was on sale for $39.97 (down from $50ish). I used another 10% off coupon so they only cost $35.97 each! This is an incredible price for good quality hardware and it makes up for the drape cost. :)
I originally wanted a very Arts & Crafts, square finial style, but this was the only style available in the double rod set from Lowe's, and I think it will work just fine! I was a little nervous about how 'swirly' the mounting brackets look, but when it's installed on the wall with rods and curtains (thanks Lowe's for your excellent displays) you don't notice the swirl, just looks like nice hardware.

Historical Fun Facts: Part II + A Fire

We've had our target.com fireplace gear (grate, screen and tools all for $63!) for a while now just waiting for the right night to make a fire. And last night was the night! It wasn't particularly cold, but we were particularly tired from a weekend full of wedding festivities (congrats Paul and Stacey!) and decided a cozy fire sounded.....perfect.

Dave chopped some wood we found left under our porch and set up the fire. It seems the flu hadn't been opened in QUITE a while, when Dave pulled the chain he heard rattling noises followed by a few bangs and then a half rotted piece of bird whizzed by his face and plopped onto the logs. Yummy.
From the light of the fire, we noticed there was a stamp on one of the bricks inside the fireplace that we'd never seen before. I did some research and can't seem to find any reference to the specific 'N. Clay Co' from our stamp, but found info on the Portland Clay Co. established in 1892. They made a bad-ass brick back in the day.

Garage Plans Are Taking Shape

Our garage plans are in the early stages still, but we have decided to do a garage attached to the house. As we progressed with the detached garage concept, it created many issues including dead space between the house and garage, losing more space on the south side of the garage for a garden area and it would have required moving our current retaining wall in order to get a car into the far south bay. The attached garage will be slightly more complicated to build (specifically the wall that butts up against the house will require more attention) but much simpler overall when you factor in the problems it doesn't create.

I never thought I could be so excited about four walls being built, but I cannot wait until this project is done. A garage to park my car in and a roof deck to park by butt on. Life will be good.

Prep, Paint and Panic. Not necessarily in that order.

Tip: Don't remove door knob and backplate hardware, place that door hardware outside the room, leave the rest of the hardware installed in the door and then decide painting the corner of that room would be much easier if that door were closed.....This can result in initial panic realizing you are locked in a small, second story room with no way down to the ground level and no cell phone. Then, in a McGiver moment, you spot the oscillating pedestal fan in the corner. You realize you can unplug it, bend the two metal pieces from the plug until they touch, line up and insert this perfectly sized item into the hardware and turn.....genius. Crisis averted. My tip to you is Fan plug = door knob in a pinch. You thought my tip was not to get locked in rooms, huh?! Fat chance, locking yourself in rooms is totally cool.

We are continuing prep and prime work in the guest room. In the mean time, we have finished the walls in the master bedroom. All that's left is to paint the trim and windows. Here's a sneak preview:

A Model Remodel

I am getting ahead of myself because our kitchen remodel won't happen until next year, but it's never to early to start planning. (And I need to distract myself from the painting that is STILL continuing--I, alone, have put in 23 hours of painting in the last 5 days and we're not even half way done.)

After looking through tons of magazines I've come up with a general idea of what I want, and what will realistically fit into our budget (which hasn't been nailed down yet). Here's what I have come up with:

- New appliances (stainless steel or white)
- Remove tile on the floor and refinish the original hard wood floors
- Paint the existing cabinets white (possibly get new doors)
- New counter tops. I like contrast, so with white cabinets I want a darker counter top. I'm not picky about the counter top material, but we don't want to spend a TON of benjis on it.
- Replace existing hardware on the cabinets with (oil rubbed bronze) drawer pulls (old-fashioned style to match the pantry) and round knobs
- Remove the partial wall above the island and make the island all one height while keeping seating for three on one side
- Keeping with our 'warm' color theme downstairs, I imagined the kitchen and living room to be a very warm white or light yellowish color with the ultra white trim
- White subway tile back splash

Having not seen this all combined in one place before, I was pretty confidant all these elements would look great. Then, a moment of glorious gloriousness occurred as I was looking through the Spring 2009 Better Homes & Garden's Before & After magazine. I turned to page 66 and there, staring me right in the face, was MY kitchen. Everything I had envisioned all put together!! I'm still in shock that someone else already thought of my brilliant ideas. I guess there is room in the world for two fantastic kitchens. If it ain't broke...don't fix it. This will be the model for our kitchen remodel.

Paint Colors...CHECK!

Our overall paint theme is cool colors upstairs and warm colors downstairs. But for now we're just focusing on the upstairs. I wanted a color that would compliment our newly resurfaced and very orangeish Douglas Fir floors, and a color that we wouldn't be sick of after a few months. To add increased contrast and interest to the spaces, I wanted a lighter shade of a color in the bedrooms and a darker shade of the same color in the hallway and stair area.

I fell in love with two particular green colors from Restoration Hardware and could not find anything I liked better. However, I did find prices that I liked better. After doing some research and meeting with our local paint expert, DJ (thanks DJ!), we decided to go with Valspar Ultra Premium paint sold at Lowe's. I had samples of Valspar paint mixed to match my colors from Restoration Hardware and was happy to find the match was DEAD ON when I did a test painting on some old wood. Because we live on a busier street and are expecting to have higher than average dust on the walls, we decide to go with a Satin finish a slight sheen to it and will hold up to cleaning better than your typical Eggshell wall paint finish.

We decided the trim, baseboards and windows will all be painted in Valspar's Ultra White in a semi-gloss finish to help the subtle green colors pop as much as possible.

Here's the color for the bedrooms:

(Matched to Restoration Hardware's Eucalyptus)

Here's the color for the staircase and landing hallway:

(Matched to Restoration Hardware's Sycamore Green)

We have one coat on the master wall so far and it looks even more fabulous on the walls than I had imagined. I'll be posing pics soon!

The Devil is in the Details

As paint progress and window rehab continues on the second floor (more updates on that soon), we've been searching high and low for switch plates, ceiling fans, bedroom lights, hallway lights, door hardware, house numbers, a mailbox and various missing window hardware...that ALL coordinates! Not an easy task by any means, but I feel confidant that we've found a fantastic combo platter of the above items that will take our house to the next level.

We found some great deals that saved us a bundle, and we also splurged on a few key items. We want to keep as much of these details historically accurate (with an Arts & Crafts spin) while fueling my fire for all things in an oil rubbed bronze finish. Drum roll please...


Bedroom schoolhouse light from lightinguniverse.com (saved, $52)
Don't even get me started on Rejuvenation's prices for lights like this.

Hunter Low-Profile ceiling fans from Home Depot (in-store) with 'schoolhouse' light kits (saved, approx $65 per fan)
Due to our low ceiling height, we decided on a very simple low-profile flush-mount style ceiling fan in white. The oil bronzed versions of these fans are beautiful, but very dark and lower the visual height of the ceiling considerably. The white fans almost disappear into the ceilings, so this will be the only hardware item NOT in the oil rubbed bronze finish. However, in the guest bedroom there will be a ceiling fan AND a second light fixture (shown above). This was a big reason we decided on the schoolhouse light shade style. Not only is it historically accurate, but it's available in both standard light fixtures and as a light kit for the ceiling fan so all can coordinate.

Upstairs Hallway Landing fixture from lightinguniverse.com (splurged, $196)
This image isn't the oil rubbed bronze finish like we ordered, but you can get the style idea. I LOVE this fixture.

Front Door Hardware from Lowe's (saved & splurged, $138)
Splurged because we could have gone with simple knob hardware we used on the side door (below) for $55. Saved because the similar hardware sets at Rejuvenation are $260-$550.

Side Door Hardware from Lowe's (saved, $55)

Replacement sash window locks from Home Depot (in-store), (saved, $2.95 each)
At rejuvenation.com you can expect to pay $18 per lock.

Replacement window sash lifts from houseofantiquehardware.com (saved, $4.29 each)
The 'old' window sash lift was 1 5/8" wide while most today are 2" wide so finding this item is stores is not easy. Since we are matching the originals, I wanted to get the correct size. Rejuvenation sells a set of these sash lifts for $14. Since we only need 3, houseofantiquehardware.com was a much better deal and is a great resource for reasonably priced reproduction parts.

Switch Plates from switchplatesuperstore.com (saved, $3.99 each)
Switchplatesuperstore.com carries this metal switch plate that has the same oil rubbed bronze look as all our other hardware. Priced from $3.99 per switch plate this is a FANTASTIC deal as most other sources were $10-$30 per switch plate for the oil rubbed bronze versions. They carry ANY configuration of plate you can imagine, including dimmer knobs. Love this site!

House Numbers from housenumbersonly.com (saved and splurged, $12.95 each)
Standard house numbers can be found for $4 each, but many Arts & Crafts style numbers go for up to $24.95 each. We really like the combination of the numbers in our address in this particular style so at $12.95 per number it was a happy medium.

Arts & Crafts style mailbox from target.com (saved, $44.95 with 5% AAA discount)
Similar mailboxes from Rejuvenation start at $139.

Front Porch light from restorationharware.com (splurged, $159 on sale)

The only thing left to find is interior door hardware. Since we'll most likely have to replace the doors upstairs, we're waiting on this until we finish painting and look into getting new doors. I can't wait to see how it all looks together!!!