black doors? bring it on!

Those who follow me on Twitter will have noticed me sharing progress pictures of the dining room. It is so much easier to snap a picture on the phone and share it than to upload everything to the laptop and create a post. Sigh... the life of a blogger, right?

Now is a nice time to catch up the non-tweeting folks!

We did manage to (finally) get all the walls looking reasonably nice. Considering what we started with, it couldn't get anything but better! We finished applying the sandy texture to match all the walls (eliminating the smooth border around the top of the walls and from the middle of the wall down to the floor). Next was priming and painting. I chose a fun, yet not too Pepto, pink from the discontinued Martha Stewart line at Lowe's called Sugar Egg Pink. Trim was painted a nice white called Milk Sugar by Laura Ashley.

The plan is to paper the ceiling and install a nice crown molding. The crown will be painted white and given a fun little black racing stripe. That racing stripe will appear again as a room divider between the blue entry way and pink dining room. We also have some other fun splashes of black.

Which brings me to the doors... These go into the living room (left) and basement (right):

Woody McWooderson. I have always thought the doors looked a little strange. All the trim is painted white, and then there are wood doors. How odd! Manhattan Nest to the rescue! Seeing Daniel's blog about his black doors was finally the little push Steven needed to agree that we could, as Mick Jagger said, "Paint it black!" (Get it? Rolling Stones... Paint It Black? Moving right along...)

Oh, I hear Steven weeping softly... Primer... and a few coats of black paint...

On a side note, how pretty are our doorknobs! I am thinking of polishing them all up. At the risk of looking like cheapo 1980s brass, I think against the black, these could really be blingin'!

And here we go. Black doors. Aren't they pretty! I am going to give them a coat of satin poly since our kids are tough on doors. But I am really excited with how they turned out. I think the go really nicely with the black and white windows a la Door Sixteen:

You know, I have been influenced so much by Anna's aesthetic. While my walls will never be all white, Anna has really moved me toward modern, clean lines. Out goes the antiques, in comes the modern. :) So, thank you, Anna!

More dining room pictures yet to come. It is really close to being done, guys!

(And I really am loving the camera in my Android phone. So much easier to snap pictures now!)

dining room painting has commenced!

While I am here in Denver, pulling my hair out over work and homework... Steven is painting the trim in the dining room. (Go, baby, go!) I started getting out the painting stuff on Saturday, but Steven stopped me on my one day home and said he promised he'd get it done this week. Isn't that sweet?

Anyway... I have been scouting out items for the dining room. We went to Good JuJu on Friday and *only* snagged a little metal basket for the dining room table. Don't cry for us too hard. We did buy an awesome antique farmtable for the kitchen.

I stopped by the Anthropologie in Park Meadows (Englewood, CO) and spotted these gorgeous little antiqued mercury vases for $18 a pop. They were so pretty, but I know they'd get broken if I tried throwing them in my checked luggage. So I am hoping the KC Anthro has them. They are not listed on the website, else I'd link a picture for you all. But I did find one going off on eBay, so here is their picture:

I also snagged a couple RCA dog ("Nipper") S&P shakers and such on eBay. You might remember, I have a pit bull for a service animal. Nipper has been rumored to be, at least part pit bull. He is also said to have served as a service animal. Nipper has a fabled past, but I love his story just the same. I think the B&W Nipper collectibles will look cute displayed in my pink and black dining room!

I received my curtains in the mail (thank you dear reader, bagelpower!!). So the room is coming together. Hopefully I will have more pictures for you this weekend!

How are your projects going?

And do you have any tips for cool stuff for my dining room?

dining room is humming along

Steven has been working in the dining room, sanding off the old texture paint that only covered a strip of the wall, leaving the rest of the wall smooth... I had already repaired most of the plaster so he just has a couple ceiling cracks to do. He's primed. We bought the base paint and already have the wall color. Hopefully Steven is snapping in-progress pictures so we can share this week!

the story of a chair...

Here is a little play by play, just so you cansee just how much went into refinishing the chair.

Fabric Choice: Hollywood in Pink by Alexander Henry:

Before: Orange-Shag-O-Licious

Removing about a million staples to remove the original fabric:

Removing the original padding:

Paint stripper! Stripping a chair down is a bajillion times harder than just slapping on new paint:

Slather on the stripper:

Wait until it turns white and scrape it off:

Two weeks later:

And hours of Dremeling in the grooves:

Two coats of Ebony stain:

Two coats of High Gloss polycrylic:

Bling!!!

New padding and batting for the cushions:

Cutting the fabric with a newspaper template:

Sewing with piping along the edges:

Handsew edging around the top cushion:

And finished at last!!

The ebony stain is a million times better than black paint... you can still see glossy wood grain... Taking the extra time made this chair special.

One down, one to go!

Before and After: my vintage Hollywood Regency chairs

My finished product wouldn't ever be mistaken for a professional upholstery job. No, no it won't. But I am rather proud of my chair. It was my first "big" job. Before, I had only done dining chairs, which is just wrapping fabric around the seat and stapling. This required me to sew the seat cushions. And I had never sewn in piping before. On a round cushion no less. Squares, I can do. Curves notsomuch. At one point, I almost gave up and was going to tearfully bring the chair and fabric to the upholstery shop... but I sstuck with it, and the outcome isn't so bad for a first chair. This is my lessons learned chair since I have another to go.

You remember the story right? I got that at an estate sale. This pair of chairs were from the Muehlebach Hotel. Who knows - maybe a President sat on one!

Without further ado...

BEFORE:


It's like orange shag carpet threw up on a chair! And the once-white lacquer is now rather sad. It took hours of stripping, sanding, staining and sealing, in addition to the agony of upholstery to make this...

AFTER:

No, no, no - it isn't black paint. This is Minwax Ebony stain. I love that it is so dark, yet the light hits it and the natural woodgrain shows through:


I used Polycrylic High Gloss to seal the chair. I normally use matte, but this chair, I think, warrants a little extra bling!


To fiinish off the top edge of the chair, I handstitched on this white edging:

The fabric is Alexander Henry's Hollywood in Pink. This will be going into the pale pink dining room, so I think the brighter pink fabric and dark wood will be a nice accent. This is as "glamorous" as I get. ;)

When I recover from sewing, I will post a step by step. That will require uploading a lot of photos and Blogger is such a pain with that!

Ikea curtains... how are they?

With my first fancy-schmancy chair nearing completion (geez, I have to do it again for the second?!?!?!), I am excited about finishing the dining room. Well, part way anyways... I bought sandpaper to finish sanding the walls since I finished plaster repairs (fun!).

I took a moment to flip through my Ikea catalog, also known as the Amazing Affordable Stuff I Can't Have Book, and found a couple sets of curtains that I thought might work swimmingly in the lovely pale pink dining room.

Hint: Anyone going to IKEA anytime soon? Please???? :)

I haven't seen these in person, and it is scary to pick something only from a picture. So if any of you have seen these in person, please let me know if they look nice or cheap and tacky.

First up is Hedda Blad. I think black and white will look great with the pale pink walls. I am going for a combo of Hollywood Regency and Cottage. Think glitzy cottage or Cottage Regency, maybe. Anyway, the pattern isn't too busy and will work, I think. $15 for a pair, and I just need 1 set, the price is right.

Second up is Alvine Trad. This one is a little more subtle with white and gray floral, but still so pretty. I could use these in the living room maybe? I need to get a set in person and decide where they should live. Again, $15 a set.
Might as well get the sheers to go with them while I am at it, right? 2 sets of Lill to start with since they are only $5 a set. Even if I didn't like them as curtains, they could be a tutu for my dog Bunny. ;)

Anyone have any experience with Ikea curtains to share?

something to make up for being trapped on a roof with rabid wasps!

The karma police felt totally bad for trapping me on the roof today. They must have. For they made it up to me this evening. While Steven and I were out with our boys on our nightly "family walk," we went by a house that was being geared up for a garage sale. The owner's hadn't lived there in ages and were trying to get all the stuff that had collected inside it ready for a sale tomorrow.

Cha-ching!

With our eagle eyes, we spotted an old dresser that was severely in need of some loving, and this dresser/desk thing. Now, the dresser/desk thing I will post on later. It is a future project that will go into my studio. It is a dresser with one of those cubbies on top with little cubby holes and the slant front that flips down to be a little desk area. It used to be a built-in, so it is nothing super special but is a treasure to me. Steven was eyeing the old dresser. The owner told us he'd sell us the pieces for $5 each. We told him we'd be right back with our truck and gave him a $20.
OK... now all about the dresser. It is missing the bottom doors. The middle drawer is so wonky it can't close. But the dresser itself is beautiful and sound. It has two curved drawers at top. Beautiful feet. And the flaws just make it that much more special.

Steven is fixing the bottom to be used as a storage area for my vases and what not. While we could fix that middle wonky drawer, I told Steven I'd be just as happy with a narrow shelf for my linens. The top drawers will get little frosted knobs and velvet liners.

This, I have decided, it the bestest base ever for my pie safe, which actually probably had a very similar base at one point. So after a little elbow grease and a lot of painting, I will have a massive pie safe hutch thing for my dining room. $20 pie safe + $5 dresser = Super Happy Me!

(Pie safe post here: http://cottageofstone.blogspot.com/2009/03/before-and-after-antique-pie-safe.html)

Look at that patina. It is a shame to paint it. But I will. Mwuahaha. That is just a bit too shabby for anyone, I think.

Fabulous feet! They will be so great in white paint. I think the detail will stand out even more.

I love old furniture. You just don't get details like this anymore.

Curved front drawers are yummy!

Lest you think I am some old fuddy duddy with a house full of antiques and cat figurines... really, I am not. But I have a huge appreciation for old, quality made furniture. I don't buy things that are valuable. I have 4 kids that would destroy them. And I have 4 kids so I can't afford them. I buy things that are well-made and speak to me. I have much more fun scouting out these things than just going into a store and buying everything "as is."

what would Anna do?

So I have a problem... a big one... in my dining room.

See, the people who owned and decorated before me, shall now forever be known in this blog as Idiots With Paintbrushes, or IWP. The idiocy in the dining room goes far beyond the peach, seafoam green and olive green spongepainting debacle I found under the wallpaper. Remember, these are also the people who sponged the living room and put up two lighthouse borders. And spongepainted the kitchen white and green with burgundy borders. All with a rectangular kitchen sponge, I might add...

Here is my latest problem. They used texture paint on the top half of the wall. They papered the bottom half. They put a border down the middle of the wall and the top of the wall. I removed the wallpaper and found that the texture paint is only where they did not paper.

So, I have smooth walls on the bottom half of the wall, and for a couple inches around the top. And the top half of the walls are textured (except the few inches around the top since a border was there). And this is not a straight line of textured vs. smooth -- they did it slap-dash. Perhaps they were drunk?

Anyway... there is a blog I read religiously called "Door Sixteen." D16 is written by Anna, a fellow old home owner who engages in projects a lot like mine. Anna, I have found, to be very meticulous. She mentioned once spending half a day sealing grout with a tiny paintbrush. Yeah, more meticulous than me I am afraid.

So, I am standing in my dining room. Near tears. Pondering... What would Anna do? What would Anna do?? Anna's room are always perfect. Must... be... like.. Anna... Must... do... as... Anna...

Maybe do a skim coat over all the walls and make them all flat? Taking forever to skim everything, wait for it to dry and then sand? HORRORS!!!!

But what would Sarah Beth do? Try to add sand to my primer and sadly fail at matching the smooth part to the sandy part?

I actually thought about doing board and batten or beadboard on the smooth part... but realized that our baseboards would be a nightmare to install paneling against. Yikes!

So I ask ya...

What would YOU do?

before and after: antique pie safe complete!

And the pie safe is finished except for a few touch-ups. Oh, and Steven is going to adjust the door that doesn't want to close up straight. I think it came out very nice for a $20 find! The pie safe was quite old. The shelves in it were not original... they were tongue and groove panels of some sort. They were badly warped and falling apart, so we made new ones. I also picked up a new knob from Hobby Lobby. The paint was all leftover from previous projects. Less than $20 in supplies invested brings our total to $40.

So the Before picture is directly below this post. I don't miss the royal blue doors at all!

Here is the After:

Here it is from the front. I wanted something simple and understated. And I am not fond of attacking all my white furniture with sandpaper. It IS old. It deserves a nice, clean paint job!

And from the side. We re-drilled the pie vent holes. I did a layer of black paint, and then a layer of white so that the holes would stand out more. In person, it really is more striking.

I just adore this little knob I got on sale! It is a frosted glass knob with silver hardware.

I love the little wooden latch!

OK.. now in person, the panel insets are robin's egg blue... the flash made them look more sky blue. The shelves are black.

My pretty dishes now have a home in the dining room. I will tinker with the arrangement later. But they are really pretty for a bargain find ($16 at Good JuJu).

Oh, and those new to the blog... my dining room is IN PROGRESS. The nasty sponge painting? Not mine. I swear. I did NOT do that! :)

my latest find for the dining room

I have a ton of furniture projects in the works... I find a lot of junk store treasures, apply some paint & fabric, you know the drill. Normally, I don't post a picture of it until it is finished, and only as part of a room... I am not really great at posting before/afters of anything but my rooms! Probably because most the "before" pictures are pretty scary!

But, I found something so amazing yesterday that I decided to post before pictures without the afters. (This is because the project is still in progress so I won't get to post afters until a bit later this week...) I just had to share!

This $20 treasure is, at my best guess, the top of a hutch that someone used as a pie safe. Look beyond the blue doors!!! Soon it will have a nice new paint job and a knob.

If there is anything remotely appealing about the colors in the "before" here - it is just the magic of digital flash or something. It is really a grungy white/beige with obnoxious royal blue doors. It will be getting new shelves inside, and flashy interior.

The pie vents have been covered up by too much paint... soon they will be pretty again!

I can't wait to put my antique china in here. I have been picking up random similar-looking pieces here and there on the super-cheap. Right now they are stacked in a cubby in the kitchen... but I think they would look nicer in here. This pie safe has a perfect spot waiting for it in the (in-progress) dining room!

dining room in-progress... or, the bad things people do to houses...

Steven steaming off the top border. With 10+ foot ceilings, this is fun!

The steaming of the wallpaper has begun... and again, I am reminded how much I really dislike wallpaper. I think it looks super in other people's houses. I really do. But in my house, the previous owners put up horribly ugly paper (very poorly, I might add), and I am getting tired of removing it. The nice thing is, our walls are plaster - so all we have to do is steam it off. It's those poor suckers with drywall that have to use the chemical remover that are really hosed.

With one wall nearly done, this is what we've got:


Right away, I have some problems to work out. Someone did a bad sponge painting job. At one time, this covered the entire wall. The next paint job was texture paint on the top half of the wall, and wallpaper on the bottom half. Therefore, the bottom half of the wall is smooth, the top half is textured - except for near the ceiling which is smooth because they did a border up there.

This means I cannot just prime and paint the walls. I don't want to sand off all the texture paint because (1) I actually like the old textured look and (2) that would be a giant pain.

My other issue is that the dining room joins the entry way. There is an archway between the rooms, but there isn't a clean distinction between the two rooms. (This is where I showed you in a previous post that the baseboard goes from stained to painted and looks really silly!)

Finally, you can see we have a little window there in the wall that looks into the kitchen. I am not a fan of the little window, although it was original to the house. On the kitchen side, we've installed beadboard backsplashes (which is what you see inside the window there). On the dining room side, I plan to keep the window, but obviously not with the backside of the beadboard showing. (ahhh, clever one, aren't I?)

I have a solution for these problems, which makes my project just a smidge bigger, but will be super cute in the end. Stay tuned for that!

Here is a close-up of the sponge paint. It is peachy-pink, seafoam green and dark green over white. Which would not be so bad if they had actually done a good job...

This is the archway between the dining room and entry way. Steaming off paper revealed someone had painted flowers on the arch. Which might have been nice if they hadn't used the latex house paint from the dining room instead of a more appropriate medium Weird!

dining room... ready, set, go!

I picked up the paint today for the dining room ("Sugar Egg Pink" by Martha Stewart / Valspar) and am so excited at finally having a dining room we would WANT to eat it. I have begun to pull down the border and we dug the steamer out to start on the project. For once, I took some before pictures... and if you are brave, feel free to check out the hideousness that is my dining room.

A reminder - the middle color is the winner!

It wouldn't be an old house without plaster repair... I actually have a lot of repair to do in the dining room. I will be a plaster wiz soon!

This is the wallpaper on the bottom part of the wall. It is a textured weird dull gray with blue stripes. It is all stained up and tearing apart. And you will notice there is a giant hole above the vent here that no one ever bothered to patch. (And the big dust bunny on the floor is because I have been sweeping and getting the room ready.)

The top part of the wall is a sand-textured gray. Unfortunately, it is not a pretty Swedish gray... just a dull, dirty gray. There is a border down the middle of the wall and at the top of the wall (yippee! two borders to remove!!) of this weird, thick, foam border. Seriously - it is as thick as that foam material my kids use for art projects.

Now, here is an example of just how tacky the people were before us. To the left you will see the entry way (which is blue). The right is the dining room wallpaper. (I will fix this line on the wall with a neat idea...) Follow this line down. They left the entry way trim stained, but painted the dining room trim. And they just did a line right down the middle there. And the line is crooked to boot! I guess I will be stripping the dining room trim - which is going to completely suck!!!!