A Snowfall To Remember

Here in NC we don't get a lot of snow.  Maybe one or to snows a year, with most of those only being about 3 or 4 inches deep and fading to memory in a couple of days.  

This year we made up for that  with a big snow of maybe 12-14 inches at my house!  Unusual for us.  But this was a strange fall.  It stayed warm very late into the autumn months so the trees still have leaves on 'em!  That made the snow a bit messy as it brought down leaves with it.  

This was taken very early on the Sunday morning it started snowing.  

I still haven't dug myself out!  LOL.  

The Passing Of Time Brings Change

                                

Since my last post, I have moved into the house and lived here for 2 years.  It amazes me to think that I've been here that long!  It seems more like a few months.  Sometimes I just walk through a room and feel a suge of joy.  Each thing my eye falls upon brings me pleasure. 

 Is it finished?  Oh, heavely daze, no!  There will always be change, additions, new things I fall in love with or old things that suddenly suggest they should live somewhere else.  That's part of the joy of decorating and living in a home. The interaction of existence with dream. 

The hallway was the last large DIY project to reach completion.  I dithered.  I hemed and hawed.  I procrastinated.  I ran out of wallpaper!! 

 I found a place for the round gold mirror given to my Mother and Father when they married by my mother's brother, Edgar.
I still have a couple of decor touches to add, but time will bring those.

The decorating object that was the most difficult to find was a swivel rocker or glider which I needed for my living room.  The way the room is set, this would be the chair I'd use for TV watching, but it also needed the ability to swivel to face the room for conversation when guests are here.
Who would have thought this would be so difficult to fine?  Not me!
                      Took me 2 years!  

 After finding a new lamp shade and a bit of floor-lamp-juggling ( see above: furniture suggests a new space for itself) the living room now functions exactly as I had planned.

The aforementioned floor lamp change-a-bout was more fortuitous then expected. Now, with a shade taken from the  lamp which traveled to the L.R., the wonderful night-light base of this antique lamp shows up beautifully in the den!

I adore the pattern that it makes on the floor when lighted.
The floor lamp story deserves it's own space.  Stay turned.

Home on a Snowy Day

Things I learn now that I am living through the various seasons and weathers back in my childhood home.  

I learn that when it snows my town is fanatically good about scraping the road and piling all the snow at the foot of my driveway!  Poor Jeeves, my Mini-Cooper, did  his best to jump the mountain but only suceeded in becoming stuck in it and having to wait for a thaw to escape.  

I learn that on the rare occasions of big snow in Kernersville, I'd better (a) prepare to stay in or (b) shovel like mad! 

I learn that during our torrential rains the backyard has learned to impersonate  a small swamp.  

I learn that I love living here in spite of the rain and snow challenges!  

Before and After: The Baths

I don't know quite what it is, but I love 'before and after' shots.  Of rooms, hair-do's, make-up, furniture .. you name it, I seem to get a kick out of watching something change.  I'm not far enough along to have a bunch of before and after shots, but here are a couple.  Decorating is finished in two baths, but not in the other rooms.
I'll start with the guest bath.  There was little to do here because I had repainted for my step-Mom a few years ago, and while I may change this room later on, it was one that I didn't have to do a whole make-over on just now.

The way I had done it for my step-Mother.

I wish that I had photoed the light fixture which was too high above the medicine cabinet to be attractive.  So this just got a cleaning and a bit of redecorating.  Including switching out the light for a fixture that fill's in the space above the cabinet a bit better, I think.

It isn't a huge change, just a bit of "fluffing".  At this point I was glad just to have a room that didn't require a huge amount of effort.  The biggest challenge will be cleaning the aluminum door and door frame that leads to the walk-in shower.  I've gotten a little bit of the shine back, but it will take more effort.  Also installed a new shower head in place of the original one which now flopped all over the place so that one had to chase the water instead of being able to place it were it was wanted.  



The next bath got a greater change.  The front bedroom has a half-bath.  This had been my room since my brother was born and was moved into the 'child' room next to my Mother and Father's bedroom.  My step-Mom at some point decided to move from the master bedroom into what had once been 'my' room, and this is where she had been sleeping for many years and the half-bath was her personal bathroom. 
The 'before' of the half-bath.

I have to include the strangeness of the upside-down light fixture.  I keep asking myself why, if someone bought a fixture and brought it home then realized that it didn't fit in the space ... why not take it back and chose one that did?  But no.  Someone just said, "What the heck?  We'll just turn it upside down!!"  Can you see how difficult it was to change a bulb?  And there is no relation to the cabinet below.  A lose/lose situation, if you ask me.

This bath got a ceiling to tile re-do.  Painted all the woodwork a pure white as it had been an ivory tone which looked a bit dingy to me.  Painted the ceiling just to clean it, removed the old paper and put up new.  Changed out the light fixture. And, voila!  I am quite pleased with the final result!

The hall bath is considered the "main" bath.  The one most frequently used by visitors since it opens off the hallway and not off a bedroom as the others do.  I confess that I had sponge painted the woodwork for my step-Mother sometime in the 80's I think it was.  Whenever that sponge-painting madness began.  I somehow thought that it would calm down the Bollywood-disco style wallpaper which I found a tiny bit overpowering.  A tiny bit.

This bath was a challenge in many areas.  To start, I made an amazingly dumb choice of paint for the woodwork.  I wanted to cover my sponge paint mess (sorry that you can't really see that but it might be just as well.) and go back to a gloss-white.  I bought Sherwin-Williams Cashmere paint (THEY recommended it!) and it was the "Paint From Hell". Worst paint I have ever used!  The worst!  Stay away, People!!!!!!  

That horror was followed by trying to remove the wall paper which had been put on over paint, which was over the original wallpaper!  All of it had to come off, down to the plaster. If my Sister-In-Law, Sally, had not come up for a couple of days to help, and if my cousin had not loaned me "R2D2" the steamer, I'd NEVER have gotten this done.  It was a bitch!

One of the chrome legs of the sink had been removed and a stool set in it's place to hold 'stuff'.  I got lucky and found the leg in the basement and was able to clean and replace it.

The shower head (my first shower-head replacement!!!) had been removed and a hand shower attached in it's place.  Threw all that out and bought a super showerhead at Wal-Mart which has a removable hand shower in the center of it allowing you to use it three ways -- just the shower ring, shower ring and hand shower or just the hand shower.  Makes a lot more sense to me.  

Next was a bit of cracked plaster in the ceiling to repair and then paint the ceiling, install wallpaper and last of all change the light fixture.  The original fixture had a shade that was open at the ends and so coming into the bath with the light on, one just saw the glare of light bulbs.  I made sure that the new fixture had a closed side so that the person entering is not blinded by bulbs!

Finally we come to the bath which is off the master bedroom.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, this bedroom was created after my Father and step-Mother were married.  I was already away from home and my brother was on his way to college, so the "child's" bedroom was no longer a necessity.  My Dad removed the wall and made the two rooms one.  On one end he added a wall of closets and shelving and on the other end he created a bathroom.  As I mentioned earlier my step-Mom had moved out of this room, and it was now her main guest room.  A few years ago ... maybe in the 90's (?) I painted the bedroom and bath for her, and put up a new light fixture in the bath.  Since we are just looking at bathrooms in this blog, I'll stick to just showing that.  As you see, it is a long, narrow rectangle of a bath.  (Apologies for the underline.  The blog seems to like it and refuses to let me remove it.  C'est la vie.)

The window and closet were part of the original master bedroom.  The tub is just a joke as it is only about 12" deep!  Someday I would LOVE to remove it and put in a Slipper tub.  Maybe  someday.  Fortunately the tub in the main bath is great, so for the moment I settled for repairing cracks in the ceiling plaster and re-painting everything.  I decided on a whim to use a Martha Steward metallic paint on the ceiling molding and on the top of the baseboard molding. I had used metallic paint before, so I knew what to expect.  I love the effect, but be ready to paint over, and over, and over if you chose a metallic. I also tried 4 different pinks for the walls before I found the one for which I was searching.  I wanted a softer, more 1930's nude pink than the pink that was on the walls.  I also did all the trim a "vintage" white ... not in love with the color, but it works ok.  Painted the vanity all white as it had pink trim before.

Next I brought a painted cabinet that I had in my current house put it over the wading-pool-tub to help break up that long, narrow feel.

So, that is pretty much "it" on my bathroom transformations.  Bits and bobs will still be added as time goes on I am sure, but I'm off to a good start and have paint, paper and lights all in place.  "Whew".  

Acquiring Another Skill Set I Never Wanted

Working on this house has taught me a lot.

 Oddly enough, it wasn't information that I wanted to need.  Truth be told, I am not a DIY (Do It Yourself) fanatic.  I'm more of a LADIEM (Let Anyone  Do It Except Me) type of gal.  I would happily flaunt my supervisory skills as my minions toiled away doing all the things I don't want to do, but that does not seem to be the way this has played out.

My newest skill set came about through no fault of my own.  Really.  I thought I had a former acting student of mine who is also an electrical engineer all lined up, but due to things taking so much longer than I had thought or hoped, by the time I contacted him, he had gotten a big contract in Myrtle Beach and was wildly busy for the next six weeks!  So.  Search for another electrician or DIY?  I decided I'd take a shot ... I have several lights and a chandelier and a ceiling fan not to mention an outdoor light to change, so I figured that I should save money where I could and try to do the smaller lights myself.  No way am I attempting the chandelier!!!  Or the fan, for that matter.

I've now installed 3 bathroom lights and it has been an experience. Not an experience that I necessarily wanted .... but, an experience. The process is not as difficult as I  had imagined, but you really do need to be able to grow a third hand.  The thing, other than only having only two hands, that has proved the most daunting is trying to understand the directions that come with the lights!  Some are much worse than others!  On the first light I did, the directions simply left out a step which was terribly important unless you wanted the light to be crooked on the wall.  You'd think that they would have mentioned this ... but no.  I figured it out, but it meant I had to take the light down and readjust the gull-wing bar and put it up again.  But now I've learned.  The second light was one I moved from a half bath where it was upside-down to the guest bath where in fit nicely ... and right side up.  It was a small fixture and terribly simple, so no directions were really needed beyond what I had Googled on line -- "How to install a light fixture."  Thank goodness for the internet!

Here is the 'before' shot in it's old home.

Here in it's new home where there was enough distance between the light box and the top of the medicine cabinet for the fixture to hang properly and show off it's new more Art Deco shades.  It's not a beauty, but it works and I saved some $$.

Taking the place of this fixture is a new light for the half bath which took me forever to find!  I had so hated the upside-down fixture and the way that it had no relation to the medicine cabinet (or anything else really), that I wanted to be sure that I found something that would give good light while looking a bit more appropriate in the space.  I found a Hinkley fixture which had been discontinued, but was still in stock and I ordered!  It came, I loved it, and while I had expected it to be terrible to install, the directions were clear and made sense, and the fixture went in wonderfully well.  

Last but not least is the light with the bad directions.  I am very happy with the light, but putting it up was more of a challenge than it needed to be.  And, this fixture is all one piece so you are juggling the entire thing while attaching your wiring.  Yeah, good balance is a necessity!  

More lights to install, and I'm sure that each one will have new and different challenges ... they always do.  At least I can now say "Let there be light!" and there IS!

Bon Bricolage!

The French say, "Bon bricolage" to wish you "Happy home improvement".  I am starting to wonder if there is such a thing.  Most certainly there is the happiness of the final result, but the on-going process leaves much to be desired.

Let's talk about replacing a floor.

My Daddy let me add what I called a "Florida" room on to the back of the house, replacing a small screened-in back porch.  While visiting my cousin Dotti in Winter Park, FL. I was quite taken with what she called "Florida" rooms.  In any of the other 49 states I think they would be called a sun-room or simply an enclosed porch.  I don't remember the year this was done, but I think it was in the early 60's.  It was a great room ... like being outside, but without mosquitoes!

The room is 14'6" by 11'6" with louvered windows on 3 sides and a fireplace which is backed on the outside by an outdoor fireplace.  Originally there were draw-drapes which came to just below the window sill and could offer privacy or defense from too much sunlight.  There were two small window seat/book shelves on either side of the fireplace which can still be seen in the photo below.  After removing the floor, I decided that the window seat/bookcases would not return.  A poorly done repair had also left the paneling on one side in a mess.  It had seemingly been replace with something the contractor had thrown in the back of his truck and bore no relation at all to the paneling in the rest of the room.  I decided to just remove the wood on either side of the fireplace and insert sheetrock which I would then paint.  At least both sides would match again.

Sadly, as the years went by the Florida room became simply a junk room.  The above photo was taken after MUCH cleaning, throwing out, and the removal of several large pieces of furniture .... I consider this the beginning of the room's return to life.  What you can't see in this photo (aside from lots of dirt!) is the freezer which sat in the corner near the kitchen door.  ... And which was never defrosted.  That means that year after year the water was running under the flooring and rotting away the wood down the right-hand side of the room.  The floor was destroyed. Below you can see my Maltese inspecting what appears to be a crack in his universe.

This called for drastic measures.

Upon pulling up the old flooring, it became obvious that the whole thing would have to be replaced.  This called for a pro.  Billy Edwards took on the job as this was far beyond my small 'skill set'.  

Here we are.  Starting fresh.

Since this room is the most often used access to the backyard for my dog and for myself, I plan to put down a sheet vinyl flooring as I've decided that it will be the best thing to handle wet dog and human feet and the tracking in of all sorts of yard debris.  My search for some sort of "fun 50's linoleum floor kinda thing" did not produce the results I had expected.  AT ALL.  If you read the blog about choosing wallpaper, you probably have an idea where this is going.  Gone are the wild designs which brightened rooms and were such fun.  There was a time in the 30's when you could even buy linoleum that replicated a carpet!

Above is a wonderful example of the great patterns that used to be offered.  

Now you can choose faux wood, faux tile, faux stone or faux bricks.  And I swear that every company offers the same patterns in the same colors!  Brown, tan, grey.  That's it.  It is almost hard to believe.  So, here I was, faced with spending my cold, hard cash on a floor that I didn't actually like.  Not a happy camper, folks.  After much research, I did find a company that still offers colors, but the price sent the floor through the roof, and to get a very basic design you had to revert to tiles rather than sheet.  Not what I wanted at all.  I have at last found a pattern (sort of a faux tile look) that will blend with the colors of the room and will be inoffensive.  Best I could do. 

I spent many hours working of the louver windows.  Not only were they caked with years of dirt and grime, most did not open and close anymore.  Some had screens and some glass.  At one time each window had a screen insert and a glass insert, but for 30 years or more, the last inserts had just been left in place.  Thanks to a WD-40 product that is designed to release rust (and it WORKS like a charm!!) I now have every louver window working. ( No more dirt dauber nests which will make some bugs very unhappy this summer.  Tough.)  I was even lucky enough to find a couple of the missing screen/glass inserts.  That was a thrill and means that the room will be warmer in the winter now.  A couple of the louvers still will not close as tightly as I would like, so those will most likely keep a glass insert year round.  I am hoping that next week will see the sheet vinyl installed and then the room will truly be back in business.  As you see below, the end panels have been replaced and half the windows had been cleaned in this shot.  

And here you see Jimmy and Rick from Triple A Carpets putting down the new sheet vinyl.  They did a great job, and I'm quite pleased with it  ... even if it isn't turquoise with pink flamingos.

 Stay tuned and you'll get to see the completed room before long.

Decorating Becomes Non-Decorative!

Before starting this particular undertaking, I had not wallpapered in several years.  The last thing I did was the bathroom at my current house, and I honestly can't remember when that was done.  Maybe around the turn of the millennium?  At any rate, the point I'm struggling to reach, is that at that time I found so many wallpapers that I wanted to use that making a final choice was terribly hard.  I went with a paper that I enjoy every single time I look at it.

As you see, it is composed of Saturday Evening Post covers from the turn of the century to about 1945.

While I understand that not everyone would love and adore this, I do.  And more importantly for this blog ... somebody MADE this paper and many more that were unique, well-done, and great fun.  I found several other papers in the book that contained this one that I wanted to use.  "If only I had a room to put this in!" became my mantra.

Those days have passed, little Decorating Buddies.  Gone.  Buh-bye.  Au revoir.  Ta, ta.

My search this time yielded an amazing number of papers that I wouldn't have used if they had been handing them out free on the street corner.  

For my design ethic, wallpaper is used to give a more ornamental presentation in a room than just plain paint.  So I have little to no interest in paper that replicates a painted wall.  Or a textured painted wall.  Or even silk on a wall.  If I want paper, I want drama!  Design!  Something I can't do with a can of paint!  Considering the cost, I have to LOVE it.

To be fair, I did find some papers that I loved.  Sadly, they were in the $200 a roll grouping and the idea of wasting a quarter inch would turn me into a driveling fool.  And here's the next bit of the horror show.  You can't actually SEE most of these in person.  Oh, the internet sites will sell you a sample.  It's about the size of your computer screen (or smaller if you used something larger than a laptop) and that makes it pretty much useless.   There are only a couple of stores in my area that even carry in-house wallpaper for sale.  That too was a big change.  Yes, there are books to look through, but I found that the styles of the papers were almost mind-numingly repetitive.  You are going to hear this very same complaint when I talk about choosing a floor for my Florida room.  Individuality seems to be a thing of the past.  All the little baa-lambs are following along nicely to death-by-bordom. 

I did find papers though.  For my dining room, I found an in-house paper and while I love the end result, this was one of the most difficult papers to work with I have ever used.  Honestly, if I'd not wallpapered before, I would probably have committed hari-kari.  But I am happy with the end result.  Someone just said, "It's very 'Southern'."  Correct.  I agree.

As you can see, I cut out extra birds to group over the kitchen door.  After all, it's just paper and you can play with it!

At the same store I found another in-house paper which worked out well for one of my baths.  It was by the same manufacturer, but worked a bit better than this paper did.  It still was a PIA and I will really try to avoid working with York papers in the future.  They had some nice designs, but just did not hang well.

Leaving behind the former paper which was perfect for a Bollywood disco, I selected a soft paper to compliment the original 1949 tile.

The bath is not completed yet, but I was pleased with the paper. Pleased also that I found the chrome sink leg that had been removed and was able to replace it!

The next paper I chose was pure luck all the way around!  There is a small half-bath off the front bedroom and it has it's original blue tile which I wanted to compliment.  Previously my Step-Mom had used a striped paper which made the room look much too tall and skinny for my taste.

I'm afraid that the upside-down light fixture over the medicine cabinet didn't help matters any.

I had thought that I would use a paper I found on line the theme of which was faux movie posters.  The theme appealed because of my acting background, and the colors worked very well with the tile.  But something just didn't quite 'click' for me.  So I kept looking.  At my cousin Faye's suggestion I tried a store in Greensboro called Smart'n Up ( I think that was the name).  Turned out that they were closing and everything in stock was 50% off.  Hot diggity dog!  I went through those papers like a poodle looking for a chicken bone.  And, in the back room where discontinued stock was kept .... I found it!  One look just told me this was THE paper.  I got all the rolls I needed for $10!  It was the best paper I used because it worked like a dream!  If only the dining room paper had been this easy to install.

The new light fixture is waiting to be added, but this room came together really well.

Only the hallway remains to be papered.  I am now removing the original paper that my Mother had chosen.  When I removed my step-Mother's choice, I discovered that it had been put over the original paper.  I wish I could have saved it, but the years, and having been over-papered had done too much damage.  

I am so sorry to see this go, but I'll keep a bit just to remember.

I've not ordered the new hall paper yet as this has been another difficult decision.  However, I think I will go with this paper found on-line.  ... Unless I get very lucky again. 

Stay Tuned!!