When we finished renovating our downstairs bathroom back in April, I did a “reveal” over at Decor8 detailing all of the real-life costs associated with this kind of project. Unfortunately, there was subsequently a data loss at Decor8, and Holly lost all of the comments (including the answers to a lot of questions people had about the renovation). There are also some errors in the price breakdown, so I figured I might as well post the photos, interview, and correct information here for the sake of keeping it entire project archived in one place.

What inspired the design of this room?/How did you decide upon the colors & overall style?
The architecture of my house is the base inspiration for everything I do within it. As a Modernist living in a Victorian-era house, I try to be very respectful of its original structure and character while still moving forward and not trying to create a faux-Victorian look. This attitude toward renovation (particularly when it comes to kitchens and bathrooms) is quite prevalent in Scandinavia, but in this country there is a still a tendency to try to make newly renovated spaces look “old”, and unfortunately the result is usually more of a pastiche than anything.

That said, I have tried very hard with both of my bathroom renovations to not make them look too “new”, either! The last thing I want anywhere in my house is for someone to open a door and immediately know that a particular room was recently renovated. My house is full of quirks and imperfections, and I have deliberately carried them into this space. This bathroom was added to the house sometime in the 1930s or ’40s (the space it’s in was originally a pass-through pantry connecting the entry hall to the kitchen at the back of the house), and I elected to keep the cast iron corner tub that was installed at that time. The old toilet was very cute, but it was terribly inefficient—rather than replace it with a “faux-old” toilet, though, I prefer the honesty of a very contemporary-looking one-piece.

But back to the question, you could say that every design decision I make in my house is inspired by Modernism, Industrialism, honesty of materials, and contrasts between old and new.

Read More »

First of all, thank you so much for all of the birthday wishes yesterday. They are much appreciated. I had a very nice, low-key birthday (just how I like it). Evan gave me the supercute J.A. snail box I’ve had my eye on, and we had mini-red velvet Bundt cakes from Junior’s. Yerrrmy!

I’m on a mini-vacation until Monday, but here are some photos of the exterior of my house, now with black trim (Benjamin Moore Black Beauty)! Keep in mind that the windows still need to be repaired and painted, and the stair treads still need to be stained to match the porch ceiling.

(Sorry for the weird sizes, but I’m not on my own computer right now, and have no access to Photoshop!)

And a before picture, for comparison. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but we’ve also had the bricks cleaned and repointed. Oh! And that ironwork on top of the porch? We had it sandblasted (it was really rusty) and powdercoated (by the same guys that did our bathtub, sink, and radiators!) in black. It looks great.

Bye-bye peeling, discolored, forest green paint! ICK:

I’ve had a Tord Boontje Garland light (this is the black chrome finish) for several years, but for the most part it’s just been sitting in a tangled clump in a box since we moved into the house. The standard way to hang it is on a bare bulb suspended by a cord, but with our high ceilings, the proportions wind up looking really skimpy and just too dangly.

After spending a solid hour detangling the thing last night, I decided to try wrapping it directly around the bulb on a flush-mount fixture in the bedroom. This is the white porcelain Benedict light from Schoolhouse Electric. The glass socket is really beautiful, so I wrapped the Garland just low enough that it’s still visible.

I’m really happy with the result, and I can’t wait for it to get dark enough to check out the shadows it casts on the ceiling! I used an Edison Double Loop bulb for added effect (the light cast by Edison bulbs is very warm, dim and soft, and the bulbs themselves are beautiful—they’re perfect for mood-lighting in fixtures that have visible bulbs). The Garland itself is quite affordable, and I think it’s worth upgrading the light source to something more elegant than the standard plastic cord set that comes with it—in fact, you can even order the Garlands by themselves ($76 with cord/$64 without); you’re not obligated to order the cord set. If you want the effect of a hanging pendant, the Lewis fixture from Schoolhouse Electric (with a cloth cord!) would look fantastic.

By the way, “arranging” a Garland light so that it looks like the product photos is a total nightmare. It takes FOR-EV-ERRR. This post (which I found in a fit of frustrated Googling) sums up the experience quite accurately!

EDIT: Oooooh, nighttime shots! I’m in love. The shadow effect is so dramatic with the Garland this close to the ceiling! The moth-to-flame feeling of this light is perfect for summer nights, isn’t it?

All I’ve been working on lately are DOORS. Doors, doors, and more doors. Scraping, sanding, patching, caulking, priming, painting, hanging, fixing locks, fixing hinges, fixing knobs, and so on. (I must say, it’s very nice to not have to look at closet contents anymore! Doors are a good thing.)

One of the hazards of keeping a blog is that I have the ability to look back and see just how long it takes to me to complete simple tasks. Case in point…

I posted this picture 15 months ago, when I first started working on this particular door. The bottom panels had been crudely cut out and replaced with screening (which had then gotten rusty and paint-y and dented and gross) at some point.

Back in September, I returned to working on the same door. I was still uncertain about the best way to go about replacing the panels. I had figured out that the door did not, in fact, belong on a closet, but rather in the doorway between the front and center bedrooms (both rooms are accessible from the hallway as well—we have a lot of doors).

Fast-forward (or slow-forward, as the case may be) to eight months later, and I’m WORKING ON THE SAME DOOR AGAIN. Only this time, I’m actually finishing it!

Whoever put the screening in obviously did so for the sake of cross-ventilation through the length of the house, and I admit that it makes a lot of sense. Radiator screening seemed like it would be much nicer than window screening, though, so I bought a sheet and spray-painted it white on both sides. The original trim pieces were missing on one side, but lattice strips turned out to be exactly the right width and depth to replace them.

I mitered the corners of the lattice and used short nails to fix the strips in place. After filling the nail holes, caulking the joints, and painting the whole business white, the door will FINALLY be ready to re-hang. (I’ll let you know when that happens. It could be next year sometime. Hah!)

I bought this 3-legged Arne Jacobsen stool several years ago for about $10 (yes, seriously), and despite having initially planned to repair and refinish the molded plywood top, years passed and I managed to convince myself that I like the chips/scratches/wear. Well, there’s a fine line between “nice patina” and “broken mess”, and I finally got around to facing reality and gave the thing the rehab work it deserved.

First, I used Zinsser Ready Patch to fill in the areas in the veneer that were chipped out and damaged. (Ready Patch is one of those amazing products that I can’t imagine living without. It is seriously amazing stuff. I use it to repair everything from holes in walls to gouges in woodwork to damaged window sashes.) I overfilled the patches, and didn’t worry about getting it pretty. Once it was completely dry (about 3 hours), I very carefully sanded and sculpted the filled areas with my Mouse Sander (a very handy tool to have) and a fine-grit sandpaper. I also have the entire top a very light sanding, just to remove any flaking paint and give the new finish a nice surface to adhere to.

After wiping down the top with a tack cloth, I wrapped up the legs in plastic bags and painter’s tape. Next I applied two coats of Rust-Oleum’s Painter Touch Ultra Cover 2x with a semi-gloss finish. I can’t recommend this spray paint enough—it applies very evenly with excellent coverage, dries quickly, and I haven’t had any problems with the nozzle clogging. Wonderful stuff. I don’t think I’d attempt to apply paint to something like this with a brush, by the way. There’s a time and a place for spray paint, and this is it.

I’m showing this photo of the underside of the stool for one reason: This is where Fritz got his name! It’s true. I was lying on my back and playing with him on the floor, and I happened to catch sight of the manufacturer’s name on the bottom of the stool. So while Fritz is absolutely NOT named for a piece of furniture, this is what put the name in our heads for the first time. It stuck, and it’s perfect.

Anyway, back to the stool!

Not bad, huh? No, it doesn’t look brand new, and that’s just fine with me—I actually like that you can still see the tiny cracks in the veneer through the paint. It still has character, and it still looks like it’s supposed to. The only difference is that now I can sit in it again (or use it as a side table or a footrest—I love stools!) without worrying about ripping huge chunks off of it.

There are always those who will argue that refinishing furniture ruins the value, but the chips in the ply were getting worse and worse by the day, and I don’t want the stool to become a decorative object out of fear of damaging it further. Jacobsen designed furniture that is meant to be functional, and I get a lot of use out of this thing. It has a small footprint, it’s incredibly well-balanced and sturdy, and it’s surprisingly comfortable. Doesn’t the true value of a functional object primarily lie in its usefulness?

Let’s see…I started talking about wallpapering this room in October 2007, got around to buying the paper in September 2008, and then FINALLY managed to actually go ahead with the task on Friday! As planned, I used Berry Black from Ferm Living. Because my ceilings are so high, I needed almost exactly two rolls to do just the one wall.

I love this room so much now. It never felt complete to me before, and I knew wallpaper would make all the difference. My friend Heather came over to help, and the whole process went very smoothly—only about 5 hours from start to finish, including multiple breaks for lunch and dog-loving.

I’m still not sure about keeping that little bookshelf in there, but for now, it’s fine. I also need a big plant, I think. Weirdly, the wallpaper has made me hate the orange-y floor color a little less than I did before. Hmmm.

We finally have a ceiling light in the office! This is the 15″ LERAN pendant from IKEA. I love how it looks against the wallpaper, and at night it casts beautiful shadows across the ceiling through the bamboo.

I also conceded to needing just a bit more storage for papers and photos (as well as the printer, backup drive, etc.), so we put up this wall cabinet (also from IKEA, from the ASPVIK line). I’ve been wanting this cabinet since September, so I’m happy that it’s turned out to be as functional and well-made as I thought it would be. I really like having storage pieces mounted to the wall, too, rather than sitting on the floor. The feeling is so much more open and airy, something I didn’t want to lose in this room by filling it with too much furniture.

I’ve been a very busy bee so far on my “vacation”. More updates to come!

p.s. The plant on top of the cabinet is a False Aralia. Isn’t it cool?

p.p.s. I don’t know what I would do without IKEA.

I apologize for the bad quality of these photos (they were taken with a cell phone by a contractor), but to be honest, a higher resolution isn’t going to do our poor roof and cornice any favors.

We had a contractor out on Saturday to take a look the exterior of our house. We’ve known since we bought the house three years ago that this day would come eventually, but now that we’ve finished the bulk of the large interior projects, we can’t put off dealing with the exterior any longer. This past winter was really bad, with a lot of heavy ice buildup and major runoff that didn’t drain properly. The Big Stuff has to be done sooner rather than later, and this is work that we can’t do ourselves.

There are a lot of things wrong with the exterior of our house, but let’s just start with the roof for now. It’s a flat roof (though it does have a slight pitch to it), and it’s not visible from the ground. Neither Evan or I have ever been up on the roof before, and this is the first time we’re seeing photos of it. It’s weird to see such a major part of the house that’s been invisible to us for so long!

The roof itself (pictured above) is actually in decent shape, fortunately. Before the contractor went up, there was some talk about replacing it with EPDM, but it looks like that won’t be necessary.

Sadly, everything else up there is a mess. The decorative cornice in particular is a total disaster. As you can see from the top photo, the level of decay is beyond what can be addressed with scraping and a fresh coat of paint. At this point, it looks like the entire cornice will need to be rebuilt.

The last photo is of improperly installed flashing around the roof line. This is where water has been seeping behind the cornice (and probably into the walls—thank goodness for brick houses with plaster walls!) for many, many years. Coupled with clogged downspouts, broken gutters, and general bad drainage, our house is feeling very, very sad.

Just wait until you see the brick work that needs to be done! And the porch that’s falling apart! Oy. Time for the dogs to find gainful employment!

On a happy note, at least we loved the contractor.