putting the rug in rugby

It all started with these curtains. We took down the old, dusty vertical blinds and put up these silk curtains we got pretty darned cheap from Amazon. It lends some color in the beige and brown world of our kitchen as well as that whole privacy thing. They're nice, but also cheap enough that if our eventual kitchen makeover doesn't work with the curtains, they can go in another room, like the guest room or eventual nursery.

Yet this also now has us choosing rugs for under the kitchen table and we're, of course, trying to coordinate with the curtains while also grasping for a vision. Obviously, we're amateurs. The hope was we'd find a piece, be it a rug or curtain, that could start to be our guide. Kind of like when you're hiking or running away from orcs, you choose a spot on the horizon to aim for.

Sometimes it does feel like the extended version of Lord of the Rings trilogy. The first saga involved our kitchen work area rug. It was not a happy time, but we did settle on winner winner chicken dinner.

We actually bought this rug at Lowe's, two in this size for $25 each, and then a runner for $50, just to try stuff out. It feels like an expensive rug without being one ... and it can go in the washer. Exactly something you need in the kitchen. You'd think this is perfect ... but no. It did not come in the 3x5 size that worked best in the area. We tried all sorts of configurations with the two rugs and even thought about stitching the 2x4s together, but eventually settled on having one rug by the sink and the other by the garage door.

But it was too long for the garage door area, because the door kicks it up if it's directly in front of it, and the rug is too long for the hall entry next to the garage door, so it curls up the cabinet. We wound up going down the hall with it, so you have to long step from the garage to the rug. Oh well. We're going with it. The runner was too long for any place we thought about putting it, so it went back to Lowe's.

Then we got the curtains (up at the top) from Amazon. So, our current rug doesn't work. At all. It's too small for the table itself, and of course now we have the lovely clash of decor. We're going to raise the curtains this weekend, since it's sitting wonky in the old brackets and we don't want these curtains brushing the floor.

The choice of going blue in the kitchen comes down to our rug choice, blue seemed to work in the space and with some future plans, and we also have a sky blue microsuede couch in the living room. But we don't want the whole house to turn blue, so I think we'll be seeing if we can turn the kitchen into a transitional space. Easy, right?

Ha!

After recuperating from the kitchen rug saga, I moved onto part two. Home Depot was having a rug sale, so I ordered a couple online, since there's a very limited selection in stores. The first arrived Thursday.

Sorry for the wonky camera action. Our chandelier is not centered on the sliding doors, so it's always fun moving stuff into place, and apparently what looks good on the little camera screen doesn't so much on a bigger screen. This rug looked better online, and I actually thought I was ordering the gray version of one we'd seen in the store. We liked the rug but in RL, it seemed a bit too dark for the space, aside from completely clashing with the curtains.

We don't want to be matchy-matchy, but we could tell this wasn't going to work. The next rug arrived today, so I immediately rolled it out (don't mind the lumps), hoping we had a winner.

Online, I figured this was neutral enough but had the same geometric shape as on the curtains to really tie things together. It actually looks better in the picture than real life, and I do like the rug, but it was in that realm of Almost. Not quite.

I also wish it felt better in person. It's an indoor/outdoor rug, which makes total sense for being under a table. Mike also said it felt darker under the table, which you also can't tell in the picture. He doesn't love it, and I feel like I'm forcing it to work, so I guess it's going back, too. And we're back to square one. Third time's a charm?

But I think we need to seriously ask ourselves ... are we trying to fit a rug (a bigger price tag) to some bargain curtains? We did say when we decided to keep these that we are happy with them long or short term and we can take them down for the right rug.

I just asked Mike this question, and he jumped back to the darker blue Thursday rug. So now we'll pull it back out and see how we feel. It came to $60 and felt nicer than the gray geometric one. Hmm. 

It's on the inside that counts

HAWT.

All the cupboard shelves in our entire house are lined with this pattern of contact paper. Some of it's in great shape, some ... not so much.

It's a classic pattern. I think my mom had it at the farmhouse at one point, and I've even seen it as wallpaper in houses. But it's not our thing. And since we wanted to add some zing to the kitchen but are in that decision paralysis stage, having some fun inside the cupboards seemed like a good way to get our feet wet.

The obvious step was to go to Amazon, where I had way more pattern choices, but my options there proved more expensive than going to Target, where there was less selection but for much less and ready availability.

I wiped down the shelves, which turned out to be hazardous. In the upper cabinet corner, a blind swipe with the rag wound up pushing a pile of sugar onto the counter and stand mixer below. How long has that sugar been hiding back there? And how are there no ants feasting upon it?

At first, I decided to peel off the old contact paper, but this proved to be about as fun as taking down wallpaper. Solution? Paper over it!

Remember when we contact papered the shower window? I decided to spritz the surface to make it easier to shift the liner around until I had it lined up right. Whenever I skipped that step, I regretted it.

Getting there! But we still have more shelves and drawers to go.

How wrong it went…and saved by a bucket

Mike writes:

Emily and I have been on a grand adventure the last three weekends trying to find bath hardware for our master bedroom. We had the rather mistaken belief that bath hardware should cost us only $2 per item ... maybe $10 for the big pieces. Oh, how wrong we were!

Anyways, I, the hunter of this illustrious pairing, finally found bath hardware at Target of all places. Great price and heavier and better or same quality than the Moen sets we saw at the big-box hardware stores; purchased!

With a beautiful day off and Emily at work, it was time to start installing all of these pieces. But first came Mexican breakfast.

The plan was to install the 18”, 24”, towel hooks and the toilet roll holder before noon. HA HA HA HA

The install of the hook took all of 15 minutes as I was able to reuse the existing holes. The 18” took another 15 minutes as I had to drill out and remount some drywall screws. Again, piece of cake. My dreams of a luxurious day off of doing absolutely nothing were right there in my grasp.

Then came the 20” bar. Brackets went on lickity split. No issues whatsoever, until I had to add in the connecting bar. Low and behold, the darn thing was off by not more then 1/16^th of an inch. 1/16^th of an inch to close together means the bar will NOT fit into the brackets. After 20 minutes of finagling and loosening and retightening, everything lined up and it looked great. 

And then came the toilet holder. Arguably the easiest and simplest bath piece to put in. Two brackets and a squishy bar meant I could be off by more than ½” and everything would come together just fine. First step, remove the old holder. It popped right off and all that remained was the little bracket. I grabbed my trusty drill and started to unscrew it from the wall. Wait for it….

Along with a dremel and vise grips, I tried for more than an hour trying to get two stupid screws unscrewed from the wall. No luck, and then this happened…

I’ll admit I finally got so frustrated that I took a hammer and ‘gently’ pulled the screws from the wall by force. It turns out that the drywall anchors that the former owners used managed to catastrophically fail.  As you can see they fused themselves to the screw. They were not coming off with out cutting the heads off with a hacksaw, or pulling them through the drywall.

I was also left with a colossal sized hole in my drywall. Something that the wifey didn’t need to know about if I could possibly avoid it.

It was time to troop down to the basement workshop and see how I could possibly save myself. It's also time to talk about being saved by a bucket.

Now, I've got a childhood friend that has every tool that you could possibly imagine. I also had a grandpa that loved auctions. This has manifested in myself a deep down desire to buy good quality used tools at auctions whenever possible. The wife slightly condones this. It has also led me to be a firm believer in a special bucket that all good homeowners should have. I call this the “Screwed Bucket." Every time you go to an estate sale or to an auction, you will run across a small coffee can of assorted screws, nails and what-not.  Buy it. Seriously, it will be the best two-dollars you will ever spend in your life. This is my bucket; isn’t it wonderful? 

See my ‘Screwed Bucket’ has grown as the number of auctions and estate sales I’ve been to has increased.  There is a plethora of random and accumulated awesomeness inside of this bucket. It has also saved my bacon more times than I can count. Often times, when you get yourself into a situation that is pretty much guaranteed to cause your better half to raise an eyebrow, you aren’t quite sure what you might need.  This where the bucket comes into play; dump out half of that glorious collection of random saviours and search through.  Cool, look at this stuff:

No clue what to use those for, but they are going to be amazing when I need them. Anyways, buried within that pile were two alligator drywall anchors and assorted sizes of bolts. Eureaka, thank you bucket!

Back upstairs the anchors and bracket screwed together perfectly and it was..F..I..N..A..L..L..Y time to attach the bracket. You know where this is going… The large chunk of drywall was just big enough, ahem, that the bracket managed to recess itself into the drywall just enough to cause the bracket to fall off. Seriously, after being saved by the Bucket, I’m still looking at an expensive and laborious drywall patch…

Now, I’m not a big proponent of divine intervention, but sometimes the man upstairs does stop chuckling at the adventures of Mike and Emily enough to really send down some lightning. Boom, not more than 3 minutes later, a GENIUS idea occurs to me. “Mike, wouldn’t it be great if that drywall protruded from the wall a bit? Yeah, duh. Hmm what if we fashioned ourselves a bracket for the bracket so that the bracket would be secured.  Whoa Genius!"  So with a nod to the man upstairs, tt was time to wander down to the basement and fashion myself a small piece of wood that would slip under the bracket. Voila:

30 seconds later we had this glorious situation on our hands:

So, if you are ever in a situation that has you fearful of the better-half's raised eyebrow, trust in your handy bucket and the man upstairs.

Death by rug

You know what sounds like a totally awesome and easy way to brighten up a space full of golden and brown oak and beige on beige action? Bring in some color and pattern with a kitchen rug AND protect your hardwood from all the drips and dribbles around the sink, dishwasher, and stove. AND keep your toesies warm, since there's a draft coming through the floor vents.

Good idea, right?

Easy peasy, right?

Ha.

Hahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!

*chokes and sputters*

Yeah. Some factors complicating that. 1) Indecision on whether to paint the cabinets or not, so our design is currently paralyzed. 2) Mike and I often differ on our style preferences. We also see color differently. 3) It was agony choosing a front door rug for our first house and we settled on something, because we were listing and needed something there.

That red rug is currently hanging out under our kitchen table, covering the bare spots on the hardwood. While it looks okay there, it's not quite the right size, and we're not sold on doing red in the kitchen, even if we had red and copper in the last house to rev up all the beige.

So, I grabbed a bunch of rugs while curtain shopping. The bamboo and sisal ones were immediately eliminated, because they blended too much with the floor and cabinets. COLOR. NEED. NOW.

We started with some woven green and whites that we liked, but wound up returning because they were way too small. Sorry, I forgot to snap photos, but they were contemporary. Not chevron, but definitely those geometric patterns you see everywhere right now. Sometimes you have to follow the crowd until you figure out what's right for you. Sans Interior Design Expert Emily.

(Don't trust her, guys. She's a total amateur.)

So, then I grabbed some cheapo 3x5s from Garden Ridge in a traditional pattern, because why not? We can test color and style at the same time.

We actually liked the look and pattern, but the quality was so cheap, and we do think traditional does date the space. But green seemed like a possible route to go, and the 3x5 size seemed to work.

Next up, BLUUUUUE! I love me blue, but we are also trying to make sure our whole house isn't blue. And the first floor does feel like a warm space. The blue also went really well with these curtains I later found.

But we weren't sold. Partially because of the cheap lack of quality ($25 3x5s, we can't expect any better). Then I found this rug at Bed Bath and Beyond that we really loved, but it was way too small for the space.

It was soft, nice quality, and seemed to be a transitional pattern. But too small. I combed the web, and can't seem to find it in anything remotely close to a 3x5. Sigh. 

So, off we went to the Rug Shop today, prepared to spend some money and bring some rugs home to try out.

I'll be honest. I am now sipping a whisky spritzer because of this journey. We went in open to blues and grays and in the transitional realm, and of course, it was a given we'd have to pay more for quality. But we hadn't fallen in love with anything online enough to risk losing all those shipping costs if the colors and quality were not as advertised.

Bleh.

The stuff we did like was very traditional and way over our budget. The stuff we liked in our budget were at final markdown ... and no returns allowed. The sales lady also tended to confuse us by saying "oh, none of those rugs will work for you" in a section we started looking at, would direct us elsewhere, and then later she'd take us back there. It was just a frustrating process. She also kept steering us toward browns and beiges after we repeatedly said we have an 80s kitchen with those colors and we are trying to steer it away from that. I think here in the Land of Beige, they just expect customers to want that, so that's what they stock.

We left frustrated (and my engine light on) and even farther away from figuring out what we want. I think at this point I might see what we can order via Amazon Prime, since we get free return shipping. And we'll keep our eyes peeled. 

I was hoping a rug or fun curtains would give us some direction, but alas, we are going in circles.

What's your rug adventure?

Curtain Battle Royale

Today we went to war. We won some battles, lost others. Earlier this week, I bought a bunch of curtains at TJMaxx, Marshall's, Home Goods, and Garden Ridge. Oh, and Target. Here's a selection below.

If a curtain didn't come in a panel pair, we just bought one panel, just so we weren't buying a bajillion curtains. We wound up with around 15 total (pairs counting as one). As of last night, we were down to the light brown, wove Nate Berkus from Target and the sheer linen grommet (that was the same length as our silvers). Even though the white sheer linen was our original vision, we had become intrigued with the idea of bringing some warmth and texture to the treatments. But try as we might, we just weren't getting it. We wanted the Berkus to be longer and grommeted, but when we found a similar material with grommets, the length issue still wasn't working. And it just didn't look as nice as our heads told us it  would.

I fell in love with these curtains below, but they weren't long enough, and doing everything at 84 inches instead of 96 just wasn't going to fly. As much as I liked them, I couldn't keep at $40 pair of curtains on the hope they might work somewhere else (we didn't find an immediate spot).

We wound up going with the white linens and will use other decorations to warm up the area. We're thinking of re-purposing the kitchen uppers as a reading bench under the window.

Since we had all of these curtains, we ran around the house putting them up in different rooms to see what we liked. We don't want too many drapes collecting dust, but it is a nice way to spruce up a space. The dining room curtains were nice but dark, so we through up the Raw Silk and some patterned sheers - and the space completely changed! 

Pardon the apparent darkness. It's much lighter in here, but my camera was refusing
 to flash due to the snowy light coming in.

The room is still incredibly mismatched right now as a dumping ground and we haven't removed the wallpaper, but we now have renewed interest in the room. It was weird, even though we usually left the navy curtains open, so much more light seems to be flooding into the room. My camera didn't want to show you that, though, because it was so focused on all the light that it kept darkening the shots. Manual settings were overrode.

So at this point, we're batting 4 out of 15. I also grabbed a pair of curtains for the kitchen, which I rather like and Mike is iffy about. It's a point of contention. Much of the kitchen is up in the air.

These also have that linen sheerness to them, and I find them rather cheerful. We're playing around between blues and greens (with a gray base) for the kitchen palette, so I feel like this will give some guidance but still be flexible. Of course, we need to figure out whether or not we're going to paint those cabinets. A decision that probably won't happen until the upper cabinets come down (soon!!) and we see how it changes the feel of the room.

So the day started out well. Bedroom curtains done (minus the decision on shades down the road), dining room curtains surprising done, and kitchen curtains done(?). The rest of the done kind of spiraled down from there. We thought curtains were wrong. Oh ho! No. Rugs bring a whole new form of torture.

Next up: Battle of the Rugs

Window treatments

Over the weekend, we moved into our the bathroom portion of the master suite, since my dad and stepmom were coming into town, and four is definitely an awkward crowd in the upstairs bath.

The bathroom is not yet complete, but the painting portion is done (minus some touch ups I'm dragging my feet on). While painting, we removed and disposed of the old valance and plastic blinds and uninstalled the screen in order to give it a very necessary hosing. Except it's been consistently below zero, so the screen sits in the garage.

So, our backyard neighbors were getting a nice show. The direct backyarder's kitchen is actually directly across from our shower window. How neighborly of us.

At night it's a mirror for us, but
it's a show for the neighbors.

Mike temporarily solved the problem by hanging a shirt off the window trim. Stay classy! We love the etched glass in our home and wanted to do something similar ... but budget-friendly. So, we looked at decorative window film and were going to order something off Amazon when Mike stumbled onto a blog post from Thrifty Decor Chick.

To imitate a fogged window, she used clear contact paper, like you might use as a shelf liner. At $5 for a huge roll (allowing for mistakes), it seemed worth a shot before coughing up decent dough.

First, we needed to seriously clean the window. Some mildew had built up around the weather stripping (which should be replaced soon), so Mike sprayed it with a mold & mildew killer/preventer and we let it sit overnight. Then we scrubbed the window down ... which was gross. All of the dust and mildew builds up over time and looks like a black mess on your paper towel. Yeck.

I measured out the window, and Mike suggested leaving some extra paper and using the box cutter to make it exact once it was on the window.

Then, per TDR's instructions, I spritzed the window with water and peeled off a couple of inches of paper to move it into position. The damp window made it easy to re-adjust and keep a straight line.

I used a credit card to smooth out major air bubbles as I went, always peeling a few inches at a time. This also pushed the spritzed water down, so it pooled in a muddy mess on the sill. Ew, but no worries, just dab it with a paper towel and keep going.

Before finishing, I cut the edges with the box cutter, and then continued smoothing the bubbles out. I didn't get them all, since some seemed to stick around a bit of dust or grime we missed while cleaning. I'd suggest using a microfiber cloth before spritzing and applying the contact paper.

But it does the job. For a couple bucks (so much paper left over!), I think we'll take the fogged up window look until we can do something better. We're hoping to find or make a stained glass window for the shower room at some point.

We still need to wash off the residue on the trim from the wallpaper remover, reseal around the glass (it looks old and worn), but it's definitely less janky and X-rated than before.

Now that I have all of this extra paper, I'm tempted to find some cheap scrap glass somewhere and play around with painting on contact papered glass for a non-permanent stained glass effect. It'll likely turn out awful, but I've got the paper and paint and feel like playing around, so no harm done.

Curtains Are the Devil
In other window treatment news ... curtains are hard, you guys! I found some lovelies at TJMaxx, and we love them, but we wanted to add a second set in between the silvery, ribboned curtains. We thought it might be fun to find a sheer, weave texture in a white or ivory and went to several stores.

At Lowe's we found a pair we liked and bought them tonight and hung them up. ::insert sad trombone::

They were almost there, but they were too short and we think we either need to go with plain, white sheer curtains, white sheer with a ribbon pattern, or embrace a darker shade. This will probably involve buying several different panels and bringing them home for a hanging marathon and then sheepishly returning them to the store. We want to have some fun with curtains, but we don't want them to totally dictate our decorating choices, unless they're awesome and amazing. I've never given curtains so much thought in my life!

Plus, I really need to relearn how to sew, because these curtains are a little long in the leg. Plus, then we can pick out fabrics and make our curtains, pillow cushions, etc. And hem pants. Because we're short.

A snowy, haunted week

A few weeks ago, Mike uttered the damning words at our old apartment: "You know, everyone's been complaining about this winter, but I think it's been rather easy."

Let's rewind. 

... at our old apartment ...

Yes, you can blame this snow and bitter cold on us. Mother Nature quickly reminded us of the oh-so-fun parts of homeownership in the Midwest. After slogging through a snowy, slushy rush hour, we came home to discover that, oops, our snowblower was out of juice and we'd loaned our gas cans to Mike's dad several weeks ago. So, we grabbed the ol' shovels and went to town on the driveway and sidewalks, knowing that it'd drift overnight and be pointless. And it was. In sub-zero windchills. Yay owning a home!! We did miss the cozy apartment with free snow clearing and heat. Oh well. We still love you, house.

Last week I did a run through several stores on the hunt for some house stuff, namely a bed set for the guest queen. Along with finding something that wouldn't clash horribly with the uber blue walls of the guest room (and not look like a dorm bedspread), I came across some beautiful curtains for the master bedroom.

But because they were at TJMaxx and the first stop on my shopping loop, I decided to hide them and come back for them if I didn't find something better. Well, by 8 p.m., I was pooped and curtainless. So, I spent the next day crossing my fingers they'd still be under an ugly, clearance bath rug. 

They weren't!

The situation wasn't worthy of a Skywalker NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooOOOOooOOOOOO!! But I was disappointed. Then I found them under a questionable throw pillow one shelf over and merrily skipped to the register. They are silvery and shiny, which I think will be nice and bright in the cozy master. Interesting without clashing with anything we already know and should stay for the long haul, once we figure out our bedroom aesthetic. Unless we go Dracula Castle in the master. Always an option ...

Anyway, when I showed them to Mike, this happened:

Yeah, the house is haunted.

Tonight we were going to hang said curtains (yeah, yeah, they've been folded up in a corner for over a week, we've been busy) just in time for my dad and step-mom to visit from out of town. But we ran into a few snags.

1) Where be ye ol' hanging mechanism, known in some parts as a rod?

2) Ah-ha, the absent wayfarer as been found! But alas, 'tis but a stubby thing by colonial home standards.

3) Woe is us! The old bracket holes are far too low for the glorious height of these exquisite lengths!

Translation: We couldn't find the rod. We wandered around the house, discovering all sorts of things, and then finally found it about the time we said, "Screw it, what's on Netflix?" Then there was a debate if it was the right rod (it was), because Mike remembered the really lovely rod we had to leave in the previous house, according to the buyers' contract. THEN, it was baaaarely wide enough to cover the window width, and we didn't like the placement of the previous rod (too low). 

So after some debate, we decided tonight would not be the night for curtains. We were trying to force it to work, and we are trying a darndest to do things right, not cheap or easy **coughhalfassedcough**. So, we moved onto returning hardware to the master bath, now that Phase 1 is more or less complete. 

But.

The old towel rods just looked cheap and gross. If they were nice quality, we would just clean them up and pop them back on. But they were cheap and not aesthetically pleasing. Again, we want to respect and love this house, and as much as it pains us to spend $$ on towel rods, we're just gonna have to suck it up. Granted, we aren't going to spend Pottery Barn amounts of money on simple hardware, but we might have to go beyond the dollar bin.

So, we measured again, jotted it down. Then we had to face the plug and switch plates. Cheap-o beige, which was okay until we freshened the room up. Now they stick out like an old, warty thumb. Let me tell you, face plates for the plugs are cheap. Until you need to reface the socket part. And the light switches. Ugh. I just have to tell myself that the room will be so much more enjoyable without random floating rectangles of beige. And it's just the master suite. We aren't re-facing the whole house. Maybe eventually over time, as we figure out what we want with each room. Most of the hardware we're cool with, minus some mismatched and/or outdated cabinet pulls. We dig the handles on the doors. 

And I wish I had a sassy, clever way to wrap this up. But I don't. My thoughts were clearer about 20 minutes ago. Tonight we had a whole list of little, silly things to accomplish ... and List 1, M&Em 0.

Till next time ... I hope it's more exciting.

the secret to taking down wallpaper

Need to tear down wallpaper? Well, you're in luck, because we discovered the secret!

Host a Super Bowl party, serve some drinks and chili, and let the boys loose! Before you know it, there's a pile of shredded wallpaper in the hall and some men feeling darned proud of themselves. Destruction that makes the wives happy.

Mike and I aren't exactly NFL fans and couldn't care less about the Super Bowl, but it was a great excuse to invite a bunch of people over and test out the house's hosting capabilities. We spent a good portion of the morning trying to reconfigure the living room to maximize the space, because trust us--it filled up fast with our couches!

The funny thing is that hardly anyone spent time in there! Everyone gathered in the kitchen, except for one rug rat who spent most of his evening zooming around like a race car and then sliding giddily across the hardwood. Of course, some of the inattention to the TV could just be avoiding the pain of watching the Broncos fail beyond all reason.

It was awesome to have friends and family in the house, and the kitchen seems well suited for it. Toward the end of the evening as we were trying to nudge people out the door, Mike and two of his buds randomly decide to take on the main floor bath. We'd joked before about a house rule: every time you use that toilet, you've got to take a swipe at the wallpaper.

What's the cliche? Go big or go home!