something we should've done long ago

Well, I think it's quite obvious that we did not finish the dining room makeover before the new year. January 1 came and went with a big whoosh and we only had bare wainscotting to show for it. With the holidays and getting hit by a bug going around, we just didn't have the energy most nights to work on it. But we're getting there. Two coats primed, just gotta fix some rough spots, and then onto the paint!

Today we did a silly little update that has a big impact on us - and it's something we should've done loooooong ago. Cabinet pulls!

We've tolerated these things for far too long. It's not just that they're dated ... they're also gross and gunked up and resistant to cleaning. But because we plan on replacing the countertops and painting the cabinets in a couple of years, it felt silly to invest in pulls that worked with the stained cabinets and might not jive with the "new" kitchen of our hopeful future. But ever since we replaced the pulls in the wet bar and library, the kitchen pulls bugged us every time we looked at them or opened a cabinet. 

Spray it LeBron James or Oil Rubbed Bronze ... whichever

So, last Friday, some of our friends were milling around the kitchen and we showed them one of our tinker projects, which is spray painting dated fixtures. At one point, I misheard my friend say, "You could Lebron James it," while gesturing at our fridge.

totalsports.com

Yeah, I misheard. The rough translation was painting the fridge with something like the bronze spray (not spraying the basketball player on our fridge, or even oil-rubbed bronze, just Rustoleum spray paint). Confused yet?

Basically, if you believe everything you see on Pinterest and DIY blogs, Rustoleum's oil rubbed bronze is the Jesus of spray paints. Got a brass fixture but can't afford a new a chandelier? ORB IT!

People have even ORB'd their sink and tub faucets and shower stalls.

Style with Cents does a nice breakdown of what has staying power and what you're better off just replacing.

We have a long ways to go before we even consider ORBing faucets, so we started with some basics: Our laundry room & kitchen pulls. Our original pulls are dated, though they do feel nice and solid in your hand.

The funny thing is, we've seen these pulls in stores while looking for "contemporary" pieces. But I guess if you're going for the antique look, that'd be the way to go. Since our kitchen updates will be gradually phased in (unless Kitchen Crashers wants to jump in here), we figured orbing these suckers might make for a nice holdover until we suck it up and buy 30 pulls at $2-5 a pop.

Our poor laundry room  is actually the DIY lab. It's often a disaster staging ground, but it's also where we first tried painting trim, and we figured it would also be the first cabinets we paint. There's less heartache when you mess up in the laundry room, because our machines Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum sing happy little tunes, which would perk any cabinet up. Seriously, our washer and dryer are the happiest appliances we've ever met!

So, I removed the pulls from the laundry, since they were the same, and when a warm enough day hit, I put them in a box, went out to the patio, and sprayed away. The can said to wait an hour between coats. Even after they dry, you need to let them cure, or you'll nick the paint off. 

Btw, how not awesome is the counter top? It looks better here than in real life.

I'd read in a few different blogs that you're best off using a primer or sealer coat, even though Rustoleum's metallic line is supposed to adhere to any surface (except, you know, liquids). I grabbed a can of Valspar's clear sealer, but it made the pieces look more like iron than oil rubbed bronze.

To test things out, we put some of the sprayed pulls onto the kitchen cabinets to compare.

We weren't thrilled with the results. It's definitely a shape issue, though I feel like the orb'd pulls darken the space. Here's a comparison shot for you, with the orb around the microwave and original pulls to the left and on the lower cabinets.

What do you think? Is it even worth going through this holdover step?

In the half bath, which we have not fully revealed yet, since we have some trim work left to do, and we're hoping to do a couple more tweaks, we managed to snag a really nice hardware set from CostCo. The old brass light just wasn't going to work with the new brushed nickel set, so since we liked how the orb had turned out, even if we weren't sure if we liked it with this shape and cabinet stain, we decided to spray a couple pulls and see how it looked.

The photo is a first coat, but even with additional coats, we said NOPE. The nickel just looked odd, since it was speckled and not brushed. The orb paint could get away with it, but not the nickel. The NO element was evident on the half bath's light fixture. It might look cool black, but since we already found a cool replacement, we're not exploring that route.

Because the spray nickel pulls didn't work, we decided to go ahead and get some nice ones for the half bath vanity, since it only needed two.

For giggles, we put one on a kitchen cabinet and immediately decided that the nickel pulls aren't going to work with our stain. They might work down the road, but as we are still debating what to do with the cabinets, we aren't ready to buy 30 pulls. We do, however, really like the form and feel of this one, since it strikes a nice balance between modern and traditional details. We're hoping to score a pack of similar ones with a different finish. We like orb, it just seemed to make the stain darker. But was it the form or the color? And should we just wait until we figure out what the heck to do with the cabinets?

The other conundrum is starting to surface, too. Once you get two new pulls on one set of cabinets, suddenly your other ones feel weird. Mike figured it out first: We really dislike the feel of pulls that are hollowed out in the back. We want solid pulls. Our current ones are solid, feel good to grip, they just aren't our style. I'm going to orb the pulls in the master bath, but they are hollowed out and now starting to bug us even more.

It's easy to see why home ownership spurs the economy, even if you're dragged down in debt. It's not roofs, furnaces, plumbing, all that maintenance drudgery. It's the silly things like the feel of a handle on a door you really could open without it.

Rugged

This is a picture of a young couple problem solving. And proving the two-story foyers can be very practical tools for flattening rugs.

We'd finally (finally!) found a rug for the kitchen table. The trouble with rugs is that retailers seem to think they need to save on storage space and roll these puppies up tight. So the rug came to us with rolling waves that needed to be flattened out. A quick internet search recommended that we warm a damp towel in the dryer, lay a dry towel on the rug, the damp towel over it, and then put something flat and heavy on top of that.

We sort of did that. Mike looked at the rug, looked at the balcony, and thought it was time to play tug of war. I was on top at first, but Mike nearly pulled me over the balcony. So we flipped, with Mike on top, me on the bottom, and it became a game. I'd tug to see if I could pull him over the banister (no, I really would never do that), and Mike would see if he could lift me off my feet. He succeeded once.

It seemed to help a bit, but now we enlisted some objects.

First, we flipped the table, but of course that wasn't going to be enough.

It became a game of how much heavy stuff could we pile in the middle of our kitchen. I knew those Norton Anthologies from college were going to be useful later in life! Our kitchen stayed like this for over a week. It's amazing how easily you can ignore a big mess in the heart of the house.

But now everything is back in order and we're pretty pleased. However, we're still vexed with the light placement. If you center the table with the space, it's drastically off-center from the light. And if you center it with the light, it's off-center from the space. Hence the angled picture. ;-)

Oh yes, and we raised the curtains so they're no longer touching the floor. And because we are traditionalists and don't want to freak everyone out ... we didn't get to scrubbing the main floor trim. We can't hit all of our to-do list, can we? Oh yes, and we still haven't managed to pick up a bed frame and box spring for the master. We went estate sale hunting yesterday, which does write off most of the day.

kitchen inspiration

There are many things to love about our kitchen. The layout, storage, openness to the family room. The cabinet stain and counter tops? Not so much. Along with the textured, dingy white wallpaper.

Upper peninsula cabinets - GONE! So much better. But now we have the awkward faux header.

The kitchen is coming along, and we've mentioned some of our plans for it, but I thought it'd be fun to share some of my kitchen inspiration and some of the plans we have, aside from removing the upper cabinets. When we were house hunting and purposely looking at outdated houses (so many of the new ones just didn't click), we figured painting the cabinets would be a relatively easy and inexpensive (I did say relatively) fix for outdated kitchens.

For awhile we were gungho on painting the cabinets, then started to back off. Now we're back on the paintin' train. Some of this has to do with the soapstone and butcher block combo Mike's been dreaming about (and I also like, we agree for once!), which does not work with stained wood. It's also a great way to brighten up the space. And we just keep getting drawn to kitchens with painted cabinets, even though we love a good wood grain.

So first, a round of soapstone and butcher block ...

ohsolovely

decorpad

We've seen the block as an island top, but some people do their whole counters in butcher. However, Mike and I "discovered" soapstone while visiting a local bakery and fell in love. It was of the dark, veined gray variety, and unlike black granite, it had a warmth to the touch and eye. We immediately started thinking about putting it into our "first house" (Mike's first house was on the market at that point). Soapstone ranges from light to dark gray (almost black), but you can also find green varieties. I think we lean more to the darker end (but not black), but we haven't really gone shopping yet (you won't find it at Lowe's or Home Depot). The one we saw was a mid to dark gray with lots of white veins and flecks. It was a much-used counter and wore the patina well.

People either love or hate these two counter top choices. Yes, butcher block can scratch and stain, but you can sand that down or just use a cutting board like you do on every other counter top. Most block lovers think of scratches as part of its patina and charm. Some people just do mineral oil treatments, others use sealants like Waterlox (especially if they install it around a sink). Soapstone also lends itself well to periodic mineral oil treatments. They're both also friendlier for DIY installation, as opposed to granite.

On a granite note, I've found maybe two granite slabs that made me go "WANT!" I understand it's been a longstanding thing for people, and that's totally fine. But I found the high polish/easy smudging of granite fussy and most patterns haven't interested me. 

As for the cabinets, we could do classic white, but we are also considering a subtle gray. I even looked at some soft green-gray options. We won't be re-doing the kitchen backsplash anytime soon, but I do love the green tile in this bottom picture and the broad planks of the island. The gray-and-white beamed ceiling also keeps this kitchen from being too cold.

There's also the option of restaining the cabinets, including using gel stain (to darken), and we considered that route, but we were concerned about darkening the kitchen. Of course, now that the peninsula cabinets are gone, the area is so much brighter and happy that we could probably get away with darkly stained cabinets. I've just never gravitated to them, and Mike said the kitchen he keeps seeing in his head has painted cabinets. Plus, you don't want dark soapstone with dark cabinets. Or maybe you do, Batman, that's cool.

There's oodles more inspiration kitchens on my Pinterest board. 



Green might be too bold for us here, but I do love this combo. Maybe a softer green?

Aside from counter tops, we have to think about color. Originally, I was leaning more toward a subtle green on the walls, but since we have the blue couch in the living room and our slightly green hay colored carpet, we went blue on the kitchen curtains and a subtle, neutral silver/blue/beige on table rug. It does help the couch not look like a random choice. We don't want a super blue house, so we might be leaning gray. Of course, the curtains cost us all of $13, so we could always switch down the road. 

Flattening the new rug. Pay no attention to the counter mess.

When we do choose our color, then I can re-paint those beige tiles on our back splash. I bought some cheapo tiles at ReStore to practice on, so if it looks awful, I haven't hurt anything.

And since we do not intend to paint the trim on the main level (Mike even dreams of replacing all of it), we'll have to choose wisely.

Speaking of trim, dusting and cleaning all of the main floor trim is big on our to-do list today. We party hard on the weekends!

Cabinet Takedown 2014

We're getting a bad reputation. Somehow, when we invite friends over, something winds up coming down. Like wallpaper.

Or kitchen cabinets.

Yesterday morning, Mike got a bee in his bum and took the trim off the top of the peninsula cabinets, along with some doors. I guess scrubbing the grout and grime around the shower door lost its luster and he wanted to see more impressive results? The cabinets were slotted for a spring project, but maybe the snow dancing outside our windows gave him cabin(et) fever.

Mike looked at me with his eager "It's Christmas!" grin and said, "What if the boys get bored tonight and want to take down the cabinets? Is that okay?"

Now, we definitely didn't invite our friends over with the intention of putting them to work, and I think this would be the last "enticing" project, unless someone has a hankering for tiling floors in the master bath. But I'd rather have a couple more people with us when we did pull the cabinets down, so I smiled and said sure, if that's what people wanted to do. Caveat be careful.

So here's a last look at the upper peninsula cabinets.

Photos shot on closing and walk through.

And now let's watch them go bye-bye.

At some point in taking the doors off, the men decided it'd be a good idea to label where each one went.

We had everything down save for a bent screw that just didn't want to come loose. It took some wiggling and cranking with a crowbar, and all women and men on deck, but then she came down in a nice easy piece.

Faces blurred.

We were concerned at one point, with a third of the screws still in, that construction adhesive had also been used. Thankfully that wasn't the case, though we still have some issues to contend with.

Since we plan on painting, this shouldn't be a problem,
but Mike's thinking of using some stain to blend it for the time being.

Cut across to even it out, or replace these last two with new tile?

The moment these cabinets came down, the kitchen completely changed. Light flooded everywhere, it felt huge and open, and we were pretty much giddy but off kilter, like when you step off a boat and now the ground feels like it's moving.

Um, yes, please! The bulkhead looks a little awkward right now, but we'll either put pendent lights up (and smooth out the bottom, or we'll cut it out. We'll need to drill a hole and use the camera to peek inside. Some people find insulation or ductwork, others find it's just boxed in frame with air. Cutting out the bulkhead will be a more intensive project, unfortunately. Decisions, decisions.

So, how about some before and afters?

Check that off the list. And to our friends out there, we won't make this a habit ... unless you want us to ;-)

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. 

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