Wednesday, February 28, 2007

*Kitchen - More Ingredients

We decided not to demolish the soffit area, but still needed some way to deal with it. I put the embossed, analgypta paper up there before this redo, but painted it a bit differently and now added crown molding above the cabinets.
To make the ceiling appear taller in a really small area, I designed a canopy over the sink, a niche over the prep area and a new open display cabinet on the other side. All of these elements draw your eye up to the green ceiling and make the ceiling appear to be taller than the 8 feet it is.
Here is a close up of the canopy. It is made of wood and accented with small tumbled marble squares. The whole thing is painted flat white and antiqued with raw umber.
I used a grape vine stencil to do an embossed stencil and then added some sculpted grapes (air dry clay) for more dimension.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

*Kitchen - A Few Changes


There's a lot to be said for using new items sometimes. The kitchen is certainly one place where new might be better.
We installed a new faucet and sink. The tile we we put in ourselves, which is tumbled marble with bronze rope and "dot" accents, the same as the finish on the faucet.
The granite is New Venetian Gold, which is a great medium color and so easy to keep looking good.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

*Are We There Yet? - Light a Candle










Have you seen the outstanding, wonderful kitchen with red cabinets that are the work of Kim at One Woman's Cottage Life1? I stopped by for a visit this morning and Kim posted a hearfelt note about her house. This is my post in honor of Kim, and the light she brings to the world.
When you come by to visit here, you only see the really after, after shots. I make sure everything is just right, and it is very selective photography. There is most likely some stack of stuff waiting to be put away just out of the camera shot. It's been like more like that since last summer. And some of the house cannot be shown in show & tell time! It is still in need of tons of work.
We are certainly not done yet, even after 20 years!
I was positive so much would be done by the end of last year, and tore up lots of areas in the house during spring, even the whole backyard, so we would be ready for the work to done. Then I found out about a serious health issue, and all that stuff stopped since I had to mend after surgery.

You know what, it doesn't matter quite as much now. I'm not sure what lessons I needed to learn, but if I ever doubted there is no place like home, I certainly know it now as an absolute truth, for me. Home is with my loved ones, a space that I cherish and nuture, as it does me.
You might have guessed that "It's a Wonderful Life" is one of my all time favorite movies. When George starts kissing and hugging everything falling apart in his house, I have a good cry. I understand how he feels.


When I first started writing here, I was posting some lovely picture, which of course was only what I wanted to be seen. The family room was full of boxes and stuff as we were again in the middle of something. My sweet, darling daughter walked by and saw the picture and had a good laugh. She thought it would be good for me to take a picture of the mess and post it! Not today, I'm not as brave as Kim.
We could move to a newer house, with nothing to do. But it just doesn't feel right. One day there will be no more big projects to do around here. And it will be great, but for now, back to my list of things to do. Are we there yet? Not done, but we are there, home.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

*Dining Room - Rosey Glow


It looks like there is such beautiful light in this room, later in the day at least. This is the afternoon sun shining in from the living room, and flowers from Valentine's Day.

The dining room has no windows, and is located in a typical way for the houses built at this time, in a pathway to everywhere. If you have a room like that, the best thing to do is decorate in a way that you can love it anyway. The feeling is comfort, breakfast or holiday dinners, it isn't too fussy.

Things that changed in this room since the last redecorating adventure.
* Painted the ceiling green, we added the molding last time.
* New wall colors taken from the rug, purchased on Ebay. One of my favorites we have found.
* The walls were painted a medium, rich golden pumpkin and then glazed with two shades of lighter ochre golds.
* The living room silk drapes were moved in here and I changed the attached valance using the same green toile that is on the chairs.


* The chairs were reupholstered in the lime/light olivey green toile and a solid of the same green. The end chairs are skirted and are upholstered on the backs, front and back sides.
* The dining table and chairs are the same ones from Thomasville that I purchased over 20 years ago.
* We also installed new molding at the entry to the dining room, and the molding around the French doors mimics that. I haven't taken any new picutres of that side yet.

Still a couple of things to do in here, but mostly it is done!

Friday, February 16, 2007

~ Painted Rugs Details

Here is a close up of one of the painted rugs in the last post. I like using stamps when I am going to repeat something over and over again. You could also use stencils, which I have done as well. The leaves are done with an olive branch stamp that I just finished off so it looks more handpainted. You can see that I added some highlights and shadows and turned the "olives" reddish.
On the shade side of the stamped leaves, I added a dark brown line and on the light side, a white line to accent the shapes.

You can find paint pens over by the Patio Paints which they usually keep by the terracotta pots in the silk plants area at the craft store.

The zebra area is just freehand, but the spots next to it are done with a stamp. Also notice how I used the paint pens to make nice straight lines in between each different area. Please let me know if you try one for yourself, I'd love to see it!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

*A Sunny Spot

It sounds like a lot of people are longing for spring. Me too, even though it has not been a mean winter here. The sunporch is a mess right now. I've been moving things around and nothing is in its right place lately. I look at this picture, which all of my old friends have seen before, and I think I need to get out there and get it looking good again. Not today or in the next few days, it's going to chilly here, too!


 Since my area is covered, I used waterbased poly after it was done. For an outside deck you can use either a marine varnish, or a solvent base poly.




Update 2012:

This was done maybe in  2006 or 2007. Colors change. The first "rug" was painted over,  and the second one needs some updating if it is going to stay on the porch. But both held up extremely well for years on a covered porch.