Curb appeal

Our front steps are in desperate need of a new paint job.

I figure as long as I'm out there, I should paint the porch foundation as well.  See that white splotch above right?  How about here?

Not sure why the last person to paint this decided to change colors there.  But it is symmetrical on both sides of the porch!  You just can't see that in the picture because of the overgrown azalea bush in too small a space.

I was in a pruning war with the azalea--cutting it back bit by bit, encouraging it to fill out from the base, be smaller, and not totally take over the stairs.  I was winning the war, but the fact is, it was never going to look good there. 

Painting presented the perfect excuse to just get rid of the bush--I couldn't possibly paint the porch with the azalea still there--it touching the cement in far too many places, and too close to just tie it back.

This was on the "oh, I'll get around to it one of these days.  Maybe when it's cooler.  Maybe October," list, until I found some great cheap dwarf sunflowers at Home Depot, that I knew would look much better in that spot than that azalea.  I bought the sunflowers, and moved the azalea extraction to the top of the to-do list.

The real stroke of genius was when I recruited P to help.  Here's my idea of how an azalea should be removed:

After all, it's what I made my father do on his last visit.

Here's P's idea of how to "git 'er done."  Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4: Repeat x2.  Turns out that azalea was three separate bushes.  No wonder it was bursting at the seams and taking over the stairs.

Step 5:

(Yup, he's airborne.)

I think this root ball P pulled out perfectly illustrates how thoroughly the azaleas were wedged into this space, and why trying to paint around them just wasn't an option:

Where, might you ask, is the wife?  Happily sitting on the stairs, offering pointers.  "Oh, here's another root!"  This arrangement turned out to be surprisingly agreeable to both of us--P was surprised that I wasn't bored, and I was surprised that he wasn't annoyed that I wasn't pulling my weight.  Or doing anything at all.  (I did take a brief break from the sitting to dig up the sage plant located to the right side of the stairs, and move it to a different spot.)

Instead of planting the dwarf sunflowers in the ground, we put them into some large pots.  I've had these for years--P gave them to me for my birthday one year, back when I was living in an apartment that was begging for a balcony garden.  Putting the sunflowers in here gives them a bit of loft and a bit more presence in the landscape, plus will make it much easier for me to paint. That is, whenever the magic combination of cooler temperatures, dry weather, free time and inclination arise.

So that's where we currently are.  I think much more needs to happen for us to have a nice, welcoming entryway, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Ahh. Much better.

$7 Thrift Store Chair

The short story:

Before:

After:

The longer version:

I've been looking for some furniture at the local thrift stores.  It's been difficult--people around here are really good thrifters, and not too proud to buy used.  Good for the planet and society, but bad for me.  It's hard to find a good item, and prices tend to be pretty high.

So when I found this baby for $7, I was pretty excited.  The simple lines were the perfect opportunity to try out my first reupholstering project, without getting in over my head.

(I'm sure some of you are doubtful that this even needed reupholstering.  I can see how the lovely orange stripes of the original would look lovely in someone's home--but not mine.  Plus, the fabric was really itchy, and I don't do itchy.  Finally, the fabric was starting to wear through on the corners, so I didn't ruin an item in perfect condition.)

The chair unscrewed from the base easily.  I got such a good deal on the chair because the joints had come loose.  With just a bit of wood glue, things were as good as new, and the chair was no longer rickety.

Bar clamps: one perk of marriage to a woodworker.

I could have restained the arms of the chair where the finish had worn smooth, but I decided that I actually like the lived-in look the chair has now.  The contrast between light and dark areas makes the nice wood joints much easier to see and appreciate.

Next, I pulled out my Bissell carpet cleaner, and gave the upholstery a good scrubbing.  I'll spare you a picture of the pounds of dirt that came out.  Cleaning it well spared me the trouble of removing the old upholstery--less work, plus I suspect it's all that's holding the old foam together.  Didn't want to open that can of worms....

I traced a rough form of the chair upholstery onto butcher paper, added seam allowances, and used that as a pattern to cut the fabric.  (It's the fabric I decided not to use for curtains, and promised you would see again.  This is the first of many projects--I've got a few yards left to go.)

To get a nice tight fit, I pinned the pieces to the chair, then gently pulled them off, and sewed the pinned seams:

Skipping ahead several iterations of fitting, sewing, refitting, sewing the next seam....  P helped out with the staple gun, and here's the finished chair!  I'm going to use it at my sewing machine in my office for the time being--once we get the living room set up, we'll probably move it in there.  Happily, though the fabric is really bright and energetic, it works well in multiple rooms of our house.

For your viewing pleasure

I neglected to give you a "before" pic of the office.

The carpet must have been at least 40 years old (we're basing this on the rate at which the foam carpet padding under it had decayed).  The walls, trim, and ceiling were all painted in almond--like all the other rooms in this part of the house.  The paint was rather worn, and ready to be freshened up, so we replaced it with a crisp white for ceiling and trim.  Brightening up the whites really helped the room feel newer, fresher, and cleaner.

Front bedroom

When I last left you, we were agonizing over what color we should paint our front bedroom.  It's a fairly large room, with excellent light.  There are three windows--two south, and one west.  We were planning to use this as our bedroom for the next year, until we completed the renovations on the master bedroom. 

Then we had a crisis of confidence.  Which room should we sleep in?  Front bedroom pros: 1. it was nearly completed, and 2. it's crazy bright, and I like to wake up to morning light.  Front bedroom cons: those lovely south windows face the street, so 1. we'd have to keep them covered, thus reducing the light pro, and 2. there would be some traffic noise.  Master bedroom pros: 1. the bathroom is right there, 2. the walk-in closet is right there, 3. it's really quiet, and 4. it's an ugly dark cavern, and P will wake up with daybreak if given much light at all.  Master bedroom cons: 1. there's no floor right now or for the foreseeable future, and OSB subfloor is pretty impossible to keep clean, 2. when it's time to put in the floor, we'll have to move everything out, and 3. did I mention it's an ugly dark cavern?  It's a really large room, with only two windows--one north and one east.

Ultimately, it came down to the fact that P is a finicky sleeper, and he will sleep better in the master.  And I sleep better if he's also asleep.  And sleep seems like the most important part of a bedroom.  So we set up our furniture in the master, and will move it when it's finally time to put in flooring.

This meant that the front bedroom was open.  Being the gracious hostess I am, I declared that it would be a waste to use it as a guest bedroom.  It's the nicest bedroom in the house, and it would be a real shame if it were used only once a month, at best.  So it was decided that I would have a crazy nice office/craft room.

But we still needed to find a wall color.  I wanted something energetic; P wanted something that wouldn't make him crazy.  And I had to admit it seemed like a good idea for there to be some general cohesion in the house's color scheme. 

I had mentioned a plan to use this fabric to make curtains, and to draw the room's color scheme from it.

But then it arrived, and I panicked about the idea of using such a dramatic print on something so large as curtains, and whether I really wanted these colors, and would the curtain fabric be too dark on the windows I wanted to keep nice and bright....  So, there will be no curtains--but I still have several yards of fabric, so you will be seeing this pattern appear elsewhere in the house in future posts.

Yes, some of these are duplicates--I put samples up at different spots in the room to test them in a variety of lighting conditions.  The conclusion, after all of these samples, is that as much as I like the look of vibrant paint colors in magazine photos, I'm not so sure about them on my wall.  Maybe it's a commitment phobia, but I think it's taste: I like the idea of lighter paint colors paired with brighter accessories.

So we finally settled on Benjamin Moore's Patriotic White.  (As always, matched in Behr's paint and primer in one--in this case, in a flat finish, to minimize the unevenness in the walls caused by 60 years of paint vs. the smooth spots of newly repaired spackle.)  It's really a nice cool light blue--not white at all.

The final step after painting was to install the baseboard and quarter-round.  We used the cheap pre-primed MDF, rather than solid wood, since it was cheaper and we were just going to paint it anyway.  Once we got it home, we realized another surprising benefit--it's pretty flexible.  This turned out to be really helpful in maneuvering 12-foot lengths of board through the house--we could just bend it around corners and through doorways--and made installing it into tight corners easier.

P surprised me by installing the baseboard and quarter-round by himself while I was away for a weekend, attending a friend's wedding.  What a lovely surprise to come home and find that he had put the finishing touches on two rooms.  The office and guest bedroom were completed, and ready to have furniture moved in!