I Still Love Moody Gray

 Let’s take a break from gushing about touring 4 barn homes

in Country Living Magazine’s October issue.

Here are 2 of them, about which I recently blogged:

Kit Barn (read my post)

Modern Barn (read my post about it)

Instead, let’s discuss something about which I am obsessing lately.

WHITE WALLS

My current design crush, Emily Henderson (that’s her), loves white walls.

Remember?  She won HGTV’s Design Star when that was still on

I’ve been following her online for years.

To see why I’m such a fan,

look at this genius before + after in her own kitchen.

Before:

After:

I KNOW!!  RIGHT??

Here’s yet more white awesomeness from Emily:

I could go on posting yummy white rooms for days,

but you get my point.

It’s cool . . .

. . . + of course, now I’m yearning to repaint all our walls WHITE!

IN-cluding our beloved power room (??)

(which is now Flagstone by Pittsburgh Paints.)

I’ve been wanting white walls all summer,

+ then I spy this, in one of my favorite blogs, just the other day:

O  M  i  G  o  s  h  !

There’s gray everything, even the ceiling!

And look how great all their design choices look with all that gray!

That lantern:

The sisal carpeted staircase:

Here’s some more gray fabulousness from the same house:

Yet more:

Hold on now.  Let’s study the genius styling in this little area,

because I have been studying it + now wish to copy it.**

**More on that soon.

Let’s break it down.

Natural wood tone table pops nicely against the dark wall

Antique mirror does the same thing:

Stack of books on the floor (note to self: one is askew!):

Wire basket with mags on the floor

Please.

I have enough magazines to have about 80 baskets full of them,

scattered all over the house.

Back to the vignette!

Art piece on the floor:

Bucket o’ logs on the floor (more wood popping with dark):

Wood item  (what is that?) leaning against the corner

Leaning stuff = love

Including multiples of natural wood is a great example

of the repeat an element (at least) 3 times rule,

which of course, we all do.  Right?

Anyway, in conclusion, I’m asking:

Is one beautifully moody gray house enough

to distract me from Emily Henderson’s white awesomeness?

What do you think?

 

 

Hardwood Floors — The (Almost) Finale

There’s been some more hardwood floor progress at the Dutch colonial!

The 3+ day job of sanding is done, + here’s the result:

Up close + personal:

Then what?  You ask.

Time to choose the stain color!

HA!  KIDDING!

Disclaimer: it wasn’t that bad at all!

I just think that cat photo spells C-O-M-E-D-Y!

* * *

Anyway, as I was saying, I wanted something on the light side,

so we chose Golden Oak:

It’s a tad darker than I had anticipated, but it’s still good.

The warm golden undertones match those of our oak kitchen island:

Our house’s beautiful original wood floors + woodwork

are the reasons we opted for an oak island.

Isn’t it great when a design plan comes together?

So.  Now that the floors have been stained,

it’s time for their poly finish coat,

which means yet another design choice.

How shiny (or not) do we go?  You ask.

Here’s my thought — our kitchen tiles have almost no sheen:

So to keep things flowing nicely, from room to room,

we chose a satin (low luster) poly finish.

The poly’s going down later today!

Next step: the rugs + furnishings stage, at long last!

Stay tuned!

Hardwood Floors, Step One

Our hardwood floors are being beautified at the Dutch colonial.

Here’s the dining room floor, mid-project, as seen from the kitchen:

You can see that the first task was sanding the edges.

We rented an edge sander at our local build-o-rama;

it cost $40 for 4 hours.

Here’s another view of the dining room, looking back at the kitchen:

This next photo was taken from a corner of the living room,

facing the dining room on the left + the front door on the right:

While most of the house’s wood floors are the traditional narrow oak,

the bedroom has wider pine boards:

We briefly considered painting it,

but we decided that we’d opt to stain it, too.

I’ve had that plaid rug for years,

the colors of which I still like very much.

One of those blues could become an accent wall,

as seen in this inspiration bedroom,

designed by Emily Henderson (past winner of HGTV’s Design Star):

That Target rug is more ‘now’ than my plaid rag rug,

so I’m tempted to spring for it.

I’d like that throw, too, please.

Stay tuned to see which rug will make the cut!

My Kitchen Rug Obsession

Quickie update:

 Because of a 1/8″  disparity in size between our dark + light tiles,

our checked kitchen floor hopes + dreams were dashed.

Thanks to some quick thinking on my part, plan B happened.

Here ’tis:

1. All the dark tiles have been laid in a running bond pattern.

2. The lighter gray tiles have been returned to our local build-o-rama, Menards.

3. We now wait for more darks so we can complete our task.

Part most of me is glad we’ll have a plain Jane floor,

because I am obsessing about patterned kitchen rugs.

Maybe you’ve noticed that they’re a ‘thing’ now.

From Apartment Therapy:

More specifically, kilim rugs in kitchen are a thing.

One of my designer faves, Emily Henderson, is on board:

Ditto for This Old House magazine:

Since I’ve been a fan of kilim rugs for years,

their surge in popularity is good news for me!

Here’s one I bought way back in ’06:

As you can see, it has all the ‘Kay colors’, as I like to say.

Yep, that rug really tied the room together.

HA!  Did you recognize that quote from one of my favorite movies,

The Big Lebowski?

If not, rent it.  Watch it.  Thumbs up!

* * *

But I digress.

Check out the wallpaper on the ceiling here — yay or nay?

Apartment Therapy

I’m going to vote ‘yay’,

 but would our relationship survive our attempting to wallpaper a ceiling?

While we ponder that query,

let’s have a look-see at another rug with the ‘Kay colors’:

From Pottery Barn

This version of the ‘Kay colors’ is lighter + more now

than those in our current living room.

.The pretty, pale-ish blue of the PB version would play nicely

with our kitchen’s blue ceiling, don’t you think?

Plus, it’s an indoor/outdoor rug —

pretty much a must-have for a kitchen in my little world!

Luckily for us, indoor/outdoor rugs seem to be a ‘thing’ now, too.

The choices are endless!

Time to go online shopping — stay tuned!

Major Tile Problem — Solved!

Imagine my excitement earlier today,

as we finally started laying our checked tile kitchen floor!

We’d chosen Daltile’s Color Scheme 12″ porcelain tiles —

1/2 in Black Speckle + the other 1/2 in Desert Gray Speckle.

Everything was going swimmingly — up until the third tile,

when G.O. discovered we had a major problem.

The lighter tiles were maybe 1/8 of an inch larger than the darks!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??!!??

But how can 1/8″ possibly be an issue? — you ask.

Well, when 1/8″ is multiplied over dozens of tiles in an entire room,

it definitely becomes a major issue.

Meaning: goodbye, checked floor.

Meaning: now G.O.’s mad!

(Thankfully, not at me this time!)

SO QUICK!  WHAT TO DO???

PUNT!

Somehow, I decided on a suitable Plan B, within mere moments!

See for yourself:

GENIUS!

We’d use only the dark tiles + lay them in a running bond pattern!

And I owe it all to my extreme indecisiveness!

My extreme what???  — you ask.

Well, over my many months of kitchen floor planning,

before finally settling on the checks,

I had seen several that I really loved.

They looked just like this!

So it’s not so much “GENIUS” as good fortune,

but I’ll we’ll take it!

And while the plain black speckles aren’t as retro-charming as the checks . . .

. . . the plain Janes add a nice modern country look that I love.

Crisis averted!

(As long as we can get a couple more boxes of tiles

that look exactly like + are the same size as these!)

Fingers crossed, so stay tuned!

Kitchen Tiles’ Arrival

The tiles for our checkerboard kitchen floor have arrived!

You can read about my kooky selection process here:

https://redbirdv.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/kitchen-floor-tile-is-en-route/

* * *

So, anyway, here’s what we ordered:

5 boxes each of Desert Gray Speckled + Black Speckled

12″ square porcelain tiles,

from Daltile’s Color Scheme collection @ only $2.99 sq. ft.!

,

Let me tell ya, 10 boxes of tile are crazy heavy,

(I couldn’t even lift one),

so G.O. used a cart to transport them from his truck to our back door,

5 boxes at a time:

Once the boxes reached their destination IN-side the house,

we immediately laid out a few tiles for a look-see:

Hey, look!  It’s our new Maytag dishwasher!

Is it wrong that both G.O. are madly in love with that handle?

It’s so chunky!  It’s also stainless steel,

which pops so nicely against the white appliance.

* * *

But back to our floor:

Getting the layout just right is going to involve a whole lot o’ math.

Here’s G.O., getting a head start on said-same:

Definitely stay tuned!

 

I Want A Retro Tile Floor!

One of my favorite blogs — Hooked on Houses — recently posted about Drew Barrymore’s house.

Go there now:

http://hookedonhouses.net/2013/05/23/celebrity-real-estate-drew-barrymores-house-in-montecito/

I fell head-over-heels in love

with the retro-style refrigerator + freezer in her kitchen.

Who’s hip to the totally awesome + retro SMEG brand?

My retail bestie — West Elm — sells them!  $2 grand!

Of course, they come in all sorts of colors, but I ‘need’ red!

See for yourself

how the West Elm hipsters styled these beauties in room settings:

While I did intend for this post to be about Smeg refrigerators

+ my love for them . . .

. . . my short attention span was diverted once again . . .

. . . this time, by Drew’s yummy yellow + white checkerboard floor:

People.

The product is Marmoleum Click:

http://www.forbo-flooring.us/Residential-Flooring/Products/Marmoleum-Click/

a substainable + natural floating floor

that’s easy to install + glueless!

Say no more!

I quickly proceeded to research Marmoleum images online,

+ look what I found:

Are you swooning?

If you’re like me, you are.

I mean, it’s all about the mildly-odd-yet-tasteful factor in my little décor world.

Plus, how period-appropriate would this be in our 30’s-era Dutch colonial?

VERY!

The good news is that I’ve chosen my favorite pattern o’ tiles, + here ’tis:

I think it has kind of a gingham check vibe, don’t you?

The off-white, pink + gray is on-trend + darling,

but my kitchen is calling for something like this:

Okay, I’m about to swoon,

+ meanwhile, I have a prediction:

G.O. is going to nix this idea, the minute I ask make him look at this post.

Duh.

Why doesn’t he trust me yet?  😉