Your Room Now

So I took your advice and took out almost everything you didn't like. 

Your Room

I"m talking tomorrow off to get the dining room painted and then I have to set my sights on your room.  You may remember this was one of the rooms I talked about in my New Year, New Projects post.

You'll be happy to know that this room is the brightest room in the house.  It's also the cats favorite room as evidenced by the two craters in the comforter.  I hope you're not allergic.

But there something that's always bothered me about this room.  There's no decent place to put the bed.

To the right of the bed there's about 9 inches of wall space between the bed and closet door.  That leaves very little room for a bedside table.  Where will I leave a vase of welcoming flowers?

To the left of the bed there just enough room to get through.

This wall has a window right in the middle of it.  As you can see by the height of the bed, it would almost entirely cover the window.

You can also see that I didn't make my goal of getting all the windows painted by the end of March.  The one-window-a-week plan lasted three weeks.

This wall faces the street so I wouldn't want to have the bed blocking the windows here either.

And the other wall that has the door has just enough room for the dresser.

The dresser was Mrs. Mastrullo's and it's not in the best shape.

I was thinking of painting it a medium to dark gray.

But what to do about the layout of the furniture?

Here's a picture I borrowed from Small but Charming and I have two questions.

1)  Would you mind having a bed in front of a window like this?

2)  Is that someone's finger in lower left-hand corner of the picture?

I got this bed from Ethan Allen and it was floor sample so I got a great deal.  But I bought it before I really knew what I was doing.  I never considered that these chunky posts on the headboard and footboard would take 8 inches out of the room.  In a small room, that could make all the difference in the world.  The bed is also really high and I never considered how much visual space a high bed would take out of the room.  Purchasing this bed was a mistake for my house.

The bed I have in the master bedroom is lower, has a low headboard and no footboard.  So I think I'm going to try switching the beds to see of the other one works better and allows me to put the bed in front of the window.  That leaves me about three feet on each side of the bed for lamps, flowers, gifts and chocolates that I will leave for you.

If it works, I might even let you take the Ethan Allen bed home with you.

Being a Tour Guide

My tour guide duties are finally over.  It's always fun to have old friends visit.  This particular friend is an abstract photographer and after seeing my shots from Parsons Beach a few weeks ago, he wanted to go back.

Here are a few of my photos from that gray, chilly (48 degrees) day in Maine.

I've never seen yellow lichen before.

This is a D'Anjou pear espalier in bud.  Want one.

...and another in full bloom at Snug Harbor Farm.

I love the Corey Daniels Gallery in Wells and will do a post on it sometime soon.

On the home front, I'm sort of relieved to have further renovations on hold.  It will give me the opportunity to find a few special or unique fixtures for the kitchen and bathrooms without the pressure of NEEDING to find something under the pressure of a deadline.

I do love this old sink and I would SO love to put this in my kitchen.  I see a bank of four windows side by side above it.  At eight feet long, though, I'd have to give up a lot of countertop AND the dishwasher.  But with four faucets, do I really need a dishwasher?  Each dinner guest could wash their own dishes!  It would be part of the experience of dinner at the Urban Cottage.   

Whatta ya think?

A Medallion, a Door Knob and a Paint Color

I buy a lot of my office supplies from Ebay so at the end of each month I get an e-mail from them that I have X number of Ebay Bucks to spend.  I usually use the bonus dollars to buy something like a little McCoy planter or as a credit toward a larger purchase.  I mean free money is free money.

With last month's Ebay Bucks I decided to buy a little plaster ceiling medallion.  Totally free including the shipping.

I've had real issues with the dining room ceiling.  The paint and/or plaster on one end of the dining room was peeling severely when I bought the house.  I thought it might be calcimite which I've read horror stories about on the internet.  But, refusing to accept I might have calcamite, I decided to scrape all the peelings and use joint compound to fill the holes.

The ceiling in the same area was also really discolored.  Whenever I would use joint compound on the holes, the discoloration would migrate and leave a urine-colored circle around each area that was wet.  I tried a latex primer to no avail.  It would look good for a month or so and the discoloration seemed to start bleeding back through the primer.

To add to my ceiling misery, the plaster around the box for the light was just a mess and I just couldn't get it to look good.

So I tricked a friend into helping me install the medallion.  It came with a metal ring that screws right in to the box so it wasn't necessary to glue it right to the ceiling.  I caulked around the edges but if I want to take it down at some point, it should be pretty easy.  And then I did a coat of that nasty, oil-based KILZ to block the discoloration.  I typically like the smell of things like gasoline and airplane glue (and I'm particuarly fond of magic markers) but I'm still a little disoriented from all the VOCs in the KILZ.  I think it will do the job once and for all though.  The ceiling looks great.

Here you can see the edge of ceiling and wall blur at a misty horizon.  I'm also really liking my choice of oil-rubbed bronze hardware.  I love the contrast of it against the White River paint.  The hardware isn't a perfect match with the spray paint I put on the hinges but it's pretty good.

The door know is white porcelain with an oil-rubbed bronze backplate.



I think this room is crying out for a little purple.

I was just starting to load things back into the room and try a little artwork on the wall when I decided I wasn't 100 percent happy with the paint color.  I painted the walls and trim the same color and what looks great in the living room looked just a little too dirty in the dining room.  Why does that happen?  In the living room, the paint is broken up by the burlap-colored drapes and in there dining room, there's larger expanses of the same color and it's just not perfect.

So even though White River is the lightest shade on that particular page of the BM fan deck, I went and asked for a 50% version of the same color.  I think the woman actually tsked at me.

In the photo above, I've just done above and around the closet door.  The 50% is a very subtle difference but I'm liking it 100% more. 

It acutally shows a little better at night.  The lighter wall color really provides a better reference for the oyster/mushroomy color of the door and trim.

So here's the view from the dining room into the bathroom foyer.  It's about a foot larger than it was before.  The bathroom door is on the left.  The gnome door to the basement is on the right.  And the hidden window is under the sheetrock between the two.  I can't wait to get that restored but, alas, I am broke for now.  I'll have some time to make some decisions on the bathroom finishes and fixtures.  I want something really special for the sink.  A bathroom easel maybe?  No, I guess not. I'm thinking something with wheels for sure.  My peeps are on the hunt.

Here's a picture of the front staircase when I bought the house.  You can see down the hall how dark and tight that space was.

And this is what that looks like now.  That window will really bring in some much needed light.

I'll shut up for a while.  I have a friend coming in to town so I'm putting away the paint brushes for a few days but I have more visitors coming in early June so I'd like to get going on the guest bedroom soon.

Happy Mother's Day

As a kid, we used to celebrate Mother's Day by cooking breakfast for my mom and then taking her to Lilac Sunday in Rochester.

I recall being astonished that the lilacs were always in perfect bloom for my mom.

In my typical style of honoring things from the past... 

...I thought I would bring all you moms to see the lilacs in on my street.

They're all in perfect bloom...just for you.

Happy Mother's Day!

TV Stand

I might loose a few people on this one.  From what I've seen on the many blogs I've visited, women seem to like the TV hidden, men seem to want its presence celebrated.  I reveal my solution with the understanding that no one will love this idea.  But let me back up.

About 10 years ago, I had a loft apartment in downtown Boston.  All of my furniture was modern was very large.  When I bought my first condo in another Greek Revival house in Cambridge, I slowly replaced all of my modern furniture with smaller scale, traditional and contemporary pieces.  The TV stand was one of the last surviving pieces because I just didn't have a good solution for the TV.

I thought I would end up with something like this console table.  This is actually the end of an antique table that's been cut off and attached to the wall.  It's a little too shabby for my taste but I thought if it were repainted in a dark gray it could work.  I just couldn't figure out how to add a shelf for the DVR and DVD player below it.  Another consideration is the cold air return to furnace is right where the TV sits, so I needed something that was open.

I really didn't want to mount it on the wall because my walls have almost no studs and adding the structure necessary to support the TV would have required another construction project.  I also tend to like to move things around and hanging it on the wall was little too permanent.

I thought I was going to have something custom made until I walked into Smith-Zukas Antiques in Maine and there it was.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce the Entertainment Easel.

This old artist's easel seemed to satisfy most of my requirements.  It fits the space, is shallow enough not to block the door, is open on the bottom to not restrict air flow to the furnace and it's just the quirky, one-of-a-kind thing I love.

The shelf on which the TV sits is covered in old oil paint.

I love this surface.

I had the easel slightly modified to add a place for the sound bar just below the screen, and another shelf for the cablebox/DVR and the DVD player.

The new work was stained to look like it was always there.  Just needs a few paint splashes.

So there you have it.  My own unique solution for the TV.  It may not be for everyone but I love it and I love that it's genuine.

Shortly after I bought it was waiting for it be modified, I was on the Anthropologie site and found they're selling a paint splattered easel.

In my opinion, the spattering of paint isn't something you can really fake.  It will just have a quality that just doesn't ring true.  It's just not quite right.

It's also $2100.  Yikes!

Love it or hate it?  Sound off!