The Library: Part 5--Windows

At long last, the penultimate installment in this single room renovation that I have poured so much heart, soul, and blog posting into.  I wanted this wall to have windows in it.  Why?  Because I grew up in a home that had been added onto and had a window over the kitchen sink that looked into...the laundry room...and I loved it!  I love quirky design features like that and so does Mr. Bleu, and since we are doing the work ourselves, we get to do whatever we want.  Originally I wanted to do the wall entirely of windows, but Mr. Bleu feared this would have some support issues, so when I came home, he had framed up the walls and left room for only one window on each side.

Was I disappointed to not have the thing I wanted?  Of course, but safety first!  Plus, I sort of felt like the single windows made this room look more like an old Victorian Bookstore, so I'm leaning into it.  It's been really interesting to change and adapt our designs as we go along.  I can't say that the visions I had in the beginning are the same as the finished products, but I'm happy with it.

Since we have two different colors on the walls, I had to strip and then paint these antique windows to match each side.  I had to do the same with the window framing, drawing a line down the center and painting each side to match.  It was one of those projects that I thought I could get done in about 30 minutes but ended up taking me about 5 hours.  At this point, I'm probably just never going to learn.

Both windows are now installed and open to promote air flow.  I haven't yet found the right curtains for the library side windows, but I remain hopeful.  Also, as you can see, we still have a ways to go in the library, finishing the underside of the cat walk and doing all the trim

And, since this is a home renovation post, you already know what I'm going to say next, right?  To be continued....

The Library: Part 4 The Gallery Wall

I've always been an art lover and a firmly believe in supporting individual artists if at all possible rather than buying mass produced "art."  The trouble is that the real stuff can been extremely expensive and let's face it, the stuff you get from Amazon, Michael's, and Hobby Lobby is super cheap.  Ethically I don't like it; financially most of us can't swing authentic one of a kind oil paintings.  However, there is a work around.  A few years ago I started collecting vintage and antique prints as well as handmade paintings that I found at thrift stores, yard sales, and even inherited some very nice locally created antique oil paintings from a relative.  For the time being I just hung them on my wall to keep them out of storage and mushed them all together as best I could along with all the other things I'd been collecting for years, waiting to put into the home we were allegedly going to build one day.  This is how it looked before the renovations:

With all that in mind, I determined to save a large wall space in the library for displaying these pieces as a gallery.  Let's take a look at how it all began:

A very useful tip is to use paper to trace the shapes of the pieces you want to hang and tape them to the wall to get your arrangement just right before hammering nails into the wall.  I have used this method a number of times and it works extremely well.  However, for this wall, I really didn't want to put any unnecessary holes in it at all, so I opted for a gallery track instead.  This will allow me to change up the arrangement any time I want without need to use spackle and paint to cover all those holes.

The gallery track ended up being less of a life hack than I'd hoped.  This after waiting 6 weeks for Amazon to ship the wires because I don't have Prime.  The wires did scratch the wall in places and some of the paintings lean so far forward they pull everything on the wire forward with them.  If you want to remove a wire, you can't just unhook it, it has to slide all the way to the end to come out.  The hooks are very bulky and conspicuous, and I have a few other complaints as well, but I'll spare you the details.  It's not a perfect system and I have a few more paintings to go before I can call this done, but overall I am very happy with how it looks.  As always with my home renovation posts, to be continued...

The Library: Part 3 The Cat Walk

As it turns out, and we learned this the hard way, a vaulted ceiling is extremely difficult to work on when doing DIY.  Since we didn't own a ladder or any equipment tall enough to get us all the way up to this ceiling, my husband came up with the ingenious idea of building a catwalk to span this room and that could be moved at intervals across the room thus enabling him to safely work in this high space.  While he was working, I fell in love with the idea of just keeping a little walk, perhaps lined with books.  What can I say, I'm a Shakespearean romance kinda girl and a I love a good balcony.  Since we're doing this all ourselves and adjusting our plans and ideas as we go, we decided to keep the catwalk and incorporate it into the room.

After the catwalk was built, I learned another lesson:  narrow extraneous elevated spaces are extremely hard to decorate.   Nothing really fit in this space.  Everything was too wide.  I may still turn this into a library wall, but it will require us to custom build shelving that's not so deep it takes up all the walking space.  For now I'm thinking of lining the railing with a box herb garden or vine plants to dangle over the railing. To be continued.....

Illuminating Crafts: A Little Lamp

Another micro renovation in today's post.  In between the big-big projects, there are lots of little details to make and bring together to create a cohesive design to each room.   I wanted a cute little lamp for my loft and I found this interesting antique in the chuck bin while settling a family member's estate last year.  It needed work, and no one else really looked at it twice, but since I'd become interested in making lampshades, I thought I could do something with this little piece, so I added it to my TLC treasure trove and brought it home.

The cord was crumbling and needed to be replaced and the base needed a good scrub down, but it was soon shiny and nice.  I bought a replacement wiring kit and got that installed with a little help from Mr. Bleu since somewhere in the process I lost the internal bar and we had to rig up a new system, but he made it work

I selected a small crescent shade frame and got it wrapped, then had to decide a bout all the trim and fixings.  I have a ceramic lady finial from the 1960s that I hoped I could make work for this project because I would love to see her restored to her original purpose, but alas, could not make it work.

Since the loft is so busy with colors I decided to keep this lamp all white, but add Swiss dot tulle and lace, plus beaded and tassel fringe.  This shape was difficult to work with and it's definitely not perfect, but I'm the only one who will see it on a daily basis and I'm happy with how it turned out...or at least not unhappy enough with it that I'll take it apart and re-do it.  Truly its own little composition, it reminds me of a wedding cake. I love how it looks lit up just as much as when it is not illuminated.  I never really thought I would like making lampshades but this has become a favorite busy-hands hobby of mine.

Thermostat Cover Up

Today's post is what I would call a micro-renovation.  Just a small change to make the room a little more interesting and polished and also a small project I can do on rainy days or when I'm home alone, needing to feel productive.

So, this is my dining room wall.  Pretty boring, right?  I finished the dining room makeover three years ago as one of my earliest projects.  For the past year, the table and floor under the table have been covered in books and other sundries while we were working on the addition.   This map print was hastily hung up as I wrapped up work on this room and I realized pretty early on that it was sitting way too low on the wall.  Whoever sat at that spot would tap the glass with the back of their head.  It needed to be moved up, especially since the ceiling is vaulted here, the low hanging picture looked odd. Also, I have always hated that ugly thermostat and light switch cover.    Look at it.  Hideous.

The light switch cover can't just be swapped out, it has to be rewired, so that is a project for another time.  In the meantime, I could do something about that low-hanging print and that thermostat.  The first thing I did was think about it for months.  Then I started doing research and finally came across this idea of cutting the back out of a basket and decided it would work well for this space.  I'll link this below.

I bought the basket from Hobby Lobby, measured the thermostat, and then cut out a square in the back to conceal it.

Next I installed a little hook above the thermostat to hold the basket and bought some faux eucalyptus to add a little greenery to this area.

I got a couple of other little decorations from Hobby Lobby and then looked around for things I already had to integrate into this space.

Link to pinterest idea for the basket: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/74872412551772051/

Home is in The Details

Call it Grand Millennial; call it Grandma Core; call it Maximalism.  My style is somewhere in the mix of those three and probably a few more.  There are a lot of ways to describe and express personal tastes and style, but I've always felt that the true you really shines in the details.  When it comes to outfits, let's face it, the accessories and shoes can make or break it but it's more than that; it's the antique locket, the interesting brooch, the shoe clips you made from pages of your favorite book that make the outfit truly you.  

So it is with our homes.  It's not just the table/couch/color of paint, it's your sassy chain-smokin' granny's vulgar ashtray.  It's the end table you salvaged and decoupaged; it's the little details that came from your heart and creative mind to make your home a unique representation of you.  To that end, and because I am oh so obsessive about the details, I have been filling my home with all the interesting things our family has collected or made over the years, but as we renovate I need a new piece now and then to complete a room.  For example: I put a canvas map over my T.V. as a cover.  Trouble is, every time I want to hang up or pull down that cover, I have to get it from a hook on the ceiling and I need a boost.  

I've been using this shot out old Cosco--yes, not Costco, it's something else--step stool we've had for over a decade.  It has been most useful, but it's not exactly easy on the eyes any more and it no longer latches, so if I don't center my weight on it, it folds up and causes me to fall.  I've gotten the hang of it, but it always makes me nervous.

As I've been searching for something unique and lovely, I've realized two things: 1.  how absurdly expensive old footstools are, and 2.  what I really want is one of those vintage wooden stools with hearts worked into the design such as these fine examples below.

The solution?  Well, Mr. Bleu has been doing a lot of wood working in order to make all the things we possibly can from trees around our property to both save money and get a higher quality wood than we can generally find at the lumber yard.  In the process, he's really becoming very proficient at woodworking.  I showed him some examples of what I was looking for if/when he got some time and a short while later, he surprised me with a completed stool exactly like the vintage pieces I'd been admiring.

It took a little wood filler and some extra sanding, but I now have this beautiful handmade custom piece that precisely fits my decor and I absolutely love it!

This room is still a work in progress, but it's coming along quite nicely and shaping up to be such a cozy, whimsical room that I love spending time up here in this room filled with so many odd/quirky/ lovely/ unique to my home things that make this room a feast for the eyes.

The Library: Part 2 The Fireplace

Going in to this renovation, I thought that relocating our wood stove and chimney to the opposite end of the room would be complicated and difficult.  And, it was.  But it was a piece of cake compared to building this little faux fireplace for the library.

Since the fireplace in the library took so much work on its own, I thought I'd devote an entire post to it.  I don't know why we decided to give up more floor space that could have been used for other things; I can only say that having a gloomy Victorian style library with a fireplace and a grandfather clock seemed way more intriguing than extra space on the floor.  So, using the help of my favorite DIY blogger, athomewithashley, we followed her instructions, making a few tweaks of our own along the way to create this fireplace for an electric heater.

These corbel pieces are by Ekena Millwork and made of high density urethane.  We weren't sure of they would stain well or would have to be painted, so we just jumped in and tested one and as it turns out, they take furniture stain very well and look no different than the wood pieces we stained.

The tile pieces were purchased pretty early on and as so often happens, my vision for the project changed over time.  Since I had already bought them, I decided to just use what we had even though they no longer matched what I had in mind.  I had to remind myself that so many of my favorite Victorian homes definitely don't "match" and that is part of what makes them so interesting.  Stay tuned for my next library post to see our progress.

The Library: Part I

My husband and I have not always agreed on home design or decor, but one room where we always found common ground was a library.  We have both always wanted one, preferably something a Victorian Wizard would feel at home in.  Armed with some inspiration photos (yes, some of them are most likely A.I.), Mr. Bleu and I began to tackle building a library.  Mr. B has not always agreed with the decorative choices I've made, but we have both always wanted this sort of library space, so this was a room to unite us if ever there was one.  You'll notice all my inspo pics contain green couches.  This is because I initially wanted this to be the room that housed my green couch.  But in the end, there just was not enough space for all.  

Things that were a must were: sconce lighting, deep colors, lots of books, a fireplace, and plenty of wall space to hang my collection of antique oil paintings.  During the construction of this room, Mr. Bleu built a catwalk so that he could reach the ceiling and I wondered aloud, why we couldn't just keep it.  After a brief discussion, we did and I'll likely do a separate post about that.

Installing laminate flooring has been one of the easiest and most enjoyable parts of all our renovation steps.  Apart from all the cutting, it's very easy and we managed to get the flooring done on this room in only a couple of hours.  Wallpaper on the other hand is less simple.  I ordered this William Morris print from a company that emphasizes sustainability and zero waste.  I didn't realize that meant that I was ordering numbered sheets that had to be used in order.  I ended up being one sheet short of a wall and thankfully Mr. Bleu is a Tetras Whiz, so he pieced together enough to finish the wall and we had enough left over to cover the small wall above the fireplace as well.  After all that, we decided to go ahead and wallpaper the remaining walls and this time, I ordered the right lengths and just bit the bullet on the cost.

Building this faux fireplace was its own job and I'm going to create a separate post for that project.  For this post, however, I will show you where it all began.

The "Billy Bookcase Hack" is all over the DIY internet scene, so we decided to give it a go.  Initially we were going to build our own bookcases, but in the end opted for the speed and convenience of ready-made pieces that I could assemble on my own and then we could install together. We did end up buying two extender units for each shelving unit so they would reach the catwalk, but this photo only shows the assembled units without extensions.

Very important step here is to either sand or prime or both before painting.  I got started only to watch the paint bead up and scratch off easily after drying.  So, I went back and primed all the boards and that allowed the paint to cover nicely, but it will still scratch off easily for about a year or so while it cures if my experience painting MDF panels on the wall or kitchen cabinets has taught me anything.

I got very impatient to get my books back on the shelves.  They've been dominating my dining room table and floor space for a year and I would love to have that room back.  I cut strips of wax paper to lay down under and at the sides of the books while the paint is curing.  I don't want it sticking to my book collection during what is sure to be a typical humid summer.  I chose to put antique books at the bottom and new books at the top.  

I also ordered fabric baskets from IKEA to fit in the cabinets and water hyacinth baskets to go on the shelves.  I applied a light coat of the same stain we used for the baseboards and trim to the water hyacinth baskets so that they would better match the colors of the room.  I really didn't know if this would work, so I started with a test basket.  It took only two coats of stain to get it to a nice shade and cured nicely.

This project was way too big to fit into just one post, so I'm breaking this room into at least 3 and maybe 4 posts.  Join me for Part II of this renovation project to see how the library wall turned out.