Am I Crazy?

In general, I feel like houses - especially those on the smaller side - should stick with light colors and a similar color palette throughout. But I have a teeny tiny exception to my rule.

Since we first put a bid on this house I knew I wanted to do something dark and dramatic with our guest room because 1) its a small room and 2) its a guest room so we won't be living in it on a day-to-day basis (and hence get sick of the drama).

Lately I've been so completely obsessed with having a navy blue room. So I bought 2 pints of different shades of navy and last night went to town with testing the colors:

Sidebar: the pint size paint cans are so awesome because they are about $6 each but you can paint a huge section of the room and get a much better read than the tiny sample sizes. (example: I painted this entire wall with two slightly different colors and still have a good amount of paint leftover in both cans)

So am I crazy for going navy? Before you judge, check out these beauties I found online:



I love all the white accents - I'm planning to use all white bedding, curtains, and area rug. Cozy lighting and crisp white curtains. Dark wood on smaller pieces of furniture and lots of black and white prints on the wall. Of course the ceiling, trim, and closet built in shelving will all stay white.

Crazy town? Or designer gone awry? Or totally awesome?

Backyard Treehouse of Horror

I did a little backyard exploration last week. Honestly, I think I've trekked out there twice since we bought the house. It's a fairly big chunk of land (by my standards - country folk would laugh) but I estimate it's at least 100 feet long by 40 feet wide. Nothing to sneeze at!

Actually I find it a little scary, like - should I be out here by myself? Can a bear lurk behind the shed and catch me unawares? What about coyotes? Or snakes? Does New Jersey have snakes? I'm practically living next to a swamp - errr meadowlands - what do swamps have? Alligators???

So far none of the above have been sighted. But then I found this thing:

What is that, you may ask? Why it's a bat house. As in, a place where bats live.

Bat house!

I thought bears and alligators were my biggest threat. Apparently I had no idea what I was dealing with. Did I mention bats have the ability to fly?

Then I noticed this dangler. Way too high to reach. Can fall at any second:
I made it into the garage - surely this would be a place of safety.

I'm inside - what can happen?

Oh, you mean the grim reaper has been here?
If we are ever able to overcome our sickle storin', branch danglin', bat hidin' yard, it could be a lovely place...

path from backyard, to back-backyard

view of house from path

view of house and shed from wayyyy in the back.

Did you also notice the rusted swing set? It's like an accident waiting to happen...

Quatrefoil

Every once in a while I get stuck on something. For the past year I've been absolutely obsessed with this shape - introducing the lovely quatrefoil:

Sweet "tini" table from OomphOnline

Lovely floor lamp from Suzanne Kasler at Circa Lighting



Mirror from Decorati



"Basil" flush mount light from Circa Online.
This light was featured in Domino magazine, about 5 years ago. It was so stuck in my head that years and years later I nearly tore apart my apartment looking for the page I swore I had. Still haven't found it - but more importantly found the image online!


I could die for this Alexandra chair also from Suzanne Kasler (must be as obsessed as me!)


Spot the quatrefoil chair :)
I could look at this dreamy picture all day.

Amy Amy Quite Contrary

How does our garden grow?



Our front yard is only a bit of a slight disaster. For some reason, we have hardly any grass, so cleaning up was a little like raking dirt around.



We also decided to re-shape the garden:


before



after


after


We tore up the "fence" and made a new line with some re-allocated rocks.

We do have a master plan for the front yard!
coming soon...

So bad!

Sorry I've been so busy the past couple of weeks the blog has fallen by the wayside. But have no fear (all 2 of you). Coming up this weekend: lots and lots of yardwork, a trip to Lowes (where else?), and more painting!

Fun fun fun!!!

Jersey City

Opened my reader today to find this lovely post on Jersey City over at Design*Sponge ... I love living where I am now, but miss you JC!

Here


:)

Bathroom - Part 6 - Floored

And so continues the saga of the bathroom...

These past few days the bathroom has undergone yet another dramatic transformation. Say goodbye to the plastic-covered floors and blue toilet. We're really gonna miss you - NOT!

Last night we came home to a gigunda mistake - not enough grout! So it had to be finished today.

Look closer...

You can see the back end of the bathroom is grouted, the front end cost us another late night at Lowe's and one hungry couple. (No honey, we can't eat until we stop and pick up the grout!)

Just for posterity's sake, here's a photo of the grout - Spectra Lock in Light Pewter color. It's supposed to be very high quality, stain resistant, etc, etc (and it had better be!)

But the wait was well worth it. Came home to this beauty today - isn't it lovely?

Also a new toilet...

And another project...(our contractor ripped off the ugly dark plastic laminate from the back of the door and now it needs a good sanding, caulking, and painting)

So what do we have left on our to-do list? Oh plenty...
-- Install shower light cover
-- Caulk, prime, and paint all trim work
-- Paint the walls
-- Install switch plate covers
-- Sand, caulk, paint front and back of door
-- Get a radiator cover (our contractor is already working on this)
-- Sink - everyone thinks I'm crazy for living so long without a sink but the truth is you get used to washing your hands and brushing your teeth in the tub REAL FAST. I'm so busy trying to get the messy stuff* done that I'm waiting a little while longer. But I might start looking at options soon.
-- Any decorative items - including shower curtain, wall sconces, sink mirror, storage cabinet, toilet paper holder, towel hooks, new towels, etc, etc. For this I'm also waiting a bit - in a month we are getting our second floor wood floor refinished and I know it's going to make a mess.

* Messy stuff - anything I have to do myself (painting) and anything that wreaks havoc on my wallet (flooring)

Guest Bedroom Closet

I started prepping the guest bedroom this past Friday (these snow days are handy!) thinking I would have the entire room fully painted and DONE by the end of the weekend. HA. Double HA.

But I did get a few things done:
- emptied this room with the help of dear hubby
- removed the horrible heavy sliding closet doors and hardware (they were falling off their tracks and I've been there, done that and been back again a bazillion times - no more sliding closet doors ever!)
- scrubbed all the grime from around the windows
- caulked and plastered almost all the holes around the room
- painted one coat on all the trim
- and turned my attention towards this beauty:

closet, before

First I removed the last lingering items from the shelves. Then I removed each shelf, being careful to number each on the inside (the side that wouldn't be painted over)...

I laid everything on the floor on top of some cardboard. And yes, we're getting the floors refinished soon, but I didn't want to be a pig about it! Then I rolled some primer on the top of each shelf.

The next day, I flipped the shelves, and primed and painted the underside...

Then I got to work on the closet walls and trim. Just painting everything in the Ben semi-gloss Decorator's White. So far, I was only able to get one coat on 2 of the three sections. I had to stop because it was 11:30 last night. But I was able to get paint over some of the hallucinogenic leaves...

That's it for the next few days... major bathroom work getting done this weekend. I can't wait!