IN AND OUT OF BLOOM

Last year I was caught off guard by how fleeting the blooming periods were for all the different flowers in our yard. But this year I'm prepared. And I am making every effort to thoroughly enjoy them before they disappear. Like clockwork, the lilac has faded and the rhododendron has opened up in its place. And sadly, it too will be flowerless before I know it. But in the meantime I'm going to soak up all this loveliness streaming through the living room window.

COCKTAIL AREA**

Remember that cocktail area I said I was working on? Well, it's finished! It's actually been finished for a while. But I'm REALLY behind on posting. And I hate that. And so does my mom. So I'm gonna try to be better about it. Let me start by finally posting a picture of this...

I found all of the crates and the wooden wine rack at Zaborski's Emporium (A must-see if you are ever in the Kingston area. Four floors of salvaged junk piled ceiling-high. One of my FAVORITE places to get lost for an afternoon.)

Weathered wood! Chipped paint! Rusty Metal! LOVE. IT. ALL.

And look! I found a home for some of my new prize ribbons.

The table came from a local yard sale ($7!).

I dressed it up with a coat of dark paint, a little bit of sanding, and a custom cut beveled mirror for the top. (Fancy!)

The makeshift artwork is a couple of vintage tea towels that I stretched on boards and framed with some old moulding I picked up at a barn sale.

More chipped paint. YESSSS!

Here's the wide angle...and a teeny, tiny sneak peek at what's been happening in the living room. That's our new couch! More pictures soon.

** I keep calling this a cocktail area. Is that weird? I'd call it a bar...but that doesn't seem right. I mean...there is no bar...or real table...or a place to sit. It's kinda just like a deconstructed liquor cabinet. Hmm...maybe that's what I should call it. Deconstructed liquor cabinet. Sounds avant garde.

DINING ROOM LIGHTING REDO

I am delighted to report that we finally switched out the fixture in our dining room. When we moved in there was just a ceiling fan in the middle of the room and no light. We temporarily hung a big paper lantern from our old apartment above the dining room table...which was serviceable, but FAR from ideal. The cord was an eyesore and so was the fan...

But we finally had someone come put this chandelier up instead...

MUCH better. And the new fixture was hand-me-down from my parents...which means it was FREE.

I love free.

Next post: Hand covered chandelier shades and a candelabra sleeve spruce up!

PROGRESS REPORT

This past weekend Justin and I decided that it was time to tackle the dining room. This may not sound like a gigantic scary project...but it is. The dining room is where we have been hoarding all of our unopened moving boxes, artwork, and scads of mismatched furniture from our old apartment. But we dove in head first and I'm happy to report that we're off to a killer start. We managed to get MORE done than I expected. That NEVER happens.

We're done painting the walls and the ceiling. You can see the colors that we went with in the picture above. I had chosen the wall color a while ago (Minty Green by Glidden)...but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the ceiling. Then I saw these images for the new Farrow and Ball colors...

I love the combinations of blues and greens and blue-greens and pea greens. So I went for it. My ceiling is now Marsh Fern by Behr.

We're still busy in the dining room DIYing up a storm. More soon.

VICTORIAN HARDWARE

One of the things I love most about our house is all of the original hardware.

The door knobs...

The pocket door handles...

The entry bolts...

the mortise locks and strike plates....

The hinges...

The sash locks...

The keyhole covers...

They are all heartbreakingly beautiful. And they are still here. After 120 years.

This is why I am going to make it my mission to replace any cheap, unattractive, modern hardware that managed to sneak in over the decades.

The first thing I'm going to tackle: the slide locks in the bathrooms.

Currently, they look like this...

But how much better would it be if they looked like this...?

This one is a cast iron reproduction of an original Aesthetic Movement slide lock from House of Antique Hardware. I think it would go perfectly with our Eastlake style original stuff. And it's only $13.49! Consider it mine.

**NOTE: The image at the top of this post is a page from the 1895 Montgomery Ward Catalog. And look! One of those keyhole covers is the EXACT same one we have on our front door! I love that.

CAT BATHROOM!

As promised, here's the scoop on the downstairs bathroom...which is now a pinky-pink wonderland of vintage cat photos.

Eventually, I'd like to do a COMPLETE overhaul. The sink is really dated...and not in a cute way. The toilet is newer...but I hate the style of it. It's too big and modern looking. And the floor? Ugh. Don't get me started on the floor. It's really unattractive vinyl tiling that I think is supposed to look like red clay tiles (maybe?)...but they're not fooling anybody. Trust me.

Unfortunately, it's gonna be a LONG time before we can afford to replace most of that stuff and give the bathroom the proper makeover it deserves. But, in the meantime, I figured I would do as much as I possibly could with a little bit of paint and some things we already own.

Here are a few before photos so you can see what I was working with. (And yes, those are stenciled paw prints.)

And here is what it looks like now.

I figured if you are trying to transform a room with little more than paint you better go for a statement color. So I went SUPER pink. I know it's over the top...but I personally love a kitschy pink bathroom...and I really had nothing to lose.

I painted the sink cabinet and mirror a dark charcoal gray. Still not awesome...but MUCH better.

And then I covered the place with vintage cat photos. That made ALL the difference.

The sweet vintage frames and black and white photos totally work with the pink and charcoal color scheme. And the bathroom certainly has personality now...which is what it was really lacking before.

Sadly, the hideous floor is still there...but I put this rug down so that I don't have to see quite as much of it.

Eventually, I would love to do the floor with the tile pattern below from American Restoration Tile.

And I think the room would look fantastic with a tin ceiling (painted the same shade of dark gray as the sink) and an art deco style light fixture. Maybe something like one of these two from Schoolhouse Electric.

Luckily, those are all manageable updates which would be fairly affordable as far as those things go. But for now I'll just keep adding cat pictures as I find them...because the bathroom's shortcomings and imperfections seem way less noticeable when there are so many cute kitties to stare at!

GETTING FESTIVE

Justin and I are REALLY hoping we get a few trick-or-treaters this Halloween. Unfortunately, we live on a tiny dead end street that's off the beaten path...so it's definitely possible that no little ones will venture down here. But if they do I want our porch to look welcoming....so I gussied it up in the spirit of the season.

I got some really beautiful pinky purple mums and a couple of ornamental cabbages. I love the purples and minty greens with the bright orange of the pumpkins.

I decided to stick with that color palette for my Picasso inspired jack-o-lanterns.

I ended up painting them with screenprinting ink because I happened to have some lying around the house...but I doubt it's waterproof...so I gave them a good coat of matte varnish. Hopefully, now they will be able to withstand the elements.

The only part I actually carved out are the eyes. I LOVE the way they look all lit up at night.

I took Martha's advice and used a strand of twinkle lights wrapped around a jar to light the inside of the pumpkin. It's much brighter than a candle...and I won't be quite as worried about burning the house down.

We finished off the porch by hanging up some colored globe lights in orange, pinky-purple, and clear.

They make the front of the house look a zillion times happier. Justin and I are kinda tempted to leave them up year round.