I have nothing new to show you yet, Internet, but I will tomorrow! The password is: TILE.
In the meantime, please enjoy this photograph of Ed, our amazing foreman on the job. He is super sweet and a genius and we need his hands on everything.
PS. Miss Mad is home from the hospital and doing GREAT. Thank you for all of your good wishes!
You guys, I’m no hero. I’m just an ordinary citizen who is adding a bathroom to her house while her teenage daughter has been in the hospital with a kidney infection for 2 days.
Wait, I am TOTALLY a hero.
Workmen wait for no one, not even people who have to spend the night on hospital cots. The improvements continue apace. To wit:
1. Here is the original closet (check that wallpaper!). The other closet is behind the wall they knocked out to make the whole bathroom.
2. Yesterday (please note plumber’s butt).
3. And this morning.
4. A shot of the new closet that’s being built to replace the original closet(s). Y’all, they are making me CUSTOM METAL HANDLES for the doors. Can you EVEN?
This one’s for Erin, who needed some proof that I am not a decorating superhero. Our dining room. It has looked like this all week. Today, it looks worse. You’re welcome.
Thank you for all of your kind words on Twitter and elsewhere. The patient is feeling much better today, and I think we’ll all be home by Sunday.
Hooray!
This morning, Mad’s room looked like this:
and now it looks like this:
and our guest/TV room looked like this (with all the furniture removed, please ignore the purple walls that are going away ASAP):
and now it looks like this:
…and that big hole was once two adjacent closets — one in the guest room, and one in Madeleine’s room — that will soon be a second bathroom. One we’ve been waiting for and wanting for a long, long time. Ever since Sars came to visit and our one bathroom flooded. Over the weekend. On a Sunday. PS. It’s Sars’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Sars! We got you a new bathroom.
I’ll keep you updated on the progress as it happens. Our contractor has told us it should take 3 to 4 weeks but things are moving so fast I think it will be done sooner. I may or may not be able to show you after pictures, depending on whether a) I’ve died from the stress of half our belongings being in the dining room or b) I fall into a hole or c) contractual obligations. What the hell am I talking about? I’ll tell you later.
Yay!
1. Decorating for Christmas. But not too much. I still have to put up the tree/wrap presents/make teacher gifts/discard teacher gifts due to burning/make more teacher gifts/lose my mind. But: all of my gifts have been bought. Boughten. This is a miraculous and beautiful thing.
Is it annoying to use images I uploaded to Flickr weeks ago? I apologize. Not enough to stop doing it, but just know that I feel bad about it.
The delicious sunburst mirror came from a local store, so I am sorry to say I can’t tell you where to get one of your own. Also, the cute white stockings came from Walmart, so judge me as you must.
2. Making curtains out of drop cloths. I mean, come on. Have you ever seen a cooler idea? I got it from the Internet. Here’s what you do: Go to Lowe’s (or Home Depot, or your local hardware store, but I checked all of my options and Lowe’s had the best quality fabric). Buy 2 drop cloths. Wash, wash, wash and dry the drop cloths. Now, wash them again. I hope you have a big washer. Cut and hem the bottom edge (I bought 12′ x 15′ drop cloths, because my windows are 120″ wide and my ceilings are 10′ tall. I stitched the long side to about 10′, and hung them at 9.5′ or so. (The ones I bought were already finished on all sides, with a shirttail hem.)). Hang. THE END.
3. Furiously searching for and downloading pictures of bathrooms for the addition we’re planning in the new year. I don’t know if you can tell what I like from this randomly chosen set of inspiration photos. They are all so different. We are very excited about this project — it’s been on our list of things to do basically since we moved into our house 6 years ago. And there is a teenager I know who is super happy about not having to share with her parents anymore. Hey, kid: THE FEELING IS MUTUAL.
4. In an unexpected development, I’ve taken on a real, live, paying decorating client. I am scared and nervous and exhilarated. It is kind of a trial run. The fun starts after the holidays. More details as they come. The excitement makes me write in little sentences.
I’ll not reveal the identity of my client, but they are closely connected to this person:
Obviously, I’ve written several private meetings into our contract. Consultations, if you will. For art.
This is actually my Bench Monday submission for today, but it’s also a tiny glimpse of our newly painted living room, the last room in the house to be painted. It looks worlds better. Dear Super White, I love you forever.
More details and pictures soon.
Y’all must have been voting it up for me in the bedroom contest, because I won the Readers’ Choice Award! That’s right! Power to the people! Thank you so much for voting, both from the link here and on Twitter. Also, thanks to my ladies over at Design Crisis, for their aggressive Pro-AB campaign.
I was also given an Honorable Mention by the judges (Dear Kelly Wearstler: CALL ME), which is doubly awesome. See the results, and the super fabulous winners, right here.
Now everybody go paint something Down Pipe!
Oh my goodness, it’s been a banner week here at Chao Central. First of all, the temperature has dropped below 75 at least 3 times. Secondly, one of my favorite blogs, Creature Comforts, did a super sweet post on our house. THIRD OF ALL, I will be doing a guest post on one of my OTHER favorite blogs (Karly and Erin, what what!) very very soon.
FINALLY, and this is going to blow your mind, I am a finalist in this All The Best Bedroom Contest. I mean, how sick are you of hearing about my bedroom? I know, me too. However. Not only is it an honor to be chosen, but your favorite and mine, the crazy awesome Kelly Wearstler, is one of the judges. This makes me squee. A lot. Y’all, the other contestants are so good. They are obviously professionals. So I cannot even tell you how happy it made me to find out I was in the top 12. As a bonus, there is a Reader’s Choice poll you should go vote in. (For me.) (I mean, you don’t have to. Only if you want to.) (Dewit.)
Talk about an embarrassment of riches. I am the luckiest girl in the blogosphere!!!!!!1!
And now, here are 2 more pictures of my bedroom. YAY!
I don’t have much to say about this except 1) I’m so happy with the result, 2) “Down Pipe” is my new favorite color, and 3) I am very tired.
New things bought for the room: Paint, roller shades, and throw pillows. I bought the antlers on eBay.
If you have any questions I’ll try to answer them!
The burlap shades have been shunted to the side for the time being. I can’t decide on a trim fabric or color, and it’s making me upset. So I’m putting them on hold. It’s ok, though, because I’ve decided that our bedroom must be painted now, now, now. This is all Abigail Ahern’s fault. She paints lots of her walls this gorgeous chalky black blue gray color that I have fallen in love with, and now I must have it somewhere in my house. The bedroom — which hasn’t been painted since before we moved into this house — wins.
I am not happy with this bedroom for many reasons. First of all, because the curtains don’t cover the edge of my window trim, which is a most egregious error committed by my husband when he measured the curtain rods. But most of all, because of that dumb Ikea locker in the corner. It holds our TiVo and DVD player and other technology, and every day when I see it I am filled with rage. The locker is cute — on your porch, in your hall, in your bathroom. Not in my bedroom. I want it out. The new walls will help me with this problem, I’m sure of it.
This is the color:
Whee! Just looking at it makes me happy. And the name! Down Pipe. That’s right. It’s awesome and dirty at the same time.
Watch this space.
Before
My 5 year old child (she is actually 14 but that hurts to admit) is going to high school in a few weeks, so I decided she needed an all new big girl room design for her new big girl life. She went to a 3-week camp in mid-July, at which point Vince and I began working furiously to paint, refinish the floors, and redecorate her room. The whole thing was a big surprise, so I spent the last 3 weeks being alternately excited about the whole thing, and nervous that she would hate it. She didn’t. A lot.
Before
Admittedly, these are some awful before pictures (I had already started slinging stuff around, and the bed was originally against the opposite wall), but you get the idea. The walls/floor are the biggest improvements. They were in pretty bad shape.
I got most of the furniture at Ikea. Accessories/rugs are from various sources — Crate & Barrel, Urban Outfitters, eBay, thrifted.
After
After
After
More pictures on Flickr.
