????

OK, so nothing's happened in the past couple of days that my precious few blog followers would care to see.  It all has to do with plumbing, digging, cut-off valves, repairing gas leaks and the like......yuk.  It's nothing at all "decorative, pretty, or inspiring".  It's more like the 'not-so-'good, the bad, and the ugly!

During these "dry" times in blog world you just improvise.  Come inside my imagination and see what I've been thinking about for a couple of rooms in the house......a bedroom and a bath.  First the bedroom....which has NO closet.  This may or may not be of importance to this particular blog post.

Here's the bedroom as we know it today....with the bedroom set that we'll be using in this bedroom. It consists of a bed (queen) and two nightstands.....

 

 a chest....

 

 

and a dresser.

 

 

This set is not "old" as in antique old....it's about 30 years old....probably.  It's still in good shape and I still like it....and it's paid for; therefore, this bedroom set is going to live in this room.  I'm leaning toward blue OR or yellow.....or blue AND yellow.

 



A blue bedroom.

 

Imagine, if you will....

 

 

 

 

....with this....

 

or this...

 

and this....

 

 

 

Now imagine.....

 

....a yellow bedroom....

 

 

 

 

 

or a blue/yellow bedroom....

 

 

with these...

 

 

 

We'll wait to look at the bathroom....later.

At last....!

I was able to decorate in the tiniest way a tiniest portion of the house; however, it does give me great comfort to see what can be.  Still dust covered, but that's still to be expected.

 

This is the library I showed you last night. It seems so nice just to see furniture placed in a room...even this tiny room....rather than having it all shoved into a rented storage building.

I can still see that library I'm using for inspiration in this very space.  Take another look!!

 

It's almost made for it!

So's this.

 

I was going to buy these curtains (and probably still will) at Penney's to go on the library window.  You can't tell from this picture but the embroirdered design is so antique-y looking. I saw one at the store but they didn't have them in stock.  They're online, and on clearance right now, and they'll ship to home for free.  They could be used in almost any room. 

 

 

However, I really like the Better Homes and Gardens rose curtains I ended up buying at WalMart for less than $12 a panel too.

 

 

I wasn't able to capture too much detail, but they have a vintage look....at least to me.  I think they look better in my picture than they do in this picture though.

 

One more thing....

 

 

 

This is an interior wooden threshold that's nearly always found in old houses.  I don't know why but I love them. I always have.  Our house has one at every interior doorway except for two that are missing.....and we are going to replace those two.  (Sure can tell the difference between the finished and unfinished floor!)

 

OK, so that's enough of my rambling for one night!



Work continues...

Today the sitting room to the left side of the foyer got stain and one coat of polyurethane, and already looks so good.  Look what a difference stain makes. 

 

You can't really tell a difference after only one coat of polyurethane, but after two more you'll really see the difference.

Not much else accomplished today....except I painted one heat radiator....one of many!  I hate painting those things.  There's no way that I know of to paint the middle. On the only other one I've painted (the one in the kitchen) I tried spray painting it, using a foam brush, paint on my finger, and a bristle brush, but you can still see missed places.  When painting the one in the foyer today I used a small paint roller, a foam brush, and a small long handled artist brush.....it still looks bad.  I guess you do the best you can and hope no one looks directly at it!!

A picture of that badly painted radiator is in the left lower corner of the picture to the left.

Now, here's another issue I'm wondering about....


This is the left and right side of the sitting room that Jim stained today.  That's the same window in both pictures (double window)....just so you'll have some idea of how the room is laid out, and the size is 15' x 15'....approximately.  If you look at the left picture you're barely able to see another white radiator in that room.  It's under a huge window.  My issue is how to fit my matching couch and loveseat in that room!  I can't put either one on that wall because of the radiator, and only either the couch or the loveseat will fit under the window wall that you can see, not both.  There's a fireplace on another wall and the entrance from the foyer isn't a wall at all.  I could arrange one of the furniture pieces in the middle of the floor facing the fireplace, but it still leaves me with the same issue....only room for one or the other.  I know it's not an earth shaking issue......I'm just sayin'.

Here's the couch and loveseat in question....when in our previous house.  Oh, how I miss the clean of that house.

I wonder if I could place the loveseat in front of the radiator? Hmmm.....wonder how close to a radiator you could actually place furniture....and if it would block heat from the rest of the room? Probably....and fall is in the air. 

Today's developments...

 

This is the sitting room to the left of the foyer.

 

 



It got a final sanding today and will get stained tomorrow.....and get three coats of polyurethane over the next three days.  We should be moving furniture in there by the middle of next week....hopefully!

Let's see...what else was done today? Ummm....not much to show you.  Jim cleaned out a part of the garage so he could prepare to build the kitchen sink base....and bought the lumber to do that.  I went shopping for curtains for the library this morning. I washed the window in the library, but decided not to hang the curtains because I realized there is still sanding that needs to be done in the foyer, and the library (which is actually the landing at the top of the stairs and right above the foyer) will get all that sanding dust.  There is no way to close it off to spare it from the dust.

I can't remember, have I even mentioned the upstairs landing that I think will make a perfect library?...especially since there's not much else it would be good for.  Here's a picture of it. 

 

Yep, that's dust all over the railing.....which is pretty much all over everything in the house!

 

There's a bedroom entrance on the right of this landing and another bedroom entrance on the left side.

 

The floors here are stained and had polyurethane applied already. It's good to go.....except for curtains and bookshelves....and a nice comfy chair with a table and a lamp. I bought the lamp the other day when we went to Clinton, TN....when we bought the twin beds I showed you earlier.  Here's the lamp...

 

Hoping to achieve something like this after the library is finished......minus the arch.....but with that comfy chair, table, and lamp that I mentioned.  Can you see it?

And a nice chandelier something like this...

 or these...

 

Today's Find!!!....and other stuff.

 

 

Cane bottom chairs!!!!!!!!!!! Six of them.  

 

 

 

They look great with the farmhouse table Jim made. I love them!

This is the sink base design we're going for....with the wooden countertops (which we already bought....a long time ago).  I'm pretty sure we're not going to go with an undermount farmhouse sink like this one though.....well, relatively sure.....somewhat sure.....actually, maybe....?

 

And, maybe we'll add farmhouse style bun feet to our sink base....

 

 

....so it'll look more like a piece of furniture.  

 

I really like an "unfitted" look in a kitchen.  Unfitted kitchens look like they have evolved over time....and most have freestanding pieces....or pieces that at least look freestanding....like this.... 

 

I think this would look great surrounding our stove.  I've been wondering how to make stainless steel appliances 'fit' into a farmhouse kitchen.  I think this is the answer. It sure looks pretty much 'farmhouse' to me!

Are you tired of kitchen pics yet?

 

Notice the addition of a light fixture in the kitchen!!!!

I wish you could have seen us, Jim and I, last night when we were putting up this fixture (after dark, with me holding a flashlight for Jim to see!) It has (had) a long chain. We decided to hang the light about three feet from the ceiling (the light itself is 18"). Jim hung it there and asked me how it looked. I said, "too far down". He hung it a foot higher and asked again how it looked. I said, "still too far down". He raised it to where it is now and asked again how it looked. I said, "perfect". We moved the table in to see how the whole thing would look together and Jim asked, "How's it look?" I said, "It's not down far enough". :-( We should have quit on the second try. We'll try again later. Did I mention these are 10' ceilings?

More kitchen renovation pictures....

 

I wanted to try to give you a little bit of a comparison, again, to see where we've come from when looking at the same wall. This is the best I can do with this wall. 

Four walls are painted a bluish-green and the fourth a creamy white. Obviously, this is the cream colored wall. The whole room still needs the crown moulding put up.

             The before and after.



For now, that's about all the progress that's been made.  Crown moulding tomorrow....I guess.

Looking better already!

The kitchen woodwork is stained and the green walls painted. Shew!  One of the walls with be an off-white, and is not painted as yet.  Here are the results of a loooong day!  More tomorrow!



 

 

 



Still not perfect.......

                         but considering....