Kitchen Update

For 18 years I had mini blinds in the kitchen and really didn't mind them - they were just there and I didn't actually notice them that much. But when the new counters were installed they seemed to stand out like a sore thumb and I wanted matchsticks. I found that All About Blinds, a local company I've used before, was much more reasonable than any of the catalogs and they also come out to be sure the measurements are accurate, hang the new blinds, and take the old ones away. I had to have them lined, though, because we have a "white window" restriction in this neighborhood.

The blinds don't look that great with the stencil, though, and since it's been around awhile, I think it's got to go.

New Lamp and Done!

My new lamp arrived and I'm happy with the way it looks. I think that's it with redecorating for awhile....

New Pillows

I decided I wasn't crazy about the plaid pillows so I recovered them in a brown and natural stripe.

The New Desk and Chair

The new desk and chair were delivered! I'm so glad I got the white chair instead of the a coral one I had considered. The lamp on the desk is temporarily borrowed from the living room to get an idea of size.

I love the printer cabinet that fits under it - it conceals not only the printer but cables, the DSL modem, the router, surge protector, etc. but they're still accessible.

New Slipcover and Temporary Desk

The new slipcover arrived and it was very easy to put it on. The picture also shows my temporary Target desk. I've decided I don't like the desk perpendicular to the sofa - there's no way to put a lamp by the sofa for reading if it's arranged that way.

Desk Delayed

I got in touch with Scan Design about the delivery of my desk this week and found out it's coming from Denmark and now they're saying the end of June. My Mac has been on the dining room table since I gave away the old desk and I knew I wouldn't be able to stand that for another month. I found a cheap folding table at Target that's approximately the size of the new desk. Since I can use it for crafts projects later, I bought it and set it up in the den.

Hmmm...I don't think I'm going to like the way I had planned to arrange the furniture - I think the new desk will be better against the wall or in front of the window. I'll play around with it - there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

New Curtains and Rug Cleaning

I decided to try the curtains from Pottery Barn - I couldn't make linen curtains for that price and I figured I could return them if I wasn't happy. I bought them, ironed them, and put them up. Very happy with how they look!

When the old desk was given away I could not believe how filthy the rug was under the kneehole. The rug shampoo guy wasn't sure it would clean up - fortunately it did.

New Lampshade

Much better!

When I was in Pottery Barn to buy the lampshade I noticed their lined, linen curtains were on sale for almost less than I could make them so I'm debating.

Painting

The room was painted Sherwin Williams Hopsack. Not surprisingly, the room is much darker and the black shade on the cypress knee lamp doesn't help. I spent some time swapping around lampshades to see what would work. I tried the shade from the floor lamp and it was a huge improvement - so off to Pottery Barn tomorrow to buy another one. I'm realizing that I tend to pick lampshades that are too small.

Fix III - Paint and Slipcovers

Since I realized that white walls were never going to work in this room, what color to paint the walls? Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams both have these great tools on their websites that allow you to upload pictures of your room and "paint" them with any color in their lines. I found the BM site would hang if I tried to save my work so I primarily used the tool with Sherwin Williams. I discovered that if my walls were brown and the sofa white, the room looked 100% better.

Fortunately Sherwin Williams sells inexpensive quarts of paint that are meant to be used as samples to help you decide on the color before spending a lot of time and money. From the chips I couldn't decide between Latte or Hopsack so I bought samples of each and painted the back of wall paper to make a final decision. That worked well - I could move the samples around to each wall and see how it looked at different times of day and decided on Hopsack.

I tested the paint sample with a pillow from my white living room sofa just to be sure about the new slipcover too. I had to get in touch with Mitchell Gold to find out where I could order a new slipcover locally - Max & Co. I wanted white, but not bedsheet white. When I went in the store to select the color from the samples, the slipcovers were on sale so that was good news.

Fix II - The Desk

I spent hours surfing the 'net and visiting stores (Pottery Barn, West Elm, Ballard - all the usual suspects) looking for a new desk. I originally thought I wanted a sawhorse desk but became convinced it wasn't practical - where do you put your stuff?

Then the lightbulb went on and I decided to look in my own back yard - Scan Design. Instead of my usual, "I just want to look" I told the lady in the store exactly what I wanted and needed and she was so helpful! What I ended up with is actually a return but it's the perfect size and I could (and did) buy a printer stand that fits under it perfectly and has a second shelf for the dsl modem, power strip, and router. A white leather desk chair also caught my eye so I ordered that too. This should go a long way toward straightening out the mess in the corner and now the coffee table can stay in the room when the sofa bed is opened.

Fix I - Lighting

The horrible lampshade on the floor lamp was a quick fix - I just went to Pottery Barn and bought the lampshade in a size they recommend for their floor lamps. And I no longer hate the floorlamp so that's good.

I found a squat lamp for the small bookcase in the corner on the West Elm website. The local West Elm had one in stock and since it's being discontinued it was 50% off. So now I have lighting in corner #3.

The Plan

After a lot of thought, there are several things I have to do:

• Get a new desk that's not so bulky and will handle all the peripheral equipment
• Replace the curtains
• Paint - white just won't work in this room
• Get a new slipcover for the sofa
• Correct the lighting as much as possible given the bookcases

Problem II - Lighting

This was supposed to be a black, white, and khaki room - but that's not working either. During the day, instead of white, the walls look almost gray. I discovered why on a wonderful blog called "Colour Me Happy" - a light color (white or pastel) never works in a room without a lot of natural sunlight - you just get shadows. And every room needs lighting in at least three of the four corners.

So...I've got a couple things working against a white room. The room has only one window with a northern exposure and an overhanging roof so no natural light ever makes it way into the room. Because one side of the room is entirely taken up with bookcases, it's only possible to place lamps in two corners (and one of those lamps has a black shade).

The picture (fuzzy since I purposely did not use flash) above gives a general idea of how gray the walls look during the day. As you can see, it was taken when I was playing around with new wall and sofa colors.

Problem I - The Desk, Lamp and Curtains

My current desk is just too bulky. This means that when I have overnight guests the coffee table has to be moved to the hall so that the whole condo is disrupted. And since I bought a Mac, I don't need all the storage compartments to hide a PC tower, etc.

The desk also does not accomodate the printer, router, or cable modem which leads to the mess in the corner. Since I still need access to the mess, it rules out a proper end table with a table lamp. The floor lamp I bought for the spot is from Pottery Barn but I was too cheap when I bought it to spring for the lampshade designed for it. Consequently, I've bought several Target lampshades over the years that were never straight or too small.

The curtains were a stopgap measure and five years later they're still there. They were ready-made and "inexpensive." While I still think plain white is the best choice for the room, these are unlined so they just look limp and cheap.

My Den

Now that I'm retired and home during the day, my den is just driving me crazy!! There are so many things wrong and this room has to really function well because it's not only my den but also my guest room and it's just not working.

Done/Thrilled!

Everybody (glass, plumber, tile) finished today and I'm thrilled! Moyer Marble and Tile was great and so was Affordable Plumbing and Jacksonville Discount Glass (much cheaper than Lee & Cates too!).

I don't even mind my old stove!

I thought about changing the mirrors in the bathroom because they do look dated. But it's a dark area and not symmetrical so I decided to leave well enough alone.

Day 2

One minor problem on Day 2 - they didn't have enough bullnose tile to finish the backsplash so they'll have to have some overnighted. This won't delay the mirror guy or the plumber though. The grout has to cure but they told me it was okay to go ahead and schedule the plumber for Friday. How nice it will be to have a functioning kitchen!

I also played around with kitchen accessories a little bit today. Some of the redware I've been using clashes with the tile so I think I'll use brown transferware instead.

I love how everything looks so far!

Day 1

The tile guys - about six of them - arrived bright and early. Once the demo was done and the new substrate in, three of them left and the rest got to work. They didn't even break for lunch. The bathroom was pretty much finished except for the grout in one day. In the kitchen they were able to do everything except the windowsill. It seems to be going quickly.

Prep Work is Done

Sunday night Nephew Paul removed the medicine cabinets (and found three Bud Light cans in the wall behind one of them!) and the plumber came Monday to remove the faucets and kitchen sink. The glass guys came on Monday too - I could not believe it took one guy less than two minutes to remove both mirrors. The mirrors are now living in my dining room and the kitchen sink is on the porch.

Kitchen Counters

For years I thought I wanted butcher block counters. But I always seem to have puddles of water around my sink so it probably wasn't realistic. My next thought was the new kind of tile that mimics wood - I think it's really designed for floors. But once I was in the tile showroom, I was drawn to the other stuff. And because of the vanity, I had done lots of searches in Google Images of "tile countertops" and I was seeing some that I really liked. Once I decided to use a more traditional tile, choosing it was easy - Stonepeak Limestone in Walnut.

I first thought I wanted large tiles (24"x12") with grout to match the tile but after talking to the staff in the tile store, I decided on 6 inch tile with bone colored grout. I found a couple of pictures with the smaller tile and I think it does look wonderful.

My Bathtub

The area around my bathtub needed some updating too. The "arrangement" behind the tub featured plastic ferns that I bought in the Kress Five and Ten in Millville, NJ in 1969! I think 40+ years is long enough so they went to the dumpster and I filled in the area with stuff I had around the house.

Selecting the Tile

With my swatches, I went to the Traditions in Tile showroom. The nice ladies there didn't seem to mind that I was spending hours in there looking at everything. At the end, I decided on practically the first tile I saw. It doesn't come in six inch squares but they assured me that's not a problem - it can be cut down. The tile is Stonepeak Marble in Bone with white grout to match the sink. And it's got to be honed!

Pulls and Sinks

Since the cultured marble had integrated sinks, I needed new ones. Undermount or self-rimming? Undermount has that clean look but they're more difficult to install, limits your tile selection to a degree, and would require new faucets. I decided on this Kohler sink:

And since I have a "heightened awareness" of how bad the current area looks, I couldn't stand the old plastic pulls another day! I found exactly what I wanted at Lowes and swapping them out was a snap. Thankfully, all the holes lined up! On a side note, why can you only buy toothbrushes in hideous, neony colors?

Home Improvement

I'm not sure why, but every year right after Christmas my thoughts turn to home improvement. This year's hot spot is my vanity area...cultured marble that's scratched, stained, and 20+ years old.

I would love marble but after some research I became convinced that it wouldn't work in a place where hard water makes white vinegar one of your main cleaning products.

Then I found this picture on the Internet and it totally changed my thinking about tile countertops. It looks so clean and modern and I love the six inch tiles!