Cool House Details

It's the little touches that make an old house so special.

Here's what's in the kitchen at the triplex.

A sweet little cupboard that opens up to reveal....


An ironing board and lots and lots of shallow storage!

Well This Is a Little Embarrassing....

I published yesterday's post without marking the "befores" and "afters". Patrice left a comment that clearly indicates she likes what were actually the "befores" better.

Bedroom - Before

But, you know what? I think she's right. If I had it to do over again, I'd keep the cupboard doors (and those handles!) and lose most of the clutter.

Bedroom - After

But it was the early 90's, I was much younger than I am now and.... uhhhh.... tastes have changed.

Dining Area - After

It's got me thinking of the bigger picture though. I mean, how much of the decorating that we do is for change and how much can actually be said to be an improvement (asks the woman who's just spent the better part of two weeks repainting an entire apartment)?

Front Foyer - Before

Does anybody else wonder about these things, especially with so many worries about the environment out there? Even with the "green alternatives" sprouting up everywhere, I sometimes think that the best way to improve our living spaces is to go for a good long walk and clear our heads.

Front Foyer - After

Thoughts?

A Very Early Project

I don't have anything new to report today, so I thought I'd dig through my archives and show you a house fix-up I did back in the early '90's.

This was a little house that Alan and I bought when he was still going to Chef School.

It was a little under 900 square feet and probably my favourite of all our houses. There was just something about the light that came in through the windows.

Here are some before and afters of the kitchen. We didn't do any structural work, just freshened it up on a really tight budget.






I'll have more tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone can tell me how to put my pictures side by side on the page, I'd be really, really grateful!!

Of course, then I might have to give up my title as Dumbest Blogger on the internet.....

Oh! And those of you who like contests: We're celebrating our First Blogiversary over at Pannifer's Food and Such. If you leave a comment there, I'll enter you to win a copy of our eCookbook, "Autumn Dinner Recipes".

Wishing a Very Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

Entryway Makeover

Some redecorating jobs bring almost-instant gratification. Others...


The entryway to our apartment has to pack a big job into a small space. It has two doorways, a closet and a stairway as soon as you walk in. An awkward space to work with, to say the least.


When we got here, it was yellow with gray trim (which can work, but didn't). The floor was PEACH! Ugh!

If your entrance is your home's receptionist, ours had the personality of a disaffected temp.


But a bit of paint, a whole lot of time and some rethinking of the door situation and now it says "Hello and Welcome".


The stairs are on the list for winter. But I have big plans, so...

Less Attitude, More Support!

When we moved into our current place, the kitchen needed more storage than it had.

All of our budget went into setting up the bakery downstairs, so I was very pleased to find an old workbench in the basement.

It served us well, for over two years, as both storage and an extra counter.


But time has not been good to it. I don't know if we just loaded it up with too much stuff (entirely possible) or if the frequent truck traffic down the highway caused the problem, but it developed an attitude, a definite lean. Before it could get any worse, or actually give up, we decided to trade it for something a little more sturdy.

The pine chest is an old family heirloom, out of one or other of the convents my aunt has lived in. The lovely piece on the right was from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I had intended it for the shop but...

I really like the new arrangement. Not only are the appliances available at a moment's notice (and off the work counter), but we now have closed-in storage. It makes the place look about a million percent tidier and it keeps our stuff so much cleaner.

Total cost? Fifteen bucks!

This post is part of Original Content Week as proposed by Decorno.

More Fridge Stories

For an explanation of this picture, see the comment on my previous post. I love it when my readers share their good ideas with me!

And think of the possibilities! I can put tonight's menu, or happy festive greetings, or....


And I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday. But I was busy turning this:



Into this:



I've said it before and I'll say it again: Zinsser 1.2.3 is the best stuff on earth!

My shop looks calm and peaceful once again!

And thank you to Cheryl over at Lenny da Vinci for including me in her list of green sites on Blog Action Day. And to The Promoted Princess for adding me to her link list!

Hmmm... I know others have me on their lists. I've thanked some and probably neglected to thank others. I guess I need to add an "As Seen In" list to my right-hand column. Watch that space!

My Husband Is a Living Saint - Part 2

Well, the work on the dining room renovation got started a little earlier than expected.

The dough fridge down in the bakery gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, not with dough actually in it. A true professional, it knew not to walk out in the middle of a shift...

Still, we had to get a replacement, which meant we needed to do something with the old one.

I had decided that it would be a key element in the new dining room. Eventually....

The new fridge arrived on Thursday. And since the delivery guy was here with a fridge cart and everything....

He agreed to help Alan haul it up the stairs. And, oh dear lord! What an adventure that was!


Can You Bring The Fridge Up Here!!!!

I wasn't entirely sure how the fridge would look upstairs. We've taken the compressor off and will be using it as a china cabinet. Could be brilliant, could be really, really stupid.


The Compressor's Not Going Back On!

By the time they'd lumped it up about three steps, grunting and sweating, I realized that I had to make it work, no matter what, cuz this thing is staying up here till moving day. And moving day won't happen until we can afford to hire a whole team of professional movers, cuz Alan's not touching that fridge again!

Thankfully, it looks pretty good. Though, we had a potluck on Sunday night, and I saw a few people looking at it quizzically. Wondering, I'm sure, "What's she up to now?!!?"


Not Bad. Right?

Good Enough for Now

Curb Appeal Has Been Restored!

The scramble is over for this year. The porch on the triplex is done "enough" to not totally embarrass us (it's a hard concept for a perfectionist to embrace, but I'm learning!).

If we get another run of decent weather before the snow flies, we'll do the floor and/or ceiling. The floor will be a mid-tone beige and I need to mix up a batch of sky blue for the ceiling.


We Painted the Numbers - Now You Can Actually See Them!

Pigtown Design did a post about blue porch ceilings and all the various theories as to why people paint them blue - everything from repelling bugs and evil spirits to reflecting more light into the house.

Silly me, I just thought it was pretty....

Before and After - in the Same Pictures!

Well, this is kind of cool....

My husband had some time yesterday to head over to the triplex to do some painting (When the sun shines in Perth County in September, you make the most of it. We could have snow tomorrow!). I asked him to take some pics while he was there so I could show you what can be done with mistints and leftover paint.

Here's what he brought back.

That's the new colour (mistint) on the sill and the old colour on the rest of it.


Replacement Windows Are SO On The List!!

Here's the porch sporting the new colours (except for the green, that's going).


Looks Like Chocolate Cake and Ice Cream!

And here's the front door with its new (leftover) paint and the old colour surrounding it. That will be painted cream today.


And The Cherry On Top!

Thanks, Alan!!!

Well, September seems to be Paint Month here at MDH Productions...

I got started on the stair railing last week and put the second coat on yesterday.
I have to say, in terms of Impressive Effects/Effort Expended, this project has a pretty disheartening ROI. We're talking hours of work for something that doesn't exactly stop people in their tracks when it's done. Of course, it's not actually done yet. I've just second-coated the spindles.

And can anyone tell me why there need to be SO MANY spindles on this particular staircase? Two per step! And it's like, three inches from the wall, so the chances of someone sliding down it and breaking the handrail or putting their head through and getting stuck are, in fact, NIL!!

But taking out redundant spindles is even more work than painting. So I paint. And paint....


So Many Spindles...

A product that I've found that makes this job a little easier/tidier is a thing called a radiator brush. It has an extra long handle and an angled head for getting in behind and around and not necessarily leaning your face into the paint.



This may not be a consideration for you, but I come from a long line of messy painters. My Mum used to like to do the housepainting while we were in school. When we came home at the end of the day, she'd try to surprise us. But we'd always say, "You've been painting, haven't you?"

"How did you KNOW?!?!!"

Well, aside from the fact that the fumes were making everything go fuzzy (this was in the days when oil paint was the only alternative), she'd be covered head to toe in little specks of paint.

I think of her every time I look in the mirror after doing a bit of painting...



I'll Show You My Hands, But That's All!

We've also been doing the exterior painting over at the triplex. I'll have pictures to show you in the next day or two. It's a much better ROI!

What a Difference Some Paint Makes...

Honestly, I think the biggest beautifier ever invented was a can of white paint.

Here's the bench before:


Not So Very Pretty!


And here it is after:


Much Better!

I wonder how it works on middle-aged aunties?

Painting Safety

We worked on the porch again today. I didn't take any pictures, because, mid-project, it's not really something I want to show off just yet.

But both parts of the couple next door, the ones who started the whole Paint-The-Town-Green stampede have seen what we're doing and smiled and waved, instead of flinging themselves to the ground and screaming, "What are you doing?!? You're ruining our freakishly homogeneous neighbourhood!!!"

I take that as a good sign.

I did learn something about myself today. Despite years of protestations to the contrary, despite blaming it on the exquisite sensitivity of my inner-ear, I am, in fact, afraid of heights.

More to the point, I am afraid of falling from great heights and breaking parts of myself, leaving me in pain and possibly without access to the fun drugs.

This should come as a huge relief to Alan.

I am like my mother in many ways, but she, despite repeated falls and fractures (with or without access to the fun drugs) never developed the requisite fear and, at the age of over-eighty, with advanced MS, would head up ladders at the drop of a hat. In fact, when we moved in with her, we had to hide all the ladders.

This will never be an issue with me.

And since this is a how-to site, let me share my hard-won tips for painting well with others.

It is essential, at all times, to be aware of where your partner's head is in relation to your paint brush.

Also, never critique each others' work. No matter what.

If this is simply not possible for you, you will have to become the Designated Painter (my parents' solution).

Alan's parents divided the duties. She painted the trim and he did all the rest.

Alan and I take turns on that, but have finally come to the realization that if you don't try to show me your super-efficient and really, let's face it, better system of painting, you will spare yourself the very long tour of every spill, splooge and drip you have inflicted on my precious, precious house.

Really, much safer all the way around.

Labour Day

It's been a perfect long weekend in these parts - warm and sunny.

Alan and I worked all weekend, but we had today off, so, as usual, we headed out to breakfast. Then we came home and I went back to bed, which I haven't done in ages and which, as far as I'm concerned, makes this the PERFECT holiday Monday.

When I got up, the weather was still fine. A great day to do some outdoor painting, in fact, so we loaded up the supplies and headed on over to the triplex.

It's a lovely red-brick house, but from the first time we clapped eyes on it, we thought it was odd that the trim was an exact match of the next-door neighbours' trim. And that, at some point in time, the neighbour on the other side must have thought, "Hey! I want in!" So now you have three different houses with exactly matching trim. And, I don't know, but I want MY house to be special...

See How the Trim Matches the Trim Next Door?

I did manage to find one of the colours we're using in the mistints section of our local Home Hardware. And I'll use up some leftovers on the front door and ceiling of the porch. I lose points for buying the cream paint brand new, but I wanted porch and floor paint, in a specific colour and I wanted it quickly. Hurry seems to be the biggest enemy of environmental friendliness.

Sometimes, when I'm buying up the mistints, the people behind the counter look at me just a little funny, like "Don't you care what colour you use??????" I guess they're used to people agonizing a whole lot more than I do.

So I was really pleased to read a story in Saturday's Globe and Mail about a company in Quebec that does what I do, but on a really big scale. Boomerang Paint collects leftover paint, mixes it up into really lovely colours and sells it as an environmentally friendly way to spruce up your home.

I'll probably keep mixing my own, but it's nice to see that there's something out there for people who want to do the right thing, but might not have enough confidence in their colour-mixing abilities.

It'll take awhile to get the porch done, I think, but you know I'll be showing you pictures!

How to Use the Inspiration

That last post may have looked like a cop-out, but I do get inspiration from my travels and even just planning travels. For example...

I love the stone walls that you find all over Europe, both in the apartments, and on the exteriors of buildings. So the question for me was "How do I bring this home?"

Stone walls are rare in my part of the world, especially in interiors. And building one was beyond my capabilities. Fortunately, I can make paper. And if you do it right, it looks like stone.

I did these walls a few years ago when we owned the Bed and Breakfast

Since then, we've moved (a couple of times!) I haven't done a stone wall in the new place, but I'm looking at these stairs and thinking...

hmmmm...... How much paper would it take?

A Smile to Start Your Weekend

What is it about these old-fashioned decals? They turn up on the funniest bits of furniture.

OK, I almost get the rocking chair. Maybe it went in baby's room, once upon a time, for nursing and cuddles.


But I've seen these on kitchen cupboards! And other "serious" bits of furniture.

I can never bear to take them off or paint over them. I guess I feel like there just aren't enough friendly faces in this world, so it would be a shame to lose one.

I hope whoever buys this likes the smile as much as I do....

Motivation

I finished this little project today. It was one of a series of collages I did a few years ago. I like the look of his face and think he'll be very happy at our side door, holding our keys.

Sometimes I like my art to have a practical purpose. Or maybe I like the practical stuff to look nice. Either way, it's always good to see a friendly face as you go about your day.

Sometimes, on a big project, you need to have some piece of the finished product to motivate you. Once I get the downstairs hallway painted, I'll be able to hang him up.

I must admit, I'm not feeling terribly ambitious at the moment. We may have celebrated the completion of the studio apartment just a tiny little bit too much last night.

I hope you're feeling OK, Fiona!

Big Projects Made Simple(r)

Here's a picture of what our bedroom looks like right now. We're in the process of turning our place from a four-bedroom apartment to a one-bedroom. It sounds strange, I know, but four bedrooms seems like about three too many for a childless couple to have.

This rearrangement will give us a nice big dining room, which is essential in my house. And a lovely living room.... someday.

It's a huge project. In previous houses, we've been able to roll up our sleeves and just get the thing done pretty quickly. But life got a whole lot more complicated a few years back. So we were faced with the choice of not doing anything or breaking a big project down into smaller chunks. We chose the second route.

Of course, that means that we are more or less living in a permanent construction site, or as I like to call it, Post-Apocolyptic, Neo-Junk Shop Chic (and, yes, I do own the copyright on that phrase!).

It's important to tidy as you go. To always have one room that looks decent (this changes over time, of course, but you do need someplace to feel good) and to relax your hold on perfection.

It's amazing what people don't notice when they come over (I'm not giving up my social life for anything!). Buckets of paint, missing walls - all pass without comment, as long as the place is safe, and the hosts are smiling(OK - doling out wine helps a lot!).

Some days, I only have a free half-hour to work on the place, so I'll paint one wall and then tidy up and wait for another day. If we have more time, we'll do a bit more.

And sometimes, when we have a whole day to ourselves, we just relax and enjoy it (and each other's company). Because, hard as it is to remember sometimes, home is so much more than the right colour on the wall or the perfect couch.

Oh, and, for the record? That wallpaper is not my fault. It came with the house.

Triplex Kitchen - After

I think this one should be filed under "Projects That Took Way Too Long".

Way back here, I posted about the triplex my husband and I had bought, and the little kitchen paint-job we were doing.

But we also had the window replaced and new flooring put down, among other things. And since it's summer and everyone went on vacation, plus the fact that we were far busier than we had thought to be, here it is August and, with a slightly flattened "ta da!" I present the "after" pics.

After a coat of Zinsser 123 high adhesion primer, the kitchen cabinets took the white paint quite nicely. The room looks a lot brighter and cleaner now.

 

We also added a couple of second-hand cupboards up above to increase the storage. I love the one on the right - the crown molding is cut flush with the left-hand side, so it fits perfectly (it juts out on the right). I found it like that, I didn't trim it.

 

And just so it doesn't look like all my renovations are done with second-hand materials, let me confess to the ubiquitous trip to IKEA for the bathroom cabinet.


 

I used old bread pans for the shelves over the toilet, though. They'll look better when they've got stuff on the shelves...