No “real” post today as we were busy painting our bedroom this week.. and now that the first coat is finished, we’re busy panicking over whether to swap out colors or continue with a second coat of a shade of white that clashes too much with our bedroom decor.
Yes. White can clash.
Always bring home swatches.
Stacy
I’m sharing the before and after shots of our living room since we managed to get around to adding a checkmark in the “done” box a couple of weeks ago.
As I mentioned before, the entire first floor, save for the kitchen, was painted grey. Normally, I wouldn’t object, but I didn’t think it complemented the red brick. The walls got the white paint treatment in Bakery Box from Behr.. which I DO NOT recommend since it took 3-4 coats. I can’t remember how many cans of paint we went through, but suffice it to say that Graham has traumatic flashbacks at the mere mention of the words “bakery box”.. even in the pastry sense.
A working fireplace was high on Graham’s list of priorities while we were house hunting.. a wood-burning stove works out just as nice. Since moving in in March, we’ve gotten to use it a handful of times to warm the house while binge-watching on Netflix and making s’mores.
Sadly, the cozy size of our living room puts a limit on seating. We added an extra chair in the corner. I love the lines.. it actually belonged to Graham’s grandfather. Deer antlers. The nice thing about the location of them in our new house vs. the old place is that we are no longer in danger of being impaled by antlers while lying on the sofa. The hexagon shelving from etsy houses the majority of my Polepole figures.
The media stand was the last thing we added to the room. It took us over 6 months to agree on a style.
I should add that the kitchen wasn’t the only room with buttercream walls. The entryway was also yellow. I love yellow, I really do.. I always pick it as my game piece in Trivial Pursuit (it’s also easier for people to remember which player I am.. y’know.. being Asian).. but I disliked this shade. 
We wanted something that contrasted with the Bakery Box walls of the dining room and living.. so we went with Poppyseed… aka Black, as Graham would say. 
We really love the way it turned out. 
We found this side table at Jinxed in Queen Village. It was in need of a little TLC, but I fell in love with it. You might be able to see the empty coaster holder sitting there. We had a coaster problem at our house. We had various sets that tend to wander from room to room until they hit that other dimension where they’re never heard from again. We picked out a heavier set made from agate to prevent them from walking about that now sits on the coffee table.
One of the first things I looked for when we moved was a maneki-neko or lucky cat. 
It goes well with our vespa kitty that sits below..
Vroom. vroom.
Stacy
I let this past week get away from me with projects at home along with the usual things on my “To Do” list, so I wasn’t able to post on schedule. While putting together the post on the alcove, I realized I wanted to put up some before and after shots of the entire kitchen.
When we first viewed our house, we had just made it to the second floor when we realized we wanted to put in an offer at that moment.. without even heading up to the third floor. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything we wanted to change. The stagers for the house did a nice job, but it didn’t reflect our personalities. The first thing on the list was the kitchen.
The floors of the house were definitely worn and scuffed. Initially, we were planning on having them stained darker, but once we saw the beautiful sanded yellow pine beneath our feet, we opted to keep it natural, only adding a couple coats of polyurethane. 
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned how much I disliked the buttercream walls on multiple occasions. I felt it clashed with the red brick behind the stove. Although the kitchen has multiple windows, the hanging eave off the back porch and the neighbor’s house to the east doesn’t allow as much natural light into the room as I would like. We painted the walls white to brighten the mood. I also dreaded the idea of trying to clean cooking splatter from painted walls, so we knew we were going to need a backsplash. Graham and I talked about doing white subway tiles, but when I found white honeycomb tiles on Wayfair, I fell in love with the vintage, yet modern, feel. 
Although he always complained whenever I went on about how much I love chalkboard walls, Graham suggested we paint one in the kitchen (aww.. one of the reasons why I married him). We used to keep our grocery list on Google Keep, but I love writing it out on something tangible. We’re usually in the kitchen when we realize we’re out of something, so it’s convenient to scribble it out then, and really, who doesn’t like writing on chalkboard? It’s also nice to temporarily jot dates while you’re on the phone and can’t access your Google Calendar.
Uh….we still haven’t gotten around to erasing the seasoning marks towards the ceiling..
Then of course, there’s the shelving…
Our biggest accomplishment with the kitchen actually has nothing to do with paintbrushes, wallpaper, etc. When we moved in, we knew we were going to need a new kitchen rug since our old one had definitely seen better days. We first purchased one with a geometric print from Society6, but we freaked out when we opened the package and saw that the colors didn’t translate well from online to real life. We found ourselves face to face with lavender, navy, and neon pink triangles which I’m sure would be lovely!… in another kitchen. Strike One. We then tried our luck with RugsUsa. 
Well… we ended up being out $80, but we got a good laugh out of the rug that looked as if it would be more at home in a kindergarten classroom. Strike Two. We were definitely suffering from online rug shopping PTSD and were reluctant to try our luck again.
We took a chance on a hemp rug from Target that I wasn’t too crazy about. Once we laid it out in the kitchen, I immediately decided it needed to go, and back it went. Strike Three.
One day, while on yet another trip to Ikea (if you’ve bought a new house, prepare to spend so much time at Home Depot and Ikea that they should just start paying you to work there), we found a rug we thought would be perfect. In a perfect world, we’d have a white rug, but since we’re imperfect people in the kitchen, we knew that would never fly. But this rug was white with enough mottled dark hues that would hide potential cooking snafus.
We got it home and unrolled it…at least we tried to.. Although we knew the rug was wider than we needed, we thought we might be able to slip the excess inches under the refrigerator. Nope. My resourceful husband, however, was not going to give up.. He wasn’t going to be victimized by yet another rug. So he dragged the rug to the back porch with a hacksaw..
Problem Solved.
Stacy
Aside from adding a few new pieces of furniture this summer, we’ve had a slow-down in the decorating department thanks to my injury and with travel. One of the things that have been on the list since before we moved in was redoing the shelving alcove in the kitchen.
I wasn’t a fan of those buttercream walls and robin’s egg blue alcove. The colors just didn’t go with the mid-century modern / folk feel of our design scheme. The walls went white, but I felt the interior of the alcove needed something extra other than a few coats of paint. So we picked out some cute reusable wallpaper from Chasing Paper, but the rolls sat in our storage closet since we moved in 6 months ago in March. (Oh, and as a side note, “we picked out” means I presented Graham with three choices and then opted for one of the two he didn’t select.) Continue reading
