An Unhaunted Halloween

Do you have that house in your neighborhood that looks uninhabited and haunted? Maybe the paint is peeling, the landscape is overgrown, and just it just looks downright creepy? That house that the neighborhood kids make up spooky stories about?
Well, our house could have been that house when we bought it.

Little by little Chris and I are doing our best to make it look less haunted. What better way than to clean up all the trim in our family room?

Chris added quarter round toe molding to close up the small gap between the floor and the baseboards. It is a small detail that makes a big difference.

Then we got to work and painted every square inch of trim in the room. Here are some before and afters.

 What a difference a little white paint makes!

Now that the trim is painted, Chris and I can finally put the tools down. Our work here is done!

 All that is left to do is patiently wait for the backordered wallpaper to be delivered and hung.
And I suppose Chris has some side tables to build...
And there are still pillows and accessories to purchase...
And I guess we'll need lighting...
And artwork...
And drapes...
Hmmmm, I guess there's still quite a bit left to do in here.

In the meantime, we're planning to move all the furniture in and start enjoying the room.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Holiday colours

Are you a person who sees certain colour combinations which  immediately evoke holiday connections, e.g.,red and green, orange and black, yellow and purple?  I am, and as a result there are colour schemes I find difficult to live with because the cultural connections override the beauty of the combination.  But sometimes a combination sneaks by me.

I took this photo in the main area of a small London hotel.  I loved the modern flavour and the strong vertical stripes. My immediate reaction was not Halloween, it was great impact.  Later I realized they were symbolic colours.

What's your reaction?

Mirror, mirror

I keep a list of ideas for possible post topics and near the top is an exploration of mirrors in home decor.  Well, that's one post I won't be writing because one of my favourite decorating sites, Your Decorating Hotline, has an excellent post on this topic.  It covers the gamut from why use mirrors to the creative ways they can be used. I highly recommend reading it.  There's something for every style of decor.

 

One of the topics explored is the use of mirrors in multiple groupings.  This is an application that I'm particularly fond of and I've added several from my file below.

Elle Decor has an excellent slide show on  using mirrors and 

Apartment Therapy   brings  multiple mirrors  to the limit.

Did you find something you liked?

Power On

Along with all the cosmetic updates we've been enjoying on Hazard Ave, we've also been taking on some not-so-glamourous projects that come with an old home. The kind of projects you shell out a lot of money for, but they don't look any prettier when completed.

When we had our house inspected before we moved in, the inspector noted that the wire that services electricity to the house "was at the end of its life" and needed to be replaced. Same with the electric panel. Not exactly a fun project, but if we want to be able to turn the lights on, they were both going to need some attention. So while the electricians were here wiring our family room and rehanging our fallen chandelier, we also had them replace the service wire and electrical panel.

 In anticipation of a major kitchen remodel in a few years and eventual installation of an air conditioning system, we had them install a 200 amp panel. Chris and I ooohed and ahhhed over all that empty space in the box. In the short term, we'll no longer have to worry about blowing a fuse when running our wallpaper steamer and clothes iron at the same time. That's happened. True story.

As much as I hate to spend a lot of money on something that isn't beautiful, I have to say that it feels so good to be on top of some of these repairs. 

Have you endured a similar "no thrills" project recently? 

Thursday Tip #6- simple centerpieces

Keep it simple...

Dinner parties can stress the budget.  I like to have simple arrangements for the table and that usually involves fresh flowers .  Rather than large bouquets which are tall and obstruct views, think about simple ways to use flowers or leaves in a repetition.

Hosta leaves are one of my favourites and I have lots to choose from in my garden.  I love the idea of massing different sizes and shapes of glasses/vases and submerging separate leaves in each one. 
The sunflower is a great choice for fall entertaining. If you don't have access to fresh sunflowers, there are realistic looking  artificial ones. The arrangement above works because of the meandering wave and colour variety.

The One That Almost Got Away

A couple of weeks ago, I popped into my local Salvation Army on the off chance I'd see something for our family room.
I nearly fell over when I saw this puppy.

 This glass table was part of set including two side tables with a price tag of $99. It was nearly identical to this acrylic one I'd had my eye on from CB2.

My thought process:
I haven't sold Chris on the CB2 one yet...what if I go through all the trouble of getting the set home and he hates it...wait, how would I get all of this home? Chris has the pickup truck...plus, I only want the coffee table, what would I do with two side tables I don't want?...I don't have any cash on me...how come I never have cash on me when I need it???

So with no cash, no truck, and no word from Chris that he liked it I just walked away.

Later that day I got in touch with Chris and he agreed to check it out when he got home from work. When we finally got there, I found a big fat SOLD sign on two of the tables..

Are you KIDDING me?
I should have just bought it when I saw it! I should have put it on hold!

But wait...why was the sold sign only on the side tables and not the coffee table? Maybe the person who bought the set only wanted the side tables...

I tracked down 3 store employees to finally get to the boss lady in charge. She said that someone bought the set but only wanted the side tables so donated the coffee table
back to the store. She just hadn't put a new sticker on the coffee table yet!

She sold it to me for $50.

After we brought it home and I was cleaning it up, I noticed the branding on one of the legs.

It didn't take me long to find it online.

Available for $713.40!!!

And to think I almost let it get away...

It's all about scale

  In recent weeks I've spent quite a bit of time looking for coffee and end tables for clients.  Getting the style and size right to work with the rest of the furniture in the space takes quite a bit of juggling and an  understanding of standard  furniture sizes.

The standard height of a coffee table is between 16 - 18 inches, but some can be as high as 21 inches. How do you know which height to choose?

 Style at Home

The answer relates to the height of the sofa/ chair. I prefer to see the coffee table about the same height as the top of the chair cushion or one or two inches lower.  The length of a coffee table is usually about 2/3 the length of the sofa not including the arms. Don't forget that you need at least 18 inches (24 is optimal) of space for your legs between a coffee table and the sofa.

 The size  of your coffee table should work with your sofa and other furniture in your room. It should also work with the size of the room overall. Let's check this out.
 

 DecorPad

How do you feel about the coffee table choice in this lovely room?  I would like to see something longer (remember the 2/3 the length of the sofa rule). This little beauty is having a difficult time holding her own with this sofa.

 DecorPad

The soft colour scheme and small scale furnishings  in this room  appear overwhelmed by this large, dark, and tall coffee table, but I really like the table.  Sometimes the weight of a table is influenced by the colour and material choice not just the overall dimensions.  Darker colours and solid woods tend to look more visually weighted.

Grisell Navas

Don’t forget the size of the room when thinking about scale. Glass tables work well in smaller rooms because they give the impression of lightness -  space is not blocked out.

Klang North West

 Even with two tables this room does not look over furnished.

Diana Rodriguez

If your room is spacious and/or the furniture is large in scale, choose heavier wood tables or ones with lots of  tiers or drawers.

Atmosphere Interior Design Inc.

This is a beautiful room with a colour scheme I'm partial to. Does the coffee table work for you?  I wouldn't want to try to place something on the table while sitting.  I'm such a stickler for function!

Icing on the Cake

We're this close to finishing up our family room! You can imagine how happy we'll be to be done.  As I mentioned last week, Chris was busy working on the crown molding. The room already had it, but it was dinky and we wanted something more substantial.  Beacon Hill Brownstone Chic needs big crown!  Here's a good example of how small and wimpy it was before.

We like to use two layers of molding. The first layer is baseboard placed upside down, then Chris attaches the crown on top of that. The result is a really wide and decorative molding that looks like one piece once it is all caulked and painted.

Chris has had some practice installing crown molding in other rooms on Hazard Ave and at our last house and has picked up a few tricks. Along with making "tough guy" faces, he makes a mock up of the two molding pieces together so that we can make sure the scale is correct.

Here he has built a template showing the angle of the crown and the overall length of the assembly once it is put together.   Using his template, Chris was able to find the appropriate height to install the inverted baseboard...  This accommodates the imperfections in the ceilings and walls and ensures that the molding is as consistent as possible.

Installing the upper level of crown after the inverted baseboard went up.

Now that the crown is up, the ceiling color is a little more obvious. I chose a cool gray like Casey suggested to contrast against the warm walls. It is Reserved White by Sherwin Williams.

 So what's left to do in here?
Chris is going to add quarter round molding to the baseboards in order to hide the small gap between the baseboards and the floors. Then we'll need to caulk and paint all the trim and molding.
We're in the home stretch...

At Home: An ocean getaway

As a child I often imagined how a house would look on the inside as I drove or walked about the town where I lived.  I'm assuming I'm no different from most people.  My Open Doors  series of posts will fill the need to peek inside everyday homes- not the grand designs of decor magazines, but interesting homes that are achievable for most people.  Come along on a visit to my friends' ocean beach house. 

 The patio overlooking the Atlantic Ocean has lots of beach finds.   There's a wind up today. 

 From the kitchen looking out through the screened window.  Even I would like to wash dishes here. The exterior of the house is red with a soft creamy white trim.

Pat and Janna travel all the way from British Columbia to Newfoundland every summer to enjoy life on an opposite ocean. I met Pat  when she and a friend  came to visit my studio/gallery in my summer house.   Ever since we've been looking forward to our summer time visits. When they left this year I received a key to the premises so I could photograph.  

 After one visit to the Bonavista Peninsula , Pat and Janna fell in  love with the place and purchased a typical Newfoundland outport house and began to remodel it.  Remodel doesn't seem the right word though. They worked backward until they reached the original boards, removing layers of wallpaper and wallboard.  I was lucky enough to photograph some of this process for my wallpaper archive which is part of an art project I'm working on.  Here's what it looked like then....

 And look what was hiding under the layers of wallpaper, a newspaper article about The Kennedy family.  After much patience and elbow grease they were ready to simplify the decor.

 They painted the whole interior  white and added their personal touches. That's what makes a home in my book.  I appreciate the way they have arranged/displayed their finds.

 The accent colour throughout the house is red.  What a fitting use for these cod jiggers!

Sea urchins in a bottle, beach glass, a boat and sea birds on an old trunk flanked by windows and oars.  

 More splashes of red against white and navy blue.  The sofa is red,  but it was covered for its winter rest.

 Some  of my favourite things in the house... the checkerboard that has two colours of beach stones for checkers, and a book about sea glass which prompted me to get my own copy.  It just arrived and I'm reading every word getting ready for next summer's hunt.

 Most of the furnishings are from IKEA which is a feat when you live in Newfoundland- they have to be shipped or driven.   I covet the aqua coloured lantern on the bookcase. Would they notice if it wasn't there next summer?

 I love seeing the remnant of an old window (I'm guessing) above the left chair. Shutters are a very practical window treatment because these windows are visible from the street and there could be nosy people just like me hovering outside.

 

  I call this the gallery of "Walked On" .  Pat salvaged scraps of the various floor coverings from the house and framed them in simple IKEA frames.   The stark simplicity of the frames show off the contents.  Keeping the stairway all white further enhances the overall look of this very effective display.

Upstairs hallway leading to....

..... a great desk area .  Now where did they find that old map of Newfoundland that was on the school room wall in my day?

There are more rooms for another time, but I ran out of battery power before I could finish my job.  Do you have any favourites?

Thanks to Janna and Pat for leaving me with the key and welcoming my intrusion.