The Bathroom

Of all the things to post after a long blogging hiatus...

Ah well, it's one of the many projects that happen to be almost complete.

The only thing it really 'needs' is a shelf to go under the medicine cabinet.

But if I waited until I found the perfect one, it would probably be another 6 months til I posted this room.

I'm just a tad picky ;)

Speaking of being picky,  I'd like to replace the lights with something vintage and find the matching sink and toilet to the bathtub, but that could take years.

So here it is, as close to finished as I could possibly get it right now.

And it's as close to what it probably looked like in 1950, which is what I wanted.

For those of you that don't know the tale of this bathroom, click here.

But here's a quick glimpse of the bathroom during the restoration:

A lot of work, but definitely worth it to me :)

More to come soon.

And by soon, I actually mean soon, not 6 months ;)

xo

rue

Serene

That was the word that came to my mind, when I decided on a wall color for my new master bedroom.

Well, new to me anyway.

You see, when I bought this house, there was an upstairs master and a downstairs nightmare area that could be used as a bedroom. I didn't want Annie downstairs in the dungeon and she didn't want to be down there either, so I took it and made it my little hideaway.

It turned out pretty nice.

Well, it looked nice anyway.

It was COLD.

Which is great in the summer, but not so much in the winter.

I put a lot of miles on the plug in electric heater.

So when Annie decided to move out, I thought about the cold.

I also thought about the fact that I'm almost 50 and going up and down the stairs as I get even older.

And I thought about the fact that it's probably safer to be on the first floor.

Silly as it seems, it wasn't an easy decision, but one night when it was 15 degrees outside, I came to the conclusion that it was probably for the best.

Since I've never shared it, I'll bet you're curious what Annie's room looked like.

If you have a teenager, you won't be shocked.

If you don't, prepare yourself.

Now imagine that with 20 piles of clothes in all directions.

I'm happy to tell you that her decorating taste has much improved and her apartment is lovely.

In fact, she's an old fashioned girl at heart, like her mother, and her friends say it looks like a little old lady decorated it.

They even gave her a bowl filled with hard candy for guests.

The apple really didn't fall far from the tree ;)

Anywho, 

Back to the color.

As I mentioned, I wanted something serene and as much as I love yellow, I craved something different.

Did I want a soft green?

Maybe blue?

Maybe a mix of both.

When I was at the hardware store, looking at Behr paints, I came across a group of colors called the Cottage Collection and the color that grabbed me was called Seaglass.

Perfect!

I got home and went straight to work, painting the whole room, ceiling and all, with this magical color.

I couldn't believe how much brighter the room looked.

It really changed the entire feeling.

Ahhh... so much better.

I still have some work to do, like maybe getting different drapes, and new bedding, but for now, I'm happy.

One of the perks is not having to do my makeup downstairs anymore.

Not to mention the view.

The antique dresser below lived in Annie's room and like a typical kid, she abused the top with water marks.

It was given a quick sanding and polishing and it turned out good as new.

So, that's it for now.

I still need to work on my old room, which is now the guest room and I'd better hurry.

Annie is coming to visit on Monday and Alex is coming to visit with his fiancé at the end of this month... yikes!

Back to the decorating grindstone ;)

xo

rue

A window tale

Once upon a time, a lovely woman built a darling cottage.

For some reason, years later, she had to sell the cottage.

A family bought it.

Now, this family was probably a very nice family, but there were these evil people that would go door to door convincing neighbor after neighbor that old windows needed to be replaced. Even though some windows had been on their old homes for over a hundred years and had nary a problem, they agreed to change them out.

 Eventually, the evil window people came upon the little cottage where the family lived and convinced them that the little cottage's wooden framed windows weren't good enough.

Unknowingly, the family fell into the trap, like their neighbors, and agreed to replace the windows with some that wouldn't last more than ten or twenty years.

Some years later the family sold the house to a couple.

Now this couple wasn't very nice.

They had plans to destroy the cottage on the inside, but before doing that they decided to paint the entire outside, including the window trim, brown.

Not only that, but they used latex paint over oil based paint without sanding it.

About five years later, there fell upon the world a great recession and the couple had to sell the little cottage, so their evil plan was foiled.

Along came a woman that immediately fell in love with the little cottage and she bought it.

Soon she started undoing all the bad things that were done, but discovered that some things were going to have to be replaced professionally.

Boys and girls, do you know what that would be?

Why yes, Susie! It is the windows.

Well, all except the four original windows downstairs, that escaped the evil window replacers, that you guessed it... have nary a problem, except they too have to have the latex paint scraped off.

Not only are the metal window replacements failing, because of moisture between the glass, the wood window trim is rotting, because of the latex paint pulling off from the oil based paint and the leaks that come from improper window replacement.

And this kids, is what happens when you do that...

So, the woman that loves the little cottage knows that she'll have to replace not only this window, but eventually ALL of the ones that were replaced by the evil window people.

For now though, she has scraped all the latex paint off and has done some patching with wood putty until she can get someone that knows what they're doing to replace them.

There's also another sad window tale, involving some not too bright person building a staircase in front of a window.

But the woman will deal with that eventually too.

Just like she has when changing the outside from this...

To this...

It's a slow process and the woman has much more to do, but the little cottage knows she's trying and is very very happy that someone finally cares again.

To be continued...

Eventually.

;)

xo

rue

P.S.

For information on old windows go 'here'.

Please read it before you get angry about replacement windows.

Lost and found

My kitchen has come a long way from when I first moved in.

This, of course, is what it looks like now:

Below is what it looked like before, when I had first moved in.

Do any of you remember the post with this picture?

Brown walls and cabinets... ewwww.

Back then, I promised to share pictures of the progress if I ever found them and I did find a few, while I was cleaning out old emails.

Here it is with the cabinets painted white (because I couldn't stand living with the brown for longer than I had to) and the gross countertop torn out:

Tile done and authentic 1930s sink in:

And the full view:

I'm sure a few ladies out there will like this white look better, but it just didn't feel right to me.

For the most part, the kitchens of the 1920s and 30s had moved on from the bright white kitchens of the early teens, which were promoted because of the scare of germs and disease, and had embraced color. So, I wanted to be true to that feeling.

Plus, with a few exceptions, I've always had white cabinets in my old homes, and was ready for something fun.

I found plenty of inspiration, as you might have seen in the post I mentioned earlier, but these two pictures were my main go to:

I chose the plain white tile for the counters, because there is a strip of it that went around a corner of the tiled back splash and I knew that was what had to have been there originally.

Also, I could have gone with the red floor pictured above, but I since I was keeping the aforementioned blue, green, white, brown and yellow tile on the back splash and I had painted the cabinets green and yellow,  I went with a somewhat different shade of green and yellow floor. I suppose I could have gone with blue or brown somewhere instead of one of those colors, but I didn't want the kitchen to look too busy.

Anyway, I personally love how it turned out and I think I stayed true to the time period in which the house was built :)

Looking through posts for full pictures of the kitchen made me realize how long it's been. These were taken almost a year ago!

I guess I should remedy that soon ;)

Anyway, going through my inspiration pictures led me to a little project that I just completed.

Remember the tiled yellow and green tiled kitchen above with the clock on a shelf, over the sink?

 And see that little shelf, the clock on the left is sitting on, below?

I happen to have a little shelf above my stove:

And I felt inspired.

So I painted it to match my cabinets:

Much better, I think :)

And a wonderful finishing touch :)

I love easy projects, don't you?

xo

rue

Sharing with Foodie Friday and Everything Else

PS

I'm really behind on my visiting blogs and responding to those of you that don't have a blog.

I think almost 3 posts behind.

Yikes!

I'm really sorry and I'll try to catch up as soon as possible :)

The yellow dining room

Last time I showed you the living room and promised to show you my newly painted dining room in a day or two, but I was distracted by a few things. 

One of which I'll share at the end of this post ;)

So here it is...

I chose the next color up from the living room color, which is a little lighter. It's called Behr's Whisper Yellow, which I also used in my bedroom.

Here are the three rooms together now that they've all been painted in different shades of yellow...

Looking into the office...

Looking into the kitchen...

Just like I did in the living room, I used Behr's Sagey for inside the cabinets.

I think it all flows pretty nicely and it's much more cheerful in the house now :)

So what have I been up to, since I last posted?

Well, quite a few things, but the most important was my daughter, Annie's birthday.

She wanted something simple this year so there was just three of us... Annie, her friend Nikki and me. For dinner we had, at her request, filet mignon, garlic mashed potatoes and steamed artichokes with marbled brownies for dessert.

The flowers were one of my gifts to her.

My baby is now 20 years old.

Amazing how time flies.

xo

rue

PS

I promise I'll get to your questions on my last couple of posts, answer your emails, and visit you soon.

It's just been a whirlwind of activity around here, with going out of town, birthdays and cleaning and this is the first time I've been able to sit down long enough to post.

Oh and snow... but I'll share that soon ;)