Bedroom Update

We finally moved back into our bedroom a few weekends ago. Tonight my sweet husband is installing new curtain rods from ikea. It still needs some artwork and finishing touches, but it's nice to have some space back.

blue bedroom

We have officially started construction on our bedroom. The walls are pulled out and a new window has been installed as of yesterday. We're a long way from painting, but I've been inspired by cocoon-like blue bedrooms. I love smokey blue walls with gold, white and black accents. The very center room of the collage has the perfect blue. Would you call that cornflower?

Chez nous

le petit maison jaune

I'm on a watercoloring kick as of late.

renovation de la boudoir.

Image via desire to inspire.

We're planning on a huge re-vamp of our bedroom this spring. This includes tearing out the lath and plaster on two walls and replacing with drywall, re-texturing, re-wiring, refinishing the fir floors (tearing out wall to wall carpeting), replacing a window and painting. I hope to collect some bedroom inspiration photos over the next few weeks to help make the the finer design decisions.

We have a ceiling fan similar to the one above now - somehow it's OK in this room, but I HATE ours. Unfortunately it's got to stay, and I'll have to somehow work it in to the room design.

back porch

This is the area between the kitchen and the back door. The blue shelves were here when we moved in. It's become a catch-all spot for our raggedy house plants.

notre chambre.

Besides painting when we moved in, we haven't done anything to the bedroom. The ceiling is still pale blue, as is most of the trim, and there's still dirty, gray, musty wall-to-wall carpet. There are unfinished fir floors underneath the carpet - it's our goal to have them refinished this summer. I think having refinished floors will make a HUGE difference in this room. There's only one window in the bedroom (which makes it nice and dark), and it (like most windows in the house) is in desperate need of refinishing/ replacement. I have big dreams for this room - hopefully we can chip away at it in 2009.

More snow.

We're supposed to be on a plane to Florida as we speak, yet we are not. The Portland airport is closed, and we received a call at 4:15 this morning telling us that our flight was cancelled. I'm trying not to feel depressed that we can't leave until Wednesday, but being snowbound is getting old.

Il neige.

The weather outside is frightful, but let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Back Steps

Our most recent project was re-tiling the back steps going down to the back door from the kitchen. The new tiles match the kitchen tile. It looks a lot fresher, and I don't see every single dog hair and footprint anymore. Hooray.

Salle de bain

Our bathroom is puny and ugly. The photo on the left is when we first moved in. The blue paint was probably the dirtiest paint I've ever seen. Gross. We re-painted a warm gold/ yellow color, and I painted the vanity a creamy white, and replaced the heinous plastic handles with silver. It made a HUGE difference.

My husband calls it the Manhattan style bathroom because the two of us can barely squeeze in at once. It is small, but really, I think it's just a matter of the space being used inefficiently. If we had a pedestal sink, you could probably get out of the shower from either side of the shower doors.

Anyhow, remodeling the bathroom is one of our top priorities (once we win the lottery), especially since you must go through our bedroom in order to use the bathroom (it's the only one).

These images are inspiration for an eventual remodel. Pedestal sinks, colored glass tile, marble. . . lovely.

Dining Room

This is the dining room when we moved in. Note the gorgeous ceiling fan. I'm pretty sure that it came down the second day we lived here. 

I love these windows, although they are in really bad shape, and the view of our neighbor's house is nothing special. Our current dining room set-up obscures them, because it's the only window where our houseplants can get enough light and warmth during the winter. Someday, I'd love to install a little window seat under the windows and make the dining room into a library/ dining room.

The dining room today. I have grand ideas of what it could be, and this isn't it (yet). 

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My little reading nook. 

The light in the dining room that replaced the horrendous ceiling fan. 

Living Room Before & After

This is the living room before we moved in. My husband really wanted to keep the lime/ neon green wall. I was less than thrilled with the color. I couldn't really work lime green into my vision for the room. So, instead I picked a color from our local paint shop called "grilled cheese" (I kid you not). Somehow this seemed fitting for our house, and I like the color better than lime.

Warm and cozy, right?

The inspiration for the dining room/ living room color was this image from Domino magazine. It's so cheerful and bright, I thought that when the weather outside was grey and miserably rainy, we could enjoy some virtual sunshine inside. We'll see how that works out this winter.

Image from here.

Finally, I like the use of a little bit of the same color used as an accent color surrounded by white. It still looks happy and warm even in small doses. I think the color works best with a restrained palette everywhere else, but I'm not sure a house with two dark-haired pets would do very well with too much white.

Kitchen Before & After

The kitchen was one of my least favorite rooms when we moved in to the house. It took a while, but we did a little makeover with paint, and installed some ikea shelves & workbench to make a breakfast nook. Eventually I hope to remodel the kitchen, but in the meantime, I enjoy it in all it's orange glory.

this is my favorite corner of the kitchen.

Chez Moi.

Notre maison. Prior to moving in. May 2008.

potting shed & garage.