Monday, October 25, 2010

Colors for the exterior


No, this is not a cubism experiment. This is just my sad attempt at creating something graphic. I have been thinking for a long time about what colors to use on the outside of the house. The above combo is where I am right now. The colors look different on different computer screens, so you'll have to use your imagination a little. The house will be painted what should look like a slate color (BM Templeton Gray). The porch floor will be painted a muted shade of green (BM Waterbury Green). The front door will be either a light, ice blue (probably lighter than the one in my little illustration, which is BM Whipple Blue) or a dark, rick blue (BM Van Deusen Blue). The trim will be some as-yet-undetermined shade of white.

All the colors are from Benjamin Moore's Historic Colors collection, and they are also pretty true to the time period and the colonial-revival style of the house (at least according to my Internet research). The exterior of the house probably won't get painted for a while, but we are going to paint the porch floor, get new porch railings, and replace the beadboard porch ceiling (oh, and remove the awnings, of course!). I have it in my head that we can do all of this ourselves. We'll see. I am excited about taking a reciprocating saw to those ugly iron railings and bane-of-my-existence awnings. Good way to relieve stress, I think.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The bathroom plan

The bathroom is really looking like it's going to be a reality. I want to restore it to how it looked before the horrible remodel. We have a tub (though it still needs to be reglazed) and a sink. I've finally decided, after discovering under the cheap black-and-white octagon tiles beautiful but ruined white hexagon tiles, that we will put in new white hexagon tiles on the floor. We'll also remove the old subway tile on the wall (which has also been ruined by shoddy remodeling) and replace it with new subway tile. I have three final choices to make: 1) what color to paint the walls, 2) what kind of medicine cabinet to get, and 3) what kind of light fixture to get. Well, I think I've answered the third question.

This is the Rufus from Rejuvenation. It's the perfect art deco touch for our 1920s bathroom and it adds a pop of color. It's making me really happy right now.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Progress, I guess


Scraping, scraping, and more scraping. That's what Keith has been doing for the past couple of weeks. (Look at all those paint chips on the floor. Thank goodness we don't have kids.) The baseboards in the our smallest room, which will one day be an office, just don't seem to want to let the old paint go.

However, we're nearing the finish line (with the baseboards, anyway) in the guest bedroom. We still have the windows to go, but Keith has half the baseboards in the room ready for painting. Now I just have to start doing the painting.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Bargain!

Today we picked up a lovely cast-iron sink I found on Craigslist for a mere $40. It is my new favorite thing. It's in two pieces right now because it was so heavy. I don't know if we could have moved it as one piece.


There's a tiny bit of rust around the drain and the faucet needs to be cleaned, but it is in great shape. A cast-iron sink to go with our cast-iron tub--too perfect. And perhaps the greatest deal so far.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Long time, no blog

Sorry for being gone so long. There will be many posts soon, though. We discovered water was getting in the house, and now we know why--the chimney isn't properly sealed and is crumbling. Awesome. (Also, it's weird that we even have a chimney when we have no fireplaces.) More money, more work to be done. We're also planning on replacing some windows, and trying to do it ourselves. I'll let you know how that turns out (or doesn't turn out).

Other upcoming projects to watch for:


The basement bathroom: There is tile in the garage left over from when the previous inhabitants redid the upstairs bathroom, so we're going to use it to redo the basement bathroom. This will be good tiling practice. If we mess it up, it won't be half as bad as messing up the bathroom upstairs.


The kitchen: I've drawn up a plan (which I will soon scan and share) for temporary kitchen improvements. We can't spend the money right now to completely redo it, so I have created a plan based on what we can do ourselves.