Author Archives: Mary

Favorite Spaces: The Porch

Posted on by

4

Being unemployed* is weird. Days are like three times as long as they are when I’m actually working, and it’s nice to have time to enjoy my house. The weather has been perfect the last two days, so I’ve been enjoyed some time out on my porch.

I thought I’d share some of my favorite things on the porch since its come together so well!

The chair I redid with my mom.

With the series of “Rock Pictures” my sister gave me for my birthday last year (taken every time we go to our family’s house in Lake Tahoe)

The comfy hand-me-down chair that’s great to read in, with my garden stool that I wanted forever.

My cabinet (which was oddly impossible to find), with the cute prints we got from Orange Beautiful and framed.

The totally useless but adorable glass lantern

What’s your favorite place in your house?

*I’m not really-truly unemployed. I’m just not working because it’s summer and I’m a teacher. But it’s still weird.

Life is Fragile

Posted on by

0

This has been a rough couple of weeks. I don’t really have a point here, but:

Last night my father was hit by a car. He was going out to dinner with his wife and saw a car get sideswiped (or something). He got the license plate number and went to cross the street to tell them. He walked in front of a stopped bus, saw no one coming on the left, and stepped out. Just as a car changed lanes from behind the bus to his lane. Going over 30. He went flying through the air, shattered the cars windshield and then fell to the ground. HE’S FINE. He never lost consciousness, and didn’t even break anything.

The day before my birthday, my student (and mentee) was shot. He’ll be ok, but the friend that was with him was killed. I spent the first half hour of my birthday frantically trying with the dean to get details–was it him? (yes) what hospital is he in? can we see him? will he be ok?

He’s in a gang. He has some pretty serious psychological issues. He had it coming. He’s also a fifteen year old kid, who loves math and asks amazing questions in an “on” day in class. He’s really bright. He’s also the worst kid in the school. But he’s my worst kid and it was terrifying. I saw him in the hospital, and he’ll be ok.

And last, this weekend I was in Tennessee* with a bunch of family to scatter my grandparents ashes. Both of them passed away within the past year, less than six months apart. My grandma and I were very close and her death was sudden–but I had all four of my grandparents nine months ago, and I don’t know anyone else who had so long with all of their grandparents. I’m lucky for that.

I don’t have a point here. Go call your parents/grandparents/kids. Realize how incredibly quickly everything changes. And be so grateful for what you have. I get sulky that my summer feels almost over and I haven’t gotten this done and whatever isn’t going my way. Don’t lose sight of what really matters.

I don’t have it in me to proof or reread or whatever right now. So, take this for whatever you will. But be grateful.

*Don’t scatter ashes somewhere no one lives that is inconvenient to get to. No one will visit, and that will make them sad.

Where does summer go?

Posted on by

2

This weekend was a busy one of hosting several out of town guests, buying tile (!) and trying to sort out a few other details on the bathroom. (Expect an epic vanity-search post once I actually find one. I’m trying not to bore you.)

I made a big list by room of all the stuff I hope to get done with the rest of my summer, which feels like it is quickly slipping away (I have two more weekends I’m actually here for! Two!)

In other news, I have three fun birthday presents to tell you about:

From my dad

I can do basically two kinds of writing, and only one of them consistently turns out card worthy. I am so so excited to play with this book.

From my Dad

This is BURNING A HOLE IN MY FLOOR (like pocket? Get it?) and I cannot wait to stencil the front hallway. I’ve got two weekends before school starts–we need to talk schedule. Day trip maybe? I also need to put a final coat on the buffet (I got new paint custom mixed–by which I mean the guy added more pigment and very nicely tried to get it closer to what I want. Worth a shot.) so it seems like I could do both at once, with the same tools (they use the same tools, I’m not just being ridiculous).

And the last one I don’t have a picture of yet. But its this:

From http://ourhumbleabowedblog.com/ because she is possibly the coolest person ever

You can go click on the picture and read her post now. Amanda’s will be cooler than mine anyhow. That’s just how it is.

For my birthday I held my own ice cream social. It all looked super cute, and I don’t think I took pictures (maybe someone else did? I will have to see.) And then I told everyone it was time for them to make my birthday present. And they were all like, “huh?”.

And then (true story) my mother got out the paints and I pulled out the pad of watercolor paper I picked up in Colorado (from my grandma’s things, with an unfinished picture she was working on) and I showed people the picture above, explained I was going to cut up their artwork, asked them to use my colors (some obeyed better than others) and told them to go for it. Without children, it was the best I could do. Expect more when I get it done and hung.

But mostly I look at pictures of vanities on the internet, with occasional trips to look at things in stores. Its thrilling. But I hope to have them start within two weeks, so I am making progress!

Are you getting your summer projects done?

A Better Bathroom: Let’s Make some Decisions!

Posted on by

2

I’ve been silent on the bathroom front lately, I know. But I’ve actually been making some progress and (fingers crossed!) will start soon.

Here’s the scoop:

Still out in Colorado (um, almost a month ago), we went shopping. Here’s some of the fun we found:

And this mirror:

Still love the mirror. The vanity is 36 in. wide, and I think staying under 32 in. is going to be best for me. But the rest of the plan has really been coming together.

  • There’s going to be a vanity, and it will measure between 30 – 36 in. wide
  • The medicine cabinet will feature an oval mirror
  • There will be 3 open shelves above the toilet
  • The vanity will be dark with a light top, have an open shelf, and (hopefully!) two drawers and a cabinet
  • The tiles are (mostly) chosen

So. The good stuff?

That’s the layout the contractor drew for me. Everything has to go on that one long wall, so that’s basically all I needed. The vanity and mirror will match my ideas above, and the shelves aren’t there, but we’ve got the rest of it.

I’m not positive I will go with him yet (but I do like him), but I love the To Do list he gave me.

  1. Choose tile (Floor, shower wall, shower floor)
  2. Choose vanity
  3. Buy shower hardware
  4. Buy other hardware (ceiling light with vent fan, vanity light)

I’ve pretty much decided on my tile (it was in the sneak peak that Lesley shared in her post!) and I’ve looked at bunches of vanities (unsuccessfully). I haven’t even thought about lights though.

So here are my big questions that I need to decide before I’m ready to start (in addition to choosing a darn vanity!):

Big Question #1: What to do with the left-most side of the room (right next to where the door opens)?

Minor Question #1: Do I want a ceiling light with a fan (not required, the bathroom has a window)?

Minor Question #2: What goes above the sink? Backsplash? Continue tile?

It also comes down to how much storage I can eke out. My place has only two (?!) real closets, and I would love to put some real storage into the bathroom. But how much does storage balance with other desires?

The rest is mostly aesthetics and minor decisions, so I just need to do some materials choosing and get on with it.

For BQ#1, it’s a space issue. Space is obviously finite and I want to have the biggest shower possible. But biggest measures in two dimensions, and that’s the problem. As in the diagram above, it can go from the door to the edge of the vanity. I made myself a table, but I’m still pretty stuck.

Wall to vanity: Starts next to the door, ends next to the vanity Storage wall: Storage next to door (probably pretty narrow), then shower starts 12-18” in
50” long shower Shorter 36” shower
Only 27” deep Deeper (by several inches?)
Bench Bench would make it cramped
Single small cabinet is all the storage I can get, and maybe some nooks Cabinet for storage below, open shelves above
Room will look wider Room may look more narrow, but more space in shower
Will keep open look Room may look more/too crowded

I could also have the shower angle in, so that near the door its 27″ wide and then a foot in it widens. But that might look awkward. And it still leaves me without a ton of storage.

Thoughts? Especially on my Big Question? What do you vote for? And know of any vanities that meet my requirements?

P.S. My birthday was Friday! Look for two fun birthday presents that I’m super excited for, and the birthday present I made my party guests make for me!

P.P.S. Thanks to everyone who expressed concern about the Worst Birthday Ever. My mentee (from school, a 15 year old boy) was shot on Thursday, and I found out the morning of my birthday. His friend was killed in front of him, but he was just shot in the leg. It really scared me and shook me up, but I went to see him in the hospital on Saturday and he will be ok. Hopefully this taught him a lesson.

Color Wars

Posted on by

0

Things this post should be:

  • A reveal of the newly-painted buffet
  • Adorably lined and repaired drawers
  • See how cute in my dining room!

Things it is instead:

  • Pictures of other people’s stuff.

Sigh.

When Lesley visited (almost two weeks ago), we* figured where better to spend the weekend than in a basement?

There is some cool stuff down there:

And the buffet is now mine. I think there used to be one of these in every unit in my building, and although simple, they are fairly well made and pretty. Not necessarily in the best of shape though…

While much of the finish was in good shape, there were enough spots that were in really bad shape that sanding and then re-staining was NOT going to be fun. The picture on the right is a long mirror (perched on top of the dresser in the first set of pictures) that is supposed to go on top of the buffet. It’s a pretty mirror, but I wasn’t positive I wanted it because it would make the (already big) piece (even) bigger.

Plus: You can see the bottom left corner was having some frame issues anyhow…no mirror fixing for us!

Minus: You can see the top left corner of the buffet doesn’t look quite right. That’s because there is a cutout in the back for the mirror to slot in to…that we weren’t going to use. Mirror fix, off the list; Gap fix, on.

We decided to go with a really deep navy, so that it wouldn’t be too much of a pop in the room, hopefully read pretty neutrally, and tie in with my dining room drapes:

And then they went and bought supplies and they sanded (and sanded and sanded. and melted.) and then they painted and then…

Yeah.

The sanding made it look like this:

And we bought a board (which was actually pretty complicated, since we needed exactly 1.75 across and pretty long) and patched the hole. We also patched the worst of the nicks and scratches on the top. And then we primed and painted.

So here is where you usually do at least a sneak peek….so, now for our (non) sneak peek:

(Not) ta-da!

Please go back and read above:

We decided to go with a really deep navy, so that it wouldn’t be too much of a pop in the room, hopefully read pretty neutrally, and tie in with my dining room drapes.

That’s Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy. It reads very, very Americana-type blue to us. Sadly. Which does not match with my curtains at all. And before you go all, “Maybe you should do another coat?”…That’s THREE. 3. Its got a lot of gray it isn’t that dark, and it certainly isn’t navy like my curtains are navy. Our fault. Don’t pick paint so fast (we were just excited!).

So it’s close to being done (with repaired drawers, which hopefully my dad can help with Saturday) and new hardware, but I still need new paint.

I picked up my friend’s husband (such paint-choosing talent!) on my way home yesterday, and we hit the hardware store to try to fix this situation.

My thoughts:

  • Maybe what I want isn’t a very deep navy, its black with a lot of navy in it?
  • Can I just get something darker than my paint?
  • How do I make sure it doesn’t just look black (which I think would look funny with all of my dark wood)?
  • Why did I not just test first?

We found a “Greys” swatch that might have a couple options:

Benjamin Moore Soot (the lighter one)

Anna, who used it on the walls above, says, “I used Benjamin Moore’s ‘Soot’ with a matte finish. It’s actually the deepest, darkest indigo blue imaginable and not a true black, but that’s what gives it that extra oompf.” So thats a good sign, right?

Another option was Benjamin Moore “midnight dream”

…still looks kind of black.

But I liked this one:

Ooooh, and this:

They’re both Midnight Dream too. Funny, they look more like the blue I was going for, not that gray/black one above. Because it’s by Behr. Oh.

So, I think the color I like exists (maybe?). I know that the two BM colors have more parts black in them (we asked them to look up the formula). But I also doubt that a color that looks really dark blue in real people’s houses exists. I think I might take back my original (still mostly full) quart and ask for more black tint and try that out. And if it doesn’t I’ll buy new paint, by a different brand. On the plus side, the piece itself isn’t hard to paint at all—I’ll spend more time on clean up than I will on the painting.

LESSON LEARNED: Google image the heck out of the paint color you want to buy. You’ll see what it looks like, avoid an unwanted Happy-4th-Americana-blue moment and get other ideas from “liked this color but LOVED that.”

What was your biggest paint color mistake?

*ie Lesley thought I should wait before going after the bathroom walls with a hammer. But at least we shopped for tile!

Welcome to Chicago!

Posted on by

0

Hey Lesley,

Can’t wait to see you tomorrow! You asked in your last email what we might be up to this weekend. Don’t know yet, but here are things I hope to get up to this summer (when you’re visiting and not).

-Refinish the not-matching frame on the picture in my bedroom my dad gave me

-Do something classier to the edge of the shelf in the living room

-Restyle my mantel, which is getting more cute things, but less cute looking

-Figure out what to do with my awesome coffee tables so they look cute

-Organize my newly-enlarged basement storage unit (hooks!)

-Make large art for my dining room (I think at my birthday party!)

-Refinish the buffet that will go in my dining room

-Rearrange my dining room stuff into the new buffet

-Redo entire bathroom (you know, rip out walls, put new walls up, have someone build a shower including 3/4 wall and new plumbing, find new vanity, shelves, and so on. No big deal.)

What are you up for this weekend?

Can’t wait to see you!

Mary