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Archive - January, 2009
Making it Lovely Turns Two
Today the blog is two years old!
To celebrate, I’ve freshened up the design a bit. Yes that’s right, I celebrated by creating work for myself. ;) Nothing drastic, but I’ve cleaned up the layout a bit, changed the proportions, and quieted the color scheme. This is the fifth design I’ve done for Making it Lovely.
I still have some refining to do and a few bells and whistles to add, but the new look is nearly done. Let me know if you notice anything odd (I’ve been working on this very late at night while very sleepy). Oh, and I’ve added support for twitter avatars as well as gravatars, so if you have one or the other your picture should show up when you comment.
Thank you all for reading and commenting, for your friendship and support, and just for all around making my day!
Vintagey Bathroom (MIY: Real Good Chair)
Making it Yours (MIY) is all about using the furniture you have in new ways and taking pieces with you throughout your life. In this edition of MIY, our fictional homeowner has moved from a home with a breakfast nook and room for four Real Good Chairs to a new home where the chairs will have to be split up. We’ve already seen one of the chairs in a home office, and another in a modern, graphic bedroom. Now we’ll see the third chair in a vintagey bathroom.
First off, can i just say that I would LOVE to have a bathroom big enough to fit a chair? Yep, that would be nice. But our fictional homeowner here has lucked out and has the room, as well as a lovely clawfoot tub and hexagon tiles. The Lombard ceiling fixture fits in well with the tub and tile, and the green goes nicely with the color of the chair. The bath mat and wall color further link the colors, without exactly matching, and Supernova Modern Vases by j. mendicino are a cute touch. The shower curtain picks up on the hex tile, but in a more feminine way while still keeping the room from getting too cloying and colorful.
Next up, we’ll see the fourth and final chair in the home’s entryway.
No More Popcorn Ceiling
The popcorn has given way to a smooth, flat ceiling, thanks to Brandon’s hard work. As I mentioned before, the ceiling did not contain asbestos (always check before removing because many popcorn ceilings do), so we felt comfortable trying to remove it. It came down easily enough in just a few hours (he sprayed it with water and scraped it off), but smoothing the resulting mess took a little longer. He did a rough sanding (60 grit) first, wiped all of the dust away with a damp cloth, smoothed over all of the imperfections with joint compound, and then sanded everything again (220 grit).
I’m the more handy one out of the two of us and I felt bad that I couldn’t help, but we didn’t think it was a safe job for a pregnant lady. Oh yeah, I’m also a wee bit of a perfectionist… It was really hard to not go in there and obsessively sand and smooth and do things myself. After priming and painting though, the ceiling looks really good.
The new light looks great, though we did have to run out and grab a ceiling medallion. I’m not really a fan of them, but Brandon had a hard time smoothing out the ceiling near the light, and the medallion was an easy solution to hide the remaining popcorn texture. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll leave it white or if I’ll paint it the same color as the rest of the ceiling.
Now, I know people get a bit nervous when dealing with electrical projects (we do too), but changing a light fixture is EASY. We’ve done it six times so far in this house (in the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, studio, and nursery). You just make sure the power is off, take down the old fixture, connect like wires to like wires, attach the ground wire to the little green screw on the mounting bar, and then attach the new fixture.
We decided to keep the room the same color (Wheat Bread by Behr), but it needed a second coat of paint. Really, it’s always needed that second coat, but I think I was too tired when working on the guest room before and I just figured ‘good enough’ (which is so uncharacteristic of me). It has bugged me ever since. So now we’ve painted the ceiling and walls, and even did some touch up work on the trim, and the guest room is officially ready to be switched over to a nursery.
'L' for Lighting, Crafty (& Handy), Guest Room, Nursery • 49 Comments • January 5, 2009
New Glasses
Hooray for new specs! Our insurance covers a lot of the cost, so I took advantage of that before the year ended. I found them online too (at a discount), in case anyone is inclined to check them out.
Also, here I am at 25 and a half weeks pregnant. Getting bigger, but still feeling all right.
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