Tag: Victorian House

Welcome to the Brown Room

Where everything is a lovely shade of brown! Or cream! This room is very much in progress, and it has a long way to go still.

The couch is super-comfy, so no regrets there on choosing the IKEA Kivik, though it could use a throw and more than a single, sad pillow. The room is open to our bedroom, so I picked a brown that would work well with our brown upholstered bed. I wasn’t feeling the gray options, didn’t want white, and the only other colors at IKEA were red and purple.

Add a bunch of wood trim and wooden furniture though, and YAWN.

I like the Hemnes bookshelves in the room, and the Blake media console (that I picked up at the C&B outlet for half off) looks great. The Eames chair looks kind of lonely and out of scale against the wall right now, but I think it will look good in the room once everything comes together a bit more.

Everything else though? It’s just kind of there. The sofa is floating in the middle of the room because I’m playing with the idea of putting a console or low bookshelf behind it for the kids’ toys. The rug was in the nursery, in the last house, and it’s a little small here. The coffee and end tables are OK, but only OK. The brown glider (also formerly in the nursery) is definitely not staying there, and it’s blocking a toy table which is weirdly shoved in a corner of the room.

The room definitely needs paint, and curtains. That, plus art, will go a long way toward helping the room look better, but they won’t fix everything.

Hello, embarrassment! Brandon informed me that I originally titled this post with a gross sexual term. Awesome. So yeah, I edited that out. WHOOPS.

February 26, 2014
Almost Black

Hey, look, I did some painting this weekend! (My tiny assistant helped.)

I need to find a ladder (the step-ladder isn’t cutting it with 10′ high ceilings), and I need to decide on a final paint color. My friend sent me this video when I initially shared the Instagram photo above of the paint swatches, and yep.

The room is now painted with black-tinted primer, but the color is a near match for the first sample I tried, Almost Black. I also tried Soot, and Polo Blue, all Benjamin Moore colors.

I might pick up another sample or two, but I’m not sure yet. I do know that I want to go darker than the primer, which rules out Almost Black for sure. I’m happy with the direction the room is going in though! It’s a central room on the main floor, and I love the contrast those walls are bringing. I’m eager to bring all of the furniture back in, but I want to get the color just right without rushing it. Normally I wouldn’t be drawn to a green-based black, for example, but against all of the wood it might work. Otherwise, Soot?

February 24, 2014
What’s Here, and What’s Staying Put

In animated gif form! I figure it’s the easiest way to give a bird’s-eye view of things.

When I talk to people, I’m in the habit of saying “we just moved in to a new house…” but we’re at about six months here now, so I think I’m wearing that line out. I shared the first and second parlor recently, but they are definitely nowhere near done. Not that I’m complaining, mind you! This house has been the most fun project to work on, and I’m enjoying taking my time with it. Here’s what’s working, and a little of what I think is to come.

The Entryway

Awesome! Done! Bang. We had a million people over last weekend for August’s party, and that hardworking entryway was holding its own just fine.

The Dining Room

I love my table. It was part of a vintage set (reportedly Henredon, though I’ve never found an identifying mark). I have six matching wooden chairs in the basement (you can see them in the old house), but the kids were forever spilling on the fabric seats and my metal chairs are a better fit for us right now. Color on the walls and some great art will go far here. I’d like a rug under the table, but is that the best idea with said messy kids? Maybe not. We did have gray FLOR tiles in the last house because we could theoretically pull a tile up to clean it, but we always ended up spot treating in place. That shade of gray is not making me happy in this house though, so it might be time to let them go.

The First Parlor

Poor little neglected room. You’ll be great soon, I promise! When we first moved in, I thought we’d watch TV in this space, but after living here for a few months, we like the television better upstairs. Our media cabinet moved up to a room on the second floor that would have been our library, and now the first parlor is going to get the built-in shelving treatment. It’s going to be amazing, as I’m sure you can no doubt see from the sea of brown in my sketch above.

I’m not sure what color the walls are going to be yet. Olive green, or emerald? Coral pink? A gorgeous blue, or a pale bluish gray? Ask me today and I’ll give you a different answer tomorrow. I’ll likely wait until after I’ve painted the second parlor and the bookshelves have been installed. Beyond that, the room needs more furniture. A rug. A whole lot. But it can wait.

The Second Parlor

When I wrote about it, I mentioned that there is a lot of placeholder furniture in the room. I don’t mean that I’ll be getting rid of it all, but it might get shuffled around and repurposed. I love the sofa. Love my fancy blogger tree (a.k.a. fiddle leaf fig — thanks for coining the phrase, Lindsay). Everything else? Not set in stone yet. The floral chair might stay put, or it might move into the library when that’s done. The rugs? That angled fireplace is definitely throwing me there. One thing to come that I’m sure about: the room is going dark. I’m narrowing down my paint color choices now.

I saw this room today, which has a lot of the elements I’m going for. Dark walls, botanical print, boxy chairs, wood, and brass. My taste has definitely changed since I started on the first house in 2007, and the apartment before that (which was before I started this blog), but I’m excited to see where it leads.

February 12, 2014
The Second Parlor

It will be painted eventually, and some of the furniture is temporary. Let’s have a look though, shall we?

The blue sofa is 98″ long and perfectly suited to that spot. The coffee table is a bit dwarfed by it though, so that may change eventually. One of the rooms downstairs will be getting inky/charcoal/black walls, and I’m leaning toward it being this one, but I’m not rushing into it. The first parlor is going to be turned into a library soon, so I’m going to hold off on painting until after that’s done. The entry, both parlors, and the dining room are all connected, and I want to choose colors for each room that will be complementary.

Erin Loechner had a small launch party in Chicago for Clementine Daily a few months back, and Hayneedle was a sponsor. They had generously supplied product to be used in decorating, and I was then kindly offered a few of the pieces afterward. That’s how I came to own the new pink rug!

Actually, it’s two small rugs. I thought about splitting them up and using separately, but I decided instead to line them up instead to make one larger area rug. Argh, that angled fireplace though! I love it, but I’m not a huge fan of arranging things on a diagonal, and it has been a challenge. I first tried the rugs running parallel to fireplace, but after living with the placement for a few days, it wasn’t doing it for me. The rugs are flat-woven, so they’re fairly thin, and I just tucked one corner under. It’s probably not the best long-term solution, but it’s working for now.

Erin was also planning to use the same metal chairs that I had in my dining room, so I was able to get a few more to match the existing ones. They’re fantastic with kids, because they’re fairly indestructible and easy to clean (though they can be cold if they touch bare legs). I have enough now to flank both sides of the table, and we can fit 10 comfortably when we need to.

The head chairs from the table are in front of the fireplace as a placeholder. They’re not quite right in the room (they very clearly look like they should be over in the dining room), but the extra seating in there has been nice.

The room would benefit from a pair of boxy, low lounge chairs (with leather and/or brass, ideally). The creamy white walls are inoffensive, but a little boring, and the scale of the coffee table is off. Those are all things that can be addressed over time though, and I feel like the room is at a good place for now. Tomorrow, I’ll show the first parlor and talk a little about our plans for it!

February 5, 2014
The Bathroom on the Third Floor

It’s looking cute.

The black rubber-coated soap pump is the only thing that hasn’t made an appearance elsewhere on the blog, as far as I know. I think I bought it to use when I was redoing the main floor bathroom in the last house, but I ended up using a glass soap dispenser there instead. In this bathroom though? Perfect.

The towel is hanging from a hook that I’m reusing from the bathroom on the second floor. I have the green vintage wastecan from the half-bath that we added to the last house, and the man and woman bathroom sign vases are back, too. They aren’t always filled with fresh flowers, but let’s pretend they are.

Same with the little black pitcher next to the sink. Hello, little white flowers! Hello, nice-smelling eucalyptus!

The green bowl was also from that bathroom, along with the white first aid box. (The kids’ wipes are inside.)

I removed a medicine cabinet that was mounted above the toilet. I was going to hang some art in its place (photography, probably), but I tried it out with a placeholder print and it felt too busy between the mirror and the window. Something small, or a small grouping, could be cute. That’s the kind of thing I’ll keep in mind moving forward — if I see something, great! If not, no rush.

The mirror silver is nicely aged. This isn’t a bathroom that we use for getting ready, so a crystal clear image isn’t necessary.

The black and white polka dot shower curtain was in the first house. Even with a wide angle lens, it’s difficult to get a good shot, but it looks great in the space.

I’ve been crazy about the combination of black, white, and wood for some time now, so this bathroom is making me pretty happy. The simple palette tones down the playfulness of the polka dots too, and I love them in there. No need to take things too seriously when decorating, right?

January 28, 2014
Seven Years

Our first house was ninety seven when we bought it. Our Victorian was one hundred and twenty two. My marriage and corresponding wedding ring will turn ten this year, but it’s also the year my engagement ring turns one hundred. August will be three next month, and in April, Eleanor will be five. Today, Making it Lovely is seven years old.

I designed that print a few years ago, and you can download it here, for free. It’s hanging in the play room on the third floor, which I haven’t shared with you yet!

Seven years ago, I started this blog as Brandon and I moved into our first home. It feels really good to still be writing here, in a new (even older) home now. The kids, when we talked to them about moving, wanted to move to “a rainbow house.” We found it. We’re here. And I get to share everything about transforming and personalizing a home with you again, from the beginning.

Thanks for following along, day after day.

January 9, 2014