Tag: Victorian House

Pink in the Library

The day after I got back from my trip, I figured I may as well paint a room. Then I realized what a dummy I was for pushing myself too hard, and I took a few more days to rest before putting on a second coat of paint and finally finishing up. The library is now the most perfect shade of pale pink (Pink Ground from Farrow & Ball).

I tried to make the boy do most of the work, but he gave up about two minutes in. Thanks a lot, kid. I know three-year-olds are not the most reliable when it comes to manual labor, but can you not see the state your poor mother is in?

I was eager to see some payoff after all of that painting, so I laid out one of the rugs I brought back from Morocco in an effort to create the illusion of a finished room. (Tricksy bloggers with their vignettes!) Eleanor went ahead and set up the pink stools around the table in preparation for a tea party — appropriate, since I drank mint tea while rug shopping.

I like the rug and I love that it would have the memory of picking it out in the Marrakech souk attached to it, but it’s not working in the larger context of the space right now. It’s too near the entryway and its vintage Persian Koliaei runner, and the two clash. The Persian can be used in the hallway upstairs though, which gives me a couple of options. Either I can find a runner to compliment the Moroccan rug, or just move the rug into the entry instead of the library. It’s a funny size (4’6″ x 8’6″), and it would actually fit pretty nicely, but I don’t know how well it would hold up to heavy traffic. Chicago winters are not kind to entryways with all of the salt and snow that gets tracked in, and the dense wool Persian is fairly impervious to all of that. I’ll have to play around with my options a bit more.

I am loving the pink walls though! I’d been missing my favorite color.

July 7, 2014
A Groovy Kind of Porch

We reused what we already had for our front porch, and it looks pretty good out there right now. We’ve been sitting out there a lot though since I set it up, and it’s clear that what’s missing is a comfortable chair with arms and a back high enough to rest one’s head on. Everyone appreciates a comfy seat, yes? Like, maybe a hanging swing type of seat?

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I like the idea of something that hangs from two ropes or chains, as I imagine less crashing into the house possibilities with the kids around. Serena & Lily has a hanging rattan chair that I’ve admired for a while, and now they have a wider double version too. Then while I was out walking in the neighborhood, I spotted a version in the window at Pier 1. Turns out, they have several “Swingasans” to choose from right now. Anthropologie has one too, but it’s a little too mod for me. Because yeah, turns out I’m kinda into seventies’ and eighties’ style wicker and rattan for the outside of the Victorian.

Peacock chairs are so trendy right now, but they really would work well here. There’s a house nearby with a set outside that has a his-and-hers vibe with different bases. There are plenty of new and vintage options online and locally to choose from.

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I know, that second one above (the Handwoven Boline Chair) isn’t really a peacock chair, but it is pretty amazing. Or ZOMG, something like this, below, would be adorable! Actually, it wouldn’t really work out front — I just wanted to share this pretty picture, ha! Anyway, I saw a vintage set of these years ago, cheap, in Palm Springs. I doubt they pop up that often here in Chicago.

More realistically, I still like these chairs that I blogged about several years ago. Here are a few similar styles. Only some have a high-back, but even just having a chair with arms would be an improvement over what we have now.

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What do you like? A hanging rattan swing, peacock chair, or the more simplified style of the last set of chairs and benches? I’m about to leave for a trip and won’t be back for a couple of weeks, so I’m going to take a little time to think it over.

June 12, 2014
The Clubhouse

The back of our house has a two-story porch. Beneath the bottom one is a short space that was filled with gardening stuff left for us by the previous owners: plant stakes, watering cans, bags of potting soil, and the like. We were straightening up out back and then it started to rain, so pardon the lack of a zoomed-out photo here, but I wanted to at least snap quick photo so you could get an idea of the space.

Brandon took the kids to IKEA yesterday to pick up a play table and chairs, to turn the storage space into a clubhouse. He chose the MAMMUT series even though he wasn’t nuts about the look of it because it was plastic (to hopefully stand up to the elements) and it looked like it would be fairly stable on uneven ground. I would have researched this to death, so sometimes it’s nice to have someone who just goes and gets something done. He came home, cleared out the space, and set things up.

It looks a little rough, but it’s safe. No nails sticking out, exposed wires or insulation or anything, and the kids can stand up with a little headroom to spare.

My inclination is to really do it up in there (paint! curtains! string lights!), but of course Eleanor and August love it as it is. Their first rule? “Leave it messy. No cleaning up allowed.” They also made it clear that both food and books can be brought in. Oh, and then there’s the matter of the sign out front.

Eleanor and her friend are both big sisters to sometimes-annoying little brothers, so that’s where that came from. Eleanor later conceded that August can still come in though. And her daddy. And her friend’s little brother. So that leaves out… who, exactly?

Have you made a little club/tree/playhouse for your kids? How involved in setting it up did you get? Tell me I’m not the only one that gets the urge to sew little gingham curtains for the inside that would likely not be appreciated.

June 10, 2014
Further Plans for the Bathroom

As opposed to the guess I made a couple of months ago. I got so excited when I heard about the Rifle Paper Co. wallpaper collaboration with Hygge & West that it inspired a design plan for the bathroom, but I’ve tweaked it a bit since then and am happier with the new direction it’s heading in.

Before the complete collection launched, only one design was shown: Rosa, in yellow.. After everything became available last week, I ordered samples of some of my favorites and was somewhat surprised when I liked the Rosa pattern in persimmon best. The color is vivid, but it looks great in the room. The plan on the left is the original, and the one on the right is mostly the same, but with a pink bathtub to complement the blooms in the wallpaper.

Super cute, but that was the problem. A little too cute. I feel like it would have been a great fit in our first house, but here I feel myself pulled in a different design direction. While at the Merchandise Mart yesterday to pick up a gallon of paint, I stopped in several showrooms to look at wallpaper. After trying out some new pattern samples, here’s where I’m at with the design now.

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The paper is Summer Lily in black, white, and bronze from Cole & Son. I had the brass stool from the last house, and I’ve already added the trash can, bathmat, art, and two of those striped hand towels to this bathroom. The hooks were added semi-recently too, so the only things I would still need to change are the color of the bathtub, the light, and the wallpaper.

I painted the pedestal tub in the last house dark grey, and here I think black will be fantastic. The Hicks pendant may wait a bit because I’m going to give the old light from Eleanor’s room a try first. It isn’t bad, and it’s free. The biggest expense will be from the wallpaper, and even that will only be a few hundred dollars since we can hang it ourselves. The cost is worth it for such a big impact.

The bathroom could have waited (truly, it didn’t bother me much), but I feel like this is a good area to take on right now because the finish line is easily within sight. Timing though, may get tricky. The wallpaper has to be ordered, and then I’m leaving soon on a trip. When I get back, I’ll be about six months pregnant and while I hung wallpaper at five months along before, that was back when I was a spry young whippersnapper and I’m not sure if I’ll be physically up to it a month from now. Hopefully, but I only started feeling better recently and it may be a short window.

Anyway, I’m curious about how you like the wallpaper. Do you? It’s got that ugly/pretty thing going on that I tend to like, but I have a feeling a lot of you would prefer the cute Rosa pattern (or something else)!

June 5, 2014
Fornasetti’s Chiavi Segrete Wallpaper

This may be the new choice for the dining room. If I’m not going with clouds coming in, or a grayscale forest etching, why not hedges full of keys?

Cole & Son

Design Crisis

Cole & Son

The wallpaper design is Fornasetti II Chiavi Segrete, from Cole & Son. It’s lush, mysterious, and just a bit sinister. Perfect for the Victorian, yes?

It solves a few of the problems that I had with the other options. It’s meant to be a repeating pattern, not a mural, so the application will be seamless. And it’s pricey, but less expensive than grisaille wallpapers I wanted. I have high hopes for this one! Samples are on the way.

June 2, 2014
The Built-in Bookshelves and Rolling Ladder in the Library

The library project is done! The shelves are in! The ladder is up!

Well, it’s 95% done. Those three panels beneath the window seat are placeholders until the ones that match the rest are ready, and we need a cushion for the bench top. I haven’t decided whether I’ll add hardware to the doors yet (they have magnetic push latches inside), and I’ll probably switch out the outlet covers for wooden ones. The important thing though is that the shelves are in! The ladder is up!

Our carpenter did great work and has solid craftsmanship, but I made some stupid mistakes by not being as hands-on during the design process as I should have. It was not a fun learning experience. I can get nitpicky and tell you what I don’t like — mainly proportion/scale issues that I should have been more mindful of — but overall I’m happy.

The rolling library ladder was provided by Custom Service Hardware, and it definitely makes the shelves. Brandon and I love it! Even our carpenter was impressed by its quality. The wheels brake automatically, and each kids’ weight is enough to engage the mechanism. August likes rolling the ladder, but he won’t climb. Eleanor would go to the top if we let her.

It arrived in pieces and unfinished (in our choice of wood, oak), but smooth and ready to finish. Those pieces, along with the rest of the wood for the library, were stained with Minwax Wood Finish in Early American to match the home’s existing trim.

I chose vertical roller brackets so that the ladder’s hardware could be supported by the vertical supports of the bookshelf, since the shelves are all adjustable. For finishes, I was between the hammered antique brass and oil rubbed bronze options. Brass would have been a better match to the existing metal finishes in the house, but I’m not a big fan of the hammered look so I went with bronze. Mixing metals doesn’t bother me when they’re complementary, and I think the almost-black color looks nice and is more understated than brass may have been.

Our ladder is nine feet tall. It doesn’t stick out too far into the room and I like the look of the ladder in the climbing position, but its rolling hardware gives us the option of storing it upright when not in use.

The shelves were finished on Friday and on Saturday morning, we quickly unloaded about 40 boxes of books onto the shelves. We had two parties this weekend so I haven’t had time to take more photos yet, but just like that, this house felt much more like our home. I’m so glad we put these shelves in, mistakes along the way and all.

May 5, 2014