My beeyoootiful new bedroom light

As promised, this project deserved it's own post. One of the few things I didn't love about the master bedroom is the light. It was ok, kind of generic, white base with alabaster glass. It didn't put out enough light for the room, though, so right off the bat I knew I wanted something a little fancier and something that cast more light.


Having taken the time to make the ceiling fancy with the molding and two colors of paint, I knew I wanted something that would feel upscale but not too formal. I love the crystal chandelier trend, but didn't want something that looked overly girly. The wall colors are Natural Linen and Simple Silhouette, a pale beige and deep gray-brown. Very neutral colors which can lend themselves to either shabby chic or modern decorating styles. Since I am more eclectic, I wanted something that was romantic but not too frou frou. I waffled over light fixtures for some time, thinking first to use this one from Lowes:

When I saw it in person, however, it just wasn't right. It was more bronze than pewter and was quite small. I liked the less formal shape, but it just wasn't putting off enough light and wouldn't look right in our 14'x14' room. So then I started looking at other, more traditional chandeliers. When I saw this one on Overstock.com I knew it was the one:

It was a little more than I was hoping to spend at $206, but it was everything I wanted- with 6 lights, real glass, and softened by the big drum shade which happens to be a current trend that I like, as well as a trendvery suitable for a bedroom. 


The light arrived on Monday so we decided to call it an easy night and just install the light. Most of the crystals were assembled so we figured about an hour, no sweat. HA!


Now, I want to say that my husband is no slouch when it comes to installing things like this. He installed every light fixture in the house and swapped out ancient fixtures in both our first house and our current one. This was not his first light-show-rodeo. And yet it took us 3 1/2 hours to install this bugger. 


Within about half an hour we had the old light down and this one ready to install. Except that as soon as we saw the small little cap for covering the ceiling hole we knew it wasn't going to cover our standard sized box. Enter the emergency trip to Home Depot to try to find something that would work.

This pic shows our solution. See the brushed pewter cap that has the fluted edges? That is what was supplied with the light. The larger circle is a brushed nickle ceiling fan cover that we found at Home Depot for under $6. It came with it's own bracket and mounting hardware, which we tried to use. It didn't work. Then we went to plan C which was to combine the two. This worked, but it required some careful consideration on how it was all going to be threaded and put together. 


The problem, I think, is that the manufacturer originally designed this to be a portable lamp. The cord had a warning tag on it for the consumer which indicated it had a polarized plug (one prong larger than the other)- as if they expected you to plug it into a wall socket. There was no prong, however. I think they tossed this cap in as an afterthought. Or maybe electrical light boxes are smaller in China than our standard? Who knows. What I want you to picture is two fairly intelligent people puzzling this whole thing together while the one with the bum shoulder tries to hold it over her head for an hour. 

(that would be me)

The light came with a long chain, but the fixture itself is so long that we only used one link. I absolutely adore how it looks in this room and I think that between this room and the laundry closet, I'm starting to feel a sense of ownership in this space. 


This, of course, is a double edged sword. The more ME I inject into this home, the less it seems that mom remains. The emotional toll is it's own post entirely, but I'm trying to think less about that so I don't have plans to elaborate about it on here any time soon. 

My lovely light from a few angles- lit up at night:

How it looks during the day:

Now my question to you is, what kind of bed?

Iron? Wood? White wood? Black? 

Give me your thoughts by posting in the comments, please!

Staircase part 2- prepping for greatness

The initial demolition was rather satisfying. The next stage was a little tedious. What we are intending to achieve is a more open and light look and feel to this area. Since the staircase is the first thing you see when you walk in, we want it to be more of a focal point. When we built the house, we were struggling with the budget after the contractor forgot a little thing called TRUSSES. If you've ever built a house you know that is not something you just forget. That error put a $10,000 crimp on our budget and to reclaim the difference we sacrificed compromised on a lot of the finishing details, including the staircase. 


I've looked at a zillion images of staircases and think that the best fit for the architecture of this house will be a wood banister with white rails. I want to carpet the stairs because I feel it is safer than wood and most of the flooring in the house will be hard surface. It will be a way to bring in a softer surface on a lower traffic area. 


We had the option of following the angle of the staircase or notching the base at the level of each stair. We chose the latter, because we like the look and have a good idea how we want to trim it out. Installing the rails will likely be easier too. Building and reinforcing the base was not exactly complicated, but did require a fair amount of patience and many trips back and forth to cut 2x4's.

Once that was done, it was time to put the drywall back up.

See that ladder? This is where it goes:

Part of the compromise I mentioned earlier was that we did all the drywall ourselves in an effort to bring the budget back. Our savings in labor costs manifested in several areas where the seams were less than desirable. This was one- of course the highest, most difficult to reach spot in the entire house.


Once the mud was dry, it was time to paint. We started with the ceiling. One thing I wanted to change is the ceiling fan at the top of the stairs. It is too large for the space and it seems a little dated to me. I suggested we remove it now so that it would be easier to paint. Bye fan!

Together, we painted primer over the entire upper stair area. This was a little tricky and required some clever maneuvering of the ladder. And a broom handle.

The walls are all white now, the ceiling has been painted white semigloss. Next is painting the walls and installing a new fan, both of which need to be purchased. The lower hall needs a little more mudding attention and to be painted as well. Then we'll get to start on the really fun stuff- adding the woodwork and trimming the staircase out.

Staircase part 1- deconstruction

Remember this? The view from the top of the stairs? The blue that promotes feelings of intense rage within me? It is gone.

So is the half wall that ran up the side of the staircase.

Before- looking up stairs from front door.

Before- looking down hall toward laundry closet.

The tool of choice.

Any last words, nasty blue wall?

The Sawz-All slices through like butter. 

Note- there was no power run to these walls. 

Don't try this unless your wall is also "unplugged."

No wall up here. Cool.

Lower wall, now it is your turn. We can take it slow or just rip the bandaid off quickly. Your choice.

Ha, ha, that was fun!

Hey dude! Think you can throw me a cold one? 

It sure is exhausting watching you work. 

Whew!

Master Bedroom

Oh, do I have so so so much to say. But I think for today I'm going to let the pictures do the talking and save my commentary for a time when I have more than 15 minutes before Sons of Anarchy is on. 


Here is the evolution of the master bedroom - so far-

Gray walls, white trim, broken white mini blinds hanging in the windows, carpet ripped out already, big drywall mess on the floor from bumping the laundry closet back into this room.

Back of the laundry closet before the new drywall was added. I know, exciting, huh?

Taping off the ceiling. We're gonna get tricky...

Walls painted Simple Silhouette, ceiling painted Natural Linen and Contemplation, all Behr. Other walls also painted Natural Linen. 

Who needs child labor laws?

  

Adding crown molding. Until one bad cut required another trip to Lowe's. 30 minutes away. Sh*!

What it looks like at this moment. New light fixture- oh, that is an entire blog entry filled with colorful language. But isn't it pretty? l.o.v.e.

Love and hate

Today I spent my day working on the hall of doors. 

From this angle, you can see 4 of the 6 doors in this hall. 
All of them need to be painted. 3 coats on each side of the door, plus door frames. That would be a total of 36 coats of white semi-gloss paint on these doors. I think. If my math skills are a little fuzzy it is because I've been in white semi-gloss hell all day and everything is a shiny white blur.

This is taken from the opposite direction in the spare bathroom's doorway. The pantry door is to the right, which you can't see here. Straight out in front on the right are (closest to farthest) basement, linen closet, spare bedroom/studio. On the left is the master bedroom. You can just see the edge of the dryer there on the left. Know what that means? After all these doors are painted and the new flooring is installed, we'll put up the bifold doors that go on the laundry closet and I'll have more doors to paint. 


Oh, joy.


I've come to both love and loathe white semi-gloss. Nothing freshens up a room more than having a new coat of white paint on the trim. It screams clean and neat, even if everything else in the room does not. But the actual painting of white semi-gloss? Oh lord help me. 


b...o...r...i...n...g...  


My mind is screaming for color and fun and- 
and I still have 21 coats to go.
Not counting the laundry doors. 


Blech.


btw- that blue is not staying. I can't wait to cover the blue. It bugs me in a way I really can't even explain, nearly inciting me to violence. I know, it seems like such a tranquil color. But I despise it and soon it will be erased by either something linen or sand or whatever fancy name for beige. Which is really sad. I mean, what does it say about my current state when beige is something exciting???

Spare Bathroom -so far

It isn't quite done, but I thought I'd give you a little teaser on the spare bathroom. If we work hard, I think it is realistic to expect this to be done by the end of the weekend. Yay!

What we've done so far... I mentioned that the electrical had to be redone when we were expanding the laundry closet. This left us with a big hole in the wall that had to be repaired. Fixing the electric meant changing the door swing to the place it was originally intended, which meant removing the existing door and replacing with a new one. The bead board glue had come loose so it needed to be fastened to the wall again. This time we used nails. The ceiling had an area that needed to be repaired, plus it needed to be repainted and of course, cleaned thoroughly.

I've got to the point of painting the walls with primer and 2 coats of paint. I still see a few touch ups, plus the trim and ceiling still need to be painted. The floor will need to be re-grouted before we put down the floor trim, and we still need to install the new door. But we have made a lot of progress.

The old, very bold turquoise color-

The new colors-

I took one pic with the light on and one with the light off. On the right with the light off is a truer depiction of the yellow color. It is actually the same shade of yellow in the great room of our current home, Behr's Calm Air. The gray aqua color is Behr's Contemplation. Calm Air and Contemplation- good names for a bathroom, don't you think?

There is a tall white cabinet that fits in to the left of the pedestal sink. That has been removed while we work but will be replaced soon. The pedestal will be fitted properly back under the sink and the tank will be put back on the toilet. It is all a process, but I wanted to show you that we have really started work on the main floor.

DIY How to Remove Wallpaper Border

How do you feel about wallpaper? Seems like a polarizing question- people love it or hate it. I'm not terribly fond of it, however I have used it, especially decorative borders to easily add a design element to a room. My dislike of wallpaper originated in the first house my husband and I owned. When we bought it, we didn't realize that the garish Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtle-Green paint in the previous owners' son's bedroom wasn't just painted walls. It was actually painted wallpaper. Since we were new to the whole renovation thing, we were adamant that we were going to do it "right." Which meant stripping the wallpaper down to the plaster and painting.

Well.

That was a noble idea, but we soon realized that there were more layers of wallpaper than the one that was covered by the very bold green. Five layers in one bedroom. Six layers in the other. In both rooms the paint covered the ceilings. Oye. What started as a simple paint job turned into two weeks using a hot, heavy steamer during one of the hottest summers on record in a non-air-conditioned house. Picture steaming hot water dripping down your arms and face as you hold a steamer over your head for HOURS, hundred degree heat, scraping one foot sections off at a time. Decades-old wallpaper landing in your hair, old glue sticking to your face. After stripping off all that wallpaper I vowed to myself NEVER AGAIN. I would never use wallpaper. NEVER.

It is easy to understand, then, why I loathe wallpaper. Except sometimes it really does add just the right touch. The spare bedroom that is going to be my studio's new home was previously used as a little grandmother's sewing room. When we built the house I found a vintagey sewing border and thought it was perfect. With a new purpose, it is time to remove the border. Fortunately I know the walls are sound underneath and this border isn't hiding any of the things wallpaper is often used to mask. If you've never removed wallpaper, stripping it can be easy or difficult, depending on the adhesive that was used to apply it. Most readily available modern wallpapers are vinyl coated so the first thing you want to do is try to peel off that top layer.

This can actually be sort of fun. Kind of reminds me of peeling off skin after a sunburn, trying to see how long of a piece you can pull off at once. Pull with a slow, steady tug to maximize the length and minimize your efforts.

Sometimes you'll have wallpaper which refuses to give up the top layer. In that case you'll have to score the surface with a tool called a tiger tail. It is just a plastic disc with what looks like toothy gears underneath that you swirl over the wallpaper to help the hot water and chemical release penetrate to the paper underneath.

Since I was able to peel off almost all the vinyl, I was left with just the glued paper backing. Using a sponge and warm water, I like to get the paper wet before using any chemicals. It doesn't need to be so saturated that it drips down the walls, but you do want to make sure the surface is completely damp because it will make the chemical stripper work better and faster.

Next, spray the paper with a chemical stripper. I personally like this DIF spray. This bottle has lasted me through at least 5 stripping projects and 9 years. I consider it a bargain! It goes a long way when you remove the vinyl and wet the paper first, and it is still just as fast and effective as it was when new.

Gosh, now that I'm boasting on it, I hope it is still available. The gel spray is nice because it doesn't drip down the walls. It stays where you spray it and makes the whole process much less messy than steamers or liquids.

I work in small sections, maybe 4' or 5' at a time with border, smaller if I'm doing larger pieces of wallpaper. Let the DIF set for about 10 minutes and then see if it is ready with a plastic scraper.

You can see my scraper has seen some use over the 20 odd years I've had it! I use kind of an arcing motion to scrape the paper off the walls. It should come up easily, if it doesn't, you may need to use a wet sponge to re-wet the area and spray a little more DIF. When it is going well, the paper will come off in nice sheets just like the vinyl, although you will have to use the scraper underneath almost the entire surface.

Once all the paper is off, use fresh warm water and a clean sponge to remove the remaining glue residue. If there are any nail holes, be sure to spackle and sand, then you'll be ready to primer and apply a fresh coat of paint.

Removing the wallpaper border in this room took approximately half an hour. As I said, with the right technique and tools, and newer wallpaper, this process doesn't have to be brutal. If your wallpaper is a century old, though, as it was in my first house- well, I wish you a little luck and a lot of patience. On the bright side, two weeks of steaming could land you some nice triceps!