Monthly Archives: August 2010

Believe it or Not

I really don’t spend my life in thrift stores. Honest. It just seems that way.

I usually only make it to a thrift store once a week, and then it’s usually because the long, hot, miserable, humid, turgid, ferocious, scorching, summer weather has inflicted cabin fever on my boys, a dose so severe they beg me to take them somewhere. Anywhere.

I’m just trying to please my kids really. Taking one for the team is my nature.

(On that note, it has been a nice change of pace to see my boys entering a thrift store willingly and without tranquilizers. They’ve been — knock on wood — astonishingly well-behaved. As long as I give them something to hold and play with while they’re in the store, they’re usually quite pleasant.)

Anyway, back in July, Holly posted a query regarding her kitchen area: to eat in or not? As usual, she included some great photos for inspiration, including this one:

Normally, I’d call this too French Country for my taste, but I really liked the chairs. I’m into nailhead trim these days.

Cue the “B” Story: for the previous few weeks, I’d been watching a dining table and chairs set at Salvation Army. The original price of $189.99 had come and gone and still the set remained. When it hit 50% off, I was tempted. But the time just wasn’t right.

But somehow seeing the above photo got my wheels turning, and on my next trip to SA I managed to put two and two together. For a miracle, the dining set was still there — and was now 70% off.

Dining TableSo here it is. And only to you, blog friends, can I safely confide that she’s destined for a coat of paint. White paint, perhaps gray.

The puzzlement is the chairs. The seats obviously need doing.

Slub Ugly Fabric

The seats are a bit too large for their frames and it looks slightly awkward, so I’ll probably cut them down a little. I thought I might recover the seats in pale blue linen (or whatever cheap facsimile I can come up with), finished with extra large nailhead trim.

The inspiration photo is coaxing me to upholster the backs, too, but I’m not sure about how to contend with the figure-eight detailing.

The Eight ChairsI like it but it’s not exceptional. Do I cover it on one side? Both sides? Recover only the seats and let the eights speak for themselves? Rip out the eights completely?

For the time being, I have white canvas slipcovers (meant for the Ikea Henriksdal chair, but they fit so who cares?) to disguise the slub ugly fabric. Hopefully that gives me time to decide about the eights, decide about upholstering the backs, find the right upholstery fabric, paint the chairs, paint the table, learn to do upholstery, finish our bathroom remodel, have another baby or two, raise my children to adulthood, write my novel, dye my hair, learn to play the guitar and become Bunco champion before I have to actually recover the chairs.

No rush, right?


Linking up to:

Say Hello to My Lil’ Friend

Oh, wait. That’s how I felt on Tuesday.

Just imagine my old computer in the line of fire and you’ll just about have it.

Here we go:

Toshi and I have spent the last few days making friends. I haven’t introduced him to all the other kids in the neighborhood yet, but so far, he’s seems to be fitting in just fine.

I was planning on a nice post of cute photos I took of the boys and then heard the little rascals stirring. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

Out With the Old

If your catching the scent of something crispy on the breeze, don’t worry. It’s only my hard drive.

Tomorrow, I’ll begin my day with trips to Office Depot and Best Buy, trying to replace my right arm computer equipped with nothing but a long list of limitations borne by anyone whose computer has unexpectedly gone nuclear right in the middle of a hectic week.

Not to mention I’ll be making these trips with children in tow. Imagine taking two young boys to a store filled with gadgets, buttons, cords, outlets, remotes, the hum of hardware and the scent of burnished silicone. Then imagine yourself repeating: “Don’t-touch-that-leave-that-alone-not-that-either-keep-your-hands-to-yourself-don’t-hit-your-brother-don’t-hit-me-can’t-you-leave-that-alone-for-fifteen-bloody-seconds-excuse-me-sir-does-Best-Buy-serve-alcohol?”

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day. I can feel it.

So right now, I’m using my husband’s computer — and his crazy Internet Explorer, which doesn’t show my blog header which really irritates me but isn’t remotely important enough for me to worry about this century — to post an explanation for why I don’t know when I’ll be posting again.

Because I may not survive this trip tomorrow. After the 653rd recitation of the above speech about not touching those tempting buttons, my two sons will probably jack me with a sock-full of pennies, steal my car keys and leave me for dead.

On a brighter note, I was delighted that Joni Cohen Webb of Cote de Texas has given me new reasons to love the gray marble for the bathroom. Too bad all my decorating bookmarks got cooked with the hard drive and I’ll never be able to find my inspiration photos again. I may never finish the bathroom now. But I guess since I’ll be lying in the dumpster at Best Buy tomorrow, it won’t really matter for very long.

With Regret

For those growing tired of my ramblings on the bathroom remodel, feel free to skip this post. Move on. There’s nothing for you to see here.

But I’m having second thoughts.

Until Friday, I’d never actually made it over to a particular tile store very highly recommended to us. They aren’t open on weekends. Or, as far as I can tell, any time a woman with kids could possibly visit.

On Friday, however, Scott took the day off so we could knock out several during-business-hours-only errands and he insisted I go to the tile store. To be honest, I didn’t want to. Even if this store carried white beveled subway tile, the chance of its being less than $2.13/SQFT was slim to none. Waste. Of. Time.

But seeing as I’m still maneuvering for an advantage in the War of the Tub, I made it a point to play along. No sense in uselessly antagonizing my opponent, right?

As far as it goes, I was sort of right. They had no white beveled subway tile. It may still be proven to have been a waste of time, but only because I’ve suffered a massive setback to my ideas of how to make this bathroom beautiful on a budget. This store had such incredibly lovely and unique tile, I’m still trying to recover.

If you think I’m crazy, take a look at this supplier — just one of several they carry. If you don’t fall in love at least once, you might as well stop reading my blog forever. We have nothing further to say to each other.

True to form, I managed to pick out the most incredible marble mosaic I’ve ever laid eyes on. The owner finally agreed to give me a price quote after I signed a waiver to release the store from any liability should I pass out on the (gorgeous) showroom floor. It didn’t exactly surprise me to find out the continuance of my new romance would cost $150 a square foot.

But I was still destroyed.

After a little grief counseling, the owner found a few options closer to my price range. But now I’m torn. I’d settled on the Brazilian Black slate, but it may be because I couldn’t find a true gray marble anywhere. My new enabler has found me Nordic Grey:

…and Ice Grey:

Not to mention endless possibilities of white and gray marble mosaics.

What’s a girl to do? Between spells of guilt, that is, because I’m feeling pretty silly being totally absorbed by such superficial and globally-insignificant questions as:

  • How much marble is too much marble?
  • Is black too dark to complement white marble counters, white subway tile wainscoting and white cabinets?
  • Is marble too much maintenance for a bathroom floor?
  • Do I have to hire an installer for marble tile or can my beleaguered husband do it?
  • Why do I have such expensive taste?
  • Is having expensive taste a sin?
  • Lord, if it is a sin, will you forgive me for my expensive taste after I finish the bathroom?
  • Is $15,000 too much for a bathroom floor?
  • Can I sell a kidney to pay for the floor tile?
  • Would that be a sin?

The preceding program has been a dramatization of actual events. No housewives, husbands, bank accounts or understanding of the theological truths of Sin and Forgiveness were harmed in the course of this dramatization.

It just feels like it.

(By the way, if you need a kidney, my blood type is O-negative. Please call me.)

A Wet Bar for the Nursery

Yesterday, after naptime, I felt a disturbance in the Force.

So naturally, I chased the kids into the van and headed over to Salvation Army. Something was calling to me from that little store. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.

And She was the first thing I saw coming through the door.

She was labeled: “Wet Bar.” But I saw through the charade —She couldn’t hide what she really was. Sure enough, a hidden label betrayed her identity.

Wet Bar, my foot. The label said: “Pottery Barn Kids.”

Her name is Madison.

Of course, mine is a bit more banged up. But what I paid would have covered PBK’s Shipping Surcharge and nothing else, so it’s pretty easy to reconcile myself to a few character flaws. (Madison’s, not mine. Those are a bit harder to ignore.)

She’s at home in the nursery now, making new friends and trying to ignore walls in desperate need of repainting. But there’s no baby on the way, so I’m focused on priorities.

Because it’s going to take some time to retrofit the interior to accommodate the wine cooler, but I think in the end, it’ll be worth it.


Linking up to:

Brother, can ya spare three grand?

While the War of the Tub rages over the skies of Camelot, daily life goes on with as much normalcy as we can muster. No, we have not evacuated our children to the countryside to live in the old manor house of an elderly professor. Yet.

Actually, the best I could manage to find was a rusty double-wide inhabited by Earl and Lurlene Bumpass and their sixty-four hounddogs. I think I’ll wait and see if the Axis of Whirlpool crumples before our straits become so desperate as that.

I’m still looking for a compromise. I thought I found one last week, but my dear husband is hard coming to terms with the fact that if I want a freestanding bath and he wants a whirlpool, compromise means an acrylic jetted tub. And acrylic “feels cheap” (to him). Unless it is cheap, namely the acrylic drop-in tub he wanted in the first place, which feels fine to him. Go figure.

Even so, I couldn’t resist playing with the photos of my bathroom, ala Layla, to help us envision what we’re aiming toward.

BEFORE

Possible AFTER

The colors may be a little off — I haven’t made a final decision on the wall or cabinet paint and the floor tile looks more green than it should. The scale of the subway tile, and perhaps other things, is also off a bit. But this is the general idea.

This is a compromise tub. It’s jetted, to please the Axis powers, and freestanding for the sake of the Allies. I’m not a huge fan of clawfeet, and would probably prefer white to chrome, but I was trying to meet him in the middle and this is all I could find.

The Bordeaux Tub

I could live with it, but I no love it.

And of course, as I keep looking, trying to find tubs to please us both in every possible way, I keep finding tubs I love. Pricey ones. Ouch.

Observe.

The Marlborough

This is the Marlborough by Victoria + Albert. I love this tub. It’s huge: 74 inches long. It’s made out of “rare volcanic limestone and resin.” It’s one piece of solid tub-tastic-ness. I want it.

By the way, the real Marlboroughs live here:

Blenheim Palace

I couldn’t find a picture of their tub. But I’ll bet it’s nice.

The Marlborough tub would bring a little Blenheim to my bathroom. But I have this  hangup about spending three [gasp...choke, choke] thousand dollars on a bathtub. Even if we had the money, I don’t think my constitution would allow me to hand it over for something which could functionally be replaced by a horse trough.

The only prayer I have is trolling the web until I find it at some impossible bargain. Maybe Victoria + Albert will decide to part ways and have a liquidation sale. Maybe the Marlboroughs will sue for proprietary use of their name and bankrupt the company, triggering a massive short sale of their entire inventory.

Okay, yes, I’m really grasping for straws. Chances are better I’d win the Lottery.

The Lottery. Hmmm…

A Little Ketchup

Well, not that kind, exactly.

I actually decided to celebrate my “blog-iversary” with a little vacation to the Bahamas.

Okay, that’s not precisely true either. But it sounds a lot more entertaining than: “I’ve been too busy to post,” or, worse still, “I just didn’t feel like it.”

Both of which statements are true.

As to the first, I haven’t been exactly laying around. Since my last post, I have:

  1. Moved and/or rearranged a magnitude of furniture.
  2. Shifted my youngest son’s entire wardrobe into the room he’s been sharing with his older brother for a couple of months now.
  3. Watched all my carefully-planted begonias shrivel in the relentless sun, despite the combined efforts of my husband and I to save them from such a grim fate.
  4. Completed my set of Harry Potter by buying the first four books off a college-bound lad for a mere $20 American — and then reread the entire series.
  5. Continued negotiations in the Great Tub Debate of 2010. No cease fire in sight.
  6. Accepted the practicality of using an RSS Reader to follow all my favorite blogs. I held out for as long as I could.
  7. Broken the headset for my cordless phone. Which might as well have included cutting off one of my arms for all that it’s done to my productivity.
  8. Finished Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. Eight pounds down, thank you.

As to the second of the above statements, I’m sure it’s been due to equal measures of ferocious heat and hunger for food I’m not allowed to have, but I’ve been less than motivated the last couple of weeks. I just get plain grouchy when I can’t have what I want, and you all don’t need to hear about that, eh?

But now that’s behind me, it’s time to get back into the swing o’ things. I have posts in the works. If I were serious about a teaser campagin, I would say they may include:

  • South Beach-friendly recipes that kept me sane
  • the debut of a major contemporary artist
  • more craft projects
  • and who knows what else?

But I’m not much of a tease. So you’ll just have to wait while I get it all sorted out.

Have a happy,

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