2 Dramatic Blue Gray Dining Nooks with Orange Accents & LPs!

Blue & orange. If you know a thing or two about the color wheel then you know the BAM! that this complementary color scheme has to offer. Blue and orange are definitely a color trend now in film, video, media. Think CSI Miami! Anyways, here are 2 young but not juvenile dining spaces with deep navy walls the perfect accents of orange. This rooms also have something else in common: records! Being a vinyl hoarder, I love to see records used in design.

Celerie Kemble dining nook

The first room is from designer Celerie Kemble’s portfolio. This is a cool space. It’s a little more modern than what I do, but it has vintage. OK, so the room isn’t “navy” but it is a bit of squid ink paint shade, so there is some blue in that gray. This gray appears more “blue” with the touches of orange. I love dark gray walls. It is a bit of a “modern” shade and it can come across as very masculine, but it packs drama. You want to transform a room in a weekend, paint it this color. Everything you own will look completely different. Whites will pop and blacks will shine. Anyways, I love the record storage in this nook! It is so clever to have it under the seating in a small space. I got to tell David. He need to build us one of these.  Anyways, this is a cozy space, very hip. I want to listen to records and lounge around drinking beer and eating guacamole and chips in this nook. *Oh, I love the textiles in here because it keeps this color combo and space from being too masculine. It’s a nice balance.

The other dining room or nook is from Rejuvenation’s website. It is a really cool space as well and totally reminds me of the early 1910-1940’s Craftsman homes in the Seattle area being fixed up by young adults like ourselves. (Rejuvenation is based in the PNW). This dining room is the kind of dining room you’d see in our neighborhood while your taking the dog out for an evening stroll. It’s classic but it has a special type of vintage lust seen in the under 40 crowd. I guess what I’m saying is that I love the look of vintage mid-modern pieces shoved into a Craftsman. The cool thing about this space is that you remove the furniture and the accessories and you have a classic Craftsman home that appeals to everyone. You didn’t do anything to ruin the vibe or the bones of the house. You worked with the house and added your tastes without destroying the authenticity of the home. I’m all about that.

Rejuvenation dining room

Anyways, I love this room. Once again, it is a “squid ink” shade that looks awesome against that white mill work. The orange accents are brilliant in this room. The lighting isn’t very typical of old homes but it has a nice vibe, a young vibe. I love the records on the ledge (recognize a few from our own collection). And one can never go wrong with a Saarinen table.

I guess we are going to try to finish the upstairs bathroom this weekend. I have to admit that I’d rather do something else, you know, like something fun. Oh, well. This house isn’t going to renovate itself. Bummer.

-Victoria

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Are We Done Yet? How Long Should A Renovation Take?

No, we’re not Frink. I don’t think we’ll be ever be done. Frink, you may never know a home without projects. You’re a renovation pup. There was a time you enjoyed rolling in torn up carpet foam and tracking through wet paint. Even those exotic textures and smells  bore you now? Sorry, Frink, how do you think I feel?

Tudorks 1 year update: Well, we aren’t divorced yet. That’s good. Everyone says that when you take on a project this huge that a divorce is certain. No, I completely disagree. If anything, it has made our marriage stronger. We have accomplished so much, still working on 1 year before and after pics. We’ve defuzzed, defurred, decarpeted, defunked 2500 square feet of living space. We’ve painted every single room. We’ve waxed every single floor. We’ve put down a new kitchen floor. We’ve electrical and plumbing down. And much, much more. I’ve blanked out half of the nasty projects from my memory. So, what’s left? Here’s the short list as to not bore you, Frink.

1. Finish upstairs bathroom. Please don’t laugh at us. Wasn’t this supposed to be done months ago? Need to touch up paint, clean up floor, maybe get tub glazed. This should be finished in a weekend.
2. Finish downstairs powder room. Put up ceiling tiles, rip up old floor and put down new. Maybe get “new” fixtures, meaning something more authentic to the era of the home. Oh, and get them working. A month of weekends?
3. Random paint touch-ups. We painted every room and then messed it all up in the renovating process. A room could be done nightly.
4. Repair front porch. Concrete is cracking, chipping. It’s a big mess and we are so intimidated by concrete projects. Pay somebody.
5. Finish cleaning door hardware and hang up remaining doors. Maybe a weekend?
6. Fireplace mantel. I will be so happy when that is done. I’m so picky that this may never get finished.
7. Oh, and all the new things that have to be done: replace windows, roof, make us completely and totally broke. Ughh, do I have to think about this? Welcome to the wonderful world of home ownership. Frink, can’t you get a job posing on a greeting card or something so we can replace a few windows or something? All you do is lay around, complaining, staying in your kennel all day.

So, yeah, these are the main things left. It’s doable considering how much we got done in 1 year on our own, but frankly I’m sick of renovating. I know this feeling is very normal when talking to other people and visiting home forums.  All of you home builders, home restorers, home renovators- how long did your project take? Are you finished? Am I sweating the small stuff? I expect repairs throughout ownership, but how long did it take you finish your “must do now” list? How did you live through it? 🙂

-Victoria

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Chartreuse Garden Shed

"salvage" garden shed featured in Sunset

Since the weather is much nicer and we have had enough of winter, we’ve been thinking about our exterior and gardening way too much. I saved this pic of this “salvage” shed from Sunset magazine sometime ago, before we even purchased our home. I loved the fun chartreuse shade of this garden shed hidden in a PNW jungle. It is so striking and sooo West Coast. And this shed is in Port Orchard, WA,  our neighbors across the inlet. The article contained interesting info and listed the plants in this garden. They seem to thrive in our environment. Since I am a transplant, I’ve had to study what works here. Sunset magazine has been very helpful for that.

Anyways, I’ve revisited this article (here) over and over again because this really, really resembles our exterior colors. Our house turned out this green, not what we expected, but we will live with it and like it. Our trim is a chocolate brown just like this shed. The difference is that our house is much larger and taller than this quaint, cute shed and we have no landscaping. Our lawn is naked and neglected. The chartreuse shade of our house can be seen miles away, I think, or so the neighbors tell each other. No lovely hydrangeas are breaking up the green from the curb. When I look at this picture, I realize that our colors didn’t turn out too bad. We will work with it. It’s unexpected and chartreuse is my favorite shade of green and green is my favorite color. This article/feature makes me want to go out and dig, plant, and turn crazy things into planters. It also makes me feel good about our unexpected color choice. I liked it when it was featured in a magazine, why wouldn’t I like it for myself?

-Victoria

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Will Our Retro Kitchen Ever Be Finished?

Our unfinished kitchen

I think it is only appropriate to show such a “moody” picture of the kitchen. This is how this kitchen makes me feel. I feel we made many gains quickly and then it stayed in this shape for 4 months. If you need a refresher, I’ll give you one. All of our cabinets and drawers were covered with blue faux fur, think Cookie Monster here, underneath the custom van complex addition, there were layers and layers of paint. This included an adorable mint green with the cutest vintage rose decals ever, too bad that couldn’t be. I think David spent 3 months just removing layers and layers of paint off of the cabinets/drawers. Oh, and Trappy’s Pepper Sauce (rehab homes are not easy may I remind you). Months later and we are still waiting for the fresh coat of white paint to dry on two doors. It then took me a couple of months to find the perfect vintage hardware (not seen in this pic). I did find the perfect hardware and that is a post soon to come. David redid the floor with eco-friendly (I couldn’t resist) and vintage fabulous marmoleum, the white tiles have been salvaged. We ordered the black. The original floor was a wreck, once again, a post in waiting. We did keep the original fixtures. I adore my faucet and my light fixtures and my shallow, long sink. I worked with my pink with gold flake counter top. I do love that as well and would get it new if I could. The walls are painted a ’57 Chevy teal or a milkier Fender Strat in Taos Turquoise, of course not seen in my moody pic.

It’s not the best picture. But, this hasn’t been a picture perfect renovation. It is going to take some time to get there with us both working full-time. I just thought I would share some of the progress we’ve made and to also complain a little about how I live. At least we have a stove and fridge. We lived off of a George Foreman and a mini fridge for many, many months. I guess I shouldn’t complain that one can see my spice collection, tea library, and bare white dishes. There used to be a dead muppet on the doors in there and a wigs worth of crazy bachelor’s hair. Oh, and I forgot the shagadelic, mod felt faces wallpaper!!!

-Victoria

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Upstairs Bedroom Is Painted

Painted upstairs bedroom

OK, I apologize for all of the slacking. We’ve been working hard on the house and at our jobs so we can have money to spend on the house. I know we aren’t taking pictures as much as we want and I know we aren’t sharing them enough. This is the upstairs bedroom, the bedroom that we are using, painted up.

It’s a Ralph Lauren $5 mistint. I ended up using this color all over the place because Home Depot had 5 gallons of the same shade. I used it in this bedroom, the “media” room (bedroom downstairs), and on the trim in the boudoir. I still have 3 gallons left.

At first I did not love this color. It was too sage. It was too “contemporary”. It would look taupe during the daytime and green at night. Now I love this color. It is a great neutral. It is a taupe with a bit of olive drab green. Once I got my stuff into this room, I love it. I’m still “decorating”. We just got our light fixture in this week. When this room is finished it will be very nice. Have I mentioned that I love mistints?

Before bedroom

In case you have forgotten, here is the room before. And in case you have forgotten, this was a hoarder house, not our mess but this is what we had to work with. I like the “original” mint walls but you wouldn’t believe the filth on them! Just black mess, layers and layers. The trim was also painted the same shade as the wall. I wasn’t wild about that. It took 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of trim paint to make that trim not look minty fresh.

More to come…

-Victoria

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Introducing Frink The Frug

Frink the frug

OK, so we are so freaking crazy. I guess we’ve been inhaling a bit too many toxic chemicals during this renovation and killed too many brain cells. We’ve added a new family member to the family. Let me introduce Frink the frug. Frink is a dumb looking puppy. His mother is a pug and his father is snazzy looking brindle French bulldog. We know we didn’t need to add any more stress to our lives, but Frink is so frugly that he is cute. We’ve been wanting, well, I have been wanting a French bulldog forever. (See my previous buttermilk baby posts.) Frink just happened to happen. I wouldn’t call myself a dog lover. I am very breed specific. I only like French bulldogs and pugs. Frink is a great compromise and quite an original. He has the coloring of a Frenchie and the pig tail of a pug. He has a “win me over” personality that I can’t resist. He’ll be a great older brother and hopefully positive role model for a buttermilk Frenchie sometime in the future.

Frink is very sweet, a bit dumb, but he is only 10 weeks old. I was shitting my britches and screaming at that age as well. Frink is great because he doesn’t judge. He doesn’t care if he is being raised in the chaos of a renovation. In fact, he loves to snack on lead paint chips, just kidding but I bet he would if he could. He doesn’t care if we appear stressed out about exterior paint colors. He just loves us. We’ve had him for 5 days and he is spoiled rotten. He’s a good friend and really well behaved for an infant. We’ve learned so much. We are becoming quite the behaviorist. We needed a distraction from the chaos of our renovation. It also feels very good. It makes us feel like a homeowner. No pet deposits, no asking for approval. Frink has really brought the home ownership, dare I say, home. We love our Frink and he gives us the motivation to finish this huge project 🙂

-Victoria

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We Got it!

So our loan got all the way to closing this week- we signed documents and so did the seller.  It briefly zombified, and I beat it back into it’s grave by supplying even more documentation on our contractors.  Later on, get this, my mortgage brokers had the nerve to complain about the fact that I didn’t have anything good to say about them when I talked to a friend’s secretary.  Never do business in a small town.

The exchange this week went like this:

Lender: You forgot to sign this form that says you’ve physically inspected the entire house and found everything in good working order.

Buyer: No, we refused to sign that.  Have you noticed that some work needed done on the house?

Lender: No one has ever refused to sign this, but the brokers did complain to us that you were “eccentric.”  (true story)

Lender: We need forms XYZ filled out on the plumbing subcontractor, and we need a lock of the plumber’s hair.  After you have done that, smear blood above your front door or we’ll take your first born child.

FHA Consultant: You don’t need those forms.

Lender: Yeah, you’re right.  Why don’t you write us a nice letter about how you’re contractor will take responsibility for the plumber.

Contractor: That’s what a contractor does.  Remember the stacks of insurance papers I sent you?

Lender: Oh, Alright.  Now have the buyer sign this photocopied page from an FHA pamphlet on how the 203K works.  There are no blanks- just sign anywhere.  (seriously they did this)

So at this stage I asked the escrow company to ram it through the county before the lender changes their mind.  Which they were going to do. Then the entire city lost power- just in time.

A couple hours later they got it back, and then they got it done.  So I went over to my new house.

And… I found the old owner living in it.  And his stuff is everywhere- calendars on the walls, food in the fridge, TV plugged up, sheets hung up to satisfy his rodent-like urge to hide, this guy is moved in.  After cleaning the house to satisfy the cleanup addendum, he then moved his clutter back into the house. We allowed him to stay the night tonight because the check to him hasn’t cleared.  There’s a full dumpster out front of the house which he claims will be picked up (yeah right, that’ll be my bill).  It’ll be followed by a 30 yard dumpster which will be filled with, we estimate, about 5 tons.  Can’t wait!

Tomorrow at 10AM I get to chase him out of the house and begin moving his garbage onto, I guess, the front lawn.

-David

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There is a Room Under All That Mess!

We think there is a room under this...

We now realize that we did make a risky purchase. When we made an offer on the house many of the rooms were cluttered, some you couldn’t walk into. This house was literally filled with junk. We had an inspector come through. He did the best he could do but he had to note that many of the rooms you couldn’t walk through. One room downstairs was overflowing with stuff. I could see a king size mattress, two couches on their side, bags and bags of kitty litter, a faux fur covered 8-track mini bar, huge moose antlers and tons of other overwhelming messes. This room could of had no floors, no windows, no walls. For all that we knew, it could of had a huge opening to hell. The realtor informed us it was a bedroom. Somehow we looked through this mess. I wanted to make this a “media” room. We have no need for 3 bedrooms and I don’t want a TV junking up my formal living room.

Well, the last time we inspected the home, it was pretty much cleaned out. Not all the way, but I could see the floors. They actually don’t look so bad. They are old growth hardwoods. Dirty, dirty, but Murphy oil soap works wonders. It has a nice reddish glow from age. I don’t think they will need refinished. And look there is base trim! I didn’t know if the room had it or not.

Cleaned out, sort of, but it's a room!

Seriously, we didn’t know if the windows were there. Ends up it is a bedroom. It has a nice size closet for an older home. The trim isn’t very wide but it will look nice painted white, for now. I hope to add some crown molding around the top to jazz it up. Maybe, one day I’ll add wider base trim. Oh, and the curtains come with the place. What a deal! I really wish he left that 8-track mini bar…

I plan on painting this room a neutral taupe and the trim white. It will house the couch that I so badly what to get rid of, which is an icy light blue. I wanted to keep it the walls this icy turquoise but that couch won’t go. It would clash. Not that I am planning my room around a couch I dislike, it’s just that all of my accessories, painted furniture, etc. is painted in this shade. I do have a love affair with this vintage color. This room will have the TV, stuff like that. This is my plan as of today. We’ll see what I want to do once I get it cleaned and primed.

-Victoria

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The New Minimalist Lifestyle

Hey, this reminds me of my stark life!

This past week, um 100 days, has been kind of hellish. We still haven’t closed on the house and really don’t know when we will. We hope to close tomorrow but we’ve been hoping that for over 100 days. All the docs are in but I’ve lost hope on closing this deal. Last week we were in a panic. The rental property wanted us out because we couldn’t sign a year long lease since we are hoping to close on a house soon. Our other options included month to month renting which was expensive, $1300 + other expenses for 700 square feet out in the middle of nowheresville. We could rent a vacation rental for a minimum of $900 a week. This would of been nice but David is still working over the summer and this would of made his commute too long. The other option was to rent a hotel and this was over $100 a night and totally booked because of the heatwave that took over the area. People were renting hotel rooms just to cool off. Just for 3 nights it would of been over $350 at a crappy hotel. These options had the possibility of totally breaking us. But, we really didn’t have any other options other than calling the housing deal off and just renting yearly again. We asked the stupid property management crew if we could rent month-to-month and they gave us a “no” about a month ago. After we had moved all of our stuff to a stinky storage unit, rented a U-Haul, and were doing the last cleaning touches to the rental at about 3 hours before we were supposed to turn the keys in, we get a call from the PM crew asking if we would still like to rent the place for a month. Some timing. We didn’t want to but it would be cheaper than our other options plus we don’t have an actual closing date and the other house isn’t move in ready. We were a few hours from homelessness and this seemed to be the best thing to do in our state of desperation. So, now we are in a minimalist house pulling some of the things from storage out that we need. Need I remind you that we loaded that stuff into storage on the hottest day like ever in Washington? This has been a really abusive week, months, but at least we have a home for the time being. A very minimalist ,almost like camping, home where we sleep on an air mattress, have like 5 clothing items, no washer or dryer, no pots/pans, tables/chairs, etc. I am seriously not a candidate for the minimalist lifestyle. I am not a fan of this starkness. It’s too frustrating and cold. Oh yeah, we threw out all of our food. I hate to complain about this but it is all a bit overwhelming. Currently, we have a home, an empty home, but it is a place to live and we know how much the costs are monthly. No surprises. Hopefully we will close this week and be able to start the other home’s renovation. It would be nice to have a clean place to live during this rehab time. I hope it all works out, it usually does, but man have we been up doo-doo creek lately without a paddle!

-Victoria

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Sage Green “Library” Living Rooms I Like

Robert Smith in a library looking living room.

I have decided to do the living room a little bit “stuffy” and the rest like a library. I still need for this to be a functional room. The built-ins will hold all of our books, surprisingly we have shed ourselves of many during this move. On the back wall I hope to put our 2 large Ikea Expedit bookshelves on the back wall to house records. This will be our “library”. Our place to relax in front of the fireplace, listening to exotica records and reading Pacific Northwest mushroom guides. I want it to be a cozy/functional but still very formal and put together space. I have found 2 sage green rooms that seem to pull this off. The first room is mainly a picture of Robert Smith. You could put anything in this room and it would look good (even Robert Smith) with all of that woodwork and trim. I do like the green color and it works nicely with the warm wood floors. I suck at arranging furniture in a room. This is my weakness mainly because I haven’t lived in a place long enough to acquire all the furniture needed for a room. The needs have been so different for each space we’ve rented. I kind of like the chair in front of the books like this. You just reach over and grab one and look through it. It is a cozy reading nook.

What is there not to love about this formal green living room/library. I’ve learned many valuable lessons on my path to first time home ownership. Many things have been stupid mistakes like “this mortgage broker is a d-bag and can’t do his job” or “maybe you shouldn’t purchase a home that is packed to the brim with some guy’s crap”. I have also learned much about design as a sort through pages and pages of decorating blogs. I have learned that rooms with 15 foot ceilings look awesome no matter what. Such as this room. If could have anything in it and look awesome with all of those amazing structural details. I just really like this room. This green looks very nice with the dark accents and high contrast zebra rug. It’s a formal room but it is still really, really functional. There is a computer in there, a desk. They even have clutter out with a coffee mug and it still looks polished and elegant. It’s just a matter of having everything where you need it. Oh, and having a totally awesome house with tall ceilings and awesome trim. The house we are getting has simple, wide trim. It’s typically of the 30’s and I’m excited about it even if it isn’t as embellished as these rooms. I can make it that way. Millwork is not dead. You just don’t see it too much in modern hastily made cookie cutter homes. I know the addition of millwork isn’t a priority with a rehab home but I hope that one day we’ll at least finish one room with fancy trim like this.

-Victoria

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