2 Royal Purple Quirky Dining Rooms

Candadian House and Home purple dining room

I don’t think I own anything purple when it comes to home decor. I only own a few purple clothing items. I like the color but it is a shade I find intimidating to work with. I don’t know why. I’ve found 2 very fun and slightly formal purple dining rooms that help me see the potential of purple.

This first dining room is from Canadian House to Home. This room is a deep, royal purple shade. It feels light and airy against the white trim and the white wall. I love the mix of white accessories, including a thrifty white paper lantern. The colors paired with this royal purple make this color workable. I love it paired with that 70’s goldenrod shade and cool purpley cement gray. And and don’t forget the temporary pop of fuchsia from the fresh flowers on the table.This room is purple room that I can see easily replicated in a “real” home. Now to the other room…

The other room I found on the blog, Roomenvy. This room is a bit more “busy” than the Canadian House and Home one. I love a bold and obnoxious wallpaper. So does the owner of this dining room. There is purple printed wallpaper on the ceiling. This isn’t that innovative, being that is a very old-fashioned thing to do. And may I add a bitch to remove. It too us forever in our dining nook to remove layers and layers of wallpaper off a small part of the ceiling. Anyways, I like this dining room because it is over the top, right down to the royal purple rug. This isn’t fitting for my home and I’m sick of seeing bold colored shaggy things. Do you remember our blue faux fur covered cabinets? Well, I do and I’ll

Patterned purple dining room

never see shag as something quirky or retro again. So, this room isn’t something that I see easily being replicated in a “real” home but it is fun to look at. I could easily see a “real” dining room incorporating this bold print on fabrics and maybe having a yellow/goldenrod painted walls.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I’m doing what I can to wrap up some of these projects before I go back to work. That’s keeping me very busy. And they’re boring projects too. Like cleaning, scrapping, touching up projects. These aren’t those creative projects that I crave.

-Victoria

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2 Bedrooms with Song Bird Print Wallpaper

House and Home birdy bedroom

I’m aware that it’s popular and it will be cliché one day, but I can’t help it. I love “bird” imagery. I love nature inspired prints and home decor. It would make sense that I would like the whimsy touch of songbirds in decorating. Here are 2 bedrooms that I’ve stumbled upon. The designers of these bedrooms love birds just as much as I do.

This first bedroom was in Canadian House and Home. It’s cute, thanks to the birds and birdcage wallpaper. I love the carefree print. I have really been craving prints lately and that is very unexpected for me. Everything in the room is “cute”. I like the pieces but together I feel they look a bit contrived. Maybe they don’t look so forced “antique” in person. Pictures are difficult like that. All of the neutral colors really let the wallpaper take center stage here. It’s a charming room.

The other room was featured on Room Envy. This room is much more colorful, but it still has the same vibe. Both rooms have beautifully printed wallpaper, white linens, and a lovely iron bed. This is a bit more “lively” version of the first bedroom shown here. I love the accents of teal. Teal is one of those colors that I

bird bedroom featured on Room Envy

have liked for such a long time. I love the mix of prints and the crisp white linens. I love the wallpaper print and would love to have that print on linens or curtains. Adorable.

Bird wallpaper in cute prints is expensive. Often retailing for about $100 a roll, so many to choose from if you type search “bird”, here. I found a nice bird print with lots of teal for $27.99 a roll here. I’ve never dealt with these companies.  I just know, that I like these prints. I’ve also learned that it pays to shop around and to “give in”. Sometimes you must have vague wants such as “blue bird wallpaper” when you’re remodeling on a budget.

Off subject…I made a plum frangipane tart yesterday and it turned out delicious! I’m really taking this cooking thing up a notch. And I purchased a rolling-pin for $5? I’ve complained for 5 years over something that is $5? Why do I not buy the kitchen items that I need? I’ve decided that if I need it then I will buy it. Having a retro kitchen has motivated me to have “retro” kitchen items such as sifters, rolling-pins, pie weights. You know those things that grandma had around but most young moderns couldn’t identify out of a line up?

-Victoria

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2 Black & White Striped Bedrooms With Traditional Touches

Black and white striped bedroom

I love black and white stripes. I prefer things that are high contrast and you can’t get much more contrast than black and white stripes. Here are two bedrooms that I’ve stumbled upon featuring a simple color palette of black and white, but it has been jazzed up with stripes. And these rooms have a traditional, classic feel to them.

I wish I knew where this 1st room came from. This bedroom is amazing and I’d love to take a tour of the entire house. This room is traditional. The furniture is immaculate and the pictures are interesting.  The striped wallpaper only makes it better. I’ve considered painting stripes on our walls. However, we have knock down lathe and plaster and it would look stupid. And I don’t have the patience for it. Wallpaper would be nice, but do I have the patience for that either? And our walls are in great shape for 30’s lath and plaster, especially considering its been through some earthquakes. I shouldn’t cover it up. How quickly I forget the process of wallpaper removal!

Looking for bold black and white striped wallpaper? I wish I was. Lots of sites have this type of paper; it’s popular. So popular that The Home Depot carries it for about $35 a bolt.  Don’t read their write up. It’s so lame. You would think that wallpaper was only a product for the young moderns. It actually says, “Today wallpaper is the hip, new approach to

Canadian House and Home bedroom

cover your walls”. OK, maybe read it.

This other room is something that I could do. It’s a super neutral color palette of black and white. Of course it always helps to have awesome architectural details in any living space. This room has great bones. It is from Canadian House and Home. This room incorporates the visual pleasure of stripes with linens. OK, so I can’t get this plantation like room in my house because I don’t have shutters, custom windows, or that ceiling. But, I can buy a striped duvet. I like black and white stripes because they appear to be a more sophisticated alternative to zebra print. And they are so Dorothy Draper glam.

Looking for black and white striped bedding? I’m having a difficult time finding black and white striped bedding that I like, especially for a deal.  It’s all too contemporary or “junior”. It seems so Swedish farm house style that I thought Ikea would have something. They have the fabric but no duvets. Dwell Studio has the “Draper” (told you so). It’s nice but not exactly what I’m looking for…sometimes things just aren’t black and white 🙂

-Victoria

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2 Fun, Bold Azure Rooms

Bold blues aren’t colors that I am attracted to for my own living space. I prefer aquas, teals, cyan. I find bold blues hard to work with but I do appreciate them except when they include a black silhouette of a nude past girlfriend, oh, my house. Or what used to be of this house.

House Beautiful bedroom

Here are 2 azure rooms that I do appreciate.

The first is a fun bedroom found in House Beautiful. I love the quirkiness and youth in this room, two adjectives rarely used to describe my living space. This is one of those colorful, fun, “thrift sore finds” rooms. It has luxe textiles, shine from the lamps and bed finish, and lots of fun colors: magenta, fuchsia, chartreuse, violet, not to mention the azure room color. This is one bold but not obnoxious bedroom. I do like the deer but I’m creepy enough to choose a real one…Anyways, I like this room. It’s the kind of room that comes across as bold. If you get sick of that, just change the chair and pillows/textiles and you have a new room. And I love it that such bold colors were used in a small room in a cozy way.

The other room I found on House to Home. I love me some wallpaper but since I spent most of hot August removing wallpaper with the help of a steamer, I doubt I’ll ever do it to my home. So…I like to admire from a distance. This living room is very bold. It has bold blue, prints, and a punch of cerise. I am not a fan of the blue shag rug. It reminds me too much of the blue furry stuff used to cover our kitchen cabinets. I will never ever be able to look at shag the same way again. This also means that I’ll never be able to see blue shag without cringing and puking in my mouth a little.

Actually, the house that we are renovating was all about the color blue. The cabinets were covered in blue faux fur,

House to Home living room

the 2 largest rooms were painted shades of blue, there was a blue faux fur waterbed, and there were plans to even have denim curtains. This is what happens to a space when testosterone only decorates. Trust me, it is not a beautiful site/sight. Homes are like anything else, they need balance or they just fall down.

-Victoria

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Funky, Retro Floral Wallpaper Rooms

I’m back and I finally have Internet connection! I so went through serious withdrawals, but I’m fine now…It’s been a super crazy week and I’ll share pics of the house as soon as I’m able. That means not checking all my junk email and social networking…

After all the time I have spent removing wallpaper, it is going to be a long time before I can wallpaper. However, I do love the look. It is quirky and fun. Wallpaper is great. I’m talking about clean and in good shape wallpaper, not what we inherited.

bedroom in Marie Claire Maison

I love this little London bedroom found in Marie Claire Maison. There are so many prints and colors! It’s just a fun, quirky room. I love all the different shades of blue and pink.  All of these prints make it a thrift store fantasy room. I have a few of those Russian boxes. They house cotton balls and stuff like that. They are cheap and take a beating. I like this room because it is small. That’s what most of us have. We don’t have these huge magazine perfect rooms with amazing architectural detail. This room is small but still fit for a magazine. It utilizes space and has lots of storage (too bad we can’t see the closet). I love how this room houses all these treasures and little collections. Somebody has spent some time at thrift stores, flea markets, and yard sales and still looks put together. And who would of thought that rose shade would actually work with cobalt blue? Well, it does.

The other room or rooms photographed by Paul Raeside (if I had a restaurant this is the man that would be snapping it), I should say, are very special because of the mix of prints/wallpapers. It’s an airy and whimsy space. The lighting is romantic and the entire space is just so darn girly. However, I don’t know if you notice but the 1st thing I noticed other than the prints in my face was that the ceiling is need of some repairs. Geez, even I can repair that, what’s this home owner’s excuse? It sure isn’t money.

Cute home photographed by Paul Raeside

Anyways, the floor could use some cleaning too 🙂 And the loose porcelain door knob. Maybe all of this a part of the elegant, whimsy, cottage mansion style.

It really does sadden me that there is no more wallpaper in the home. Wallpaper does so much and then you have to do so much to get rid of it. Bummer. Don’t tell my husband that I am thinking of adding it to one of the bathrooms.

-Victoria

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Getting Steamy: I Love Our Wagner Wallpaper Steamer!

Dining nook, I think 7 layers of wallpaper.

Every room in this house has been covered with wallpaper! And not just one layer but like 7 with a few layers painted over! Getting this stuff off has been a nightmare. Seriously, I’m having nightmares over it. All the paper has to go despite its coolness. I love vintage wallpaper and even before we bought this house I spent hours online “researching” different types and popularity because I love vintage prints. As you remember this house was filthy (still is). We have to start fresh. Electrical work must be done, did see some slime mold in its reproductive stages in some of the felt, and I need to know if there has been any plaster damage. So, we have 5 known rooms to remove wallpaper from.

I have removed wallpaper before as a kid. It was a small bathroom and my dad just did that soapy water soaking method. My little fingers and strange obsession with picking made me a good “helper”. It was awful. It is still awful. My little kid memories did not fail me. For some reason we first started with the dining nook. Who knew this little space had been wallpapered so many times?

1930's bottom layer peeping through

We got all the way down to the original late 30’s stuff that was there when it was built, notes are on the plaster below of what “model” of wallpaper to use. We first started with scrapping, this took forever! Then we soaked the walls with warm water. This helped. But, it made a huge mess. (To our advantage we are not keeping the carpet in there). This process was still taking forever. After 2.5 days of scraping and peeling this tiny space, we had enough. I remember a lady I work with telling me about how her son rented a wallpaper steamer during his old home renovation. Off to Lowe’s on Sunday we went. They did not rent them. Instead they sold them. We purchased the Wagner 705 Power Steamer for $50. We were seriously hopeless and couldn’t believe how cheap this thing is and we have so many rooms to do. We went home and it melted paper off like butter! Unbelievable. We wasted so much time! It is the easiest machine to use ever, it does get very hot but it doesn’t require caustic chemicals, just water. Follow the manufacturer’s directions and the wallpaper will be running away in fear.

Kitchen wallpaper

Removing wallpaper even with the steamer is still time consuming but it definitely cuts it down to like 3 hours instead of 3 days. I have to hold it over the painted over wallpaper for 3 times as long. So, I just give a space 2 hours of steaming and walk away and come back later or another day. My shoulders are not happy with me! We just have so much to remove. Glue just stays in the plaster with its knock-down finish. I’m finding that even though I get most of it off, I still have to come back later and steam and run a stiff broom over the wall to get all the debris off.

I’m almost done. I have finished the foyer, stairway, 90% of the dining nook, and remember that luscious lady mural, well, she’s gone now. I just have the kitchen with its amazing wallpaper. It looks like only one layer so the steamer will tear through it. And I have the powder room, ughhh, it has been painted over and I fear it will take all of my patience.

Anyways, if you have wallpaper to remove do not hesitate to purchase one of these steamers. It is really quick and clean in comparison to your other removal options. It isn’t very expensive and you probably could sell it on Craigslist when your finished.

-Victoria

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What Used To Be Called The “Porno” Room…

will not be called that anymore. Dig if you will a picture: 10 ft+  silhouette of your girlfriend, black trim, red shag carpet tiles laid out in a checker board pattern over hardwood, blue faux fur king sized waterbed, and mirrors on the ceiling. This is what I called the “porno” room.

Really it is a master bedroom and it will not be called this anymore. I was getting too many stares at home improvement stores when I would ask David, “Well, we need some scrubbers for the Porno Room”, etc. Sweet David called this the “Blue Room”. There are other blue rooms so I found this too confusing. Yesterday the confusion has ceased. The red carpet tiles have been removed. They left behind the craziest black rubber mess. We scrapped it off and vacuumed up the rest. Beautiful white oak, ready to be refinished underneath. To my amazement and disappointment, the mural was painted over wallpaper. This meant we had to remove it with the Wagner Power Steamer (which disinfects too, haha).

A room with a view.

This was my project yesterday. She is no longer there. Instead there is a plaster wall painted mint green under the mural and 2 layers of lovely painted over 1940’s and early 1950’s floral wallpaper. This was an unpleasant surprise. I thought we would just have to prime this room, not remove wallpaper too. However, only one wall had wallpaper. This one wall took over 3 hours of removal. She was stubborn and it was almost impossible to remove her silhouette. But, we did. We should be able to prime and paint in the next few days. We need to remove the tape/ sticky stuff from the ceiling and repair a few plaster cracks.

The trim and doors in this room have been painted black. I kind of like that. But, I am sure we will prime over it and paint it white. However, I want to leave the door as is. It’s strangely goth and menacing and looks like it belongs in a classic Bela Lugosi flick.

The door.

I wanted to paint a few doors black anyways. I do plan on painting the trim white.I think I am painting this room a sea pebble taupe. David and I are using this as our studio. It would make a grand master bedroom but I like cozy, small bedrooms. We would get much more use out of this larger room if it was a working studio space and not where we crash.

This room looks very different now and we haven’t even started. I imagine this entire home will look very different in the next few weeks. You won’t believe what removing a larger than life babe mural does to your space. You should try it.

-Victoria

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The Dining Nook & Its Amazing Wallpaper

First impression: awesome wallpaper.

When this house was for sale, I peeped through the windows before being showed the home “formally”. Glad I didn’t get accused of being a Peeping Tom. I was peeping but not for those perverted reasons. Trust me, nothing to see here but junk and not that kind of junk. Geez. The windows through the back were open and I was amazed at what I saw. It was the most amazing red and gold wallpaper ever in a small dining nook. I just knew that I had to see more and boy did I see more.

I love wallpaper and this stuff is tops. It is felt and foil and completely fabulous. Unfortunately, it is grotty (filthy, peeling, felt rubbed off in areas) and it has to go. New windows are being put in and some electrical stuff needs to be done. It’s sad because I would love to work with this stuff, but dirty is dirty and repairs must be made. I hope to salvage and frame some of it. The print is just too good to disappear. I did find the exact same stuff online, Rosie’s Vintage Wallpaper (awesome site BTW), but for  $325 a roll! I would of splurged but a roll won’t do the space and the ceilings are tall and coved. It’s hard to “draw a line” of when to quit. I just thought it would be cool to be able to keep that bold print in such a small space. Heck, Brocade Home (pictured below) does this all the time and people love it. Brocade has tacky light fixtures as well but I don’t think any are as tacky as a Tiffany styled swag Huskies lamp. The carpet is going too. Can’t wait to see the wood floors beneath!

Everybody is doing it!

After looking for vintage wallpaper online, I came across some pretty groovy stuff at a thrift store for like a $2 a roll, some very Buck Rogers stuff. It’s foil, no felt. It’s a mod in a 70’s way design with silver, white, macaroni n’cheese orange, and yellow. I don’t know if or where I’ll use it but I do have a bit of a wallpaper bug right now. Perhaps in the speech studio?

-Victoria

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Our First Impression.

I’m at full fledged panic mode now. We are supposed to close in two days but we haven’t heard from anybody. I feel like this entire process has taken a million years. I mean I guess 60 days is normal , especially these days, but still I feel like we’ve been worried senseless about getting this house for sometime. The current place we are living in will not let us go month to month rent like they said they would and last Friday, I pretty much received an eviction letter telling us to be out by the end of this month. Naturally, this freaks me out because I have never been told to leave a place. (BTW, our property management team sucks and I pretty much hate their guts and I hope it takes at least 6 months for this place to get rented.) And we haven’t officially “purchased” the home and this new home is not move in ready. Like it isn’t safe, see David’s previous post. So we need this process to hurry up. Sooner is better than later. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

The kitchen

Anyways, I thought that I would share my first impression of a few rooms on the first floor of the house just in case something doesn’t work out, then you guys can make me feel better if I have to start all over.

The kitchen and its wonderful wallpaper.

Above is the kitchen. Notice the most amazing mod felt wallpaper ever. Too bad I can’t use it or salvage it. It is just too nasty. Notice the mess in the middle of the floor. It is a pretty big kitchen, well at least according to us but we couldn’t walk through it. And please take the time to stare in disbelief of the blue faux fur covered cabinets. I know that releasing this pic will cause all of America to do the same to their own. Also, take a look at the 2 mini fridges stacked upon each other. It is filled with Ensure and Natural Light Beer.

A bedroom under all the mess.

We have what I believe is supposed to be a bedroom. It is literally stacked to the ceiling with stuff including: a red faux fur 8-track mini bar, a king sized mattress, bed, fuzzy couch, and a rack of elk antlers. We also noticed that there were new cabinets and counter tops, sinks, etc. as if a renovation was going to happen.

Powder room

This is the half bath/powder room. It needs some love and a sink that is not just leaned up against the wall. Please take the time to appreciate the faux fur red door. All the doors in the house take on this theme. If you think you can handle anymore of a first impression, please continue the tour to the upstairs. I save the best for last, friends.

The porno room

This is the bedroom, a peek into the world upstairs in this house. She is huge. She was his girlfriend when he was 16, rumor has it. What is in the middle of the clutter? Well, a pimp blue faux fur king sized water bed, stacked with pounds and pounds of polyester suits and blankets. Look no light fixtures! And the sticky remains on the ceiling of what used to hold the mirrors.

This has been a look into what I first saw when I walked into the house. I will keep the silver foiled wallpaper bathroom a mystery. I will not show you the scary basement or the other bedrooms that are piled sky high. Either talk some sense into me or encourage me. I’m an anxious wreck right now.

-Victoria

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