The Architect's Lair

The great room switcheroo

We have a three bedroom house, so we set up one bedroom for sleeping, one as an office (which was 'my' room) and one as a sitting room (which was my husband Jack's room). I never liked calling it a sitting room, because we had just one chair in it and it wasn't comfortable for reading; I called it the library. Still, it was his space and he chose the paint colors for it.

With a baby on the way in less than 10 weeks, we finally got off our collective duffs to make a nursery out of the sitting room. This involves a good deal of purging of junk on our part, because even in just the 2-1/2 years we've lived in this house, we have accumulated a surprising amount. To compound the issue, we have no attic, no basement, and no garage - i.e. virtually no storage in the whole house. Whatever we items we have, therefore, are generally out and visible.

So Jack was cleaning out the sitting room when he realized that it is in fact a wee bit bigger than the office. Since the office will now house the computer and desk, two pieces of exercise equipment, and all of our bookshelves, that little bit of extra space will be greatly needed. And therefore he proposed that we switch the rooms: the office would move to the sitting room, and the office would be changed into the baby's room.

That's all well and good, but now that means we have two rooms to move, purge, paint, and clean. All, preferably, by May 26 if not before. If we just have the walls done that will be enough for me, figuring that we can move the furniture later. Unfortunately, our April weekends are already booked solid, and the painting alone will be quite a task...

I have been eager to try a new decoration technique, namely Venetian plaster which you can get from Home Depot or Lowe's. The version from the store involves a pre-tinted plaster that you apply in 2-3 layers, then burnish to finish. (Here's the how-to from TLC, and some history of the product) The color will probably be pale yellow, and look mottled like parchment.

The nursery, on the other hand, will be two colors of paint: lilac for the bottom half, and sage green for the top, separated by a white chair rail. No special painting affects are planned so far. On one of the walls, we'll outline a large rectangle in the same trim as the chair rail, and inside it we'll paint a mural. Not sure what the mural will be yet; Jack's idea is to have a fantasy landscape, a view from the turret of a castle looking down on the town below, with a fair and jousting tournament just visible. I'd like something a bit more simple, perhaps a purple dragon in a forest. Either way the theme is 'renaissance fantasy', with colors of purple and green.

The project will be on hold for a couple weeks while we have company in town, but expect photos to follow soon after!

So close, and yet

so far. Indeed.

We finally - FINALLY - managed to get over to Cost Plus World Market and buy the dining set we've had our eyes on for the last month. It was a trouble-free visit on the whole. They had all of our pieces in stock; we had the transportation to get it to our house; we applied for and received 10% off the purchase by getting their credit card (which we'll pay off first thing in its entirety); and the cabinet was even $90 cheaper than I thought.

We - well, mostly J since I was busy with other things - assembled all of it on Sunday and put it into place. It's beautiful. Just the color I was looking for, a deep walnut brown. Gorgeous, real wood. A big table with plenty of food for dishes and serving plates and glasses, long enough to seat 8 comfortably and 10 if we squeezed. I even set out a setting to see what it looked like, with a reed placemat, rust-colored napkin that matches our wall, and the cool black dishes, and it looks fabulous.

But the table placement doesn't work.

The light fixture has to be adjusted further west, towards the living room, so that the east chair can sit comfortably and not get glare from the light overhead. And the cabinet doesn't work in the place we had picked out; it is a shade too deep and too wide to fit next to the bench on that side of the table. We need to move the furniture around, get a good placement, probably move the mirror on the wall, and then move the lights. It's turning into a more complicated predicament than I'd expected.

Still, we have a dining set, and I'm extraordinarily happy about that! When we've settled in to a final location, I'll share pictures... really.

Dining room furniture

Realistically, we've needed a dining set for 18 months, ever since we moved into the house. I've really felt the lack of having a proper table and chairs; we could never invite people over for dinner, or for much of anything besides watching movies or TV. Even games require a table. But what I really missed most of all were the dinner parties I'd throw during grad school, and even the smaller get-togethers in our little apartment. I  love to cook for people, and so it is something that I miss doing more than others might.

The problem is, as always, that you can find high end, well crafted furniture made of real wood or you can find crappy cheap furniture made from fiberboard with fake veneer or other materials that wear out in 5 years. There is very little in between. Seriously, what do young adults all over the country do? inherit furniture or buy crappy stuff, I guess.

We've been looking for a modern-style dining set for many months now, and finally decided on one that fits the bill. It is a set called Azumi, from Cost Plus World Market. It is big enough to seat 8 comfortably; it has dark wood and modern styling; and most importantly, it fits within our budget of roughly $1,000 total for the set. The set in our case is a dining table, 2 chairs, 2 long benches, and an etagere (open shelving unit). We chose benches to keep a sleek uncluttered look in the dining room, as well as liking it as a seating option a bit better. It's a little rustic, which is a nice contrast to the sleek modern light fixtures we installed in the dining room several months ago. Combined with our orange/red linen placemats, modern glassware and silverware, and black dishes, it should make quite a striking display when set up for company. I can hardly wait!

There is only one potential problem: the table might be too wide for the space we have available. We measured it, and it will fit with room for the benches on either side, but it might be a little tight to get into said benches. We'll just have to see, though; there is no way to tell other than to just try it.

My goal now is to buy the furniture some time this week. With luck, we will be able to pick it up and have it all assembled by Valentine's Day, if not before. I'll be pretty geeked if I can make a Valentine Day dinner to serve on it as the first meal.

Another room done!

Forgot to post this! unbelievable. I'll have to take pictures soon and post 'em, just to show what I've done. There's great satisfaction in reaching a finishing point.

We threw a big New Year's party this year, and I decided to set that as a deadline to have our bedroom cleaned out. Ever since we moved in, more than a year now, the bedroom became the place to dump stuff that didn't have any other home. Wedding presents; items to donate; boxes of paper and junk that needed to be weeded through before throwing away, stuff like that. This was fine, most of the time, because our bedroom is twice as big as most bedrooms, and we only have a bed and a small dresser as furniture. Besides, I kept looking at the pile and wondering where I would even start.

Well finally it is DONE. Altogether it took two days, a bag of trash, and three large shopping bags to the Salvation Army. I moved the small cheap bookshelves to the north end of the room, and we hung our new decorative shelves from West Elm on the west wall. I'm trying to keep only the most beautiful or meaningful things for those shelves, because I see them as soon as I wake in the morning. The room is swept and clean and even has the humidifier set up now, so we sleep comfortably.

Someday I'd like to get a lounge sofa, a big curvy outrageous piece of furniture, to anchor the other end of the room opposite the bed. For the meantime, though, my parents have a dresser that I'll paint and move in, and that should help. Also someday I'd like to design and construct the sliding Japanese-style doors we want to install for the closet - but again, that can wait while we do other things.

I'm so happy with our room, I just love it. It's nice to sleep in a clutter-free place, it really is.

Happy dance!

Time to do a delivery happy dance... the items below that I ordered from West Elm will be arriving TOMORROW, almost a full week before I expected them. I'm geeked! Even better, I only have a half day at work so odds are good that I'll actually be home for the delivery. That will be a relief.

The shelves will give me a reason to spend at least part of the reason cleaning out our master bedroom a bit, and finally putting away the last of the wedding gifts (from 11/03, if you can believe it). It will be nice to get that room clean again. Which reminds me, I should look for a way to make the doors we want on the closet, and see if our friend Tim can help us relocate the light in the room...

aahhh, shopping

Lesson learned today: nothing beats shopping when someone else is footing the bill. I spent part of today doing just that, and it was kinda nice... made me feel not quite so poor, if you know what I mean.

First I went through West Elm and picked out some new shelves for our bedroom. I have ordered the S shelf and 2 chunky shelves, at 2' and 3' respectively. They will go on one of our bedroom walls, and will hold some of our favorite books, vases, and photos. It will be nice to have something on that wall I think, and I didn't feel like getting a print for it; somehow that would feel too bare, and I wanted something functional too. These fit the bill and they are being paid for mostly by a gift certificate that my sister gave us for our wedding over a year ago. Even better, we should have them before the New Year party, so (with luck) we shoud have them installed by then.

Then during lunch I wandered down to Mezzanine, the local super-modern furnishing store. I always love looking in here, though I don't think I've bought anything that cost more than $15. My husband's new boss told us to look around here and give a wishlist to the store's owner, and his boss would come and buy us a holiday gift from the store. Very nice of her. On the list: magnetic spice board, an Akari floor lamp by Isamu Noguchi, some 'white baby bottle' ceramic vases, a cool stainless steel trivet, and a stainless steel hors d'oevre tray. The boss didn't give us a budget, so I picked a bunch of things under $100, with a few over. We'll see what happens. Maybe she'll just give up and give my husband a Christmas bonus instead, who knows!

Christmas tree

Thought I'd post a few photos of our tree, just 'cause we haven't done much in the way of home improvements due to the holidays. Our theme this year is gold & silver: balls, ribbons, and bows all in those two colors, with white/pearl lights.

with the flash on

in the dark

and a detail.

It is a white pine, about 7' tall. I like the white pine variety because the needles aren't nearly as prickly and painful as other types. I also like the long needles, and think they look elegant. My cat, however, thinks that the long needles are a type of grass and keeps eating them. *sigh*

wood stove musings

That last wintry post made me wonder about wood stoves, and I decided to read up on them since I didn't know much about them. As usual, one of my biggest criteria is how a stove looks, but I also found good articles on efficiency, how stoves work, and so on, with the best ones courtesy of WoodHeat.org.

Then I started looking for manufactuers. My favorite one, which I first saw at my boss's loft, is Rais, a Danish manufacturer. On their website, they boast of efficiencies ranging from 71 to 74% (compared to 10% efficiency for a regular fireplace!). Even more interestingly, Denmark has a carbon dioxide neutral emission law, which means that wood stoves cannot produce any more carbon dioxide than if the wood were left to rot in the forests (!). Rais stoves also feature double-chambered burning compartments for a clean burn. I like the Gabo and Vola designs. They are non-catalytic ones, which is key for upkeep as catalytic ones require a good amount of time-consuming maintenance.

I also like Morso's 4600 series stove, as well as the 3440 stove. Moreso is another Danish company that does good design while being environmentally friendly.

Krog Iversen & Co (yet another Danish company) also has more modern stoves, but they don't grab me like the Rais ones do. SCAN 47 is the one I like the best of the set, though it is just okay to me.

I have asked Rais and Moreso to send me information, particularly about pricing. I fully expect that the stoves will cost $2,000 and require some $300 in shipping. Add in roughly $500 for intallation, piping, and a diamond plate floor around the stove, and you'll see that this is an expensive proposition. Still, it may be worth it, if I do heating calculations to see how much energy we save, if natural gas prices continue to rise astronomically, and depeding on how often we lose heat this winter. I'll do the calculations once I receive the pricing information and fill you in as I go along.

I suppose I ought to mention that there are other brands of stoves, but honestly I didn't see any other designs that I like. Somehow the 'American' designs were just the worst.. They are far too old-fashioned for my taste! I'll list them anyway so you can take a look if interested: Vermont Castings; HearthStone Stoves; Jotul; Woodstock Soapstone Company; Lopi Stoves; and Avalon Stoves.

'tis the season

'Tis the season... for power outages.

We are blessed to live in an area with a lot of very old, very lovely trees. They are one of the reasons we bought our house, certainly; our property probably has 2 dozen trees on it, all very large oaks, hickory, cherry, and basswood. The problem with trees, however, is that people tend to ignore them until something goes wrong. Properly speaking, property owners should hire an arborist to come out every 5 years to do tree maintenance. That rarely happens.

There is a big piece of property diagonal behind our house that is a double lot, with many dozens of trees, probably over 100. Unfortunately, the trees are not cared for and have often fallen down onto the power lines that run above ground along our back fence down the whole block. When that happens, we lose power.

We lost power for about 30 seconds this morning as I was getting ready for work. I checked the power lines and didn't see any trees down, so it may not be tree-related, at least not in our neighborhood. Still, it was a reminder to me that we need to get things ready in case we do lose power. We should start up our generator and make sure it is working; fill up the gas tank in the generator and buy extra gas; and buy some bottled water and other emergency goods. We have more blankets and things now than we did last winter, so I know we're good there.

It's things like this that make me want to install a wood-burning stove.

House to-do list

With the advent of a long weekend, particularly one in which my husband will be working at least some of the time (since he works in Retail Hell and must work on Black Friday), I find myself making a list of things to do around the house. More particularly, things that I need to do that said husband cannot, because it is my junk to go through not his. My list for the weekend is as follows, so far:

• clean office for 4 hours total
• do final garden cleanup
• rake leaves to street (must be done by Monday)
• repot plants from company office
• hang plant in bathroom
• tackle paperwork in bedroom (1 hour)
• gather items to donate to Salvation Army or give away via freecycle
• cull extra books (mine only) from the sitting room library, donate or sell
• get rid of dead plant in stair planter & replace with something else
• buy rectangular pot, repot fern in stair planter
• buy plant tray for palm
• set up paperwhites for forcing
• set up burlap shelters for fragile plants for winter (need to buy more burlap & stakes!)
• store tiki torches for the season
• buy big pot & tray for ficus, repot
• take off toe trim in bathroom, paint remaining trim
• paint trim in foyer
• paint trim in kitchen (big PITA, as I have to move the fridge to do it)

I know I have no hope of getting all of this done this weekend; I'm making the list so I know what progress I make more than anything. And of course this doesn't include the usual cleaning and cooking that I do on weekends, nor my plans to help friends paint their house either.