I should be reading The Scarlet Letter. I'm stalling.

I promise, I'll take basement bedroom photos on Wednesday. I keep meaning to, then missing daylight. The floors are GORGEOUS. Now if we could just keep the stupid bugs out of there... I finished the trim in both rooms, so the very last part of painting will be touching up some spots in Justin's room. The roller with the white floor paint splattered a little on the bottom portions of the blue walls. And I may or may not have dropped a huge glob down one part of the wall when I was touching up the window trim. Oops. The gray in the guest bedroom needs SO much touching up, but we ran out of it, and the big stupid Home Depot is no longer carrying Ralph Lauren paint colors. We could try to get it matched in another brand of paint, but I'm worried it would look bizarre. We did get the bed all put in the guest bedroom. We just need to put the sheets, etc. on it. It's a little awkward because the room is an awkward shape, but we can always move it if we figure out a better configuration. We're both just really happy to have a guest bedroom! Some day we'll redo the bathroom down there (mainly a lipstick on a pig kind of job I think) and fix up the kitchen, too. We have dreams of setting up a sweet little bar area in that basement kitchen. And who doesn't love having a back up fridge??? We already have a stove and microwave and dishwasher waiting to be installed down there. My dad and stepmom passed them to us when they moved. Oh, so much work... But I love the idea that we are building (hopefully) equity on our own. We'll someday have to have professional help with the bigger projects, like the upstairs bath and the kitchen, but I'm trying to convince Justin that I could teach myself how to tile and redo the floors in our upstairs bathroom. I'm not succeeding.
The new project I have urgently waiting for attention is spray-painting a bed frame for our new bed. Our old bed was a lovely wooden bed from Justin's Dad. It's a double, and will live on forever in the basement bedroom as the guest bed. When we got our new mattress (a queen) we bought a bed frame from Costco (thanks Mom) but we can't afford a headboard and footboard. Did you guys know how expensive that business is??? Bananas. I've been reading up on lots and lots of blogs about DIY headboards (Quirky Delight, I'm looking at you) but I just don't have it in me to scour for beds at the thrift stores. And a lot of my favorite thrift stores have been getting CRAZY expensive lately. Boo. So when my boss said she had a black iron canopy bed that we could have for free, I jumped at it. I assumed we wouldn't use the canopy part, but the finnials that fit on without the canopy attachment are SO early 90's that I might try to just test what the canopy would look like. In my mind, I thought the black iron bed would be like this gorgeous Country Living example, which is not altogether our taste, but is so classic and gorgeous, you just can't not like it.
Is there really anywhere this bed wouldn't work? By the way, I love this little room. The shiny white floor, the little stool, and the cowhide rug... So cute. I love this kind of country. Clean and pretty. I'd like to spend a weekend here. And have nice older ladies bring me tea while I knit in that blue chair in the corner. Hmmm. But anyways, the bed we got is more like contemporary, and by contemporary I mean early 90's (at least without the canopy on). It was free, and I am not trying to sound like an ungrateful jerk, just wanting to explain. It has the swirly ball finnials. Ew. It's almost exactly like this:
Sorry, that photo is kind of tiny. But you get the idea. In any case, I have no guilt whatsoever about my plan to spraypaint it red. I have the spraypaint, as well as the gun attachment for the spray bottles. I learned my lesson with Roxanne's dresser about spraypaint finger and the globs that can happen as a result. It can get ugly. We were originally planning to just not use a headboard/footboard for a while, but the bed scoots around a lot, and Roxanne has figured this out. She likes to push it around a little (when she thinks we aren't looking) and if you bump into it after a middle of the night bathroom break, you will scoot it a foot or two. When discussing the paint color for the bed, Justin and I agreed that a bright color would be best, to break up the white blob that our all white curtains and all white bed were forming. I wanted orange, but HD only had one can of the Pumpkin Orange spray paint. Jerks. And yellow just seems a little overdone for right now. The red will hopefully be pretty though. And detract from the datedness of the bed.
I'm loving this color with the gray walls, but our walls are darker, and if it doesn't come in spray form, I'm not interested...

Enough with the chemical burns...

Where to start? Justin and I bought a new mattress on Saturday (thanks again to my mom for keeping Roxanne so we could actually take our time). We got a great deal during the Macy's Labor Day Mattress Sale (no, I'm not being paid). So, in with the queen bed, and downstairs with the double. The new bed will be here on Saturday sometime (we got free delivery, too!) so we have a week to try and desperately get things in order. Also, I think there's some kind of law that says you have to do home improvement projects during Labor Day weekend if you aren't at the beach. And we aren't at the beach.

You know how these projects go... One thing requires another thing which requires another thing. So we started with stripping the floors in the two basement bedrooms. The carpet has been out for a while, but there was that nasty old adhesive everywhere. I have mostly finished up one room, the one that will be Justin's room, herein referred to as the Man Room. The other room, which will be for my crafts and the guest bedroom, is in a state of disgustingness. I have scraped it clean, but all that sludge is just sitting there for me to clean up. But since I can't think straight, I'm taking a breather. This stripping agent works very well, but it's AWFUL. It stinks, but in a way that is toxic. Like, I probably have lost half of my brain cells between yesterday and today. The other really hard part is trying to get it all off the floor. My method in the other room was to scrape it all up, get as much of the sludge as I could into a bucket, and then pour water on the floor and mop it around, then run the shop vac over everything. I did the water in the bucket part twice in the other room, but I'm still worried that there's residue there. And I'm worried that it will damage the paint that we put on the floor in a few days. We opted for white floor concrete floor paint. If it will go on without getting destroyed by any remaining chemicals, we think it will look lovely. It will likely need at least two coats, but Justin and I think it will brighten the rooms down there.

We also need to paint the Man Room. With a lot of pushiness from me, we opted for a dark blue, Benjamin Moore's Gentleman's Gray. I know it looks really dark, but with the white floors and white trim, it's going to be amazing. We want to create a more sophisticated "study" look in that room. I told Justin I think it would be neat to make it look like a mid-century command center for NASA or something, and he haltingly agrees with my cheesy description. We have a very large world map to put on one wall, and it's laminated, so I think it will definitely brighten things up. Justin seems mostly excited about getting a rug. I say get everything else done first... I have already found some great metal filing cabinets and he has an awesome teal mid-century good-form chair. Eventually, I hope we can get him a vintage steelcase tanker desk and some vintage task lamps. There are a ton of awesome vintage NASA posters on Etsy, and I'm keeping my eye out for a cheap lunar globe. They can't all be this expensive...

As for the guest room, I painted the walls a couple of months ago in the most lovely soft shade of gray. It will look really great with the white floors. If I ever get all that done... I have dark turquoise velvet curtains for the windows, and I plan to use either an antique quilt on the bed, or our old duvet cover from IKEA that is yellow and white stripes. I'm leaning towards the quilt though, since it's sort of "my room" and I have been collecting vintage needle art for the walls in there. Can you tell how excited I am? Justin and I really can't wait to have these two rooms as extra living space. And we hope sometime soon to be able to get a TV and a sofa for the part of the basement that is now his office. We want a den. And it would be amazing to not ever have to have a TV in our living room. As for the Craigslist couch, we are on a spending hiatus now that we spent so much on supplies for the basement bedrooms and the mattress. Oh well. Things happen when they are meant to.

Pictures to come. I'm scatterbrained thanks to the fumes I've been inhaling. And all the chemical burns I've sustained. Seriously, this stuff is no joke.

Craigslist Couch... Yea or Nay?

So, I was looking on Craigslist (probably while on the phone with my mom who was probably also looking on Craigslist) for vintage sofas. I troll Craigslist pretty regularly because it's like thrift store shopping from work. I never follow up on anything, aside from that one estate sale I saw advertised there... But I found two lovely vintage sofas that seemed like they were in great shape and had fairly reasonable prices. After e-mailing the sellers (just for kicks) and getting fast responses from both, I decided one was not in good shape (a vintage sectional that looked like it needed to be reupholstered=$$$$) and the other was lovely, but just too expensive.

Fast forward to now, the seller of the too expensive sofa just sent me an e-mail with three simple words: "Make an offer?" Whew. I'll talk to Justin about it, but I'm not sure what to do... This sofa is kind of far away, and we'd surely have to procure a bigger vehicle to get it home. BUT, the color seems like it would be fantastic in our living room, since it would bring out the reddish color of our Eames chairs. And it would mean we could move the current living room couch into the basement for our TV den that we will some day complete. It was listed for $500. What do I even offer??? Do I even want to offer??? I have been thinking that maybe we should just go new couch to avoid the ick factor, but this couch is tempting.

China Dreams...

So, Justin and I (for a long and embarrassing story) didn't do a wedding registry when we got married. Which is totally fine, but I've always wanted "china." You know, the whole everyday china and fine china thing. So I've been looking at vintage china patterns for the four years that we've been married trying to find one I want to make "ours." There have been some close calls. But nothing that was totally perfect. I recently found 8 of these Blue Heaven glasses and then 2 of the plates, at two different thrift stores, so I thought maybe I'd go with that. I mean, I love aqua, and they have a neat modern design. Here's the dinner plate:
I also like it because as you can see from the Replacements listing, it comes in SO MUCH STUFF. There's even a line of Fire King Blue Heaven stuff. The crazy hoarder in me dreams of having everything in Blue Heaven. Right down to these darling Fire King custard cups.
BUT, I realized that even though I love this set, it's just to kitschy. It's not elegant enough. It's not grown up enough. So I kept looking (and now I'm thinking of listing those 8 glasses in my etsy shop...) and started learning more about different mid-century kitchenware manufacturers. Then I decided I should search for my wedding colors, aqua and red. That magical combination led me to this bowl on etsy (that I bought today, yay!). I am smitten with this design. And the bowl (with shipping) cost me under $9, which I would consider a lot, but will help me remember how much I love this pattern! It's the start of my "fine china" collection. :)
The only draw back is that I can't seem to find a pattern name. I know it's by Homer Laughlin, and I know it's from the Rhythm Line, but the pattern seems to be known by a number and letter combination: JJ167 They have some of it here at Replacements, Inc., but not as much as I'd love to see... I wish I could see what the rest of the pieces look like. But I'm just in love with it. I love the aqua color, and the way the leaves are so detailed. Lovely!

When I was on ebay looking for more of it, I found another Rhythm pattern that I want for my "every day" china. And the two patterns really look lovely together. The other set is slightly similar to Homer Laughlin's FiestaWare, but it's solid gray. And since it's from the Rhythm line, the shapes should be the same as the JJ167. I just love the color gray, and the simplicity of the china. I think it's timeless, even though it dates from the mid-1950's. Look at this sugar bowl! How adorable is that? And I think the gray matches the gray in the JJ167 very nicely (not that that is necessary, but if it was all in a sweet mid-century modern hutch, it would look pretty sitting near each other. Just saying.). The best part of both sets? Even Justin likes them. He is surprisingly picky about such things, but he thinks they are both very nice looking. He just doesn't share my enthusiasm for random bits of pottery... This set is also on Replacements, and seems to be slightly more complete. And there's quite a bit of it on ebay. Once funds are restored, I want to get a few pieces to start out!
My plan is to just buy a piece here and there and slowly build a collection. In the mean time, I have a collection of various brands of vintage plates that mostly feature floral designs. So if I'm able to collect some pieces here and there, they will blend right in with the mismatched sets. But some day, I hope I will have that hutch full of these pretty things!

And for the record, all of this silliness was brought on by an inspirational Apartment Therapy article about how you should buy things as you can afford them and not worry about getting the whole set at once. Of course, now that article seems to have disappeared, but I promise, it was oddly motivating for me. It's particularly nice to pick vintage china to collect, since you don't have to worry much about it being discontinued, and pieces only become available sporadically.

Last note... The neighbor who backs us is playing music REALLY loud. First, it was a Phil Collins song and now he's rocking "Piano Man." Yeah. Can I call the cops to complain about that? Is there a special section in the criminal code about blasting your neighbors with Billy Joel?

Ooops...

In spite of two different e-mails from two different production people telling us our Curb Appeal: The Block episode would air next Saturday, it actually aired last night. We are hoping to watch it today at my Mom's house (thank goodness for DVR...) but they are supposed to send us a DVD of the episode sometime soon. Fingers crossed... If you want to watch it, and you have a TV, there is an episode guide here, listing when each show will air again. Ours is the one titled "A Boring Brick Ranch Style Home Gets a Modern Makeover."

Built-ins

As the work finishes on getting the basement back to the glorious state it was in pre-flooding (haha), Justin and I are really getting excited about turning it into living space. In my scattered brain, I've been trying desperately to try and figure out priorities down there. Like, what needs to be done first in order to get us down there? I have a list now, so look out! I decided that a great start would be something that would help clear a lot of the stuff in storage down there. Our goal is to have only the basement closets filled with boxes, and only boxes that are things that absolutely don't need to be out, like baby stuff. Or holiday stuff. Since I've been hating the living room closet since we moved in and took the stupid bi-fold doors off of it, I decided to go ahead with our "somdeday" plan of turning it into a book nook. A couple/few Saturdays ago, I took measurements of the closet and looked closely at the one existing shelf so that I could mimic the construction. After dinner (and a beer or two for Justin) I convinced Justin to take me to Home Depot shortly before they close so we could buy the materials. Win for me! Roxanne had a great time "helping," and it was altogether kind of a newbie Home Depot lumber shopping experience, but it came out OK in the end. More or less. In any case, I measured, screwed, puttied and sanded supports into the closet to make more shelves. I did them fairly large so that we could display our (my) antique books as well as our novels, etc. Five million coats of white trim paint and four melamine white boards later, they are pretty OK. I still need to fill them with my books and some choice clutter, as well as figure out some kind of center support, but for now, I'm proud. I did them by myself. Justin helped a lot by keeping Roxanne busy for me to work. She kept trying to "help," which is heart breakingly sweet, but not necessarily productive.


Here they are all done, but not quite. :) I can't wait to load them up... If you want to read book titles, I think when you click and expand, you can see them. If you see anything you like, let me know. I might let you borrow something.
I took the rug out of here and put it in Roxanne's room. We took the side off her crib, and I was terrified of her hitting the floor when she rolls out of bed. I think Justin and I agree that it looks much bigger in the living room with no rug. I just took that little wood shelf out of here and put it in Roxanne's room, too. It holds her books beautifully.
Just to show you how we "watch TV" in our living room. That's Yo Gabba Gabba playing for me and Roxanne. Katie is sniffing some spot on the floor hoping for something edible. I can't wait to get some soft chairs in the living room. Justin and I agreed that we would love to find a pair of leather club chairs. Vintage ones. Cheap vintage ones. A girl can dream, right?

Photos of thrifted stuff

You guys, I feel like an idiot. All this time, and I just now realized that I can stick the memory card directly from my camera into the laptop to upload photos. I NEED NO MIDDLE MAN. That's so awesome.

In any case, here are some photos to link up with my previous post.
Justin says these are gross, but I think they are charming. It's just a piece of wood with these two little owls on it. Someone even attached a hook to the back for easier hanging. I found this at a thrift store in Chamblee. I wanted to put it in the bedroom, but had to lie and say it's going up for sale ASAP.
This was under a quarter at the estate sale. It's got some heavy staining, but I can't refuse a peacock. And staining is different from chipping... I hate chipping.
Little teensy bottles. My favorite is that purple one in the back right. It's a "ball and claw bitters" bottle. I have Roxanne to thank for finding these...
I don't know what song this is, but it sounds pretty. I think this would be a cute wallet.
Cigarette case closed. Did I just pun? Sorry.
Open view of the musical cigarette case. Isn't it cute?
Man, this image is so weird. And awesome. My favorite thing about this game was opening it up to see that the family had really played it. There were names written on the score cards..
This is a really cool set. There are TONS of shapes and sizes inside. Not mint condition, but still really fun.
This game is my favorite in terms of artwork. The game board itself is really cool.
The game board is much cooler than the box, but still... What a box!
This is the back of the "Noddy's Taxi Game" board. It's so adorable. This was the board only; no box, no game pieces, but the board itself was just soooo cute.
The front of the Noddy's Taxi Game board. Click on it to make it big so you can see all the fun stuff going on here. So cute.
Later in the day, I found these curtain panels at a thrift store in Chamblee. The little flowers are flocked. As soon as I saw them, I thought they would make a lovely pairing with the Noddy board. Maybe some day we'll have another baby and I'll use this a spring board for a nursery... Or I'll just try to sell them as a set. Sigh.
I bought a few of these Kohner games. Great boxes, but the games inside don't make any sense. Just some geometric shapes and no directions. Oh well. The boxes were worth the fifty cent price.
I have a TON of these. I still think they look like a Georges Briard design. But either way, they are too cute to use. What is wrong with me??? I'm turning into a hoarder!