New Home Update: Week 11

New Home updates:  Changing colors      Solar tubes    Painting Progress     Home Update Week 7    Home Update Week 11    Week 19 Painter’s Progress   New Home Update Week 22  

There have been a number of pictures tested here in the front hallway– just to see if they “sing”.   This one has lasted the longest.    The colors are very intense, but remind us of a particular wooded path we liked to walk in the Ohio fall.  Maybe it’s the piece for this spot — maybe not.  The house hasn’t “sung”  yet — just nodded. 🙂    Choirs sang when we added the demilune table, though! (Love that word – French for half moon!)   It was our first purchase from Wayfair.   As soon as we saw the picture on line, we both said “perfect” and it is.

The grandfather clock was cramped everywhere else we put it.  Here it has breathing room!  And solves a longstanding border war.  Wheels and I like to hear it chime.  Bytes complains because the longest chime comes  at the climax of tv mysteries and drowns out THE crucial bit of information.  We turn it on.  He turns it off.  But here . . . it chimes away keeping us aware of the passing time but not obscuring other sounds.    The wall color is SW Interactive Cream and exactly matches the light tone of the strongly patterned tile. The front door has a Craftsman vibe from the Thirties which I find interesting.  Not sure what to put between the clock and the door.  A picture?  A small coat rack? A bench?  Nothing?

I admired the wall art that was hanging in the stairway niche when we looked at the house and the way it fit the space so well.  The previous owners graciously brought it over a few weeks after we all moved so that we could return it to its assigned space.  Thank you!!!

We finished painting the niche SW Biscuit and Bytes popped the metal and wood decor into place.  We still have a bit of the old terra cotta color at the ceiling, but it is narrowing!  We used a long extension handle on the roller to paint that wall from the hall floor.  The last roller was quite small and allowed us to make an even demarcation closer to the ceiling.  Do you think we can pass it off as an intentional design element now?   That wall color is SW Popular Gray, a warm yellow based gray that also ties in with the tiles.

The stair railing was lost, found and put back in place.  We update the electrical switches as we go along, from flippers (toggle switches) to rockers.  One stairway wall is Interactive Cream, the other is Popular Gray.  The stairway curves.  It’s interesting to look at the backside of the stairway from the basement storeroom and see how they achieved the curve by kerfing the 8×2 inch wood frames.  Kerfing involves making cuts close together and partway through the wood.  This allows the wood to curve evenly and hold its shape when fastened into place.

The before color of the media space and the game room in the basement.  By the way, this is NOT the correct way to test colors.  Somebody ^looks evasive^ was “cleaning” the sample testing brush on the wall.

This is the new wall color –SW Lazy Gray.  It makes the space luminous with its blue base —- so much brighter!!!  We sprayed the paint — oh! so much faster!  Started on Saturday and completed the huge space just before guests arrived the day before Thanksgiving.  Nothing says “welcome” like the smell of fresh paint!     You may remember the picture as the poster we framed in the Ohio house.

Now it is becoming more like home with some family photos in place . . . .

We added the smell of burnt butter to the smell of new paint to make our Thanksgiving guests feel REALLY welcome!   The movers seem to have lost a large number of boxes from our move, including the one that includes the jelly roll pan.  When I made Cinnamon Cream Cheese Open  Danish for Thanksgiving Breakfast I used a flat cookie sheet, crimping the edges of the dough to hold in the melted butter.  You guessed it.   Melted butter all over the oven.  Smoke rolling throughout the house.  Thick and smelly smoke!    Finally I remembered Mom’s remedy — pour salt on the smoke producing “stuff” on the oven bottom.  The smoke quit.  Eventually.  Bytes and my sister Vee literally vacuumed the oven so we could use it to cook Thanksgiving dinner!  Which was delicious!

It’s our tradition to decorate the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.  We know the Christmas tree has to be in the storage unit two hours from here.  (You probably remember that we had such a hard time finding a house here that we just put things into a storage unit that was kind of central to cities where we “might” live.)  What to do?  Wheels suggested we decorate one of the three evergreens in the backyard and that would be our tree this year.  So that’s what we did!  Creating new things in new ways in new spaces.  Very appropriate!  (However, we hope we don’t have to create many more works of art with bare hands in a freezing snow!!)

New Home updates:  Changing colors      Solar tubes    Painting Progress     Home Update Week 7    Home Update Week 11    Week 19 Painter’s Progress   New Home Update Week 22    New Home Update Week 40

Save

Charlene

See Full Bio