The balmy summer continues here in TN, with temperatures consistently in the low 90s, making yard work a sweaty endeavor. Lots of little changes have happened over the past few weeks, and the place is finally starting to breathe and feel like a home.
Paint can take a room from drab to fab! My neighbor, Lindsay, was an art major and knows her stuff when it comes to paint colors. She sat down with me one weekend and we laid out the color palette for the entire house. I want to go for a beachy, blues and greens theme, so these are the colors that came out on top. The place would have felt disjointed and clashy without her expertise, so I am really thankful I had help on this one. Some of the colors I’d had in mind were too intense, and these are a good blend of cool relaxing shades.
Sneaky little sneak! Keeping the cats’ curiosity at bay was impossible.
The guest room was the first room to paint, and I simply adore this cheery bright blue, which happens to be appropriately named “Sea glass.” Rob said it looks like the inside of a Tiffany bag, which is fine by me! This room is warmer than the rest of the house, so the light fixture was replaced with a fan, which makes a big difference temperature-wise.
I was able to find a lamp that doubles as a jar and filled it with sea glass and shells I’ve collected over the years on my trips home to long Island.
This room is tiny with a queen size bed in it, but I really wanted an adult sized bed in there for when people come to stay. The Jacqueline Penney tapestry, titled “Inlet,” worked nicely over the bed in here. The coverlet was a vintage find on one of mom’s thrifting trips that I stole from her years ago. I’ve just been waiting for the perfect chance to use it.
The living room color was a challenge because I wanted a green or a blue that would work with everything I already had in there, artwork, accents, furniture, etc. As I began painting, I started to worry it was going to look like Kermit the frog threw up on my walls, but once the entire room was finished, the result was a pretty green that really brightened things up the way the previous neutral brown had not. It took a bit of getting used to, but I’m very happy with how everything blends without being too matchy.
The biggest thing that made me start to feel like this was my house was unpacking my books, my dear old friends who keep me company on lazy days, rainy nights, cold winter afternoons, and every moment in between. There is something about the familiar bindings, the titles that have changed my perspectives on life, the pages that have brought me comfort in hard times. Hanging a Kindle on the wall just wouldn’t have the same effect. For me, there is no substitute for a real book with real pages and real “book smell.” On the back wall of the living room where the books are currently strewn about, I eventually would like to put in floor to ceiling bookshelves. As it is, I still have eight boxes to unpack and really need the extra room. It’s a bit of an addiction, what can I say?
Every light fixture in this house needs to be updated with the exception of one. I am slowly but surely making my way through each room. I still have not found a fan that I like for the living room or for my bedroom, but the kitchen and guest room have the same fan. Ceiling fans are ugly. There are few choices, and because the ceilings in this house are rather low, I have to find fans that can be flush mounted, which narrows my choices down even more. Boring!
I love chandeliers, they make everything prettier. The ugly fan in the dining room was changed out with this gorgeous little glass teardrop piece, fancied up with a pretty medallion on top. I’m still amazed there weren’t more broken pieces. Assembly was quite a delicate challenge!
And the hallway now has a little vintage sparkle thanks to this one, purchased at a locally owned store in Franklin called Philanthropy.
I can’t keep myself away from the gardens outside in spite of the heat, so I dug out some old irises and over-sized burning bushes that were simply…ugly, and cleaned out this little shaded bed beneath the weeping cherry. I planted a little rose on the sunny corner, which I think will do better here due to the heat, and I’d like to plant some hosta and hydrangeas as well.
And the newest addition to the patio has added a little conversation area out there for evenings and afternoons when the mosquitoes are at a minimum. I found a wrought iron patio set on Craigslist for a good price and decided to spruce it up with a new coat of paint and a bright blue umbrella. Here’s the transformation after a proverbial boob job and facelift. It took 7 cans of Rustoleum paint, and my patio has a blue tinge to it, but highly worth the effort, I’d say!
Plus, two more whiskey barrel planters since they went down in price and one can never have too much gardening space, non?
At the moment, Rob is putting up trim in the bathroom and cursing quite loudly about the terrible job the previous owners did of hanging crown, but based on the other epic reno-failures we’ve discovered in this house, can one be surprised? More to come!!!
