The Hall Bath Gets Refreshed

Hi all - Sorry I haven't posted anything in forever but sometimes life takes over and the digital world just has to take a back seat for awhile. We finally tackled the hall bath trying to freshen it up a bit. The transformation isn't the most dramatic but I think it looks a little better. The wall color is far darker than anything we have worked with before and I worried that we may have fallen prey to one of my pet peeves - going a little paint crazy in a bathroom as opposed to a main room because you can close the door on the craziness in the bathroom. But I don't think we went too far. We also tried to match the blues of the Japanese print we put on the back of the toilet to try and get a third color in the room - yellow, sea foam green, and navy blue.  Most of the work was painting - cabinets and walls. And we adding new hardware and swapped out the hinges as the others had been painted over [who does that?]. I think the change is for the better.

Please don't forget to sign up to get email updates when we add to the blog!!

We have finished the kitchen as well and as soon as I can get some images taken I will post them as many people have been waiting to see the results. But for now please enjoy: The Hall Bath.

Before:

During:

After:

A nice bourbon drink to finish off our work!!

The Bookcase Planter Comes Together

We have struggled for a long time trying to figure out what to do with the most mod part of our house - the front room planter bookcase. There used to be some sort of a screen screwed into the top of the bookcase right next to the planter acting as a decorative room divider. K and I go to tons of estate sales and we see lots of these planter bookcases in all sorts of shapes and forms and usually no one does anything interesting with them. We bounced around ideas like making our own screen using colored plexiglass or wood. We looked into a company in town that does wrought iron work thinking that we could find something appropriate and affordable.
So after thinking about it for almost three years the answer came to us - go with the original purpose. We had put the books in, that was simple. We decided to put in plants. I have been looking for long twisty plants for a long time and finally found some at a local nursery that has a happy hour once a month. There is nothing like plants and free beer and cheese. We bought two long plastic window box planters at Home Depot to use as a liner along with some plastic. I had to cut them a little narrower on the table saw but other than that they pretty much slid right in. The plants are called Monther-in-Law Tongue - or something like that.
So for about $50 we have pretty much finished off the front room. Enjoy!

Before:

During:

Voila:

We hope you enjoy our choices as much as we enjoy living with them!!

Thrift Log

We had some great luck at a couple estate sales and some thrift stores this weekend! The two little planters, both made in Japan, the Heath mug, and a couple of the books came from the thrifts. I may or may not keep the planters (I recently bought some more succulents and they do fit so nicely....), but the Hare Krishna vegetarian cookbook is a keeper for sure. C's sister and her family gave us a very generous gift certificate for our local Hare Krishna buffet (so good!) and once it runs out I'll be glad I have this book. The mug had some marks on it that didn't rub off easily at the store, but for 60 cents I decided to pick it up anyway and it cleaned up nicely with a little scrubbing. I can't find this exact mug online, so I don't know how old it is, but I look forward to drinking tea from it.  The children's books have wonderful illustrations, and all are from the Weekly Reader Book Club in 1961. They're destined for the shop after I read them.

 

C spotted SIX of these fabulous glasses at the thrift store and they are in perfect condition. We also went to two estate sales - the first looked like our kind of sale, a 1950s house with  lots of stuff in the pictures online. And it was fine - but not great. I was, however, happy to pick up a couple stocking stuffers for one of my sisters and a new case for my glasses. The glasses case is actually very exciting (for me!) - mine was completely falling apart. While we were checking out at that sale, we saw a sign by the register saying that there was another sale in the neighborhood. We headed over there and were not thrilled to pull up in front of a giant new build, as they usually tend to have newer things, and higher prices.  But it was awesome! I got several things for the shop: purses, sweaters, and several housewares, as well as this awesome horse head table lighter, made in Japan. When I first spotted it in the dark, completely packed garage I thought it was a lone bookend so I passed it by. It drew me back though, and upon closer inspection I discovered it was a table lighter and I was even happier to discover it was in perfect shape. 

I'm excited to link up with Sir Thriftalot's Thriftasaurus, where folks share their thrifty finds!

 

Hallways Are So Sexy!

Alright, this post is all about our amazing hallway. What I love about our house is that the living areas and the sleeping areas are cordoned off by our hallway. You can close the door at the end of the hallway like an airlock door and section off the den, kitchen, and front dining/living room from the bedrooms. There is little to no wasted space in this house. One of the bizarre features of the hallway is the number of doors. In a space that is roughly 4.5 ft x 15-16 ft there are nine doors. That is right - there are nine doors. They are doors for three bedrooms, a bathroom, two closets, one for the water heater, and the last for the HVAC. There is also an attic fan that still works perfectly but thankfully that is in the ceiling.
I would also like to point out that it is extremely difficult to get good photos in a long and narrow hallway. So hopefully these will suffice.
Our original hallway had been painted what I call a 'tobacco stained teeth' color - a common color choice in this area along with the dreaded butter cream yellowish white and raw brown umber combination. We had originally thought to paint the hallway a bright tangerine orange, something really fun and vibrant to give the dark hall some light. But common sense prevailed as this is not the house we plan on dying in and we chose the same cool, crisp gray that we used in the den with the bamboo flooring.
Here is a look at the hallway before and after - I haven't picked up light switch covers yet so please excuse their absence in the after photos.
Before:

The original doorbell - I will probably cover it back up though

 

After:

Some of K's artwork

 Sorry if everything seems rather dark. This is a hallway and there isn't much else I can do with it.
Coming soon will be [finally!!!] the kitchen and the hall bath. I have a new policy where I am trying to do two hours of work every weekday on the house - non maintenance work. I have discovered two things - 1. You can get a boatload of stuff done in two hours if you actually sit down and do the work and you don't intellectualize it over a couple of beers. And 2. Two hours is a really, really long time!

Thrift Log

This weekend was mostly spent working around the house and in the garden, but we did manage to squeeze in some mid-week thrifting and found a couple things for the shop. If only we had a land line, this Genie phone would be a keeper! Regardless, it will  serve as a good reminder to always go down the creepy electronics aisle. Also scored a little Iittala candlestick - one is better than none, right? I'm hoping some of his friends make an appearance one of these days. The great little wooden house blocks were in a baggie with some random plastic pieces and they just caught my eye.

And here's the garden - six tomatoes planted for now, and there will be more to come when it's consistently warmer. Excited for spring!!

Thrift Log

We started going to estate sales and garage sales to look for furniture for our house and we did find some things, but mostly I just found cool vintage pieces (at fantastic prices) that I didn't have a use for. Since we love estate saling so much, and it was hard to pass up all the great things I was finding, I decided to start picking up the cool vintage pieces I found and start a vintage etsy shop (which I'm working hard to get filled back up after a recent break). Going to sales has become a really fun activity for us as a couple, especially as brunch is often involved. We also live in a part of town that has a ton of thrift stores, so I've also grown to love thrifting, which has led to the discovery of thrift blogs... Since C already had this blog going, I am going to start sharing my thrifty finds here as well.

We found all of the items in the above photo this Saturday and the bright colors really reflect the bright sunny weather here in Dallas this weekend. I also picked up some clothes - shorts and corduroy pants - I'm wearing the shorts today, but I imagine the cords will make an appearance before too long (Texas weather!). Anyhoo, the mushroom (it's a little container - the cap pops off!) is all mine!! I thought he would complement our mushroom-centric Christmas decorations quite nicely, but I think he may be more of a year-round kind of mushroom. The enamel Reed and Barton bowl is something I picked up for my brother-in-law - my sister started collecting them years ago but lately my bro-in-law has really gotten into it. They have an amazing collection, not just of the bowls but also the mod paisley, rectangle, and triangular dishes.  I suspect they already have this one and I bet my bro-in-law is going to sell it and use the profits to buy something more exciting - can't wait to see what he scores!  The green plastic desk caddy caught my eye and it is marked West Germany on the bottom. I always love enamel pieces, and C spotted this little Turkish coffee pot. I scored the ash trays on a solo thrift store run - I hadn't seen them before, but the second I spotted them I knew they were interesting. I quickly learned they were designed by the famous Japanese designer Isamu Kenmochi . Thrifting certainly provides excellent learning opportunities!  

We also found these great ornaments (along with another box with similar ornaments). We'll definitely keep a few for our collection!

Did you find anything fun this weekend?

KITCHEN SNEAK PEAK

Just a little look.