Pale Avacado.

Dear Blog,

It's not you, it's me. I've strayed from you for the violin. What free time I had before to take photos and write insipid posts I now spend screeching away at the violin. But I have only three more lessons left, and once I am only practicing for myself and not for the show of my teacher I will neglect this new interest and will come back to you again. This phase will pass, but with time.

In the meantime, let me catch you up on some of the things going on around here. Like our newly stained window. And our newly painted kitchen. And our newly painted hallway.

Because we had to stain the new window in the kitchen, I thought this might be a good opportunity to trade in the strawberry-pink walls for something a little more vegetable. Less sugar, more fat. So goodbye pink kitchen, hello green kicthen (and hello stained window).

Before (or during):


After:


Note the window in those two photos. Let me tell you how dangerous stain is. It gets everywhere. And it stains stuff. It's a horrid product to use - effective, but effective in the way that petroleum is effective to power our cars or heat our houses. My poor mother had window-staining duty, and she was like Flipper flipping about in the water, splashing everything with brown fingerprints. It was not her fault; I did it, too, when I arrogantly thought that I could be neater. Stain is just not your friend, even if the end result looks pretty darn good.

And then there was the hallway. My mother cannot tell the difference in the colors, the before and after, but I can. It's a subtle difference, very subtle, but such an important difference.

Look closely at the before photo. If you focus around the light switch, you may be able to better see the shading on the wall. The brighter color is the before. The calmer color is the after.



When done, the walls looked so creamy. The new look inspired me to switch up our art, so now the harbor scene from my uncle Peter is in the hall, the ocean scene from my parents (by way of Uncle Barry) is in the guest room, and the Guinness girl, who was once in the hall, is sitting on the floor in the guest room (sorry, no photo!). We haven't dealt with her yet. Give us time. We'll figure out a good home for her. I'm thinking the basement. Beer and girls and basements go together somehow.

But, lest you think that the only thing that my industrious family and I did that weekend was prime and paint the kitchen and vestibule, paint the hallway, and stain the kitchen window, let me set you straight. My brother, Brother Bunyan, did me and Doug an enormous favor by cutting down the shrubs that were growing along the side of the house along the driveway. Goodbye shrubs. Hello fresh start and painted house. Soon. We still have to figure out what we are going to plant in place of those shrubs (and the shrubs that we took down last summer in the front of the house), and we also have to still come up with a color to paint the house (or maybe just keep it the same?), but we'll get there. Soon. Things just take time around here. We're like the giant tortoise exhibit at the zoo. We get to where we want to go eventually, but it sure does take us a while.

Until next time, my neglected friend.

Sincerely,
Roadielocks

It's amazing what a little paint, some new appliances, a new table, and some homemade curtains can do.

To continue from yesterday's blog - tonight I have for you the "finished" product. I say "finished" because there's one thing that I've learned - I always eventually have to change things up. For now, though, I'm quite satisfied and hope you'll agree that what we've done has improved the rooms greatly.

First, let's focus on the cat/sun room. We painted the room a relaxing latte color and put a tallish table in there so that we can sit and read, do work on the laptop, eat, enjoy the view from our windows, watch the fish, or just hang out. Now this room has a purpose other than holding the cat toys, and so far we enjoy sitting out there. I was also charged with decorating the walls in this room, and so far my ideas for the walls have turned out well. The wall where the fish tank is has become the vintage photo wall (pictures-of-my-mom-and-dad and-sister-grandmother-and-Doug's-grandparents-circa-the-late-'60s-and-'70s vintage) (and note that the fish tank is a nice green color again. The tank hasn't been green like this since Doug lived in the cave in Newton about 5 years ago, and we're hoping that we can figure out a way to make it clear again... this is the one and only instance where I don't like sunlight), and the wall with the coat hooks now keeps the bird print that was once in the bedroom. Then the wall that had only the small painting I got in Paris in 2001 now is home to my Gardner Museum-inspired art wall, which needs a lot more art crammed onto it, but there's plenty of time for that. The wall directly behind the table has nothing on it for now (the ocean painting that reminds me of Nantucket will soon be hung in our bedroom upstairs), but now we have a place for more art should we find something that strikes our fancy. This room is now a room - homey, cozy, and with purpose. Score one for transformation weekend!

Score two for transformation weekend comes in the kitchen. As you read in my previous post, we painted the entryway to the kitchen and the kitchen accent wall a raspberry color. The color I originally picked out was called Deep Mango, which had a deep orange hue, but the closest match with the paint we got at the hardware store was Raspberry Blush. This paint on the little swatch had a rich orange hue, but it is not really very orange at all. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of the color we had in our old office/hobby room in Newton, which was called Strawberry something. Guess I'm not too original when picking out colors! But no matter - the color looks very good - bright and alive and it definitely transforms the look of the kitchen. What also transforms the look of the kitchen are the new curtains I made yesterday evening - made them from a tablecloth I bought at Target this past winter. Doug took a picture of me hard at work, and I have to say that I was a little rusty at the pedal of this machine...It took me forever to thread the needle, and then I accidentally sewed one end of the material to the other and had to rip that out. I really need more practice with this thing. But the curtains came out well, no?They give the room a more complete look. We also hung up some more hooks in the kitchen to hold keys and my apron (and yes, I've wondered why I have an apron when I only cook one night a week if I'm lucky these days), and also got the tin cow art back on the wall. Things are finally settled in the kitchen. Here's a view of the new look from looking towards the oven and new microwave: From looking towards the refrigerator (note that while our magnets and other flare don't stick to the front they do to the side!): And, finally, from looking towards the island:The kitchen is now clean, fresh, and reflects our style much more than the other kitchen decor (though we still have that silly Tuscan light fixture! We can only take so much change at once, so we may have to put changing that light fixture on hold, but now more than ever it really doesn't go with the kitchen, so please let me know if you think someone may want it! Otherwise I fear it may be headed for the Dedham Transfer Station...)

Stay tuned later this week for my post on the tag sale we participated in this past weekend. These have been marathon posts; trust me, I'm aware of this, but I finally have content to share so I want to share it! I think I may have to finally join Flickr as a paying member, though. I can't in good conscience keep using this blog as my digital photo album.