Home Improvement: Basement

During my junior year of college, my roommate and I watched "Trading Spaces" on TLC every day. Do you remember that show, when Ty Pennington was a carpenter and not completely nuts? Well, the designers on that show just loved to paint vertical stripes on everything; I'm pretty sure my house wasn't on that show, but the basement looked like it had been hit hard by Doug Wilson circa 2001.

The dark paint, dark wood stain, stripes, and underground-ness made it feel like a cave. Here are the before shots with the previous owner's stuff (I believe this was supposed to be a "man cave.")

If you've seen the pictures of the rest of our house, you'll surmise that I'm not a huge fan of beige or neutral paint. But in this situation, it was truly needed to brighten up the cave.

A coat of primer and 2 coats of "Wild Honey" on the walls, and 3 coats of paint on the bookcases, we now have this:

Painting that bookcase was a giant pain, but I think the results were worth it. I also spray painted the frames over the desk black (they were varying shades of brown), made 2 pillow covers, and new curtains. Even though I have a love/hate relationship with Ikea, I made 2 trips there for the lamp, bedding, rug, shelves, and chair cushion (the previous cushion had an unfortunate run-in with the cat.)

We also sprung for a new TV (the shelf the TV is sitting on was free from the trash; I'm not above dumpster diving) so this could be a secondary family room. It's so cold in the basement I have to put on a sweater in the middle of the summer, which is perfect for the 100-degree days we've been having lately.

I still need to paint the hallway (it's currently green), but it doesn't look horrible and I've been enjoying the break from painting. So it'll get done... eventually.

Household hints

Years ago I came upon the book 1003 Household Hints and Work Savers: A Treasury of Household Hints to help you beat the high cost of living at my grandpa's house. It was published in 1948, and has many ingenious hints that could help all you ladies during these tough economic times:

85: To put attractive scalloped edges on thin cucumber slices, just run the tines of a fork lengthwise over the peeled cucumber, and then slice.

[My cucumber slices just have regular edges. I feel like such a failure.]

192: When it's necessary to cut marshmallows, use a pair of thoroughly clean scissors dipped in hot water to prevent the marshmallows from sticking together.

[I don't know about you, but sometimes I find that a whole marshmallow is just too much.]

216: If you drive a car, get in on the side nearest the wheel, instead of scraping along the whole seat until you worm your way into position, thus wearing out the seat of your fur coat.

[Well thanks. NOW you tell me, after the seat of my fur coat has already been worn out.]

225: Pack turbans (several to a box) with tissue paper. They'll keep their shape better.

[I have been having a problem with flat turbans lately.]

511: Freshen up your wax flowers by dipping them in alcohol and swabbing them off with a soft, small paint brush.

[Just what I needed! My wax flowers have been looking awfully tired lately.]

693: Cut out interesting illustrations from magazines or wallpaper, chintz or cretonne, paste them on the screen and shellac the whole thing for "tricky" and colorful designs.

[I'm bringing "tricky" back.]

751: When making long-distance telephone calls, place an "hourglass" egg-timer near your phone. It operates on a three-minute schedule and will warn you exactly when your three minutes are up.

[My frequent 4-minute long-distance phone calls have been a subject of strife in my marriage lately.]

That dream home of your own - here are a few ways to tell whether it's the house you want: 988: Is there enough lumber in the construction? Go up to the attic and measure the rafters, beams and studding. They should be close enough to make the frame substantial.

[Oh no! I forgot to measure the rafters before we bought our house!]

1002: You can tell whether or not the phone has been ringing in your absence by placing a piece of thin paper and carbon paper between the clapper and the bell. If that important call came in while you were out, the carbon marks on the paper will tell you so.

[I prefer the "missed call" icon, but this works well too.]

Finished: No-Purl Monkeys

It's supposed to be 99 degrees today - perfect for some wool socks! I know you just want to look at the pictures, so here are the details: Wullenstudio yarn (75% merino wool, 25% nylon; color "Lipstick On Your Collar"); pattern No Purl Monkeys (just Cookie A's Monkey pattern, but knitting the purls instead of, well, purling the purls); shoes are Semira by Doc Martens.

Surfing for Inspiration

[I first starting drafting this post in July 2009; it's time to finish!]

In a comment to something I posted last year, Charley asked about my inspiration file. (If I see an interesting picture online, I save it to a file on my computer.) She asked where I got my images from and if there were particular sites I visited.

Why, yes! Most of my pictures are decorating ideas, and a few are knitting & sewing ideas. I'm pretty sure all you crafty types know the usual suspects (Whip Up, Etsy, The Purl Bee), so I'll share a few of the decorating sites I frequent:

• West Elm - A home decorating & furniture store
• House of Turquoise - A blog focusing on decorating with the color (you guessed it) turquoise (if you click over and look at the sidebar, there are also links for blogs focusing on many other colors)
• Young House Love
  
• Making it Lovely
• Centsational Girl
• k.f.d. designs
• Gennine's Art Blog
  
• Country Living Magazine - I know, when you think of country, you can't help but imagine white wicker, checked fabric, and dried flowers. But, this magazine actually features some beautiful rooms, most of which I find way more accessible than those in House Beautiful, which frequently borders on crazy.

For a snarky take on decorating, check out Catalog Living.

If you love color as much as I do, check out Holly Dyment Design:

Finished: Citron

What's that? A finished knit? I hardly know what one of those looks like these days. I finished this shawl a really long time ago, back when it was cold, and my hands didn't immediately turn into sweat factories as soon as I picked up wool.

The pattern is Citron, and I used Malabrigo sock in "Botticelli Red" that I bought in San Francisco last year. It was pretty fast and fun to knit, although it's somewhat small. When I have worn it, it has been bunched up around my neck like a scarf. (Which seems to be the preferred way of wearing shawls anyway, since this isn't 1879.)

The pattern is available free at Knitty; raveled here.

Basement Tidying

Not all projects are glamorous. Along with the fun of choosing paint colors and scouring TJ Maxx for that perfect turquoise vase comes stink bug eradication, washing the windows, sweeping, vacuuming, swiffering (is that a word?), laundry, dishes, taking out the trash... and lately, cleaning the cave in the basement.

Our basement is finished except for one room, which holds the washer and dryer, HVAC unit, hot water heater, and a whole bunch of stuff that we don't really want to look at on a daily basis. My husband, while I love him dearly, is of the "close the door and forget it" mentality, while I (as you should have guessed by now) am of the lying in bed and thinking of new ways to organize things variety. The basement has been bothering me for a while, and a few weeks ago I took the time to organize it. Here are the before shots:

And after:

I actually only threw away two grocery bags full of trash - everything else has been rearranged (I always was pretty good at Tetris). I know, not super exciting... but still super satisfying.

Home Improvement: Bathroom

Has anyone read this article? {LINK} What do you think? I read a lot of decorating and so-called "lifestyle" blogs myself, but I don't let myself feel bad about my house not being "perfect." As Sadie says toward the end of the article, blogs are not a true representation of reality. Before I take pictures of finished rooms, I always clean them up. To illustrate, here are pictures of the upstairs bathroom that I've been working on over the past few months.

Before, it was painted a color I can only describe as flesh tone. Plus, there were weird unpainted stripes near the ceiling and near the floor, which were probably intended to be artsy, but just left me confused.

Once we moved in, the bathroom started looking sad and lonely.

I painted the walls "Silver Drop", and Jason and I put up the train rack. The plate, candle, and lantern were TJ Maxx finds, and the print on the wall is from this great Etsy seller.

To illustrate my point above about blogs being an inaccurate representation of reality, here's what the bathroom really looks like, cat litter box and overflowing trash can in all their glory:

Spring!

After this winter, I'm so glad it's spring. Having tons of primrose pop up unexpectedly in the garden was an added bonus!

My Desk

Last weekend the sun came out, and I was finally able to climb out of the nest of quilts I've been hibernating in since December. Of course, the first thing I did was find some things to clean and organize (if you don't know me in real life, and if you haven't figured it out by reading this blog, organizing is one of my favorite pastimes.) My instinct is always to group like items together and then put them away into neatly arranged boxes. Generally, this works for things like tax returns and old photos, but it doesn't work for art supplies.

Half of my art supplies were down in my basement sewing room (henceforth known as "the craft bunker"), and the others were in drawers on my desk. I brought everything up so that I could have everything at hand while I worked on my journals and other experiments. I also covered a shoebox with paper and made some smaller origami boxes to hold my cork stamps.

Yes, I love art supplies. I recently acquired some nicer colored pencils and some watercolors. I also discovered that there is a Utrecht store right near my office in the city. This could be dangerous.

What are your favorite art supplies?

Living/Dining Room

For months after we moved in, this room was completely empty. (Well, empty aside from the empty boxes and old furniture I was trying to sell on craigslist.) I tend to have a very exact picture of the furniture I want, and have a totally unrealistic price I want to pay for it. But, we now have a couch (bought on sale!), a table (on sale!), a side table and lamp, and chairs ($20 on craigslist, but still need to be painted). The "coffee table" is two of the $13 tables from Ikea, acting as a stand-in until we can get a real table. I like this one from Pottery Barn, but not for $400.

We also need a chair, and I like this one from Room and Board, but once again, I'm not paying more for a chair than we paid for the whole couch.See the nook over by the door? Ideally I'd like a bench, to make sort of a foyer/entrance area. Then I would like the furniture fairy to pay for it and deliver it to the house for free.