A Day for Walls, and the Great Outdoors!

It is Wednesday (although just barely!) and I am participating in What's On Your Walls? and Outdoor Wednesday. You can find the links to the lovely hostesses (thank you, Susan at A Southern Daydreamer, and Barb at Grits and Glamour) who have created these special blogging days, below, so you can visit and see what the other participants have been up to!

Outdoor Wednesday

What's On Your Walls Wednesday


On my walls? Right now, paint, mostly. I haven't hung much in the way of framed things. But the paint? Whoa, baby, that gave me fits.

If I added up all the paint Howard and I have slapped on walls, I'd have -- well, I'd have one heck of a lot of paint. So, when we bought That Old House nearly a year ago, we figured we'd paint it ourselves.

All ten rooms of it.

One room later (in a Sherwin Williams soft green I can't remember the name of) ...

. . . and realizing that there were still 9 rooms to go, my husband suggested to me that the sweetest words in the world are not "Your Ebay item has been shipped," but ... "Pay the man!"

For the first time, we hired painters. Bliss and terror, in one fell swoop.

Bliss, because Danny and his crew gave an amazingly affordable quote for stripping wallpaper, fixing old plaster, and painting. Terror, because Danny handed me the enormous and intimidating Benjamin Moore color fan deck, and said, "Choose your colors. By tomorrow morning."

Yikes! I love color. I am a color junkie. But to choose so many colors from weensy little cardboard rectangles . . . scary stuff!

(The painters used the empty kitchen as their home away from home.)

I begged and got 2 days to make my choices. While Danny and the crew tore off wallpaper, patched, spackled, sanded . . . I sat at a tiny table in our conservatory and pored over those Benjamin Moore colors.

Here's what I finally chose, and what is on my walls!

Our front hall, above. To the left, the parlor in progress. The hallway is Moore's HC-45 Shaker Beige, which we used for the stair well and upstairs hall, also. You can see our red dining room through the doorway, in 1300 Tucson Red. More of that room is here.

Below, the parlor, in its new coat of HC-44 Lenox Tan. Surprisingly, Lenox Tan, Shaker Beige and Tucson Red are among Moore's most popular colors. I had no idea. My daughter Anne says I must have common tastes. Aren't children delightful? Well, she was kidding. She was. Really.

Now... up the front stairs...

The upstairs hall -- you can see the progress. Wallpaper down, walls under repair, spackle and primer on ... and finally the finished hall with its fresh clean paint!

This is the back bedroom, our official "guest room." It started as an aggressive lavender -- two shades -- with a wide floral border. It is now a clear pale yellow -- 198 Cornsilk. I love yellow walls; they make antique wood glow.

The hall bath. It is wearing a fresh coat of HC-143 Wythe Blue. This is a slightly more intense shade of HC-144 Palladian Blue -- the color we put in our master bedroom.

The front bedroom, nominally our daughter Alida's room, although as she is living in California for 5 years of graduate school, it is actually another guest room. It is painted in 015 Soft Shell, a pink that flirts a bit with peach. Very pretty color!

Not shown: my daughter Anne's rooms; she has two connecting rooms across the hall from the pink bedroom, but they are not yet painted. Anne wanted to do them herself. Yeah, that's worked out well. We are negotiating. As for my kitchen, it was due for renovation this year, but we are postponing it; I will live with its gold-ish walls for awhile longer.

Because of all the colors, I used the same paint for all of the woodwork, I-79 Atrium White. I am happy with my color choices, but oh my! I much prefer the usual system -- pick your rugs or fabrics first; you can always have paint mixed to match!

Now... for Outdoor Wednesday ... you can read the explanation, or just skip down to the pictures and enjoy! They are of Corey Creek, an inlet off Peconic Bay, and taken from my parents' front lawn.

Long Island is shaped like a fish, sort of, with its far ends slanting north and east into the cold Atlantic. The two "fins" at Island's end are called the "Forks." The South Fork is home to the fabled and gorgeous Hamptons, with wonderful fishing and farming, a rollicking social scene, and of course -- Ina Garten.

The North Fork is a much smaller land mass, and quieter than its riotous cousin across Peconic Bay. Dozens of vineyards and wineries have rescued the farming business (the climate and soil are almost identical to that of France's Bordeaux region), and the pace of life is slower, and I think sweeter.

In the winter of 1969, my parents saw a classified ad in the Sunday New York Times for a waterfront summer house in Southold, on the North Fork; they drove out and bought it that day.

In the 40 years since, the little house was expanded once, then twice, then again, and then in 1991 it was torn down completely, and my parents built their dream retirement place, a three story house with plenty of bedrooms, multiple decks, and a water view from every window.

This is what you see from their front lawn:
Now, to me, that is the Great Outdoors!
Thanks for visiting!

Am I Blue? Not Anymore! A Blue Monday Metamorphosis

It's another Metamorphosis Monday, and a Blue Monday as well. I've combined these two into one, with a metamorphosis tale that moves from the blues, to . . . well, seeing red!

Visit Smiling Sally for more Blue Mondays, and

Between Naps On The Porch for more magical Monday Metamorphoses.

Thank you, Sally and Susan, for being such gracious hostesses!

*********************************************

I love flowers in clay pots.
I love brick walls.
I love blue skies.

But, sadly, I didn't love them painted on these walls. This was our powder room, when we bought That Old House nearly a year ago:

This little half bath is at the end of our "butler's pantry," (the rather grand name we give to the passageway between our kitchen and dining room, which we hope to restore someday). There is a walk-in pantry on the other side of that pocket door.

I felt guilty, wanting to repaint this room,
because clearly a lot of time
and effort went into creating it.
But, I got over it:

Goodbye to the blues!

We painted the powder room to match the dining room, Tucson Red, #1300, from Benjamin Moore, with the beadboard wainscoting and woodwork in Moore's Atrium White for some relief from the intense red in such a small space.
A crystal sconce that matches the dining room fixture replaced an undersized brass-plated one. The vanity and sink are serviceable and in good condition, so while I'm not crazy about them, they will stay for now. We replaced a worn faucet with a simple, classic polished nickel one. I love polished nickel; it has the look of old silver to me. My Dad thinks I am nuts. He is a very practical fellow, and told me, "Nickel tarnishes!"

Yes, Dad... that's the whole point! :-)

There is a window over the sink, so I needed a mirror on the opposite wall, and was looking for an old fashioned sort like my grandmothers had in their homes. It needed to be fairly large, and (of course) cheap.

I found it at Home Depot, of all places:

It was only about $30. It's beveled, and there is an
etched-glass floral border around it -- just like I remember.

You never know where that just-right article may come from, do you? I'd spent months looking for the right mirror (sometimes finding the right mirrors for other rooms but not this one!) and there it was, waiting for me, just 6 miles away at the big box store!

Still to be done: curtains!
I'm thinking a nice chintz, or maybe a red & white toile; what do you think?

Next post: Color! And my panic at choosing it
and using it, when I had to choose and use a LOT!

Master Bedroom Metamorphosis, Part One

(I am participating in Metamorphosis Monday with this post, even though it was written on Saturday! (Is that cheating?) Thanks to Cindy at Applestone Cottage for her encouragement! You can find other Monday Metamorphosis stories at
BETWEEN NAPS ON THE PORCH: Welcome to the Fourth Metamorphosis Monday! Many thanks to Susan for hosting!)
************************************
When you buy an old house, you usually buy a whole load of ... shall we say "unique" decorating? Take our Master Bedroom ("Please!" as Henny Youngman used to say).

Below, "before" and "after" pictures:The stripey wallpaper in this bedroom made me dizzy, and since we'd chosen this room to be the master, that was not A Good Thing. I felt as if I were going to tip over when I looked at it. It was really the oddest effect. The vertigo-inducing stripes had to go.
Built-ins are lovely, but this one (above) was an exception. It was built across a door into a walk-in closet. To get to the closet, you had to go out into the hallway. Go figure.

A hundred years ago, that closet probably had a different function. It is large enough that it could have been a sewing room, a nursery, even a box room. (Houses should still have box rooms; how lovely to have a room piled with boxes, for which you needn't apologize!)
Work in progress. The painters have stripped off the wallpaper, bless their hearts, and I no longer get dizzy when I enter the room. However, removing the paper reveals some fairly funky areas of old plaster.

Again, painters to the rescue. They work on the walls -- a lot -- and then cover them in a tinted-to-match oil primer, and then, it's more work, and plaster repair. Gapping moldings are caulked, and the old, odd built-in cupboard is removed. We find out we can't use the old door as it won't fit properly in the opening, so there is no door on the closet. It is an old house; we are not surprised.
Interesting effect, no?
Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel (below). Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue (HC-144) covers walls, which have been restored but not made perfect; we don't want our walls looking new! Like us, they wear their years with pride. (Or so I tell myself.)
This room is directly above the dining room that's featured in previous blog posts; same triple windows, same bay.
Oh my, those windows are dirty! Oops. Look instead at the lovely blue walls and crisp white woodwork.
And there we have it, the metamorphosis of the master bedroom at That Old House, Part One. I have to start sewing for this room, too. I bought a wonderful Greef/Schumacher cotton and can't wait to make the curtains, and I think perhaps a dust ruffle for the bed.

For home dec fabrics, I heartily recommend www.fabricguru.com for their amazing selection, cheap shipping, and really really good prices. I love a bargain! I paid less than $4.00 a yard for the Greef cotton, a teeny fraction of its original price, and it is first quality.

Speaking of bargains, I found a rice carved mahogany 4-poster on Craigslist. Very cheap. I need a step stool to climb into it. I do love to recycle!