Happy Overconfidence

I got the goods. It is all up to installation, floral arranging, accessorizing, keeping the children O-U-T out of the Breakfast Room and coaxing Annie Leibovitz levels photographic perfection out of myself and my Nikon.

Everything in this room I love. Each piece of fabric,  the trims, the art and accessories has a hand wrought quality. Trivial as this one room may be it reinforces the fact that in a world that is so turbulent and sometimes ugly there are people who can create something beautiful, leave a positive mark and make another person happy. 

One piece is extra special. My mother, named by the children "Big Momma", stitched a seasoning guide the year I was born. The panel was framed and hung on the wall of my childhood home until that house was sold. Divine providence kept the unframed fragment safe during the renovation of this house and after careful cleaning the panel was inset into of one of the pillows.  

The seat pads for the cane chairs!  The pattern, the color, the protection for the cane! 

The blue linen used throughout the Breakfast Room is the same shade of blue as some of the panels in the Kitchen's leaded glass windows.

The blue is repeated in the ceiling and the rugs. All coming together.

I am not a DIY'r. I am a DDIY'r.  Over the last 5 weeks I have watched  the 150 plus participants in the Calling It Home One Room Challenge  do 1,001 things  to  perfection. Their inspiration has lead me to an over abundance of confidence. I know I am not Home Depot. "I can not do it and there is no one here to help". Yet I seem to think I am able to take on dressing up the side porch, painting and stenciling a 30' x 22' patio, actually do the interior design work clients are expecting, and plan a birthday party. Guess what folks... my children will probably be dirty and eating a lot of Chipolte. 

Good news with the concrete patio I really cant make it look worse.

I am going to have to raise my game or fail spectacularly.

Until the BIG REVEAL.

Gorilla Glue and Glitter

I am humbled and in awe when I look at the other One Room Challenge participants. The wealth of  ability so many have to put pen to paper, needle to fabric, paint to wall. I do any of the above and the end result looks like a hyper active kindergartner  hopped up on Lucky Charms just did it and is now passed out under the table. The kindergartner has an excuse. I don't. I just flat can't make my hands do what my brain says. And so while those with talent and ability are making tangible progress. All I can say is, "I checked in with the work room". 

The chairs did come back. All of the frames were tightened.

The chairs that needed new cane seats have gotten them and the hand work is beautiful.

 The new caned seats are only slightly lighter then their original counter parts.

The chairs are dinged and scratched from age. Five of the chairs are exactly the same the sixth appears to have been a hand carved addition and you can see the differences in wood species. The chairs came from Neal Auction Co. in New Orleans. They are lovely to work with and the histories that come with some of the pieces are fabulous. 

Eight matted pages from a 19th century seed catalog will be the on walls. Working out how to display them with out great expense and damage to the walls took time. 

In spite of the presence of the picture molding I was getting impatient and frustrated with what I thought should be a simple solution, clips at the end of wires. "We can make custom clips for you Mrs. Falls",  if I am going to blow my wad on custom it is not going to be on clips. Even if they are hand wrought at the end of a rainbow during the vernal equinox by tinker fairies. 

Ta- da! $40 later minimal wall trauma. You have to trust me here.... It is gonna work.

Now, we are at the end.  What happened to the Gorilla Glue and glitter? The table I thought was too "new" looking.

The children made their mark. Gorilla Glue was brought out to repair one of the 25 painted ceramic figurines from the paint your own pottery store.  Enter the 8 year old who says to  the 5 year old, "let's  paint our nails with this glitter nail polish and add a little sparkle to the damaged figurine". All going down on my table. 

Breakfast Room - Week 3- Nuts and Candied Nuts!

Paint and patience can do marvelous things. The walls are finished and the lights are going up.

I have been obsessed with this light fixture from House Beautiful from a million years ago and carrying the image around forever. Finally, I thought, here is my chance.

The husband was not a super fan but, I headed along anyway until I realized he was right. Beautiful as it is unlike the room in the image the Breakfast Room is smaller and the light would be bang in the middle of the bay window and block all the sight lines of the room. Nuts.

House Beautiful

Candied nuts. Ha! Ha! As much as I love it, it does not work over the table but, could it be that the sconces in the bay window could be recipients of this treatment? YES!!

Library Light

I still need a center light. I do not want anything mass produced, it cant block the sight lines, my size requirements are specific (nothing worse than a too small, too high mounted light over a table). My hands turned to claws clicking away. Then BAM! Jann Richardson, of  The Lamp Goods solved everything with her Booth Bay Pendant. It is the perfect, size, scale, weight everything is right. It is meant to be here.

 Booth Bay Pendant Large

The window seat was in my cross hairs from the day we bought the house. I have no good reason why, especially sense I really like window seats but, I wanted it gone. The husband, the architect and the builder all said "NO!". They were all absolutely right. I love it the children love it it gets used a lot. I did however make an effort to not go near it for months to prove a point.

The window seat housed a now removed radiator. We thought about installing flat panels where the grill work is but decided it would be a blocky mass of white. Rather a fabric panel is being made to mount behind the grill work. Softening the visual of the seat, bringing a little color and highlighting the pattern of the grill work.

I want the window seat to be a cozy spot for the children to read since they will be doing their homework on the table. A window seat cushion, a supply of colorful pillows and seat pads for the chairs are in the works and hopefully everything will meet the impending finish.

Muriel Brandolini

Lisa Corti

Kathryn Ireland

Pindler & Pindler

Week 3 of the Calling It Home One Room Challenge. I hope you have checked out the other participants. We are all finally getting to the really fun stuff!

Don't Mess With Mr. In- Between....

In 1944 Johnny Mercer and  Harold Arlen published the song "Ac-Cent-tchu-ate the Positive". The lyrics, "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, don't mess with mister in- between" was explained by the writers as the key to finding happiness. This is the approach we are taking to the house and we are happily on our way.

The cabinates are out and the wiring and switches repaired silencing the hissing.

The doors are beautiful and in good shape. The hardware is all original and in excellent condition.

                                   

The floors have been repaired and refinished. New Trim has been installed from the areas damaged from the cabinet removal. Here you can appreciate the previous owners the in paint selections relative to the white samples.

80 years of bad paint jobs have been taken off the steel casement windows and the old varnished moldings have been sanded down to be primed. We found these little bronze numbered plaques, each window has one and they correspond with the original screens and interior storm windows that came with the house. The seasonal change out is not easy but, it just got a lot easier now that the numbering system can be used again. The bronze hardware has had the paint removed and the windows now open and close with ease.

 What a radiator does to your walls after 80 years. Burn marks.

The entire house has hand troughed plaster walls and ceilings thing about these kind of walls is that bargin paint and dark colors can look dirty so after sixteen different white samples were put up. The final selection for the whites for this room are from C2 Paint in multiple finishes.

The walls egg shell finish. The picture molding satin impervo finish. Milk Mustache.

The ceiling flat finish. The base, window seat, window and door moldings satin impervo finish. Architectural White.

These chairs were bought at auction years ago and are finally out of storage. The frames are being tightened and a few of the seats are being re-caned. Hand caning, like most hand crafts, is a dying art. Hand as opposed to machine caning is sturdier so in spite of the time and expense to the hand caning is getting done.

A table from One Kings Lane fits the bill. It looks a little too new for my taste but I am sure that in no time the children will make sure it has the worn finish I am looking for.

Next week the fun stuff. Color, fabric, light!

Thank you Linda for getting so many inspiring and exciting people and places in one place.

One Room Challenge- The Breakfast Room- Week 1

There once was a house that was covered with vines considered by most to be a tear down. That house has a charming bay window that is the Breakfast Room.

Similar to the exterior  what is charming and special about the house and the Breakfast Room has been lost to 80 years of genteel  neglect and questionable aesthetic decisions. 

A  pair corner cabinets on either side of the door from the stairs. I am a big proponent of preservation but the reality is that not everything that is old and original is necessarily good case in point here. Their storage capacity for empty air line vodka bottles is huge. Some people find a stash of priceless art I get empties lifted from Delta.

This beauty. The switch makes a reassuring hissing sound every time and with out a table underneath the fixture is a hazard. The blue and green plastic blends into the blues and greens of the landscape. Children enter the room they get clipped on the noggin and adults take it right in the chest. Even though you know its there you hit it every time and every time it is a surprise with flailing and choice words.

We all want  little dungeon  with our oatmeal.  

Such attention to detail. The candle sleeve has been painted the same pistachio green as the walls.

The room has many strong points and details, arched passage ways,  solid arched wood doors, split set hardware original to the house, steel casement windows most with the original glass and size but, all the positives are lost at the moment. 

The swing will be a big one as has most of the change in the house. We have enjoyed the transformation of the house thus far and I hope you will in the coming 6 weeks enjoy this tiny transformation and those of the other participants of the Calling It Home One Room Challenge.