Palette Cleanser

May 22, 2014 erin

Is it just me or are things looking really overdecorated lately? This might come across as a little ironic since I recently swathed a powder room in crazy marble wallpaper, but I can't help it. My eyes are tired. It seems like every room has to have trim and contrasting pattern and 75 colors and fully accessorized vignettes and statement furniture everywhere. I'm not judging, for I am most definitely guilty of all infractions. And don't get me wrong, I will always have a flair for the dramatic and a soft spot for this:

That is super weird. I love it, and I will always love wallpaper. But like I said, my eyes are bleeding from all the stuff in every picture everywhere and I feel an overwhelming urge to clean up the visual clutter.

AHHHHHH isn't that nice? Does anyone actually live here? Who cares?! It's all about organizing the room around one statement moment and then editing everything else out. Like a fine ocular sorbet.

White paint makes that easy. If you have great light and good architecture, white paint works. Personally I don't think I can ever live with white white whiiiite paint, because we have a lot of sheetrock and not a lot of windows. I might be feeling anti ornamental at the moment, but if you live in a sheetrock shack you're going to have to do some decorating.

Even dirty off white is more forgiving. This is a nice amount of ornamentalism for me. There is a lot going on here, but keeping things neutral and monochromatic lets the eye rest.

For those of us with yucky architecture and light, color may be a necessity. I don't think cleaning house necessarily means painting everything in neutrals and going gently into that good night. Robert Couturier is my homeboy because he knows how to let even a fancy room breathe. Bold color on the walls and wee pattern on the sofas dictates neutral art, no pillows (!!!), very little clutter, and curtains that don't pop. Matching sofas reduces the number of design elements in a large room. This is a space that could be translated to a real person's house for sure.

Or how about a mostly tonal room with zero pattern? So doable. The focus is all on the delicious yet judicious use of color. It might even be nutritious.

Same idea, but as a kitchen. Sexy, moody, interesting, and clean as a whistle.

I have to admit it is hard not to love a good white room, though. The architecture and textural elements here are layered enough to keep things lively, and that lamp is everything.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a bright white Vistosi chandelier in an otherwise dark room has impact without punching you in the face. The paint color and furnishings are unique, but everything else is kinda blendy and nothing is upstaging the diva.

Blendy blendy, but not blandy. It's all about the floors and that bizarrely awesome chandelier.

This is like the good twin to my evil twin powder room. I really wanted everything to feel like it was chiseled from the same material. It might have helped if I had 10K to spend on marble, but I think I did ok with $300 spent on wallpaper.

And then there is this room. There are quite a few design elements going on, but the balance is good. I spy plenty of breathing room. It's clean and fresh and interesting. I want to live here. That rug!

Isn't it nice be simple sometimes?

One Room Challenge: Week Six -- Reveal!

May 7, 2014 erin

Hi everyone, welcome back for the final week of the One Room Challenge! For the past six weeks a host of bloggers have worked tirelessly to take one room from a zero to a hero. [Catch up on past weeks HERE.] Let me tell you something: this challenge ain't for wimps or wussies. Six weeks ago my husband loved me, my children recognized me, and I weighed five pounds less. Apparently the threat of utter public humiliation makes me hungry. Was it worth it? I don't know, donuts are pretty delicious. Imagine this bathroom is a giant frosted donut. Nom nom.

I really hope you like it, because I kind of love it. It's magic mushroom mystery submarine crazy. I so very much wish you could come visit in person because this is the hardest room in the universe to photograph EVER. And unlike most photoshoots where I am piling laundry into corners out of the camera's view, I think this space looks so much better in person.

Also it is tiny so there are really only two angles, but somehow I managed to take 300 pictures. I hope you like to look at pictures of my bathroom on the internet. Let's hit the rundown.

You may recall that I scored this handsome Altman's faucet on ebay. Some days I wake up filled with worry... will the brass trend die a horrible chevronesque death due to ubiquity and overuse? It might. But if you like it, do it. I think someone famous said that once.

Cb2 Torked it out of the park with this mirror. It really goes everywhere, and it especially works when you have a lot of things happening in a small space. Pare. It. Down. It's awesome, except after we (Ben) hung it I decided it was about two inches too high and now there is a big hole in the wallpaper, but don't worry you can't see it because I am a wizard with concealer.

My pare it down principle somehow does not extend to lighting, because when faced with electrified shiny things I can't seem not to take it to the maxxx. I am in sweet love with this Mazzega chandelier I picked up off ebay for pennies on the dollar. I swear this thing is 20x more impressive in real life. It's spun from Charlotte's webs and angel tears.

After we (Ben) hung it, I decided it was two inches too high so I made him lengthen the chain, which required disassembling and reassembling with held breath and eyes wide shut. The fear of possible breakage will continue to give me ptsd for weeks.

Ike was sooooo excited about this soap dish -- this glass soap dish that I didn't want him to use. He actually started crying when I tried to take it out of HIS bathroom. Because he thinks the bathroom belongs to him. Don't say I never spoil you, kid. You can have the soap dish too.

When it came time to hang last week's proposed lucite towel ring, I balked. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me until I scrolled through my ginormous collection of bathrooms on pinterest and realized that none of my favorites had a towel ring. Zero. A few had petite towel bars, which at least keep things nice and flat instead of scrunched up and germy. I decided I didn't want anything hanging on that wall... it just felt cluttered. Then I decided I hate regular hand towels so I "made" these from a vintage linen tablecloth with metallic embroidery, and by made I mean "tore artfully."

All is not lost, lucite lovers. I did end up using the paper holder with fancy BLACK toilet paper, courtesy of my sweet friend Rebecca who knows my heart's desires so well.

How have I lived so long without black toilet paper that my children aren't allowed to use? It's amazing. Thank you, Rebecca! When I opened the box I almost wept with delight and maybe a little bit of first world self loathing. The fact that it's a gift makes it ok. SCORE.

Speaking of great friends, let's talk about my amazing art courtesy of Gillian Bryce Fine Art. I have 800 million paintings, but this wallpaper is tricky. Nothing I had worked and I was slightly EXTREMELY panicked, but I stalked the 214 Modern Vintage booth at High Point via facebook like it's my job (it is). And then I spied this beauty amongst a host of angelic creations including many beatific William Fredericksen paintings and collages (also obsessed). Gillian overnighted this hero to me... I'm kind of speechless in love with her and the art. That is service, y'all. I highly recommend checking out her giant art collection. It's excellent.

Did you notice the spray painted blinds? Thanks to all my instagram buds who encouraged me to paint my fingers and toes black. I'm happy to report that it worked pretty well (on the blinds). We'll see how they hold up to a baby who likes to eat the wooden bobs. Please don't call CPS. I know the heimlich.

So I think that's it for my sources. Want to see a little freestyle action? These are the moments (cue teary montage):

And what would a makeover challenge be without a proper before and after? Put on your sunglasses, because the before pictures might blind the old and infirm. That's not you, right?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And that, my friends, brings us to the end of our soap operatic journey through shame and into redemption. It's been a long, dusty, expensive road, and I think I've earned a bottle of something cheap and strong to celebrate.

Thank you ever so much to Linda of Calling it Home for organizing and hosting such a lovely and talented group of designers and bloggers! This challenge gets better every round, and I'm honored to have been included. If you haven't already, please do go visit the other participants to see their epic finales.

I myself plan to bust out a donut, drink some ripple, and try not to make Ben hang anything two inches away from perfection for at least the rest of the day. Until next time!

One Room Challenge: Week Five -- Things Fall Apart

April 30, 2014 erin

Hello and welcome back for the penultimate week of the One Room Challenge, the race to make a finished space happen in six short weeks. [Catch up on previous weeks HERE.] When we left off last week I was feeling a little dumpy about my wallpaper conundrum, so dumpy that I forgot to show you my new counter and faucet power couple, which is basically like forgetting to tell you I won the lottery. Let's talk about this sparkle magic, shall we? In the continued interest of test driving potential materials for the future maybe possibly never kitchen remodel, I decided to go with marble counters after pricing out several options. I wanted to use the broken marble table from the last ORC debacle. That would have been epic and so very poetic, but fabricators didn't want to touch my giant cracked, glued and screwed table with a 10 foot pole. I also considered silestone, but... meh. Somehow a tiny slab of white silestone felt limp when what I wanted was jazz hands.

The counter is small so I held my breath and splurged on carrara, or not so much splurged as spent $35 more on marble than quartz. Right after it was installed I set about to wiping and worrying, but not 24 hours later I found Luke sitting in the sink with the faucet running and a hot wheels clutched in each hand. I guess the cars needed a wash.

So far there has been toothpaste, plaster, water, and god only knows what else all over those counters... and I don't see a thing except for the reflection of yon Altmans faucet, shining like handsome Narcissus in the golden afterglow of his beauty. Even better I scored that dude off Ebay for $250 including shipping and every part necessary for install. I mean, did I want to spend $250 on a faucet? No... more like $25. But $250 is better than $1000.

Room shot of the install shows that I got the baseboards all a-painted and yikes, there is still an ugly wire thing playing with my emotions. What the what am I going to put there?

You know how I got my faucet from ebay? I get pretty much everything from ebay, including all this here lighting that I bought in a bingefest rivaling the great Round Top buyathon of 2013 when I went temporarily insane and spent half a month's salary in one day. Don't worry, I'm not rich so half of a month is like $10. I digress. Look at all the lighting I bought! A super weird heavy blown glass flushmout, a petite Tronchi chandelier with smoked glass tubes, an insane Mazzega chandelier, and a teeny tiny lucite ribbon chandelier.

I should probably put a mirror up, too. UGHHHHH. My faucet is handsome, meanwhile I prefer to pretend I am just a walking manifestation of being, that I have no face, or at least no face that is slowly but surely melting from years of parenting. So this is just a small sampling of my wares. A thrifted vintage La Barge mirror with gold leaf shells, a CB2 Tork mirror, and a gold bamboo octagonal mirror for all your feng shui toilety needs.

Also, you may have noticed that there is skim coat on my walls. That's because if you follow me on instagram then you know that this happened:

My favoritest wallpaper man in the world. He's so good that I have a secret crush on him. I hope he never reads this because the next time I see him it will be super awkward. For all you nerds out there, notice he is pasting and booking a non woven paper which is supposed to be a paste the wall product. Directions? What directions?

I'm sure you thought I might attempt to hang that crazy wallpaper myself, because how hard can it be right? Well I have hung my fair share of paper and let me tell you that textured walls + metallic wallpaper = professional installation. I'm not a DIY wimp but I draw the line at skim coating and sanding all the walls, then lining said skim coated walls with blankstock liner, then hanging some very fussy shiny paper behind toilets and around lots of corners. Had I done the job, there is no way this would have been the result:

Hooray! But what am I going to use for blinds? Can I do bamboo?

Also I am freaking out about drilling into my fancy expensive wallpaper, but I gots to have a towel ring and toilet paper holder... don't I? I happen to have a vintage lucite set, but I am wondering if it's a leeetle too much. Or maybe even way too much. I mean, do I just go Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds here? Or should I dial it down to Let it Be?

I totally want some black toilet paper.

There are a lot of exclamation points and question marks in the works today. I'm obviously not amped up or stressed or anything. I have 50 billion (or maybe five) big decisions to make and then I can peace out and sleep for a month or possibly even a night. Next week is the big one... the final countdown is upon us. The Final Countdooooooowwwwwwnnnnn.

I need to resolve some issues. Lucite or possibly black finishing hardware? Can I get away with bamboo blinds in here? I've got to nail down a lighting and mirror combo. And art. You may remember from the last ORC that I have a few extra pieces lying around... am I going old and dirty or bright and peppy?

You'll have to tune in next week to find out. In the meantime, drop me a line and let me know your thoughts. I'm feeling weak and tired. I might listen to you. Or not. Nothing personal, I'm just a control freak with an emphasis on the control. Ok, and the freak.

Until then please do check out the progress of my talented compadres. The game is afoot!