Chrysalis

I have emerged from the shadowy depths of baby hibernation a butterfly transformed by your kind comments. Thank you for reading all about my room tour last week, and double triple googleplex thank you for letting me know you'd like to see more of them. I'm working up a tour of the nursery for next week, so please do tune in for that there goodness.

Today is not so much goodness. Both kids have/had crazy high fevers and I've gotten 4-5 hours of broken sleep every night for a week. Right about now I'd like to punch winter in the face. Since winter is an intangible being with no face to punch, let's talk kitchens for a minute or two.

You knew it would come to this, right?

So, Ben and I tried to strip a door in the hopes we might turn our dated glossy honey oak cabinets into something with this vibe:

And the door laughed in our faces. I'm guessing the finish applied to our cabinets is some kind of super space age polymerized diamond hard coating designed to resist grease and terrorists, because it is NOT COMING OFF. At least not like it does on tv, when you apply the stripping compound and 72 layers of paint slough off in one fell swoop, revealing clean and sparkly wooden goodness beneath.

First we tried denatured alcohol, then we tried lacquer thinner. Then we glopped on the citristrip and left it on for 30 minutes. Then we glopped on more citristrip and left it on overnight. Then in desperation we tried acetone. Basically, we dumped every chemical we could find on that door and only a fraction of the finish was removed.

And so, paint it is.

I'm pretty sad and keep mooning over this kind of stuff:

But maybe for the next house.

I did consider trying to copy this look by refacing our cabinets, but I think it's just not financially feasible. We may as well gut the kitchen and rebuild at that point.

Sadly, we are not rich. We're real people on a stupid real budget that makes me real mad. But at least we have a house and food and cars, so it's time to get over it and move on. Maybe to this?

But with light uppers, yes?

I'm still pricing out replacing our doors with paint grade shaker style doors. What we spend on new doors miiiigggght save us a few bucks in paint labor. Maybe. I'm not sure if it's going to be worth it or not.

While my kitchen plans continue to incubate, go check out the power of paint over at Styled Thing:

Not too shabby, Miss Julie.

See you dudes next week for the next tour.

[pinterest]

 

Teal Room Tour

I know it sounds like I think I'm a rock star or something, but I am pretty excited about this tour. I mean, I only finished this room seven months ago, but back then I was carrying a 700 lb baby in my belly and couldn't muster the strength to really show you around the place. I also couldn't tie my own shoes, however that's another story.

Fast forward half a year and I'm down to my pre pregnancy weight, we just did sleep training and the dude is not keeping me up all night (don't judge -- he's still keeping me up most of the night), and occasionally I even leave the house to do photoshoots and decorating consults. Like a regular person. By myself. I'd say I pretty much own the world. Let's celebrate in living color.

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This teeny tiny room was used as the formal dining room by the previous owners. Behold:

Yes, it is the same room. Scary indeed. As you can see a full size oval dining table doesn't even fit lengthwise, so we decided to repurpose this room and use the dinette as our primary dining space. That space is fraught with its own issues, but we'll deal with them another time since I promised no kitchen talk today... (but look, you can see the kitchen from here).

Ultimately we would like this room to function as an office, but for now it's actually a playroom. I moved the big wheels out of the picture just for you.

I was kind of going for an old school library look, so Sanders helped me choose some mega dark paint (Benjamin Moore Dark Harbor). Then I added flanking shelves in matching glossy paint, swing arm sconces, and of course my crazy lady painting.

I love her.

Somehow this room has become the repository for all the weird antique things I own. Grab a drink and get cozy, because for some reason I thought you might want to see every single item on my shelves.

On the other side of the room you can maybe kinda almost see my new hall wallpaper...

The styling looks like a dirt sandwich because I'm too afraid to hang anything on the paper. Maybe my new print?

My cat is obsessed with that chair, therefore it is always littered with leaves. I would love to reupholster our vintage rosewood couch and chair someday, but I will probably let the kids and pets totally destroy it first.

This room is great grandmother approved. I hope you enjoyed it, too.

What do you say: should I post more tours?

They take a long time to work up so pretty please leave a comment if you want to see more of this kind of stuff.

Or maybe you just want to talk kitchens?

I just want you to love me. Let me make you happy.

[all images copyright ERIN WILLIAMSON]