Headboard Ideas

Here is my crude photoshop job showing what I am thinking for our bedroom. We've needed a head board for a while now, but I've been pretty indecisive on what would work best. I kept hoping I'd stumble across a cool vintage one but so far that hasn't happened. I think an upholstered one would be nice since you can lean against it when reading in bed without fear of having some turned brass spindle making an imprint into the back of your head. I had a hard time finding a fabric I liked- I didn't want a print that would lock me into a look that I may get tired of in a year. I found this woodgrain print which I thought was cute because it's neutral, but has some variation/texture so it's not boring. Plus I thought having a padded headboard that looks like wood was kind of fun.


Here's what it looks like now. I want to remove the shelves above the bed that I constantly bump my head on and reuse one of the pieces of wood to make a shelf up on top of the picture rail. Not for books that we read before bed- obviously that would be a tad inconvenient, but for books that just don't fit on our shelves downstairs. For books that we are actually reading, I want to get those Umbra hidden shelves to use as mini nightstands since we don't have space for real ones. I'm looking for some brass wall mounted reading lights-I found a perfect one at a yard sale, but it was just one, it had no mate. I'll keep searching. Maybe when the yard sales start up again in the spring, I'll find something.

So whaddaya think? Is the woodgrain print cute or cheesy? Any suggestions for (cheap) lamps?

Looking for Lamps

I know I've been awol for a while... sorry 'bout that. I'm finally out of Christmas mode and back to thinking about the house. Among many other things that I'm in the market for these days, I've been keeping an eye out for a matching pair of lamps for my desk.



I finally got to the thrift store today after a long hiatus. I've been busy shopping for other people and making gifts for Christmas that I hadn't had time to visit any thrift stores for myself. In the winter, when there aren't any yard sales, thrift stores are my substitute crack. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I could use. There was a leather "egg" like chair as well as a vinyl lounge chair, but I certainly don't have room for another chair in this house. I was hoping to find either a headboard for our bed or possibly a pair of lamps. I'd love some mid century ceramic lamps, or even wooden ones like the bottom pair. These are all from ebay and way out of my price range. I guess I'm going to have to keep thrifting. If anyone spots something like these anywhere, let me know!

New/Old Door

I am slightly embarrassed to say that we have only recently gotten the storm door finished. It took the better part of the summer. It is up, it is green and it is a pain in the arse to open. I don't know why, but the knob is really hard to turn. I'll have to get my dad over to investigate. In other news I spent this afternoon cutting out little paper bats that I strung on some bakery like string. I like it, it's kind of like a bat bunting! They flutter in the wind which looks pretty cool. Do you like them?


Over the summer we also replaced the light fixture above the door and cleaned and painted the mailbox. One of these days I'd like to paint our house number on the mailbox. I just can't seem to settle on a font. Even without numbers on the mailbox, it certainly looks a lit better than it used to, don't you think?

Random Updates

Random things going on these days:

I finally started watching Mad Men. I know, I'm about three years late. I didn't want to jump in in the middle of the second or third season, I wanted to start from the beginning. I kept checking the library to see if they had it but it was perpetually checked out- all three copies. Finally, I put in a request and got a call a few months later that it was in. We've watched seven episodes so far and I'm completely hooked. LOVE the costumes and sets though I wonder if they are exaggerating the extent of drinking/smoking while pregnant/at work/in the car etc. for effect. Either way, I'm loving the show.

I've also gotten hooked on the Fabulous Beekman Boys. At first the reality show format turned me off a bit, but the show has really grown on me. Plus, their farm is only a half hour away from my parents place upstate, so I recognize a lot of the places they feature on the show.

My mom found us a 100 year old wood storm door to replace the hideous aluminum one on the front of our house. We've been spending way more time getting it ready to hang than I expected. Of course it was an inch too wide so we had to trim it down to fit and since nothing with an old house is straight forward, plumb or level, once we cut it down we discovered that it was a quarter of an inch too small on the top, but just right on the bottom. We fixed that problem, but then discovered that the panel with the glass panes that fits into the door itself, doesn't actually fit. It has been painted so many times that it no longer fits in its opening. We've done a bunch of scraping (by "we" I mean Chris) but there's still more to do. We're going to be borrowing a plane from my dad this weekend to get this thing finished (hopefully). Once we're done getting it to fit, then comes time to paint it.

This is the color we picked to paint it and the front door itself-whenever we get there. When my mom asked me what sort of color I chose, I told her a "vintage-y green, but bold." Her reply? "Well that's a surprise." I guess I'm fairly predictable in some ways. As soon as I have some pictures worth looking at, I'll show them to you all.

Foyer sneak peeks!

Our foyer is almost done! Last week we scraped and stained the edges of the trim that had been painted over and painted the whole room. The medallion still needs a fresh coat of white paint and we will paint the heating pipe that runs up the corner of the room once the heat gets turned off for the season. Plus there's that whole "hole in the wall" thing that needs to be dealt with. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because I've been very skillful at avoiding it in photos. It's a rather embarrassing hole between the foyer and my office that we opened up almost a year ago after the previous owner had walled it up, but we haven't had a chance to put trim around it yet so it exists just as a large crappy hole between two rooms.



I apologize for the flash photo above. There just isn't enough light in that room for a proper photo. I'll have to bust out my tripod one of these days and play with the manual settings on my camera to get a better shot. I figure I'll wait till the room is actually done to take those shots.

If anyone is wondering why I decided to go so dark (even on the ceiling), I noticed that even when the room was painted white it was still a gloomy room. It is on the north side of the house, the only glass is in the front door that looks out onto the porch which is constantly shaded. Since I wasn't going to paint the trim white, I decided that the room is always going to be a bit dark so why not go all out and paint it a bold dark color that I would be chicken to use anywhere else in the house. This way, the foyer is dark, but every room off of it seems bright by comparison. I'm super happy to finally have my sheet music out of boxes and back up on the wall. I missed them.



So, what do you think? Am I nuts to paint the ceiling charcoal gray? Probably.