light and bright (and very white)

We're not quite settled enough for a full on tour of our new digs, but I though I'd share a few photos of the main living spaces with you. They are my favorite rooms in the house and the only ones that are looking semi-close to "done". Not that they, or any room that we inhabit, ever, will be done, we're strange like that. But these are at least getting there.

The house was built in the early 1920's and thankfully, mercifully, people have left it pretty well alone in the almost 100 years since. Other than new windows, which aren't as pretty as the original ones but have the benefit of opening rather than being painted shut (which is inevitable on old houses with original windows), slightly boring but not out of place kitchen cabinets and a truly ugly yellow 1970's bathroom vanity, most of the details and fixtures are there.

Ironically, Will and I have spent the past two years shifting our furniture away from "it looks good in a bungalow" and toward "Mid Century/Scandinavian/Vermont Farmhouse". I keep wishing we hadn't gotten rid of our little leather love seat or the comfy, ratty armchair that I recovered in orange. They both would have looked good in this house. And we could have used them to pad out the (HUGE!) living room, which clearly needs more...something. Another couch? Two more chairs? We're not sure. But something. Actually we need chairs all over the house. I'm not sure how we ended up short of seating in just about every room, but we did. I have a list in my bag just in case I come across something at a vintage store or garage sale. Tall stool, dining room chairs, armchair for the bedroom, desk chair for the hall, couch for the living room, chair for Evie's desk, bench for the bathroom....See what I mean? Chairs, we need chairs!

And color. The house is white. Oh so white. White EVERYWHERE. Every single surface except the wood floors...white. Even the outside. I think they bough paint in bulk and went to town. I actually like white and thankfully I like this white, but it might be a little too much white. We're debating between just adding colorful things to the house and painting, just a few rooms, just so the white isn't so...everywhere. On the upside the house is bright and light and even on cloudy days (of which there are and will be many, this is Portland after all) it doesn't feel dark, which is a big plus.

But all that aside, we're enjoying the new house. It's silly and ridiculous but I get a little buzz of happiness just looking at bungalow rooms that I don't get with anything else. I'm a sucker for a good built in glass fronted bookshelf and picture rails, what can I say?

(a) room to sew

I must admit that I was a little (a lot) bummed about leaving our house in Vermont just when we had finally gotten around to finishing off the old sun porch into a craft studio for me. It's been a long time since I had a space to work in that was all mine. Will and I shared an office/studio in our house in Charlottesville but it was before that, back to the house we rented when we first moved to Virginia, when I had a dedicated sewing room - a sunny nook off the kitchen. Even that didn't last long, it was turned into a playroom (and a very handy one) once Evie was walking. So it's been a while.

Our house here was a little bit of a gamble. We took it sight unseen after my best friend came to look at it and proclaimed it "so you". We knew the neighborhood, sort of. We knew 1920's houses, we've lived in them before. But other than a few photos, we didn't really know what the house was going to be like. Boy did we luck out. It's far roomier than we expected, spacious, particularly for a house of this age. It's full of period details like coved ceilings and wide trim and built in bookshelves. And it has a sunroom.

It's not a big room. Not really big enough for much of anything. If we had brought the piano and were musically inclined, it would make a pretty little music room. But sine we didn't and we're not, I claimed it as mine. My own. For the moment it's full of a mishmash of furniture that we had. Things we weren't using elsewhere. It would be a lot more efficient with some better shelving and maybe a different table thingy. But it's also lovely as it is. All my yarn and my pattern books are there. There's enough room on the floor for fabric cutting and because it's off the dining room, I can stretch out to the big table if needed. I can sit and knit in my old rocker or at my sewing machine and see the view of the street - gardens and charmingly painted cottages (it's much nicer in this neighborhood than when we lived here before the kids were born, ah the difference some paint and regular lawn care makes).

I'm spoiled to have it. I know. A place that is all mine. But I love it. Spring weather makes me want to sew. I picked up a remanent at Fabric Depot - oh how I'm missed that store- and cranked out a pillowcase dress for Evelyn, playing with french seams and a longer lining so that no seams are exposed on the inside. I need to make more of them for her, they work well for her habit of layering and shedding clothes though the day.

And I've got mad, crazy plans for an entirely thrifted or hand made wardrobe for myself (the thrift stores here....oh my! SO amazing!) This weekend I'm hoping to start on a chambray Staple Dress, something simple to see if I like the pattern. I love my go to tunic but it's a chore to make and for some reason (maybe it's because there are SO MANY SEAMS in it) I seem to get failed seams in them after a while. I literally wear them to death. I'm not 100% sure about it, it may not really be my style, but it's worth a go.  I've been flipping through old sewing books that I forgot I even had (moving is good for treasure finding) and dreaming away.

demo

So this happened this weekend.

Actually, It happened last weekend, this weekend we just made it worse.
Demolition.

Renovating our house is, obviously, something of a hobby of ours. And I love it when a space turns out just the way we planned it but this, this is not my favorite part. This was the sunroom. Which, in the year and a bit that we've lived here has gotten zero use. It's too big and too uninsulated and too, I don't know, superfluous. So it's being turned into a smaller more outsidish porch and a much needed guest room/craft room off the living room. Smaller, insulated windows. Thick, insulated walls (can you tell I'm really into insulation? Yeah, remember when it was negative 24 here? It's all about insulation)

We are aiming for two weeks to completion. Which is totally crazy and probably unattainable but we will try. For now we are stepping over the piles and shifting tools here and there and generally living amidst the chaos. Ah renovation. My old friend.

plywood floors - a temporary fix (and tutorial)

We knew, right from the start, that the carpets all over the house would have to be replaced. Once upon a time they were good quality, Berber wool carpets. But for the past few years, while the house was on the market, it was rented, to people with pets who didn't take good care of them. So we knew. But honestly, I thought we could hold out for a while. Especially downstairs where there were no major stains. We rented a steam cleaner before moving in an decided that the floors would be a good "next summer" project.

But then we painted the walls, which necessitated getting down on our knees to paint near the trim, and being that close to the carpet convinced us that it couldn't wait. So, in the living room, up it came. (This week we will do the same with the upstairs rooms)

Shortly after we ripped up the carpet, we discovered that our backup heat source will need to be replaced before next winter (oh the joys of home ownership!) and we'd really like to replace it with radiant flooring, but right now, after, you know, buying a house, is not the time. So. We needed a temporary fix. Like living with what we had.

It took me a little while to convince Will that painting our subflooring was not THAT crazy. Thank goodness for Pinterest, examples always help. But before I get into the how, I should say something about the glaringly obvious craziness here.

Yep, it's white.

I know. I KNOW! White? Really? Two kids? Pets? Snow and Mud? Crazy.

But here's how we came to it. We have, over the course of our marriage, refinished several floors and a few wooden decks and what we've learned, contrary to what seems would be true, is that light floors are easier to clean than dark ones. I had dreams of painting it a beautiful dark grey, but it would have been constantly dusty and dirty. So after looking at A LOT of painted floors, we found that we came back, time and again, to white. It's a good blank canvas. Especially if we want to do something like stencil on a rug - which I do (notice the I, Will isn't super excited about the work involved there).

Having lived with it for a good week now I am pretty happy with the result. Yes, it gets dirty, but strangely, not much. Even hauling in wood and dealing with muddy paws has been pretty easy. In fact, the thing that's made it the dirtiest was moving the piano back in.

And yes, it's a lot of white, but don't worry, there will be color. We've picked out wallpaper for the window wall and have plans to tone down the wide variety of wood we have and add more bright colors - I'm on the hunt for a colorful stripy rug for the livingroom- and we've just finished a nice bright addition to the room that I'll show off tomorrow. I wasn't sure how it would work out, but I love it, which is good because there was no going back on this one.

So, the hows.

When we ripped up the carpet, it was pretty obvious that the subfloor, and hence the living room, was built in stages. Everything beyond the last beam was done later and the plywood was less distressed. And also not painted the same color. We're pretty sure that the previous owners lived with painted plywood themselves as they built the house, most of the living room was dark grey (which helped prove how dirty it would get)

 But it was all pretty rough. So we spent a few days hammering in all the nails and then a few more taking it to the chicken-pox-covered-with-calamine-lotion stage with wood patch.

Holes and seams filled, we rented a sander and spent an evening sanding all those patches smooth. It's not perfect, the plywood is a good 20 years old so the grain shows, but it's much improved from the starting point.

For paint, we used porch and floor paint which is thin and glossy and took three coats before it looked right. We didn't go with oil paint, on the recommendation of the excellent paint guys at the local hardwood store, this was a latex from Benjamin Moore. It took four or five days to really cure before we could move back in. I think that was the hardest part, looking at it but not being able to walk on it. Thankfully we had enough room in the sun room to set up all of our furniture there, but it was hard not to be impatient.

So, there we are. Painted plywood. In white. Crazy but good. More color to come. Now we have to decide what we should do upstairs.

blue and roses

Well, in the end, we did not rip up carpet. Will (rightly) pointed out that if you are going to paint the walls and the ceiling of a room (and we are) and are also going to rip up the carpet (most definitely to that as well), you might as well use the carpet for a drop cloth. So instead of ripping up our drop cloth, we started painting. I'd love to show you pictures but as it is beadboard we are painting, we didn't get very far. I'm going to take a leaf out of Lola's books (still favorites around here) and say that painting beadboard is NOT my favorite or my best. Instead, we'll take a little tour of the only room in the house that looks remotely done-ish. Evie's room.

Because we have lived most of our adult lives together in what New Yorkers would call "Pre-war" dwellings, plus a few immediately post war houses, our furniture is proportioned for bungalow-esque rooms. Small, square, symmetrical. Add to the mix that large chunks of our furniture did not make it during this last move - the chairs simply died, as did the small buffet table. The loveseat, well I can't actually remember where the loveseat went but it's not here - and we are a bit sparse around here. Hence the anniversary armchair. Briton is getting a new bed, when we get around to building it and we are on the hunt for one for ourselves. There are no chairs in the dining room or the sun room (so two tables to eat at but no chairs to sit in, it's a problem) and one of the seats in the den is a camping chair. But Evelyn, lucky girl that she is, had all the furniture she needed sitting in storage just waiting for her to have a room of her own again.

I won't call it done, because it's not, not by any means. But it's inching it's way there. There is a quilt still to be made. Blue and roses, at her request. The carpet needs to be gone, as it does all over the house and she needs a nice fluffy rug. And a bed skirt. And probably less things in her room, although I doubt that will happen because she loves it the way it is.

 There is much primping of the room. When we first put her vanity together she asked me for some "pretty things" to go on top. So as I've unpacked I've found various pretty little things. An old silver brush. A tray, a purse, some little houses. She tells me all about it as she tidies up in the morning.

"This is my art drawer. And this is for my jewelry."
 "The brush goes here mom, on the tray!"

"Eliza goes on the bed, and the puppies go in the cradle and the other dolls go in the big cradle."

 There are cats, cut out of fabric and ironed on using Stiffin Stuff, on her windows and old embroidered pillowcases pinned up for curtains. The bed and the vanity that we bought for her when she was two, knowing she would love it and the dresser, once her brother's, that I painted to match. There are words from a favorite song on her wall.

"Witches can be right. 
Giants can be good. 
You decide what's Right. 
You decide what's Good."

A good lesson for a fairytale loving girl, I think.

She loves it. And I love that she loves it. And that one room is, at least partially, done.

Now, back to the beadboard I go.

the hardest part was the piano

We are, at last, unloaded.

Not unpacked. Nooo, not even close. The sunroom is so full of things that I had forgotten we owned. Boxes that have been labeled and relabeled over multiple moves to the point that I'm not sure what is in them. So crammed with things we have lived, (mostly) happily without for a year. Which means that a lot of it is stuff that we want to keep, but that we don't actually use on a daily basis. I took the lid off of one bin today, just one. It had tiny blue jumpers, a big straw hat that a two year old Briton wore for Easter pictures, a pair of bitty rain boots, the ones he wore every day for a year. The first sweater I ever knit was in there too. That sweater was the garment that caused me to swear off knitting for good, until it found me again (and thank goodness too).

The hardest part, was the piano. Predictably. We have never had a piano before, have never had room for one. But the day before we left to retrieve our things from Charlottesville I came up with the brilliant plan to find a free piano on Craigslist and bring it home, we'd have a moving truck, after all. And it was brilliant. We got a great piano, with a bench, in not too shabby condition (although there are plans to spruce it up, aren't there always?) Except we also got a truck that was TWICE as big as we needed which, never mind the enormous amount of gas it guzzled or the fact that it really didn't go faster than 40 miles per hour which turned that the 12 hour drive into 17, did not fit into our driveway in a way that made moving a piano off of a very high truck and up three steps onto a porch and into the house very easy. I hurt to my fingertips. And I didn't even do the hardest lifting.

But the truck is empty, waiting to be returned in the morning. We are unloaded, which is half the battle. I'm not sure if it was the easy half or not, but at least it's half.

No matter what I say, my friends, never, EVER let me move again. Ever.

the "before" tour

Last time we bought a house I only took a few "before" shots. Mostly because we were sort of aghast at the state the house was in and didn't really want anyone to see it until we had at least gotten the worst of it taken care of. In the end I wished that we had taken more. Because we did a lot to that house and it's fun to look at how far we came.

This house won't need the same kind of crazy overhaul, but it needs a lot of updating and brightening. New paint, new fixtures, new flooring. So on Saturday, before we could test paint on the walls or start hauling in boxes, I went through and took lots of before shots. I wont share them all here but I'll give you a little tour. Forgive the phone quality photos, I forgot the real camera and wanted to make sure the photos got taken before the house filled up with boxes. The exterior of the house is strangely hard to photograph, it's tucked up in the woods so much that you can't get a good angle, but this is the main entrance.

You enter through a big glassed in porch (which needs doors, instead of windows, across the front.) and into a mudroom. Yay! A mudroom. I'm sure we'll need it here!

 Most of the downstairs is one big open space built around the chimney. So we have the kitchen

 And the dining/living area.

At one end of the kitchen is a desk, which overlooks the living room. I think this will be our family computer space, perfect for homework, paying bills, all that jazz.

In the kitchen there is a walk through pantry that leads to the downstairs bathroom.

 Up the stairs we have an interesting combination. In the real estate pitch they called this room an "open bedroom",  but we plan to use it as the den/upstairs living room where the TV will be.

We also have this funny sleeping loft. At first I didn't know what to do with it but I think we will turn it into a reading nook with floor cushions and shelves along the wall. It has a little escape hatch to Briton's loft above.

Briton's loft room is the room that needs the most work and is the first that we will tackle. It needs some drywall in spots and a lot of trim. Oh, and flooring. Although he seems to think a rug over plywood is just fine.

Down the ladder we have the main bedrooms.

Evie's is the slightly smaller one but has a great window that she already loves to perch in. As you can see we are already trying out paint for her room. Blue, with lots of roses. Per her request (of course)

Our room has two closets (yay!) and a private deck with scary rails. Another thing to fix ASAP.

The bathroom is, without a doubt, the most hideous room in the house. It's really the only room that I find cringe-worthy. While I want to change things in other rooms, I can live in them as-is pretty happily. This room. Yuck. But on the plus side it's pretty big and the laundry is upstairs in here, which makes my day. No more basement laundry!

And speaking of the basement, we have a good sized one that's dry enough to finish out. At some point. I'm thinking craft room.

Down the hill from the house, closer to the creek, is our cabin.

It's rustic in a RUSTIC kind of way and needs to be totally redone. I think Will is most excited about that project. There is still some debate over what, exactly, it will be, but we'll figure that out.

So that's the ten-cent tour. Today we start unpacking the things that we brought from New York before we head down to Virginia to retrieve the rest of our belongings. Ah, unpacking is not my favorite thing. I hope, hope, hope that I will not be packing or unpacking again for a LONG time. Because, man, it's tiring!