south philly renovation

Missing Summer.

2011-11-21T20:54:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that it is almost Thanksgiving. I am definitely not ready for Winter or the holiday season. I have been really busy at work and that coupled with the short, dark and cold days are leaving me longing for some fun, sun and warmth.

In reminiscing about the warmer days I thought I'd share some pictures of our house from Summer. The picture below is of a spider that lived in the plants in the front of our house. He spent the whole summer spinning his web on the various plants near our stoop. One day he would be sitting in the middle of his magnificent web on the Zebra Grass and the next day he would be furiously spinning his web on the rose bush. He moved often but did not stray away from the front of our house. Then one day it got colder and he was gone.

We painted the brown stone on the front of our house in Toucan Black by Benjamin Moore. By "we" I mean Scott. He also painted the stone trim around the door and the six windows on the front of the house. I would generally not recommend painting stone but it had already been painted brown by the previous owner and there was no cost effective way to restore the stone to its original glory. We primed the wall first with Benjamin Moore Fresh Start Exterior Primer. Then we used "breathable" Benjamin Moore Ben Waterborne Exterior paint in flat finish so that there wouldn't be any issues with water retention.

These pictures were taken in June 2011.

Another addition to the Dining Room.

2011-11-18T17:49:00.001-05:00

Lighting the dining room seems to have been my recent obsession. I added a light to the wood paneling (opposite the wall of photographs) to mainly light up the space but also to shed some light on a fabulous painting that I recently purchased on eBay.

Here's a close up of the painting:

The light is the Beryll wall spot light from Ikea (which cost only $14.99). It comes with a really long white cord which is perfect for lighting pictures and blends in to the white woodwork. I used wire clips to secure the wire behind the painting and along the bottom of the molding so that there weren't an unsightly tangle of extra cord on the floor.

The Vestibule.

2011-11-17T19:03:00.002-05:00

When we bought the house one of the first things that our contractor suggested was that we get rid of the vestibule. I am so glad that we didn't. I love walking into the house and having a space to put my keys, hang my jacket and take off my shoes. The vestibule also has the added benefit of keeping out any cold drafts from entering the house. In the winter we shut the vestibule door which keeps out the cold air from the living room.

Since the vestibule is really small I opted to cover the walls in Moroccan tiles. I have always loved the designs of the tiles but it would have been very expensive to cover a large area with Moroccan tiles. We used Saltillo tiles for the floor. I bought the Moroccan cement tiles online. I wish I could remember the site but Berber Trading, Tazi Design and Casbah Decor all have similar tiles available. Here's a close up of the tiles:

The lamp is a vintage Spanish fixture that I purchased on eBay.

The ceilings are really high and the space looked a little cold so I decided to cover the walls gallery style with mostly Kiran's paintings and drawings. I put the pictures up in inexpensive Ikea Ribba frames.

We have one rack for coats, scarves, and bags. We also have another small rack for keys, mail, sunglasses, umbrellas and other smaller items. These racks are for our everyday use. When we have guests we generally throw everyone's jackets on our bed. My next project is to finish the stairway to the basement and install a long row of coat racks so that when we have people over they have a proper place to hang their jackets. Old row houses are notorious for having minimal storage space and ours is no exception.

This is a wrought iron coat rack I bought years ago at Anthropologie.

I bought the Triple Hook Up Strip in Olive (below) by Three by Three from Velocity Design a couple of years ago. It comes with four small magnets which hold notes, checks etc. The larger hooks are great for sunglasses and mail and we use the smaller hooks for umbrellas, Kiran's sweaters etc.

In this picture you can (barely) see the floor tiles. It took us forever to find Saltillo tiles. Scott and I went to a dozen tile places and then we finally found a place on Washington Avenue that had these tiles. I think that they complement the Moroccan tiles perfectly.

The last thing that we need to do in the vestibule is to strip the varnish off the wood door, prime it, and paint it in Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace which is the same white paint that we have used throughout the house on the moldings and panelling.

When we bought the house the vestibule was covered in the ugliest brown, beige and cream tiles. Most of them were falling off and the space was just uninviting. Unfortunately I don't have a great before picture but this is what the vestibule looked like a few days after we bought the house.

Dining Room Corner.

2011-11-15T18:58:00.000-05:00

I feel like I have said it a million times before but my dining room is quite long and quite narrow so it tended to look like a corridor. To make it feel like a room I have been trying to fill it up with art, photos and large furniture. I have also been trying to add more light to the corners which tended to look a little gloomy and dark at night. One of my latest lighting additions is this Patrick Townsend string light. Not only does it look fabulous but it lights up the row of photographs very nicely.

I just realized that the photographs look really crooked! I wish I can just reach in and straighten them. I created a collage of pictures at the bottom of the wall so that Kiran can see pictures of Scott's mother (who passed away), Scott's grandmother who he rarely sees, and my parents in Sri Lanka. He looks at them quite often and leaves his greasy fingerprints all over the glass!

Here is a close up of the string light with the flash off:

The Coral Pendant Light is up!

2011-11-14T18:18:00.000-05:00

The old chandelier in the dining room was very ornate and a little bit too much for our dining room. I have been admiring the Coral Pendant Light by David Trubridge for a long time. I finally found a great deal online and bought it. When it arrived it was flat packed and the individual pieces had to be assembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It took Scott about two hours to assemble the light.

Even though it is huge (it measures almost two feet in diameter) it takes up a lot less visual space than the chandelier because of all the open spaces.

We installed a dimmer on the light switch and when the light is dimmed the shadows around the room are fantastic. Even with the light off it looks like an amazing sculpture hanging from the ceiling.

Should I do it?

2011-10-14T18:50:00.017-04:00

So, if I were to paint the living room white then I feel like all the colorful things we have will pop. I am hoping that the white walls will sort have the same effect as in the picture below. I LOVE how the bright cushions stand out against the white walls and the white floors. My biggest fear in painting the walls white is that it will look sterile and bland. I have started to look into white paints. So far my favorite is White Dove in Matte by Benjamin Moore. Now that I have more or less made up my mind to paint only the living room white my biggest obstacle is to convince Scott!

Via Abigail Ahern

Should I take the plunge and paint the living room white?

This indecision aside we have bought a new pendant for the dining room and done a few other things around the house. Once I figure out how to upload the pictures off my new camera I will post some updates.

More is Always More.

2011-10-10T21:22:00.003-04:00

While I may wax and wane about the color of my walls (white or full of color) the one thing that I am quite certain about is that a space only feels personal when it is filled with objects that mean something to the person living there. A perfectly styled home in a magazine while looking beautiful is essentially uninviting simply because it says nothing about the person living in it. The more personal the home is the more alive it feels. My mantra is More is Always More.

I love the little things and the big things that I do to my home because I want to come home to a beautiful place. I want to be reminded of where I come from, who my friends are and essentially be cocooned in a place of beauty. Decorating for me is fun and relaxing. I think that some people decorate to have the "perfect" place that they think will impress others. Some people rush to get stuff done and don't seem to take any pleasure in the process of decorating. Nothing about our house is perfect! It is old, odd-shaped and full of flaws...but those are all the things that I like about it!

I once had a hairdresser who told me quite authoritatively that photographs never belonged in the main living area. He was totally appalled at my comment that certain photographs are like art and should be hung all over the house! People and their rules! Nothing gets me more annoyed than all these rules people seem to impose on themselves and everyone else. "No white after labor day", "paintings only at eye level", "granite a must in kitchens", "ceilings all ways white" etc. are all random useless rules which should just be tossed aside in general and specifically when decorating a home. Decorating should be a fun and instinct driven process. I say do what you like and have fun with it!

Here are some homes that look fabulous while breaking a lot of the so called rules:

I love everything about this room: the gallery wall of vintage paintings, the mismatched shell chairs, the Eiffel tower bases on the chairs, the wood table.

Via SFgirlbybay

I love the dark ceiling and the wallpaper.

Room designed by Abigail Ahern (source unknown)

I love the blue walls, the paintings and all the colors in this room.

Olatz Schnabel Bedroom (source unknown)

I really like the idea of painting the walls and the ceiling the same color...it opens up the space. I am not sure why I never thought of doing this. I love contrast of the fabrics, colors and texture. Also, the painting in the room to the left of the picture is fabulous.

Living Room Decorated by Abigail Ahern (source unknown)

Vintage paintings in the kitchen! what a great idea. This is one of my most favorite kitchens.

Kitchen Decorated by Abigail Ahern (source unknown)

P.S. While I wish I could be doing some fun house project I need to get back to some work that I need to get done before tomorrow morning. I was down with the flu and spent some time laying in bed and I think I am inspired all over again to tackle some house projects. I know I have not been good at doing regular posts but I feel that I will be posting more regularly again.

Alive and Dreaming of White.

2011-08-29T14:33:00.000-04:00

Yes I am alive and well. I have had quite a relaxing summer (hardly any house projects with lots of relaxing). Scott finished his Postdoc at Penn and had a couple of months off so he worked on some of the bigger projects like removing the wallpaper on the second floor hallway. I bought a few things (outdoor lamp, and shower curtain rod to name a few) but I was generally uninspired to do any major work. Recently I have been feeling like tackling a project or two. Much to Scott's dismay (and sort of mine) the one major thing that I have finally decided that must be done is to paint the house. Yes we did only paint the house in 2007 when we bought it and it looks perfectly fine. The only problem is that I really, really want a white house! I am not going to get rid of all the colorful things instead I just want all white walls. I think that all my colorful bric-a-brac would look fabulous against a white background. Don't these rooms look so uncluttered and charming? I especially like the juxtaposition of the vintage furniture and mirror against the stark white walls.

Via Emmas Design Blogg

Spring!

2011-05-11T06:37:00.001-04:00

Once the weather starts to get nice I picture myself sneaking down early in the morning, making myself a cup of coffee and sitting outside in the backyard and enjoying a few moments to myself. This dream sometimes materializes but I am determined to make it happen more often. There are people who love being with and around other people all the time. I am not one of them. I feel more creative , inspired and happy when I manage to get some time alone. I like to be able to ponder the imponderables and just be.

There is nothing more relaxing to me than sitting outside in our backyard and doing nothing! Well today was not that relaxing because I started to think about my backyard renovation. I don't have any before pictures but the space back here was just awful. It was a tiny block of cement with pigeon droppings everwhere. First on my backyard To-Do-List is to prime and paint the window, shown in the picture below, yellow.

Then I would like to figure out if I can plant a tree where this greenish yellow bush is (picture below) so that we can get some privacy from the house right next door.

Third I would like Scott to build me a planter all the way at the end of this long narrow pathway (see below). The dining room windows look into this space and I would like to be able to see some green when looking out of the dining room. By the way I love my yellow door. We painted it with Fine Paints of Europe, Semi Gloss, in yellow.

This is a close up shot of the alleyway. I would like to plant a very narrow row of bamboos to the left of this picture so that no one can look into our dining room from the top floor of the house next door.

This is a picture of my sedum. They come back faithfully each year in early Spring.

I want to plant a June Magnolia, to the right of this picture. We really need some privacy from the house which is right behind us.

There is a shared alleyway to the left of this picture which is now defunct. Once I get someone to break up an area of the cement back there I plan on planting a Japaneese maple in the alleyway to shield the backyard from the house to the left of this picture.

Finally I would like to plant a very narrow row of bamboo next to this wall.

I have chosen the bamboo, June Magnolia and Japanese Maple because they all how relatively light root systems and therefore are ideal trees for city environments. Now that all my planning is done I feel like I've accomplished so much and it is only 6:35 in the morning!

Hallway One.

2011-04-23T16:55:00.004-04:00

How fabulous is this hallway?

(I am not sure where I got this picture but I am pretty sure that it is Abigail Ahern's hallway)

I love the juxtaposition of the dark grey, red, purple, pink and green. In starck contract to the hallway above this is what our hallway looks like:

Our hallway on the second floor is in need of some serious work. It is the only place in the house that we never got around to stripping the old wallpaper ( the first floor bathroom is also covered in layers of ugly wallpaper but we plan on gutting the bathroom completely so thankfully we don't have to worry about removing any wallpaper). Our plans for this hallway include stripping the wallpaper, fixing the plaster walls and putting up new black and white damask wallpaper (click here to see what it may look like once it is up).

We have fixed the plaster wall you see to the right of the picture below. Now if we could just stop being lazy and remove the rest of the wallpaper this hallway could be checked off my to-do list.

View of the hallway as it leads to the third floor staircase.

So far we (really just Scott) has stripped one wall of the old wallpaper. Since the hallway is quite dark Scott's dad installed a light on this wall. It makes a world of difference. I want to find a vintage sconce for this wall. I may keep this porcelain wall sconce (found in my father-in-law's basement) and just add a silver tipped light bulb.

Wall at the end of hallway opposite which is the staircase leading to the third floor.

The ceiling in this area looks really bubbly and strange. In an attempt to deal with the crumbling plaster the previous owners covered up the plaster on the ceiling with some white wall paper. We are going to have to remove the plaster and install drywall in this area only because I am pretty sure the plaster is beyond repair. This fixture came with the house and I loved it so much that I added a clause in our purchase agreement that the previous owners had to leave this fixture in the house.

We have to also fix these random holes in the plaster around the switch plate.

Wall next to Master Bedroom.

View from the hallway towards the Master Bedroom.

Since this is such a small space I am tempted to go all out and experiment with lots of color and pattern. I am thinking of painting the space underneath the stairs to the third floor in a bright color, similar to the hallway in the first picture. I am also tempted to paint the ceiling in the same color. This hallway is pretty dark and only gets natural light when the bathroom door and Kiran's room door are open. I would also like to figure out a way to install another light source (not that easy since this hallway is the only place in the house which still has knob and tube wiring).

Not Thrifty...

2011-04-22T14:11:00.019-04:00

...but worth every penny. We bought the Darjeeling dining table from CB2 after almost a year of considering whether it would work. We sold our old dining table a few months ago but I still couldn't commit to buying the table. If you've been following this blog for a while you already know that most of the furniture in the house is vintage and inexpensive. I won't use the word "cheap" because vintage furniture is generally much sturdier and of better quality than new furniture. Anyway, about a year ago I first saw the Darjeeling table on the CB2 website and I fell in love with it. I also knew based on the reviews that it was a sturdy table and well made. the only issue was that it was almost $900! I hesitated to buy it also because it was almost 15 inches longer than our old table . Our old table was only 65 inches long but seemed to take up the entire dining room. It was also very wide (45 inches) so it seemed massive. After a year of living with duct tape on the floor outlining the dimensions of this table (80 inches x36 inches) we finally took the plunge and bought the table. It is more amazing that I had imagined.

It is made of Sal wood reclaimed from old Indian railroad ties. What is great about old wood is that it is much sturdier than the wood used these days to make furniture. The older wood was harvested from older more mature treas which means that it is much stronger than wood that doesn't get a chance to mature.

Since getting the dining table the whole room looks different. I painted our old dining room chairs which somehow makes the dining room look a little bit sophisticated.

The table arrived unfinished and I applied several coats of beeswax to protect the table. The table will probably need a new coat of beeswax every year.

I was worried about the length but it fits perfectly in the dining room. I have always said that larger pieces of furniture generally make a look larger than smaller pieces. The dining room doesn't look like a corridor any more and we use it a lot more to just hang out. Also the table seats 8 but we could squeeze 10 which is great for parties.

I've hung more "art" on the walls and the room looks a lot more cozier than it used to. Kiran uses the table to do a lot of his art projects and I generally work at night from this table. What makes a home comfortable is having furniture that works for you. This table fits that bill.

The fashion drawings to the left of the picture above were done by Scott's mother. The picture of the girl on the grass is by Tierney Gearon (purchased from 20x200) and the pink swirly painting is also from 20x200 and is a print by Jennifer Sanchez. The nude charcoal drawing is also by Scott's mother. The black and white painting to the left of the picture above is a collage Kiran and I did with Indian Ink.

I look these pictures in a hurry and I didn't get a chance to clean off the table. That big piece of paper in all the pictures in this post is a painting by Kiran. I love the muted greys, pink, blue and green. I was in the process of framing it when I took the pictures of the table. Another reason why I love this table it is a great place for me to do lots of projects in addition to eating.

It's been a while...

2011-04-10T18:24:00.004-04:00

I have been very motivated to do lots of things around the house. I especially get more motivated when things get really busy at work because it is a way for me to relax. So this is what I have been up to:

I finished painting the two doors on the third floor black
I bought a new dining table!
I painted three of our old dining chairs in Regal Matt Black by Benjamin Moore and upholstered the seats in a very dark gray fabric from Ikea
I painted the back wall of my room black and I used Benjamin Moore Chalkboard paint as I did on the doors
we bought Kiran a full size bed for his room from Ikea
I rearranged the furniture in Kiran's room and organized all his toys in separate baskets. (This has worked out really well. Kiran cleans up most of the time and I don't have to deal with stray toys all over the house).

Here's what I would like to get done for April

Install two curtain rods and hang some sheer curtains (which I already have) in the back room
Install a shelf in the vestibule and put some small baskets to store scarves and gloves in one space
Pick a color and paint the guest room
Paint the office room in black or dark grey
sell more furniture and clear out the basement!
figure out how I can build a bookshelf for the office room like this:


Image via Vintage

Oh and if you are wondering why I haven't posted any pictures of what I've been up to well it is because my camera is not working. Apparently the sandy conditions in Sri Lanka were too much for my camera. I plan on buying a camera before April 18th (which is Kiran's birthday) but I just can't bring myself to spend the money again since we've only had our camera for about a year.

Editing the Dining Room.

2011-02-18T19:01:00.000-05:00

I love everything about this dining room. I love the mismatched chairs (especially the Ghost chair). I love the art work. And I love the laid back vibe.

Via Domino

Our dining room feels a lot like a glorified corridor! It is long, narrow and has a slightly dropped ceiling (thankfully not the textured kind). It does have two very large windows that face East and has tons of unrealized potential. I have always been at a loss to make this room feel right. It has always felt cramped and very boring. The other problem was that we had a table and buffet which were really dark, heavy and too big for the space. For years I tried to work with what I had because I hate getting rid of stuff. Anyway I finally decided to get rid of everything in the dining room and start afresh. For now I am keeping the blue walls. We sold the dining room table and buffet on Craigslist (for the same price as that we paid in 1999 when we bought it). Now I want to get rid of the chrome chairs. They are fabulous but I need some slimmer chairs for the small space.

Our Dining Room before we sold the table and buffet.

I love the gallery walls in the image below. My plan to make the dining room feel less like a corridor is to cover all the walls in interesting art work, photos and other stuff (I love to frame anything).

Via sfgirlbybay

I would like to find a solid wood table, if possible made of reclaimed teak. I bought a credenza a while ago on eBay. It is Danish and it is gorgeous. My camera is not working right now so I won't be able to post any pictures of it for a while. For seating I may find a vintage bench to go against one side of the wall and use some of the mismatched chairs that we have in the basement. I plan on funding all my purchases for the dining room with the money I make selling my stuff. I have a huge old Persian rug and also a china cabinet (part of the dining room set) that I plan on selling soon on Craigslist.

Re-dcorating the Guest Room.

2011-02-17T07:28:00.001-05:00

After spending some time in November and December vacationing I realized the importance of having a very comfortable and beautiful guest room. This is what the guest room looks like now:

Our guest room is pretty tiny but it faces South and is always filled with light. To make it more guest friendly I need to make it feel more fabulous than it is now. I think we need to add some shelving, maybe in the alcove (next to the window and not seen in this picture) and over the bed. I would like to fill the shelves with some books about Philly and other great reads. We have no shortage of books in the house and this would give me more storage for the books and also provide our guests with some good reading material. I love the shelves in the images below and would like to use these images as inspiration to build our own shelves:

Via Design Sponge

(source unknown)

Since the room is pretty small I want to paint it a dark color, maybe a greenish grey and attempt to obtain a cocoon effect. I think that smaller bedrooms look much better in a darker color. I don't think that a small room ever looks bigger with a light color. Similarly, I think a small room looks better with larger pieces of furniture, even if they take up a lot of space, instead of tiny furniture scattered around.

I think that I will also paint the lamp base in black and get a smaller end table. Also, the batik peacock art will be moving to the basement temporarily. I want one large painting over the bed.

I hope that this will be a short and inexpensive project!

I'm Back!

2011-01-26T19:00:00.001-05:00

The nightmare is over. It turned out that Kiran also got an infection from the hospital likely due to the stint for the IV drip. Anway he is better, Scott is better and we are safely back in gorgeous cold and snowy Philly! I think that it will probably take me a while to get over the emotional aspects of this trip. I generally hate blaming others or harboring emotions of resentment for things in the past because it is just such a waste of time and really only serves to drive me crazy. For whatever reason I am still angry about Kiran and Scott getting Dengue and the circumstances surrounding the illness, my parents reaction to the illness and the magnitude of the decisions we had to make and the knowledge that a small miscalculation on our part could have resulted in a dire situation. So while I am (unsuccessfully) trying to parse out these emotions I haven't started on any new house projects.

However, after seeing this picture of this mirror for the second time (I initially saw it on Living Etc.) I am inspired! Isn't it fabulous? I have a couple large vintage mirrors just gathering dust and I would like to paint one of them like this. Maybe I will run out and buy some paint tomorrow after work...

Via Desire to Inspire

Not quite a Vacation.

2011-01-10T05:46:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers:
Generally when I don't post anything for a while I give you some lame reason like "I was busy at work" or "I was having too much fun." Well that is not so this time. My initial plan when we first went away on vacation was to take pictures of the amazing architecture, textiles and sights of Sri Lanka and post them. I anticipated weeks of relaxing in the sun, hanging out with friends, drinking endless cups of tea, getting tipsy on Sri Lankan beer and mostly spending hours upon hours with Scott and Kiran without a care in the world. Well somehow my idyllic vacation morphed into a nightmare. First Scott was diagnosed with Dengue which is a serious mosquito borne viral infection. Scott was hospitalized for five agonizing days. I spend those days running from the hospital to my parents home to cook for Kiran (he refused to eat anything that anyone else cooked for him) and play with him and then I would spend the nights with Scott in the hospital. I had a short reprieve and then Kiran was also diagnosed with Dengue which can be very serious in infants and toddlers.

As I write this post I can see my poor little boy drugged out listless on the bed in front of me and I am again filled with more despair. Why did I bring him here? He barely smiles anymore and all that I want to do is pick him up, rush to the airport and get on the next flight back to Philly. I alternate between moments of utter despair, short bouts of hopefulness and agonizing hours of disbelief. I can't believe this is happening to me.

Kiran's Dengue appears to be under control but he seems to have developed a secondary infection. The doctors are not sure...maybe it is malaria. We'll know whether it is malaria tomorrow. For now all I can to is hope that my darling Kiran will recover and that he will once again laugh smile and do all the silly little things that he used to do.

So dear readers that is all for now from what was once my beautiful homeland. From now on Sri Lanka will sure to inspire more dread that beauty in my mind.

"I See a Red Door and I Want It Painted Black."

2010-12-07T22:11:00.000-05:00

...well not really. "I saw a white door leading to the basement and I wanted it painted black" would be a more accurate (and less poetic) title. However, this is probably the only chance I get to quote the Rolling Stones in my blog so I went for it!

For a couple of months I was really busy at work. I felt like all that I did was work, hang out with Kiran after his preschool and then work some more during the night (you may have noticed the lack of posts). Sometimes even when I went to bed I kept thinking of things that I needed to get done at work. Well during those days and nights I really needed an outlet for my anxiety. Some people eat and some people exercise to blow off some steam...but I like to do house projects. One day I called Scott and told him that he had to pick up some Benjamin Moore Studio Finishes Chalkboard paint on his way home from work. Well that night instead of spending another sleepless night laying in bed thinking about all the things that I had to get done I spent a couple of hours cleaning the basement door downstairs and then painting it black. I loved it so much that I decided to also paint the door to the downstairs bathroom black, before going to bed. Scott and Kiran woke up the next morning to the black doors and they both loved it.

Door leading to the basement.

A close up of the basement door.

A close up of the bathroom door downstairs.

A close up of my favoite door knob .

The next night I painted Kiran's bedroom door and the second floor bathroom door black. The next night it was our room door and the door downstairs that leads to the backyard. Well now all the doors except for those on the third floor and the front door are black. I love the way the doors look. They are very dramatic and unexpected. What do you think?


The door to Kiran's room to the left and the bathroom door on the second floor to the right.


A close up of the Kiran's door (it is actually black and not at all bluish like in this picture).

The second floor bathroom door.

I had originally planned on using chalkboard paint so that Kiran could draw on the basement door but I may never let Kiran draw on any of these doors...I haven't decided yet.

I need some color!

2010-12-05T16:29:00.001-05:00

While I love the juxtaposition of lots of colors, textures and prints (more is always more) I sometimes love the serenity of all white rooms.

I recently came across these two beautiful images on Decor8 and I can't help but drool over the this beautiful home. I love the crochet covers on the bed. I especially like the contrast of the white cover with the beautiful cream cover. I obsessively searched eBay for a while for vintage crochet bedspreads. I wanted one that I could dye black but they all ended up being too granny-ish that I didn't end up buying anything. Seeing this picture has re-sparked my eBay search for crochet blankets! The bright clothes pop nicely against the all white decor. I think the light fixture is a Tord Boontje garland that I have been lusting after for ages. I have no where to put it so I have resisted the urge to buy it.

Speaking of lamps I have also been lusting after a Bourgie lamp like the one below. I prefer the completely clear one and once a lot of the major renovations are done I may buy one. It is sort of way out of the league, in terms of cost, compared to all my other thrift store lamps. I am not sure if there were ever a time that I didn't have any major renovations to do that I would actually spend that kind of money on a lamp. For now I am quite content thinking that I may buy it. I love the mix of high and low in the picture below, the amazing lamp is sitting on an inexpensive Ikea cabinet and looks stunning.

There is no chance that I am going to paint my walls white (any time soon) but I love adding lots of white furniture and accessories to the room. White makes it easier to live with lots of color.

I shall go to bed tonight dreaming of the Bourgie lamp.

Still Dreaming of a Black Room.

2010-11-29T20:55:00.001-05:00

A while ago I posted some pictures of chalkboard paint and black walls. Well my obsession with black walls just seems to grow in leaps and bounds. I am seriously on the verge of painting the office room black. What's holding me back? I have always loved color and black is sort of the absence of any color so it is a huge mental hurdle for me to overcome. I feel that my black room may seem depressing, dark and dull. However, all the black rooms I've seen online are rich and decadent. Here are some of the fabulous black rooms that are really pushing me towards actually buying the paint and painting the room black!

Dining Room of Victoria via AT

Breakfast Nook of Victoria via AT

Jenna Lyons' Bedroom via Living Etc.

Anna at D16's newly painted black wall

I think that sometime in late January I will tackle the office room. I need to, spackle, fill in all nail holes, prime the walls, paint and then rip out the carpets. I've already picked out the perfect black from Benjamin Moore. Also, I've decided to paint everything black, the walls, molding, doors and shelves. I am not sure whether the floors under the carpet can be refinished. I am hoping that they are in perfect condition like those we found throughout the house. I hate carpets and I hate carpeting from prior owners even more.

Color Therapy.

2010-11-28T16:27:00.001-05:00

So this weekend I managed to fix this frame and paint it a very bright glossy red. My father-in-law cut a piece of glass for the frame and it was very easy to transform the frame into something stunning. It is amazing what a coat of bright paint can do to an old frame or even and old piece of furniture. I love everything about the photograph and the frame. Now I just need to decide where I am going to hang it. Click here to see what the frame looked like before I painted it.

Flea Market Finds.

2010-11-27T22:15:00.002-05:00

Recently, on a perfect Fall day, we spent the day thrifting at the Golden Nugget Flea Market in Lambertville New Jersey. It was sunny and warm and Kiran's first real thrifting expedition (not counting the countless trips when he was a baby in the stroller where he had been blissfully oblivious to the treasures around him). This time however, he enjoyed touching everything much to the dismay of the vendors. While Kiran didn't find anything to buy I found tons of stuff but I limited myself to only a couple of things.

I found this fabulous vintage wood and plaster frame for $7:

The frame is not in great shape and the plaster is crumbling in places. I need to super glue the plaster back, cleaning it thoroughly and paint it a bright glossy red. Scott took that picture of me and Kiran in the Summer. I love the roughness of the concrete and the chain link fence against the ornate details of the frame.

I also found this amazing painting (it is not a print) for $15:

We left the flea market around noon and went to a picnic area by the lake for lunch. I can't wait to go back to this flea market. There were lots of vendors and lots of great items at good prices.

More About Books in the Fireplace.

2010-10-20T19:40:00.002-04:00

The two main reasons that I decorate, renovate, rearrange and work on the house (constantly) are because: 1) I enjoy being in a beautiful space and 2) I enjoy being creative. Ultimately life is about the creation of beauty and perception of beauty through our senses is it not?

What does this have to do with the books in the fireplace? Well Kiran and I were sick and stuck at home recently. So I decided to color code the books in the fireplace (something I have been meaning to do). It was a fun project for us to do together and the result is fabulous (at least it looks a million times better than it used to look).

Being sick is never fun, but being sick and taking care of a sick child is so much worse! Little projects like this kept us sane and it was a lot of fun.

Organizing Some Books.

2010-09-17T19:56:00.000-04:00

While the fireplace is the the major "bookcase" in our house, I also have some of my favorite books on the shelves in my room. These books were stacked randomly and always looked a little messy. Yesterday evening while Scott was working upstairs I decided to organize them. Yes they are color coded and they look fabulous!

I am now wondering if I should try to color cordinate the books in the fireplace as well...

Isaiah Zagar Mural.

2010-09-15T20:12:00.003-04:00

Ever since my first visit to Philly in 1995 I have been obsessed with the Isaiah Zagar murals coverning numerous buildings and walls in South Philly. When we moved to Philly in 1999 we went for a walk down South Street and spent hours admiring all the murals on the buildings. The colors were amazing the details stunning and the best thing about them was that they were accessible to the public for anyone to admire. Never did I ever imagine that I would have one of Isaiah's fabulously beautiful murals on the side of my house!

Our Mural up close.

Our house has an extensive side wall that is clearly visible from the street. While the old brick walls of our house are beautiful, the cinder block wall separating our house from the neighbors was just ugly. So on a whim I started to research how I could get one of Isaiah's murals on the side of our house. It turned out to be much easier than I anticipated...which really shows that sometimes all you have to do is try and you could get something amazing.

Isaiah started the mural by making the larger pieces in his studio, then attaching the larger pieces to the wall and drawing the outline for his students to complete.

Isaiah starts the mural (as Kiran watches).

Then one weekend his students started working on the mural and they finished it in two days under Isaiah's strict guidance.

Isaiah and his students working on the wall.

Scott and I Help with the Mural.

Isaiah adds the finishing touches.

The completed mural.

We've had a lot of people give us their comments on the mural. Most of them love it and some people think that we have reduced the value of our house. Neither Scott nor I worry about the "value" of our house while we renovate it. We are renovating the house to accomodate our lives and our tastes. I think that the value based approach to renovating is ~~unnecessary~~ not always necessary and prevents people from being creative in their living space because they want to play it safe for resale purposes.

Ending Summer and Beginning New Projects.

2010-09-14T00:11:00.000-04:00

I haven't done many new projects since my last post. I spent some time organizing drawers, cleaning out my closet, and in general clearing out cluttered drawers, cupboards, etc. Summer has officially ended and I've started a few projects. My first project was framing some "Art."

"Art" means a lot of different things to different people. For me everyday objects, shells, letters, notes, photos and Kiran's paintings are all Art. I like to include these personal mementos with more tranditional works of Art that I've bought at auctions, on eBay or at thrift stores. Art can be anything that evokes a sense of beauty and nothing does this better (for me) than objects that evoke beautiful memories.

I used to scour eBay and thrift stores for old frames which generally needed a lot of work. So framing things would always be very time consuming. Then I discovred the Ribba frames at Ikea and framing is now a snap! The smaller sized frames are made well, come in a variety of sizes and include a great matt.

So here's what I framed yesterday:

The painting to the left is something Kiran did last week using blue acrylic paint and some water. He doused the paper with a lot of water and then lifted the edges up and watched all the water roll off onto the floor. I love this painting because I love the way it looks and also because it conjures images of him squealing with laughter and delight when the water kept rolling around on the paper.

The painting to the right is a drawing I found in my father-in-law's attic. It is a drawing by Scott's mother in 1966. While it is sad that Kiran will never meet Scott's mother (because she passed away when Scott was young) it will be nice to have her drawing in the house so that Kiran will at least know something about his paternal grandmother through her drawing.

Second Floor Bathroom Update.

2010-07-12T19:44:00.002-04:00

I realized that I haven't posted any good pictures of the second floor bathroom. Yes the bathroom is very pink! Instead of trying to hide the pink we decided to embrace it and go a step further, with the mint green walls. Since my earlier post I have been working on little things on the bathroom. We had to re-grout the tub, replace the stems of the faucet and do a few other not so exciting things. I have added more pictures all in black frames which I think was necessary to minimize the pinkness of the room. The only thing left for us to do in the bathroom is remove the old sink and install a new sink, faucet and cabinet.
This is what you see when you open the bathroom door:

To the right of the door to the bathroom (below) is a little nook with the sink and a cabinet below the sink which also has two drawers. Because there was hardly any space for toiletries we installed this shelf to the right of the nook. Please excuse the wiered angle of the picture. I was trying to take a picture that looked decent without me being in it.

The pictures are vintage prints that I framed. The light fixture and towel rod are from Restoration Hardware. The shelf is from Ikea. The flowers are from my stoop.

To the left of the nook we installed a magnifying mirror which we found at a yard sale (below).

This picture below shows the main wall in the bathroom. To the right is the bath and to the left is a huge window which faces south. I keep rotating my plants in here. I love succulents but the humidity is a little too much for them. I think that I have finally found the right plants for this spot.

I have a bunch of vintage candle holders over the heater cover (below). The heater cover was in pretty bad condition but we primed and painted it white and it is really convenient and hides the ugly radiator. To the right of this picture is our linen closet. I love my petite chandelier which was a total score on eBay.

This is what you see when you leave the bathroom (below). The sink nook is to the left and the bathroom leads out to the second floor hallway.

The bathroom, like the rest of the house, has a strange layout but we've made the space work for us.

I am over this house! (not really).

2010-07-10T21:58:00.003-04:00

The back yard

I should be relaxing in my back yard but I am not!

Sometimes I feel like I spend every waking minute, at some level, thinking about what needs to be done on the house. This combined with my slight obsessiveness makes it really hard for me some times to just relax at home. This seems absurd because I used to be the type of person who wanted to always relax, read and enjoy my home. I am not sure if everyone who buys a house gets house-nuts or whether it is just me.

Last summer I loved my backyard...this summer not so much. This is mainly because I hate the slope of the yard and now I'm obsessing over what I need to do to it...slate tiles, break the concrete and pour new concrete and level it, etc. The previous owners in an (overzealous) effort to keep water away from the house inclined the yard at such a steep pitch that it slants sharply away from the house. Therefore everything always looks crooked...no matter what I do!

It surprises me when is people come over and don't notice the slope...is it all in my head? When did I decide that things had to be so perfect? I used to love old imperfect things. When we bought this house I fell in love with it because it alluded to grandness in its past lives in a very atypical row house sort of way. I really wanted to restore it to its original grandness but keep all the personality. Well now somehow I have entered a house renovation world where I embrace the imperfections but at the same time need everything that we do to be perfect. I am not sure if I could ever reconcile these two emotions. I am making a pact with myself that from today onwards I will make more of an effort to just let things go (just a little).

I will leave you with this picture of my back yard:

P.S. Look closely and you will see that everything slopes to the left.

Weekend Away.

2010-06-07T20:06:00.003-04:00

Scott, Kiran and I went to New York City for a mini vacation. We spent Saturday wandering around Central Park. Kiran took his afternoon nap in his stroller and when he woke up he was just amazed (as probably most city kids would be) at the expanse of grass! We spent the rest of the day running around after Kiran and playing in the fabulous water park in Central Park.

Kiran in his Marimekko bathing suit.

I can't help but compare how much my life has changed. Before having Kiran, Scott and I would have probably spent the day scouring thrift stores, flea markets and antique shops for clothes, furniture and other random things. Then we would have showered and gotten all dressed up for a night of diner, drinks and dancing. Now we spend our days in NYC jumping, running and getting wet in Central Park!

Not everything has changed however. On Sunday morning we went to one of my favorite shops in NYC, Pearl River. I love their ceramics. I am not a fan of matching all my dishes, plates, and bowls so I have a random collection of dinnerware. I have a small collection of mostly blue and white ceramics, with some colored pieces thrown in. Here are some of my purchases:

I love the swirly designs on the bowls with the swirls on the fabric on the chair (below) and the color and design of this tablecloth which is a design by Liro A. Ahokas for Marimekko, called Kimara.

I wasn't sure what I would I would do with this cup since I am not a big fan of cups without handles. This cup however turned out to be the perfect size to hold pencils on my desk.

Here's a small peek inside my kitchen cabinets filled with unmatched dinnerware:

Do I need another lamp?

2010-06-04T07:23:00.012-04:00

I love these E27 pendants, designed by Mattias Ståhlbomand. I love the colors and I love the fact that they are so colorful yet so simple.

I am tempted to buy one of these even though I have no idea where I could us it. My resolution lately has been to only buy things after carefully planning and deciding where I could use the item. I do make exceptions for things that are absolutely fabulous...then I buy them even if I have no use or space for them! These lamps don't get me that excited, so for now (sigh) I won't be buying one. I will however keep scrutinizing each room to figure out where I could use a E27 pendant.

Planning a Roof Deck

2010-06-02T12:43:00.004-04:00

This is the view looking north from the roof of our house. The views in all directions are absolutely stunning.

So why don't we have a roof deck you are probably asking? Well, we would eventually like to put a deck on the third floor roof. However, even though I am planning (and dreaming) of the deck we first need to extend the third floor out, put a bathroom on the third floor and plan the access on to the roof deck before we can build the deck. We would also need to remove the carpeting on the third floor and install new wood floors, replace the roof on the third floor, and figure out where and how to move the 100 pound air conditioning unit.

The picture below shows the view from the third floor. You can see the roof above Kiran's room. We would like to build a room and a small deck on this side.

The window to the left in the picture below (now without the bars) is the guest room. We would like to extend the wall out to the edge and put a bathroom in the area that is to the left of this picture.

This is one of those things that we would eventually like to do but there are simply too many other things that need our immediate attention. Once we finish the basement stairway and install shelving/organization units in the basement and renovate the first floor bathroom we will be ready to start on the third floor!

EDIT: I can't believe that I forgot to mention the small fact that this will be a dream for a while because renovating the third floor and building a deck is not in our budget for right now. I guess the beauty of dreams is that they aren't grounded in reality.

Vintage Teak Lamp.

2010-05-24T21:13:00.001-04:00

I bought this lamp, a couple of months ago, at an outdoor flea market in New Jersey. It is a teak lamp in working condition, on a marble and wood base. It is beautiful and a total steal at $15 for the two lamps. While one lamp was in great working condition, the other one needs to be rewired.

The lamps came with their original shades but they were ripped and dirty. I would eventually like to re-cover the original wire shade skeletons but as a temporary fix I have been looking for an inexpensive black shade. I went to Ikea last week and I almost fell over with excitement when I saw the black shade which was the perfect size for the lamp.

The Ekas shade cost $13. It works perfectly with the lamp and it looks great in Kiran's room.

Scored!

2010-05-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

I decided to run into Marshall's a few weeks ago on a whim. I was really excited to find this amazing garden stool. I have been wanting a blue and white garden stool for a very long time but I wasn't compelled to pay $150 or more for it. I found this beauty for $29.99. What a score!

I also found this LOVE sign which looks a lot like an Alexander Girard print. I love the whimsical designs by him and I have been contemplating buying the LOVE canvas print from Urban Outfitters. This one was another steal at $7.99.

It is hanging on the wall behind the staircase that goes up to the third floor. I love being able to see it from inside Kiran's room.

Spring Cactus

2010-04-27T20:46:00.001-04:00

Spring is one of my favorite seasons mainly because it signifies the end of short dark days. Nothing says Spring for me like the blooms on my Spring Cactus. Every year, around the end of April, my Spring Cactus sprouts lots of red buds and then come the wild red flowers. So beautiful. So Spring.

Spring Cactus in my "office" room

This cactus stays on the window still in my room all year round. It is really a perfect spot because this room gets pretty cold in the winter which is necessary for the cactus to produce blooms in the Spring. Also the window is South facing so it gets lots of direct sunlight.

Love. Love. Love

2010-04-12T20:43:00.000-04:00

I love these interiors styled by Sasa Antic. I love all the colors, patterns and textures. Her website features lots of great interiors. Here are some of my favorite images:

Sorry for the skimpy posts lately. I am really busy at work and I'm also trying to throw a huge party next Saturday for Kiran's birthday.

Gallery wall.

2010-04-10T09:35:00.001-04:00

via Skona Hem

I love a good gallery wall. I have to restrain myself from making every wall into a gallery wall. Even though I generally prefer color, and lots of it, I really like all the white in this room.

Treasures in the Trash.

2010-03-31T17:39:00.001-04:00

The first treasure:

Eames Chair

I recently found an Eames Molded Plywood Lounge Chair, on trash day abandoned on the side of the road. I drove by it, saw it, and called Scott who was still at home and asked him to pick it up ASAP. After I hung up the phone with Scott I realized that he was not the slightest bit moved by my shrieking over the phone that it was an original Eames chair! I decided that if I wanted that chair I would have to drive back, around the block, in the middle of rush hour, and get the chair (we live on a one way street in a maze of one way streets) . As I jumped out of the car, and ran towards the trash I couldn't believe my luck at finding this chair. When I got close to it I realized that it was in amazing condition. The back piece was not attached to the back rest but it could easily be fixed. With my heart pounding in my chest I picked up the chair and ran towards our house and dropped off the chair in Scott's arms. All this time (which felt like an eternity) I was double parked on our street, and there were a string of cars all honking their horns at me. Finding this chair made my whole month!

The second treasure:

The Mirror

We were visiting my father-in-law recently when he mentioned that he saw a huge mirror on the side of the road. Within seconds of him mentioning this we were both in his truck driving towards the neighborhood where he thought he saw the mirror. We found the mirror and it was in great condition. It is HUGE. I can't believe that someone would want to get rid of this fabulous mirror. All it needs is a couple of coats of oil paint. My favorite oil paint is Hollandlac by Fine Paints of Europe because it makes everything look amazing.

In case you are wondering the vintage settee was a gift from Scott. I am currently obsessing over the right fabric and I plan on getting it re-upholstered (professionally) soon.

Second Floor Hallway.

2010-03-23T08:05:00.000-04:00

We have been working on removing the wallpaper on the second floor hallway. Once all the wallpaper is removed (which is a never ending process because there are multiple layers of wallpaper and the walls are about 11 feet high) we have to repair the plaster. We have removed one small area of the wallpaper and this is what the wall looks like:

The plaster is in pretty bad shape and we need to repair all the walls in the hallway. It looks like the previous owners attempted to "fix" the crumbling plaster by slapping on many layers of wallpaper. Also this hallway has a beautiful curved wall so I think that this is one project that will last through the fall (at least). What is really cool about this plaster is that it has horse hair mixed into it. Yes your read correctly! Apparently this was very popular back in the day. To find out more about the fascinating history of of plaster in old buildings click here.

Once of the first things that I did after buying the house was to buy rolls of black and white damask wallpaper. I fell in love with the curved wall in the hallway and I couldn't wait to get the new wallpaper up. Now almost three years after buying the house I am finally close to getting a black and white hallway. This is what the hallway looked like when we first bought the house:

This is what it looked like after we removed the carpet and refinished the floors:

Successful upholstery project.

2010-03-21T21:00:00.009-04:00

My friend and I were taking a stroll through our neighborhood (with Kiran in the stroller) when we found a stool on the sidewalk. I was pushing Kiran in the stroller so I made my friend pick up and carry the stool home. My friend obliged but she complained the whole way home about how ugly the stool was! I recently upholstered the stool, in some fabric from Ikea and I think that it looks fabulous.

The stool is being used as an end table in Kiran's room.

The basement needs some attention.

2010-03-18T14:18:00.004-04:00

Scott has been working on repairing the plaster on the wall leading to the basement and installing drywall on the opposite wall. This is one project that I have had nothing to do with (so far). He has also been working on the shelves that we want underneath the stairway.

This is what the entryway to the basement looks like right now. It is already a huge improvement from what it used to look like. It had wallpaper (ah yes everything in our house had wallpaper) and it had black paint leading down one side.

I want to paint all the walls white, the shelves white and the stairs leading up white. To liven things up a bit I want to paint the stairs leading down to the basement in fuchsia and then seal it. I don't like going down to the basement but I am sure that if the stairs were fuchsia it will be a much more pleasant journey.

We will install hooks to the right of the door to hang mops, brooms, and dustpans. We are going to install some hooks to the left for extra jackets because our vestibule doesn't hold a lot of jackets, especially when we have guests over. Also, I hate hiding the fabulous Moroccan tiles in the vestibule with jackets!

Sometimes you need to hire professionals.

2010-03-17T22:00:00.003-04:00

I have been working on re-upholstering this chair. I started working on this chair about a month ago and then I ran out of staples and then I ran out of the motivation. Now I wish I had just taken the chair to get re-upholstered! You can see what this chair looked like in this picture (chair is to the left of the picture).

I got the fabric from Ikea. I love black and white fabrics and I have a small collection of Ikea fabric. Sometimes when I am bored or if Scott is working late I get out the staple gun, pick out some fabric, and I start upholstering a chair or a stool that I either bought or picked up on the side of the road. Clearly this is not a project that I should have started.

I'm not a minimalist.

2010-03-16T09:01:00.001-04:00

Via emmas designblogg

Minimalist is not a word that describes me. I am always striving to de-clutter and not acquire any junk. However, I love the things I love and I love a lot of things. I find that having beautiful things around me makes me happy. I am never quite comfortable in minimalist spaces. Another thing that doesn't quite make me feel at ease is going to someone house and encountering a glass table. A glass table is one of those things that doesn't evoke the feelings of comfort and relaxation. It just looks cold, gets dirty really fast and feels pretentious. I also don't enjoy stark spaces devoid of any personal touches. I enjoy spaces without clutter but filled with color, streamlined furniture and full of personal flourishes.

This entryway pretty much sums up my sentiments. While I may not necessarily pick the wallpaper or the stairway runner I love the way the patterns and colors all work together. I especially love the Ikat bench.

I have been relaxing.

2010-03-15T13:50:00.001-04:00

It has been almost a month since I posted something last. Time certainly flies when you are not doing any house projects! It stopped snowing and the sun started shinning again. It certainly wasn't warm but it was nice not to have to deal with cold dreary days. We went outside again to play and have fun.

This is what we have been up to...

...going to the Art Museum

...going to the park

...running around in the field

...more running

...and taking the time to smell the flowers.

Yellow Door.

2010-02-16T21:36:00.003-05:00

Via Apartment Therapy

I recently saw this picture and I'm again inspired to paint the door of the my room in yellow. Since our house already has so many colors I wonder whether a yellow door will be too much. All the rooms on the first floor all lead into each other. Our living room is yellow, the dining room is a pale blue, the kitchen white and my room is the palest of pinks (mostly white). Maybe if I painted the dining room a light grey then the yellow wouldn't be too much. I keep coming back to grey in the dining room. Also, even though I really liked the pale blue in the dining room when we painted it I haven't grown to love it. It just doesn't seem to work. Now all that I have to do is convince Scott that we MUST paint the dining room grey NOW!

The Living Room (update).

2010-02-12T16:59:00.020-05:00

This is our living room. I've been meaning to post pictures of the living room for a while now but I never got around to it. This is mainly because the living room is really hard to photograph. It is generally filled with light but all the pictures facing the windows generally come out either too dark or too light. Well finally this snowy day I found the right time to take some pictures. Click here and here for some earlier pictures.

The couch is from Crate and Barrel and it was our first new piece of living room furniture. The chrome rocker on the right of this picture is a Milo Baughman chair that we got for free while we students. At the time we just thought that it was a fabulous chair without any knowledge of its pedigree. The coffee table is from a flea market in New Jersey and it was manufactured by Lane. I think we paid $45 for the coffee table. The chest on the left is also by Lane and it is made out of Cedar. The rug is an eighty year old Persian rug that I bought on eBay.

Thrift store bottles, old thrift store lamp, puppets from Indonesia and Lane Cedar chest from the 50s.

Milo Baughman chair (possibly)

We found this chair at a thrift store in Philly. While it looks like a Milo Baughman chair there aren't any markings on the chair. I love this chair. It was love at first sight. The chrome and wool chair in the dining room, to the left of this picture is part of a pair that I bought on eBay. Yes I have a thing for chairs! We bought the butterfly leather chair on my first trip to Sri Lanka with Scott. The rose brass lamp was a total score at $30 dollars at a local thrift store. I was so excited to find it that Scott had to talk to the person at the store because he was sure that I would pay more for it than what they were asking. The white lamp we bought recently on the side of the street when we were coming home late one evening. I think we paid $60 for it but I had been wanting a task lamp in white for a while so it felt like a good deal.

The "library"

We found this mantle at another thrift store but it wasn't thrifty at all. We have always had a mantle in the old apartments that we'd lived in Philly and we really wanted one for this house. The mantle houses some of our books. This was supposed to be a temporary storage place for our books until we built bookshelves but we ended up really liking the books in the mantle.

View of Mantle from the vestibule door

A lot of the furniture in the living room is from thrift stores. We also have end tables (not shown) with dove tail detailing that match the coffee table, that we found at a Goodwill store in New Jersey (ten years before we bought the coffee table). I love old furniture. Mainly because it is built really well but also because I rarely see new furniture that I like (that I can afford). Every piece of furniture in this room we've both been immediately drawn to. Also most of the furniture has been with us for so long that is intimately woven into our lives.

Guest Bedroom.

2010-02-11T07:05:00.019-05:00

What is now the guest bedroom was at one time going to be my closet. The room is tiny and I've had a hard time figuring out how to make the space more inviting.

Finally, after being stuck inside because of the snow storm and in desperate need for something to do, Scott and I decided to move the bed around in the guest room and this is what it looks like now:

The bed faces the window and the view is great (as great as it gets for a house in our neighborhood).

The room faces South so the room is generally filled with great light. What a huge difference a small thing like moving the bed around does for a room. The room looks so much more inviting and restful. I love these bamboo blinds. They filter the light beautifully.

I bought the blue and white batik wall hanging in Sri Lanka in 1990. It has been tacked to the walls of all the apartments that I have lived in since 1992. The other batik wall hanging is also from Sri Lanka and we bought that in 1999. I am glad that my peacocks have finally found a permanent home.

We still have to paint this room but that will have to wait until we've removed the wallpaper on the second floor landing, fixed the plaster on that wall and put on new wallpaper.

Books.

2010-02-10T13:20:00.009-05:00

It doesn't seem like it is ever going to stop snowing here in Philly. What better way to enjoy being snowed in than with a good cup of tea (Sri Lankan tea of course) and a great book?

I bought these books on Amazon.com a couple months ago and I am so excited that I finally have the time to read them. I am starting with my favorite: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

The books are all hardbound Penguin Classics and the covers are designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

These are the most beautiful books that I've ever seen.

Dreaming of Renovations.

2010-02-02T14:16:00.004-05:00

Whew! I have been busy. We had a few contractors come over and take a look at the brick on the side of our house. The house was built in 1890 and still has the original mortar! However, there are some places where the brick needs re-pointing. Most of the contractors these days don't really know how to restore and work with original bricks and mortar. It has definitely been a learning experience for me.

The problem with re-pointing old brick is that some masons slap on Portland Cement, which is a very hard and non porous substance. Brick on the other hand is very porous and it needs to remain that way so that water doesn't get trapped between the layers of brick. Our house has three layers of brick on the periphery walls. When the brick expands the the Portland Cement does not expand which causes the brick to crack. Basically the new mortar must be as soft as or a little softer than the old mortar. There are labs where you can send the old mortar and they will analyze it and give you a breakdown of the original mortar ratio. However, it is also possible to estimate the mortar composition from the age of the house.

We have also had contractors over to get estimates on repairing the stucco on the back room (my office) as well. I think that we will go with a dark grey almost black stucco. Also, I have been dreaming about getting all the trim in the house, and the eighteen windows painted a deep black. Since dreams have no limits I have also been dreaming of getting a deck installed on top of the back room which will be accessible from Kiran's room. I think that it will be nice to have a sand box and have some toys for Kiran to play on that deck.

I have been having some problems with our computer so I don't have any pictures of the other million things that I have been working on. Instead I will leave you with this beautiful black house (and I will keep dreaming of my black/grey stucco):

Via Door Sixteen

Orange Stapler Lust.

2010-01-20T20:20:00.002-05:00

Saying orange is my favorite color is an understatement. I seem to have over the years collected a lot of orange things. It was never a conscious decision and until recently I didn't even realize that I had a lot of orange objects.

Anyway I just saw this orange Swingline stapler at cb2. What a beauty! It'll look great on my desk in my room.

This is just an object of lust right now because we are saving up for some major renovations. The stucco in the back (surrounding my room) will be removed and replaced with new stucco. Also the bricks on the front and side of the house will have to be repointed soon. Sigh...but I really like this stapler...

Living Room Shelf Remorse.

2010-01-15T10:54:00.002-05:00

This is a photo of the shelves and Tv set up in the living room (this photo is a little crooked but you get the idea). Am I happy with the arrangment? Not quite! I love having the Tv downstairs and I love the credenza but I don't love the shelves. I thought that we should have some shelves over the Tv for the CD player and also to stack some books. Unfortunately the books on the shelf looked too cluttered. So then I put some plants on the shelves and I am still not quite satisfied with the shelves. I don't know what I was thinking putting up shelves on this wall!

I really need to work on curating the shelves better (and no taking the shelves down is not an option).

Saturday spent thrifting.

2010-01-10T20:02:00.003-05:00

We went to a "thrift" store way out in West Philly today. While I didn't see too many things that I liked I found a few not so thrifty things, such as this desk. I didn't enjoy sitting at my old desk. I loved that it was small and had clean lines but it needed lots of work. The drawers had to be fixed, it was a little unsteady, also it needed to be sanded and repainted. I like that this desk, while having the same dimensions as the other desk, takes up a lot more visual space. This room is small and this side of the room needed something substantial. I think that sometimes in a small room you have to go large so that things don't look too cluttered. Click here and here to see more pictures of my room.

I love the juxtaposition of the ornate desk next to the yellow industrial clamp lamp (eBay) and red metal filing cabinet (Ikea).

The desk is solid wood and extremely heavy. It is in excellent condition.

Since we are talking about the desk I might as well mention the chair...I upholstered this chair (which we got with the dining table) in this fabric from Ikea. I love black and white fabrics and I've accumulated a small collection.

This is the old desk. For now I am moving it to the basement but in the future when I have some free time I will sand it and refinish it. It will either go into Kiran's room or in the office room as a table for my sewing machine (not yet purchased).

Here are some pictures of the yellow porcelain cups that we got (they were very thrifty at $5 for eight of them):

Chalkboard Paint.

2010-01-08T20:29:00.005-05:00

Another obsession of mine right now is chalkboard paint. I am seriously considering painting the side of the refrigerator in chalkboard paint. Why? I am not sure. I think it will be a great use of space (to write notes, phone numbers, etc). Also, Kiran can draw on the bottom of the refrigerator while we are cooking. Our refrigerator is so white, large and boring and I think a little black will make things more interesting.

Take a look at these rooms with chalkboard paint:

Via emmas design blog

Via emmas Design blog

Via Living Etc.

Via Living etc.

It is so easy to apply (at least on a refrigerator). All you have to do is buy chalkboard paint and apply it! If you were applying it to a wall you would have to properly prepare the surface (spackle, sand, etc.) and then prime before applying the chalkboard paint.

Shoe Shelf.

2010-01-07T20:50:00.005-05:00

I am a big believer in buying great quality leather shoes with leather soles. They aren't necessarily expensive (I am a size 7 and I am lucky enough to live close to Daffys where I find amazing Italian shoes in my size). Whenever the soles or the rubber on the heels gets worn down I take them to be repaired. I have acquired a lot of shoes over the years (what can I say I hardly ever throw out any shoes). Anyway, I needed some shelves for my shoes and one very snowy day (last week) Scott built these shelves for me.

As you can see they are only half way done. I want the shelves to go all the way up to the ceiling. One of the shelves will hold my boots. Once all the shelves are installed I will prime and paint the wood white.

This is a close up of the shelves. I color cordinated the shoes (!) so they wouldn't look too cluttered.

TV in the living room?

2010-01-04T20:25:00.003-05:00

After having the television on the third floor (in what is now the office room) we finally decided that we need the TV on the main floor. Neither Scott nor I watch a lot of television but we love watching movies. So we decided to move it downstairs mainly because we really want the living room to be the room that we spend most of our time in. Our biggest challenge is incorporating the TV into the rest of the living room and making is sort of blend in.

I have been searching for a white high gloss TV stand for a while now. The living room has a lot of wood so I needed something lighter and airier.

The first step in moving the TV into the living room was buying a credenza to place under the TV. We bought Ikea Trosby sideboard. This is the first big piece of furniture that we have purchased at Ikea and I am very pleased. It is very sturdy and the size is perfect. Also it has tons of storage and we use one side for Kiran's toys and the other side for the DVD player and CDs.

We decided on installing two shelves over the TV to put our CD player on. The main reason for this is that We have a Bose CD player (best purchase ever) and it just sounds better when it is higher. Also we needed it to be away from Kiran's reach because he loves shoving CD's into the CD slots.

Next Scott installed a plug point slightly higher from where we decided to put up the shelves. I am not sure how he does it but Scott has become quite an electrician now. Scott installed, wired and did everything else necessary for me to have a plug point on the first shelf. I am so excited!

See the plug point!

This is a close up of Scott installing the shelves. One more shelf to go...

It took a lot of time to align the shelves (everything in our house is slightly crooked) and to decide what to anchor the shelves on. Most of our walls are plaster but this wall is drywall to it look a lot of time for us to decide whether we wanted to attach the shelves on just drywall or if we wanted to find the wood studs. We ended up attaching one side of the shelves to the wood studs and the other side was anchored with drywall sinkers. It took a lot longer than we anticipated but it is almost done. More pictures to follow.

The Dining Room (update).

2010-01-03T15:40:00.015-05:00

I haven't posted many new pictures of our house because I can't seem to take good pictures even with my new camera! Also, every time that I am ready to take pictures the sun disappears so my pictures end up looking really dark. Anyway here are some pictures of the dining room.

My favorite reading spot

We bought the table and buffet from a neighbor about 10 years ago. I really want a new sleeker and longer teak credenza but we are keeping this one until we find another one. I bought the chairs on Ebay (two separate auctions from two different sellers). I love the juxtaposition of the chrome with the wood table. While we have been looking for a new table I am pretty sure that we will end up keeping this table. It has four additional leaves and seats twelve people really comfortably. Also the table is solid wood and indestructible. I recently bought the yellow enamel lamp on eBay for about $45. It works and it is great to have a task light because we use the dining room table to read, write, draw etc. Also, I think the bright splash of color really livens the room.

Click here to see pictures of the progression of the dining room.

All I want is a black wall.

2010-01-02T12:23:00.003-05:00

...maybe even a black room. I am seriously thinking of painting the office room on the third floor a very matte black. I am in love with Jenna Lyons house, especially her bedroom which is the perfect shade of black.

Jenna Lyons bedroom from Living etc.

If not black then I am thinking of a very deep and dark grey color as in the picture below:

Gemma Ahern's apartment (more here)

...maybe I could do one wall in the dining room as in the picture below. Although I am generally not a fan of "accent" walls.

From Rum Magazine

Black walls are everywhere now and while I am not into following fads I have to say that I am getting increasingly more obsessed with having a black room. For more great inspiration check out Door Sixteen.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T14:57:00.011-05:00

view from the living room window

In the past I have rarely made new year's resolutions. However, this year I have decided that I have to make some changes. Between working, renovating the house, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of our son I feel like I don't have any time for myself! I have always liked my time alone and this year I resolve to find some time for myself.

Here is a list of my resolutions (in no particular order):
1) Take a renovation hiatus of two months and enjoy the house without thinking of the next project (this will be very hard to do).
2) read more books (I used to read a lot and now I spend all my reading time pouring over magazines, blogs, the internet etc)
3) get back to sleeping at least eight hours a day
4) watch a movie at home at least once a week
5) Save and spend less (hard to do when I am constantly dreaming up a new house project)
6) Relax
7) Call all my fabulous friends, who live really far from me, more often.

PS: I love plants and even when it is freezing cold outside, with snow on the ground I have a little bit of paradise on my window sills.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T11:38:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

This is a picture of our living room this morning before it became overwhelmed with mountains of discarded tissue and wrapping paper. That is Kiran opening his gift from us.

Succulents.

2009-12-24T12:23:00.007-05:00

I am obsessed with succulents. Not only do they look amazing but they are also relatively easy to grow. I have at least fifteen succulents throughout the house. Also, they are relatively easy to propagate...you just nip a small part of the stem and plant it and you have a whole new plant!

(blogged about here)

I love this idea of planting succulents in cordial glasses. This is going to be my next project. I just happen to have some vintage cordial glasses in the basement for which I have been trying to find a use for a long time.

I'm Back!

2009-12-20T15:27:00.016-05:00

I can't believe that it's been so long since I posted something. I've been really busy at work and at home. All my time at home seems to be consumed with taking care of Kiran who is now 20 months old. I have also been very busy around the house and there's been a lot of changes (more pictures to come soon). I also bought a new camera so the quality of the pictures (hopefully) will be much better.

For now here is a picture of what my backyard looks like today:

This was what it looked like earlier this year:

For more pictures of my backyard check out this Apartment Therapy post.

Philly!

2009-05-14T19:44:00.003-04:00

This is one of the many adorned recycling trucks in Philly. Beauty for the sake of beauty. I love it. Read more about these trucks here.

Front of the House.

2009-05-13T18:58:00.014-04:00

It's been a long time since I blogged last. It's not that I have been busy renovating or having a hectic time at work...it is just that the weather has been so nice that I have been enjoying the beautiful days. I also went away to Austin on our first family vacation since Kiran was born. This is a picture of my friend Maza, Kiran and me on top of some mountain in Austin. I remember the roads were windy and I was hoping I wouldn't get car sick so I wasn't paying much attention to the name of the place. It was definitely beautiful. Maza when you read this please leave a comment about the name of this place.

So when we got back from our vacation, and I got out of the cab, I was first relieved that the house was intact and second I felt welcomed by our house. This is when I realized that I haven't posted many pictures of the front of the house.

This is a picture of the front of the house. You can see the tree that the Passyunk Square Civic Association planted a year and a half ago. I was so scared that it would die because they planted it in the Fall of 2007 and it got really cold very fast that year. Needless to say the tree survived.

This is a close up of the tree:

This picture shows my new planter. I have been trying to decide what sort of arrangement of plants I should have in the front of the house. I couldn't really come up with any plan so I decided that what I needed to do was just decide on at least one planter and that the rest will follow. I got this planter from Ikea for around $49. I planted a boxwood in it because it is an evergreen and requires minimal attention.

This is a picture of the house numbers. I bought talavera tiles and glued them on a wrought iron frame. The frame is attached to the brick with sinkers and screws. I had originally planned on gluing the numbers to the brick but I didn't want to ruin the brick. I bought these numbers before we even closed on the house. It took us over two years to install them.

This is a view of the front door with a dragon fly knocker. This knocker was given to us as a gift by our friend Michelle a long long time ago in Texas. I was saving it for the right place and now it has found its home.

Office Room

2009-04-15T16:00:00.012-04:00

Office Room

The "office room" is a very long and narrow room on the third floor. This floor has two rooms and these were the only rooms in the house that were decent, when we bought the house. Now I think these rooms are the worst. We haven't done anything to these two rooms other than put some furniture in them. The second room on the third floor is the guest room. It is tiny.

In this picture you can see the fabulous chair I bought on ebay. It looks great and is very comfortable.

The cactus is 10 years old! We bought it as a tiny little plant when we first moved to Philly. I sort of injured him (yes it is a "he") while moving him upstairs and I hope he lives. Kiran kept playing with him so he (the cactus) had to be moved.

Work, work, work.

2009-04-14T13:54:00.018-04:00

I guess I unofficially took some time off from blogging. Well, things have just been a little crazy. I am super busy at work. On top of that I am supposed to be planning Kiran's birthday and we are also installing the baseboard molding in the living room and dining room. Our house has so many corners that the baseboard molding has been taking forever. As far as Kiran's party goes so far I bought some paper daisies (as decoration). I did buy some wine but we've finished a lot of it! So I really need to go back to the liquor store, figure out what food I am going to make, finish installing the baseboard molding, clean the house, buy something for Kiran to wear, and then cook everything by Saturday morning. This doesn't include all the stuff I have to get done for work.

Paper daisies

I bought these paper daisies from here. The comforter cover is from Ikea and I bought is last week. I have been looking everywhere for an orange and white comforter cover and I was so excited to find this one and it was very cheap ($19.99 and includes two adorable pillow shams).

The picture below shows the living room wall without any baseboard molding. We had to remove the crumbling plaster walls in the living room and install dry wall with insulation.

This pictures below are of the dining room wall with baseboard molding. We were able to salvage the plaster walls in here. It took countless hours to repair the plaster but it is definitely worth it. I love these walls.

Without the top piece

With the top piece

We bought primed pine and the molding consists of three different pieces: the flat piece, a top piece and the quarter round on the bottom. Our friend lent us his nail gun so installing the baseboards took a lot less time than when we did Kiran's room. We still have to install the molding in the master bedroom...maybe this will be another project (with the wallpaper) for the Fall. Hopefully, we will finish caulking the molding and painting the nail holes tonight. I need the house to be in order. The disarray is driving me nuts.

Living Room.

2009-04-04T09:48:00.008-04:00

These are pictures of the living room now (take a look here to see what the living room looked like when we first bought the house):

The picture above is of the wall next to the vestibule. It is full of pictures and some paintings. I love sitting on the couch and looking at all the pictures.

This picture is of the wall opposite, also next to the window. That is my rubber plant peeking out from the window. I planted one stalk from our bigger tree one year ago and it has already grown into a tall tree.

Because of all the work going on in the kitchen the house is not in picture-taking state. I will post more pictures of the living room when things get a little more organized. For now you can see that the mantle, is up. It is being used as a bookcase. The picture below is a close up of the mantel and books.

Planning Kiran's Birthday.

2009-04-03T09:20:00.011-04:00

I know that Kiran is not going remember or care about his first birthday. But I want him to have a fabulous day and learn to enjoy the simple things in life. I feel that we, as a society, put a lot of emphasis on gifts, events, etc. for our kids' birthdays. I want to make him feel extra special during his birthdays but without him needing things to make him feel special. When I was growing up in Holland our dutch friend's would decorate their kid's chairs with lots of fun things and allow the kids to sit at the head of the table. They kids were always excited by this (including me) and it made me feel very special. They did give gifts but it wasn't like the extravagant gifts that kids here get.

I am not sure how I am going to decorate his little high chair. Instead of balloons I want to hang paper daisies, similar to what was done here:

This way I can re-use them for all our parties and they look much nicer than balloons. I will probably get green and orange paper daisies. Re-using after all is the best recycling.

Kitchen Dilemma!

2009-03-31T23:15:00.014-04:00

My husband was removing the old grout from the kitchen and everything was going so well. I was excited for the old (dirty) grout to be removed so that we could re-grout the tiles and seal them. I was also excited to start cooking again. This picture shows the tiles while we were removing the old grout:

Well as things often tend to turn out with old houses things sort of took a turn for the worse. While he was removing the old grout a couple of the tiles broke! It appears that some of the old tiles weren't even glued to the floor. There was no adhesive on the tiles at all. The good thing is we found the SKU number on the tiles which meant, at least theoretically, that we could find the tiles. Anyway, imagine my horror when my husband told told me that he had broken "a couple" of the tiles. How was I ever going to find tiles to match the old tiles? This is what the floor looks like now:

We tried to find the tiles by the same manufacturer but they had been discontinued by Home Depot. However, we found tiles by the same manufacturer, in the same color, with a slight variation in the perimeter design (ours was rugged and the new one was smooth).

Hopefully, some time this week we can remove the old adhesive, lay the new tiles and finish re-grouting the floor. I need my kitchen back!

This has resulted in all my other projects being put on hold. I haven't worked on the backyard, I haven't started spring cleaning, and I haven't finished lining the kitchen shelves. On top of all this Kiran's birthday party is in three weeks. Thankfully the invitations are done (and they've been mailed).

Dining Room.

2009-03-26T22:34:00.013-04:00

This is what the dining room looked like during our 10 year wedding anniversary dinner party (July 2008). It has since then morphed into something a little different.

This is the progression of the dining room:

View from the living room into the dining room

Yes...the carepets were red, there were a million layers of wallpaper, and the walls beneath the plaster were crumbling.

We had to demo one wall in the dining room and fix the plaster on the other two walls. This is a pic of the dining room after we removed the wall on one side (with the lathes). Also on the left of this picture we discovered wood paneling underneath the wallpaper and drywall.

This is what the dining room looked like after we installed the dry wall on the one wall.
This is a picture of my husband while we were putting our first layer of primer on the wall (we put on two layers of primer and two layers of paint).
As you can see in this picture we removed the blood red carpeting and restored the original wood flooring.

You can see the pine doors we installed in this picture. This is the door that leads into the basement.

My Room (before)

2009-03-25T19:50:00.006-04:00

mMy room (before)

This is what my room looked like when we bought the house. This is what the room looks like now. This room was an addition to the rest of the house. We thought it was a newer addition but when we started renovating we found wood beams that were really thick and very solid, unlike the newer wood used these days. The wooden beams were covered in faux wood panneling which was then covered in a couple layers of wallpaper. The floor had a really ugly shag carpet. To say this room was hideous is an understatement!

We bought the house on April 30, 2007 and didn't start doing anything to this room until mid April 2008. I think we were avoiding tackling this room because we couldn't decide what to do with it. My husband wanted to make the kitchen bigger and I wanted a room for myself. Anyway, the problem was solved because the connecting wall is a load bearing wall which would have made the removal of that wall very expensive...so I got my room! When I was nine months pregnant with Kiran, my husband and my father- in-law demolished the faux wood paneling, removed the carpet and pretty much everything else in the room. Then the original doorway was closed out and they put in the door that opens straight out into the backyard. We had to put drywall up and then my husband installed the wood flooring. Yes it is real wood and I am pretty amazed that he figured out how to lay the wood.

We bought this mantel at a thrift store in Philly. It was love at first sight. We bought it even though we didn't have a fireplace! (You can see a little bit of the ugly carpet in this picture). This room was used as a storage room while we renovated the rest of the house.

Kitchen

2009-03-23T20:01:00.013-04:00

The Kitchen window

This is the window in the kitchen. The rest of the kitchen needs work. We are working on re-grouting and sealing the kitchen tiles. I really want the kitchen to be done. I love to cook and ever since we started the kitchen project I haven't been cooking. I need a clean and beautiful space to cook! I will post more pictures once the grouting is done. This is the view from the kitchen into my room.

The kitchen needed the least amount of work when we bought the house. The cabinets had brass hardware which I switched out for silver hardware from Home Depot. Other than that I changed the light fixture and painted the kitchen in Ultra Pure White from Behr in high gloss. The kitchen like the rest of the house gets tons of light and it is very cheerful.

I love the fact that the kitchen is separate from the rest of the house. We do a lot of cooking so having an open floor plan would have meant that the grease from the cooking would get on everything. I also like the fact that the kitchen is small. It is really hard to clean a large kitchen, especially if it is used all the time.

My Room

2009-03-22T09:39:00.018-04:00

My room

This weekend we put up the shelves in my room. Now I just need to sand and paint my desk and my room will be done (for now). As always there are a million other things I would like to do but at least until the end of summer I don't have any other projects for this room. This is a picture of the shelves:

This is a collage that I am working on for Kiran:

My room is the last room in the house and opens up into the backyard. This is a picture of the rubber plant in my room. We bought this plant some time in 1999 when it was tiny. It is a huge tree now and totally out of control!

This is what the backyard looks like right now. My bamboo trees look like they might be dead. I hope they recover. All my other plants seem to have survived the winter.

I don't want to have too many projects to do this summer. Once we finish installing the baseboard molding in the dining room, living room and the master bedroom we are officially taking a hiatus from house projects. I would like to finish removing the wallpaper on the second floor hallway and put up the new wallpaper but I think I will leave that project for the Fall. I don't think I will ever be done with house projects but I feel that the house is finally at a point at which I don't look around and think of all the million things that need to be done.

Organizing

2009-03-20T10:50:00.007-04:00

On Friday it took me for ever to get dressed for work. I have a closet-full of really nice clothes but most of them don't fit me. I keep thinking that I will go back to my pre-pregnancy size so I have not bought too many things in a larger size. Hence, my struggle every morning to look halfway decent when I go to work. On the weekends I have been wearing my pregnancy jeans with the elastic top. They are very comfortable but unfortunately (I guess I should say thankfully) they are too big for me now. I really need to spend a few hours this weekend trying on all my clothes and figuring out what fits and what doesn't so that I am not scrambling every morning to find something to wear. I am a huge fan of organizing everything. Someone once said "for every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

The picture below shows my spice cabinet. I find that having all the spices in glass jars makes cooking so much easier. Also it is totally uplifting to open my spice cabinet and see everything lined up neatly on the bright yellow shelves. A couple of weeks ago I lined all kitchen cabinets in "Dandelion" contact paper. It took me forever to measure and cut the paper but it was definitely worth the effort.

This is a picture shows a close up of the yellow shelves:

This weekend I plan on painting the backyard wall in a rusty-corral color. I am not sure if it is going to be too cold to do any painting. I am also going to motivate my husband to finish removing the old grout in the kitchen floor so that he can re-grout it. I like the tiles in the kitchen that the previous owner installed. The only problem is the that the tiles are white and the grout is white and they get really dirty. I was told that sealing the grout will prevent them from getting dirty. However, before we can seal it we have to remove the top layer of the existing grout and re-grout it. This takes for ever. But I will be glad when it is done because it takes me forever to clean the kitchen floors. I don't mind cleaning but it is a colossal waste of time to have to scrub every single tile and grout with a tiny brush when I could just mop the floor (once it is sealed).

I am also going to install two shelves in my room. I have a tiny room in the back of the house that I am going to use as my office/art room. I am super excited about getting that room finished.

The Bedroom continued...

2009-03-19T19:40:00.000-04:00

This is what the bed looks like now. When we bought the bed it didn't come with any slats. We bought wooden slats from Ikea and my husband had to custom fit them to the bed. I didn't really pay much attention to what he was doing but it took a very long time to custom fit the slats on to the frame of the bed. The bed is technically King sized but it is King size but sideways. The Ikea slats worked perfectly. We also bought a King size mattress from Ikea and topped it with a four inch memory form mattress. This is definitely the most comfortable bed that I have ever slept on. The sheets are a Marimekko print from CB2.

I bought the lamps on ebay for about $45 for the pair. They had to be re-wired which was easy to do. The shades were a little bit more expensive and are from Restoration Hardware.

Backyard

2009-03-17T23:14:00.001-04:00

This is what the back yard looked like a couple of weeks ago during the snow storm. Our back yard is a tiny city cement plot. It looked totally magical. Most of my plants in the "garden" are perennials, evergreens or other cold hardy varieties. I don't really like annuals as much because it is so sad when they die after the season. I really like to keep my plants alive. We've had some of our indoor plants for over fifteen years.

I want the backyard to feel like an extension of the house. This is what I want my back yard to look like this summer:

I have some wrought iron patio furniture that we picked up at a thrift store in Pennsylvania. I want to re-upholster a set of cushions that go on the love seat. I have been trying to buy outdoor fabric in a geometric pattern but I haven't found anything that I like that's not ridiculously expensive. So I've decided to buy six yards of fabric (three yards per cushion) from Ikea and sew some slip covers. I've never done any sewing other than hemming a few things so I am not sure what the covers will look like. The way I see it anything will be an improvement over the blue floral cushions that are currently on the love seat. I bought two yellow lounge chair cushions (made from Sunbrella fabric) last year for the two side chairs last year which are great. I love all the fabric in the pictures below:

I would love to be able to hang a chandelier outside like the picture below:

Dressing Table and Master Bedroom

2009-03-16T22:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a picture of the dressing table that goes with all the other bedroom pieces. This dressing table is what caught my eye at the auction. I love everything about it!

This is an awful picture but I can't seem to take any decent pictures with digital cameras. I will post more pictures of the bed (with a mattress) soon.

The picture below shows an Afghanistan rug that I got on ebay for about $50!

Bathroom (upstairs)

2009-03-14T21:50:00.000-04:00

When we bought the house, the upstairs bathroom had pink tiles (!) and looked really dreary. I was told that the tiling in the bathroom was "excellent" and that it would cost a lot to demo the original tiles which were set in cement. So we kept the pink tiles. I decided to go with the pastel theme and we painted the walls a mint green color. While the mint green did liven up the bathroom the color combination looked a little "southbeach-ish" according to my husband. So I added some black and white pictures in black frames to give the room some depth. I bought the layer cake chandelier on ebay for about $30. We painted the ceilings in high gloss paint so the ceiling glistens at night when the light is on.

The bathtub had really ugly doors on it. We recently removed the doors and I installed a shower rod with this fabulous shower curtain (Marimekko print).

This is the linen closet in the bathroom:

I love having a window in the bathroom. This window faces south so the bathroom is always drenched in sunlight. This is a picture of the window sill in the bathroom:

The picture below shows the bathroom after we had painted it but with the shower doors and original light fixture.

Dream Bookshelves

2009-03-14T01:00:00.003-04:00

I was sick the last few days. I hate being sick because it is such a waste of time. It is great to have a few days off from work but I like to use my time off for either a vacation or to do stuff around the house. Unfortunately, I was so sick that I did absolutely nothing (other than complain a lot) . However, I did find some time to daydream about a few things that I would eventually like to have in our home. I love the room below because it has two things that I love: a wall of bookshelves and a wall of gallery pictures. I am a big fan of framing everything...especially old pictures. I love this room.

Master Bedroom (with some furniture)

2009-03-10T20:42:00.000-04:00

These are some pictures of the master bedroom while we were setting up the bedroom furniture. The picture below shows the bed frame. I ended up buying the bed frame, matching chifforobe, matching dressing table and matching end tables by accident! I went to Freeman's auction house on Chestnut Street, in Philadelphia and found what I thought were two end tables and a dressing table. I placed an absentee bid for a maximum amount of $175. I was totally excited when I got a call from Freeman's telling me that I had won the items. I went to pay and pick up the items when I found out that I had won a King size bed frame and a Chifforobe in addition to the end tables and dressing table. Clearly we couldn't fit all this in our tiny car so we had to find someone with a truck! We managed to get all the stuff in to our tiny apartment in center city (all the furniture had to be carried up a winding staircase). There was no place to set up the bed so we basically stored the headboard, footboard and all the many other parts under tables, behind couches and underneath our bed.

The picture below shows a closeup of the wood. What can I say other than that I totally scored. I have no idea who the maker of this fabulous furniture is other than the labels on all the pieces say that they were made in West Germany. I would guess that they are from the 1950s.

You can see a little bit of the chifforobe in the picture below. I don't generally like all my furniture (or plates, or mugs) to match but I love this furniture all together. I am so glad that all these pieces fit in our room.

I will post some pictures of the dressing table this week. The picture of the bed room is a little outdated but the furniture arrangement is the same. The furniture weighs too much to move around.

Master Bedroom

2009-03-09T19:09:00.001-04:00

This is what the Master Bedroom looks like after we painted the walls and hung up the chandelier. I bought the vintage Spanish chandelier on ebay for $75 (and it had all the original crystals). I love the windows throughout the house. They are big and let lots of light into the house. All the moldings in the house are original pine or new pine that we installed. Some of the old wood had rotted so they had to be replaced. The old doors and old molding that we kept had to be stripped of the old paint before they could be re-painted. We hired someone to strip the old paint because it was far too tedious of a process. We also replaced all the hollow faux wood doors in the house with solid wood doors. I don't understand why all the doors these days are hollow plastic and why all the moldings are plastic. They look really bad and it doesn't cost that much more to get real wood.

This picture below shows the original pine floors that were sanded and re-finished. This floor was covered in greenish carpeting and beneath the carpeting there were two layers of linoleum tiles. The first layer of linoleum was made to look like wood...I am totally baffled that someone would want to cover up these amazing floors with something that looked remotely like wood!

This is what the room looked like when we bought the house:

There were three layers of wallpaper and crumbling plaster behind the wallpaper. It took us an eternity to remove the wallpaper and re-plaster the walls. The side of the wall that can not be seen in this picture is beautifully curved.

I will post some pictures this week showing what the bedroom looks like now.

Front Door Inspiration

2009-03-05T20:37:00.001-05:00

I love this front door. Blogged at http://www.desiretoinspire.blogspot.com/
(image from http://www.nyspacesmagazine.com/)

This is what our front door looks like now:

It is a solid wood door so I don't want to replace it but I hate the boring wood color. I want something bright and eye catching.

Kiran's Room

2009-03-05T10:00:00.002-05:00

This is what the back room looked like when we bought the house. We were originally planning on using this room as a tv room/office. The floors were covered in beige bleach stained carpet. However, compared to the rest of the house this room needed very little work. Unfortunately the wood in this room was completely damaged so we had to install new floors. We had someone install wood planks and stained them a natural color to blend with the floors in the rest of the house.

The back room was used as a storage room during the renovations in the rest of the house.

The back room after the new wood floors were installed.

This is what the back room looks like now. It is now Kiran's bedroom.

The windows in this room face south and west and the room is always filled with light. I love hanging out in this room.

Lanterns and garlands over Kiran's bed.

Kiran playing in his room.

2009-01-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my Blog chronicling the renovation of our row house in Philadelphia. In 2007, we bought a 1600 square foot row home in an exciting area of Philadelphia. The house was built in 1880. When we first saw the house the walls were swathed in layers upon layers of wallpaper; and the pine wood floors were covered in thick black glue, linoleum and red carpets! The plaster walls were crumbling but other than that the house was structurally sound. We fell in love with the layout of the house, the wonderful curved plaster walls on the second floor and the fact that nothing in the house was straight. The house was built at an angle on an angled lot and was just so unique and perfect for us.

We closed on the house at the end of April 2007. We then spent the next several months stripping the wall paper, salvaging the plaster walls that we could, erecting new walls and painting. It was a lot of work but finally the house was in move-in condition. We moved into the house at the end of August 2007. Since then we have been working on the house as much as we can. In April 2008 we had our beautiful baby boy Kiran. Since then we have pretty much slowed down on the renovations. However, we have started again with gusto.

In this blog I will document our progress in restoring our quirky house into what she (yes it is a she) was meant to be.