Progress: Master Bedroom

Goal: Create a beach vibe without turning my house into a beach house cliche. The first brush strokes of Seaside Blue changed my life. I was terrified and smitten at once.

 

I'm on a daily hunt for the perfect bedding and accessories for this room with but this is how we're living now:

Its obvious that the yellow chair in the corner is my favorite place to sit. 

Last but not least in any way, the en suite bathroom:

 

Pale Sea Mist found its way into this room also. I just could not help myself. The color combination with Seaside Blue is perfection. I still enjoy the effect of standing in one room and looking into another and watching how the colors interact from different angles, indifferent light and at different times of day.

Enough on this room. Hopefully it won't take me a week (or a month) to decide which room is next.

"This house is clean."

The creepiest thing I've ever done is willingly compared my hew house to a scene from Poltergeist. The thing is I can't help myself because as of this week my house has been blessed.  My Father-in-Law happens to be a man of the cloth, so when you've got that guy around for a week, might as well get some good mojo going. 

As he said this week, there was nothing mystical about the blessing but as with any building in any place, it has a past.  People and events occurred of which we are not aware. In the blessing of the house, we hope for a fresh start.  Creating space where our friends and family can gather and have fun and share love and create lots of good times and great memories. 

I like that idea.  The ability to take something old and make it new.

Tomato, Tomato?

This week MiL and FiL join us from the Northland to help with some heavy duty house projects.  This is the collective family vacation. Since we are technically not leaving home, I've taken a liking the modern vernacular of calling a week off work where you do not actually travel, a staycation. And would qualify this week as such.

The hubs does not accept this terminology. He insists he's on a "workcation." Now maybe its because I'm not the one using power tools or hauling brush but that does seem to be a bit of an over statement. I mean who gets to drink beer AT work? (But not while using power tools, that's irresponsible). I'm just saying that while we may not be on a boat or near a beach or even leaving the city limits, there are some perks that we will enjoy this week that people who are working will not.

A little bit of this:

 And a little bit of this:

Can't be all that bad.

The Hibiscus Incident of 2010

I've been waiting to post pictures of the dream house but its not ready yet. The Hibiscus incident part of the reason why. I spent the last couple of months agonizing over paint colors for the house. Ah-gooo-ni-zing, literally.

I didn't want to go circus style and pick too many colors and I felt even more confident in that choice once the Hubs hit up the ever so helpful Young House Love blog.

In the end I landed on a common color for 5ish rooms to coordinate with the other colors I'd selected. The dining room and kitchen/sunroom  plus the 2 bedrooms and bathroom upstairs were going to be a lovely Benjamin Moore shade called Pale Sea Mist.

Then I waffled. I made one last visit to the paint store the afternoon before purchasing and decided to go with Hibiscus instead of Pale Sea Mist based solely on the paint sample. We bought 5 gallons of Hibiscus that night.

That night we started painting in the dining room and it was scary. From the very first brush strokes I was totally intimidated by my paint selection. Alas, we forged on. On into the kitchen/sunroom. On to second coats in all rooms. And finally, on to bed.  Everyone knows that the color will dry darker and that you have check the color in different light throughout the day, right?

Morning came. It was awful. It was as if someone had painstakingly colored every inch of every wall in those two (or 3) rooms in yellow highlighter. Hibiscus was most definitely not the the bright, cheery green I had hoped for. It was something totally different and worse than I'd imagined. 

Two things happened immediately, well three things, I made coffee. Then I sent the hubs back to the paint store for samples of the color I had originally selected. And I texted the neighbors to come over for an immediate consult.

The consensus of me, the hubs and the neighbors was that although a bold and lovely color for some room out there, not for my room and not when the picture in my head was more celery and less scorching sun. This is an admittedly terrible photo but it shows the vast difference of Hibiscus vs. Pale Sea Mist.

The good news is that the hubs is a Saint and the repainting was complete the very next day. Order has been restored and Hibiscus has been healed to a lovely turquoise lovingly called "Seabiscus" thanks to several re-tinting efforts at the paint store.

Home

In July 2006 I moved into my first home as a married person.

It was in an aged but well managed apartment complex with a office manager that you just wanted to hug. The rent was budget friendly and the location was perfect for the commute to work. With a large window in the kitchen, I looked forward to cooking with the window open and sending delicious smells out into the courtyard.  I picked the large living based on solely on the idea of hosting parties and game nights and friends as much as possible.

The apartment evolved, mostly as we acquired additional furniture from IKEA. Space allocation was an ongoing experiment and surprisingly 650 square feet was a lot to work with. Hosting dinners, cocktail parties, game nights and the like always worked out well.

The latest version of the bedroom was inspired by yet another IKEA trip. I needed a change, I didn't really have an idea in mind but bright green seemed liked a good idea at the time. My first wall words but not my last.  In this apartment I learned that labeling things with stick on words can become an addiction.


June 2010, I purchased my first house as a married person.  And being a homeowner has already been an adventure in work and reward but before moving forward, it seems the apartment deserves recognition. 

Good times were had. Thank you M2.