New Red Door and Lemon Trees

I had hoped that by now we would have finished more with the outside of the house, but it looks like we'll probably leave the exterior projects for next spring. We're making some big changes to the trim (mostly just ripping it out) and to the front portico area that I'm really excited about. (Remember here?)

I think just a paint job will go really far. And actually, when the painters were here a few weeks ago, they offered to paint the front door. It's so bright and shiny now that the rest of the house looks extra old and dingy! :) It's got me excited to get the whole house painted and cleaned up in the next couple months.

To help the pretty rough-looking space look a little more put together, I picked up these chalky black planters at Home Depot and these Meyer lemon trees from Lowe's.  I can't even begin to describe to you how heavenly these blossoms smell!

I've tried keeping citrus trees indoors before and I think I just didn't have enough sunlight to keep the plants happy and they've always died. The guy in the Lowe's nursery recommended using cactus soil with rocks at the bottom of the planters for drainage, and he suggested letting the soil dry out so much in between waterings that the leaves begin to droop. So far, so good.

I love the little trees! And I love the new bright color of the doors, but, admittedly, I was a little sad to drive up for the first time and see that the jamb was painted red too.

It was my fault for not telling the painters specifically to paint the jamb white and I wasn't here on the day they painted the door. Since they threw in the labor on the door for free, I felt like it wouldn't be at all fair to ask them to fix it. I'll just have it changed when we have the rest of the house painted. It's not that big of a deal. (It just looks so Christmas-y right now with the old green and yellow trim still exposed. Ha!) I've since got the creamy white siding color-matched and now I just need to find an hour to paint it out. I'm know that will be a huge improvement and the red jamb will be less annoying to me. :)

I do really love how the red looks with the new entry rug though!

I feel like we're getting there! Slowly but surely this house is starting to feel more and more like ours. It makes me excited to think about all the changes I hope we'll have done by next Christmas.

Black Stairs and a New (Old) Rug

ugh! must find a new light fixture soon!!

Things are starting to shake out in our foyer! Some of you hyper-observant readers noticed the new black stairs peeking out in one of the photos in this post (or maybe you just saw my teaser on instagram). And, best of all, my favorite new rug from eSaleRugs arrived over the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to me!! Isn't it gorgeous??

So, about the stairs. I liked the gray paint color okay, but I kept wishing the color was darker, especially as I was picking wall colors and was leaning toward the Brushed Aluminum color, which is a little darker than I was originally planning. You can see my test color here on the wall under the railing by the vent. The gray on gray was a no-go. So I pulled out my gallon of Onyx that I've been using on doors and the fireplace and tried a little bit on the stairs. It was obviously the right choice. I asked the painters to add the stairs to the bid and they didn't charge me much more than the cost of paint (nice!). It made sense to get the stairs finished while the painters were here when this part of the house was sort of out of commission anyway. Also, I don't really regret all the work I did before with the gray paint color because in the end it actually helped me lean more toward the darker gray on the walls. And most of all, all that filling and sanding needed to happen regardless. So you know, whatever. All's well that ends well.

And I really do love how the stairs turned out. The contrast is so pretty against the lighter walls and floors. And the railings are far and away less 80s to me in black.

The only downside is the dusty footprints have been killing me, so I moved up finding a runner on my to do list. You might have seen that I found this rug at Homegoods a week or two ago. I liked the colors and the small repeat on the pattern will make installation SO much easier, and will help to hide dirt, but I wasn't totally sure it was the right choice.

Until I found a new old rug for the entry.

It's a 100 year-old Shiraz Persian rug from my favorite rug source, eSaleRugs. I've purchased half a dozen rugs from them in the past few years and every time I've been thrilled with the rugs in person. I got Abbey's bedroom rug from eSaleRugs, the runner I had in the kitchen in our loft and the long rug I kept in the garden level entry at the brownstone. They're like priceless little treasures to me. So unique and so beautiful (and all of them were so affordable - less than the cost of a new rug at West Elm). This rug is 4.5x9.5' and it cost about $350 with free shipping.

I love how the dye colors are sort of all over the place. The reds and pinks and oranges in the medallions are so pretty! And that inky blue stripe in the black background? Be still my beating heart.

The two rugs are perfect together, don't you think? I feel like an older patterned rug brings soul to a space and that's exactly what was missing here with the new runner.

Anyway, I'm super happy with how things are starting to come together! We're going back up to my parents' on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, but we'll be back earlier in the weekend and I want to spend some of our down-time hanging art in here and in the living room. I think we'll have ourselves a comfy home just in time for Christmas. :)

Serpentine Secretary

I can't stop/won't stop with the Craigslist shopping lately. There are so many great finds here and most everything is so incredibly affordable that it's hard to pass a lot of it by. Some things need more work than others though and part of me wonders if it's worth it in those cases.

Like this secretary I recently picked up from a Craigslist seller. I am so in love with the scalloped, serpentine drawer, but man, does it need some work!

When I came by the seller's house to look at it, I was a little disappointed with the condition of the wood. From the photos, it looked like it was in original condition, but I could see right away in person that it had been painted and then (mostly) stripped and that it needed some love. The wood is pretty dry. The seller gave me really great deal on it though and it was hard to pass by since the shape is so unique.

I think with some cleaning the solid brass flower pulls could be cute. Though maybe on a different piece?

Check out the carved curve of the drawer

I also love the unique leg shape that's so slim from the front and much wider from the side view.

I love tiger oak, but I think this piece would look better painted. If the wood was in better shape, I'd totally fix it up more and keep the wood stain (you know I'm all for wood furniture), but I think this would look better in a painted finish - either a gloss or a chalk paint.

I thought I would like it here in the entry, but the curve of the stairs sticks out too much. There's still several feet of clearance, but I think I'll keep my eye out for something with a slimmer profile for here - maybe wall-mounted.

I've actually been thinking it would look really cool in the landing upstairs by the girls rooms, especially if it was painted.

I imagine the girls leaving each other fun little notes inside and storing their treasures in the drawers. We've been collecting seashells for a few years now from our different travels (and my parents have been bringing some to the girls too - they went to Ireland and Scotland this month and they brought back some beauties for us) and this little secretary seems like a perfect place to keep the shells.

I know I'll be glad I bought it when I do get around to refinishing the secretary. My threshold lately has been "will I regret not buying this a year from now?" and if I can honestly say yes, I go for it (and then cram it into the garage! ha!). What is your rule?

How I Painted My Stairs

I've decided I definitely want to change the stairs (treads, banister, balusters - everything) down the road a bit. But for now, I knew it made sense to just paint what I've got. Most of you agreed that I could change the look enough with paint that it would be worth the time and effort.

Well, there was definitely time and effort spent! And I'm pretty happy with the change the color makes in the space.

I think it will be worth all the effort in the end, once the runner's installed. The hardest part by far was all the sanding. And thank goodness for Bondo!

Bondo is one of those products that might look intimidating, but is actually pretty easy to use. You mix a hardening cream with the epoxy base putty in small batches and then smear on the mixture quickly before it starts to set.

The stuff stinks bad, but it works miracles and fills any hole/crease/crevice/seam you present it with.

After the Bondo had dried for a few hours I sanded the filler down. This was seriously a full day's work. Every tread took about an hour. But by the time I was finished, the Bondo had perfectly sealed all the imperfections and all the hand-scraped detail on the old wood had been sanded away.

Michael helped me hang plastic sheeting on the walls and we wiped everything down twice.

I used my favorite Critter sprayer to paint the stairs with the first coat of tinted blue-gray primer.

And some of the imperfections started to reveal themselves.

As Linus would say - Ruh-ro.

So I caulked and did another coat of Bondo where it was needed and then sanded the whole thing again. (and sniffed and sneezed and coughed the whole time - stupid cold.)

I sprayed a second coat of primer on and then the first of two coats of Benjamin Moore's Chelsea Gray in the Advance line paint.

The color is light enough to brighten the space a bit, but dark enough to hide dirt perfectly I think. 

The treads look almost like solid planks now! I'm so happy with how they turned out. We just saved ourselves a couple thousand dollars by not replacing these oversized treads!

I have no ideas yet for what I'm going to use for a stair runner, but I'm really excited to pick that out next. I'll be trying something similar to this tutorial.

Also, on a whim I pulled out one of my old gold leaf pens and painted one of the round screw covers. The pen was pretty dry so the color's not very saturated, but I kind of like the look. What do you think of the gold just on the screw covers?

Before I buy the runner I have lots of touch ups to do and I think I'll paint the walls before installing the runner as well. But at least I'm happy with the direction we are headed in. It was well worth the labor, paint and about $12 in Bondo!