Around the House

V was out of town this weekend and I surprised him by finishing the laundry room and hanging curtains, coat racks and blinds in the laundry room and in the kitchen.

Llorca supervised

I was so wishy washy about the curtains worrying that the print would be too busy, or too bold, or too bright so I went with sheer white with a chrysanthemum pattern on it.  

I cheated a little too.  I bought full length curtains and just hemmed them.  It ended up being cheaper than buying fancy fabric.

One of the rods is hung higher than the other because they wouldn't fit at the same level.  That's what I get for getting 3$ rods at Walmart.

Cut branches from the yard.

Circles of hell

They are here!  In Sacramento!  And I went to three of them.

What started out as a quick trip to Ikea turned into a three-hour nightmare.  Yes, a nightmare.

The Sacramento Ikea is a mess right now.  In fact, it looks a lot like our kitchen and laundry room which I went to Ikea to escape from.  They're doing renovations at the store so huge white tarps are covering most of the departments.  Merchandise has been moved around and some items are just not available at all.  I walked through the ENTIRE store twice because different employees gave me different answers on where I should "try" to find what I was looking for. (Side note: one of my pet peeves is back tracking.  In a store, in the car, anywhere.)

I'm trying to spruce up the laundry room on a very, very tiny budget.  I wanted to replace the cheap plastic coat rack that was hammered onto an old piece of wood, that was hammered into the wall with something cuter and sturdier.  Initially I was going to make my own pretty one thinking that would be cheaper but I don't have scraps of salvaged redwood lying around and the kind of simple hooks I wanted  COULD NOT BE FOUND IN IKEA.  So, I picked out two, white coat racks with 5 silver hooks each (cost: $10 each).  A cute coat rack doesn't make too much sense anyway since it will be covered with coats.  

Seeing this now, I think 10 hooks might be excessive.  We'll see.  V has a lot of coats.

I must have been in an Ikea haze because I somehow convinced myself that I had to go next door to Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart?!  I hate Walmart!  But I did like that they had two thin, tiny cafe style curtain rods for less than 3$ each which are perfect for my little window project.  The main reason I went in was to get one of those little plastic mats with ridges that you can put your wet/muddy/sandy boots and shoes on without making a giant mess on the actual floor.  They didn't have exactly what I wanted and what they did have was 15$ which was too expensive for something so ugly.

When I am stressed or angry, I like to eat a McDonald's cheeseburger.  How convenient that there is a McDonalds, an In and Out, and a Burger King within the same complex as Ikea and Walmart.

I resisted and went to the grocery store instead.

Sacramento friends, have you been to the Food Source on Stockton Boulevard?  It's owned by Raley's but looks absolutely nothing like Raley's inside.  There are even two parking stalls exclusively for police vehicles and 80% of the time there are cops dealing with an issue outside.  I usually need to be in very high spirits to shop there because it can be depressing inside.  Yesterday was no exception and the only reason I went was so I didn't have to backtrack to go to another grocery store.  I bought some supplies to make veggie burgers for dinner and got the heck out of there.

Today I'll finish painting the window trim and the back door and tonight, an episode of Downton Abbey!  (I started watching Season 1 on Netflix last night!)

 Fact: My parents attended a wedding at Hichclere Castle (where the show is filmed) a couple of years ago and wore fancy hats.

Hot buns

This book has been out for a couple of months but I just reserved it from the library.  I'm excited to read some of Hockney's quotes on creativity and art from the series of interviews.  Some of  his quotes over the years are highlighted here. 

If you're anywhere near London, why not check out his current exhibition?  There's a short interview on the main page about the enormous size of his "pictures" and how they likely wouldn't have even been painted had he not been approached by the gallery for this (current) exhibit.  Interesting!

Today I'll be doing some more painting of my own, of the un-creative variety; I want to finish painting the doors in the kitchen and the laundry room and then start on the window frames.  

I've been making the job easier by listening to a handful of shows on BBC Radio 1, including my usual listens to the Essential Mix, and Annie Mac's dance radio show.  Until yesterday I didn't know they had a dancehall show but they do!  All good painting music.

This photo looks like it could be from an anthropologie catalog:  

One old door, with a patch of vintage green paint: $1099.

I unscrewed a weird sliding lock from the pantry type door in the photo above yesterday so I could sand and repaint the door.  I uncovered a small patch of minty green paint underneath which appears to match the kitchen tile exactly.  I am really curious about what the kitchen has looked like through the years.  I've always though it would be a nice idea to have some sort of log somewhere about the different transformations houses have been through, throughout the years.  Our house was built in 1948.  Almost 65 years old!  How many families with different tastes have lived here before us?

Sung to the tune of "Neverending story"

Never ending kitchen projeeeect, aaaaa, aaaaa, aaaaaaa!
It's true.  The never ending kitchen project is still in progress.

This weekend I cleaned the walls, removed the crummy plastic blinds, hammered off old hardware, filled the holes with putty, taped off edges, covered the kitchen with plastic (again) and started painting the walls and the ceilings in the laundry room and kitchen.

I'm going to sew some curtains for the two windows in the back room to replace the yellowed mini blinds that were there before.  The door is also going to be painted white.  Maybe at some point we will replace the plastic edging nearest to the floor and also the floor itself.  In the past these rooms have been painted yellow, pink, green, and off white.  Imagine those colours with faux wood laminate.  Gross.

I'm going to be looking for curtain fabric to coordinate with this red and mint green tile that's in the kitchen and laundry room.

A few that have caught my eye;

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Any favourites?  I like 1, 3, and 4 the best, today at least. (All fabric by Amy Butler)

The cabinets in the laundry room used to be the same colour as the drawers and cabinets in the bottom of the kitchen.  Those will be painted at some point too.

Weekend manicure