welcome to my castle

pictures of the house.  finally.  

i took these a few weeks ago, so these aren't even up to date, as changes are constantly being made.  but it will work for now.

the entryway:

oh, look! there's mildred's house across the street!

everyone say, "hi mildred!"

mildred's lawn and gardens are immaculate, and i am ashamed ahead of time about how our yard will look midsummer - so much that i've already asked jake if we can just hire a lawn service.

he said no.

the walls in the entryway are faux-textured, which is fine.  i'm generally opposed to faux anything, but at least they're not sponge-painted.  we hate the light fixture.  it will go.  actually, it almost went last weekend when we were moving out our old couches and smashed into it.  oops.

here is a close-up of the tile in the entryway.  not great, but i can deal.  at least it's not linoleum.

here is a shot of the "piano room" and the office beyond.

all the junk is gone to goodwill now.  i think the bookshelf is going to go into storage, and i'm going to get some seating to go there instead - maybe two chairs and a small table.  the radioactive yellow walls will, of course, go.  the room beyond is jake's office.  the two rooms will be painted the same shade, TBA.

here is another shot of this room, from the other side:

as you can see from this picture, something about that yellow is just not right.  it's not buttery.  it's kryptonite.  my grand piano will go on the right in front of the big window, as soon as i get around to painting the room, and then hiring the piano movers.

here is the kitchen, looking in from jake's office:

the tile floors are new and good.  the white dishwasher doesn't match the rest of the appliances. jake and i prefer black and stainless steel.  the countertops will be replaced with dark grey ones.  and all the cabinetry is going to be painted cream, and i'll replace the hardware.

here's another shot of the kitchen, looking from the opposite end:

wow, my kitchen looks cluttered.  i swear it's not. 

here's a shot of the kitchen sink and the countertops.  i want to replace the amber glass with white frosted glass, which will look nice with cream cabinets and silver hardware:

again, we have the noncompliant dishwasher.  we'll get a new faucet, too.  the sink itself i don't mind.  and look!  there's the microwave i bought in my previous post!  it's tiny, weak, and takes 15 minutes to thaw out a chicken breast, but it's alive which is the most important thing.

i don't mind the red walls.  they're not what i would have picked, but they're far from the most egregious visual offense in the house.  or so i thought, until about the third day after we moved in and i noticed this:

THEY PAINTED OVER THE WALLPAPER!

my brother-in-law thinks that there is a special place in hell for people who paint wood.  well, *i* think that there's a special place in hell for people who PAINT OVER THE WALLPAPER.

so the kitchen walls WILL get stripped and repainted, but it is FAR down on the list of things to do.

here's the living room:

those couches are GONE!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

the wall of cabinetry in the back will eventually house my extensive book collection, but first it's going to get painted the same cream color as the kitchen cabinets.  i think it will really brighten up the room.  meanwhile it's home to miscellaneous objects d'arte, photographs that haven't been yet hung, speakers, phone books, a chess set, rocks autumn found, a shaleighley,a frieda khalo candle, a jar of rocks and sea glass from a beach in ireland, empty boxes from amazon.com, my first edition of aldous huxley's point counter point, and my camera equipment.

we're still organizing.

i can deal with the sage-colored walls.  again, not my first choice, and a little too garish in hue, but i can cope.  the fourth wall, however, (pictured to the right) is painted little boy blue:

(the entertainment center is standing out from the wall because we're still wiring behind it.)

so let's count.  so far we have stucco, kryptonite yellow, generic white, wallpaper red, sage green, and little boy blue.  these people were accent-wall-NUTSO.  i am personally opposed to all white walls, but this just makes me sick to my stomach.  co-or-din-ate!

let's continue on, shall we?

here's our bedroom.  it is the one room in the house that i'm not going to paint. it's a nice milk chocolate brown:

and the master bath:

this is the same sage green from the living room.  and you can't tell from this picture, but...

THEY PAINTED OVER THE WALLPAPER!

[slamming head into keyboard]

why?  why?  why?

of course the hollywood lights will go, as will the generic faucets.  i will probably leave the cabinets brown and simply replace the hardware.  and at some point, in a year or two, we are going to have the carpet ripped out (along with the cheap white tile in the adjoining shower area) and have it replaced with nice tile.

now, brace yourself...

BAM!

dizzying, isn't it?  and it goes all the way from the first floor to the second.  i have no idea how i'm going to get it down.  i've basically decided that this is the one area of the house that i'm going to hire out.  there's no way i can strip this and paint it without breaking my neck.

the creepy barn-like light fixture, again, will go.

here's a close-up of the wallpaper:

aislinn thinks it's fascinating.  i think it looks like a shirt my mom had in 1989.

upstairs there's more hallway:

the entry way, stairwell, and downstairs and upstairs hallway will all be painted the same shade of muted taupe.  similar to what's in the entryway now, but with less orange.  i'm going to hang a line of black and white photographs in square frames down this hallway.

at the end of the hallway is the guest bedroom, and we won't go in there because it's really just large and empty, except for a bed and entertainment center.  very low priority.  and then we have autumn's bedroom.

i don't know if/when i'll ever get around to painting the girls' rooms.  again, low priority.  especially since their tastes change so often.  one of my best friends from high school (hi, jessalynn!) had an adorable pepto-bismol pink room as a little girl that was the bane of her existence in later years.

here's aislinn's room:

embarassingly bare, but she spends zero time up there.  six months old, and has yet to spend a night in that crib.  the room is basically just used to house her clothes and give me exercise as i tromp up and down the stairs fifteen times a day to get her a clean onesie.

i will put more thought into this room as she starts to actually use it.  we are also going to be getting a beautiful pine bedroom set from my bedroom at my mom's house to put in here, and then i'll probably redecorate the whole thing.

right now i'm really fond of this owl pattern from pottery barn kids:

i think it would look adorable with a homemade quilt bedspread.  but it will be quite a while before she's ready for that, and the pattern will probably be discontinued by then, and i will be sad that i didn't buy it earlier, but if i buy it now and store it then i will change my mind by the time she's old enough because it's murphy's law, so i'm destined to lose either way on this one.

here's another funhouse element - the countertops in the girls bathroom:

your eyes are not deceiving you.  that is lime green marbled ceramic.  FANTABULOUS!

it's going.  right along with this:

MY EYES!!!!!!!!!!  *runs screaming out of this post*

here we have an example of the cheap white tile that is also in the downstairs bathroom.  my game plan for this room is 1) rebath the tub; 2) contract out the tile work; 3) have jake replace the toilet; and 4) paint the walls a color TBA.  but this is a few years down the road.  this room is low priority.

first i have to get all that wallpaper stripped from the stairwell before someone has a seizure and takes a nasty fall.  it's a liability.  perhaps i could get my homeowner's insurance to cover it?