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For the time being.
A gift from my mother, long ago.
On Saturday morning, we started with the kitchen. We moved the fridge and the stove and thoroughly cleaned behind them — a job which clearly hadn’t been done since sometime prior to the last tenants moving in — taped off the room, and transformed the walls from white to … white. Which is far more exciting than it sounds!
While you can’t find one smidge of difference in any of the before and after shots (well, we can’t, anyway), you can take my word for truth; we transformed that kitchen from a room with dingy, pocked, poorly painted white walls into a cavernous space reflecting a glorious, glowing, “brilliantine and dime cigar” white from every surface. The German dolly that hangs in the window as our Kitchen Witch nods her sage little head and her sweet-apple cheeks in agreement.
We finished the kitchen painting around noon, just in time for Anna to arrive and help Corrin prepare a scrumptious home-made pizza while I finished taping off and prepping the living room. We ate two entire pies over the course of the afternoon, amidst several forays for more supplies — extra rollers, more paint, a set of additional drop-cloths, a pair of chai lattes for me — and generally giggled and chattered between many, many steps back to admire the sheen and color of our new yellow walls. Or rather, “Windham Cream” walls, she said with a haughty accent.
The view of our dining room from my favorite cozy chair.
There was some anxiety and crabbiness — entirely on my part — over not completing the entire living room on Saturday, but after we recalculated the size of the room (and bought more paint) I was able to see that I was being an idiot, so took a deep breath to relax and have fun with the project. Corrin and Anna are saints for putting up with me!
Books, yarn, and an African batik: one heavenly little nook.
On Sunday, we wandered off to Crepes on Columbus for a delectable breakfast and then raced home to finish up the living room. I painted the green accent walls while Corrin spread all of the trim pieces out on a cloth in the courtyard and painted each one the appropriate color.
Between applying various coats to all of the remnant pieces we put the kitchen back in order, and by 4pm were washing the last of the paint out of the last of the brushes. An hour later the large pieces of furniture were back in their positions and I had fallen asleep on the sofa with a Stumpy Freedom pillow.
My study is fresh and inviting now -- particularly since Corrin loaded me up with new sets of office software and multimedia storage this afternoon.
Today, Corrin went off to school, since the University — like most of the country — doesn’t observe Columbus Day, and I stayed in to manage the rest of the “putting back in order”. My desk is reassembled, the art is on the walls, our laundry is done, the paint and supplies are packed for storage, the cats have been properly loved and groomed, the Fresh Direct order is put away, and we’re about to run off for a dinner date and a reading of Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of the Iliad.
Modigliani's Reclining Nude above our living room sofa.
While there’s still much work to be done — what with sewing a slipcover and sizing our bolster pillows properly for the sofa, and determining if the Modigliani print would be showcased to better effect on a yellow wall so that Hopper’s Nighthawks could rest on the Sherwood Green — we’re very, very happy with the way our little home is coming together.
One of my colleagues asked me on Friday, “what’s your personal sense of style”? I answered “Absent-minded, eccentric professor with tastes trending to the classical and a small budget for decor.” Given the photos above, would you say that’s accurate?
