Before & after, part duex
Monday, November 28, 2011 @ 4:41 AM
Yesterday, I hit the publish button too early we left off with finishing up the guest bedrooms. The house was coming along but I still did my best to avoid the kitchen.
With that in mind, it was time to focus on the office...
First thing on my mind was to get rid of the ugly purple shelves. Not only were they an ugly purple but the latex paint was peeling off in more than a few places. Being as I would be the one to spend the majority of the time in the office, it was left to me to decide on the colors. I stared at a few color swatches at Home Depot before deciding on colors we already had - the copper from the bedroom coupled with the slate grey from the guest bedroom.
With the colors chosen, the project requiring the most physical labor loomed next - the doorway. The room that is to be the wife's studio lie on the other side of the wall from the office. The only access to the studio, when we moved in, was to go outside the house onto the back patio and enter through a doorway from there. Inconvenient, at best.
I started tearing off drywall. I hemmed and hawed over the stud that stood between me and the studio after all the drywall was removed. I asked a dozen people about removing it. Finally, one of my regulars who happened to be a carpenter, told me I would do no damage removing a single stud even if the wall happened to be load bearing. I grabbed the power tools ;)
With the stud removed and a new doorway framed in and stuccoed over, it was time to paint. I like the way the copper and grey turned out together.
Finally, it was time to address the kitchen. The first thing to do was for me to deal with the cabinet doors. All along we planned on something other than plain wooden cabinet doors. In the end, I cut the panels out of all of them. Cabinets above the counter-top got chicken wire and cabinets below the counter-top got a frosted glass look. That was the easy part.
The hard part, the part that ended up requiring no less than five trips to Home Depot, was in the selection of colors. We finally decided we wanted something bright and warm. We ended up with sunburst yellow cabinets, terra-cotta walls, and deep red (same red as in the hallway) trim. Before we started painting, the colors selected scared me. After painting the cabinets, I fretted the terra cotta and red against that bright yellow would leave me avoiding the kitchen as much as possible. After getting it all put together, it's now my favorite room in the house.
The final touch to the kitchen, the wife's idea, was a chalkboard. Not needing something overly large, we decided the cabinet above the pantry would be the best location for the chalkboard , not to mention the most logical place so as to write crap down when it needs replenished. I was skeptical of the chalkboard spray paint, but it works as advertised. Two coats over a sheet of plywood makes a working chalkboard. Wonders never cease.
In the shot to the left, you can see the kitchen and the front entryway with its chocolate-milk like stone brown color. In person, the red looks stunning against the brown, especially in the case of the shutters. The entryway, the living room, and the dining room all received the stone brown color with the red trim. The wife wanted to make sure the main hallway tied into the rest of the house. She did a phenomenal job with the color selection in that regard.
The 70s-era light fixtures needed to go. They were replaced with something a little more contemporary. I replaced every outlet and switch in the house, ridding us of the beige trimmings and replacing everything with black outlets and switches (except for the sunroom, which is coming up next).
With the main area of the house complete, we only needed to paint two more rooms: the sunroom and the wife's studio. I intended to let the wife deal with the studio on her own, though I reserved veto authority lest she get carried away with some color I might not be able to live with.
That left the sunroom. As we stood in the entry to the sunroom one morning, she commented that she liked the reflection of the sun off the pool through the windows. She wanted something to enhance that a bit. Blue, then. After a mere two trips to Home Depot for color samples, we had what we wanted and got to work. For the sunroom, we decided the black outlets, etc. would be too dark. We opted for stark white trimmings, which still look far better than the "classic" beige found in nearly every house in the country.
I ended up very satisfied with all of the work the wife put into choosing the colors. The house ends up feeling distinctively southwestern, perfect for the desert that she & I grow more fond of the longer we live here.
I smile when guests come over. To a tee, every visitor has commented that when hearing of the various colors in the house, their first thought was "too busy" or "too many colors" or "that sounds hideous." The only comments we get after they walk through the house are "wow" or "gorgeous" or "I never would have thought to use so many colors like this. It's stunning."
The wife's studio ended up with lilac and plum colored walls, stark white trimmings. Since I have yet to start work on the built-ins she wants for the room, I'm holding off on photos from there yet.
I believe, before we get to that in earnest, the focus will be decorating. I printed a few photos at 16x20 and have a few others that will get slightly smaller treatments. We have canvas paintings, mostly desert scenes, that the wife's grandmother did years ago. Finally, of course, there is furniture. Wanting the house to be done in a mission-era style, I get the joys of being busy in the garage building furniture. I'm looking forward to it ;)
For now, though, a fridge full of adult beverages awaits. One must have priorities, after all!
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Great job. You two have been busy and now you get to enjoy your new house.
It turned out great.
Now I get to somewhat relax for the duration of the cold months.
Inside of the house this year, outside next year. All the plants are dead, the house being vacant (and water turned off) for months before we took over, so we will be starting from scratch as far as landscaping. Fun, and I mean fun in the most masochistic sense of the word :-/
Wow, you two really saw the potential in your place, great imagination.
Have to give most of the credit to the wife. In my previous life (previous as in pre-Vegas), she frequently introduced me as Mr. Khaki.
While I helped with some of the colors, the coordination and the majority of the selection is her doing. I love what she came up with. It looks amazing.
I guess I now understand why, when we initially looked at the house, she hadn't even seen half of it when she said it was the one I needed to purchase for her ;)
Nice job!