#dwh2 : The Lady Room Part One

When searching for the #dwh2 one one of the things on my list was a "lady room". Or as I've heard others call it a "sitting room". I think my term is more fun. So as we shall call it, the lady room.
I was really happy when we found the our house because it had the ultimate set up for said lady room. I haven't shared very many photos of this space because it wasn't to see. I just knew it had potential.
The room's walls were painted two shades of pink stripes. Which was really cool. But I've passed the phase where I want a pink room.  Had this come along about 8 years ago, I'd have been a happy camper. Alas, 8 years late. Also...a major NO for us....carpet. I was revealed that the under coating was raw concrete. Naturally, and realtor line is going to sound something like, "oh you can just replace it with hardwood." Well that ol' hardwood isn't in the cards right now. But perhaps sometime in the future. Should hardwood be installed it would have to be in several rooms not just this one and we'd have to replace the existing hardwood that's outside of this room.  Matching is not an option, it's really weird scrapped kind of red hardwood. (?? I know) Now back to this room....

Here it is about 2 weeks after we moved in. 

When we moved in I put all of my frames on this wall because I wanted them off the floor. 

I also wanted to see what it looked like.  As it turns out it was entirely overwhelming and something I didn't want to stay for longer than possible. Knowing that the room would get painted eventually I thought it was a harmless risk.

 

These photos were taken just before I started hauling 

everything out of the room to take the carpet up. 

The window to the right was covered. It had a really nice pair of white and pink silk drapes that would, again, have been great a few years ago but at this point not my cup of tea. The quality is so nice though, I hope we can use them in another space at some point. There was also a big cornice board that extended from the top of the wall to just past the top of the window. It was brown silk with pink flowers and had scalloped edges.  I really did try to figure out how to keep this as it is a nice piece. But again...same story 8 years go...SO it all came down.

And then I reached the magical point where I couldn't take it any longer.

And this happened. Which then meant that we had to go on and take all of it out. 

(I may or may not have done a little happy dance.)

Believe it or not taking the carpet up was the easy part. 

It was practically just laying there as though it was a rug on the floor. 

The padding likewise came up quite easily. 

Stay tuned for more on this room make over. 

Folks...as of today it looks completely different.

Memphis Fun : Tiger Madness

On Friday night I went to Tiger Madness with my Canadian husband and my Thai surrogate daughter.

This was a rather fun outing and my first "sporting event" as a Memphis Tiger. Having attended another highly acclaimed basketball school I had some expectations as to how Tiger Madness would go down. Tiger Madness is modeled after Late Night - which is to mark the first day the team can officially practice together. That date was earlier in October, none the less I am glad to support my new Tiger team as they start their new season. It was great to be in the Fed Ex Forum with thousands of other screaming, laughing fans. I was not only proud of the university community and all the students but I was also proud of the city of Memphis. Go Tigers, Go!

#dwh2: Fans.

#dwh2 is a fixer-upper. However, I would not call this house a gut job. I know there were many people who did think so. Alas, we do not. It needs updating. That doesn't include removing every last particle. At least not within the first 5 minutes of living here.

We are slowly checking things off the list of "we can do it" tasks. One of them was to paint all of the fans in the pool. We've been trying to come up with a name for it other than pool room because that means to most people that we would play pool in there. We call it the pool room because it is a room with an indoor pool in it. That's hard to explain sometimes. #firstworldproblems

So, I give you the offending fan.

Brown, leafy, more black and a bad lantern.

The pool room has a lot of lighting. 

There are 10 bulb fixtures with round lanterns on them. I like them. 

There are also 8 recessed lights. 

And last but not least, 3 offending ceiling fans. 

...and a partridge in a pear tree. 

The lanterns that go all the way around the pool are original to the house. 

We really like them. So..let's see what we can do to build this in to the fans...

As you can see below, the lanterns have a certain (cough, cough) shape to them. 

...pointy, you know what I'm saying.

The name of the game as we've moved in has been "PAINT". 

We've painted so many things to help give it a new face. 

So when looking at the fans, this was the logical answer. 

I priced some new fans but that project rang up at about $950 including the electrician. 

I'm not so keen on spending that amount on fans. Not today, probably not ever.

AND....the reveal.

Thank the dear sweet spray paint lords that this worked out. 

It took A LOT of paint. Like....A LOT. 

For each fan it took approximately 2.5 cans of spray paint.

The fan blades are sizable but they really soaked up the paint. 

Also, they needed painted front and back because of the angle they are installed.

 Remember what they DID look like?

 

Yes, I was rather glad to have this little chore done and off the list. 

Next up in the pool room...

1. Give it a better name

2. Paint the rest of the room. (probably in the spring)

It took about 2-3 days per set of fan blades to paint them. 

So this project while seemingly easy, took a couple weekends to complete. 

I think that this really made a difference in the space. 

Changing out the lantern and painting the blades in total cost about $25 per fan. 

I'd like to paint the body of the fan too, though didn't this time. 

I kind of like it with the black body, so time shall tell. 

This room is the room in the house that needs the most work long term so ultimately the fan blades are a very small drop in the bucket (pool) but for now it seems quite lovely. 

We got about 3-4 big projects done over fall break last weekend. So I'm excited to share them with you as they finish up and come together later this week.

A photo worth sharing.

I saw this photo on Bo & Dot today and it is simply to good not to share.

This photo is from Dubai.  While it is unlikely I will ever have the opportunity to travel there...

Can you believe this? It stopped my little browsing finger and I paused to marvel and say WOW. 

That is all. 

Happy Thursday. 

This is my favorite day of the week because it means tomorrow is Friday. 

Then it's the weekend.

#dwh2 : the blue bathroom

Before Tongta arrived in August we painted her room. It is Benjamin Moore electric blue. We love it. She loves it, everybody is happy. I highly recommend that color, it is very WOW.  In Tongta's rooms...Blue is the thing. Lots of blue, and in various shades of blue. Which is funny considering our house was in a movie called "50 shades of blue". Ha. hadn't thought of that before.

So now let's talk about Tongta's en suite bathroom. Her bathroom is the "blue bathroom". It has powder blue/light blue tile from the floor about 2/3 of the way up the wall. The tile is in really good shape. So no plans to take it out. The walls is painted the same color of blue the rest of the way up as is the ceiling. FORTUNATELY, all of the bathrooms in the house have tile all the way up to the ceiling. I am totally impressed that they did that when the house was built in 1960. That really helps curb the notion to take out the tile....did I already mention that the tile is in good shape (yes, yes!).

About 18 months ago I was at Seabrook paint store in Memphis and landed on a stack of black and white stripe wallpaper that was on major sale. The answer is "YES"... I bought all they had. At the time I knew I didn't have a spot for it but I knew there would be eventually. I actually even used it for a piece of furniture at our last house. I was so excited...I just had to use it for something!

That was fun! It really gave a different flare to this piece. 

I used a very small portion of the paper I bought. This was just a little practice.

NOW...back to the bathroom at #DWH2

Just as a reference here is some inspiration for the bathroom...

I originally found this picture on Google images but traced it back to this post.

I took this picture at the Kate Spade store in Memphis. 

I love their bathroom.  Their tile is a crisp white, but I think that it would still look cool with blue on the bottom. Adding in some additional shiny pieces such as a new faucet and other fixtures I think that will be a nice fresh start! I always go in there when I visit the store. I love to take a peak at that crisp white and dazzling shiny fixtures. The stripes sure are dandy.

Here is our blue bathroom as it is now. Styled up with some pink and gold. 

The ceilings are nice and tall so the stripes might be a nice touch. 

The counter is white marble, the sink is a nice shape so all of that is okay. 

I think a new faucet is in order. I've got a few in mind but nothing selected. 

 This bathroom has a really interesting layout, it's kind of an "L" shape. The bathtub is actually a separate portion. The bathroom and the toilet is on the other side of the wall with the pink towel (pictured above). You can also see the reflection of another door in the mirror...that's the space where the shower is. When you go through that door, you're in Tongta's room. So it's got variations of privacy. Nice option, eh?

Right now the striped wallpaper is in a bag in the bathroom, every day I get closer to calling somebody to have it applied.  However, after steaming wallpaper off 3 of the other bathrooms, it's an interesting thought to put up MORE wallpaper. Goodness, the dilemma.