Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
I realize I haven’t done proper before and afters for the half bath. Partly because the space wasn’t properly finished for a long time. Partly because the powder bath is devilishly difficult to photograph. It’s tiny, and getting in there for any sort of angle shot is pretty much impossible — head on also doesn’t work very well.
On the upside of the bath being a tiny, we are really squeezing out all the mileage out of the space that we can get.The… Read the rest
Long time – no see! We are back from our round the world trip – actually have been for a few months now. I have missed this space, but…you know how it goes. We’ve been busy setting up house, writing about our adventures over on House to Laos – our travel blog, and I have been looking for a new job (found).
Last month we took some photos of the State of the VIB, which I am super excited to share with you.… Read the rest
Long overdue. But better late than never, right? The space is not 100% complete, but it looks fantastically close to being done. The one thing we never got to was painting the french doors. I wanted black frames. But there is so much prep work required and so much room for error I decided to put that off until we were back from our adventure. Also, now I am vacillating on whether I actually want the frame to be black — in general I like for things to be as light as airy as possible — the more light, the better.… Read the rest
Sooooo — we had have these beautiful countertops in the kitchen. Originally butcher block from Ikea, we stained them jet black with ink and then invested a lot of time getting them sealed. I had done a lot of research and apparently quite a few people out there have a luck with Waterlox, which is great to use because it is food-grade safe. But bad news for us, I probably didn’t do a great job sealing them.… Read the rest
I have attempted to photograph the finished foyer multiple times, but the pattern has proved to be a tricky bastard. this is a combination of photos that Sergey and I took, with a caveat, that I wish a professional would come and help us out here. Also, this post took an inordinately long time to be published, in part due to time crunch with the fact that I have been selected for 6 week jury duty, in part due to picture taking troubles, and in part because I am still learning to operate on my new Mac…I hope to be back here more frequently soon.… Read the rest
I love Farrow and Ball. And, there is no other paint quite like it. I questioned it before, but now I know that it does stand apart from other brands, in a class of its own. It’s not just the color – although that’s pretty damn good too, but the quality – the looks and feels of it on a wall. And I am not the only one who noticed the difference – Sergey did too, which means it really does exist!… Read the rest
As I have mentioned before, we are replacing nearly all of the overhead fixtures in the house. My most favorite addition, by far, is a sputnik chandelier in our dining room (the red room). Pictures really don’t do it justice, it looks incredible in person.
I had bookmarked the tutorial on transforming the IKEA Maskros this beautiful chandelier more than a year ago, and have in fact had all of the supplies to make this just sitting and waiting for the right moment.… Read the rest
Our ceilings are starting to look really, really good. We are so happy with quality of the work. The surface don’t look seamless or perfect, but perfectly smooth – kind of like it has always been there and was never graced by the ugliness of the swirly. And the ceiling medallions are fitting in seamlessly. I am not sure that the medallions were there originally, in fact, I am pretty sure they weren’t.… Read the rest
As we play the waiting game – currently on order: front door, front door paint, hallway lights, paint for kitchen and bathroom – I decided that there was no better time to address an issue that I had planned to leave for later. Bedroom doors. Those three (not counting the closets) doors are the last hollow core, very ugly doors we have left to replace.
We purchased salvaged, solid wood replacements oh about three years ago.… Read the rest
I really had hoped that the door agonies which plagued me when we were searching for that perfect pair of french doors (and all the bells and whistles that come with those) were behind me. I had spent weeks researching and envisioning, only to face the reality that those perfect little details come with a serious price tag attached (goodbye cremone bolts, sadly i never knew you!) I am perfectly happy with the doors that we ended up with, and I am sure that will be the case with our front door as well.… Read the rest