Sweet Little Shed Revisited...yet again

   So the sweet little shed was the very first thing we fell in love with a year ago when we arrived at the property a few minutes before our dear agent Shelly. And how could we help it...just look at her in her splendid innocence, vines and moss growing unchecked, standing there proudly yet precariously on her bug-infested posts.

Shed sans roof

So of course we made an offer on the house the first day we saw it. Then upon inspection two weeks later, Ron told us that if we wanted to keep the shed, we would need to replace the roof and further support her undercarriage, or risk her inevitable collapse.

Shed avec roof

Once Tim the roofer had finished his task, and Pete had added support posts and beams beneath the shed, it was time to clean out the spider webs and god knows how many years of dust and dirt.

Front of shed

After sweeping about ten times I brought out the tortured vacuum cleaner which has been given a decided rest now that it lives in a home of beautiful plank floors. When it seemed impossible to entice any more decay from between the floor boards I decided to clean it with white paint.

That seemed to keep more dirt at bay....so now the serious decision could be broached...color! 

Now, I am about at the end of my color lives, having chosen no fewer than ten in the past year, and I am in abject fear of running out of color luck. So I decided to take the greatest risk yet - a color that has no place WHATSOEVER in a shed that was built in 1850....sea foam...WHAT?!?

I have gotten THAT color-cocky. I thank my lucky stars that my color shopping days will soon be over because I feel I am a danger to myself at this point....but...

What say you, dear family and friends? Does it not look happier and prouder today? The last few nights I have taken a candleabra out to the shed in the early darkness, placed it on the floor, and admired this sweet little shed like I have never admired it before. It is dearly loved.

Cosmetic Cabinetry

   Clearly we've come a long way in six months if we're now concerned with the cabinets. When we first moved in, the cabinetry, unattractive though it may have been, was the only thing the kitchen had going for it. 

   So Pete and I have officially run headlong into a home renovation phenomena. It seems that when you manage to redo three and a half rooms in a house with a handful of tools, four paint brushes, sheetrock, a mile of moulding and several gallons of paint, caulk and liquid nails, you then start to be bothered by what seemed perfectly fine just a few months before. Humans are so silly. 

   So here we are with nothing better to do than reface the cabinets. I found this idea on a blog where the people clearly know what they are doing. It is a project that involves paintable beadboard wallpaper and what Pete calls "sticks".

And this is how it turns out.

   So here is my latest non-problem. Though I really like both the 'casual afternoon' of the cabinets and the 'cool cucumber' of the walls, it would seem that 'cucumber' and 'sage' simply do not go well together - a perfect example of my complete lack of the 'color gene' to which I have alluded before.

   But screw it, I think we can live with this for a while. And if not, well...Stephen at Steward's Hardware will talk me through it yet again.

   And now, just for the drama of the thing, and because I recently found this picture of our very first morning here...

And now...six months later

You wouldn't recognize that sweatshirt I was wearing either.

The Cherry Chocolate Hall

    The front hall began like this.

   You'll note the door. As did we. It was so very handsome we immediately assumed that the previous owners had perhaps spent all their door budget on the one.
   At first we didn't recognize the wall treatment. We thought it was a rough paper made to look like terracotta. But after taking a piece of the tattered wall around to various hardware and paint shops, a woman in Home Depot paints remembered it - a designer "suede" paint mixed with sand. Whatever it was I didn't want to repeat it, but now I knew I could simply paint over it.
   I do not have what I've heard called "the color gene" - that uncanny ability to choose paint colors well. Already I had made a mistake choosing the color, or more accurately the hue, for the place the living room wall meets the eating area. Faced with that decided handicap, I moved carefully through the eye-watering and mind-numbing world of swatches.
   In the end I was saved by one - "chocolate cherry". It is beautiful, deep and rich and I needed no more choices.
   Clearly this was a dangerous decision, but it wasn't clear to me. Only later did I hear four coats were necessary, but my greatest threat was where the creamy moulding would meet with the crimson. I am not and never have been a professional painter but we are quite pleased with the drama that is now our little foyer.

   Though I have no other photos of the previous hall, there is a hint of it from the old plaster room...

And here is the new hall from the new plaster room

   It is truly delicious.