A random buffet of updates for those addicts who need a hit...

I've been catching a lot of flack for not updating more regularly now that there's so much going on up at the house.  The problem is there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything that absolutely MUST be done, let alone blogging about all of it.  I'm doing my best, so bear with me.  :)

Today I have prepared for you a delicious menu:

• Interior Doors and trim
• Baseboards, Crown Moulding, and Mirror Trim
• Coffered Ceilings
• Sneak peek at unfinished granite counters
• My mafia boss armoire project
• And my dining room artwork

INTERIOR DOORS

This was awesome to see the doors go in.  They're so solid, and a beefy 8' tall, which we didn't have in our last house with 9' ceilings.  And you'll see the "eclectic" in our "French eclectic" goals start to come together here.  Cottage v-groove doors with simple craftsman trim moulding with the overhang at the top.  All the trim will be painted white, including the french doors to the office.

Another important point is how bundled up the kids were last weekend when we went from 70 degrees on Saturday to 10 degrees with the wind chill on Sunday.  Clearly this was taken 2 Sundays ago.  :)

BASEBOARDS, CROWN, MIRRORS, CLOSETS

We were really worried about our crown.  We have it in every room, including hallways, but it's single step crown, and we have 10 foot ceilings.  Our last house had double crown with 9 foot ceilings so we knew it wasn't going to be as "wow" as our last crown but hoped that the massive 7" baseboards would balance it out, and they DID!  

And the closets don't photograph well, so I made Brent walk around the corner in the nugget's closet and stick his head out to peek.  He's 6'1".  I think I deleted the photos of our master closet, so I'll have to update on that next time.

Master bedroom looking into the master bath

even the garage got trimmed out!

COFFERED CEILINGS!!!!

So we've been really thinking about how to cozy up this house, and especially this main living area which is pretty big and wide open.  I don't want it to feel like a catalog or a furniture showroom.  I want it to look and feel inviting and lived in.  With 11 foot ceilings in this room, it's anything but cozy so far.  But the hope is that the coffered ceiling beams will bring down the height, and add texture and warmth.  Also, I'm planning a medium blue paint (Benjamin Moore Hamilton Blue for those of you addicted to paint swatches) on the ceiling between all the beams, while the beams will be painted white like the rest of our trim.  That said we're having a bit of a spat with our builder about our paint selection, so it's penciled in to be painted the same as the walls and we'll hire our own painter to come back and do the ceiling.  

The beams consist of a basic wooden box.  Then they cap the bottom corners with a corner moulding so that as the house settles we don't see gaps in the trim - that was a great suggestion by our builder!  Then above that is a piece of baseboard moulding flipped upside down.  Then a layer of crown.  The trim carpenters have been working all week on these, but I think they look great trimmed out.  Of course I can't wait to see them painted white now!!

GRANITE SNEAK PEEK

I'm reluctant to share my little beauties because they look far from beautiful right now.  We thought they'd be done today but not so much.  They got all the granite in the bathrooms, and they got the slab into the laundry room, but it's not set and the sink is not there yet.  Still you get the general idea.  In the kitchen most of the pieces are in place but not permanent, and it's covered in a layer of stone dust, wood dust etc so it's barely recognizable as my gorgeous slabs that I bonded with at the stone yard.  I'm sure they're lurking there under all that crud, and I can't wait for them to be brought back to life.  Also, none of it looks as good as it will once the cabinets are painted.  But I'm trying to use my imagination and be patient.  Patience isn't really in my repertoire.  *sigh

Guest bathroom - this photographed really dark - maybe because it's a windowless bathroom with no lights!

Closeup - this is called Blue Diamond granite

laundry room - 10 feet of folding space!!  giddy up!

close - up... this is white ice, the same granite as our kitchen.  we had to buy 3 full slabs and had leftover so here it is!

Brent's vanity - the granite is called "vanilla"

my vanity, before they finish the sink.  also vanilla

shower seat - vanilla again!

and big surprise - vanilla in the kids bathrooms too!

MY MAFIA ARMOIRE

So you remember the antique settee or "le sofette" I reupholstered a few weeks ago?  Here's her big brother for the office!  Against good solid advice, we removed the built-in closet from the office plans to use this armoire for storage instead.  The pictures don't capture how gigantic this beast is.  It's about 4 feet wide, over 7 feet tall, and over 2 feet deep.  It also happens to be completely against the grain of everything else in the house and against the grain of my tastes in general.  It started out a really dated 90's glazed white finish, and I'm pretty sure my family thought I was crazy when I dragged them all there to pick up this Craigslist find.  :)  Then, I'm POSITIVE they thought I was crazy when I told them I was going to make him metallic gold.  Then without a doubt, they were calling the loony bins around here to check for occupancy after my first coat of gold spray paint.

First gold spray paint (6 cans to cover the whole thing).  Then I glazed with Martha Stewart Metallic Coffee glaze.  I like what it did to bring out all the details, but it turned the trophy gold color to a dark brassy color with green undertones that I didn't like at all.  So then I glazed again with Martha Stewart copper penny.  Better, but still not quite enough.  The finishing touch was going over the entire piece with Antique Gold Rub 'n' Buff with a single finger.  Do you know how many "wax on-wax offs" it takes to go over this gigantic piece of furniture with one finger?  A million bajillion.  Totally. Worth. It. The swirls gave it that patina I was hoping for.

Don't laugh!  I realize most of you will be saying "OMG, uh uh, no she didn't!"   But give him a chance.  I was embarrased to move him from the garage through the front doors after the gold paint for fear a neighbor would see.  But now I'm rather proud of him and he will be a stunner against our dark navy walls in the office.  :)  Oh, I should also mention.  I had to take all the doors off, or rather, I had Brent take off all the doors and I promised he'd get blog credit!  Thanks honey!  So I didn't re-assemble for the sake of taking a photo, so you'll have to use your imagination on the giant freaking doors.  Or just wait until we move in and you can see it in all its glory.

BEFORE:

Pay no attention to the pallets in the background - that's another project for another day!

THIS IS MY TROPHY AFTER THE GOLD SPRAY PAINT:

Mom said it looked like an Oscar, and I guess I have to agree!

Fit for a mob boss's dining room straight out the jersey shore

AND THEN AFTER THE METALLIC BLACK GLAZE:

ick!

Definitely better, but I wasn't happy with the color at this point.

AND THE FINAL FINISH - VOILA!

What do you think?  Did he win you over?  Or am I still headed for a straight jacket?

MY DINING ROOM ART

So the story on the art is... we have 11 foot ceilings in this room.  You may remember the giant buffet I refinished?  It's nearly 7 feet long and 38" high.  The dining table is 9 feet long.  So everything is big in scale, and the art had to be also.  I got it in my head (this is never good) that I wanted a big antique sign to hang over the buffet.  I wanted it to be old and casual to bring down the formality of the antique buffet.  I also wanted the context to make SOME sense for the dining room.  Then I got it in my head (now really bad - two things in my head) that I wanted this sign to be nostalgic in some way... I wanted to bring a little bit of New England to our new home.  So where will I find an 8 foot long antique sign that's from New England and of a subject matter contextually relevant to a dining room.  Yeah, it stumped me too.  So I decided I wouldn't find it organically, and I'd have to make my own.  And, I have really been looking forward to this project.  In fact, I forced myself to get through some of the others that I was dreading first so I could treat myself to this project.  And now seeing that in type, I realize I have issues and should seek help.  DIY anonymous.  

Ok, too much talky talky.  I decided to make a sign for salt water taffy and fudge like I would see at Hampton Beach, the beach we went to every friday as a kid growing up.  SUPER NOSTALGIA!  Sadly, their signs were ugly so I couldn't pay too much homage as I wanted mine to be pretty.  And so it is.  :)  I just used the name of the candy shop from Hampton, and the rest is mine.  The hardest part was choosing fonts!  The second hardest part is taking a power sander to all my hard work to distress it.  Leaning against the windows I was kind of disappointed with the final results.  Then we held it up over the buffet and I swooned.  

The blue is the color going on the ceiling, and the purple is the darker inside and under-coat on the buffet!

OK, I REALLY have to focus on landscaping stuff now that I've done my job of updating you Margaret.  Kidding, it delights me to no end that you're all in this with us.  We're nearing the home stretch and I'll do my best to keep up with the updates.  Thanks for reading!!