I Could Do Better

One of my hurdles when decorating a room is showing it off. Seriously - I'm a slightly less than adequate photographer, and I tend to rush through taking photographs without properly staging a room. Case in point - take a look at the windows in the main image of this blog. That's a snapshot of my dining room, and the drapery rings are all askew. I should have straightened them out, made sure they were evenly spaced, etc., but no - I just whipped out my camera and started clicking.

I noticed this again when I went into my daughter's bedroom to take photographs of the window treatments there.

I spent a lot of time making a decision on those panels, and hunted down the plantation shutters for days. So why wouldn't I artfully arrange them all to ensure my photograph looked as nice as I think the finished product does? That little turn on the panels, showing the lining, drives me bananas. I need to work with how they are placed on the rings so that doesn't show.  So staging a room before photographing it will be one of the things I work on as I move through finishing my house, as will brushing up on my photography skills. I'd like to be just as pleased with the photos as I am the rooms in real life.

Anyway, back to the windows in my daughter's room. :)

When Pottery Barn recalled the Roman Shades because of a possible choking hazard, I went on a hunt for window blinds that literally had no strings attached. I decided on plantation shutters, and the quotes for shutters online were considerable, although not out of the question. Before I had a chance to think about that too much, I happened upon these on Craigslist (the previous owners were removing them from a child's room where they'd installed them for the same purpose I needed them). They were the perfect width, but not the perfect height, which was fine by me. The gap at the top reminded me of the old transoms above the doorways in rowhouses in Baltimore.

There is a duplex in Baltimore that is our family home; my grandmother lived in it; currently my uncle and aunt share it. One day I hope to post photos of it here. It contains all the classic Baltimore rowhouse charms: transom windows in every interior and exterior doorway, stained glass exterior windows, marble front steps, gorgeous millwork. So I went with the shutters that left a gap, as a little homage to my extended family home.

The panels were decided on with the help of a group of friends. I thought I wanted a strong pattern, but then opted for a solid since it provides more flexibility later on. My daughter is only two - I am sure as the years go on she will bring her own ideas to how the room should look, and hopefully these panels will transition as she grows.

There are two windows in this room, and you can see a sneak peek of her big girl bed which is now fully assembled. I followed Feng Shui rules (with the help of another friend) and placed the bed against a windowless wall. We'll see how committed I am to Feng Shui and if it stays there. I also still have to decision placement of the art.

And again with the non-staged photograph, here are the two windows (with flung open shutters on one and messy blankets on the footboard of the bed):

The room is a work in progress, and so am I.



.

So What's a Coastal Style Colonial?

In my first post, I mentioned that my house is a Coastal Style Colonial. This description is actually only half of how I describe it (when I'm asked, which is generally only on decorating and design focused message boards). My house is a Coastal Style Colonial with an incomplete Charleston Entrance.

Really. I didn't make this up. Well, mostly I didn't make it up. :)

I came across the term Coastal Style Colonial when I started looking at different house plans in an effort to determine how our front elevation and overall curb appeal might be enhanced. What I found is that the term Coastal Style generally refers to a house that has a raised foundation and living areas situated above a pier type foundation (you know, the houses that appear to be on stilts) or that otherwise are not ground level. Very often, the living areas and kitchens of these houses are actually one floor above the bedrooms, the point being to provide the most expansive views to the public rooms of the house (you know. For the parties!).

In our particular house, our bedrooms are above the living areas as in a traditional home, but we have a raised foundation (as in, our basement is on the ground level and contains our entrance, the living areas and kitchen are on the second story, and bedrooms are on the third. It's a tall house).

So I'm sure about the Coastal Style. What I'm iffy about is the Colonial. The exterior of my house is classic Colonial: a rectangle. The interior is anything but. Colonials generally have a center hall entry with the living and dining rooms (or some rooms) flanking the center hall. My house has a contemporary layout, but the rectangular box feel is so strong from the outside, I just go with Colonial.

Now the Charleston entrance. Popular and named for houses in Charleston, South Carolina, a Charleston Entrance means your front door is actually on the side of the house.

With a Charleston Entrance, you generally see a faux front door that leads to a porch. Following the porch will lead you to the actual main entrance of the house.

Hopefully the second photo makes it clear - the front door is actually on the side of the house, in the middle of the porch.

I describe my entrance as a incomplete Charleston because it does not have the porch. Our front door is on the side, but the builder either ignored or was unaware of easement constraints that prevented the construction of the full porch (the porch would have to be wider than the easement from the property line allows). The previous owner, the house flipper, attempted to define the entrance by adding a portico over the door, but the portico is also in violation of the easement. Luckily we have a great next door neighbor who didn't object to granting an exception, and we paid our fine to let the portico remain standing. Our neighbor (did I mention how great he is?) has already said he won't object to the exception we'll have to apply for when and if we decide to construct the full porch.

I'm not sure what we'll end up doing. We have to replace the siding on our house, as well as the windows, so we'll make a decision about porches or not at that time.

Where In The World

I was inspired by several interior design related blogs when I decided to create this one (and one day I'll get a sidebar listing all of them). One of my newest favorite reads is Home To Three Duncan Boys, a blog I've been reading for a month or two. A recent post there featured a framed map in a playroom, and it reminded me of a little secret I have: I am a little bit obsessed with using maps in decorating.

At least I think it's a secret. I have two globes and two maps in the house. This is in contrast to the   twenty globes and maps in every room I'd have if I bought every one that caught my eye. Two (three?) years ago I purchased a set of old National Geographic maps because I was inspired by a room I saw in Coastal Living.

The photo of which I completely lost. Gone. Done.

I suppose it's just as well, since I was never going to hire a wallpaper company and ask them to hang my maps the way the owner of the inspiration room did. Instead, I will probably frame a few of the maps that are relevant to our lives (our state, parts of the Eastern Seaboard, the Chesapeake Bay??) and hang them in my toddler son's room. I'll still get the impact of the maps, but won't have to remove map wallpaper if he decides he wants a different look someday.

I like this look from a pic at Country Living Magazine:

But it's not quite what I'm aiming for. This image from the blog Fric and Frac is closer:

I do know I hope to have at least three framed, or an odd number at any rate. This is where Ikea will come in handy... inexpensive frames, using plastic instead of glass (all the better for a toddler's room, given the size of the frames and the fact that he might be able to reach them). I will probably just buy the frames and cut the maps to fit them.

Considering all the attention I have been giving my daughter's room, I feel a little less guilty having given some thought to my younger son's room now. :)

Art for the Little Girl's Room

The mood board for Madeline's room was based on four ACEO prints I found on Etsy. Here it is again:

I fell in love with the color combinations on the bird prints: orange, blue, green and yellow. The walls of the nursery were already yellow, which I thought was a nice, unisex color even if Jason Bateman joked about it NOT being unisex in Juno. "Have you ever met a guy who said he'd like to paint his bedroom yellow?" was the line, or something similar. Ha. :)

But I digress. Yellow walls could hold my teensy ACEO prints. A trip to Michael's and a question led me to a secret: Michael's will cut mats for you without a frame purchase. That was good news, since the cost of framing the prints to make them a more substantial size was going to be over $100 per, and the cost of double mats for each print was just $16. I already owned two of the frames, bought two more, and got the whole set ready for hanging for a quarter of the price of custom frames.

Now, I'm trying to figure out where to hang them in the room. I need to take some photos of the window treatments (and window placement) to consider this, as well as where her big girl bed will be.

Project One: A little girl's room

First, I want to clarify: my house is not quite still the bland box it was when we first moved in. We've lived here four years, and have made tweaks and improvements along the way. The bland box (or, the blue box as we often refer to it) came to us in 2006, and it was the closest thing to a near tear down my husband would ever sign up for.

Yes: I'd love to buy something that required gutting and renovating. My husband prefers house projects that don't require lengthy stays in hotels. The compromise? Our blue box: A coastal style colonial with modern layout, all decked out in builder's grade finishes, courtesy of the house flipping previous owner. In other words, a house we could comfortably live in while we took our time, let it speak to us, and watch evolve over time. A slow evolution works for me, a victim of paralysis by analysis, and works for my husband, who prefers slow leaks to the banking account as opposed to full faucet pours.

However, there is a line.

I'm at the point where we need to be finished with the small projects so the big ones can commence (and be given their due attention). First up: my daughter's bedroom. She is a two year old twin, and this bedroom is evolving into her own as her brother slowly moves into his own room.

Here are a couple of snapshots of the room as their nursery. The window treatments, which were eventually recalled by Pottery Barn Kids:

The dresser:

A little chair I meant to do more with and still haven't. It is moving into my son's room - future look to be determined:

I realize now I don't have any full shots of the room. Not surprising: I rarely take full room shots because 1. I am a poor photographer and 2. generally, I prefer to look at the details of rooms and not full rooms myself. Nevertheless, as I move through projects, I think a full on shot of rooms will become necessary and I'll try to do better. Suffice it to say, the room was full of light, both from the two windows, and the two babies.

But those two babies don't exist anymore. They are two active toddlers, growing really fast, and they grew out of those cribs.

Here is the mood board for Madeline's room. I'm excited that this blog will exist to track this project from vision to reality.

Updates soon!

How well can I procrastinate?

I created this blog with the intention of adding a photograph of one of my spaces and musing about where it should next go, however...

Treme is airing on HBO in three minutes. So much for photographs and musings.