Time Flies When You're at Salt Wall

It's Christmas at Salt Wall.



The (Pottery Barn kids) stockings (that the Greens inspired us to buy) were hung by the (new) gas-fireplace mantel with care...in hopes that a 40-inch wall-mounted flat screen (and a house full of furniture, not to mention an occupancy license) would soon be there.

Ah, time flies when you’re hanging at Salt Wall.

Seriously, is it already Friday (almost)? Yes, tomorrow is Christmas Eve eve day, and I plan to spend it, yet again, in painter's clothes.

Btw, I hope everyone on my Christmas list (this year, that extends only as far as parents, brother, pet and husband) is excited about receiving items purchasable at Lowes or Home Depot. Just kidding… But only sort of.

What I am not kidding about is how sore and tired I am from working at the house all (staycation) week. And the (not) funny thing is…I feel like I didn’t even do that much. I started today scrubbing the master bathroom wall tiles. For those who are unaware, tiling is not complete after it is grouted. There is a long “cleaning” process to remove the film created by remaining grout. I chiseled and wiped and cleaned and polished with a dry rag. I swear, there is still a faint white film over the wall tiles. I had hoped to clean up the tiles on the floor of the master bath, guest bath, half bath and breezeway/den…but I’m certain that task would have been an entire week’s work. The bathroom wall escapade took 2 hours alone!

In addition to washing walls, I spent the better part of today at Lowes designing some pretty intense closet systems. I know I have said this before, but I heart the Allen + Roth line at Lowes. It’s what Martha Stewart is to Home Depot – but so much better. It’s nice to have a line that you like and trust. In those moments when you say to yourself, “I’m not sure I have formed an opinion about what kind of XYZ I like,” you can look to the Allen + Roth line for guidance. It’s swell. For closet systems, we were adamant that we didn’t want a wire unit. And I just wanted to make the best use of space so that we could use the real estate in the bedrooms for fun furniture. In designing the closets, my mom was truly a Godsend today. She is so decisive and helpful for this type of project. So there were Mom and me…literally in Aisle 7 at Lowes in Danvers for THREE HOURS mapping out all the various closet options. Truth be told, I was working off of a pretty elaborate drawing that the California Closets guy (who made a house call to try to sell me $4000 worth of custom closet systems) drew for me. (It almost cost me my marriage, though...Chris felt so guilty that I had a guy come out to spend 4 hours with us desinging closet systems when I knew from the get-go I was only after his drawings.) Anyway, we didn't spend 4 grand on them, but we still paid a pretty penny for the Allen + Roth closet systems. Who cares - we’re getting a lot more bang for the buck…and it’s not nearly as much as the custom closets would have been...and having them installed means we have a place to hang clothes pronto...which means we're one step closer to LIVING AT SALT WALL.


So we left Lowes with a CRV full of about 600 pounds of closet STUFF…some of which is still in my car because it’s so heavy. Tomorrow, Steve Butcher, the handyman I found on Craigslist is doing the installation. Fingers crossed, he is quick, good, and not creepy.

What else did I do today, you ask? (Re-)stained the newel posts and rails. It’s amazing what a little sandpaper and stain can do. I was seriously thinking that our newel posts and railings on our stairs got ruined. Frayed wood, extra glue, a circular peg that was cut out so that the posts could be bolted in…and not to mention the hell these poor posts went through when the horrific floor guys installed them two times…cockeyed. But some 120 grain sandpaper and Zar ebony stain made them look gorgeous again. I can’t wait to do a coat of the Zar fruitwood water-based polyurethane tomorrow (well, I can…but it will look so good in the end). Waters and Brown in Salem gave us a 3-step process to match the stain of the kitchen island. So, the island, the wooden island brackets supporting the granite, the newel posts and rails on the stairs, and the double French doors hung by barndoor hardware (between living room and office) THAT WE FINALLY ORDERED THIS WEEK will all be the same warm chocolate brown. The staining went fairly well tonight. I’m just not very neat. I am not a good blue-taper. I love staining, but not when I have brand newly finished wood floors, perfectly painted walls, etc. Chris kept coming to wipe up my spills, but we had a fun night nonetheless. Listening to some good country music, talking about how we FINALLY feel like Salt Wall looks like a home. Chris installed door stops and ball catches on the closet doors while I stained. Then, we went home and my mom (aka Superwoman) had a warm and delicious dinner waiting for us and was all ears when I asked her to help me map out the EXACT specs for Steve ihopeyoudontBUTCHERourclosets.

Tomorrow I plan to babysit Steve and, if time permits, throw a coat of poly on the newels and rails and, again if time permits, wash all the tile floors. The Carrs are celebrating Christmas tomorrow night (before we fly out to VA to spend the holiday with Chris' fam) with Salem House of Pizza calzones and Mom’s famous salad…so it won’t be a late night at Salt Wall. I’ll do as much as I can and then it’s off to Rejoice the Coming of our Savior. We’ll be back on Tuesday…the day the electrician plans to finish ALL of his work, get the electric permit sign off…which will trigger the occupancy license. Bottom line: We’re hopefully a week out from sleeping at Salt Wall. Legally.

Thanks for following. Flip Flop Chardonnay made me a bit verbose this evening. It happens.

God, my hands are all chapped.

Christmas Rush

Again, the more I work on the house, the less I post. In this instance, correlation does mean causation.

I do feel like I have a true following because I'm getting requests for photos and updates. So here goes.

I took this week off from work. Some call it vacation. Others call is "staycation." I call it more work than my work. But it's been a productive week thus far.

First, Jay Wilichoski, our super painter, finished up painting everything but the breezeway/den. I am really loving the colors. The white dove is the perfect trim - a lovely soft white that goes well with our kitchen cabinets and the colors we chose for all rooms. The fact that he sprayed all the trim, doors and ceilings really makes everything look uniform and perfect. We did a semi gloss on the doors and trim but, since it was sprayed, it comes off as more of a cross between satin and semi gloss. Which is perfect, because I couldn't decide between those two finishes.

Of all the colors, we love our master bedroom most. The Manchester Tan is THE perfecte neutral.


Second favorite is the Revere Pewter, which is a perfect "greige" for our open floor plan.


Thirdly, I am a little bit obsessed with the Van Courtland Blue in my office.


Lastly, I am very happy with a soft but rejuvenating creamy yellow for our guest room.


The painter plans to come back in a week or so to finish/touch up...

In the mean time, I've spent my vacation...cleaning. And if you ask my husband, it is a chore that I am actually pretty awful at doing. Not this week. This week, I rock at cleaning. To the point that my hair is covered in sawdust and my fingers are shriveled from spending countless hours in a soapy bucket of water.

It took forever, but I can finally say that all of the kitchen cabinets are clean and READY FOR DISHES!

While I was cleaning today, I was also on standby to answer questions from the electirician like... Where should I hang the wall sconce, how long do you want the pendant light to hang, what should the order of switches go on a certain switch box?

We're making good progress on the electical front. Our electrician is coming back next Tuesday to finish up, but check out some of the more exciting lighting intallations:

Pendants!


Office light! LOVE IT (see above) - thank you Nate Bennett!

Murray Feiss Barrington Sconces for living room - thank you Nate Bennett!


HVAC came and installed all of the vent covers today as well as thermostats...that, combined with the fireplace install, means thats I was nice and toasty at the house this week.


What else can I update folks on...

...Kel is installing the stairs between the breezeway/den and house.
...I can't tell you how messy, dusty and gross everyhing is in the house. It took me an hour to clean off fan blades for the electrician to install.
...The granite on the island just got installed...as did the quartz on the master vanity...and the window sill in the kitchen. It took a couple trips to get it right, but they figured it out and we're happy with how everything looks. Kel will install brackets on the island so the 12.5 inch overhang won't cause a major issue if someone decides to lean on it.



...We. need. furniture. Anyone heard of Modern Rust in DC? We may check it out over Christmas while we're in Virginia and have some items sent.
...I love wayfair.com
...We are moving December 29th!!! Let's hope we have an occupancy license before then.
...Carpets arrive in the bedrooms one week from today.
...We bought stools for our island. Who knew World Market, our favorite place in DC delivers?


...I need to rent a husband. Chris is working all week and I really need a husband to: hang mirrors, install doorstops, swap out our side door, patch a hole in our master bath (Long story there but not incredibly interesting so I will save for later), and install closet systems. I found Steve Butcher on Craiglist and we're going to give him a whirl...in hopes he doesn't butcher our walls. I mean, he can't screw them up any more than the guy who actually plastered the walls did!

That's all for now. Wanna know something kind of silly but true? The simple act of installing the plastic covers for the outlets really made the house look like a home. We can't wait to move on in to Salt Wall...in time for our second anniversary on December 31 - and even before then - our first overnight guest...Ms. Ellen E. Carey

In Living Color

When I was a little girl I had a diary and when I hadn’t written in awhile I would apologize to the diary for not writing for so long. So here I am…apologizing to no one and everyone all at once for my lack of blog updates.

It’s been 20 days since my last posting. The last 20 days has been filled with trim, trim and more trim. There’s so much more trim than we imagined and, since the first floor is “old construction,” we had to add a piece of quarter-round “shoe molding” to hide gaps between the wood floor and the kick molding caused by uneven floors. I actually like the way it looks – dresses things up a bit.

While Kel has been working on trim, Chris and I have had paint on the mind. I’ve avoided writing about the paint colors because I was too indecisive to blog about it…and too busy reading other posts about colors and flow and undertones. The paint choices themselves were difficult but when you throw carpet into the mix (which we’re doing in our bedroom) and the fact that we have no idea what we’ll have for furniture, bedding, etc., it really complicates things.

Top ten things I kept in mind when choosing paint colors:

1. Don’t go too dark. And if you choose a dark color, make sure it is in a room that has a lot of trim to break up the darkness (we went this route in the office).



2. Neutral is always best, but there are lots of neutrals so give some thought to undertones. And, if you’re like us, avoid red undertones – everything just looks pink. Go with greys the have more of a green undertone and beiges that have more of a yellow undertone. (Our carpet has a green undertone because I read if you go with a red undertone carpet it makes the walls look pink, too.)



3. Go with all “clean” or all “dirty” colors: You can’t have a bright, happy yellow bedroom if all the other rooms and hallway are muted tones. (We went all dirty, muddy neutrals. Yum!)



4. Think of all of the house colors as a palette – put the paint chips all together and see if any stick out as “off.” Choose the trim color first and always look at paint chips next to the trim you plan to use. Not sure whether there is a good flow from room to room, ask yourself this question: Could a throw pillow that was the color of Room A look okay on a couch in Room B and vice versa.



5. Get input from professionals. Bring tiles, photos, etc. into the paint store so they can provide the most educated counsel possible. Under no circumstances should you look at paint colors online.



6. Break up monochromatic color schemes by changing the value of the color. For our open floor plan, we went with Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter for the whole downstairs but, going up the stairs and in the hallway, we did the same color at 45% (we actually started at 25% Revere Pewter, had the paint store brush it out and kept having them add 10% more pigment until we were happy with the color. We wanted a contrast between the 100% Revere Pewter but also a contrast between the trim and the wall color upstairs).



7. Chris hates red rooms. Which is fine – some parameters are good!



8. “You can always paint it another color” is something I heard again and again but let’s be honest – we never will. Paint samples are your friend. Brush color samples on in multiple spots – areas with more and less light and make sure you really are happy with the color. Don’t settle.



9. You can’t go wrong with Benjamin Moore Historic Collection.



10. Greens are like white wine. Good when they’re good but the wrong one and it’s terrible.

One thing we are so happy about is that we hired a professional painter. Painting is just not fun and, after all this money and hard work, we want it to be perfect. I wish neither Chris nor I were insanely detail oriented but that is just not the case.

Okay so what did we choose? Drum roll please…

Trim: White Dove – OC-17


Downstairs (Living room, dining room, hallway): Revere Pewter HC 172


Office: Van Courtland Blue HC-145 (It was a Pottery Barn color for the fall, and I just loved it. Has a little green in it and there is enough white trim to break up the darkness. Any lighter, it I was afraid it would look like a little boy’s bedroom. It is serious but not stuffy and will look great through the barn doors from the living room. Gorgeous next to Revere Pewter and with the White Dove trim.)


Stairway and upstairs hallway: Revere Pewter at 45%
Mudroom/breezeway/DEN!: C2 Saltwater (the ONLY non Ben Moore color – just love how it sometimes looks green, sometimes blue, sometimes grey. Grammy kept saying “Bring the outdoors indoors for this room” so I kept that in mind. Plus it is called SALTWATER. It’s only right.)

Downstairs bathroom: BM China White 74 (we plan to do 8 inch stripes of C2 Buttercream down the road – both were the only two colors that looked okay with both our Carrera marble vanity top AND our beigey/yellowy/peachy travertine-stone type tiles)


Upstairs bathroom will also be China White
Guest bedroom (front): BM Windham Cream HC-6 (I really want a yellow guest room…with grey and white bedding)

Guest bedroom (back): BM Silver Sage (Megan Fass recommended I paint my bedroom in DC this color before I sold it and I’ve loved it ever since and swore every house I ever owned with have a Silver Sage room in it)

Master bedroom: BM Manchester Tan HC-81 (soothing, quiet but not drab)

Master bathroom: BM Solitude AF-545 (One day when we first moved, I dragged Chris to Barns and Noble to look at home magazines. I thought it would be helpful for us to decide together we liked and didn’t like. He was only amenable to it because it was 100 degrees out and air conditioned inside. He found a photo of a bathroom and said “THIS is what I want our master bathroom to look like.” We have matched it to a T. Hence, this color choice.)


And there you have it. So far, the master bedroom is painted and we’re so happy with how it looks. Our painter is super. I really do feel very confident in the color choices and can’t wait to show photos of the finished product!