Operation Closet Begins!

Okay, I gotta say: I'm pretty darn proud of my moving efforts today. Well, this past weekend, too. I headed out to our little storage space all by myself and dug out the kitchen boxes, sorted out the necessary from the extra, and loaded up my car with the former all by myself. I had forgotten my iPod in Portland, too, so it was a very quiet endeavor. Then, even though I spent an extra night in Tacoma, I managed to wake up on time and leave bright and early this morning to head back to Portland. Traffic was decent and I made it to the apartment a full hour before I needed to be at work - meaning I had time to unpack the entire car full of boxes, yes! Then work was going so well this afternoon that I put in an extra 2 hours, arriving at home just in time for dinner a la Dad (there are crazy-awesome benefits to having a former chef as a father!) and then putting in another hour to moving, going through a large chunk of my closet and loading up a duffel bag and a garment bag with "keeps" - did I mention that I then put those in my car so that they're ready to be unloaded when I swing by the apartment tomorrow during my lunch break to work on painting the dressers? And yes, now I am watching Real Housewives on YouTube and blogging and browsing Pinterest but, hey, I have to settle down for bed somehow, right? Keeping fingers crossed tomorrow will be another successful step toward the end of the move-across-town-that-never-ends!

"Eurotrash" Inspired

So now that the living room is completely prepped to move in, it's time to move on to the teeny-tiny bedroom. Our bedroom in Texas had white walls and beige carpet, as is the general palette for most renters, I believe. Our bed frame is black leather, our dressers were dark brown, and the curtains/lamp shades were red. My husband likes red and like black, so there you are. For the cottage, though, I wanted to do something very girly and, since I have the freedom to paint the walls (for the first time in my adult life!!!) I definitely wanted to think outside the white-walled box. Although closer to white than the hideous colors it used to be painted, which you will remember seeing here. Sea green and red - really?

I stumbled across this picture on Pinterest months ago and was completely smitten. When the surprise task of redoing the cottage came along, it was quickly repinned from "My Dream Home" to "Look Out, I Have a Cottage to Decorate!" I love the color scheme, if not every single accessory. The design was clearly made for a bedroom much larger than the little 8'x10' cottage space. I do also love that the name of this photo is "Eurotrash" - for some reason, it just speaks to me ;-)

I decided to take some core elements from this design and make it work for the cottage bedroom. Hey, it's the bedroom and this is probably the last chance in my life I'll have to decorate a bedroom that is mine alone, not mine & my dear husband's! Don't get me wrong: he's allowed to sleep there; he just can't make comments about the decor.

Plus we have the "Alvine Kvist" duvet cover from IKEA currently holding together my beloved comforter (which actually belonged to my husband and was already fairly well-worn when we met 10 years ago) which is white and gray and definitely needs some girly pink in its life. Really, who doesn't?

I figured the curtains would most likely be the hardest part of the process, and good golly if I wasn't right about that! I literally spent 90 minutes looking at every single pink fabric available at my local JoAnn and I'll be darned if my final selection wasn't the second-to-last one I examined! In the end, I settled on a pre-faded, light pink cotton with white fleur de lis designs on it. I love this fabric. Like, seriously, *LOVE* it. I ended up buying 3 extra yards because I couldn't bear to leave them on the bolt. Yeah. I'm serious about my fabric love.

Now, I haven't always been such a pink nut. In fact, when I told my sister about my plans for the bedroom, I believe her first response was, "Since when are you so girly?" Ah, yes. I have a theory about that, actually. I think I started noticing things like pink and ruffles and lace right about the time that I started crying at commercials and acting irrationally at moments that surprised even myself: after giving birth. I blame pregnancy hormones. They apparently turned me into a girl. Seven years alter, it seems to be permanent. Oh well, there are worse things to crave than pink and ruffles! Ooh, and really pretty, intricately frosted cupcakes. Yum!

To add to the cupcake-y, girly, frilly feeling I was going for with the curtains, I decided to get all crafty and try using shirring tape. Thanks to the super-crafty gal at Design Intervention, I had some lovely pictures to follow along with as I planned my project. Oh, shirring tape - my new favorite sewing secret! Clearly, there will be many shirred items in my future.

Now, while the sewing was going on after work on those days when I was just wiped out, I also had to work up some energy to get the painting done. Luckily, my dear husband was able to come down for a weekend from Tacoma and give me a hand. You'll recall the built-out bedroom closet was red when we started. Very, very red. The same bright red used on one wall in the kitchen, actually. Yikes. It took a coat of white primer and two coats of gray to cover the red. Let this be a decorating lesson: do not paint your walls red unless you really, really like red or really, really enjoy painting over it!

Oh yes, the red is gone! I like red as an accent color, but not so much when it takes up 1/4 of the total wall-space in the room!

Here's the wall beside the closet. It looks different because I've taken out the shelving boards so I can paint them separately. I didn't want to have psychiatric-hospital green stripes behind the shelves when a future tenant removes them, after all!

The bedroom door, all taped up. I'm sure you already noticed the sunny yellow curtain (sewn from the remnants of the kitchen curtains) over the half-moon window in the door, yes? It's on one of those neat magnetic rods, so during the day I can just move the whole rod down and let the light in. Stay tuned for the future adventures of the brown-framed mirror also visible in this frame.

While the paint dries, let's take a moment and discuss furniture, shall we? When your cottage bedroom is a scant 8' x 10' (including the closet & shelving areas) there sure aren't a lot of options. The biggest decision is, of course, the bed. The previous tenant had a full size bed in the room. I believe I once mentioned that upgrading from a queen to a king size bed several years ago revolutionized both my and my husband's quality of sleep, did I not? Yeah, no. If a full size bed goes in this room, one of us will be sleeping on the couch when he comes to visit...and then where will Monkey Boy sleep?
Fear not, friends - IKEA to the rescue! The BRIMNES daybed frame runs about $200 (did I mention how much I love shopping in Oregon? No sales tax!) and includes two drawers underneath the bed slats. Cute, right? And having a twin size bed in the tiny bedroom totally makes sense, so there's actually room to walk in there. Wait, what's that, you say? Where will I put my husband when he comes to visit?
Well, that's the fantastic part! Clearly, the IKEA designers understand the need for providing a comfortable resting place for a husband on the weekends - the bed features a pull-out trundle! You shift one of the twin-size mattresses to the other size and, voila! A comfortable bed a mere 5" skinner than our beloved king in Tacoma. Genius, no? And I can keep the extra covers in the drawers down below on weekdays!

Well, look at that - while we were busy over at IKEA, the paint dried. Here's the built-in shelving, nice adorned in two coats of Behr's 770E-3M Pewter Mug in an Interior Eggshell finish.

And I hope you'll agree that the closet is definitely less of an eyesore now that the red is gone. Almost makes it blend in with the rest of the room, huh?

And of course we can't forget about my beloved, pink, ruffled curtains. I was overjoyed how they looked in the freshly painted room. Too bad it was getting dark already as I finished up Friday evening and the colors look so strange in the photos :-/

The smaller window, on the wall opposite the door to the bedroom. I've never understood putting in a window that doesn't open, but here is an example of one. It is strictly light-seeking glass in there. Doesn't really make a difference as to how the curtains look, though.

So there you have it: a tiny bedroom cottage which, in my humble opinion, is fit for a princess. The princess being me, of course :-)

Paint Fixes Everything

The process of repainting the cottage has begun. I was lucky enough to have my husband, a friend who is a contractor, and a friend who loves to paint (sometimes, she repaints walls in her house just for fun!) assist me last weekend in giving a whole new look to the living room in the little cottage that could.

First, on Saturday morning, attempted to cover up the green walls - those things just sucked up paint! My plan was to accent the awesome decorative trim in the room with crisp, white paint. I was thrilled to bid goodbye to the color my friend deemed "psychiatric ward green" - ha!

I'll be honest, one of my favorite parts of the process was taping around the trim after we finished the second coat of paint on the walls. My husband actually suggested adding a blue stripe in between the beige and the white - not a bad idea, eh? But I decided to stick with the original (albeit slightly more boring) color scheme.

Yup, that big ol' ball of painter's tape is what it took to tape up my teeny living room. I can't imagine how many rolls it would take to do a house-sized living room!

But look at the results! Freshly painted with two coats each on the walls and the trim. I love, love, love the the colors!!!

It's probably hard to tell the real color via your computer screen, especially since I took the pictures with my Blackberry, but hopefully these photos will give you an idea.

I read a lot of reviews and got a lot of recommendations from friends on paint brands, but ended up going with Behr in the end not only because of good reviews/recommendations, but because I liked their web site. The main color in the room is Behr 730C-2M Sandstone Cove in an eggshell finish, while the trim color (which will be used throughout the cottage) is Behr W-D-700U Powdered Snow, also in an eggshell finish.

The color is definitely looking darker than it is in this picture. Care to guess what's behind the tiny door on the right?

The entire entry wall from the far side of the room. You can see the partially-painted bookshelf in it's new home, on the wall in between the door to the hallway and the door to the closet (on the left). So what else makes a cottage a tiny home? Textiles, of course - time to make the curtains!

The fabric for the curtains came from a tablecloth I picked up at Value Village for $3. Going along with the neutral theme of the room, I decided to edge the semi-sheer white curtain panels with a pleated eyelet trim from JoAnn Fabrics. The edging was...let's just say the most expensive part of the curtains was definitely the trim.

It's hard to see the curtains in detail with so much sunlight, but I definitely like the overall effect. I'll tell you one thing: I sure am glad I have the luxury of painting before I move in. My cottage is so teeny-tiny, I have no idea how one could repaint it with a functional amount of furniture in there! As it is, I am happy that the living room is complete so I can move the bits of furniture from the bedroom and kitchen upstairs so there is room to paint in those rooms. Little cottage, here I come!

Yellow Ruffles for my Kitchen

I had a decision to make after work today: I could go over to the cottage and start painting by myself, or wait until tomorrow, when I most likely will have one or more helpers. Since the extent of my room painting experience is exactly one (albeit, large) wall in my husband's classroom last year, I decided to come home and get some work done on textiles instead. Ah, yes, textiles - all the colorful, cozy, eye-catching, soft things that make a house a home. Or, in this case, a teeny-tiny, century-old mother-in-law out back into a cottage in the heart of the city.

First thing on my list was curtains - 2 windows in the bathroom, 2 in the bedroom, 3 in the living room, and 1 in the front door. I call it the front door, although there is only door in/out of the cottage. If I get really curtain-excited, there are also 2 tiny (yet functional) windows in the attic/storage room. I have a dream of making the attic into a combination storage space for me and hideaway for Monkey but, you know, it may just be a dream. We'll see. For now, I'm starting with the more liveable spaces. My kitchen curtains were built on this photo & linked tutorial I found on Pinterest. Here are the curtains in progress:


...and here is the finished product:


I promise I'll post pictures of the curtains in the kitchen, which will be much more impressive, once the walls have been painted and the curtains hung.

The teeny-tiny bedroom has a charming, built-out closet (complete with a super-tiny window inside of it), as well as built-in open shelving to hold clothing. Wary of spending tons of cash on bins large enough to hold the necessities and make good use of the space, I decided to get crafty and try my hand at making some. More to come on that later.

In other news, my Dad & Step-Mom (who have been kind enough to let me squat in their large, beautiful, daylight-basement guest room since July) have been on vacation in Switzerland for the past two weeks, which means that I have been house-sitting. And cat-sitting. Guess which one is harder? That's right, the sweet, mild-mannered, somewhat skittish kitty has turned into a whiny, needy, infant-like creature who meows at me day and night, demanding...what? I've already fed her...I've already let her out to potty...I gave her a tummy-rub...aargh! I don't know what you need!! Total flashbacks to Monkey's infancy. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Monkey is very lucky his Daddy is a baby person!

Here is my little charge, on her way out to stalk the neighborhood from the the safety of under a bush in the front yard. She's a little picture-shy, so the only good photos I'm getting of her are from the back. Poor little kitty - Be strong! I'm picking your Mommy & Daddy up from the airport on Monday!

Feeling Sick & Ogling the Cottage

It started a couple days ago with a headache and some stuffiness. Next came the fatigue and achy ears. Finally, around 1 am, it all hit - fever, stomachache, diarrhea. Ugh. This is one of those days that being home alone is definitely not enjoyable. I would be overjoyed if I had someone to bring me some gingerale and hold my hair back while I puked today. Sad, I know.

In the spirit of giving you more than my piteous state of health to read about, here are some more "before" pictures of the cottage I will shortly be moving into, this time some details:

The bathroom. That is a serious green paint job!

The view of the hallway/front door from the kitchen doorway

The light fixture in the hallway. Screaming for a chandelier, no?

The view looking out the bedroom door

The teeny, tiny, adorable door in the living room, with steep little stairs leading up to the attic

The view across the attic. I'm curious about the reinforcing beam in the middle of the floor.

The sad part is I was supposed to go by after work to sign a rental agreement and get the keys today. Sigh. No taking possession of the cottage for me today :-(

The Little Cottage That Could

So things are changing. Next week I'm picking up the keys to an extremely adorable little cottage in SE Portland, a mere 5 minutes from my office, and will begin the process of painting so I can move in at the beginning of April. Is painting really needed, you ask? Well, let me show you some samples of what the interior looks like at the moment:

The hallway - beige, white & sea green

The bedroom - sea green & a bright red built-in wardrobe

The kitchen - white, with one red wall, a beige floor & the avocado fridge

...and a sneak peek at the living room, also sea green

Yeah. Not really my colors. Are you a cotton-candy pastel kinda guy or gal? Then maybe this would work for you. Personally, I was overjoyed to hear from the owner that I am welcome to paint, install shelving, etc. at my discretion - yay! One of the many benefits of renting privately instead of through a corporation. It's going to be a busy few weeks, but I'll do my best to keep y'all updated on my progress with the little cottage that could...in the middle of the city, of course.