Category: my house.

I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it before, but one of the reasons I started this blog was to provide myself with some accountability for completing projects.  Yep, believe it or not, I often struggle with ‘follow thru’.  You’re all probably shaking your heads and thinking to yourselves “but quandie, you get so much done, how is that even possible?!”

You know what that proves?  It proves that my strategy worked!

Knowing that I need to get something finished in order to have a post for the coming week is often the motivation that pushes me to complete a project.

Not only does this work incredibly well for my furniture projects, but it has also worked fairly well for my own home decorating projects.  So far I have shared home makeovers on the Q Branch …

The dining room …

The living room and piano room …

The master bedroom …

The photo cottage …

The front porch …

and the guest room.

And let’s not forget the pantry …

or the front stairs.

But somehow in 2018 I totally lost my mojo when it comes to redecorating at my house.  It all just felt so overwhelming.  I have a long list of decorating ideas in my head, but whenever I would think about them I would promptly feel overwhelmed by just how long that list was.  I would often say ‘if only I had a magic wand’ that I could wave and have it magically finished overnight (much like it seems to happen on TV).

But this past weekend I came to my senses and realized that I don’t have a magic wand and I’m probably not going to find one anytime soon.  If I’m going to re-do anything at my house I need to break it down into smaller chunks that I can handle in a day (or maybe two).

So that’s what I’m going to do with my living room and piano room over the next couple of months and hopefully by spring I’ll have a new look in those rooms.  In case you’re curious (and to help keep me accountable), here’s the project list:

1.  repaint the insides of the bookshelves in the living room
2.  repaint the living room walls
3.  replace the living room furniture
4.  paint the baby grand piano
5.  replace the ceiling fan over the piano
6.  repaint the piano room walls

So, six projects that will probably take a week or so each and will also take me away from furniture painting for a bit.  But that’s OK, this is definitely the slow season for furniture sales anyway so it makes sense to focus on something else for a bit.

I hope you’ll stick with me on this journey and help keep me accountable.  Up first, repainting the living room bookshelves.  Be sure to stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

Normally I get most of my holiday decorations up on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I’ve never been a Black Friday shopper, instead I like to spend that day putting up the tree and adding other holiday touches around the house.

But this year I was traveling home from Italy on Black Friday.  Speaking of which, one thing that really surprised me on our trip was how many Black Friday sale signs we saw!  Especially in Ravenna where we spent a little time on their pedestrian shopping street.  I had to take a quick photo of this window display because it was so fab.  I love the clock and the peg board on the wall.  You can’t see them in the photo, but there was a stack of vintage books on the floor too.

In hindsight, now I wish I’d taken a photo of one of the Black Friday sale advertisements.  Many of them were painted right onto the windows of the shops.  But I wasn’t thinking ahead on that one.

Anyway, celebrating Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday in November may be an American thing, but apparently celebrating Black Friday on the day after is universal.

So, after a bit of a travel related delay, I finally found the time to do some holiday decorating last Sunday and this year I decided to change it up a little and decorate our master bedroom.

I’ve never done much decorating in here in the past, but I’ve always thought it would be nice to have some twinkling lights and a small tree in the room.

The red and white knit stockings garland is from Michael’s.  It was on sale for only $6.  I just purchased one for our headboard, but my sister bought three of them and will use them on her tree.

The cable knit throw pillow is from Target.  The furry white throw probably was too, but I’ve had that for several years now.

I tied together small bunches of dried boxwood from my local Bachman’s, added some pretty silver ornaments that I purchased in Germany a few years ago and then hung them above my old photos on either side of the bed.

Over on the other side of the bed (ie. my side) I placed a stack of my favorite holiday decor magazines, a cup of coffee and a lavender topiary in the shape of a Christmas tree that I also purchased at Bachman’s.  I haven’t quite found the time to enjoy coffee and those magazines in bed yet, but I am determined to do that before the holidays are over.

My co-worker Jodie gave me the cute galvanized pot that the topiary is in, I just doctored it up a little with a Prima Marketing transfer from their French Pots IV set.

I added lots more holiday touches on the other side of the room too.

The little tree in the bucket is faux and I just purchased it a Target.  It was the perfect size for the old bucket.  I wrapped it with one small strand of battery operated lights which was just enough to give it some sparkle.

I also added a small strand of the same lights to the cotton bole swag that I draped over my old window.

I also purchased these cute little wooden houses at Bachman’s, one of them this year and two of them from last year.  They have little lights inside, but I’m finding that the light in the newest is one so much brighter than the other two.  Too bright in fact, so I don’t even turn it on.

My friend/co-worker/picker Sue gave me the calendar for my birthday last year.  It’s not really meant to be a Christmas decoration, but I like using it that way.

I purchased the paper tree from my friend Lori Miller at the Holly Jolly Market just before I left on my trip.  Isn’t it unique and fabulous?  Lori always manages to find the coolest things.

I’ve had this adorable little linen ‘woolens’ bag for years and I think I very well may have purchased it at Lori’s old shop, The Round Barn (it’s no longer in business).

I’d never really figured out a great spot for displaying it in the past though.  Turns out that it’s perfect hanging here on my cupboard in the bedroom.  Who knew?

The girls are not especially dressed up for the holidays, they pretty much wear their fancy jewelry all year long.

I did add a dried boxwood wreath hanging from a vintage hanger behind them.

It was fun snazzing up the bedroom with some holiday decor.  I think this just might become a regular thing from now on.

Speaking of things that become a tradition, tomorrow I’m heading over to my sister’s house for our annual Christmas baking.  I’ve pretty much perfected my ball rolling skills now, so this year’s baking should be a breeze 😉

I hope you have some fun holiday season plans for this weekend too!

If you’ve been following my blog for very long, you’ll know that I have horizontal grey and white stripes on the wall in what I call my ‘piano room’ (for obvious reasons).

It took me a long time to get to these stripes.  I’ve painted this room so many times since Mr. Q and I moved in.  Well, first I stripped the existing wallpaper and then re-wallpapered with a white on white damask (very trendy in 1988).  Then I stripped that and painted the walls red.  Didn’t everyone go through a red phase in the 90’s?  Next after painting the kitchen its current dark color, I tried bringing that color out into the piano room too.  It looked awful, which I blame on a difference in lighting and a different ceiling color.  At that time the ceiling was still both white and popcorn-ed.  Next I tried a mustard yellow.  That never even made it beyond just one wall before I realized it was a terrible choice.

That led to olive green horizontal stripes.

I loved the horizontal stripes, but it didn’t take long after starting my blog to realize that this particular wall in my piano room was where I would have to stage all of my furniture photos in the winter.  And the olive green was not going to cut it.  Especially paired with the Miss Mustard Seed Kitchen Scale that’s on that buffet!

So I switched to white and pale grey stripes.  Somewhere in between there we also had the dreaded popcorn ceilings scraped off and I painted them in a pale aqua blue.

I loved the pale grey and white.  And immediately my furniture photos were improved.

But here we are almost 4 years later and I am absolutely fed up with trying to make those horizontal stripes work as a background for all of my winter furniture photo shoots.

They worked OK for some pieces …

For others they just really didn’t cut it.

I tried covering them up by layering various things over the wall, which helped somewhat.

But this year I decided the stripes had to go.  I needed a clean, blank slate to use as a background.

So last weekend I pulled out the paint I used for the white stripes and after sanding the tape lines, I painted over the stripes.

Today’s q-tip:  If you have used tape to paint horizontal or vertical lines on something, always sand over that paint line before re-painting.  Otherwise you will have a visible ridge of paint along those lines.

I was worried that the paint wouldn’t match perfectly and I’d end up having to paint the entire wall from base board to crown molding, but no, it blended perfectly.

And now I have the white background that I have been craving.

Well, except for that electrical outlet, but look how easy it is to edit that out, and while I’m at it, also edit out the thermostat …

As you can see over at the right edge of the photo, I still have the stripes in the living room.  And actually, I even kept the stripes on the opposite side of the room for now.  I may ultimately paint those out as well, but then again I may not.  I’m going to live with it for a while and see how it feels.

In the meantime, I’m very happy with my blank slate.

By the way, are you wondering about how practical it is to move that large cupboard out of the way every time I want to take photos of a finished piece?

At the end of the summer, Ken came over and helped me add wheels to the bottom of it to make it simple as can be to move it in and out of that spot.

I have to say, I always learn something new from Ken.  This time it was that you can get these extended length Phillips drill bits for your drill.  It made it so much easier to get in there and attach those wheels.

It might seem a little crazy that I’ve painted a wall and modified my furniture just to accommodate blogging, but I’m learning that it pays off to find ways to make the ‘things’ in my life more functional for me.

So if that means a blank white wall and a cupboard on wheels, so be it.  Right?

 

 

 

You might have noticed that I never really quite revealed our entire master bedroom makeover in one complete post.  That’s because I was waiting for one last detail, the light fixture.

I waited, and waited, and waited.

I had ordered it online from Menards because I thought that since I drive right past my local Menards on my way home from work it would be incredibly convenient to just stop and pick it up when it came in.

Ha, famous last words.

It was put on back order, and then it was put on back order again, and then the store lost it and had to re-order it.  But then they found it and said I could pick it up.  Although it probably wasn’t worth the wait, and I could have found a dozen similar light fixtures elsewhere, it’s finally in place and I love it.

You might be remembering that we had a ceiling fan in this spot before, and quite a few of you recommended replacing it with another fan.  We really planned on taking that advice.  For a house without central a/c, ceiling fans are a plus.  We did buy a ceiling fan, but it met with an unfortunate accident.  During installation it fell from a great height, that being the top of the ladder, and was irreparably damaged.

We took that as a sign, and that’s when I ordered the schoolhouse light fixture.

So, after all of that, we now have a light instead of a fan, and I am calling this room done.

One other detail I didn’t really share with you yet is my choice of window treatment, or probably more accurately, lack of a window treatment.

For now I’ve opted to go with privacy film on the lower halves of the windows.  It was perfect for summer, but I’m not yet sure about winter.  It might be nice to have something ‘warmer’ on the windows for winter.

By the way, remember that cool vintage farm photo I picked up while garage saling a few weeks back?  It found a home here in our master bedroom.

It fits in perfectly.

OK, let’s recap the entire project, shall we?

The budget for this room was $1,500 and as is typical, I went way over budget.  I lost track of the spending somewhere around the $2,000 mark.  But considering that in the end we really made over all three of our upstairs rooms, that’s not so bad.  Here’s a reminder of what we accomplished.

The floors were refinished, resulting in a lovely pale natural color and a matte finish.  This was by far the largest expense of the entire project.  I’m including the total cost of all of the floors ($1,000) on our upper level in the final tally although obviously a chunk of that expense was for other rooms.

The walls in all three rooms were painted and we put in a ship lap feature wall.  The paint cost around $70 and the ship lap materials were $55.  I love my ship lap wall and totally recommend adding just one feature wall to add some fixer upper style to one of your rooms.  I have to note that this task was super simple for us because we didn’t have to cut around anything (like electrical outlets, windows or doors).

I added a pair of wall sconce reading lights from World Market at $120 for the pair.

I updated our existing nightstands with a couple of coats of milk paint.

I’m not counting this as a ‘cost’ for the project since I used milk paint that I already had on hand.

We purchased a new bed frame for $40 and an antique full size headboard that I painted black. I purchased the headboard as part of a set.  I sold the other pieces from the set at a profit, thus making the headboard ‘free’ and again I used milk paint that I already had on hand to paint it.  We also purchased new bedding at a cost of $650.  Gasp!  I know.  The second largest item in the budget.  Bedding is just so expensive, but that does include new pillows, a new feather bed, a new down alternative duvet, plus two duvet covers and pillow shams.  I also added a DIY bedskirt made from a drop cloth at a cost of $15.

I added a vintage cane back bench with a European grain sack cushion at the foot of the bed.  I paid $125 for the bench and another $69 for the grain sack.

I painted my existing clothes cupboard, again with milk paint I already had on hand.  I added two Iron Orchid Designs transfers.  These transfers came in a set of 3 for $10.  I purchased two sets so that I had two of the same design, but I still have 4 more left to use on other projects (and you’ll see a couple of them next week). 

 A lot of the miscellaneous decor I used came from other parts of the house, like my faux dress form Lula, so they didn’t add to the cost.

Or they were just things that I already had on hand, like the vintage advertisement hangers.

I debated adding an area rug to the room, but in the end the floors are so pretty that I hate to cover them up.  Also, this room really is rather large and for a rug to not look lost it needs to be a good sized rug.  Since I’d already blown the budget out of the water I decided we could live without a rug for the time being.

As requested, I’ve updated this post to include some ‘before’ and ‘after’ comparisons.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

So, it’s official.  Mission Possible was indeed possible after all.  And this time it didn’t take me three years to finish.  It helped a lot that I took an entire week off at the day job to get a lot of things done including the ship lap wall, painting all three rooms, painting all of the bedroom furniture and having the floors done.  Phew!  It was an exhausting week, but in the end it was totally worth it.  Now that we have all of the final details in place, we can kick back and enjoy our new bedroom.

Where do you get your inspiration?  I’m hoping at least some of you get some inspiration right here!  I get a lot of my ideas from other bloggers, pinterest, magazines, books, and from touring other people’s homes.

Sometimes my ideas take a bit of time to come together.  When I came across a big box full of player piano music at a local antique shop last fall I remembered seeing this photo on pinterest …

I loved the way Alison at the Modern Cottage Co wove the strips of player piano music to create a background, and I especially loved the discarded rolls on the floor under the buffet.  So I was inspired to purchase a few rolls.

But then I didn’t want to just copy that exact idea for a furniture photo shoot.  That just felt … well … like copying.

So I ended up using one roll of the paper to wrap Christmas gifts last year …

And I used a single roll here and there in furniture photos …

Then my friend Meggan and I were talking about my dining room makeover, which still wasn’t completed after more than a year, and she suggested that I use the rolls on my dining room wall.  If you’ll remember way back to our tour of Meggan’s house in January 2015 she ‘wallpapered’ her study in book pages from an old dictionary.  So why not do the same with player piano rolls?

Initially we were thinking this would work well on the barn board wall.  I pulled a roll out and discovered it was exactly the right width to fit between the battens.  But I really didn’t like the way that looked, it was too stripe-y with the barnwood batten between each vertical strip of paper.  Instead, I decided to use the paper on the walls on either side of my window.  Then it only took me another 9 months or so to actually execute the idea!

I was finally spurred into action by finding some additional rolls of music at Oronoco Gold Rush.  It was my sister who pointed out one that was titled ‘Dinner Music’.  How perfect for the dining room!

I really just totally went with the easiest way I could think of to adhere the paper.  Staples.

I stapled each strip at the top, a couple of times down the sides and at the bottom.  I left a bit of the paper rolled up at the top of each strip.  It will be super simple to remove when I grow tired of it, but in the meantime I’m kind of loving it.

By the way, see that ‘Charles Strand’ sign above the giant clock?  That is the original sign from Mr. Q’s great-grandfather’s store in Marine on the St. Croix, MN.  I did a little research on the Minnesota Historical Society’s website recently and found a photo from 1910 that includes the sign.

Seriously, how cool is that?

On the opposite side of the window I hung an old military photo that we saved from Mr. Q’s dad’s house and an old banjo that we saved from my dad’s things (both of our fathers have passed away) above the Belgian bench.

 So what do you think of my player piano music walls, are you inspired to cover any of your walls?  Or maybe you’d like to stock up on some rolls for future present wrapping?  I had quite a few rolls left over so I’m sending some to Reclaiming Beautiful today to sell for $4 each, so if you are local be sure to swing by there this weekend to check them out!

 

You may remember that when we had our upstairs floors refinished we also made the decision to swap Mr. Q’s study with the guest room.  Prior to this, Mr. Q’s study was in the smaller room and the guest room was the larger room.  That set up really didn’t make a whole lot of sense for us.  After all, Mr. Q uses his study nearly every day and the guest room got used about once a year.

As an added bonus, swapping the rooms gave me an excuse to completely refurnish the guest room.  The furniture from the larger room was not going to fit in the smaller room.  But I’m giving myself permission to take it slow on this makeover.  I’m taking the time to find just the right antique bed frame and just the right light fixture, both of which need to be at bargain basement prices because I’ve run out of money for this project.

First things first though, I painted the walls white (using left over paint from the faux shiplap wall in my master bedroom).  I wanted the room to be nice and bright, and I also want to be able to switch the colors in the room on a whim.  Next I added the chippy farmhouse cupboard that I painted last winter using Homestead House milk paint in Laurentien.

I had this cupboard listed on Craigslist for months and it simply didn’t sell.  I had a few inquiries on it, but somehow they always fell through.  Maybe it was fate telling me that this piece was meant to stay with me.

The sweet little crocheted dress was made by my grandmother for my mom when she was little.  I shared it here on the blog once before back in August 2014.

Yep, that’s my mom wearing the dress.

When we refinished the floors upstairs we had to clear everything out of our closets, which led to a big purge of stuff we didn’t need to hang onto anymore.  My wedding dress ended up in the trash can (it was totally yellowed and ruined), but when I pulled this little dress out of the closet I decided to display it for a while.

I had initially talked about keeping my pretty floral plates in the master bedroom, but they didn’t work in there at all.  So I moved them all into the guest room.  I had enough to fill the entire space on the wall above the cupboard.

I also moved my vintage blue typewriter into the room.

As well as some blue toy phones and a few Rachel Ashwell books.

I plan to use the chippy white stool that used to be in our master as a bedside table in the guest room.

Hopefully the rest of the room will be coming soon.  I’m keeping an eye on Craigslist for the perfect bed, I have a fun idea for a window treatment and I’m searching for a budget friendly light fixture.  Be sure to stay tuned!