the end, my friends

So this is the end of the 2007 Cure. Thanks to those of you who visited and commented! I have to admit that I'm more than a little disappointed not to have any photos included on the graduation page, since I put so much time and effort into this, but I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles. I might participate again in the Spring Cure and do another room or two - after all, I haven't even touched the bathrooms.

after photos!

It's finished! We styled the kitchen and study and took photos this afternoon. Highlights are below; if you'd like to see all of them, the set is here. You can click on any of the photos below for a larger version.

The finished study:



Obviously our cat thought this was a photo shoot all about her. This is my side of the study; when we rearranged the furniture, I even had room to add a bookcase.



Raymond's side of the study, with his new desk.



The walkway, storage shelves, hermit crab cage and laundry closet door.



Closer view of the shadowbox.

Hallway:



We moved these prints out of the study to outside the kitchen, so I figured I'd toss them in here too. They look so much better here.

Kitchen:



The new blue barrier looks a lot nicer than the old pegboard-and-duct-tape (wince) combo we had there before.



Looking back out at the hallway - new dishtowels and utensil holder.



Shiny new colander and curtains. I've started using a hanging basket behind one of the curtains to store dishtowels and washcloths and it works really well.



The vase normally holds flowers but we didn't happen to have any today. I'm happy to have finally found a good home for my oil lamps too.



Alton Brown quote on the newly blue kitchen backsplash.



Overview from the living room.

I'll have "after" photos up later today, but for now, here's a few photos from when I painted the kitchen barrier. It's a piece of sanded pine, 32" x 42", that we had cut at Home Depot. I used some of the leftover blue paint from the kitchen backsplash to paint it. I did two coats on each side, and since it dried so fast on the wood it only took one evening to do it all.

I haven't abandoned you, I swear!

We've mainly been doing very small things here and there this last week that aren't really worth photographing and putting up. I'm trying to hold off on photos so I can take some really nice ones this weekend and put them up as "afters."

I was pondering doing some after photos tonight, but last night after I went to bed one of my Ikea frames crashed down from the wall, breaking the frame but not the glass. It's not repairable, so I'll have to swing by there on Friday and pick up another one.

One of the more interesting effects of the Cure has been the ripple effect it's had on other areas of my life. We've gotten things done in other parts of the house that weren't strictly Cure-related, but needed to be done (hanging curtains over the closet in the bedroom). In cleaning out my files, I found a bunch of papers that could be taken to work and scanned, then discarded, so I'm lighter on the paper end. All kinds of things are coming to light.

photos! kitchen and study walls

The kitchen, prepped and ready.



The study, prepped and ready.



Our friends J. and D., who helped us paint on Saturday.



View out the study window. I just liked the photo.



Hey, it's the one shot of me painting! That's what happens when I'm behind the camera all the time.



First coat of Emerald Lake, the color that turned out to be way too light.



Raymond painting the kitchen backsplash. The brush he's holding is the one that J. reviews in this blog post. Sadly, it didn't actually hook to our kitchen sink, so we couldn't test its magical cleaning abilities.



Raymond finishing the first coat of Alpine Pool. You can see the brighter Emerald Lake at the top.



Part of the problem with the original lighter green was that it clashed horribly with the nature photos I'd had printed. This is Raymond helpfully holding one of the prints up against the first coat of the deeper green. It goes much better with the new color.



The backsplash is now blue. I love it. It occasionally gets an odd lavender appearance from the sun shining through the red curtains.



An overall view of the new study layout. I'm thrilled with it! It's like standing in a pine forest, which is exactly what I wanted. We have yet to put up curtains and some of the wall decorations (a couple of prints and a shadowbox).



Raymond's side of the study, featuring his new glass-and-wood desk. We still have a few things to put up on the wall here.



View of my side from the center of the room. The prints on the wall are photos I took at Linville Falls near Linville, NC and printed through Shutterfly. I'm pretty proud of them. The bookshelf was originally in the living room but I want to try using it in here; after all, what good is a study without books?

smaller updates

Done:

- Glued shells into the shadowbox and left it to cure overnight; it should be ready to go onto the wall tonight.
- My nature photos came in from Shutterfly and they look wonderful. I put them in frames yesterday and we put nails in the wall for them; they can also go up tonight.
- Ordered red colander from Amazon (waiting on arrival).

- Touched up inevitable marks on ceiling/bleed-through from tape in study. Need to do a bit more touchup on the larger window.
- Replaced all litter pans with new ones that minimize scattered litter on the floor.

Some things we still need to do:

- Put the red letters of the quote back up onto the kitchen wall now that the paint's cured. Spray adhesive?
- Hang curtain rods in the study.
- Hang shadowbox on white wall in study.

- Set my computer desk back up.
- Go by Home Depot and buy a flat-plug extension cord (the new desk arrangement puts me very far away from an outlet).
- Move living room bookcase to study.

- Clean blinds and re-hang (we're going to leave them in place, but all the way up, in case we need them later).
- Hang lighthouse print in study with shadowbox.
- Try to figure out a way to keep ferrets from digging under laundry door that doesn't involve duct tape on the carpet.

I think we may end up not using Lexan/plexiglass in the kitchen entrance after all. It's just so expensive, and it would always look dirty or fingerprint-y or smudged. We have tons of blue paint left over, so I'm pondering having a nice piece of wood cut to size and painting it blue to match the backsplash.

we have paintage!

Although this weekend was basically an exercise in frustration, we finally have painted rooms! Our friends D. and J. came over on Saturday to help, and we painted the kitchen backsplash a lovely light blue (Behr's Tidal Pool) and the study an emerald green (Behr's Emerald Lake).

Unfortunately, the emerald green turned out to be way way too bright. It was like standing in a locker room. Or a green Skittle. I ended up going back out and getting Ralph Lauren's Alpine Pool, and we spent Sunday repainting. The room now feels like standing in the middle of a pine tree, which is exactly what I wanted. We win! I'm really, really tired today, though. We're not "handy" people in the least so painting is a huge ordeal for us. I'm thrilled with the result but I'm so glad it's over.

If you've been reading, you may remember that Raymond had found a computer desk he wanted, but OfficeMax promptly discontinued it. He's one of those people who hates change with a passion (this whole painting this has been really traumatic for him), so he was reluctant to get rid of his nasty old college desk at all. To give him credit, he did look online for desks, but just couldn't find one he was willing to exchange the old desk for.

The only one he found that we both liked was this pretty cherry, glass and chrome computer desk at Office Depot, but he didn't want to buy it without seeing it in person. I don't blame him, because the website photo is godawful.

So I spent Friday calling five different Office Depots in the area. None of them had a floor sample. By a brilliant stroke of luck, though, we just happened to stop for supper on our way to a concert Friday night, and an Office Depot just happened to be next door, and we just happened to pop in to see if they had it, and they did! He fell in love with it and I promptly bought it before anything could get in the way. It was on sale, so we were even able to get the matching file drawer so he has some storage space. We were just barely able to squeeze the two gigantic flatpacks into the Mini.

After the (second batch of) green paint dried in the study, Raymond put together both the desk and drawers. Since the desk is L-shaped, we're trying a desk configuration in the study that's different from anything we've done before. My desktop computer isn't set up yet, so I haven't processed the photos, but hopefully I'll get them up tomorrow. The whole room looks fantastic!