Living room
A few months back, a local photographer – Kim Campbell of Campbell Salgado Studio – came to the bungalow to photograph the insanity! Actually, it wasn’t all that insane – just a relaxing couple of hours of parents, kids and pugs soaking up the sunshine and smiling for the camera.
As I mentioned in my previous post, it rarely snows in Portland, so Sunday’s blanketing of the area was an unexpected surprise. Apparently, it may snow AGAIN on Wednesday and Thursday. I know most of our neighbors hate the stuff, but I really love it, especially at this time of year.
We usually have to settle for crocheted snowflakes in Portland, but not this Christmas!
Living room decorated for the holidays
Living room - alternate view
Stephanie had encouraged me for awhile to get prints made of some of my pictures, so that we could hang them up in the house. A couple of months ago we finally sat down and decided which ones to use. As often happens, Stephanie added a minor constraint to the project (such as squashing my desire to use the free, white mattes that came with the frames), I complicate matters by balking once I find out what a custom color matte would cost at a frame shop, and then she solves the problem by finding a $3 can of spray paint that is pretty similar to our ceiling color. If you ever need to change the color of a matte, we found that they take spray paint very well. It is so much cheaper than buying a custom matte, and using a stock frame was, of course, a fraction of the cost of custom framing.
Here are the pictures we have up in the dining room. The one on the left is a section of Portland skyline at night, and the one on the right is of the crane sculptures at the Portland Japanese Garden:
Portland skyline as seen from grain elevators
Crane sculptures at Portland Japanese Gardens
Here are the pictures in the living room. All four are from the Japanese Garden.
Portland Japanese Garden pictures
Since the pictures are hard to make out in the room shots, if you are curious, here are the actual pictures that we used:
Click to continue »
With as much demolition and construction as we’ve done since moving here four years ago, we haven’t had much time (or money!) for furniture shopping. Thus, many of our rooms are fairly empty. So when my mother-in-law announced that she was planning to downsize and asked if there was anything at her place we might be interested in, I didn’t hesitate to ask about her wicker furniture.
Family folklore has it that when Julio’s great-grandparents bought their summer cottage in 1920, the previous owners left behind a five piece set of wicker furniture. This same wicker suite has been passed down through several generations. In fact, our daughters will be the fifth generation of kids to claim the petite rocking chair as their own. Unfortunately, back in the the 1970s, the third generation painted everything shamrock green. (Pleased to meet you – I’m Paddy O’Furniture! Sorry – couldn’t resist!)
1920 wicker wearing 1970s paint
Julio couldn’t understand my interest, mostly because he had a hard time seeing past the bright green paint. But I knew it would be a lovely addition to our home. First of all, it’s roughly the same age as our house, and I really loved the idea of having something of the same vintage. Secondly, the scale is absolutely perfect. While our house is roomy by bungalow standards, most modern furniture is too large to fit comfortably in our living room, but this wicker set fits as if it was made for the room. Lastly, I’ve always loved the interior photographs I’ve seen of Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman Farms, in part because of the unexpected juxtaposition of curvy wicker chairs and settees against Stickley’s masculine, rectilinear wooden furniture. Beautiful!
Of course, Stickely’s wicker was natural wicker, and our recent acquisition was bright green. Since you can’t easily strip wicker, we decided to go with a deep espresso colored paint that seemed at home with our dark tables and woodwork. Next on our list will be finding an upholsterer who can recover the cushions in something more bungalow-appropriate, but for the time being I suppose I will have to live with the existing cushions. Eventually I would also love to add a small tabouret table next to the large rocker, and an area rug to serve as a room anchor (Oak Park Home and Hardware has a few drool-worthy contenders) but since we need a few slightly more important items before we can purchase a rug (new roof, anyone?) the rug won’t be joining the family any time soon.
And so, without further ado, here are some snaps I took of our recently painted family heirlooms. (Julio, who is quite particular about photography asked me to specify that I took these photos, so that if you find them less than technically flawless, you won’t blame him!)
Living room as viewed from the front entry
Wicker furniture - close-up view
Living room - alternate view
Living room, decorated for Christmas
By the time we we purchased our bungalow in 2004, it had been abused as a rental house for well over a decade. As you might expect, none of the original lighting remained (with the exception of the brass fitters in the living and dining room box beams.) Sadly, everything else was long gone, but don’t feel too sorry for us – we definitely had fun choosing new lighting!
We selected copper-foiled Tiffany-style stained glass shades from Rejuvenation for our living room sconces, box beam fixtures and dining room chandelier.
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In our kitchen, we used five Arts and Crafts style pendant fixtures from Progress Lighting. (To tie the fixtures together with the rest of the room, we installed matching carmel-swirled glass panels in the cabinets flanking our refrigerator.)
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For our ground floor bathroom, we chose sconces and overhead lighting from Schoolhouse Electric
In our front entry hall, we used another stained glass fixture from Rejuvenation which incorporated all of our paint colors from the entry hall, living room and dining room, which really helps tie the ground floor together.
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We got the floors refinished just before moving in. This is one of about three things that we did hire out. Floor refinishing is an art, and it’s not one that you want to practice on 1,000 square feet of your own wood floors.
The floors in this house are continuous through the entire downstairs, even into the closets. That means that you have to do all of it at once to keep it looking right, as there are no transitions between rooms.
We opted to have them refinished without a stain, because we thought that the lighter color would help offset the dark woodwork. In the end, we feel that we made the right choice.
These look much better than the old (non) windows.
The new windows reflect the flash a little more than the surrounding trim due to the polyurethane, but in normal light they are a very good match to the existing woodwork. The windows add a ton of character to the room, which was missing with the sheets of glass.
