Bungalow Insanity

Chloe’s Room

stephanie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:46:26 +0000

Last summer, just prior to Ginger’s birth, we posted some photos of Chloe’s room just as Julio was wrapping up construction of her bed. The hot pink paint on the walls was Chloe’s idea. I thought it was a touch toxic, but figured, if you can’t have a hot pink room at age 4, when can you?

Chloe's bed

The room is still bare as we’ve let other projects get in the way of finishing it, but the bed itself is functional, and Chloe loves it!

Nursery is finished!

stephanie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:38:40 +0000

Ginger's room

Ginger has finally moved into her room, just in time for her first birthday! It’s not *quite* finished as it still needs closet doors and a wall sconce, but it’s definitely functional. I’m a bit frustrated by my attempts to photograph it, however. It looks so cramped and weird in the photo but it’s actually quite cozy in real life and doesn’t feel cramped at all!

When she gets a little bigger and moves into a ‘big girl’ bed, we’ll remove the crib and changing table and relocate the rocking chair to playroom. I suspect when that happens, the room will feel positively palatial!

School Fish

stephanie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:26:39 +0000

Chloe’s kindergarten teacher is taking a three week vacation in Germany this month, so we are caring for the classroom fish while she is out of town.

Chloe requested that we park the fishbowl in Ginger’s room underneath a photo of a pond full of goldfish so “he won’t get lonely.”

Chloe's school's fish on vacation in Ginger's room

‘New” Living Room Furniture

stephanie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:29:02 +0000

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 out 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

Playroom Progress!

stephanie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:11:56 +0000

As regular visitors to our site know, our daughters’ playroom has been an ongoing project. Prior to moving in to our house, we gutted the entire second story to the studs. And then we ignored it for about two years. Since then progress has been slow, but steady. The second story is now home to Chloe’s room, Ginger’s room, a small half bathroom, and the above-mentioned playroom.

Over the past few weeks, the playroom has seen the addition of some new accessories (framed artwork, new lamps, new pillows) and some handy new storage benches. It’s still not “finished, but it’s getting closer every day.

So, without further ado, here are some updated photos of the playroom:

Playroom Kitchen Area

Playroom facing Chloe's room

New lamps and storage benches

I heart Cottager’s Wife!

stephanie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:53:29 +0000

A few weeks ago, the Bungalow Insanity family was lucky enough to visit British Columbia’s gorgeous Sunshine Coast. If you haven’t had the pleasure yourself, you may want schedule a trip ASAP!

Sunshine Coast

While in the area, we had the great pleasure of meeting Cottager’s Wife and her charming kids. We had a wonderful time touring the Keats View cottage and its lush green garden.

I’m happy to report that Cottager’s Wife is just as lovely in person as she is online, and I hope to have the chance to visit with her again next time we venture north.

If you aren’t familiar with her blog, I recommend beginning with her scrumptious banana apricot muffin recipe.

I heart Ikea Hacker!

stephanie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:27:35 +0000

One of my favorite blogs is ikeahacker. It’s both entertaining and inspiring. Sure, a few of the hacks are “whack,” but that’s half the fun!

Not being handy myself (Julio is power tool god in this house – I tend to avoid motorized tools at all costs. I’m actually quite accident prone - to the point that even electric can openers freak me out. “That’s right doctor. I severed my finger trying to open a can of soup.” But I digress.) Where was I? Oh yeah. Not being handy myself, I especially enjoy “hackeas”: simple IKEA hacks you can do in 30 minutes or less. They are right up my alley!

In a previous post, we discussed our own hackea involving IKEA’s Deka curtain rod. Today I plan to wow you with my startling transformation of the Skimra lampshade. OK – maybe not so startling, but pretty cute, I think!

The Skimra lampshade before:

and my post-hack Skimra lampshade:

And its twin:

in Chloe and Ginger’s playroom:

Crafty, eh?

Taking the easy way out…

julio — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:23:49 +0000

As anyone who has ever remodeled a house knows, sometimes “easy” just means easier than the alternative. Easy also may mean that you are cutting corners or hiring someone else to do the work. In this case, we’re doing both!

We have long questioned how far we wanted to go on this back bedroom, which was formerly Chloe’s room and is now destined to become our family room. The plaster is cracked in quite a few places, although to some extent that’s been mitigated by the multiple layers of wallpaper. On our ambitious days, we’ve talked about stripping off the wallpaper and repairing the plaster. In our more lazy moments, we’ve contemplated doing nothing and just moving a couch our TV into the room. But, as we’ve gotten really tired of shuffling things around our house as projects move from one area to the next, we did commit to not “temporarily” start using this room, a phrase that for us usually equates to at least two years before we fix it up.

Our compromise in this case was to remove all the trim, so that we can have someone (not us!) come in and install 1/4″ drywall over all the walls. While the plaster purists out there will be appalled, we just don’t have the time or patience right now to strip off all the wallpaper and fix up the plaster. I spent about 3 hours removing all the trim today as the first phase of this project, and tomorrow I’m going to call to get a quote on the drywall work. The salvageable trim will go to Houck’s for stripping, and we will install new base trim. One of the previous renters had a dog that did an amazing amount of damage to the base trim, so it was shot. We will probably take the picture rail to the Rebuilding Center, because I’d rather go with crown, and there is no other picture rail in the entire house. Anyway, once get the walls “restored,” we’ll refinish our stripped trim and replace the trim that wasn’t salvageable. And between getting a quote and actually getting the drywall up, I am going to rough in some wiring for the TV. Our goal is to have this room finished by the time Stephanie starts teaching again in late September.

And just now Stephanie asked me while cutting some vegetables in the kitchen whether “the final nail was in the coffin?” on the patio door idea. That was something we had tossed around for awhile…”wouldn’t it be nice if we replaced the back window with a door out the the patio?” This idea has long been stretched between our desire to streamline our projects and our bad habit of coming up with bright ideas. Keep posted to see which philosophy wins…

“Look What I Did!” Contest Entry - Our Kitchen Windows

stephanie — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:02:03 +0000

We can never resist entering a contest (a few of you may remember our infamous Blair Witch/Home Depot video) so when we read that Houseblogs.net was sponsoring a sweepstakes in partnership with True Value we, of course, had to enter.

We’ve done so many DIY projects here at Bungalow Insanity, it’s hard to choose a favorite, but one which stands out among many is our kitchen remodel. Basically, we designed the entire kitchen around four $10 salvaged windows.

When we purchased our house way back in July of 2004, the kitchen was sporting a face-lift acquired in 1962. The cabinets, flooring and appliances were all fairly hideous, but what we hated most were the sliding aluminum windows. Totally inappropriate for an 1911 bungalow!

So, when we found these windows at the ReBuilding Center for only $10 apiece, we were ecstatic.

Of course, finding the windows was easy. Installing them was the hard part. First we had to re-frame both exterior walls.

We then had to insulate, drywall, stain and install a whole kitchen’s worth of stuff before we were ready to hang our $40 set of windows:

In retrospect, our “bargain” windows may not have been such a bargain in terms of time or money (considering all we needed to do to incorporate them into the kitchen), but we love them nonetheless. Unlike their sliding aluminum predecessors, they look as though they have always been here.

Now if we could just get around to tiling our backsplashes, our kitchen would finally be complete!

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as a part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value. If you would like to submit your own contest entry, visit click here or visit www.StartRightStartHere.com.

Coming together

julio — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:03:06 +0000

This is the part where you simultaneously realize how good things are going to look, feel like you are making progress and become completely aware of how long it’s going to take to finish. It’s a 50/50 mix of elation and dread. Today I sanded Ginger’s closet doors and got the first coat of stain on them. The fir looks simply beautiful. I don’t think anything can touch old growth fir in terms of warmth. While new doors, such as the ones we put in the kitchen, look great, the vertical grain doesn’t look as varied or interesting as the flat-sawn to me. And if you don’t remember, we scored these old cabinet doors for $40 at the Rebuilding Center. There aren’t many places where you can find 5′ doors, especially for a great price. Of course the real “price” comes when your back is sore from spending hours and hours bent over while sanding and staining