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Not a series of unfortunate events. Yet.

An unfortunate thing happened to my family this weekend.

I strayed too close to the wall of paint color chips at Big Orange.

It actually started on Wednesday, when I was at a family birthday party. I sat next to Jeff, who paints houses for a living. We started talking about historic home colors in Walla Walla, and a teeeeensy kernel of craziness popped in my brain.

The seed had already implanted itself. Uninvited. It started in June when Camo Man and I went to Wallowa Lake after our wedding. The weather was perfect for a honeymoon — cold, rainy and overcast. Meaning we did a lot of snuggling by the fire, watching romantic comedies and soaking in a …. never mind, that’s a whole different kind of post.

The “fire” was electric, but not like electric fires I’ve seen before. It was realistic and produced crackling heat and was ever-so-cozy. “Wouldn’t it be fun to have something like this in our bedroom,” I asked my new husband.

Poor guy. He was enchanted with this moment in time and agreed a faux fireplace would be very nice.

Once home, however, I could see problems. Three autumns ago, I repainted my bedroom and simplified the decor. However, I kept the sweet floral wallpaper on one wall and that was the only wall that would have worked for this fireplace idea.

So, no deal. I thought. Because a fake fireplace does not belong against a delicate print, in my opinion.

I was kidding myself.

In the last two months, I’ve mentally rearranged that bedroom twice a day. Some things are non-negotiable, like placement of the bed and how the room has corner windows. Which I used to hate but have grown to adore in the past 18 years of living in the Home Place.

Really, though, that one violets-and-roses wall is the only option. That means tearing down the wallpaper I still love…the wallpaper I’ve woken up to for a dozen years or so.

Which is, actually, way too long for any one wallpaper to have to perform. It might be in beautiful shape, but I’m asking it to keep making me happy, morning after morning.

Purely selfish of me, right?

Exactly!

Which brings us to paint chips. Every person in my family knows that when the chips fall at my house, on the kitchen counter specifically, the renovation train has left the station. Fully fueled.

I am currently enamored of raspberry-esque colors to complement the “Brandied Pear” on the other three walls. I am sure I will be at my favorite decorating store by day’s end to gather more luscious shades.

Then I’ll go home and tape everything up and peer at each chip 218 times in every sort of lighting before deciding anything.

Poor Camo Man. We are not even talking about the prep work, which can be considerable on 1946 plaster walls.

In the meantime, if you have anything to say about electric fireplaces, I need to know what you know. Send me a note at sheilahagar@wwub.com.

 

 

 

Filed under: home place home work, My house, What else can you do with a Monday?, Camo Man, decorating, From the Storage Room, Home Place, Milton-Freewater, Sheila Hagar, Walla Walla

Less Home and Garden, more Home

Dear Person-who-took-a-brown-couch-to-the-consignment-store, forever now known as Couch Lady:

 

Can I just say something? I SO did not want to add another couch to my living room.

 

You know me — well, not technically I suppose, but you know people like me. We like our living rooms to look magazine perfect. The sofa cushions plumped just so, the area rug perfectly aligned and honkin’ big bouquets of fresh flowers about which you have lied about the price to yourself.

 

(That conversation sounds like this. “Oh, look, these pretty flowers would really liven up the dreary winter days. It’s really no more than buying a latte. And I rarely do that so I deserve this honkin’ big bouquet.)

 

We like things dusted. We like artsy-fartsy arrangements of antique vases and, I dunno, brass keys and a precious collection of our father’s cats eye marbles. We like people coming in and saying “Oh, this is so beautiful. I just love what you’ve done.”

 

At which you smile, shake your head and murmur, “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry it’s a mess today.”

 

You know who we are, Couch Lady. You might be us.

 

I’ve loved the living room I’ve created in the last few years, a blend of contemporary and whimsical with “just right” seating. Throw pillows that took me forever to find and a “fun” shaggy rug in bright green.

 

I wanted to lick my living room, it was that delicious. She said modestly.

 

No matter how scrumptious, however, there was the problem of not enough seating. The perfect couch and chair (which, it pains me to say out loud, took me four years to choose. FOUR YEARS.) are not holding everyone. Unless we are feeling ever-so-close.
“Too many adult-sized butts,” eldest daughter termed it. “The little girls are too old to just pull up a piece of the floor anymore.”

 

Mind you, “the little girls” are taller than most of the rest of the family, and fully formed.

 

And there was just no room for company. Now that we’re hosting some of Camo Man’s events at my house, that’s a big problem. Which is not to say it’s a big butt problem.

 

 I began half-heartedly scanning the furniture horizon for something affordable that was not also hideous. I had no optimism at all, given how long it took me to find couch happiness the first go round.

 

But, Couch Lady, you saved me! At some point, you decided to take your perfectly wonderful mocha couch to the consignment shop. Who knows why  … I understand not being able to live with a piece of furniture for ANOTHER SECOND. Ask Camo Man, I’m kinda legendary for that.

 

Anyhoo, on total impulse, I swung into the parking lot and went in. Mostly so I could tell myself I tried to find something used. I walked the store, going in a full circle before I spied it.

 

There it was, in contemporary and clean lines and a lovely shade of brown that would complement my living room perfectly. Like I had dreamed the right thing into existence. Your darling — comfortable — sofa was ultra spiff and not a hole or loose thread to its name.

 

Which now happens to be “New Couch.”

 

George, owner of the store, told me New Couch had come in just days before. “I think she told me it was three or four years old,” he maintained when I tried to haggle on the price. This did not work.

 

Nonetheless Couch Lady, you made my day, my week, my month! And I can’t tell you how relieved Camo Man is to not be going from store to store and threatened with a trip to Portland and Ikea. In fact, he is the one who really should be thanking you.

 

Bonus gravy, my living room actually looks bigger and more homey. And STILL hip. Everyone has a spot for their aforementioned butt. How can that even happen?

 

Couch Lady, call me up. I owe you coffee. A latte that costs about as much as a honkin’ big bouquet of fresh flowers, actually.

 

Sincerely,
New Couch’s mommy

 

Filed under: Beaverton, My house, too good to be true, Camo Man, Couch Lady, decorating, From the Storage Room, Milton-Freewater, Sheila Hagar, Walla Walla life, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Bidding the bonk bed bye bye

I knew we’d reach this intersection before I was ready.

Years ago, our family was gifted the best bed ever.

It’s a bright, red, metal frame bunk bed. You’ve seen them — full on bottom, twin on top. They were all the rage 15 years ago or more. But this is one of the really good ones, sturdy enough to withstand an earthquake. Or twin toddlers. Or teens.

The bed has been a jumping platform (don’t ask, but no broken bones at least), reading loft, a fort and a camp site with the addition of sheets tucked around the top mattress. It’s earned the nickname of “the bonk bed” at our house, for good reason, none of it the bed’s fault.

It’s been a refuge for a number of girls, that top bunk being a little up out of the chaotic slurry of multi-child family life.

The large red frame is too big for easy moving and too tightened up for quick un-assembly, so the bed has lived in one room, dependable and solid, as daughters have rotated through.

It’s housed overnight guests, including adults. It’s doubled as storage, the top mattress loaded with piles of clothes going to camp, for example.

Not to mention it came from Marcus, one of my favorite boys who has turned into one of my favorite adults.

I love it.

My plan was to always have the big red bed. Once my kids were done with it, I would turn the entire room into the “Grandchildren’s Room,” I thought. With the bed as the centerpiece.

Things have changed. For starters, the youngest kid, Miss Tallandblond, is really ready to be done sleeping in a bed so obviously marketed for children. She’s so done with the primary colors in her room (not in a preschool sort of decor, I must point out, but with turquoise and orange thrown in). She’s tired of never being able to move things around, as the big red bed keeps the other furniture hostage in place.

Her request seems fair. She’s almost out of middle school, after all. Not that I know when that happened.

I could move her downstairs, but experience has taught me that most of my teens do best when residing where I can note the state of their environment or when their lamp is burning into the night. Or that they aren’t yet in bed, despite repeated warnings, but instead still glued to the Play Station 3.

Meaning I must tweak my vision again. My grand babies will come visit me and sleep on a different bed. Miss Tallandblond will get a bed more fitting to the young lady she is becoming. The bonk bed will go on to smack other kids’ foreheads while playing center stage in an infinity of childhood moments.

I know, I could store it. But the storage room is getting a bit of a different life, too. Hint: We call it the hunting room now.

It almost hurts, thinking of this piece of furniture that has served us so well. I suppose, however, that feeling isn’t really about furniture at all, is it?

 

Filed under: back to basics, Child approved, everyone's kids, My house, decorating, From the Storage Room, Milton-Freewater, Sheila Hagar, Walla Walla, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Just when you thought you couldn’t get enough green…

So, turns out being shut in on account of ice can be a good thing. An excellent thing when you just happened to have remembered to bring your camera home from work, as well.

 

Not only did I clean my kitchen, but I documented the renovation at long last. You poor people suffered through that with me aaaaaaall summer and got nothing for your troubles.

 

So here we are, with admittedly amateurish photography. I was too tired to worry all that much about lighting, etc., figuring something was better than nothing.

We begin with the built in office area. I always thought I wanted a little kitchen office, but I had no idea how much I would love a place to have office supplies (I need a 12-step program for this addiction) right there on display. Not to mention, it’s Gilligan’s area.

I use the mirror as a message board (sometimes writing sickening love notes to Camo Man there). That basket? Holds all the first aid supplies. And please do not laugh at the demonic kitty calendar. I already hate it enough.

 

Next door is the new French door fridge. We’re in a love/hate relationship and trying to get a working agreement ironed out. It’s coming, just much more slowly than I would have assumed.

 

So I had this little “dead spot” where there are doorways and a sliver of wall. To the rescue — $15 worth of Malma mirrors from Ikea. Suddenly there is light, color and a little action when the dog checks himself out in the bottom one.

 

Wisely, I asked my cabinet builder, the ever flexible Dan Eveland, to give me a little storage for vino. However, I expect that when the grandboy is old enough, this might become a toy repository.

 

A not-great picture of the subway tile above the counter, then the counter, like you couldn’t tell that yourself.

 

My little, lovable and movable kitchen island. Love.

 

After ripping out acres of plywood upper cabinets, I made a decision to downsize and force myself NOT TO COLLECT JUNK just because there was room. I have a lot of built-in storage just a few feet away in the hall, so it’s not like I didn’t have a life preserver for that plunge.

 

Sometimes when I come home, I pet these babies just to feel the smoothness.

Track lighting that is not as ugly as the stuff I had before, so hooray. Again, Ikea. For like $20 or something.

 

The 1946 wall exhaust fan works beautifully and turned out to be irreplaceable. Again, Ikea came through with this cooler-than-school artsy fruit bowl thing. At my house, it’s a fan cover.

 

This arrangement lives above the kitchen table. I can’t seem to center that top picture ever and I’m not so sure I’m in love with it, at any rate. I’m considering my options.

 

SO, no window coverings yet, although I have the hardware ready to go. And my amazing floor just does not photograph with a darn, so we’ll live without that picture. And I could not keep the table cleared off for more than 78 seconds with the kids home from school…sorry.

 

But, basically,  there ya go! If you have any questions, just email me at sheilahagar@wwub.com or call me at 526-8322.

Filed under: Camo Man, My house, while you weren't looking, decorating, From the Storage Room, Ikea, kitchen remodeling, Milton-Freewater, moving forward, Sheila Hagar, Walla Walla life

Light at the end of a very green tunnel

I promise, pictures of the new kitchen will come soon. Jerry, the Kitchen Guy, is at my house as I type. He and his partner, Colt, are installing crown moulding and struggling to maintain their good spirits. Old plaster walls that curve to meet the ceiling (but not in a grand, beautiful arching-sort-of-way) are not a good match for straight wood. The only saving grace is that Jerry picked it, not me.

There are several hours of detail work to go in this project, but last night I surprised myself by suggesting a family barbecue-slash-party in early autumn…that can only mean I can see land somewhere in my mind. AND this weekend we had a real dishwasher (thanks to my lovely friends Ann and Leo. Free!) to run dishes, meaning the silverware will actually look clean for the first time in weeks.

As for the green? Still there, still bold, still making me feel alive every morning. Soon enough you’ll see for yourselves.

 

Filed under: back to basics, Happy!, My house, What else can you do with a Monday?, decorating, From the Storage Room, kitchen makeover, Milton-Freewater, remodeling, Sheila Hagar