The Library Progresses

After weeks of bones work - repairing or replacing systems and walls and gutting 5 full baths - we're approaching the beautifying stage. All the baths are tiled and cabinets installed and we just await marble and fixtures (pictures coming as soon as the marble is in). The master is in Carrara marble with a dark grey slate floor. The floor is in 12"x12" tiles and we've had them set as a brick pattern, which, though a little detail, gives a very pretty result and is one of the best decisions we've made.

If you don't think trim matters, I beg you to see the results thus far. The rooms look significantly larger, and it lends a grandeur that brings this house out of the 1960s. Today we're panelling the library (see photo) and hopefully we prove brave enough to paint it Flint by Benjamin Moore in order to set off the lovely hand-rubbed brass sconces.

Progress

It's been a busy few weeks of tearing out bathrooms and an entire basement, and framing in a bathroom, powder room and two closets. Thankfully, we budgeted for the basement ceiling to be replaced because it turns out that the former resident cat found it entirely unnecessary to go to the bathroom outside. Poor Luke!

Above is the mirror for the powder room and I'll order sconces today. The walls will be an inky grey-blue. Luke is going to frame in the counter and I'll have Carrara marble installed and attach an unpleated skirt in a white and grey patterned linen.

The photos show the library with the powder room framed and sheet rocked and the master before and after the addition of a bath and closet.

A New House

June saw the purchase of a new house and work has now begun in earnest. The new house is significantly bigger, in a pricier area of town. It's been well-maintained and the bones are very solid, so there's fewer demoralizing projects than in the last house. Nevertheless, sometime around week two is the most difficult in the remodeling process. All decisions are due and everything to be torn out is now sitting in the dumpster whilst the house sits in dust. It's not a pretty site/sight.

Our primary projects to update and beautify this 1960s well-cared for, but aesthetically ignored house include:

• converting the casual family room and guest bath into a ground-floor master suite,
• new moulding throughout the main floor and paneling the library,
• new baths throughout,
• updating the kitchen,
• gutting and redoing the basement (removing pressed board walls, carpet, etc.),
• building a deck for proper entertaining, and
• replacing the 1960s wrought iron columns on the front exterior with traditional wooden columns.

We see little of Luke and lots of interiors shops these days. One recent delight is the Circa Lighting (dining fixture above) store in Atlanta (http://www.circalighting.com/). Their products are amazing and their staff were wonderful with our children! I also found some long desired linen in a "not sure if it's grey, purple or brown" nubby hounds tooth weave. It was on clearance at Lewis & Sheron for $11 a yard instead of $45!

Here we go again

After months of searching, we've finally found another house to work on and we expect to close on June 30th and begin work on the 1st of July. I am so excited to begin work and not spend our entire days searching online and driving by sketchy houses. In the meanwhile, here are a few (rather poor quality!) photos of our house.

Back Online

After months of only occasional internet service, house and garden projects and a move with toddlers, this site will finally be revitalized and you can see some of the end - or nearly end - results. Over the next few days, I'll be updating this site room-by-room with pictures as well as information on purchased items.

Here's a photo of the master bedroom, minus the valance. The color is Benjamin Moore's Seapearl and the trim is BM White Dove.This wall color is one of our favorite things about the house and is very satisfying color on which to build. Both cool and warm colors look lovely with it.

Fabric Findings

I've had great luck with fabric for this house. For Jessica's benefit, the blue and white linen is Fioretto and you can order it online at Lewis and Sheron (http://www.lsfabrics.com/) for $29.98. If, however, you live in Atlanta, I'd recommend visiting their store on the Westside and checking out their remnant section. I found Fioretto for $5 a yard because the last three or so yards on a bolt is considered a remnant. So if you're looking to make table toppers, throw pillows or valances (very in right now) you might just find a steal.

While Restoration Hardware now mainly markets itself as a company featuring big brown and tan blobs, they still have quite a few beautiful pieces. I found lovely striped linen from Lewis and Sheron but it was $40 a yard and I needed 14 curtain panels each measuring about 3 yards. But at the Restoration Outlet up 400 I found striped linen drapes for between $28 - $55. I saved over $1000. I lined the drapes myself, which was a pain, but it was probably easier than sewing them all from scratch.

The last success was at Joann's Fabrics. They have quite a few linens in the apparel fabric section and they are about 1/3 to 1/4 the price of regular linen. I found one I liked and received a further 10% off because I bought the whole bolt and therefore the last of the bolt. It was about $5 a yard all told.

Kitchen Color Scheme

I've waffled on what seems like a daring scheme. I was reading an interview with an interior designer recently and she spoke of how designing was a process of trial and error which was to be continued until you found the right combination. Well most of us don't have the luxury of time or finances to take her advice and we certainly don't with this house. My dilemma with this kitchen is three-fold. First, we were able to save the existing granite countertop, but it is brown. It's not what I would chose and I have to make an extra effort to keep things clean and sharp. Secondly, the entire living area is open, so whatever I chose in the kitchen is plainly visible and part of the look in both the dining room and the living room. Lastly, my idea, as you'll soon see, runs into a bit of a kink with the construction of the cabinets around the refridgerator. See the lovely picture to the right that Robyn so kindly provided? Similarly, my original idea was to paint the lower cabinets Benjamin Moore's "Flint" and the uppers my white trim color, but I've been a bit scared and have since thought I'd tone down my gray to something much lighter and paint all the cabinets that color. But since the painters have painted "Flint" around the fireplace, I'm again in love with the color. So I'm back to plan A, but would appreciate your feedback. I've been scouring magazines and the web for photos with a similar color scheme, but can only find it in kitchens with shelving uppers, not full cabinets as we have. Do you have a photo you could contribute to enlighten me? And now to my biggest difficulty with this idea. As you can only somewhat see from the photo of the kitchen, the cabinets wrap around the fridge and become uppers, blending the otherwise neat delineation between upper and lower. I think my only option is to have Luke trim the side fridge panel so that it has an upper and lower panel and paint them accordingly. It will be quite a stark contrast that is not tempered by brown granite like the rest of the kitchen, but I could do a grouping of prints on the upper panel to soften the look a bit.

The floors were stained over the weekend and the carpet went in upstairs and it's all coming together quite well (pictures to follow soon). Perhaps now that clean-up has begun we can convince Oliver to move into the house as he very firmly only wants to live somewhere that's "REALLY, REALLY, REALLY CLEAN". (Imagine that in a very American accent with practically no letters but "r"...."rrrreee" basically.)

This blog is a bit of a mess currently, so bear with me as I make changes to the look, content, etc. Blogs are not yet my forte.

Partners

Working together has it's issues (mainly, when do you stop working?), but it's generally been a happy occasion to discover our roles, talents and responsibilities within the working relationship. Neither of us was proven in this sort of work before marriage. We grew up surrounded by architectural and design themes, which Luke later went on to study, but we had to learn what decisions we could entrust to the other. Our first home and the condos we helped to build provided a chance for us to see what the other did well, and has enabled us to find a natural allocation of roles with this new house. Luke has been site manager and had to do no small amount of backbreaking work. Additionally, he's chosen trim, doors and the roof, and I've chosen colors, fabrics, and cabinets, while it's been a collaborative effort on finishes like appliances, lighting and plumbing. I doubt you ever have the perfect house first try and I think this is a very well thought out design plan, but the things I would redo even at this early stage are when one of us has interfered with the other's sphere. I wish I had let Luke put crown in the master bedroom. It's a little thing of course and of no great significance to the sell of the house - the master is still beautiful - but I think it could have been improved had I let the "right" person chose.

Changes

It's been a busy few weeks and now we're nearly done. Today I'm posting some photos of the house before construction, mid-construction and as it looks now (or as of Wednesday).

To continue on the satisfaction of renovation, I should add that perhaps I find renovating particularly satisfying because I'm not very initially creative. It's a poor phrase to say that I'm not good at creating from scratch, especially in contrast to both my brother and sister. They are likely to create a recipe, whereas I tweek one. Lilly has probably done a painting and John a screenprint and I've just chosen a nice print. Luke has made some furniture that we've planned out together, but only after being inspired from magazine photos. I am not going to come up with a new and revolutionary look, but I love improving what's already there.

So here are some of our improvements to date.

New Finds

I've recently discovered a Canadian magazine called House & Home (http://www.houseandhome.com/). It's so lovely and has proved a great resource. I found these well-priced knobs from Lee Valley Hardware in the January edition (http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=50467&cat=3,46742,44005). Believe it or not, about the cheapest glass doorknob I can find is the Tea House Doorknob at Anthropologie. Given that it includes the doorplate, it's cheaper than Ebay.

In renovating a house, there are nearly as many decisions as in building a new one, but I prefer the process. Luke will likely disagree as he's had to do a good bit of the unpleasant labor, but I find renovation much more interesting. I like the creative compromises that are necessary; I like working within the confines of a style and neighborhood chosen by another. And there is something so satisfying about the old, worn and dirty being renewed. What we're doing is a far cry from God's redemption of creation, but it's a similar theme and I find it so satisfying to take part in both a creative and regenerative project.

Master Bath

I'm not sure how to go about organizing the posting. I think I'll likely settle for a room-by-room approach, but forgive me if I change the structure mid-project.

My favorite room thus far is the master bath. Sometimes you do things and they happily exceed your expectation. The master bath is proving to be just that room. I'll provide a before picture today and what will be an all-but-drapery complete picture by Friday or so. Here's a breakdown of what was, what is and what will be.

The master bath had a tiny single vanity and sconces. Both are quite nice and in keeping with the house that we foresee, but they are completely insufficient for the master.We're moving the sconces to the main-floor guest bath and the vanity to the upstairs bath. The tile in the shower matched the very colorful slate tile on the floor and it was accompanied by triangular shiny tiles and a mirror (which is odd, but far better than the mirrored toilet enclosure we saw in one house!). The walls and ceiling had the most horrendous purplish silver gray paint. I am all for gray, but the wash-style metallic paint job was the messiest thing I've seen. We've kept the floor slates, but replaced the bath with oversized white subway tiles with gray grout and honey-comb Carrera marble flooring. (We found the subway tiles on clearance at Floor & Decor and we payed about $2.40 a square foot rather than the $8 I had been quoted at a tile store.) The walls are painted Seapearl by Benjamin Moore, an "is it white, stone or gray?" sort of color. The vanity is a double with a espresso finish and this week we install Carrera marble counter tops, oversized back-splash, white ceramic sinks and these fixtures: http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Governor-Widespread-Chrome-Bathroom-Faucet/3028817/product.html The sconces are gorgeous, but I can't find a picture online, so you'll have to just wait for Friday's photo.

In the beginning

There is an old folktale that the Magpie is a rather clever builder, inspiring other birds in the art of nest building. Several people have urged Luke and me to begin a blog, and with recent events the opportunity now presents itself, so we're trying our hand at Magpie living.

This blog will be home-based, centered around whatever designs and projects we're doing at the time. Until recently those projects have largely been on hold given the housing market and consequently our purse-strings, but a couple of months ago a friend was looking for an avenue in which to invest and invited us to join him in a "property venture". (Horrid phrase!) Thanks to his trust, we have a lovely property in a very trendy Atlantan neighborhood to wipe clean and begin again. It's a dream to gut and redo a house! As we make progress and wade through decisions, I'll update this blog (I have much to catch you up on) and post various sources of inspiration, but there is an additional incentive for you if you're looking to do a home project or need a piece of furniture or two. As I scour the city and the web for deals, it's becoming a full time job (and my biceps have never been better as I restrain two toddlers from all the breakables in Atlanta). I see so many elegant pieces and such great deals and I want to make them available to you. You'll find items listed on this blog with photos and store info so that you can check on availability. Additionally, we have a tried and true list of sub-contractors, so please contact us if you need a recommendation.


I love designing houses and I want to create so much more than I can house in one home. The pleasure is in creating rather than owning. So here's our attempt at designing, renovating and flipping and hopefully it's an entertaining resource for you along the way. Enjoy!