Last Thursday we took possession of our new house. All the 70's decorating is now all ours!!
Yep, we now have not one, but two ugly orange flower patterns in our kitchen!
We took 2 U-haul loads full of stuff down there over the weekend. This has really improved the look of our Portland house, but we still have tons of stuff we need to move down.
We stayed in the house for the first time on Sunday night. We spent much of the day discussing our plans and priorities for renovation. We decided to start on the game room, mostly because we think it'll be one of the easiest to complete or at least that is what we thought before we started stripping wallpaper. The room started with wood-toned wainscot beneath a boring flecked wallpaper and then the whole thing was ringed by a cheesy golf scenery border. This is the one room where we don't want to paint any of the wood plus this is one of two big rooms without acoustic ceiling. So all that needs to be done is strip the wallpaper and paint the top half a nice golden yellow ('Harvest Rye'). By the end of the weekend we only had half the wallpaper off - and this is the easy room!
Here is the Before. Note how the previous owners thoughtfully left the coordinating furniture.
We did make sure we took time off to celebrate and relax on the fourth as well. We stopped in at a barbeque down the street to meet some of the neighbors and then we hosted our own very comical event.
We didn't plan on anything fancy but I hoped to have burgers, corn, a salad, potatoes, pineapple, and brownies, but even simple cooking becomes impossible without the right tools.
I forgot to pack a good knife so we had to cut tomatoes and avacados with a plastic one. I gave up on the potatoes after slicing (and half breaking) only three. We didn't even try to slice the red onion.
We didn't have enough foil so the corn got a liitle burnt on the grill.
The small bar fridge froze all of the salad spinach.
The pineapple remained intact, again because we lacked a knife.
And being unfamiliar with the cooking habits of the new oven, the brownies were completely raw (not just underdone as was the aim) in the center.
Fortunately, Jeremy and Jennifer brought the burgers so they were great (so I hear). And I couldn't find a way to screw up chips or cherries so we had plenty to eat. And afterwards we did have a great fireworks show in our driveway.
Do you have plans for the thoughtful co-ordinating furniture?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I know I'm going to take a lot of grief from the women in our circle of friends, but I like most of the wallpapers we've all had in our houses. For example, I like the bottom-most of the two you've shown above. (I don't care for the top one.) I'm happy with my wallpapered nook.
The left-behind furniture is there for the taking. The funny thing is that we told them to leave them behind. Well, we didn't know what we were getting. They said,"do you want us to leave the office furniture?" (they used this room as an office); We said yes. We thought we'd get a desk, possibly a file cabinet or a nice swivel chair, but instead we got gold lamps and very bold floral prints.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! The house, that is. The wallpaper and the furniture...well, they're, um, different.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a fantastic place to live and raise a family. And looks like you have plenty of projects to do...
With the right upholstery, those chairs could be pretty cool. But then again, the Briscoe "vision" for what could be always gets us in trouble. We have two chairs in our basement with terrifying lime, gold, and brown flowers. Someday, those will have new upholstery too...
ReplyDeleteYuck! Those two chairs are not right! If they're worth it reumpolstering (rigth spelling--doesn't look right but that's the way it sounds to me)is the answer. But that rocker looks great. Is it yours or did the previous owners leave it behind. What a house. Looks marvellous! One of these days we'll come visit. We have a Goddaughter who's lived in Portland for years. So we could do double visits. Love to you three. Nonnie
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