Porcelain Blue

Progress

Not that anyone is reading this blog, but I feel the need to explain my absence. I've been unpacking. And unpacking. And still more unpacking. And I'm not done yet.

Things have been coming together nicely, though. I'm very happy with the rooms that are finished, even though there are only three of them. Things that have been thrown together out of necessity have merged well, with the help of accessories that have mostly come from Ebay.

Since we have lived in this house before, it's interesting to see the ways we've made different choices based on current circumstances. Most of the "current circumstances" have to do with the fact that we're now over 60. So, for example, the once very lush tropical garden by the pool has now become a lovely, not so lush, low maintenance tropical garden. The coffee table in the living room has been replaced by a cocktail ottoman, now that we've acknowledged the fact that we really only want a coffee table so we can put our feet up.

How the palette was chosen for each room:

Dining room: I had a gorgeous hutch in storage that came from Ballard Designs back when I had more money than sense. It's black and distressed, but before it was painted black, it was painted red. So the "distressed" part shows up in red. And the drawers are painted red on the inside. I had to buy a new dining table and I didn't want an all black Florida dining room. (I had that before and got tired of it.) So I found a dining table and chairs on Wayfair that had black leggs and brown tops. It looks nice with the hutch and it's not so dark. My family gave me a gorgeous "looks like real" fake flower arrangement for the dining table, and that brightens up the room. I hung my collection of California plein aire art on the walls. (I would have sold it, but you can't give art away at present. The silver lining is that I get to enjoy my paintings without feeling guilty for not selling them.) I'm really happy with how it all turned out.

Living room: I had brown sofas and I was stuck with them because sofas are insanely expensive. I wanted to lighten up (and Florida up) the room, so I bought a turquoise cocktail ottoman (from Wayfair) and some turquoise sofa pillows. My favorite find was a throw blanket with brown and turquoise background and flamingos! (I am a shameless flamingo lover.) I now have to find the perfect rug, and I have no idea what that's going to look like.

Kitchen: Again, I was stuck with a brown table. And again, I made it look like Florida by buying turquoise chairs. (Gorgeous turquoise chairs from Wayfair. Thank God for Wayfair.)

Bedroom: I wanted to use the aforementioned porcelain blue curtains, so I went shopping on Ebay for a Pottery Barn duvet cover with porcelain blue in it. I found a great one and, while doing so, learned that gray is a really "in" color right now. So the duvet cover is porcelain blue and gray and ivory, that latter matching the really gorgeous furniture I found at Joss and Main (a Wayfair company.) The result was a very peaceful room. I relax when I walk through the door.

Guest Room: I love pink. And I love the fact that pink is a Florida color, and in a way that is not girly-girl. So I started by buying a Tommy Bahama quilt (on Ebay) that has a blue background with green palm leaves and pink flowers. Since the guest room will also double as my granddaughter's room when she stays here, I went full pink ahead. I bought a pink nightstand and a white lamp with a pink shade. The bed is white rod iron and the dresser is white. I bought some hand-painted knobs for the dresser (Ebay again) that have a lot of pink in them. I also had a red armoire that I wanted to use in there, and it looks great with the pink. Pictures coming soon. I'm still waiting for the mattress to arrive.

Teenaged Boy's Room: I chose gray furniture from Wayfair. It is masculine without being boring. I had a duvet cover from the last time we lived here that my son liked, so I used that. It's hard to describe, so you'll have to wait for pictures. The basic palette is navy and gray, but the duvet cover is colorful. He likes it all, and that's what counts.

Teenaged Boy's Man Cave Room: We won't discuss that any time soon. It's the room I try not to even look into.

I'm including a couple of pictures of the dining room and master bedroom. The black table in the master bedroom is going to be painted some shade of blue, as soon as I get around to it. Otherwise those rooms are done.

The main thing I have learned from this move: we did a wise thing by spending a ridiculous amount of money on "cabin" furniture. We bought Old Hickory and Flat Rock, simply because we could at the time. The furniture held its value to the point that I was able to buy everything I needed for the Florida house with what I made from selling the cabin furniture. So if you're going to buy furniture that can't be used just anywhere, my advise is to spend money on it, so you can sell it when you have to move.

That's it for now.

What make a house great?

Today my writing prompt asked me what was most important to me, in choosing a house. Every time we move, I make a list of what we have to have at the new place, but the list is mostly about not wanting to miss things that were at the old place. I've never really asked myself what is important to me in a home.

So that's what I'm riffing on today. 

I lived in Los Angeles for many years, and I moved constantly, trying to find a part of town that felt like home. The closest I came was the Pasadena area, but I eventually figured out that I was never going to feel at home in Los Angeles. So the first thing that is important to me in a home is that it has to be in the southeast. Anything south of Charlottesville feels like home to me. I've lived in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and I always felt like I was "home." These are my people. They go out of their way to be nice, they drink sweet tea, and they call you honey. What's not to like? Also, they talk to strangers. I love talking to strangers, and I hate living somewhere that people think talking to strangers is insane. Like Los Angeles.

I bought several houses in Los Angeles and I got to know the drill. It's this: you have to give up something. You can't have a great kitchen, a great master bedroom, great closet space, a great view, a quiet street, a yard, and a good school system. So every time I'd move, I'd choose what to give up. (My last house was the perfect house on a busy street. But the busy street was why we could afford it.) Similarly, when you buy a house anywhere, you have to decide what the deal-breakers are. When we were in the mountains of North Carolina, the big deal-breaker was no fireplace. I've recently taken up cooking, so now I want a great kitchen. I've lived with tiny master bedrooms, and I didn't mind because I could still make them beautiful. (We had one house where the master bedroom was so small, I used to pretend we were on a ship.) 

The #1 thing I look for in a house, to be honest, is that it has to look like it would be fun to live in. Since everyone defines fun differently, I can't tell you what that means. I just want a house where I can imagine flopping on chairs in the living room, cooking big meals in the kitchen, nice rooms for the kids, and a bathroom that can be made to look like a spa.

We didn't have to give up anything when we bought our current house. We were lucky, because we never really looked at the house before we bid on it. We fell in love with the patio area. The house was originally built to be the clubhouse for our neighborhood, so there is a huge pool with a diving board AND a sliding board. There is a large bar on one side and a large seating area on the other. It was all beautifully landscaped, so lounging by the pool makes a person feel like they are staying at a great hotel.

After buying the house, we came back to look at what we'd bought. Luckily there were enough bedrooms. Other than that, the house was not something we would ever have bought if we'd really looked at it. (Did I mention that we were young and stupid at the time?) It was UGLY. It was ugly wrapped in ugly. My oldest daughter came in, looked around, and said, "Are you going to keep these light fixtures?" The next time she came over, we had stripped the house to bare concrete floors and bare walls. I said, "No."

I'm the only person I know who has completely remodeled a house who would do it again. Not only was it fun to watch the transformation, but every tile, every wall color, every floor, every light fixture was chosen by us. We've now moved back into the house after eight years of renting it to other people, and I'm still happy with every choice we made. Almost. When we did one bathroom in primary colors (including tiles and sink fixtures), we neglected to take into account how soon it was going to be before the 5 year old was a 16 year old. So stay tuned for the remodeling of that bathroom!

What's important to me in a house is that it can be made to feel like a home. And to me, "home" is fun, warmth, safety, and beauty. Next time, back to the latter. The decorating is coming along nicely.