Naomi, Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

Anyone who knows us even a little bit (and we count all of you among that lucky group!) know how totally crazy we are about renovation and house transformations. And if you’re reading here then you probably love those things, too. This is why we’re so psyched to share the glorious renovation recently completed by our friend, Marybeth!

She explains:

Long story short, I bought my grandmother’s 75 year old house in May, gutted the kitchen and bath and opened some walls (mostly by myself with help from family), painted the whole thing and just moved in last weekend.

The place is AMAZING, and somehow she did it all in three months… while still having a job and life and stuff like that. She has great taste and we’re suspicious that she has a decorating business or home decor blog on the side which she hasn’t shared with us. Rude. Just check out this bathroom:

Somehow she looked at that pink-and-wallpaper space and thought “oh, totally the room for classy tile and elegant paneling.” We LOVE the idea of high dark paneling in a bathroom – and you have to be pretty brave and have great vision to make that kind of change!

The main living area was really transformed by taking down some walls and widening doorways for an open floor plan. Rather than a choppy layout of living room, dining room, and kitchen, it is now one big, beautiful space, and benefits from windows on three sides.

We like how she kept the archway shape to maintain the original character/feel of the house, but still widened it for a modern flow.

And added a new light:

Similarly, she kept a set of built-in bookshelves in the livingroom and just updated them with fresh paint. They’re a striking focal point!

However, they almost didn’t make the cut:

The bookshelves – so funny. They are the first thing people notice and I almost tore them out during demo! My grandparents had them built in the 50/60s and I wasn’t certain the look would be a great fit but turns out a little paint went a long way.

That’s definitely something we’ve found, as well – keeping some of those older features really complement a renovation and make the space feel unique, personal, and full of history. (I, Naomi, had the same experience with a built-in cabinet in my dining room: I hated that thing so much until I changed everything around it and slapped on some fresh paint, and now it is my favorite part of the room!)

But what has us totally jealous of her new house is the kitchen:

Wow, right? It is so bright, happy, and open! We love how the wooden shelves warm up all of the white, and how the beam and molding bring in some architectural details to keep it feeling unique and personal.

And that floor is basically a dream come true:

We both really wish that is what our kitchens look like now. (For contrast, see here and here…)

So how was the process, as a new DIYer/renovator?

I had a lot of fun smashing through the walls and using the crowbar though I had more fun laying out the design and picking out all the materials. My contactor did all the rebuild and was awesome but it took some convincing to get him to stretch his thinking and understand my vision. He would have much preferred that I picked beige for everything to make his ordering easier. Ha.

Well, we think you DEFINITELY made the right call. While some may defend beige, it is neither of our idea of a good time, and certainly shouldn’t be picked to be the easy way out! We wouldn’t change a single thing about your new place.

Thanks for letting us share, Marybeth!

It’s here: Labor Day Weekend! While we’ve come to think of this holiday as marking the end of summer, back-to-school sales, and perhaps one last lawn party or barbecue, that’s not exactly what Labor Day was created to celebrate. Today we figured we’d share a little history and reflection about this holiday and its meaning.

Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894, intended as a day to celebrate the American labor movement and the contributions of workers to the well-being of the country (in the same vein, Canada also celebrates Labor Day on the same day, and International Workers’ Day on May 1 is celebrated in 80 countries across the globe).

The push to celebrate Labor Day as a federal holiday came from trade unions. In 1882, the Knights of Labor and Central Labor Union organized the first ever Labor Day parade in New York City:

Frank Leslie’s Weekly Illustrated Newspaper, 1882

The history of organized labor is a fascinating one, especially in the U.S. where it evolved so differently than in much of the world. The United States is one of the few industrial nations that doesn’t have a Labor Party, for instance, where instead labor unions have worked with the two dominant political parties over the past centuries to advance their efforts. Ideologically, unions have historically been quite varied, from the Marxist Central Labor Union, which was the first integrated union in the country, to the American Federation of Labor, which excluded women and African Americans and fought against the employment of foreign workers in the U.S.

While unions can be a controversial topic, many elements of what we think of as fundamental to work in America — like the 8-hour work day and the fact that we don’t employ children — are due to organized labor. Like in much of the world, the labor movement has been a critical counterbalancing force to private and corporate interests, which have prioritized profits and pushed for the commoditization of labor.

Getty Images

This Labor Day, we are both looking forward to a day of leisure that symbolizes both how central workers have been to the prosperity of this country but also that work should be just one facet of our lives and that our identities and value to society are more than just the economic contributions we make. (And FYI, we won’t have a Monday post, but we’ll be back Wednesday.)

Here’s to a day of rest and reflection!