Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

Happy Friday! I hope you have a lovely weekend planned. We’re headed to Philadelphia for Sam’s cousin’s wedding, and then next week we are leaving for a big trip — Iceland followed by Scotland! We’ve been planning this trip since last October when we got invited to a friend’s wedding in Edinburgh, and we haven’t taken a vacation in the last year in order to save up and make this trip count. We couldn’t be more ready for it to have finally rolled around!

I’ll share more about our trip when we get back, but while I’m gone we have posts planned like normal so you can just pretend I’m here (and Naomi will still be stuck in the States holding down the fort). I just won’t be responding to any comments until I’m back.

Today I’m sharing a few updates in the entryway area of the dining room, a blend of adding some much-needed function and also a little more style. The last I shared of the entryway (which is just a corner of the dining room next to the back door), I had built some coat hooks:

That instantly upped the usability of the space. I am also planning to add some built in shoe storage with a place to put keys, mail, etc under the windows to the left of the hooks, but I’m still trying to figure out if I can find/retrofit something that will work or if I need to build from scratch. In the meantime the other functional thing I wanted to add was a mirror to the right of the hooks, since we haven’t had a mirror in this space since we moved in two years ago. Not that I tend to care too much about how I look when I leave the house, but it’s nice to be able to give ourselves one last scan to make sure there isn’t a wad of cat hair stuck to our pants or something.

Mirrors are annoyingly expensive, and I procrastinated for a long time trying to find one I liked that fit the space well without spending too much money. Last weekend I finally picked up a frameless beveled mirror from Target with the intention of building a simple wooden frame. Then the moment I got it home, I decided that actually the wall mirror I’ve had up in the guest room is the perfect one for this space. For some reason that never struck me before.

So I returned the new mirror to Target, and moved the mirror from the guest room down to the dining room.

Don’t worry, I hung a replacement mirror in the guest room that is a bit smaller but still works just fine. We never want to make the guest room too comfortable or functional, it will incentivize guests to stay way too long.

The “this is acceptable but I will only stay two nights” mirror, a perfect set with our “not terrible enough to complain to my hosts, but if I stay another day my back will never recover” mattress

With some function added, I also wanted to start introducing some aesthetic improvement to the space. Our next big projects in the kitchen involve making things look much worse for a little bit (ripping out the backsplash to install a new one, and removing all the cabinet doors to paint them), so I am slowly trying to make the dining room start looking nicer and more finished so at least it’s not all bad.

Of course, it’s hard to figure out what more we could possibly do to this gorgeous space to improve it besides adding a mirror:

Just kidding, it was pretty obvious what we needed.

First up, a nicer shoe mat. Notice I did not say “get rid of the shoe mat,” since we live in New England and I’m not naive. There’s a gross shoe for every season here (fall = wet; winter = snowy; spring = muddy; summer = sweaty), but that doesn’t mean we have to live with something boring and gray. I thought about DIYing something (like painting what we had), but then I came across a mat at Target (when getting the short-lived wall mirror) that I knew would work well. I can’t find it online but it was $19.99.

Okay, so mirror: check; attractive shoe mat: check. What more could there be? Answer: dealing with this hideous filthy door:

The photos don’t really capture it fully, but the door was very dirty (as exterior doors can get, see above for my description of the seasons in New England), and it was painted an off-white color to begin with so it looked extra dingy against our new(ish) white walls.

I had planned to wait on painting the door until the space was much further along and I had a better idea of what color might look best, but I decided I wanted an easy win right now so I took the plunge. Plus doors are fairly easy to paint, so if I change my mind down the road I can paint it a new color. I thought about using the same turquoise paint I already had on hand from painting the front door (“Spirit in the Sky” by Benjamin Moore):

But whereas the front hall is pretty dark and needed something light and colorful to brighten up the space, the dining room is already really bright and full of light furniture, like the 12′ built-in bench I built:

I feel like what I need to do now is starting layering on darker and stronger colors to ground things a little. So instead of turquoise, I decided it was the perfect chance to try out the color that is all the rage in DIY land right now and that I am leaning towards for the kitchen cabinets: Hale Navy. I first discovered and fell in love with Hale Navy in the living room of the very talented Gretchen, of Boxy Colonial:

Not one to shy away from straight up copying other people, I decided that I too should have some Hale Navy in my home. I grabbed a quart from Home Depot in semi-gloss finish and got to work. As usual, it looked questionable after the first coat:

But I persevered. I also took the opportunity to spray paint the deadbolt lock oil rubbed bronze to match our key pad lock, just like I did for the front door so many moons ago. The mismatching situation was just not going to cut it anymore.

A second coat and a few touch ups here and there finished things off nicely. I free-handed it rather than taping (I was scarred just observing Naomi’s great window painting saga), and then used a razor to scrape off any stray paint. It was quick and effective for just one window, though I imagine that taping would be faster if I were doing a bunch since the methodical cutting in around window panes can really add time.

The paint dried quickly and I reinstalled the deadbolt, leaving me with my finished result:

As a reminder, here’s how that same corner looked 5 months ago, pre-renovation:

So even though it feels slow, we’re definitely making progress! And now a gratuitous number of photos from slightly different angles:

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!