Bedroom

While Bradley was at home on his electrical working staycation I had my own big task. Not quite as big but still an ordeal.

The bedroom had some old wainscotting, which was a little wonky. The slats were varying widths, varying heights, and had some mismatched areas of tongue and groove in the corner where a radiator was removed.So we decided the room would be much improved if we removed it. It was really the only thing that people criticized when visiting our house. The concensus being that it was more weird than charming.
Not being the most patient person in the world I couldn't wait to rip it out and see what was underneath. It wasn't too bad - the walls were intact underneath aside from numerous nail holes, a little strip of old wallpaper and some wiggly lines of adhesive.

Ok, as you can see above it was pretty bad... but not as bad as I had imagined it might be!

The best way to deal with cleaning up walls that have adhesive or other flaws is to chip or scrape off any bits that stick out, then skim coat the walls, then sand, then prime and paint. Usually it will take a couple of episodes of skimming and sanding to get it just right. The big trick I learned is to use a wide tool for skim coating, not a little putty knife.Now that I've done the first coat of paint I can see some more flaws I need to fix. But the walls look much better. I chose a pale neutral gray Benjamin Moore colour called Gray Mist. It's very subtle, quite warm, and just enough colour to contrast with the trim. I like the trim in our new house so I wanted it to show.

So that's the plan for the walls, next I'll show the furnishings!

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Flea market apartment

After: the curves on the backs are my favourite detail of the dining chairs

Lately I've been doing a lot of furniture collecting and refinishing for our new house. It's funny how with each move I've felt the need to upgrade. After buying a condo suddenly my old wooden IKEA $129 couch just wasn't good enough. This time we actually have enough room to have a living/dining room and I thought it would be nice to have some dining chairs instead of the kitchen style table and chairs we have now. Also our loft bed is staying in the condo and we needed a new bed.

The first (and actually necessary) thing I found was a nice vintage wooden bed on craigslist. Most of our things are secondhand things I found there and then refurbished. I love it because it's like citywide swapping - I also sold some things we didn't want anymore. The bed was such a find because I really wanted a Victorian cottage style bed with turned posts. It just turned out that the only one I could find in that style was only $50 - such a bargain.

Before: doesn't look that great but has potential!

It's a nice solid hardwood, but was painted a heavy dark blue colour. I sanded it (just a bit - it's such a chore) and primed and painted it a creamy white. Now I love it! (You can see the finished bed in the background of the chair pictures.)

Before: I wanted to show the chairs looking terrible, so you can see how much they were transformed!

The second thing we found were some dining chairs that needed a little work - also $50. When we arrived to pick them up the woman told us she had two more that we could have for $15. She had tried to remove the arms and they were a bit of a mess. So now we have a nice matching set of four! They had a yucky pink plush on the seats, also the wood wasn't great, so I sanded, primed and painted them a very pale grey. Then I reupholstered them in a light tan linen type fabric. Now I love them.
This kind of upholstery is so easy. The seat is usually held in place with four screws at the back, after you remove the base, take off the old fabric by prying out the staples or nails (or get your husband to do it while he is watching Dr. Who - thank you Bradley!). Then add your new fabric on top and staple it in place snugly, going from side to side. The only tricky part is folding the corners so that they look neat - it's really trial and error and remember it's ok if it looks a bit messy on the back because it doesn't show once the seat is reattached.

Finally for the bedroom I've reupholstered a small piano bench my parents gave me several years ago. I don't have a "before" picture - it was a charming bamboo and monkey print but in colours that didn't match anything else.I love this new elegant fabric I found on Queen West, it's white linen with bamboo details.They didn't actually have any left, and I was so disappointed but I loved the fabric so I bought the sample pieces from them (for $1!) thinking I could make a cushion at least. It turned out the sample squares were folded so there were two rectangles, one of which was just enough - without a centimetre to spare - to cover the bench. And another piece leftover for a cushion. I used a plain cotton underneath since linen is a bit transparent. Also, it's meant for occasional use only, so the fabric didn't need to be extra sturdy.

So that's what I've been up to, and why our place is looking like a flea market. You know, the kind where you're worried you're going to knock something over. But in 3 weeks everything will be moved into our new little house!

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