A Little New Year's Project

Hello from this side of 2013!  Over the New Year's holiday, I found myself with another chunk of spare time, so I tackled another small project.  This time, some "built-in" shelves for the living room, completed in the last two or three days of 2012. (Sorry about the bad color balance!)

Empty hole between the wall & HVAC duct, behind a chair:

Metal shelf brackets up.  I painted these green to match the wall:

Brackets and shelves getting multiple coats of green paint, same as living rooms walls:

Shelves done and loaded up with CDs! (yes, we still have, and occasionally still buy, CDs).  Happy space-saving new year!

Living Room Sneak Peak: Milky Moss

Behold:



Martha Stewart's Glass of Milk up top, Mossy Rock below. Now we have to clean up and unpack for real!

Living Room Progress.

At the beginning of today, the living room looked like this:



All primed and ready for paint. I decided to try out the Kilz no-VOC primer for this project, since our two birds live next to this room. It worked fairly well; coverage may have been a little less effective than the regular latex Kilz.



At the end of today, the living room had a new white ceiling and upper walls.



I used Martha Stewart Glass of Milk, a lovely warm white. Stay tuned for color.

Avocado, Anyone?

The living room is glue-free, patched, caulked, and ready for primer. We're looking at colors now:



From left to right, we're thinking about:
Oolong Tea, Dill, and Mossy Rock (all from Martha Stewart Low-VOC paints at Home Depot); and Terrapin Green by Benjamin Moore. The pillows are from our (30+ year old) sofa.

Living Room Update

We finished stripping the wallpaper on Saturday, so it only took us one week. However, we're dealing with more of the free range mutant glue like we found in the tiny bedroom/home office upstairs, so we've got a lot of razor-blading, plus some patching and caulking, in our future.



Because we're working in the downstairs, a more open part of our home, we've walled off the living room with sheets of plastic. They expand and contract as we move around, and as the AC cuts on and off. It's like our house has grown a lung in its middle. Kind of beautiful.



Otherwise, the plumbers are upstairs changing out my sink as I type. Suspense!

And So It Continues...Again

The Great Wallpaper Scrape has migrated to our living room (in place of our furniture).




Any guesses on how long this will take?

What We Did Last Night

My living room is now in my dining room (and in my hallway, and in my guest bedroom).




After some summertime laziness, more sweeping change is afoot at the Sow's Ear. We feel inspired by Mr. MJ's parents' pending visit this fall. Whee!