Front Hall Lighting Vote Reference Posts

As my friend Amy aptly pointed out, some reference images for the front hall might be helpful for you in considering your lighting preference vote...

Here's a post with images of the front hall minus the wood floors/runners.

Here's one of the floors/runners in the hall so you can piece together the two to get a sense of the look/colors/feel of it.

Is this helpful? Should I just take a new photo later?

Reminder (so you don't have to scroll around a bunch) - these are the two lighting options up for the vote:

 

Please Vote

Forgive this momentary deviation from the bathroom update (more coming on that after this next weekend)...

Last weekend, whilst buying supplies for the second bathroom at Home Depot, I spotted two light fixtures I'm now considering for our entryway. I had originally planned on trying to spruce up and refab the chandelier that was left for us by CrazyDecoratorFormerOwner, but I've since given up that plan, because I just don't like that chandelier enough to invest in it. That said, I'd love some input on these two choices we're considering:

Option 1 - a rectangular cube pendant in white glass:

Option 2 - a bowl pendant in clear glass:

Both are simple and clean, and the price is right... so, what do you think? Any preferences or strong opinions? Do you hate them both, or love them equally? Throw in your two cents -- didn't you know this is now an interactive home update adventure?!

Thanks in advance!

Floor Update

We'll file this one under trials and tribulations! Here's the quick update. Thanks to a great suggestion from Dad (why didn't we think of this ourselves? because we've never done this before!), we called our homeowner's insurance. And they jumped on board! Over the past few days Dave has been in touch with our claims adjuster who's instructed our every move. Today, an insurance-directed floor company came over to assess the damage and pull up the flooring so that the drying process can begin before the adjuster himself can come next Tuesday.

Remember these floors?

I have to say, it truly never occurred to me that we'd be seeing them again... or so soon!

They pulled up the warped flooring (as you can see, it was a good portion of the dining room and front hall) to reveal mold already growing on the subfloor beneath the damage. They sprayed anti-fungal stuff over the affected area, and set up several large fans and a giant industrial dehumidifier (that's it in the second picture above)...

(Lanie just does not understand what's going on!)

We're not allowed to open the windows at all, or to turn any of the equipment off. Also, there's a large drainage tube running from the industrial dehumidifier to our kitchen sink:

Clearly this presents a challenge to our routine and comfortable living... so what're we to do? As of tonight, we'll be housed, thanks to our insurance company, at the Marriott downtown (less than a block from my office, as it turns out), until Tuesday. Lanie will be comfortably living at her second home with Dave's parents'. Since we won't be back here until Tuesday, and since nothing can really be done until everything's dry and the insurance adjuster comes to look at it and give us further instructions, we won't be able to provide a next update until next week. So... that's where things stand for now. We'll post what we know as soon as we know it! (Happy Anniversary to us!)

I'm off to pack my bags...

Biscayne

After a LONG search... new runners in the hallways:

They are the Biscayne runners from Crate & Barrel in Terra. Also at long last, we spent a good chunk of a wedding gift card to Crate & Barrel! Bonus: the color we'd picked out a couple of weeks ago was the only one on sale! (I'll shop like a Heller forever!)
 

Floors: Near Completion

All of the flooring is installed! So why "near completion" you might be asking? Well, I'm not sure. But all of our contractor's equipment and stuff are still out, so it looks to me like he's not quite finished yet. Also there's an interesting taping situation going on in the front hall, which equally leads me to believe that there more work to do. I think he needs to do some finishing work on the thresholds and the baseboards, but beyond that, I can't figure it out. Guess we'll find out tomorrow. In the meantime, it really looks transformed. Here are some new shots, including a few "perspective" shots for my dad...

(from the front door looking in)

(aforementioned taping situation... we'll call it a tape crop circle)

(mysterious tape crop circle markings - arrows pointing at... well, nothing except the middle of the circle.)

(from our bedroom door, looking down the hall toward the dining room)

(and looking into the kitchen...)

(look at that beautiful, seamless hallway situation! ignore the edge of the tape crop circle...)

(living room)

(perspective shot: looking into the living room from the balcony, by way of the new door! (forgive the mess))

And on a side note... how great is it to still have day light at nearly 7:00pm?! Hooray Spring!

Floors and a Door

Good news! After some set-backs (a few additional set-backs while we were away... but they're in the past now, so they need not be regurgitated), we have some serious floor progress! Hooray! And they are really looking great. So far, the floors are installed in the living room, dining room, most of the hall space, and some of the kitchen. All that's left is the rest of the front hallway, including the closet, and the rest of the kitchen. One or two days more and we're fully floored--literally and figuratively. We also got a surprise phone call on our way home from our travels letting us know that the replacement slider for the living room had come in, so the new sliding door is also in place, and it looks fantastic. Bonus: it opens and closes easily! Great day at the HSS! Enjoy...

(living and dining room: complete!)

(hallway through to the master suite door: complete!)

(front hall -- complete up to the closet area)

(kitchen: just barely started... say goodbye to those amazing laminate faux bricks!)

And here's the new slider (I promise I'll provide better photos in daylight):

(ooh la la = easy access to grill)

Lanie thinks it smells funny in here, but I think she appreciates how sleek it's looking!

Hopefully there will be more exciting news to report on tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm off to consider running for the condo Board (oh, man...)!

Doors/Blessing Update

Courtesy of my good friend, Ash...

"I think they mis-wrote the G - it should be a C:

A Catholic tradition for the Epiphany is the blessing of doors. With chalk the letters CMB are written, symbolic of the names of the 3 magi (Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) and also an abbreviation for the Latin blessing Christus Mansionem Benedicat (Christ Bless this House). If your family is interested in this blessing, you can read more about it here. May each of your homes receive  "health, purity, the strength of victory, humility, goodness and mercy" and many other blessings!"

With this new information in my arsenal, I returned to Google and found A BILLION (at least) listings confirming this to be the case. The 19 and the 89 surrounding the three letters represent the year of the blessing (1989). And I have also found an explanation for the G/C confusion - in Hungarian, "Caspar" is "Gaspar"... so the mystery is solved! Thanks, Ash!

Has me thinking about other ways to bless/honor/bring good luck upon a home...

 

Front Hallway and Signs of Life

I apologize for the delayed conclusion to our hallway painting pre-post. Between required touch-ups to the paint job (look for a future post on painter's tape) and travel (me, for work), we decided to clean up the whole job and put some stuff on the walls so that when we did get around to posting, there'd be much greater impact (I love drama!). To that end... we finished up the hallway painting with what I would say is great success. The blue was... well, very blue at first, but I still loved it. I think part of the "wow!" of it all was just how different it was from what it had been. The decision to paint the dining side of the new wall was a good one. The blue and the taupe in the kitchen complement each other really nicely, so when you're looking through the new pass-through window, it looks great! And now that we've lived with it for a bit, I think the blue really works. We have also now painted the living room (with a cool detail... more on that tomorrow), and the whole thing together looks beautiful (I/we think, at least!).

As to the "signs of life" referenced in the title of this post, we have finally, as of last night and tonight, put our first things on the wall! It started with our hooks for our keys, which I put up last night, just to have done it. And tonight, we put up two new picture shelves in the front hall, and even pulled out, dusted off, and put up some of our framed art! Not sure if this bunch of photos/art will stick, but we just wanted to see something up -- a little bit more of us in this place, finally.

And so, without further ado... I present the hallway/accent wall conclusion:

(front entrance - duh)

(hallway, up to the master suite door)

(dining side of the new wall -- now an accent wall!)

(window pass-through between the dining room and kitchen - how do the colors look together?)

(yes, we hang our keys on two dog-butts, thanks to my T! btw, they're from IKEA)

(too much? too busy? okay? whatever, for now we're just happy to have something up!)

Finally, I'll give you a little preview to tomorrow's post on the living room. The color we picked is a gray called "Little Falls." It has blue undertones and is from the same family of colors as the taupe in the kitchen and the blue in the hall. Having it up makes the blue make more sense, and helps with the flow. I mentioned above that we decided to add a detail, and I have to say, it's impressive. Go Dave! So, more on that tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's the corner where the living room meets the blue dining wall:

(intrigued?!)

Hallways/Dining Wall Paint Teaser

I'm more than a little excited about this paint color -- as soon as we put up our first patch, I was *nearly* squealing, it looked so good! In a matter of moments, the entryway was already transformed, and everything is looking so fresh and bright and new. I have to thank my dear friend, P(C)M for encouraging this choice. On the swatch it was just a number, but thanks to the label on the paint can, I can tell you that this is called "A Patch of Blue" (and it's a winner!):

(The "color"-ness of it made me a bit anxious at first, but trust me, it looks fantastic!)

I'll leave the "After" photos for when the second coat is up tomorrow, for more impact! (Mwahahahaha!)


More tomorrow...

Painting - Hallways and Dining Room Accent Wall

I knew we'd finally start talking about something besides the kitchen! This weekend we're painting the front hall, the hallway through to the Master Suite, and the other side of the new wall between the dining room and the kitchen. Before we get started, I just wanted to give some perspective...

You may recall that upon move-in, our front hall was wallpapered like this: 

And then we peeled it off to reveal this:

(minty!)

So that was Before... this is Middle:

And soon we'll be able to show you After!

Originally we were going to paint all of the living room and dining area one (same) color, but we've changed our minds and are painting the dining room side of the new kitchen wall the same color as the halls. The idea is that this will create an accent wall, as well as connect the three physically connected areas (halls, kitchen, dining/living rooms). The three colors we've chosen for these spaces all tie together, so hopefully this will also help to blend the spaces more seamlessly (we hope!)... Now, on to priming away that minty green wall!