March 10th, 2010
Even after we rehab every room, mad maison is only 1,080 square feet (excluding the garage). While many people would consider that a small space, it’s actually a bit larger than our apartment back in Queens–and it’s plenty of space for mad. Like many older spaces, however, it is a little lacking in closet space. Our house only has two closets (one in each bedroom), which is half the number of closets we had in Queens. It’s important, therefore, that we take full advantage of each of them. The closet in our bedroom is actually more spacious than we expected, with an alcove that fits a little dresser. Of course, despite its size, there is no light in the closet. While our longer term plan is to have an electrician wire the closet with light, that’s not in the cards for phase one of mad maison rehab. I was determined to come up with an interim improvement that didn’t involve me holding a flashlight with my teeth as I try to find my clothes. Do you ever get one of those catalogs of various home improvement gadgets wondering if you’d ever use them? Well, your good friends at mad maison can attest that at least one of those gadgets comes in handy–the motion sensor battery-powered light. It was easy to install, and by using a couple of them I actually have decent visibility of every nook and cranny of the closet. Here at mad maison we call that a win.
A little home improvement that helps a lot.
Posted in SF House, bedroom | 4 Comments »
March 8th, 2010
Now that mad has removed all the wallpaper from the dining room, we can start of the next steps of prepping the walls for painting. Our dining room has some unique features: it has pressed tin wainscoting covering the first five feet of wall, it has a “plate shelf” that sits right above the wainscoting, and it has a coved ceiling. It is also connected to our living room by a wide arch (often referred to as a “double parlor”), so we want to make sure the two rooms work well together. We will therefore carry the beautiful earth-tone wall color we painted in the living room into the dining room.
And again, apartment therapy and my mom come to our aide. My mom, after flipping through a recent issue of Living etc I brought back from the UK, suggested we paint the lower half of the walls the same color as our living room. I was initially wary about painting the pressed tin until I saw a tour of a charming SF apartment over at apartment therapy where the inhabitants painted their wainscoting a darker color. As you can see, the look is compelling and we’re tempted to follow suit. I’ll be doing some test painting after work this week while mike completes some of the other prep steps like washing the walls and completing the plaster repair. Regardless, mad always gets excited when we get to the this point of a project–I think we’re both shocked we got to this point so quickly for this particular room. Whether or not this pace remains is all up to the pressed tin, primer, paint, and guile.
My mom proven correct, again. Photo from apartmenttherapy.com.
A little site business for those of you interested: you’ll notice this photo links to our new flickr account. We’ll be migrating our photos over there, as well as uploading a few additional photos that haven’t been previously blogged.
Posted in Site Business, dining room | 2 Comments »
March 7th, 2010
Last summer, mad started the journey of rehabilitating our home room by room. We started in the living room, thinking it would take a week and that would be that. Starting with that fateful room, mad soon learned that this was not going to be a fast process. The wallpaper in this house seems to have been partially infused into the wall, all to address cracks and damage to the plaster walls. We realized each room would take weeks or months to strip, repair, prime, and paint. Our dedication to rehabbing this house “right” was recently reinforced when I read a well-written blog by a couple in Chicago who are rehabbing their Chi-town bungalow. When presented with one wall in their bedroom that is like every single wall in our house, they decided to leave the wallpaper and paint over it. It’s become clear to me that our path might be honorable, but it’s also lonely. We started building our arsenal of wallpaper removal products, from scrapers, to DIF gel, to power steamers. It was with this sense of patience and determination that we decided to head to the next room for repair, the dining room. Our dining room is the largest room in the house and serves as both dining room and my home office. It has great bones, and we were thrilled that due to the presence of tin wainscoting that lines the lower five feet of wall (more on that in a future post), we wouldn’t have as much wallpaper to remove.
That thrill was initially squelched when we first moved in, removed some wallpaper in the room “dry” (without any removal gel or steam), and discovered three layers of wallpaper on the walls. Last week, however, we decided to jump in and attack a very small stretch of the dining room with all of our newly found know-how and our arsenal of supplies. Lo and behold, that section of wall was free of all three layers in under an hour. Before we knew it, we removed a third of the wallpaper in less than three hours. Yesterday, mad was committed to getting the dining room to a wallpaper-free state by the end of the day. And I’m happy to report at exactly 11:59 pm last night we stood and looked at the hospital green walls now visible where wallpaper used to be. In addition, unlike every other room in the house, the dining room has three cracks total that will require the infamous Big Wally’s plaster magic. That means we won’t have to skim (and therefore sand) the room. That means we can do minor repairs, and then immediately prime and paint. We might even have a finished dining room before spring is fully upon us. We are eternally grateful to this room and this house for finally giving us a break.
A view of the three layers of wallpaper found in the dining room.
Who would have thought mad would find an expanse of hospital green walls in their own house so beautiful.
Posted in SF House, dining room | 2 Comments »
February 25th, 2010
I will admit, mad has strange taste in television programs. Mike enjoys televised sporting events, while I am a sucker for certain procedural dramas. However, we share an appreciation for PBS and documentaries of all shapes and sizes. So it’s not surprising that I’ve been watching the PBS series that sparked the 2009 White House “Beer Summit,” Faces of America. I find myself watching the show with a mix of pride and longing. Mike and I come from salt-of-the earth folks. There are no founding fathers, original settlers, or 600 year-old ancient Asian family histories for either of us. As best as we can tell, there weren’t any mad ancestors inhabiting the new world before 1880. Our grandparents and great-grandparents were farmers, mechanics, salesmen, blacksmiths, bus drivers, and gardeners. No statesmen, no artists, and certainly, no bloggers. But they worked hard to create their own family traditions. As I watch a show that’s all about people seeing generations of family legacy placed before them, thereby renewing their commitment to that legacy, my own commitment is renewed. Because while the legacy we’re a part of in this house is only 67 years old–that seems pretty significant to me. Knowing that we’re not just making a home, but making it in the same place that my pops played ball, learned to read, and learned to drive. It may not be a colonial piece of history, but it works for us.
a mad kind of gothic
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February 21st, 2010
I’ve never understood folks who like to style their hair and put on their makeup in the bathroom (the most humid room in the house). Because I share our one full bathroom with Mike (and I like a steamless room to complete my morning ritual) I wanted to create a little area in our new bedroom where I could put on makeup and style my hair. I took a little inspiration from a recent blog post from Anna at door sixteen and painted an Ikea BEKVÄM step stool in colors that match the bedroom. The step stool also functions as a nice little seat. We then installed a simple shelf and a mirror. I rounded out the project with some inexpensive painted boxes to store glasses and makeup that was inspired by a $100 storage shelf from CB2. I’m very pleased with the results, and I think it will be a very functional area for me to use every day.
Inspiration thanks to doorsixteen, ikea, and cb2
The completed vanity project. Simple and functional.
Posted in SF House, bedroom | 3 Comments »
February 1st, 2010
I know that a lot of people use the internet to distract from the frustrations of everyday life. For some it’s reading every news article on their subject of choice. For others it’s checking out every video on You Tube on their subject of choice. For yet other people it’s all about wikipedia. And of course, there’s always Facebook. For me, while I try to have a nice balance to my internet interests, I’ve been finding myself spending an inordinate amount of time looking at light. Honestly, adding more lamps and lighting is item 1,011 on a 1,200 item list here at mad maison, but I can’t help myself. And, I’ve found my muse. There’s a beautiful lamp at Room and Board that has become the grail of my quest. My goal is to find a slightly shorter, much less expensive version of the Olinda lamp. I love that the glass base reduces the “visual clutter” as my teachers at HGTV would say. My distraction has begun. I only hope I don’t have to distract myself from my distraction.
My current distraction. Photo from Room and Board
Posted in SF House, madness | 3 Comments »
January 31st, 2010
Since I’ve started cross-posting madmaison to my facebook page, mad has started seeing an uptick in the comment traffic on our site, for which we’re very grateful. One of the questions we received via comments warranted an answer in a new post. Faithful reader Michelle wrote “That sure is a lot of work! do you take breaks in between rooms?”
The short answer to the question is no, but with most things mad, the truth is a little more complex. Now that mad has worked through a couple of rooms, we’ve realized that we’ve developed a bit of a rhythm when it comes to completing our rehab work. We’ve already started working on our next project, which is the floor of our bathroom. It has older, dirty linoleum tiles that were installed by my grandfather when my pops was just a lad. We’re many years away from doing a full reno on the bathroom, but as an interim measure we want to get down to the original wood plank flooring (as we did everywhere else in the house). We’re often motivated to start working right away on the next room due to the enthusiasm and excitement generating from finishing a room. Inevitably, once we start working on that next room, we start to realize we’re a little wiped out and slow the pace down a bit–only for that pace to pick up again as we start to see the progress we’re making. In addition, mad tries hard to incorporate a little fun in our fair city. When you’re working on a project like this it’s easy to get frustrated, burnt out, and yes, even a little bitter. We try to make sure we take time to enjoy San Francisco so we can remember why we’re on this adventure in the first place.
All things considered, we think we have a pretty healthy yet productive pace for rehabbing the whole house before we get too far into this new decade.
the two mad cats, trying to teach us how to pace ourselves
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January 28th, 2010
mad has been happily sleeping in our new bedroom for almost a month. We’re still in the process of “settling in” to the room–unpacking any remaining boxes of stuff that belong there–but it’s been absolutely wonderful to have such a restorative place to retire to every night. I wanted to share before and after pictures of the room. The before picture was while my pops was still clearing the house out (mad was in NY when the before picture was taken). We won’t be displaying any of our art until the whole house is done (rehab dust finds its way everywhere), but the furniture is in place and (most important), the walls are done.
Here's a before shot of our bedroom, while my pops was working away.
Our newly completed bedroom. It's unusual to have both cats pose for a picture.
Posted in SF House, bedroom | 9 Comments »
January 23rd, 2010
I’m happy to report that project sneaky was a success. After Mike expressed a little guilt that I completed some work without him (what a sweety!), he has stated that even with the few items that need to be changed, our ‘new’ half bath is currently his favorite room in the house. Given that I picked the wall color (gray tint from Benjamin Moore) without him, I’m thrilled and relieved that he’s happy. I’m also pleasantly surprised that what I had planned as a temporary fix, spray-painting the brass frame of the mirror silver, is one of Mike’s favorite elements. There’s also something invigorating for both of us to work through a room so quickly. I’ve gotten a couple of requests to show the room with the floor visible as well (since it was so visible in the before shot). Here you can see the wood floors that run through the whole house. We’re so grateful that these floors were refinished before we arrived–and I think you’ll agree they ensure that all of our work has a gorgeous “canvas” to sit on .
Here's our new half-bath, including our gorgeous floors
Posted in Half Bath, SF House | 2 Comments »
January 20th, 2010
This past Saturday, Mike caught a flight to Florida to visit his mom. He was able to leave with a sense of accomplishment, knowing that I would be sleeping in clean, restful comfort in our newly completed bedroom. What he didn’t know is that I had a plan to surprise him with some covert home improvements. I decided to enlist my pops to help me complete a small but meaningful project. It seemed like a tangible way to say “thank you” to my amazing partner who has embraced this adventure by working hard to make our house a home. Mike is en route to California now, so this is a perfect opportunity to let our faithful readers in on the project before Mike even knows about it.
We have a small 1/2 bath that was created in the early 1990′s out of a coat closet. True to form, it was decorated with wallpaper and other touches that are not exactly to mad’s tastes. The room is tiny, but something we use quite frequently. Given that the wallpaper isn’t 900 years old, isn’t painted over, and is in such a small room, I thought it presented a perfect opportunity. Over the course of Sunday and Monday (which was a holiday for me), my dad and I removed the wallpaper, primed, and painted the room. I now understand how all of these wallpaper removal products are supposed to work. We scored the wallpaper, sprayed some Diff, and after some steaming, pealed the paper off in about an hour. There are things still left to be done in the room (replacing the beige toilet and sink primary among them), but the task that has given mad the most grief over the last 6 months is done. We’ve also removed all the brass-colored fittings and replaced them with mad-friendly chrome. I’m hoping Mike appreciates the surprise. Perhaps he’ll let you know in this very blog after he recovers from his long flight and jet lag.
Here's the original 1/2 bath on our main floor. Notice the wallpaper and brass fittings.
The after. No more wallpaper, and chrome fittings. Trust me, this light is much better.
Posted in Half Bath, SF House | Comments Off
