"Master"

Master bedrooms or "master suites" are weird, aren't they? I mean when you think about it, how strange is it to have a bathroom in your bedroom? Why do they need to go together? Even more odd, how does the closet get involved in all of that?

Yes, I understand how it works. You get up, you fall out of bed and stumble blindly into the bathroom to shower. Then you walk unobstructed (maybe un-toweled?) into your closet and then you are ready to get dressed. It's all nearby so that you don't have to walk down any halls or put on any robes. But what about all of that is really "master" like?

A master should have his or her own wing. That way, bathroom business is separate from sleeping which is also separate from getting dressed. I know, some houses ARE like this. My house, on the other hand, is not.

Here was the sorry state of affairs when we moved in:

As you can see, the walls were an odd shade of yellowy gold. Unfortunately, it was yellowy gold over what seems to be navy blue. In addition, there were many un-painted patches and un-patched holes. The trim was actually a few different shades of cream and tan. But overall, the room is a good size.

The bathroom definitely leaves something to be desired. How many "master" bathrooms do you know that only have 1 sink? How many of them are roughly 10 x 7 at their widest point? (Which is where toilet is directly across from huge vanity.)

Ok, say you know a master suite with a bathroom like that... does the layout of the suite force you to walk through that tiny bathroom to get to the closet?

I didn't think so.

Without a doubt this was the worst thing about this house. Its tough to get dressed for work in the morning if someone else is in the bathroom. Actually, its not tough, it's impossible because you can't get to your clothes because you don't have access. Sure, we could be one of those couples that walks into the bathroom while the other one is using it, but quite frankly, I just wont allow it. There is no need to be that kind of close with anyone.

Clearly, I've gone off on a rant. But basically, that was one wrong that needed to be made right quickly. So while I re-painted and unified the trim, patched holes (so many holes), and tried to choose paint colors for improving the look of the bedroom...

Dan got out the old sledge hammer to improve the functionality. 

And after the destruction comes the reconstruction.

After obscene amounts of shellac (DO NOT BUY TRIM WITH KNOTS) and primer and paint and a second chance e-bay auction, we now have access to all of the clothes and a nice looking bedroom!

So if you've been keeping track, we have done the following:

1. Patched and painted walls and trim

2. Built and installed an awesome sliding barn-style door

3. Gained access to our closet!

4. Purchased gorgeous oak dressers (funny story to come)

5. Bought new blankets and lamps

6. Moved an outlet

7. Displayed our quilts on an old ladder (also a funny one)

8. Put up some art

which leaves:

1. Install curtain rods and new curtains

2. Prime and paint the patches on either side of the door

3. Put something on the wall above the headboard and the wall between closet/bathroom doors

4. Class up the dog beds somehow

That's not very much left. This is without a doubt the closest I have ever been to being "finished" with a room. Although, "finished" is a relative term... I still think I need a different headboard/footboard and maybe I should do something about that bench... the possibilities are endless. 

What do you think? It's a far cry from where we started, isn't it?

Christmas at #12

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Sadlon Road! I know I'm late, but that always happens so really, you should expect it by now.

I was going to start taking down my decorations yesterday when I realized that I should probably share them with the  three readers who haven't come by this season... If you're still there. And I don't want to make a ton of promises I can't keep, but you know I will, so here's another one: I got a tablet for Christmas, so it's a possibility I may post more frequently. It's also a possibility that I will be too busy crushing candies to do anything worth while. Yeah, it got me.

So then, here is Christmas at our house, 2013.

Outside decorations were kept fairly simple. A light in each window is somewhat traditional and boring, but it looks so pretty and classic. I added the lit garland around the door for more light, but it almost seems to emphasize how small the front door is in comparison to the total width of the house. Should I repeat next year? The lit wreath was actually here when we moved in. I don't think I will use it again next year because it seems like an oddball item. What I wanted to do was string lit garlands up the peak of the garage, swagging every 3 feet or so. I just ran out of time, after I spent nearly 5 hours (over the course of 2 days) removing fake fruit from individual window swags (also left behind) only to find that they were too small to fit our windows. Doh. And let's admit it, the weather was just too cold to get the Mister to cooperate (heavy ladders would have been necessary, and surprisingly, I can't do everything myself).

Daytime visitors were welcomed by 3 handmade wreaths hung on the lanterns in between the garage doors. The outside two wreaths were a snap to make because I had purchased some of those bendy forms that let you make a wreath without wire. Next year, I will buy an additional bendy form (at the Fryeburg Fair) so that they can all be uniform. My inner OCD was plagued by the square middle wreath. The inner artist really liked it though.  If I forced you to use the door to the mudroom this season instead of letting you walk through the garage, its because I thought you needed to see the wreath I made with my Mom. There may have been a lot of whining and wine involved... the whining may have been about worthless husbands, but I can't recall exactly. As I honestly believe every single year, this is the best wreath I have ever made, and I love it.

Inside the house was a challenge, I admit. It seems that I have way too many items to put out for Christmas (see this video I took for proof) and I couldn't decide what should go out in the new house because all I could think about was where it went in the old house. After a full day of putting out decorations (mind you, this is after 2 days of battling with the trees) I had enough of the decorating was satisfied with the end result. There ended up being a little Christmas in every room without being overwhelming.

Lesson learned: never put a sign like this in the way of your liquor cabinet around the Holidays. 

As usual, the snowmen dominated the kitchen, but they can't sit on the cabinets here like they did in Manchester, so I had to be a little more creative. My Mother in Law always urges me to leave them up all winter, and I might take her advice this year. I would say it depends on how quickly I get agitated with putting everything away.

The mantel was the first thing I decorated, and the only place in the house where I really had something in mind. I love the forresty outdoor look of it, though I wish there was an outlet within extension cord distance so that I could light up the twig snowflakes. These are the things you have to consider when building a house people! You know you're going to decorate a mantal for Christmas, put an outlet in for God's sake!

Don't you just love google auto-awesome? They decided to add the snowflakes here.

These fun/funky/wild garlands were actually left here by the previous owners (as was the retro sled that I paired with ice skates on the front porch). I love their untamed look, but I do wish there was about 3 feet more so I could drape it down the railing post you see to the right in the photo above.

Upstairs I kept it fairly simple, one little tree in each of the bedrooms and my Pottery Barn pillow guarded by Smokey at the entrance to our room.

As for the trees, I had always wanted two. After a long lecture from my husband however, I had every intention of saving money by just selecting one real tree this year. So when my Mom and I went up the road to Starkey's (literally about 1.5 miles up the road), I picked out the traditional evergreen tree that we used in the office.

But when I caught a glimpse of the concolor fir tree, I couldn't resist. It's like my hands were sawing away while I could hear the echo in my head "he's going to be mad!"

Christmas Mandy gets a little carried away sometimes. It was like I saw the sparkles on this tree way before google ever thought to add them.

Its tough to tell in pictures, but the needles are just humongous, and its so dense and gorgeous that it almost looked better without the ornaments and lights. Obviously, that didn't stop yours truly. To be fair, the tree was only $35, and I borrowed the stand from my Gramma - so it's not like I went crazy wasting money.

After I have spent the whole season with them in the house however, I have concluded that I probably wont get two trees next year. I don't really have enough ornaments to cover them both, and I almost never had time to sit in our office and enjoy the traditional tree. Let's just play it by ear next time, ok?

As for a few of the things you might have noticed as "new" or "different" since I last bothered to post, I'm going to do an update in a few days and let you know whats been going on around here... maybe.

Probably. If I clean up the craft room by the end of the weekend.

Let's just play it by ear, ok?

ReStore Score

Sometimes when you buy something awesome for a great price, you just have to show it off.

These fixtures were $5 each at ReStore. With some black spray paints and new glass panels (hopefully they wont be too expensive) these bad boys will look like new. 

That is all, carry on.

A Festivus Miracle.

Technically speaking, it's not Festivus yet, but this really was a miracle of sorts.

After I wrote about my camera troubles, I decided to try the very last SD card at my disposal. The camera had given me the CHR/CHA error with 3 different SD cards, so I didn't have much faith.

Wouldn't you know it? The fourth card was the charm!

So I bring you some scenes from my dining room. First up, the old hutch.

I'm sorry, but I have to tell you this story. 

I saw the hutch back in April on craigslist. This was the photo provided. Looking at the picture, you can see a lot of other stuff. Bags, boxes, etc. I dismissed this, thinking that all of those things had recently come out of the hutch, and that's why they were placed haphazardly around it. Hold your hats dear readers, this is a good one.

The woman promised to give me the hutch for $65 after I (somewhat misleadingly) told her it was for our first house. I assumed that her "I remember my first house" attitude made her an older woman. False. 

My Dad and I drove out to Bristol (a 50 minute ride) and found a young Mom at the door in a flannel shirt and... oh my God, is she not wearing any pants? Oh, wait... she is just wearing tan shorts. Ok, thank God. 

"I forgot that you were coming today" she said, inviting us inside... into her Hoarder's Paradise. She secured some dogs in the kitchen out of the way, while one of her kids showed me his toy. I thought I saw a chicken out of the corner of my eye, and I started freaking out a little. 

Bringing us into the dining room, I learned that the "stuff" was probably never inside the hutch, she just lived in a pig pen. (Disclaimer: I don't think there were actual pigs, but I didn't see the whole house). A small cat walked in between my legs, and I relaxed a little bit. "it was just a cat!" I thought to myself, "chickens in the house with dogs would never work." And I laughed at my foolishness. 

As it turned out, the hutch was in great shape, aside from some dog teeth marks on one of the corners, nothing that I couldn't fix. So I gladly handed over my $65 and we got to the Herculean task of getting the hutch into my Dad's truck. 

Did you notice that I never, ever, ever ask my husband to do these tasks?

The hutch did not separate. It was one solid piece that weighed about a thousand pounds. There was a lot of grunting, shifting and shimmying that went into getting that bad boy into the truck - and it required all 3 of us to do it. About 30 minutes after we arrived, we were set to go. 

After a round of laughs, I said "Dad, did you see the cat at first? I thought it was a chicken!" 

"It was a chicken! There were 3 of them in the other room!" He responded, completely befuddled. 

"Can you imagine how Dan would have reacted if I brought him to do this?" I asked, right before buying him lunch, a few beers, and putting gas in his truck.

Since we were moving soon, I left the hutch in my parents garage and promised I would return for it at some point. Luckily, we had plenty of strapping young men to load and unload it at the new house. 

I don't want to make this story any longer than it already is, so I'll wrap it up by saying this: the adventure of getting the hutch was nothing compared to the amount of work required to refinish it. Fortunately, I was finally able to hook up our paint gun (the Heavens opened and Angels sang) so the paint job went quickly. 

Here she is now:

I picked a greyish blue from Sherwin Williams called "Mineral Deposit". I'm really pleased with the outcome, it shows off my white serving pieces and dishes well, and I think it will blend with the "linen white" trim color that I inherited with this house.

I did mess around with the arrangement of the dishes when I first set it up, but I'm still working on it. I think I might need to add some additional color or pattern (with fabric or paper) to the back of the cabinets to make the dishes pop a little bit more.

The Mr. was quite pleased when I completed this project, because it meant I could finally unpack the dining room boxes that had spent the entire summer just hanging out. And I was happy because I noticed that the color of the hutch is a pretty close replica to the plates we used at our wedding. Subconscious color selection, for the win.

Like I said, the arranging needs work, but at least it all fits... sort of.

And now, without further delay - check out the chandelier!

There is still a ton of work to be done in this room, but hey - now we have the light to be able to do it!

• Paint dark brown wood trim "linen white"
• Paint walls: color suggestions needed!
• Hang blue and white plates from the wedding collection
• Curtains!
• New (to me) dining set?
• Get my Dad to finish patching the ceiling and wall (this should probably take top priority)

What do you think? I know, you're too excited about the camera being fixed to care about anything else. You're not alone.