Spring at the Yellow House

The Yellow House is in full bloom!  I just love this time of year!

(Don't miss Mr. Bullet hanging out in the corner there.  He's gotten so skinny that he looks like one of the bars on the fence.  Mr. Bullet hates the hose, so he's not much help with the gardening.)

The Halls of the Yellow House Are Decked!

I just love the sparkle and warm glow of the holiday season! 



Inside the Yellow House Master Bedroom

I've been delinquent in posting the next set of pictures of the inside of the Yellow House.  If you missed the pictures of my living room and dining room, you can find them here.  

So without further adieu, let's go upstairs to the master bedroom and bath.  

So that you can fully understand the transformation, here are the before pictures.  Like the downstairs, the master bedroom had gorgeous carpet.  Great closet space too!

Notice how the transoms above the doors had been painted over. 

The closets were just barely deep enough to hold a hanger, but I'm not sure if they would have been able to accommodate clothes on those hangers.  

And here are the afters.  As you can see, I continued my theme of black and white and pink.  I kept the row of closets across the back wall, so I didn't lose a chunk of the bedroom to a walk-in closet.  The closet space is actually pretty generous for such a tiny house.  I did replace the standard-height doors with eight-foot doors to draw the eye upward to the high ceilings.  The louvered doors mimic the plantation shutters.  

The bed is from a flea market.  It was rusted and in generally bad shape, which meant that I got it for next to nothing.  I took it to an auto body shop to have it cleaned up and powder coated.

There's a funny story to the quilt on the bed.  Years ago, I decided that someday I wanted to have a black and white bedroom, with a black and white quilt.  I fell in love with this quilt while I was out shopping with my mother.  Even though I had no place to put it just then, I bought the quilt and figured I would have it when the time came.  I stashed it at my parents' and promptly forgot all about it.  Well, fast forward about three years.  I bought the house and decided that I wanted a black and white quilt (guess my taste hadn't changed much).  I started to shop around for bedding, when my mother asked if I was going to use the quilt in their attic.  Good thing she remembered, or I would have gone crazy trying to find the perfect quilt that I already had!


I couldn't find exactly the right artwork for next to the bed.  I had in my head just what I wanted, but I couldn't find it in the real world.  So finally I asked someone I know who is an artist to paint the flowers for me.

Between the closets, the windows, and the doors, the lack of wall space for furniture was a real problem.  Instead of nightstands, I got two Bombay chests at a discount store to flank the bed.   They originally had a horrible rose pattern painted on the front, but I had them repainted in that same shiny white that went on the upright dresser.  The upright dresser, which just fits between the windows, used to be my grandmother's.   I love the way a couple of coats of paint makes all three pieces look like part of the same set.


Remember those painted-over transoms?  Don't they look fantastic fully restored?  Fully functional, they tilt to allow air to circulate, even with the doors closed (old-fashioned air conditioning!).  The transoms are one of my favorite features of the house.


The fabric on the faux Roman shades and on the chair is Sunbrella indoor-outdoor fabric, which is perfect for a room that gets a lot of light because it doesn't fade.  So the black won't fade to gray or purple.  The shades are not working Roman shades.  I knew I would never put them down, so it wasn't worth spending the money on the extra fabric.  The shades are trimmed with pink beads (which unfortunately don't show up in the pictures).  The beads actually doubled the cost of the shades, but they look great sparkling in the sunshine.


The house did not originally have a bedroom off of the master bedroom, but I really wanted one, so I took a slice out of the adjoining second bedroom.  I love how you can see the pop of pink from the bedroom.


I know the pink isn't for everyone, but it's perfect for me.  I think it works because most of the walls are covered with tile, so there's just a little bit of pink.



The artwork on the wall in the bathroom is left over from a college photography class.  I didn't turn out to be much of a photographer, but I did come a way with a few keepers.  I'm still looking for the perfect something for above the toilet.



Thanks for coming on this tour with me!

Linking to: (Sorry, Blogger is not letting me insert text links at the moment!)
http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to-84th-metamorphosis-monday.html
http://www.bystephanielynn.com/
http://cottageinstincts.blogspot.com/
http://todayscreativeblog.net/
http://www.somewhatsimple.com/2010/08/strut-your-stuff-with-sugar-lane.html
http://www.theshabbychiccottage.net/2010/08/transformation-thursday.html
http://www.remodelaholic.com/

Featured on Remodelaholic

My living and dining room makeover were featured on Remodelaholic today!  I'm so excited.  I always ogle at the beautiful renovations highlighted on this awesome blog, so I'm so flattered for my house be included among the featured renovations.  (And, of course, I'm so grateful for all of the generous and wonderful comments I've recieved here on Inside the Yellow House!) 

Please check it out, as well as all of the other good stuff.  In particular, Remodelaholic has a ton of great tutorials, so you CAN try it at home!

Inside the Yellow House Living Room

After I regaled you with before-and-after pictures of the front and back of my house, a couple of people kindly asked to see the inside as well.  So, here's the first installment: the living room and dining room.

The house was built in either 1878 or 1880, depending on which records you reference, and, frankly, it hadn't had a lot of maintenance since then.  It was in pretty bad shape.  Interestingly, it was built without a kitchen or bathroom (more on that in subsequent editions), which just fascinates me.

I often say that work on my house will never be finished because I'm constantly thinking about the next project.  But here's where things are right now.  I'm so happy with the way the renovations turned out.  

But first: the "before" pictures.  I wish this blog had Smell-O-Vision, so you could fully appreciate the overpowering smell of stale cat urine that had completely permeated that gorgeous brown carpet.

When I bought the house, the living room and dining room were two separate rooms, separated by a pocket door.   I hated to get rid of the pocket door, but I ultimately decided that the first floor would feel so much bigger if the two rooms were combined.  

There was also a little tiny entryway that led into a very narrow hallway and up the enclosed staircase.  The result was that the house felt really cramped.  Those curtains don't do much for the house either.  

And, here's how it looks today!  A little different?

When we ripped up that brown carpet, we found 1950s "parquet" linoleum.  And beneath that, the original heart pine floors, which were perfectly preserved by all that linoleum.  And white paint is obviously my best friend.  I think the white walls are a great canvas for all of the other color.  

Most of the furniture has been repurposed, repainted, and reupholstered from the pieces' former lives.  The dining room set and coffee table were my grandparents' and were originally painted sort of an antique gold.  I think my grandparents would be surprised to see how they look now, but I know they would just love that I get so much pleasure from their treasures.

The house had four fireplaces when it was built, and the mantel currently in the living room was originally in the dining room.  When I decided to get rid of three of the fireplaces due to lack of space, I kept this mantel, which I liked better.  The mirror above the fireplace used to be a church window.  I found the frame at a flea market and added the mullions, mirror, and--of course, a lot of white paint.

The portraits of Mr. Bullet were taken a few years back by a professional photographer in Alexandria who specializes in pet portraits.  I couldn't pick just one.  (Yes, I am that dog owner.)  Notice that the staircase is no longer enclosed.  Taking down that wall was apparently a big endeavor, but it was so worth it.

Pink and yellow and black and white are my two favorite color combinations.  I love that I was able to incorporate both in the house.  But I swear I loved that sour apple green color long before it became as trendy as it is today.  The buffet was also a flea market find, transformed with some paint and drawer pulls mounted flush against the surface. 

The built-in bookshelves really complete the room (and provide a lot of much-needed storage).  The contractor thought they would be too much and wanted to limit them to the living room end of the room, but I'm so glad I insisted on the whole wall.  The room looks so much bigger than it ever did before the renovations.  

So that's the living room.  Literally, each night when I come home, I think how much I just love it.  If you happen to be in D.C., some see it in person!

Linking to: 

Make It Yours Day @ My Backyard Eden

Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints On The Fridge

Strut Yourself Thursday@ Somewhat Simple

Remodelaholic Friday @ Remodelaholic

Home And Family Friday @ Home Is Where My Story Begins

Favorite Things Friday @ A Few Of My Favorite Things

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps On The Porch

Flowers in the Front

A couple of weeks ago, I posted before-and-after pictures of my back patio.  At the time, I promised that I would be back with pictures of the front of the house.  So here is the before shot:

(You may recall that the back of the house was pink.  And the front was brown.  So, yes, the front and back were different colors.)

And here is the house after some "modifications": 

How did I do?

Where I Spend My Summers

In the summer, I spend as much time as I can on my back deck and patio.  I've worked really hard to make the back area an inviting space, with lots of color and comfortable places to sit, read, work, and eat.  The patio is shady enough that even on the hottest D.C. summer day, it's still quite pleasant.

When I moved into my house, my back "yard" was in a sorry state.  A previous owner had poured concrete where there was probably once some grass.  The rusted fence and abandoned ladders were the only ornamentation.  (Do you recognize a certain four-legged someone in the second picture below?)

I have grand plans to put an addition on the back of the house, so I don't want to put a lot of time, money, and/or effort into landscaping the back patio until I have a better sense of what's going to happen to the back of the house.  But obviously I had to do something with the back to make it a space where I would want to spend time.

So I had a temporary deck built, planted some trees and shrubs, and got some furniture and great cushions.  I'm super happy with the overall result, given the minimal investment on my part, though--like the rest of the house--it continues to evolve.  My latest and greatest ideas are to stain the deck a fun color or to have a couple of pieces of old metal furniture painted PINK.  And when I look at that concrete slab, in my mind, I already see a lovely brick patio . . . .

I particularly like the black and white cushions. Note that there are three different black and white patterns, but the stripe is definitely the dominant patterns.  I think black and white complements all of colors in the flowers, rather than completing with them.  

But what I love most of all are all of the potted plants.  Each year, I go crazy buying plants for all of my flower pots, and I usually buy a few new pots each year, which of course means I need to buy more flowers.  (There must be a support group for people who buy too many plants.)  Probably even when I have my beautifully landscaped back patio, I'll still fill up any empty space with flower pots.  

Coming soon: pictures of the front!  (Hint: there are lots of flower pots there too!)