Smaller Spaces

Some progress in our smaller spaces, to share in the midst of some larger progress (Meaning our new backdoors are in, shades from Smith and Noble are mostly in, and front yard landscaping progressed ... as of today. All posts to come!)

UTILITY CLOSET
The below picture was of a super-scary, large walk-in closet off of our kitchen, taken when we bought the house. It housed the hot water heater and not much else anyone would want to see. Every time Mike freaked out wondering "what we'd done" when we first bought this house, he'd reference the dangling wires you see in this photo as one of the signs we should run as fast as possible :)

Utility closet - before

The various architectural plans showed different options for this closet, like turning it into a small office, etc, but we decided to keep it as a closet and make it a space for cleaning supplies and our "cat supplies", meaning we could keep the cats' food and litter box in here, so none of those unsightly things were visible in our house. We installed one of those swinging "doggie" doors on the outside of the closet that the cats could walk through, and started sprucing up the inside with not much but a hammer and paint, and a trip to the Container Store.

I must be one of Container Store's top shoppers this year. I love that place. Mainly because this is what can happen when you shop there:

Utility closet - after! With a happy cat hanging
out waiting to be fed...

It really is the small things sometimes.

OFFICE
I also have been slowly pulling together the little room that we did end up turning into our office.

I am honestly not sure what this room was before. I wish we'd gotten that "before" picture, but it had olive green wood walls with a scalloped border around the molding. There was a rusted metal window with about 9 panes. If that sets the stage at all.

We decided not to invest a lot in this room because if we do add onto this house, this will become a hallway to the new bedroom. So, we added a coat of gloss White Dove to the walls, removed the scalloped border, and added in a solid pane of glass for the window. (this is kind of cheating, since it's not even a working window, but again, this room was looked at more as a temporary fix)

Office after a coat of paint and new window

I had visions of a Sputnik light in here to start. I began the search with ones similar to this at 1st Dibs —prohibitively expensive. DWR's version wasn't a whole lot better, and so the online hunt began. I finally found a site called InMod that made more affordable versions of the Sputnik, and ordered from there.

I am really happy with the quality of the fixture we ended up with from InMod

To go with the Sputnik, I added a mid-century etching that my Dad was tossing out from art school:

Looking past the orange of the previous frame and mat...

...to the new version!

And a wool Safavieh rug from Gilt:

(Chosen to complement the etching)

So here is a shot peeking through the door of the office as with the Sputnik, the rug, and the re-framed etching paired with our Nelson Swag chair, high-gloss West Elm parson's table, and iMac:

A nice little space to work in for now, without a lot of investment

We'll see where it goes from here...

DWR Sale Day

Hi everyone,

So, little by little our furnishings are trickling in... we took advantage of the DWR semi-annual sale a couple of weeks ago and finally pulled the trigger on a couple of things.

The Sussex Credenza, which we've both been wanting for, oh maybe, 5 years... ordered the 4-door version in Wenge!

In place in our dining room:

Delivery day was an exciting day in the Basham household. And due to a shipping snafu, they even took off the regular shipping we paid for, and comped the White Glove delivery service for free. Translation, no assembly required, and no trying to figure out how to dispose of a box big enough to hold a 300-lb sideboard!

Were originally thinking the Cherner chairs (left above) would go well with this new setup.
Love the lines on those, particularly the arm chairs.

However, after seeing the sideboard in place, thinking the wood might be too much... now leaning towards a softer yet structured leather chair maybe like the Eames chair (above, right) but in a buttery caramel color.

But whatever this is, it is way down the road!

A shot of the other corner of the dining room—
the only other spot that has been paid attention to

.........................................

The other fun purchase from DWR was this clock from George Nelson. Mike has been talking about this clock since the day we set out on our own atomic ranch adventure, and I hesitated b/c it was a little over-the-top-atomic — but I have to admit, I love it in our kitchen!

And I mean, who could deny someone this much happiness over a clock?!

.........................................

And a quick note back to barstools....

Originally we ordered a barstool called the Onda stool back in December from DWR. We got frustrated with the timeframe it took to manufacture and ship them from Spain. So we cancelled the order, and I spent about a month making what must have been a very significant dent in searching the barstool landscape of America. And now I've decided maybe I should have been patient...because I'm back to the Onda.

So back to DWR to pick up the only one they have in-store, which is the orange and white. Here it is on approval in the kitchen:

I am not loving the orange with the white for our kitchen, but I do love the lines of the stool.

This kitchen is not ours, but is on the DWR web site and looks eerily like ours.
It shows the stool in a taupe. 

Sold, Onda stools in taupe going on order tomorrow! Then I have 12-14 weeks to be patient, again, this time....

Decor Fun / This Week

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend~ I'm posting a few pics of some Norton Road updates this week.

Our wine bar backsplash is completed, really giving this area a finished look:

Same white glass backsplash as in the rest of the kitchen

The new kitchen table is in – a great find from Crate&Barrel that happens to match our perimeter countertops in color:

In place in the kitchen...

...Paired it with the vintage lucite chairs we already had

The Artemis fan we've had for a while was unpacked and installed in the master (Mike is a big fan of a fan :)) Nice to see this again, I love the movement it has without actually even being on.

And last but definitely not least our first rug arrived and was installed in the den. We found a brand called Fibreworks that was recommended to us by 2 designers. We chose solid wool for it's hand, durability, and clean look.  

Decided to go the extra mile here and have Circa custom cut it, including around the fireplace.
The thought is that it brings the FP into the usable space of the room instead of sectioning it off.

Of course...

Within 24 hours one of our cats had used the new rug as their new scratching post (groan). While we were able to repair the damage, the cat was still marched promptly to the vet Saturday morning to get "Soft Paws" applied, which are basically Lee Press on Nails that cover the sharp parts of her claws. We'll see how this little experiment goes~

Picture from the web site, not my cat. Ours are just clear although she is totally getting pink next time!

And in what might be the most exciting news of the week (accordingly to yours truly), the Design Within Reach Semi-Annual sale is ON! Mike and I have been considering a few DWR purchases for a while, and held out for this sale. We went to the local location today to assess our list and decide what to buy. Post to come this week once we place the order...