This weekend marked the beginning of a big journey for my dear friend, SC... she's moving into her very own apartment! She got the keys earlier this week and we spent part of Friday, most of Saturday and a good chunk of Sunday cleaning and painting. And while she has a lot of moving and decorating to do, she's got a good start on a perfect little place.
I made her pick something to get us started on a design direction and this is what we decided on. We call it Vintage Americana. So this would be the inspiration for her kitchen and living room, while her bedroom is gonna be what we call Vintage Romantic. (Fun fact: Giving your spaces descriptive names like 'vintage americana' helps to make decisions. While looking at something, you can always ask yourself, is this vintage americana, or do I just think it's pretty but it would be better suited elsewhere?)
Welcome to the most adorable building in all of Atlanta.
Her kitchen. We knew (aka: I knew and told her) almost immediately that those shelves would have to go. While she is short on storage space, those shelves are ugly, not very usable, and potentially hazardous to anyone above 5'8". Luckily SC agreed with me and we took them down.
Her dining room. It's the other end of her kitchen and it's a great size for a little table. There's a light, a fan and a beautiful big window. Not much else you can ask for.
One corner of her living room. That door opens on to a little balcony. It's not big enough for furniture, but it's cute. And again big windows. The place has great light. And don't miss the hardwood floors. Lucky, lucky.
Corner of the bedroom. More windows. Lucky girl. These pictures will be way more interesting once there's furniture in the place.
Other fun little facts that I didn't get good pictures of: All the door knobs are the old crystal knobs. So gorgeous. And the place is from like the 1920's, so there are odd things like compartments where the iceman used to leave ice blocks. Just adorable.
(This is SC!)
We started by taking down everything we knew we wouldn't want, like those awful shelves in the kitchen, and cleaned and spackled. When I first told SC to get spackle, she was like, "wait, what? I have to spackle?" Haha. I'm so grateful now for the experience of having renovated my grandparents' home and the knowledge of minor home repairs I gained there. I got to share some with SC this weekend.
I went through and did most of the edging. (SC did some and did fabulously!) Edging is NOT easy and takes a lot of practice to get good at. I have a few pointers though.
EDGING POINTERS!
- Don't use blue painter's tape unless you have to! Painter's tape is a great invention, but too many times it fails to give that crisp line I'm looking for. Bleeding under the tape is hard to avoid especially with textured walls and it's just not worth the hassle to fix afterwards.
- Go slowly and steadily. Crisp edges are what give walls the finished look and speeding through the edging is not going to achieve it.
- Use a good quality brush. Cheap brushes give cheap results. My mom and I both swear by Purdy's brushes. This is not a place to to try to save a few bucks.
- When edging, wipe the paint off the side of the brush that will be against the unpainted wall, leaving it only on the painted side. Place the brush into the corner, or against the edge, then slowly slide the brush down the wall. With practice this process will become easier and quicker.
In case that was confusing, I drew a Paint picture. Lucky you.
Isn't that just the clearest explanation you've ever seen? Blogs are always better with drawings. (Shameless plug to the
GREATEST BLOG ON THE INTERNET... not mine, unfortunately, but my drawings are clearly just as good, if not better.)
Back to SC's apartment..
Since we had decided the kitchen would be Vintage Americana, we found the perfect shade of red... Sherwin Williams' Antique Red. It just sounds patriotic, doesn't it? Well, on the walls, it looked like "Mid-life Crisis, I'm buying a Porsche, Red" -verbatim from our new apartment-owner. Not exactly what we were going for. Sometimes, even with all the planning in the world, the color just isn't what you'd hoped and you have to start over. We started over with Sherwin Williams' Stolen Kiss. Not quite as patriotic of a name, but more the look we were going for.
We agreed almost immediately that the new color was way better. SC was a little hesitant at first, understandably, cause look at that color, but by the time we were done painting, she loved it as much as I did.
I am loving this so very much. We have plans for wall decor, so some of that red will be covered up and will leave the perfect amount of the perfect shade of America Red. And look how much more open it looks without all the ugly shelving!
AMERICAAAA! (Check out those ceiling heights! SC's a good 5'7".)
This little white cupboard was already in the kitchen, but turned so the back was to the side of the stove, dividing the kitchen from the dining room. SC didn't like that setup as much as this one and I wholeheartedly agree. It opened the place up so much. And when she filled it with her cream and navy dishes, I could've swooned. Just precious. We're debating a lot over what should go on the walls, but we both loved this star. God Bless the USA.
Moving on to the bedroom...
(My roommate helped us paint.) SC decided she wanted her bedroom to have a vintage romantic feel, so we chose this beautiful color, SW's Veiled Violet. It's a gray-purple that comes across more adult-chic than little-girl-princess.
I wish this photo was a video. I've never seen a picture more perfectly capture SC. Roommate and I were TRYING to be productive and SC was having a spin your shirt like a helicopter dance party. Hilarious.
This room is going to be beautiful when it's done. Elegant and mature. (Please disregard the previous photo when trying to envision this...)
And the living room!
I didn't get any in-process pictures of the living room because SC and my roommate painted it before I got there, but it's a great color, SW's Sleepy Blue. I think the word Sleepy is wrong though. It's very refreshing. It brightens the room up and really makes the woodwork pop.
Peeking into the kitchen from the living room, you can see the right amount of Americana Red. The dining room table will go right where SC is standing.
Next weekend we're gonna try to tackle a few small improvement jobs like cleaning up the wood under the window in the kitchen and start moving some furniture in.
Stay tuned for that. :)
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