china shepherdess

The medal stand.

I've been checking out my paint swatches in various lighting and in different locations throughout the room and have finally picked what I hope is the winner.

The first photo shows the sample swatches on the wall. Unfortunately, I can't seem to color correct it to match reality, so you'll have to take my word on which color worked best in my kitchen. 

Have I said how Olympics obsessed I am? Yeah, that is a dorky, makeshift paint podium you see there in photo number two.

Here are the standings (all colors from Benjamin Moore).

In Bronze we have Florida Aqua. It's a great color, but has a distinct hint of green, which won't work well with the chartreuse pendant lamp that I plan to hang over my dining table or any lime accents I might want to use in the kitchen. 

Tropicana Cabana picked up the Silver. Again, a lovely color, but a bit too bold for my kitchen and dining nook. I might use up the rest of the sample can to paint the walls in the back of my kitchen cabinets.

And picking up the Gold, we have Jamaican Aqua. Much like the Jamaican Bobsled Team made famous by that illustrious classic, Cool Runnings, this was a surprise contender. I didn't expect it to be the one, but it is perfect. It's one shade lighter than Tropicana Cabana and is the exact aqua I envisioned for my kitchen.

Next up is the dreaded task of removing the remaining wallpaper backing. I hate this chore, but I'm hoping making the color selection will help me find the motivation to get it over with. Especially now that I'll have an Olympics-shaped hole in my heart and schedule to fill.

Thanks again to Hirshfield's for the samples!

P.S. Check out Hirshfield's Name that Paint Color Contest.

Perfunct.

It's been a long few days and I don't have much to say, but as per tradition, here are my flowers for the week -- Stargazer Lilies. Their fragrance is amazing.

Along with the flowers you get a glimpse of my living room. The chair came from the Minneapolis Public Library sale and the sideboard is a recent purchase from Craigslist. No art on the walls yet, because I still need to paint, I've already purchased Benjamin Moore Aura in Abalone. I just need to find the time.

Ligne Roset

I'm not an obsessive Ligne Roset lover, but as an Olympics fan I do sort of like that they created an ottoman themed to the Vancouver games.

Coincidentally, I also read today that the Minneapolis Ligne Roset store that is closing now has everything marked at 40% off. Time to get that Togo, if you want it.

The Universe of Energy.

Up until now, most of this blog has focused on how I'm making my home cuter. As a child of the 1970's-1980's who grew up with ecology classes in school and in recent years, the re-birth of environmentalism, I also care about making my mid-century home more energy efficient. A pleasant side effect of that is that it could also save me some cash.

Yesterday I had an energy audit, err, home energy workshop. This is a great program brought to Minnesota residents by the Center for Energy and Environment. I'll admit I was a bit regretful yesterday morning fearing that they would come in and shame me for having a heat leaking house and not using CFL's in all my light fixtures. It was actually quite different than that.

The in-home workshop started with a review of my past energy bills. I've only lived in my home for about a month and a half, so they didn't have a lot of historical data to share with me, but going forward I'll get regular emails with handy dandy charts and graphs showing how my gas and electric consumption stacks up with other Minnesotans and with their recommended levels.

You can see my natural gas consumption is way up there. A large part of that is due to my furnace. It's original to the home and has been quite the source of entertainment for my realtor, home inspector and friends. I think it's really cool that it's been working for so long, but it's something I'm hoping to replace with a more efficient model later this year. Note to furnace: I honestly love you! Please don't break up with me until I can afford to replace you.

After we reviewed my home energy snapshot I did a walk-through of my home with one of the CEE reps, while another peeked at my attic, checked carbon monoxide levels from my furnace and water heater and conducted a blower test.

The guy was really understanding about the fact that I don't particularly care for compact fluorescent bulbs in rooms where I spend a lot of time. With my permission, he did swap out some of the incandescents in my basement for CFL's. We also talked about LED bulbs and how they'll hopefully become more useful and affordable in the next few years. 

During the walk-through he identified a couple of other things they could fix for me. The first was to swap out my ugly old showerhead with a new low-flow model. The second was to insulate the copper pipes that deliver water from my hot water heater. They also gave me a cool, space age LED night light.

The visit wrapped up with a review of their findings -- hurrah, my home isn't any leakier than your average home and I could actually turn up my water heater a smidge -- and some recommendations for repairs. They also shared information about special loan programs and rebates for making energy efficient changes to my home. I'd say the whole thing was very worth it. All totaled up, the visit is supposed to have a value of $400, and the co-pay to the homeowner is only $20. It's a great program and if you live in Minnesota, I'd definitely recommend checking out CEE to find out what opportunities are available to you.

To wrap this post up, I'll close with a youtube video of the EPCOT Center attraction that inspired the name of this post and its old theme song "Energy, You Make the World Go Round".

Kitchen paint samples -- Round II

Last week I posted some samples from Devine Color that I was thinking of using for my kitchen (and potentially elsewhere in my house). This past weekend I made up some sample boards using a few Benjamin Moore colors that I thought might work even better. These samples were also courtesy of Hirshfield's (with no strings attached).

No, I still haven't gotten around to stripping the wallpaper backing from my walls, so I again tried these out on tag board. The benefit to this is I can more easily try out a whole bunch of colors. This is especially important when you are picky like me and choosing a potentially difficult color like aqua.

Here are the colors I sampled.

Row 1 (from left to right):

• Tropicana  Cabana
  
• Jamaican Aqua
• Florida Aqua

Row 2 (from left to right, but potentially mixed up):

• Honolulu Blue
• Ocean Breeze

You can buy Benjamin Moore paint samples online, but I'd recommend finding a retailer near you. There's something to be said for getting that in-person attention and advice. Hirshfield's didn't ask me to write this, but their Uptown location was one of my first stops after I closed on my house. I had done my research online, but the folks at the shop were great at helping me choose the tools I needed to get my home painted properly with the paints I chose. I bought a lot of paint that first day and they recommended their Color Club so that I could get discounts. They also keep track of my color choices in their computer so that if I ever needed to touch it up, I could always find out just what shade of pink I used in my bedroom.

OK, back to the paint samples. I think I have a winner in this bunch. Tropicana Cabana is very appealing, as you can see in this cute kitchen. However, it might be too much POW with my not updated kitchen cabinetry, so I'm currently leaning toward either Jamaican Aqua or Florida Aqua. The other two were too baby blue for my liking. My next step is to get rid of the wallpaper backing and then sample the contenders on the wall.

The temputuous tulip.

More Pink and Orange

I saw this bowl of oranges in the morning light and the color combo made me happy, so I had to share it. Did you know that there's a whole blog devoted to pink and orange? She shared a link to a sweet pink and orange decorated Valentine's Day table. I love the pink and orange woven crepe paper streamers.

Last week's flowers of the week got short shrift, so I'll leave you with a better shot of them taken just yesterday. One of the things I love about Fuji Mums is that they last FOREVER.

My journey to mid-century modest.

I would love to live in one of those gorgeous mid-century homes with glass walls, soaring beamed ceilings and amazing indoor/outdoor living spaces. Unfortunately, they are hard to find here in Minnesota, and when found, are generally way out of my price range. I knew this from intently checking out the MLS listings. One day, however, an amazing, stylish, unique and moderately priced mid-century home went on the market. I was smitten. This home was actually what gave me the final push to apply for a mortgage. Sadly, it was sold the same exact day I was pre-approved for my home loan.

After that, I was pretty set on a home from the mid-century era, so when I started looking in earnest for a home to purchase I had to reset my expectations. The home I ended up in is a traditional, basic 1953 rambler, with some nice features typical of the era. It doesn't have any of the high-design elements, but I love it for what it is.

Around the same time I was shopping for a home, Pam from Retro Renovation wrote a manifesto she called Mid-Century Modest. I found it very inspiring and it helps me with the house envy I feel when I page through magazines like Atomic Ranch, Dwell and Sunset. 

Pam recently spoke with the folks from Etsy about her Mid-Century Modest philosophy. Here's a short video from Etsy featuring Pam talking about Mid-Century Modest and her gorgeous steel kitchen cabinets.

I'd still like to one day have one of those mid-century dream homes, but until then I'm very happy with my cute little mid-century modest.

PS: Pam's kitchen cabinets are almost the exact shade of aqua I would like for my kitchen walls. Any paint suggestions?

Kitchen Paint Color -- and so it begins.

I posted a big wrap up of all of my ideas for my budget kitchen revamp a few weeks ago. Along the way I had an epiphany that the orange I wanted for the walls was all wrong and I decided to go with an aqua blue or turquoise instead. No, it isn't because turquoise happens to be the color of 2010. It will flow a lot better with the paint colors from the exterior of my house and living room and will definitely help counteract the massive orangeness of the country-ish oak cupboards in my kitchen.

The downside of this choice is that experience tells me that blue can be a really difficult color to get right. I tried to help my sister pick out a blue for her apartment. I don't even know how many samples she went through before she found the perfect one. Luckily, here's where I had some help step in.

Marsha from Hirshfield's had read how happy I was with the Devine Color paint I had purchased from Hirshfield's for my bedroom and offered me some free, no strings attached, Devine Color samples in their new pint size cans. Hurrah for big sample cans! Paint chips are handy, but they don't compare to color on a wall, and with the larger samples, I'll be able to try the paint in multiple areas of the room so that I know I can make a choice that will work no matter the wall or lighting.

I visited my usual paint store -- Hirshfield's Uptown (aka Lathrop Paint) and left with four samples from the Devine Color line. Two are in the blue family, one is a green I thought might work as an accent, and the last, a very light grey that could be a fall back in case I chicken out on aqua all together.

So, I have this fabulous paint that I can spread in large swaths across my walls. Only problem is, right now my kitchen walls still look like this (and this is one of the good ones).

The solution for now is to test out all of the paint on tagboard. Then I'll take the most promising candidates and slap them up on the wall.

The four Devine Color samples I chose from left to right are:

• Frost
  
• Pistachio Lime Beans
• Reef
• Foam

I like all of the colors but right now, Reef is the only one that seems like a possibility for the kitchen. I'm looking forward to trying that one on the wall. Pistachio Lime Beans is fun, but my kitchen is awkwardly shaped and I don't know that an accent wall would be appropriate. Foam is lovely, but too greyed down for this project. Frost is a very subtle grey that might be exactly perfect on my bathroom walls.

I also have numerous samples of blues from Benjamin Moore and my sister's rejected blues that I'll be trying out next.Fun!

Success!

My Sunday New York Times arrived today for the first time without me having to file a complaint!

In the background you can see my flowers of the week. I sort of skipped last week because the forsythia took bloom and looked gorgeous for a very long time. There were still a few blooms on the branches when I finally threw them away yesterday. These green Fuji Mums from the grocer aren't my favorite color for this flower, but for $5 I won't complain.