Our radiator afterthought ... kitchen renovation 2019

Details are everything. The more my reno project moves towards completion the more obvious this is. Knobs, fixtures, grout color these choices really define the overall feeling you get when you walk into a room whether you realize it or not. I can only compare it to the feeling Goldie Locks had when she sat in Baby Bears bed, when you’ve chosen the right finishes it feels jussssst right. Same goes for spacing on a gallery wall or the amount of antique versus new items you place in a room to get the vibe just right.

So you’d think knowing this, I’d have prepared for every single detail in advance of my renovation. Lol. No.

After we ripped everything our of my kitchen, I realized everything was going to be beautiful and fresh when it went back in except my radiator. This thing weighs around 250 lbs and I’ll tell you it had seen better days. Rusty, dirty and dirty. Did I mention dirty?

So what are our options? Well with planning- powder coating would be a great option, though pricey and the logistics of getting the 250lb radiator to the facility adds challenges and further expense. Also did I mention we completely forgot about this detail in the planning phase?

So this leaves me with only one option, and not a bad one either. Spray Paint! My trusted old friend. 2 cans ran me around $14, I had a wide variety of color options to choose from and even some with a splash of metallic material to mimic the coating on vintage radiators. I chose a “black stainless” tone as it would match my appliances and meet my black knobs and pulls somewhere in the middle of the rest of the grey tones in the room.

First we sprayed the radiator with a can of air and knocked loose any dust hanging on using a swiffer. Then we scrubbed the radiator with a brush and hot soapy water to get all the years of grime as cleared off as we could. Rinsed with the hose and then let it fully dry in the sun. After it was dry I sprayed each individual section from every angle ensuring full even coverage. The key with spray paint is to stay the right distance away so you don’t get drip marks and let it dry in between coats for the best possible adhesion.

I think the results are really great. If I didn’t know it was spray paint I would have thought it was powder coated. Hopefully the longevity of the paint meets our needs in the long run. We don’t plan to move this piece ever again unless there is a need to repair something. Stay tuned for the final reveal of the kitchen to see the radiator in place. Till then here’s a couple of after shots of my handy work!

2 weeks left... kitchen renovation 2019.

It’s almost over.

It’s April 5th, 2019. I’m coming to the end of week 4 of my full gut Kitchen and Bath renovation. This is the first time I’ve hired professionsals to help me bring a part of our 1850’s farmhouse into the 21st century. It has been both amazing and exhausting. The exhausting part was mainly internal- me worrying about if the decisions I had spent years considering and mere moments finalizing them were very tiring. I agonized over little things like towel bars and paint colors and seemingly huge things like floor tile and cabinets. Paulo and I chose granite countertops which go in, in the next two weeks which I am still feeling stressed will be far busier than I dreamt of when I envisioned this kitchen. What happened to my white quartz with grey veining?? I think I spent a total of 6 months actually collecting options and then sourcing our fixtures, lighting and other parts we had to select and supply.

What’s done is done. No turning back. We have granite and it’s coming in hot. Will I always wish I’d spent the extra $250 for a soaking tub, maybe… too late! When it comes to a 2 room kitchen and bath renovation budget $250 isn’t much, but where do you draw the line? On what parts do you spend your money and where can you cut corners? At the end of the day I’ve decided this- if you’re not going DIY, you spend your money on the labor. The team we went with on this job was not by any means the cheapest of the 4 bids we had- but I feel pretty confident we made the right decision there.

I found the whole process of organizing and executing this project to be kind of terrifying, but also incredibly educational. I’ve dealt with all sizes of budgets during the time I worked as a prop stylist, but that was always someone else’s money and at the end of the day they had the yeh or nay vote. Being your own client and spending your own money is a whole nother ballgame.

But little by little piece by piece the house is coming together and I am feeling a bit more relieved each day. I’m still holding my breath on the granite and bathroom sconces (which I have a feeling are slightly bigger than they should be…) but the floor looks great. I’ll be sharing start to finish pictures of my renovation in another post once all is said and done.

If you want a little taste of the research I did during the project you can check out my Pinterest boards for the project; kitchen inspiration board, as well as my bathroom inspiration board and my ongoing Farmhouse Chic board where I will forever be adding my big dream inspiration for our home, as well as little things I find along the way.

Vintage Chenille the history

Recently I was at my friend Trish's , styling and shooting her apartment for a house tour. I brought along a vintage Chenille bedspread in case we needed some prop linens. Trish is from Georgia originally, in an area I had always known for their huge part in USA manufactured carpeting. We got to talking and she gave me a glimpse into the history of chenille and carpeting in the Dalton, GA area, and it made me want to dig deeper. 

So let's start with chenille. What is it? In French, chenille means caterpillar, and the material was named this because it "resembles the fur of a caterpillar." It is said to have begun in France in the 18th century as a yarn. They made it by taking a gauzy fabric, cutting it into strips and then creating the yarn. In the 1830's Scotland developed a chenille of their own. The Paisley fabric mill's foreman created a fuzzy weave of fabric from which to make shawls. They wove tufts of wool together into a large piece and then cut it into shawl sized strips. Finally we come to Dalton and Catherine Evans, who took sheets of cotton and added tufting to create bedspreads. The designs were popular both locally and regionally. While the bedspreads were not chenille in the traditional sense of the word, the terminology stuck and the chenille of the South was born!

By the 1920's Northwestern Georgia was sending bedspreads to department stores in major cities all along the East coast. In order to meet demands, artisans all around the area in the South received deliveries of the cotton sheeting, marked with patterns. They would then tuft and the finished pieces would be picked up from them for distribution. It was a handcrafted collaborative market, where mainly women worked from their homes to fulfill a need. This industry helped keep many afloat during the great depression.

By the 1930's route 41 had become a popular path for tourists heading to Florida. Dalton's tufters lined the side of the highway with clotheslines adorned with the popular chenille bedspreads. One of the most famous patterns of the time was the peacock, giving route 41 it's nickname of "Peacock Alley". Continuing into the 1940's now in the form of corporations, including "Cabin Crafts" Northwestern Georgians began to experiment with small throw rugs for the bathroom using the same tufting technique. This eventually led to huge sheets of carpet, what we now know as wall to wall carpeting. By the 1960's carpet manufacturing well surpassed bedspreads in Dalton, but it's amazing to think about where this booming industry began. 

Chenille  can be found in many patterns and colors. I am partial to the poka dots and more graphic patterns, but I love a good floral as well. Recently I have been developing my deep love for chenille into a new product line. Stay tuned for updates on that. Can't wait to share it with the world!!

Resources

Patton, Randall L. "Chenille Bedspreads." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 19 August 2013. Web. 17 June 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenille_fabric

Photo: Courtney Dawley

Navy blue, I love you.

I wanted to take a short moment, to talk a little bit about my favorite color, navy blue. 

I feel like there are a lot of people who overlook navy. I'm hoping to change that for at least a person or two. Really it's black with more dimension. It's a colored neutral. It pairs well with every color, chartreuse, turquoise, cranberry red, sky blue, kelly green even black. Some people will try to tell you that you shouldn't put the two together. They are wrong. I don't know where that rule came from, but it's crazy. Some of my favorite outfits are a combination of black and navy. Speaking of outfits, navy blue is just as slimming as black. 

Anyway, I won't rant. I'm sure you need to get to thinking about navy blue and all the ways you're going to incorporate it into your home decor and street style... Navy blue you are an unsung hero of the design world and I would like to thank you. 

Kaj Franck a little designer profile

Kaj Franck is a Finnish designer best known for his work for Arabia Finland. He studied furniture design in 1932 at the Central School of Industrial Design in Helsinki. Kaj Franck designed ceramics, glassware and my favorite, enamelware.  He went on to design glassware for Iittala, introducing the idea of individually sold glasses rather than the traditional set.

There are many patterns associated with Kaj Franck's enamelware. The most often found and widely produced are the mushroom pattern bowls. I have seen salad bowls and serving bowls in this pattern, it subsequently also ends up being the most affordable. Harder to come by is the elusive lobster pattern. I was lucky enough to come across one which is pictured below.

$125 on Etsy by FoundbyaPropStylist

There are also hearts, vegetables, little blue clovers, the red daisy pattern (pictured below on mugs), chevril, cherries, there are about 20 patterns in all.

$62 each on Etsy by FoundbyaPropStylist

Many Arabia Finland aka Finel pieces you find will be stamped on the bottom as the mug shown above, but many are not. If you want to start collecting the best thing to do is identify the patterns associated with the designer and brand. I for one was hooked the first time I got my hands on a mushroom bowl! Stop by my etsy store as I almost always have some Kaj Franck in stock.