looking ahead

13 years ago

It's a little premature to buy flooring and paint, but that's the part I look forward to.

I plan to go with a swedish cottage look in the bedroom. Very spare and sparsely furnished, there isn't room for much anyway. White walls, trim and furniture. White bedding (impractical with a gray cat and a black dog, but there you go). Off-white, not white white. White louvered closet doors. Lots of blue accents. I am thinking of painting the vaulted ceiling faded denim blue, wondering about putting planks on the ceiling and perhaps one wall rather than drywall. Very dark wood or cork flooring. That's where I depart from the swedish look, but white floors seem way too impractical.

I have a really ambitious goal of weaving a blue and white overshot coverlet... I'm a very new weaver and that is complex weaving. Accent fabrics in blue and white crackle weave will be easier to start with. And woven cotton huck lace curtain for the window in the door.

I have a page torn out of a Martha Stewart magazine of a vintage wall paper glued to a roller blind for window coverings. I love the idea and really love the paper used in the example, a scene of a tree and heron on a blue background. I've done quite a few internet searches and haven't turned up anything like it. I'll start looking at fabrics I guess and might do something similar with a roman shade instead of a roller blind. Roller blinds hate me and never seem to work.

Flooring is a perplexing issue. The bedroom opens off the end of one ell of the kitchen. That ell intersects with the living room floor (dark and light 1 foot stripes of 'wood' laminate flooring)on the left and the bathroom floor (octagon and square in white ceramaic and terracotta glass tile) on the right. I have wanted really bright yellow linoleum floor in the kitchen forever, but I'm not sure I want four different floors crashing (clashing) together in such a small area.

One option is to make the bedroom and kitchen floor the same, which would probably be very dark cork. I'd lose my yellow floor, which I don't really want to do. The other is to bite the bullet and replace the laminate flooring and match that to the bedroom. I like the stripe effect, and could keep that by using the same material as the bedroom and a lighter shade. I am not impressed with the laminate... it's got a haze on the surface and I can't figure out how to get rid of it... steam mopping helps, but when it dries the haze is back...scratches? It is 8 years old and in good shape otherwise, so I don't really want to replace it if I could get rid of the haze.

I suppose I can put the yellow laminate in the loft, which would make a nice work surface for weaving and sewing... easy to sweep up threads.

But all this impacts kitchen counter choices. Which is a matter for another post.

Ellen

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Comments (3)

TxMarti
13 years ago
It sounds lovely. Is the light laminate yellow enough that you could put it in the kitchen?
User
13 years ago
Ellen, you seem to enjoy crafting your own decorative items. And with your floor, I have a thought which could fit nicely with your desire for the Swedish farm style.

For one thing, the Swedish floors were a look of very well scrubbed and washed down wood, really bleached out, and then they were rather whitewashed. That ceiling and one wall you mentioned could be done in the wide pine boards finished like that. I could see your headboard backed up to that wall. It would give you almost a canopy and enclosure effect.

But I digress. I was meaning to comment on your floors. If you do the floor in the kitchen and the bedroom alike, with dark wood, you might still PAINT A CANVAS RUG FOR YOUR BEDROOM, especially under the bed area.

I buy the big real-fabric canvas dropcloths from Home Depot and use them as slip covers for my furniture, and if big enough (or even sewn together), they could be a bed covering. You would not want stiff paint on that, but it would be really easy to throw it into the wash when it got gray and black pet hairs all over it. And I think linoleum rugs came originally from the idea of painted floor canvas anyway. I've also made bird cage covers out of the canvas pieces, and I've used them as window covers too. Knobs or pegs at the top of the window will hold them up, then a loop or buttonhole on the side of the cover could be hooked over another knob to let light into the room.

If you wish to find a good place describing how to make roman shades, either top down, bottom up, or both, check out TERRELLDESIGNS.COM and that will be the best.

A note about the boards for the ceiling and one wall. When wood cures, it shrinks a lot. If you are going for a laminate wood floor, why not just continue the planking up the wall and across the ceiling? No gaps ever that way. And no painting either. They are doing stuff like this on HGTV programs more all the time. I think it is a good idea.

Love your willingness to think outside the box. Keep on going, you are doing great.
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euglossa
Original Author
13 years ago
Marti8a, the laminate is a medium light oak, the marmoleum I like is an intense buttercup yellow.

I have one countertop in stainless steel, buffed in random holographic circles. I was thinking dark brown granite for the other counters (four tiny pieces), but if the floor is dark do I still want dark counter? There is a shop that has a glorious golden granite, but I think that might be too much for my tiny space and probably budget.. On the other hand, my counters are small, I might be able to get a deal on scraps. Plus, I love the stainless counter and my sink bling -a Kohler Karbon faucet (Mario), and I don't want them upstaged.

>That ceiling and one wall you mentioned could be done in >the wide pine boards finished like that. I could see your >headboard backed up to that wall. It would give you >almost a canopy and enclosure effect.

moccasin,
that's a cool idea. I was thinking the opposite from the headboard wall if I covered one in boards, but I might re-think that. The bed will be centered under the vault with a window on either side of the headboard. Horizontal or vertical planks? With the vault the room will feel plenty tall, Horizontal planks might help it feel wider, or flatten it. I think I would like vertical planks better.
Whatever I use, it won't be faux wood laminate flooring again. Wood laminate would be fine, I think it would be too nicely finished though, for the ceiling planks. I was thinking of slapping up some 1 by 6 pine, and paint over the mill planed surface for a more rustic look. I hadn't thought about shrinkage though. Paint should limit that, wouldn't it?

I hadn't thought of a floor cloth either, but I'm kind of attached to a dark floor. Something for all the white to stand out against. And I'm all about less to sweep, mop and wash.

I'll want shutters on the windows to let air in during the summer, but keep the light out at night and the hot sun in the day, roman shades to go over them to help retain heat in the winter and provide some color.

E

looking ahead

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TxMarti

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TxMarti

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euglossa
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