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A Painted Piano: Before and After

By Lane McNab on May 2, 2013

Something that’s been bothering me for a while in our piano room is the piano itself. I love that we have a piano and it gets used a lot, but it’s quite old (60+ years) and isn’t that great of a quality (Acrosonic) and we haven’t tuned it in almost 10 years. So for a long time I have debated the idea of painting it.

As a (former) professional musician this seemed a little bit sacrilegious but the giant dark hole it was creating in this semi-dark room finally bothered me enough that I went for it. I also read that as long as you don’t paint the sound boards, it won’t affect the tone. Not that that would have really mattered with this piano anyway…

After the first coat is when I always say to myself “I’ve made a horrible mistake…”

But then you finish up:

This area is going to change a bit more over the coming months as I have another wingback to reupholster and I finally have a plan for dealing with that incredibly off-center window. My brain loves symmetry so this has been a hard one for me. The second wingback will go on the right side of the piano and we will move the barrel chairs around.

So painted pianos, totally worth it or sacrilege?

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Office Before and After

By Lane McNab on April 15, 2013

We are starting to get a little more spring light around here and I can start to take pictures in the house of all the projects we have tackled. Here are some befores of the office:

And now the afters:

I’ll post details about the transformation soon.

Happy Monday!

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Mid Century Side Tables

By Lane McNab on April 1, 2013

I’m back from an amazing getaway with my two cousins Kelsey and Meredith over the weekend. We went to Napa and did it up right–I need to detox after all the good food and wine. If you follow me on Instagram you saw the pictures of our trip but I’ll do a post soon to share more details. It was special for us for just having a girls getaway but also more than that as it was a very special place for Kelsey and James so we enjoyed toasting him and remembering the good times with him.

Onto other things for tonight though. I hope everyone had a good Passover or Easter or beginning of spring and if you are home with your kids on spring break–I feel ya. We had a rainy start to our vacation week and I was pulling out every craft I could think of this morning. The rain stopped after lunch and tomorrow should be nice so we are getting out of the house for sure. I may be posting less this week because I really do want to spend some time with these guys while they are home.

Last week I mentioned I was working on stuff for the upcoming flea market. I will have a much smaller inventory than usual but I did find these two mid century side tables:

For some reason I only photographed one but there are two. I hated the finish on them and the veneer was in pretty bad shape on one side but I loved the lines, the brass feet, and the drawer. I thought I could refinish them to more of a walnut color but the veneer was really thin and wouldn’t take any sanding. So plan B was paint them. I don’t usually like painted mid century pieces–especially when they are painted to try to turn them into something they aren’t–so instead of my usual ASCP I decided on a high gloss black, but only on the outside:

I think it really brings out the brass and the detail on the drawer. These could be so cool in the right space. I’ll have them for sale this weekend barring the rain that’s been forecast.

How was your weekend?

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Flea Market Antique Faire Coming Up

By Lane McNab on March 22, 2013

I mentioned yesterday that Camille, Wendy and I are selling at the Alameda Antiques Faire again next month–It’s actually 2 weeks away and I am so unprepared! Usually at this point I have several large projects like dressers and buffets waiting to be sold but right now, I’m pretty cleaned out. I have several little things but no large furniture pieces.

Part of that is by design. I’ve gotten a little tired of moving all of those large pieces and nothing is more depressing than having to put unsold large items back on the truck at the end of the day.

But, I do want to have some fun, functional pieces to sell so the other day I found this well made, solid vintage cabinet at a salvage yard:

I had some green glass knobs left over from another project so I decided to use those and set them off with ASCP Graphite:

And I decided to go with something bright and summery as a surprise for the inside:

I used ASCP Florence and Antibes Green inside. It’s a departure for me and really plays off the knobs. I would love to see this cabinet over a buffet or in a kitchen setting off someone’s collection of ironware or white porcelain. It would also make a nice hutch sitting on a desk for extra storage.

And the little parrot pitcher will be for sale too! Couldn’t pass him up.

I hope to get to some other projects this weekend and next week and show them to you as I can. I have a table to strip and repaint which I hope to get done this weekend.

And tomorrow John and I are going to an 80s themed fundraiser at the boys’ school. I am borrowing some tutus from Becky’s daycare and wearing some black leggings and going with a Cyndi Lauper themed interpretation. I went to get accessories today at H&M and could not believe how everything in the store was 80s: neon, ripped t-shirts, shoulder pads, zippered jeans, etc. I truly thought most of that style would never come back, but what do I know!

And lastly, I finally got my Facebook page up and running so please be sure to sign up to follow me if you are on FB. Would love to connect!

Have a great weekend!!!

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Client Sneak Peek: Living Room Before and After

By Lane McNab on February 25, 2013

For a lot of my clients who are new to using a designer, the transformation is a slow process. Also, a lot of people want to have a general plan that they can implement over time as money becomes available. That’s actually how we do it in our family most of the time too unless it’s a big construction project.

I’ve been really excited about a couple’s beautiful downtown Oakland Victorian condo that I’ve been working with them on since late summer/early fall. We have been ordering furniture and fabric and getting things framed and it’s starting to come together. We’ve been focusing on the living room but the rest of the house is starting to get transformed as well. Although we are still awaiting several items in the LR, here’s a sneak peek of their sofa area.

First the Before (aren’t the windows gorgeous?):

And now the After:

We still need lamps, some more throw pillows and accessories over here but I wanted to show off this beautiful sofa. The large nailhead trim is killing it for me as well as the upholstered back and soft lines. These ladies have fantastic taste and I would describe their style as hip/antique/global. You can’t see it but on the other side of the room are two mid-century chairs and a beautiful tansu.

And you can see which coffee table they went with from my previous post and I think it was the perfect choice. Such a nice combination of wood and metal to go with the vintage typewriter side tables. I also applaud their bravery in following my recommendation to go with this antique Persian rug. The color and wear in it adds so much warmth and texture.

And the gallery wall was a very important piece of the puzzle for them as they have many photographs of friends, ancestors, relatives, etc. I love the history and personality it adds to their very social space.

Also, one partner in the couple just returned from a trip to the Galapagos Islands and brought back the adorable little carved turtle. Such a great accessory!

Thanks for stopping by and happy Monday!

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What We Did Over The Weekend

By Lane McNab on February 5, 2013

Besides watching the 49ers lose the super bowl John, the kids and I tackled a big project this weekend. Dealing with a camellia bush was a task I have been putting off for a while but wanted to get done before the spring. This gigantic tree is one of four that have massively grown up around the house. This one in particular was blocking light and damaging the paint and shingles on the front of our house.

It was also spaced far enough out from the house that it was taking up some valuable real estate. We don’t have a huge yard and we want to make every bit of it usable that we can. So last fall I had the camellia “pruned”:

I know, it’s pathetic–poor camellia. But it really opened up our yard so much and made our living room so much brighter. I knew after a few months we had to get it taken out. So about a week ago we did:

Which left us with a 12 x 12 patch of dirt. But oh the possibilities!

(By the way, looking at these pictures I think of all of us bloggers who were over the moon about our hydrangeas 5 months ago and look at them now! They look like a garden Morticia would have from the Addams Family. Just a bunch of brown sticks. I knew it would look like this for the winter but seeing the contrast in the pictures above makes me realize how dramatic the change is).

But I digress. We had a bunch of large (24×24) pavers and gravel that we pulled up when we added the lawn on this side of the house so we decided to use some of them for a patio eating area here. John got back to work laying them and making them perfect just like he did on the brick path.

Then we assembled this arbor and anchored to the ground with concrete. Added some sod and mulch, a climbing rose and here we are:

The arbor is redwood so it will fade to gray like the fence has. Plus we planted a climbing rose next to it which I hope will grow quickly.

Below you can see the lavender border I planted too. I’m hoping it will get enough sun there to do OK. Not sure once that big tree gets all its leaves again.

I’ll be sure to do some real afters when everything is blooming in the spring and we get those raised planters full of summer veggies again. This really is our urban oasis so I plan to work hard to get it looking good.

By the way, has anyone grown Japanese Boxwood before? We have this low hedge that I planted last year and I know they are slow growers, but how slow? Will they get noticeably taller in the next couple of years? Hoping to have a few feet before too terribly long…

Are you doing anything to prepare your garden for spring?

PS-I realized this weekend watching the Super Bowl that my 7 year old thought that Baltimore was Boldemort–like Voldemort. I guess he thought they were true evil.

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Office Refresh-Sneak Peek

By Lane McNab on February 1, 2013

I spent the morning working in a client’s office in downtown Oakland today. He had wanted a little refresh to his space which is an office in a large financial institution with strict rules about uniformity. For instance, we can’t paint, change out the furniture, alter the furniture, etc. Also, there are no windows or any natural light so it’s a toughie. And the client wants to be sure that whatever we buy for the space can be used in another office in the future if he ever changes jobs.

So today I got started. I had bought a few accessories and the client had brought in a table and bookshelf from home. I also planned to paint both the book shelf and the table but only got the bookshelf done today. He still plans to buy some art for the walls and a mirror he purchased hadn’t arrived yet so there is still plenty more to be done. But just the little changes made today are starting to make a big difference. Here is the before:

And here is the (preliminary) after:

(Please forgive the iphone pics). When the table gets painted and the mirror goes in on that wall I think it will make such a difference (as will the art). It’s been interesting designing a space and trying to keep it somewhat impersonal which is the opposite of what I do when working in someone’s home. Also, designing around that orange veneered desk has been a fun challenge.

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Making The Living Room More Livable

By Lane McNab on January 18, 2013

I’ve been on a picture taking binge lately so I thought I would go ahead and share the updates I’ve made to our tv and living rooms as part of the house tour. They run together as one big room so doing them together makes sense.

First, from a year or two ago here is our old set up in the living room. You can see the walls are a soft yellow and the trim is white–this was actually a nice little sitting area but the whole space needed an update. Also, what you can’t see to the right is a long console table that divided the two rooms. So this is the before:

And here is the after:

Here is a before from a year or two ago. In morning light the room was not bad but in bad light, that yellow drove me crazy. A few befores:

And after the updates over the holiday:

Another before of the old not well-planned gallery wall:

And now after:

Now the display has many more personal pieces and family photos.

This antique waterfall cabinet now holds my McCoy pottery collection. The blues and greens helped inspire the palette.

And the handsome fellow in the photograph above it was John’s grandfather, my oldest’s namesake, Hart Shoemaker. The other side has photos of my grandparents.

I had to do a close up of some of these frames. I used Rub N Buff for the first time ever to give some gold accents to this wall and I’m totally addicted. It is so easy and absolutely transforms them. In this photo the watercolor has RNB but looks so much like the one above and to the right of it. Such a quick and inexpensive way to transform an in expensive frame.

I’ll do a post in the coming days to detail all the changes. I bet you can spot most of them!

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Some More Updates

By Lane McNab on January 17, 2013

I realized yesterday as I was posting about the powder room color update that over the holidays I did A LOT of projects around the house. I have so many updates to post about but haven’t been able to photograph them for the blog because truly, the rooms on the back side of our house get terrible light in the winter. I actually tried taking photos with just really bright exposure back in December but we were getting a lot of rain then and it was just not looking good. So instead of blogging about the projects I just kept doing them and biding my time until the light moves back in the sky to the north and I can take some decent photos. We’re almost there…

But, I did find this photo from a sunny day last month that is a decent sneak peek of the office redo I’ve been doing. I have a very patient client–my husband–who has been waiting for years for me to tackle his home office instead of everything else in the house. The only before photo I have is this:

This photo is from the early days of my blog when I was just posting about furniture projects (this was a salvaged desk I refinished for John several years ago) and taking pics with my iphone. The walls were blue (I have no idea what color!) and it was a dumping ground for all paperwork, some laundry, toys, etc. But also John has to work from there, sometimes one or two days a week.

And, unlike me, John loves a style I’ll call “controlled clutter.” He likes stuff. Lots of colorful music posters, tchotchkes, mementos, photos, etc. He always said he wanted the walls completely filled with stuff. He has been kind and supportive enough to let me do my thing in the rest of the house and in here he gets to be in charge (almost!). Here is a photo of one of the walls after we painted it white but still before pics. We also had already flipped the desk and the sofa so that the desk is now under the window:

That door on the left leads to our newly painted powder room. So those are the befores and here is a sneak peek of the after:

We are getting there! As you can tell, John is a huge music fan and together we also have a small collection of folk art. We got a new rug (I took advantage of a sale at Rugs USA this winter to get a couple of new rugs). As soon as the light improves I will show you the other changes in here–some big changes to a bookshelf and the desk itself.

Some big changes have happened in the living room too since I last posted about it but they aren’t finished yet. I’ll probably do a sneak peek there too soon though. Sorry to have so many teasers! I guess I’m a total tease.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS-In case I don’t blog again before the weekend, I wanted to say I have a big birthday happening on Sunday (gulp) and I’m a little nervous about it. I’ll just say it ends in a zero and leave it at that. I actually am looking forward to the next decade but definitely feel an era ending. How do you handle the big ones?

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New (Old) Brass Kick Plate

By Lane McNab on December 20, 2012

For a while now I have wanted to add an antique brass kick plate to our front door. I don’t have a historical or period reference for it–I just thought it would look pretty! Here’s a reminder of what our entryway looks like–this was taken over the summer I think:

My mom is visiting and while we were out shopping the other day we visited a salvage yard and found this old brass kick plate–the perfect size for our door. My generous mom scooped it up for me along with some brass ager and home we went to work on it. Here’s what it looked like when we brought it home

Yes, it did already have a lot of patina–perhaps too much! It was dark and stained and uneven so I brought it home and cleaned it up with some SOS and 000 steel wool:

This was a little too cleaned up–a little shiny with some really brassy uneven spots. So in comes the ager. The bottle says to completely submerge the piece you are aging in the solution but I don’t have any containers big enough to submerge this thing in so I just dribbled it all over the surface and then spread it around with a paint brush. I don’t have any pictures of this part because it was totally uneven and I panicked and ran to the sink to wipe it off. The ager works fast and it turned really dark even after I rinsed it off. I then took a dry piece of steel wool and lightly rubbed it over the plate until it was about how I wanted it:

I also went to the hardware store and bought brass screws to install it and set them in the ager for a few minutes:

After installing it my front door now looks like this:

It definitely warms up the room–now I just have to use the ager on the super shiny door handle!

And BTW, I just noticed the blue rubber band on the bottom left corner of the rug in the picture! I thought about retaking the pictures before I did this post, we are supposed to have several days of rain now so I won’t get good enough light to retake these photos for a while. And really, that’s how it is around here–there are often rubber bands, markers, pencils, Legos, and other detritus strewn about that I don’t even notice anymore! I’m just going to pretend it’s an umlaut over the U in “Urban.”

Thanks for stopping by!

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