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Cottage, DIY

Putting the clothes (and the paint brush) away

May 27, 2011

It will (and it probably should) horrify many of you to know that we have been living with our clothes on makeshift shelving and stored in laundry baskets in the basement for about nine months since the start of the remodel. Can you even imagine that? I actually lost track of a lot of my clothes in the process.
But last weekend, when I was supposed to be working on the path but the weather had other ideas, we officially moved our stuff back into our room. The holdup was a very long paint job on the built-ins in our bedroom. It took me well over a month to paint them. Normally it wouldn’t have taken so long but I was so burned out on painting that it was very hard to get myself inspired to get back to work on them and I wanted to do a really good job on them. It is so hard to paint doors and anything with edges, at least for me.
I designed these built-ins and had an amazingly talented woodworker (the same person who built the banquette in the kitchen) create them. He and I work well together because he seems to actually understand my vision for these things. As we were going through the remodel one thing I learned is that sometimes things that make perfect sense to me are pictured entirely different by the person who is actually doing the work.
Builtin1
Builtins2
Builtins3
Builtins4
Builtins5
Between all those drawers, which are nice and deep and have soft-close sliders that mean there is no excuse to ever have a drawer sticking out, and the new walk-in closet, we have a lot of storage. Since we both pared down our wardrobes quite a bit (if I didn’t need it for the last nine months, I probably don’t need it now was my thought) we have more than enough room. This is especially exciting because we’ve never had enough room to store both of our wardrobes in the same room (this speaks more to the diminutive size of our house rather than any propensity towards being clothes horses).
Obviously I have a lot of work still to do on the built-ins. I’ll be making a cushion for the window seat as soon as I find the right fabric. I’m looking for a couple of baskets for those cut-outs underneath the window seat. And I need to bring in books and accessories for the open shelving. You’ll notice I painted the back of the open shelves that flank the windows a light blue (mixed from all the different blues I tried to paint the bathroom before I realized that grayish white was really the color it should be).
And while moving our clothing back into a proper storage area feels better than you can imagine, finishing the built-ins marks a major milestone for me: the painting is finished. OK, it’s not totally finished as there are a few very small painting projects to be done, but for the most part my paint brush is taking the summer off and I am so relieved.

bedroom cottage remodel
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
3 Comments

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previous post: A path’s journey
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Comments

  1. Ms. Wis./Each Little World says: May 31, 2011 at 3:28 am

    What a great looking arrangement. Our clothes are in numerous locations around the house so I can only imagine the joy of everything in one place. We are lucky that this house doesn't have much in the way of drawers and doors that need painting, but we do have lots of louvered doors and window shutters that I don't want to think about re-painting!

    Reply
  2. Kit @ DIYdiva says: June 7, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    I cannot wait until my clothes go back into "proper storage", which I envision as something other than the floor of the garage.

    LOVE your built-ins!

    Reply
  3. Mark Brandon says: January 30, 2015 at 6:00 am

    One thing I like about built-ins is they are attractive and unique also they can be done in different many ways.

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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