#i just saw a pic of guy painting on the floor and got inspired...

[sanzosin]

Floor potions! Get em while they still on floor! Buy 6 and get the itchy-go-away salve for free!!

[zhowongli]

hello! i started a new thread because the other one (+ this one) got really long, so sorry! but i guess this is my love letters to you guys because you’ve made my tumblr experience so, so much better && i’m grateful for all of you guys + all of my mutuals and followers!!

first of all, @himawari-senpaii thank you so so much for your kind words! meggi, i love your sunflower motif because it suits you so well! sunflowers make me smile whenever i see them, and it really brings me so much joy to see you on my dash/notifs. your tags are always so fun and sweet. thank you for tagging me in this 🥺 

@animoozies connie, where do i even start? you were my very, very first tumblr mutual on this account! i’m so thankful you reached out to me before, and you’re still checking up on me even now. words can’t describe how much i adore you + how appreciative of you! when i see you on my dash with your stories, i always end up cackling because you’re so fun. idk how you do it working all those hours + going to nursing school, but you is a mf boss ass queen!!

@hoekaashi ash, my queen!! my tag for you is my day is blessed because ash ✨exists✨ because that’s honestly how i feel about you. i am truly blessed with your kindness, your humor, your friendship, you. thank you for always keeping me company through our struggles in pharmacy school! you are one of the realest people i know, and i feel so honored that you always send me random kenma pics & fics you think i’d like 🥺

@kanao annette, the other half of my soul, my whole heart, my literal soul sister. you are one of the biggest blessings i’ve received this year, and i honestly don’t know where i would be without you listening to my dumb shit and supporting me through all my mess LOL. thank you for validating me all the time, even if it’s just stupid stuff like enabling me to buy all the random stuff that i’ve been thinking about LMAO. i love how we are always ✨speaking✨ and  ✨manifesting✨ good things in our futures together. i literally feel like i can talk about any and everything with you, and i love that about us 🥺 i am manifesting that beach vacation 2021 for us, okay!!! 💖

@sapphitedreams leo, my cutest menace in the kitchen 💖 thank you for reaching out to me when i was too shy to reach out to you uuuu. you’re such a chaotic calm in my life, and i love your energy. i am constantly in awe with how adorable, supportive, and creative you are! even though you bully me sometimes and only make things for characters’ birthdays, you are so so talented and it floors me every time i see your creations because they are so amazing idk how they’re real. i hope you are able to get some rest even if you have to work during your break (& i hope you don’t accidentally fall during work anymore smh HAHAH)!

@onefortyninecm danielle!! my love!! i know i mention this before, but i am always so so inspired by you. you’re so tiny, but you have such a big heart and soul. you’re so beautiful inside and out + your humor is god tier. i’m so glad you were the very first person i’ve ever commissioned from (& spiraled me into comissioning indulgent kenma art HAHAHA), and i’m still amazed by your talent and kindness every time you post something new omg. i still can’t believe you DREW ON YOUR PHONE what the heck!! you’re so talented it’s crazy HAHA. i’m always thinking fondly of you + dandy wedding in a pumpkin patch 2021, okay thanks. 

@p-irozhki rissa!! i am so blessed with all the gifs you create and all your content on my dash! whenever i think of you, i think about all the smol icons you use because to me, you = cuteness = i wanna hug you so much!!! i think i already said it, but i’m always so thankful when you read all my self-indulgent fanfics and leave kind comments on them 😭 thank you for culturing me about mangoes HAHAHA. there’s never a bad time with you, and i’m thankful we got to meet this year!

@hoshino-a lena lena! you actually have so much bde that i am in constant awe by you. you are such a baddie & i have this like clear imagine in my head of you with crisp and clean vibes + the skies from your pfp on discord, hehe. i love you and all your brain rots about your exes. at this point, every time i see semi, my first thought is “ah it’s lena’s ex” and whenever i hear some sad song, i would be like “omg it’s lena ab her ex semi eita” LMFAOIOAGJDLA. i love talking to you because your energy is just immaculate + i just love your presence 💖 also please get some sleep because do you even sleep 😭 

@myelocin nic!! you’ve painted my world in so many iridescent shade so life, i can’t even begin to describe how much you mean to me. you works are just so beautiful so imagine how much i shrieked when i saw you followed me LMFAOOADIGDALJ i love that your blog is your safe space because it has become a place of comfort for me as well (and i’m going to miss you so much when you leave 😭😭). your makki brain rot is so strong, and sometimes i think about makki and you making dinner and teasing each other and throwing flour at each other or something idk. this is nic’s world now and we are all living in it tbh. 

@tsu-kiss nina!! you are someone i find such comfort in. i’m not really sure if that even makes sense LOL. but your blog and you are a source of comfort for me. in my head, you have such an older sister vibe even though i’m older than you LMAOOADGHDAKJ. i hope life is treating you well because you deserve all the best!! seeing you thrive makes my heart so full 🥺 i love you so much!!

@souheii lisa!! i kid you not, the first time you dropped an ask in my ask box, my heart skipped a beat because you told me you love me and i love you and you are so cute and i cri!!!! i know we don’t talk often, but every time i see you on my dash or in my notifs or when we do talk, it’s like a little shot of serotonin every time :”) thank you for being such a lovely human being mrs. iwaizumi hajime, 27, althetic trainer😭

@ultkags​ cas!! my first child 💖 i know you’re on a hiatus right now because school really, really sucks BUT you are seriously one of my biggest blessings. you are literally my ray of sunshine because every time i talk to you, i gain so much warmth and energy from you. every time i see your edits, it absolutely AMAZES me because i literally don’t know how i am able to see all your edits FOR FREE?? all your thoughts behind the composition and symbolism for each piece is CRAZY. please remember that i’m always your biggest fan + i love you so so much. please take care and remember to drink water and get some rest!! your grandma is always here to send you love + forehead kisses because this grandma can’t bake :(

@u-make-my-heart-tsumtsum​ ree!! hi, i know we’ve only started talking recently but i love how open and warm you are. our love was so strong that even tumblr tried to stop us 😭 conversations with you are always so easy and lovely, and you are just such a cool person!? i love reading all your thoughts (& i can’t wait to dive into your masterlist after school ends because we live for fluffy tsumu content 😭). i’m not sure why you even follow me, but i adore you so much!!

@neonghxst​ el, where do i even begin!! you are such a lovely person, and i literally have no other words to say because you always leave me speechless. your writing is so so gorgeous, and you are so so beautiful. i love reading all your stories because they truly leave an everlasting impact on me, and i love reading your interactions + just seeing you on my dash. you are so thoughtful, and you take care of everyone around you so well. i hope that you are also giving yourself the same treatment because you deserve all the best as well! remember to drink water in between your coffees and get some rest as you go into your final 2 weeks of the semester!! 

@und3lla​ maliha! hi love! i know we haven’t spoken much or in a while, but i really do always think of you randomly. you were one of the first mutuals i made && you are such a sweet soul. i love how every time we talk, it really fills me up with happiness. thank you for just being such a lovely person && you truly are one of the softest people i’ve met. thank you <3

@deadontheinsidebut angel, my dumb ham, my queen, my hoe (heaven on earth), my everything. i know you are also on a semi-hiatus right now because everything that’s going on, but i hope you are properly taking care of yourself >:( i’m always here to remind you to drink some water in between your coffees and teas and to GET SOME REST. you are so so driven, and i really admire how open and friendly you are. you truly are your namesake because you are literally an angel, and i always feel so blessed to be in your presence (even if you bully me sometimes for being a boomer 😔). words can’t describe how much i love you and care about you && i hope that you are able to find what you’re looking for during your break! 💖

@rumprich​ ananya! hello! i am so thankful to see you and all your content on my dash. you have so much creativity, and all your edits are so aesthetically pleasing to look at? like it’s so light + pretty!! i’m so so grateful that we are mutuals somehow because ahhh i really don’t deserve you. you are so adorable, and i truly am blessed to see your presence! 

@yuki-souma​ vee! i know we only started talking very very recently, but you are so much fun to talk to! i love how diverse our conversations are, and i love that we have similar favorites, and even when we don’t, it’s always a fun conversation that i look forward to! i love how open and inviting you are, and i’m really grateful that we are mutuals + i love and appreciate you so so much! 

@owlywrites​ owly! hello! you are seriously one of the most supportive souls i’ve met on this website. your kindness and drive to learn always leaves me speechless because you’re so amazing. thank you for being so kind to me, and i hope you extend that same kindness to yourself! don’t be so hard on yourself and remember to take breaks and take care too. you are such a beautiful soul, and i hope you’ll remember that i’m always here to support you!! 

@graphicstills-in-motion hi arianne! thank you so so much for always being so kind to me. i don’t know what i did in life to deserve you, but i must have done something right to have someone so kind like you in my life! thank you for being such a sweet soul + always boosting everyone around you up. your kindness is definitely contagious! i love seeing your edits and reading our conversations because there are always so many thoughts put in. thank you <3

@applepienation​ justine! thank you so much for always checking in on me whenever i post random shit on my dash. i really do appreciate you and all that you do for not just me, but also for everyone around you. you are such a ray of sunshine, and i’m so thankful that you’re in my life! i know uni is crazy for you right now, but i hope you’re still taking time to take care of yourself! sending you lots of love and positive energy!!

@touyax​ drake! hi love. i absolutely LIVE for your tags LMAOOADJGALD. they are literally my thoughts but you just typed them out HAHAH. i’m so thankful that i get to see your beautiful content on my dash, and i’m always in awe by all your edits! thank you for always being such a fun person + never leaving me feeling like a fool whenever i post ask games LOL. i love and appreciate you so much! 💖

@kagehjna​ ilayda! my kagehina supplier 🥺🥺 i love seeing your presence on my dash because you truly post all the best things! you are such a lovely person + i love reading your tags HAHA. you are truly a joy and we will definitely have matching kagehina icons one day okay 😭😭 12/7 is finally here/coming SO I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!! thank you for always blessing me <3

@sadaharus hi mei! you are literally the definition of softness to me. all your content and edits are just so soft and beautiful, and i love seeing everything you post. you are my main gintama supplier HAHA. i really appreciate how kind you are + how you’re always so sweet to me. 🥺 i know it’s kinda funny how i started following you because of a random ask game, but i’m so so glad i did because i always feel so thankful you’re here! 

@fake-charliebrown charlie! my little sprout babie!! i have so much admiration for you because you have so so much talent! your style is so distinctive, and i love that!! it’s so soft + vibey, and i’m honestly so so amazed by it all. not to mention, you have the best haikyuu thoughts! thank you for sharing all of that with me! i’m thankful for you, thank you <3

@itachihaa​ ay! my froggy princess 🥺 thank you for always being so kind to me + having the patience to deal with how slow i am to responding!! i’m really appreciative of you always because you make/have so much beautiful content and you are so so sweet as well!? and the way you call me miss starlight 🥺 that makes me so soft like!! uuu i love you. 

@stardust-make-a-wish​ star! you are so so adorable!! i LOVE reading your tags because they make me feel so fuzzy and soft but also relatable HAHA. your presence is such a joy + thank you for always interacting with me even though i just spam random stuff LMAO. i love how thoughtful your answers are + how much you love cake/sweets (very suiting because you are so sweet 🥺). thank you for being interested in me even though i am the one asking you questions! 

@karasu-hoes​ daisy! hello! i have so much admiration for you because you have so much creativity and kindness! like your events are so cool and unique + your writing is so beautiful! i love reading your feral thoughts + all your work. i also really love reading your witching hours!!! thank you for blessing me with you 🥺 you are always so kind + i love how much you care about your friends and the people around you. i hope you’re taking care while renewing your teaching certifications! 💖

@frailuta nico! hello love! i know we haven’t really spoken before, but i just want to know i love you so much. you make the most beautiful gifs + i truly am in awe every time you post something. life is tough sometimes, but you are tougher! sending so so much love and positive energy to you + please remember to take care! <3

to all my mutuals and followers: thank you so so much for sticking with me and my mess of a blog. i honestly don’t really contribute much to anything, but i’m so thankful you guys are still here! thank you, thank you, thank you! i love and appreciate all of you guys + my ask box/messages are always open if you want/need someone to talk to 💖 thinking fondly of everyone today + so much love to you guys mwah mwah!

[hoodoo12]

Fortress

A request for “the reader is having a bad time mental health wise and they make a blanket fort together and just. Chill? Maybe cuddles and some reassurances?“ led to this, with some other influences. We could all use some comfort nowadays.

Mature (Dewey Finn/reader)

@thewolfisapartofmysoul  @janitor-boy @beejiesbitch @turtlepated @beetlewise-and-pennyjuice @mimiscappinisideblog 

Enjoy! `

It’d been bad. So bad. You were tired and more than that, weary. Everything was too much but still you pushed yourself through each day, because it was expected of you, because people counted on you, because there wasn’t anything else to do anyway, during these times.

You got up, went to work, came home, went to bed. On repeat. Day after day. You wanted to see Dewey--really see him--but he’d been following the stay at home orders in his apartment, so all you really had were text messages and the occasionally zoom call. Each time you saw him on the grainy video, his hair looked wilder, his beard more scraggly. 

He listened to your complaining. He made appropriate noises when you told him how tired you were, and how sad you were that everything had been turned upside down. He wasn’t much into traveling, but nodded when you started crying about the fact a trip you’d been looking forward to had been canceled. He might have been bored, but he never voiced that to you. Instead, he reassured you that everything was going to be okay. You never realized how much you missed hugging him or watching him play Guitar Hero. Just being with him seemed like a luxury that you never realized until it was taken away.

The very rare occasions you mentioned maybe some sexting or even maybe possibly some mutual video sex didn’t end well due to embarrassment. Both his and yours.

Dewey Finn wasn’t a dick pic kind of guy.

So there was nothing to do but keep plodding along. Every message between you ended with, “I can’t wait to see you again.”

Until one day, almost two months into this, instead of, “I can’t wait to see you again,” he said, “Why don’t you come over?”

“What?” “Come over. We haven’t actually been together for so long.” That’s what you wanted. Exactly what you wanted. But now that it was officially offered, you worried. “I don’t know, Dew--you haven’t been out, if I got you sick because I’ve been working this whole time . . . I don’t want to be the reason you get sick!”

“I’m not gonna get sick.” His reassurance crashed against the rocks of your worry. “It’s not like there aren’t people around. I get Door Dash. I even go down  to the lobby to get the mail.” His little brushes with the outside world were nothing like yours: you were required to work and deal with random members of the public. It was a huge component of your stress, just having to be out and around people while everything on the news was dire and worrisome. Dewey knew all that; it was one of the things you mentioned repeatedly when you spoke with him. Still, he insisted. “I miss you, baby. I want to see you again. I want to hug you again. Don’t you miss me?” That was something else you lamented to him frequently. For him to toss it back to you was a low, but effective, blow.

“Okay. I’ll come over. But I’m not taking my mask off!”

He pointedly ignored your threat. “Good! Great! Awesome! I’ll have something delivered--you want those street tacos from the place down the road? I wonder if they’d deliver a frozen margarita--” You laughed, told him you’d see him tomorrow at seven, and he blew you a kiss that you returned. Worry was still a companion, but you had to admit you were excited to see him too. 

⁂

It felt weird to be out on the street and now walking up the stairs to someone else’s apartment. For two months it’d been nothing but hurrying to work and home, then a quick shower and trying to keep your low grade anxiety away until you fell asleep to do it all over again. It was that same anxiety that made you carry an extra set of clothes with you; you weren’t going anywhere near Dewey with clothes that had been out in the world, possibly contaminated. You were going to change the second you got in the door before he had a chance to hug you.

At his door, you knocked, heard a muffled, “Come in!” and actually sighed in relief that he wasn’t opening the door for you. That’d give you a chance to put on your spare clothing.

Opening his door and stepping inside the short hallway that served as an entry into the apartment, you were confronted with a barrier only a two, maybe three feet away--basically just enough for the door to swing inward. Dewey had created a wall of cardboard that blocked the hallway completely. Although there was a small entrance at the bottom, near the floor, you couldn’t see into the rest of his apartment at all. 

“Dewey, what the hell . . .” “Come on in, baby!” he called from somewhere deeper in, his voice almost as muffled as before. “There’s some hand sanitizer if you want!”

No lie; he’d left a pump bottle of sanitizer near the hole at the floor. This was weird but oddly intriguing. With a sigh, you quickly shed your outerwear and your street clothes, doused your hands in sanitizer, and slipped into the soft pants and tee shirt you’d brought along for what you’d thought would be an evening of just lounging with Dewey. You hadn’t expected any of what you’d seen so far. 

“Okay. I’m coming in!” you said loudly, crouching to look into the hole. 

It was dark in there. What the heck had Dewey done? “Okay, baby! Can’t wait to see you!”

Keeping your phone clenched in your hand for some light, feeling a little like Alice going into  a rabbit hole, you awkwardly started to crawl on your hands and knees into the entrance.

Dewey had created some kind of cardboard tunnel. Where he’d gotten all the cardboard and duct tape was beyond you, let alone figuring out how he’d even come up with something like this. He’d never mentioned anything like it to you in any of your conversations. 

Scooting along, it was longer than you expected, with a couple of switchbacks and one place tall enough you could stand in, although you had to turn sideways to squeeze along the corridor he’d created.  Occasionally he’d call out to you, saying you were doing great, that it was just a little further; that he couldn’t wait to see you. 

It almost sounded like he’d put cameras up and was watching your progress, but you hadn’t seen any. The shaking of the structure as you made your way through it must have been advertising where you were enough. 

Finally, after crawling on his floors through an semi-creepy cardboard tunnel for what seemed like too long for the size of his apartment, you saw a light up ahead. 

After one more corner, you found that, although still enclosed in a dome of cardboard, it opened up to a larger--for lack of a better word--cavern. A pile of blankets and pillows filled the space. A lamp, with its electrical cord snaking out to somewhere that wasn’t inside this cave, lit the area. Sitting in the middle of all of it, was Dewey on his mattress, grinning like a fool. He wore no mask, and you saw he’d trimmed his beard. 

“You made it!” he greeted you, holding his hand out for yours. The space wasn’t tall enough to stand up in. You crawled out of the tunnel and next to him, sitting up. For a moment, all you could do was hug and then you couldn’t help but want to kiss him, so you ditched the mask you insisted you would wear. It made your heart pound to feel how strongly he returned the affection. Finally though, after kissing him so long your lips tingled, you had to pull back and ask, “Dewey, what is all this?”

He shrugged. “Just something I did for you, baby. We can’t travel anywhere, so this was the best I could do like an adventure. Here--I got those tacos.” He reached to his side and grabbed a paper bag. “Contactless delivery,” he assured you as he pulled individually boxed food out.

With a smile, you accepted one. While the two of you shared the messy meal, he told you about how he’d planned out this whole thing: a vague outline of how he wanted it to be, collecting cardboard from the neighbors and bodega around the corner, ordering <i>so</i> much duct tape. The construction had taken some time, and he’d given up living space to create the structure. You let him talk, happy to hear about something that was creative and unique. It was nice to focus him and what he’d done for you, instead of the anxiety that threatened to drag you under. 

Finally, full of tacos and still so happy to just be with him, you lay back on his mattress. After shoving all the garbage back into the bag it’d arrived in, Dewey joined you. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “One more thing!”

You expected that to lead to another kiss, but were wrong. Dewey stretched around and fumbled with the switch for the lamp, Managing to turn it off, the small space was plunged into darkness. Reaching for him to help settle him beside you, you said, “Dewey, what--”

“Shhh. Just look.” Faintly, as your eyes adjusted, luminous specks became clear on the cardboard above and around you. There was no pattern to them; it was like he’d flicked a brush of paint randomly at the cardboard. But here and there were actual stars of varying sizes, drawn in the little-kid way of one line crossing over itself to make the five points. 

In the absolute dark, the pale green-white of the paint gave a passable impression of a starry sky. 

Dewey settled snuggly beside you. It was comfortable in this nest of blankets, with him so close. 

“I wanted this to be a safe space for you. Something far away from out there,” he whispered. “Just you and me and a galaxy above us.”

Lucky for you it was dark, because then he couldn’t see the tears that filled your eyes. You were pretty sure he knew anyway, as you buried your face in his shoulder and neck and made them both wet, but he didn’t say anything of it. You managed to give him a whispered thanks in return, and spent the rest of the night pressed against him, sheltered in a cardboard cave. fin

The inspiration for this came not only from the prompt, but from Will Blum’s self-made quarantine project: “Floyd Collins”. Check it out (and the ‘making of’ documentary called “Through the Mountain”, also available on YouTube); it is amazing and truly a labor of love. 

[malumsmermaid]

I wish you could write a fic about Cal and the reader’s first father’s day/mother’s day? on father’s day youre 7 months pregnant and you spoil him as much as you can and he’s like “the baby’s not even born yet” and you’re like “just preparing for future fathers days” on mother’s day you recently had your baby so Cal got the guys or his sis to babysit while you spoils you for a day and he posts cheesy instagram pics of you pregnant and late nights with the baby and he’s so happy to be a dad :’)))

As I said in response to this ask I’m not super comfortable with pregnancy, but I did have another idea for this one that doesn’t involve it, so I hope you enjoy this with the tweaks I made!

Send me an “I wish you would write...”

Ever since you and Calum got married there’d been constant, not so subtle prodding from friends, family, and fans about the potential for a baby Hood. You did your best to hide the discomfort caused by the questions when you were out, but within the safety of your home, many nights were spent having deep discussions with Calum about children. 

After several months of discussion, you began the process of adoption. It was a long, arduous process and you were both anxious, constantly checking your email and snail mail for any updates. Finally, the Friday before Father’s Day, you opened your mail box to find a letter for one of the organizations you’d applied with. Calum was out with Michael, and you opened the letter with shaking hands. You gasped at the congratulatory news, staring at the photo of the seven year old boy you’d both fallen in love with a couple months back. 

You covered your mouth as tears began rolling down your cheeks, an idea hitting you. You knew Calum would be out for a while, gently folding the letter back into the envelope and placing it in your planner in your purse, running to the bathroom to wash your face off before going out to the store.

You’d been bubbling, hopping around the house since you got the news, but you managed to keep it a surprise for Calum. Sunday morning you snuck out of bed early, hanging up a “Happy Father’s Day” banner over the mantle and wrapping a box just the right size to hold the folded letter and the photo. You hid it in one of the kitchen drawers, along with one card from you and another from Duke, Duke’s Father’s Day card being a tradition since year one of your relationship and Calum had come to enjoy it, and began making breakfast. 

Soon enough the smell roused Calum, summoning him to the kitchen. You grinned when you saw him entering the kitchen, scooping Duke up from where he lay at your feet, dangling him in front of your face as you did a goofy voice for the elderly dog, “Happy Father’s Day, pops!”

Calum laughed, ruffling the dog’s ears before leaning down to give you a kiss. You smiled, handing over Duke before resuming cooking. After breakfast you brought Calum onto the couch, handing him Duke’s card and gift, hiding the surprise behind you. Once he’d opened both things from Duke he thanked the small dog, giving him some scratches and kisses before looking up at you, gesturing towards the banner, “Baby, I know you’re excited, but why all the extra fanfare today? We both know this is a long process and it’s entirely possible that by the time next Father’s Day gets here we may still only have our fur child.”

You smiled, excitement and a few tears glimmering in your eyes. You leaned forward, giving him a gentle kiss before pulling the second card and gift from behind your back. He stared at both items in his hand before slowly looking up at you, brown eyes wide. You smiled at him, giving him another kiss before urging, “Open it!”

Slowly he fumbled with the paper that covered the box, staring at the photo looking up at him, “No way,” he whispered, throat constricting as he stared at the image of the child’s snaggle-toothed grin. 

He gingerly placed the photo on his knee as he unfolded the letter, hand covering his mouth the same way yours had two days prior. You had your phone out, taking a video to send to your family and the boys as Calum stared at the page, a tear dripping off his nose. He read the letter over and over again before looking up at you, teary eyes and a grin as he whispered, “I can’t believe it.”

You smiled, setting your phone down on the couch as you leaned forward, wrapping your arms around him, both of you crying in earnest with the excitement, exchanging soft kisses and “I love you’s” as you continued the embrace.

~~~~~

11 months later and you’d both settled into your roles as parents. Tommy had taken a little bit of time to adjust after moving in with you both, but now he was fully comfortable. There were still a few struggles every now and again, but you always worked them out together. 

It was Mother’s Day and you started the day being pounced upon by your now 8-year-old son. Tommy was followed by Calum, carrying a tray of pancakes and coffee. You smiled as both your boys snuggled up to you in bed, all three of you enjoying the breakfast they’d prepared.

After breakfast Tommy gave you what he’d made in class Friday, Calum having helped him hide it from you. It was a little flower pot, painted with a smiley face, heart, and what was his best attempt at Duke’s face. Already planted in the pot by the teacher was a small succulent and you smiled, putting it in pride of place on the coffee table, where everyone who came over could see his art. 

Being in the living room, you obviously had to put on a movie, pulling up Jungle Book for the umpteenth time that month, Tommy laying on the floor humming along to “The Bear Necessities” as he colored a new picture. You felt your phone buzz against your hip, and hummed, picking it up. You saw the tag notification from Calum, glancing his way as he stared innocently up at the screen. 

You shook your head as you opened your phone, looking at the instagram post. 

The past ten months we’ve had the absolute honor of being this sweet boy’s parents. They way you’ve persevered through the hardships and helped our son flourish ever since he came home is incredibly inspiring. I can’t imagine doing this with anyone else. I love you so much, Happy Mother’s Day.

You smiled as you read his caption, wiping away a few tears. You scrolled through the three photos, the first you hugging Tommy while holding the succulent and the other the three of you snuggled up in bed from few months ago, both images obscuring Tommy’s face, the first in your earlier embrace, and the second snuggled into Calum’s chest, since you’d both agreed before you even met him that you weren’t going to put your child in the spotlight.

The third photo was a screenshot from the video you’d sent out to the boys and family back on Father’s Day, the moment Calum’s teary eyed gaze fell on you. You smiled, swallowing thickly before curling into Calum’s side, gently wiping your eyes before leaning up to kiss him, “I love you,” you whispered sweetly, giving him a gentle kiss.

He smiled, giving you another kiss and holding you closer,  gazes falling on the young boy who’s own focus was on the movie in front of him, crayon hanging in his limp grasp, half-forgotten.

[chadbaegel]

A [CRINGE] Chad Gable Fanfiction

(This fanfic is ridiculous and inspired by a goofy friendship between a couple of hardcore Gable fanatics. It will really only somewhat makes sense to us because it is filled with inside jokes lmao)

Candy corn orange hues painted the heavens above us as we, @scratchandclaw and myself, raced to make it into the WWE Thunderdome on time. It was the first live Smackdown event post pandemic and we made it a point to be in attendance. "Do you think Chad will be here!?" I managed to ask @scratchandclaw as I attempted to catch my breath. "Wellllll, I think so!" he answered somewhat optimistically. "Good, I hope so! Otherwise I would've ran all the way over here, nearly tripping and injuring myself for nothing!" @scratchanclaw laughed, "Bless your heart." I rolled my eyes at him but laughed too.

Pushing the entrance doors open, we looked around, shocked to see so many people roaming around the lobby. One particular fan whose name possibly rhymed with "Shmabby" laid sprawled on the floor while on her phone, with what appeared to be rage filled tweets against Vince McMahon (just a guess). Amidst the chaos, something caught @scratchandclaw's attention and he nudged me. "Hey, @chadbaegel. Do you see what I'm seeing?" I looked in the direction of his gaze and I gasped. "OMG. Is that a Trifecta delivery man!?" @scratchandclaw and I looked at each other and we knew our Gable-dar was in full working mode. If there was one thing these two nerds knew, it was that Chad Gable LOVED Trifecta, as noted in his various Instagram ads (coupon code Shakk20 for 20% off fam). "Do you think if we follow the delivery guy, he'll lead us to Chad!?" I asked @scratchandclaw. "Yep. But that would be ridiculous!" @scratchandclaw said, with a playful pout starting to form as the ridiculous idea grew on him. With just a quick glance, we nodded and proceeded to be totally not creepy and stalkerish and followed the Trifecta delivery man.

With no real logic regarding what we were doing, we continued to follow the delivery man until we reached an area with security standing by. "@scratchandclaw, I have a plan but there's no time to explain, so just try to go along with stuff." "Wait what-" @scratchandclaw began to ask as I pushed him into the Trifecta delivery man, sending them both toppling over and into the security guy. As they all scrambled on the floor, Trifecta meals scattered all over the place, I motioned to @scratchandclaw and he got up, following me backstage with a single Trifecta package in hand. "I can't believe your crazy plan worked!" he said in an extremely Southern, yet slightly fruity way. "Well I can't believe it worked either! And I can't believe you smuggled some Trifecta too!" I laughed in a troll-like manner.

As we headed toward the locker rooms, we stopped dead in our tracks as we heard a familiar voice yell out, "Hey, stop!" @scratchandclaw and I looked at each other before slowly turning around. I gasped, as I saw Chad walking towards us, his eyes focused on @scratchandclaw and the Trifecta he was holding. "Hey, is that a Mexican bowl you're holding there, pal?" Chad asked. @scratchandclaw mumbled out a quiet "Yep" and held the Trifecta Mexican bowl towards Chad, offering it to him. I stood there in complete shock. He was so handsome and his hair was just as swooshy as @scratchandclaw and I had imagined. Chad smiled and took the Mexican bowl. "Aww thank you! Ya know, ya gotta eat like you train! Speaking of which, I should really get going." As he turned away I asked, "Hey Chad, could we bother you for a group picture?" Chad smiled sweetly and agreed to the pic. As we said our goodbyes and he walked away, @scratchandclaw and I were just starting to discuss the excellent craftsmanship of Chad's new singlet when we saw the security guy and Trifecta man running towards us. @scratchandclaw and I ran out of the building like our lives depended on it, hiding in a nearby McDonald's and decided to have a nice platonic burger and sweet tea evening. "What a man" we both said as we admired the very real and wholesome Chad group photo.

[wolfess19]

Beach Ritual

[Disclaimer: Obey Me! is copyright of NTT Solmare - I do not own anything other than the story created below]

“Feels good to be back in the Human World, isn’t it?”

You turn your head to Lucifer and smile. “I still can’t believe you actually convinced Lord Diavolo to let us spend the weekend here,” you said as you looked out at the lapping waves in the distance, “It’s been so long since my last beach visit.”

“Not just any beach, mind you,” he reminded, waving his hand towards the luxury resort behind you, “I believe it’s only fair we relax in style.”

You couldn’t agree more – these past few weeks in the Devildom as one of the human exchange students could get tiring at times, and this isn’t from making sure you aren’t another demon’s next meal. The resort before you is massive – palm trees swaying gently in the sea breeze as they lean in slight angles on fine, golden sand; little bamboo huts topped with straw roofs dotted the shore, providing shade for those who do not wish to spend too much time in the sun; lounge chairs close by for those who would be in the open, large parasols either open or closed depending on who would prefer to sunbathe. Behind this beach are a row of white buildings lined up along a marble catwalk – condominiums with balconies on the top floors as well as a shaded roof for those who’d prefer a panoramic view of the location.

“Well, we’re not going to stand here all day,” Lucifer reminded, “Let’s settle in.” You nodded and picked up your luggage as you walked over to one of the condominiums. Almost immediately the sound of two of the brothers could be heard as you opened the door.

“As the second eldest, I believe I should get the fancy room with a balcony overlooking the beach!”

“That’s not fair, I got to this room first!”

You and Lucifer shared a sigh as Mammon and Levi argued on who gets to have one of the rooms on the second floor. “Should we try to break up the argument or...” you trailed off, seeing Leviathan eventually give up and head to another room instead, “Never mind.”

You padded up the stairs with Lucifer – personally you’d also like a room with a balcony, but having just a beach view from your window is perfectly fine. You had just started to change out of your jeans and blouse when your door burst open. “Hey, MC! Let’s – GAH!!” Mammon started before turning around abruptly, hiding the blush from his face, “Sorry!!”

“Couldn’t you knock first?!” you scolded as you stood half-naked by your bed. “R-Right, I’ll just...wait outside,” he stuttered as he closed the door, thankful Lucifer isn’t standing nearby to see this. “What do want anyway?” you asked as you picked out a change of clothes from your bag. “Well, I was thinking...uh...” he replied, still flustered from seconds ago, “You know what, I think I’ll ask later.”

“You just walked in on them mid-change, didn’t you?” Leviathan teased, laughing as Mammon blushed harder. “We just got here and already you two are being troublesome,” Lucifer growled, though secretly amused at Mammon’s embarrassment. “It’s fine,” you assured, “He probably got too excited anyway.”

You opened the door to find they’ve all changed into their beach attire. Mammon has on a simple black-and-white tank top over loose black shorts with gold palm tree silhouettes; Leviathan wore a multi-shade blue muscle shirt over Goku-inspired beach shorts. Lucifer, being modest as always, decided to wear a crimson-and-black Hawaiian button down over loose black beach pants; the buttons on his blouse were half-open, revealing a hint of his bare chest underneath.

You decided to go with [choice of top] and [choice of bottom] in your favorite color(s). “I feel under-dressed compared to you guys,” you giggled. “Don’t be silly, you look good!” Mammon assured, “Not as good as me, though!”

“Seriously, stop hogging all the attention...” Levi muttered, “Any more of that and you might as well be Asmo right now.”

“Did someone call my name?” a voice floated from the first floor. You looked down over the stair railing to see Asmodeus smiling up at you. He’s already changed into a dusty pink loose top over black-and-pink Hawaiian shorts. “Beel’s already started cooking breakfast, so I thought I should call you over while it’s still hot.”

You were already rushing down the stairs as he was speaking, knowing Beelzebub would most likely already start chowing down before anyone came over.; followed him to the condominium next door. The fresh smell of bacon and eggs wafted through the air, combined with a meaty note of handmade burger patties as they sizzled in a pan. “Could someone go ahead and wake Belphie up?” Beel asked, knowing his twin had already decided to take a quick nap in his room upon arrival, “I’m almost done cooking.”

“I got him,” you offered as you headed upstairs to Belphie’s room, finding him asleep in the middle of unpacking his luggage. You gently nudged his shoulder until his violet eyes opened. “Oh...morning, MC...” he greeted sleepily, “I meant to get changed, but this bed looks so soft – I couldn’t help myself.”

“Well, get up and get changed already,” you giggled, “Breakfast is ready downstairs.” He nodded and sat up, yawning loudly as you left his room. You headed back down just in time to catch Beelzebub serving stacks of pancakes on a large plate. “Need some help?” you offered as he started carrying them to the table. “Sure, you could grab the other stack on the counter,” he replied. You looked back at the tall pile of pancakes before carefully lifting the plate; walked slowly to avoiding dropping anything.

Breakfast time is conversational as usual, though minus anything to do with RAD as per Lucifer’s request – he admitted that while he didn’t mind handling Student Council matters, it actually feels nice to not do any work for a change. “You’re telling me! Sure is refreshing to see you finally chilling with all of us,” Mammon agreed. “Kind of rare to see you all-relaxed and stuff,” Levi joined in. “Oh please,” Lucifer snickered, “I’m not always that busy.”

“Sorry we’re late!” Satan apologized as he showed up with Belphegor, “I got distracted by a new book I got.” The former had gotten into a Cuban blouse over matching pants, while the latter decided to wear a loose multi-shade indigo shirt over navy blue beach shorts; carrying his pillow as always.

After breakfast was over and all the dishes cleaned up, Mammon decided to head out to the beach to catch some surf and sun. “MC, you can come with if you wanna snap pics of me on the waves!” he offered. “If anyone’s asking for pictures to be taken, that’d be me...” Asmodeus countered, “After all, I’m the best-looking one here.”

“Wait, are we actually going outside?” Leviathan asked, “Like outside-outside under the sun and feet on the sand?”

“There’s nobody else but us in this resort,” Lucifer replied, “I made sure to book this weekend just for ourselves.” His assurance calmed him down. “I got the ice cream!” Beelzebub called out as you all head out of the condominium, balancing the tubs in one arm and carrying a sleeping Belphegor on the other. “How does he keep falling asleep most days...” Satan sighed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lucifer and Satan relaxed on a couple of lounge chairs, one reading a book and the other napping with sunglasses over his eyes. “Alright, surf’s up!” Mammon called as he ran towards the shore carrying his surfboard, “MC, make sure you got your D.D.D. up taking a video!”

“Already am!!” you called back as you ran after him, “Go catch that wave!!” Leviathan sat in one of the nearby bamboo huts already gaming away, headphones blaring music loud enough for anyone near him to hear it. Asmodeus settled in another, licking a Popsicle Beelzebub handed him to combat the heat. Belphegor eventually woke and looked up from his pillow to see you standing on the shore, water lapping your knees.

Mammon pulled himself further into sea before standing up on his surfboard as the wave began to build up. “Watch this! The Great Mammon is gonna ride the biggest wave of all -!” he boasted before he slipped, yelping as he splashed backwards into the water as his balance gave out. “Instant Wipe Out!!” Leviathan called out, pausing his game just to laugh hard, “Lol, you suck!”

You couldn’t help laughing yourself as Mammon dragged himself out of the water, soaked head to toe making his clothes cling to his muscular body. “Sh-Shut up, I slipped...” he argued, unable to fight a blush forming on his face. You were about to say something to him when something on the water caught your attention.

It was far off, but you could see a boat – a catamaran, to be specific. White sails trimmed with blue and purple lines catching the wind as it floated gracefully on the waves; the boat’s body had a name painted on the side. A name that you barely remember -

“MC?”

Mammon’s voice snapped you back to reality. “You okay? You were staring off into nothing for a few seconds.”

“I saw a boat...” you trailed off as you looked back at the water, noticing the catamaran was gone. “A boat?” Mammon asked, “But there’s nothing out there – maybe the heat’s getting to you.” You felt him pull you away to seat you under some shade; left to grab some ice cream to cool you both.

‘I know I saw it...’ you thought, ‘But where did it go?’

Mammon caught you staring out the sea again, this time deep in thought. “MC, are you okay?” he asked, concern laced in his voice. You turned to him and smiled. “I’m peachy!” you replied, “You’re right, I’m probably just seeing things.”

He chuckled and handed you your ice cream before sitting and eating his ice cream next to yours. You were staring off again after a while, this time worrying him. “I’m alright, really...” you assured, unaware Lucifer woke up hearing your voice shake for a second. “You could head inside for a bit,” the eldest brother suggested, “I understand not all humans could handle the heat.”

You decided not to argue and headed back to the condominium on your own, unaware the rest of the brothers are now getting more than concerned for you. “I don’t think it’s the heat getting to them...” Satan spoke.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That night, you were strangely silent during dinner. “MC, is something wrong?” Leviathan asked, “You were all smiles earlier today and now you seem...down.” You put on your best smile and assure him that you’re just tired. “In fact, I think I’ll just go to bed,” you added before excusing yourself. Mammon was about to follow you but got stopped by Asmodeus, the latter shaking his head.

As soon as you closed the door to your room, the pain in your chest grew heavier. You recognize that boat. You remember all the memories you had about it. Memories that you decided to bury in the deep corners of your mind. “Hey, MC?” Belphegor called from the other side of the door, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine...” you replied, quickly wiping away any tears as he let himself in. He found you seated on your bed staring out the window; sat close and gently draped his arm around you. “Were you crying? Your eyes look puffy...” he pointed out. “Just something in my eye – probably some sand or an eyelash,” you answered.

He decided not to push you any further and planted a kiss on your forehead. “Alright, just holler out if you need company,” he said before getting up. “Thanks...” you whispered as he left.

Sleep was the last thing on your mind, however. So as soon as you felt the brothers had turned in for the night, you quietly left your room and silently padded down the stairs, taking care not to make the door squeak as you headed out. You then made your way back to the beach, the cool night air feeling refreshing on your skin as the salty sea air hit your nostrils. You eventually reached the shore and stood silently, eyes scanning the horizon hoping you’d see that white catamaran again.

“...where are you...” you asked no one in particular.

“Who are you talking to?” a familiar voice asked from behind you. You gasped and saw Lucifer standing a short distance away from you. Besides the fact he looks tired from getting up this late, there was also a hint of worry behind those crimson eyes. “As for why am I out here, I heard you sneaking out,” he explained, “So you can either explain what happened to your mood earlier this afternoon, or I could make you talk.”

You sighed and looked back towards the sea. “There is a reason why I haven’t been to the beach in a long time,” you started, “But I doubt you’d be interested to hear me out.”

“Try me,” he countered, seeing you reveal a small glass bottle with a rolled up piece of paper inside. “When I was a kid, the only family I had was my father...” you began

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You were 10 years old.

You and your father were preparing for another fishing trip for the weekend; loading up supplies on his white catamaran, Angelus Gloria. The weather station said there was gonna be a storm coming in, but neither of you paid any attention as you were both risk takers. “Do you think we’d get a huge catch this time?” you asked as you jumped onto the deck. “We’ll see, kiddo!” he replied, untying the boat from the harbor as you began to set sail.

Unfortunately the storm was much worse that you anticipated. “Hang on!!” he called out as the catamaran rocked and swayed precariously on the rough seas. You couldn’t tell which was louder: your screaming or the boat suddenly splitting apart from being tossed onto some rocks.

The next thing you knew you were tossed overboard, body hitting the freezing cold water hard. Luckily you could swim and immediately grabbed onto the first floating item your hands brushed against – an inflatable raft that your father had hastily prepared moments ago. You climbed in and clung for your life, calling out for your father as thunder clapped overhead. “Dad!!” you screamed, tears mixing with the salt water splashing around you. You eventually exhausted yourself and passed out, curled up alone on the raft.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I was eventually rescued the next morning,” you continued, “But when I told the coast guard that my father could still be out there, they told me they couldn’t find any trace of that boat.”

“Earlier today, Mammon told me that you claimed to see a boat on the water,” Lucifer pointed out, “Was that it?”

You nodded. “I remember those sails; I remember what she looked like,” you explained, “So when I saw her, I thought my father has finally come back.” Tears began to form but you quickly wiped them before they could fall. “But it couldn’t be for real, right? I know the boat was destroyed during that storm, but a part of me kept wishing that somewhere out there my father is still alive; just taking his time to return to me.”

You looked down at the tiny message bottle in your hands. “Since then, whenever I was at a beach I’d stand at the shore; stare out all night hoping to see those beautiful sails.” You forced yourself a smile, but almost immediately felt it turn into a frown. “And every night, I’d prepare a bottled message and send it out to the ocean, hoping he’d at least find one and learn I’m still waiting.”

Lucifer quietly walked closer and gently hugged you from behind. You couldn’t hold back anymore and let the tears out, sobbing and sniffling before falling to your knees; he didn’t miss a beat and fell with you, holding you tighter. “It’s alright, let it out...” he whispered, slowly turning you towards himself to comfort you.

“I’m sorry...” you whimpered, “I didn’t want you to see me like this...”

“You shouldn’t be bottling up your emotions,” he countered, stroking your back; assured you he doesn’t mind you crying into his chest. He stayed in that position until you calmed down; gently wiped away your tears. “Feeling better?” he asked.

You nodded; standing back up with him as you clutched the bottle to your chest. “Hey Dad...” you started, “Sorry I haven’t been around for a long time, but...I just needed space. I just hope my message reaches you, wherever you are.” You then stepped out further, the water lapping around your ankles as you crouched and released the bottle; watched it float away with the tide. “I just hope one day...” you continued, “We’d meet again – even if it’s in another life.”

As soon as the bottle disappeared into the horizon, you let Lucifer lead you back inside; allowed him to tuck you back into bed before retiring to his room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“You’re all smiles again today,” Leviathan pointed out as you helped him cook breakfast, “Did something happen?”

You giggled and smiled. “Nothing for you to worry about,” you assured as you served up some french toast. “Well, at least you’re back to normal,” Mammon laughed as he poured himself some coffee, “Just don’t get us all worried again – especially me!”

“Must it always be about you?” Asmodeus chimed in, “But I agree – you’re looking much better today, MC.”

“I think we should have a barbecue lunch by the beach today,” Satan suggested, “The weather’s nice out and you don’t get this back in Devildom, so wouldn’t it be a waste if we don’t get to experience that?”

“I feel more like going for a swim,” Beelzebub agreed, “But sure, an outdoor barbecue will beat that any day.”

“You and your love of food...” Belphegor chuckled, “Keep at it and I may get as hungry as you!”

Lucifer nodded in agreement, but secretly still a bit concerned in regards to what happened last night. It was confirmed when you all then headed out and he caught you staring out at the ocean again...but this time with a smile.

Maybe this little beach vacation wouldn’t be so bad after all.

[ofcloudsandstars]

God this week was one of them WEEKS but I will post about some daily adventures and pics. It was good I am just reflecting and it was a ride lol. 

I just think cause celestially there was a lot of ““disharmonious”” aspects though I don’t really like calling them that it’s more like aspects that cause a lot of tension but that could be use as gun powder for energy or if you choose to not use it it can explode in other uncontrollable ways. 

Sunday my best witch friend invited me to this performance in London (if you guys went you’d know it was hell) called ‘Black Moon Lilith in Pisces in the 4th House’ which already a foreboding enough title. It was performed by Johanna Hedva at The Forum where apparently according to my witch friends that went was an Actual non-consentual seance of this musician channeling her mother who was abusive and died from alcoholism. She also trapped the attendees in this black room?? But to say the obvious I did not go cause I had a ✧・ﾟStaff Party・ﾟ:* (I am a Libra with priorities) and there was a potential for my work crush to be there so I got to partake in a ritual of one of my fave magics (glamour magic) and I wore a silver slinky gown with smokey black eyeshadow, long silver chain earrings and my selenite orb necklace. I painted my nails sheer silver too. I used glamour to make myself more alluring and ‘shiny’ to charm people/catch their eye etc. No my crush wasn’t there because that’s how life be BUT all the other managers were and they were all like Shocked at how I looked like I felt like the morningstar and the P&D manager literally gagged when she saw me cause she couldn’t find the words. The magic was sadly wasted cause my crush wasn’t there but maybe this was my guides trying to save me from shitting where I eat cause that was the evening Mars and Venus were in an intense square and we would have definitely gone home together. It was the same night another witch friend split with her wife and she had to move back home with her parents which is always unfun. 

Which leads me to Monday, I was staying at a coworkers BOUGIE house in highbury and Islington that’s a two floor apartment to babysit his cats while he and his girlfriend were away in the Philippines. I am known as a cat lover at work so he came to me to look after his place but I reached out to my friend cause I knew these aspects were trying and she asked if she could stay at the flat with me. I said yes which was.. a MISTAKE lol. Out of respect I don’t want to go into the details of her life but its more of I didn’t realize how blessed I was to be able to have a moment to rest and reflect in a nice apartment and I was trying to be nice and help out a friend but it was like the scene in titanic where there is a door they are holding on to for support and for some reason Rose gets to sit on the door and Jack is in the water and I felt like I was supporting this friend and getting sunken down myself. It’s crazy how much someone can take up space and when she wasn’t UNLOADING her drama of work and her ending marriage when I would come home from work desiring peace and quiet, she would try to change the subject but her mind is in a negative space since she is going through chaotic change so it would be always a negative or violent topic and I am like.. I need SPACE. 

The last straw was on the second night I asked if she could sleep on a sheet on the sofa since I noticed that people prefer when others sleep on bedsheets if they sleep on sofas and since it’s not my house and it doesn’t belong to a friend of mine but a coworker who is my SUPERIOR at work entrusting me with his house I want to be extra careful with his things and she said: Oh did I do something wrong?? And that question just irritated me cause it’s like no I am not implying you are dirty and will contaminate his couch its just this isn’t someone close to me and obviously this place is fucking bougie they have a Fountain for their Cats in the kitchen so you know they are uppity people like just sleep on the fucking sheet jeeze. Then she got up.. and there were Stains.. And she quickly said: Oh yeah I noticed they were there before.. Maybe they were from the cats?? 1. I was in the house days before and never saw the stains.  2. Regardless of whom it was from, even, if it was the cats, she should have said something cause its my RESPONSIBILITY to look after the house and if the cats ruined something I’d have to take care of it and if it wasn’t fixable I’d have to report it asap to my coworker and 3. upon further inspection it was chocolate.. Which means no it was not the cats, it was her, and instead of her taking responsibility for whatever she stained it with she just sat there for hours and if I wouldn’t have suggested she slept on the sheet which she was passively trying to make me feel bad for even asking her to do this then the chocolate would have had even longer to seep into the couch.  I asked her if she ate any chocolate lately and she was like: O yea, I had some cookies! In a babey voice and I was so done I just silently got the sponge and scrubbed the stains the fuck out the couch. 

That night I was literally sending energy out towards her like: You have to leave tomorrow and it will all be understood and go smoothly. The next morning the first thing she asked was: Hey how have you been feeling? Like she knew and she received the energy, and I was like yes sorry I haven’t been great and I do need space to process it alone. And an hour later she left to go back to her parents.  

Wednesday was my friend’s (this is the Scorpio witch I did DMT with and also moved here briefly from Brooklyn, she is from my NYC witch community) closing ceremony she did for her healing space in Peckham. I am sad to see her go cause she was such a fantastic friend and interesting presence in my life but she is moving on to the next chapter and is joining some community of witches in New Orleans which I am excited for her since she has also been on this journey of self love and healing trauma from her ancestral roots and its great that she is going to join a loving black spiritual community. There is also an underground movement happening in Louisiana with black radical Americans growing their own food and trying to help each other out so she is going to get involved there. She is an inspiration cause I kind of wish I could be this radical and just move from place to place and use my powers for healing but like its not easy to compare especially cause my friend went through some insane trauma that probably contributed to her taking a more dynamic path and maturing faster spiritually than I have. I mean she has an insane scorpio stellium and would do DMT often like having an ego death is just cyclical to her cause pluto is her ruler so its just another healing process for her to die again and be reborn from her ashes even though I probably could never do DMT again for at least 15 years lol. (It’s not my medicine). Her friend did a soundbath which was really nice in the space and I met up with some other witch friends there and FINALLY this illusive witch I made a yule stocking for that has been intensely hibernating since she split with her girlfriend and had to move back with her parents as well (the planets have not been kind to your relationships guys) but it was funny cause the yule cards I made for everyone were based off of oracle cards I pulled that reflected their year and winter to come and hers was literally about how she was going to hibernate and needed rest so when she apologized for not being around I was pointing to the image on the card of the person chilling in their burrow under the earth like: It’s ok that’s you!!! 

The rest of the week I have pictures for and I will post about them separately. 

I always feel bad I haven’t been on here as much as usual but my life has been eventful and full of adventure and I am in the process of figuring myself out (again.. a long ongoing process lol) so I haven’t been spending much time on the computer anyway. I used to love doing posts from magic in my personal life here but like everyday there is a lot of magic here happening in my life in london so I feel like it’s everyday and I feel like I don’t want to bombard you all with daily nonsense or drama. I also would want to be more productive with what I post like maybe use some of my knowledge I’ve been working with for years to teach people but I am somewhat unconfident in that. I am also kind of hard on myself. 

[asuitcaseofmemories]

Shopping is an Art, and I’m an Artist.

I was shaken awake at 8am and when I opened my drowsy eyes I saw my husband’s face staring back at me.

I knew I’d told him I’d get breakfast with him, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I apologized and asked him to go without me. In the same breath, I rolled over and dozed back off. When my alarm rang I felt it was a breath of fresh air. I told myself that today’s plans were just what I needed after two days of moping around my room in a depressive state, and taking six hour naps. 

I quickly got myself around, checking the weather app to see that it was a “chilly” 68 degrees. I regrettably threw on pants and a hoodie and decided that iced coffee would be my breakfast. I didn’t sleep at all last night hearing the constant dripping of the leak in our closest. Drip. Drip. Drip. It was enough to drive anyone insane. 

I ordered my coffee from the sweet barista and headed to the lobby. I wasn’t looking forward to attempting to discuss our leaking issue for a third time. I could tell from the look on the sorry look on the woman’s face that she was going to insist we move rooms. Indeed, I was correct. As annoying as it was that I’d have to pack up all our belongings again, and move rooms... I decided it wouldn’t ruin my day. 

Soon enough I saw a familiar black car roll up and received a text from Marlene that she’d arrived. I met Marlene a few weeks ago in a drunken Fire Ball induced stupor. After closing down the bar that night, we’ve been inseparable ever since. She’s one of those go with the flow, loves to have fun types of women. I see so much of me in her, and I think that’s why we click so well. 

We immediately started off with our morning girl talk, chatting and laughing like we’d known each other for ages. It seemed a moment later we’d arrived at the Antique Market. We were meeting up with 5 other women to explore the market. This was my first time and the were going to show me alllll I needed to know. 

This market was like many other Chinese markets. There was an upstairs and a downstairs, and it was a labyrinth of shops, each one much the same and yet completely different. I’m convinced the design is on purpose because if you’re lost long enough you’re bound to buy something just for the pure fun of it. 

I glanced to my right and saw ornate blue and white Chinese style vases towering taller than me. The sun peeking through the clouds illuminated their gorgeous designs. To my left I saw more of the same. Up ahead I saw some familiar faces smiling, waiting to greet us. We said our hellos and talked strategy. 

My friend’s loveee bargaining at markets. They knew which artists you could haggle with, and which ones kick you out before you can even try. For someone with a smart mouth like I have, you’d be surprised to know I would rather die than bargain. Shove me in a casket I’m done. 

A few of the girls needed to get some prints framed, so we headed upstairs to their frame girl. If you live in China long enough you’ll find you have a “girl for that” or a “guy for that” for just about every item you’d want to buy, fix, or make. Everyone seems to specialize in something. 

As we entered the second floor I was amazed at what I saw. There was a shop full of huge pieces of silk that were hand embroidered. The artist used vibrant colors to make koi fish, lotus, Buddha, monkeys, birds, pandas, you name it. I was in awe. The next 30 minutes were spent oohing and ahhing over every single piece. I must touch this, and touch this, and ooh this one too. 

The girls went to get their frames ordered and I went to get lost. I popped in and out of shops “talking” with the artists, aka a whole lot of charades. They were excited to see a foreigner, and their faces lit up with pride watching me admire their hard work. Many of them sat in front of their easels mixing their paint, performing stroke after stroke. Calligraphy artists dipped their long white bristles and meticulously dragged them against the paper. My American brain couldn’t comprehend the characters, but it was easy to tell each piece had great meaning. 

I found a shop where I watched an artist paint for awhile. She didn’t seem nervous having me watch her every move. My eyes scanned the walls. There had to be hundreds of paintings, and 1000s more hours hanging on them. I flipped through some hand painted items and decided one would make a perfect gift to bring back home.

I asked her “Duo shao chen” (how much)? She delicately pressed the buttons 200 on a calculator ($30USD). I knew she was high-balling me since I was a laowei (foreigner). She could probably sense my fear and anxiety as I more ballsy than usual typed back 150 ($24) on my phone’s calculator. She stared at me silently for a moment, pressed her lips together, and said “okay.” Which is good because one more second and I would’ve bitched out and paid 200. 

I felt we both got a decent deal and she wrapped up my gift. We thanked each other and I went on my way in search of more treasure. Just then I smelled the scent of what I can only assume all food in heaven smells like. A guy squeezed by passing me to go into his shop. He was carrying a giant bowl of noodles that smelled sweet yet spicy. I was determined to find where he got those suckers. 

I continued walking around with my giant eyes wide open, like I’d never seen anyone use a paint brush before. The girls were in a shop putting all their treasures together while Brenda drove a hell of a bargain for them. Brenda is our designated bargainer because she is just the sweetest thing, and no one can say no to the sweetest thing. 

I happened across the restroom because, iced coffee for breakfast, and it was... interesting. And when I say “happened upon” I mean I smelled it a hallway away. I entered and to no surprise, it was a squatty potty (if you’re confused please use Google). I closed the door and began giggling like a child. I also wished I was a child because maybe then that door would have been tall enough. The height of the stall didn’t even cover my boobs. Well ya know what they say, when in China. 

Next we went downstairs which is basically where I lost all my “I’m not buying anything else” senses. I’m extremely frugal, to the point where Corey picks on me... but if there’s anything you can talk me into... it’s jewelry. First I ran around like you’d just lit my ass on fire, looking left, right, up, and down. My first pass through I made it without a purchase. The girls were in a shop haggling so... I had to make another pass through, ya know just to be safe.

A silver and turquoise ring caught my eye and the shop owner knew it. I tried it on and pretended like I wasn’t going to just buy it no matter what price she gave me. At first she said 500 ($78) which admittedly caught me off guard and I unintentionally screamed AHHH ABSOLUTELY NOT! She was clearly testing my foreigner stupidity, then said 50 ($8). I was like, um yes this is my girl. She wanted me to purchase 3 more rings of hers to which I was telling myself “please step awayyyy from the rings.”

Well, negotiations were still happening in the other shop, so it was by pure fate that I found myself shopping again and I found an identical matching beaded necklace. The shop owner convinced me by telling me she’d sell it to me for “cheap.” I got it for next to nothing, but by her enthusiastic hug and complimenting me on being a “nice girl,” I knew she gypped me. This is of no surprise to me. 

Someone else walked by with noodles. Where are these noodles from? I walked around some more, and took about 500 pictures of an orange bird, because I’m crazy and because BIRDS ARE COOL. I also found myself staring at statues that probably were worth double my first car. 

I then accidentally bought two bracelets because they were boho style and I am really an irresponsible person okay? I’d tell you the negotiation story but truthfully I think my eyes glazed over, money was exchanged, and I have new bracelets. See pic below of the good good. 

The girls had come full circle and were back in the vase store where we began. The were negotiating with the no-negotiating, “I’ll kick you out of my store” woman. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle for them so I decided to go get lost again. I twisted and turned through the labyrinth of stalls. I was lead to a dead end where I was about to call it a day, when a sweet old lady came yelling “pretty girllll” after me. 

Sweet woman took me by my hand and lead me to her table of treasures. She was insisting I purchase a Chinese history book written in Chinese with English translation. Then she tried to sell me a comb and some beads. I was completely uninterested and finally about to escape her grasp. But as I said bye and turned my back I heard the most magnificent sound. 

If you’ve never heard a Tibetan Singing Bowl, watch the video because NEED. I have priced some of these at other markets and they were in the hundreds of dollars. I talked her down to $20 and almost peed my pants with excitement.The universe must’ve been paying attention last night when I was cruising Pinterest looking for inspiration for a “meditation spot” in our new apartment. Thanks Universe for being the ultimate spy. 

Basically after this I had to go find my friends before the Universe told me I had to adopt a puppy or something. Shortly after finding them we separated into groups to head home happy with our purchases. I NEVER DID FIND THOSE NOODLES. The end.

[longforgottenunofficial]

There Goes The Bride

Let's wrap up our current tour of the attic.  Don't worry, we'll be back. Consider the following scenario: A razzle-dazzle new ghost is installed at the DL HM attic, with high expectations, but the effect is basically pretty simple, achieved simply by clever manipulation of light projection.  Alas, the figure is too close to the track for the effect to be truly convincing, and the Imagineers fiddle unsuccessfully with the new figure, trying to get it to look right... Sounds like you-know-who, but of course I'm talking about Constance.  The only thing missing is the part where they give up and take it out. There isn't much to say about how the Constance effect works.  It's the old "Leota effect," a projected movie on a white dummy.  The problem for many fans is that it looks like what it is, a two-dimensional projection.  The arms in particular are unconvincing.  There's evidence that the Imagineers are aware of the problem and have experimented with ways to improve the look.  Compare these two shots of the mannequin under regular lighting.

If anyone wants MY free advice, I'd say the secret is to go fuzzy.  Her arms should be nothing more than white, blurry shapes, just thick cloudy hoses.  You could sharpen up the hands and hatchet when the hatchet appears, but only for a second.  Murk it up, boys, murk it up. By all counts, the WDW version looks and sounds better than the DL version.  Even in photos you can see the difference.  Here's DL Connie:

And here's WDW Connie:

(pic by Jeff Fillmore)

Definitely better, but we're still not at the "Gee whiz, how do they do that?" stage for anyone over 11.  Hate to sound harsh, but there it is.  Is she better than what she replaced?  For ease of comparison, here are three nice 3D's, showing the three basic bride types over the years.

Let's talk about something else.  Let's talk about the other razzle-dazzle effect that came into the attic with Connie: the wedding portraits.  Here the verdict is much more positive.  When they're working right, they are impressive, very much in the coveted "how do they do it?" category.

So how do they do it?  You may have noticed that when people don't know how a Mansion effect is achieved, and they want to sound like they doknow, so as impress their friends, they mumble about "fiber optics" and "holograms" and sprinkle the word "digital" around like oregano on a pizza.  Most of the time they overshoot, spinning out elaborate explanations when the reality is some ridiculously simple trick.  Like so many other effects in the HM, this attic-portrait effect is essentially pretty simple.  You have a painting on a thin, translucent fabric, and another painting underneath it.  There's a spotlight on the front and a sort of light box behind.  Actually, it's a little more technical than that, but I'm going to spare you the details.  It's all digital fiber optics, and other things you wouldn't understand.  Anyway, when the light box is dark and the frontal spotlight is on, you see the front painting with the guy's head on.  When the spotlight goes out and the light box in back goes on, you see the headless version behind it.  That's because when the back one is lit up, you see it through the translucent front painting, which is now unlit and essentially invisible.  It's the old scrim trick, not different in principle from the ceiling in the stretching room.

You can most easily figure out how it works when it isn't working!  It is extremely important that the spotlight fade in and out in such perfect coordination with the fading in and out of the back lighting that you don't notice any difference in overall luminosity.  Sometimes they're out of whack, and you can notice the picture brightening and fading in synch with the disappearing head.  The following two shots are grabs from the same continuous video.  Note how the frame is illumined when Reginald's head is visible, but not when it isn't.  It's not supposed to be like that.

The other reason the effect can be figured out is because it's been done before, more or less. Sherman, set the Wayback machine for Paris in the 1890's. The Montmartre section of Paris saw the invention of the fully-themed nightclub during the late Victorian era, including costumed staff, elaborate decor, and theatrical floor shows.  Some of them had otherworldly themes and put on ghost shows.  One of the most successful was the Cabaret du Néant ("Tavern of Nothingness" or "Tavern of the Dead"), where the theme was death and decay.  In the first room, the waiters dressed as undertakers and you sat at tables that looked like coffins.  In the second room they had a first-rate magic stunt in which volunteers from the audience would stand in a coffin and turn into a skeleton (and back again; sorry, it's the law).  In yet a third room the volunteers would sit onstage while ghosts that they could not see (but the audience could) made them look like perfect fools.  By that point you were pretty drunk and thought this was the funniest thing you'd ever seen.  And I dunno, maybe it was.  We'll go back to the intriguing C du N sometime later, since it is undoubtedly a source of inspiration for the Haunted Mansion, but for now I want to point out a special effect in the first room, which room looked like this:

Like the chandelier?  Anyway, the walls were covered with normal-looking paintings that changed before your eyes into gruesome scenes.  Sounds familiar, doesn't it?  You would think such a subtle effect would not be picked up under the harsh lighting necessary for 1890's photography, but not so.  In the photo above, note the large painting on the left with a skeleton in it and another, smaller painting up in the right hand corner with nothing showing on it:

In other photos of the Cabaret, the skeleton in that left hand painting is halfway or nearly gone.

Conversely, in other photos the smaller painting has a skull in it.  Here's a side-by-side:

You're looking at the direct predecessors to the changing portraits in the Haunted Mansion, kids.  But how did they do it back then?  The gullible masses may have been baffled, but not Albert A. Hopkins.  No, siree. "Around the walls of the room are placed pictures to which the spectator's attention is called by the lecturer.  Seen by the light of the room these pictures are ordinary scenes, but a new aspect is given to each when the lights directly behind it are turned on; the figures in it appear as skeletons, each picture being in fact a transparency giving a different effect as it is lighted from the rear or as seen simply by reflected light."

The main difference between this effect and the HM wedding portraits is that the Cabaret du Néant pictures were evidently paintings on both sides of the same thin cloth, while the Disney version uses two separate paintings on top of each other and more sophisticated lighting so as to make use of the scrim trick.  Still and all, the similarities are greater than the differences. [Edit: I now think Hopkins got it wrong.] There's an interesting footnote with regard to these changing attic portraits.  They were installed in May 2006, but more than a year before that the pictures in the changing portrait hall were replaced with fancy new ones with a more impressive lightning-flash effect.  These work the same way the attic portraits work, with two layers and backlighting.  That was in January 2005.  A few months before that, something very weird happened in the portrait hall that is little-remembered today because it didn't last long.  One day in August 2004, the stretch room doors opened and guests found themselves in a noticeably lighter portrait hall, with out-of-place looking Art Nouveau-style light fixtures by the doors, a more lurid, bright green EXIT sign over the chicken exit, and a row of light fixtures along the wall under the portraits, illuminating them.  As usual, Allen Huffmann at Disneyfans (an invaluable resource) got some photos.

Everyone thought these abominations had something to do with "safety" and muttered unkind things about Disney lawyers and OSHA inspectors.  When the EXIT signs returned to sane levels and the goofy lights were gone, the whole business was quickly forgotten. I don't think the mounted lights under the portraits had anything to do with safety.  I mean, come on, were people bumping into the wall?  What I think the Imagineers were doing was experimenting with frontal illumination for the hallway portraits.  If the lighting could be successfully controlled so that the front could gradually come up while the backlighting went down, these paintings could have been as sophisticated as the wedding portraits.  If this surmise is correct, the experiment must have failed.  The changing portraits have no special frontal illumination.  This means that in order for the back-side portrait to be visible, it has to be very light and the front portrait much darker, so that backlighting alone can do the job.  It's a cruder effect.  That's why the changing portraits in every case flash to a secondary image that is all white.

Originally Posted: Monday, June 7, 2010 Original Link: [x]

[cthep]

Hi Guys welcome back to my humble little efforts here at Beginners Journey into CosPlay, finally here are the other pics of the Destiny knife build, hope you will forgive the lack of them I have been so busy that occasionally I forget to take pics and before you know it I’m a lot further on, but this one is pretty straight....

Forward, first you can download the template for free from Bill Duran and his good Lady at ‘PunishedProps.com, ‘Thanks guys for the freebies, love your stuff.  Cut out and stick together then use to cut out the basic shapes that you need, this here being x2 1/4 “ to 1/2″ E.V.A. Foam floor tile and x2 of the thin 2mm? craft foam, (doesn’t really matter as long as it works). cut the detail shapes out as seen in pics  before trying to glue together, take off the rough sides of the foam..I used my new band saw but you could use a Dremel or just sand paper but these are a bit more messy and harder to do. Then glue the pieces together. I use an EVO stick Contact adhesive for this bit. Next I used my new Belt sander to carve the knife shape, it was sooo much easier with this machine but be careful as I did press too hard at one point and it takes the foam away FAST..luckily it was something I could cover by just gently removing a bit more, PHEW. I then used a heat gun on low to warm the foam where I had cut detail lines..circles etc to open the lines wider, be very careful not to burn yourself here and also..the foam will be melting so don’t leave the heat on it directly...pass it across the areas until the gaps open a bit then leave it. I did manage to melt a section but again I managed to recover from this silly error....again though it is a learning curve and I am now more aware so hopefully won’t do that again. Ok, now I cut some thin strips of the craft foam and glued around the hand grip as shown to represent the leather binding, again using the contact adhesive, Bill used a white craft foam...it doesn’t matter what color as the next step is to cover the whole thing with ‘Plasti-Dip’ as shown,  I have an outside area well ventilated and I wear a good mask and safety goggles NOT safety Glasses as the spray can get around them...as I found out the hard way. I gave it 5 coats allowing each coat to become ‘Tacky’ before adding the next. then I allowed it to completely dry before giving it a coat of Silver..this was just ordinary car spray paint, again about 4-5 coats, don’t be in a rush or you can get drips...again I made that mistake but was able to correct it, nice and slowly build up the coats is the best way to go about it. Then after drying fully I used a Black Acrylic to paint the handle ‘wrap’, At this point I used a Matt clear fixer spray to cover the whole thing to protect the paint from the next steps, I now followed by a using a brown ‘wash’ over it which I then wiped off just to leave an ‘ingrained dirt’ look to the handle...I did this around a few other areas...this is a personal choice whatever your thoughts tell you...go for it, it can always be changed. then I used a Grey Acrylic paint to make the grey ‘splatter effect on the blade and a Silver Acrylic to add highlights along the blade edge and any where that I felt was metal and might be a bit worn and shiny from use, then, cover with a final coat of the Matt clear fix spray and allow to dry..and voila, my first ever attempt at a foam copy of the Destiny Hunters Knife to go with the axe I made..da daaaaaa lol. I was pleased with the end result, don’t be put off if half way thru it looks a bit raggedy as they always do..the end result is what counts.I hope you have enjoyed my beginners effort, I’m happy with it, I hope I have encouraged at least one person to give this a go themselves, maybe the leather craft is too expensive..as I am aware, but 6 foam tiles costs £10 from Halfords and a bit of glue is not expensive, the paints are quite cheap and most things can be done by hand with craft knives and sand paper...if you give it a go I hope you will let me see your work, maybe share a few ideas. please leave a message if you like I will always answer. Please remember, I am new to this myself, this is MY personal Journey and I’m just sharing it to hopefully entertain you..possibly inspire you and hopefully help to prevent others making the little mistakes I make lol. Best wishes thanks for following, please LIKE if you did. next project coming as soon as I can..hoping to do a Hand Cannon of some type..we’ll see, don’t quote me..things have a habit of changing lol. till next time on Beginners Journey into Cosplay...stay Crafty. Bill Duran and his Lovely lady have a Video on YT showing all these steps which is where I got this from, all credit to Punished props and many thanks for letting us have the templates for free.

[yesterdaysdreams]

Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered

You guys may have seen some of our progress on the duplex’s exterior on social media, but let’s get into some of the nitty gritty (and answer a ton of questions that have come in about it) here on the ol’ blog. We wanna talk shutters, steps, metal awnings, and what the heck is happening with all of that diamond door drama (among other things).

As a refresher, this is what the house looked like before.

Due to the historic mandates in town, we’re required to keep all of the basic elements of the house the same – original front doors, exact window locations, the roofline itself (ahem), and the corbels along the roofline…

… although the historic review board allowed us to space the corbels differently so they’d go all the way around the house, and saved us from having to remake a ton that had rotted beyond repair. And yes, the duplex came with not one, not two, but three satellite dishes. Our cup runneth over.

And yes that’s regular old silver duct tape up by the roof on the right side. And the diamond windows were covered with DRYWALL and hidden in the walls on each side of the house instead of being exposed and letting the light flood in. In short: we had some work to do on the whole curb appeal thing.

A lot of the exterior elements of the 100+ year old house (like the rotting siding, degraded roofing, collapsing porch, etc) needed to be replaced with new materials that will hold up better over time, like HardiePlank cement board siding. We even reconstructed some corbels from composite, not wood (to replace some that were too far gone).

The entire idea of the Historic Review Board, who approves nearly every exterior house update, is to make sure that people can make these houses more durable and long-lasting so this sweet town doesn’t look like it’s slowly falling apart (almost every house is 100+ years old). BUT everyone renovating has to adhere to the same look/style/shape of the original house so this cool old downtown area still feels as historic and “original” as possible.

Since you saw the outside stripped bare back in April, the exterior is nearly complete – except for the new porch floor and columns… which are coming soon. But the roofing, siding, windows, and shutters are all done – and we could not be more thrilled with how it’s coming together. Sherry is beginning to question why she ever doubted this house’s potential in the first place! I’ve even heard her whisper that she might end up liking the exterior of the duplex more than the pink house, which I never thought I’d hear.

Hunting Down Operable Shutters

The shutters ended up being a bigger ordeal than we expected. New historic mandates require that the shutters appear to be operable, meaning vinyl shutters that you can pick up for about $60 a pair and screw right into the siding weren’t an option. The requirement is based on them wanting an authentic look and not based on function. Nobody actually closes their shutters there for storms – and many houses, including our pink house, don’t even have them at all! Most houses that do have them are those non-operable vinyl shutters that were hung before the mandate (like the periwinkle blue ones that used to be on the duplex). We actually get worse storms in Richmond, where we also don’t have operable shutters… ha!

The quotes we got for custom operable shutters from a few companies had our jaws on the floor. They were about $1,000 PER PAIR (!!!!) Meaning the whole front would set us back FIVE GRAND. I’ll wait while you deep breathe into a paper bag like I did for about five minutes after each phone call.

For a while we felt stuck with that fee (it’s a historic mandate! we have no choice!) and just as we were bracing ourselves to pull the trigger, Sherry found these pre-primed composite shutters on Wayfair for $250/pair. We’d have to hunt down hardware and paint them ourselves (more on that in a moment) but that price was muuuuuuch easier to swallow. In fact, our total for ten of them to do the entire front of the house was just a little over the price for ONE SET of shutters from those companies we called! Hallelujah.

They come in a variety of sizes and one was nearly perfect for what we needed (we got the 68.5″ tall by 15″ wide ones). They were a smidge narrower than what we’d need for the shutters to fully close (just about two inches), but we reminded ourselves that the mandate is just that they need to APPEAR operable (remember this isn’t about function, it’s about maintaining a more historic look – virtually none of these houses have working shutters that anyone closes ever).

Below you can see what they look like closed (still have to paint the backs of these!). Thankfully there’s not really a scenario when you’ll see them like this other than this photo, but a bunch of you were asking for this pic, so here you go. Obviously if you’re looking for shutters you can use to board up your house in a storm it goes without saying that you’d need them to be the exact width of your window, and you might be stuck with those pricier custom shutters, I’m afraid.

With our shutters found, the only missing element was the hardware, of which there seemed to be ENDLESS OPTIONS. And it can make your ears ring and your head spin when you’re trying to figure out which way things should hinge without grinding against the house, and how deep the swing should be so it doesn’t bump against the window.

These little hardware additions can also drive up the cost of your shutters, so we kept it fairly simple and hunted down these hinges and these shutter dogs (which are the decorative hooks that hold the shutters open). The grand total was another $380, so all in we spent about $1650 on these ten operable-looking shutters (not including installation, which is just part of our construction contract with Sean). And since we painted them, that saved us some cash too. Not bad compared to the $5000+ we would have spent on custom ones. Budget crisis averted.

The only small installation hiccup was that operable shutters typically screw right into historic wood windows, not vinyl ones like ours (a previous owner had already replaced the original wood windows on this house). We couldn’t drill the hinges into the vinyl frame because it would ruin the warranty and the efficiency of them – so we had to place them outside of the window, which thankfully ended up looking nice too.

Choosing A Shutter Paint Color

Sherry has long had her mind set on mint shutters on a white house (you probably remember that from our duplex style inspiration post). But we wanted to take our time finding the right mint. Since there were no mint coffee cups around (if you don’t get that joke, here ya go), we turned to another source of inspiration – this historic Pure Oil gas station right at the entrance of town.

The lighting in that shot above isn’t doing it any justice, but we’ve ALWAYS been charmed by this little building and its cheery color scheme. So we popped by a few months ago with a paint deck in hand to find some similar colors. We didn’t want to go quite as dark as their door, but we also know that colors tend to read lighter on exteriors (and they tend to look darker inside). So we used some removable paint decals to test five colors on various parts of the house. Clockwise from the top right: Pale Patina, Rice Terrace, Mist on the Moors, Salt Marshes, Aloe (all by Sherwin Williams)

Since people often ask us why we tend to go with Sherwin Williams for exterior painting stuff – well, most exterior painters will only use Sherwin Williams (that was true for the trim and siding on our house in Richmond, as well as for when we painted the entire pink house) so we figure if it’s good enough for the pros to pretty much use exclusively outside, it’s not a bad idea for us to follow suit (it has a nice warranty, good customer service, and has held up great for the last five years on our house’s siding and trim in Richmond).

As we were trying to choose from those five colors in the photo above, one of our favorites – Pale Patina – showed up in a surprising place: under the rotting stairs we were standing on! Once upon a time those stair risers were that exact color. How crazy is that?! We took it as a sign. The house was basically nodding its head in agreement on Pale Patina. Kinda like how we discovered in retrospect that the pink house’s kitchen had pink wainscoting.

The shutters were composite (no rotting!) and came pre-primed (uh, no priming!) so we picked up a gallon of this Weathershield exterior paint and over the course of several days, we put two coats of paint on all ten shutters. It took us a few days of intermittent painting because we didn’t have room to spread out and paint them all at once (no garage!) so we couldn’t do more than three or four at a time.

But just in the nick of time (literally, the night before Sean’s guys were scheduled to install them) we finished and set them out on our porch to go over to the duplex. The funny thing we realized is that Pale Patina is eerily similar to the color we painted the ceiling at the pink house (SW Breaktime). Is it me or is the pink house flirting with the duplex?

What About The Front Doors?

You may have watched the saga of Sherry hunting down a pair of diamond doors on social media (there’s more on that in podcast Episode #100 and Episode #109 if you missed it) and many have asked why they aren’t going on the front of the house. Historically speaking we have to keep the original front doors, so the diamond doors have always been planned for the BACK of the house.

We probably created confusion with photos like the one above, but those same front doors will remain. The good news is that we love the idea of the diamond doors out back because it’ll inject a similar diamond-paned look (inspired by the front’s diamond windows) around back too. So each side will have something-diamond going on for balance. Below you can see them hung, just not painted yet.

I know it may seem sad that they’re relegated to the back yard, but we’re actually crazy excited about the transformation of that side of the house. Everything from carrying the corbels around back to adding the metal awnings (ours are the 44″ x 36″ ones in the bronze color) and bumping out the second floor on both sides (thereby earning two additional bathrooms!) has made a HUGE difference. This is a before shot for you:

Crazy, right?! All of those changes had to go through the architecture review board (adding windows, bumping up the top, etc) but thankfully they all passed. WHEW.

Circling back to those metal awnings, we actually got a quote to have them built and it was around $1500-2K each… and then Sherry found these online and they’re so much more affordable – literally around a quarter of the price for each one! It meant we could definitely pull the trigger and get them – plus they tie into the same dark bronze color that’s on the tin roof out front.

We got some questions about choosing the height for our metal awnings (a few folks asked why we didn’t go lower). We actually originally held them up lower and almost screwed them in until I realized that from inside the house, they blocked the view and some light! So glad we caught that and raised them. Now the view out the door is unimpeded and as much light as possible shines into the mudroom. Note to self: always check the view from inside before hanging anything that can interfere with the view or the light shining in!

The spacing might seem a little random now, but once the lanterns are hung and the steps are added, there will be more elements around the awnings with similar spacing, and we think they’ll feel a lot more balanced. Along with adding porch lanterns and stairs, we’ll also be building outdoor showers and a privacy fence that can be opened to merge both areas if one family rents both sides, and we have a lot of other things planned too (of course: some string lights). We think the backyard might end up being the coolest spot in the house. Sherry keeps saying it’s gonna be “lit.” I give you permission to eyeroll that one.

But let’s go back to the front doors for a second. As you saw above, we tested out our mint paint swatches with some decals that we placed on the duplex’s front doors (which were painted a deep blue color and covered by janky storm doors). The original plan was to paint them the same mint color as the shutters, but after we got them stripped, we kinda fell in love with the raw wood look. Note: For anyone looking to strip old painted doors, first test for lead, and if they’re free of it you can use a product like CitreStrip and a spackle knife to scrape, scrape, scrape. 

The problem with keeping them wood, which I keep reminding Sherry, is that they’re still in rough shape. Not only is there a persistent haze of white paint (which is arguably kinda cool – and could most likely be sanded off) but more concerning is the doorknob, um, situation. The holes are in weird / high / completely different spots – and it’s gonna be tough to conceal any patching we do if we keep them wood (patching is much easier to hide with paint).

But Sherry is pretty adamant about keeping their wood tone and patching the holes and finding doorknobs with nice long backplates to conceal the patch-jobs. Then we’ll sand and seal them for a richer wood tone. They do look great with the warmth of the brick steps, and Sherry plans to add more wood accents (like wood benches on either side of the porch), so I can’t argue with keeping them wood – as long as we can get it looking good and feeling secure. Feel free to cross your fingers for us.

And Lastly, The Steps

You’ve probably never met a person more excited about brick steps than Sherry Petersik. We knew we had to replace the old wood steps, and while wood or composite is the most obvious answer, we really LOVE the brick steps at the pink house (and, incidentally, we also really like the awesome local mason who installed them). So brick steps at the duplex just felt like the right call.

Not only did they recently complete our super wide 10′ steps (with the same mitered corner detail we love from the pink house), we also had our mason redo the entire concrete pad beneath them because it was cracked and degrading.

We didn’t get any great photos of their process of installing them (it was raining on and off so they erected a tent around them part of the time) and we probably won’t get great photos of them until all of the other construction dust is cleaned up. But we love how wide and gracious they feel.

As for a porch railing and stair railing, those will be added later once the porch comes together more. It’ll be historic looking (white with vertical pickets) and we found this house as inspiration which also has wide brick steps, so that might help you picture it.

The last thing I’ll mention is the brick border along the perimeter of the house. We realized that splashing from the rain was quickly dirtying the foundation (see above), which was essentially skim-coated in a white plaster-like material. So at the mason’s suggestion, we had him install this border as sort of an upgraded version of pea gravel or rock that lots of houses have to keep that splash-back to a minimum (still haven’t hosed off the skim coated area – but once we do it should stay a lot cleaner now).

The brick border won’t be as noticeable once everything is landscaped, but we like being able to incorporate that brick texture since the rest of the street has brick foundations and our little duplex missed out on that.

So I think that gets you pretty much up to speed on the state of the exterior. The interior is actually done being drywalled (!!!) so next up is some primer and paint inside, followed by interior trim and doors – plus they’re going to start working on rebuilding the porch. That’s A WHOLE LOTTA PROGRESS that we should get to share with you guys over the next month or so, so stay tuned. Also, the day the Port-O-Potty finally leaves will be a day we dance on those wide brick steps like no one is watching.

P.S. Wanna read all about rebuilding this duplex from day one? There’s a whole category full of duplex posts for you to peruse and click into if they sound interesting. We also have a detailed podcast about how we could afford to buy the duplex in the middle of renovating our pink house (we include how much the beach house and the duplex cost us, etc). 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered appeared first on Young House Love.

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Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered

You guys may have seen some of our progress on the duplex’s exterior on social media, but let’s get into some of the nitty gritty (and answer a ton of questions that have come in about it) here on the ol’ blog. We wanna talk shutters, steps, metal awnings, and what the heck is happening with all of that diamond door drama (among other things).

As a refresher, this is what the house looked like before.

Due to the historic mandates in town, we’re required to keep all of the basic elements of the house the same – original front doors, exact window locations, the roofline itself (ahem), and the corbels along the roofline…

… although the historic review board allowed us to space the corbels differently so they’d go all the way around the house, and saved us from having to remake a ton that had rotted beyond repair. And yes, the duplex came with not one, not two, but three satellite dishes. Our cup runneth over.

And yes that’s regular old silver duct tape up by the roof on the right side. And the diamond windows were covered with DRYWALL and hidden in the walls on each side of the house instead of being exposed and letting the light flood in. In short: we had some work to do on the whole curb appeal thing.

A lot of the exterior elements of the 100+ year old house (like the rotting siding, degraded roofing, collapsing porch, etc) needed to be replaced with new materials that will hold up better over time, like HardiePlank cement board siding. We even reconstructed some corbels from composite, not wood (to replace some that were too far gone).

The entire idea of the Historic Review Board, who approves nearly every exterior house update, is to make sure that people can make these houses more durable and long-lasting so this sweet town doesn’t look like it’s slowly falling apart (almost every house is 100+ years old). BUT everyone renovating has to adhere to the same look/style/shape of the original house so this cool old downtown area still feels as historic and “original” as possible.

Since you saw the outside stripped bare back in April, the exterior is nearly complete – except for the new porch floor and columns… which are coming soon. But the roofing, siding, windows, and shutters are all done – and we could not be more thrilled with how it’s coming together. Sherry is beginning to question why she ever doubted this house’s potential in the first place! I’ve even heard her whisper that she might end up liking the exterior of the duplex more than the pink house, which I never thought I’d hear.

Hunting Down Operable Shutters

The shutters ended up being a bigger ordeal than we expected. New historic mandates require that the shutters appear to be operable, meaning vinyl shutters that you can pick up for about $60 a pair and screw right into the siding weren’t an option. The requirement is based on them wanting an authentic look and not based on function. Nobody actually closes their shutters there for storms – and many houses, including our pink house, don’t even have them at all! Most houses that do have them are those non-operable vinyl shutters that were hung before the mandate (like the periwinkle blue ones that used to be on the duplex). We actually get worse storms in Richmond, where we also don’t have operable shutters… ha!

The quotes we got for custom operable shutters from a few companies had our jaws on the floor. They were about $1,000 PER PAIR (!!!!) Meaning the whole front would set us back FIVE GRAND. I’ll wait while you deep breathe into a paper bag like I did for about five minutes after each phone call.

For a while we felt stuck with that fee (it’s a historic mandate! we have no choice!) and just as we were bracing ourselves to pull the trigger, Sherry found these pre-primed composite shutters on Wayfair for $250/pair. We’d have to hunt down hardware and paint them ourselves (more on that in a moment) but that price was muuuuuuch easier to swallow. In fact, our total for ten of them to do the entire front of the house was just a little over the price for ONE SET of shutters from those companies we called! Hallelujah.

They come in a variety of sizes and one was nearly perfect for what we needed (we got the 68.5″ tall by 15″ wide ones). They were a smidge narrower than what we’d need for the shutters to fully close (just about two inches), but we reminded ourselves that the mandate is just that they need to APPEAR operable (remember this isn’t about function, it’s about maintaining a more historic look – virtually none of these houses have working shutters that anyone closes ever).

Below you can see what they look like closed (still have to paint the backs of these!). Thankfully there’s not really a scenario when you’ll see them like this other than this photo, but a bunch of you were asking for this pic, so here you go. Obviously if you’re looking for shutters you can use to board up your house in a storm it goes without saying that you’d need them to be the exact width of your window, and you might be stuck with those pricier custom shutters, I’m afraid.

With our shutters found, the only missing element was the hardware, of which there seemed to be ENDLESS OPTIONS. And it can make your ears ring and your head spin when you’re trying to figure out which way things should hinge without grinding against the house, and how deep the swing should be so it doesn’t bump against the window.

These little hardware additions can also drive up the cost of your shutters, so we kept it fairly simple and hunted down these hinges and these shutter dogs (which are the decorative hooks that hold the shutters open). The grand total was another $380, so all in we spent about $1650 on these ten operable-looking shutters (not including installation, which is just part of our construction contract with Sean). And since we painted them, that saved us some cash too. Not bad compared to the $5000+ we would have spent on custom ones. Budget crisis averted.

The only small installation hiccup was that operable shutters typically screw right into historic wood windows, not vinyl ones like ours (a previous owner had already replaced the original wood windows on this house). We couldn’t drill the hinges into the vinyl frame because it would ruin the warranty and the efficiency of them – so we had to place them outside of the window, which thankfully ended up looking nice too.

Choosing A Shutter Paint Color

Sherry has long had her mind set on mint shutters on a white house (you probably remember that from our duplex style inspiration post). But we wanted to take our time finding the right mint. Since there were no mint coffee cups around (if you don’t get that joke, here ya go), we turned to another source of inspiration – this historic Pure Oil gas station right at the entrance of town.

The lighting in that shot above isn’t doing it any justice, but we’ve ALWAYS been charmed by this little building and its cheery color scheme. So we popped by a few months ago with a paint deck in hand to find some similar colors. We didn’t want to go quite as dark as their door, but we also know that colors tend to read lighter on exteriors (and they tend to look darker inside). So we used some removable paint decals to test five colors on various parts of the house. Clockwise from the top right: Pale Patina, Rice Terrace, Mist on the Moors, Salt Marshes, Aloe (all by Sherwin Williams)

Since people often ask us why we tend to go with Sherwin Williams for exterior painting stuff – well, most exterior painters will only use Sherwin Williams (that was true for the trim and siding on our house in Richmond, as well as for when we painted the entire pink house) so we figure if it’s good enough for the pros to pretty much use exclusively outside, it’s not a bad idea for us to follow suit (it has a nice warranty, good customer service, and has held up great for the last five years on our house’s siding and trim in Richmond).

As we were trying to choose from those five colors in the photo above, one of our favorites – Pale Patina – showed up in a surprising place: under the rotting stairs we were standing on! Once upon a time those stair risers were that exact color. How crazy is that?! We took it as a sign. The house was basically nodding its head in agreement on Pale Patina. Kinda like how we discovered in retrospect that the pink house’s kitchen had pink wainscoting.

The shutters were composite (no rotting!) and came pre-primed (uh, no priming!) so we picked up a gallon of this Weathershield exterior paint and over the course of several days, we put two coats of paint on all ten shutters. It took us a few days of intermittent painting because we didn’t have room to spread out and paint them all at once (no garage!) so we couldn’t do more than three or four at a time.

But just in the nick of time (literally, the night before Sean’s guys were scheduled to install them) we finished and set them out on our porch to go over to the duplex. The funny thing we realized is that Pale Patina is eerily similar to the color we painted the ceiling at the pink house (SW Breaktime). Is it me or is the pink house flirting with the duplex?

What About The Front Doors?

You may have watched the saga of Sherry hunting down a pair of diamond doors on social media (there’s more on that in podcast Episode #100 and Episode #109 if you missed it) and many have asked why they aren’t going on the front of the house. Historically speaking we have to keep the original front doors, so the diamond doors have always been planned for the BACK of the house.

We probably created confusion with photos like the one above, but those same front doors will remain. The good news is that we love the idea of the diamond doors out back because it’ll inject a similar diamond-paned look (inspired by the front’s diamond windows) around back too. So each side will have something-diamond going on for balance. Below you can see them hung, just not painted yet.

I know it may seem sad that they’re relegated to the back yard, but we’re actually crazy excited about the transformation of that side of the house. Everything from carrying the corbels around back to adding the metal awnings (ours are the 44″ x 36″ ones in the bronze color) and bumping out the second floor on both sides (thereby earning two additional bathrooms!) has made a HUGE difference. This is a before shot for you:

Crazy, right?! All of those changes had to go through the architecture review board (adding windows, bumping up the top, etc) but thankfully they all passed. WHEW.

Circling back to those metal awnings, we actually got a quote to have them built and it was around $1500-2K each… and then Sherry found these online and they’re so much more affordable – literally around a quarter of the price for each one! It meant we could definitely pull the trigger and get them – plus they tie into the same dark bronze color that’s on the tin roof out front.

We got some questions about choosing the height for our metal awnings (a few folks asked why we didn’t go lower). We actually originally held them up lower and almost screwed them in until I realized that from inside the house, they blocked the view and some light! So glad we caught that and raised them. Now the view out the door is unimpeded and as much light as possible shines into the mudroom. Note to self: always check the view from inside before hanging anything that can interfere with the view or the light shining in!

The spacing might seem a little random now, but once the lanterns are hung and the steps are added, there will be more elements around the awnings with similar spacing, and we think they’ll feel a lot more balanced. Along with adding porch lanterns and stairs, we’ll also be building outdoor showers and a privacy fence that can be opened to merge both areas if one family rents both sides, and we have a lot of other things planned too (of course: some string lights). We think the backyard might end up being the coolest spot in the house. Sherry keeps saying it’s gonna be “lit.” I give you permission to eyeroll that one.

But let’s go back to the front doors for a second. As you saw above, we tested out our mint paint swatches with some decals that we placed on the duplex’s front doors (which were painted a deep blue color and covered by janky storm doors). The original plan was to paint them the same mint color as the shutters, but after we got them stripped, we kinda fell in love with the raw wood look. Note: For anyone looking to strip old painted doors, first test for lead, and if they’re free of it you can use a product like CitreStrip and a spackle knife to scrape, scrape, scrape. 

The problem with keeping them wood, which I keep reminding Sherry, is that they’re still in rough shape. Not only is there a persistent haze of white paint (which is arguably kinda cool – and could most likely be sanded off) but more concerning is the doorknob, um, situation. The holes are in weird / high / completely different spots – and it’s gonna be tough to conceal any patching we do if we keep them wood (patching is much easier to hide with paint).

But Sherry is pretty adamant about keeping their wood tone and patching the holes and finding doorknobs with nice long backplates to conceal the patch-jobs. Then we’ll sand and seal them for a richer wood tone. They do look great with the warmth of the brick steps, and Sherry plans to add more wood accents (like wood benches on either side of the porch), so I can’t argue with keeping them wood – as long as we can get it looking good and feeling secure. Feel free to cross your fingers for us.

And Lastly, The Steps

You’ve probably never met a person more excited about brick steps than Sherry Petersik. We knew we had to replace the old wood steps, and while wood or composite is the most obvious answer, we really LOVE the brick steps at the pink house (and, incidentally, we also really like the awesome local mason who installed them). So brick steps at the duplex just felt like the right call.

Not only did they recently complete our super wide 10′ steps (with the same mitered corner detail we love from the pink house), we also had our mason redo the entire concrete pad beneath them because it was cracked and degrading.

We didn’t get any great photos of their process of installing them (it was raining on and off so they erected a tent around them part of the time) and we probably won’t get great photos of them until all of the other construction dust is cleaned up. But we love how wide and gracious they feel.

As for a porch railing and stair railing, those will be added later once the porch comes together more. It’ll be historic looking (white with vertical pickets) and we found this house as inspiration which also has wide brick steps, so that might help you picture it.

The last thing I’ll mention is the brick border along the perimeter of the house. We realized that splashing from the rain was quickly dirtying the foundation (see above), which was essentially skim-coated in a white plaster-like material. So at the mason’s suggestion, we had him install this border as sort of an upgraded version of pea gravel or rock that lots of houses have to keep that splash-back to a minimum (still haven’t hosed off the skim coated area – but once we do it should stay a lot cleaner now).

The brick border won’t be as noticeable once everything is landscaped, but we like being able to incorporate that brick texture since the rest of the street has brick foundations and our little duplex missed out on that.

So I think that gets you pretty much up to speed on the state of the exterior. The interior is actually done being drywalled (!!!) so next up is some primer and paint inside, followed by interior trim and doors – plus they’re going to start working on rebuilding the porch. That’s A WHOLE LOTTA PROGRESS that we should get to share with you guys over the next month or so, so stay tuned. Also, the day the Port-O-Potty finally leaves will be a day we dance on those wide brick steps like no one is watching.

P.S. Wanna read all about rebuilding this duplex from day one? There’s a whole category full of duplex posts for you to peruse and click into if they sound interesting. We also have a detailed podcast about how we could afford to buy the duplex in the middle of renovating our pink house (we include how much the beach house and the duplex cost us, etc). 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered appeared first on Young House Love.

Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered published first on https://carpetgurus.tumblr.com/

[truereviewpage]

Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered

You guys may have seen some of our progress on the duplex’s exterior on social media, but let’s get into some of the nitty gritty (and answer a ton of questions that have come in about it) here on the ol’ blog. We wanna talk shutters, steps, metal awnings, and what the heck is happening with all of that diamond door drama (among other things).

As a refresher, this is what the house looked like before.

Due to the historic mandates in town, we’re required to keep all of the basic elements of the house the same – original front doors, exact window locations, the roofline itself (ahem), and the corbels along the roofline…

… although the historic review board allowed us to space the corbels differently so they’d go all the way around the house, and saved us from having to remake a ton that had rotted beyond repair. And yes, the duplex came with not one, not two, but three satellite dishes. Our cup runneth over.

And yes that’s regular old silver duct tape up by the roof on the right side. And the diamond windows were covered with DRYWALL and hidden in the walls on each side of the house instead of being exposed and letting the light flood in. In short: we had some work to do on the whole curb appeal thing.

A lot of the exterior elements of the 100+ year old house (like the rotting siding, degraded roofing, collapsing porch, etc) needed to be replaced with new materials that will hold up better over time, like HardiePlank cement board siding. We even reconstructed some corbels from composite, not wood (to replace some that were too far gone).

The entire idea of the Historic Review Board, who approves nearly every exterior house update, is to make sure that people can make these houses more durable and long-lasting so this sweet town doesn’t look like it’s slowly falling apart (almost every house is 100+ years old). BUT everyone renovating has to adhere to the same look/style/shape of the original house so this cool old downtown area still feels as historic and “original” as possible.

Since you saw the outside stripped bare back in April, the exterior is nearly complete – except for the new porch floor and columns… which are coming soon. But the roofing, siding, windows, and shutters are all done – and we could not be more thrilled with how it’s coming together. Sherry is beginning to question why she ever doubted this house’s potential in the first place! I’ve even heard her whisper that she might end up liking the exterior of the duplex more than the pink house, which I never thought I’d hear.

Hunting Down Operable Shutters

The shutters ended up being a bigger ordeal than we expected. New historic mandates require that the shutters appear to be operable, meaning vinyl shutters that you can pick up for about $60 a pair and screw right into the siding weren’t an option. The requirement is based on them wanting an authentic look and not based on function. Nobody actually closes their shutters there for storms – and many houses, including our pink house, don’t even have them at all! Most houses that do have them are those non-operable vinyl shutters that were hung before the mandate (like the periwinkle blue ones that used to be on the duplex). We actually get worse storms in Richmond, where we also don’t have operable shutters… ha!

The quotes we got for custom operable shutters from a few companies had our jaws on the floor. They were about $1,000 PER PAIR (!!!!) Meaning the whole front would set us back FIVE GRAND. I’ll wait while you deep breathe into a paper bag like I did for about five minutes after each phone call.

For a while we felt stuck with that fee (it’s a historic mandate! we have no choice!) and just as we were bracing ourselves to pull the trigger, Sherry found these pre-primed composite shutters on Wayfair for $250/pair. We’d have to hunt down hardware and paint them ourselves (more on that in a moment) but that price was muuuuuuch easier to swallow. In fact, our total for ten of them to do the entire front of the house was just a little over the price for ONE SET of shutters from those companies we called! Hallelujah.

They come in a variety of sizes and one was nearly perfect for what we needed (we got the 68.5″ tall by 15″ wide ones). They were a smidge narrower than what we’d need for the shutters to fully close (just about two inches), but we reminded ourselves that the mandate is just that they need to APPEAR operable (remember this isn’t about function, it’s about maintaining a more historic look – virtually none of these houses have working shutters that anyone closes ever).

Below you can see what they look like closed (still have to paint the backs of these!). Thankfully there’s not really a scenario when you’ll see them like this other than this photo, but a bunch of you were asking for this pic, so here you go. Obviously if you’re looking for shutters you can use to board up your house in a storm it goes without saying that you’d need them to be the exact width of your window, and you might be stuck with those pricier custom shutters, I’m afraid.

With our shutters found, the only missing element was the hardware, of which there seemed to be ENDLESS OPTIONS. And it can make your ears ring and your head spin when you’re trying to figure out which way things should hinge without grinding against the house, and how deep the swing should be so it doesn’t bump against the window.

These little hardware additions can also drive up the cost of your shutters, so we kept it fairly simple and hunted down these hinges and these shutter dogs (which are the decorative hooks that hold the shutters open). The grand total was another $380, so all in we spent about $1650 on these ten operable-looking shutters (not including installation, which is just part of our construction contract with Sean). And since we painted them, that saved us some cash too. Not bad compared to the $5000+ we would have spent on custom ones. Budget crisis averted.

The only small installation hiccup was that operable shutters typically screw right into historic wood windows, not vinyl ones like ours (a previous owner had already replaced the original wood windows on this house). We couldn’t drill the hinges into the vinyl frame because it would ruin the warranty and the efficiency of them – so we had to place them outside of the window, which thankfully ended up looking nice too.

Choosing A Shutter Paint Color

Sherry has long had her mind set on mint shutters on a white house (you probably remember that from our duplex style inspiration post). But we wanted to take our time finding the right mint. Since there were no mint coffee cups around (if you don’t get that joke, here ya go), we turned to another source of inspiration – this historic Pure Oil gas station right at the entrance of town.

The lighting in that shot above isn’t doing it any justice, but we’ve ALWAYS been charmed by this little building and its cheery color scheme. So we popped by a few months ago with a paint deck in hand to find some similar colors. We didn’t want to go quite as dark as their door, but we also know that colors tend to read lighter on exteriors (and they tend to look darker inside). So we used some removable paint decals to test five colors on various parts of the house. Clockwise from the top right: Pale Patina, Rice Terrace, Mist on the Moors, Salt Marshes, Aloe (all by Sherwin Williams)

Since people often ask us why we tend to go with Sherwin Williams for exterior painting stuff – well, most exterior painters will only use Sherwin Williams (that was true for the trim and siding on our house in Richmond, as well as for when we painted the entire pink house) so we figure if it’s good enough for the pros to pretty much use exclusively outside, it’s not a bad idea for us to follow suit (it has a nice warranty, good customer service, and has held up great for the last five years on our house’s siding and trim in Richmond).

As we were trying to choose from those five colors in the photo above, one of our favorites – Pale Patina – showed up in a surprising place: under the rotting stairs we were standing on! Once upon a time those stair risers were that exact color. How crazy is that?! We took it as a sign. The house was basically nodding its head in agreement on Pale Patina. Kinda like how we discovered in retrospect that the pink house’s kitchen had pink wainscoting.

The shutters were composite (no rotting!) and came pre-primed (uh, no priming!) so we picked up a gallon of this Weathershield exterior paint and over the course of several days, we put two coats of paint on all ten shutters. It took us a few days of intermittent painting because we didn’t have room to spread out and paint them all at once (no garage!) so we couldn’t do more than three or four at a time.

But just in the nick of time (literally, the night before Sean’s guys were scheduled to install them) we finished and set them out on our porch to go over to the duplex. The funny thing we realized is that Pale Patina is eerily similar to the color we painted the ceiling at the pink house (SW Breaktime). Is it me or is the pink house flirting with the duplex?

What About The Front Doors?

You may have watched the saga of Sherry hunting down a pair of diamond doors on social media (there’s more on that in podcast Episode #100 and Episode #109 if you missed it) and many have asked why they aren’t going on the front of the house. Historically speaking we have to keep the original front doors, so the diamond doors have always been planned for the BACK of the house.

We probably created confusion with photos like the one above, but those same front doors will remain. The good news is that we love the idea of the diamond doors out back because it’ll inject a similar diamond-paned look (inspired by the front’s diamond windows) around back too. So each side will have something-diamond going on for balance. Below you can see them hung, just not painted yet.

I know it may seem sad that they’re relegated to the back yard, but we’re actually crazy excited about the transformation of that side of the house. Everything from carrying the corbels around back to adding the metal awnings (ours are the 44″ x 36″ ones in the bronze color) and bumping out the second floor on both sides (thereby earning two additional bathrooms!) has made a HUGE difference. This is a before shot for you:

Crazy, right?! All of those changes had to go through the architecture review board (adding windows, bumping up the top, etc) but thankfully they all passed. WHEW.

Circling back to those metal awnings, we actually got a quote to have them built and it was around $1500-2K each… and then Sherry found these online and they’re so much more affordable – literally around a quarter of the price for each one! It meant we could definitely pull the trigger and get them – plus they tie into the same dark bronze color that’s on the tin roof out front.

We got some questions about choosing the height for our metal awnings (a few folks asked why we didn’t go lower). We actually originally held them up lower and almost screwed them in until I realized that from inside the house, they blocked the view and some light! So glad we caught that and raised them. Now the view out the door is unimpeded and as much light as possible shines into the mudroom. Note to self: always check the view from inside before hanging anything that can interfere with the view or the light shining in!

The spacing might seem a little random now, but once the lanterns are hung and the steps are added, there will be more elements around the awnings with similar spacing, and we think they’ll feel a lot more balanced. Along with adding porch lanterns and stairs, we’ll also be building outdoor showers and a privacy fence that can be opened to merge both areas if one family rents both sides, and we have a lot of other things planned too (of course: some string lights). We think the backyard might end up being the coolest spot in the house. Sherry keeps saying it’s gonna be “lit.” I give you permission to eyeroll that one.

But let’s go back to the front doors for a second. As you saw above, we tested out our mint paint swatches with some decals that we placed on the duplex’s front doors (which were painted a deep blue color and covered by janky storm doors). The original plan was to paint them the same mint color as the shutters, but after we got them stripped, we kinda fell in love with the raw wood look. Note: For anyone looking to strip old painted doors, first test for lead, and if they’re free of it you can use a product like CitreStrip and a spackle knife to scrape, scrape, scrape. 

The problem with keeping them wood, which I keep reminding Sherry, is that they’re still in rough shape. Not only is there a persistent haze of white paint (which is arguably kinda cool – and could most likely be sanded off) but more concerning is the doorknob, um, situation. The holes are in weird / high / completely different spots – and it’s gonna be tough to conceal any patching we do if we keep them wood (patching is much easier to hide with paint).

But Sherry is pretty adamant about keeping their wood tone and patching the holes and finding doorknobs with nice long backplates to conceal the patch-jobs. Then we’ll sand and seal them for a richer wood tone. They do look great with the warmth of the brick steps, and Sherry plans to add more wood accents (like wood benches on either side of the porch), so I can’t argue with keeping them wood – as long as we can get it looking good and feeling secure. Feel free to cross your fingers for us.

And Lastly, The Steps

You’ve probably never met a person more excited about brick steps than Sherry Petersik. We knew we had to replace the old wood steps, and while wood or composite is the most obvious answer, we really LOVE the brick steps at the pink house (and, incidentally, we also really like the awesome local mason who installed them). So brick steps at the duplex just felt like the right call.

Not only did they recently complete our super wide 10′ steps (with the same mitered corner detail we love from the pink house), we also had our mason redo the entire concrete pad beneath them because it was cracked and degrading.

We didn’t get any great photos of their process of installing them (it was raining on and off so they erected a tent around them part of the time) and we probably won’t get great photos of them until all of the other construction dust is cleaned up. But we love how wide and gracious they feel.

As for a porch railing and stair railing, those will be added later once the porch comes together more. It’ll be historic looking (white with vertical pickets) and we found this house as inspiration which also has wide brick steps, so that might help you picture it.

The last thing I’ll mention is the brick border along the perimeter of the house. We realized that splashing from the rain was quickly dirtying the foundation (see above), which was essentially skim-coated in a white plaster-like material. So at the mason’s suggestion, we had him install this border as sort of an upgraded version of pea gravel or rock that lots of houses have to keep that splash-back to a minimum (still haven’t hosed off the skim coated area – but once we do it should stay a lot cleaner now).

The brick border won’t be as noticeable once everything is landscaped, but we like being able to incorporate that brick texture since the rest of the street has brick foundations and our little duplex missed out on that.

So I think that gets you pretty much up to speed on the state of the exterior. The interior is actually done being drywalled (!!!) so next up is some primer and paint inside, followed by interior trim and doors – plus they’re going to start working on rebuilding the porch. That’s A WHOLE LOTTA PROGRESS that we should get to share with you guys over the next month or so, so stay tuned. Also, the day the Port-O-Potty finally leaves will be a day we dance on those wide brick steps like no one is watching.

P.S. Wanna read all about rebuilding this duplex from day one? There’s a whole category full of duplex posts for you to peruse and click into if they sound interesting. We also have a detailed podcast about how we could afford to buy the duplex in the middle of renovating our pink house (we include how much the beach house and the duplex cost us, etc). 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered appeared first on Young House Love.

Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[vincentbnaughton]

Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered

You guys may have seen some of our progress on the duplex’s exterior on social media, but let’s get into some of the nitty gritty (and answer a ton of questions that have come in about it) here on the ol’ blog. We wanna talk shutters, steps, metal awnings, and what the heck is happening with all of that diamond door drama (among other things).

As a refresher, this is what the house looked like before.

Due to the historic mandates in town, we’re required to keep all of the basic elements of the house the same – original front doors, exact window locations, the roofline itself (ahem), and the corbels along the roofline…

… although the historic review board allowed us to space the corbels differently so they’d go all the way around the house, and saved us from having to remake a ton that had rotted beyond repair. And yes, the duplex came with not one, not two, but three satellite dishes. Our cup runneth over.

And yes that’s regular old silver duct tape up by the roof on the right side. And the diamond windows were covered with DRYWALL and hidden in the walls on each side of the house instead of being exposed and letting the light flood in. In short: we had some work to do on the whole curb appeal thing.

A lot of the exterior elements of the 100+ year old house (like the rotting siding, degraded roofing, collapsing porch, etc) needed to be replaced with new materials that will hold up better over time, like HardiePlank cement board siding. We even reconstructed some corbels from composite, not wood (to replace some that were too far gone).

The entire idea of the Historic Review Board, who approves nearly every exterior house update, is to make sure that people can make these houses more durable and long-lasting so this sweet town doesn’t look like it’s slowly falling apart (almost every house is 100+ years old). BUT everyone renovating has to adhere to the same look/style/shape of the original house so this cool old downtown area still feels as historic and “original” as possible.

Since you saw the outside stripped bare back in April, the exterior is nearly complete – except for the new porch floor and columns… which are coming soon. But the roofing, siding, windows, and shutters are all done – and we could not be more thrilled with how it’s coming together. Sherry is beginning to question why she ever doubted this house’s potential in the first place! I’ve even heard her whisper that she might end up liking the exterior of the duplex more than the pink house, which I never thought I’d hear.

Hunting Down Operable Shutters

The shutters ended up being a bigger ordeal than we expected. New historic mandates require that the shutters appear to be operable, meaning vinyl shutters that you can pick up for about $60 a pair and screw right into the siding weren’t an option. The requirement is based on them wanting an authentic look and not based on function. Nobody actually closes their shutters there for storms – and many houses, including our pink house, don’t even have them at all! Most houses that do have them are those non-operable vinyl shutters that were hung before the mandate (like the periwinkle blue ones that used to be on the duplex). We actually get worse storms in Richmond, where we also don’t have operable shutters… ha!

The quotes we got for custom operable shutters from a few companies had our jaws on the floor. They were about $1,000 PER PAIR (!!!!) Meaning the whole front would set us back FIVE GRAND. I’ll wait while you deep breathe into a paper bag like I did for about five minutes after each phone call.

For a while we felt stuck with that fee (it’s a historic mandate! we have no choice!) and just as we were bracing ourselves to pull the trigger, Sherry found these pre-primed composite shutters on Wayfair for $250/pair. We’d have to hunt down hardware and paint them ourselves (more on that in a moment) but that price was muuuuuuch easier to swallow. In fact, our total for ten of them to do the entire front of the house was just a little over the price for ONE SET of shutters from those companies we called! Hallelujah.

They come in a variety of sizes and one was nearly perfect for what we needed (we got the 68.5″ tall by 15″ wide ones). They were a smidge narrower than what we’d need for the shutters to fully close (just about two inches), but we reminded ourselves that the mandate is just that they need to APPEAR operable (remember this isn’t about function, it’s about maintaining a more historic look – virtually none of these houses have working shutters that anyone closes ever).

Below you can see what they look like closed (still have to paint the backs of these!). Thankfully there’s not really a scenario when you’ll see them like this other than this photo, but a bunch of you were asking for this pic, so here you go. Obviously if you’re looking for shutters you can use to board up your house in a storm it goes without saying that you’d need them to be the exact width of your window, and you might be stuck with those pricier custom shutters, I’m afraid.

With our shutters found, the only missing element was the hardware, of which there seemed to be ENDLESS OPTIONS. And it can make your ears ring and your head spin when you’re trying to figure out which way things should hinge without grinding against the house, and how deep the swing should be so it doesn’t bump against the window.

These little hardware additions can also drive up the cost of your shutters, so we kept it fairly simple and hunted down these hinges and these shutter dogs (which are the decorative hooks that hold the shutters open). The grand total was another $380, so all in we spent about $1650 on these ten operable-looking shutters (not including installation, which is just part of our construction contract with Sean). And since we painted them, that saved us some cash too. Not bad compared to the $5000+ we would have spent on custom ones. Budget crisis averted.

The only small installation hiccup was that operable shutters typically screw right into historic wood windows, not vinyl ones like ours (a previous owner had already replaced the original wood windows on this house). We couldn’t drill the hinges into the vinyl frame because it would ruin the warranty and the efficiency of them – so we had to place them outside of the window, which thankfully ended up looking nice too.

Choosing A Shutter Paint Color

Sherry has long had her mind set on mint shutters on a white house (you probably remember that from our duplex style inspiration post). But we wanted to take our time finding the right mint. Since there were no mint coffee cups around (if you don’t get that joke, here ya go), we turned to another source of inspiration – this historic Pure Oil gas station right at the entrance of town.

The lighting in that shot above isn’t doing it any justice, but we’ve ALWAYS been charmed by this little building and its cheery color scheme. So we popped by a few months ago with a paint deck in hand to find some similar colors. We didn’t want to go quite as dark as their door, but we also know that colors tend to read lighter on exteriors (and they tend to look darker inside). So we used some removable paint decals to test five colors on various parts of the house. Clockwise from the top right: Pale Patina, Rice Terrace, Mist on the Moors, Salt Marshes, Aloe (all by Sherwin Williams)

Since people often ask us why we tend to go with Sherwin Williams for exterior painting stuff – well, most exterior painters will only use Sherwin Williams (that was true for the trim and siding on our house in Richmond, as well as for when we painted the entire pink house) so we figure if it’s good enough for the pros to pretty much use exclusively outside, it’s not a bad idea for us to follow suit (it has a nice warranty, good customer service, and has held up great for the last five years on our house’s siding and trim in Richmond).

As we were trying to choose from those five colors in the photo above, one of our favorites – Pale Patina – showed up in a surprising place: under the rotting stairs we were standing on! Once upon a time those stair risers were that exact color. How crazy is that?! We took it as a sign. The house was basically nodding its head in agreement on Pale Patina. Kinda like how we discovered in retrospect that the pink house’s kitchen had pink wainscoting.

The shutters were composite (no rotting!) and came pre-primed (uh, no priming!) so we picked up a gallon of this Weathershield exterior paint and over the course of several days, we put two coats of paint on all ten shutters. It took us a few days of intermittent painting because we didn’t have room to spread out and paint them all at once (no garage!) so we couldn’t do more than three or four at a time.

But just in the nick of time (literally, the night before Sean’s guys were scheduled to install them) we finished and set them out on our porch to go over to the duplex. The funny thing we realized is that Pale Patina is eerily similar to the color we painted the ceiling at the pink house (SW Breaktime). Is it me or is the pink house flirting with the duplex?

What About The Front Doors?

You may have watched the saga of Sherry hunting down a pair of diamond doors on social media (there’s more on that in podcast Episode #100 and Episode #109 if you missed it) and many have asked why they aren’t going on the front of the house. Historically speaking we have to keep the original front doors, so the diamond doors have always been planned for the BACK of the house.

We probably created confusion with photos like the one above, but those same front doors will remain. The good news is that we love the idea of the diamond doors out back because it’ll inject a similar diamond-paned look (inspired by the front’s diamond windows) around back too. So each side will have something-diamond going on for balance. Below you can see them hung, just not painted yet.

I know it may seem sad that they’re relegated to the back yard, but we’re actually crazy excited about the transformation of that side of the house. Everything from carrying the corbels around back to adding the metal awnings (ours are the 44″ x 36″ ones in the bronze color) and bumping out the second floor on both sides (thereby earning two additional bathrooms!) has made a HUGE difference. This is a before shot for you:

Crazy, right?! All of those changes had to go through the architecture review board (adding windows, bumping up the top, etc) but thankfully they all passed. WHEW.

Circling back to those metal awnings, we actually got a quote to have them built and it was around $1500-2K each… and then Sherry found these online and they’re so much more affordable – literally around a quarter of the price for each one! It meant we could definitely pull the trigger and get them – plus they tie into the same dark bronze color that’s on the tin roof out front.

We got some questions about choosing the height for our metal awnings (a few folks asked why we didn’t go lower). We actually originally held them up lower and almost screwed them in until I realized that from inside the house, they blocked the view and some light! So glad we caught that and raised them. Now the view out the door is unimpeded and as much light as possible shines into the mudroom. Note to self: always check the view from inside before hanging anything that can interfere with the view or the light shining in!

The spacing might seem a little random now, but once the lanterns are hung and the steps are added, there will be more elements around the awnings with similar spacing, and we think they’ll feel a lot more balanced. Along with adding porch lanterns and stairs, we’ll also be building outdoor showers and a privacy fence that can be opened to merge both areas if one family rents both sides, and we have a lot of other things planned too (of course: some string lights). We think the backyard might end up being the coolest spot in the house. Sherry keeps saying it’s gonna be “lit.” I give you permission to eyeroll that one.

But let’s go back to the front doors for a second. As you saw above, we tested out our mint paint swatches with some decals that we placed on the duplex’s front doors (which were painted a deep blue color and covered by janky storm doors). The original plan was to paint them the same mint color as the shutters, but after we got them stripped, we kinda fell in love with the raw wood look. Note: For anyone looking to strip old painted doors, first test for lead, and if they’re free of it you can use a product like CitreStrip and a spackle knife to scrape, scrape, scrape. 

The problem with keeping them wood, which I keep reminding Sherry, is that they’re still in rough shape. Not only is there a persistent haze of white paint (which is arguably kinda cool – and could most likely be sanded off) but more concerning is the doorknob, um, situation. The holes are in weird / high / completely different spots – and it’s gonna be tough to conceal any patching we do if we keep them wood (patching is much easier to hide with paint).

But Sherry is pretty adamant about keeping their wood tone and patching the holes and finding doorknobs with nice long backplates to conceal the patch-jobs. Then we’ll sand and seal them for a richer wood tone. They do look great with the warmth of the brick steps, and Sherry plans to add more wood accents (like wood benches on either side of the porch), so I can’t argue with keeping them wood – as long as we can get it looking good and feeling secure. Feel free to cross your fingers for us.

And Lastly, The Steps

You’ve probably never met a person more excited about brick steps than Sherry Petersik. We knew we had to replace the old wood steps, and while wood or composite is the most obvious answer, we really LOVE the brick steps at the pink house (and, incidentally, we also really like the awesome local mason who installed them). So brick steps at the duplex just felt like the right call.

Not only did they recently complete our super wide 10′ steps (with the same mitered corner detail we love from the pink house), we also had our mason redo the entire concrete pad beneath them because it was cracked and degrading.

We didn’t get any great photos of their process of installing them (it was raining on and off so they erected a tent around them part of the time) and we probably won’t get great photos of them until all of the other construction dust is cleaned up. But we love how wide and gracious they feel.

As for a porch railing and stair railing, those will be added later once the porch comes together more. It’ll be historic looking (white with vertical pickets) and we found this house as inspiration which also has wide brick steps, so that might help you picture it.

The last thing I’ll mention is the brick border along the perimeter of the house. We realized that splashing from the rain was quickly dirtying the foundation (see above), which was essentially skim-coated in a white plaster-like material. So at the mason’s suggestion, we had him install this border as sort of an upgraded version of pea gravel or rock that lots of houses have to keep that splash-back to a minimum (still haven’t hosed off the skim coated area – but once we do it should stay a lot cleaner now).

The brick border won’t be as noticeable once everything is landscaped, but we like being able to incorporate that brick texture since the rest of the street has brick foundations and our little duplex missed out on that.

So I think that gets you pretty much up to speed on the state of the exterior. The interior is actually done being drywalled (!!!) so next up is some primer and paint inside, followed by interior trim and doors – plus they’re going to start working on rebuilding the porch. That’s A WHOLE LOTTA PROGRESS that we should get to share with you guys over the next month or so, so stay tuned. Also, the day the Port-O-Potty finally leaves will be a day we dance on those wide brick steps like no one is watching.

P.S. Wanna read all about rebuilding this duplex from day one? There’s a whole category full of duplex posts for you to peruse and click into if they sound interesting. We also have a detailed podcast about how we could afford to buy the duplex in the middle of renovating our pink house (we include how much the beach house and the duplex cost us, etc). 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Why Are Shutters So Hard? And Other Duplex Exterior Questions Answered appeared first on Young House Love.

[endlessarchite]

House Crashing: A Rental-Ready Renovation

You guys remember our friends Carey and Jordan? We House Crashed them earlier in the year and their mudroom slays me every time I lay eyes on it. Well, we’ve crashed another one of their places – this time it’s a rental home that they recently renovated and furnished. So yes, more eye candy AND more budget friendly tips and ideas to steal for yourself.

rug / round baskets / hooks / rectangle baskets / door color: Poppy by Ben Moore

The rental is a sweet ranch home in the Richmond area that they’re using primarily as a long term furnished rental, but also as a short term Airbnb between renters. It’s full of furniture and accessories from a range of places and price ranges. There are thrift store pieces, HomeGoods finds (like the console table pictured below) and Target accessories (like the gold mirror) mixed in with some elevating pieces, like Restoration Hardware cabinet pulls to make their kitchen look top of the line.

Carey even hunted down a few budget-friendly pieces in some pretty random places – like the rug below that she bought at a steep discount from a local showhouse after the show ended (it’s this rug designed by Justina Blakeney for Loloi actually!). And the awesome marble coffee table and the sectional below are from CB2, but a friend of hers was moving so she bought them from her!

rug  / coffee table / sofa / gold mirror/ foyer light fixture

Some of the coolest things to look at are the before photos, just to see how much this house has changed – especially thanks to simple and inexpensive fixes, like PAINT! This is the same living room as the one above. I know. It’s crazy. The new wall color is Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams, which they also carried into the foyer for more of an open feeling.

Here’s a better shot of the foyer where Carey and Jordan repainted the red front door a moody black color (Caviar by Sherwin Williams) and got that cool sculptural pendant from Shades of Light. The little table and lamp are a HomeGoods finds and those cute framed prints over the table are from Etsy by a Richmond-based artist (here’s her shop).

rug / light / art / wall color: SW Agreeable Gray / door color: SW Caviar

And see that view into the freshened up kitchen above? Well, this used to be what you saw through that doorway. I KNOW!!! THEY ARE BASICALLY WIZARDS AND I WANT TO STEAL THEIR WANDS!!!

And now I’m going to really shock you. THOSE ARE THE SAME CABINETS! I repeat: THEY DIDN’T RIP OUT THE CABINETS. They just hired a local carpenter to make new inset doors for them and painted everything Extra White by Sherwin Williams. Can you even believe that?! I’m sorry for shouting at you BUT I CAN’T EVEN GET OVER HOW GOOD THIS LOOKS.

The cabinet hardware is from Restoration Hardware and the glass light over the sink is from Pottery Barn. Those choices, along with the classic subway tile backsplash and the new black granite countertops really updated the room (along with some new stainless appliances). They also laid hardwoods in here to connect to the ones that already existed in a lot of other areas of the house, which really helps with the flow and to keep things feeling open. They even squeezed in a small cafe table that seats four people, which adds some really nice function to the wall across from the sink.

Just gotta hit you with one more before, because I’m still trying to process this right along with you guys.

I MEAN. IT’S MAKING MY FACE CONTORT INTO A CRAZED JOKER SMILE. How cute is it to see those little shelves flanking the window go from old and rustic/country looking to sweet and clean-lined and modern?! The power of paint. Also, the power of removing the swirly header over the sink and switching out that big fluorescent light.

Here’s another kitchen shot from a different angle to show you how the table fits into the mix.

similar rug / similar table / chairs / cabinet hardware / art prints / light over sink

The table is from Target, but it’s no longer made, so here’s a similar one, and the chairs are from Target too, as is the rug (here’s the closest one I could find that they sell now). Carey joked that they must’ve paid someone’s salary at Target this year from all the shopping they’ve done there. Me too, Carey, me too.

Speaking of the rug, it’s actually an outdoor one, which is so smart for under a kitchen table – especially in a rental. Or if you have children who eat like small wild animals (isn’t that all of us, really?). The colorful art on the wall is from Lightbox print company, another local Richmond shop.

But let’s move on to another room transformation. This time it’s the dining room, which was drab and wallpapered and just pretty dingy looking.

Now it’s so fresh and extra crisp (extra crispy? or does that sound too much like a chicken strip?). I love that Carey and Jordan don’t shy away from bold colors (this is Indigo Batik by Sherwin Williams) but they keep them from feeling too overwhelming by tempering them with soothing white curtains from Ikea, that pretty white shade on the chandelier, and the light wood tones in the table and the sideboard, which was a HomeGoods find. The big mirror above the sideboard is also from HomeGoods, and it bounces a ton of extra light around the room, which is also a good tip if you have a dark room or if you use a deep color on the walls – a big mirror can be your friend.

rug / metal chairs / end chairs / table / lamps / chandelier / curtains

Beyond the dining room is a cute little brick-walled room that Carey and Jordan turned into a small office/reading space. The pink chair is such a fun non-neutral choice (you know I like pink…) and that little blue filing cabinet makes me grin like a weirdo at my computer screen. That faux fiddle leaf fig is one of the Target ones I love (WHY DON’T THEY SELL THEM ANYMORE?! WHYYYYYYYY?!). And yes, I’m pretty sure she put that stack of our books out because she knew we were coming over, but man do I love that they match the file cabinet ;)

desk / pink chair / desk chair / file cabinet / similar rug / similar copper table / blue wall: SW North Star

Onto the master bedroom. It was another spot that was looking extremely worn and in need of some love, along with some serious wallpaper removal.

Once again Carey and Jordan went for crisp white trim and bedding to contrast this rich and cozy wall color (Roycroft Pewter by Sherwin Williams). The rug and the bench at the foot of the bed (found at HomeGoods) add so much coziness, and the white pin-tuck bedding is from West Elm. The night stands are from Crate & Barrel, and the mercury-glass lamps, headboard and little black & white bolster pillow are all from Target.

headboard / white bedding / night stands / black & white pillow / rug / bench: HomeGoods

The bathrooms are all super crisp and classic, with really nice touches like lots of storage and pretty vintage-inspired tile on the floor. The rich wood vanity in the master bathroom (via their carpenter) is such a nice contrast to the white hex floor tiles. The Pottery Barn mirror and silver sconces elevate the entire room, while the colorful rug adds some pattern and warmth (here’s the most similar one I can find).

mirror / sconce / white hex floor tile / similar rug

Carey and I have a theme of buying the same things by accident, so we LOLed when we realized that we both bought this framed dots Target art (she hung it in this bathroom and ours hangs in our dining room). I’m also really into the gray hex floors in here (here’s something similar). And look at all of that storage space! This vanity (also through their carpenter) is approximately 558 times nicer than our own master bathroom, which still boasts two sea-shell-shaped sinks, conveniently separated by a wall (why??? WHY?!?!). The rug in here is a secondhand score from a local consignment place called Revival here in Richmond.

So I hope you guys liked the tour! And a huge thank you to Carey and Jordan for letting us poke around with our camera (and share the pics with the interwebz). If you’re a local and you’d like to renovate a house with them (they help a ton of homebuyers in the area buy older homes and bring them back to life) you can find them here on their reno website. And if you’re looking for a rental property around here, you can get their help on their rental site. Also, if you’re ever lucky enough to meet Carey around town, you have to befriend her because her gumbo is off the chain. Yes, I’m still using that term because I’m a cool suburban mom. But seriously, it’s delicious.

And to everyone who is requesting gift guides and a big ol’ holiday post of our house all decorated, both are on my to-do list, so I hope to be back soon with more holiday goodness! Until then, just try to work “off the chain” into as many sentences as possible. I promise you’ll feel too legit to quit each time.

Psst- If you’d like to check out Carey and Jordan’s House Crashing post from back in Feb, here’s that link for you again (sometimes scrolling back up to the top of the page can be exhausting). 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post House Crashing: A Rental-Ready Renovation appeared first on Young House Love.

House Crashing: A Rental-Ready Renovation published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[masteringmelancholy]

House Crashing: A Rental-Ready Renovation

You guys remember our friends Carey and Jordan? We House Crashed them earlier in the year and their mudroom slays me every time I lay eyes on it. Well, we’ve crashed another one of their places – this time it’s a rental home that they recently renovated and furnished. So yes, more eye candy AND more budget friendly tips and ideas to steal for yourself.

rug / round baskets / hooks / rectangle baskets / door color: Poppy by Ben Moore

The rental is a sweet ranch home in the Richmond area that they’re using primarily as a long term furnished rental, but also as a short term Airbnb between renters. It’s full of furniture and accessories from a range of places and price ranges. There are thrift store pieces, HomeGoods finds (like the console table pictured below) and Target accessories (like the gold mirror) mixed in with some elevating pieces, like Restoration Hardware cabinet pulls to make their kitchen look top of the line.

Carey even hunted down a few budget-friendly pieces in some pretty random places – like the rug below that she bought at a steep discount from a local showhouse after the show ended (it’s this rug designed by Justina Blakeney for Loloi actually!). And the awesome marble coffee table and the sectional below are from CB2, but a friend of hers was moving so she bought them from her!

rug  / coffee table / sofa / gold mirror/ foyer light fixture

Some of the coolest things to look at are the before photos, just to see how much this house has changed – especially thanks to simple and inexpensive fixes, like PAINT! This is the same living room as the one above. I know. It’s crazy. The new wall color is Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams, which they also carried into the foyer for more of an open feeling.

Here’s a better shot of the foyer where Carey and Jordan repainted the red front door a moody black color (Caviar by Sherwin Williams) and got that cool sculptural pendant from Shades of Light. The little table and lamp are a HomeGoods finds and those cute framed prints over the table are from Etsy by a Richmond-based artist (here’s her shop).

rug / light / art / wall color: SW Agreeable Gray / door color: SW Caviar

And see that view into the freshened up kitchen above? Well, this used to be what you saw through that doorway. I KNOW!!! THEY ARE BASICALLY WIZARDS AND I WANT TO STEAL THEIR WANDS!!!

And now I’m going to really shock you. THOSE ARE THE SAME CABINETS! I repeat: THEY DIDN’T RIP OUT THE CABINETS. They just hired a local carpenter to make new inset doors for them and painted everything Extra White by Sherwin Williams. Can you even believe that?! I’m sorry for shouting at you BUT I CAN’T EVEN GET OVER HOW GOOD THIS LOOKS.

The cabinet hardware is from Restoration Hardware and the glass light over the sink is from Pottery Barn. Those choices, along with the classic subway tile backsplash and the new black granite countertops really updated the room (along with some new stainless appliances). They also laid hardwoods in here to connect to the ones that already existed in a lot of other areas of the house, which really helps with the flow and to keep things feeling open. They even squeezed in a small cafe table that seats four people, which adds some really nice function to the wall across from the sink.

Just gotta hit you with one more before, because I’m still trying to process this right along with you guys.

I MEAN. IT’S MAKING MY FACE CONTORT INTO A CRAZED JOKER SMILE. How cute is it to see those little shelves flanking the window go from old and rustic/country looking to sweet and clean-lined and modern?! The power of paint. Also, the power of removing the swirly header over the sink and switching out that big fluorescent light.

Here’s another kitchen shot from a different angle to show you how the table fits into the mix.

similar rug / similar table / chairs / cabinet hardware / art prints / light over sink

The table is from Target, but it’s no longer made, so here’s a similar one, and the chairs are from Target too, as is the rug (here’s the closest one I could find that they sell now). Carey joked that they must’ve paid someone’s salary at Target this year from all the shopping they’ve done there. Me too, Carey, me too.

Speaking of the rug, it’s actually an outdoor one, which is so smart for under a kitchen table – especially in a rental. Or if you have children who eat like small wild animals (isn’t that all of us, really?). The colorful art on the wall is from Lightbox print company, another local Richmond shop.

But let’s move on to another room transformation. This time it’s the dining room, which was drab and wallpapered and just pretty dingy looking.

Now it’s so fresh and extra crisp (extra crispy? or does that sound too much like a chicken strip?). I love that Carey and Jordan don’t shy away from bold colors (this is Indigo Batik by Sherwin Williams) but they keep them from feeling too overwhelming by tempering them with soothing white curtains from Ikea, that pretty white shade on the chandelier, and the light wood tones in the table and the sideboard, which was a HomeGoods find. The big mirror above the sideboard is also from HomeGoods, and it bounces a ton of extra light around the room, which is also a good tip if you have a dark room or if you use a deep color on the walls – a big mirror can be your friend.

rug / metal chairs / end chairs / table / lamps / chandelier / curtains

Beyond the dining room is a cute little brick-walled room that Carey and Jordan turned into a small office/reading space. The pink chair is such a fun non-neutral choice (you know I like pink…) and that little blue filing cabinet makes me grin like a weirdo at my computer screen. That faux fiddle leaf fig is one of the Target ones I love (WHY DON’T THEY SELL THEM ANYMORE?! WHYYYYYYYY?!). And yes, I’m pretty sure she put that stack of our books out because she knew we were coming over, but man do I love that they match the file cabinet ;)

desk / pink chair / desk chair / file cabinet / similar rug / similar copper table / blue wall: SW North Star

Onto the master bedroom. It was another spot that was looking extremely worn and in need of some love, along with some serious wallpaper removal.

Once again Carey and Jordan went for crisp white trim and bedding to contrast this rich and cozy wall color (Roycroft Pewter by Sherwin Williams). The rug and the bench at the foot of the bed (found at HomeGoods) add so much coziness, and the white pin-tuck bedding is from West Elm. The night stands are from Crate & Barrel, and the mercury-glass lamps, headboard and little black & white bolster pillow are all from Target.

headboard / white bedding / night stands / black & white pillow / rug / bench: HomeGoods

The bathrooms are all super crisp and classic, with really nice touches like lots of storage and pretty vintage-inspired tile on the floor. The rich wood vanity in the master bathroom (via their carpenter) is such a nice contrast to the white hex floor tiles. The Pottery Barn mirror and silver sconces elevate the entire room, while the colorful rug adds some pattern and warmth (here’s the most similar one I can find).

mirror / sconce / white hex floor tile / similar rug

Carey and I have a theme of buying the same things by accident, so we LOLed when we realized that we both bought this framed dots Target art (she hung it in this bathroom and ours hangs in our dining room). I’m also really into the gray hex floors in here (here’s something similar). And look at all of that storage space! This vanity (also through their carpenter) is approximately 558 times nicer than our own master bathroom, which still boasts two sea-shell-shaped sinks, conveniently separated by a wall (why??? WHY?!?!). The rug in here is a secondhand score from a local consignment place called Revival here in Richmond.

So I hope you guys liked the tour! And a huge thank you to Carey and Jordan for letting us poke around with our camera (and share the pics with the interwebz). If you’re a local and you’d like to renovate a house with them (they help a ton of homebuyers in the area buy older homes and bring them back to life) you can find them here on their reno website. And if you’re looking for a rental property around here, you can get their help on their rental site. Also, if you’re ever lucky enough to meet Carey around town, you have to befriend her because her gumbo is off the chain. Yes, I’m still using that term because I’m a cool suburban mom. But seriously, it’s delicious.

And to everyone who is requesting gift guides and a big ol’ holiday post of our house all decorated, both are on my to-do list, so I hope to be back soon with more holiday goodness! Until then, just try to work “off the chain” into as many sentences as possible. I promise you’ll feel too legit to quit each time.

Psst- If you’d like to check out Carey and Jordan’s House Crashing post from back in Feb, here’s that link for you again (sometimes scrolling back up to the top of the page can be exhausting). 

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