Style Advice - Bed Pillows * Dicas em estilo - Almofadas na Cama

Dear Blogfriends

This is one of the images on the top of my favorite bedrooms! I think this combination of shades is absolutely timeless.

Just love the gray tone on the walls and I have a similar shade of gray on my living room and hallway and never get tired! Never! Whenever I feel like changing pillows or curtains, and believe-me it happends a lot!  Everything goes with it! I've been dreaming about this room for some time, and today I noticed that it also has my favorite cushions lay out. 


Tree square ones in the back, 2 rectangular on second row and one square in the front!

This formula makes the beds look more comfortable and I don't like to have the 2 huge decor pillows behind. You never know what to do with them at night! I know that our dear husbands will complain about having to take so many pillows every night, and usually they just throw them to the ground in protest! True? Just gotta teach them how to throw them in the right carpet spot where they don't have the risk of getting dirty!

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Queridas Blogamig@s, 

Esta é uma das imagens que está no topo dos meus quartos favoritos! Acho esta combinação de tons absolutamente intemporal. 

Tenho a minha sala e corredor com um tom de cinza semelhante e nunca me canso e sempre que me apetece mudar as almofadas ou tecidos tudo fica bem!  Ando a sonhar com este quarto há algum tempo, e hoje reparei que também tem o meu lay out favorito nas almofadas. Este é curiosamente o que mais costumo fazer nos meus clientes. 3 almofadas 50x50 quadradas atrás, 2 60x40 à frente e mais 1 50x50 à frente. 

O ideal é basicamente isto; se as de trás tiverem padrão, as do meio devem ser lisas ou riscas ou um padrão que combine mas com outra escala. A da frente pode ser diferente como esta que tem um monograma ou de um dos tons da de trás. Parece complicado mas não é. 

O mais importante no meio disto tudo, é que esta formula faz as camas parecerem mais confortáveis e não temos de ter 2 almofadões enormes atrás que nunca se sabe o que fazer com eles! Eu sei que depois vão ter o marido a reclamar de ter de as tirar todas as noites, e normalmente atira-as para o chão em protesto! Não é verdade?! Pois façam como eu... que as tiro eu e coloco na banqueta ao fundo da cama ou ensinei-o a atirar para o chão, mas para cima do tapete onde não têm o risco de se sujar!

Isn't it lovely? There are many other ways but this is just my favorite.

How about you? What is your favorite lay out?

***

Que tal?! Gostaram? Dúvidas?
É claro que esta não é nenhuma verdade absoluta da decoração e outras soluções também podem estar correctas. Esta é apenas a minha favorita!

______________________________

Gotta tell you some great news. From now on if you pass by the images on my blog
you'll find the pop up P simbol and 
you will be able to pin them directly on Pinterest!
Isn't this great?! 

***
 

Entretanto preciso de vos contar uma novidade do blog. 

Se passarem com o cursor em cima de cada imagem vai aparecer no canto inferior direito

um símbolo com um P de (Pinterest) se por acaso têm um Pinterest Board, podem

fazer Pin en todas as imagens favoritas do blog directamente para o Pinterest, não é o máximo!?

Para quem não sabe o que é o Pinterest é um site onde podemos ter uma pasta de imagens favoritas, descarregadas por nós ou de outros sites ou blogues e que tem a vantagem de não nos ocupar espaço no dísco rígido. Para além disso podem seguir 
as imagens favoritas das pessoas de quem gostam!

Dumb me, A year ago I did a Pinterest board and lost it cause I can't remember the name or password. Yeah it happends due to so much work and lack of sleep.
But anyway a couple of months ago I did another one and here it is!
Please do visit me there!

***

Há um ano atrás fiz uma pasta no Pinterest, tudo o que era blogger americana com muitos anos disto falava no Pinterest e eu lá fui descobrir, mas depois estive tanto tempo para lá voltar, que nunca mais me lembrei com que nome a tinha criado, nem com que password!

 Típico de quem anda a mil, a fazer 10 coisas ao mesmo tempo! 

Resultado, tive de voltar a fazer outro há uns meses e aqui está,
 para quem quiser visitar algumas da pastas favoritas do meu Pinterest board.

Basta clicarem neste símbolo em baixo, ou na coluna do lado direito do blogue, 
e vão lá parar! Divirtam-se!

Até Amanhã

Ana Antunes

(Thank you for sharing my passion for beautiful homes)

More demolition and preparation for cabinets

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I'm taking care of the rest.

If you'd like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I posted recently about the removal of the old kitchen, and now for more demolition and work begun by my contractor.

Once my boyfriend and I removed the old cabinets and tile floor, the contractor started his work. And of course as it always goes with an old house, there was more work than originally anticipated. And it probably didn't help that I added a little project (ummm, not that little) onto the ever growing list of things that needed to be completed before the cabinets arrive.

I've got to start by talking about the amazing discoveries on the walls behind the drywall and wood panelling. I have never seen so many layers of wallpaper and newspaper in one space. We all got a really good laugh out of that. My boyfriend counted 15 different wallpapers on one chunk he removed.




When we discovered newspaper on the walls behind the wallpaper, I was excited to see how old it was and if there were any dates visible. When I bought this house the age was not disclosed and all I got was the inspector's guess that it was about 90 years old. I did find one date, and although the builders may have used old newspapers they had stashed away, it is amazing to think that this house was built so long ago.


So once the kitchen was stripped bare of all the drywall and the plywood removed from the floor, the contractor got to work on levelling the floor. This was a crucial step as the cabinets would have been on a really obvious slant. The contractor nailed down new thinner plywood over the floorboards (the floorboards were in too much of a rough shape to have skipped this layer), then added strips of wood which he used to level another thin layer of plywood. This will mean that the kitchen floor will be higher than the living room floor but there's nothing I can do about it, and with the floors painted the same colour throughout it won't be that noticeable that there is a little step up into the kitchen.



During the process of removing all the drywall, conversations were had about the wall covering the staircase. I was concerned that it would be a tight fit having a table down the center of the space and trying to get around it with people seated there. Before the demo I took my desk out of my office (which would be a similar width) and we tried it in the kitchen. In the photo below you can see a bit of the wall in question on the left side. On the right there is a little brown rug that shows the depth of the cabinets.


At the last minute I decided to ask for the bottom part of the wall to be removed to allow more room to move around the table. When the wall came down I was SO HAPPY with the decision. It opens up the space so much more and will be a bit of architectural interest to this house (which it is really lacking). I contemplated...ok agonized, over whether I should take out the upper part of the wall as well to expose the staircase going to the second floor, but in the end I decided to leave it in case it's holding up the upper floor. :) I don't really want to mess with anything providing support. Plus, this leaves me with a little bit of a wall to get the electrician to place light switches for the kitchen. The thermostat is already there so it can be my electrical wall.

The wall before being torn down

The wall after being torn down

View when coming up basement stairs

There's going to be a door in the floor built to cover the opening to the basement stairs that will open upwards. It will be clad in strips of wood to resemble the hardwood that will be the rest of the flooring (but will be lighter). We're trying to find a latch system that allows you to press the door and it pops up to eliminate the need for a handle. My boyfriend went to see our mechanic friend yesterday and got a hinge from the hood of a BMW and that will hopefully allow the door to open and close easily (with some shocks used too). At this moment it's all a theory that has yet to be tested. There will also be a hole cut out in the door to allow the cats to climb in and out of the basement at their leisure to get to the litter boxes.

There are a couple of things the contractor had to frame around, like the plumbing that is located in the corner of the ceiling. There was wood panelling that was bent around the pipes and drywalled over and I'm guessing there was a hump in the ceiling as a result. Also, the heating duct that was located behind the stove that was built on the outside of the wall needed to be recessed into the wall to allow the fridge to be placed as far back as possible. At the top is the vent going into the floor of the bathroom which needed to remain where it was so a frame is going to be built around it to hide it with drywall.



The contractor also removed the window in the kitchen (to be replaced with a smaller one that is 24"x32") and the door leading to the side porch that I had used as my main entrance into the house. When the window was taken out, it was a very VERY odd feeling to see a huge hole in the side of my house.




This is just about where things are at in my kitchen this week. The walls should hopefully be ready for painting by the end of Monday and the floors installed on Tuesday morning. A couple days for painting the walls and floors, and I've asked for the cabinets to be delivered Friday. Fingers crossed once again that all this can happen on schedule.