What a difference some walls make

Sheetrock is in! The rooms are actually room-like now. The gals aren't quite as impressed; they can no longer see the entire house from any spot on the second floor.

And with sheetrock comes dust. Imagine taking hundreds of bags of flour into your house, hanging them as pinatas, and then busting them all open with a stick. Scatter random pieces of wood and sheetrock (all sizes!) around, string some power cords selectively in areas you actually need to traverse, and for background music, find an audio clip of a dental drill and put it on loop. This is what it was like while the sheetrock was being installed.

This week they'll mud it and sand it and do whatever else it is they need to do to get the walls ready. We're supposed to pick paint colors soon (hooray!), and tile will go in soon (again, hooray!). Oh, and guess what? We got ourselves a tuuuuuuub. It should be here in two weeks, and I'll post pictures of it when it arrive!

How I use Pinterest

I'm not just on the Pinterest bandwagon, I'm up front handing out bumper stickers, kissing babies, and campaigning for it as one of the best sites ever.

It's been a fantastic way for me to organize ideas and options, especially when I need to show the mister what I'm thinking. I've got a board for most things to do with the house, like carpeting and front doors. Here are other boards I'm currently filling:

• Chandeliers. I'm a sucker for a drum pendant. It's sleek, mid-century, looks classic/modern/retro, comes in a variety of options from fabric to glass, and can be one of the most striking and yet affordable fixtures you can install. Can I get an amen?
• Blue ceilings. A while back I read a great piece on how it's tradition in some places (especially the South) to paint your porch ceiling blue. I'll tell you why soon.
• Staircases: We have some choices about how we want to finish the staircase, and it may affect our other staircase heading downstairs. Mostly to do with the balusters, a word I haven't had occasion to use until this reno.

I also use Pinterest for non-reno things, like storm photos (natch) and letters and numbers.  Are you on Pinterest? Do I follow you? Would love to see what you're working on!

Mixing metals

I am in love with this door knob.

At $169 per piece (I know!), it's spectacularly over budget. Maybe that wouldn't be so terrible if we only needed one or two, but we need ten. Perhaps I could just get these for the bedroom doors, though, and something much cheaper else for the closets and bathrooms?

Forgetting cost for a minute, though, what I'm pondering is mixing metals.

We have chrome in all the bathrooms. Running that finish all through the door hardware - much less the light fixtures - seems a bit much (and awfully...shiny). I like brushed nickel, and oil-rubbed bronze. And between us, I've even taken a shine to some of the brass finishes, too.

It's early days. We've just begun the door knob and light fixture hunt. I expect mixed metals is in our future. And I expect no one but us will notice.

PS: Yes, a new blog design. My BIL's 'feedback' notwithstanding, I wasn't really into the previous design. Maybe I need a mixed metals template.