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attic, part 12:
decorating
wanted: parisian studio apartment.
paris optional.
Part of me has and always
will harbor a secret desire to live somewhere in Europe. I harbor dreams
of having a favorite pub in Dublin, or a courtyard garden in London, or a
crêpe vendor in Paris who knows my "usual" (sweet crêpe with strawberry
preserves and a thin drizzle of chocolate sauce, for the record). I know, get in line, right?
But I have a problem: I
love living in Portland. Love. It. This is my home, and at this
point in my life, I expect this is where I'll stay. So unless I come into a very
large fortune and am therefore able to have houses in all of those places
while still living here in Portland, I seriously doubt I'll ever actually
live overseas. Visit there frequently? Yes, I hope to. But leaving our
beloved home, like, ever? No.
That doesn't stop me
from trying to bring a bit of Paris to Portland -- witness
the soirée we threw a few years ago. And
our attic seemed just the place to do it more permanently...with just a little imagination,
we figured we could have our very own slice of a downtown Parisian
garret-turned-studio-apartment right here on the Willamette River. In
fact, from our very first walk through the house, when we discovered the
attic behind a side door in one of the bedrooms and up a steep flight of
dirty stairs, I've been dreaming about this room. I'm proud to say the room
came out even better than we'd hoped.
BEFORE
AFTER
The back part of the room
was the obvious place for the bed. Our bed frame is a hand-me-down we've
had since we first got married and we painted it several years ago. We
thought for awhile we'd replace it, but it seems to fit in okay the way it
is. We splurged on new bedding; since our comforter was still in good
shape, just not the right color or pattern, we decided to look for a duvet
cover instead of a whole new comforter. Came across a great faux-suede one
(Overstock.com) with matching shams that was the perfect color. A few down throw pillows and
some new cream-colored sheets from Target, and the bed was suddenly a new
luxury. The side tables (from craigslist; see below) were originally the
two sides of an art deco waterfall dresser that some guy had refinished
himself. We replaced the bright gold knobs he'd put on with cool antiqued
pewter ones in a Celtic knot pattern. (I know, not French. But hello...Celtic knots, people.
Have we forgotten my obsession with all things Irish?) The
lamps on top (also a craigslist find) happened to match the two we bought at Target for the nook, though
larger in scale. Our little sleeping area is so
cozy, in fact, that once we turn out the lights and our "night sky" appears, it's hard to motivate
ourselves to ever leave it.
And what master suite
would be complete without the opportunity to curl up under the covers and
watch old movies? Not a very good one, I can tell you that. Thanks to an
old TV, VCR, and stereo, we had what we needed to pimp the place out.
The shelving unit we used
is an IKEA find. It actually had four shelves but would've been
too high for the knee wall if we'd put the last shelf on. Instead,
we topped it off at three shelves and used the last shelf/supports for a
handy bench in the middle of the room. (Note that our old Super
Nintendo is sitting there beside the VCR -- we have 6' extension cords for the controllers so we
can play "Super Mario Brothers 3" in bed. Not that we're dorks or
anything.) The dressers are the same ones we've always had, hand-me-downs
that I painted around the same time I painted the bed frame. And the cedar
chest at the top of the stairs is my hope chest...glad to finally have a
prominent place to put it without worrying it'll be damaged.
We turned the nook
in the dormer into a small sitting area, perfect for curling up with a good book
or working on the computer (god
bless the invention of laptops and wi-fi).
The
chairs and ottoman? Awesomest finds we've ever scored on
craigslist*.
A couple of taupe slipcovers off
of Overstock.com, and they go from
blah-nineties-pseudo-Southwest to simple-and-passable-faux-French. We
converted the flimsy three-legged tables we'd been using as bedside tables
into sturdy side tables by
replacing the three cheap dowel legs with four regular spindle legs.
Topped with a couple of brushed-nickel lamps from Target and square shades
on clearance? You have a reading nook, my friends. (We opted not to put a
rug down because we didn't have the heart to cover up the floor after all
the work we did to refinish it.)
* That last picture is all our great craigslist buys for the attic (a little blurry, but you get the idea),
which we accumulated while still working on the attic and after months of
regularly surfing the site for exactly what we wanted: a pair of lamps for
beside the bed, a pair of nightstands with
drawers, and a pair of wingback chairs and an ottoman for the nook. Those
chairs? Exhibit A that perseverance is your friend on craigslist, dudes.
We'd been searching for
months for two wing back chairs that was within
shouting distance of a good deal. We knew it was too much to expect them
chairs to match, or that they'd be a color/pattern that would fit with our
decor, but
slipcovers can work miracles so that wasn't so much a concern. Comfort and
condition were our criteria, along with cost, obviously. Months went by with finds that were either
too pricey for used furniture or too used even for used furniture. Then in
May, I happened to be surfing the site one afternoon during
a short break from painting in the attic and came across a posting that'd
gone up only a few minutes before. The seller was offering everything we
wanted: matching (!) wingback chairs, in excellent condition, and, and, a
matching (!) ottoman. But the best part, y'all? Fifty bucks. For the set.
Fifty. Seriously. Oh man, I was all over that, dude.
Turns out the sellers were a yuppie
couple in the Irvington district (translation to the non-Portlanders: Irvington=cha-ching)
who were getting rid of their stuff and moving to New Zealand. I know,
right? Anyway, the furniture was in absolutely pristine condition; they'd
been in her formal living room, rarely used. She'd had no idea what price
to sell them for. One of the chairs has a small worn patch on a corner but seriously? It would've taken a
electron microscope
to find that spot if she hadn't pointed it out to me. Anyway, she felt she
needed to mark them down low to get rid of them. We almost felt guilty
about only paying $50, like we were totally taking advantage of them.
Almost.
The otherwise-unusable
space at the top of the stairs became our own little breakfast area.
That's a cast iron bistro set that we'd scored at an auction a few years
ago. Cleaned up and spray-painted black, and it looks like it came
straight off a sidewalk in
Montmartre. Set with the perfect dishes
bought on sale at Sur la Table? Voila! We have ourselves an idyllic spot
for enjoying Voltaire over flaky pastry and a cup of coffee (or in my
case, chai). Our old microwave moved into the nearby closet, along
with an old mini-fridge donated by good friends. (We had an outlet inside
the closet wired specifically for this purpose.)
The artwork for the room
was a little trickier. We didn't want to spend a huge amount of money on a
bunch of pictures, nor did we want to cover the walls (and we don't have a
lot of wall space anyway). But the room definitely needed something
to feel complete. We ultimately decided we wanted all black & white photos
and since our whole room was French-inspired, it seemed only natural to
choose photos of French scenes and landmarks.
We spent a number of evenings browsing
AllPosters.com and finally settled on eight prints of varying
sizes. The largest, a 3'x4' photo taken through the clock tower at the
Musee d'Orsay, seemed a natural to go over the bed, and in a way,
would be like a window looking out over the city from high above in our
Parisian garret. The other prints we bought were
16x20, 10x12, and 5x7, as well as notecards -- a pair of
4x6 photos and a pair of 7x7 photos that fit in with our theme -- that could be
framed and turned into very affordable art.
All of that for less than $70. Combined with $50 worth of
RIBBA basic black frames on sale from IKEA, and we had the artwork for
the entire attic.
This is what we were
working so hard on for over a year. Every day is like waking up in our own
bed and breakfast, where we can pad over to a small table in our pajamas
and share a light brunch, and afterward, we can relax in our nook with
whatever we're currently reading, sharing the ottoman between us with
a cat in each lap. It may not technically be Paris, but it's close enough
for us.
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