Purple People Eater & Granada Theater

 I could write a year end reflective post about all my accomplishments for 2010, all my goals and expectations for 2011.  Or I could post pictures of my newly painted kick ass purple dining room.

 

Jonny finally wore me down on the purple and it turns out I like it.  This was the last room that had the previous owner's paint colors, it only took us 12 years to rid ourselves of them.  But we're finally free of the hideous sea foam green wallpaper border and 1980's salmon pink walls in our dining room.  Jonny had some vacation days so he did all the work while I worked on my contract work and you can imagine how that worked out.

It was a bit stressful for a few days because of all the crap from the dining room lying all over the living room.  Disturbing tableaus lurked everywhere.

I have no idea how the bear in the hideous green snowman sweater and matching hat made it through my purge of Stuff last year but believe me, this year he goes to a new, hopefully more appreciative home.  Ditto for the tacky reindeer made of fake evergreens.  Joey Ramone stays of course as does the plastic praying mantis.  I like leaving it around the house in unexpected places to scare the crap out of Jonny.

There's something disturbing about all your crap laying around in unrelated piles and out of context.  Bill Clinton riding on the rat is my favorite.  Not that our stuff is ever in context even when it's back in place.  I'd like to think it's eclectic but really it's leaning more towards disturbing.

I should probably toss it all.  Except for this.

It came out of the old Granada Theater in Chicago.  I knew they were tearing down the Granada (do not even get me going on what a tragedy that was) so I went to take pictures of it and I spotted a workman leaving the theater with this little gem.  At first I was just admiring it and when he said there were loads more inside I offered to buy it from him (I couldn't go in myself because they were doing asbestos removal plus the part about not having a saw).  $15 later this little piece of architectural history was mine.

Granada Theater in 1989 (I believe it was demolished in 1990)

A man from the neighborhood saw me taking pictures and came over to chat.  It turned out he knew a lot about the theater.  He said the 'alcoves' (located at the top center of the photo below) used to house elaborate statutes but they'd been pilfered. 

Such amazing detail

 

I have photos from inside but I didn't have a flash with me so they aren't very good.  I did find some photos of the interior on the internets.  I couldn't go too far in because of the asbestos removal but I got to see enough of it to see what a tragedy it was to let it go.  In its stead they built ugly yuppie condos which were eventually turned into dorms for Loyola University.  Ah well, at least I have my little piece of it.

We're having a few friends over for a low key New Year's Eve (and of course to show off our purple dining room).  We were invited to a real party up in the mountains but we finally got our first real snow of the winter along with some nice arctic temperatures and nobody wants to drive all the way up the skating rink of Boulder Canyon and then up more scary steep twisty icy mountain roads to the party's locale so we're having a little flat-lander's gathering.  Hope you all enjoy whatever festivities you're up to tonight and a Happy New Year to all.

Watching paint dry

Due to popular request, ie one reader in  the comments section, I'm posting the results of my house painting efforts.

Kitchen
I'm embarrassed to  post the before pictures now that I see how awful the walls were.  No, those dark spots aren't shadows, they are actual grime.  Yes I really was living like that and yes it was stressing me out and driving me crazy.  This is what happens when everybody is working and riding bikes and training dogs and too tired to paint and you spend your mad money on the dog agility instead of the painter.  See all that wallpaper?  Somehow it came down no problem, much easier than the border in the living room.  I think it was so old it was being held on with spit and a prayer.  Who puts wallpaper behind the oven?

Before:

 

After:

I know, some of you are going 'Really, those are the "after" shots?'  But I love the color though admittedly it wasn't exactly what we were originally aiming for.  It looks different in different light and at different times of the day and was hard to photograph, especially since I hadn't worked out the manual settings for the camera yet.  I think I did a little better with the living room photos once I figured them out.

We also got rid of the big ugly bookcase thanks to all my purging but now we have nowhere for the recycle bins except the top of the fridge and I'm too short to reach them easily so I'll have to figure something out.

Living Room

I've been putting this room off for years because like the kitchen I knew it would be a huge job.  Those casement windows and fussy window sills were a screaming pain in the ass.  So many little ridges and crevices.  But I'm so happy now, I've hated that sea foam green for 12 years and finally it's gone along with the weirdo wallpaper borders that made the short walls seem even shorter.

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

 

I found a collage type frame that holds 9 photos so I was able to get rid of all but 2 of  the agility photos cluttering the top of the unit housing the records.  It has kind of a 3-D effect too, very cool find at Target.  We got rid of a bunch of records too so now they all fit in the unit.  We also pared down the 7"ers and bought some nicer looking boxes rather than the dumpy looking shoe boxes.  One of these days we'll live entirely like grown-ups.

 

Lola enjoying her new digs

 

It was a lot of work but I love my 'new' house.  We've lived here 12 years and finally it feels like ours.  Except for the part about all the money we still owe the bank.

The trim was supposed to be more of steely grey-blue and that's what it looks like on the trim away from the windows but it looks a lot more blue on the windows because of the effects of the light.  But I like all the different shades it presents itself as and we were tearing our hair out trying to find something that wasn't boring white that looked good throughout the day.

All that's left to paint is the dining room and 2 bedrooms, all of which should be easy except for the border in the dining room.  They're all relatively small rooms and shouldn't take much effort.  I'm taking a little break from it for now though, I'm a bit burnt out and the agility field has dried out so it's time to get back to training.