We can never resist entering a contest (a few of you may remember our infamous Blair Witch/Home Depot video) so when we read that Houseblogs.net was sponsoring a sweepstakes in partnership with True Value we, of course, had to enter.

We’ve done so many DIY projects here at Bungalow Insanity, it’s hard to choose a favorite, but one which stands out among many is our kitchen remodel. Basically, we designed the entire kitchen around four $10 salvaged windows. Continue Reading »

This is the part where you simultaneously realize how good things are going to look, feel like you are making progress and become completely aware of how long it’s going to take to finish. It’s a 50/50 mix of elation and dread. Today I sanded Ginger’s closet doors and got the first coat of stain on them. The fir looks simply beautiful. I don’t think anything can touch old growth fir in terms of warmth. While new doors, such as the ones we put in the kitchen, look great, the vertical grain doesn’t look as varied or interesting as the flat-sawn to me. And if you don’t remember, we scored these old cabinet doors for $40 at the Rebuilding Center. There aren’t many places where you can find 5′ doors, especially for a great price. Of course the real “price” comes when your back is sore from spending hours and hours bent over while sanding and staining

A couple of days ago I sanded Ginger’s door down to get it ready for stain. Like all the upstairs doors, we had taken it to get dipped & stripped (probably over a year ago!), but unfortunately, the work never ends there. I hadn’t really looked at them too closely after getting them back from the strippers, but while sanding them, I noticed that the strippers had been a little to aggressive with their scrapers. One side of the door had really rough-sawn panels, and apparently the texture wasn’t willing to let go of the paint, forcing the strippers to scrape and gouge the panels to get the paint off. Because these gouges cut pretty deep, I decided to sand all of the panels smooth in order to remove the grooves. On the plus side, we now have nice, smooth panels on both sides of the door, but the negative was the hours I had to spend to sand just one door. Even with a power sander, it took forever to sand enough off to make the gouges less visible. They didn’t come out perfectly, but the great thing about old doors with beautiful grain is that the remaining blemishes actually add more character to the door. At least that’s what I tell myself, so that I can stop sanding. Comparing it to the way it looked when we bought the house, it was worth all the time and expense.

Stephanie pointed this out to me last weekend. We had allowed our neighbor’s bamboo to creep into a patch of dirt next to our patio, because it acts as a really nice screen and maybe even more importantly, takes no maintenance.  But while we’ve always known it’d eventually start to spread further, we were shocked when we saw this monster.  Keep in mind that it’s a good 2′ back from the rest of the stand - it’s freakin’ huge!  I think it’s the bamboos’ way of telling us to get out of the way, because it’s taking over!

One of the features that initially sold us on our little bungalow was its incredibly intact stained woodwork. And while the wainscoting, box beams and pocket doors made us swoon, we especially loved the built-ins sprinkled throughout the house. Pretty AND practical - what’s not to love, right?

This particular latch adorns the doors of both the china cabinet in our dining room and the bookshelves flanking the living room fireplace:

Viewed from the front, it’s not the most exciting piece of hardware I’ve ever seen, but I’ve always thought that the interior latch is especially funky and unusual-looking:

Continue Reading »

A year ago today marked my the end of my fifth week of “house arrest” (otherwise known as bed rest.)

Chloe, the older of our two daughters, was born prematurely and spent roughly six weeks in the hospital. So last May, when baby number two threatened to make an appearance two months ahead of schedule, I was advised to stay off my feet for SIX LONG WEEKS.

Being confined to bed rest in your third trimester is excruciating. Not in terms of physical discomfort (although there is a bit of that.) Rather, it’s the psychological distress that’s unbearable. Not only are you steeped in worry over your unborn child, but you’re locked in this perverse battle of wanting - or perhaps more accurately, NEEDING - to give in to the all-consuming “nesting instinct,” yet you know that your baby’s health depends on ignoring that desire/need. Ultimately, you end up glued to the couch for a month and a half, obsessing about everything that isn’t getting done. Continue Reading »

Yet another of our examples of the obvious. A year and a half ago, I re-shingled our porch roof, which had been leaking badly. As part of that project, I adjusted the gutter to slope towards the downspout, thinking that maybe, just maybe, it’d be better to have the water head in that direction instead of just pooling up in the front and constantly spilling over the lip. While that was likely an admirable idea, it turned out that the downspout had been installed too high on the side of the house, so I wasn’t able to reattach the connecting piece, as it would have only worked if water somehow started flowing up instead of down. And like so many house projects, once the major part is done, it’s oh so easy to let the little stuff fall into the “I’ll get the parts and fix it next weekend” trap.

Fast forward to a year later, and we gradually began to notice cracking on our porch floor. At first I thought it was my imagination, but eventually it became obvious that the crack was growing. After a bunch of head-scratching, I figured out that the right side of the porch (near the aforementioned gutter) had sunk about 1/2″. While that might not sound like much, apparently it was too much for our megalithic concrete porch, so something had to give. And unfortunately, that something was the top deck of the porch, right in front of the door. Seeing the damage and seeking to head off any additional expense to our future repairs, I sprung into action and “solved” the problem by propping up a board with some bricks to force the water to drain away from the porch. But don’t worry, we’ll do the permanent fix next weekend…

In addition to the many lovely offerings at Rejuvenation and Schoolhouse Electric, all sorts of reproduction glass light shades (from schoolhouse-style shades, to etched Victorian glass shades, to lovely craftsman-style shades which would be happy in just about any bungalow) are now available at House of Antique Hardware. Continue Reading »

It seems as though there’s a lot of confusion about VOCs. I’m hoping this post might, if you’ll excuse the pun, clear the air a bit.

The term “VOC” stands for “volatile organic compound.” The definition of a volatile organic compound really seems to vary depending on who is doing the defining, but basically, a VOC is an organic (carbon-based) chemical compound that will evaporate at room temperature.

As volatile organic compounds evaporate - changing from liquid form to gas/fumes - they will enter the atmosphere and contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone and smog. They will also enter the lungs of, say, someone who is painting. What’s the big deal about that? Well, here’s what the EPA has to say about the health effects of VOCs: Continue Reading »

Most bungalow-lovers are familiar with the Sherwin Williams’ Arts & Crafts color collection, the Eddie Bauer Home Bungalow Color collection at Lowe’s, and Pittsburgh Paints’ Chicago Bunaglow color collection, but there’s new color collection released earlier this spring that may also be worth a look.

Kelly-Moore Paints has introduced a new palette called “Historic Lifestyles of the West.” Developed by respected color expert Robert Schweitzer (who wrote the book “Bungalow Colors Exteriors“), the collection contains 106 lovely, mellow colors inspired by the architecture of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The collection is dived by era/architectural style and includes shades appropriate for Victorian, English Revival, Spanish Revival, Arts and Crafts, Jazz Age and mid-century modern homes.

Kelly-Moore Paints are available in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington.