Back in Black

My brain is back online (cue screeching dial-up modem sound), so here are a few little house updates that I’ve been meaning to share.

The only real project I tackled during my week off, besides scrubbing every floor on my hands and knees (BONA!), was to finish painting this bathroom cabinet. I had previously painted just the doors black and left the rest of it primer — I still haven’t dealt with the walls in this room and I don’t know what color they’ll be, so I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep going — but eventually I got tired of living with black-and-white-striped Tim Burtonesque bathroom storage.

I was a little worried that once the whole thing was black it would make the room look smaller, but thankfully it doesn’t. You know what did? The room’s original, overwhelmingly wooden state. FLASHBACK!

Don’t you just want to burn it all for warmth?

Now that section looks more like this:

So with the completion of the little cabinet, all the wood furniture matches. Which is more than we can say for any of the metal fixtures. But hey.

I now have well-organized bottles of nasal spray and contact lens solution. And I need to properly paste down that accent paper. Or nix it. Or design my own. Not sure. Moving on!

I’ve been looking for an inexpensive cocktail ring for a while now, and was gifted the green labrodite one below from Priscilla and Vi’s Etsy shop. It’s just the size I wanted: bold, but just shy of ridiculous.

Up until this point my few rings and bracelets had been layered precariously on necklace hooks, but it was time to admit that I needed a better storage solution. This little Ikea dish does the trick nicely.

And now for the dining room, where, after 4.5 years of home ownership, THERE IS NOW A RUG.

I was so excited about this improvement that, at one of the season’s many social gatherings, I caught myself earnestly telling the person next to me that it really… tied… the room… together. Yeah.

It’s sisal and therefore not what you would call soft, but it was inexpensive and it does its job of preventing that horrible noise caused by chair legs scraping across a wood floor.

Elsewhere in the room are a few other gifts:

A nice Scotch (thanks, Dad!) and giant leftover bottle of Burgundy. We do both high and low class here at the ‘row. I have not partaken of either, however, as I am debating the merits of Drynuary. Perhaps I’ll try a modified version that allows for the occasional date and work happy hour? Either way I think I’ll save opening the Scotch until we hit the long, cold nights of February. And beyond.

Sigh.

And then there’s this. No explanation, really. I had the bow lying around and you know, it just happened.

(I’m not sorry.)