wallpaper removal

With much of the country shivering under an arctic blast, I decided to switch gears today. It was 7 degrees when I walked my dog just now and I live in Virginia, not Minnesota. Schools are canceled today because of the cold! Only my dog loves it - she is a Tibetan Spaniel and the breed is from the mountains of Tibet and she can't get enough of the cold weather.

Instead of #8 of my top ten Chinoiserie trends for 2014, we will take a look at the warm and toasty combination of tartan and Chinoiserie. This is a wonderful pairing - classic, traditional, and timeless. The undisputed masters of combining tartan and Chinoiserie are Ralph Lauren and Scot Meacham Wood/The Adventures of Tartanscot. I love tartan - I have two Pinterest boards on tartan here and here. Want to follow me on Pinterest? Click here.

My new Ralph Lauren lamp from HomeGoods in my color of 2013 - navy.

Mary McDonald

 Many of you read yesterday's One Room Challenge post about how I snagged $2,000 worth of Brunschwig & Fils wallpaper on eBay for my laundry room for $150. Well, it happened again!

I have been working so hard on my laundry room makeover, that I decided to take a little break yesterday and make a HomeGoods run. I have shopping ESP, do you? I sensed walking in that I was going to find something truly amazing. I always head to the lighting department first, because I have posted before about my addiction to Ralph Lauren Chinoiserie lamps I find at HomeGoods.

There it was, calling out to me - "Beth, Beth, I'm over here."

A
Huge
Ralph Lauren
Gold Leaf
And Crystal
Chinoiserie
Pagoda
Lantern

The regular price on it was $2,000 and I got it for $350.00. I have been looking for a new chandelier for my dining room for ages, and what I really envisioned was a gold leaf pagoda. I have lived with the lighting fixture I have for years, knowing it would someday appear. The one below is one I posted on that got away on eBay much to my dismay. I like mine a thousand times more.

There is one small glitch. It is missing its ceiling canopy (the round piece that hides the hole in the ceiling). I spent some time looking for replacements online and none are gold leaf and none have modern lines - lots of antique reproductions. Maybe I can find a simple brass or metal one and have my amazing antique restorer in Old Town gold leaf it for me. I have not shown you a picture of it, as I would much rather have you see it for the first time hanging in my dining room. So you can look forward to my dining room reveal and my laundry room reveal.

As an aside, I have had great luck on Etsy and eBay with wallpaper, especially high end wallpaper. Several years ago a follower of Chinoiserie Chic emailed me about an Etsy seller with 15 rolls of Clarence House Chinoiserie Baroque for $150. Here is the post about it from 2010. It is a very expensive and very beautiful and very discontinued paper worth $$$$. I snatched it up and it is gorgeous in my dining room. Here is a tour of my dining room with the existing chandelier.

Clarence House Chinoiserie Baroque

On the laundry room side, my wallpaper hanger spent all day yesterday skimming and sanding the laundry room walls and they look like glass. Today he is doing still more prep work and priming them, so the hanging won't start until tomorrow. Quite a perfectionist. Tomorrow he wants me to work with him positioning the layout of the design.

The one that got away on eBay, not mine

If you love blue and white Chinese porcelain lamps, you need to hit your local HomeGoods stores. They have been getting in tons of Ralph Lauren lamps at prices starting at $49.99 for the smaller ones, with most about $99.99. Great deals for high end designer lamps. Just yesterday I saw a large dragon, small dragon, wicker, turquoise pineapple, and blue and white florals and other traditional Chinese designs.

Three came home with me. That makes ten in my house at last count. I might need to form a local chapter of Ralph Lauren Lamps @ HomeGoods Addicts Anonymous. My daughter snapped the photo above at the brand new HomeGoods in Georgetown DC last night. The $169.99 is the highest price I have seen but likely reflects the very pricey Georgetown location. The prices do vary on the same lamp depending on the store. And just yesterday I saw that another HomeGoods is opening five minutes from my house. That will make six HomeGoods stores near me. Wow! The lamp just below is one of yesterday's acquisitions.

I found this yummy Ralph Lauren blue and white Chinese porcelain lamp at HomeGoods on Friday. I love the gold leaf base.

It all started when I saw this Ralph Lauren fabric St. Honore a while back. I had no place to use it, but made a mental note of it. When I decided to do my powder room for the One Room Challenge, I remembered this lovely gray and ivory Chinoiserie toile and decided I'd love to use it in my powder room, perhaps with pale pink. Here are some inspiration photos below from my files as well.

This week has been a whirlwind in the powder room. My plumber installed a new sink and toilet. I have a funny story about the sink. The only pedestal sink I could find that would fit is the Kohler Parigi but it retails for almost $800 and I am doing this on the cheap! The best price I could find it for was about $550. But Lowe's online was selling the pedestal and basin separately for $220 for both with free shipping. Strange, but great. I love its shape and the size is so much better in this teensy powder room. To jazz up the rather dull toilet that again was all that would fit with my sub-standard rough-in, I used a black wood toilet seat that I think looks great.

My painter spend mucho hours prepping, priming, and painting the room in my "go to" gray - Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray in Aura Bath and Spa Matte. It looks wonderful! The trim and ceiling are my "go to" Benjamin Moore Decorators White. We also put in a beautiful brushed nickel faux bamboo faucet and a brushed nickel door knob and switch plate. The pair of sconces are from Restoration Hardware that I put in a while back. I am very happy - ahead of time and under budget!

This is going great. I HATE having workers in my house and now I have the house to myself and I have 5 weeks left in the challenge to make it beautiful. I am ready to go hunting in my own house, thrift stores, and favorite haunts for some accessories. Next week will be the reveal on how I am using the Ralph Lauren toile in the room. It will be quite dramatic, trust me.

In my sidebar you can always click on the One Room Challenge button to go back and review all of my previous posts on this project. Click here to see what it looked like a week ago - yikes! At the bottom of this post are the links to my fellow participants - please go check out what they have been up to.

My powder room inspiration board

Mary McDonald

Charlotte Moss

Joe Nye

A pink and gray bedroom inspiration board of mine

Collage Vintage

Kohler Parigi Pedestal Sink

Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray