Ardbeg update

We all know that the real reason you follow Atomic Wieners is to catch a glimpse of the dashing, charming and adorable little Ardbeg. He is very much a mid-century wiener, his favorite seat in the house is on the Molly chair next to Matt, preferably in the (rare) sunshine.

Yep, there's Ted in the corner, just in case there might be food involved.

The three wienie-keteers, enjoying a snuggle.

Ardie has now graduated puppy kindergarten and puppy jr. high, has been enrolled at doggie daycare, has been neutered, microchipped, and is covered by pet health insurance. These puppies sure are a lot of work...but this little guy is worth it all.

It's a bar! It's a sideboard! It's a credenza!

Here's the latest furniture addition we've added, after many months of consideration. Matt has always wanted a bar to display his whiskies and to serve drinks from, but I've wanted a sideboard for storage and serving dishes in the dining room. We've been checking out Antika every so often, since their stock changes fairly quickly. Finally we found this piece and decided to go for it...it initially seemed bigger than what we were looking for, but it's narrow and has a low profile so it seemed to fit in. Matt's tall whisky bottles fit in it, which was a hard feature to find.

We had friends over for dinner last weekend, and one of them commented, "This piece is awesome. It must have come with the house, huh?" So I guess it looks like it belongs here, in our atomic ranch :)






Now we're all set for the season premiere of Mad Men, ready to host the party.

Introducing Mollie

Mollie Chair, basking in the rare January sun.

No, we don't have another puppy, Mollie is the name of our new chair. No, we aren't in the habit of naming our furniture. But apparently that's the thing these days, giving furniture designs names,  so we'll go with it. We first met Mollie while browsing Area 51 in Seattle, and finally decided she would be the perfect addition to our mid-century living room. Then we noticed a red leather Mollie on the cover of the latest issue of Atomic Ranch magazine, so we were confident Mollie was the right choice. When we went to pick out our Mollie, we brought a swatch of our drapes and a paint chip from the walls. We held them up to the golden tweed chair and the salesman got all excited, "Ooh, now that's GOR-geous! It looks just like you have a DEC-orator!" Then we were really confident that this was the right Mollie for us.

Mollie Chair is right at home in the tiki corner.

There are lots of other little things we've been doing in the house. I Craigslisted and sold the old breakfast table and chairs and Matt bought me this "tulip" table and chairs from IKEA. Even though the table is bigger than the old one, this set really opened up the area and makes it lighter and brighter.

Updated breakfast nook: IKEA's "tulip" table and chairs.

 We didn't replace the sofa in the den as previously planned, for now we just rotated it and we're making do. This black and white photo of Paris on canvas sort of helps tie the area together.

Some updates to the den...canvas of Paris

And in weenie news, Ardbeg now weighs in at almost 8 lbs, more than double his weight when we brought him home!

Ted is really really glad we got him a puppy. He loves his puppy.

The new addition

I have a lot of updating to do, since the last post we've moved out of our horrible slum apartment in the Madison Punk neighborhood, and moved everything into our new house. We started unpacking, and as of this posting, the house is pretty functional...especially if you don't look in the garage and notice all of the unpacked boxes stacked out there. I'm especially happy to report that the kitchen was unpacked, set up, and produce a full curry dinner by the third night after moving in. However, a week after we moved in, we drove across the state to Spokane, spent a romantic night at the Fairfield Inn (including dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory), and came back with a new addition to the family...

Introducing ARDBEG!

Here he is, all 3.3 pounds of wiener adorableness.

 Just to make this post house-related, note the cork flooring in the kitchen and den! It was installed by the previous owners, it's no original, but it's still consistent with the mid-century period. I love it, it's warm and sort of soft. Perfect for standing on for hours while simmering a curry, or sitting on while you're playing with a puppy.

Ted isn't quite sure what to think of him yet, but he seems pretty enamored with him.

Covering up the floor

Matt is piecing together the living room carpet. For the living and dining room we chose a "felt" carpet called "House Pet."

So we spent lots of money having the lovely white oak floors refinished, and the next logical step is to cover them up! Well, not really. But we knew we definitely wanted area rugs in the living and dining rooms. The dilemma was that we wanted nice-looking rugs but were unwilling to spend a lot because one episode of giardia (Ted, I'm looking at you) or a dish of lamb vindaloo too close to the edge of the table...and the rug is ruined. Solution? FLOR carpet tiles! Disclaimer: In no way do I benefit from extolling the virtues of FLOR or providing a link to their site, I just love the product that much. We designed and ordered our rugs online, even ordering the tiles from our apartment in Paris.

Always the critic, Tessa weighs in with her opinion.

 They were inexpensive, compared to area rugs of the same size. My favorite thing is that if a tile gets dirty, you just pick it up and wash it in the sink with water and dish soap. If it's really really dirty (again, Ted, I'm looking at you) you simply toss it and order a replacement...for $10 to $20 per tile, a lot easier on peace of mind and the pocketbook than a whole area rug getting ruined. Plus the variety of styles and colors seems endless and it's really fun to get creative and mix and match.

The wieners agree that carpet tiles are more comfortable than slick, cold hardwoods. And if wieners know anything, it's comfort.

Oh, and if you care (or pretend to care) about being green, many of their styles are apparently eco-friendly. The "house pet" style is made of 80% recycled materials. That was a nice benefit, and I could pretend to be smug and say that was important to us, but to be honest, my biggest concern is ease of stain removal. Or failing removal, camouflage of said stain. I have dogs, and I'm clumsy.

The felted appearance and the simplicity of the design seemed to fit in with our mid-century modern theme, and I think it's neutral without being boring. Thoughts?

Dining room.

Carpet in the den, "Morning Late."

Finished living room carpet. Note the awesome lamp Barb found at an estate sale and fixed up for us.

Study

This is my favorite corner of the house so far, I love the warmth of the color with the light from the windows and the views of the trees and the yard. This will be Matt's writing den and home to all our bookshelves. I'm thinking of roller shades for the windows.

Before: Kind of a chilly blue/lavender thing going on in here.

Matt and Barb, hard at work.

After: "Warmed Cognac." IRL it's a bit yellower, less reddish.

Guest bedroom

Before: I wasn't a fan of this purple hazey wall color...

We used Benjamin Moore Aura paint throughout the house, and we loved it. It covered evenly and thickly and after just two coats the color was deep and rich.

After: "Elk Horn" warmed the room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My plans for this room are for a Tiki Guest Suite, in keeping with the retro 50's theme of course. Care to book your stay?