A modest 1956 house says goodbye to its mauve laminate kitchen

As someone fairly opinionated about color, I love a good hue-related challenge—and the owner of this sweet little 3 bedroom, 1 bath house has certainly brought me several brainteasers over the years. My exploits include helping change the home’s exterior colors from brown + white to deep red + banana cream + grey-blue (with a [...]

Project Marigold Paint: Dispatch from the field

PNW ABODE. September 07 — After more than 9 years of co-existing with a house painted in an always-dirty-looking mauve I’d gotten over my guilt for wishing the color gone, eviscerated, buried. Dreary in the winter, bland in the summer, I found the shade entirely unlovable. But with so many competing priorities—the fraught kitchen and [...]

Barely Boho-ho

Apparently the love child of my two more staid style personas will not be denied: the Persnickety Bohemian wants her time in the sun. Which is annoying and ridiculous because I’m not spending my summer lounging around a private cabana with ocean breezes ruffling my silken garb, nor am I wandering around an exotic marketplace [...]

Condé Nast thinks my backsplash is a glamour do

In the Vix Household, we excel at turning renovation-related molehills into mountains. So by the time our (fairly) budget, seemingly endless, mostly DIY kitchen reno came to a point where form could take precedence over function, I was thrilled. When choosing the flooring, cabinets, counter, hardware, and sink, we’d factored in lots of variables. Cost. Durability. Practicality. Design. But once [...]