Linoleum? No way! (InStyle Inspiration No. 3)

This shot of a turquoisy floor of goodness in a Windsor Smith kitchen made its way around the interwebs quite some time ago (oh, I think early 2009...).  I ooohed and ahhhed over the high glossy/glassy beauty and assumed that the floors were wooden painted in some kind of fancy laquer.  I sometimes come back to the picture and fantasize about LIVING in that kitchen. 

High gloss, high style. 

Well, who would have thunk that Windsor's secret to achieving this perfection would be revealed in...you guessed it, this month's InStyle! 

I think I may have passed out when she said that it was 1) not too time consuming and 2) could be done on LINOLEUM.   I just assumed that it was (again, lacquer) over wood. 

The moral of this post is that Jen's linoleum kitchen floors (whether she agrees or not!) will soon be painted with the specialty paint that Windsor tells us to buy, Breakthrough by Vanex.  Instead of spending a fortune on new kitchen floors, she will soon be the owner of a historic mid-century home with the hottest most Windsor Smith-looking kitchen possible!   

Seriously, IF Jen decides that this is the direction to go, we will document this process play by play for you gimleters.  And, if you have linoleum that needs fixin' and brightenin', you know where to find me!

Oh, and here is a picture of the fully painted, fully umbrella'ed, non-cushioned outdoor table in action. 

Some comments:

1.) I didn't "style" the yard...I thought that you should see it in its full "regular house" glory.  Hence, cover on grill, chairs askew and mulch bags laid out in front of beds ready to be opened this weekend.

2.) Patioumbrellas.com is scary impressive in terms of its delivery time.  With free shipping, you never really know what you're going to get.  I ordered the umbrella on Monday and it arrived in perfect shape on Wednesday.  Kind of ridiculous!

3.) Note that the wooden pieces on the umbrella are chocolate brown.  Very "wood" as opposed to black/high gloss dark wood.  I assumed I could simply spray paint (of course) the wood pole black, but it will be too intricate of a job to try to paint the wood pieces underneath the umbrella.  So, we have to stick to chocolate.  This, of course, changes the scheme from black and white to ?? 

4.) The umbrella is fairly nice. I am not going to rave about its high quality, but for $69.00 with free shipping it does the trick.  I learned my lesson when my parents bought four market umbrellas from PB to place around their pool.  After a regular rain storm, they were literally all trashed...frames bent, etc.  They have had to replace all four multiple times.  To Lowe's they go from now on! 

5.) I cannot wait for the fabric on the umby to look less "rumpled" / "new."  I suggested ironing it to Beau and you can likely imagine his face/response.

6.) SO...send me any cute cushion ideas or fabric swatches for things you have seen that may fit into the new table/umbrella design scheme. 

Toodles!

Cheers,

JSH

P.S. Yesterday evening, I was headed to the Delachaise to meet some friends for drinks and cheese/ridiculously delicious fries and had to stop and snap a pic of this perfectly fuschia hanging basket in front of the perfectly fuschia front door of a salon on Magazine.  I have loved the dark gray wooden siding with the hot hot fuschia door for a while, but the flowers only enhance the beautiful colors of the building.  Dark gray and fuschia.  Not much more to say but "delicious!"