The World More Beautiful

So now we have a family room....

2011-08-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest beefs with our house is that we don't have a proper family room-- we still have the 1930's floor plan, and in those days big, open kitchens with media/lounge space adjacent were apparently not standard. We did have a completely useless little pass-through room off of our main living area that began life as The Fireplace Room, then suffered through not one, but two ( failed) attempts at becoming a library space last year.

I had my lightbulb moment late one Sunday afternoon in a quick solo spin through the thrift store, when I saw a feather poking out of some ugly red upholstery. A quick check under the cushions and a quick google on my phone told me I was looking at a $3K custom sofa in perfect condition. Grand total: $35. $75 worth of white canvas duck later and we had a small, poufy, oh, so comfy little sofa just dying to be lounged upon.

Did anyone else love this home in Southern Living last year? (I keep saying I hate what Southern Living has become, but then I see at least one fantastic room or whole house in every single issue. Agree?)

It struck me after reading this article that the rooms in my house DO NOT NEED TO BE STATIC.

Fireworks flahsed. Angels sang. And a new design plan was born.

So what if there wasn't a designated "family room" in our house? Why not rearrange and make one? (I'm still trying to convince my husband that our master bedroom would make an even more awesome family room, but he remains unswayed. Party pooper.)

And so with that little slipcovered sofa that could in tow, I set out to make loveliness where there had before been-- well, you be the judge. Less than loveliness, I suppose. It's been a slow year of gathering, but we are nearly ready for our close-up. More pictures to come!

All images via Pinterest

Blast from the past

2011-08-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

Remember this shirt?

He got a makeover.

I used this tutorial as a jumping off point-- I cut many, many circle-y shapes in a variety of sizes, and then starting with the largest, I kind of crimped them into tear-drop-shaped petals, sewing each petal on top of the next. I fluffed and pulled them to make it look like a flower, then added a vintage ticking-stripe button to the middle.

It sounds hard, but don't worry, it wasn't. I drank wine and watched TV while I sewed. Emersonmade it is not, but I have my $78 and it's Melissamade, so even better.

Amazing Art

2011-08-02T03:27:00.000-07:00

One of the million reasons I love Greensboro is the Weatherspoon Art Museum on the campus of UNCG. It's lovely, free, and filled with a fantastic permanant collection. And when I took the kids last week to peek around, I found out exactly how I should spend that spare hundred grand I've got in a shoebox under my bed.

The work of Rackstraw Downes-- I could spend hours staring at each and every one.

The computer screen doesn't do it justice-- in real life, these were breathtaking. If you live in Greensboro, go!

Budget Makeover: boob light made beautiful

2011-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

I take no credit for this brilliant idea-- it's all Stephanie over on Sabbespot--I am just a genius-moocher today.

Here is my boob light. You probably have one of these somewhere, too, don't you? The most unfortunate design of the 20th century, laminated chintz not withstanding.

(This is our new den, by the way, camera-phone style. I think I'm going to talk about it more this week.)

Enter a large, linen-covered drum shade that I found at Goodwill for $3.99. I think it came from Target-- it was still in the original plastic wrap. (In case you don't frequent Goodwill, they often carry overstocks and damaged goods from Target at deep discounts.) I unscrewed the boob-light cover, turned the shade upside down, and screwed the little metal finial from the original light back on. It took less than 5 minutes, and now we have this:

So much better, right?!

Mid-week Pretties

2011-07-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the images I've pinned this week--I love looking back over my pins for the week to see what caught my eye.

I'm thinking dining room this week-- having a big soire here in a couple months and I am tired to death of what is in there right now.

See any themes?

And wanna buy the "Champagne" art for me?

Go forth and pin and be happy everybody.

All image sources can be found on my Pinterest page. The cabinet and the last image aren't pinned-- via here and here.

A Solution to my Chair Dilemma

2011-07-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by pointing out that today I'm solving a DILEMMA, not a delima, as I did yesterday, which my husband so kindly pointed out via text while I braved the grocery store with two heat-hopped kids at noon to buy something which I would then sllllaaaaavvvve away at to turn into his dinner, hot on the table when he walked in the door that evening (22 minutes late. But who is counting.) I cannot spell, and he can, and there it is.

I like to think that what I lack in boring pursuits like spelling (and math facts and solving The Jumble) I make up for in sparkle.

Moving on.

So I found this picture via My Notting Hill today, and I think the chairs from yesterdays post would look fab-u-lous slipped in cream with a charcoal grey stripe up the middle.

Now if only I could buy time as easily as groceries. Sigh.

Design Delima: What would you do?

2011-07-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

So-- I've had many pairs of chairs in front of my fireplace/cabinet the last few years. I've had enough of the serial chair-ing, and I'd really like to settle down with a good pair.

Is this it? They are beyond comfortable-- super little mid-century tub chairs I got for the cost of a Big Mac at a really scary thrift store in Winston-Salem.

They are in need of new clothes, and I am so hesitant to bring anything but slipcovers into my house. Which means either I pay someone a few hundred dollars for something I am not sure is right or I do it myself-- and I hate, hate covering curved backs. It's hard.

What would you do?

My Old House: Fireplace Renovation Edition

2011-07-22T04:13:00.000-07:00

Just because the ole' blog is silent does not mean the hammers haven't been swingin' around Casa de Tarleton. Oh, no. Since the fall we have added a fireplace, added a bathroom, created a family room where there was not one before, painted diamonds on the walls and stripes on the floors, started a bang-up little library/music room, and dreamed up a thousand more changes to come.

I just really stink at taking pictures. And then I have nothing pretty to show you and you have to listen to me ramble in the dark, and who wants to do that?

So here is a little story-- with photos-- I like to call How Half Our Party Became Ill at Dinner on New Year's Eve And I Got a New Fireplace Because of It.

Here is an old shot of our living room-- I hated, hated, HATED this cabinet. Several owners back there was a fellow who fancied himself a carpenter-- we have spent a boatload ripping out and patching over all his "handiwork." Our front door opens directly into the living room, so this is what you saw when you walked it.

Blech.

We knew this cabinet was covering the original hearth bricks-- somebody at some point in the last 80 years decided to convert the central chimney into a closet, leaving all the remnants of the fireplace behind.

Wise, they were, those who came before us.

We headed out to dinner with friends on New Year's Eve-- gussied up, having a grand time, very happy to be out without offspring. And then, suddenly, half the people at the table became violently ill and we called it a night at 11 pm.

And so, instead of dragging around groggy and ~~hungover~~ listless the next morning, we awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and raring for a challenge-- and decided a little home improvement was in order.

Cue this song for your listening enjoyment.

And after a little bit of hammer, a little bit of pry-bar, we had a whole lotta s#*t on our hands.

Exhibit A:

So that's what that cabinet was hiding.

I said some bad words.

(We knew there was something fireplace related back there before we began ripping things out-- we just thought it was less--scary. The original plan was to reveal the original firebox/hearth and rebuilt the mantle.

Ha.

I called our trusty carpenter, who hurried right over and turned it into this:

(PS-- I have grown weary of those chairs. They are for sale. Lemme know if you want them.)

Much better.

I chose the tile during what was probably the most stressful 24 hour period of my adult life, with children screaming at me all the while. In hindsight, I wish I'd gone with slate.

But anyway.

After 'while, I called Parra back and handed him this picture from LONNY.

(Hey! I need that rug, too!

And why did I get scared off by the hideous faux wood-grain technique on the exact table at a thrift store last week and pass on it? Dummy.)

And he handed me this:

Not bad, huh? We put in a ventless gas fireplace--I wasn't nuts about the idea to begin with, but I LOVE being able to push a button and start a fire in the winter. Many hours of snuggling have been done before it.

We created a small den/family room just off this room, with a wood-burning fireplace (which we never use because it is a flippin' lot of effort) and so we have the best of both worlds. Those chairs from yesterday's post would look totally fab on either side of it, right?

And that, my friends, is how NOT to renovate Your Old House.

Help! Design OCD Moment

2011-07-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

So last week I saw these chairs in the inventory pics of a friend of a friend's store's Facebook page.

(Didya follow that?!)

They had been sold.

I cried.

I love them.

I want them.

Scratch that.

I NEED them.

They are from Arteriors, I don't think they are being made anymore, and this set was purchased at the Arteriors warehouse sale in Dallas last year.

I hear that sale is "stupid-cheap."

Of course, this is the price I would prefer.

But I want them so much that I will pay more in the range of "moderately gifted cheap."

Can you help a sista out?!

Still searchin' for the perfect cocktail table..

2011-07-20T04:15:00.000-07:00

Alternately titled: If I Didn't Have Kids, I Would Have This.

Since we moved in 4 years ago, we have had ugly coffee table, no coffee table, and another ugly table. I'm hindered in my search for the perfect table by my two little design-wreckers (goodness, gracious, I love them, but boys are H.A.R.D. on a house!)-- and in this case, my lack of $2,000 to spend on a cocktail table.

As always, my bestie Anthro comes through for me in design dream-land.

Don't hate me, but I am absolutely DYING over this. The edges are rounded and I bet it makes a dandy launch pad to the sofa!

Quick, go buy something from the store so I can afford a $3K table!

Pretty purty. Fairly indestructable. Still too much for a house with my son in it (Hey, you saw the video. The dustbuster musicale was impromptu and tame for him.)

Hot damn. I love this. Price=not too bad. Glass top and spindly base=really too bad.

Do I love it? Do I hate it? I just don't know.

If you love it, buy it here.

And this concludes my coffee table musings for today. There are a couple of ah-mazing (glass, spindly, death-traps) down at the shop-- get rid of your kids and go get one:-)

My son, the dustbuster virtuoso

2011-07-11T04:12:00.000-07:00

Good way to get your Monday morning chuckles in. My youngest showin' off his mad musicale skillz.

V.A.C.A.T.I.O.N.

2011-06-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

via Pinterest

It would be nice if these were thing I was thinking of packing for our trip.

Instead I'm packing up movies and Trader Joe's snacks driving my kids half-way across the country by myself to go visit my mom for a week.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

Ya'll can pray for me (and my sanity) if you feel like it.

See you next week!

THRIFT SCORE FRIDAY!

2011-06-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

I've talked before about my "if you build it, they will come" attitude towards thrifting-- as in "if I really want something badly enough and think hard enough about it it will materialize in front of me at a thrift store. For $2.")

But ya wanna know a secret?

I don't always believe it's true.

Which is why I ordered a pair of mirrors from some place that rhymes with Mallard Be-Mines and paid $350 for something that looked great in a catalog, but when it arrived was made, I kid you not, of Styrofoam. I liked the way they looked-- but I'm used to good, solid pieces at itty bitty prices (casualty of thrift-store overload.) And even before I knew they wouldn't fit behind the faucets we switched to mid-reno, I was secretly just a little disappointed with them. (If you are my husband, you did not just read that. Not admitting to my mistakes is a character flaw of mine that I'm hanging on to for dear life.)

(New to the blog? You can read more about our giant bathroom renovation here and here and here.)

But..... you can't hide from the truth. It will always find you. Which is why when I walked into Adelaide's today and said "I don't suppose you have a pair of mirrors right now, do you?" I simultaneously nearly stroked out and had my ~~cheapness~~ faith affirmed that if you are willing to look, you will find what you are looking for.

Lookey here.

Not hung yet-- and maybe they want a little light brushing of pickling over the top? But can you imagine anything more perfect for this room? I can't. (Except maybe those "Seaside" mirrors from Restoration.) And even at "retail" (ha-- Adelaide's is a GREAT place to find a bargain!) they were only $80 for the pair. And she thinks she owes me $79.50 for a chair that we both can't remember selling but that is no longer there, so they might actually only cost .50.

The best part of this whole thing is that the bathtub is going to be installed today, too (with the super-deluxe primo supply lines the plumber could not sleep at night without ordering the last time he came. If you are counting, that would be the FOURTH time he came to install. I am no longer counting.) There are some issues with the paneling that need to be addressed, and so the headache is not yet over-- but the end is sooooo close.

And P.S.-- my husband is the one who told the electrician to put that outlet at the top instead of the bottom. Bless his little heart.

Mirror, mirror--( who will go) on my wall?

2011-06-23T04:51:00.000-07:00

I originally chose the oval Atoll mirrors from Ballard Designs for the bathroom. When time for the install arrived, (not at all surprisingly) they didn't fit. Something wrong with the reno-- shocker, I know. Luckily Ballard has a generous return policy, provides pre-paid return postage, and I kept the boxes.

And so it's back to the drawing board. Here are a few contenders for me to gaze upon my ~~haggared, thoroughly defeated~~ pretty little face.

From Pottery Barn-- and affordable-- but out of stock. Boo.

This pair from Etsy is pretty cute. Well priced, too.

Uttermost-- kinda cool. Too big. Probably too much money, too.

Overstock... can't decide if I like it or hate it.

And... moving on to Wisteria. Of course I want everything here...

Seaside mirror

It's on sale! Now if only my mirror budget was a thousand bucks...

Restoration Hardware.... this one is actually nearly in budget.

This one is not in budget-- but I waaaaaant it.

I'm going to try Homegoods before I buy anything. You just never do know...

My new toy

2011-06-22T04:09:00.000-07:00

Who says the hardware store is only for boys?! I got an awesome new toy for myself this weekend-- STUFF requires the big guns, apparently.

I cannot tell you how great my new air compressor and paint spray gun are.

I was very frightened of the compressor to begin with-- it was nearly impossible to buy (are the guys at Lowe's that clueless or did they not want to sell an air compressor to a girl?) and it is really loud and a frighteningly free of explicit instructions on how to use it, yet full of warnings about all the bad things that might happen while using it. Might it blow up if I turn the wrong handle? Might it catch on fire? I was Very Brave, though, and forged ahead-- and figured it out all by myself. So far so good-- and the finish-- yummy.

Picklin' and Preservin'

2011-06-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

'Tis the season, ya'll-- time to start putting tasty things in jars.

We've already made many rounds of strawberry jam-- using this recipe from Orangette-- low yield, but oh, so high in taste.

And after a slow, cool spring, we have found ourselves suddenly in the thick of tomato and cucumber season.

all images via Pinterest

Last year we kept a rotation of these refrigerator dill pickles made using a recipe from the modern-day Betty Crocker, Darby. I can (and do--often!) eat an entire jar by myself at one sitting. Bring on the heat and the sun-- I'm hungry!

THRIFT SCORE FRIDAY-- On Monday!

2011-06-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry to dissapear on you-- and I had been looking forward to showing you my Greatest. Find. Ever. all week long! STUFF is going like gangbusters, and I'm in full-on scramble mode trying to get a good routine down for finding, fixing up, painting, moving, and shipping furniture-- with a 2 and 4 year old in tow. And yes, it is proving as impossible as it sounds. Is it September 6th yet?!

(This is not my greatest find ever. But it was pretty great. While it lasted.)

Quick shameless plug-- are you following STUFF on Facebook? You can oogle all the pretties as they fly in and out of the booth-- and put in requests. (Yes, I really am keeping my eyes out for a pair of Draper's in fab condition at the Goodwill. And given my history, I have not entirely given up hope that I will find them someday!)

Faux bamboo. Wicker. Vintage laquerware in a sunshine-y yellow. Not the BEST, but purty dern good.

And on to THRIFT SCORE FRIDAY (on Monday.)

This one is my FAVORITE FIND OF ALL TIME. I will use some more capitol letters for emphasis. F.A.V.O.R.I.T.E. It's so cute and precious I just wanna squeeze hims wittle cheeks off, oh, yes I do.

Apparently when two big, fancy chairs get together, they make babies. Wittle pwecious itty-bitty barrel-backed wing chairs.

John Harper. A force of nature, posing in his (still-unfinished) room.

I love every little thing in this picture. Yummy.

Mid-week Pretties

2011-06-14T17:07:00.000-07:00

Because it is still a little chaotic around here, here are some pictures of some pretty spaces I wish I was right about now...

From my Pinterest board--follow me!

Renovation Math

2011-06-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

Pintrest

3= the number of times the plumber has come to do the install.

2=the number of times parts have been missing, incorrect, or damaged. It also = the number of times I have asked him to PLEASE check and make sure nothing else is missing so we do not have another delay.

1=the number of faucets that he put on backwards today, therefore making it appear that the bath company had sent the wrong faucet, when, in fact, they had not.

0=the number of times he returned our phone calls today informing him that he needed to come back and switch those *#%(#%#(%& faucets around so the job could be completed.

10=the number of days he is now on vacation.

12=the number of days until I have houseguests who might want to, oh, you know, use the GUEST BATHROOM.

The way I see it, the sum of these numbers is:

Pintrest

Infinity=the number of drinks I would like to consume.

Etsy

Why yes, thank you, I believe I will.

How To: Painting Furniture

2011-06-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

I have gotten a lot of questions, both here, on STUFF's Facebook page, and in my "real life" about how to paint furniture (this happens when your hands and forearms are constantly covered in paint splatters!) I thought I'd take a few minutes to share some "how-to's" and some of my favorite products with you.

A chest revitalized with paint via Isabella and Max Rooms

The first thing to do when you bring something home is to clean, clean, clean it. I wipe things down with baby wipes (I wipe EVERYTHING down with baby wipes-- my painted hardwoods, my potty, my sons...) I take out all the drawers, pull out any little bits of paper that are wedged back behind them, and sometimes vaccume out the space. If you find something amazing that has mildew on it, don't despair-- I spray a bleach-based cleaning spray, like Clorox Clean-up, on it, and wipe and wipe and wipe. Use a junky towel-- I use my old cloth prefold diapers. It sounds disgusting, but some things are completely salvagable, just really, really dirty to begin with.

After cleaning, use wood filler to fill in any nicks or chips in the finish. I just gob it on there, smooth it down, and sand lightly when dry.

After everything is clean and dry, it's time to prime. I skip the sanding step, and just use a really great primer. Zinzer is the best-- if you want to monkey with oil-based paint cleanup, get the shellac based kind. Ever since my neighbor's kid spilled a gallon of white oil-based paint on my living room floor, I only use latex products. I use Bull's Eye 1-2-3 primer. I like to apply at least 2 coats of primer, using a good brush. I like Purdy brushes-- more expensive, but it's worth it to use a good-quality brush.

After your piece is primed and dry, it's time to decide how to finish it up. For most pieces, regular latex paint will work just fine. I love to add a product called Floterol (available at hardware stores for about $8 a bottle) to minimize the appearance of brush strokes. Professionally painted furniture is often sprayed, but with Floterol and a good brush, you can approximate a sprayed finish. I actually really like to use flat paint, and get the shine from my clear-coat finish. The most important part of painting is to go slow and steady-- thick coats=brushstrokes=not as professional looking. 2-3 light coats are far better than 1 heavy coat.

And finally-- nothing beats good, old spray paint. It approximates laquer (which is a sprayed oil-based finish) and it makes for a lovely, mirror-like finish. My favorite brand (and I've tried them all!) is Valpar, Lowe's store brand. My new buffet-- with it's lovely, glossy finish-- is actually 3 coats of primer followed by many, many coats of spray paint, applied very, very thinly!

The last step to a quality paint job is to finish your piece with a good-quality clear-coat. The only two products I will use for this are wipe-on Polyurithane, or what I use 99% of the time-- a product called Varathane. It comes in a matte or gloss finish, and although it's pricey, a gallon will last FOREVER. (I have sealed two rooms of painted hardwood floors and dozens and dozens of furniture pieces, and my gallon is still 3/4 full) Apply the Verithane with a good brush. 1-2 coats-- applied VERY thinly-- will do for everything except really high-traffic pieces, like a coffee table.

For a step-by-step on painting furniture, check out this blog post from Eddie Ross (My Hero) about painting a flea market table for a Southern Living feature called "Treasure Hunt."

There are many other ways to finish pieces-- chalk paint and wax finishes are two other popular methods-- if you have a particular look in mind, google it-- you'll have a million explainations at your fingertips!

Happy painting!

THRIFT SCORE FRIDAY!

2011-06-10T03:49:00.000-07:00

I have discovered a new occupational hazard, if you will. I'm always, always digging for treasure-- if the price is right, if the bones are good, it must come home with me. This is usually met with rolled eyes and sighs from my husband, especially when it comes time to unload it from the van.

Last week, I found a great, big mid-century dresser for an itty-bitty price. I snapped it up, thinking I would take it into the booth after its facelift. Quite nice as it is-- but, in my humble opinion, this finish can stand a little freshening up. It looked a lot like this:

But that thing was H.E.A.V.Y. Like, I think it might weigh as much as my piano heavy. We had to take the drawers out (all 12 of them) just to get it out of the car, and when we got as far as the front sidewalk I decided that that sucker was never, ever going back into my van again. Plus, my husband LOVED it. That never, ever happens! And so I brainstormed about where it could live at my house.

I have A LOT of table linens-- we use cloth napkins and placemats for each meal, and I have a huge and wonderful collection of vintage linens from my grandmother. My napkin drawer looked like this--my kid are always digging around in there and messing up my folding. Also, I really don't like my current buffet-- it's dark and heavy.

And after a few coats of lacquer and Verathane, now my dining room looks like this!

The handles were this hideous wood-grain plastic kind of stuff with brass sides. I boiled them in a water/vinegar solution to help loosen up the junk on the brass before polishing, and lucky me, the plasticy stuff slid right off, leaving beautiful brass hardware!

So fresh and crisp now! I decided to leave the small drawers in the side cabinets in the original finish, for a nice surprise when you open the doors.

I found a vintage glass chandelier with very clean lines (no danglies!) at a consignment shop a few weeks ago-- time to gussy up the old eatery!

Have a lovely weekend. Mine will include lots of sun, lots of water, lots of laughing with friends, lots of baseball, and perhaps even a Tom Collins or two!

Taking IKEA hacks to a WHOLE other level

2011-06-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered the amazing blog Gorgeous Shiny Things. Danika is an artist extraordinaire-- check out her blow-up of everybody's darling, Chiang Mai:

That is PAINTED folks. Genius, huh?

Well, this lady has a new business venture that, I predict, is going to take the world by storm. Before now,

most IKEA hacks looked like they at least started life as-- well, something from IKEA.

She did this absolutely gobsmacking hack for a client.
Pax wardrobes BEFORE:

PAX wardrobe AFTER:

Apparently this project got her wheels turning, and she and a friend researched and found a way to produce fretwork that is designed to fit the fronts of IKEA drawers. So that your basic Malm goes from this:

to THIS!!!

Holy guacamole! I'm a pretty traditional modernist girl, and I love, love the top drawer's fret.

Your RAST can look like this:

These will come with semi-permanant self-adhesive tabs, and can be attached with something stronger, like brads or liquid nails. Paintable, too. This is seriously the greatest business idea I have ever seen. You can read all about them in more detail in Danika's post here.

Products go on sale next week and you better believe that I'll be stalking her blog until then waiting for an announcement about when and where to purchase!!

Painted Furniture Transformation

2011-06-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

Show of hands-- who thinks that I can turn this...

....into this?

Do we like?

DIY Cyanotypes

2011-06-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently I was ahead of the design-trend curve by about-- oh... a decade!

Way back in my penniless grad-school days, I fell in love with the look of cyanotypes. Lacking the funds to buy the special paper to create my own, I brainstormed and had the idea to spray paint over faux greenery from a craft store, mimicing the look for pennies. Opening all the windows to my apartment, I went to work on these, which still hang in our bedroom today.

Fast forward to a few days ago, when I found this tutorial via Cottage and Vine. It's got me itching to update this set in a blue hue to match our current bedding (and the look of a "real" cyanotype.) When I made my set way back when, I just used spray paint-- none of the other materials this tutorial calls for-- so I know it can be done that way, too.

Happy creating!

Bathroom Remodel: Cents and Sensibility

2011-06-06T02:09:00.000-07:00

So… I have spent the weekend trying to decide how to write this post. Whenever you talk renovation, the very first—and most frequently repeated—conversation has to do with money. Which it’s not nice to talk about.

But.

Explore home design ideas

So many of us live with major problem areas in our homes, and spend a lot of time dreaming about “someday.” And because of costs, someday often never arrives. An average bathroom remodel on the scale of ours generally runs around $20,000. So I am going to break the taboo here, and talk real dollars and cents, to let you know how we did a major, major bathroom renovation for right around $10,000. Settle in with a cup of coffee and read all about how we did it.

We really wanted to end up with a high-end look, and so we decided to dedicate a third of the budget to fixtures and finishes. Another third went to the plumber, and a third to the carpenter. We did end up going over budget by about 25% due to unexpected things that arose during construction, as well as my own first-time mistakes.

Here’s how the spending shakes out.
The tub was our single biggest expense other than labor. I really wanted an apron-front or claw-foot tub for this space. When Rachel from Southern Exposure revealed her master bathroom remodel last year, I was instantly smitten with her tub. We emailed back and forth about her experiences with the Acrastone (a fiberglass material that is about 10% the weight of cast iron) and the company. She ordered her tub through a third-party big box store, so that in case something was wrong with the tub, someone else could handle the return.

After spending a whole lot of time looking around the American Bath Company website, I decided to go out on a big limb, order directly from them, AND choose a style from the Clearance Center on their website. Because of costs, we opted not to do a separate tub and shower, and so a claw-foot tub with a circular shower curtain bar was our only option. We ordered a first-quality discontinued tub with all fixtures, drain and curtain bar for around 70% off retail. The tub was delivered in an incredibly well-packed pallet-wrap via flatbed truck FOR FREE! I opted not to pay for liftgate service, and the delivery man actually both used the liftgate for us, and got the tub up our driveway on a dolly anyway. We checked it THOROUGHLY before signing off on the delivery, and Adam and I got it upstairs by ourselves (that was comical. In retrospect, at least.)

Here is the tub sitting in my living room, waiting to go upstairs!

For the sinks and toilet, I knew I wanted TOTO, and found the best prices at National Builder’s Supply. I also ordered our faucets from them. They offer free shipping on all orders over $100, and the packages were shipped via direct freight. Their customer service has been exceptional. We ended up saving about 40% over retail by buying these items online.

Word to the wise—check, double check, and then triple-check that you have ordered everything in the same color finish, and that your sink hole configuration matches the faucets you have chosen. You DO NOT want to discover mid-job that you accidently ordered 3-hole faucets and 1-hole sinks. Especially when the only decent-looking one-hole faucets in your price range are on back-order for 2 weeks. It sounds like an easy mistake to avoid, but when you are trying to coordinate a millon little things in an order, it's a detail that can (apparently) be overlooked. Harumph.

Whoops. My bedroom ceiling was the casualty of mis-routed pipes that "exploded" when disconnected. Cha-ching.

My original plan was to use the existing hardwood floors, painted with porch paint (they were covered by a layer of plywood and a layer of peel and stick vinyl tile.) However, in order to do all the plumbing, most of the floor had to be removed. We had the carpenter put down hardibacker, and then chose tile. We decided to go with a simple hexagonal sheet tile made by Dal-tile for the floors. By purchasing our tile from Home Depot instead of directly from Dal-tile, we saved 50%. My handy husband rented a tile saw for $70 for the weekend and set, grouted and sealed the tile himself. It looks outstanding. I honestly didn’t price out labor on tile, but I think we probably saved between $1500-$2000 by doing it ourselves.

For the walls—because of the placement of the tub, we would have had to tile the ENTIRE bathroom to about 4 ½ feet from the floor. NO WAY that was in the budget—wall tile is much, much harder to get straight than floor tile, and we would have had to pay for a professional tile job, plus the cost of allllllll that tile. Thousands and thousands of dollars. Our solution was to have our carpenter panel the entire room in 1x4 inch pine boards, following a picture I printed off of a blog for him. He then painted the entire paneled section—boards and drywall—with a high-gloss white paint. It looks pretty good, and very in keeping with the style of our house (a 1930’s Cape Cod.)

The mirrors and sconces are a major feature in the room—I wanted something memorable, a little bit sparkly and romantic to match the tub. I chose to order the oval Atoll mirrors from Ballard Designs, which were on sale for 20% off when I ordered them. The sconces are from World’s Away, and I got them for cost from a local interior design shop.

We opted not to build in a linen closet, but will use furniture pieces for storage in the bath, as it is designed to look more like a “room with a tub” than a “bathroom.” I am on the hunt for some cool, narrow shelving—how I would love to find some industrial shelves with reclaimed lumber planking. I’m also adding a small cabinet for counter space near the sink, and am on the hunt for a round or octagonal ottoman which I will upholster in terrycloth and place next to the tub.

We had originally budged $3000 for fixtures and finishes. We had a few hundred dollars of overages in fixtures, mostly due to me ordering the wrong thing in the first place. Because our bathroom is upstairs, and we had to move all existing lines and add two new lines for sinks, our plumbing bill was not cheap-- $2500. Our carpentry is where we had the most overages—our original estimate was for $2400. Our final bill—for demolition, removing three layers of flooring, including a hardwood floor—and reframing the entire room, including insulation and drywall, came to just under $4000. This is still a very good deal-- we used a guy who has done a lot of work for us in the past. I'm afraid he was in a little over his head with such a big project, and that led to some problems along the way. We saved about 20% of the entire job by acting as our own contractor—however, the cost to my sanity and goodwill that came from this decision cannot be measured.

Would I do it again? Humph. I guess so, because doing things this way is the only way I could get the look I wanted for the price I could afford. But it has been a long, loud, messy, frustrating process, and one I am not sad to see the tail end of.

a teeny little sneak into what the finished room will look like

We are STILL waiting on a screw—the one that holds the overflow drain onto the tub face, which in turn holds floor drain to the tub—to arrive from California. It was either not included in our original packaging, or, more likely, was lost when the plumbing parts were unpacked (I didn’t do this myself. I should have.) Once it arrives, we will be able to install the tub, and the plumber has been waiting to finish installing the other fixtures so that he can do it all in one trip. Come heck or high water, I SHOULD have some after pictures for you this week!

THRIFT SCORE FRIDAY: The Tulip Chairs

2011-06-03T03:49:00.000-07:00

Not the best picture ever, but a really good story.

So...if you have kids, you know that kids like to do what their parents like to do. If their parents like to golf-- they "play" golf. If their parents are way into motorsports, they spike their hair and vroom around like Ricky Bobby. If their parents like to haunt thrift stores.... well, you get the drift.

So on the way home from school last week, the kids were BEGGING me to stop-- not at the yougert place, not at the park, but at the Goodwill. Well, twist my arm, whydoncha? So stop we did, and I loaded them up into the cart and let them each hold a hideous beeping, flashing plastic toy and off we went. Their was a a little girl there with her mom, shopping for a chair for her room. She was looking at a plastic chair from Target, then going back to another chair, trying to decide. I realized the "other" chair was a tulip chair--and there were two. I flipped one over, saw "Burke" on the bottom, did a quick google search (you have no idea how useful an iPhone is while thrift store shopping) and confirmed that, yes, indeed, I should buy these.

What would any sane mother do next?

Well, I have no idea how to answer that question, but, being me, I whisked my kids out of the cart, plopped each of them into a tulip chair, warned "don't move or Mommy will take your toy away!" and found an employee tuit suit to take the chairs up front for me.

And that is the story of how I stole my tulip chairs from a tween girl in the Goodwill

in Kernersville, North Carolina.

The End.

Happy Friday to me.

And you.

PS-- they're for sale at STUFF right now. See our Facebook page for pricing information.

A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

2011-06-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

If you've visited this blog more than once, it is almost certain that you have read the word "thrifted." In fact, I would wager that I've never gone more than three posts without mentioning a thrifty score-- from a thrift shop, Craigslist, or-- let's be honest, here-- a good old trash heap on garbage day. I love looking at junked up, beat up furniture and imagining for it a new life. I love walking into a dingy building in a dodgy part of town and discovering vintage gold. I love the feeling of being able to say when I invite someone over for the first time-- "nearly everything here came from a thrift store"--- and seeing their eyes get wide.

And after years of digging and aquiring, the moutain of thrift around here was beginning to reach critical mass. And at least once a week I found myself sighing over some amazing find that I just had no earthly use for, and walking away. And because of this, the wheels of my brain have been spinning and spinning, trying to figure out just exactly what to do with all of this.

I'm so very, very excited to introduce you to a new adventure-- I've taken THE coolest booth space, and I'm now open for business! Welcome to STUFF. Vintage.... reinvented! I've gathered a great assortment of pieces-- mostly mid-century. Some have been made over with paint or fabric, and some are just exactly as I found them-- too perfect to touch. I've tried to edit very carefully, making every piece unique and special.

Feast your eyes!

For those of you who are local, the booth is located on Elm Street in downtown Greensboro, in the new Design Archives building (formerly the Ellenberg-Schafer Glass Works, across the street from Natty Greene's.) Come visit me right up front in the Handmade Emporium (and as time goes on, I will add some great handmade's too-- think oversized flower pins, pillows in amazing fabrics, maybe even a little something for the little ones!) I'm pricing things to sell quickly-- there are just too many more treasures out there to be discovered-- and there is something amazing at every price point.

Tomorrow is First Friday in downtown Greensboro--come out and join the party!
And wherever you are, you can join the STUFF-Vintage Facebook group-- lots of pretty eye candy to inspire you on your own thrifting adventures!

Bathroom Remodel-- Before and During

2011-06-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another edition of My Old House: Bathroom Edition! Join in the process of renovating a bathroom in our 86 year old home-- sans general contractor, sans a big budget. Pretty much the only avec on this journey has been an unrelenting desire to begin drinking at 9 am....

Be forewarned-- these pictures are scaaaaaarrry. Really scary. But here goes.....

My tub-- yummy. This is where my kids have been bathing since we bought the house 4 years ago.

When we decided the time had come to do this project, I was more than a little nervous. We have done a good bit of "light" renovation to our homes-- refinishing floors, painting, that kind of thing. We have never done significant structural work to our home (not counting the "Man Hut," which was the affectionate name we gave to our garage apartment in our first house that we renovated for our families to stay in when they came to help care for newborn Grady. Total DIY hack job. Sorry Families.)

The tub and linen closet. This space accounted for half the bathroom-- there was only 4 feet of space between this and the door!

This was a fairly big deal-- enlarging a space that was approximately 8x8 to a space that is now 16x12, taking out a closet and part of a hallway in the process. I looked at our budget, dreamed of what I wanted, and realized there was no way on the planet that a designer who would see what I wanted in my head was even remotely in our price range.

The other side of the room. The toilet was only 3 inches away from the side of the tub-- TINY!

And so I forged ahead on my own. This project was done-- as these things go-- on a shoestring. I relied really heavily on alllllll the hours I've spent perusing design blogs for both inspiration and sourcing. I emailed folks whose renovations I had admired, scavenged on the blogs of big designers for little tidbits they threw out regarding sources and design choices, and searched the internet for the best deals I could come up with. We ordered everything we needed (HA! Or so we thought-- more on that later) beforehand, cutting costs whenever possible, and took lots of bids on the labor for the jobs. I hired a bath planner to draw up plans for where the fixtures would go-- and I have to say, I could have done it myself with graph paper and a lot of measuring, because we ended up discarding every measurement we paid for because they did not take into account the size of the fixtures we ordered.

My guest room the morning demo began.

Although we didn't use a contractor, we ended up using just two companies for all the work-- one for demo and construction, one for plumbing. The only DIY portion of the program was the tile job-- my husband has done a little tile work around our house, and is blessed with a very math-y brain, so we felt that this was a good place to save.

At the end of Day 1 of demo

The tub end of the room, Day 1 of demo

Just to be clear, there was NEVER any doubt as to why you hire professionals to plan and supervise these kinds of projects-- there was just no more money to pay for their expertise. I have certainly paid for my mistakes in time, stress, dinners out when I was too overwhelmed to do anything else, and many, many withdrawls from the Bank of Husband's Good Graces. But because I got to live through-- and remedy-- all these little hitches, I have learned a lot along the way.

This is in my master bedroom-- downstairs-- directly under the bathroom we are working on. In case your memories of high school French class are a little foggy, too, I was thinking about this.

I have learned--mostly-- that old houses are tempermental, full of surprises (and dollar signs.) I have also learned that at the end of a lot of days, you really just have to stop and have a good laugh, because--really-- what else can you do?

I have a SUPER exciting (and totally non-bathroom-related) announcement coming up tomorrow. And a few more installments of M.O.H: Bathroom Edition before the big reveal. Did you know that if ONE bleeping screw is lost in the process of unpacking a bajillion boxes, it can hold up the entire project for TWO MORE WEEKS? Yeah, me either. I told you I'm learning a lot.)

Can you (Ikea) HACK it?

2011-05-31T03:42:00.000-07:00

I wanna make this. Bad.

Check out the AH-MAZING projects on this bawdily hilarious blog-- You, Me and a Weiner. I can spend hours in her DIY files-- this girl doesn't play around, ya'll.

The final installation in the bathroom happens tomorrow. Stay tuned for the before and afters-- talk about dramatic!

THRIFT SCORE FRIDAY!

2011-05-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to start a little series sharing my best thrifting find of the week each Friday. This week was a STELLAR week for thrift store hunting-- I quite literally did a happy dance after my haul today.

I fell head over heels in love with the chairs that designer Lauren Liess used in her room in the DC Design House. (This chair is Lauren's own design, inspired by an antique chair she found, and will be available for purchase soon.) The shape and scale of these chairs is perfect-- cozy, unusual, and eye-catching.

I had 5 minutes--literally-- today to pop into a Goodwill. There was a circle of ladies-- really, there was!-- standing around a pair of chairs, all on their cell phones trying to get approval from whoever approves their purchases to buy something. When I got closer, my eyes just about popped out of my head. I put on my sweetest voice ever, said ya'll a lot, and asked reallyreallyreally nicely if they cared if I bought the chairs. I've found acting extra Southern often makes people more willing to help you. My theory must be a good one, because I came home with THESE!!!

WOW, huh?!

Happy, happy weekend!

PS-- I got a new fireplace during my blog break. If I start a series called "How NOT to renovate your old home" I will tell you all about it. It's some story.

My Old House: Bathroom Edition-- Design Board

2011-05-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the fixtures and finishes that have made their way into the bathroom renovation.

Explore home design ideas

TUB SINKS TOILET MIRRORS SCONCES

I'll share more about the dollars and cents of this project later this week. If you've visited the blog before, you know by now that I like to stretch my design dollars as far as I can. This project was no exception-- we were definitely going for a champagne look on a beer budget. Whole room gut renovation is a far cry from the usual thrift-store reinventions that I love, and it's been a challenge, for sure, but one that I think we (just might!) have pulled off.

The Bathroom Remodel-- Inspiration

2011-05-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

The context:

We found and purchased our home in the fuzzy, sleep-deprived months following the birth of a colicky new baby.

On the day we made the offer (which, incidentally, was the day we saw the house for the first time) I remember very vividly searching frantically in the console of the car--when Adam asked me what I was doing, I replied, oh, so logically "I'm looking for the remote so I can mute the baby to call the realtor!" . Lesson learned-- do not impulse purchase a home when low on sleep.

The kitchen and two of the bathrooms were-- well, not good. But somehow I heard the words coming out of my mouth "we'll just re-do them-- that's not a huge deal."

It's a good thing I really love my neighborhood, because I am here to tell you-- it IS a huge deal to renovate an old house. A really huge deal. And so we put it off for 4 years, waiting for time and money to appear.

We decided to start with the upstairs bathroom-- a tiny 8x8 room with a peeling fiberglass tub, stick-on vinyl floor and hideous 1980's lighting. In my head, though, it looked like the images above. The planning and ordering and organizing began, and pretty soon the guest room was filled with the makings of a bathroom just waiting to be transformed.

I'm here to give the low-down dirty on

My Old House: Bathroom Edition.

Tune in tomorrow for a sneak-peek!
all images found here

Hello... anybody out there?

2011-05-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

Greetings and salutations, friends.

Come in, won't you?

It's been a while, huh? But back I am, and ready to show you some of the BIG (and I mean BIG!) projects that have been going on. Come on in, sit down, and stay a while-- I'm glad to be back!

via

My imaginary art collection

2010-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

All those bare walls in the boys room are waiting to be filled.... at the pace I'm able to maintain right now, it's going to be a long wait, though. To keep me inspired, here are a few of my favorites-- hopefuls and don't-I-wishes!

I saw these mobiles at our pool's auction this summer-- this talented man is a local craftsman.

If funds were unlimited I would choose this one:

or this Calder-inspired one.

This one, at $60, is more in line with our budget, though. And, oh, so pretty.

I cry every single time I visit the Sugarboo Designs website.

I am a huge, sentimental, purple, sap, it appears, or maybe their work is really just that good.

I'm gathering supplies right now for a project inspired by their amazing pieces. ( Do you think that's ethical if it's just for my own use? I hope so.)

And speaking of Calder-- how about this lithograph? The colors are spot-on.

And I like this one even more:

Hmmmm.... it might be time for another Craigslist selling spree.

My Eddie Ross trip

2010-11-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

My flea market trip in Charlotte with Eddie and Jaithan was this past Saturday--fun, fun, fun! I learned a whole bunch, saw a WHOLE bunch of stuff, and came home with just a little of it.

Eddie is so charismatic and exciting in person, and knows just everything about EVERYTHING.

I was almost convinced to buy an amethyst compote... almost.

Jaithan kept everything very quietly organized and it was all just so nice. My only wish was that the other 24 people would have called in sick so I could have gone over all the goodies with those two by myself!

Flea markets can be really, really fun for hunting for buried treasure. I was on some rather specific (and not terribly inexpensive) missions, plus it was cooooold. I do better when it is a) warm and b) totally non-goal-oriented.

Somehow I managed to pry my frozen fingers apart to unzip my wallet, however, and came home with some loot-- all waiting to be transformed.

On my list was some chenille bedding for the boys' room. Judy the chenille lady helped me find a perfect twin coverlet and two matching king-size shams. But of course there will be a little presto-change-o involved-- I'm crossing everything and holding my breath that I don't ruin it.

Stay tuned for more fun finds!

Banquette re-vamp, in progress--

2010-10-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Cue the theme song from "Annie"...

"Yesterday was plain awful...

you can say that again!

Yesterday was plain awful....

but that's

not now

that's then!"

While I (literally) wait for paint to dry so that I can move a few more things into the boys' room, I am left with a little time on my hands (and my ever-presnt crafting ADD.)

After last night's post I ventured into my "well-I-have-no-idea-why-I-bought-this-but-gee-isn't-it-pretty" Leisure Fabric (the $3/yard remnants store in High Point) piles and dug up 5 yards of this print. It's from Premier Prints, retails for $9.99 a yard, and is awfully cute. I tossed it up there to cover up the enormous eyesore and really liked it! The machine is humming away stitching it into an easy and temporary slipcover. A thrifted mirror-- very Alice in Wonderland-y in it's curvyness-- hangs above, waiting for a coat of paint. The boys are already putting this space to good use.

Grand total spent:

$9 in fabric (the banquette will only take 3 yards)

$20 for the banquette

$7 for the mirror

$36!

I'll post more pictures as soon as I'm farther along.

{Perhaps} I've lost my ever-lovin' mind...

2010-10-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

Cottage Living

I've thought and thought and thought and thought about how to make our kitchen work for us until we can do the full overhaul.

We hope to do that project some time in the next 3-5 years, hopefully closer to 3, but since it involves some MAJOR structural work (removing what used to be the back wall of the house, no biggie!!) I must content myself with something a tad more-- ahem-- reasonable.

Patricia Gray

We had a few needs-- a space for the boys to play while I cook, and especially an indestructable place for them to do art. Several months ago, I began searching for a Saarinen table for the room-- given shipping costs and size constraints, I quickly gave up on getting a "real" one, even a vintage formica one from Ebay. And so the Ikea Docksta-- $179-- came to live with us.

Indestructable it is not-- or maybe it's just that our watercolor paints are the most staining thing on earth. But it is pretty tough, and I like it a lot. I've been looking for some seating to go with for a while now.

Mary McDonald

After trying some different chair options, I decided that a banquette would be the way to go. But the cheapest option I could find was this one, from Ballard, starting at $349 plus shipping.

And so (natch) I put on my thrifty little thinking cap-- and found this beautiful thing at the Habitat store for $20.

Salvaged restaurant booth--it is ugly in a way that I cannot even describe. So ugly, in fact, that I had to use the Hipstamatic app on my Iphone to take a picture, because I don't want anybody to see how awful it really is.

I am planning to slipcover it in some sort of white fabric, so that I can just bleach the stains out. This room is next on my project list, after the boys' room is closer to finished-- but I think that I will head to the Home Depot tomorrow for a drop cloth to tuck on top until I can get the sewing done-- I cannot take the hideousness (is that even a word?) for another day. But it might (might!) look cute in the end.

Maybe?

It's all about the orange...

2010-10-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Marianne posted this great image today (via Martha)

and it got me thinking.

What if you paired this

"Butterscotch" -- I promise it looks better in real life than in this picture--much more orange-- (plus I already have some!)

with this

How about a whole wall of these real pinned insects from this new-to-me Etsy shop?

Add a little of this

from M&J?

Do you think fall has just gone to my head? Would I get tired of this in my house after a week?

I kinda don't think so-- and I really know so that Grady wouldn't. He keeps asking me when I'm going to "put orange paint over this adorable grey."

And who taught him the word adorable?

The Boys' Room, Part I

2010-10-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

So, the shell of the boys' room is finished-- what a project!

There are a few more details to add--3/4 round at the baseboards, cleanign up some slips around the window trim, perhaps some crown moulding, but the walls, trim and floor are finito. And luckily, I really, really still like the colors. My "custom" mix on the walls was colormatched in porch paint for the floors. The trim is another "custom" mix-- some more mis-tint in a shade of blue-grey mixed with "Slipstream" from Martha, which looked too blue on its own.

I learned some things about painting floors-- hopefully I'll be an expert soon, because I have two more rooms, a hallway and a staircase to go...

Here are some tidbits I learned about painting wooden floors-- you really should give it a try. Whole lotta bang for your buck, for sure.

* Start with a room that you don't use frequently. I felt a lot of pressure to get this job finished since my boys (and all their stuff) were bunking in the guest room while I painted. I cut a few corners along the way, but, being me, I couldn't stand it and then went back to fix them, taking twice as much time as slow and steady would have taken in the first place. I wish I'd exercised my learning curve on the guest room, instead, to take my time and get the hang of things.

* I used a semi-gloss porch paint with a coat of poly on top. It's pretty slippery, but already feels like it's getting some "grip" as we walk (and run!) on it. With two active boys, I think the poly really is a must-do, but for a less-traveled space, a high-gloss porch paint probably would have been fine.

*I used Verithane, which is supposed to dry completely clear. On our floors, which are around 70 years old, and a little uneven, it apparently slid and pooled a bit, leaving a few yellow patches that need to be sanded down and re-coated. If you are painting an old floor (and how many folks contemplating painting a wood floor are living in brand-spanking-new home?),you may want to weigh your type-A tendancies versus your desire to see your family some time in the next decade...

* A final note--painting floors in a home with pets will tax even the most laid-back home improver. We have a (big, black, medium-coat) dog, and despite multiple vaccuumes, sweeps, and swipes with baby wipes prior to painting, there are more than a few dog hairs on that floor. I have to say that by the time I painted myself out the door after each coat, I was more than a little frustrated. So, there you have it, and do with it what you will...

As for me and my house-- well, we will paint the floors.

Some images, an inquiry and a side of polygamy...

2010-10-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

A little randomness on a Monday night.

First up, polygamy. I've given up serial adultery and am living openly in an open marriage. Wanna meet my new parter?

Here he is.

Only mine is black and is also an iPhone 4. I've never been a big tech junkie, nor have I understood all the hype around Apple. No more. I'm a full-blown addict and have already dissed my husband's offer of a Saturday night date to hang out with my new man instead. Adam went and got himself a new sister-wife, but since's a Blackberry Torch I don't have anything to be jealous of-- I know I'm still the one he will love the most at the end of the day. I'm not so sure he should feel so secure next to my New Husband is all I'm sayin'.

Next up, a little more eye candy. Found these images on Houzz, originally published in Country Living.

This room is so beautiful it makes me want to cry. Or hit up a hospital auction (and where might one find one of those, I ask you?) and buy myself some truly awesome industrial pieces. But what I really love is the dark trim against the grey walls.

How amazing is this room? See it again-- the dark trim.

(click here to see the complete story on this home)

So I decided to give it a whirl in the boy's room.

My first wall-paint choice, "Frost" from Martha's new line at Home Depot, was decidedly NOT the silvery grey I wished it to be, but was most decidely such a decided shade of lavendar that it could only be refered to as "purple." Nothing against purple, it just doesn't scream "little boy."

And so I did what I do best-- cheaped out. Using a wee bit of the "Frost," a half-can of grey mis-tint picked up months ago for $5 (and used here) and some greeny-undertoned cream I found in the hall closet, I mixed up a "custom" color. Either I'm REALLY good, or (more likely) the stars aligned and the paint gods smiled down upon me, because it is GOOD. Really good-- a beautiful, smokey, grey-blue. On a paint chip, it most resembles "Dolphin" from Martha's line, but I won't be able to tell you for sure because after my third odd looking can of paint from that line I've decided there is something off in the formulas and from now on I'm having Lowe's color match in Valspar.

p.s.I know that Benjamin Moore is the gold standard in paint (if you can't get your hands on some Pratt and Lambert) but if you are like me and re-paint every three months, spending fifty-plus bucks a pop on a can of paint can add up. So I go with Valspar, pay $17, and am almost always happy.

Not the best photo, for sure, and it's a little hard to see the colors accurately, but you get the gist. So what do you think-- paint all the trim in the room the darker grey-blue (color-matched "Slipstream" from Martha) or refresh the white trim? I love how light and airy the white looks, but the dark trim is fun, too. The floors will be painted either white or a light grey-blue, depending on how ambitious I feel with doing stripes or something fun like that.

And p.p.s-- the window sashes are vinyl (ugh-- stupid non-historically-accurate replacement windows) and can't be painted, so they will stay white.

Help!

A little tasta tunic for ya...

2010-10-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

So the sewing 'round these parts has been of the incrimental kind-- five minutes here, ten minutes there, much with eyelids propped open by caffine and toothpicks. It feels oh, so good, though, to be making for the sake of making. I'm used to deadlines and pressure and getitoverwithalready. I highly recommend deep breaths and letting go. It's really such a happier place to be, and I will keep reminding myself of this when I set my--ahem-- totally reachable deadlines. (Like this one. I've revised the timeline-- by Halloween, perhaps. Or by November. Or how about Before College. Yes, that feels better.)

So in just four short days, I've completed a two hour sewing project. Schoolhouse Tunic from Sew Liberated. It's sassy. I will take some pictures of it on when I find that belt-buckle I bought (I happen to think almost everything looks better belted, so I made a belt to go with) under the teetering "to do" pile in the studio. This week, I promise.

Or maybe next. Who's counting. I have some baby pants to sew...

Bottle trees!

2010-10-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

One of our neighbor's has a really great concrete goose in their front yard-- she? he? (there's some discussion around here about the gender of the beast) changes clothes to mark changes in the weather, super-special sporting events, or to celebrate the holidays. We visit the goose a lot.

And then a few months ago, something beautiful appeared next to the goose. Wrapped in white lights, adorned with blue glass bottles-- it was lovely. And then another appeared. And then one next door. And another down the street-- and another, and another, until we started to feel like the only kids not sitting at the cool lunch table. Because that's what being the only folks in Westerwood without a bottle tree feels like.

And so we bought one.

The little keyhole in my perennial garden looks like it was made for it-- and it balances out our Jake art on the other side of the yard so well.

Best part-- 100% of proceeds go to support the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.

Pretty cool, huh?

There is such a place as heaven on earth...

2010-10-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

Each October, as fall comes to our little corner of the world, I am unfailingly and completely overwhelmed with a feeling of enormous gratitude. Of all the many things that I have to be grateful for, the place that we call home is at the top of the list. A little eight block by eight block space a quick walk from downtown Greensboro is home not just to our family, but to a multitude of hundred-year-old oak trees, dozens and dozens of artist of all varieties, and more than just a little touch of magic.

The divine front porch of the Lulugroove studio

I'll never forget our first October in this home--one chilly Sunday morning we sat on the deck with friends, the autumn maples on fire around us, sipping our coffee. Out of nowhere, a saxaphone began to play-- "what a friend we have in Jesus..."

"There's magic here" our friend said that day, and on so many days since I've found myself repeating those words, head nodding in agreement..

So many of the houses in the neighborhood, in fact, house artists--painters, photographers, sculptors, dancers, writers, musicians--that nearly the entire neighborhood opens its doors each October for Art and Sole-- art you can walk to. The sidewalks are packed with folks strolling from house to house and impromptu concerts are held on porches up and down the streets.

Westerwood-- our 'hood-- feels special on even the most ordinary of days. This past Saturday, as we strolled and visited and absorbed all the goodness, I felt myself smiling a huge, sappy, unquenchable smile.

It all just seemed so wonderfully good.

Polecat Creek's Lauralyn Dossett making front porch music

So very, very good.

I think I said something about baby pants...

2010-09-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

..so what I actually meant was "I'm going to make myself a shirt." You could call it crafting ADD. I prefer to call it following my bliss. And for some reason on a night that should have involved a little work-work, a little laundry and an early bedtime, apparently my bliss involved a little wardrobe tweaking.

I very, very rarely sew for myself. Fit for a child and fit for an adult are very different things--you want to showcase fat baby thighs and squishy baby bottoms. But adult...well, not so much. Most commercial patterns are poorly graded, with odd fit, and who has the patience to try to make up a pattern for an adult? Not me. After a little poking around in my fabrics and patterns, I found something that looks like fun.

Results T.B.D., but I'll be sure to take a picture of it if it looks cute.

What about you-- do you ever make things that you can wear?

Cleaning up the studio...

2010-09-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

While diging through the piles (and PILES-- it's amazing what happenes when you have a room-full of built-ins and no natural tendancies towards neatness...) in the studio I've come across so many interesting things. Fabrics I'd forgotten about. The (blush!) scrap bag winners scrap bags packed and ready to ship. (I'm mortified about this! I promise I'll make it up to you when I get them in the mail...) And little bits of embroidery, crafted here and there and tucked away for later.

It's later, and the baby in his big cloth diaper is running the risk of going starkers if I don't find some pants to fit him. Like, yesterday. And so I've been taking a few minutes a day to make a few new pairs of britches for my boy. I'm perfecting the perfect, and perfectly simple, toddler pants pattern, and hope to have it to share with you later this week. Half-a-yard + twenty minutes= pants. Really.

But for now, isn't this little orange beach cruiser so sweet? My favorite boy-stripe ever on the pocket flap, and a little rust-colored top-stitching--perfection!

A little Thrift Score love...

2010-09-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

So this is where it usually begins...a grocery sack stuffed full with lumpy newspaper bundles....

And then comes the unpacking. Everything is a little (sometimes a lot!) dirty, dusty and in need of love. Price tags must be scraped, crystal washed, frames painted, new treasures displayed. Some great haul this week-- beautiful cut-glass salt cellars (six at fifty cents a piece!), heavy crystal candlesticks, an Ironstone-esque pitcher, and a mirror in desperate need of some paint!

This week was a great week for hunting. When I popped into Adelaide's on Saturday, the place was rocking! After a quick lap around the shop, I spied this antique cloche-- price twenty-five dollars! I nearly fell over-- it's so beautiful, wavy and bubble-filled, and what a great deal! She has another, much larger one, that I really want-- maybe it will be a splurge soon (if it lasts that long!)

This little architectural bit I love-- my shutter project is coming along, and it will look great hanging on them. The giant pear was an Adelaide find a few months ago--$8--and the turquoise pottery was $3 at the Salvation Army.

This botanical needlepoint, found at the Salvation Army for $5, took my breath away. It's so amazingly detailed-- so many hours went into this piece. The colors are soft and muted, and it's in pristine condition-- often rare in vintage textiles.

I always feel such a mixture of emotions when I find vintage handmades-- part of me is ecstatic. Five dollars--score! But then the part of me that is a crafter, who knows the amount of time, attention and heart that goes into this kind of work wants to cry--five dollars? Really?

But then I remember, that if whoever poured hours and hours and hours of (her?) life into this work is anything like me, it's those hours that are really what are most valuable. There isn't a price you can put on the feeling of being in the moment of creating, of watching something whole and lovely emerge from a blank canvas, of your two hands making beauty where there once was nothing. The process is as valuable as the product-- and h. E.-- whomever they were-- can be assured that I love and treasure the product of that process very much.

Off to Adelaide's: The Dreamsicle Edition

2010-09-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

One day, while I just happened to be driving through a lovely neighborhood adjacent to my own at 7 am on Trash Day.... (OK, OK, you know me, I was totally stalking other people's garbage...) when I spied something furniture-esque next to the bins. Stopping for a closer look, I saw that it was a little bench with pretty, swoopy lines.

And as I was loading it into my car, the bench's (former) owners were bringing another bag out. Blush.

Can I tell you how very much I always hope that I'm not robbing the garbage of someone like, say, my husband's boss? They already think I'm weird because I don't laugh hard enough at all the lawyer jokes...

So home again, home again jiggity jig I went-- and deposited it in the attic, where it has remained for many moons, all painted up, waiting for me to get around to covering the cushion. During our Saturday night movie (The Losers, which, surprisingly, I loved--ridiculously funny) I stapled on some new foam, batting and a little fabric Grady chose from a pile at one of our warehouse trips (orange, of course) and it's as good as new.

Having no place for an orange Dreamsicle bench in my own home, I'm sending it off to Adelaide's.

It's becoming a fun adventure to walk into the attic and choose my next project.

My husband is just happy I'm not taking other people's trash and telling him he has to sit on it in his living room.

A vingette, styled by Grady

2010-09-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

When walking through the living room the other day, I saw a little pile of stuff on our entry chest. A pinecone-- artfully attached to the branch, and a few coasters made from thin slices of stone (found years ago, thrifting, for .50 cents per. I saw them somehwere-- Anthro maybe?-- last year for more like $50 for a set of four. Score me. Yay.)

I hadn't left them there. And then I realized that my wee stylist had struck again. Usually his vingettes comprise various Lego incartions of dragons, boats, trains, or excavators, paired with something fun and unexpected, such as his toy stethescope and one stray, mud-stained sock. This time, though, it seemed he might be on to something.

I neatened it up a little bit, added a lacquered, inlaid box, a couple of candlesticks, and a little bit of green from the yard.

Here's the breakdown: lamp (thrifted, of course) was one of my favorite finds, ever--$6. Linen shade from Tarjay, on clearance--$8. Mirror-- thrifted, $8. Candlesticks-- from someplace like Red Envelope, but, you guessed it, thrifted--$3 for the pair. Vase-- well, this is just getting boring, now, isn't it--$1. Hobnail milkglass vase, found by my sweet friend and (taller, thinner, prettier) lookalike and favorite thrifting buddy, on one of our outings, for around a buck.

Sometimes the unexpected eye of a little child is just what the doctor ordered.

We're quite the team, my boy and I.

I don't need it, but maybe you do?

2010-09-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

While doing the rounds on Craigslist, I have a few search terms I type in frequently. One of them is "Hickory Chair:" the bestest-most-wonderfulest-furniture-in-the-whole-wide-(Triad)-world, if you ask my humble opinion. Which of course, you did not, but there it is anyway.

And looksie what I turned up!

Here's the link to the listing: $175. I called to inquire-- the sofa is 6 years old, covered in a "fancy" (her words, not mine) fabric that is stain repellant. There are no stains or marks on the sofa. If you want to buy a new sofa from Hickory Chair, you'll need to cough up an additional $4,709, or thereabouts. This style is no longer in production, but the Roberts sofa is pretty similar

The fabric is OK as is-- you could certainly live with it for a while. If you live in this part of the country, you can get fabric at one of the (many) surplus warehouses in the area for between $3 and $30 per yard. You'll need around 11 yards-- so anywhere from $33 (gasp!) to $330 for fabric. Labor to reupholster in this region would run around $600, and to slipcover it would be less-- the last quote I got for a slip was only $400, plus the cost of fabric. I personally love the look of the Palmer, which has a similar arm style but a tufted back. Add a couple hundred dollars for tufting and nailhead.

So for around a thousand dollars (or less!) you could have a HICKORY CHAIR sofa, upholstered in the fabric of your choice. For the life of me I cannot figure out what I would do with this bad boy, or I would be over there before you could say wouldyoulikeahickorychairsofaforathousanddollars.

I know the seller is flexible on price, and wants it gone, like, yesterday. Go forth and purchase, dear readers!

***Caveat on labor pricing. Remember, I live in the furniture manufacturing capitol of the world. Or, should I say, the former furniture manufacturing capitol of the world. I think that title is probably now better bestowed on Southeast Asia. There are many, many, many very skilled workers around here who spent their lives perfecting the art of furniture manufacturing, who now are willing to do anything they can to make ends meet. I know that labor costs here are probably a good bit lower than in other parts of the country because there are so many people competing for so few jobs. The stinky laws of economics at work (want to feel really sad, drive through downtown Thomasville. It will break your heart.) If you live outside of central North Carolina your costs are probably going to be higher, maybe significantly so.

Well, huh

2010-09-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

Hello there, friends! As I recover from a nasty infection (the source of which is as of yet undetermined, but I seem to be responding to treatment, so that is good) I find myself with many hours to kill poking around the internet. A new dining table is on my mind-- I found the most amazing fabric at Printer's Alley here in Greensboro, and I'm saving up for an all-new space in 2011. I've been scouring Craigslist and all my favorite haunts for a table that is long, rustic, and solid wood. Oh, yeah-- and cheap. You know me.

And where, of all places should I find just what I'm looking for, but IKEA?!

I'm going to have to check it out in person, but I've been happily surprised by how much I like our Ikea furniture. (so far just this and this). I think it's especially fun when you mix it in with higher-end and vintage pieces, so it doesn't seem so--well, IKEA-y. I saw mention of a technique for applying stain and wax in the latest Martha that might make it even cooler, too.

For more pictures of IKEA mixing with other styles, check out this post from Jennifer at The Newlywed Diaries on Southern Living's Idea House kitchen outfitted with IKEA.

Have a great weekend!

Have you ever...

2010-09-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

...been sitting there at 7:22 pm, supposedly planning out how to spend the next few hours before bedtime (laundry, lunch-packing, exercise, a tad bit of sewing, running the vacuume cleaner) when, instead, you are totally and completely consumed with thoughts of that vintage bar cart you spied at the thrift store, two hungry and tired little ones in tow, the day before? Have you ever then jumped up, grabbed your bag, spun out of the driveway and (very nearly) broken one or more traffic laws in your effort to get to the thrift store before the doors lock at 7:45?

'Cause I have. Oops.

Before: The Boys' Room

2010-09-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I was pregnant, trying to plan out life with two boys under two, and feeling just a teensy bit guilty that in a few short months, I was going to rock my big little guy's world with the advent of his new brother. The prospect of having two cribs in the house seemed to be just.... too much. And so we decided to plan a "big boy" room for Grady.

Problem was, I was planning a room for my "big" boy-- all 22 months of him. So strange to think now of how old he seemed-- John Harper still seems very much a baby to me at nearly exactly the same age. His great loves-- planes, trains and automobiles-- were so important to him that the possibility that they would someday be obsolete was unthinkable. And truly, who could imagine Casey (as in "at the bat") as an ever-present imaginary friend, an attraction to red clay mud that is magnetic and almost unbelievable in its proportions, or an interest in music so intense that he will spend hours listening, guitar in hand, asking me "do you feel that bass, mommy?". Or that, upon being asked by his new and very musical teacher what his favorite song is, that he would answer "Well, I like Shane Whalen and M. Ward, but my favorite songs are "Blue" by the Jayhawks and Tribe Called Quest "Represent, represent." But really, who could imagine that, so I'll cut myself a little slack.

And so this room, which seemed so cute and fun for my little man, now seems so very much outgrown. And poor John Harper's crib just rolled into the spot where a cabinet was removed-- primer on the wall, unprimed floor below. Not much thought and love put into that. Maybe it's because I'm a Cancer, or maybe it's just because I'm me, but gifting my family with beautiful spaces in which to live out our days is one of my ultimate expressions of love. That, and homemade muffins in the lunchbox. (Where's that little smileyface icon when you need it?)

Let the priming begin.

If you need me you'll find me here...

2010-09-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

With my feet up on the porch rail, glass of wine in hand, trashy novel momentarily abandoned,

or bare toes in the grass, back against a sun-warmed pier,

or, aking a dip with my two best guys.

Weekends at the lake-- my new favorite thing.

Off to pack!

Thinking about the boys room

2010-09-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

My boys share a room--- a decision we made not out of space concerns, but more because we really wanted them to learn to get along in a shared space (so speaks the only child who never made it more than one semester with a roommate...). Their bedroom is my September project (I'm getting smart about taking things on by the month, not the day or week!) Here are some ideas I'm bouncing around:

This is the tone I want-- I love the soft grey, the simple furniture, and the statement of the oversized photograph.

A take on the benediction given at our wedding-- really, anything at all from Sugarboo would make me happy.

A beautiful grey on the walls-- like Litchfield Grey from Benjamin Moore

Due to the ~~lucky happenstance~~ an unfortunate incident involving my son, toilet training, naptime and beige carpet, I have the opportunity to paint the old hardwood floors. See the pillow by Jack Nicholson's feet-- the striped one? My inspiration.

This $5 thrifted bolt of shirting-- there are around 30 yards-- for duvets.

This shelf, painted orange. For my orange-lovin' boy.

My sexy new lamps-- with the blue drum shades:

All on a shoestring-- I'm so eager to get going on this one. I'll take some before shots so you can see how VERY dramatic this one is going to be!

Well, duh and a dining room

2010-09-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

So it's kinda hard to sign up for a shopping trip without a working link, huh? Here's the correct link to the flea market trip with Eddie and Jaithan in November. You can shop on Friday, Nov. 5 or Saturday, Nov. 6, both trips at 11 am. Cost is $50 per trip, and from what I hear, it is worth every penny! I can hardly wait!

In other news, I'm absolutely obsessesed with this dining room. Brooke Giannettti, from Velvet and Linen, created this amazing space. While I don't have room for such a long table, there are so many elements from this room that I am coveting for my own home. A major makeover is in the works for this fall, and I'm gathering ideas. I love the wing chairs at either end, the aged doors to add architectural interest, and the light fixtures. Amazingly, the Mister loves the lights, too! Actually, his exact words were more like "yeah, those are cool." I will take that as an affirmative. I can't wait to see the room when the next layers of finishes and accessories are added!

Be there or be square!

2010-09-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

OK, ya'll. Can I just tell you how excited I am? I've got a date with the most fab duo around-- Eddie Ross and Jaithan. Everything I know about finding treasure in unlikely places would fit in the tip of Eddie Ross's pinkey finger-- I am so stoked to be joining them for the Saturday trip. Anybody want to join me? Read more about it here.

The Library Before and After--Part the Second

2010-09-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

Remember when the Library was the Fireplace Room? It looked like this:

And then it looked like this:

Different--yes. Better--no. A clear case of where "use what you have"= barf.

A few trips to Adelaide's, a whole lotta paint, a little fabric from Leisure, and we're looking like this:

I decided that because of the piano--the one piece that absolutely couldn't leave this room because of space concerns, and absolutely couldn't be painted because of Husband concerns--that black would have to be a big part of the room. And as soon as I found my awesome chairs at Adelaide's, I knew that they would have to be cream with black upholstery-- and so black and white became the palette.

This is still a long way from "finished"-- but it's a lot closer! Let's take a tour, shall we?

Remember that dresser I painted for our Master Bedroom? I rescued this huge mirror from the top, painted it black, and stuck it up there. Rounding out the mantle, we have my giant thrifted lab beakers and a thrifted pewter bowl and goblet. The candleabra was a gift from my dad.

The mirror isn't permanant--I'm really digging this mirror from Ballard-- wonder if I can knock of Suzanne Kalser on a shoestring?

To be continued.

A little thrifted cabinet-- waiting to get a coat of black paint and some antiqued mirror for the door. It holds our wine glasses. Up top-- thrifted vase ($8), decanter (.50 cents) and vase ($1). The antique barometer was my grandmother's, and the mirror came from a local antique store (it was cheap-- around $35, I think.)

The other side of the room holds the piano-- a gift from our neighbors. It was purchased in the 1920's or 30's (right around the time our house was built) by the original owners of their home. They were the second owners, purchasing the home in the late 1990's. The piano rolled right on over to our house when they moved out last year. The chairs flanking it are thrifted--$10 each. I've painted one, and I'm waiting for Leisure to come up with a buttery black hide for me to reupholster them with-- I stuck a piece of black linen in the seat to see what it would look like. I have something really fun planned for behind the piano-- it involves some old bifold doors that are currently "aging" in my driveway... inspired by this photo, from Velvet and Linen:

Back to the other side of the room-- the bookshelf and reading corner. The bookshelf was a fun $48 thrifted find, and the chair is covered in a little cream linen from Leisure ($3/yard!) (Don't worry--I fixed that wonky seat cushion! I didn't realize how wonky it was until the picture was taken.) The large corbels on the bookshelf are from Adelaide's-- $40/pair-- a total steal. The hanging drum shade was an experiment-- failed, I think. The big grey wicker thing in the back was a giant basket I found at Habitat for $2. Hubby removed the handle and I hung it on the wall-- yes? No? Maybe? Side table is an old thrifting find from my grad school days-- the husband started to refinish it, then got tired of it, and left it as is. Everything old is new again-- that finish seems to be particularly in these days... I have the MOST amazing camel saddle project in the works for an ottoman. Hopefully coming up soon!

I made the curtains peeking out behind the chairs-- an apple green lattice from Leisure ($3/yard). A room-size seagrass rug is on order, and the walls need a coat of paint-- something with just the teeniest hint of grey, I think. Here's a last peek--whatcha think?

Off to Adelaide's!

2010-08-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

Three words that make my husband cringe every time he hears them-- but make me smile from ear to ear. My favorite little stop in the Boro for cleaned up but still well-priced goodies is Adelaide's Vintage Home and Garden. I like to go in and wander (squeeze is more like it-- they pack it in) and chat and dig for treasure. And I almost never leave without just a little something-- a fun accessory, a great lamp, or some snazzy chairs. I'm still kicking myself for not grabbing up the 1930's grey wicker desk I saw last week. Adelaide had hers priced at a bottom basement $119. Here's one just like it on Ebay

List price: $1650. I always like it when I pass up a deal that leaves a whole zero off a price tag--- makes me feel smart.

But this time I'm not buying, but selling. The accumulation of J.U.N.K. around here is starting to get a little bit ridiculous-- there are only so many chairs one can purchase for $4 at a thrift store before one's own living room begins to feel a bit like-- well, a thrift store. And since packed to the rafters is not the look I'm going for, and since I have becoup fabric lying around, I decided the time was nigh to enter the retail market.

Something fun, a little more funky and colorful that what I use in my own home, but oh, so fun.

It's whispering to me-- "store credit, store credit, store credit..."

Well, hello there, friends!

2010-08-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

It's so nice to be back! The last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy. My classroom has evolved from a giant pile of shelving pushed against the wall into a wonderful, bustling place where most every detail has been carefully attended to. It's a good and a bad thing that it has to be such a precise place-- it makes my little OCD design-freak self so happy to be in there, and it makes my little OCD design-freak self so freaky to travel to-- no lie-- SEVEN different stores searching for perfect buckets. Yes, buckets. But they are found, in a variety of colors and sizes and I am happy.

I've squeezed in some time for a little bit of totally utilitarian sewing-- my favorite kind. There's no better feeling that realizing you need something, zipping into the studio, digging through the fabric stash and emerging a half-hour later with something you can really use. A pretty little bag with elastic top and bottom to hold grocery bags-- quick, simple and so sweet.

And in an effort to save both dollars and the earth, I've made lots and lots of very simple little drawstring bags-- perfect for snacks at school, with nothing to throw away afterwards. I'm trying my hand at turning a big box of prefold cloth diapers into fitted cloth diapers-- nothing very exciting about it-- but it makes the stand-up changes that are required at school so much easier for John Harper's teachers! In news on the potty front, he's really starting to get the hang of using the potty-- he finds it great fun, and cause for much cheering and clapping. Now if only he would get the hang of only using the potty-- not those utilitarian diapers his mama is working so diligently on-- we would be in great shape.

I hope to be around a lot more-- we are finding our rhythms and routines, and I'm feeling settled for the first time in many weeks. Whew.

(and the garage sale said) Let There Be Light!

2010-08-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

Aren't they sexy? For some reason that's the only word that comes to mind about these lamps-- there's something just so deliciously naughty about their curves. And their very naughty price tag-- $1.50 each.

I think they would look great paired with drum shades in this fabric

It comes in orange, too-- Grady would love that. I think I would leave the bases orange-- maybe. Nothing is safe when me and my paint brush get on a roll.

Or this one-- pretty.

I'm really feeling the brass lamps these days, aren't I? I love this one (and my other one) because they are old-- their patina isn't newly minted for big-box sale, but comes from years and years of honest dirt (the cord can't lie-- I haven't seen a cloth cord on a new lamp, ever! I will definitely rewire this one before use!) $5.00 at a thrift store.

A simple, classic shade would be good.

This lamp is my find of the year-- I LOVE it. It's perfect for the boys' room, which is coming together (at least in my head! If you saw the real thing right now you'd be scratching yours, though-- I have some pretty heavy-duty floor painting to go on in there, and I've been waiting for the right time to move them out for a few days.)

This one was so cheap-- $2 at a garage sale. I can't even stand it it is so good.

Not so good-- my crappy kit-lens that came with our camera. Anybody have recs on a good lens for a Nikon D-50 that is good in low light and doesn't cost a fortune? With all this money I'm saving on lamps these days I think it might be time to spring for a new lens!

What I am...

2010-08-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

"Frances lookd down at her plate and sang a little sad song. She sang so softly that Mother and Father could scarecely hear her:

What I am

Is tired of jam..."

-from Bread and Jam for Frances

I have made a lot of jam this month. A lot. The pantry is stocked, and the peach might (might!) hold out until next season.

And now, like Frances, I believe I would like some spaghetti and meatballs.

I'm funny like that...

2010-08-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

A wee little Grady in his 2nd birthday cowboy suit

I really do want my babies to grow up to be cowboys.

But, failing that, growing up to be The Avett Brothers would be OK, too.

Happy Monday.

He doesn't believe in bad guys...

2010-08-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

As a parent, there are a lot of times when you just feel like you aren't doing anything right.

At the end of a long summer, when I'm fresh out of ideas on how to spend the eleven hours a day the boys and I have to ourselves, there are days when my patience is short, my words are sharp, and I don't feel like someone that I would want to love and look up to.

But then this little face looks up at me-- and in his big green eyes I see a clear light that tells me that somehow I'm muddling through this all despite myself.

A few months ago, we turned off the television for the boys. It isn't the right decision for every family, and there are plenty of days where it is a very hard one for me to follow through with. But even in the pretty tame world of Nick Jr and PBS Kids, there were some ideas that I wasn't all that comfortable with, words that were not kind, sass and swagger that was just a little bit too much for littles as little as ours. A new Friday ritual evolved-- a trip to the library for books and one 30 minute Scholastic Book on Video, a run to the cupcake shop for a little treat, a hour of snuggling on the couch as a family. It is good-- very good-- and something we all look forward to throughout the week.

So yeah, I still have to watch him pretty closely when my lipstick and ink pens are lying around. But this sweet little man has told us-- again and again-- that there is no such thing as a "bad guy." He doesn't want to play superheros, and he changes the name of every character in a book that is doing something wrong to "my friend the good (fill in the blank). Through the tantrums and the rough patches, there is only room in his heart to believe the best in other people.

And I tell you what; sometimes that's what gets me through the long hours of the late afternoon at the end of a very long week.

Sometimes even I'M not sure what I'm up to...

2010-08-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

Case in point.

It is

a) not small. Not at all.

b) not light. Not in the slightest.

c) not identified. Attic vent?

But...

it also was

a) $10 at the Habitat store:

b) exactly the right size to fill up some space on a library wall:

c) interesting? Maybe.

Whateveritis is undergoing it's little presto-change-o right now. I'll keep you posted.

A Tale of Two Lamps...

2010-08-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

Marsallas Urn lamp base-- on sale at Ballard for $64.99

Totally (perhaps more?) awesome lamp--Salvation Army on E. Lee Street: $5.00.

The moral of this story: get thee to a thrift store!

I'd love to hear all about your latest finds!

So apparently the boy has thrifting ju-ju, too

2010-08-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Grady and I had a solo date to visit a friend-- and we were late. Very late. Far too late to stop at the yard sale he spotted on the way out of town.

"STOP MOMMY!" he yelled as we drove by. "Not right now, we're late," said I, noting as we flew past a really cool trestle table among the wares.

He didn't forget-- all the way home, tired and hungry as he was, he kept asking to go back to the yard sale. By the time we were back to that street, rain was falling, and I was sure the sale would be over. I hoped he wouldn't be dissapointed. I also mostly hoped he wouldn't scream (as over-tired and hungry boys are wont to do.)

I always said I wanted the boys to inherit two things-- my ability to tan, even when I forget sunscreen, and my thrifting ju-ju. Apparently, my genetic wish has been granted.

When we approached the house, rain fell harder and of course the sale was over. But there on the curb was that trestle table--worn plank top, nicks and dings in all the right places-- EXACTLY what I'd been looking for extra seating on the deck. Throw into the bargin a pair of cool andirons (I was looking for some of those) and a HUGE frame with ugly oil print that has already become a chalkboard-- now that's some serious thrifting ju-ju right there.

That's my boy.

Happy Monday

2010-08-02T04:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's nice to start your week with something that serves no other purpose than to make hundreds and hundreds of people smile!

One Good Thing

2010-07-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

This is Hudson.

She was born on December 1, 2008 into a joyous family who celebrated love and laughter and helping people every day.

She was fiesty and mischevious and knew a lot of words and loved to read books and eat and eat and eat.

On May 10, 2010 Hudson was very ill ill. Her mom, Mandy, took her to the pediatrician, and then to the emergency room, trying to find out what was making her sick.

Then, in the words of the doctor who oversaw Hudson's care, a "really fucking terrible" thing happened.

On May 13, Hudson died.

Mandy has started a blog, called One Good Thing. It was her plan, when Hudson was older, to teach her that in every bad situation, there is always one good thing to be found, and that it is our responsibility to make the effort to find it. This is so very much in keeping with the Mandy I know--whip-smart, with a huge heart and a passion for helping others. Her words are insightful, heartwrenching, and deeply meaningful.

Out of the terrible tragedy of Hudson's death, there have already been many good things: a fund to support PICU patients and families, the first of it's kind, at Children's Hospital in D.C.; a large collection of books in Hudson's honor being sent to her favorite library; a fund to support Hudson's daycare, St. Ann's Infant and Maternity House, that offers quality care for those who could otherwise not afford it. But there is a greater, more intangible gift, that is also being given.

That Hudson died is a cruel, mostrous thing--it should not have happened. But what I have been witness to after her death is transformative.

When Hudson first became ill, in this age of technology, it was via Facebook that most of us heard about it. Within hours, thousands of posts flooded into Mandy and Ed's pages, enveloping them in love and prayer and hope. During Hudson's memorial service here in North Carolina, there was present love so vast that you could almost physically feel it. To loose a child: it is a pain that I can't understand, can't get inside of. But to be there to support parents who are in that hell-- that is something I can try, ever so feebly and humbly, to do. To participate in loving-- fiercely, truly, and with a spirit of hope-- is a gift, even when it springs from tragedy.

It is my hope, and Mandy and Ed's as well, that Hudson's message of One Good Thing will travel far and wide. Her life, though too short, was one of light, and her light continues on.

Some links:

One Good Thing

The Hudson Chaney Memorial Fund for the PICU at Children's Hospital (Washington, DC)

St. Ann's Infant and Maternity House--Hudson's school, which provides affordable day care for low-income families

Book donations in Hudson's memory

It's a snap!

2010-07-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

The time has come, the walarus said, to talk of.... potty training. Or potty learning. Or whatever you want to call it. I personally call it "ew, yuck, I really don't love chaning your diapers so let's do a little something about that, why don't we"?

My littlest guy will be 19 months old tomorrow, and seems to be following (a bit more slowly) in his big brother's footsteps. We put Grady in cloth diapers when he was around a year old-- and much (much!) to my surprise, he toilet trained himself between 17 and 19 months of age. I just thought the potty would be a safe placethat he couldn't run away from while I drew the bath . But lo and behold that little stinker figured out what it was for. And so I have declared 18 months to be The Magic Age For Potty Learning and so that is what we are doing. (And another little Harper out there seems to be digging the potty, too..)

Remember my snap press from way back when? I had the brilliant idea this morning of adding snaps to all the prefold diapers we have-- it took 20 minutes, and has been most effective.

Let the toileting commence.

If you can't beat 'em...

2010-07-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

...throw 'em in the shower!

Sometimes you just have one of those days where the only way you know that everyone will be safe, sane and with all their limbs still attached when Daddy walks in the door is to contain the children in your own version of a padded room.

Of course, my padded room has a really snazzy shower curtain.

Just keepin' it real, ya'll.

I just can't stop myself....

2010-07-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

My sustenance today between 7 am and 6 pm consisted solely and exclusively of this: a single slice of bread (freshly baked in our new bread machine) with a healthy slathering of mayo (only Hellman's Real Mayonnaise will do!) and fat, luscious slices of tomatoes fresh from our local market (I stood next to Kay Hagen to buy them. That was kind of cool.) Lather, rinse, repeat. Several times.

I'm not sure that I can promise that the same won't be true tomorrow.

Sorry for the sporadic posting. The summer is flying by, and when we're not at the pool I'm working on streamlining our lives so that the start of school in a few weeks won't be such a shock. I'll try to take some pictures and get back into regular posting soon!

Guarding it from Peter Rabbit

2010-07-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

Our very suburban neighborhood is absolutely over-run with sweet little bunnies. I remember thinking how charming it was when we first moved in. The children are nearly able to get close enough to our own backyard rabbit to pat him before he lippity-lippitys off through the fence. But I've found that Peter Rabbit is a lot less charming when he's eating your tomatoes--especially when said Peter is discerning enough to wait until they are ripe to take two delicate bites from every single fruit on the vine.

I beat him to the punch and have started ripening our tomatoes in the window.

Take that, Peter Rabbit.

Six Fun Things in Nashville

2010-07-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

We just returned from a weekend in Nashville, TN, where I lived off and on for 10 years, and where my mom still lives. Aside from helping my mom plan out her bathroom renovations (I can't wait to share before and afters--the befores are egad! and I know the afers will be wonderful) we did all my favorite things to do in Nashville. It's so much more than country music and rhinestones!
1.) Take an early-morning walk at Radnor Lake

2.) After all that excercise you deserve a treat. Grab a newspaper and your comfy shoes and get in line at the Pancake Pantry. Waiting an hour in line for pancakes is a Nashville rite of passage-- and it really is worth the wait. I get the Sweet Potato Pancakes with Cinnamon Cream every single time.

3.) Leave someone in line to hold your place, grab your stroller and walk the couple of blocks to Dragon Park. Make sure you take your camera for some fun pics of the kiddos on the giant mosaic dragon.

4.) Visit The Frist Center for Visual Arts. With a large permanant collection, a fabulous art-for-kids area, and wonderful traveling exhibits, there's something for everyone in the family here. Right now you can drool over The Golden Age of Couture.

5.)If the weather is nice (Nashville in summer is muggy and HOT) head over to Cheekwood. Part gardens, part enormous art exhibit, there is always something wonderful to see here. Right now you can marvel at the fantastical glassworks of Chihuly.

6.) Attend the puppet show at the downtown library. This is one of the most magical things we've ever done with our kids. Park in the deck and take the escalators up (that's an adventure in itself!), enter the vast, marbled atrium, climb the sweeping stairs, and take your place in the jewlbox puppet theater, where stars sparkle overhead and the air is heavy with magic. Bonus points: the show is free! Bring a snack and picnic in the beautiful courtyard outside the children's area.

I'm so glad we went, but I'm so glad to be home, too. Twenty-plus hours in the car with your kids is a lot of hours. I've got a busy week of sewing, painting and planning ahead of me-- can't wait to share!

Molly Wizenberg saves my tail again...

2010-07-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

Judging from all the posts from the cooler-climate blogs I read, North Carolina isn't the only place that is hot, hot, HOT these days. We've spent the last few weeks near 100 degrees with humidity at a balmy 80%-- like a nice, steamy sauna, and near impossible to spend more than a few minutes outside without feeling like you're suffocating under a mountain of wet wool blankets.

But for one beautiful day a couple of weeks ago, the temperature never rose above 70 degrees. The air was moist and cool without a hint of stickiness, and we all donned jackets in the early-morning chill. My friend Angie and I gathered up our children-- my two boys and her two girls, who are nearly the same age as mine-- and headed off for adventure. That day's adventure led us to a local blackberry farm, where the berries were as big as the little fists picking them, and much to my delight, the thornless bushes yielded fruit as sweet as any wild tangle of vines I crawled through as a child. The children ate berries until they were juicy from head to toe, bird-watched, tractor-watched and had a genreally wonderful time. Angie and I wandered and talked and soaked it all in, and in a short hour we had FIFTEEN quarts of berries. Filled with the pioneer spirit, Adam and I went out the next day and picked several pounds of blueberries--harder to aquire but so wonderful that I had a hard time not eating the entire yield on the way home.

Angie is a real cook-- the former pastry chef of this wonderful place, who really believes in quality foods prepared slowly and carefully. I've been putting up jam for years, and mine is always done the fast and easy way-- with commercial pectin. Angie proded me to move out of my comfort zone and try more traditional methods. While she filled my kitchen with blackberry pancakes and buttermilk cake and cobbler, I set about jamming up some of those delicious berries. I tried this recipe--and promptly overcooked those wonderful berries into a jam that is too tough (at least for my taste.)

Then I remembered one of my favorite spots to pop in-- Orangette. Molly Wizenberg's funny, touching, blog always makes me feel like I'm somewhere safe and comfortable, and her recipes never let me down. And my go-to kitchen gal came through with this stellar and so-easy-to-follow recipe-- foolproof and versital and absolutely wonderful. To quote our dear friend around these parts, Frances, (as in Bread and Jam For) "Rasberry, strawberry, gooseberry, I'm very...fond of jam!" I'm looking forward to many, many, many more jars in my pantry and in my tummy.

Tutorial: Upholstering a chair cushion, Part II

2010-07-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

On to Part II of upholstering your chair seat. I forgot to mention two things yesterday.

1) You will need a staple gun to attach the fabric to the chair frame. I'm assuming since you are reading this blog (and hence probably found it from some kind of DIY/craft blog) that you have one of those things? If you don't, there are one million and two reasons why you should go buy one.

2.) Technically, you should cut your welting fabric on the bias (meaning you should cut the fabric on the diagonal, instead of straight strips.) This allows the fabric to bend and twist around corners and curves perfectly. However, since it would require at least one additional yard to make enough welting for one chair, I just wing it and pin and sew really, really carefully. And P.P.S-- there was some debate (internal, with me, myself and I) over whether I was using the right or wrong side of the fabric. The part of me that decided that this fabric was reversible won. If you disagree, please don't tell me because you will hurt my delicate feelings. There. Now, moving on.

Step One: Attaching the welting to the seat top.

Cut your fabric into the approximate size of your seat top. For my 24"x26" seat, I cut a piece of fabric that was 27"x30". Center this on top of your foam and stick a few straight pins in to hold it still so it won't wiggle while you work. Find an inconspicuous place to start your welting-- I like the back corner myself. Leave a little tail of welting that hangs below the edge of your foam, and then begin pinning the welting, raw edge in the same direction as the raw edge of your fabric, just at the edge of the foam (don't pin through the foam, just through the fabric layers.) Remember, when you sew this in place, it will roll slightly downward, so it is better to have the corded part of the welting a little high on the top of the cushion, rather than too low. Working your way around the cushion, pin the welting in place so that it follows exactly the outline of the foam. When you reach the end, overlap the welting with your start place, then leave another little tail hanging down. The above picture shows the overlap of the ends of the welting. The picture below shows the welting pinned in place to the fabric, ready to stitch.

Step Two: Stitching the welting

Take out the pins you used to stabilize the fabric on top of the foam. Starting at the point where your welting overlaps, stitch carefully around the entire cushion. When sewing on any kind of trim, make sure you sew just very slightly above the line of stitching that holds the welting together (sew closer to the cording.) This creates a stitching guide for when you are sewing on your front and side panels. Once you have gone all the way around, trim off the excess fabric, using the bottom of the welting as your cutting guide, so that you are left with a cushion-top in the exact shape of your foam.

Step Three: Attaching the front/side panels

If your chair is like mine, you will have to cut two (or more) strips of fabric to form the front and sides of the cushion cover. Look at the existing cover on your chair and note the seams for these panels. Many square chair seats use a separate piece for each side of the cushion. Mine here is rounded, so I just made sure that my seaming would be hidden at the back of the chair.

Go ahead and stitch these strips together, right sides together, and trim the seam closely.

Find the center of one of these pieces of fabric, and match this to the front center of your cushion. The raw edges of the fabric should be facing the same direction, and it should be right sides together, meaning that your front/side pieces will be flipped up over the top of your top piece. Go around the perimeter of the cushion, pinning every few inches, to hold these fabric layers together. You want to make sure before you begin sewing that the seam where you will join the two edges of your side panels are in an inconspicuous place-- I like to try to match mine up with the place where the welting meets on the back of the chair. Beginning a few inches before the point where these will meet, sew around the perimeter of the cushion, using the stitching line you created in Step Two as your guide-- stitch just very slightly above that line, so that you are even closer to the cording than in Step Two. This will ensure that no stitches show from the right side of your cushion. Stop about two inches before the joining point, leaving the two ends of the side panel strip unattached.

Here is my cushion cover, after I pinned and sewed it, flipped inside out. You can see how the edges of the top and sides are joined.
NOTE: If you chose a fabric with a pattern that absolutely had to be matched, this is the step where you would do that. Make very, very sure that you match up the lines of the pattern exactly on the top/front when you begin pinning, and make sure you continue to match the pattern up exactly as you continue around the cushion. Swearing is optional, but don't blame me, I warned you about this yesterday...

Step 4: Joining the ends of the side panels

This part is a little tricky to visualize, but I hope the picture helps. When you sew the side/front panels on, you need to stop about 2 inches before the place that will be the end point of the cushion, leaving the ends free. Now, with the cover inside out and standing up as if it were on the foam, flatten out the fabric and mark where the fabric touches-- this will be your seam line. Sew a seam from top to bottom there, then trim it closely. Go back and sew this last bit of the side panel to the seat top.

Step Three: An alternate approach

Alternately, you can measure the panel all the way around the seat cushion, testing for fit around the curves, before you begin to sew. Make very careful note of the total length of the panel, then add 1 inch to that length and cut. Using a 1/2" seam, sew the ends together, forming a long loop of fabric. Center the longest piece of fabric so that the seam will not be visible from the front of the chair, then pin around the top and sew the pieces together. This is the "proper" way to do things, and what I usually do, but I've also found that it's sometimes pretty easy to goof up, leaving you with panels that are either too short of too long. The first method described works best for avoiding that problem.

Step Four: attaching the fabric to the frame

Flip your completed cover right side out, and place it on top of your seat frame topped with the foam and batting. You might have to ease it onto the foam, pulling gently as you go. Now, working from opposite sides, pull the fabric taunt, so the welting is just even with the edge of the foam, and staple it in place. Place one or two staples in each side, then go back and add in extra staples to hold the fabric securely all the way around.

Step Five: Adding the bottom welting

Take your extra welting, and beginning in the same spot on the chair where your top welting overlaps, repeat the process from Step One. However, this time, instead of pinning, you are going to staple the welting onto the chair frame. Place the staples very close to the stitching line so that the welting will be smooth and even along the chair edge. Overlap the ends as described in Step One and trim.

Pop the cushion back into the frame, and reattach the screws holding the seat bottom in place. You're all finished! See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Tutorial: Upholstering a chair cushion

2010-07-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

Good things come to those who wait--that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Here's that long-promised tutorial on reupholstering a chair cushion, including how to make your own welting. It's really easy as pie-- if you can sew straight lines you can do this. This is a pretty long tutorial, so I'm breaking it up into two parts-- gathering supplies and making welting and the sewing of the chair cushion.

You'll need the following:

Cording for making welting. This is sold in varying sizes at most craft and fabric stores. It looks like a long tube made out of braided unbleached cotton, and is sold by the yard and pre-packaged. I find mine near the curtain hardware and upholstery trim at my Joann's.

Small gauge pins-- I like to use applique pins because my machine can go over them without gumming up the needle or breaking the pins.

Zipper foot for your sewing machine-- this is very useful in making and attaching the cording.

Rotary cutter, straight edge and self-healing mat: while you can make it without these, these are such useful tools that I think anyone who sews at all should have them. I bought all of mine one at a time using the 40% off coupons that all the major craft and hobby stores offer.

Foam and batting--I used what came with the chairs-- foam is expensive! If you don't want to do this, you should bring your old foam to the store with you and have them trace and cut the new foam to fit for you-- they use electric knives that make it so much easier to cut it exactly. Cut a piece of batting to fit the top of your foam and use a few dots of fabric glue to hold it in place.

Fabric-- you need enough to cover your cushion, allowing for the top and sides, plus extra for matching patterns and for creating the welting. I strongly advise you to choose a fabric that has a pattern that doesn't need to be carefully matched. NO STRIPES OR GEOMETRICS! Unless you are a very experienced seamstress, you'll drive yourself nuts trying to match the patterns at the front seam, and if you don't match a graphic pattern, it will be very noticable and you probably won't be too happy with the end results. I choose this large paisley with lots of other pattern in the background that didn't need to be matched.

Calculating Yardage

To determine how much fabric you need, measure your cushion from top to bottom and side to side. Mine was 26" wide and 24" from top to bottom, meaning I could get two seat tops from my 60" fabric. Don't forget to allow at least 1 inch per side for seam allowances, although I think it's easier to allow 2" per side.

You then need to measure the height of the front of the cushion from top to bottom, adding a few inches to allow you to pull the fabric down over the edge of the cushion bottom. My foam and batting was 5" high, and the wooden chair frame was 1", so I calculated 8" just to be safe. To go all the way around the chair I would need two lengths of fabric, for a total of 16".

To make the welting, you will need to calculate the total number of inches around the top of the seat cushion-- for me that was 98". My cushions had welting at the top and bottom, meaning I would need 196" of welting, plus a few inches extra for allowances, which comes out to about 5 1/2 yards. My fabric was 60" wide, meaning I could get about 58" of welting out of each strip of fabric I cut. To make enough welting, I would need 4 strips of fabric that were 2" by 60".

To calculate your yardage, add up all your measurements

26 (seat tops) +32 (sides)+ 16 (welting)= 74"= roughly 2 1/4 yards.

Making Welting

This is where a rotary cutter is really handy-- just measure and cut 2" strips of fabric. However, you can use a yardstick and a piece of chalk, too-- just measure down two inches on each side and mark, then use your yardstick to make a line connecting the two marks. Cut. Sew your strips together, right sides together, and trim the seams closely.

You can pin your cording in if you want to-- I don't. I fold the strip in half and insert the cording into the pocket this creates, letting a bit of cording hang out the end. Attach your zipper foot on the left-hand bar, and insert the cording/fabric pocket so that the needle of the machine touches exactly the edge of the cording. Sewing slowly and carefully, sew the cording into the fabric. I stop every few inches and fold the fabric that is about to be fed into the machine, and go along the entire length fabric. It's slow going, but not hard at all.

Stay tuned-- tomorrow we bring it all together and upholster the chair!

Quick Projects: Chalkboard Frame and Chocolate Frosting

2010-07-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. Busy, busy times at our house. It's been a very fun and full few weeks around here, with more busy days to come. I'm hoping to play some intense catch-up this week, and dive right in with both feet next week-- the end of summer is fast approaching, and I have a lot left to squeeze in!

This was such a fast, cheap and easy project that I had to share. Often at thrift stores you find really large frames with really, really ugly fake oil portraits printed on cardboard. I see one or two a week, usually for under $10. I picked up this one, which used to be a truly unfortunate picture of deer involving a lot of harvest gold and orange, for $8. The frame is big-- 4 feet by 3 feet or so.

After popping out the "painting" and slapping on a couple of coats of chalkboard paint and giving the frame a quick spray of gold spray paint, it looked like this:

When it's not doing duty out as a sign, it hangs in our powder bath as a fun place for us to leave notes for each other, or for our guests to grafitti a hello.

Grady has realized recently that there is such a thing as birthday parties, and he wanted one of his very own. But mid-winter birthday parties at home with lots of little boys running around = no fun for Mommy. Our new tradition was born this weekend-- the Half-Birthday Party. An easy summer cookout with sprinklers and races on the tricycle track for the kids and cold beer and good conversation for the adults, topped off with homemade cupcakes. Fun times were had by all!

This cute little plant stand, bought the morning of the party for $2 at a yard sale, made a fantastic beverage station on the deck.

I found chalkboard fabric at Joann's and got a little carried away making tags. I think there will be some serious labeling going on at my house in the next few weeks.

This half-birthday boy was very pleased with the whole thing. He liked it all, from the hats, to the balloons, to the wading pool to the cupcakes, of which he ate two, one chocolate, one vanilla.

I made my all-time favorite chocolate frosting, a recipe passed down from the parent of a former student. It's awfully yummy-- we made a batch of chocolate and a batch of white chocolate. And now you can, too.

Sybils' Chocolate Frosting

4 oz unsweetened chocolate (Baker's) (3T. of semi or bittersweet chocolate=1 square of baker's)

1/2 cup butter (the real thing, not a substitute)

1 pound 10 X confectioners sugar

dash of salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 - 1/3 cup milk (whole is best :) )

Melt chocolate and butter together (I use a double boiler, but if you are really careful you can microwave it in 10 second intervals, stirring between, until the butter and chocolate are melted.)

Put sugar, salt and vanilla into Cuisinart (you can use a hand mixer, but I have found the Cuisinart works far better), add chocolate mixture and mix. (I used my stand mixer and all was well. I've never been sure if Cuisinart meant food processor or mixer.)

Add enough milk to make spreading consistency you can manage; you have to work quickly here, because as the frosting cools, it becomes difficult to spread, tearing the cake. One trick is to get the milk to room temp before adding it. Once you get good at it, cold milk is fine.

This recipe frosts a batch of 24 cupcakes with a tad left over, but I make 1 1/2 recipes when I'm frosting a layer cake. Yum, yum, yum.

Guest Room: mini makeover on nearly zero dollars

2010-06-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

So when you have houseguests for a month, you want them to be comfy. I had big plans to get this room in tip-top shape, but between all the hurdles of the last couple of weeks, I ended up just getting the furniture in there-- unpainted-- and calling it a day. I have to say, though, it's still mighty cozy.

I hope you have learned by now that you SHOULD be going to thrift stores and shopping on Craigslist. This room is living proof. We started out with just the mattress-- the bedframe is a CL find that was brass, painted nickled silver, and blogged about here. I. Love. It. I wish it was my bed. The side table we had-- it's an old sewing table. We have a gorgeous antique secretary that was a wedding gift that would be perfect here-- I've always thought it was pine, but my husband informed me that nothing that heavy is possibly pine. It is not light. And our stairs are not gently sloping. Maybe he'll move it up for me, though. The small chest was inherited from my Grandmother, and it will be getting a coat of paint at some point-- probably "Talc" from Martha's new line for Home Depot-- it's such a perfect whiteish cream. The map was a $5 find from Adelaide's, and is destined for my boys' room, but it is large and fills up some space and I was in a hurry. Round mirror (moderatley similiar to this one) was $10 at a resale shop-- I'm going to sand off the varnish at some point.

Pillows made by yours truly. The linen ones are a linen/cotton blend drapery panel that I found thrifting for two bucks. I sat with my seam ripper and 15 minutes of Sienfeld and took it apart, yielding 3 yardsx 60 inches of fabric. Not too shabby. I wish I'd thought to add a cute boxpleat ruffle edge-- I spied on in a phot here. I just might go back and do it. Ticking is from Leisure in High Point ($3/yard)-- I bought 10 yards last month and wish I had bought more-- I can use it EVERYWHERE! Lamp is from the Salvation Army-- very similar to the one in Lauren's pad and the one Jenny's sister now has. I have some linen in the exact same shade as the lamp to make a long pillow for the bed-- maybe this week? (ha.) The curtains are actually pure linen tablecloths I bought on clearance at Wal-Mart about 5 years ago for $1.99 each (I'm so, so sorry little Chinese child who made you. If it makes you feel better, I'm doing my part to put you out of a job now.)

The chair is a cast-off from my neighbor-- just like this one, but for $0 instead of, you know, $2700. Right now it's covered in a leftover slipcover cushion-cover (from another neighbor), but I plan to paint the frame black and have it reupholstered (by a pro) in a muslin with exposed tacks and extra-large nailhead (ala here) when I have the money. The little cabinet, which used to be the top of a hutch, I think-- stuffed full of all kinds of yummy books-- was $20 at a thrift store, and will get a coat of "Talc" and a navy blue interior. The mirror above is from Adelaide's, around $20, and will become navy blue, as well. I'm planning to add a little coffe pot and some snacks to the cabinet. I just threw what I passed on my way upstairs on top-- my Fenton glass and a little terrarium box (that needs a plant!)

The window seat is stocked with magazines, kids books and linens. The curtains are more of those tablecloths. Eventually a cute cushion and pillows are coming to the window seat. AND-- I'm really stoked abou this-- the ugly carpet will come out and I can paint the existing (and badly damaged) hardwoods! Grey? White? Stripes? Thoughts?

Thanks for indulging me in this loooong post. I'm feeling so much better-- I caved and took both antibiotics and predensone (for a heat-related rash that had turned my hands into the ickiest glove-like mass of blisters you have ever seen.) I try to treat myself at home as much as possible with natural stuff, but for this, I called in the big guns. Just wish I'd done it last week. And I'm delighted to report that Charlie-dog is home and ravenous-- must have been an odd doggie stomach bug. He's so happy to be an only dog for the first time in 8 years that we wanted him to get to live long to enjoy it.

That tutorial? It's comin'. I promise.

Eight is Enough?

2010-06-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I'm so sorry I haven't gotten that tutorial up yet-- and scrap bag winners, please have a wee bit of patience with me, too. I'm fighting a nasty sinus infection, the boredom of summer vacation (did you know it sets in at 3 years old? Apparently it does, or my son is just used to me running a three-ring circus that I'm too tired to do right now), we lost our 14-year-old greyhound to cancer last week and our Dane mix is at the vet with as-yet-undiagnosed illness, which hopefully will not cause him to bloat (this is very, very bad, if you don't know about deep-chested dogs.) Sorry to be such an Eeyore about everything-- I'm really OK, just stretched thin in the time and patience departments.

I'm also preparing for our little family of four to double in size. Our dear friends who moved away last summer will be back in NC for a month, staying mostly with us. Of course you know this means that I had to begin a thrifted re-design of our guest room, which is sadly stalled due to the aforementioned woes. Hopefully I'll be able to snap a few pictures of what has been finished to share with you before my house becomes home to four children under four. It is going to be wild and crazy and oh, so much fun, I am sure. We're going to hit the pool, the museums, parks and all the delicious restaurants that our region has to offer. This will probably mean less blogging for a while. Or maybe it will mean more blogging. Who knows? Either way, it will be quite the adventure and I'm really looking forward to it!

I really do have two tutorials all ready in my noggin-- I'll try to get them down this week. We're heading off to Wilmington on Friday, so if not, I'll catch ya' on the flip side (of the weekend, that is. Have a great one if you don't hear from me before then!)

I went and did it....

2010-06-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

I made my favorite cookie even better.

Homemade cinnamon peach ice cream. Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 cups chopped peaches (it helps to freeze them first) to your favorite vanilla ice cream recipe. Sandwich it. Eat it. Yummy, yummy goodness.

Back tomorrow with the tutorial I promised!

We have a winner(s)!!

2010-06-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

We're very scientific around here-- buckets and little scraps of paper. The winners are:

Nicki C K said... YAY! Gotta LOVE scraps! I would love a mixed bag! Thanks so much for the giveaway! thekirkfamily4@gmail.com

Nicole said... Ooohhhh. I wanna! I wanna! :) Probably a mixed bag! I just can't choose! I'm hoping to work on 2 more summer outfits and then I'm moving on to fall. The thing is that I like to mix cool colors into fall too. I'm crazy wild like that.

Allysa said...We would take anything! Fabric fairy please visit us! Allysa and Co

Congrats ya'll-- and happy crafting!

PS-- there is plenty more where this came from-- I might just have to do this again soon!

Friday: First Look

2010-06-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

So this:

+ 2 coats of primer + 3 cans of spray paint +4 dollar a yard fabric + 5 full summer days with a teeny bit of sewing thrown in =

this!

The first of my chair makeovers is complete, and it turned out better than I could have hoped. Stay tuned next week for a tutorial on how to make welting and reupholster seat cushions. You'll never look at an ugly yard-sale-chair the same way again.

Have a wonderful weekend-- I'll select the winners of the giveaway at 5 pm tomorrow, and will post the winners here.

::Found Thrifting::

2010-06-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

Still feeling awfully yucky here, but not so yucky that I didn't get REALLY excited about these finds. Today at the thrift store the Fabric Gods were smiling down upon me.

In the remnant bin-- two yards of that yummy blue and red plaid (perfect for summer rompers and shorts for my boys), two yards of a pretty floral-- love the birds, especially-- that will be tea-stained and made into pillows, and a preppy little Polo hankie-- how cute will that be as a little throw pillow with some navy cording? Fifty cents, fifty, cents and one quarter respectively.

This BOLT of grey ticking-stripe in a shirting weight. I was so excited when I found this-- it's exactly what I was looking for for some projects in our guest room, and will make perfect duvets for the boys for their room, which we're revamping later this summer.

This is A LOT of yardage-- 30 yards, maybe? And the best part, (of course!) was the price. Five dolla. Grand total spent: $8.08.

As my sweet son says: "yeah, dog." (wonder who taught him THAT?!)