this weekend

I'm gonna do so much stuff. I'm gonna paint the office, build this fauxdenza thing, buy new outdoor seating for the patio, weed, plant some grass, re-do the closet, it's gonna be amazing.

HA! Yeah right. My family's in town for the weekend and so we're gonna spend our time hanging out and being happy about the fact that Jesus rose from the grave. Maybe next weekend I'll have time to do this? I think this is the way to go in the office for sure. Build a long narrow cabinet for the tv/technical stuff and as additional storage and it would fit a big tv there.

Well I truly hope you're all lucky enough to be surrounded by family this weekend.

i'm still not quite sure how we did it

We went from 4bedroom 3bath 2car garage to 3bed 2bath no garge. And yet everything fits somehow. Hmm. How did that happen? Seriously. How?

The fourth bedroom before didn't have much in it besides an armchair and a table with records on it and we donated everything but the records.

But the closet was full to the brim with a drum kit and a bunch of other stuff. 

The guest room pretty much just had a bed and a desk and we donated the desk and the nightstand but that closet was pretty empty so they sort of balance each other out.

The living room had giant bookcases and now we have new bookshelves in our bedroom. We found a home for the white dining table that was in there.

Everything from the office made it.

And the kitchen? I mean, dang, how did all of that crap fit in the smaller house? That kitchen was a monster!

We got rid of a lot of stuff but it still doesn't make sense to me that we fit in here with one less room and one less garage. Was it because we didn't use up all of the 2000' square feet of living space and just had more room to stretch out in? Maybe we didn't really have that much stuff it just lived in a larger space?

Of course, it may just be I kick ass at organization but that's not the reason. We don't feel cramped in the slightest, we love our smaller arrangement. How? Tell me how this worked.

know what's awesome

Matt and I had our first drive to set today from our new house:

20 minutes.

Do you have any idea how dang awesome that is?

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

the hallway situation

The one hallway in our home is pretty boring and small. Here's from the kitchen, door on the right is the guest bath, door directly in front is the guest room.

Here's the linen closet to the left of guest room.

One of a handful of things I've hung up, our wedding photo by our friend Andy and a cloud mobile.

The blank wall across from the wedding photo looking into the kitchen.

The linen closet to the right, my office straight ahead, the living room to the left.

The only source of lighting in here is this sconce thing.

I was thinking, hey this hallway needs something funky. Oooh... how about if I paint it teal, the same color as the back of the built ins in the dining room? Then I found this image:

Ooh how about a cool overhead light and some dope wood planks on the ceiling too? Or wallpaper? What do we think? Teal hallway and light rooms all around it?

the triplets

Three giant Parsons towers fit most of the Fredrich library.

We're adding decorating things amidst the books to give it some fun. I enjoy having Bender by Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Books are the best.

time to accept this office is different from the last one

I think I've been living a land of denial. About how the layout for my current office is totally different from the layout of the last one. The furniture plan in my mind has been working off of the layout of a small square room and this room is actually a large long rectangle.

The main part of my denial is my determination to hang onto or make this large cabinet work. It's not gonna work EvY, stop trying to make fetch happen, it's not gonna happen. 

What this little world needs is, pardon my french, a big ass sideboard or floating fauxdenza. Huge. Something that can take up the majority of the wall and where inside of it I can hide all these uglies and maybe even custom make a litter box for the critters to use that's hidden behind doors. 

The elimination of this cabinet would lead to two things. 1) I'd be out of a file cabinet but that could easily be solved with the purchase of this beauty (maybe even two of them) I've been plotting in my evil mind to purchase:

And 2) I would want a bigger TV since it would now sit on the top of the cabinet and wouldn't have to be hidden. Nothing extreme, maybe 32-40", just something bigger than what I have now because watching TV on the couch from the opposite side of the room wasn't a big deal before since the room was a small square now I'm squinting to watch Sophia, Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose as they get arrested for prostitution. I'm getting old people and my eyesight just ain't what it used to be. If Matt reads this I know he's thinking WHAT?? I told you you it was pointless to have a tiny TV in that cabinet. I TOLD YOU.

Well, see before I really cared about hiding the TV but now I don't care, like a honey badger. Also while I would never try this in the living room with el hombre, I wouldn't mind trying my hand at "hiding the TV in plain sight" by adding pretty things around it to distract from the electronic device that's staring you in the face. Something that Nicole at makingitlovely inspired me by with her own TV. 

And the concept of styling a TV stand went up a notch when she posted this on her blog.

And if I ever get really sick of looking at it, I could just literally hide it and make a cozy for it like this image from my favorite home makeover of all time from Blueprint:

Anyway, as far as the rest of the office is concerned here's my redundant reminders that I'm changing things. Walls will be painted. The desk is fine, from the time this photo was taken I hung up that magnetic bulletin board and recovered it in much more subdued fabric. 

Oh wait I have a picture:

The sofa needs a new cover, new coffee table, and a rug (maybe this one?). I'm waiting to move forward on any of that until new paint's on the wall. I'm still gonna have a wall of frames up here like last time only it'll be wider since I have more wall.

This thing I love but I wouldn't mind doing something like adding some patterned paper to the top tray to give it some color. Or spray painting it? Or adding a mirrored top? Is that too cocaine?

And since I have the room geez, how about a striped armchair? And I'm not gonna lie, it might be just so the cat can lay on it instead and I could get rid of this awful plastic thing. I'd cover the chair with a blanket and keep that pad on it for cat protection. This pet situation got even worse in the office with the moving of the dog's kennels in here. Better here than the entrance to the house I suppose.

Recently I moved a lot of my decorating mags under this thing and that worked out great.

I'd like to add some window covering here that wouldn't be draped. Like this maybe.

Cause you know, THIS situation isn't exactly ideal.

The closet: she needs help. I want to add an expedit up in here to help because the little bookshelf that's in here so doesn't help me. Have we spoken of my desire to paint the closet door? Big time. Also the gold doorknob: not so much.

I would like to add some more shelving up here to make it a sort of cornered shelf that continues.

Boy was that an idea dump. I'll have to reference this post later since it really has a lot of things I want to do all together in one easy place.

I mean, I do this for you guys, but it's kinda for me. A little.

the first thing i got to paint in my house

From White:

To Teal:

As I mentioned before the camera just doesn't capture the color right, it's a lot more green. This looks blue but I promise it's teal, very blue-green.

The yellow looks amazing with it.

Oh it's Benjamin Moore Dark Teal. See that link shows the green better.

What do you guys think?

If all goes well I hope to paint the office this coming weekend. There was a coupon for paint at Orchard and I went ahead and bought the paint for the office, guest room, and living room to have and get that coupon action and then I'll paint at my leisure.

ah the weekend

Matt, my dad, and Eric almost finished the shed this weekend. All that's left is the door, window, roofing and to paint it. But yay, I'm amazed by how much progress they made.


I also started painting the built in. Finally got to paint something.


The photo is not telling of the real color. It's very teal. Green blue. Perfect.


I'll post it complete tomorrow.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

outdoor fantasies/the backyard plan

Our living room is a teeny thing so in addition to dreaming about blowing out the room and making it larger I'm turning my attention on the backyard because well first of all, we're hosting a bridal shower in April in it and secondly because ideally, since we live in California and enjoy beautiful weather year round, maybe we could do a lot more living outside if we make the backyard a lot more appealing to hang out in. And this image and pretty much the whole article from Sunset Magazine has encapsulated the whole vibe I'd like to go with. I mean come on with the two dogs and everything.

It was from Sunset Magazine and the whole backyard was pretty spectacular but I was just really taken by the image with the firepit because it looks like such a fun place to be and I have such fond memories of sitting around Ali's Aunt Linda's house where they had a firepit and we'd hang and chit chat. And yes, I'm aware that we had a fire pit in the condo but we never used that thing, it was scary. I think the key is a nice comfy seating area. Which is also why I love the idea of chaise lounges in the backyard too and a space for outdoor entertaining.

I keep coming back to images of pergolas, especially these pretty plain ones because they're so flexible style wise. You can make it very casual or very formal with just a few accessories.

Here's a pergola in the background and they did those wood trellis things that could be pretty happening, especially to hide the ugly alley behind it.

Outdoor dining is essential. And wood decking I mean, fuggedabout it.

This wall of plants is a great idea too... 

 Another terrific fire pit/sectional scenario.

A napping nook.

And this I saw on Jenny's blog and it re-cemented my idea that if we built a deck on the side of the house, it would be great to have an back door that would open up to it from the master. I am trying to explain to Matt it would be a good idea but I hadn't found an image that explained it properly and then:

I mean SHUT IT. I am madly in love with all of it but especially the steps. They're like unfinished rustic looking wood blocks but darn they're terrific. Oh and the dog. And then I thought man, how would all of this fit together and then I didn't have much to do at work so I did this:

Can't you just picture it all? Spend my weekdays having breakfast on the chaise lounge in the mornings, on weekends we have friends over for BBQs and we grill some veggie burgers, enjoy our lunch, mix some cocktails and hang by the fire quoting Jurassic Park 'til the sun goes down.

Ah, it's these thoughts that will motivate me to work on the backyard this weekend.

Hope you all have a nice two days of backyard livin'.