Your input, please. **UPDATED**

October 8, 2008 | Home Improvement

When it comes to decorating, I usually know exactly what I like. No outside opinions are necessary. But I just bought a rug, and for the life of me, I can’t decide if I like it. The colors are perfect, but I had thought that I wanted a solid color rug, because of my NEW CHAIR!

Here it is! I LOVE it.

You know how everyone gets one of those super expensive glider chairs when they get pregnant? They’re usually beige, and pretty boring looking? Well, I decided that if I was going to buy a piece of furniture, I wanted it to be something I liked. This one is a recliner and I got to pick out the fabric and have pillows made for the couches and everything. If I feel the need to rock, we have an old wooden rocking chair in the baby’s room.

So, due to the loudness of my chair, I thought I wanted a solid color rug, but these are much harder to find than you would think. (If I decide that is what I want, I’m going to have to go to a carpet store, probably, and have it made) Then, the other day I found this one. It has a pattern, but the colors all go with what we’ve got going on. I just don’t know if I like it. Is it too much with the chair? Would my awesome chair be more prominent with a plain rug? Or would plain make the room boring? Or cold looking? Please weigh in.

(I know that clock on the right should come down a scoshe. I’ve already moved it twice and I’m making lots of pretty holes in the wall, as it takes two nails.)

**********UPDATE*********

I took it back. No offense to anyone who said they liked it, because so did I! I just decided I didn’t LOVE it, and even though I got a good deal, bigass rugs are expensive, and I decided I needed to love it. And so, the never-ending rug search continues.

I think that those that said that the chair should be the focus are right, and that’s what I had in mind all along. I’ll keep looking for something plain. You may think that this is easy but it’s not! Rugs often look modern, and in our Craftsman house, they just won’t work. Or they’re too scratchy, and that big open rug space is specifially for a crawling baby. (So no, there won’t be a table, as some suggested.) Or they cost a MILIION dollars, which is not an option.

Poor, rugless, living room…

WE. RULE.

August 11, 2008 | Home Improvement

Okay, so you know how in the last post I was all, “We’ve done nothing to prepare for our child!” Well, this weekend, the weather was kinda shitty, so we just GOT BUSY. Perhaps this is not the most exciting blog fodder, but as this was the most productive weekend of our lives, I feel I must report our accomplishments.

- We cleaned out our garage to make room for stuff that needed to be moved in there. We got rid of things, shop-vac’d all the oogies and spiders, and put up new shelving.

-Then, we shuffled the rooms, which included emptying two crammed full closets, moving the guest room, and getting rid of more stuff. Now everything that once lived in those closets is either gotten rid off, has fit into the remaining tiny guest room closet, or lives in rubbermaids on the new garage shelves.

- A carload of stuff for the Goodwill was actually taken there (bonus points).

- We successfully freecycled a futon, a set of dining room chairs, two lame lawn chairs we weren’t using, an old ugly bookshelf, an antique smoking stand that was way cool when we smoked but not so much now, AND put a desk and a vanity on Craigslist. Can I just say again how much I love freecycle?

- We went to Babies R Us for the first time, nearly had panic attacks, and fled. But then, we spent two hours side by side on our laptops, reading product reviews, and did our whole registry online. Now grandparent-types will get off our backs about this.

- My mom and I walked 15 miles. It took 3 hrs and 35 minutes. (Yes, I am still training for the Portland Marathon. Yes, I realize at some point this may no longer be a good idea.)

- I did all the laundry, my nails, and set out all my outfits before collapsing in an achey pile of exhaustion.

Can you believe it? I never would have thought we could accomplish so much in one weekend. We even managed to go out for breakfast one morning, and have breakfast at my parent’s house the next, working in a bit of family time. And now we have a baby’s room! Yay us!

Lookie what I did!

July 10, 2008 | Home Improvement

We’ve beautified all corners of our yard, but for some reason, nearly three years into home ownership, I’ve never touched the very front scraggily bed. There were these three ugly bushes there that were bossing me around. I just couldn’t see what to do with that bed. Plant around them? Pull out the middle one? The two on the sides? Gah. I would eventually get annoyed and move on to something else, leaving it for another day.

Well yesterday was Work at Home Wednesday and I was suddenly inspired to Get Busy with my extra time. SB ripped out all three stoopid bushes for me, and I planted all new lovliness. Look!

Please ignore the brown lawn and the fried hanging baskets and just enjoy the new pretty purple grasses, that big fat rosemary, and my favorites on the ends, the asparagus ferns. They remind me of clown hair. Yay!

If You Take a Mouse for a Walk

January 18, 2008 | Home Improvement

Over the weekend, (and while a guest was visiting, awesome) we discovered that the giant bag of dog food in the laundry room is not only nourishing dear Freya, but a small army of mice.

YUCK.

I informed SB that mouse extermination/removal was his manly territory and that this issue needed to be addressed IMMEDIATELY. I was all for killing the little bastards (hate if you must, but VERMIN are not welcome in my home), but he returned from HomeDespot with one of those no-kill traps. It’s like a little plastic box that you bait with peanut butter, and they can go in but they can’t get out.

The first day or two, we caught nothing. How do they always know when you’re on to them? But the last couple of days, we’ve been consistently catching one every time we leave the house.

At first we didn’t really know what to do. (nagging fishwife commentary: “See! If we just killed them, this would be easy!”) But now, there’s a routine. SB’s been going for a walk and releasing them to the neighborhood. My apologies to any Hilltop residents that may have new little friends.

If you take a mouse for a walk, by the way, Freya wants to come, too.

The Boodwahr

April 5, 2007 | Home Improvement

The bedroom has been the one room of the house that has not been obsessed over, decorating wise. Mostly because I always intended to paint. SB did not support the idea, he likes the color it is now. I finally accepted the fact that it probably wasn’t going to get done, and over a year into homeownership, it finally looks purposeful. I give you, the boodwahr.

The first big improvement we made was installing these sconces. Our bedroom is just slightly larger than our queen-size bed, a common problem in old houses. There’s only room for one of us to have a bedside table, if it’s really small. Up until this week, we had a small plant stand on one side with a lamp barely perched atop it, that didn’t really make enough light for the peron on the far side of the bed (me) to read. We had the sconce idea, but then discovered DAMN they’re expensive! Everything I found that I liked was around $150 EACH. We finally found these at Seattle Lighting for about $50 a piece. I might change the shades at some point, but other than that, they’re great! We each have an under the bed basket for things that would normally go on a bedside table, were we so lucky.

(I was so focused on getting the sconces, I didn’t notice the bed was kind of rumply. Please ignore.)

We searched for ages to find a duvet cover we both liked. Most were too loud for our little room, or too froofy. We tried our hardest to buy something expensive from Macy’s but we didn’t love anything. This one is perfect, solid with a pattern, and it’s from Target.

We like to lay in bed and dream about our next trip.

A friend of mine paid a ton of money to have a world map framed, and it looks so good in their living room. I wanted one for the bedroom but I didn’t want to spend quite so much. I found this one at World Market for $15, and they sell this perfectly fitting frame, with glass, for $40.

We had a blank space above our dressers where I wanted to put art, but despite always keeping an eye out, I never found anything that was just right. I finally found something in Mexico. Having new art is what inspired us to get busy on the bedroom.

Aren’t they cool? I LOVE them. But here, dear internets, is where I ask you for advice. My sweet art, that I lugged home carryon, that I was so excited to hang, stinks. Yes, stinks. It smells like chemical-y paint and wood, which is logical, but unpleasant. When I first got home, I banished it to the garage for a couple of weeks, hoping it would air out, but it still stinks. We’ve been taking it down at night and putting it in the hallway until we figure something out. What should we do? Is there some sort of sealant I can put over it that wont ruin it or be equally as toxic or smelly? Any advice is welcome.

The one wall you don’t see in these pictures has a nice big window, with a dark bamboo shade and a wispy sheer over the top that looks awesome but is impossible to photograph.

This was such a fun project! With new window coverings, duvet cover, and light fixtures we turned our depressing, shove-stuff-in-there-when-people-come-over bedroom into a less crowded, more functional, and more beautiful place. I sometimes forget that home improvement doesn’t always have to involve dirt, sweat, and inconvenience.

We got our Christmas on

December 3, 2006 | Home Improvement

The tree’s up!

The lights are on the house!

 Whimsically tidy, no?

 ____________

It was with great joy that I lugged my carefully packed Christmas Stuff rubbermaid up from the basement. I love unpacking everything, remembering pretties you forgot all about.

A mysterious wad of newspaper yielded my Mexican nativity set. I bought it a couple of summers ago at a rummage sale.

After everything was put up, we were admiring the festiveness, and SB said, “How come there’re only two wise men?”  

That’s right. Only two wise men. We’ve had the set for years and never noticed. There are plenty of folks about. There’s a spare angel, and a shepherdess, which caused his absence to go unnoticed.

BUT THEN, today I went to The Barn Sale where I just happened to find a spare wise man amongst the treasures on display.  

(anyone care to caption this one?)

He fits right in.

An Embarassing Display

November 14, 2006 | Home Improvement

This is our nook in the living room. What a lovely craftsman detail, you may be thinking. Yes, yes it is. It’s also a lot of stinking pressure.

Those would be my birthday cards. While I love birthdays and have been known to stretch them out as long as possible, my birthday was SIX MONTHS AGO. My cards are still sitting there, partly because they are pretty and are not in the way, but mostly because we can’t for the life of us decide what the hell to put there.

We definitely want some piece of art, but what? It needs to fill the space and be attractive, but it also can’t be too loud or dominating, otherwise, it stops being the living room and starts being THE ROOM FOR DISPLAYING THE CARVED WOODEN STATUE GUY. You know what I mean? Because of it’s prominence, it’s also hard to just fill it with some lovely, culture appropriating piece of art from World Market or whatever, because we aren’t Buddhists, for instance.

We thought about putting in shelves and making it a bar, but again, do we want A BAR on constant display in our living room? With no cabinet or anything?

Any ideas would be appreciated. The birthday cards have to come down sometime.

Island Fever

October 30, 2006 | Home Improvement

When I started this blog, I thought I would be frequently posting about home improvement projects, but that hasn’t happened so much. The last real project we did was the patio and that was way back in April.

Well, we’re back on our home improvement horses. Look what we did!

We paid a friend of ours to build us a kitchen island. Here it is when we first moved it in, with tiles strewn about.

Then there was the glueing part. See the cool lighter colored accent pieces spread throughout? Actually, the tiles didn’t fit right by one inch on all the vertical rows. So, we cut a couple of tiles down into one inch pieces and voila! Looks like we did it on purpose!

I did the glueing part all by myself, which I am totally glad about because I was able to be as anal as I wanted to be with the tile placement. I went through the box and picked out all the prettiest ones. When I placed them, I would fish through and make sure the colors were evenly distributed. If I had had help, you know I would have been mocked and ultimately I would have given up on it.

Then there was the grouting part. We chose a grout in “haystack”, which I thought was going to be a bit darker, but it is actually a nice tan. Whoever did the tile on our countertops used WHITE grout which was a BAD idea. It always looks dirty. I guess I want my grout to hide the dirt. (which is sounding gross all of a sudden, but you know what I mean)

Ta Da! Isn’t it pretty? It’s not quite finished. I am incredibly blessed with handy parents. My dad is going to drill through the floor and plumb a dish washer for that hole in the front and my mom is going to wire us a plug-in on the back side.

And then we had friends over and there was somewhere to stand and lean in the kitchen and all was well.

I rule.

October 18, 2006 | Home Improvement

We moved into our house 9 months ago now. By all outward appearances, our home is tidy and organized.

(cue scary music)

UNLESS you open the guest room closet…

Those would be the last few boxes of unnecessary shit that we haven’t touched since we moved. Oh, and my wedding dress.

Yesterday morning, I decided I needed to access my Giant Box of Memorabilia, which I thought was within reach. I shoved a few things aside, but I still couldn’t get to it. I was afraid to go too far in, lest I be attacked and eaten by god knows what.

‘Clean out guest room closet’ has been on my To Do list for at least 8 months but I’ve been too scared. (Also, lazy.) Aren’t those last few boxes in any move the worst? By the time you packed them, you were way past organizing and well into shoving. There was no telling what was in there, but one thing was for certain, it was ALL CRAP.

So, yesterday, I just decided to go for it. I don’t know what got into me.

Here we are midway through, after the closest had spewed it’s insides all over the formally neat guest room.

Ta da! Look at it! Can you believe it? I got rid of two big boxes of trash and took an entire car load of stuff to the Goodwill. (Bonus points or actually TAKING it there, and not letting it sit in the entryway for a week, then shoving it all back in.)

Who knew it was so spacious! I think we can almost call this a 4th bedroom now.

The Patio. It is finished.

April 26, 2006 | Home Improvement

Here is what it looked like when we moved in. Icky, patchy, weedy grass, with lots of construction site crap ground in.

Here it is after we moved lots of dirt. It was one of the first warm days of spring when we got started. It felt good to have a project that day. We had a poor worksite safety record, though.

Ta Da!

And ooooh! You should see it with the candles and tiki torches lit, and the fire going. I nearly pee myself with joy, it is so pretty.

Before anyone starts bestowing us with any unearned DIY cred, we ended up calling in a professional. We had this great idea that we were going to make cement tiles with a mold that we borrowed from my parents. It was actually a pretty good plan, and I think it would have turned out nicely, except that we could only make ONE TILE A DAY. At some point I did the math, and even though there was over a month until my thirtieth birthday party, we would never be finished in time. In the end, a nice Australian guy named David came over and poured us a perfect patio. Hey, atleast we dug the hole.

I want to get about ten times more plants but I have to wait for the sting to wear off from all these. SB is a very tolerant and kind husband who manages to only wince slightly when checking out at Home Despot.