olive our house

2012-02-01T18:25:00.000-05:00

so even though i'm almost a day late (and a dollar short! literally, the "birthday envelope" went around the office today to collect a dollar from everyone. i had no cash. i'll bring it tomorrow guys!) i'm hopping on this bandwagon! (thanks jen!)

Source: jenfromtheblock.blogspot.com via erin on Pinterest

usually when stuff like this flies around the internets, i roll my eyes. but i totally like this idea! plus i love photos. and taking photos. and looking at photos.

i'm probably going to be using instagram and organizing the photos into a flickr album. actually, that's exactly what i'll be doing. i think taking a real picture with my real camera is too much pressure.

anyway, join in if you'd like! let me know your twitter handle/instagram username/flickr album/whatever! or not, that's cool too.

did anyone do the january photo a day? considering i asked a co-worker this morning if we could watch the webinar online and then came home to my stovetop on...it's a tiny miracle i have it together for february!

and day 1: your view today (my glamorous commute home)

*i won't be posting the photos here daily, they'll stay over on flickr/instagram.

2012-02-01T05:33:00.000-05:00

i set out to make a terrarium this weekend (i feel like such a nerd saying terrarium and i love it.). except i never made it to home depot (aka the plant store) so i had to improvise!

i bought three votive holders from world market, one was bigger than the other two because i was more focused on picking out some licorice. and i pulled out all the barbadian sea glass sean and i hunted for on our honeymoon. (aaaww. i know. i actually can't believe i kept it.)

sea glass went in first, then soil, then some really sad clippings from the yard, then rocks.

oh and kung fu guy too. notice you can't even see the sea glass. womp wommmpppp.

i hope to switch these out with some succulents soon. and maybe put the romantic sea glass on top?

2012-01-30T05:35:00.002-05:00

i've had my new fancy cutting tool (a cameo. or a silhouette? i don't know.) for a month now and i've just worked up the nerve to use it. it's totally intimidating to me! i mean, i pretty much have to beat the regular printer just to get an old photo scanned.

but i did it! i made this honeycomb pattern into a stencil! on just the third try!

this is the second one of those two trays i used for our wedding. they were just sitting around looking boring (after they fulfilled their seating card duties) until i painted one with gold chevron.

this one has a much less polished look - sort of the cute, awkward sister to the older, glamorous one.

anyone out there a pro at the silhouette/cameo thing? or recommend any blogs? i want to get the hang of this thing!

2012-01-27T06:43:00.000-05:00

things and stuff:

1. i made two new recipes this week! one was delicious (daily garnish's black bean burgers) and the other was really horrible (a vegan risotto).

Source: dailygarnish.com via erin on Pinterest

i also made cupcakes and sean reminded me that "those don't seem very healthy". why thank you! file that under things i did not know.

(he's on a diet and it's getting old. fast.)

2. this year was supposed to be an easy tax filing year. turbo tax! no accountant needed! instead, we found out we've been paying louisiana state taxes all year instead of dc taxes. i wonder if turbo tax has a check box for that?

3. babies can wear leggings as pants.

not the most flattering picture of anna, but look at her outfit!!

4. the last two weeks have been so busy. well, mostly sean has been really busy. but that means that i'm left doing all the boring crap we usually divide and conquer. which is fine, but that leaves no time for spray painting things gold. i hope to rectify this over the weekend. or sleep. that sounds nice too.

have a great weekend everyone!

2012-01-23T06:27:00.001-05:00

after writing my holiday thank you's, i desperately needed to replenish my stationery. i am a super anal thank you note writer (uh, among other things). we had all of our wedding thank you's done before we even left for our honeymoon (a week after the wedding, but still). the rule growing up was, we couldn't use our gift/deposit the check until the note was in the mail. i still stand by this rule!

all this to say, i noticed a trend while searching for new notecards.

that chevron that i love so dearly? it's a paper trend too.

{via}

bunting? yup!

{via}

and while this is not my personal style, even paper puts a bird on it.

{via}

i wonder what the trends for 2012 will be? as someone who embraced the skinny jeans thing a year or two late, i don't expect to be any sort of trend-setter. home design, paper, or otherwise.

(are skinny jeans still in? please say yes.)

2012-01-18T12:00:00.003-05:00

when we first bought this house i thought i'd want to redo the kitchen right away (want to, not necessarily be able to) since it was so outdated. But then we started living in the house and cooking dinner each night. i quickly decided there was no way i was going to spend money on a tiny galley kitchen (or, gallery, as sean calls it) that was just so annoying to cook in. sean and i literally run into one another, our "work triangle" is more of a work line and it's completely closed off from the rest of the house.

i did paint and switch out the light fixture. we also got all new appliances. but we still have particle board cabinets and laminate counters that actually have burn marks in some spots. oh! and we have this built-in cutting board thing (under my pretty butcher block) that is so so SO gross. and a cracked tile floor.

this is the whole kitchen. save for the fridge directly behind me. i can probably touch the microwave and window at the same time. and my arms are of normal length.

but now i'm sort of back on the let's just redo it! train. because it is so small, it can't be that expensive right? and maybe we could knock that wall on the left out (between the kitchen and dining room)? there's no room in the house to expand the kitchen so it would still be a galley. and it would still be small. but we'd have real wood cabinets and non-plastic countertops!

searching "galley kitchens" on pinterest, i realized that any kitchen that's semi rectangular gets assigned the galley label. also, if my kitchen was the size of any of these, i'd have zero problems trying to squeeze my butt between sean's and the dishwasher door.

Source: decordeprovence.blogspot.com via erin on Pinterest

that lemon tree thing on the counter would take up my whole kitchen.

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via erin on Pinterest

they have a seating area in their kitchen. i have a foldable stool that i use to access the cabinets over the fridge.

Source: houzz.com via erin on Pinterest

this one's closer but still feels pretty wide. i'd need go-go-gadget arms to reach both sides at the same time.

i guess people don't make pretty kitchens in tiny sizes? does everyone just tack a bulky addition onto their house and call it a ($60K) day? that's what the majority of the neighbors have done but we are definitely not ready for that.

(i've typed galley so many times it's starting to look like a made-up word.)

2012-01-17T06:00:00.001-05:00

so, it looks like you guys are all in love with the idea of mint green chairs!

just kidding. luckily, i did zero painting this weekend because i spent it in dallas for an annual girls' weekend. (first year was aspen, then sedona, duck, and then we took a year off). except we sort of dropped the ball on planning and my mother-in-law and i were the only ones to participate. but! it was a great weekend and so relaxing to just head to the in-laws' house and not worry about, well, anything.

between eating lots of delicious things (including dinner at samar, my favorite of the weekend), shopping (cole haan outlet!) and spa-ing, we managed to bake the traditional cake-we-would-not-attempt-alone.

this year it was, dun dun dunnnn... king cake! this is the first mardi gras that we haven't been in louisiana or sean hasn't worked for a louisianian, so, i hadn't even had a slice yet. king cake has a reputation of being time consuming and difficult to make (it seems anyway).

challenge accepted! (last year we made the heaven and hell cake and it was going to be tough to top)

i apologize for the recent overload of instagram tweets. plus, it's hard to autofocus after a few glasses of champagne.

we used the emeril recipe linked above and added a cinnamon pecan filling. it did take sort of forever with all the rising time but it wasn't really hard.

i got home to upload my photos and they sort of went like this: 87 pictures of the king cake, us with the king cake, us eating the king cake, a blurry picture of a belly dancer.

if that's not indication of an awesome weekend, i don't know what is.

2012-01-13T06:20:00.005-05:00

i've talked about our dining room chairs before. they are very traditional and dated and i would love to update them somehow. or just replace them. i've thought about that too.

this set was given to us by sean's parents, very generously, when we bought our first house. yes, my mother-in-law just read about how i think her old dining chairs are sort of ugly. but! she has a beautiful thomas moser table now so, you know, she wins.

sean (the recently converted mr. spendy) keeps saying - just buy a new table and chairs! but i really really like to make do with what i have (if you will) which i think is a concept totally lost on my generation. we all want bigger and better and shinier! and a walk-in closet! just like the pleasure i get from a recipe that uses up all the almost-bad veggies in the fridge drawer, upcycling (ugh, i kind of hate that word) our furniture is so gratifying. or maybe i'm just that cheap.

anyway, i actually like the table and love the idea of our someday kids eating at the same table that sean grew up with. and my first step to bringing the chairs into this decade? paint! of course! i'm thinking a minty green. maybe? (nobody seems to think this is a good idea but me)

Source: google.com via erin on Pinterest

i have no idea if a fresh coat of paint will make my ugly chairs pretty. or just make my ugly chairs green.

and the second step? buy new chairs.

2012-01-11T06:35:00.004-05:00

when we first got our dining room built-ins, i sort of just threw all of our non-ugly dishes and stemware where they fit. actually no, the left side is for cool colors and the right, warm colors. either way, i knew this was a work in progress and didn't stress about finding the perfect place for those detroit redwings glasses (funny though, i found the perfect place and it is in one of the lower cabinets. where no one can see them.)

left side before. we have a lot of wine glasses.

since then we've changed things around a little. people love to come in and comment on the fact that all of my cookbooks are inaccessible. (they're above the windows in these pics) you don't cook much do you? har har.

right side before. more wine glasses! and the tiki hut.

actually, they're totally right. i mean, i cook most days of the week but that's because i'm too cheap to eat out, not because i particularly enjoy it. and i usually just look up the recipe online. but i'm getting way off topic here! the point it, the shelves have evolved!

so, here's the left side now:

left side now. better? we've got champagne!

and the right side:

right side now. we've still got the tiki hut.

i'm sure these shelves will change again as time goes on and we collect even more pretty things. but at least i can reach the cookbooks now?

*why yes, i am completely ignoring the fact that lsu CHOKED monday night.

2012-01-09T06:12:00.003-05:00

there's something about living in baton rouge for 7 (!) years and attending lsu (twice!) that turns the most apathetic of sports fans into... a slightly less apathetic sports fan.

but really, there is nothing like a game in tiger stadium. people tailgate for days, students have choreographed dance moves for every down (but not creepy like a&m), and it gets loud.

all this to say, i am super excited for the game tonight!!

thanks devon! i stole this from you.

and, geaux tigers!!

(any bama fans out there? i didn't think so.)

2012-01-06T05:30:00.001-05:00

the other day, unprompted, sean told me he thought we should get a new bed. this is where you imagine me with a look of surprise/shock/a little bit of horror on my face. (you also imagine me with awesome hair and perfect skin.) sean never just decides we need new furniture.

of course, when i asked why? and what kind should we get? oh and DID YOU BREAK THE BED? i lost all traction. (also, when i told him my camera wasn't working he said "let's just buy a new one". so perhaps this is a money-grows-on-trees phase? i'll take advantage of it where i see fit.)

i know some couples are DIY teammates, holding the ladder for one while the other hangs a new curtain rod. giving each other exaggerated high fives after a picking out the perfect shade of paint. but that's not us. sean rarely helps me with house-related projects. i mean, if i need his help and ask nicely, he's usually happy to lend a hand. but i dream up most of the projects (or, you know, find them on other blogs) so i like to see them through.

ok the truth is, i'm a control freak and have zero patience. sean has no interest in home improvement. for the sake of our marriage, we find things to do together that don't involve power tools.

anyway! my first thought when i started the bedroom makeover, like six years ago, was to make my own upholstered headboard. there are some fantastic looking beds out there that look semi-easy to make.

Source: kerrisdaledesign.com via erin on Pinterest

i'm a little worried about keeping it clean. is that weird? so then i thought- what about a leather upholstered headboard? you know, easily wipe-able (i realize i'm making our sleeping habits sound disgusting but we've got dogs! and i spill things!) and i imagined something like this vintage-ish sofa reincarnated as a headboard.

{via}

i searched around the webs for a leather upholstered headboard and the results weren't pretty. like, literally - everything that popped up was ugly. i have a hard time visualizing things so i really like to work off a photo, at least loosely.

for now, it's back to square one. actually, since we've both already decided that we want a new bed, i feel like we are beyond the usual step 1 for any project: convince sean we need whatever it is that i want. (often this step is skipped and i proceed directly to: do it.)

2012-01-04T05:00:00.004-05:00

when i took the week between christmas and new years off from work (a first!) i had visions of getting tons done around the house. and while i did tackle a few projects, my master bedroom update isn't as big as i'd like. oh well.

i made curtains. the most time consuming curtains in the history of this blog. i picked out the fabric (from hawthorne threads- highly recommended!) and used some old ikea roman shades as a base. instead of just swiping the hardware, i sewed the fabric onto the shades, using the original white fabric as a liner. it took forever (like a full day and a half for three windows). but i'm a very bad sewer.

we're still figuring out what kind of bed to get, so i'm not hanging anything on the walls until that's finalized. the horses are just resting on the dresser because i was tired of staring at a blank wall.

i hope i never have to make curtains again.

note: my camera is now only functioning on manual mode. it's one thing to choose my own f-stop and shutter speed (which i am definitely still learning) but i actually have to manually focus each photo. obviously, my camera needs repair but i don't want to drop it off somewhere (or worse, mail it out!) for a week. so my photos might be less than ideal until i muster the nerve to part with my beloved camera. although, my photos are nothing to write home about with my fully-functioning camera so you guys might not even notice. if this is the case, ignore this note.

2012-01-03T05:55:00.001-05:00

i rearranged some furniture just before christmas, freeing up space in the middle bedroom for the loveseat. that meant bringing the dresser down to the living room (by myself! somehow) in place of that bookcase in the left corner.

so now this dresser is by the front door... (minus the christmas stuff)

and i gave the bookcase a little makeover.

first up, a fresh coat of white paint and some super time-consuming painter's tape. i also removed the shelf and plan to repurpose the baskets.

seriously, it took me a long time to figure out how to make the greek key pattern. probably too long. geometry was my worst class of all time. (until graduate level international finance. the words 'exchange rate' are banned in our house.)

anyway! i also painted some ikea wine racks white and hung glasses (holders are also from ikea). see, our wine used to stay in the basement closet but who wants to walk all the way downstairs to fetch a bottle? now i've got it all right here!

our sad liquor collection is exactly two bottles of rum. we don't even really drink rum. or liquor (save for sean and vodka). it's mostly beer and wine in the smona house.

i used the martha stewart vintage gold paint, it doesn't photograph so well.

i'm also trying out a little chair swap.

while it's no bar cart, which i still desperately want, it's pretty cute for a repurposed bookshelf. and i sort of want to email a photo to my 8th grade geometry teacher.

did you guys think i was done with the gold paint? no way.

2012-01-02T08:10:00.003-05:00

looking back at december, this wraps up a full year of monthly goals! i know these are the most boring posts to read (does anyone read them?) but it really helped me to stay accountable. most of the time.

1. decorate the crap out of the house. it got festive up in here, for sure.

2. do four christmasy dc things. we went to zoo lights, saw the national christmas tree, pageant of peace, and the capitol tree! also, my office toured the capitol for our christmas party and sean got to tag along (his office hooked us up with the tour) so i'm counting that too!

dc's tree!

on the way to the national christmas tree (which is pretty ugly)

3. continue to work out three times a week. bahaha.

4. get financially organized. we've started! i just took my financial risk questionnaire and then re-took it when the results yielded "moderately aggressive" (i'm not). except i got the same exact score. it was reminiscent of those YM magazine quizzes of middle school (high school?). but i am flirty! (i'm not)

anyway, if it weren't for the holidays and sean's crazy before christmas work schedule, we'd have this goal covered too.

*********

i think i'm going to make quarterly goals this year. they'll be more long-term and you won't have to read 12 posts about me! making new recipes!

so, quarter one:

1. practice, um, driving. this is totally embarrassing. i can count on one hand the number of times i've driven since we moved to dc 1.5 years ago. first, i hate driving. i always have. second, my sense of direction is absolutely horrible. third, dc has crazy traffic rules. for example, connecticut avenue is 6 lanes. during morning rush hour, 4 lanes go in toward dc and 2 go out. in the afternoon, it switches. so you are actually driving on the wrong side of the road. rock creek parkway, which we use a lot, goes completely one-way during rush hour. it's all so stressful! so i rely on the metro. and sean.

2. learn to play the guitar (a little bit). i have a dream of starting a family band with the four kids we eventually have (ha!). except i don't play any instruments. while i really want to be our band's drummer, we have yet to acquire a drum set. but we do have about 12 guitars in the basement. sean has agreed to try and teach me. he's a lefty though so we'll see how this goes.

3. work on the dogs' bad behavior. this includes but not limited to: lola vs simbacat, lola's leash aggression, basil scooting out the front door, oh and lola vs the mail. can you tell who the problem child is? (i know, there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners)

check back in three months! meanwhile, dc residents are advised to stay off the roads. ha

2011-12-30T06:00:00.002-05:00

this is always my favorite post to write. i love looking back at what we did throughout the year! (and i think i write that each year- here's 2010)

so, our 2011 in review...

january: i started my monthly goals goal. we came up with the smithsonian challenge. i painted the back door an ugly color. we had a wonderful snowstorm. (dear dc, WHERE IS THE SNOW!?)

february: sean was accepted to graduate school! we discovered middleburg and now i'd like a weekend house there. i had a girls weekend in duck and made the most serious cake ever.

march: we got central air conditioning installed. best improvement to the house (and most expensive!) so far. i made some ugly curtains. that are still hanging. we went to boston for my birthday!

april: we participated in the dc challenge scavenger hunt for the second year in a row! we said goodbye to the oldest fridge alive (barely). i guess we didn't do much in april?

may: we painted the exterior of the house. or rather, paid someone else to paint it. we welcomed our new fridge to the smona house. we got built-ins! and filled them with stuff!

june: sean got a job!!!! we discovered that we had been using the same toothbrush. the guest room was completed!! and i still like it! basil continued to be adorable.

july: i painted a dresser and it turned out ok. sean and i had fashion mishaps. we celebrated our first house-aversary. our house was on apartment therapy! i was scared of the commenters but everyone was nice.

august: i started on The Loveseat. i set out to buy a fancy chandelier but instead i bought a cheap pendant. and i still like it. we took a bermudiful cruise for sean's 30th. and even took katy and kyle along. lola killed a possum. and later, we had to scoop up its dead body. (not blogged about) (you're welcome)

september: we celebrated sean's 30th at the us open. i painted a tree on anna's nursery wall. i finished the loveseat!! (and submitted it to young house love's reader redesign!)

october: i hosted a baby shower for my sister. i kicked off my obsession with vintage gold paint by dippin' some furniture legs. i told you about my too-tight pants and you guys were so supportive!

november: i made a table runner inspired by an anthropologie coat. readers chimed in with iceland travel tips (which i really appreciate!). i finally painted the master bedroom and progress in there has been super slow.

december: we welcomed anna! actually, she was born november 30th but i didn't blog about it til december. and then i made her a really ugly christmas ornament. sean gave you all a tour of his room.

i really enjoyed this year, especially the second half, but i'm also looking forward to the new year. we are getting pretty settled here - there are no moves or job changes on the horizon so it's nice to just be. hopefully we can tackle a few home improvements (the bathrooms. oh, the bathrooms.) along the way!

happy new year!

2011-12-28T11:26:00.000-05:00

it's been a few days since i've painted something gold so i grabbed this tray off the shelf. i bought this from target almost five years ago and it was definitely time for a makeover.

this tray, that's been going around pinterest, was my inspiration.

Source: etsy.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

i just used painter's tape for the design and then sprayed three coats of metallic gold rustoleum spray paint.

peeling the tape off was a little scary - i ended up letting it mostly dry before i tried. i figured i'd end up just smudging it otherwise (you know, one fingerprint and IT'S RUINED!). there are a few spots where it bled but it's not too noticeable.

i'm starting to get dizzy from the pattern. or maybe the paint fumes?

(obviously, i won't be putting food on my tray. unless i want to poison someone.)

2011-12-27T15:33:00.000-05:00

christmas 2011: also known as the year my card reader deleted all of my photos and i had to rely on my crappy iphone pictures.

scene 1: sean graciously helps me bake a lemon meringue pie while i'm also making my grandmother's rolls, spinach and artichoke dip and lentil wraps (your traditional christmas dinner doesn't include lentil wraps?). every inch of counter space (that's approximately 30 square inches) is taken up by ingredients, supplies or tools.

maybe next christmas i'll ask for a bigger kitchen.

sean's decides to ignore my instructions of "just measure all the ingredients out and put them in separate prep bowls." he starts mixing the lemon filling in a frying pan (i don't think he knows what a saucepan is) and before you know it, the egg whites for the meringue are in the pan too.

sean runs to the grocery store for a second set of ingredients, we start over and the pie ends up turning out really well!

scene 2: our family takes cookie decorating very seriously. we're practically professionals. katy made the cookies ahead of time and then we whipped up a bunch of different colors of frosting.

we worked down the assembly line of royal icing and tons of different sprinkles. the kitchen was silent as we concentrated on trimming our edible trees.

that's a blue squirrel at the top. next to a moose.

oh wait no. the royal icing turned out waaayy too runny and we ended up flinging it all over the kitchen while laughing hysterically.

scene 3: anna's first christmas! she slept through the whole thing, waking up briefly to skype with her great-grandmother.

i'm really excited! but i'm also really tired. tired won.

we had a really great christmas even if we have no great photos to show for it.

and now, i'm in the middle of a bunch of projects that i can't make progress on because it's raining outside (I AM SO TIRED OF THE RAIN. WHEN WILL IT STOP!?). it's not advised to spray paint indoors so...

hope you all had lovely holidays!

2011-12-24T17:51:00.002-05:00

merry christmas and happy holidays

from (olive) our house to yours!

2011-12-20T06:36:00.002-05:00

things and stuff:

1. this weekend we went to zoo lights. it was on my list of christmasy things to do. we managed to go the one night it was actually cold (and snowing!). so i took one picture.

actually, our original plans involved dinner at founding farmers (our second attempt) but the reservation got lost. third times a charm?

2. while wandering around old town on sunday, we ran into randy fenoli of TLC's say yes to the dress. i'm not sure what i'm more embarrassed about- the fact that i recognized him or that i awkwardly stared at him until he said hello. and then i yelled HIII!!

{via}

it was anna's first (pseudo-)celebrity sighting! and fitting that my sister was there. we have a history of celebrity sightings since we snagged press passes at a WB party in LA. what? 7th heaven was totally cool back then.

3. basil had to get a dental cleaning and some biopsies yesterday. sean was stuck at work so i picked him up. as soon as we got home basil raced (well, he was half-sedated so raced is a bit ambitious. he walked with a purpose while trying to stay on all fours, for sure.) around the house looking for sean. then he continued to whine and cry for sean until about 11 when he finally (thank god!) fell asleep.

my mouth hurtth.

nothing would console him, not dinner, not toys, not an invitation to sleep on the bed (!!). i'm trying not to take it personally but COME ON. what am i? chopped liver?

2011-12-19T06:30:00.001-05:00

i guess it's time for a bedroom update? things are going really slow in here. like, it took me ~~a month~~ six weeks to get the painting done slow. it seems like every weekend comes along and my options are 1. paint or 2. something really fun.

but! it is looking a little different. here's the before. yellow walls, mom's old rug, palm frond fan.

and here's an update! white walls, new rug, palm frond fan.

yes, i'm only showing you a corner of the room. gotta throw all our crap somewhere!

i put a second coat of paint on all the doors and trim. it probably needs a third coat but not even the best (worst?) abc family movie can't motivate me.

everyone that comes over and sees the room says "well...it's a blank slate!" i guess that's what you say about a completely white room with nothing on the walls. i'll try to get it together people!

i'm going to order some fabric and attempt new shades with the old hardware, like i did in the middle bedroom. i think what we currently have (from the previous owners) is from ikea. they are gross and only half-functioning but they totally keep the light out.

and this debate is still going on.

the furniture is actually growing on me as the room is changing but the hardware is still really ugly. all of these options require drilling new holes though. so right now i'm weighing the ugliness factor against the hassle of drilling new holes for all 35 drawer pulls (that's 70 holes) (if i don't mess up).

2011-12-16T06:00:00.005-05:00

so you know all those articles like 'how to combine his and her styles!' about ways to compromise on decorating your house or maybe blending your stuff with his stuff in the same room? yeah this isn't one of those. sean has basically no say in the house stuff (he doesn't care and doesn't do any of the work). sometimes i ask his opinion but really, he doesn't care. and that's ok.

actually, it might be more than ok. i was going to post these photos of sean's childhood stuff without comment but then sean offered to narrate them! weeks went by and when he finally wrote the post, i immediately thought - this is way too many words about hockey pucks and band posters. no one wants to read that!

and then i felt bad so i'm posting it anyway. feel free to scroll down through the photos. basically, if sean wanted to take part in decorating this house we'd be reading a crap ton of articles on how to meld our two, um, styles together. (also, he has major issues with getting rid of things. MAJOR.)

(and thank god for the manbasement)

****************

Well...Erin asked me to give you a tour of my room at my parents house. Note that I never actually lived in this room, as they moved while I was in college. I have also never taken advantage of a wealth of opportunities to clean it out. While I certainly appreciate my mom's approach of not throwing anything out, at some point I should probably go home for a weekend and sort this thing out.

I think the easiest way for each picture is taking a one horizontal level at a time approach, going from left to right.

1. Left to right - Jimi Hendrix, Stabbing Westward, Smashing Pumpkins, The Clash, Rage Against the Machine, and Live posters.

Then some hockey pucks, my high school prom invitation, an eagle out of my great grandmother's old house in South Carolina, some high school awards (tennis MVP 8th grade!)

Beanie baby chair (i'm really unsure where all the beanie babies came from...did I really do that?) wooden piano from Tanzania, drum from Alaska, ROAR Tour poster, Scooby Doo animation slide, paper machee lacrosse face.

a bunch of pencils and putt putt golf tickets, guitars (i gotta get those things up here), chair, erin's jacket (not my fault).

You can also see just a small piece of my lava lamp in the bottom left. I gotta get that thing fixed, get a black light and some pink floyd pictures, and really spruce up our bedroom. I think Erin will go for it.

1/2 of a boy scout arrow of light, concert tickets and wristbands (and apparently a sarah michelle gellar milk ad), more hockey pucks and books (these include textbooks from 8th-12th grade), and my spoon collection. that's right, i get a spoon from every state or country i go to. what.

pennant of a school I was rejected at three times, pennant of the school i went to, more books, a plant. but a cool plant right? i mean look how green those leaves are.

oh and my boomerang and weird thermometers are on top of the small cabinet in the bottom right. Those things are the awesome. really. THE awesome.

Screaming Trees, Led Zeppelin, Verve Pipe, and a quarter of a nirvana poster.

Cabinets with commemorative glass bottles, etc. My 100 disc cd player (this thing was so freaking cool when I got it. I was the envy of my upstairs). Garfield and Far Side books. High School Yearbooks.

Two Metallica posters, Foo Fighters, and a small nirvana.

All of my old hats (i also collected hats), Cowboys super bowl poster, all of my sporting event tickets.

Oh and don't forget the bitchin giraffe in the bottom right. we have been through some things i tell you. some things.

So I guess I have a lot of stuff, but I dont know what Erin's complaining about. Its going to all be ours one day, and I mean...that's a lot of Christmas presents for her. I can totally see her in my bright green Steamboat Springs hat reading "Earth Science." That's the life.

2011-12-13T06:08:00.000-05:00

i had some fabric leftover after making a pillow for anna's nursery and thought it'd be nice to make her an ornament.

nice is not really how it turned out. i swear, i have enough failed crafting attempts to start my own regretsy-esque spin-off blog. sometimes i have good ideas that don't execute well. sometimes i just have bad ideas.

not sure where this one falls.

exhibit a: the star is not so symmetrical.

exhibit b: the embroidery is only semi-legible. which might be a good thing since it looks like "amma". yup. (i hear cursive is extinct, so she probably won't be able to read it anyway)

i have an embarrassing amount of these things around the house. champagne glasses dipped in paint that dripped all over the place before drying? yep! "art" created with a carrot carved into a stamp? of course!

at least amma's ornament is hanging on (the bottom, backside) of someone else's tree.

anyone want some champagne glasses?

2011-12-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

we are officially decorated for christmas!

we've even celebrated christmas number one. sean's parents were in town over the weekend so we opened presents and enjoyed dinner at proof, a tradition of sorts.

and sean finally got to meet anna!

this is definitely the smallest baby he has held. sean had so many questions for katy and kyle. especially ones relating to the belly button. "it falls off!?"

topped off with a fun night out with friends, it was a nice little weekend!

2011-12-08T18:54:00.000-05:00

oh christmas cards. it seems like every year i have the christmas card debate (with myself, sean couldn't care less whether we send one out or not). last year was the first year that the cards won. i guess it might be the last too, as we never got around to it this year.

but here are some ideas we considered:

1. the look at me on my fancy vacation photo card.

what better way to brag about the places you've been than snapping a photo, captioning it properly with "springtime in paris" or "wild weekend in belize!" and sending it to your closest family, friends and the plumber? why not?

(this was actually a very affordable cruise. but next year we'll totally have iceland.)

bonus point for a montage of multiple vacation photos.

2. The Christmas Letter.

we have a pretty famous christmas letter in our extended family. growing up, each year i'd wait for it to arrive and then read about the sailing trips around the world, the perfect grade point average and the multiple promotions at work. it was fascinating. especially because my biggest accomplishments were usually like 'made the high school drill team!' and 'got into exactly one university!' . (i only applied to two, so you know, not too bad.)

some christmas letter talking points: i have a job! sean has a job! we both have a job at the same time!

3. the photo card of only your pets.

this one just makes me think you've gained a lot of weight.

kidding! (kind of) but really, it's no secret that i am a huge fan of animals and photos of animals and christmas so honestly, i will love your pet-only photo card. but i might still mock it.

and we all know my pants don't fit anymore.

4. the identical outfit family photo card.

one year we took an extended family photo (not with the christmas-letter-writers, they are extended, extended family) and each family had to wear a different color shirt. i think we were purple. and it was pretty fantastic.

that photo never made it to a card but it hung on the wall for a very long time. which might be worse.

*******

i joke, but of course i get excited about receiving any holiday card. i love looking at the photos, (and hey! we took a super corny one ourselves last year!) reading the letters and just staying in touch with people.

bonus fun fact: the first year sean and i were dating, his mother sent out a christmas card with a photo of the three of them plus sean's friend (a girl) at an inaugural ball. his mom swears she likes me...

2011-12-06T06:23:00.002-05:00

when we spent thanksgiving in dallas and my sister was just three weeks away for her due date, i was so scared i would miss the birth. i knew it wasn't likely and with her first baby, she'd probably go a week or so late. but sean and i are the only nearby family and if someone was going to make it to the birth, it was us!

thanksgiving came and went and there was no baby (phew!). so when katy called me at work on wednesday, after her dr's appointment, i figured she had some progress to report. except, it was actually kyle calling and the "progress" was full on labor (two weeks early!).

sean and i were on dog duty, so we made plans to pick riley up and take her to the kennel after we got off work. then we'd head to the hospital to see how katy was doing. i went to a meeting and came back just in time to answer katy's second phone call. when i answered katy said "she's here!"

what!? i missed it!? only an hour or so had passed so i was completely confused. isn't labor supposed to take like, days?

apparently, it doesn't. not all the time. so sean and i took care of riley and then rushed to the hospital to arrive 15 minutes after visiting hours were over. i was more upset than i lead on (i may have teared up when kyle told me, but don't tell anyone). the next day i made it to the hospital and got to meet little anna as a one day old baby (!!).

now, i am not really a baby person. i never babysat, none of my friends have kids yet and i am just not a warm and fuzzy awwwwww type of person.

but this baby? this baby is different! she's freakin adorable! she's my sister's baby! one day she'll call me 'aunt' (although aunt erin sounds awful, so i need to think of something else)! so yes, i've totally converted to a baby person over night. (this might only apply to babies that are related to me)

i love her so much i'm forgiving the animal print. ;)

here we are facetiming with uncle sean. since he was pretty sick all weekend he hasn't met anna in person yet!

a huge congratulations to my sister and brother-in-law! they are already awesome parents and anna is one lucky girl!

2011-12-05T06:14:00.001-05:00

we got our christmas tree this weekend! this is our first christmas with a real tree and i feel like such a grown-up with one. we brought it home on top of the car, carried it inside and stuck it in a stand that we filled with water. i mean, is there a better definition of adulthood? i don't think so.

we let it settle for a day. mostly because i forgot that we needed to buy lights. it turns out, live trees don't come pre-lit.

but by sunday night she was up, lit and even decorated! have you seen a more perfectly shaped christmas tree?

the answer is no.

also, i've misplaced my tree topper so hopefully that turns up soon. and the rest of the decorations aren't exactly coming together. (the mantle? so much pressure!!!)

also! sean has been really sick all weekend so i single-handedly strung those lights around and around and around. but seriously, i hope he feels better soon.

because i need help with the outdoor lights.

2011-11-30T06:00:00.003-05:00

my november goals were kind of a bust. i'm sinking into my winter bad mood- where i don't want to leave the house or do anything that does not involve sweatpants and the couch. it's attractive. but let's review.

1. make it to one smithsonian. dammit. we were out of town for two weekends. and lazy the other two.

2. bake a pie. yes ma'am! i baked a kentucky derby pecan pie over thanksgiving. and i'm planning a lemon meringue for christmas time. nothing screams christmas like lemon meringue, right?

3. go out once a week with sean. i think we did this? a few times it was just our regular trip to the diner (because we're 80) or the neighborhood sandwich place. we are fancy people.

4. back extensions, once a day. crap. i averaged about 3 times a week. but even that makes a huge difference!

this is not me. obviously. although my butt looks exactly that good, i swear.

and now, my LAST list of goals for the year!

1. decorate the crap out of the house. christmas! everywhere! hopefully even outside lights? (which we've never done! i know.)
side note: pinterest is lacking in the christmas decorations department. i'm not in love with most of the stuff (which is unusual).
side note 2: maybe i'm a fuddy-duddy but where did the christmas colors go? i want red and green dangit! none of this pink and turquoise holiday color scheme crap.

Source: dottieangel.blogspot.com via erin on Pinterest

2. do four christmasy dc things. our first year together we actually scored tickets to the lighting of the national christmas tree. that's going to be tough to top but there's really so much to do here around christmas time - the christmas trees on the mall, ice skating, the zoo lights, um...other holiday things? i'll figure it out.

3. continue to work out three times a week. it is so hard for me to get to my workouts when it's dark and cold outside. i do really well in the summer but winter is rough. especially because i walk/metro everywhere.

4. get financially organized. well, that's a fun one. i am definitely the money person in our marriage, we have a budget spreadsheet (color coded!) where we keep track of all spending, different savings accounts for different purposes (dogs, vacation, etc) and automatic transfers set up bi-weekly. but if it requires me calling a banker/broker/financial advisor? it's not getting done. which is why we still have accounts with our old bank that need to be moved. i've been meaning to do this for almost a year. (that's embarrassing.)

i haven't decided if i want to continue the monthly goals into 2012 yet. maybe i'll come up with something new?

now, start pinning pretty holiday decorations so i can steal them!

2011-11-28T21:51:00.004-05:00

thanksgiving was in dallas this year, with sean's family (we alternate thanksgiving/christmas between our families). i was tasked with mashing potatoes, dipping strawberries in chocolate and filling the water glasses. i rocked those water glasses but i've seen better dipped strawberries.

next time: wax paper

oh! i also made a pie! kentucky derby pecan pie. i didn't try it but my father-in-law said it was good.

featuring the unmeltable chocolate chips!

sean and his dad went to the cowboys' game.

trevor, sean and i went to the smu game.

peruna!!!

and we all watched lsu (on tv) win against arkansas.

i am football'd out.

and now it's time for christmas!! we are getting a real christmas tree this year (!!!!) and i am so excited to decorate it and the house. for the first time since i moved out, i am spending christmas at home. we will wake up on christmas morning in our own bed, with the dogs and we'll open presents next to our tree. i'm kind of excited about this, if it's not obvious. (i'd like to thank katy for having a baby so close to christmas. otherwise i think we'd be in wichita.)

* i guess i should add...my camera is royally effed up which is why i have such boring/crappy photos. i need to take it to the camera shop but i'm scared.

2011-11-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

i planned on crossing three goals off my list this weekend- date with sean, pie making and a smithsonian visit. sean and i did go out on saturday (woot!) but then i, um, wasn't feeling well for half of sunday which ruined my smithsonian plans (read: hungover. apparently my days of having three glasses of wine are over? i am old.). and lack of a food processor rendered me pie-less.

BUT i finally got the bedroom painted! i ended up going with benjamin moore's white opulence. at the end of the day, white is white, and i probably spent 30 seconds picking out this shade (patience, i have none.). the molding still needs a second coat and then we can move on from the painting stage to more fun things. like window treatments! and throw pillows! and maybe a new headboard? (i'm definitely old.)

like i said, it's white. err, white opulence.

the fabric search is on. a (faux-)down comforter is on my christmas list and i'll probably just go with a white duvet cover for now. so i really have a blank slate.

all fabric from fabric.com

i'm leaning towards #2 for curtains and #3 for a small pillow on the bed (are those glasses too hipster? i say they are legit glasses with prescription lenses and not just-for-fun-i-want-to-look-cool-glasses.). #4 is really pretty but also pretty expensive.

one time i actually saw a guy wearing glasses with no lenses. like, just frames. i couldn't stop staring and sean said he was embarrassed.

he also said i laid in bed hiccuping for fifteen minutes (he must be exaggerating though, right?) before i feel asleep on saturday night.

2011-11-16T06:48:00.000-05:00

at least once a year sean and i go through this thing. a birthday/holiday/bonus comes along and one of us says, lets to go to paris/australia/montreal! then we get excited and look at hotels and things to do and pick out the most perfect cardigan to wear while traveling.

a few days later, we talk ourselves out of it. i worry about spending the money, sean worries about getting time off from work.

but not this time! it worked out the my birthday month (the big...2-9), sean's spring break and the congressional calendar came together, like a trifecta of perfect time to travel-ness.

so we booked our flights!

i've heard iceland in march is lovely. (not really, but 'off-season' is much more wallet-friendly and if i can survive russia in january, i've got this!)

sean's been wanting to go to reykjavic for a while. i wasn't so sure. then i saw a picture of an icelandic horse and was ALL IN.

{source}

i wonder if they come in mini sizes.

but seriously, the waterfalls, geysers, geothermal pools, it didn't take much to convince me. plus, i want one of those sweaters.

soo, has anyone been before? i have most of our sights/activities planned* but we aren't settled on a hotel. and i'm a little worried about food since sean is so damn picky.

*why yes, i plan things way, way in advance. ask me about our 5 year anniversary trip to banff (summer of 2012!) that i've had planned since 2008. seriously. but mostly because it took us 4 years to save up for it.

2011-11-14T06:00:00.002-05:00

i just got back from a four day weekend. had i stayed home, i'm sure i would have painted the entire bedroom, maybe even the upstairs hallway and got lots of other things done on the perpetual to-do list.

but instead, i ate crabcakes, played games and took the dogs for a romp on the beach. katy and kyle joined us in duck- it was sort of their last getaway before the baby comes. actually, not sort of. definitely. (!!!!)

my camera pooped out and would only work on manual focus. so then i had it on a manual setting and forgot and my photos are all messed up. yay.

but we had beautiful weather!! and an equally beautiful visit to the j crew outlet.

painting can definitely wait til next weekend.

2011-11-10T10:07:00.001-05:00

confessions: part 3!
{part 2}
{part 1}

1. my dining room has looked like this for a while. and it's probably going to stay that way for at least another week. i am really good at starting projects, not so good at finishing them.

that's the olive house!

also, i should probably get a new switch plate.

2. when we moved in, oh 1.5 years ago, we had an outlet installed for the dryer. this left us with random holes in the laundry room ceiling that i haphazardly patched. and then ignored. i figure this will be one of those things i tackle when i re-do the laundry room. but, i'm not sure i'm a re-do the laundry room type of person. i mean, the cat litter box is in there. and there's a strip of sticky goop on the floor collecting dead crickets. (which i feel bad about, but it's that or simbacat rips their legs off, so i'm not sure which is a more humane way to go)

i didn't even make it to the sanding stage.

i'll probably paint eventually, but i don't foresee laundry-themed artwork and pretty glass containers of detergent in our future.

3. i am jealous of my neighbor's kitchen. it's brand new, it's huge (eat-in!) and i can see the entire thing from my shoebox of laminate. it is totally not my style (super modern and shiny) but man, is it pretty! and clean. and they light candles for dinner every.single.night. why don't we do that!?

4. it's almost two weeks into november (and my goals) and we've had zero datenights, i've done back extensions one night and i've realized we have exactly one weekend to get to a smithsonian (no pressure!). i did buy a pie crust! and then this morning, we had nothing for breakfast, so i made mini apple pie-like things. there goes that.

breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

got anything to confess? just me? ok.

2011-11-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

i had planned on making the burlap table runner a few weekends ago. but i couldn't settle on exactly how to paint it. painting some extra fabric you have lying around to make a table runner is a very serious decision! so i put it off.

but then i saw this coat and its awesome arrows and it was settled!

Source: anthropologie.com via erin on Pinterest but first here

i noticed the material was shedding a lot so i thought it'd work best as an outdoor runner. basil provides us with adequate dust bunnies without any help.

i started off by painstakingly taping lines down the length of the fabric with painter's tape. the thing is, in order to paint a straight line, you have to be able to tape a straight line. which i can't. free-handing it was!

i used leftover fabric from The Loveseat (i bought extra thinking i'd make a headboard but it's a little itchy for a headboard) and paint that i used on the middle bedroom. so this project was free! and i love the way it turned out!

of course, it'll be april before we can enjoy the back deck again.

oh and GEAUX TIGERS!

2011-11-03T06:32:00.001-04:00

painting doors and moulding bright white is pretty satisfying- sort of like vacuuming and sweeping- instant gratification! before and after pictures are much less exciting, so i'll spare you. but over the weekend i managed to tackle all the trim, doors, and windows in the master bedroom, while watching an abc family movie on cyber bullying. seriously.

i think the doors (all FOUR of them, ugh) need a second coat but the trim and windows look pretty freaking awesome. so shiny and bright!

the room is ready for painting but i can't decide exactly what color to choose. i'm deciding between bright white and off-white. (my life is so exciting!)

i love how clean and bright the room below is.

Source: elementsofstyleblog.com via erin on Pinterest

but i am in love with the color scheme in this photo (off-white, navy and mustard. i think that houndstooth is actually black but i'm pretending it's navy.). it works perfectly with the rug i already bought.

Source: abeautifulmess.typepad.com via erin on Pinterest

i hate to admit this (i have a reputation to uphold!) but i sort of like how the creamy color in the second photo adds softness to the room. white white might be too harsh. or not, i have no idea.

i do know, that if you are being cyber-bullied you should speak up and know that you are not alone. and whatever you do, do NOT tell a boy you don't know your deepest, darkest secrets because that "boy" will turn out to be your jealous best friend who will tell the whole school and RUIN YOUR LIFE. (don't worry, in the end, she totally got the popular boyfriend and her two bff's back.)

related (to painting, not abc family movies): has anyone painted a radiator? i'm almost afraid to ask.

2011-11-01T06:00:00.001-04:00

it's november! holy crap! pretty soon it will be christmas and snowing and i will be wearing my all-fleece winter uniform.

anyway, time to check in on last month's goals.

1. get the housework under control. hmm. i did make a schedule of sorts with things like vacuum, laundry and dust on different days of the week. not sure that i followed it. but i do feel like there were less of those days when i come home from work and think THIS HOUSE IS A MESS. progress?

2. aim for 8 hours of sleep each night. i definitely improved here. i didn't always make it to 8 hours but there was a strong effort to get in bed earlier.

3. paint the master bedroom. i primed. i painted (one coat of) the moulding. and then i ran out of steam. and i haven't decided on a color, so there's that.

4. celebrate halloween. i dressed lola up! i made candy corn inspired bunting! i drank LOTS of pumpkin beer! and even though i didn't carve a pumpkin, i decorated one.

yay puffy paint!

november is going to be a fun month. we have a beach trip planned. there are two federal holidays. and, hello! thanksgiving! sooo...

1. make it to one smithsonian. we've decided with two months left of the year and, oh, 13 museums to visit, the smithsonian challenge may need an extension. the summer is an awful time to visit and then sean had a saturday class in the fall that kept him pretty busy. we'll finish someday!

2. bake a pie. this weekend we celebrated an early thanksgiving with my sister, brother-in-law and his family. i realized i have never made a pie.

3. go out once a week with sean. if i didn't hate the word "datenight" (just the word, love the concept) i'd say that. sean and i sometimes see each other for just 15 minutes a day. but we always have time on the weekends and it'd be fun to do more than veg out on the couch.

4. back extensions, once a day. my back has been killing me lately. practicing pilates a few times a week usually keeps it in check, but i've been subbing TRX for pilates the last couple months. so, gotta fit it in at home.

and that's it! november and december always seem so busy as it is. i love the holidays!!

2011-10-31T06:00:00.003-04:00

happy halloween!

we didn't have any halloween plans this year- no costumes, no candy (passed out anyway, i keep a pretty steady stream of candy year round) and no pumpkin carving. i did, however, squeeze lola into one of my old dance costumes for this awesome photo op. she was thrilled.

basil was disappointed that my jazz class dressed like princess jasmine instead of aladdin. not.

and because i can't resist a good 'before and after', here's the costume in its former life. (i saved all my old costumes but this one had a huge stain down the front that wouldn't come up, so i didn't mind cutting it in half.)

i was so cool. and very good at curling my bangs.

i think this was 5th grade? i still remember the beginning of that dance!

like i said, sean and i didn't dress up this year, so here's a halloween costume of the past:

can you tell who we are?

(for the record, i would never wear that shirt sean has on)

2011-10-28T10:06:00.000-04:00

my ten year high school reunion is coming up. i'm not going. i am horrible about keeping in touch with people (even with facebook!) so i don't really talk to anyone from my high school years. which might be a reason to, you know, go but it seems my friends are just as indifferent because none of them are attending either.

looking at the guest list it seems there are two groups of people that rsvp'd yes:

1. the popular people. yes, i still refer to them as the popular people. judging by facebook, it seems a lot of these people actually still hang out together. some have even married each other. weird!

2. the unpopular people who think they have to prove that they are no longer unpopular.

wait, there's a third group, too,

3. people who i do not remember at all. even after seeing a picture. i graduated with about 900 people so, yeah.

if i were to make a venn diagram, it would look like this:

oh wait. i did make a venn diagram. which explains why i am on the dorky side.

and while we're talking math (woot!), the formula for a proper "no" rsvp (posted to the reunion page, of course) is below:

negative exclamation + explanation of why you can't make it, in humblebrag form + slightly condescending farewell

ex. 1: bummer! i'll be working looong 18 hour days as a back up dancer for j lo! but, go bearkats ;)!

ex. 2: aw, man! i'm aaaall the way in fiji, working on my phd thesis. it would take me two days just to get there! have fun in little ol' h-town!

i'm still perfecting mine. suggestions?

2011-10-25T05:55:00.001-04:00

our front porch is looking a little different these days. it started off like this, two awesome froo-froo plants and not much else:

sorry the colors are off. photo below is much better!

we have a weird "porch" in that there is no roof/awning or railing. it's just a slab attached to the front of the house. it's awkward. and basil falls off it a lot. but you win some, you lose some. (and basil is hardly phased...by anything)

a few weeks ago my mom brought me a cute bench (i love hand-me-downs), primed for painting and everything! i stuck it outside, along with our pumpkins and mums and proceeded to try out every possible combination of bench-pot-pumpkin. things landed like this:

come on top tier of the left-hand-side potted plant! grow!

i'm not super impressed with it. (and you can probably tell, but i haven't actually sewn the cushion on the bench.) i think the problem is that everything is lined up against the house? but what else am i supposed to do? whenever i move the pots towards the front, away from the house, they look all weird and lonely and small plant on a big porch. speaking of scale, the bench is way too small for the space, too. but i like it! and it was free.

at least our house isn't pink anymore?

and the pergola is long gone!

so, aside from outfitting my awkward porch with giant restoration hardware furniture (seriously, why is their stuff so big? they have a store in georgetown and i have no idea how they sell anything! their coffee tables are the size of my entire living room!), any ideas?

or maybe it's just missing a certain butt-pumpkin?

2011-10-21T12:00:00.002-04:00

can i take a minute and tell you about my pants saga? (yep, pants! so dramatic.)

basically, none of my dress pants fit. most of my work clothes were purchased in graduate school (i had an off-campus assistantship for one semester) when i was at my I AM STRESSED OUT weight. so, no surprise, when i finished with school and could breath again, i gained some weight. no big deal.

but last winter, when funds were pretty tight, i decided to make do with my too-small-pants. (i don't think they were too tight, like my coworkers were ready to stage an intervention. but more like, i had to undo the top button after lunch. also, no muffin top.)

so every day i would be like ohmygoshmypantsaretight. this is uncomfortable. maybe i should just lose a few pounds bc I AM NOT BUYING MORE STUPID DRESS PANTS. but somehow i made it to spring when i could put my skirts and dresses back on (and exhale).

fast forward to this fall. i get all of my winter-weather clothes out of the attic, including all of Those Awful Pants. immediately, i make the decision to throw them in the donate pile. i am not torturing myself this winter! this is so liberating! i am going to go out and buy clothes that fit!

novel idea, right? eventually i found a few pairs that worked and i took a sigh of relief that i didn't have to dig Those Awful Pants back out of the donate bin. (that would have been a very bad day)

i get these new pants home only to realize...they are the same size as Those Awful Pants. the same size! (but from a different store. and i can definitely breath comfortably in them.)

you guys have seen this chart, right? it shows the variation in measurements of a size 8 made by different designers. a 4 inch span in the same size!?

{via}

what's so wrong with the way the guys do it? a simple waist size and length- that i can handle. and don't get me started on vanity sizing (which i guess, is technically what's happening above?). although, if vanity sizing leaked over into the shoe market, i would totally be on board. 5'6" here with an almost 9 shoe size.

and that is my story about my pants.

(is anyone still reading?)

(if so, have a great weekend!)

2011-10-20T06:57:00.002-04:00

a few months ago i started pinning crafty things on pinterest. not-so-shortly after i figured i should attempt some of them, or else, what was the point?

so i made a homemade bokeh. it sort of worked.

then i made one of those yarn wreaths that you see everywhere. it turned out to be shaped like an egg.

but it's been a while since i got my craft on (maybe something to do with the mediocre results from the first go round?) so i thought i'd revisit the craft board.

yes, i still have burlap leftover from the loveseat. and this looks super easy.

Source: None via erin on Pinterest

these? do not look super easy. it brings back memories of the gourd decorating class i took on the sedona trip. basically, i had this brilliant, intricate idea and the execution was just...not there. (are you still hung up on the part where i took a gourd decorating class? it wasn't my idea. but lots of fun!)

Source: tumblr.com via erin on Pinterest

and last we have a hand-sewn skirt. because i've barely mastered the pillow and the curtains, so, naturally it's time to move on to this! but seriously, i think it would be so cool to wear something and say 'i made this!' and not have it fall apart seconds later.

Source: None via erin on Pinterest

* it's very possible this post is brought to you by the dread i have for painting the molding and doors in our bedroom. (and once you paint one bedroom's molding bright white, the others will be all sad and yellowish and eventually need painting too)

** i'm thinking the burlap table runner is the winner, no? although i'm pretty awesome with the puffy paint...

2011-10-19T06:00:00.002-04:00

this idea of a neutral bedroom is giving me a hard time.

i primed the walls, hoping it'd give me the inspiration to run to the paint store and pick out the perfect shade of white. instead, it reminded me of an old hospital room- stark white walls, old, yellowed trim and even older radiators.

that's not exactly the look we're going for. (and painting the trim a bright white has been added to the list)

i also worked on the ol' hardware situation. my plan, after buying two different pulls that WILL NOT WORK DAMNIT, was to separate the handles from the backplate. then paint the handles (gold, of course) and toss the backplate.

except those little handles do not come off the backplates. even after yanking with pliers and (maybe) bashing with a hammer. multiple times. while yelling.

and because my need for instant gratification was not at all met by either of these projects, i moved on.

this chair resides in the corner of our room.

although, it's pictured here in the guest room, just to be confusing

i decided to recover it with some leftover burlap. so neutral of me! i took the layers of fabric off the seat, starting with a funky, bright print.

next, we have a subdued stripe with a giant stain, possibly from a sweaty butt. i say 'possibly' but what else could it be from?

and finally, plain white with a red stain. the best of combinations!

so here it is, in all of its neutral, non-stained glory!

yes, it's a little boring. but it's clean! and neither belongs in a creepy old hospital room nor caused my blood pressure to spike. win!

2011-10-17T12:00:00.002-04:00

i had my october goals in mind over the weekend.

pumpkins for carving? check.

inappropriate jokes about this particular pumpkin? check.

snag a few pumpkin (and non-pumpkin) beers? check. (check check check)

we took the smossiter (smonas + rossiters) quarterly trip to winchester, virginia on saturday. we discovered this "country store" shortly after we moved here and have been loyal customers since. they have the best beer selection. ever. also, they are the closest store that carries abita root beer (which is how we found them).

it took forever to get out there. tons of traffic on 66 (i think? i don't do roads.) forced us onto a bunch of back roads. where there was a different kind of traffic.

yes, we all whipped out our phones and took a picture.

but we finally made it and enjoyed the 3 blocks that is downtown winchester.

after lunch, it was on to the pumpkin patch! which was ok. i mean, they had goats you could pet (!!!) but their craft selection was much less exciting. so we bought pumpkins and headed out.

a little farther down the street we stopped at an apple orchard (on a whim! we are so crazy!). they claimed to have world famous donuts. we'll see about that.

kyle was really excited about apple picking.

*photo by katy!*

i was less excited. actually, i think this was right after sean told me i couldn't climb the trees, even though all the good apples were really high.

*photo by katy!*

we tried the donuts and while they were good, they weren't the best i've had. growing up next to the greatest cider mill ever leaves me with a very refined donut palate. but just to be sure, i had four more over the weekend. you know, replication and all that.

oh! and priming the bedroom for paint? check! now i just have to choose a color...

2011-10-14T08:51:00.000-04:00

i'm finally getting around to decorating for halloween this weekend. or, that's the plan. it's not going too well.

that white blob is basil, herder of the coffee table

i opened my magical "halloween decorations" box to find that i'm not really thrilled with anything i have. (except those tiny pumpkins on the mantel, still love those!). so i made bunting out of leftover candy corn costume material. because if you are going to make anything holiday-related nowadays, it's bunting!

that's as far as i got, as you can see from the mess on the coffee table.

tomorrow we're headed to virginia (like, virginia virginia, not northern virginia) to go to a pumpkin patch (!!!!) and visit our favorite country store. i'm hoping to find some inspiration there. and pumpkins. and pumpkin beer. and donuts.

but then i think about it and there's only two weeks left until halloween, when i have to take all this crap down and maybe bunting is enough? bunting and beer. and donuts.

i'll aim big for christmas.

2011-10-12T06:00:00.001-04:00

woah. i wrote about a project and then actually did it. i picked up some of this metallic paint in "vintage gold" over the weekend.

it is awesome. i want to paint everything vintage gold! but i started with the desk in the living room. we were given this table before we were married from family friends who moved into a smaller house. it has actually come in handy as it pulls out into a table that seats four, without having to drag a leaf out of the attic.

i taped off the legs about 6 inches up. and then painted four coats with one of those foam-type "brushes". i would have loved to actually dip the legs but i couldn't figure out the logistics. heavy table + small container of paint + indoor project = bad idea.

here she is! it was kind of hard to photograph but the paint definitely has a metallic looking finish.

shiny!

i know this is totally a fad right now but i like it!

2011-10-11T06:00:00.002-04:00

holiday weekends are the best. i have three day weekends twice a month, thanks to a compressed schedule, but holiday weekends are different.

first, i got my haircut. it had been six months! oh and there was this:
me: 'i'm growing it out, i just need a trim."
her: "do you wear your hair up often?"
me: "yes."
her: "then why are you growing it longer?"
me: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

but anyway, we also switched out our closets for winter clothes. and i donated almost everything i owned. seriously, i think i have one pair of pants and two sweaters left. (also: cue the 80 degree weather in october!)

naturally, i also went shopping! but i was mostly unsuccessful so it looks like i'll be wearing that pair of pants...a lot.

we watched lsu beat florida at our friends' house. where we also drank lots of sangria and ate a lot of lentil chips. or maybe that was just me. (thanks james and shannon!)

i tried two new recipes- quinoa and bean corn chowder and pasta with vegan mushroom cream sauce. sean has been a pescetarian for a week now (yay sean!) and it's motivated me to try to cook some new things (he's also lactose intolerant). despite buying "original" almond milk instead of "unsweetened" (daaaaammit), the chowder was delicious! the pasta dish deserves a do-over.

i managed to snap this rare photo of the dogs looking like the actually like each other. i mean, they're practically cuddling, you guys.

actually, they were just taking a break from this.

we made two (!) trips to ikea and snagged this rug for the master bedroom. i've been in love with it for a while.

i also did some painting! but more on that later.

mostly, this post is just here to make me feel better about watching 3 episodes in a row of revenge. i guess you could say i'm a fan.

how was your weekend?

2011-10-06T06:00:00.001-04:00

i've been searching around for bathroom inspiration with no luck. currently, our upstairs bath is bright teal, has overly textured walls and fixtures that are living waaaay beyond their years. except the toilet seat. we replaced that! i also made some curtains that i was 30% happy with (i like the idea, not the fabric or the color. oops.).

right now i'm looking to do a mini-makeover. we aren't ready to gut the thing, so i'd just like to make it look nicer while working with what we've got. or less offensive, really. i'm just not ready to open the can of worms that is a bathroom renovation. especially after doing both bathrooms in the last house. which resulted in the *worst bathroom renovation ever.

some of the things we dealt with...

because we were way behind schedule, we went through a pretty bad hurricane with no bathroom floor. like, just the beams.

the tile in the shower had to be redone FOUR TIMES. the grout on the floor had to be done twice.

while i was away on vacation (dining with lyle lovett) sean called to let me know that the tub wasn't draining. yes, my husband takes baths. real men take baths? the pipe had actually disconnected completely under the house.

our main contractor went out of town for a long weekend and NEVER CAME BACK.

our plumber didn't drive in the rain. this wouldn't have been such a big deal but it rains everyday in the summer in louisiana.

it lasted way, way, WAY too long. fortunately, we weren't over budget too much. unfortunately, we still had to give the new owner an allowance to fix things that were not right.

even after all that, i thought the bathrooms turned out pretty nice (looking)!

man i miss that tub.

so you can see why i'm a little averse to sledge-hammering away and tearing things out. i'm thinking paint (can we can un-texture the walls without new drywall?), new storage, maaaaybe a new sink vanity and definitely new window treatments.

* we went through a local kitchen/bath design shop and the design and materials were exactly what i wanted. the work was not. i think it was a case of a business gone bad after years of honest work. even our realtor was surprised to hear who we hired and all the problems we had.

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

baby shower planning, execution and clean-up was a success!

you know those people who can whip up a theme and subsequent menu, decorations and whatever else you need for a party in no time? that's not me. i pretty much hated planning my wedding (in fact, sean did a lot of it). people get so ridiculous and over the top nowadays, it seems.

but this was different! this was my only sister having her first baby! and there was going to be a THEME!

so i came up with the map thing, since katy is a geographer (but not before i made the invitations, whoops). i emailed my trusty neighborhood listserv and asked if anyone had old maps they could part with. and they did! and now i have about a hundred national geographic maps.

somewhere down the road rebecca came up with "destination: baby" and it morphed into sort of a geography/travel theme.

we had a "wish jar" for the guests to fill with their wishes for baby rossiter (her name is still indecided). some of mine were "i hope you get...your aunt's good looks" and "i hope you grow...into your nose". (the nose thing is a joke and i'm sure hers will be perfect!) (the good looks thing is not a joke.) (i had some serious wishes too!)

i made onesies with almost every state katy has lived in (i forgot MO! but actually i was torn between making MO or KS so i just left it off). michigan is the cutest with the mitten and the rabbit!

here's the dining room before we put the food out. i was worried about getting pictures once people showed up.

rebecca made cupcakes and sugar cookies which were the hit of the party.

and i made caramel apple cheesecakes using my mom's super easy recipe. it is my standby party recipe.

everyone decorated onesies and they turned out so cute! (we had to implement plan B since it was raining and plan A was an outside craft table. thank you, judi, for coming with plan B!) my aunt, who lived on a boat for 11 months with her husband (favorite uncle jack!) made the cute sailboat one, katy's friend who she met through volleyball made a bump*set*spike edition. it was fun to see what people came up with.

the drinks and desserts! we also had apple cider donuts that arrived shortly after this was taken. the day i had to tell my 6 month pregnant sister that we might not be able to find apple cider donuts was a scary one. luckily, it worked out!

katy/the baby got tons of cute things! and a lot of useful things too. i think they baby can safely come home from the hospital now and has somewhere to sleep! (i wrapped all the gifts with maps too, but the photo didn't turn out)

we all had a really great time!

and HUGE thanks to judi, rebecca and my mom! (and sean who instituted family naptime in the basement with the dogs)

2011-10-03T06:00:00.004-04:00

this month was slow. i didn't do much (house-wise) so i didn't have much to blog about. but let's review:

september goals:

1. finish the loveseat. HECK YES!

2. paint a room. well, whoops. all this baby shower prep sort of sneaked up on me. technically, i did paint a room.

3. begin a gallery wall on the staircase. i have picked out a few photos. and some maps. progress?

4. make three new recipes. i made veggie fried rice. i've never actually had veggie fried rice before. sean orders the chicken variety all the time so i thought we should try to make it at home. i used this recipe from real simple. it was ok but next time i'd halve the soy sauce and add lots more veggies.

i also tried a few new pasta combinations. sad excuse for a new recipe but our purple haze garlic came in (best garlic ever!) and it pretty much makes any dish.

and for october:

1. get the house work under control. we used to have a chore chart (yes, it's as lame as it sounds) that worked sort of well. it helped me/us spread out the work. i'd rather do a little bit each night than spend all day saturday cleaning. and now that sean is working and schooling, i guess i should be doing most of it. (waaaaaaaaaaah) (you still have to mow the lawn, sean!)

2. aim for 8 hours of sleep each night. when we were on vacation, i got a massage and one of the form questions was "how many hours of sleep do you get each night?" i was surprised to write down 6-7 hours. and then the massage therapist was like 'WHAT!? why so little sleep?' she also told me in the same breath that 1. i was too skinny 2. i need to have kids now and 3.oh, and is your husband older than you? it was weird. anyway, i need to get more sleep. but with a 5am wake up, it's hard to get in bed at 9.

3. paint the master bedroom. and while i'm at it, pick out some damn hardware for the bedroom furniture. i currently have two options at home.

4. celebrate halloween!!!! carve pumpkins, dress the dogs up (yes, i'm totally doing that), bake something pumpkin-y.

i love how this month's goals are so lofty. sleep and eat halloween candy it is!

2011-09-27T06:00:00.003-04:00

this week is pretty busy with preparations for my sister's shower on saturday. which means my dining room is covered in tiny onesies, hot glue strings and bunting. it also means i have nothing to post about because i haven't done anything. besides make onesies and burn myself with the glue gun. but i'll post about those things next week! (i'm not a baby person but the tiny baby clothes are totally getting to me)

i thought it was the perfect time to introduce you to our bedroom! with the loveseat project over (finally!) i should have more time to tackle Things That Are Not The Loveseat. and this room needs tackling. we have not done ONE single thing in here besides move our furniture in.

here we are. yellow walls. the rug my mom lent us to stage our old living room (do you want that back mom?). no proper bedding. it's embarrassing. oh and the rug is awkwardly placed because that's where the dogs are most of the time and i want to protect the floor.

we have those cheap black-out shades and leftover brackets on the windows. one day, out of frustration, sean grabbed all of our "bedroom artwork" and hung it up wherever it fit (the horses behind the chair didn't make the cut, i guess?). my denyse schmidt quilt is folded and thrown on the chair. oh and one of the drawer pulls is missing, only recently, as i was trying out new ones.

i wish you could see the fan better. it has palm fronds for blades. (yes!) all the furniture in here came with sean. and i stacked the two dogs beds just for the photo- lola gave me the side-eye when she came in. basil plopped down right on top. (if that is not an indication of their personalities, i don't know what is)

don't get me started on the tv/cord situation.

here is our wall of doors. left to right we have the shoe closet/attic entry, my closet, and sean's closet. that mirror is really old and always looks dirty but i LOVE it.

and that's it! any sort of update will be an improvement since we are starting with, uh, this.

look at me! setting myself up for success!

2011-09-26T06:01:00.003-04:00

well, look at that. i finally finished this damn thing.

it only took six weekends. thirteen yards of nailhead trim. seventeen fabric covered buttons. (these loveseat updates remind me of those weekly pregnancy posts. just add the awkward belly pics and the word "journey". yuck.)

i feel like this thing is tangible proof of LOOK I HAVE PATIENCE. it was also a lesson in 'everything does not have to be perfect'. because this thing is definitely not perfect. and towards the end, there were a few things that i just could not get to lay right. so i'm going to live with a few staples showing here (ok more than a few) and less-than-taut fabric there.

overall, i'm impressed with how it turned out.

i lined the back with a neutral burlap-ish material. (after i shoved a bunch of its stuffing back in- it used to look like this). when i was all done, i noticed a rather large pile of horse hair/padding. sort of like putting together an ikea dresser to find 5 random screws left in the bag. whoops.

remember what it started like?

why yes! i'd say that's an improvement.

i'm still a little unsure of where it will reside permanently (that's the dining room, for the photoshoot) but i'm really hoping it fits in the master bedroom somehow.

i'm almost afraid to ask but, what do you think? or is it a face only a mother could love?

2011-09-22T07:00:00.001-04:00

while i was browsing in home depot over the weekend i came across some teal spray paint. i grabbed it without even a clue as to what i'd do with it. hardware store impulse buys do exist!

so i got home and searched around for something to paint. this clock has been sitting in a box for a few years now. i'm not sure why i've kept it actually, as i have a tendency to toss things without a second thought. once in a meeting at work, my old boss was giving everyone the "clean desk policy" spiel and then looked at me and said "except you, erin, don't throw anything away!"

anyway, it got the teal spray treatment and now lives on our mantel. along with spaceman! i just recently rearranged things in the living room but i'm still working on it. this is not my strong suit.

i'm resisting the urge to spray paint everything in the house. i guess it's been a while since i've looked at the wide selection of colors they have?

a little further down the paint aisle i discovered martha stewart's metallic paint (which i can't find a link to, but it was in home depot). if there's anything i love more than teal it's gold. (or maybe gray). it seems like the perfect thing for this new "dipped leg" trend that's going around.

{2modern}

i love hopping on the trendy bandwagon when it's little (and inexpensive) things like this. or when it's a fashion trend that's so awful, in 10 years i'll look back at a picture of myself and cringe. apparently i love that, too.

{design sponge}

now i want to dip the dining room chairs in (non-metallic) hot pink! or paint something GOLD!

2011-09-20T06:00:00.001-04:00

so when i hung the light fixture a few weeks ago, i conveniently left off the fact that there is a hole in the ceiling. the junction box hole (technical term!) was larger than the fixture's cover plate.

but i did tell you about the lady who stole my yard sale medallion. TWENTY-FIVE CENTS!

still not over it.

but something had to cover up the hole in the ceiling. and actually, the outlet box is not at all centered in the room (length-wise, that is. when you look at the dining room from the living room, it's centered. THANK GOD.). so i thought we could somehow rig the fixture over about 8 inches. but once i evaluated the situation (took the cover plate down and looked at it for about 5 seconds), i wasn't really sure what to do.

so i called my brother-in-law. i mean, i just hand-painted a tree onto their unborn child's wall, so they owed me. and he came over and realized that my junction box was actually on a track! and we could move it over by simply cutting away some of the ceiling!

so that's what he did (i probably could have done it, but standing on my tippy toes while sawing away at the cieling is probably not a good idea. also note a good idea: standing on the top rung of the ladder.). and it's still not perfectly centered, since the track wasn't long enough, but it's 5 inches closer. and we don't need a drywaller to come in and patch our ceiling so that's good too.

i am a little puzzled by the logic of the previous owners (not necessarily the most recent owners, the salamis, but one of the previous owners for sure). they took the time/money to set the junction box on a track but didn't make sure it could be centered in the room? what!?

thanks for your help, kyle!

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

loveseat update 5 of [six? ohmygosh am i committing to just one more update!?! ]
(see other loveseat updates here)

i spent a good amount of time sewing buttons on this weekend. those huge needles came in handy, as did the super strong thread. i said it once and i'll say it again, those buttons make a huge difference. the front of the sofa is looking pretty dang good but the back? well...

it's a bit overwhelming. (that's sean in the background admiring my butt...ons)

but my plan is to just cover it all up with fabric. if i hadn't run out of nail head trim, i might be finished now!

oh and in case anyone is actually reading this as a tutorial, i sewed the buttons on by wrapping the thread around the nails, as seen below. that way you can get it real taut. taaaauuuut.

but seriously, if anyone has questions about this process, feel free to email me. i hate to bore everyone with a play by play of me winging it. (or maybe wait til you see the final product ha)

i really hope to post a finished loveseat next! (which is why there are no frontal shots, i want to keep you guys in suspense!)

the numbers from this week:
movies watched while working on the 'seat: 3
buttons attached: 17
injuries: 3, two to the hand and one to the ankle (don't ask)
times i considered just putting it against a wall, so the back isn't visible: countless

2011-09-16T15:27:00.001-04:00

a while ago my sister, katy, asked me if i would paint something for their nursery. she had been looking around online and and found this tree on pottery barn kids. i haven't painted anything like this before but how hard could it be?

and then she found out that they make these handy decals you stick right on the wall instead. way easier! and no pressure of free-handing it.

but then katy couldn't find the exact tree that she wanted in a decal.

pressure was definitely back on.

so i headed over there this morning to paint The Tree. first, i sketched it out with chalk while katy referenced our inspiration photo and gave me directions ("a little to the left", "three leaves on that one" and "skinnier branch!!"). kyle was pretty nervous and admitted he thought it was going to "look crappy". thanks kyle.

but as soon as he saw our chalk sketch he was convinced!

katy and i painted the first coat (although i took away katy's leaf painting privileges pretty quickly), then wiped off the chalk marks and put on a second coat.

we all think it turned out great!!

they still have a few things left to do in here, like get a glider and maybe take that plastic stuff off the mattress (i'm no baby expert though). and hang some art on the walls. but the big stuff's done!

2011-09-13T06:00:00.002-04:00

i've talked about our doorknob situation before, i think. on the second floor we have 9 doors and 6 different knobs. at least five of these are broken or loose. the bathroom knob has fallen off and landed on my toe twice. the bedroom knob has locked me in or out of the room three times. i could go on and on.

our collection of doorknobs residing upstairs.

i think this is a pretty common problem with older houses. the olive house was the same way- almost every time we had a party, the guest bathroom knob would come loose.

the closets don't really bother me and i love the look of the old crystal knobs but i'd like to have functioning doorknobs on the bedroom and bathroom doors. i've seen some beautiful reproductions but they range from $100 to $200 each. which seems pricey. and reminds me of the time we spent WAY too much getting our locks changed. like, four digits. that did not begin with a 1. i sent off for a locksmith trade school pamphlet the next day.

but i'm not okay with slapping some regular old (affordable) knob on my doors either. i mean, we live in an old house for a reason. we put up with uneven floors, outrageous heating and cooling bills and tiny closets because we love things like old doorknobs. but we also love privacy when going to the bathroom. (or some of us do.)

maybe i'll put them on my christmas list.

or does someone out there have the secret to fixing these fussy things permanently? (either way, that white one missing the back plate needs to go)

2011-09-12T06:00:00.003-04:00

man, it feels like months since i completed (or even started) a project around the house. we've either been traveling or just too busy. this weekend was no different. we had a birthday party on friday, sean's parents came in saturday and i tried to clean the house in between.

i had high hopes for a garage sale-ing trip on saturday morning, mostly because of the early wake up call (this better be worth it!!). i met up with katy and kyle, who have been scouting out baby stuff second-hand, and we hit four church sales. i picked up two cute trays but that was it. i think the people that score $30 mid-century modern dressers at things like this are lying.

or really lucky. (but probably lying)

and don't ask me about the lady who swiped the brand new ceiling medallion for 25 cents who most likely does not have a hole in her ceiling to cover like i do. in fact, we decided that she didn't even know what it was, but picked it up because it was brand new and 25 cents. i'm still not over it.

and because it stopped raining for the first time in a week, i decided to give my plants a hair cut. these guys are so sad. they're half dead, half overgrown and very much leaning.

it might be time to take the price tag off.

so i trimmed them up as best as i could. there really isn't much of an improvement, huh? i'm hoping (unrealistically) when i take them inside for the winter they will flourish. and that the dogs don't eat them.

man, these are so pathetic.

the one on the right has some definite green all the way on top! yay! and that bright light you see in the right, bottom corner? THE SUN!

maybe next week i'll have something more interesting to show you than my dying plants?

ETA: take a look at the awesome dresser my sister and brother-in-law up-cycled! i think kyle did most of the work, actually and it looks so great!

2011-09-09T06:07:00.001-04:00

i've been using pinterest for a while now, to "pin" (save) inspiration photos, crafty ideas and even recipes. i mostly use it to browse the enormous amounts of creative/pretty/crazy/witty/funny ideas. my pin to browse ration is very low. but it's also so useful if you're planning something- a party, the decor of a room, even an outfit!

but it can be kind of obnoxious at times too.

here are some things i've noticed while spending too much time not pinning things...

1. will little kids eat something that is not shaped like an animal/disney character/flower? i hope so. because i don't plan on being one of those moms.

2. ok, different strokes for different folks and all that but pinning photos of amazingly fit women and then tagging it as thinspiration? gag. that word is awful. and looking at pictures of others' six packs does nothing for mine.

3. what is up with pinning your own photos? like "my living room!" and "my daughter is too cute!!" and so on. the idea (i think) is to collect and share things with others while saving the link so you can refer back to the source! if you are the source, well, that kind of kills it.

i just had to get that off my chest. i'm off to eat a puppy shaped sandwich and then get thinspired to work it off. maybe i'll pin a photo of it later!

ok but seriously, do you guys have gripes about it? or am i just being cranky? (i think i know the answer)

happy weekend!!

*note!! the people i follow on pinterest are awesome pinners. but i usually click the "everything" tab and browse that way, when i finish looking at my awesome friends' pins.

**second note! i do LOVE how pinterest keeps things positive, like people (for the most part) don't pin a photo of my bathroom and write "YUCK!!" in the caption. i appreciate this.

2011-09-08T06:13:00.005-04:00

lately, we have been getting loads of rain. the weather people are calling it a rain train, which totally cracks me up and gets that song "come on ride the train!" in my head. anyway, yesterday was particularly bad and while i sat at work, i couldn't help but worry about our manbasement. it flooded shortly after we moved in and just over the weekend i told my mother-in-law "oh, i think that was a one time thing!"

aaand cue the basement flooding, right?

except it didn't! yay! (i'm sure it's filling up with water now. as i've jinxed myself twice! or maybe the second jinx cancelled out the first? huh? buy me a coke?)

this got me thinking about all the water related disasters (or near disasters) we've had. this is not to be confused with all the natural disasters we've been through. that is a post for another day. (but seriously, my friend rebecca was worried when we moved into her neighborhood because we've been through so many hurricanes, torrential rains, unlikely snows, ice storms, tornadoes, etc. i think there is a new meteorology term called The Smona Micro-storm System or something. we're just bad luck.)

let's start off with the time my apartment on the hill flooded in 2006 (i think?). sean and i were dating, not yet living together, when we got some pretty bad rain and subsequent flash flooding. i lived in a basement apartment and the drain outside the back door had clogged with leaves. i came home around 8pm to find 3 inches of water in my entire (500 sq ft) apartment. 3 inches isn't a whole lot but it's enough to be really freaking annoying. simbacat was not pleased. while sitting on the counter top.

next, our water main broke in the olive house in 2008. it's possible this was related to The Worst Bathroom Renovation Of All Time. we didn't have water for a few days while we waited on a plumber so we headed to a hotel. where sean got a severe case of poison ivy.

pre-poison ivy but post OMG A SHOWER THANK YOU.

the next year, we discovered the air conditioning leaking into the dining room ceiling. this wasn't so bad since we caught it early. but louisiana in september is definitely not when you want to forgo air conditioning.

the next winter we had record lows and our pipes froze. then burst. sean was out of town and my dad was telling me to climb under the house (in 30 degrees with water spewing everywhere). we ended up at a hotel then too. i can live without power (we did, for close to three weeks when gustav came through) but i can't go without water.

y'all. this was in our hotel suite's living room. (the only available room)

and of course, the manbasement flooded. but it was NOT POOP WATER.

even though i'm usually very tightly wound and um, reactive, to things not going just right (understatement of the year!) i think i've learned to take home-related incidents in stride. or maybe more in stride than before? like, i take a moment and maybe yell and then, back to striding!

2011-09-07T06:01:00.001-04:00

loveseat re-do part 4 of [the number of random things amazon suggests for me after purchasing upholstery needles]

i don't have a huge update this week, since my quality loveseat time was cut short due to spending the weekend in new york city. but i am chugging along.

i ordered some supplies last week when i realized i'd need to do some sewing (rather than just stapling. man i love that staple gun!). i bought both straight and curved upholstery needles and heavy duty upholstery thread. i feel very legit. i have no idea why i would need both straight and curved needles but sort of like buying new workout clothes for motivation, in the cart they went.

you can see from the before shot that buttons lined the seat back. they are looking pretty sad and tuft-less. i considered leaving the buttons off but curiosity got the best of me. so i sewed one little button on, to see if adding them would be worth it.

i really think it makes a huge difference, even though they will be a huge pain to fasten. no pain, no gain! (my dad's favorite saying. along with "life is not fair".) i plan to put five on the middle circle. and some number, in some pattern on the two sides. maybe next week i'll figure that out. i do know, i won't be replicating the number of buttons (aka a million) that the original sofa had.

i made a few more buttons with fabric scraps (save your scraps!) using these super convenient button cover things. i had these leftover from some other project i probably never finished.

i've also added more nail head trim and the burlap i'm trying out for the back of the sofa arrived. yay progress!

this week's stats:
time i spent with the loveseat this week: not enough!
number of packages received related to The Re-do: a lot more than from zappos
number of cats that have taken up residence under the loveseat: 1. it's simbacat's new favorite place.
pieces of furniture we'll have to rearrange to find room for the sofa: a lot. (a tiny oversight)
unused staples left: only two measly rows! eek!

2011-09-06T20:11:00.000-04:00

we finished up the last part of sean's 30th birthday celebration over the weekend (if it seems like we've been celebrating all month, it's because we have) with a trip to new york for the US open. we took the train up on thursday evening to meet sean's parents. traveling by train is the best way to travel. unless you're going someplace far. or need to cross an ocean.

we had three long, hot days of watching tennis and managed to see everyone on our list. i say our list but we really left it up to sean and my mother-in-law, the tennis players of the group. i will say watching federer and nadal was really exciting. and doubles too, mostly because we were so close i was scared a ball would hit me in the face.

us, on a tennis ball couch. (alternate title: first time i've ever worn a hat.)

i'm not a tennis fan- it took me three days and my mil explaining what match/set/point/game meant and i'm still not really sure. also, tennis fans clap for every point, no matter who makes it, so it is really hard to distinguish who got the point if you can't read the score board. sidenote: i need to get to the eye dr. also, sorry sean, for asking what the score was every 5 seconds. it's not because i wasn't having the most exciting time ever and was hoping the game/set/match would finish.

mr tennis ball, enjoying a refreshing "honey deuce"

the main court. also, where i sweat off 5 pounds.

but the tennis watching (and sweating, ohh, the sweating) was balanced out with excellent food and wine (lots of wine!). and of course, great company. thanks terry and judi!

terry and judi! cheers!

we even got to visit chelsea market (a first!) to stop in eleni's cookies. best cookies ever! they are sort of crispy and not overly sweet, so if you like those really sweet, soft cookies, these aren't for you. but i LOVE them and was so excited to visit the store. and buy 27 tennis ball cookies.

best cookies ever. seriously. and super pretty too!

sean's goal is to make it to all four major tournaments- us open (check!), wimbledon, french open and australian open. i am on board. i have never been to france (besides the airport) or australia! i promise to get the scoring down by then.

we are done with vacations for a while now so i hope to knock out some projects around the house. we started brainstorming our "big project" for next year but i think we'll stick to smaller, manageable ventures for now.

**i didn't take my normal amount of excessive photos because we forgot to a. fully charge the camera and b. pack the charger. oops. but don't worry, all the photos we did take were of us in sweaty t-shirts and not my super cute dresses i packed for dinner. of course.

2011-09-02T15:19:00.003-04:00

today i'm guest posting over on kj and co. with my 'back to school' wish list.

thank god i am not actually going back to school. i still have those dreams where it's the end of the semester and i've been enrolled in a course but never actually attended class. but! sean did going back to school this week. he starts his masters in political communications at american, part time. good luck, sean!

(and he totally wants those madewell jeans. size 27.)

2011-09-01T03:00:00.000-04:00

it's september! fall is near(ish)! i'm looking forward to turning off the ac and opening the windows, pumpkin beer, red beans and rice, LSU football and not sweating all the time. but really, most of those things don't happen until october around here.

lets review last month's goals...

1. begin the HUGE job of recovering the loveseat. yup- did that! it's coming along nicely but i have a feeling the hardest part is yet to come.

2. work out while on vacation. i had the best of intentions on our cruise! i found the gym! i signed up for a pilates class! then i had sean go to the gym and un-sign me up. if the class had been free, i might have gone. but i'm used to excellent teachers and being certified myself, i am way less tolerant of bad teachers. and less than challenging classes. again, had it been free, my attitude would have been way different. can we count climbing the rock wall as a workout? i did that!

3. organize our closets in the basement. done! i thought sean would be so happy i fit all the paint cans into the closet (he gets cranky when non-cool manbasement things have to go in the manbasement) but he was pretty indifferent about it. i think my love language is praise for home improvement projects. his is popcorn.

4. try three new recipes. DANGIT. i did make these delicious donut muffins as part of hurricane irene preparedness. but leaving town for a week cut into recipe time. especially because we try to eat out of the freezer/pantry the week prior to a trip.

so, that's that. on to september goals..

1. finish the loveseat. are you guys so tired of reading about it? i also can't decide if love seat is one word or two. so i alternate.

2. paint a room. any room! lots of choices: master bedroom, upstairs bath, stairwell (x2), hallway, laundry room.

3. begin a gallery wall on the staircase. what's a staircase without a gallery wall? my grandparents had one (every single time we went to that house we stared at those photos, even though they rarely changed), my childhood house had one, we need one! but frames are expensive and then we have to find things to put in the frames so...(oh and crap- half the staircase is yellow.)

4. i guess i should make those new recipes. for real this time.

i'm also hoping to get the master bedroom makeover started. but right now i'm in that "i'm too overwhelmed to do anything" stage, so we'll see.

2011-08-31T06:00:00.002-04:00

i have never been to a baby shower. most of my friends are taking the slow track to motherhood (or not at all) and i really only have, like, 3 friends. i prefer acquaintances, so much less work. hahah. (sean always jokes the 1. i hate having friends and 2. i'm a robot)

anyway! i'm hosting the very first baby shower i will attend for my sister, katy. she's having a girl in december and we are all so excited! the other weekend i set out to make the invitations, after seeing these on pinterest.

Source: hammerandthread.blogspot.com via erin on Pinterest

i created the text in photoshop (and consulting with rebecca on my font choices and color scheme) and then started on the baby carriage. i hope you can tell that's a baby carriage.

the hardest part was trying to find something oval-shaped to trace! we only own circular things, apparently. then i got to cutting, gluing, and sewing buttons. it took longer than i thought and we have a pretty small guest list.

i think they turned out pretty cute! although the carriages probably aren't to scale and might topple over in real life. katy will never let me babysit.

2011-08-30T06:00:00.003-04:00

i accomplished one of my august goals! maybe the only one. i tackled the basement storage closet.

first though, can we talk about these awesome doors? that's some custom work, there.

so, here's the before:

scary! i have a bad habit of throwing stuff in the closet (or in this case, in front of the closet) instead of putting them away.

i took everything out and ended up with this.

scarier! i have no idea how it all fit. can you find basil? and who wants to shoot some hoops!? no? ok.

after putting things away, it looked much better. well, duh.

so glad to get all that paint in there! now i just have to, you know, not throw crap on the floor in front of the closet.

and look at that! i think i have room for another wine rack!

2011-08-29T06:07:00.002-04:00

love seat re-do part 3 of [the number of staples i've gone through]

call it a vacation-induced energy surge or maybe hurricane inspired productivity but i've got some major progress on the sofa!

i stapled away until each section, aside from the back, was covered. my plan of using the old fabric as a template was thwarted by simbacat so i just sort of eye balled it, giving myself lots of slack.

i also had to toss the horse hair/foamy part of the middle circle section (thanks again, simba), so i've got batting in there now (the back is still open so i can plump it up a bit).

the stripes actually line up through the middle, though it's hard to tell in the photos, but each side of the back rest has a natural slant to it. straight up and down stripes were just NOT happening so i just went with it.

the only part that's tripping me up is securing the fabric behind the seat. there is no wood frame there to staple to so i think i'm going to have to sew it? or something.

because i re-used the original padding from the seat, it's lumpy. but i kind of like it! although midway through this burst of staples i emailed my mom with a "am i ruining a family heirloom!?" i didn't really get an answer.

next i've got to add the nailhead trim, which really disguises imperfections and gives it a finished look. i also need to figure out how to secure the loose fabric and then cover the back.

i worked on this pretty late into the night (um, almost 1 am!) and thought i'd let lola out in the backyard before i headed up to bed. i saw her just at the edge of the fence, getting into something. and then i saw it. the biggest opposum i've ever seen. i would have thought it was a racoon if i hadn't gotten a good look. i ran out to grab lola but it was too late. she was chasing the poor thing through the yard. i cornered her (and consequently, it) and thought i had things under control when it ran out at me! i screamed and lola took that as her chance to Get It.

she grabbed it in her mouth and started the death shake when 3 baby 'possums flew out. in my loveseat reupholstering haze my first thought was LOLA IS EATING A POSSUM THAT'S EATING A RAT. but they were babies. cue more screaming and some tears. luckily, lola dropped mama pretty quickly and i threw her in the house (lola, not the possum).

i woke sean up, in tears and he said "what?" and promptly fell back asleep. i went outside to check on the family and one poor baby was left behind! it was crying for its mom and i felt so bad. i left it alone, hoping the mom would come back. but she didn't. :( BUT animal control came out the next morning and scooped him up. happy face!

so, stats from this week:
number of finger prints i have left: 0
staples stepped on and pulled out of my foot: 1 (that hurt more than i expected!)
pets i am currently not talking to: 2
animals lola has killed/tried to kill: 4 (squirrel, bird, butterfly, possum)
yards of fabric leftover: probably not enough to finish

2011-08-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

when we booked this vacation, katy and kyle actually booked it along with us. we were so excited! the four of us get a long really well and a joint vacation would have been SO FUN. but then they got pregnant. and there are rules about how many weeks along you can be and still go on a cruise. so they had to cancel. and we are still mad.

just kidding! (not really) (ok i am)

as a joke, katy gave sean a framed picture of the two of them with his birthday gift. they decided if they couldn't be with us, we would have to do a flat stanley-esque tour with their photo.

assignment accepted!

here's katy and kyle checking out the view in their room.

kyle is a stickler for the rules, like me, and took our emergency drill very seriously.

we all went for a swim. it reminded me of the time we all swam in the mediterranean sea together. except without all the naked people. (other naked people, we were all in swimwear. although kyle's trunks were questionable in length)

katy enjoyed some of the true blood series. (sidenote: did true blood come before twilight? or the other way around? it seems like the exact same story!)

and katy beat kyle in shuffleboard. but kyle said he wasn't trying.

st georges was really hot and kyle was sweating a lot. katy took 1 million photos.

mmm, this is where we ate The Best Tuna Ever. katy wouldn't eat any though.

and the famous homes tour, where we were the youngest people on board by at least 30 years.

taking the ferry back to get on the ship. everyone stared at me while sean got this shot. (the things i do for you guys!)

and finally, cooling off in the water. (that's you guys, to my right)

maybe next year we can all vacation together? of course, you'll have to find a babysitter. (just kidding! kind of.)

(this reminds me of the time rebecca and i flat stanley'd a coworker to bring him along to a wedding! fun times.)

2011-08-25T16:57:00.000-04:00

this was our view for the last 5 days. we just returned from our cruise to bermuda and it was sooo nice. (thank you, blogger scheduling feature. my poor mom was so confused when i was posting to my blog while out of the country! ha.) we relaxed by the pool, read on the deck, toured st. georges, ate dessert with every meal, played tons of ping pong and shuffle board and napped almost every day.

i was pretty nervous about this vacation. scared i would get sea sick, think the whole cruise thing was cheesy, accidentally fall overboard or get kidnapped/thrown overboard. you know, rational things. even though we didn't get things together in time to get a patch, it turns out i didn't need one! this girl, who gets car sick, metro sick and probably bicycle sick if i rode one, didn't feel sea sick once! major pats on the back for me.

obviously, i didn't go overboard either. and i did think that this cruise was totally cheesy but that's ok. i love cheese.

i will say, royal caribbean's dinner seating algorithm needs tweaking. we sat next to a couple in their...late 30's? and then a family of 4, the children grown and also in their late 30's. i mean, it was fine.

when i got up to go to the bathroom dining-mate, brenda, asked sean how i stayed so slim (awkward?). and earlier she said to me, "you don't look like a wine drinker, how did you know which wine to order?" then later, she grilled another dining companion about her tattoo. this was all after she told us we should have washed out a listerine bottle to smuggle vodka on board.

what? (brenda's other half had bleached orange hair, parted down the middle, a pinkie ring and a flashy gold chain. just to give you a visual.)

dinner table awkwardness aside, the food was pretty good and i did find a new wine to look for (take that, brenda!).

we got to see most of the island(s) in the one and a half days we were there, by car first and then by boat. we were efficient.

we saw tons of cats but not one stray dog. which is good, i guess. we also saw other things, like lighthouses and old churches and the perfumery. if you want, see more photos on flickr.

the ship never really felt crowded either, another thing i worried about. we also scouted out shady spots and most people do just the opposite, so that helped. i think we may have come back from vacation lighter than we left. (i'm a sunscreen fanatic)

oh! and we climbed this rock wall at the very back of the ship! first, about 5 people in a row only made it about 1/3 of the way up (including two adults). then a boy went all the way to the top. followed by his dad, and then sean. the pressure was ON and luckily, i got to ring the little bell too. that would have been embarrassing.

we did a boat tour of "famous homes and hideaways" in which i photographed approximately 217 bermudiful houses. i'm thinking about doing a separate post for those? or maybe not.

i do have a few more pictures to share tomorrow. and then we can get back to house business. and hurricanes. and after-shocks.

did all my local-ish friends make it through the earthquake ok? we had one frame fall off the shelf and shatter. it was nothing special, which was nice. i do wonder how the dogs felt during it, basil has this 4th sense about things so i'm pretty sure he warned everyone at his kennel.

2011-08-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

today we're celebrating lola's 5 year come home-aversary! since both our dogs are rescues, we don't know their true birthdays. in fact, we don't even know how old basil is. :( so we celebrate the day we brought them home instead.

here's lola at 6 months, shortly after we adopted her. sean and i volunteered at the washington humane society clicker training dogs to increase their chances of adoption (which is laughable if you've met our dogs. we suck at training.). she had an excellent "sit" and loved hot dogs.

sean wasn't a dog person (he was scared of them after a few bad experiences, actually) so i wanted him to pick out our dog to ensure he was completely comfortable. we were engaged in july, moved in together in august and brought lola home a few weeks later!

lola is definitely my dog. we are so similar. she's very independent, gets annoyed easily and hates to cuddle.

she also doesn't listen to sean at all. (but usually listens to me)

i can't believe we've all been together for 5 years! dogs are just the most awesome thing on earth.

2011-08-23T06:01:00.005-04:00

since i've started to think about what to do in our master bedroom, i've been leaning towards neutrals. mostly to disguise the basil hair. but also because i think it would be sort of a challenge. i wouldn't say that i LOVE color in our house, but i definitely use it. and maybe rely on it? white walls and neutral fabric can probably turn out really boring but it also seems like it'd be calm and relaxing. everyone knows i could use some relaxing.

some bedroom inspiration...

Source: rachelwhiting.co.uk via erin on Pinterest

i think i could make a similar headboard easily. (famous last words)

Source: kerrisdaledesign.com via erin on Pinterest

the pups above the bed!!

Source: musingsofanightowl.blogspot.com via erin on Pinterest

i have never actually painted a room white. hmm.

****************************

an update to this hardware post: i found these, below, that i love. and while they do require holes to be drilled, they should cover the existing holes. and we can label our drawers! weeee!

Source: whitechapel-ltd.com via erin on Pinterest

still deciding though.

2011-08-22T06:08:00.002-04:00

love seat re-do part 2 of [the number of upholstery tacks i've removed]

the fabric arrived the other day! so of course, i couldn't wait to see how it looked on the sofa.

after pulling out a few hundred more upholstery tacks (i don't think staples were invented yet) i started covering what i thought looked like the easiest part.

that would be my labeling scheme with very detailed (and awesome) drawing.

using the old piece of fabric as a template, i cut out a generous amount of fabric (uh, make sure your stripes/pattern are going the right way, in this case, up and down) only to realize i had the fabric wrong side up. whoops. luckily, there's a "left back side arm".

so i cut out another piece and got to stapling. i'm not sure how much advice you are going to get out of this, since i have no idea what i'm doing BUT i did realize something right off. you should line up your fabric so that 1. your stripes/pattern are/is straight (obvious yes, easy to accomplish, no) and 2. there is enough fabric near the curvy arm part so that it can follow the curve. i know this makes zero sense so...i wanted a black stripe to line up against the wood part, because i thought it would be more forgiving than white. so i made sure to start at the top with about half of my black stripe folder under (so when i move along the curved part, i have some slack to pull out and it's still black).

once i had that part figured out, i stapled along the top, then the bottom and finally, along the curvy part. i stapled directly to the wooden frame, because that's what the person did before me and i needed to cover all the holes. also, fold your fabric under (as opposed to just cutting it to size), so the edge is neat and reinforced.

so it was going really well and i was like "i got this!" and high fiving myself and then this happened.

shit.

but my curvy arm part looked so great (relative, people) that i could not bring myself to rip it all off and start over. so i'm going to fix that at the end. somehow. i think the back panel (which was covered with a plain black fabric, not sure if i'll do that) will be the very last part. since it will be nice to have back door access to the seat back for those buttons. (omg those buttons were attached in the most bizarre way. i'm scared of the buttons.)

also, because i am an instant gratification junkie i added the nail head trim. which is so easy and awesome. (i plan to give the wood some love when i'm finished)

so! this is probably the highest ratio ever of words typed to actual progress done.

*note: when i get all up close with the photographs, it doesn't look that great. but in real life it's not half bad! you know, the 1/4 of one arm that i've finished. but still!

to sum up:
yards of fabric purchased: 5
yards of fabric i'll most likely need: any number greater than 5
loveseat upholstering-related injuries: 1 very minor stabbing
episodes of mad men watched while working: 4
staples stapled, then removed, then stapled again: 6
mysterious bruises on my hand: 1

2011-08-19T07:12:00.000-04:00

usually, i don't have a problem with indecision. unless we're deciding where to eat- my family is notorious for doing the "where do you want to go?" "oh, i don't care, wherever you want to go." dance. it drives sean crazy.

other than that, i'm pretty good at making up my mind. i know what i want. or i'm too impatient to figure it out. either one works.

when it comes to a dang light fixture for the dining room though? CANNOT MAKE UP MY MIND. it's driving me insane. i've looked all over online. i've gone to restoration hardware, crate & barrel, west elm, pottery barn, z gallerie (that store is ridiculous), arhaus, cb2, and every antique shop in old town.

i really wanted to find something vintage and one of a kind. this room is still such a blank slate that i was putting so much pressure on the chandelier to make it all come together or something. even though we have like two paintings on the wall, hand-me-down furniture that needs...something and window treatments splattered with yellow paint.

so i went to ikea and grabbed a $60 boja pendant instead.

actually, katy and kyle went to ikea for nursery things and picked one up for me. thanks, guys!

i just needed to get that jumbo ceiling fan down. if it means putting up something temporary then i'm ok with that. i actually really like the looks of the woven pendant so if it doesn't work forever in the dining room, i'll move it somewhere else.

so, here is monster fan.

and now!

i'm surprised by how much i like it! it's not actually hooked up yet, since i need to figure out how to move it over 6 inches to account for the off-centered outlet box (the horror!). but i think it's going to stay put for a while.

(i predict i find the most perfect chandelier of all the chandeliers in the world in approximately 3 days)

have a great weekend!

2011-08-18T06:00:00.001-04:00

i had to break into my own house last night after forgetting my keys. again.

this involved climbing through a window that's about 10 feet off the ground. the same window that looks directly into the neighbor's eat-in kitchen.

they happened to be finishing up dinner right around the time i was pealing the screen off.

so embarrassing.

but sean wasn't due back until 10:30 and i had already been bit by 7 mosquitos.

i managed to fit through the small space and because i was almost a story high i utilized the "back end first" method. so if i fell, it would most likely be into the house and not out of the window (safety first!). at one point just my feet were dangling outside over the window's ledge, while my butt found the countertop. (rather swiftly)

i hopped up, closed the window and avoided eye contact with the neighbors.

later sean came home and said "i'm surprised the countertop could hold you".

uh...

and this morning i woke up with a bruise reminiscent of That Time Sean Took Me On Vacation and Tried to Teach Me to Ski (aka worst vacation ever).

i need to work on remembering my keys! funny though, i thought i had been getting better but then sean told me he puts my keys in my purse at least three nights a week. oops.

2011-08-16T06:00:00.001-04:00

we've been in our house for over a year and i'm just starting to think about the master bedroom. currently, it's yellow, with frames hanging on whatever existing nails the previous owner left and sean's furniture stuck wherever it could fit.

when we moved in together we decided that my furniture would go in the guest room and his in our room. i have no idea why. but that's the way it's stayed.

his furniture is very masculine, which, you know, makes sense. it's also not at all my style- i don't think i'm a matchy match bedroom set person. they're pretty big for our space, too, and because of this, i don't have a nightstand. (i know! so unfair! sean has to take my snooze orders in the morning when the alarm goes off. we only run into problems when he wakes up and turns it off before i hear it.) but it's what we've got and they're quality pieces so they'll stick around for a bit.

because they aren't that old and in good shape, i won't be painting them. but i would like to update them a little. maybe just a hardware change? bc that hardware is awful.

currently, i'm loving the ring pulls like those below, seen first over at fabric paper glue.

Source: smallshopstudio.com via erin on Pinterest

yes, i realize this is a nursery. just look at the dresser and ignore the crib, changing table and giant giraffe. none of those things will be in our bedroom.

the problem? we've got two screws holding the hardware on now, so this style is probably not going to work. we'd have to drill a new hole and fill the old ones. boo.

so off i went to search for 1.5 inch spaced holes and came up with these options:

1. well, it's ok. just pretty boring, too modern and not at all what i'm looking for.

2. uh, no. i love wine but i don't love wine drawer pulls. if you happen to love it though, it can be yours for a mere $150. (that would bring our grand total for two dressers and a nightstand to...$5400.)

3. yes, this is our last option. maybe he and giant giraffe can hang out while we're at work?

so it's back to the drawing board i guess. any suggestions? other ideas for giving our furniture a non-surgical face lift?

*photos from simply knob and pulls because they had an easy search function.

2011-08-15T06:00:00.002-04:00

love seat re-do part 1 of [possibly a very high number]

this weekend i set out to remove the old fabric on the sofa. so we moved it into the basement, where there's enough room to work. if that was step 1, step 2 was to take a crap load of photos.

photos of each side, each angle, close-up, etc so that i can remember how this thing looks put together. this is a very important step!

next, i just started ripping things off with pliers (and my rock hard biceps). i went piece by piece, trying to keep the fabric from tearing since i was going to use it as a pattern of sorts. beware of the upholstery tacks! i probably should be getting a tetanus booster or something. i also wore gloves (i only had purple dish gloves but thicker ones would have been nice) because my hands started getting really itchy.

as each piece came off i labeled it and set it aside. sort of like when you take kitchen cabinet doors off to paint them, it's important to label things clearly. i speak from experience.

once the old fabric was removed (and i only needed sean's help once!) i used wood glue to make a few repairs. it was not in the best condition when i got it but it's got great bones! or something.

ta-dah!!

doesn't it look great? no? yeah, it's possible i am in way over my head. but i'm just taking it one step at a time and if it's a disaster, oh well. (actually, i'll probably cry and yell and use the frame as firewood.)

before i started on this, my dad informed me that if i were to find anything-- money, diamonds, bars of gold-- it was all his. well dad, i'll be sending this sticker right over! and a rusty bobby pin.

now i've got approximately 2000 upholstery tacks to remove. expect an update mid-september?

2011-08-11T12:01:00.002-04:00

a while ago i came across this door knocker in old town alexandria. i loved it. as you can see, i managed to snap a picture but i was too chicken to knock on the door and ask where they got it.

i think it would look great on our door, no? the front of the house needs all the help it can get. (oh and my beloved bench is back in stock but no longer on sale. sad face. sad front of house, too.)

so i searched around for it- first googling "magnolia door knocker". identifying flowers is not my strong point. but it looks sort of similar!

{here} among other places

eventually, the image below popped up and score! (it's a dogwood flower)

{here}

except it's a $180 dogwood flower. which seems like a lot of money. although this is my first foray into door knocker research, so what do i know? (currently, our door knocker is that thing attached to your wrist)

i'll probably put this purchase at the bottom of my list, somewhere after a ceiling fan replacement for The One With Palm Fronds but before Operation Push the Back of the House Out So We Can Have a Real Kitchen. at least i know where to find it now!

2011-08-10T06:00:00.003-04:00

i have officially started on the love seat project! of course, that doesn't mean i've removed the old fabric, or taken the billions of "before" photos so i know how to put things back together, or even moved the thing to the basement where there's room to work on it. oh no. i've created a board on pinterest. hey, progress is progress.

my first thoughts on fabric involved a busy pattern. ikat maybe? my theory was the busier the fabric, the less you'll notice if things don't line up just so. which they won't. but i couldn't find an ikat that i really liked in upholstery fabric.

next, i debated using a solid color. it certainly would be the easiest choice. but that seemed too boring. and i'd want it to be velvety (this is a fancy couch, after all) and velvety fabric + white australian shepherd = white, hairy couch.

finally, i settled on stripes. which is sort of opposite of my make the pattern busy so as to distract from imperfections theory. but i think the stripes might actually help with getting things lined up. or maybe not. i really have no idea.

Source: google.com via erin on Pinterest

although this love seat is super fancy, moreso then i envision mine, it serves as a little inspiration. i won't be painting the frame gold or investing in $200/yard shiny fabric. or shaving simbacat.

i'm actually considering outdoor fabric as it's 1. cheap 2. durable and 3. usually cuter and less formal than real upholstery stuff. (someone chime in if this is a horrible idea! but i checked with my mom, the expert sewer in the family, and she said it was fine.)

i haven't decided on horizontal or vertical stripes yet. i'd hate to give my love seat a complex but i think she can pull off horizontal stripes, like this little chair below. still, i'm leaning towards vertical.

Source: coastalliving.com via erin on Pinterest

what do you guys think? should i scrap all the hard work i've done so far and start over? those photos don't pin themselves you know.

ETA: here's the love seat for reference...

2011-08-08T20:33:00.001-04:00

this weekend was all about sean- as it should be! usually we observe "birthday weeks" in the smona house but i sort of dropped the ball this year. we definitely had an entire birthday weekend devoted to celebrating sean's THIRTY years (i know it's really not that old).

thursday we ate birthday gift-shaped pasta. it's possible that sean didn't even notice that we were eating BIRTHDAY GIFT-SHAPED PASTA.

friday sean took a half day and we met up in chinatown for...chinese. later, we watched isner play, um, a serbian guy at the legg mason. even later, monfils beat another, different, serbian guy. (tennis is not my thing, can you tell?) the weather was absolutely perfect and our seats were great too. someday i will learn the rules of tennis. in the meantime, i will ask sean every 5 seconds what just happened.

sean's mom put together 30 gifts! so cute.

sean's parents joined us from dallas saturday and we tried a new spot for lunch on the hill- the chesapeake room. the home fries were excellent. we stopped by the fairmont to open presents and eventually headed to dinner at palena. sean has been wanting to try this place for a while. i've been mocking the fact that it's attached to a gas station for even longer. we ate in the more formal room and it was a great meal (although i've met my heirloom tomato quota, that's for sure) but i'd also like to try the cafe part of the restaurant. the part farther from the gas station.

sunday we brunched at tabard inn, a first for me. it's a dc brunch institution, a brunchtitution, and their donuts are famous. they were good (really good!) but i've had better (i have a very refined palate for donuts). then we did something to pass the time until dinner. oh! we visited the pentagon september 11th memorial. very well done.

up next was our traditional visit to proof. it never disappoints. except that one time we arrived very shortly after a guy chased another guy through the kitchen with a knife (neither guys were associated with the restaurant). nothing like walking through police tape to get to dinner.

so, in short, we ate a lot this weekned. a lot a lot. i'm starting my detox now. well, maybe once the cakeballs are gone.

2011-08-05T06:00:00.005-04:00

happy 30th birthday sean! (well, tomorrow)

a few past birthdays:
25: we met! (although, sean doesn't remember)
26: moved in together in our fancy capitol hill apartment
27: moved into out first (non-fancy) house together, in baton rouge (the olive house!)
29: moved into our first house in dc!
30: NO MORE MOVING!

august is almost always a month of transition for us, it seems. hopefully we stay put for a while.

i hope you have a wonderful day! and i hope this year is the best yet!

(but 30? that's old.)

(love you!)

2011-08-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

confessions part 2
{part 1 here}

1. a few weeks ago i was flipping through a house beautiful magazine when i saw a kitchen with white cabinets and green details (which, of course, i cant find online). the owner said they had actually hot glued grosgrain ribbon onto the cabinet fronts after a few margaritas one night. that is my kind of home improvement project! it gave the otherwise boring kitchen a definite pick-me-up.

so i got it in my head that i would recreate the look. i taped it off, thinking, if i liked it, i'd re-tape so that i could paint my lines on. and the only color painters tape i happened to have was green- i'd probably go with black or gray paint.

but then i got to thinking of the logistics- would paint stick to my plastic cabinets? how would i get the lines straight? what if i messed up and our once ugly, laminate white cabinets would be ugly, laminate and smudged? it was too much. i needed a margarita.

the painters tape has been on (half) the cabinets ever since. whoops.

2. remember my cute potted plants? i was so excited to give them their first haircut!

and then we had eighteen days of 100+ temps and no rain. i swear i watered these guys everyday. but it didn't matter. it wasn't enough!

ack! night time picture with a flash!

that bottom poof is still hanging on strong(ish) so i'm hoping the rest comes back. in the meantime, i declare these plants of the ombre style. they are so trendy.

3. ironing- am i doing it wrong?

2011-08-03T06:00:00.001-04:00

i've already told you about how sometimes i don't make the best decisions.

we've lived with the icky gold door for a while now and it hasn't grown on me. so friday night, i set out to paint it while sean ate dinner in the dining room and we talked about our days. or rather, we talked about sean's day. sean's job is way, WAY more interesting than mine. plus, after three years, he still doesn't really know what i do (sean's a press secretary for a congressman, i'm a statistician). ten minutes into the priming and sean noticed i was painting. turns out, he liked the gold door. oops.

i love the way our front door turned out so i grabbed the radiccio for the back door too. i will eventually paint the outside the same color (it's white now) but 98 degrees is way too hot to paint outside. (but it's not the hardest thing you'll ever have to doooooo. get it? no?)

i need at least one more coat but wanted to take a photo in the daylight.

speaking of daylight, currently, i don't have any window treatments in the kitchen. it's tiny (like, really tiny) but the amount of sunlight streaming in kind of makes up for it. last week our next door neighbors moved in after gutting/renovating for 3 months. before that, it was vacant. so now one of our kitchen windows looks directly into their eat-in kitchen. and our houses are like 6 feet apart.

it's awkward. (do you wave? i'm pretty sure the answer is no. i do know that you shouldn't grab a drink out of the fridge in just your underpants.)

so i'm thinking our days of no window coverings have come to an end. i'm on the lookout for something with a fun pattern that won't make the little galley kitchen look even smaller.

unless our neighbors find something first and then i don't have to worry about it!

2011-08-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

just in the nick of time, i met my july goal of finishing the middle bedroom!

this room is really small and houses most of our books, my sewing machine, extra furniture we have no other place for and the ironing board. no idea why i decided the ironing board should live in here, but it works.

so, here it is! it's not much different from the house tour photo i posted. sorry for the anti-climactic post.

here's the craft side. the dresser is full of sewing stuff, fabric, and ofther crafting things. i wanted it to be a place i can make stuff but not a room that screams HOT GLUE GUN IN USE! the dresser is so not convenient for sewing (i stand) but we're working with what we've got. or i am. sean doesn't sew.

we need more book shelves! or less books! i threw that stuff on top of the shelves so the photos were less boring but i'm not sure if it'll stay.

i'm happy with the room in an obvious "working with what we've got" attitude. originally i planned to move things out to accommodate a twin bed but that didn't make sense for long term. so for now, this will continue to function as our catch-all room. but at least it's a littler prettier of a catch-all?

oh and that. that's still there. thank you previous owners' daughter. (sidenote: kerry stepped on sean's foot on friday. haha.)

2011-08-01T06:00:00.003-04:00

i cannot believe it's already august! august is a super busy month for us- sean turns THIRTY so we'll be busy celebrating, first, at the legg-mason tennis tournament (a tradition! well, we did it last year.) and then, on a cruise to bermuda. can you guess which one i'm more excited about? sean's parents will also be visiting for a few days to join in on the celebration.

but before i get to my august goals, lets look back at july and see how i did...

1. finish the middle bedroom. check! post coming tomorrow...

2. put together a set of one year house-aversary before and afters. why yes, i did. that was tons of fun and i hope to continue this each year!

3. get back on the smithsonian challenge. we did cross another museum off the list! i had planned on two but sean's been so busy with work (something about the debt ceiling?) that it just didn't happen. plus it was 1000 degrees this month.

4. work on the Lola vs. The Mail situation. and basil barking. lola is still determined to attack the bills that come through the slot. this is a hard habit to break since we aren't home when it happens (if i am home, and hear the mail carrier, i do make her sit and wait but it's not consistent enough). i may try the mail basket idea though.

and basil, well, i actually think he has improved a bit. see, before, if he started barking we would grab a toy and give it to him (sometimes when he gets really excited, the barking turns into jumping and nipping- he's a herder. and we like to avoid that.) to sort of redirect him/his energy. but that's basically teaching him, bark and you'll get a toy delivered straight to your mouth! so my new plan was to just ignore him. and now, he barks for a bit and then starts looking for a toy to death-shake. i don't know, i still have tons to learn about training a deaf/blind dog.

bonus: i taught lola "go get basil" in which she will find basil and wake him up when i first get home so we can all go outside together. maybe next month i will teach her "go get basil nicely without giving him a heart attack".

august goals!

1. begin (notice i did not say finish) the HUGE job of recovering the love seat. that's right. i'm going to go for it. a super helpful comment provided a link to this tutorial. so now i have someone to blame when i totally screw this up. :)

2. work out while on vacation. i have gotten into a really good routine of working out three times a week. and usually, when on vacation i consider all the walking my exercise and don't worry about it. but the thing is, working out really improves my mood, or rather, not working out puts me in a bad mood. so, i'm going to give this a try. plus, i hear the food on a cruise is amazing/plentiful and if i want to get my money's worth, i'll need to burn some calories.

3. organize our closets in the basement. ack, this one is going to be bad.

4. try three new recipes. this might be worse than the basement closets. please review our venn-diagram of eating preferences.. (i'm a pescatarian, sean is a non-dairy chickenarian)

i tried this in the winter and i'm excited to try some new summer recipes!

any summer goals you guys are working on? or maybe your favorite dairy-free, meat-free recipe that can have eggs but doesn't have to? we aren't very picky. ha.

2011-07-30T07:51:00.000-04:00

it seems like months ago, but two weekends ago we braved the high temps and the crowds to continue on our smithsonian challenge, where we visit all 20 smithsonian museums this year.

we hit up the national museum of american history. i have been a few times but it was sean's first visit.

things we saw: the star spangled banner! (the original flag that inspired the song), all the first ladies' dresses, dorothy's red slippers, lots of engineering type stuff as we got lost in the transportation section.

favorites: the muppets! and i loved first ladies at the smithsonian, of course. sean's favorite was the gunboat philadelphia. and the original flag was really cool.

not-so-favorites: the crowds. it was SO CROWDED. we missed more than half of the exhibitions because there were too many people to walk around comfortably. i just noticed the paper engineering exhibit which looks awesome.

this was our 7th stop, 13 more to go!

2011-07-28T12:00:00.004-04:00

so, i've been thinking about something a lot lately. well, for two days now, which is a lot since my usual thought process is
1. idea!
2. do it!
3. wait, maybe i should have thought this through..

remember that love seat i got handed down a while ago?

i made the decision that i'd get it professionally reupholstered. the only reupholstering i've done in the past involved a square seat cushion. there wasn't much to it. when my mom dropped the couch off, she commented that i could probably do it myself (seed: planted). but i thought, no way! there's buttons and tufting and piping and stuff.

but then i took two long days to consider it and, why not try on my own first? a quick google search proved that no antique love seat tutorial has ever been blogged about (kidding. but i couldn't easily find one!). which, you know, is comforting (not).

if i get halfway up a creek without a staple gun, i can just call the professionals then, right? i mean, worst case scenario i waste money on fabric?

i didn't think i could paint that dresser a few weeks back, but i did.

(i totally get that painting a dresser is a tad easier than reupholstering an entire antique love seat with tufting and piping and other words i don't know yet.)

so i might try. or maybe i need two more days to think it through.

2011-07-27T06:00:00.007-04:00

i managed to return home from a weekend away with a few new things for the house. we visited an antique shop called found that was pretty awesome. a lot of times, i find that antique shops are either 1. full of icky things even my grandma would throw away or 2. full of pretty things that i can't afford. this shop was different! it had lots of cool stuff that was priced well. i only came home with one thing though, this vintage fan.

vintage fans are "in" right now. i think. even though i've never been one to keep up with trends (or maybe i'm just 3 decades behind?), this fan is my favorite color (besides gray) and i've been looking for one ever since i passed one up in downtown wichita (i only travel to the fanciest of places!). so i bought it.

i debated getting a tea cart as well, very similar to this one:

{VIA}

a few days later, i sort of regret not buying it but i'll keep an eye out locally.

my aunt let my sister and i snag vintage cameras that once belonged to my papa, which i'm pretty excited about!

i also came home with beer. lots of beer. that we had to unload on the side of the road when we got a flat tire. also on the side of the road? a pair of underpants. i passed on those.

2011-07-26T06:00:00.001-04:00

nothing got accomplished around the house this weekend because my sister and i spent it in ithaca, new york, visiting my aunt sue and my nana. my mom drove over from michigan at the last minute, too! girls weekend!

we went to the farmer's market.

only my family can go to a farmer's market and buy only donuts and cookies. wait, and beets!

we shopped in downtown ithaca where a guy tried to convince my sister, katy, to have a home birth while we waited for our tea (other words of advice: DO NOT HAVE AN EPIDURAL, breastfeed! and swaddle your child until it's three. thank you, hippie tea man.). on the way home, we drove by the house that supposedly inspired the addams family house!

even the addams family has laundry day!

it was too dry for the gorges (ithaca is still gorges, though!) but the water was beautiful!

i really need a friend with a boat.

it was HOT there, too. kenzie agreed.

kenzie can fetch, loves to swim AND has a tail. aka the opposite of my dogs.

but not too hot for s'mores! this is the largest marshmallow i have ever seen. thank you ithaca walmart (sidenote: first trip to walmart in a year and a half!).

yes, i have a super cliched tattoo. at least i dont have a butterfly on my lower back.

and of course, we spent precious time with my nana. which is much more important than finishing the middle bedroom, or whatever else needs to be done at home.

nana's first great-grandchild is in katy's belly! mine is just full of giant marshmallows.

it was such a fun and relaxing weekend! until we drove home, got a flat tire, were stuck on the side of the highway for 45 minutes, got towed by a very questionable guy and then waited at the tire shop for an hour. (cue my mom: but we're safe and that's all that matters!)

**************

if you haven't seen it yet, a few of our 'before and afters' were on apartment therapy yesterday! i was pretty excited to see it but also nervous about the comments, as people can be harsh! but everyone played nice and there was mostly positive feedback. phew!

2011-07-25T06:00:00.006-04:00

you may have noticed that i figured out how to make a roman shade for the middle bedroom. or maybe not. but i did! and i am so excited about it.

i really just took the existing shade down and tried to mimic its construction. it's probably from ikea since all of our shades seem to come from there (all were left behind by the sellers). i'm pretty sure a craft store would sell a kit too (i don't even know where a craft store is ha).

i won't go into details of what i did, but if you really want to know, just email me! i figure if people want to make a roman shade they will just google it (this looks like a good tutorial). or buy a kit. but i'll show you my process in photos to prove how easy it is!

note: make sure you allow extra fabric lengthwise since you'll be sewing those pleats across that take up about an inch of fabric each.

note: the very last fold/seam/pleat needs to be weighted so it hangs straight- i sewed the little rod from the ikea one into mine.

i broke the original cord a few weeks ago, so i just used yarn. i'll probably replace it with something stronger when i make it to...wherever you buy cording?

TA-DA!! note: the fabric i chose doesn't really lend itself to being roman shade-ified. a striped pattern would work really well. see how the pattern is interrupted at each seam on mine? yeah, oh well.

also, the lines across are not straight. thanks, sean, for pointing that out so quickly! but i actually made those seams with an iron-on hem, so if i can't iron a straight fold, i probably can't sew one and there just isn't any hope. otherwise, i think it looks great! and IT WORKS! like, it goes up and down when i pull the string (yarn). i am seriously shocked. and proud of myself!

we have a ton of these plain roman shades that are icky and ugly (you can't wash them easily) so i see a lot more of these remakes in my future!

2011-07-22T06:00:00.003-04:00

the last post of our house-aversary tour!

upstairs we have the guest room, it was a tan-ish color with a mini ceiling fan. (what is that thing in the left corner??)

now it's greige! and still has a mini ceiling fan. but we also have curtains and pillows and artwork! i love this room.

paint color: benjamin moore's river reflections

heading down the hallway, we have the middle bedroom. before it was bright teal and jam packed with the seller's furniture. parts of the house were staged for sale but this room definitely wasn't.

now it's dark teal and less packed. this room is in progress and i hope to share the finished product soon!

finally, the master bedroom. always the last room in the house to decorate. here's the before- surprise! it's yellow. sadly, this photo almost looks better than what we're living with now. i'm not ready to share pictures but hopefully we can tackle this room in year 2.

not pictured: upstairs bath. also zero progress. yay.

as you can see, we have tons of work ahead of us! we'll continue to update things project-by-project but we're in no rush. i'd like to keep this process fun, which means taking breaks whenever i get burned out and balancing my three-hours-spent-on-a-roman-shade with making a fun dinner with my husband in the kitchen. or just ordering thai takeout.

cheers to year two!

2011-07-21T06:00:00.001-04:00

house-aversary tour, day four!

now we'll head downstairs to the manbasement! it was practically glowing in there when we moved in (and not at all manly):

and now, we painted the walls (i'm not thrilled with the color but eh), hung manly things on the walls and placed manly things on the shelves. we also got new, heavy-duty french doors but they look the same. i'll be honest and say it is very hard for me to let sean have control over this space. i definitely would have done some things different. but it's the basement and marriage is all about compromise, right?

i should have turned the abita sign on for the photo! not pictured down here: laundry room and bathroom. neither have been updated from the time we moved in. at all.

2011-07-20T06:00:00.005-04:00

day three of our house-aversary tour! see more here.

yowza. this lime green actually wasn't so bad (relatively), but next to the pale yellow it did not work. i love the french doors out to the deck.

such a difference! but still so much to do! i painted this room the same color as the living room to make it feel more like one space. of course, we added built-in cabinets and shelving that made a world of difference, both in aesthetics and storage space. but we still need to get rid of that giant fan. and swap out the dining chairs. and get more stuff on the walls!

paint color: behr's porpoise

and the kitchen. it was yellow (a darker yellow than the living room), the appliances were old and the light fixture was tacky (space ship!).

i'll be honest, when i looked at these "after" pictures i thought, it doesn't look that different! we painted, hung a new fixture, and got new appliances (!!). but lets face it, the cabinets are still 1980s composite and the countertops laminate. we'll update it someday....

paint color: behr's porpoise (lightened)

the benefit of such a tiny kitchen? it's super quick to clean!

tomorrow, we head down to the manbasement. get ready.

2011-07-19T06:00:00.002-04:00

continuing the tour....

this is the living room, the first room you walk into through the front door. the photo below (and all before photos) features the seller's things. this room was yellow. and kind of boring.

now it's gray! and less boring, i hope. we painted. added crown molding. and i picked out all new furniture for this room- my first time to ever do this!

paint color: behr's porpoise

another angle here:

the door is my favorite part of the room. i still need to tweak things in here - the area on the left near the radiator is on my short list.

i'd also love to redo the fireplace hearth! and we desperately need someplace to store coats in the winter.

next up: kitchen and dining!

2011-07-18T06:00:00.002-04:00

this week we are celebrating our one year house-aversary! i can't believe we've been back for one year already! the house is nowhere near done (will it ever be? probably not!) but it's so fun to look back at where we started. some rooms have been completely transformed while others still need tons of work. we never set out to "redo" this house but i think this is just our process of making the house ours. it will always be changing.

i'll start off with the exterior. this is how the house looked when we first saw it- peach, aqua shutters, ugly pergola.

and now- taupish (?), dark gray shutters, radicchio door and NO PERGOLA!

the back yard had a chain link fence, overgrown garden and dangerous "steps" leading up from the basement.

and now, new wood fence, neat garden with steps that aren't a liability and a cute shed peaking out back there!

i'll post pictures of the rest of the house throughout the week!