Category Archives: Home Design and Decor

Crazy For Paisley

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Recently I’ve been searching for six baskets/bins to create a laundry sorting station in our master bedroom closet.  Unfortunately I need a very specific size (12×14), which does make the hunt a little bit trickier.

I found these at Target, and they were just the perfect dimensions:

But they were $9.99 each… for a plastic basket!  For real!

I decided to keep looking.

Today I hightailed it to Michael’s in search of a better deal.  Fortunately I wasn’t in the market for a fake ficus tree, or I would have been disappointed…

What I did find was a whole aisle of closet organization supplies – 60% off!!!  I didn’t even know they had closet organization stuff…. hangers, bins, jewelry trays, hampers and everything.  And it’s super cute to boot!  At least if you’re as crazy about paisley as I am.

I HEART a pretty paisley print!  And at $7.99 each for fabric covered bins, there was no way I was passing these babies up!

Hopefully Peter won’t object too strongly to having something a little girly.  I know I’d never get away with this print in a common space, but it’s our closet, so I’m crossing my fingers that he’ll deal with it.

So now the only downside is that the Michael’s store I visited only had four bins and I was looking for six.  The girls at the check out advised me to try calling other stores, but to do it soon.  Apparently they’ve only had this closet organization line for a month or two and are already clearancing it.  Doesn’t make much sense, but as long as I can locate two more bins, it will end up being perfect timing for my purposes.

So now I’ve got ‘find baskets’ almost checked off my to-do list.  On to figuring out a good way to label them.  Right now I’m thinking cute paper hanging tags tied on the handles.  Any other ideas?  I’d love to hear them!

Christmas is Brewing!

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Happy Christmas Eve 2011!

As is our family tradition, we will be having some friends and relatives over for Chinese food after the tonight’s church service.  Is it a little odd to eat Chinese take-out off of china plates?  Probably, but was one of Peter’s family traditions growing up that has been fun to adopt for our own little band.

So now the food is ordered, the table is set, and I am happy to announce that I have gotten pictures of all my dining room decor to share with you, including the mysterious coffee filter project, so without further ado, here are my Christmas Dining Room Decor 2011 pictures:

The top of the bookcases:

The sideboard:

Do you see the coffee filters?

How ’bout now?

My grandmother says it looks like a dust catcher.  She’s probably right, but I still love my coffee filter wreath!

And to stick to my self-imposed challenge to reuse and reinvent items I already had on hand, I used this Christmas card we received a few years ago from one of my aunts to complete the sideboard transformation. So glad I kept it around.

No Christmas dining room would be complete without a festive table.  Here’s my attempt:

I used some snowflake ornaments for placecard holders:

And grabbed some things I already had on hand to complete my centerpiece, including my glitter bird from Michaels, and my homemade sheet music stars, and some glittery snowflakes that were on clearance at Target last year in the gift wrap section.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with how everything came together, especially considering that my entire Christmas decor budget this year (not including the fresh-cut tree) came in under $25 and that includes the adorable snowflake hand towels I got for the half-bath.

Sticking to my challenge was truly a challenge.  It definitely made me dig around and say, “What do I have that I could use here?”  But in the end, I think it’s the best our house has ever looked at Christmas.  My favorite part?  Definitely the wreath, so one last pic… okay?

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Days of Christmas Craziness

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I know posts have been few and far between around here lately.  We have been BUSY!  So to catch you up on all our happenings over the last two and a half weeks, I’ve written a little ditty and it goes like this…

On some days of Christmas Craziness my true love gave to me:

Twelve Floats a Glowin’
Alethea, Lydia and I all got to experience our first Minneapolis Holidazzle Parade together this year.  I know, I know, I grew up in the Twin Cities and had never seen it in person before.  Shame on me.  It just wasn’t part of our family traditions growing up.  I don’t know whether it will become part of ours, but it was cool to see the girls’ faces light up as they watched the stunning floats go by.  This is Alethea and Poppa (Peter’s dad) waiting for the parade to begin (not sure why Alethea looks sunburned, the weather hasn’t been that nice lately):

And here’s Lydia making everyone laugh while we were waiting:

Ooooo lights!!!!

Eleven Singers Singing
I was in charge of directing our church’s Christmas choir again this year.  I decided to try my hand at arranging some of the carols we were going to be singing.  “How is the arranging coming?” Peter asked me several times in November.  “Haven’t started yet,” I told him, “but I don’t think it’ll take me too long.  I’m not going to do anything too fancy.”  Turns out even not fancy arrangements are a lot of work.  Especially when you forget to save one before you go to bed and then wake up on Saturday morning with two hours until choir practice and find that your computer has rebooted and you’ve lost eeevvvveeeerrryyythiiiiiing!  Three original arrangements (one written out twice!) and four rehearsals in two weeks makes for choir overload!  Peter told me that next year I have to be done in July or he’s pulling the plug on my directorship.  We’ll see.

Ten Students Playing
Tuesday was the Christmas party for my piano students here at our house.  We had a great time playing music bingo, eating junk food and performing Christmas carols for each other.  Alethea enjoyed getting to interact with all the ‘big kids’, though she was a little confused about what kind of party it was.  She kept walking up to various students saying in a cheerful voice, “Happy Birthday!”

Nine Presents for Peter
… and other assorted gifts.  Lots of Christmas shopping has been done and while I have done as much as possible online, there still have been a few trips out to brick and mortar stores to pick up this and that.  Peter and I even braved the MOA to get Lydia her Bitty Baby Doll from the American Girl Store, though afterward Peter commented that we should probably have just paid to have the doll shipped rather than deal with the crowds.  Bah Humbug!

Eight Dozen Cookies
The girls and I were invited to attend a cookie exchange on Monday with some friends from church, but due to Extreme Choir Week (see number eleven above), Sunday night was my first chance to bake anything.  So, I stayed up late baking my Coconut Macaroons and Chocolate Andes Mint cookies.  It was totally worth it though because not only did I end up with a nice variety of cookies for my piano party, I got to spend an entire morning chatting with other moms.  I really need to do that more often, it was such a blessing!

Seven Monkeys Climbing
Okay, so it’s not seven monkeys, it’s just one, but it feels like seven!  Lydia is now climbing on everything in sight, including, but not limited to, the stairs, step stools and Alethea’s child sized rocking chair (which is now in the basement because Lydia kept falling off of it).  I can’t seem to get anything done because I’m constantly rescuing her off of things and the day I finally put the gate up at the bottom of the stairs so I could clean the kitchen, she sat there and cried for 10 minutes!  You heard me right, easygoing, not bothered by anything Lydia wept like her poor little heart would break just because I wouldn’t let her climb the stairs without me.  Sigh…

Would you believe that she got up here all by herself?

Six Gifts from Santa
One of the great things about our neighborhood is that every year the ladies do a Secret Santa week early in December.  This year I got five lovely gifts left on my doorstep through the week and then Saturday was our brunch and Santa reveal, where we ate a potluck meal and exchanged our final gifts.  I had a good time planning a gift theme for my recipient (snowflakes!) and thought my Santa did a really good job picking gifts for me.  Alethea had fun going to the door each morning to retrieve my gift for me off the doormat.  She especially liked the Tuesday gift, which was mini chocolate bars, but then on Wednesday when she pulled the tissue paper off of pretty paper napkins, she said in dismay, “But it’s not food!!!!”  I guess you can’t please everyone.

Five Sets of 20 Cards
My photo cards from Snapfish arrived and all 100 of them are currently sitting on my counter in envelopes, stamped and addressed.  My letter is written and copied.  I just need to get the letters stuffed and envelopes sealed and they’ll be headed to the post office for mailing.  How glad am I that I bought stamps in November so I have zero trips to make to the postal counter?  SO GLAD!

Four Assorted Parties
Happy Birthday again to my nephew Deacon and my sister-in-law Leah!  We enjoyed celebrating with you!  The piano party (number ten above) and a football and pizza gathering with church friends rounded out our yuletide celebrations thus far.

Three Prescriptions Filled
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to the pediatrician’s office in the last few weeks, but I do know that we’ve had three rounds of antibiotics to combat ear infections, one for Alethea and two for Lydia.  I wish we could just get healthy, but they’ve both got horrible colds again and after a couple terrible nights with Lydia, we’ll be going in for an appointment this morning.  I really hope it’s just a cold and not another ear infection, otherwise we may be looking at tubes for our baby.  She just can’t stay on antibiotics for weeks on end.  It does horrible stuff to her digestive system and that makes both of us cranky!

Two Rooms Decked Out
My holiday decorations are done!  There are a few touches in the kitchen, my office and the main floor bathroom, but I’ve concentrated most of my efforts in the living and dining rooms.  I haven’t had a chance to get pictures yet, but Lord willing, before the end of the week, I will post my final decor shots for you all to see.

And a Gorgeous Balsam Fir Tree
I’m pretty sure we found the finest tree ever grown in Minnesota for our home this year.  It’s perfect!  And we had a terrific time going to cut it down too.  We’ll, at least some of us did.  Lydia had a hard time sitting up in the sled and Alethea didn’t like being squished!  The adults in the group just about died from laughter as we watch Lydia channel Ralphie’s little brother Randy from A Christmas Story:

After tree cutting comes tree decorating though and the girls liked that much better:

Alethea, naturally, took her ornament hanging task very seriously and did a nice job of getting each one to stay on the tree.  This is the face of utter concentration!

And as you may have predicted, Lydia thought her job was to go around and pull down all the ornaments Alethea was so carefully placing:

We did finally get all the ornaments to remain on the tree and Peter and I both agree that it is the finest tree this family has ever had.

Ho, ho, ho!

So that’s what we’ve been doing lately.  It seems like there are never enough hours in a day, but clearly we’ve managed to cram some stuff into the hours we do have!  How’ve you all been?  Busy too, I bet!  We’ll, I’d love to chat, but we’re off to see our pediatrician.  Have a happy Christmas Eve, Eve, Eve today! Later y’all!

A Merry Massive Mantel

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A.k.a. How I Decorated a Rather Large Mantel on a Budget

Christmas decorating is in full swing around here and I am happy to announce that I am sticking to my self-imposed challenge to reuse, reinvent and repurpose items from around my house to avoid spending money and accumulating loads of unnecessary clutter in my house over the holiday season.  I am also happy to announce that my mantel is done and it is my favorite mantel-scape ever.  And I have photos to share!

But first, here’s a little ‘before’ pic to illustrate what our mantel looks like (mostly) bare.  It is a huge mantel (the frames sitting on it are 2’x3′ just for comparison).  I actually figured it out once at more than 150 cubic feet of space (and yes, I did briefly consider throwing a mattress up there and calling it a guest bedroom).  In the past, I have found it to be a daunting task to come up with space filling, non budget busting decor ideas.

Anyway… here’s before:

I went around the inside and outside of my house gathering supplies and when I was done, my Christmas mantel ingredient list included:

  • An old window found in our basement, bought many years ago at a garage sale
  • Wine bottles from a friend’s party (okay, these weren’t actually in my house until I asked her for them, but they were free, so, who’s counting?)
  • Pine cones from a box in our garage (originally picked up off the ground during a family vacation in Georgia)
  • Green ribbon and dried eucalyptus reused from my 30th birthday decor
  • Black candle lanterns with white candles that I already had on the mantle
  • Branches from our backyard
  • Two pieces of flagstone leftover from our summer landscaping project
  • My nativity, a star tree-topper (stand part clipped off with tin-snips) and assorted ornaments (all found in our Christmas tubs)

Put it all together and what do you get?

This!!!!

Some close-ups…

My favorite part is the way the flagstone elevates the nativity, really making it the focal point of the mantel, despite its small size:

My second favorite part of the mantel is that I managed to pull it together without spending even a penny.

I’m so glad my massive mantel is done so that I can use it as a jumping off point for the decor in the rest of the house.  (Stay tuned!)

Changing Seasons

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The last few days have really felt to me like a shift from autumn to winter. Here’s why:

*Saturday morning, Lydia woke up at 6:00am and wouldn’t stop crying, even with me holding and rocking her.  So we went to the doctor as soon as they opened their doors.  She’s got an ear infection, in both ears.  Welcome cold and flu season.

*Once we got home from picking up Lydia’s antibiotic prescription, she zonked out for hours.  Poor baby.  But since Alethea spent the night at Gramma and Poppa’s (thanks John and Denny!) Peter and I were child free for the remainder of the morning and early afternoon.  We got major yard clean-up done.  In fact, I think this is the most prepared for winter our outside spaces have ever been.  Goodbye leaves!

*As you can see from the above picture, we didn’t get our yard clean-up done a second too soon.  While we were moving the last bags to the curb, it started snowing and kept snowing for most of the night.  Alethea was just dying to get out and play in it, so that’s just what we did on Sunday after church.  Welcome snow!

*Sunday night I made Sweet Potato and Red Pepper Soup.  It’s one of our favorites!  Welcome soup weather!

* Yesterday I did some more work on my budget Christmas decorations.  This time it wasn’t painting branches though, it was peeling labels off of wine bottles!  Welcome Christmas decor!

* That afternoon my mom came over and we took the girls to Menard’s to visit their Enchanted Forest.  Alethea and Lydia both thought all the lights and trees were pretty wonderful.  And I actually found a lawn ornament that I would consider putting in my yard.  Yes, really!  Welcome twinkle lights!

Goodbye Autumn!  Welcome Winter!

Christmas Decor Challenge

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I am taking a Christmas Decor Challenge!  Anyone want to try it with me?

Here’s my plan: I am going to try to decorate my front porch, living room, dining room, main floor bath and perhaps some touches in the kitchen while spending as little money as possible.  I will reinvent, reimagine and repurpose items I already own to create something fabulous and festive.

Ready? Set? Go!

Here’s my step number one:

We’re planning on getting a fence next year.  Lucky me, because that means I have a virtually unlimited number of cool branches available to me on the trees all along our property lines!  I chopped some off and laid them out on an old tarp.

Then after a quick coat of white spray paint (that I already had on hand), I put them in our garage to off gas, so they don’t stink up the house.

What’s step number two?

Well, I don’t want to give my whole plan away, but I will tell you that the branches are for our mantle and there will be some Christmas ornaments and objects left over from a friend’s party joining the branches for what I hope will be a crazy cool focal point for our Living Room.

So stay tuned as we all find out together whether I can stick to my own Christmas Decor Challenge!  And if anyone wants to take the Challenge too, let me know so we can share ideas and inspire each other!

Have a happy weekend!

Pick a Color, Any Color

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I think I’ve finally decided what I want to do for paint in our main floor half bath.  But before I reveal my grand plan, here’s a refresher on what our main floor bath looked like before we moved in:

Not a whole lot has changed other than the fact that we hung a round IKEA mirror above the sink and bought a few accessories to make it more colorful and toddler friendly.

A while ago I put together my idea board for the space:

However, I wasn’t really sold on the idea of a plain solid paint color.  It’s a small bathroom, so I don’t want to go crazy.  But on the other hand, it’s a small bathroom, so adding some interest to the walls wouldn’t be as time consuming to achieve as in a more roomy space.  And I figure, why not have something cool for guests to look at when they use the facilities!?!

I briefly considered doing some wide horizontal stripes, which I always love in other people’s houses, but I’m not sure our domicile is a stripey sort of place.  I also thought about doing some kind of stencil, but trying to maneuver a stencil around a sink and a toilet sounds like a huge headache, as does removing the sink and toilet to avoid having to stencil around them.  So, the stencil idea was a no-go.

Then it came to me… I should do a linen effect!

I’m so psyched about this!  It’s subtle enough that you won’t feel like you’re being swallowed whole by a crazy pattern, but it’s definitely way more interesting than plain ol’ paint.  From everything I’ve read so far, they say it’s a somewhat lengthy process because you have to wait for the paint to dry on each step (base coat, vertical strie and horizontal strie), but it’s not supposed to be difficult.  And fortunately I have the patience for putzy piant applications, so I think it’s a match made in heaven.

Now I just have to get the Peter seal of approval, and I’ll be ready to march out and buy some supplies!

What does everyone think?  Any other paint treatments I should consider before giving Linen the thumbs up?

A First and Some Fun

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Today was a crazy busy day.

It started out with Alethea and I going to Cost Cutters for her first haircut.

We only got the back cut, because I’d still like the front to keep growing and I don’t want Alethea to have bangs.  Still, I’m glad I went to a salon, because Alethea was pretty cooperative, but I think that was mostly the result of getting to wear a cool surfing penguins cape.

After her haircut, we went to Wendy’s for a mother/daughter lunch.  Getting to have a meal together (just the two of us) isn’t something that happens all that often.  We bonded over chicken nuggets and an apple chicken salad.

With tummy’s running on full, we hopped into the car and did some more errands, including the dry cleaners, which isn’t something I’d normally bother to share, but I’m super impressed with this one I found near us because they have a drive up window.  LOVE IT!

Our last errand of the morning was Kohl’s where we used our 20 percent off coupon to procure a black hat for Alethea’s Halloween costume and new sunglasses for me, who foolishly let Lydia play with my last pair while she was sitting on our concrete sidewalk.  SCRAAAAATCH!

I found a really cute new pair and so did Alethea:

After we put her selection back on the rack, we bought the hat and my sunglasses and then headed home for nap time.  Or at least Alethea took a nap.  I, however, took off again and picked up a pumpkin at the grocery store, take n’ bake pizzas for dinner and a paint sample for our main floor bathroom.

Then home again, home again, jiggidy jig, I tossed the pizzas in the fridge and grabbed a paint brush, determined to test a small square of the color before our dinner guests arrived.  I’m wasn’t sure exactly when I’d get around to actually painting the bathroom, but I just love to see what paint colors look like up on a wall.  So yeah, dinner guests coming and no plans to paint the bathroom soon.  Should I have waited to try the color out?  Oh probably, but I had a brilliant plan.  Just paint a small square behind the picture frame on the wall and hang the picture back up when finished.  Fool proof…

Unless one fails to realize that the screw in the wall only marks the top of the picture frame when the hanger for the picture frame is actually at the top.  Not closer to a third of the way down the back, like mine is…

Oh well.  Looks like I’ve got new motivation to move ‘paint main floor bathroom’ up on my to do list.

Our dinner guests arrived on schedule, but since it was my parents and Peter’s parents who came over, they were very understanding about the painting mishap and the tool box sitting on the kitchen counter.  Besides, we were about to create an even bigger mess since they had all come over for our annual pumpkin carving.  It’s quickly becoming a family tradition for the men to watch football and drink beer while the women-folk do the carving, but that’s okay.  We all probably enjoy it more that way anyhow.

Naturally, step one of carving is to pop the top off the gourds and clean out the guts.  The girls both helped with this.  Lydia very willingly stuck her hand right into the pumpkin, but then had a hard time grabbing seeds, since they were so slippery.

And when she did finally get a seed out of her large orange friend, it went straight into her mouth.  I was about to dive in after it when she swallowed it in one easy gulp.

And with that, her pumpkin gutting time quickly ended.

Alethea was definitely more squeamish than her sister, but eventually got into the seed finding fun.

With the guts cleaned out, we began the carving process.  I worked on a puppy pumpkin as per Alethea’s request (yes, she had a puppy pumpkin last year too) and Peter’s mom Denny worked on Lydia’s pumpkin eating pumpkin, which was based on a photo I found online (I wish it had been my design idea, but it wasn’t).  I’m super happy with how they turned out!

Small pumpkins and gourds of the world, beware!

We also took some time during the evening to have the girls model their Halloween costumes for their grandparents, who won’t be around on Monday to see them all dressed up.  I just can’t get over how cute they both look!

The bumble bee costume was actually mine when I was about Alethea’s age, so I’ll have to dig up a picture so we can do a side by side comparison.

Alethea was disappointed it wasn’t actually time to go trick-or-treating, and honestly, I was too.  It’s going to be a really delightful Halloween!

My little flower and bumble bee are snug in their beds now, and I think I’m going to join them and put an end to this very busy day.

How Hard Could it Be?

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Peter always dreads it when I say those words.  Like when I found this chair on Craigslist for $30.

“It’s sooo perfect for Alethea’s room!” I said.

“But it’s orange!” Peter replied.

“I’ll just reupholster it,” I told him.  “It’s just the seat.  How hard could it really be?”

First I popped off the gold nail head trim.  Piece of cake!

Then I did some measuring and bought a yard of some gorgeous teal velvet.

I showed my mom the fabric.

“You’re planning on taking off the orange leather for a pattern?” she asked.

“No,” I told her, “I think I’ll just wrap the velvet over the other fabric.  The velvet is a bit thin, so it might be good to have another layer.  I mean, it can’t be that hard, right?”

Turns out thin velvet rips when it’s stretched too tight.  Also turns out it is hard to cut fabric for a seat without a pattern.

Lessons learned.  Always listen to your mother!  I purchased new fabric (a pink brushed twill) from the upholstery section of the fabric store.  Then I pulled off the orange leather for a pattern.

While the chair was already pretty comfortable, I took the opportunity to add some additional foam to the front edge for a touch more padding.

Then I closed her up…

… and cut out the fabric for the new seat.

After I cut the fabric out using my *ahem* pattern, I stretched, stapled, smoothed, trimmed, stapled, stretched and stapled some more.  After several hours (yup, even with a pattern, it was harder than I thought it would be) I had this:

Then I nailed in a couple hundred upholstery nails, which actually wasn’t that bad.  (Finally, something goes smoothly!)  And here is the ‘new’ chair in Alethea’s room:

And fabric lovers, never fear.  I salvaged a big chunk of the teal velvet and finished the bottom of the chair.  I wasn’t originally planning on doing the chair’s underside, but with fabric already in hand and the thought that Alethea is as likely to end up under the chair as she is to be sitting on it, it seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

So, it was harder than I thought it would be, but I think the results were totally worth it!

I almost want to tackle another upholstery project again soon.  But not quite.

A New Family Member

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No I’m not pregnant.

We’re not getting a dog either.  At least not right now.

Nope, not talking about anything living or breathing, but about something that brought a breath of fresh air to our Living Room.

A NEW RUG!

As you may recall, it was love at first sight when I saw the Pottery Barn Mia Rug in their catalog a few months back.  It was exactly what I had been looking for and I would have gone out and bought it right then and there, but it with all the summer landscaping projects, it wasn’t really in the budget.

Well, good things come to those that wait.  Good things like a rug sale, a 10% off your entire purchase coupon, Pottery Barn gift cards procured by redeeming credit card points and being able to convince Peter that since we both were sick of the old rug, the rest would make the perfect anniversary gift to give each other.

So this weekend it was out with the old:

And in with the new!

I’m absolutely in love with this rug.

Lydia likes it too.

Although that may be due in large part to the fact that she enjoys picking fuzz out of it to chew on.

Oh well!

The rest of us are enjoying it’s colors, patterns and the fact that it is very cushy under foot.

Welcome to the family, Mia!