More Polyvore Fun!

Have you discovered polyvore yet? It's so fun!
Now that we have lovely grass in the front yard and our house looks less abandoned, I want for it to look sunny and happy and welcoming with lots of fragrant flowers and plants for the birds and butterflies.
I really love this image:


via Remodelista

I decided awhile back that I would be painting our exterior with Benjamin Moore's Iron Mountain, which is like the perfect charcoal, and several hours later I finished with this:

Front Porch by 932west on Polyvore.com

I don't know why it's so small... the purpose of my post shouldn't be smaller than my inspiration photo but whatever, I don't know how to fix it.

What do you think?

A bit of fun to start the weekend...

I know that I've been MIA this week, I've been super busy helping a friend and taking a difficult trip down memory lane.
I promise to tell you all about it on Monday when I am fully recovered. Or at least partially.
Since I haven't been on the internet at all this week (well, barely at all anyways), I have been taking the last hour-and-a-half to catch up on all that has been happening in the blogosphere this week.
I've been browsing in a hurry trying to cram it all in before I absolutely collapse, and I could not resist sharing this charming image from this even better house tour via AT.
Ready?
Here it is:

I know right!!

Oh, soon enough you may even be able to spot something similar to this in our home.

Happy weekend. See you Monday.

A Perfect Quote From A Perfect Lady!

Over at decor8 this morning, Holly highlighted a lovely interview with Deborah Needleman. You know, of domino fame? (*sniff)
I thought this quote just really fit what I was feeling with my earlier post about kitchens: (about who inspires her- Deborah)

“People with great style who live easily and happily with it. Many seemingly stylish people are pretty awful — fussy and uptight. But I am interested in style that is expansive, that makes lives more beautiful and the people in your life happier. This goes back I guess to the team we put together at domino: I am really inspired by many of the people there like Rita Konig, Dara Caponigro, Sara Costello, Stella Bugbee. I am also really inspired by women who are focused, smart and accomplish a lot while never becoming one of those scary businesswomen, if that makes any sense.”

*sniff, sniff*
This really kind of sums up how I am sure most of us feel; regarding our homes especially.
Sure it's more of a challenge to painstakingly acquire all of the right accessories, and find individual pieces that work together than it is to order an entire room out of a catalog, but the end result is so much more enjoyable because everything has meaning! I look at my friends and their homes (here's looking at you Julie) and I feel like we have rather similar tastes, and we may love the same AT Home Tours, or shop at the same stores, but the end result is so different for each of us!
That's what I truly loved, and miss, about Domino. Every page and every space was a celebration of what makes different styles great! It was less about having a perfectly decorated and symmetrical space and more about having a beautiful, comfortable, personal home that you enjoyed.
Oh Deborah! We miss you so!!!

Read on about this and more of Deborah's perfectness here
*sniff!

Progress...ish

Sorry for the light posting this week everyone. Between the crappy weather and an unbelievably slow computer and other things, it's all I can do to not just curl up in bed all day and do nothing.
But nay! I will will myself out of entropy and persevere! My attempts at productivity this week have been frustrating at best, and I tell myself that things always must get worse before they get better and this is especially true of organizing. Unfair though it may be, here it is:




This is the look of progress. More has been made since these photos were taken day before yesterday, but I am still not finished.
When we moved in, our built ins held only DVDs and CDs. They fit perfectly, and coming from 850 square feet of no storage, you can imagine how amped I was to finally have a nice home for our massive media collection.
But then, and this always is the case after a big move, the function of our living room changed. Our TV wouldn't fit in here, so it got moved to the 3rd bedroom. Now all of our media is in a different room from the media center. Odd, no?
And then our board games found a home in the built-ins. Soon followed by all of our books, mementos, photos, and various tchotskies, knick knacks, art, etc., etc., etc. Basically anything that didn't have a home got shoved in along with everything else. It has been my goal to remove anything that doesn't belong in the family room and leave only things that we will use in that room, or close to it, and leave it in a beautiful way.
I hope to share the finished product with you on Monday. In the meantime, here is some bookshelf inspiration to help keep me on track and hopefully inspire you as well! Enjoy!

simplygrove via flickr


love chez larsson

via: remodelista



I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this home of Heather Frazier of frazier and wing
via: design*sponge

Be sure and pop back in later today as I will be sharing my Aunt Dete's recipe for Buttermilk Chess Pie that is absolutely to die for! And so easy to make! Right Mare?

Spring Cleaning in January

*Disclaimer: If you already think my house is "very organized", it may be in your best interest to skip this post. (That pertains to you Mare!)

Maybe the fact that I'm always at home. Maybe it's all the time I spend on home design blogs, drooling over all of the beautifully staged and photographed insides of cupboards and tops of dressers and things. Maybe it's that time of year again and I just want to clean out and start fresh, or maybe it's the thought of staring down the barrel of a long stretch of remodeling projects and chaos and construction and wanting to regain a little control in my home. ...Actually, it's probably a little bit of all of these things.
Basically, I've got the cleaning and organing bug... bad. Lately I have been perusing Martha's 25 Organizing Tips, or the Container Store catalog (OK, so I do this anyways), or creating multiple shopping lists of drawer organizers, bins, boxes, and all manner of organizers from IKEA. And this is how I spend my free time. I dream and day dream about "decorganizing" and the day when I can sip my afternoon tea and know that the inside each closet is full of only things that we need and use and that said things are stored and labeled appropriately. I have everything I need on hand always and I always know where to find it. I don't own anything I don't "know to be useful or believe to be beautiful".
I imagine that I am looking for something terribly important. I open the closet, admire the beauty and simplicity of my organizational handiwork, and then as a spotlight shines down from heaven on the label of the container I am looking for, I sweep it down off the shelf and find the treasure I need. I feel kind of like this quote from Liz Lemon on 30 Rock. (via apartment therapy)

I went to the new flagship Compartment Store on Fifth Avenue and bought everything I need to get my life in order.

There was a stacker thing to separate your junk mail from your humidifier catalogs, a thing you stick on your laptop that holds your keys, a round plastic deal that holds your shoes with a pocket for a photograph of what shoes are in there.

I'm going to become wonderful. It's a new beginning, like a Phoenix rising...

At this point, a bike messenger knocks her over, and the delusion of her decorganizing fantasy dawns on her, as she says, "...or maybe this is gonna be the worst day ever."

(I really wanted to find the clip for this, but can't... blast you NBC!)
Lately what happens is more like the episode of Friends with Monica's secret closet. The closet is full to the brim of all manner of junk and clutter not in use and stuffed in a hidden closet to hide her secret chaos in an otherwise perfectly beautiful and organized apartment. (Again, no clip.)
So until I can go buck wild in the "Compartment Store", here are some of my favorite organizing ideas, links, pics, etc.

I'm dying to organize our photos like this:

via realsimple

How to organize room by room via apartment therapy

A beautiful laundry room from domino (sniff)


I just decided that for all of our benefits, I am going to go room by room in my own home and organize each room and then post links and tips that helped me get there. It will give me a good excuse to actually get organized instead of just talking about it, and you get to check out all of my favorite tips and ideas and then get to see them put into practice. Sound good?

Corners

My earlier post inspired me to take a look around our home and capture some nooks and corners that I really love. For one reason or another, these are some of my favorite spots in my home:

This is our "morning table" where we have our coffee and surf. It's still in the dining room but we don't have to clear off the big table just for coffee. Plus the computer chargers are right there!

My crafty desk in our newly painted and organized office. Eric has since been using it for his work desk also, of course.

The couch in our TV room is the most comfortable of the three couches in the house. And as such, I end up in there a lot with a cup of tea and crochet in the afternoons while the baby is napping.

Our entry way and half of the "landing strip". By the way, it is usually not this clean! The bench I bought at Ironside last year and absolutely love.

And finally, my favorite spot. In Adelaide's room where we read and rock and play. This is, in my opinion, the coziest spot in the house. Maybe because of all of the wonderful memories that have been made here in the last four (!) months, but I love this little corner and all the time spent there.

Doing this makes me realize that these little spots are what gives a home personality and memories. These are places we gravitate to. Maybe because they are comfortable, or maybe because of the way the light shines through, for whatever reason, the little things are what makes our house a home (sorry for the cheese factor).
I think I'll make an installment of this. Photographing and sharing these little corners that make our lives more comfortable so years later we can look back and say, "Hey, whatever happened to that [insert object here]?". We can remember the right now and appreciate the anticipation and the space that comes before we start remodeling and painting and changing everything around here. Part of the fun of transition phase is the transition itself. We're on the cusp of something. There's a space between what was and what will be, and in that flux is something that isn't either nostalgia or hopes for the future. It's the right now, the present. And in dreaming and planning and preparing for changes that gets lost sometimes. Well not anymore! I want to remember my meager snacks, and the empty spaces without furniture, the white walls, everything that is of this moment... like this: