up in the air

my father-in-law sand sledding in new mexico. i love this photo. you could either walk down or ride down. he chose to ride. (click on the photos for the full beauty.)
my inlaws are on a plane right now heading to seattle. they stopped first to visit their daughter (steve's sister) in new mexico and her family. while there, they visited the white sands national monument. and had some fun. how beautiful are those dunes. and that blue, blue sky.
my nephew. being a typical boy.
my niece. nice body plant, morgan. you're still "it".
and they also went to carlsbad caverns. beautiful.
my nephew sam at the cave entrance. see him? see him? look closely.
great photos, brother-in-law dave!

i've closed the shop. i've cleaned the house (ok, i still have to vacuum and mop). i've stocked the fridge. let the fun begin.

pink...

it's growing on me. this room is helping. a lot.

image via here

amazing race

this is for my friend carissa. carissa just finished her SECOND marathon on sunday in atlanta. and she did it in less than 4 hours! we on the west coast (that would be pixel, steve and i) are so incredibly proud of her! i personally find it astounding that any person can run 26.2 miles in one spell. the most i've ever done is 5. but carissa has been training for the last few years. she set a goal and stuck to it... incredibly inspiring! way to go carissa!

i lifted some photos of her finishing the race from her facebook page. hope she doesn't mind!

keeping the sanity

i put in the request yesterday. please touch only the handles. this was after i had spent some time cleaning all the stainless in the kitchen. i saw this this morning.

BEFORE

thank goodness for this, that i picked up at bed, bath & beyond the other day. looks like amazon sells it too.

AFTER

it really does work. and amazingly. i used it on our stove hood which had a buildup of months of cooking grease underneath. worked like a charm (after some soaking time for the stubborn stains). doesn't streak either.

and in other news, here's cali posing in our awkward family room niche underneath the even more awkward "you're-supposed-to-put-your-tv-here" niche. she's posing with the new paint color, slate from restoration hardware. love it.

stuff

first.....thanks, honey, for the pretty flowers.
second, do you see the ladder in the background of this photo? i'll be on that later today. and probably tomorrow, too. we're painting the family room/kitchen as part of the kitchen renovation. the rustic adobe color is becoming slate from restoration hardware. so far i love it.

and third....until i'm on the ladder this afternoon, i'm celebrating that i am caught up on shop orders for the first time in 2 months. woohoo. how, you ask. with a trip to the mall, i have a love/hate relationship with the mall. any mall in fact. i truly hate them. but the mall has this. hence the love part. and i seriously need a wardrobe update. so off i go.

image via here

new use

in a mad dash this afternoon to get a sample of this (because, yes, after the kitchen backsplash went in yesterday, we decided to change paint colors slightly),


i found this in pottery barn.

from here

ok, so i wasn't dashing that much that i couldn't stop and browse for 30 minutes in pb. but it's hard for me to pass one up. but i did pass up jcrew and anthropologie. so give me a little credit for that.

this is going in the kitchen. nope, not with jewelry. but something else. i'll show ya when i've got it rigged. any guesses?

it's only monday?

image via country living

too many chores. too many projects. it's making me wish i could curl up in this bed for a spell.

is it normal...

to be in love with a sink?

granite, check.
sink, check.
gooseneck faucet, check.
new QUIET dishwasher, check.
new QUIET garbage disposal, check.
backsplash, monday.
paint, before in-laws show up.

steve, bless his heart, worked until after midnight last night hooking up the faucet, disposal, and dishwasher. he's off celebrating with an outing to the sporting goods shop. me, i'm cleaning out all the lower cabinets. replacing countertops is a messy job. but i'll take it, cause the almost-finished project is wonderful.

color crush

i was in my local calico corners recently looking for fabric for a kitchen shade. i rounded the corner, spotted this display, and stopped dead in my tracks.
i'm in love with this color combo. chartreuse and purple. i hate to call it just 'purple'. seems like there's a more descriptive, better name for this color. it escapes me now. eggplant? aubergine?

it reminded me of this. how i covet those wall hangings.

via odi et amo via canadian house & home

and this, which i also saw recently.

image via here

this silk was part of the display.

silk fabric via here

even anthropologie's in on it.

fluidity belt at anthropologie

what do you think? do you love it? just like it?

clever idea

when she first ordered my custom square calling cards, i didn't know what she wanted them for... just that they have her shop name, a space, and her shop's url. here's what she did with them. cute! and super clever.


stop by and check out her jewelry. her name's jo. she's got a blog too. she promises to post photos soon of her renovated brooklyn house. i'm dying to see them.

images by jo

i'm starting to see...

the light at the end of the tunnel on the kitchen facelift. the granite measuring technician (yes, that's my terminology for him) was here today. he brought in the digital arm that sat on a tripod and downloaded all our measurements to autocad. my, how technologically advanced we've become. and how poorly level are cabinets are.

we started with this 2 weeks ago. and a vision. (ok, seriously, i have wayyyy too much stuff on my kitchen counters.)
steve started slowly removing tile backsplash piece by piece.

and installing and hardwiring undercabinet lights.
and look, he even did it with a smile.then he removed the tile granite, piece by piece. and the drywall, down to the cotton candy pink insulation.then he lowered the outlets, put on new snazzy black covers that will blend better with the new tile backsplash. and he put up new backing.

then yesterday, which happened to be my birthday, the crown jewel was installed. our new farmhouse sink. ahhhh. she's a beauty. here steve and his assistant are analyzing how unlevel the cabinets are.

followed by a little discussion.
followed by a little laser light frolicking. (see my paint swatch? the room's getting repainted, but we still haven't found the right color.)followed by a well-deserved cheek-to-cheek rest.thank you, honey, for all your hard work on the kitchen. he's done it all so far. and without one complaint. my hero.

we're muppets!

go here to muppetize yourself. my friend denise introduced me to this. hysterical huh? this is me. i gave myself a mod outfit complete with headwrap.
smile steve! are you mad because i made you wear a hawaiian shirt and lei?
have a great weekend! steve and i (ok, fine, mainly steve) will be prepping the kitchen for the granite which is being installed next week. he must first replace the cabinet housing the sink and install the new sink. new farmhouse sink! yay. so excited. i'll be wrapping up some projects around here and organizing files to send off to the tax man. fun.

company made me do it

guests do it every time. unknowingly of course. but their visit forces you to get to that nesting to-do list. my in-laws are coming march 25th. the kitchen will be done the week before... given that absolutely not one thing goes wrong with the install. *crossing fingers*. otherwise we'll be prepping meals on plywood.... like now. and staring at pink cotton candy insulation as a backsplash... like now.

my photos from the upstairs hall are being moved to the foyer for this project. which leaves some blank wall space upstairs. can't have that, especially for company. already in the space is this desk, tucked into a recessed niche.

above it is an oversized floral canvas oil with tons of color. turquoise, chartreuse, orange, red, yellow.

i'm planning on this fabric for a roman shade at the end of the hall. heaven forbid if my neighbor should ever see me dart out of the master bedroom naked to retrieve something from the dryer right next door. bad day for them. this'll nip that in the bud.
the blank wall space will be filled with this art from here. i love marlene's prints. we have another one in the family room.
and this art from here.
i have some other photographs from alicia. they're simply stunning.

what do you think?

sneak peek

remember this project? i made some headway this weekend. the first step (prepping for painting) took more time than i thought mainly because it took me, my husband, 3 pottery barn reps, 2 hours, 1 screwdriver, 67 bad words (yes, from me, not hubby), and finally one instruction sheet to remove the drawers. my advice.... read the instruction sheet FIRST, don't just merrily toss it aside when cleaning out the drawers.

but here's the sneak peek. my original plan of painting it turquoise has changed. when i layed out my photographs to become my gallery wall above the chest, i concentrated on this one and pulled my color scheme from it.

my new favorite color, rainstorm by sherwin williams.
these beauties are on their way. i'm so excited. i've never had glass knobs before. on anything. weird, huh.
final results soon.

must do

image via here

i need to start collecting coffee cans (antique?) so i can do this. how pretty would these be scattered on an outdoor table?