weekend agenda

first, as in this should be done tonight, is finalizing our carpet selections. this'll be the third trip to the carpet store. we have mostly hardwood on the first floor, except for the formal living room, which is being converted to my office. there's carpet there now, but we're replacing it. we found a good choice for that. a dark greige wool berber. and while we're at it, we're replacing the carpet on the stairs. it's in desperate need of a facelift. it's sagging. it's tired. i'm tired of it. this was my front runner. godfrey hirst, boulevard.

that was until we found out how much it is. we'll choose another.

second,
is my shipping desk. it's getting a facelift too. in sassy green.
and third, is recovering this pinboard from pb in this fabric,

which i've showed you all before. it's my fave.

have a great weekend.

turks & caicos

have you gotten the latest jcrew catalog?

it was shot on the beaches of turks and caicos in the carribean. here's a page out of styling asst allison's behind-the-scenes travel journal from the trip. how awesome is that water and that sky. and i can attest, it really is just like that.

almost 20 years ago i travelled to turks and caicos. i stayed here. it's a club med resort.

(image from here)

it was the ideal vacation for me at that time. i was working as an actuary for a large firm in atlanta fresh out of college. my girlfriend and i needed a vacation. desperately. we'd just ended our busy season at work and had just taken some extremely stressful, extremely challenging actuarial exams. we chose this place. all-inclusive. i wanted all-inclusive. just tell me what time my meals are, and i'm set. i didn't want to make any decisions other than what bathing suit to wear. it was beautiful. the water is clear for forever from the beach. every day i'd stroll down to breakfast, then hit the beach. i'd drag my lounge chair into the surf and read a book. every day. every. day. at dinner everyone would discuss what activities they participated in. i had nothing to contribute. but i did what i came to do. relax. it was wonderful.

don't forget mom

mother's day cards in the shop.
pixel (seen waiting for her daddy to come back downstairs this morning) ...
is getting this one for her daddy. shhhh, don't tell him.

how i met my house

our suburban cottage is having a party. a how i met my house party. i love looking at all the guests. i'm a little late to the party, but that's usually how i roll.
this is my house. i'm finally starting to like her. it's been 2.5 years since we met.

hubby and i were on a house-hunting trip in seattle, or rather a suburb of, from atlanta. we were relocating cross-country with steve's job. we had just gotten married. we knew the area where we wanted to be. we just had to find the house. we had 12 houses on our list to view with our realtor the next day. we scoped out the houses the day before on our own. the house was blue when we saw her. our first reaction was, "oh god no." the house sits very close to its neighbors with uphill sloped side yards to the backyard.

i hated it.

we bought it.

we bought it after viewing the open interior. we bought it knowing there were upgrade possibilities. we bought it because we liked the neighborhood. we bought it knowing it wasn't our dream house. but that we could make it into something better. and so far we have.

we gave her a fresh coat of what i call northwest colors. we completely redid the landscaping. we just refaced the kitchen. we're on the verge of opening up the dining room and adding french doors to a covered patio.

she's coming around. i like her now.

all you can do is laugh

seriously cute totes

these are seriously cute. from aki at oktak. can you tell i have summer on the brain with these bright, cheerful colors?

on the agenda...

for this weekend is working in the yard. the weather here has been lovely lately. low 60s, sunshine-y. pixel and i are enjoying our daily afternoon walks. the weather should hold thru the weekend giving steve and i time to work on the flower beds. last weekend i overhauled my front container pots. this weekend we're working on a new bed (that steve just cut out) along our fence line in the backyard. over the winter, steve and i ordered some perennials from bluestone perennials. they were on our doorstep friday. and hopefully will go in the ground this weekend.

these babies...will grow up to be these, peach blossom astilbe (image via here).these...
will become this, sedum athur branch (image via here). it'll bloom deep rose pink flowers in late summer.
we also have a few of these to add to the bed. japonica pieris.
we bought one of these. might need another.i forget what it's common name is. so here's the tag.

the focal point of the bed... a lion's head maple. hopefully i'll have photos monday of the finished bed.

farmhouse table

steve and i are in the market for a new dining room table. we're reconverting the dining room back to a dining room. it was my office for the last 2 years. i envision an enormous farmhouse table and mismatched chairs. grey walls. very informal. french doors that lead to the patio. we're (and by "we", i mean steve) installing french doors as phase 3 of our first floor facelift). the kitchen facelift was phase 1 (which i still must post photos... just having trouble getting good photos), phase 2 is moving my office to the formal living room (which opens up the dining room to become a dining room again).

we've been searching online for the table. here are our top runners. in 2nd place, this from crate and barrel. simple lines. european white oak.

this is my first choice, from restoration hardware. similar lines. more rustic, which i like. and extendable.
notice the tolix chairs in the first photo. i'd love to scatter a few of those around the table. they don't look too comfortable, so i was thinking about skinny pads for them. a la this photo, from photographer helen norman.
and, now that this has arrived, i could sew them myself! that is, after i dredge up all that i learned in 7th grade home ec.

what's happenin' round here

a couple days ago, i received the fabrics i had ordered from calico corners. as i unrolled them, this little girl strolled in and found the perfect height chin rest. thank goodness she doesn't drool. the fabric she's resting on is for recovering our kitchen chairs.
do you notice all the upheaval in the background. pixel's in the dining room, which i currently use as an office. across the hall is the formal living room, which we use as a formal living room, which means it never gets used. it's becoming my office. see those french doors? they used to be the entrance to the dining room/current office from the hallway. now they're the entrance to the formal lr/new office. got it. good. the dining room has another not enclosed pass thru into the kitchen so it wasn't a totally enclosed room. which meant i could always see my work. and think about how far behind i am. not good. now my office will be totally enclosed. oh, and the dining room is becoming a dining room again. with a huge farmhouse table and mismatched seating. totally informal.

the color scheme for the new office is chartreuse and purples (aubergines and plums). colors taken from this fabric. i'm going to use to cover my immense inspiration board. it's 3'x4'. i love this fabric. i talked about it here.

in totally unrelated news, i found steve upstairs (in his makeshift greenhouse) the other morning in this position.
if you look closely, there's his cell phone and he was on a conference call at the same time.
he was using needlenose pliers to pluck out the scraggly seedlings. i'm scared.

april showers, snow showers that is

it's april. april 8th. and this is my backyard 3 minutes ago. on april 8th. can i stress the importance enough that it's april 8th and it's hailing snow. this was after our morning ground cover of snow had melted. seriously.

one kings lane

i ordered these from one kings lane a couple of weeks ago. they are soaps from lafcony. i have other claus porto soaps. i love their packaging. i have yet to use one of the bars i have. i just keep it around for the pretty wrapping in pretty colors.

my order arrived monday. here's my box of 3 soaps. they were at least 50% off of regular price.

and here's the packaging they arrived in. a bonus. kraft paper, a thank you note,and a candle!
love it! send me my order in simple, neat packaging and with a complimentary item and i'm a customer for life.
ps and yes, since i like to do unto others as i like done unto me, i do send a handwritten note and a complimentary item with purchases made here. i like to thank my customers and let them know that i truly appreciate their business.

foyer redo

this is the before. a little boring, huh. or rather a lot boring. it's ok, you can agree with me. actually i did have a few more items on display (like stuff with some height so the picture doesn't look like it's hanging in mid-air like now) but removed them in haste, stored them and then realized i hadn't taken a photo. i was too lazy to put them back. in the foyer, one level lower than the rest of the house, there's only one wall to style. to my right is the front door. to my left is the door to the garage.

i'd outgrown the red. and it wasn't representative of our decor any more. i have no other red in my house. therefore, time for this puppy to get a new coat of paint.

here she is. sporting rainstorm by sherwin williams. in high gloss enamel. and some dazzling jewelry from anthropologie.


atop sits my matchbook collection. i love these. i pick one up whenever i see them.

and the full gallery wall, using my train photos.
please ignore the glare. it's very hard to get a photo without one since there's a window directly behind me here. i think it's definitely an improvement from the before and more representative of the style and colors of the rest of the house.

lesson learned.... next gallery wall i do will be random. photos at random widths and heights. this was tough. 4 hours of my life i'll never get back.