April Showers

With the weather beginning to warm up here in Florida, I’ve been thinking a lot about our outdoor shower (and our tank pool, but that’s another post).  The idea of rinsing off out in the sunshine after a long bike ride or a day at the beach sounds pretty heavenly.  It might even be a great alternative to washing the dogs in our guest bath during the summer (except that wet white dogs + dirt = terrifying idea).  I’ve been kicking the idea of having fun/funky gauges in the outdoor shower ever since this house tour on Apartment Therapy, and then seeing the shower in Emily at Merrypad’s post about Hamilton Productions pretty much cemented the decision.  I’m sure Robert can come up with something completely awesome, he has yet to let me down when I pose weird design problems.

Left from Merrypad, right from AT

Initially we thought a wooden shower stall around an existing concrete pad in our backyard (I would show y’all a picture, but it is housing a lawn mower beneath a pollen-coated motorcycle cover at the moment- classy).  After seeing Emily’s post we started thinking a 4×4 post frame with either corrugated plastic or the corrugated metal like Kara used for her headboard (which was recently featured on AT!)  Robert is leaning towards corrugated metal, and I was thinking plastic because I like the idea of it being at least semi-translucent, so that it’s not just a big thing in the yard (I am obviously always really eloquent).  It seems like it would get really gross, really quickly though (and it might be completely see through, we didn’t remember to look the last time we were at Lowe’s). 

Left from Merrypad, right from Charles and Hudson

For some reason I never noticed that gorgeous Dwell rug before! Now I love Kara’s guest room even more!

Here’s hoping the shower can be completed (oh hey, even started is good with me) soon!

Fired Up

As I mentioned a while back, the ideas floating around in my head for our eventual fireplace redesign were partially inspired by Katie Bower’s old den.  I love that mantel so much.  For our fireplace I was thinking about using flagstone for our surround since our front porch is flagstone and I thought it would be a nice way to carry outside elements into the house.

our fireplace

Katie Bower’s fireplace

Then this Apartment Therapy tour reminded me of my ridiculous love for rustic wood mantels.  We mentioned the idea to a coworker from one of Robert’s previous jobs and he told us that he has already sent a mysterious piece of wood to a sawmill for us.  Yessssssssssss!

Apartment Therapy tour

In the interest of incorporating one of my other favorite elements I thought about adding white brick instead of drywalling (and texturing it, to match the rest of our plaster walls).  I did a quick Google image search and came up with this picture.

source

It’s not exactly what I had in mind because I’d prefer the bottom of our fireplace be the same depth out as the top, and I’d like our mantel to be more rustic, but it’s close enough.  I showed the picture  to Robert and he agreed that he liked the way it looks, and he said it might be easier (if the faux brick we talked about here is heat-resistant enough, at least).  Score!

Easy Update: Mason Jar Storage

The photo colors in this post should be all better now.  Here’s hoping!

After seeing Liz Marie’s project feature on Re-Nest, I decided to make this mason jar storage rack to hold jewelry and hair accessories in our master bedroom.

Seen on re-nest, originally from Liz Marie

For my mason jar rack, I used a pallet board that we had laying in the backyard (long story), which was conveniently cut to the right length and mostly sanded (again, long story).  After a quick sand to take care of any rough edges, Robert blew any dirt off with compressed air.  Then we gathered pipe clamps from Lowe’s and mason jars that my grandparents used to use for canning.  We measured where we wanted the clamps to attach to the board and drilled pilot holes.

Then we opened the pipe clamps up, used a punch to make drilling easier, and drilled the holes for where the screws will go.

 

Then we took everything inside and leveled in on the wall in the bedroom.

 

From here we attached the outside clamps first, using screws long enough to both hold the clamp to the board as well as hold the board to the wall.

 

We then added the other two clamps and put the jars in place (Robert needed me to help hold the jars, so I couldn’t take any pictures of that step).

 

Since we already had the wood, the only thing we had to buy was pipe clamps.  Gotta love a simple, one evening, $4 project project!

Nice Exterior

Ok, so we don’t exactly have a nice exterior, but I was trying to make a lame posterior joke.

I rarely talk about our house’s exterior on this blog, because I don’t really want to post pictures of it in full.  Aside from using our front porch as a header and talking about how we painted our door, I haven’t talked about curb appeal at all.  I know that a lot of people paint their house shortly after buying it, but our house was freshly painted when we bought it, so we tried to live with it.  Now after living here for going-on-two-years (and who knows how long from when the seller painted it until we bought it) the paint that is starting to peel in some areas and we have both decided we are really, really, really tired of pink salmon peach.  (Robert frequently finishes directing people to our house by saying “and then look for the pink house with my truck out front”.)

Surprise, surprise, we are considering yellow.  Shocking I know, what with the four yellow rooms in our house.  It’s mostly it is because I am lazy and do not want to repaint the front door (Valspar Grey Teal) or the bench  (Valspar La Fonda Grassy Knoll).

The shades of yellow we are considering are: (top card left to right) Dreamy Caramel, Maple Cream, Coconut Scent; (second card down) Butterscotch Cream, Spun Honey, Lemon Sorbet; Sunrise Beach and Yellow Frost.  We used Spun Honey (second card, middle) in the four yellow rooms of our house, but we are thinking about going a little brighter and deeper for the exterior.  What are y’all’s thoughts?

Also since we are talking about the porch, this is my birthday present from my lovely in-laws:

Swedish Mailbox

I suppose I should mention that we are not paid in any way by Valspar, we just really, really like their paint.

Inspiration Page

I finally pushed publish on something I’ve been hanging onto for a while now.

I always like hearing about what inspires designers&bloggers, so I thought I’d start a section for what inspires me.  I’ll update it as the house continues to take shape.

Build Me Up

We haven’t made any moves on our build-ins yet (I’m pretty sure I’m going to run out of build-in title ideas before we even finish planning ours), but I love, love, love the ones in Emily at Merrypad’s dining room and had to share.  (Also, how awesome is that mirror?  Emily’s is made from salvaged barn wood, but I totally need to make one of those from the pallet wood I have laying around!)  Anyone who hasn’t seen her blog yet should head over to check that out!

I love the chunkiness of Emily’s shelves (read more about how she accomplished that here).  The thickness of the outside edges was something that drew me to the Expedits we planned to use in the first place, so I guess that tells me I want substantial looking shelves.  I also love the way the wall color is clearly visible between the shelves.  I’m debating between leaving the wall behind our future build-ins yellow, or painting that wall a bold color.  What do y’all think?

World’s Shortest Hiatus

Good news everyone!  I’m back from my whole dramatic “I’m taking a break” thing.  At least for now.

We haven’t done much in the way of house-related projects recently, unless you count washing dishes and opening & closing the curtains.  Robert is on spring break from school this week, I am working on a header for a friend’s blog, and then there was some much-needed bike riding, laying on the beach, hanging out with friends, and reading by Robert’s parents’ pool sprinkled into the past few weeks.  (Apologies to those of you who still have snow.  Hopefully you will be slightly less annoyed if I mention I didn’t actually swim at the beach or in the pool?) 

We did move this chair into the art room in front of the roll top.  We’re thinking about spray painting it a brighter, glossy  yellow since I’m not above bastardizing painting wood that was pretty gnarly to begin with.

We added more stumps to our stump graveyard.  A piece of curb appeal for which I am sure our neighbors love us.

I have recently resisted buying a discontinued West Elm Manzanita Wall Art on eBay, which my wallet thanks me for, but my mostly bare walls do not.  I have also all but changed my mind about the living room curtains I have yet to make.  I still want to use my Lotta Jansdotter stencils, but I’m having cold feet about the fabric I bought (it is nothing like the gorgeous linen on the left below), and since my recent love affair with Fabric.com I have painters taped several swatches on the wall (occasionally they fall off while watching Criminal Minds, which is kind of hilarious).

The current plan is to go ahead with the stenciled curtains as planned, and then ignore the eye-rolling from Robert while I try to order this and/or this before they go out of stock again (ok, so they only have 2 yards left of the one on the right, so I probably won’t be getting that anytime soon).

 

Maybe I will take a picture of the other swatches I have taped to the wall for y’all soon.  Though that would probably discourage me from finishing the stenciled curtains.  And if someone could please go ahead and remind me to post pictures of my snazzy birthday gifts from last month, that would be greeeeat.

Break

This is just a post to say that we have a lot of things going on right now that have nothing to do with the house or the blog, and I don’t feel like blogging.  I’ll probably be back to blogging next week, after focusing on a lot of things like this:

Gone to the Dogs

Pets and decor is often a slippery slope, especially the subject of whether or not to pets should be allowed on furniture, especially the bed (as demonstrated by a recent Apartment Therapy post).  While Dots & Freckles are generally very well behaved, we occasionally allow them to rule influence our decor choices.  We don’t allow the dogs on either couch or the Pottery Barn chair, but they are allowed on the beds (as long as they’re on top of the quilt) and Dots has her own chair (which she sometimes shares with Freckles).  In the library the dogs like to look out the window, so we put indoor/outdoor cushions on the window seat because if we put a chair they aren’t allowed on they try Freckles tries to get on whatever is there regardless.

Dots & Freckles have dog beds, too – years ago before we had Dots or a house we bought Freckles a clearance indoor/outdoor dog bed from Pottery Barn and we bought Dots her own PB clearance bed when we adopted her (it was polka dot and we couldn’t resist the irony).  We also found an inexpensive dog bed at TJMaxx (seen in living room photo above) to add to the dogs’ collection.  This is probably an obvious statement, but giving the dogs a comfy place to lay down in each room keeps them from trying to test their boundaries.

Freckles’ pillow

The only problem with the dogs’ pillows?  We’re tired of lugging them around from room to room, since the dogs enjoy hanging out in the same room as us.  One pillow is in the living room (and coincidentally it happens to coordinate with everything else in there) and Dots’ navy and white pillow normally hangs out next to the window seat in the library.  Freckles’ pillow will probably get the boot to the porch when it eventually becomes a sunroom (y’know, in 15 years or so when we can afford it) because of its indoor/outdoor fabric.  We’re considering a Molly Mutt, since we (I) fell in love with the one one Yellow Brick Home got for Jack a while back. Now the question is, which one?  I’m leaning towards the same one Jack had because I am original like that.

Molly Mutt

Are your pets allowed on furniture, or do they just have their own pet beds?

Good Times

This is a slight departure from home decor (though I am writing a semi-related post for later).  While shopping on Amazon recently I added a book to the cart that Robert and I first checked out from the library while I was working on a photography project for college. After a relaxing afternoon wandering around the downtown library, we more or less camped out one of the aisles to browse through the art and photography books.

As you might imagine, I was first drawn to this one because of the title, but the concept seemed interesting so we brought it home.

Though it was a cute book, I think that part of the reason I bought it was simply as a reminder of lazy the afternoon we spend laying around the apartment reading and talking.  Robert and our friend Ryan were sharing an apartment at the time, and whenever I was in town from school I’d hang with the two of them.  That day while Robert and I were reading library books with the late afternoon sun streaming in the windows, Ryan came home with Frosties and the three of us flipped through books and talked for quite a while.

There is something to be said for moments when everything is simple, carefree and perfect.  I guess I just wanted a piece of that afternoon back.

Does anyone else ever buy something as a reminder of a moment in time that wouldn’t be overly significant to anyone else?