from drab to fab: the craft hutch

 Ta-da!  Would you believe this gem was once a curb call!? You're witnessing the before & after of my favorite side-of-the-road FREE furniture piece yet!  I am SO happy I was in the right place at the right time to adopt this lovely piece.  After some serious sanding, primer, and a quart of plain white decorator paint, it has become the best thing that ever happened to my craft room.  Perfection.  Of course I couldn't show it off without snapping a few extra pics of its contents, some of my most beloved supplies:

How about you? What is your favorite freebie?  Have you ever found something on the side of the road and transformed it into a treasure?  I'd love to hear...

rug love

I'd been scoping out rugs for our bare, boring floors for awhile now, and was super surprised by the charming selection + reasonable prices at Urban Outfitters. I finally settled on the pretty batik floral pattern on the left. {Yesterday I ordered it in-store at the Mall of America: an awesome way to dodge shipping costs and I didn't even have to tote it around for the mile-long walk back to the car. Yay!} Really excited for it to arrive at my door and roll out on my living room floor. I think it will be just the ticket for summertime.

vintagey pillow

For the last few years, our living room has had a ton of red in it--a little too much red in my opinion. When a friend who for the longest time knew me only through this blog came to our house for the first time, she told me she was surprised at how traditional our decor was--because it didn't seem to match the aesthetic of my blog at all. I've been so inspired by her complete honesty. It gave me just the momentum I needed to ditch the solid red Ikea throw pillows that have been holding me down and mix up our wall hangings at the same time. It reminded me exactly how important it is to surround yourself with things you love and to make your home a place that is a greater extension of your heart. So this week I stitched together this little throw pillow and am welcoming in a new era: If I love it, it stays. If I don't love it, it goes. It's my goal to swap out all of our living room throw pillows with colors + notions directly from my vintage stash.
Doesn't this one just make you want to lay in the sun, watch the geraniums grow, and drink lemonade all day? It's summer in a 20x20" square. Just what I needed to erase the gloom around here.

heart banner

Hi there! I don't know about you, but winter is really beginning to wear on me. This one has been especially long and brutal! A few late winter/Valentine's Day crafts are just what I needed to cozy in, warm up my hands, and get us through. I finally made a little heart banner for our mantel. We're closing in on February, one of my favorite months and V-day is less than 3 weeks away!

Banner: I love warm, pinky colors and it was so fun sorting through my scrap fabrics to make the hearts! The banner was super simple to make: Just cut rectangles of linen fabric and fold them in half. (Burlap would also look great!) I left the edges torn for a more country look. I cut the hearts out by hand and used iron-on applique to adhere them to the linen rectangles. Last I just sewed them to a pretty piece of leftover ribbon from Paper Source. I love that I didn't have to run out and buy a single thing to make this!
Doily jars: I've seen a few different versions of these fancified empty jars around blogland. How fun to put my stash of empty canning jars to good use! I simply took a stack of mini doilies, cut them up at haphazard angles, and used double-stick tape to stick them to my little collection. I finished them off with a little bakers' twine and stuck a tea light candle in the bottom of each one. (Well almost each one--I came up a couple short and need to pick up some more before I can take a photo of them lit and give you the full effect!)
In between snapping these photos and posting this post, I stopped dead in my tracks, dropped everything, and emergently googled minneapolis chimney sweeps...As I was hanging this little banner, I could hear a wild rumpus of birds/and or squirrels in our chimney!! Sorry critters, I am not a fan of sharing our house. The bad news is, some furry little friends are officially homeless. The good news is, our fireplace is officially fit for fire building! Really excited to finally be able to use it!

fall fireplace

This is our fireplace, all gussied up for fall. It's actually pretty plain, but I kinda like it this way. I'm waiting to hang the perfect mirror above our mantel. I scored a really cute circle mirror last week from a friend, but also like the idea of hanging this one to fill the horizontal space.

For now, in place of a more traditional mirror/pictures, I've piled my modest collection of vintage frames. (All dug out of my grandma's basement, Halloween cobwebs and all!)

The little paper flags are leftover from a photoshoot a couple weeks ago. Handy that they are the perfect length for festifying (any chance that's a real word!?) our fireplace.

And that immigrant trunk was our wedding gift from Jeff's parents. Vintage gifts are my fav! We originally parked it in front of the firebox for baby proofing purposes, but the look has grown on me!

I keep getting nudges for more house pics, and to be completely honest, I'm not very proud of how things are looking around here. We still haven't hung a single picture on the walls or opened one can of paint. Shame, shame! We've been really blessed to be keeping busy with photog gigs all summer/fall, but I'm also looking forward to some quieter inside days at home this winter to do some major decorating projects.
Congrats to this week's giveaway winner:

Janelle said...I'm on vacation in SF, but one thing on my to do list for today is to walk aimlessly and take photos of all the beautiful things in this city that inspire me.

Happy Friday!

the start of october

Happy Friday & Happy October! Can you even believe that another new month has rolled around?

This week we bought the perfect round + bright orange pumpkin. {Can't wait to carve Graham's likeness on it in a couple weeks.} We've never had much of a front stoop before this year, so you can imagine my delight in filling the doorway of our new house with pretty mums and other fall things. Mmm...want to come over for some apple cider?

I loved reading all of your favorite sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of fall in Monday's post. There's definitely so much to celebrate in spite of the days growing short. Really, the 6:30pm sunset is the only downside to fall--and even that is giving us some really cozy evenings at home.

And the winner of this week's Penpal Project giveaway:

Holly said...Fall in San Diego means it is finally warm enough to go swimming at the beach. That's my favorite part of "fall" in SoCal.

made my shade

Little Miss Indecisive finally spied the perfect fabric at Crafty Planet and set out to conquer the window treatments in her dining room. (Aside: everyone has been telling me to check that place out, and am so glad I finally did. My heart raced to find nearly all of the world's cutest fabrics under one roof!) Anyway, I fell for this fabric mostly for its color scheme--its funky flower graphics are just a bonus. I love how it marries my traditional reds, blues, and (blah) beiges with my girly pink linens and teal tea cups.

Believe it or not, I made my shade by gluing fabric to vinyl mini blinds using this tutorial from Little Green Notebook, one of my favorite design blogs. No sewing involved! Overall, I am pretty satisfied with the results: Ample sunshine by day and ample privacy by night. The price tag for two shades was around $50, and most of that was spent on the fabric. Hooray for DIYing.

hunt & gather

The prettiest place I ever sipped a glass of raspberry lemonade was in my own backyard, on my sweet new retro patio set. I scored all 4 pieces for just $30 yesterday afternoon at Hunt & Gather, the hippest antique store imaginable in S. Minneapolis. The collections here will seriously knock your socks off. Every booth there seems to be extremely well-edited and inspiring.

I always saw myself as more of a rod iron, French-bistro style kinda girl. But lately I find myself gravitating toward these great retro, granny-style items. Watching your own tastes change over time is half the fun, don't you think?

I thought for sure Jeff would hate this quirky set and all its blue floral splendor...But instead he surprised me with an "awesome, thanks!" when I arrived home and we pulled the prize out of the trunk together. And that, my friends, is why I love him and I love sipping lemonade here with him, no matter what decade it is.

coloring my world

Unpacking my craft room means restoring my sanity this week.
The contents of these boxes are coloring my world.
It's a really happy thing.
I feel like I finally have a space that is genuinely me.Now that my sewing machine is within reach, I really need to address the lack of window treatments around here. We are growing tired of the garbage bags taped over our windows at night! Anyone know of a great, simple curtain pattern? Or have first hand experience with Roman shades? I need a pep talk!Over the weekend, craigslist unearthed the best retro sewing table. I love the blue top, I love the little drawer, I love her great legs. Setting my sewing machine on top of her was just the icing on the cake.

in case you were wondering

where I've been for the last...um...2 weeks... Just in case you were beginning to worry...I'm still alive and thriving. I've just been stuck here, on the floor, inhaling fumes from a couple gallons of polyurethane. The devastating neurological and carcinogenic effects have yet to ensue.

Adventures in home owning #4: I had fully intended to be nearly unpacked and settled by this point, but it's funny how much things change when your rose-colored glasses fall off. How your perfect, just turn the key new home becomes a war zone of projects. The day after moving we began to notice a lot of loose ends around here. Like a the (smelly soaking wet) new carpet in the (slightly flooded) basement. Like the freshly stained (paint smeared) hardwood floors that scratched and scuffed on the drop of a dime. Like the sparkling new upstairs toilet (that needs to be plunged every other time you flush.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, we still love this place to pieces. Really, we do. But I do believe it's safe to say that next time, if ever there is a next time, we won't be so quick to fall for the flip. In hindsight, we shouldn't have been so blindsided by some of the cut corners around here. Live and learn.

Call me an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, but my experiences as a homeowner in the last 2.5 weeks have only reaffirmed my mantra: If you want it done right, do it yourself.

As I was saying, our beloved hardwood floors began scratching and scuffing the split second our belongings hit them. They had been nicely stained, but not sealed. We're changing that. Slowly but surely, we're managing to push our pile of still-packed cardboard boxes from room to room as we put 3 coats of poly on every square inch of this place.

But before you feel sorry for the Cinderella shown above, I can assure you, I've had a trip or two to the ball. More on that later.

I am enjoying my quiet, quality time with the floors. It makes this place feel more like our own.

(And even though the boxes make fabulous baby barricades, I won't miss them when they are gone.)

organized chaos

Hard to believe we've lived in our new house for almost a whole week already. It's high time I took a break from all of the settling in and parked myself in front of the computer to write about it all, don't you think?

Wish I could say we're all unpacked and living happily ever after. We're up and functioning with the essentials. I was hard pressed to find a few neat+tidy scenes of our new life to share. The laundry is done. Can I get a woot-woot for that?Before I recount the details of the last 7 days, I must thank you so sincerely for all of your kind words about our new place. All of your comments were exactly the boost I needed to survive the cardboard jungle last weekend. You really know how to make a girl covered in dust, sweat, and packing peanuts feel amazing. You are honestly the best.

Last Saturday the moving crew (dad+mom+2 little brothers) arrived promptly at noon. The day went something like this:
Load SUV. Load van. Load trailer. Load pickup.
Pizza.
Pray nothing flies off the open bed trailer on the freeway. (If so, my windshield would be the first thing to go!)
Arrive at new house.
Rejoice that windshield and earthly possessions remain intact.
Unload SUV. Unload van. Unload trailer. Unload pickup.
Meet the neighbors. Stop & chat.
Return to apartment.
Ice cream.
Repeat the load/unload procedure x3.
Burger King.

The guys were amazing.
They did almost all of the muscle work without complaining.
But the body odor was horrific.
My mom and I were the cleaning dream team.
We scrubbed and vacuumed and swept around the moving men.
We held down the camps.
We packed up one fridge and unloaded it into the other.

While we were distracted and fussing over fridge shelves, G kept busy by cracking open about a dozen eggs all over himself and on the new kitchen floor.
Wish the camera had not been packed at that point.
This place was quickly christened with messes and mishaps.
Makes it feel like home.
This week has been exciting and frustrating and overwhelming and still surreal.
Back in the day, before we were homeowners, we thought we were busy people. Now we feel busy on a whole new level. The project list is long. I need an extra dose of patience and contentment while we work to make this place our own. I know it's going to be an unending work in progress.

I think we are going to love loving our home.

home.

It's so surreal--we are homeowners. We closed on Tuesday afternoon. All along, a part of me couldn't let go of the possibility that something may fall through, but instead everything worked out more smoothly than we could have imagined. Even after shaking hands and being handed keys, it still felt so unreal. I need to pinch myself. We just bought a home. We get to live...here.

After closing, we went out for a celebratory dinner at an amazing little pizza place in our new 'hood. Then of course we stopped by {our. house.} to unlock the front door and soak it all in. It was really heartwarming to watch Graham run from room to room, up and down the stairs, and all around the backyard, exclaiming "da! da!" (Whatever that means...) His glee was just the icing on the cake. I think he's really gonna flourish here.

I'd be a complete liar-liar-pants-on-fire if I told you it's all been pure bliss. The truth is that a twinge of buyer's remorse and doubt hit me like a ton of bricks circa Tuesday night. Maybe it's all of the cardboard boxes in my life and the big bad move coming up this weekend. (Next time we are hiring the professionals.) Maybe it's the drained savings account. Maybe it's my reservations about the neighborhood and busier street. Maybe it's the giant responsibility & commitment of a mortgage+yard+house. Most likely, it's a little bit of everything.

I've been praying for God to quiet my fears and fill my heart with joy and thankfulness over this beautiful new place. We are tremendously blessed. This space has truly everything I'd ever dreamed to find in a home. Whenever I think about how I will fill all of those darling little built-ins, I can't help but smile and regain my confidence in this place. God is good. We're going to be one happy little family here. I just know it.My top 10 favorite things about our home:
1. Inviting red front door
2. Open staircase
3. Hardwood floors
4. Cozy fireplace + pretty mantel
5. Cute built-ins. A necessity.
6. The upstairs bathroom. {Clearly, Graham's pretty amped about the tub, too.}
7. Sparkling stainless steel kitchen appliances
8. And granite countertops.
9. All the yummy wainscoting
10. Our massive backyard deck.We move in Saturday! Pray for sunshine!

getting our ducks in a row

In our backyard there is a pond. More accurately, our backyard is a pond. Although serene and full of the cutest goslings and ducklings these days, it's also a marshy mess--neighbor's trash receptacle and inhospitable for playing. (No jokes, for every bird species we've spied, there has also been a floating tv and/or tire.) Our front yard is a parking lot and there's no hiding the roar of the freeway just over the retaining wall. As much as we love our little duckling friends and our cheap-ola rent payments, it's a good thing we're moving out next month...

We just bought a house.

(insert excited, shrill wEeEeeeeEeE!)

It couldn't have come at a less convenient time. Up until this point, we'd probably looked at 30 or so houses but nothing was striking our fancy. Last week life was as busy as it gets and we had both agreed to put the house hunting on hold 'til June. (Jeff was shooting 3 weddings in the course of 8 days plus working a 40-hour week at the restaurant, I was working my stretch of four 12-hour shifts, and we had family in town visiting.)

Somehow I had time to dig up some home listings last Wednesday night and spied the cutest 1930s Cape Cod in Minneapolis. Hardwood floors, check. Fireplace, check. Beautiful open staircase, check. Built-in shelving, check. Real backyard, check. Sufficient bedrooms and bathrooms, check, check. We called our realtor in a jiffy and checked it out on Thursday.

First rule of house hunting, never get emotionally attached.
Ooops. That rule flew out the bright sparkling new dormer windows.
It had me at hello.

You know it's the right house for you when your heart begins skipping beats, you're moving in inside your head, and imagining where you'll set up the Christmas tree. It felt like a goofy-grinned, sweaty-palmed, freshman year kind of crush.

I always imagined we'd go for the bargain fixer-upper. Neither of us is extravagantly handy, but we don't mind getting our hands dirty. But this house had recently been foreclosed and already flipped by 2 guys who knew exactly what they were doing. The place was immaculate. New stainless steel appliances, fresh paint, polished floors. We could just move in and enjoy every bit of it.

My only hesitation was the neighborhood. I hadn't felt completely confident about raising our family in urban Minneapolis, was nervous about school districts, busy roads, and over-analyzing crime rates. When we got home I spent the entire afternoon mulling over the details, googling every last detail on the area, and constantly praying that God would give us a strong decision either way.

It's funny, because Jeff hadn't given this house a second thought until we went back for a second showing on Friday morning. He was still bent on the foreclosed fixer-upper down the street, when all along, I had been the one scheming on the project houses and he leaning toward the move-in readys. I think seeing it again in light of the fixer-upper made him realize that (my heart-throb house) was the sweetest deal.

Friday afternoon we made our first offer and by Saturday afternoon Jeff had signed the purchase agreement (while I was at work). Crazy how fast it all happened. What a sweet roller coaster ride.

This week we had our inspection. Es todo bueno!! Now all we have to do is:
Wait, wait for closing.
Share the pics with you, my friends.
Score some cute new furniture.
Learn something about window treatments.
Scheme on decorating.
Grow a garden, for real.
Buy a lawn mower.
A million other things.

But first, breathe and celebrate!
It's been so very hot here lately. (Makes me even more excited about filling up a kiddy pool in our new backyard for G.) Last night we hit Coldstone Creamery for a celebratory scoop:

Life is sweet.

14

= the number of pots that the young lad and I planted this afternoon. I know next to nothing about gardening, but I figure, a girl has got to get her hands dirty and start somewhere--and God takes care of most of the growing business anyway. We don't have a real yard or a real garden, but we do have a mini deck that's a whole lot prettier thanks to the fabulous 14. With any luck, we'll have a few flowers, green peppers, and basil alive +thriving by the end of the summer. You can't beat the satisfaction found digging in dirt on a warm spring day.

the latest vintage gems

The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and I am glad to report that a delightful little thing called spring may be just around the corner. It's about time. Happy March everyone! It's high time I report on some of my latest vintage gems. I picked up all of the above linens at an estate sale in Spokane, with the exception of the pink+red tablecloth (front right). That lady was a splurge ($15) at an antique store, but I simply could not pass it up. It's still in mint condition and has Valentine's Day tea party or summer luncheon scribbled all over it. The quirky crocheted place mats were the runners up in my heart. Aren't they fun? My how the stash is expanding!
Also could not pass up this nifty little globe. {I realize I am totally jumping on the bandwagon as an antique globe collector. But everyone needs just one or two. They are seriously so awesome.} Now that the equator is glued back into place, we can all breathe easy and enjoy a snippet of geographical history:
Italian East Africa.
Tanganyika.
Hadhramaut.
French Equatorial Africa.
According to my Wikipedia calculations, this globe must be from the late 1930s.
The globe has found its new home resting atop toy land in our living room. On a slight tangent, this cubical book shelf is my attempt to maintain order and aesthetic in the whirlwind that is the world we share with 10.5 month old Mr. G. Here's to a slightly more organized home. {Inspired by Jordan and Emily.} And last but not least, I scored this killer teal tea cup + saucer. Amazing way to usher in jelly bean season, don't you think?

organizing with clipboards

Sometimes I get frustrated by how little I can accomplish some days. I keep reasoning that if only Mr. G would take longer naps...I might be the most productive woman on earth. But then again, feeding my little bear cub, saving him from drowning in the toilet and other household hazards, keeping dipes clean, reading stories, and scaling the stairs together day in and day out is a mighty feat of productivity in and of itself.

I used to feel like a failure of a mama because the lad took such pathetic naps. To this day, he almost never naps for more than an hour and almost always sleeps for less, despite my best attempts at putting him to sleep in a consistent place at consistent times with white noise, a dark room, a security object and all. I'm over that now (feeling like a failure that is...the napping rituals still hold true). Once a cat napper always a cat napper I suppose.

The reason I drone on about my lack of get-to-itiveness is that I've been trying to post about my lovely new clipboards for the past week. And truth be told, I am a control freak to the core, plain and simple. I yearn to be more organized and efficient. That's why I was so inspired by this post over at the Creative Mama (one of my latest daily favs, btw) and also Marta's mini rendition that I simply had to experience these for myself.

Clipboards, ingeniously taking our messes to a whole new level, off the counter, on the wall, in a fancifully organized fashion. (p.s. I am beginning to feel like a one trick pony with all of the decoupaging I've been up to lately, but the possibilities are seriously limitless.)
Three full-sized clipboards, decoupaged with pretty scrapbooking paper, and labeled with my top 3 kitchen clutter-causing criminals: Market, Mail, and Meals.

My 'to Market' clipboard is where I vow to stick my

• coupons
• grocery store ads
• receipts
• weekly grocery list

Although we've transitioned to paying most bills online and are usually pretty good about immediately filing junk mail in the recycle bin, we still need a mail clipboard to hold:

• pretty invitations
• cards
• anything requiring follow-up or filing
  
• outgoing mail
  

Perhaps the biggest + best step toward a more organized existence: meal planning. I try to pick out 5-6 recipes that I want to make each week before finalizing the grocery list and hitting the store. It seems to save so much time during the week! Here is where I'll file:

• a list of this week's meals
• pertinent recipes
• magazine clippings or internet print offs of my latest discoveries

Lately I've been completely obsessed with printing out Real Simple recipes. This week, their Chicken Curry in a Hurry was a huge hit at our house. Definitely bridged the 2,123 mile gap between us and our favorite Indian place.

The first batch

of cookies in our new place just came out of the oven this afternoon. We moved into our new place last weekend but of course not without a hitch...Our couch did not fit through the front door. (Yeah, our big beautiful new splurge of a couch, as in, our only nice piece of furniture, you know, the one we bought just last year!!) So after that minor set back, we have been busy unpacking, waiting for internet, and just plain getting settled ever since. It feels so good to have our own little things again--the blankets and gadgets and pictures that make your house your home.
So after the big dry spell around here, I'd like to say welcome back with some warm chocolate + white chip cookies and a sip of milk. I'm so happy about our new space, a new routine, and some bright new beginnings. Hoping that includes a little spare time for more frequent blogging. :)And today's first batch was completely inspired by my fabulous new apron from the ever-eloquent Bethany. Thanks so much--this new kitchen of mine has never looked so good!