this will be home

Spring Cleaning Carnival: Pantry

2010-03-14T14:45:00.004-05:00

Organizing the pantry was a great excuse for purging food that isn't quite so good for my home. I wanted to go all out and "primalize" it, but I'm not ready to make that huge of a commitment yet. My husband thinks I'm crazy enough as is.

Our pantry space is crowded and annoys me right now, which is probably why I generally toss items back onto the shelves and run as quickly as possible out of the room. This room will need to be completely renovated as it's in really poor shape. At least the space looks a little nicer now that I've made an effort to organize the food.

I got rid of most of the junk food and some simple sugars. We're hanging onto our white flour and sugar until we use it up and transition into better substitutes. I've kept some bullion even though I've been making my own stocks lately. I would really like to can my own tomatoes in glass jars this year since BPA leeches into the above cans due to the acidity of tomatoes. I'd also like to store the dry goods in glass or stainless steel containers some day. One step at a time...

Here's what wasn't thrown away, but wasn't kept in the pantry either. My husband is keeping a box worth of this and I am OK with that. I'd rather it wasn't in the house at all, but I can't expect him to jump on my bandwagon and I will just have to practice even greater self-control.

Spring Cleaning Carnival: Freezers and Refrigerators

2010-03-07T15:45:00.005-06:00

This month I am participating in The Nourishing Gourmet's Spring Cleaning Carnival. You should join us! The task for this week was cleaning and organizing the refrigerator and freezer. After two and a half hours I am pleased to say that my fridge and freezer are looking pretty good. I have put off organizing the freezer for so long because it was so full and unorganized that it just put me in a bad mood. After throwing half of its contents away I finally know what's all in there! I'm kind of glad my husband wasn't home to object to anything I decided to get rid of. Now I am excited to plan the meals for the week and do some grocery shopping.

I would like to reserve the second shelf for leftovers and my film only. That way at the end of the week I can just browse that shelf and throw out anything we haven't eaten yet.

We had three bottles of steak sauce, two bottles of Grenadine, and two bottles of cough syrup. Now that everything is organized *hopefully* we won't end up buying duplicates of products.

Top shelf: frozen veggies, fruit, ice
Next shelf: baked goods
Third shelf: cheeses, pizza toppings
Fourth shelf: meat
Fifth shelf: meat
I have created a system, now we just need to stick to it!

This week on the agenda for the Spring Cleaning Carnival is the pantry. I am not looking forward to that. My husband just organized it several weeks ago and it is already a disaster. I have got to find some solutions for that space or I feel it will forever be doomed to be in a state of disarray! Wish me luck! :)

Soap Bubbles and Water

2010-02-05T15:00:00.004-06:00

Painting in the studio room is more or less completed! We put fresh flat white paint on the ceiling and it made a world of difference. We also patched some holes. This is the area of ceiling that had a hole in it. Click here to see some of the before pictures.
The wall color is called "Soap Bubbles." At the store it was located in the white colors section. At times it looks white, but it is really an extremely pale shade of pink. It was important to me that the walls be a soft shade of pink without screaming "girl" or "rose." The pink will stand out a little bit more once we get some decor on the walls. I love how this light color keeps the room bright throughout the whole day.

Here is the floor and trim! There is a lot of polyurethane on them. I know that this isn't really a popular look for many homes, but this is exactly what I wanted for this room. One of my visions for this room is for it to resemble a vintage schoolroom. We still need to buy new skinny trim (I don't know what it's called) to place in front of the large trim to connect it with the floors. We still need to do that in our bedroom too. Unfinished project alert!

Is the floor submerged in water? No, it's just really reflective. The floor has obvious imperfections. I really like its character though. When you are nearing your 100th birthday I am sure that you are going to look less than perfect too, but still beautiful in your own way.

leftovers

2010-01-30T15:12:00.008-06:00

Considering I haven't posted anything to this blog in nearly 6 months, it may seem as though it doesn't even receive what's left over from my free time.
That's partially true.
It's not necessarily that I've been slacking with blogging, it's that I've been slacking at making my house a home. I'll save you the sob story though and just get straight to the good stuff.

Check it out. It's leftovers. I'm not just talking about the food silly. I like to think that's one hot looking oversized salad plate. I bought a set of brand new dinnerware from Goodwill for only $14.99. OK, so the outer box was a little bent out of shape, but its inside contents were completely undisturbed! It's only 4 table settings, but the mugs are big, the cereal bowls are deep, and the clean shade of coconut lends itself well to mixing and matching with future sets. PLUS these are microwave safe (our previous set was not.) Not just beautiful and versatile, but also budget friendly! My husband still doesn't understand my random urges to visit Goodwill, but one of these days he will thank me.

And what do we have here? Primer on the wall? Fresh paint on the ceiling? Could it be that my husband and I are actually working on our house again?! If these are the kinds of questions you are asking dear reader, I am going to have to go ahead and say YES! This picture was taken in the studio room today. What you can't see is the beautifully stained and polyurethaned floor and trim that my husband worked on. You'll get a glimpse of all of that when the painting is done.

I'll post again soon, and by soon I mean about a week. (That's a promise.)

Studio Room: Inspiration

2009-07-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm kind of stuck on which direction the studio room is going to take. I have some pieces and inspirational images, but that's about it. I think once the floor and some of the trim is completely refinished I will be spurred on a little further. Until then, all I have are the following images and it will be interesting to see how they shape the final product of the space.

This is a page from an old Rand McNally atlas I once bought at Goodwill. It was actually this page that made me start dreaming about Antarctica. I would love to visit there some day and I plan on having this framed and placed in the studio room. The colors, typography, and layout all intrigue me.

This is part of a page from my gigantic inspirational journal. I'm mostly drawn to the image on the right. It's a clipping originally from Vanity Fair. The picture is of Deyrolle's famous taxidermy shoppe in Paris before the fire that destroyed everything. What I really like about this image is the color of the wood, all of the cabinetry, the posters in the upper balcony, and all of the animals. I'm really drawn to the green shade found in the cabinets along the back wall. I can't decide if that's the color I want to paint the studio walls or not. I want something that's energizing, but I also don't want to feel overstimulated.

This is an image from Jill Crawford's home that I originally saw on Design*Sponge. Aside from being so clean and the doors making me weak in the knees, I absolutely love that yellow graphic on the wall! It's bold and streamlined without being obnoxious. I can almost see myself doing a pattern like this next to the window on both sides.

I'm not completely seeing how all of these ideas will come together in my room. Maybe there's something out there that I need to find before I have my "ah ha!" moment. I'm going to search for that right now...

Smooth.

2009-07-06T08:00:00.004-05:00

I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend! Here are some updates to the studio room. I have my husband to thank for sanding the floors. (Thanks darling!) These tasks were completed the other weekend.

Here's some of the base trim from the studio room. I have stripped the paint and nails from them. Now they're ready to be sanded.

Becoming a professional stripper.

2009-07-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

Great. Now that I have your attention you can see what I have been up to in the studio room.

After about 17 hours, I finished stripping the paint off of the floor with a heat gun. I listened to The Kinks album, "Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround" over and over again while working on the floor. I'm still not sick of the album and I am still not sick of stripping paint. However, the fumes do make me feel a little less than desirable at times.

That's all for now. Check back on Monday for a new post and have a good 4th of July weekend!

The Studio Room: Before

2009-06-29T21:02:00.014-05:00

We have some major projects either underway or soon to be carried out in our home right now. There's also a lot going on this summer and I was happy to spend this past weekend at home, working on the house! I personally found it relaxing.

One of our "major" projects right now is working on the Studio Room. I plan to do a lot of photo editing and design work in this space. It will also be a place to make a mess with sewing, screen printing, drawing, and whatever else our hearts desire. I'm hoping to hold meetings for our local zine, Coup, in the space, and I also want to have friends over to collaborate on projects with.

Before I show you what we've done with it so far, here are some before pictures along with areas that need some TLC!

This is how the space was decorated when my husband purchased the house. This room is actually the second largest bedroom and it's a pretty decent sized space.

These are the only windows. They are facing the east and the road. The window was broken and will need to be replaced.

This is on the east wall. It was originally hiding behind the dog border.

This is the south wall. I really don't mind the color that my husband painted the walls. However, I will be repainting them.

Here's a random hole in the ceiling above the south wall. I'll have to fix it somehow.

This is the western wall and the room's entrance. I'm working on refinishing all of the base trim. I'll have to refinish the doors too and boil all of that paint off of the door knobs and hardware!

This is the north wall. The door leads to a decent sized walk-in closet. The attic is also accessible from the closet, although I have yet to venture up there.

I definitely want a new ceiling fan. This one is mini sized.

Here is a section of the floor. As you can see, it was painted over by the previous homeowners. We have had terrible luck with floor paint. I'm not sure what we're doing wrong, but it hasn't even held up where we repainted the stairway in the hall.

I am not a copycat.

2009-05-26T12:30:00.004-05:00

Here's a quick image of a living room from the Pottery Barn website and similarities found in my updated bedroom. (Click image to view larger.) I found this image on Pottery Barn one day when I was looking for some decorative coral to put in my bedroom. I was surprised that the colors I had picked out for my bedroom were really similar to the ones staged here.

-the punches of blues and yellows
-soft light
-sea shapes
-silver bowl
-dark navy stripes
-small burst of greenery

I like to think I'm doing something right.

bedroom details

2009-05-22T15:00:00.001-05:00

Here's a look at some of the details and work I put into some of the pieces in the bedroom. Hopefully you'll gain a better understanding of why I chose the items that I did.

We previously purchased these curtains on clearance
at T.J. Maxx for only $5 each panel. I love how sheer
they are and they let the light in beautifully. I like
stripes!

We painted the walls "Mount Rainier" and the trim
"Sky White." The light bounces off of the walls
beautifully all day. I absolutely love it.
The seersucker comforter set was on sale at the
Herberger's Home Store. It is probably the most
expensive piece in our room. Yeah, I'm pretty
frugal. :) Notice the stripes?

We originally got this bed frame for free from
one of our neighbors. When we first received it
we painted it brown from its previous black
color. Now it is "Starry Night." I like how
the bed frame forms some nice stripes as well.

The bed frame was painted a dark blue to
match these Ikea frames that we bought
at Goodwill! A pack of 2 set us back $2. The
center image is from a set of stationery I
purchased. The background is from a security
envelope I received a statement in.

Once again the background is a different
lining of an envelope I received in the mail.
I like the patterns.

As you can maybe tell, I really like pattern in
small doses. This is an origami rabbit head
that a friend made for me a couple of years ago.

Here is the sand dollar that I mentioned in my
inspiration post. It is hanging from an ice blue
ribbon that is modeled from one of my inspirational
images. I like the little bits of color my jewelry
adds to the room.

This is probably the second most expensive piece
I purchased for our updated bedroom. I purchased
this canvas and stenciled a tree pattern from
Lena Corwin's book, Printing by Hand. I made
three large stencils out of duralar. I really like the
pop of yellow.

I purchased this piece at T.J. Maxx without really
knowing where in our house it would end up. I like
how the mirror captures little bits of the other
pieces in the room. I also like its "antique" feel and
it reminds me of coral.

I really wanted something light and textural in
the room. I dyed coffee filters and then layered
them around styrofoam balls. I bought this bowl
at Target on clearance for $3 without really
knowing where it would end up in the house. I
just knew it would work out somewhere. It's a
good match to the one in my inspiration images too!

I wanted a light punch of pink in the bedding. I
originally was going to buy a set of pink sheets.
However, since we already own three pairs of
sheets and I wanted to save money I just hand-
dyed a set of white pillowcases. It gives the exact
effect I was looking for at a much cheaper price!
The yellow pillow I bought on clearance at Target.
It was originally purchased for the living room,
but I realized that it works perfect in the bedroom!

I knew that I wanted another sea shape in
addition to the sand dollar. I thought that the
coral would work great as it mirrors the
silhouetted branches in the canvas piece I
painted. I like the see-through quality of the
lamp bases that I purchased.

ta da: my new bedroom

2009-05-22T07:45:00.000-05:00

Come back at 3 today
for some detail
shots and more info!

Prep work.

2009-05-20T07:45:00.000-05:00

Before: Bedroom

2009-05-18T09:54:00.000-05:00

Before I get into full swing of sharing photographs from the mostly completed bedroom I realized that I should start dishing out some before photos. I don't have official before photos of what our bedroom previously looked like because I forgot my digital camera at work the day I started painting. However, I do have a few pictures of what the previous homeowner's had painted it as well as a couple photos of me in what my husband painted it. I'll let the pictures do most of the rest of the talking.

The previous owners painted the walls a nice
neutral color. The trim was painted white,
the floor was painted red, and hand-painted
flowers were added below the ceiling line.

Another view of the bedroom where my husband
stayed before we were married.

View of the windows. One of his roommates
broke the window. They were painted shut
which doesn't help. You can tell that the
window on the right has been replaced with
a newer style. We're hoping to finally replace
the broken window this year.

I'm glad my husband took this picture because
I forgot to take one before the carpet was installed.
That's the grate. There's a hole beneath it. The carpet
installers put the carpet right over it. I hope it
doesn't lead to problems in the future.

Here's an updated picture of
the room. My husband painted
this room a golden color shortly
before we were married. The trim
was painted brown. The color
was a shock at first, but I learned
to really like it.

But I think I fell out of love with it, as I think
this is my silent plea of "please save me from
my bedroom."

This is a pillow that matches the comforter
set and other pillows we bought for the room
with Target gift cards we received for our
wedding. Needless to say all of these colors
in the room started to feel really drab to me.
I needed something lighter, more relaxing,
and full of life.

Torture.

2009-05-17T22:43:00.000-05:00

This is where I had unsettling sleep for nearly
two months while work was being done to
the bedroom. Most of the time was spent waiting
for the room to be measured for carpet,
waiting for the carpet to be special ordered, waiting
to be scheduled to have the carpet installed, and
waiting for the carpet to be installed. Even though
I didn't sleep well I was reminded that at least
I have a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head.

hidden treasures.

2009-05-16T13:09:00.000-05:00

My husband tore off the base trim so that the carpet could be installed in our bedroom. I'm pretty sure nothing substantial has been done to the room other than paiting. Who knows how many years are buried away in the cracks of this house. We found these pretty buttons and a vintage key! I immediately put some ribbon through the key. I like to wear it as a necklace.

my final resting place

2009-05-01T11:38:00.000-05:00

details

2009-04-29T18:22:00.000-05:00

The carpet was finally installed yesterday! The installers were more than 30 minutes early so unfortunately I didn't have any time to snap pictures of our ugly floor. I'm really regretting that because the fresh new carpet completely transformed the room. Due to the carpet we now need to trim our door. We also need to buy new trim, that really skinny stuff that goes along the base of the wide trim. I'm hoping that it can be bought and painted this weekend. I spent all yesterday afternoon ironing curtains and sheets for our new room. Needless to say there are still a lot of details that need to be put into place before I show the final results. In the mean time I'll share some of the little projects that I did for the room!

My husbands former housemates left a lot of furniture and odds and ends behind. Some of those pieces have been useful, like this nightstand.

We're not going to being using it as a nightstand, but rather it will be a place for knick knacks and we'll store our socks and undergarments in the drawers. All it needed was six coats of paint and a pair of new handles to transform it from "eh" to "yeah." Now it suits the style of our new bedroom all for a very reasonable price!

Not what I expected.

2009-04-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

I was really frustrated for a few weeks. I have nearly everything bought and completed for the bedroom. We had the room measured nearly a month ago for carpeting. However, after we actually ordered it I found out that it needed to be special ordered and wouldn't arrive for 3-4 weeks. The carpet is now stocked, but won't be installed until April 28th. Let me tell you, if I had any idea at the beginning of March that this aspect of the room was going to take so long it would have been my first task to complete. This is clearly a learning process for me.

The carpeting issue has mostly been irritating to me because when we moved our bed into one of the spare rooms one random evening I had no idea that it would be my place of rest every night for nearly two months. I was expecting three weeks max.

Yesterday my husband and I visited some friends in the Twin Cities. As we walked past Pottery Barn I was drawn to the pretty coral sea shapes and was reminded to share with all of you some coral that I ordered online that arrived in the mail this week. It's arrival honestly made up for my weeks of bedroom redecorating frustration.

Coral. delicate, rough, perfect.

And speaking of Pottery Barn, I can't wait until our bedroom is complete so that I can share with you how freakishly similar the colors and objects I chose for our bedroom are to a living room that Pottery Barn put together. I think their styling looks good, so if what I picked out is similar to something they've done I figure I must be doing something right.

Taking it personal.

2009-03-30T12:08:00.000-05:00

I just took a quiz at Sproost to find out my personal design style. It turns out that I'm 50% Cottage Chic and 50% Rustic Revival. I'm not quite understanding their differences. For both of their descriptions it says that I like a blend of vintage and modern pieces and these will best be suited against white and light canvases.

Cottage Chic
Who says that cottages can't be modern and chic? Who says that they have to be floral and cheesy? Not you!
You love the carefree spirit that the cottage interior inspires, but you are also serious about your appreciation for modern art and hip treasures. You love old and new alike, and love to highlight them all to expose the uniqueness of each. What better way to show off these treasures than with a light background?

Rustic Revival
You can take kid out of the country but you can't take the country out of the kid... or is your theme "you can take the kid out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the kid?".
Either way you play it, you are one of the unique individuals who loves a mix of modern and country. The clean lines of the modern softened by rustic/vintage elements is the perfect mix in your mind. And can we blame you? You've taken the best aspects of two popular designs and mixed them in a manner that appeals to young and old alike. A subtle background of white or light colors provides a nice canvas for all the wonderful flea market, eBay, or garage sale finds as well as the classic modern pieces that you love.

I think the results are fairly accurate. I just don't fully understand the differences between these two. Any ideas?

Just a little.

2009-03-29T18:14:00.000-05:00

My small task for organizing our house this week was cleaning out our spices in our cabinet. We had quite a few expired spices, but nothing more than two years out of date. I decided to take this task one step further.

This spice rack caught Nick's eye at Goodwill probably one and a half years ago. It's been on our kitchen wall since then. Out of the 12 glass jars that came with it we only put spices into four of them and never labeled any of them. This week I bought several spices to replace the expired ones in addition to spices that we were already in need of. I purchased them in the bulk/natural foods section of our grocery store because the spices are much cheaper and fresher.

After I finished putting labels on them I began pouring the spices into their specified jars. I had plenty to fill each of the jars, except for one. How could this happen? I made a detailed list of each spice I needed to buy more of and of which spices would make their home in this particular rack.

Mustard seed. For being so small mustard seeds are quite potent and strong. Nick has made amazingly powerful mustard from mustard seeds before. I don't think it's a mistake that all of the other jars in the spice rack are filled to the brim while the mustard seed jar contains measurably less. It's also no mistake that Jesus used the mustard seed in a parable. Even though it's one of the smallest seeds they can grow into large trees and even crack through cement while growing.

While filling the mustard seed jar I was reminded of the parable. In Matthew 17:21 it says, (Jesus) replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

I was reminded of times when my own faith has felt all too small. There were times that I felt terrible, like I wasn't worthy of God's love or favor because my faith was too minimal. It felt like I was betraying God for asking hard questions. I wanted to have huge monumental faith, faith as large as a mountain. But God doesn't ask us to have faith as large as a mountain in order to move mountains. He doesn't ask us to have faith as large as a mountain in order to move a mustard seed. All He asks for is a little bit, a little bit of trust, and He takes care of the rest.

It's nice to know that while I'm organizing my house my life and heart are getting a little organization as well.

Bedroom: Inspiration

2009-03-25T22:10:00.001-05:00

I didn't jump into redecorating the bedroom without a plan. I wanted to make sure that I would get it right. I don't think I would have been able to tackle this a year ago. I was still trying to figure out my design style. Now that I know what I want I know what to look for! I spent around a month gathering ideas, finding inspiration, and reading about interior design. I knew that for the bedroom I wanted something that would be relaxing and rejuvenating. There were a couple of personal items that I really wanted to use in the final design.

The sand dollar is from a family vacation to California when I was 17 years old. I still look back on that vacation with the fondest of memories. It was also from a time of my life when I felt so alive! I like the sand dollar for its color, texture, and its organic shape. I picked up the butterfly stationery several months ago. I really liked the color scheme and how it tied in with the idea of nature.

At this point I knew that I wanted the bedroom to include elements of nature and perhaps the soft tones of the sea. A year ago I went through a huge stack of magazines I was hoarding and ripped out anything that inspired me for any reason. I went back to my stack of ripped out images to look for anything that might spur me on. I looked for color, light, attitude, texture, and shape.

These are images from my inspiration folder. (Click to view them larger.) I really liked the clean blue tones in the image on the left. I also liked the bold yellow room and the grey chair in the magazine tear-out next to it. In the image on the right I liked the free-spirit shown in the tear-out of the girl flipping her hair around. I liked the sea life shapes in the silver bowl. I loved the puffy flower balls and satin blue ribbon. In the tear-out behind the folder I liked the casual laid back attitude of the prints and how the fabrics have a light and airy characteristic about them. You can tell from both of the images how I was trying to translate the magazine tear-outs into paint chips. I definitely plan to create an inspiration folder for each room that I redecorate. It's really useful for carrying in my bag when I go to different stores. It's easier than trying to figure out in your head if a certain paint color or fabric is going to jive well.

That's a little look into my inspiration process. Stay tuned for a little peek at what I've been doing to put my ideas into action!

What more do you want from me?

2009-03-21T22:10:00.001-05:00

Two weeks ago I got the ball rolling. Has it already been two weeks? I decided that it was finally time to start redecorating the bedroom, but first Nick and I would need a temporary place to put our bed. That meant only one thing, I would need to clean out the future studio room. The only problem was that I had resorted to "the pile" method of organizing in that room. Piles on the desk, piles on the coffee table, and piles all over the floor.

It was never my intention to make the room look good afterward. I organized it the best I could at the time and made enough room to throw our bed in. Needless to say the studio room now looks like a disaster again. I guess you can't win them all. Stay tuned for new posts on our bedroom's updated look!

a house is not a home

2009-03-21T21:41:00.001-05:00

This is a fact. A house is not a home. My husband bought a 100 year old house when he was 19. I moved in when we got married nearly two years ago. It has not really felt like home, yet. That's changing now. Now that I have a better understanding of my personal style and I've read about interior design in my spare time, I'm trying to make our house a reflection of ourselves. This is my outlet for sharing all of the ways our house is becoming a home. From home renovation to decorating, from clean cooking to natural cleaning, from friends to family, this house will be home.