Hey everybody! I’ve been doing so much painting around here and zero blogging, laundry, cooking, nail upkeep, vacuuming, or toilet scrubbing. Basically, me and my house are disgusting, but my fences are looking fresh. I spent the last few weeks repairing and painting a shared fence with our neighbor and then I got to looking at my backyard fences. They were so bad that I started frantically painting them before El Nino rains supposedly arrive. Yesterday in my madness I destroyed a plastic kid’s chair (and my elbows) by Matt Foley falling/crushing it into a thousand pieces while trying to reach a high spot without getting out a ladder. All part of my future children’s book, If You Give a Jenny a Paint Brush.More excitingly, I’ve acquired some radical things recently. The most unexpected and thrilling was this vintage tulip coffee table. I made my kids eat dinner in the car so I could pounce on this before the competition saw it on Craigslist. I’m sure it’s a knock off and not an original Knoll (a Burke?), it has a chipped laminate top, and the base is scratched. But that’s all great by me. I’ve been looking for 2 years for a tulip dining table for the patio because that’s the ONLY table I want out there. I had finally accepted it as an impossible dream because my hands are physically incapable of parting with $500 for a table. Literally a week later, this coffee table showed up for ridiculously cheap and I think it’s my solution…I’m going to build a bigger white top for it (I’ll save the original, no worries) and possibly re-powder coat the base if I can’t clean it up. Now, I’m on the hunt for some chairs and I know exactly which ones. Wish me good Craigslist vibes, even though it’s lookin’ like I already have them.And then, as you may have noticed here, this lamp of my dreams entered my life. I didn’t know I needed until I saw it on ebay. Filling my house with things I unequivocally love is my idea of a life well lived. I ridded myself of a few lesser loved lamps, so I’m all squared up. Welcome to the family, big guy.

And then there was a big purchase: I finally bought a new rug for the den. I wanted a thick white shag that kept up, but didn’t compete, with the other wild stuff going on in here. The brown squares work so well in this weird, colorful room. I didn’t get a full room shot yet, but above shows part of the cozy thing along with a few Halloween “decorations” I’ve got up (that Domino Magazine featured on their site!!) I’ll leave with an incredible tale of a not-purchase: Just days ago I found myself saying “I’m gonna have to pass on this vintage Saarinen womb chair and ottoman for $75”. What? (Above is a new repro version from Knoll.) An original! Black frame, vintage fabric and all. It undoubtedly needed reupholstering. And that’s where the problem popped up. I was thinking it would be a couple hundred to reupholster, which I was open to considering. Then my quote from my favorite good and honest upholsterer was $1500! Not including fabric. I made the mature decision to pass. Ouch. My instinct is to just buy it and wait until free reupholstering jobs are falling from the sky, but that makes no sense. My husband jokes that I am gonna leave him with a “reverse will”, where instead of inheriting my stuff, he inherits my list of things to acquire. This is on the reverse will.