Cheesy craft time! I’m working hard for random moments of happiness this year, wherever they come from…enter a birdhouse Halloween village I forced my kids to make with me in August haha. It was 100% inspired by this mommy and me Halloween village on A Beautiful Mess, done with children younger than my reluctant tweens. … More Halloween Birdhouse Village
Kitchen pass throughs, aka window-like openings in the wall between the kitchen and dining room, aren’t a common house feature these days. But they can be found in many mid century homes – ours included. While I’m all for keeping quirky old-school details, this particular quirk in this particular house needed some reworking. With the … More Kitchen Pass Through Turned Room Divider
Happy Friday everyone! I didn’t intend to take such a long blog hiatus, but life/family obligations have been unrelenting. Major highlights include the flu, 4 weeks of lingering flu, our annual plumbing disaster, and just a very time-consuming homeschooling season. Add in an unusually rainy and freezing winter (we even got 5 minutes of snow … More Copper Nest Thermostat
I’m one of those nuts who is moved by clay. I love “art” (meaning very debatable, but I’m referring to visual art here) in general, and ceramics in particular. And I’m trying overall in my home to have less but have better; to surround myself with objects and art that I love and inspire me, … More Investing in Art
How do we feel about bookshelves in dining rooms? Kinda weird, right? It’s not my preference, but with our current room/furniture arrangement, having our long and low bookshelf along our dining room wall is what works right now. I loved its previous home in the den, hated its short-lived residency in our family room (I guess … More Dining Room Bookshelves
I’ve been trying to get our current dining room situation to work for our family for years and it just wasn’t. We finally decided to invest in a new table that was the right size and offered a more durable surface, this Lippa reproduction tulip table. VERDICT: A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER IN EVERY WAY! (Sources at the … More Dining Room Tulip Table
Hey everybody! We spent some time in lovely San Diego last week, where I said 1000 times “Ya, I could live here.” It’s going on my Ya I Could Live There List, joining San Luis Obispo (the place where I actually live and fully endorse) and Palm Springs (a questionable addition where 50% of me is … More Dining Room Too
Heeeey! Just a few really weird randoms today… I’m not sure why, but a Williams-Sonoma Home catalog arrived in the mail. I’m not sure why, but I leafed through it before tossing. And unexpected inspiration struck. I’ve wanted to put a painting back in the dining room but couldn’t find or come up with anything that … More Respects
Things are nearing completion and it feels darn good. The 70’s green floral wallpaper has been removed on one wall and replaced with grasscloth on the other, the putty walls and ceiling have been painted white, and I settled on the wood clock, nailing a second hole into the wall. Although it looks quite similar to the old room … More Dining Room Freshness
I’ve wanted grasscloth wallpaper for so long and I regret that I waited until now to hang it. The installation was much easier than I anticipated. It’s possible that my expectations were way off. By the time I was done I expected to: be crying, have my entire room ceilings to floors covered in wallpaper adhesive, … More Hanging Grasscloth Wallpaper Yourself – DO IT!
This is mostly a post of pure commiseration. If you are in the middle of wallpaper removal, you are not alone. It sucks. Removing wallpaper is the worst.I finally parted ways with the wallpaper in our dining room. (Well, half of it, but I don’t want to tell you yet why half of it is still up because if … More Removing Wallpaper
Then welcome! For the past week and a half we were on an amazing Pacific Northwest extravaganza. I think we saw everything except Bigfoot. I should really be doing laundry but instead I’m (still) obsessing about wall treatments. The trip was hours of driving so I had hours to think about house stuff. I thought about the possibilities … More Want to see the same wall 10 times?
Ready for a wallpaper ramble? Here it is: I’m getting ready to dig into my dining room soon and I’ve got wallpaper problems. The issue being whether I keep it or rip it down in a fury. This wallpaper used to cocoon the house. Actually, just the entire long hallway and this room, but it ate up a lot of … More Wallpaper Dilemmas
The dining room and family room are on my list of things to nail this summer. These rooms have mostly been untouched since we moved in and it’s finally time to tear into them.The two rooms are open to one another, separated by a step down in the family room and possibly a rail (if … More Dining Room As Is
