ode to young house love

I've just about had it with my office/guest room.  Everyone has that one room in their house that just never feels complete or put together just the way you would like it.  We've struggled with designing this room since we've moved in and I think I've found a solution....thanks to something I had seen on Young House Love awhile back.  This came to me when I was trying to take a nap (to get over my cold that I've had for 4 days) and will "surprise" my husband with the details when he gets home and see how he feels about building another table top.....

weekend warriors

How does this keep happening? I’ve been out of the loop since October it seems (didn’t think it had been THAT long) Anyways – lots to talk about.  

The hubby and I finished the wood floors in the bedroom - a project that involved turning our living room into our bedroom for a little while, although fun "camping" on the floor for the first few nights, this grew old very quickly.  I was a little eager to get my life back together and my bedroom situated again, so the baseboards will be done later on.

While the bedroom was completely stripped of all the furniture, we (more credit should be given to my husband for sure....I pretty much just did the staining) decided it would be a good time to also build a table top for the antique sewing table we bought last year and a console table with plans from Ana White.  

The dust from the building/sanding of the tables was unbearable --- I actually had to Swiffer my walls, wash my curtains and vacuum my picture frames. But honestly it was all worth it because we are so happy with the results.  

I wish I could say that we are done with projects, but we are always finding something else to do. As I've mentioned before, our poor office/guest room has also become somewhat of a storage unit. This weekend I had had enough and went on a bit of a cleaning spree. A few trips to the dumpster and some things left on the “free” bench in our building, the office is clearing out.  

quick fix for generic looking binders

I hated the look of the binders that I had in my book crates and was going to buy some new ones until I came across some left over scrapbook paper in one of my drawers.

Why not just cover the spines and give them a whole new look?

All I needed was a ruler, pencil, scissors and a glue stick.  I measured the spine and then added 2 inches to each side and trimmed the paper accordingly.  Next, I ran a glue stick over the spine and centered the paper and then glued the edges down.  Problem solved and money saved!

terrarium

My obsession this week is with terrarium.  As you know by now, I am unable to keep a plant alive in my home for more than a day, so besides those nifty little air plants I talked about a few posts ago, I have fallen in love with terrarium.

Check out this terrarium How-To from Sweet Peach



And as always, you can can find some on Etsy

 

the vintage tea collection giveaway

Check out these amazing new items from Jennifer Rizzo and enter to win $400 worth of items from her shop plus a $100 gift certificate towards jewelry!  I hope I win!! 

Check out her Etsy shop as well.

     

restoration hardware....drool

I decided that adding 615 pages of the Restoration Hardware Fall 2011 Sourcebook was a little overkill, so here are just a few of my favorites.....

   

inspired by ikea

The Ikea 2012 catalog has some great new stuff.  Can't wait to go there and use up my gift card!  Click on the pics for $ and info.

slightly off topic

I know, I know --- this post has nothing to do with decorating, renovations or anything home related, but I was pretty proud of myself for being creative and crafty.  I had this necklace lying around forever with a broken clasp. Rather than searching for the exact clasp I needed to fix it and then having to deal with needle nose pliers, why not tie a think pink ribbon to it and give it a little more spunk?  Kinda cute don't ya think?

first fall-like saturday

What to do with my weekend now that its too chilly to be on the boat?  Why not drag my husband out of bed at 8:30 on a Saturday morning to go to some yards sales?

I can clearly see that my interpretation of the description on Craigslist versus the actual items at the yard sales were slightly off.  I honed in on certain words such as "multi-family" and "antiques" and seemed not to have noticed the mention of ample amounts of children's items.  Oh well, not our day for yards sales.

Our last stop was at antique store and we could not resist purchasing these 3 things...including what I just learned was the very first model of the Polaroid Camera, pretty cool if you ask me.

1948 - Instant photography goes on sale to the public for the first time with the Polaroid Model 95 camera and Type 40 film. The camera is so named due to its $95 suggested price. This is just over $850 today.
After selling out quickly, the Boston store that launched the first cameras begins taking backorders for up to $150, or about $1350! ---savepolaroid.com

Large Wooden Spool

 

Vintage Polaroid Camera

 

Vintage Chair

so long summer, renovations just around the corner

I have to face it, my bathing suit may not see the light of day until next year.  With the chillier weather comes the fairly long list of projects that we want to accomplish over the extended fall/winter/rain/slush/snow/cold weather of New England.

Although the table saw and chop saw have made a lovely addition to my hallway for the last few months, I am ready to move them back into storage! 

I've found that creating an overall list is just too overwhelming, so we are just going to take it room by room.  There are a few functional things that need to be done such as nailing in the baseboards in the office/guest room and laying the flooring in the master bedroom.

as well as a few fun projects such as building a tabletop for our antique sewing machine stand and antiqueing a mirror.



So needless to say we have a busy winter ahead of us, but what better way to spend a snowy Saturday than inside with our cats with the sound of a tablesaw?