rugs and railings

On Monday I posted about wanting to get a rug for that space in between our island and sink. I bit the bullet yesterday and as a prize for finishing the retirement events for Gordon's President and First Lady (more about that later this week), I bought the rug. I guess it's not really a "prize" so much when you already have gift cards to cover it but it worked for me. Now my feet are on cushy, happy ground. :) I shot it from basically every angle because I'm obsessed.

While I was at my last event yesterday AJ painted the railing he installed in our upstairs hallway! When we bought the house there was a wall where the railing is now. And the railing? That was a $5 find from our favorite antiques store.

It now matches the halfway done railing at the base of the stairs. I was just searching through old posts and found this one from when we had a wall there... it's amazing how much more light is brought in by taking down walls. I'm lucky my husband loves destructing things. :)



tin ceilings

Remember what the ceilings at the Flip looked like when we bought it?

AJ had the vision to bring it back to it's original glory. I found some of Martha Stewart's metallic paint, Silver Leaf, at Home Depot. After scraping with a putty knife AJ (and Dan Johnson, his fabulous helper) then wiped it down and painted with a brush and rolled the ceiling.

Doesn't it look great now?



which rug?

I've been saving gift cards to get an 8 x 10 rug from Pottery Barn that I've had my eye on... and then AJ and I mapped out the area around the dining room where it would go and our space is just too small for it... it would fit but it wouldn't look right... soooo what to do with my PB gift cards now? I think I'd like to match the rug we have under the dining room table with a rug to go in between our sink and island...  so I decided to map out the space to find out if a 3x 5 or a 2.5 x 9 would work better... what do you think we chose?

We chose the smaller rug (and I love it when we like the cheaper option better), the longer one looked out of place... and besides, we are hoping to put a full length window and door where you see the Tyvek paper. I'm wondering what would go best with what we have (keep in mind the chair legs still need some TLC... IKEA legs are a little cheapie looking!):

Here is the option that I wanted in 8x10, but am now wondering how it would look in 3x5... would the blue be too dark with the rug we have on the other side of the kitchen?

This is the rug we have now in the 5x7 size... I'm leaning toward purchasing the matching rug and then down the road doing something coordinating, but not matching, in our living room since the floor plan of our small downstairs is fairly open.

What is your vote?

(I've got to stick with Pottery Barn because that's the only place where I've got gift cards.)

little girl's nursery

AJ and I went to my Nana's house last night... my grandfather and my uncle are cleaning it out... Nana died at the end of February, days before she turned 108 (can you believe that?!?). It was surreal to be there without Nana and to see all her things without her. This post doesn't really have anything to do with going to Nana's house, except that she has this fabulous chandelier above her dining room table that reminded me of one that I've had my eye on to put in a little girl's nursery someday (two things would have to happen before I start decorating: 1. we'll decide to have another baby and 2. we'll have a girl... no boy would want this nursery. :)). Without further ado... let me introduce the inspiration behind the nursery of my dreams... my favorite children's book: The Lupine Lady (aka: Miss Rumphius).



Wouldn't pictures from this book look fabulous in vintage washed frames with a lavender linen mat?





This bedding from Restoration Hardware (that I'm hopelessly in love with) would look completely fabulous with the light lavender of the room...





The chandelier from Home Depot that is so adorable, and tiny enough that it wouldn't look out of control in our nursery that is basically the size of some people's walk in closets:



With this rug, also from Restoration Hardware:

And we'd keep the white crib and dresser that we have in Drew's nursery now. I think I'd like a bouquet of perpetually fresh flowers on the shelf in the nursery... oh wait... I'm not Oprah Winfrey and I don't live in Santa Barbara so I can't afford to have a gigantic rose garden right outside my door... darn. (She really does have that... I saw it on Nate Berkus, who I'm in total love with, is his show the greatest or what?)

I love Martha Stewart's paint colors from Home Depot and might do a light lavender:



OR possibly just do lavender on the upper part of the wall and install some white wainscoting on the base of the wall... Luckily, I don't have to make these decisions now... :) My two favorite mirrors would also go into the room... they are wooden white mirrors from Christmas Tree Shop, of all places! They cost me $5 each (!!!).  I took this photo from a post about painting our insane wallpapered bedroom.

That's all for now... have fun doing some decorating dreaming! :)

boxed wedding invitation

I like to joke that our wedding was planned before I even met AJ... and I guess to some extent it wouldn't be a joke... I knew that I wanted blue bridesmaids dresses, a wedding dress not every girl had (ie: not strapless... it would fall off me anyways during the entire day), all white flowers and a boxed wedding invitation. Years before I'd become addicted to Paper Source (have you ever been in their fabulous store?) and saw that they had boxed invitations. I wanted our boxed invites to represent the theme of the wedding... The North Shore. I had the wording and basic ideas for the design (including the fonts I wanted to use!) ready to go when I met with graphic designer Jessica Brand. Jessica worked on Gordon's Campus Events Council with me when we were both students so I knew that her work was fab. I told her I wanted a vintage map of the North Shore and she manged to track one down and then work some designing wonders ... here are some photos of our collaboration:

We covered the boxes in a label to secure them for mailing. I was able to print directly onto the label from a printer that Jessica loaned me... because the boxes were so light they only cost about $1.20 for mailing... not so bad considering normal wedding envelopes cost around 65 cents to mail. Here's how we made the inside weigh about 2 ounces but still raise the invites up to the height we wanted (I forget what it's called exactly but we got it at Christmas Tree Shop and filled all the boxes using maybe three bags of this filler, you hardly need anything!):

We used the vintage map as a border around the invite and then used the fonts Edwardian Script and Garamond (small caps) for the invite.

Our RSVP cards were a larger version of the map with a washed out sepia colored photo of us on the reverse side:

The last two pieces that we had in the box were a card of area information, where AJ and I outlined some of our favorite places on the North Shore, and then a card with accomadation information. I loved loved loved working on this piece of the wedding and by far anything to do with the printed pieces were my favorite part of the wedding. As I mentioned recently, I'm on a wedding kick lately because I'm helping out with a wedding next weekend... and it just is making me remember all the fun pieces that went into planning and making the day be such a reflection of us!

Have a great day!

coo-coo clock

AJ made one request for something from his Grandma's house after she died, and it was her large coo-coo clock.

He told me that we didn't have to keep it but I saw potential in it...  There are giant pine cones that connect to the clock but they are basically made out of lead so they aren't hanging to our flimsy walls right now.

What would you do with it? I think there is practically nothing that a few coats of white paint won't fix (people make fun of me for that). You know what else I want to do with it? I found this really natural looking moss at Michael's and want to put that on the roof of the birdcage. Maybe this week I'll have an hour or so to give it a couple of coats of paint, although this weekend I have a HUGE event so we'll see...

This next photo is of the little guy laying in between AJ and I on the couch... we haven't been feeling too fab lately so we're just sitting here under blankets watching Jeopardy.

I'm signing off after the world's quickest post because I have to do some work for our Pastoral Search committee... our pastor died about a year and a half ago from a brain tumor so I'm on the committee with five other people to select the new pastor, it's an interesting process!

I hope tomorrow that I'll have a few minutes to write a post, I'm going to feature our wedding invites, they were boxed (instead of in an envelope). See you then!



aj and jen: the real deal (update!)

I went out with my friend Laura Therrian tonight and was tellling her how I felt like I couldn't keep up to what I did pre-baby and it was frustrating (you're probably thinking that I'm a moron... of course I can't do everything but I'm a little hard on myself) ... and she said that she always feels like she can't keep up with AJ and I because of what I post on the blog. She said "I feel like you always have it together and your house is always clean and blah blah blah...". I decided to prove Laura wrong, we don't always have it together and here's some photos to prove it.

First of all, let's just get the first photo when we enter the house. It's a lot easier when I can move piles around or quickly put dishes away before posting pictures but I decided not to put anything away from the minute I walked in the door from dinner to when I took this picture. Immediately after we put Drew to bed AJ and I spent 15 minutes and did a whirlwind cleaning tour and put things away for a moderately more clean house... but these photos don't represent that. Sorry for the really blurry photo.

We haven't had time, or money, to fix this wrongly angled stairway yet... our house is FAR from perfect.

But here we go... the worst picture... AJ and I haven't even touched our bedroom in days. We are switching over from our winter to spring clothes and just did a boat load of laundry, hence the insane amount of clothes that are making a completely stressful bedroom. I think the bedroom will be our project this weekend.

I was trying to be realistic with Laura and tell her that for the most part our house is fairly clean, I think cleaning is theraputic and honestly, I'm so much less stressed out when the house is clean. The easiest way to do it: fifteen minute cleaning sprees while Drew is sleeping. This next picture shows our bedroom after AJ and I each spent 15 minutes straightening it and putting clothes where they need to be... or on the chair or in bins if they need to be in the "spring clothes" or "winter clothes" pile. We still have a pile of randomness on top of the mantle... we just need to get our file cabinet and start filing papers and get a bookshelf and we'll be golden.

We have one tiny closet in our bedroom and the other one is still under construction. It makes it really hard to put things where they go when so much of our space is still covered in drywall dust and virtually unusable.

I told Laura a couple of tricks for how we get a lot done...

Drew is a very easy going baby... usually he's happy if he's laying down in the room I'm working in... I'll talk to him and give him loads of kisses while I work but I still try to work around him. I think part of the reason he lets me do this is because we started doing that with him when he was first born, I didn't want him to be scared of the vacuum cleaner or blow dryer or anything that makes noise. AJ and I wanted him to be part of our daily life and be able to be part of our daily tasks.

Also, AJ and I do have a lot going on but we also have priorities and we try to keep it simple and stick with these things:

1. Family and Friends

2. House (for now the flip in Gloucester, not much time to work on our own house)

3. Work

4. Church / Church leadership committees

I might be sitting in front of Minute to Win It right now but for the most part we aren't sitting in front of the TV or diddling around... we are trying to make the most of our time... but when we need to sink into the couch and zone out in front of a movie we aren't afraid to do that. We try to work as a team as best as we can. I've taken over Drew care after work hours so AJ can be cranking out work on the Flip and before we got the baby jogger he would make sure he watched Drew while I ran... we are finding that the secret to success is communication, sacrifice and teamwork. Speaking of teamwork, AJ is up working on the mountains of clean laundry in our bedroom right now... I better move it and groove it. :)

flipper kitchen

I have been really lax about sharing pictures of the progress of the flip. Our schedules have been pretty insane and I haven't had the chance to get up there for a while to take photos of the progress. AJ has been working hard, and has made progress on nearly all the rooms. Remember when the kitchen looked like this:

Gross, right? Well, after a morning of demo AJ took out everything and it looked a lot more open:

AJ and Dan Johnson (our fabulous new tenant, with his wife Katie, for the Magnolia condo) installed the rest of the kitchen. Doesn't the white open up the space so much? Obviously, you'll need to picture it with appliances and without the ceiling painted yellow (since I took this photo AJ has painted over it... it's amazing how much better it looks now!).

This is what it's going to look like with appliances:

And the side with the fridge and range:

And the plans for what it'll look like (the large gray area to the left is the doorway into the dining room):

I wish I had some updated photos from this week because AJ has been there a few days working hard. It's been tricky for him to figure out this kitchen because the walls curve (the house is about 100 years old). He texted me out of frustration while trying to tile the kitchen floor that there isn't a straight edge in the house... I suppose it lends vintage charm... but provides huge annoyance to the person tiling or installing cabinets. :) Speaking of installing tile... our plan was to do hardwood... and then the electrician went $3000 over his estimate (picture us PASSING OUT), so, we are doing a slightly more inexpensive option that we think will still look great with the granite and cabinets.



On a different note... highlights for today:

1. Working from home

2. Baking a cake for a Women's Prayer Group Luncheon with Jan Carlberg (Gordon's First Lady)... I like to pretend I'm a "lady who lunches" at these things... :) I'll post the recipe later... it's a melt in your mouth chocolate cake.

3. And tonight I'm meeting up with my friend Laura for apps at Not Your Average Joe's. Did you know that if you go between 5 -6pm you get half price apps? You get out of there spending barely any money.

Have a great day!

mother's day fun

I love days that involve relaxing... with good magazines and a fabulous book (this basically never happens anymore). I read on the lawn, with Drew sort of relaxing next to me, while AJ built our chicken coop. More on that in another post, this one is about our fabulous dessert party...

AJ and I invited my parents and sister over for dessert for Mother's Day. All my brainstorms for how to make the table look special resulted in very unsuccessful trips to the basement to NOT find what I was looking for... namely my fabulous set of 12 pink plates... GONE... although it could be somewhere else in that bottomless pit (aka our basement). I decided to go with a green and white color scheme, basically the cheapest way to decorate anything... you just cut some branches off bushes in your yard and use white dishes and you're golden.

Drew gave me these gorgeous tulips for Mother's Day and I cut the greens from the yard. Don't ask me what the bush was... it just looked fabulous on the table... my dad and sister were joking that it was something poisonous but we're all alive and kicking today and not one has a horrible rash.

I got these fabulous napkin rings that double as place card holders for Christmas this year. I have the Pottery Barn catering set for our dishes (if you are in the market for new dishes these are way cheaper than their regular sets, but it's similar to their Great White line) and these are the napkin rings that go with the set.

Here is a view from the stairs. While in the basement looking for my pink plates I found this giant log (comparable to pink plates, I know...). My vision was to bring some browns into the table and make it look a little more casual and nature-y.

I found this cute little bird at Pottery Barn (love that store) for $3 and stuck him into a crack in the log with some of the branches.

I was debating what cuteness Drew should wear for the Mother's Day celebration when I remembered this cute little outfit my mom got for him... I think the bum says it all for Mother's Day:

My parents gave me and amazing book on floral arrangements and this adorable little card for Mother's Day... my dad is so creative and always does something artsy:

I'm going to leave you with one more picture... this one may leave you drooling (or maybe it's just me)... my sister made this amazing white cake with raspberry jam and butter cream frosting (the photo didn't turn out so well) and I made chocolate chip ice-cream sandwiches. I could almost eat this photo right now...

Linking this to:

http://makingtheworldcuter.blogspot.com/