week twelve: coffee table

Last week my dad had a conference for work in San Diego, so I decided to take a couple of days off of work *gasp* and drive down south for some quality time with my parents. They then rode back up to Orange County with me to stay with us for a couple of days. 

While I was down in San Diego, my mom and I decided to do some thrift shopping with the goal of finding a coffee table for our little house. I had a very specific sort of coffee table in mind--a midcentury slat bench. Don't ask me how I got this idea into my head but it wouldn't leave and J had no problem with it, so I could settle for nothing else. We just happened to find two such benches on our excursion. The first one was the right price, but there was just something about it that was not quite right. Enter Vestige. We walked into the shop and we immediately knew that there was something special. I browsed casually, keeping my eyes peeled for anything slat bench-y. The owner asked me if I was looking for anything in particular to which I replied, "Why, actually, yes," and he led to me to the back room where the one sat in the middle of the room. 

The only problem was that I drove my little Honda Accord down to San Diego, and I had to fill it up with two more adults plus luggage for hour and a half drive home. So, we entered into a deal called If You Can Fit it in My Car, I Will Buy It. And would you believe it? He got my coffee table to fit into my car! And that is the story of your adoption, little coffee table.

This is such a cool piece because it expands to about twice it's size! And it still looks pretty while expanded. It is also a bench so you can sit on it. Talk about versatile. And in a small space, versatile furniture is a major plus. I just love this bench/coffee table. It just looks like it belongs in our living room. Now, I need to find some amazing coffee table books (I really want to find one on California!). I also feel like this table needs a small cactus garden. What do you think?

week eleven: entry mirror

Remember this mirror? I don't blame you--I had kind of forgotten about it myself. I had planned to hang it above our bed after I found or made a headboard (which obviously has not happened yet). But, then I started reading some feng shui article and learned about how bad it is to have two mirrors facing each other (we have a very large mirror attached to our dresser which is directly across from the wall where I intended to hang this mirror). Also, we are kind of thinking about hanging the painting that used to be in our living room above the bed.

I had purchased this mirror to hang next to our front door, but when I got it home and started to hang it, I just hated it. This gold mirror has literally been sitting around my house for nearly 2 years (eek!), so I decided to just hang it up, and I love it here. It is perfect. Every front door should have a mirror next to it, right?

Looking at these photos, I am realizing how desperately our front door needs to be painted. We bought some glossy black paint for this door, so we'll see how that turns out--I'll try to get that done this weekend! I also need some new curtains for that slider door. Feel free to send me some fabric or curtain options! I am struggling with finding just the right thing (I kind of like this concept, but I'm not sure about the color ways available).

week ten: living room art

I have been dying to get these pieces up on the wall for a few weeks now, but wanted to wait until we had been painted so that we could really enjoy them with that clean white background. I found both pieces at the same flea market in Irvine (months apart). 

I love a sort of gritty local color genre of American literature, and these paintings evoke that same sentiment in me. They tell stories and they make me want to know what the artist was feeling and thinking when they were working on these. Did/do they have a sentimental attachment to that place or those people? Did they imagine these things? Did they copy a photograph? I tried to search for information on both of the artists, but couldn't find anything. It makes me wonder whether they have any other works out there, and what path these pieces took to find themselves hanging on the wall in some little condo in Southern California next to each other...

week nine: painting the living room

And just in case you're thinking that it doesn't look different to you, here is a before shot:

On Sunday, the hubs and I woke up a bit late and decided to get straight to work painting the living area because the old wall color just was not working with the new sofa. We also have some new art (and a mirror!) to hang on the walls, and I couldn't bring myself to do that until we painted the walls. 

I decided to go with white (Behr Snowy Pine to be exact). I realize that can be construed as boring, but as you can see here the majority of the rooms that in "pin" as inspiration for our living area have white walls. So, I decided to just go with it--you can't fight city hall. So far, I am loving my boring white walls. They are so clean and fresh and it makes the space feel more modern. 

Since taking these photos, we have re-hung all of our window treatments and replaced all but one of the light switch/outlet covers. I might add that I was nearly moved to tears the other night while trying to re-install all of the hardware for the curtains that cover the sliding door. I do believe that I managed to buy a very temperamental drill. Sometimes it works perfectly for me, and other times...

So, hopefully my next updates will be in regards to hanging things on the walls! And maybe a coffee table. A coffee table would be nice.

week eight: new sofa!

Guess what, you guys! I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth or anything. The mister and I have just been quite busy lately with work, life, projects around the casa and another exciting thing which I will share sometime in the near future (don't get too excited--it's not a baby). 

Remember this post from ummmm...last June? Well, we finally pulled the trigger and bought a new sofa! I kept going back and forth between getting a grey sofa or a green velvet sofa. My decision was made for me when Macy's had a huge sale on sofas with no options for green velvet. This is such a game changer for our living room, and now I can finally move forward with this space. T is weekend we are planning to paint, hang some new art, and look at a coffee table that I've been eyeing on  craigslist (fingers crossed that this is the one).

I will work on catching up with all of my home projects on here over the next couple of weeks...

week seven: umbrella stand

The patio is coming along nicely. Along with the kitchen, this is one of the most finished spaces in our home. I love our patio (I think it is technically a deck, but I've been calling it the patio since we moved in, and I think I'll just stick with it)--it is such a peaceful spot. And since we live in Southern California, it is a space that we can utilize pretty much year-round. 

So, this week's project/new addition is the umbrella base. Riveting, isn't it? We bought our patio furniture last year from Target, but we missed out on the umbrella base. I bought a base at a local hardware store, but it didn't fit with the table structure. After Target rolled out their Spring seasonal outdoor merchandise, you cannot understand how excited I was to see that they had brought back our patio furniture. This meant that they had also brought back the umbrella base! I obviously purchased it immediately (it was even on sale--clearly the stars had aligned), brought it home and set it up. Now I just need a gate, some twinkle lights and a bin for the hose, and I think that our patio will be "finished." For now, anyway.

week six: cozy little reading corner

This little reading corner is one of the things that I have most been looking forward to in pulling the office together. I bought this chair at a garage sale before I moved into my very first apartment. I know that this it's not the chicest chair out there, but it is so comfortable. I don't know whether La-Z Boy makes/made a smaller recliner for women, but this chair is the perfect size for me. This is going to be the perfect spot for lazy Saturday mornings and the occasional bout of insomnia. I'll add a throw pillow to the chair when "the  one" crosses my path...

Can we talk about that lamp for a minute? Forty dollars from Target. Yes. I have passionately hated floor lamps until I found this one, and now there are two of these lamps in our home (the other is in the living room).

I'll have another project update for you tomorrow, then I think I'll be all caught up! What projects have you been working on?

week five: office book case

[ sorted according to genre ]

[ progress ]

[ i love this guy -- he's only slightly smaller than Chloe ]

[ obviously Nina claimed prime real estate on the shelf ]

The book case is up in the office! The book arrangement/shelf styling is not final--I definitely have some tweaking to do here and there. But, it is [finally] up! And all of our books are in the house (there were three big crates full of books down in the garage) and on proper shelves. Our books have a home. This also made me realize that I own quite a few books that I haven't read yet. Must get on that.

What is going on with those bottom shelves? My plan for the very bottom row is to get magazine storage for my problem collection of Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Whole Living, Elle Decor, and yes, every single issue of Blueprint. Just the magazines that I like to look through every now and then for inspiration. There will also be at least one cube filled with binders for my filing system. And, of course, any remaining space will be filled with more books!

There is still so much to do in this room. But, we are getting there, one little (or rather large) piece at a time.

week four: office shoe molding

See that little gap between the floor board and the floors?

Gap be gone.

Well, hello there! I promise that I have been keeping up with my project per week, I just haven't been getting around to posting the projects...This is probably the most boring post I've ever done, but it is a mini-update on the office.

I finally finished installing the shoe molding! I thought that this was going to be such a cheap and easy project that would just take one little Saturday. I was so wrong. It was just one thing after another--I bought the wrong shoe molding, then went back to Home Depot to buy the right shoe molding, but the guy who could cut it for me was off in about 4 minutes. So, I went back to Home Depot the following weekend and found out that they didn't even carry the shoe molding that I needed. The guy referred me to a local lumber store that definitely carried what I needed. When I got to the lumber store, they had been closed for an hour and a half. So, I finally made it to the lumber store while they were opened, purchased and painted the correct shoe molding, then started to install it and realized that I wasn't going to be able to do it without a drill. So, J and I drove over to Home Depot on a Sunday night to purchase a drill. We bought a nice little cordless drill, got it home and found out that it had to charge for 12 hours before it could be used.

Now that I know exactly what I need and have all of the tools, installing the shoe molding in the rest of the house will be a very simple little project...Shoe molding is such a little thing (and so inexpensive--the molding for this room came to a grand total of $12.61!), but it has such a big impact. The room looks so much more finished. I can't wait to get this done throughout the house!

week three: kitchen sink cabinet

Before: how does this happen?

After: bins set this space up for keeping this cupboard organized long-term

Here's a little organization project for Week 3 of Operation: Make This House a Home (I'll get the page up and running this weekend). The cabinet below our kitchen sink had been taken over by paper and plastic shopping bags (even though I use our reusable shopping bags everywhere!). The really exciting part of this project is that it cost me $7.99 and 15 minutes of my time. That 15 minutes included taking everything out, a trip down to the recycle bin, wiping down the entire cupboard, taking photos, and putting everything back. 15 minutes??? Yeah--there are just no more excuses for getting things done.

That 15 minutes was followed by 60 minutes in Home Depot gathering supplies for next week's project!

What projects have you been working on this week?

week two: painting the office

The office is finally painted! I can't believe that it took me over 6 months to choose a color and finally get around to cleaning out and prepping the office for paint. In general, I am a very decisive person. It took Justin and I about 20 minutes to pick out a mattress. We pick out our Christmas trees in about 15 minutes. The moment I held Chloe at the shelter, I knew she was coming home with us (it took a little bit longer to convince Justin on that one). But, for some reason, when it comes to the house, my decision making moves at a snail's pace

We didn't paint the closet yet because that is a whole mess that I just couldn't deal with last weekend. Justin talked me into just painting the rest of the room and dealing with the closet later (he was probably afraid that it would take another 6 months to paint the room if we didn't just start it at that moment). Sometimes we must just do what we can do.

All of the furniture is still in the center of the room and the drop cloths are still down because the next project in this room is to paint all of the baseboards and trim, then install the shoe molding. Then we can buy a new bookshelf, then maybe a rug, then...You get the idea--could probably come up with 52 projects in this room alone!

Changing the subject completely, did anyone watch the opening episode of Downton Abbey last Sunday? Any thoughts? I am so excited that the third season is finally upon us! Also, I saw Les Miserables last weekend. Amazing. If you haven't seen it yet, it is definitely one to catch in the theater!

stationary

After Christmas I reached the bottom of my box of thank you cards which lead me to search for something new to replace them. 

Of course, the search for the perfect thank you cards rabbit holed into stationary options and even business cards. I love this trend of stamps for stationary and business cards-it adds a nice personal touch to these items. Stamps make having custom stationary very affordable. There is also a huge convenience factor in having a few stamps, some fun ink and pretty paper around the house in order to always have a perfect card on hand for any and every situation. It streamlines and simplifies which is one of the ultimate goals, right? I also found a printable option as well as some beautiful traditional cards.

Thank you cards:

Source: Wit & Whistle

Source: Besotted Brand

Source: Jones Design Company

Source: Paper-Source

Monogrammed stationary:

Source: Besotted Brand

Source: Besotted Brand

I also love this for note cards:

Source: Orange & Park

And finally some great business card stamps:

Source: maemae paperie

Need some tips for writing charming thank you notes? Check out this article from Southern Living.

Of course, you will also need some pretty postage to go with your shiny new stationary. My favorites can be found here and here.

 What are your favorite sources for thank you cards and stationary?