On Dasher and Dancer...

I guess I have a thing for reindeers.

I picked up this little cutie a few years ago from Crate and Barrel and he stays out all year round.

He guards the wine.

I never knew he needed a friend.

But for the love of Pottery Barn, look at all the cute reindeers they have this year!

Reiny* will soon have a friend, perhaps 2 or 3.

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* in honor of my niece who names her stuffed animals after what they are ie. her poodle named poodie and her turtle name turty, i've named my reindeer Reiny.

Calendar Art

I call it calendar art because it's art...made from a calendar.

Deep, I know.

I've done this for years and it's one of my favorite ways to introduce one-of-a-kind art into my decor.

Sometimes they are from used calendars from years past and sometimes I buy calendars specifically to cut them up and frame them.

I'm kind of obsessed.

Italia

Vintage Pin Ups

Travel

I must admit this is not the cheapest way to buy artwork in that framing can be a bit spendy especially when you're doing 6 at once, but I LOVE how they turn out!

Anyone else ever turn their calendars into artwork?

Countertop Paint FINISHED

I'm taking a little break from miscarriages and death for a day.

I've spent 2 weeks surrounded by it and while I've just gotten a call that the end is near for my grandma, I'm going to pretend for just a few hours that everything doesn't suck.

I realized that before we left Oregon in May I did not show you the final results of my countertop paint experiment.

Believe me, I thought long and hard about just leaving it half finished, but in the end I went ahead and completed the project and I gotta say...it looks better than it did before.

But...countertop paint is by no means perfect, there are lots of little scratches and blemishes that happened many weeks maybe even a month after the counter had been painted, which is well beyond the recommended 48 hours that it takes for the paint to "set".

So, without further ado, here is the countertop before:

And the countertops after:

From afar I think they're awesome. I much prefer the gray to the red, but there are little boo boo's like this:

And when you try to fix the boo boo's you get this:

So, to sum up. Love the color and the ultimate look from afar, but not happy with close up result.

Once we're back in Oregon for any length of time that has nothing to do with funerals or death we'll do some experimenting and hopefully find a solution to fix the monstrosity of ugliness that is that last picture.

Until then countertop paint is not getting a big fat thumbs up from me, but it's not getting a thumbs down either because like I said, it looks better than the red. So, what is that a thumb sideways?

Anyone else try countertop paint yet? Have better results?

Bookshelves

I feel like I am constantly decorating.

Normally I would have a good association with decorating. In general I like moving into new spaces and decorating them.

But for whatever reason, this house refuses to really come together for me.

There's not a single room that I wouldn't change at least one thing if I could.

I'm over it. I want a break. But at the same time, I WANT IT DONE.

So, while we were agonizing over what to do with our dining room, we finally came to the conclusion that bookshelves belonged in the living room. We searched and searched for the perfect bookshelves and finally landed on what was a happy medium for both of us and bought a couple of these babies from Crate and Barrel.

They arrived today.

The one thing we hadn't unpacked from moving was a box of books, I thought for sure with these new bookshelves all of our books would finally have a home.

I was so wrong.

So, what started out as this at 7am this morning (really Crate and Barrel, 7am delivery?):

Now looks like this:

I'd like to tell you that all of my books fit...but sadly, they do not.

Which means I have another bookshelf to decorate.

See what I mean, it's neverending!

Anyone else have trouble getting a new house to "come together", or am I the only one?

Dining Room Dilemma

For the first time ever I have a proper dining room.

And I'm having a bit of trouble with the decorating.

You see there's this big wall on one side.

With nothing.

Just a wall.

Originally I thought ooh, I could put floor to ceiling bookshelves across the whole wall!

But I have floor to ceiling bookshelves on either side of my fireplace in the next room.

I think that might be a bit of overkill on the bookshelves.

And honestly books don't really go in the dining room, do they?

So then we decided a large buffet/hutch type thing would be pretty with a display on top and cupboards on the bottom.

But I don't have china or anything else I really want to "display" in a dining room.

So now we've moved on to just a buffet, a long one that stretches almost the whole length of the room with some sort of artwork or giant mirror above it.

But for the life of me I CANNOT MAKE A DECISION.

Here's the room as it is now:

The armoir does not live there, it's just resting there momentarily while we figure out exactly where another piece of furniture that's in the armoir's spot is going to live. Nor do any of the other weird things lying against the armoir, this has been sort of the holding area while we figure out where everything lives since WHO USES A DINING ROOM?! And sorry about the weird coloring, the 2nd picture is most accurate with the actual color of the room, it's definitely orange, not yellow.

Anyway, what does everyone think?

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Large wall unit like this?

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or something more like this (but longer to fill more of the wall) with aforementioned mirror or artwork above to fill up the wall space?

What does everyone think?

Outblush Lust

Are you all reading Outblush?

I love Outblush.

But since moving back here to San Francisco and having to pay a mortgage that is more expensive than any amount of rent we've had to pay since we've been together, I've put shopping on hiatus.

Now thanks to Outblush I am coveting the following:

Tommy Bahama Dress

bloomingdales.com

Marc by Marc Jacobs purse

shopbop.com

Fossil shoes

fossil.com

And of all things...this beautiful Heartland oven

heartlandapp.com

With my birthday exactly 3 weeks away I'm struggling, struggling to not shop.

Anyone else coveting gorgeous things that they can't afford ($7500 stoves, ahem!)?

What I've Been Up To Lately

I'm still in my funk.

I can't seem to snap out of it.

I blame the weather.

It's been raining and cold for days...I feel like I'm in Oregon, where ironically it's been warm and sunny all weekend.

Funk or not I've been striving to really get some things around the house done, because no matter how much I do there is always something else that needs to be done.

So, the last few days I have...

Finally put hooks on my groovy wall sticker coat rack that I bought here, so that instead of just looking like pretty wall art

it is now a proper coat rack

and now my coats have somewhere to live other than the back of all the chairs around the dining room table.

I also managed to paint this dresser that we inherited from Dom's storage unit...it was one of the pieces that we thought we had ridden ourselves of years ago but alas surprise! it was in a storage unit. I might ultimately sell it but I think it turned out rather nice. Unfortunately I forgot to take a BEFORE picture, but it looked similar to this, same color, same condition:

and now it looks like this:

I have also managed to discover the wonderfulness of the spaghetti squash, have you heard of a spaghetti squash? It's AMAZING. You poke some holes in it, put it in the oven for an hour, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and then run a fork along the sides and it comes out in long strings like spaghetti! Add some homemade spaghetti sauce and voila! It's absolutely delicious and a fantastic substitute for pasta!

I know the rest of the world had a nice sunny weekend and you probably didn't spend near so much time indoors painting furniture and cooking, what fun outdoorsiness did everyone else get up to this weekend that I missed out on?