Painting is Finished!

I finally put the books back in our bookcases. The knobs are on their way. Looking good!!

Painted Piano & A Fav Fabric

I so want a painted paino in our Living Room.

Wow! Look at this green one! Found these fun images on designmom.com

Blue: (todayscreativeblog)

Dove Gray: (august fields blog)

This beautiful turquoise one in the background is from katiefinedesign.com

Which leads me to mention one of my favorite patterns at the moment, Peter Dunham's Ikat in Pomegranate. (See here)

Have a great week, everyone!

Bungalow 5 Knows Me

Do you ever feel like there someone who knows what you want (clothing designer, fabric designer, furniture designer) and every time you turn around its like they made something for you?

Enter, Bungalow 5.

Thank you thank you thank you for these amazing chairs! How fun. I have to get two of these for our living room to go against the wall on either side of a console table. I like the armchair - perhaps more?! Imagine these with a really fun fabric!!??

I might try to squeak this style past Tom (is the bamboo that noticeable?)

PS. bungalow5.com

Dressing the Little People

Here is a fun Spring outfit I have put together for my oldest little person...

dress teacollection.com

crewcuts jean jacket - jcrew.com

jazzy silver saltwaters - mysaltwatersandals.com

straw hat - oldnavy.com

Zen Tablescape

marthastewart.com

Goodies

That bearded man is my handsome husband who is currently on the most amazing surf trip. He has been on a boat in the Maldive Islands for the past 7 days and returns Sunday. I can't explain how happy this picture makes me since I think of Tom as a true explorer (much more daring and adventurous than I) and he is truly happy doing this kind of thing (living off a boat with 6 Australian men who are hopefully becoming friends, eating the fish they catch, and surfing all day long). I urged him to go on this trip while the time was right - big changes for him at work - and with our third child coming along in September, things are going to get really busy really soon. Anyway, I have been having a lot of fun with the kids even though I did wonder how we would pass the time without our main man. Yes, there are days where the simultaneous crying could make me pull out my hair, but so far, we have have had a blast together. So what are some of the other goodies I can share? Interior painting got under way today! A little unexpected in terms of timing, but yesterday I managed to get all of the items out of the bookcases and into the sitting room. (Luckily the guys moved the TV and components, not me!). My painter could either fit us in this week or in June so I jumped on the opportunity to get going.

The sitting room or holding station for all of the contents of the cabinets and shelves....

Here is our dining room/library for the time being!

The painting is going to look amazing and I am giddy with excitement.

More goodies:

My friend Steph and I were talking on the phone today and she told me Home Goods had some good pots/planters when I mentioned I needed some new larger planters for our front porch.

I dragged the kids in a paint-fume stupor over to Home Goods, and man, they had some good stuff! First of all, if you need LARGE ceramic pots- like vibrant greens - go there asap.

We ended up scoring some cheap (15 dollars each, roughly) really nice planters for the front steps. I wanted to get the same colors, but these were the best I could find to go with our hunter green door.

Teddy seemed psyched about them and hopefully I can plant some pansies and other fun spring flowers in there soon.Then, OF COURSE, because I really needed this, I found a great inlaid triptych mirror for our master bedroom. Our room is probably the least "done" room in our house and I am finally installing the carpet and getting around to window treatments this spring. Anyway, I have a mid-century large chest (bureau) on the only span of all we have in the room. It is pretty tall and boxy so I wanted to do something fun above it - fun lamp, perhaps. but then I spotted this and I just impulsively threw it on top of our cart. I have decided that his can be my standing vanity mirror! I LOVE IT! for 150 dollars I had to jump on it... I like that it is more organic feeling in comparison to the square and geometric quality of the bureau. (you can see I am temporarilly coralling some Herend figurines on the bureau, too)

So that is about it from me today. Hope to do a tablescape post tomorrow.

Love

Dutch tulips from their beds

Flaunted their stately heads.

- James Montgomery

picture via roberta freyman

Fireplace Tiles

We are (finally) getting the living room painted in May. While we are at it, we will be changing some light fixtures and we have to address the ugly black surround of the fireplace! It is a challenging area since we only have 4 (1/2) inches on either side and then about 11 inches above. I like the look of a patterned tile around the opening. Sorry, I forget the source of the below picture.I have looked at Delft tiles and some other painted ones but they just felt too contrived or too old for my taste. I have been hunting for a 4x4 tile with a bit of a different look...
Then I remembered the Coastal Living show house a few years back and I had bookmarked Exquisite Surfaces. Check out their website and the section of "Terre" Tiles. So many fun designs and patterns. This is the pattern I think we are going to use!

Here is the fun part. We are going to switch the black pattern into a custom blue color instead. Leaning towards aqua, but also love royal blue. I am currently hunting for a solid blue (or small scale blue) fabric to recover my red silk chairs and once I find that, I will choose the color for the tile.

I think these tiles are reasonable priced. To do a custom color, each tile comes to about 11 dollars a piece. That is nice and cheap compared to some of the other hand painted tiles I have seen.

Easter Around Here

Tuesday Tablescape

potterybarn.com

Patio Plans

We have a lot of brainstorming to do for our new patio.

Goals:

-A Patio (preferably bluestone) spanning across back of house from chicken coop on right to garage on left

- Outdoor shower (behind garage?)

-Areas for dining and for sitting/living and a firepit

-Area for grill. Do we build it in to a sitting wall or is it free-standing?

Challenges:

-budget constraints. For example, adding a wall adds $$$...

-Large drop in elevation over on garage side

-Reconfigure stairs off kitchen

-Stairs off patio to playarea/swingset below

Here is a nice, simple patio design I found online. It is also a cape so I thought it was relevant to our project. It also incorporates the materials I would choose for ours.

Stay tuned...

Spring Landscaping Wish List

A River Runs Through It

I can't shake the image of this South Hampton guest house from the March issue of House Beautiful. I really, really love that they used river rocks to create the mosaic pattern on the floor.

Tom and I are planning an outdoor shower to be built off our patio (to be constructed this spring) and I have often thought about doing a river rock mosaic on the floor of the shower. I am now convinced.

Here is a shot of a bathroom floored with river rocks. One thing which is different about this is how they set the glass shower enclosure directly on the floor - no threshold necessary. This is a very "California" concept to me.

coastal living

I like this color palette from Home Depot for the outside shower...

Have any of you been reading Lulu deKwiatkowski's Blog, "Trail of Inspiration"?! It is very good, especially if you are a big LuluDK fan (like I am). Her recent post about her artist brother, Conrad, featured his work with stones. I gravitate to the colors in this one. Read her post here.

As with any good thing in life, sometimes people get carried away. Below we have an example of River Rock gone wild - and hideous. Use river rock sparingly, it will make a much stronger statement.

I have missed the blog lately. I plan to be back more consistently. Hope you are doing well.

xo Christina