Flickr Account

Flickr Account

Since I’ve quit Facebook I haven’t been sharing as many photos with family and friends. Here is our Flickr photostream! If you can’t see anything, let me know:). I’ve got it locked down pretty well security wise.

Light It Up

Light is a funny little trick. Isn’t it amazing how the light in your home can really change the mood of your surroundings? Moving from space to space in adulthood I’ve really come to appreciate what properly lit places can do to make a house a home. Vic and I (mostly Vic, but let’s just say “we” since I claim his time as mine own:) have painstakingly poured over the lighting layout in our new home. It is safe to say we have gone overboard on this aspect of our home planning, but I’m a girl who likes my spaces lit and lit well.

One of the surprisingly difficult tasks I’ve taken on through this process is finding all of the necessary light fixtures within the allotted budget. How many hours have I soaked into this seemingly simple task, you ask? Aye, but I have no answer for you. I keep thinking about the relationship of door knobs to hinges to cabinet hardware to light fixtures. How much do these things need to match? How much contrast is good to see? Harmony is important to me. Matchy watchy is not… but I digress.

I decided that the most important lighting to me is the trio above the kitchen island.

I started with this fun retro look. Lowe’s has a delightful line of products from allen + roth that I really love. Just simple, vintage inspired pieces that aren’t expensive. Such fun!

But ultimately I didn’t feel good about the chrome. Couldn’t get into it. I love vintage, but I’m less retro and more farmhouse. So, back to square one. I found another beautiful piece at Kelly’s lighting. Hand blown milky white glass and a dainty black hinge on top. GORGEOUS… and only $300 a piece! HA! I’m not sure what fancy pants I was wearing the day I went in there! That’s basically my whole lighting budget, or at least most of it, so I passed.

Before I could find the right pendant I ended up stumbling upon this “Harlowe” piece from Pottery Barn that I’ve been loving for a white, but went on sale. Hello! Perfection! It has just the right mix of elegant and farm house for my taste and it was on sale at the time for $99. For unknown reasons, it is now back up to $159.

So now, the dining chandelier is dealt with. This is a “country kitchen” so the kitchen and dining space are right next to each other. These lights need to complement one another. I found these little gems at ShadesofLight.com. I love them! With an Edison bulb in there and similar molten glass to the pendant, I think its a winner! And the price was totally right Excellency!

To make sure 3 pendants would work in the space visually, I made these ridiculous light proxies out of styrofoam, wood, tape and twine and hung them from the fixture holes. These were the same size width-wise as the original chrome fixture and I was a bit worried that they were huge. But they were just fine and these smaller ones from Shades of Light will work even better.

OOH and you can see the beginnings of our hard work on the windows last weekend! Finish work is fun to see happen!

Did you need to know any of that much less all of it? No. No you probably did not. 🙂

On Color

I’m a visual girl. I always have been. It’s the one thing I’ve always known I would be good at and would be part of my life in one way or another. I remember helping my parents fit our many suitcases into the car for road trips with an OCD kind of joy… they told me I was the only one who could manage to put that puzzle together thanks to my obvious visual acuity, although most certainly they were fibbing (thanks for the confidence boost, Mom!). I’ve been antique shopping since I was 6 or 7, painting, drawing, merchandising fake stores and now I boast the title of Creative Director for a living. Therefore when it came to building our house I approached the task of decorating it with an arrogance that was slightly above appropriate, even for me (if you are reading this, Scott Sprecher, I don’t want to hear a word on Monday). I’ve got this, right? This is my bag, yes?

No. The answer to that is, no. Picking the colors for my home keeps me up at night. Not like scouring websites and Pinning to the”dream house” board up. More like, doing eyes-closed tours of my own home looking at the paint on my imaginary walls only to find out I chose a pink shade of gray when I wanted a greige. THE HUMANITY! Good LORD, what is wrong with me? I have been to the Lowe’s paint department three times, Benjamin Moore once and Sherwin Williams four times each time coming out with two or more new samples in a mad search for the perfect colors.

I think the worst thing is looking at other styles and wondering if I’m just mucking it all up beyond repair. Don’t you just immediately feel inferior when you come upon one of those “I-can-do-anything-and-make-everything-look-like-it-popped-out-of-Better-Homes-and-Gardens–for-no-more-than-$20!” blogs? Seriously, women. WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY? I guess re-paint, re-finish, troll garage sales and wake up at 5am to blog and make everyone homemade granola… then post pictures of said granola and the recipe. I’m not bitter. Really.

Honestly,  I love that sort of thing to a degree—don’t get me wrong—but the colors on my wall are a substantial commitment. I’m not doing this again in a few years when I whip up a new slip cover and paint my coffee table the latest shade of awesome. I am all about making small changes as trends evolve, but the walls are pretty much it for at least a decade. Not the kids, of course… pink  probably won’t survive high school.

All that to say, this has been a hard task for little ol’ me. I’ve gotten pretty good at making decisions, though. I found this fantastic little thing at Sherwin Williams called Small Wall, which is basically a square foot of sturdy material with a sticky back. This made the task of doing samples on the wall a lot easier. But they ran out so I bought some poster board and stuck it up for the last round of the “main house” color. Posterboard was much more porous, so the color was probably a bit more je ne sais quois than it would have been on the Small Wall product or on the wall itself, but its what I had. Example:

Before I got smart about it I let the kids help. “What fun family activity greatness we shall have!” I thought. Managing this project was, how doth one say, a pain in my a#$.

Now you can see why I ended up with the Small Wall and posterboard. These loonies got rather liberal with their swatch painting. I think our builder enjoyed that.

But eventually, I got it all sorted. We’ll see what it all looks like when the walls are donned with my amateur choices. The color on the bottom center looks much more tan than it really is. Maybe I’ll be back at this in a year or two. Oy vey.

The Farm House Sink

I love farm house sinks. I think they’re so fun and vintage and best of all… big! I love that they provide a little design style element in an otherwise drab space. But I’m very wary of trendy things. I’m a girl who wants it classic and as timeless as it can be. Our kitchen is going to be white with black counters and thus far, I’ve really been toying with this seemingly small part of the whole plan. Can I tell you how long I spent figuring out the fireplace masonry pattern? Holy goodness.

So, right now, the big question is farm house sink or no? Will this be something I look at in 5 years and go, “oy vey… what were you thinking, Parker?” Opinions wanted! Here is an example of a kitchen I keep referencing to Vic and the cabinet designer for various elements.

Do you like pain? Maybe you should build a house.

Let’s be real: building a house is a pain. It has been years now since we decided to embark on this idea that we might someday build a home and so today when I kicked off my shoes and traipsed through dirt dug in the general shape of my home (which is rectangular, thank you very much) it felt like I had won London Gold. But really, its just dirt and I should be stressed about making decisions about tile and carpet I suppose. Nothing has actually “happened” yet so this is really all quite superficial, but let’s talk a little about the back story of building a house that no one tells you. Listen up, people, because I’m throwin’ down the construction loan wisdom right here. I’ve created a list of things that all newbies to the “oooh let’s build a home, won’t that be fun!” world should ask themselves before going forth and pouring some concrete.

1. Do you enjoy paperwork and tracking down endless facts about yourself, over the course of several weeks to prove you can pay for this house? If so, you should build a house.
2. Is your favorite past-time calling counties, well drillers, water experts, road division employees and bank representatives? If you just threw up your hands and said, “aw hell yeah!” then building a home is very much for you.
3. Do you want to pack all of your favorite things away in boxes instead of getting them out because hey, you’ll just have to pack them up again? If that floats your boat, you should start digging now!

Alright, but really, I’m super duper excited. This has been a very long process already, but the fun stuff begins now! We’re very excited about our builder and our property. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!