Bookcase Building

Last week, before building the Billy bookcase from Ikea, we decided to modify it a little bit by adding some color.  We lightly sanded, primed and painted the backing, giving a boring set of shelving a little more personality.  Originally we were going to paint it the same color as the walls, but then instead decided to have some fun with a soft green-gray-blue that’s a homemade mix of Hollingsworth green and Palladian blue.  I love bringing in the colors from the other bedrooms to have more continuity throughout the house.

The room is currently a huge mess of boxes and piles of stuff.  We meant to spend a good portion of the weekend organizing this room, but of course Irene had other ideas. This is just sort of a preview of the bookshelf while it's pretty and empty so you can see the full effect of the color before we fill it.

The Basement

Thank you all for your kind words over Irene!  As we continue to dry out our basement, I thought I would share a little bit more about the last minute shelving situation that helped save our stuff.

Before Wednesday of last week, our basement looked like an episode of hoarders.  I didn’t take a “before” picture due to the panic of the situation, but if you need a mental image I suggest going here.  Mike noticed that there were a couple of small puddles in the middle of the floor (on the very narrow pathway to the washer and dryer) and some of our stuff was wet.  Even before Irene, here in NJ we’ve had an incredibly wet month and the ground was way over-saturated.   But we were scared into immediate action because we had no idea where the water came from and not only was Irene in the forecast, but we were due for several rounds of severe thunderstorms the following day.

Mike picked up a few plastic shelving units from Home Depot and we worked into the wee hours, clearing the floor.  We got rid of lots of junk and put everything up on the shelves.   Unfortunately because of the rush we didn’t have time to organize anything, but we’ll get to it soon.

I am so grateful for that leak because without it, we never would have purchased shelving at the last minute.   Our basement never had water before despite some very wet weather and like so many other people, never realized how bad Irene was going to be.  The shelving kept our stuff dry and out of harms way.  When the water kept rising, we still had enough time to clear the bottom shelves and bring that stuff upstairs.  We also figured out where the leak was coming thanks to the flood of water and can now take steps to repair it outside and in.

Mean Irene

Hurricane Irene wreaked havoc here in New Jersey.  Locally we had 12+ inches of rain.  High winds knocked trees down everywhere.  We lost power in the wee hours of Sunday morning and didn't get it back until this afternoon.  Our basement flooded with more than 6" of water.

But we are safe and sound.  Our house is okay.  We are grateful because it could have been so much worse, as it was for so many people up and down the East coast.  We are thankful for generous neighbors with generators who gave us an extension cord for our sump pump to drain the water away.  We are lucky to have seen a small water leak in the basement, just days before Irene, prompting us to buy plastic shelving for the basement and pull everything off the floor ahead of time.  We are glad we had pallets in the backyard from the paver delivery to put under our washer and dryer when the water was coming in faster than we could bail it out with buckets.

This cell phone pic isn't blurry - this is how hard the rain was coming down for hours on end

For a while on Sunday morning, in the pre-dawn darkness as the storm raged outside, we felt like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, trying to stop the tide of water with a tiny pail.  Sporting wellies with one of those bright orange Home Depot buckets,  I couldn't get the tune out of my head as I scooped bucket after bucket of water from the flooded floor into the utility sink.  We worked in shifts so that water was always being pulled out as it flowed in. 

In the end, thanks to some serious water bailing and then help that saved us, everything in the basement is in working order.  We didn't lose anything except some food in the fridge and some plants in the garden.  We're incredibly lucky and grateful - this has been a harrowing experience.  It was frightening, frustrating, emotional, overwhelming and humbling.  And now that the power is back on, I'm going to go take a nap - we haven't slept in two days. 

Georgia Loves Cool Summer Evenings

What a week!  First an earthquake, and now a potential hurricane.  After that blizzard-filled winter we had, it’s shaping up to be quite a year here!  At least a few days ago we had some beautiful weather and we took full advantage.  Georgia loved sitting on the deck, catching the breeze, comfortably situated on a lap.  Definitely one of her favorite things.

Dining Room Curtain Rods & Curtains

Back in January when I hung up the curtain rod over the sliding glass doors, I knew I had made a mistake with the satin nickle finish.  The living room and dining room are too open to each other not to have matching hardware and it just looked weird.  Sometimes mismatched looks eclectic and charming, but this just looked lazy and unfinished.

However now the new matching rods from Ikea are up and it looks much better.   And I really like the crisp white curtains in here with the white trim and green paint - it really makes the windows pop.

Almost Rockport Gray Vase

This vase is so close in color to Rockport Gray it’s uncanny.  It has a beautiful silhouette and looks good in every room of our house - not just our Rockport Gray living room.  Oh Ikea, at $8 each how did I not buy a dozen of these?

Master Bedroom Curtains & Mirror

While it’s a little hard to tell in the photographs (or is it?), I switched out the bedroom curtains.   Before they were both white with mismatched patterns - I was tired of living curtainless and they worked temporarily.  However, finally having a matching set makes the room look and feel a whole lot more put together.  I love the simple woven texture of the curtains - they are very soft and breezy. 

We also replaced the little mirror (that was never tall enough) with a true floor mirror, the Hemnes from Ikea in a black-brown finish.  It’s a relief to finally have a working full length mirror in our bedroom - checking my outfit before work in the morning is now less of a chore since I can finally see the whole thing at once instead of in pieces.  More disasters can now be averted.   I’m not exactly one of those women who has effortless style...  let’s just say with the bigger mirror I’m having more successful days where I don’t walk out the door with brown shoes and black pants or a texas tuxedo.

The Living Room has Curtains!

Amazingly, 14 months after moving in and 7 months after installing curtain rods, we finally have curtains in our living room.  Hooray!

Part of the reason it took so long was that I couldn’t figure out what I wanted.  The natural linen curtains I already had didn’t look right with the crisp white molding and gray walls.  Then I thought I might want something striking like dark gray, or something pretty and patterned that coordinated with the yellow and gray wallpaper.  In the end though, I realized that I just wanted something light and breezy that framed the windows and complimented the room without drawing too much attention - plain white curtains.  Yes there are so many more fun and exciting options out there, but patterned curtains could easily be too much with the patterned wallpaper.  And with the dark paint color on the walls, the dark brown bookcases and northern window exposure, I didn’t want to make the room darker than it already was.  The line between glamorous drama and living in a cave is natural light - something our living room didn’t have.

Plain white curtains can be found all over the place, but Ikea has some of the best prices for basic staples like this.  These are the Vivan style - totally plain, light and breezy.   And at $15 a pair or $7.50 per 98” panel - that’s even cheaper than most discount fabrics.

Nap Time

Building Ikea furniture is exhausting work, even for Georgia.

Hello Ikea

It’s taken us 12 months, but we finally found the strength/time/energy/motivation to go back to Ikea.  It’s nothing against Ikea itself (we love their products and prices!), but the shopping experience tends to be exhausting for us.  The store is so massive to walk through and it’s always overcrowded.  There are dozens of unattended over-stimulated children climbing all over every. single. display. (Why aren’t they in the ball pit? Where are their parents?)  It takes forever to check out because the lines are so long and it’s an annoying drive to get there.  Worse - since we put this errand off for so long, our shopping list grew longer and longer - making the trip all the more overwhelming.

As we started to unpack the office boxes we realized there was nowhere to store anything.  All I was doing was creating precariously tall piles of stuff.  We needed some shelving and storage before we could continue, so we finally took the trip with our long list in tow.

What did we need after a year of living in our house?  Here’s the basic recap:

• An Expedit 2x4 cube shelf (half size) in white for the office
• A white Billy bookcase for the office (with the height extension of course)
• Curtain rods (dining room, guest room, office - what we had didn't fit the windows)
• Curtains (living room, dining room, master bedroom, office)
• A floor length mirror for the bedroom
• A not-too-tall wardrobe for the basement to hold coats (since we don’t have a coat closet)

It doesn’t sound like that much, but cramming the boxes for 3 large pieces of furniture and a giant mirror into our small SUV was a little harrowing.   Plus at two windows per room, it was a lot of curtains and a lot of curtain rods - even at Ikea prices it added up fast.

Then there was the marketplace.  It’s dangerous.  Before walking into the store we agreed that we would only get what was on our list and not fill up our cart with all the inexpensive temptations in that section.  What could we possibly need?  Apparently a lot.  We didn’t last 2 seconds.   Suddenly we remembered we needed a new plastic pitcher to replace the one we threw away.  And spice jars for the herbs drying in the basement.  And a $4 welcome mat for the front porch.  A spray bottle.  A couple more glass storage jars.  Some cute fabric to make new pilllow covers.  And a vase that matched the living room wall color and an aqua tray and a cute plant...

The good news is that we shouldn't need to go back for a loooong time.   Hopefully.  Or next time I’ll just have to have Mike blindfold me before walking through the marketplace.  I see a good deal and I can't stop myself. 

It’s the Details: Jewelry Hooks

For a while now, I've wanted to install a set of small hooks in our bedroom to hang and organize some of my long necklaces.   Until now, I’ve thrown them in a mess over my dresser mirror and they easily got tangled up, adding unnecessary stress to getting ready in the morning.   I remembered I had this sweet little set of dragonfly hooks (given to me by a friend) that I never used and would be perfect for the task - but I couldn’t find them in any of my bedroom/closet boxes.  Before we moved I committed a massive purge of old and unused items, and I figured the hooks had been thrown away with everything else.

Since then I had yet to find a set of hooks that worked - I wanted something pretty with little hooks that didn’t stick out too far from the wall (because it would be in a corner), and it had to be fairly inexpensive.   Then over the weekend I was going through my office boxes while emptying the office closet and miracle of miracles - the hooks had somehow been thrown into a box with art supplies!   A small happy dance ensued - then I grabbed a couple of screws, a level and the drill and got to work.  Once up, the chrome finish of the screws stood out like a sore thumb, so I colored them in with black and teal sharpies.

It’s so nice to have my favorite pieces hung up and organized.  Not only do they look nicer, but it’s so much easier to accessorize in a hurry and get out the door.

Growing Green

Our backyard has been lush and pretty lately.   In addition to the grass slowly filling back in around the patio, other things around the yard have grown back as well.  Remember myrtle back from the dead?   She’s now bigger and better than ever - full of branches, leaves and blooms.  I can’t believe I almost dug it up!

The oak-leafed hydrangea has also recovered from the deer attack, much to our relief.

Also our strawberry plants have spread like crazy - we should have a lot of berries next spring.

Patio Landscaping Update

The landscaping around the patio is still in progress.   The grass is slowly starting to sprout around the edges and will eventually fill back in.

The grass in progress

We also finally filled in the awkward space between the patio and the driveway.  Originally we were going to put in some small shrubs, but decided against it.  We realized we needed something more durable that could withstand being hit with a gate, big piles of snow, and trampled by a dog.  So instead we decided to go with an ornamental grass.

Before

After

We bought 4 containers of Japanese forest grass - it’s a perennial that will grow to be about 1-2 ft high and 2 ft wide - a perfect covering for this space.  Flexible blades of grass can withstand being pushed around by the driveway gate, Georgia’s shenanigans, and it will die back in the winter so we don’t have to worry about crushing it with snow when we shovel the driveway.

Georgia on the Patio

“You made this for me right?...  What do you mean dogs don’t drink cocktails?”

Building an Office Starts with the Closet

The office closet - once we finished fixing it up - used to look like this:

Then it was time to redo the office.... and then get carpet in both the office and guest rooms.  So the closet turned into this:

And we left it that way to do other things.  Since then I’ve been dreading the overwhelming task of organizing it all.  But now it’s finally time to start setting up our office space, and that starts by emptying the closet and going through this mess.  The office has been a perpetual dumping ground since we moved in - and it’s become a bad habit that’s hard to break.

Little Additions

I love souvenirs from a trip.  We don’t travel that often, so it makes the places we go all the more special.  And I love having things around the house that bring back happy memories every time I look at them.  However, as a pack rat, souvenirs are a slippery slope.   To curb my enthusiasm (and spending so we don’t end up broke with a house full of memory-filled junk I can’t throw away), we have a strict criteria about what can come home.

For starters there are some practical guidelines - it needs to fit in the car or suitcase without requiring shipping.   And nothing too expensive, in case it breaks on the way home.  It also needs to have a place, purpose or use - something that can fit in with our decor, something we could pull out seasonally, or something we can enjoy and use up (like coffee, local fruits, etc).  Giant wooden pelican sculpture?   No.  Free seashells from the beach in unique shapes and colors?  Yes.  Or sometimes it will be a distinct piece of jewelry or a cool book or a scarf or something totally unique and special...  like these:

These hand-blown jellyfish paperweights are from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, one of the highlights of our trip (we are both big Chihuly fans).  They have an open glassblowing studio where you can sit and watch artists work for hours using the traditional Venetian methods.  It was incredible to watch and I found a whole new appreciation for the time and effort it takes to create glass sculptures.  While we were in the studio, the visiting artist and team were making stripes - a surprisingly arduous process.  The delicate tentacles of the jellyfish will always remind me of the experience.  And they also happen to look pretty in our house.

We also like prints of hand-drawn maps when we can find them (like this one of St. Lucia in our sun room).  While we were in the San Juans, we were lucky enough to find this vintage map of Orcas Island (where we stayed).  It was printed in 1946 and is incredibly charming.  Plus it only cost us a donation to the local food bank - definitely win-win.  I’m hoping to frame it hang it in the office.

Drying Herbs

Our herb garden was out of control.  Way out of control.  So it was time to cut them back to give them more room to grow.  And time start stocking up on some dried herbs to enjoy in the fall and winter.  I tied up each bundle with some twine, then hung them up in the basement on the rafters.  Once everything dries out, I’ll store them in glass jars.

Seattle Inspiration

I’m totally inspired by the East Queen Anne neighborhood in Seattle where we stayed for a few days.  Street after street of well-kept craftsman homes just oozing with charm.  The houses are very close together (even closer than in our neighborhood!) and the properties are small, but everyone seemed to take advantage of every inch of land available with beautiful landscaping.   Instead of just lining the front of the house with bushes and leaving the rest of the front yard for grass (the signature “look” for most of the country), they maximized their yard’s potential.

Homeowners created layers using stones and retaining walls.  They mix heights and textures and colors with ornamental grasses and bushes and flowers.  Rose gardens, climbing vines on trellises, no space was wasted.  Lawns were only part of the chorus - not the star of the show.  One house filled their entire front yard with wildflowers behind a white picket fence and it was simple yet spectacular.  Many people planted flowers or plants in the space between the sidewalk and the curb.  There were even miniature cul-de-sacs at intersections, just filled with flowers and greenery.

After being in Seattle, our yard seems boring.  While it’s an improvement over what used to be there (or lack thereof), my straight rows of shrubbery against the house suddenly seem so dull and unimaginative.   I’m not about to undo all of our hard work and start digging it all up to create a new arrangement... yet.   But I’ve been inspired.  And the wheels are turning in my head.  It’s not a priority, even as far as landscaping goes we have more work to do in the backyard first... but it’s something I’ll be thinking about in the future.

A Quick Backyard Before & After

Since we are still reveling in the glory of our new patio (and still too jet lagged to do much around the house), I thought I would share a quick backyard before and after.  It’s hard to believe that a year ago the back of our house was completely empty.  No backyard access, no deck, no patio, no gates... just grass.

Garden Update

Our garden has been growing like crazy.  It was very well cared for while we were on vacation (thanks Mom!).   Before we left, we had a lot of produce to give away since we wouldn’t be around to eat it. Giant things like this:

Yes that’s a full-size gargantuan watermelon next to it.   Yes it’s significantly longer than the watermelon.  I forgot to pick the garden two days in a row and that was the consequence.  We’ve also been drowning in green beans and tomatoes - I love it.

Has anyone else ever heard of ground cherries before?  I hadn’t until this past winter when I got a free packet of ground cherry seeds with purchase.  I was excited to grow them just to try the fruit and see what they were like.   I started two seedlings indoors, but only one survived.  Once outside the little seedling took off into a mini tree of sorts with lots of little paper lanterns all over it that sort of look like tomatillos.

Ground cherries turn yellow when ripe and the little lantern turns very thin and papery.

Inside is a little yellow fruit.

The flavor is interesting.   They sort of taste like sweet cherry tomatoes with a twist that’s been described as a “strawberry like flavor” - though I wouldn’t describe it that way.  Mike thinks they taste like “slightly sweet alcoholic cherry tomatoes.”   I love trying new things and I’m glad we grew it, but I don’t know if I’d do it again.   The bush is very prolific and since it’s not something I want to eat by the handful, I think next year we’ll save our precious limited garden space for something else.