Touches of black

I love the touches of black and bead board ceilings in the 2010 Princess Margaret Showhome featured in Canadian House and Home.















spotted at flourish design + style

A Peacock Feathers Wedding

Way way way back in June, you may have spotted some Twitter mentions about some secret crafting projects.

Finally all is revealed in Elizabeth's wedding pictures!

More pictures can be seen here and here on Once Wed. And from the very talented Heidi Geldhauser of Our Labor of Love.

by Our Labor of Love

I was so honored to be part of this very special couple's day. Elizabeth also rocks for letting me pick out my own bride's maid dress and shoes too!!

Would Sandra Lee approve?

First thing in the morning, we finished decorating the conference room table as a dining table.

Greens, berries, hollies and twigs were cut and added to the table. We used the decoupaged plates as chargers and cut up paper towel cardboard as napkin rings (with some hot glued greens and cones). Scrap fabric was rolled into napkins and muslin was torn to make place mats. The candle sticks are also wrapped in old maps.

So there you have it! Oh, and by the way, we WON!

See the below posts on other details in our office holiday decorating contest:

Mod Podge Plates

Scrappy Tree

Other Details

It's all in the details captured by my crappy pictures

Here's some more details of our conference room decorating. Our conference room, also known as the library, was a former living room in a very old farm house which explains the fireplace!

We have judging tomorrow and still have to finish up our "table-scape." Tomorrow I'll have some more pictures to share.

Advent calendar made from a cereal box

Wreaths made from butterfly fans from a past event

Match-stick menorah with pillows made from staff t-shirts

Fireplace with sock stockings, paper chains, magazine trees

Scrabble tile message

Train (with wine cork wheels!) made of whatever was in the recycling bin

Scrap fabric wreath

And our tree now has a star topper...out of PVC

Scrappy

Continuing the recycle theme for our office decorating competition....here's our version of a Christmas tree.

Our scrap wood christmas tree was inspired by this amazing tree that was featured on Apartment Therapy.

via here

Ours had to be a smaller version since it had to fit into a car to be transported to the office. And of course, the presents are wrapped with maps!

My hands are covered in Modge Podge

Last night, the Dude and I were getting "crazy" by decoupaging the back of glass plates for my work's holiday decorating contest. Apparently we were in a decoupage race, but I was not informed until the end...I lost.

We have a group of co-workers (me included) that are decorating the conference room as a dining room/living room. The decorating contest comes with a twist....the space has to be decorated with a recycling theme. I'll be posting more pictures this week as we decorate the room.

Below are our decoupaged plates that will be used as chargers. Since I work for a land trust, we have lots of maps and google earth images. So, I put them to use!

Fill me in!

Hi y'all!

I've been off-line for about two and a half weeks because of work craziness and a trip to my parent's place in North Carolina over the holiday.

So, what did I miss?

I'm still going through my 1,000+ blog posts in Google Reader. Eek.

Shoe Storage: Part Four

Will this project ever be done? I need to finish it up soon before it get's too cold to cut wood outside.

Over the weekend, some shelves got cut out of MDF (I wanted to go with wood as recommended by Kelly, but I lost) and the tracks got hung.

So now the important stuff ... deciding what shoes make the cut to be in the shoe towers, what shoes go to shoe heaven and which ones go next to each other. Sounds easy enough?


I still have to figure out a few things:

• Paint or cover the shelves (wallpaper or contact paper)? What color?


• What to do with my pretty shoe boxes (they might go into a plastic tub and find a home in the basement after the shoe bags are removed from the boxes)? Do you save shoe boxes too for your fancy shoes?


• Is there something to put in the shoes rather than tissue paper to help them hold their shape?

Dokidoki Fries says, "please finish this project soon so I don't have to be next to the hiking boots!"

Check out our slow progress: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

Home Sweet Headache

My brother and his girlfriend purchased their first home about two months ago. They settled in Easton, Pennsylvania - home of Crayola Crayons and a river that floods.

They got their 1900s Federal style home for a steal ... $52,000! It may only have (barely) one bathroom and lots of wood paneling but they are ready for the diy challenge.

Emilie is blogging the whole mess over at Home Sweet Headache. Stop on by, say hi, comment that my brother needs a hair cut and help her with some design/diy decisions!

Teaser: You might even see the Dude helping out in some basement destruction.

I think I might cry

After one year and three months, we finally have our street paved, new curbs, sod between the curb and the side walk, and a new driveway apron.

Our town started out by replacing the 100-year old main sewer pipes, then it was the water pipes which finally let them to "encourage" the gas/electric company to replace their lines. The whole time, we lived on a dirt/gravel road.

For two summers, we have not been able to sit on our front porch or open our windows because the dust was crazy!

I think this weekend I will sit on the porch just for the hell of it.

A post from the past...
Last November we got new gas lines to the house.

Happy Halloween!

Pilot was all business today.

Would you?

Would you ever sign up for one of those tv shows that come into your home and renovate a room for you?

The Dude and I are currently considering putting in an application to one of those shows (many film in our area) but are a little hesitant. Yes, I would love to have some experts help us out and yes, I would love to have a nice discount ... but what about the design. I've seen a bunch of poo on some of those shows and some really awesome things too.

Over the weekend, I was feeling a bit under the weather and spent some quality time on the couch. I caught a new show called "I Hate My Kitchen" and actually loved what they did.

Would you risk it and have a tv show design one of your rooms?

Below are some screen shots from the "Traditional Update" episode of I Hate My Kitchen.

Eek, I might have to take the plunge! We could use some help.

Could I learn to love it?

The Dude wants a Poang chair. I understand that they are comfortable, but I'm just not into it.

My mind could be changed with the sheepskin cover though.

Shoe Storage: Part Three

Yep, we are still working on those shoe storage built-ins. They are now primed and have one coat of paint on them.

We decided to spruce up the inside of the cabinets with some old paint that I had from my last apartment. I'm surprised that the paint wasn't hard as a rock since it was from 2003. The grey is Flagstone by Olympic in a Semi-gloss.

We did have a little problem opening the can. The left-over paint had to be poured into some plastic chinese take-out containers since there was no way to put the top back on that bad boy.

Hopefully (fingers crossed) this week we will start getting some shelving in the two towers.

Any recommendations on the type of shelves that we should install? Right now, I'm thinking of white painted shelves in mdf or plywood with white contact paper on the tops. Remember, these shelves will be used for shoes. I'm up for some ideas!!

Check out our slow progress:
Shoe Storage: Part One
Shoe Storage: Part Two

A true sign

butter LONDON 3 Free, Rosie Lee

You know no house projects are getting done when my nails are all bling bling.

Oops my bad

My bad ... I forgot to show the Internet what we finally ended up with after the "Great coffee table search of 2010."

We ended up with the Top-Drawer Coffee Table from West Elm. The website had it on sale but I called over to the Philly store and they had it for cheaper...and I saved on the shipping charge!

I also ordered this rug from Overstock. I was able to save a bunch by ordering it during a "rug event" and had a 10% off coupon code.

(please ignore the donation pile behind the chair and the silly dog)

Blanket time

(not that Blanket, silly)

It's finally getting a little chilly outside and all I want to do is wrap myself in a warm blanket and watch re-runs of the Rachel Zoe Project.

I'll take one of these Pendleton blankets...

San Miguel Blanket

Glacier Park 100th Anniversary Blanket

Eco-wise Wool Worthington Throw

Glacier National Park Blanket

Add some sleep socks and I'll be good to go for Fall and Winter.

Shoe Storage: Part Two

We are about the mid-point in this project. There is a date over our heads to finish it up...October 16th. The Dude's mother will be staying with us for a day or two and we'd like to have the master bedroom habitable so we can move out of the guest room. Nothing like a deadline to get this project moving!

So far, the shell of the shoe storage towers, most of the trim work, the floor molding and the center bench are complete. We still have shelves to cut, prime and paint the built-in, install the shelving supports, nail down quarter-round at the floor and build the drawers and doors.

I think we can rock this out in time.

By my guestimations, I'm thinking that each tower will hold 33 pairs of shoes and I have no clue how many shoes the drawers under the bench will hold (we actually haven't figured out how we are going to utilize the drawers...hopefully it will not be used to store the small shop-vac and compressor).

I can't wait to sit on the bench with a magazine and a cup of tea and stare out at my neighbor's mossy roof.

Patio Par-tay

(via PhillyMag.com)

Last week I was lucky enought to sneak in be invited by Julie to a Philadelphia Social Media Moms party generously hosted by E.P. Henry at the Philadelphia Magazine Design Home. (holy cow that was a lot of links)

The house is enormous! It made me a little sad to see so much extravagance on an old country farm property. All I could think of was 1. I would never see the Dude if we lived in 12,000 square feet 2. it would take me 3 months to clean the house (I would need 5 Zoilas) and 3. how many sinks and tvs do you really need?

(via JulieBouf)

But...it was very lovely. You should really stop by the house...100% of the $20 ticket proceeds goes to the Ronald McDonald House.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention - the house has a Panic Room.


**Disclosure: This party was sponsored by E.P. Henry. All of the opinions are mine and not influenced by E.P. Henry. I did get a really nice gift bag with the perfect diy/6 AM dog walking hat.