Friday, January 28, 2011

MCP Project: 52 {week 4}

4/52: soothing repetition: MCP Project 52

Week 4's theme is Soothing Repetition.  I am about 8" into my first sweater.  It's the most soothing repetition I've got going on right now.  If you asked the Husband if it sounds soothing with all the grumbling and profanity coming from my side of the sofa he would probably say no...It is soothing though and I'm so happy that I finally got brave enough to try a sweater.  It's this one by the way.  I hope it turns out in the end!

Happy Friday everyone!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Dark and Moody

Today has been a dark and brooding day.  It's cold and raining and our normally dark house is especially dark today.  I've decided to embrace that and find inspiration in the deep recesses of my tear sheet pile.  I have no idea where I got this pic but it is making me oh-so-happy today.  (if anyone knows the source, please let me know!) 


I want to be hanging out here today.   Love, love the wide plank floors and beamed ceilings (and walls?)  Love the dark bookcase, that fab sofa and the dark green curtains.  Really, I love it all.  Going dark definitely has it's charms.

Friday, January 21, 2011

In the Library with the Chandelier

Today I am looking for lighting for a client's library.  My client isn't sure what she wants.  She's also a bit conservative with her choices so I am trying to find the right balance of excitement without pushing her envelop too much.  Here are a few (very different) options that I'm thinking about to see what direction she wants to go.








So which light looks like it belongs in your library?  Happy Friday everyone.  Hope you have a great weekend!

sources 1,2,3,4,5,6,7


Thursday, January 20, 2011

MCP Project: 52 {week 3}

Here are this weeks submissions for my photo of the week project.  This week's theme was "shades of grey".  In an effort to improve as I go along, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.



These photos were taken during our weekly walk in the civil war park near the house.  Usually when we go there we have the whole park to ourselves, but last weekend there were several groups there so we hung out by the cannons before heading off into the woods. 

**once again, the images look great on my computer, uploaded to flickr, etc.  But when I loaded them into blogger for this post they do not look very good.  What am I doing wrong??  Can anyone out there help me?

Friday, January 14, 2011

Friday Inspiration

So I'm going to throw out a little Friday inspiration to take you into the weekend. I finally sat down last night and looked through a big stack of magazines that had been staring back at me for a few weeks. One of the looks that really caught my eye was this little family room/study by Windsor Smith in the Dec/Jan issue of House Beautiful.


I know this is going to sound weird but I get way more excited looking a pictures in print.  The rooms seem to come alive for me off the page.  After seeing this image in the magazine I went to the computer to add it to my inspiration files.  I have to say, even though it's the same image I had a much more emotional response to the printed copy than the picture here. It makes me wonder even more what it would be like to flip through some of my favorite online mags.  It's just not the same curling up with the laptop than it is to actually have paper in hand. Is that weird?  Does that ever happen to you too?

Happy Friday!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

MCP Project: 52 - week 2

Here's may contribution to this week's photo.  The theme was "illustrate a song".  I'm calling this "Three Coins in a Fountain".


I had a hard time making up my mind.  This was the runner up.

Have a great Thursday.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Master Bedroom: a little detail

I need to share with you all the future plans and details for the Master Bedroom that I promised in the previous post.  But until then, I have another detail to show you from the room as it is today.


I bought this brass lily lamp many years ago at a flea market.   Not only does it had a beautiful shape/design it also hold some of my favorite books.  And no, a couple of those are not due back at the library later in the week.  I sometimes buy books from library sales.  You can find the some interesting things that way.  I do plan to invest in a new shade eventually.  In the mean time it's something that makes me happy.  What's making you happy these days?

Monday, January 10, 2011

Master Bedroom: After


Here it is folks, the Master Bedroom here at the Reslus Arms as it is today.  


Here's the view as you enter the bedroom.  I will say that for these photos the sheets could have been ironed but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  The room has great hardwood floors. It also has lots of light which the rest of the house does not have.  



Here's the poster that I used for inspiration in context with the new room.  I really love this gray coverlet.  I used to have a lovely fluffy duvet that was like sleeping under a cloud, but the Husband runs HOT when he sleeps so we can only have thin layers on the bed now. 


Here's the bedside table that I finally finished painting for my Husband.  It was an interesting piece before but needed to be painted because there was already one too many stained pieces in the room.  Love the knobs from Anthropolgie.  It took a lot of sorting to find 5 knobs that were approximately the same color.




My Granddad made this nightstand for me when I was living in my first apartment.  It's solid cherry that he cut himself.  I had wanted to stain it and I had picked out a lovely pull for it before he gave it to me.  When I went to pick it up he had already finished it made this wooden pull that I can't for the life of me figure out how it attaches.  Of course after all these years I love it even more because he did it all and I probably would hate what I would have chosen for it all those years ago.  It's a wonderful reminder of him.


In this photo you can see the antique mahogany writing table that was one of my first furniture purchases.  I used it as the desk I worked from for a long time but now it happily lives in our bedroom.  You can also see the pelmet that I made using Jenny from Little Green Notebook's great tutorial.  Thanks again Jenny!!


Here's my beloved dress form.  I've had her for many years.  She makes a great holder for jewelry, pins and scarves.  She even holds the headpiece I wore in my wedding.  


Also, here's my wedding bouquet that my Super talented Mom made for me.  She made all the individual flowers out of tissue paper.  They look so amazing in person.  It makes me so happy that I can keep these an a wonderful reminder of that beautiful day.


Hope you liked the tour.  Come back tomorrow and I'll share some of the additional details that I would eventually like to add to the room.

*Okay, I have a general question about Blogger.  when I uploaded these images to Picasa they looked pretty good.  They were sharp and the color looked right too.  Now that I have put them in the blog they don't seem to look as nice.  Did I do something to my pics or did Blogger fail me?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Master Bedroom: Before

{Okay, so this post is going to be a bit talky but I'm trying to set everything up for the big reveal on Monday.  Hope you will bear with me.}

I am slowly getting around to photographing the house so I can share my own spaces with you.  My (our) new camera has really given me hope of being able to capture our little house in the woods (i.e. it's dark, people!)  First up is our Master Bedroom.  In the Husband's bachelor days this room was rented to a room mate, then became a guest room.  Leading up to the wedding it became a catch-all storage room.  I'm pointing this out specifically because my sweet Husband is a very tidy guy and likes things put away and in place.  So the following photos come with the disclaimer that though he was a bachelor and he didn't have a designer on staff (yet!) things usually looked presentable.  Okay, now to the photos:


What you can start to see is this room is located on the second floor of a cape cod.  The ceilings are sloped but it has two windows that let in a lot of light (it's the brightest room in the house) and a walk-in closet.  Both of these attributes sold me on moving the master from the first floor to the second.  It actually solved all kinds of problems.  None of the bedrooms in this house have an en-suite bath.  By moving the master upstairs we were able to turn the 2nd floor bath into the de-facto master bath and leave the downstairs bath as more of a public/ guest bath.  The room also has more storage and more light as I mentioned earlier.  It has hardwood floors too, which is much kinder to my allergies than carpet (though the room could use a rug, but more on that later!)  


Here's the view opposite the bed where a desk will go.


The closet is just on the other side of the wall from this dresser.  

It was a nice blank canvas for us to turn into our new bedroom.  On Monday I'll reveal where we are now and what plans I have for the room's future.  I leave you with this as a reminder of where I drew my inspiration for the new bedroom.


Have a great weekend.  I'll see you on Monday for the big reveal.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

MCP Project: 52

I got a very nice Christmas present a few weeks ago from my Sweet Husband (well, it's actually for both of us and I'm excited for both of us too!).  It's a new DSLR camera that I LOVE very much and don't know how to use.  Years ago I took some photography classes with my hand-me-down canon SLR that I also loved.  I even had darkroom equipment for awhile.  The mechanics of what I was doing never really sunk in though and now it's like starting from scratch.  I've been thinking about posting photos every week as an encouragement to myself to take more photos and to help me learn the ins and outs of my (our) new gift when I came across this blog post this morning.






Jodi Friedman from MCP Actions (great photography blog and great actions if you are into that stuff) has set up everything already and is inviting anyone who wants to join the party. 

I have excitedly joined up and hope to share some of my pictures along the way.  This week's theme is "around the house" though the idea is to have fun and break the rules anytime you feel like it.  It's all about having fun.  Here's this week's submission.


So who wants to join me?

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Change of Habit

So I have to begin by saying that I LOVE organization.  Everything having a place and everything perfectly placed seems magical to me.  The Container Store makes me swoon!......Having said all that, organized is the opposite of how I live.  I put things in piles, lots of piles.  I forget where I leave things then ransack the place looking for whatever it is.  I have have good intentions but bad follow through.  Well, mostly.  I actually have a very well organized closet (though my sock drawer is a mess)  and I have big plans.  Though I'm not calling these plans "resolutions" I will say that I would like to put some of that organizational love into actual practice in 2011.  Here's some inspiration for myself (and you too) while I plot to make it happen.

Domino

Better Homes & Gardens

Better Homes & Gardens

Better Homes & Gardens

via High Street Market


Better Homes & Gardens


What are some of your organizational triumphs or failures?  Not all clutter busting techniques work for everyone.  I had a class in personal and professional management in college.  The professor made us use 4 or 6 methods to keep track of what we were doing, plans, lists, etc.  At the time I was really frustrated by all the redundant work for essentially  keeping a to do list, but now I understand that she was exposing us to many different methods so that we could find the one that worked for us.  Now I just need to find what will actually work for me......then maybe I can see the top surface of my desk again!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year!



Welcome to 2011 everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are refreshed and ready to jump back into it (whatever it is) now that we're in a new year.  I had a busy but fun few weeks with family, food, travel and some bad weather.  Now I'm ready to think about pretty things again.

I tend to think of things as colors (there is actually a technical term for this, it's called Synesthesia, thanks to Lauren at Pure Style Home that first put a definition to a way that I always saw the world!) It's not something that I find overwhelming or even obvious most of the time but every once in awhile I realize I'm thinking about something in a particular way.

As an example I see months and years in terms of color.  January feels white to me.  I really appreciate white spaces and actually had an apartment once that was full of shades of white with some dark wood pieces to add a bit of warmth (sorry, it was WAAAY before I ever even knew what a blog was and I have no pictures)

 via Lonny Magazine

The room did have the feeling though of the above pic.  I had a great leather chair instead of those amazing ottomans though.  And I would have given anything for a fireplace!  Originally, I didn't have a grand plan for the place.  It was a rental and I was limited to what I could do with paint, etc.  It sort of evolved naturally into this quiet serene home all on it's own.  What a wonderful lesson for me to learn early in my design career about living with and working with a neutral palette.  

So back to January and white!!  When all the Christmas decorations got backed away on New Years day I had a huge urge to pull out all my white pottery, candles and plates and fill the abandoned mantle with white.



It's a work in progress, and it is also gearing myself up to take on a fireplace renovation of come kind.  I'll save that conversation for another day. 

So I have to ask, do you have Synesthesia?
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