Thursday, October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween!


Wednesday, October 30, 2013

I love lamp.

Way back in June (I think...), we were visiting my in-laws and they were showing us their soon to be installed kitchen cabinets that were still in the garage. I spotted a fun lamp off to the side... I don't really remember how the conversation went, but it was from my husband's grandmother's house and his parents were asked to get rid of it. I'm guessing that meant drop it off at Goodwill or something. It wasn't exactly what I would have picked out, but I wanted it and it was free. I thought it would be perfect to replace the last Ikea lamp in the living room and it would add to the antique brass that I've been slowly adding. My husband even made a comment about how it would save him a lot of money from not having to buy a lamp… which would probably have been over $100. So, we vowed to grab it the next time we were over (drove a too small car that day) or they would drop it off if they were in the neighborhood. Neither of those things quite happened for quite awhile... for months actually.



A couple of weekends ago, while we were out exploring, we got a call asking if we were home. We weren't, so we had a nice surprise waiting when we got home. The next weekend, I made it over to Target and found a lampshade for about $20. I was surprised they still sold the kind that attach to the wire piece that goes above the light bulb. I thought I was going to have to rig together something to make the 'attach at the socket' kind work.



I like it. Something is bent somewhere in that lampshade wire contraption and I still don't have it quite right... It looks fine at some angles and not at others, I try to fix it and it looks fine at different angles and not at some other ones. Weird. I tried to see if I could find any info online about it, but I haven't been successful yet. I don't have much to go off of either… I haven't been able to find a maker's mark yet.


But it looks good over in the corner and it's unique. We've only had people come through the house quick since we've had it, so there haven't been any comments on its weirdness/awesomeness/etc. yet...

Monday, October 28, 2013

Eames House Bird

Every year for my birthday, my mom makes me give her a birthday list. I've been keeping a wish list on Amazon for quite some time. I usually actually forget what's even on there, which helps with the surprise portion. Usually I just give my mom the list along with a few things that aren't on Amazon because they're store specific items or whatever.



I was quite surprised when I opened up my birthday present and found the Control Brand Base Study Bird Sculpture I had thrown on my wish list earlier this year. This is a "knock off" of the Eames House Bird, but there is a funny thing about that... Anything that isn't exactly what Charles and Ray Eames is a knock off. This article, Eames House Bird Sighting, probably has the best, short bit of info that covers the bird's history.

Inform Interiors | Holiday Gift Idea: Eames House Bird
The bird ended up being larger than I expected. I'm not sure why I thought he would be smaller. Either way, he's fantastic. He's fitting in quite well right now too with our Halloween decor, but he definitely won't be going away with Halloween decor when that time comes.



Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Exterior Colors Part 2.

I want to rewind a second... and go back to my last post about the exterior colors. I figured it would be beneficial to explain where I'm going and where I'm sort of getting my ideas.

Paradise Palms: Some mid century paint colors
A while back, I came across the above on Pinterest, which is some Sherwin Williams (online the file say Sherman?) paint colors from back when. If you click the image it will enlarge and you can see the color names better. Because I knew I wanted a gray, I thought of this. The main color for the upper right color palette is Westchester Gray. Because we are limited by what the siding company has, we chose their Charcoal Smoke. Not exact, but close-ish. At least close enough to make me happy.

This 'possible palettes' color sheets also brings up some other great colors. While that Westchester Gray is matched up with Chelsea Gray and Stratford Blue, I'm really feeling that Burma Jade down the page. My first thought for a door color was for something along those lines, it was inspired by some furniture that I saw awhile back (can't remember where...) that was close to that color. I think the Burma Jade would give a great splash of color to the front of the house. (That Harvest Gold would look pretty awesome too!)

While I love mid century design, colors, etc. and our house, I'm not sure that this is our forever home. While I would love for everything to be more period appropriate, I don't want to put in too many permanent things that will make it difficult to sell later on down the road if that's what we choose to do. Our bathroom is a great example of this, especially since it wasn't the original bathroom anyways.

I think next up, we need to make a trip to the paint store and get some of those paint swatches and figure out what will work best. I do have a feeling I will have to wait until spring to paint though... it's getting cold here really fast.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Exterior Colors.

This whole "let's do a bunch of work on the house and hire it out" is not going very fast. At. All. Our windows and doors have been ordered and our contractor is finishing up other jobs while waiting for that stuff to come in. Last night we picked out our exterior colors! Which is way more exciting that I thought, but also very anti-climatic.

I knew that I wanted something a little more bold. Let's face it, our house is U.G.L.Y. The exterior is one of about 4 reasons I didn't want to even look at the house. The color is gross and I didn't want to really deal with the type of siding (I.E. not maintenance free). Let's all be thankful that someone had painted it since its previous color, because that color probably glowed in the dark.


Our street is full of white and beige. Very uneventful. The year before we bought, a pretty nasty storm came through and most everyone with vinyl siding got new. It seems as though the wood stuff held up too well... So, most everyone is rocking fairly new siding, except us wood people, who just got paint jobs. The most interesting house is probably across the street with a nice medium blue and in second would be down a few from us with a light green.

My immediate, pre-sample thoughts were gray. A dark-ish gray. Gray is my go-to neutral right now. While I might be bordering on maybe having a little too much around the house, I'm 99% sure I won't get sick of it over time. My other thought about gray is that it goes with most any bold, bright color. That means that I can paint my front door a crazy color or my choice, get sick of it after a couple of years and paint it a new crazy color. I've got the first color in mind for our new door.

Looking through the siding colors, there were either very light grays or one dark gray. After going back and forth a little, because we weren't sure if the gray was reading brownish or it was just the lighting, we settled on that dark gray. Charcoal Smoke to be exact. As far as the trim, we're just going for a nice, bright white. We not replacing our gutters (they're new after that storm mentioned above), so we wanted the trim to not be too different than that. Plus, there is one house up the street that I probably like the best because of the contrast between the dark beige / maybe brown siding and the nice bright white trim.


And there you have it, a lot of words to just say that we picked dark gray and white. 

The samples didn't photograph very well, so hopefully you get the idea...


Thursday, October 3, 2013

September Wrap Up


September was extremely busy! My nephew was born! He's so adorable and perfect, I can't get over it. My mom got married. We finally got to go see Wicked, which was fantastic. I got the tickets about 6 months ago, so we've been anxiously awaiting the date. We did our fall camping trip, which was super wet, but great. I did not get much of anything done around the house... Our windows and doors are ordered and we're waiting for them to arrive.

And there is nothing to cross of September's list... Oops.

September To Do:
  • Finish my kitchen ceiling eye sore.
  • Pick out fixtures for the front of the house - new siding and windows means new light fixture and whatnot. We've looked at tons and I think we have them picked out, but we just need to commit.
October To Do:
  • Decorate for Halloween!
  • Commit to exterior light fixtures and purchase!
  • Decide on door hardware for the front and back doors.
  • Lock down the front door color?
 Hopefully it stays warm this fall and winter comes really late. Hopefully.