LOOKING SO FANCY

near the beginning of n's summer vacation she had an ambitious idea to dig up a bunch of grass and build some lower tiered flower boxes in the front yard ... well as n's extended summer vacation comes to a close ... n and her fabulous mom have had a couple weekends to sneak away from the never ending house finishing list and step out in the sunshine that finally came and build the planter boxes and finally fill them up with cedar mulch and i must say they are looking so lovely

with the addition of our spacious and lovely veranda came the challenge of trying to salvage the skinny walkway and make it appear larger than it really is ... enter some gravel from the backyard used to make the teeny tiny sidewalk appear bigger

the flowers now reach all the way to the sidewalk

who doesn't love symmetry? it was a little tricky to get this but i think it looks fab

side profile ... so nice to have the front almost done

i am pleased with the end result

cheers ~n

A FUN LITTLE PROJECT

j and i have lots of fantastic pictures in our house but it's always nice to add in your own things to make a place more homey ... enter one of n's many projects from the summer ... redoing and updating j's office

part 1 ... i took some of our travel pictures from our fantastic vacations in hawaii, london and new york ... i developed them in black and white, bought some frames and ta da ... instant personalized art

next i moved the paintings out of j's office, found a spot on the wall and put up the arrangement so it can remind him of happier more relaxing times if he's having a tough day at work :)

part 2 ... do you ever save tickets, brochures or postcards from your travels and never know what to do with them besides storing them in a box? me either ... until now ... i had an idea to get some deeper frames and arrange the leftover reminders of our trips into collages ... i made 2 for our new york vacation and 2 for our london travels

here they sit on the table awaiting a spot on the wall in j's office ... it took a bit of time but i decided to go with a color theme for each frame

new york new york ... aah the memories of staying at the landmark waldorf astoria hotel, going by accident to the museum of modern art (moma) instead of the met, our new york city pass which was so helpful to explore the city sights at a fraction of the price, sightseeing at the empire state building and traveling on the circle line ferry to see lady liberty and ellis island ... all those fond memories in one little box

more new york ... this box includes tickets to yankee stadium during the second last season before they moved ... where we got to see a-rod, jeter, posada, clemens, matsui, the legend that is riveraas they played the tigers with pudge and the chance to boo sheffield, using the metro card to ride the subway to the game and having some super friendly homeless subway guy take our money, disappear for awhile and actually return with our card loaded up for our ride to the bronx (for a small donation of course), our second row broadway tickets to phantom of the opera, and remembering the city all lit up at night

moving onto london ... no stop to london is complete without riding the tube and making sure to please mind the gap, our travels included stopping by the national gallery in trafalgar square to admire way too many paintings, finding the iconic red telephone booths that line the streets, and the double decker buses that are everywhere, cruising the thames on a river boat and admiring the many bridges that we walked over again and again and also a stop to shakespeare's outdoor globe theatre

london and pieces of england ... this box has memories of our one day trip out of the city to soak in the history of the mysterious stonehenge, the city of bath and the amazing windsor castle, of course just like new york this london trip also used the city pass which opened up exploring the sights at an exceptional price, tours of the majestic st. paul's cathedral and the surreal westminister abbey and remembering big ben the official time keeper of the city

i found the perfect spot for these on the wall beside the closet door in the corner ... offset them to make it not so straight and boring

part 3 ... i added in another picture of a street map of new york city (courtesy of ikea), moved j's desk and angled it against the corner, and slid one of his filing cabinets over beside it

i think these two projects found a perfect spot in j's office and remind us of all the fun that we've had over the years

cheers ~n

FINISHING DETAILS

it took about 4 years to finally finish all of the major changes in this front room ... there is still a few finishing details like painting all of the trim, putting up a window covering that isn't a stapled together sheet held up with alligator clips and nails (the result of j's fabulous "sewing skills"), adding an area rug for the sitting area, an end table possibly with a lamp and few more decorations to make the place more homey but that can wait until a later date and at this moment in time i am proud to show off what has been accomplished ... we have a sitting area, an entrance closet and a dining room with a table and chairs! we can actually have people over to sit down for a home cooked meal and they don't have to balance their plates on lawn furniture ... so i hope you enjoy the transformation ... i know we certainly are :)

here is a before picture ... i unfortunately do not have very many before pictures as i didn't document the changes happening in the beginning ... as you can see the room is primed and ready for paint ... before it was yellow on 2 opposite walls and a rust color on the others ... it was beautiful ... so beautiful that we immediately broke out the primer and turned the room a powdery white ... there was a door and tiled entrance on the left hand side (which you cannot see) and the window was over closer towards the corner ... the floor was yellow skinny hardwood that we would liked to have saved and resanded and stained but it has pieces missing and "repairs" done to fill in the massive holes from the old octopus gravity furnace ... so we went right over top with a dark laminate floor

fast forward a bit of time (well actually about 2 plus years) and the door and window switched spots (during the coldest time of the year one december when it was -35 degrees celcius plus the freezing wind ... everyone thought we were crazy but when you are doing the work yourselves you make the time whenever the happy helpers are available to lend a hand even in the dead of winter), a tiled entrance migrated across the room and it stood painted with its new floor for awhile awaiting the changes to come

next add in some important pieces to pull the room together ... like an actual closet plus simultaneously finish the basement and move the leather furniture downstairs for the living room

find some much smaller chairs for the sitting area ... and finding 2 of them makes it even better

buy a table for the dining room area that's not too big and not too small but just right ... and of course it should fit the criteria of being modern in design

next find some dining room chairs ... i like the contrast of the white table with the black chairs and leather is easy to clean ... and i like how they kinda match the detailing of the white sitting chairs

find a few things for the empty corner ... anything to do with the eiffel tower and flowers will do nicely

put it all together and admire that the idea from 4 years ago is actually almost complete :)

add some lighting, a few more decorations and now the room is ready for company to come over and visit and feast

reuse some previous decorations and pieces and people can come over to sit and talk or enjoy a book

hope you enjoyed the tour of our little front room ... can't wait to finish off the room but that will wait until we get back from our overseas adventure :)

cheers ~n

AM I OBSESSED? ... YOU TELL ME

the inspiration ... photo courtesy of a most fantastic blog: three men and a lady ... i was smitten the second i saw this and wanted to put this somewhere design in the house somewhere but wasn't sure until now

this is actually the office closet but

i forgot to take a picture before the paint job

... the closets used to be dark but

then you couldn't see anything when you went in them

... so enter the boring white bedroom closet

tape out the stripes ...

i decided to keep the stripe width the same but differed the distance between the stripes

paint the stripes and wait

remove the tape and admire

the finished product

enter the storage boxes from ikea

(i love the clean white look of these)

even the new light in the closet looks fancy

ta da ... a clean organized closet

will probably put another shelf underneath this one for the 2 boxes but that is for a much later time ... we have lots of other projects to finish

his and hers laundry baskets ...

all neat and tidy

it's nice to have an unexpected twist on an otherwise boring closet

cheers ~n

BELATED BIRTHDAY GIFTS

well n finally finished j's birthday present and it hangs on the wall as i type ... not bad 4 months late but i guess better late than never ... pictures frames were found at ikea (of course they were ... is there any other place that mass produces copious amounts of frames for a reasonable price ... couldn't find that place here ... so ikea it is)

anyone who knows me knows i love to be organized and plan and plan and plan ... so i decided to take pictures of the different layouts of the pictures and then have j decide which one he liked best by scrolling through the pictures rather than have him come every 2 minutes and look because he was busy building and i didn't want to pester him in the midst of important building things

so here are the different layouts (some are nice others not so much)

layout #1

not bad some balance from top to bottom

layout #2

alternating patterns always seem to work

layout #3

again alternating but the 1 at the top might seem too small in the space

layout #4

for me it works i just think it would need a few more pics to give it a balanced look

layout #5

thick and chunky ... might work

layout #6

knew i would hate this but just wanted a pic anyways

layout #7

no no no no no and again no

can you guess which one j picked?

keep guessing

we have a winner ... layout #2

yeah it's the same one i liked

now that space on the wall no longer haunts me

cheers ~n

CHANGE IS IN THE AIR

this weekend j and n spent the better part of it fall cleaning and organizing ... just like spring cleaning but instead of warmer weather to look forward to it was done with a big huge sigh because the snow is about to fly soon

well a few good things came out of the deep clean ... the most obvious being a cleaner, less cluttered, more organized house. BUT best of all was the change that happened in j's office as a result of rearranging our furniture in the house ...

... the reason behind moving all the furniture was because j and n were trying to solve an absolutely utterly impossible problem (more about that in a future post)

so without further adieu ...

the before ...

happily ever after ...

p.s. all the books that are stacked so lovely in the bookshelf are part of n's birthday present ...

a sweet deal from my local chapters store ... 41 books from premier classics publishing at 50% off for the whole collection ... my instant classic library

cheers ~n

THANKS PETER AND RANDY ... YOU COMPLETE US

i have managed to pull myself away from my loads of schoolwork, lesson, unit and year planning and never ending preparation that washes over me when i go back to work in the fall (oh and also being completely obsessed with reading the harry potter series)

well i've done it for just long enough to post some pictures of our one and only finished room in our house and that would be the office ... which is mostly j's office because he works from home

i wanted the room to be masculine (well truthfully we both wanted this because it is j's domain and i'm sure he would have put his foot down if he had to work in something completely girly), to continue with the dark furniture and paint color that's in the rest of the house and have that clean crisp look to it that we both love ...

... aaaand it also had to be able to incorporate some of our favorite places to travel (london, nyc and paris)

the room came together fairly quickly with bits and pieces of objects from ours and others travels and our personal life (pics bought from a street market in new york city, handcrafted african wood carving, mementos and souvenirs from sports teams and a home for our hard earned degrees) but something was still missing on one of the walls

and then one summer day when j and n were bored and window shopping they went into urban barn and up on the wall were the most amazing paintings (one by peter and its partner by randy) and that day they were purchased and have since found a new home in the office

so without further adieu some well overdue pictures to showoff all our hard work:

entering the office from the hallway

j's workspace decorated by n

new york new york

(it also appears that n or j needs to dust a little more often ... oh well maybe next time)

getting creative in the closet

(aka hiding but still keeping j's baseball souvenirs ... hey you may judge but they just didn't go with the room)

custom designed and custom colored coat rack

(a christmas gift from a very talented father-in-law)

and without further adieu the stars of this post

(thanks to peter and randy whoever they are and wherever they may be)

let's look a little closer at the pretty, pretty pictures (don't forget the oohs and aahs)

hope you enjoyed the tour please check back for more updates because that means there's more to showoff and that makes n very happy

cheers ~n