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

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