Archive for May 2010

i actually left work on time today and was looking forward to a nice long run outside. work is still really busy, and i just signed up for my next architecture exam. i thought a good run would be a nice break for a little while. and then it started raining. big giant raindrops. and i was annoyed.

but after dinner i saw this:

maybe the rain isn't such a bad thing.

mike finished the touch up paint on the shelf. i keep seeing this way of organizing books by color and think that it makes all of my random paperbacks actually look kind of nice.

i wanted to put some of my architectural models on the shelf (and get them out of the dusty dirty basement) but someone (trevi) decided to play godzilla so now i am doing repair work.

last week i finally finished sewing the new pillows for the living room that match the entry way cushion.

and i remembered to take a picture of the newly landscape area between our house and our neighbors.

and of the containers that i put on the front porch.

we also bought something fun for the deck, but i'll save that for another post.

it's been a nice weekend, even if i spent some time today doing this:

working from home while the cat fights me because he wants to sit on top of my drawings.

he usually wins.

i mentioned a few weeks ago that i was frantically working on finishing up a baby blanket for a good friend. she ended up having her baby a week or so early, so i was in even more of a rush to finish. i was able to get it done and sent out last week. only a little late :-) i got the ups notice earlier that it had been delivered, so i can finally share the results with you!

i used the same pattern that i did for this blanket only i switched up the colors. i knew they were having a girl when i started the blanket, but i didn't know what colors they would be using for their nursery. i decided to go with greens, purples and blue - i thought it would be a good color combo without being overly girly.






congrats again to ashley and justin!

first of all - thank you so much for all of the great comments on the buffet color! secondly - can't you all agree on something? every person liked a different color, but i guess that's what i get when i post a bunch of different options :-) maybe this means that any of them would work??

yesterday i went to lowes and picked up a ton of paint samples of all of the colors to see what looked best in the room.

i think i have decided that red, green and orange are not really good options for me. mike really liked the red (along with a lot of you!) but there is no other red in our house. i'm afraid that would really bring attention to the buffet and i'm not sure that's what i'm going for. same with the green. even though our couch is currently green, i don't think i want to match the buffet to the couch. plus i'd like to eventually get a new couch. i like the idea of orange, but i'm worried that it will look bad with the floors.

strangly, i liked the navy. i think because it reminds me of the color in our guest room.

i also tried a new lighter teal color, as suggested by allison:

and a black option that was suggested by many of you. the issue i'm having with the black is that our woodwork is so dark already, it looks black in some areas. i am worried that black furniture will make the woodwork/room seem even darker.

i also spent some more time with photoshop and got a better mustard yellow:

as well as a few more gray options:
and of course, there is still the original wood: in conclusion? i still have no idea what i want to do. i think i'm liking some kind of gray tones (as heather mentioned, it will go with many other things in our house, plus, as matthew said, it really is all about my eames chairs). i do like the mustard yellow, i've been on a yellow and gray kick lately. there are already hints of that yellow color in other places in the house too. or, i'm still considering leaving it as is and just refinishing the top to match.

leave alone? (would probably still do new knobs and fix the top)
or paint...

i'm not a huge fan of red in general, but it looks better than i thought.

i was having a hard time getting the right yellow in photoshop, but i was trying to go for a more mustard yellow. we already have some darker yellow accents with fabric, so that would work with what we already have going on.
orange was also difficult, but per your suggestions, burnt orange?
bright green...

blue...
or a nice medium gray.

i have my favorites, but i'm curious to know what you all think.

no, not another dog/cat. although we've been tempted, i think 2 of each is plenty.

last night we went to look at this buffet, as mentioned here. thanks for all of the responses/suggestions to my post the other day!

funny story... when looking at furniture on craigslist i had found another piece that i thought we could potentially use in the dining room. but i thought i liked the one above slightly better so i did not contact the other seller. when we went to this sellers house to look at the buffet, he actually owned the other piece of furniture that i had been looking at too! i thought it was so strange that out of the hundreds of pieces of furniture on craigslist, this guy owned the 2 i had been looking at, esp. since they were pretty different. it was nice to be able to compare them side by side.

we did not end up buying the first buffet. it actually had a shiney faux wood laminate top - that did not match the rest of it. the legs were brass and in bad shape. the size was good, but the top really is what made the decision for me.

so we started to look at the other buffet. it was in worse shape, but unlike the buffet above, this one was made of solid wood. it needed to be refinished or painted or something. but the shape was different, and unique, and i think that's why i liked it. i think i can make it work. so we brought it home. we even talked to the guy down from the asking price ($50) because we had only brought $40 in cash because that was how much the other buffet was.

different, right? what do you think? can we make it work in our house?

i'm thinking we'll paint it, and replace the knobs.

the top esp. needs some help. none of the scratches are all that deep though so we'll be able to sand them out. the seller said that her mother had used this as a craft table.

it has a lot of storage and i like that it does not match our tv stand. we might remove that center piece on the bottom because our air vent is actually under this right now. i'll have to see how it looks.

so now the question is, should we paint it? if so, what color? replace the knobs? eventually we will probably tile the fireplace with some kind of light/white tile so i do not really want to go with white. the floors (when we finally replace them) will be a similar tone to what they are now. my first thought was to paint it a medium gray, but we already have a lot of gray in the room with the chairs and the curtains. should i try to pick up a color from the painting? go with something completely different?

for those of you who have painted furniture, any recommendations? i think that it would be difficult to refinish with stain, with all of details, but i'm also open to that idea. i guess we could try to find a matching stain color and only refinish the top, the rest is in ok shape.

hi blog friends, i need your help!

i just found this on craigslist:

i was thinking i'd try to find something on craigslist that i could paint since there are already so many different wood tones in the dining room, but i'm not finding much (at least nothing that is affordable to me right now). i'm not sure how this would look painted though. thoughts? i've emailed the seller to see if we can see it this evening, but nothing has been set up yet.

thanks!

**added later... still trying to contact the seller - i got an email back earlier confirming the dimensions, and now, nothing. might try to call tomorrow. did i mention it is only $40?

a busy weekend makes for a very tired monday morning...

at least we were productive! as usual, we started yet another home project even though we have a few that we still need to finish up.

this weekend we decided to clear out all of the weeds, plants, trash, etc. that was between our house and our neighbors house. our neighbors told us when we moved in that the space between our house and theirs was actually our property. and we ignored it for almost 2 years... woops. the space is only about 6' wide, and half of it is taken up by our sidewalk that goes to the gate for our backyard.

i forgot to take a before picture, but just imagine lots and lots of weeds, with a few random rocks.

the first thing we did was transplant a bunch of daylilies. they were starting to look very overgrown and they were up against the side of the neighbors house. we moved them to the backyard, along the fence. we cleared on some of the weeds, put down a weed barrier, and then planted a few hostas, flowers, and spread some mulch. it looks 100%s better... and i would show you a picture execpt that it started raining. i'll try to take a picture soon.

i do have this picture though, classic cooper.

we found a new garden store a few miles away from our house. we went a few weeks ago and picked up a few flowers. i planted some of them in the pots that we keep on our deck. i know that most people probably have a plan that they follow for container gardening... i just went with things that i liked.

like the gnome? my family has this weird thing for gnomes (and by family, i mean my dad) so my brother bought us this gnome last summer - he has a net to help catch the bats. must be working, we haven't had any more bats.



we've also been trying to grow some flowers from seeds. i'm hoping to eventually plant them in the beds below the deck and maybe a few out front. they've looked like this for about a week now, hopefully they will continue to grow.


speaking of flowers, we have roses. lots and lots of roses.

remember how we made some flower beds below our deck last spring?
yeah, now they look like this:

and this:

and yes, we are still trying to get grass to grow in that one area.

we still have a lot of work to do on the yard (like the entire front) but we're getting there.

yesterday i tried to run 5 miles.

mike has been on this schedule for the past few weeks where he tries to go on a longer run on saturday. he typically runs 3 or 4 miles a few times during the week, but wanted to try to up his distance. i haven't been around the last few saturdays to join him, but yesterday i thought i would give it a try. i've been trying to run 1.5 to 3 miles a couple of times during the week. the longest distance i'd gone before was a little less than 3.5 miles when training for the 5k. this past week i hadn't been doing very well with the running - i had to run on the treadmill on monday because of the weather and when i went out on wednesday, my legs really hurt. i've had problems in the past with shin splints but had been doing better with new running shoes and running outside.

yesterday morning i mapped out a route that would be either 4 miles or 5 miles, depending on where i turned around. i started off with reese, and we were doing pretty good for the first mile or so. then my shin splints started to bother me again. we stopped for a minute and i did some stretches, but really wanted to try to keep going. once i reached the end of mile 2 i had to decide if i wanted to turn around or keep going on to the 5 mile route. i was feeling a little better so i decided to just try the 5 mile and just see what happened. after mile 2.5 i was going uphill and was really struggling, so i ended up walking for a little while. i was able to start back up running again at the top of the hill, and made it most of the way home, only having to stop to walk one other time for a few blocks. i love running with the dog, he helps keep me motivated.

in the end, i ended up running 4.25 miles out of 5 and run for just under an hour (58 mins to be exact). i was really proud of myself! when i first started running i could barely make it down the block, and now i can run for an hour! i'm hoping that i can keep working on my pace and my distance, i'm starting to actually like this running thing.

maybe next saturday i'll be able to make it the full 5 miles...