I’m going to go ahead and say that the previous owners’ design aesthetic was a little…conservative.  As much as I love color, I also really love neutral tones, which is why all of the big furniture and expensive to replace items are in grays and browns.  We were lucky that the wood floors were in such great shape – I’m going to put down rugs eventually but I’ve been tracking in so much grass this summer it wasn’t worth it.  The cabinet in front is an antique store display – all of the drawers are filled with craft supplies!

Sorry the second picture is a little cockeyed, but you get the point!  I really struggled with a finding a way to make sense of a big, oddly-shaped living room but the antique cabinet made a perfect room divider.  Notice the mirror glass on the other side?  Didn’t know what to do with the big windows in front as they were kind of low but some low-backed club chairs and a pair of bookcases on either side of the wall seemed to do the trick.  In the very back, I found an old stereo cabinet that was in great shape and it really makes the little walkway make sense.

That’s it for the before and after pictures, but here are some detail shots for you:

The view from my couch – that’s what I meant about the windows with the chairs in front.  I love that little silver table – there’s a smaller matching one between the two modern chairs and all of the chrome in the room ties together really nicely, I think.  And that globe in the background?  The whole thing lights up!  I have a globe lamp (and the coolest grandmother ever).

I bought these Japanese fishing floats at the flea market last year and I haven’t known what to do with them, but I like the way that they just kind of roam in the basket.  And these chairs are my favorite chairs in the whole world – they’re sooo comfortable and I love the plaid and brass detailing.

Since I’ve got a lot of wood (with the floors and all the big furniture) and the living room was tending to look like an 18th century French naturalist’s apartment (I wish!) I wanted to balance them out with something a bit more streamlined and modern, and these chairs were perfect.  How’s that for a great secondhand find?

There’s still a few things that I’d like to do to the room and a few kinks I’d like to iron out but I was really excited to share the progress with everyone!  Hope you’re having a great week.

I stayed up way late and drove up into the mountains to watch it.  It was so cold!  Summer is quickly ending.  I got scared away though by some people walking around in the woods next to my car who wouldn’t respond when I called.  I’ll admit it, sometimes being alone in the woods in the dark makes you a little paranoid.  The meteors were amazing though.

These chairs were built in 1937, and were pretty solid if maybe a bit worn down.  I’ve got way too much wood in my house as it is so I wanted to redo them without necessarily staining them.  I decided on a bright, semi-gloss white (there’s nothing else in my house that’s white other than the ceilings!) and I found the beautiful, thick ikat upholstery fabric at a fabric store in town.  I can’t get over how much I love that pattern.

I’ll show you the rest of the dining room, soon!

In the spirit of the corn festival, here are some pretty corn pictures to get you good and hungry.

1.  snake eyes 2.  Another Pint Please… 3. *MarS 4.  Trimmer471 5.  Darwin Bell 6.  r-z

Ingredients:
beets
butter
goat cheese
honey
dill
salt and pepper to taste

Chop beets until they are fairly small, and toss with a pad of butter in a glass baking dish.  Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes, depending on how large your pieces are.  Toss them with a little bit of goat cheese, salt and pepper, and drizzle a little honey on top (I prefer something less sickly-sweet) topping with a few springs of fresh dill.  Enjoy the summer flavors!

I like the way that a few mis-matched but color-coordinating pots are all lined up here, growing a festival of different colorful succulents.  For me, keeping the containers in the same color scheme really allows the attention to be focused on the plants but makes an overall significant visual impact.

Sweet potato vine happens to be one of my favorite things in a container, so of course I was drawn to this arrangement.  I also like the ornamental cabbage a lot.  That’s something I’ve seen really creeping up in lots of garden designs lately.  What’s most interesting to me about this arrangement is how bright and colorful it is!  A great way to wake up an otherwise lackluster outdoor area.

I understand that not everyone can probably afford a Henry Moore sculpture in their garden (if you happen to end up in Denver, you have to check out the exhibit) but why not incorporate some kind of sculpture into your garden anyway?  You could create something yourself or head over to the nearest art school.  A bonus – if you cruise by after school’s out a lot of the art school kids just throw stuff away.  You never know what you’ll find.

I threw this picture in here just because it was pretty, but it does illustrate two other ideas – using a water feature, and incorporating lots of color (especially when it contrasts!).  I’m sure this pond isn’t too deep but the fact that they’ve painted the insides black makes it look as if it’s gone on forever.

That’s it for me for garden ideas for the day – anyone else have anything new they’re trying out?

Behold, the before:

And the after!

The wood paneling was terrible, and the blue carpet…ugh.  The worst part is, it went partway up the walls so we had to tear out all of that and put in baseboards instead. It’s pretty hard to see that in the before picture but trust me, the baseboards made a HUGE difference.  Make sure to look for the mountain scene paint-by-numbers in the first picture, as they will be making a reappearance in the house!  So, new carpet, painted the paneling, and a different basement emerged.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like with someone living down there!

Can you even imagine the foresight and patience it would take to create something like this?

He creates these little worlds that you just want to get pulled into, though there’s a bit of a recoil once you realize what his pieces are composed of.

If you want to see more of his work (and there’s a lot more), click here.

I’m revamping and updating my little shop a bit.  I don’t have too much so far but I’m excited to see where it takes me.  Here’s some pictures of my first items:

Such playful use of vibrant color – though my personal style tends more towards the subdued I really am drawn to color like this.

She’s got other collections that are interesting as well, but there’s something so sad about these that draws me in.

Can you imagine having one of these in your house?  You’d be the talk of the neighborhood!  I could also see it being a really excellent garden gate, with vines crawling up along the sides.

Burchfield was an American watercolor painter who lived in the earlier part of the 20th century.  He’s a decidedly midwest presence in a world that seems to be dominated by art from the major coasts.

It’s amazing to me how his works can simultaneously be so joyful and yet so haunted.

What makes you happy when you’re having a hard time?

Carefully disassembling Nike sneakers and turning them into Pacific Northwest-eque tribal masks?  Genius.  I find it’s rare that an artist can meld the conceptual and the craftsmanship of a visual artist, but Jungen has this skill in spades.

I’m particularly enamored with the whale skeleton composed of stackable plastic folding chairs.  What sort of crazy vision compels someone to create at this scale?