Inspiration...

Those of you who have been paying attention may have noticed that I haven't posted anything about my master bedroom. There is a reason for that... and don't get excited, I am not posting any photos of it today, either.

But! This is a pillow I bought with Shannon in the Bishop Arts District on our day of shopping for things we didn't need while she was in Dallas. I got 2that are identical in this dreamy store called Bishop Arts Market. I have been trying to figure out how I want to decorate my bedroom, and this set of pillows is going to be the centerpiece for the inspiration. You can't tell by the photo, but the dark brown areas are velvet! It begs to be touched.

I am going for a organic spa feel. Here are some of my current ideas:

Paint one wall that caramel color and the other three walls one of the lighter colors. My bed head board would be on the dark wall.

Or, use 2 lighter colors and paint 2 walls each color. Curtains would be the caramel color.

Another thing I am doing for sure is making leaves the same shape as on the pillow out of wood, and paint them to look the same, and hang them on the wall. I'm thinking various sizes... probably without the branch.

And then I saw this wall in a store that is pieces of wood cut to look wavy, and painted. I'm thinking that could be really fun on some area... either painted or stained... The photo is sort of blurry -- sorry.

AND, I have a natural wood bamboo room divider that I could use in there somewhere.

I have no idea what color my duvet would be... perhaps a stripe in similar colors?

I'm going to do the built in wardrobe from IKEA along on wall.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, bring 'em on! And I'll report back how the project is progressing.

If they don't sell it in a store...

My livingroom isn't the largest room you have ever been in, it's true. You may recall it got a little larger when we took out the circa 1950's entertainment center. Not wanting to refill that same space with another television, I bought a flat panel to hang on the wall. Deluxe!

That left some space below the TV that was crying for a multi-purpose bench that you could sit on (duh!) with a shelf below the seat to put the TV components on. Great space saving idea, right? I thought so! But does anyone manufacture and sell such a thing? Apparently not. At least not that I could find. And so... faced with no other choice to complete my vision, we (Tom and I) built one.

I found a book called "2x4 Furniture," at Half Priced Books. It's full of fun little projects. The bench I selected is actually meant to be a garden bench, but with some cushions added and the nails/screws hidden away (pattern modification, thankyouverymuch) I think it looks just fine in my living room! I was worried it would be too "heavy" but so far I am pleased with it. And wonder of wonders, if some day I decide I don't want it in my livingroom, I can put it.... where? In my garden!

I still need to figure out how to hide those unsightly cables dangling down, but I'll get there. What do you think? Do you love it?

Front Door; Complete! (Philly Find #4)

Don't you find it fulfilling when you can cross a project off your list? My front door area has been "in progress" for a while... but I can cross it off the list now. First, there was the Norwegian welcome sign from my sister that was hung above the door. (Some family discussion ensued -- were we REALLY Norwegian?? Um, yes. Okay, are we more Norwegian than Finn? No. Ultimately I had to promise to hang up a Finnish welcome sign if one was found.)

Then, I found the stained glass in Philadelphia during that totally glorious girly weekend. I discovered when I got it home, however, that shockingly (not) the window opening in my door and the stained glass piece were not the same size. I stewed about the various ways to affix the glass to my door (rather daunting) and got several opinions. Then I happened to find myself with the piece on my person while in a stained glass gallery and the professionals directed me on what needed to be done. And then they told me how much they would charge me to do it for me... Literally -- they came to my house and installed it! Who knew?? They also added a bit of glass around the perimeter to size it up to the door window. The total bonus with that part was that they were able to add amber colored glass like the other pieces have -- and I totally love love love that color -- and it downplays the blue. Win! Win! (Win -- for the store...!)

And then, while I was very sad to learn that Smith & Hawken was going out of business, I was giddy at the really great blue pots I got for a song at their clearance sale. Okay, maybe not a total "song" -- but a sweet melody for sure. And, you know some realy great pots have the stamp inset on the terra cotta of where they were made and the year? These have that -- and included on the front is the year 2009 -- the year I bought my house! I'm enough of a geek that I think that is cool. Mine say, "G. Wolffe & Co. 2009."

My neighor saw the pots and immediately told me they would be stolen. She said she had some great pots and they were stolen. Hmmm... I emailed our Dallas Police neighborhood officer and asked if he agreed? He said I should "secure them the best I can." So, okay -- how do you secure pots to your porch? I mentioned this to the stained glass installation guy and he told me to get some epoxy and GLUE the pots to the porch. Really? Glue them? TO the porch? Interesting.

Fortunately for me, my partner in project crimes was flying in that same day! She truly did not bat an eye when I told her on the way home from the airport that we needed to swing by Ace Hardware to buy epoxy to glue pots to my porch. As if it was the most normal thing in the world to do on a beautiful afternoon when you haven't seen your dear friend in months. And let me tell you... you wouldn't think there was all that much to that project... until you see that the glue comes with a "mixing paddle" (the equivelant of those shoestring potatoes that come in a can -- not anything you could, say, power your kayak with) and that you must consider the logical order of things:

There is the pot. There is the 3 clay feet that support the pot. And then, obviously, the porch to which all that is affixed. Not to mention... I had already planted plants IN the pots -- so we could not flip them upside down. AND, because I have a bad case of OCD, everything needed to be centered against the columns around my door -- the pots, the writing ON the pots, and the 3 little feet. Yes... I will say it was good that there was two of us to muddle through the details! But you can see that we did a spectacular job! And I am pleased to say that it's now been 6 days -- 3 days of which I was out of town -- and the pots are still there. (I will not admit to you how many times I have gone to look to see if they are still there.) My neighbors say they are going to buy epoxy.

The Wonders of Craig's List

I really am grateful that my front yard came pre-landscaped. It's clear to me that someone, some where along the way put forth a great deal of time and effort to plant shrubs and trees. I do think, however, that perhaps they mis-judged how large some of the shrubs would grow to be; that is easy to do and I have done it just with plants in my past herb gardens. But I really love the architecture of the front of my house, and felt that some of the shrubs were obscuring it. The landscape designer I hired first pointed that out to me, and I have to say I agreed with him.

We discussed re-locating shrubs; saving them by digging them up and re-planting them elsewhere. But that proved to be cost prohibitive, and at least a few of them I had decided were always going to be too large, regardless of where I put them.

I didn't want to just dig them up and kick them to the curb, so over Memorial Day weekend I put an ad up on Craig's List saying that I had free shrubs -- all you had to do was come and dig them up. I got three interested parties, and while I didn't actually meet the guy who ultimately come and dug them up, he must have had quite the technique.

I put ribbons on 10 shrubs, designating them as up for grabs. (The ribbon I grabbed out of my closet happened to be yellow -- my yard looked like I was waiting for family member to return from war...) On the Tuesday he was to arrive, I was at work, but I knew one of my neighbors was home, so I asked her to shoot me an email if she noticed a man with a shovel show up in my front yard, just so I knew what to expect.

About 1:15 she emailed: "Man in white SUV in your driveway, putting the seats down. It looks like he'll be there a while!" The poor guy -- it was a hot day, he was alone, facing the task of digging up a lot of well established shrubs. I hoped he had brought water.

I headed home from work about an hour after that. I fully expected to arrive at home to a man digging in my yard. But no! He, as well as all ten shrubs were gone! I was stunned. It really looked like the shrub version of The Body Snatchers had been there -- all that remained was slight indentations in the earth where each shrub was.

It was quite the front yard transformation! I haven't planted anything there yet, but I plan to put my butterfly garden there. I already have a lot of hummingbirds who regularly visit the blossoms on my Turk's Cap that blooms next to the Pecan Tree.

You can also see in the "before" and "after" photos that the straggly tree that was in front of the porch is gone; I cut that down a few weeks ago. Again, I looked into relocating it, but it was several thousands of dollars to do that. I apologized to the tree profusely as I sawed it down! I felt badly, but it really had to go.

A Bit of Adventure in the Rain

We've been having quite a lot of rain here in Dallas the last few days -- glorious! We really need it. Despite not having gutters on my house yet, I was able to strategically place my two rain barrels to catch rain run off from the roof. One on my front porch, and one along my driveway. I had low expections for water collection -- I thought I'd collect maybe 4-6 inches in each barrel. HA! Boy was I ever wrong! In just one day, both barrels were over flowing! I now have 100 GALLONS of rain water stored for watering my plants. I'm giddy. (My postman may not be quite as giddy... he has to do a bit of fancy footwork to navigate around the rain barrel to get to my mail box -- and thanks to Ask.com I now know that 50 gallons of water weighs 417 pounds. No wonder I couldn't move the barrels when they filled up!)

What I am not so giddy about, however, is what happened to my 80+ year old pecan tree in my front yard. It's huge -- and laden with pecans (do you say "peh-CON" or "PEE can"? I often say "PEE can" just to make people twitch...) and apparently the combined weight of pecans and rain was too much for two particular branches. I don't know when exactly on Sunday that it came crashing down (or was it a slow arch and collapse?) but it was definitely a precarious situation in my front yard. The first branch came down when Tom gave it a good yank; the second one required a bit of manuevering.

Ladders, chain saws, ropes and friends ensued, and the end result is a heap of brush at my curb, and a half-full firewood rack. (I love my orange wheelbarrow!)When it cures by this time next year, I will have great firewood to use! I have lost a bit of shade, but I also now have gained a much larger sunny area in my yard for my upcoming butterfly garden -- but I have lost a really great branch that I had intended to hang Halloween decor from! Alas, I will need to develop a Plan B for that. And I probably need to call a professional tree trimmer to see if I need any further preventative maintenance... Hey! Another trade to call! (See previous post about trades that I haven't yet needed...)