Friday, April 29, 2011

I bought a house!

So, after what has felt like an eternity of back and forth, my partner-in-crime and I, Nial, have finally signed the last document and written the last check and this house is ours! Wahoo! It's a mid-century brick ranch with 1/3 of an acre, fenced in, 2600 sq. ft, hardwood floors on the main floor and stone on the bottom floor, 2 car garage, 5 bedrooms, two full baths and 2 fireplaces. Needless to stay- -we are thrilled.




We've worked out a few design ideas for the house, and so far, this is what we've come up with. There's a lot of t's to cross, etc. etc. still, but we'll get there.

Here's the kitchen, which needs some updates, but for now we're just updating appliances and painting it.


It's currently mid-transformation to be painted "Atomic Orange," which looks a lot like this



Here's the spare room (which we may dissolve in the future to make a larger master), but for now....

After a million coats of primer and 3 coats of "Atomic Tangerine" it looks like this color:

We also have this cool room in the basement that we want to convert into a speakeasy-inspired gentleman's lounge with a dark paint, dark light, bourbon and many leather bound books. This image is sort of in that same spirit.





Here's the living room currently:
Here's an idea we are thinking about for the wall with the fire place.
Here's another idea for the fire place. Converting it to a gas fireplace (less mess) and moving it up a bit with a wall-length stone bench. Obviously ours would be flush with the wall and not free-standing as this one is.

Here's the color scheme. We want to paint the living room a sort of Tiffany blue and have the kitchen and dining area be the Hermes orange. I'm kind of obsessed with that combo, actually.





Here's what the master bedroom looks like currently:

And here's my inspiration for what I'd like it to look like (in terms of color scheme and bed scheme):


Here's the laundry area now (although, there are no longer any holes in the sheet rock):

And here's a laundry area that I find a bit inspirational. I mean, let's face it, laundry needs to get done and you might as well like where you're doing it.


Here's what the back yard looks like currently....


...And here's my inspiration of how I'd like it to look eventually...I realize I live in Portland, OR and not in Palm Springs, but I also have two dogs so it seems inevitable that keeping nice grass is an impossibility, which is why I've embraced concrete and gravel.


Friday, April 15, 2011

Sunshine & Summer

#1 The Pacific Northwest is kind of killing me right now. We've had more consecutive dark gray-colored rainfall than anyone rightfully deserves. Don't get me wrong, I love Portland, OR, and when I moved here from Maine four years ago I was really stoked about not having to shovel snow in the winter, no mosquitoes in the city, not having to warm the car up for 30 minutes before driving anywhere, not having to wear LL Bean boots everywhere for 4 months out of the year, dry heat in the summer (instead of crippling humidity that makes any hairstyle other than curly impossible). Fast forward four years to now and I understand why the Pacific Northwest has the highest usage of pharmaceutical mood enhancers than anywhere else in the country. I understand why we have warnings and suicide hot line numbers on all of our bridges. I need sunshine, Damn it!!! I've even hit the tanning bed a few times just to remember what radiant warmth on one's skin feels like. (It's gray and raining even as I type this.) So, when I hit the ol' rock bottom of sun deprivation-induced delirium- -I like to look at these photos of people playing by pools or otherwise conducting themselves in the sun. *Sigh*

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

LOVE (LOVE LOVE): My Vintage Vogue

I found this website a while ago, and it's difficult not to become obsessed with, if you like vintage and/or high fashion and/or high fashion images and/or beautiful clothing and/or inspiring waistlines. I have sifted through hundreds of images on this site, and these are my favorites- -compiled for your convenience and viewing pleasure. If you have time though, you should really check out: My Vintage Vogue and My Vintage Vogue on Tumblr