Decorating

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Hiya! A little bit of everything for you today. First, some lovely morning light illuminating our hang up your hat station. The beautiful tree print on the left is one of the treasures we bought from Lezle Williams at Laughing Crow Studio during our stay in Albuquerque. I love how it harkens back to Gustave Baumann.

I made delicious chocolate cupcakes with torched marshmallow frosting to celebrate a visit from Jeff. We ate at our favorite 503W, walked the Juper-dog, played Firefly (two by two, hands of blue), and this cool-looking city building game whose name totally escapes me. Always a stellar time!

I spent Thursday, Friday, and much of the weekend clearing out the house, Marie Kondo style (this item brings no joy!), building IKEA furniture, organizing both of our offices, and a couple of kitchen cabinets. We have a mega pile of boxes to cart off to various charities and chests puffed with pride at the state of our spaces.

The above photos are what it looks like when you take nearly everything out of a 9×9 room in order to make it marvelous!

A peek into my office closet, reorganized and rather dandy.

The view from my wheelie chair is a goodie! We bought the desk at Crate and Barrel in Pittsburgh, and it mostly did nothing in the basement since moving to Colorado Springs. Then, I got a bee in my bonnet to clear the clutter off my much larger desk and realized the smaller one, with an actual drawer and little storage nook, would suit me better. It really, really does!

It is a heart-filler to stand in the door and see this view! I’ve got my favorite portraits of our dearly departed kitties, a very girly trash can from Grandma Tess, and my desk cycle. I attach a velcro “leash” between it and my chair and am prolly last place in the imaginary races but feeling the burn!

The shelf is another IKEA find and perfect for my highly controlled magpie tendencies! It makes for a lovely display. The cute stuffed animals on the chair are Greg’s. I’ve added my yellow ducky and may take a picture of the cheery trio at a future date.

Hello! Welcome to wonky lens land. I really do need to get on this camera situation, and pronto. Ugh. I am really torn, as I like my camera and know it so well, but it would also be nice, maybe, to try something new?

In that new department, how’s about the paint? It only took three weeks to finish, but goll-ee, is it ever an improvement. I failed to take before photos, so use your beautiful brain to summon an image of a dark chocolate brown with crayon green accents, and you’ve got the main section. Then, for the now black plinth area, change the dial to maroon, with a huge chunk of brick missing (which Greg repaired) from some previous owner calamity. The painted panel was the color of the east wall. All in all, dark and gloomy and not terribly well matched to one another.

But, oh, how I like it now. Juniper is going to have to share her couch with me more frequently, as the space is so much more inviting!

Turn your back on the new beauty of the fireplace, and you’ve got the workout and sauna area. We replaced the floor when we moved in, and painted the beams this time round, but, as with the bathroom below, had never shared before, and are a a five-day-a-week when not painting part of our vida loca. I am particularly fond of lifting five pound weights while dancing on the rebounder. Just in case you were wondering.

The bathroom is awfully bright for a basement, which makes up for being rather diminutive. Gotta love the light of the high desert!

The guest room, also in the basement, and kind of like a suite with the neighboring bathroom, is super cozy without feeling cramped. I had wanted to paint the panel and closet doors for ages, basically since moving in, but the thought of sanding in all of those nooks and crannies was so daunting, I put it off. Then, while watching some home improvement show, heard about Liquid Sandpaper/Deglosser (we used Klean Strip), where you take a damp cloth, saturate it with this liquid, rub in a circular motion on the varnished surface, and wait for it to dry before applying paint. I mean, seriously, it was so, so easy.

Now I have a lovely color on what was once a very maple syrup hued and not so buena vista. Um, yes!

Damn lens again, wah! It only regularly focuses properly at the bottom of the frame, so you are missing out on some super crisp stair imagery I cropped out. But we were together in Manitou Springs, with my parents and Uncle Chris, and it was such a fun day, I had to share.

More Manitou Springs! At least these are clear.

Happy Monday…

After our we got our 50th birthday espresso machine, which we still LOVE, our counter got a bit crowded, so I asked Greg to put up a shelf for the radio. Luckily we had some from IKEA left over from a previous project, because I am a gal who is not only mad about organization but likes continuity, too. It looks super, and the stations are even a bit clearer off the counter. Who knew?!

The painting was a gift after we hosted Nate Seay and his lovely girlfriend Jenna on their VanLife adventure. I found the Camaro logo lying in the street. Lucky me! Oh, and the orange spray bottle is homemade hand sanitizer. 65% alcohol, 35% water, a little avocado oil, and a whole lot of zested orange strips. It smells as good as it looks and isn’t as drying.

We got rid of a bunch of books, which made our living room shelves a little empty. So, I moved all my cookbooks to the living room, freeing up these shelves. Now we have easy access to our most frequently used pantry items. It’s a win!

In domino fashion, all the space created from moving the pantry items to the shelf made for a serious pantry overhaul, and this is it, peeps. In true let your freak flag fly style: neat rows of jars, bottles, and cans gives me all the feels.

Work in progress: Juniper (in cozy fleece) supervises my living room shelf organization party.

And…done!

 

It’s been snowing light lofty flurries for the better part of three days. The accumulation is nothing serious (sorry Seattle!) but enough to shovel and sweep. Like the best snow of childhood memory, it keeps us mostly inside and huddled under wool blankets, gazing at the hypnotic fall. Yesterday we celebrated President’s Day and kept from freezing by binge watching an entire season of Grand Designs Australia. I love architecture! I also dragged out the instant pot to make lickety-split quick boneless pork ribs – fall apart tender in one hour – and a sweet potato mash. Food of the gods, I tell you.

Juniper remains delighted by snow, rubbing her nose in it, jumping, frolicking, and barking in delight as she zips to and fro in the back yard. We are considering hooking our girl up to a sleigh, so eager is she to pull us along on our now short because it’s so darn cold walks. Her eager face exclaiming, “Isn’t it wonderful? It’s SNOW! SNOW! Hurry up, so we can smell ALL of it and pee on some, too.”

And art! While delivering holiday treats to one of our dear neighbors, I spied a rather lovely painting on her bureau and commented on it. Lucky for me, it was painted by yet another dear neighbor (and all around fine person!), so I made arrangements to buy a couple for our upstairs bathroom. Both are of New Mexico and make my heart sing. I will post more accurate representations soon! In the mean time, you can check out her work for yourself – Susan Owens Fine Art and maybe buy something too!

p.s.

If you squint your eyes at the house photo, you just might spy Greg and Juniper waving hello from the living room!

Hello! Welcome to our tiny bathroom. It’s been done for a while but I am just getting around to taking pictures. At 5′ x 6.5′, there isn’t a whole lot to show, at least space wise, and, as a result, we have kept it very minimalist, no cabinets, no shelving. Luckily, should you be worried about where we store all of our toiletries and whatnot, there’s a very snazzy collection of drawers and cabinets in the hallway just outside the bathroom door.

To keep everything simple, we used the same lights, flooring, and tile as the kitchen. The dark border is a Schluter edge (also in the kitchen), a look I had to fight our tile guy over(words not fists). I won the battle and his opinion. Everyone thinks it looks awesome!

And this horror is the before photo. I told you we bought a dump! The space was overwhelmed by bulky cabinetry that had outrun its useful life. The sides were rotting out, the door didn’t close, and the drawer no longer fit. The sink, when both taps were turned on FULL blast, only let a trickle of water escape. The awful vinyl floor (a match to the old kitchen) was curling up on itself, badly stained, and impossible to clean. The hubster, tall guy that he is (6’1″) splashed water everywhere when showering because the doors were way too short. A right mess. Seriously.

But now, jeepers, it is lovely and fine: a nice toilet that you can’t see, a great sink, a cool faucet that works, a splash proof shower door, and a REALLY deep tub. Ahhhhh….

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