Decorating

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friend

Ever grateful to be surrounded by kind, generous, loving, fun, and funny people I so admire. We fill our time immersed in the beautifully mundane, like sipping hot cider and smoothies, dreaming, shopping, and texting. We spend mornings together in sunlit offices, some thousand miles apart. We walk and ride and chat, on bikes and in cars. We eat, gape, and sigh. But, best of all, we share the finest, most vulnerable and tender parts of ourselves. It’s not just friendship, it’s love.

birds

table

Thanksgiving feast for two, complete with our first successful batch of home made hard cider from our own apples. Woot!!

Awaiting “breakfast for dinner” with friends. The fabulous cloth is vintage and from my Grandma, and the tall crystal glasses (used for smoothies!) inherited from the hubster’s family.

basement

out and about

The bottom photo was taken at Stickers, one of our long-time favorite restaurants. They have, hands down, the best scallion cakes, kung pao chicken, and bulgogi beef the hubster and I have ever tasted, and believe me, we’ve tried plenty. It’s cozy and fantastically decorated, too, with a friendly staff and quick kitchen. Since it is neither new nor trendy, we’ve never had to wait for a table — in other words, the best of the best!

L I G H T !

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knitting & needle(s) in the blue light of dawn

my favorite reading chair

pillow

often left speechless by the artistry of creation

One Community is a monthly project in which participants photograph their homes and community with a theme in mind. The goal is to both showcase similarities and differences in our communities worldwide – and bring us all closer together in understanding through art.

Would you like to join us? Post one or more photos for each of the theme words, needle, chair, pillow, and speech, chosen by Eduarda, and add your blog post to the link-up. Easy! It began yesterday, December 5th, and stays open for one week.

Snap happy!

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My words are off somewhere, a bear, hibernating in a cave, or, perhaps, a chickadee, chirruping around the neighborhood, collecting a single morsel at a time. She zooms hither and thither from her cache, a wild, blank canvas that will reveal a marvelous pattern in its own time, not a moment sooner.

In the meantime, I decorate, gathering wind fallen branches, unpacking well-loved treasures, and lighting candles by the score. I knit, needles steadily clicking at scarves and snoods and soon to be hats and hand warmers. Then there are the hours upon hours spent in the craft room, cutting, arranging, and sewing fabric into quilts. Honest. Meditative. Sweet.

I hope that you are well and that your heart is made lighter by all that is good in the world. The light of your love. The voice of a friend. The warmth of an embrace. The things that truly matter.

 

Well, here it is, our Mary Poppins bathroom, practically perfect in every way. Remember that? I think it was written on her measuring tape.

I finally got the art on the walls and had halfway decent light. It only took six months, nearly to the day, since the whole project started, but getting all the right pieces was not so easy. So much so that I painted three myself, and made the domed whale, too.

The hubster made the cool looking screen over the window, so the neighbors won’t see us nekkid. It lets in the most marvelous light while also letting me bird watch. I’ve got my priorities straight. It will get some tweaks and a twin on the other window, but don’t fret, no one can really see in that one, unless they are actually in our yard, and then we have a problem, Houston.

Greg’s favorite piece is the ship. It’s a cross-stitch I designed to commemorate our wedding (almost nineteen years!) and sewed over many, many nights. It says, “On these seas, we sail together.”

The jellyfish and the whale I painted. Did anyone see that awesome documentary about the Sperm Whale on PBS? Goll-ee, my love for them was taken up a notch. They are amazing creatures.

I love it when the hubster sits on the bench, often with a cat on his lap, while I take a bath. He is such good company. We also like to leave notes on the chalkboard paint on the back of the door, a truly awesome idea, really. Butter!

The beautiful shower surround. We had an overhead light put in, so it is no longer cave-like. In it’s previous incarnation, our bathroom, and especially the shower, was quite dark.

Look how lovely the light is! So very bright, like bathing under the sun. The Little Man approves, too. He was meowing up a storm after I’d finished all of the photos, so I went back and took this of him. I guess he hasn’t quite gotten his fifteen minutes of fame.

If you find yourself wanting what I’ve got here and live in the Portland-Metro, give Alex from Western Oregon Builders a call, and tell him you want Colleen’s bathroom. He’ll know who you mean. Bless his heart, it might have been easier to take up residence in the guest room; he spent so much time here!

Fixtures, etc:

Rejuvenation: Porcelain Collection lights, switch plates, soap dish (the white one in the shower is original – the one item we kept), towel and toilet paper holders, fluted black glass knobs and pulls.

Kohler: Archer pedestal sink and commode, Memoirs faucet, tub spout, and shower fixtures.

Ballard Designs: Classic Bench in Arden fabric.

Land’s End: Organic Cotton towels in Light Paprika

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Progress?

Last night, until an hour much later than anticipated, the hubster and I attempted to hang the mirror over the sink, so I wouldn’t have to run all over the house to find the best light to put on moisturizer, make-up, or check my teeth for spinach.  We thought we were so clever, buying the Hercules hook with Billy Mays picture on the package from the internet, with expedited shipping because I didn’t want to wait another day to do my business in the bathroom mirror.  Sadly, we weren’t clever enough.  The hooks didn’t want to go in at first, and once they did, were not appropriate for this application.  So, instead of a mirror, we have two holes above the sink, waiting for the drywall hangers originally purchased for this purpose, which have since been misplaced.  It’s a comedy!

We do have a hand towel rack and a soap dish and a hook in the shower, however, so that’s something for you.

Also, no need to check your latest prescription on what I hope are some stylin’ spectacles, because, yes sir or ma’am, that tile is a little wonky.  Eighty year-old houses do not come square, but wavy, and with personality, like their crackers owner(s) {The hubster can add himself to the category, but I shall not speak for him in this case}.

Enjoy the long weekend!

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