Holiday Cheer

I sometimes think our house was made for Christmas. My holiday decor fits so perfectly on everything. The mantle looks perfect with some garland and a few red stockings. That corner is the perfect home for our tree - the little window behind it offers a view of the sparkling evergreen from the car on the way up the drive. 

So, needless to say, it looks pretty perfect around here now... 

Well, it does in the pictures. Most of the time there are bits of wrapping paper and Bill's latest DIY project floating around on every surface. But, thankfully, we won't be sharing any pictures of that... 

Merry (almost) Christmas, everyone! 

Hello boys!

Every time I sit down to work on and dream up a new decor idea, my inspiration generally starts more masculine. I start looking at cognac leather, darker paint colors, black and white accents... and somehow when everything gets thrown together, there's something obviously soft and feminine about it. Somehow a dark and dramatic dining room goes grown-up-girls'-equestrian-dream. And neutral living rooms get oddly spotted with yellow and pink.

Not sure how estrogen keeps popping up in my decor, but I've gotten a little sick of it. So I tried my best to not get pulled in any soft-flowy-curtains way and this is what I came up with...

Okay, so I snuck some coral in there. But its certainly a more masculine approach than our current bedrooms. Oh, and its far better than this approach to guest quarters... 

What? You don't want to come over and stay a while? 

Arthouse

A while back, my parents came to visit and brought with them loads and loads of my old high school and college art work and supplies. It has been kind of fun rummaging around in what is a autobiographical history book of sketches and screen prints.

(The mess of art supplies currently taking over our unfinished bedroom)

Some of it was good enough to hang up...

(These are potentially going up in the hall, but we may first redo the hallway before putting them up) 

A few pieces haven't been framed yet... 

And, of course, we've had a few pieces floating around here for a while now from my more recent years. 

The most recent additions to the gallery. 

(Rough draft. Will probably end up the front hall)

Island Life

Its been a while since my last post. A long, long while.

With the lapse of time and this post's title you might be thinking Bill and I were off on a remote, tropical island, living for weeks without a care in the world. Ok, you probably didn't think that at all, dearest 5 family members who read my 1 post a month, but I sure wish that was the case!

Actually, I don't because Bill would get ants in his pants on an island, they have lizards and, most importantly, they don't have this....

the island I was actually referring to! 

Thats right - we just increased our kitchen workspace by 50%. Boom. 

We now sport a pull-out garbage and recycling drawer (Oxford will miss getting into the trash to grab tissues), a wine rack, a spot for all our paper towels and open shelves for all the cookbooks I rarely use but like to look at anyway. Also, seating! For 3!

And it has a glorious walnut butcher block on top that I will never, ever cut anything on. 

And no, those paint-covered, mismatched stools won't be there much longer. They are just place holders for our future stools, which might look a little something like this... 

So, what do you think? Wanna come over for dinner?