Vintage Skis = awesome

We've been on a role fixing problem spots around the house. Today is more of the same (no the problem is not Smokey... sorry if he offends anyone) the wall above the stairs is very narrow and long and I have been trying to figure out what to hang there for 5 years... 

Our friend Kris left a pair of vintage skis at Mum and Dads and since Dad already has a set I stole them. 

 We used this tutorial to hang them. I LOVE the way it turned out. And it is definitely fitting in with our travel outdoor theme that is going on in the hallway

 And yes I do think that people from Florida who come over don't really get our house... Who am I kidding probably no one from anywhere gets it... but our homes are all about what make us happy right?

And these make me super happy... and Kris can have them back when ever he wants but he'll have to get them off the wall all by himself

Switching up the Ottoman

I went back and forth on selling this monstrosity, ottomans are ridiculously expensive and I could not find a replacement that I liked that had wheels... I bought and returned stuff to redo this sucker multiple times but when I decided on the chairs and the fabric my thoughts on this finally came together. This ottoman is really large 33"x21" just a huge box - no storage. I recovered it right after we moved into the house it started out a dark emerald green velour and was a hand me down from my grandparents (thanks!). Microsuede was an improvement at the time but now ... not so much... 

The whole storage thing got me thinking... why can't I have storage? It's totally set up for it already

Note Management checking out the situation

Uber made me a bottom (hurrah for seemingly never ending pile of scraps)

 And then I ordered some Linen in Elephant and Premier Prints Suzani in Slub Charcoal   and got to recovering

 It's definitely on the funky side... and far from perfect

 But I am so thrilled with the way the storage turned out

The hinge and spring loaded bracket were found at Lowes 

 And now all of Micah's toys can be hidden in a few seconds

It doesn't get much better then that!

I'm a copy cat

That's right I was so jealous of Mum recovering chairs that I decided I had to do some of my own... not really... well sort of... 

I had my over sized living room chairs up on craigslist for the last few months. It really hurt to sell them (especially at the ridiculously low price I ended up getting) but we really needed the floor space the old chairs were 35"x35" and the only time they are sat on is when company comes over = not that often (which is funny because we have been having loads of company over recently). I actually had found replacements I wanted on craigslist but I (to make a long story short) made myself wait until I had the others sold before I could buy anything else... and of course the other chairs after being up for weeks sold the day I called : ( 

So plan B I had seen these puppies at Costco but they wanted $180 for them... which is a lot considering I was going to rip them apart and I wanted the entire bill for the new chairs to be covered by the ones I sold. So after getting the no go on the others Uber and I decided we would just go check out these at Costco again and as luck would have it they had clearanced them down to $130 - SO MUCH BETTER!- and these new ones are 25"x24" big difference! Micah now has a lot more floor space to spread his gooey fingers on. 

So as I mentioned earlier I got them home and unboxed and immediately started them ripping (literally) apart. Because this fabric is just not my thing and I am really trying to get more color and pattern into our house. 

 I recovered them in Anna Maria Horners old Drawing Room line Nouveau Bouquet in Teal. I had bought a few yards of this a couple of years back for under $5 a yard and mailed it to Mum to make me a dress thank goodness she said it was too heavy weight so it has sat in her cupboard until recently when I realized it matches my house perfectly.

 I am so totally in love with them. And as most people know this is sort of bold pattern is definitely not my usual style but staying home makes you re-access your surroundings. I used to want it to be calm and quiet because I spent all day out in loud spaces but now I want my house to be fun and a little more loud.

I was very sure I had a more recent before picture somewhere on the blog already... oh well since I don't have time to locate one at the moment here is an old one that shows the chairs.

and here it is today

***this wasn't supposed to go up today but what ever here it is... getting so fed up with blogger...***

Uber's crafty

This wall has been bothering me forever.  It's very frustrating to have all of your furniture purchased and still feel like your space looks unfinished. We have 9 ft ceilings in our downstairs and something was needed above the TV. 

I had saved a few images for inspiration-  (sorry I don't know where the top one is from) 

  And asked Uber super nicely if he would build me something, lucky we had a bunch of scrap molding in the garage from old projects so this was a great way to clear some of it out. I think this project ended up costing about $9.  

 Here it is close up. I did distress it ... but apparently not enough to really show. What made it even better was the next Pottery Barn catalog I received in the mail had this $400 version which seems a little ridiculous to me but I was super happy to show it to Uber so he could see what an awesome job he did.

 And here is the wall as it looks now. We raised the TV up about 5 inches since we both had never been happy with the height and I switched out the picture for this mirror.

 I'm not done accessorizing yet but I'm slowly working on it. The giraffe by the way is Ubers gift to Micah from a recent trip to Central America.

I have a bunch more house projects to show you so stay tuned!

More Chairs?

I was in a second hand store a couple of months ago with Jessica. I spotted these folding chairs and really liked them. They weren't too old but they had some personality. 

I didn't get them. 

I couldn't stop thinking that I'd made a mistake. 

I needed a small chair for You Know Who's office. One that a I could sit in but wouldn't take up too much space.

I thought the folding chair would work even though the seat was ugly. 

 They were supposed to be marked down at one month. I decided that if they were still there, then it was meant to be. 

They were there, I got them a bit cheaper,  and I still had some yummy leather left from my dining chairs makeover.

 I got them just in time. The chair I had been using in my sewing room had to be thrown out. 

These are very versatile. I love the way they look in our work spaces and in our living spaces when we have company. So far we haven't needed to store them but if we do, the folding option is nice!

Something He Did

One of our trees died. 

I came home one day to You Know Who taking it down before it fell on someone. It's sad because it held up one side of our hammock. 

He decided that he would try to save part of it instead of cutting it all down right now. 

Then he got a bit clever and I came home to this...

They are called tree spirits. We don't actually believe they "do" anything, they're just cool

We have some in the house, we found these in Austria.

So it seems appropriate to us to have one in the yard.

You could say he's setting it free... he said it wasn't easy. This is an oak tree and that = hard wood.

What you can't see is how unbearably hot it was outside. 

I found it pretty amazing. 

We had some friends over Sunday night and waited to see who noticed.

 The young woman who did, was just a bit freaked out... asking if anyone else saw face on the tree.....

His looks change throughout the day. Nope we haven't named him...

Check out some amazing gardens @ Pam's Garden Tuesday!

Long Overdue

I bought this chair a long, long, long, long time ago. Ugly gold fabric a broken spring but the "bones" were good. I asked Jessica to send me a couple of things, among the things was some beautiful silk dupioni she bought in the LA fabric district, then I realized I needed a couple more things, then I lost momentum.

Do not look at the wonky springs and strapping, It's all wrong but it's what I had. 

Fast forward six years to last week..... Jessica un-buried the chair and demanded I finish it. She got me started again and after she left, I managed to finish! I even remembered that I love doing stuff like this. I made some mistakes and learned some new things. I will use this at my desk, a desk that I should show you one day. 

 I kinda love it a lot.

Next on the agenda, Jess has researched how to eight-way hand tie and I have this couch....

Micah's Album

Finally finished updating Micah's album... I am really not sure how 3 months flew by! If this interests you check out the tab above to see the new pages. 

But for fun here is Uber back in 1980

 and Micah in 2011