New Favorite Spot

I may have a new favorite spot in the world.

 BBQ season doesn't stand a chance this year.  

Is building things infectious?  Because it's pretty much the only thing I want to do now.  

Thanks to Val for the photos!  More pictures from our day here! 

Sewing Table: Completed! SO MANY PHOTOS!

This is where my new table lives:


This is where it works:

And this is when I start singing the theme song to Transformers:

And this is about where I belt out "SEWING TABLE IN DISGUISE!!" so loudly it scares the dog.

Need a table like this? Build one! Super easy, and great (and free!) plans to build this little beauty here!

The color is an exact match to an antique Ball mason jar (Fish out of H20 by Mythic Paint). I'm completely in love. I was unsure at first, but my hesitance succumbed to adoration.

Since it was sitting so seductively in the corner, I just had to make something. This was my very first project on this table:

It holds a whole lot of war paint makeup.

See?

I followed this tutorial.

Hope you're having a great weekend so far!

The Bedroom Chronicles: Part I

I built us a floating headboard from some leftover plywood from the chicken coop floor. Huh. There's a sentence I never thought I'd type.


It's been hanging up for two days now, and it hasn't crashed on our heads yet. I'm counting it as a success.

A few 1x3s, some upholstery fabric, and some staples later:

With Blanket #1:


Blanket #2:

If you look very, very closely you might be able to see the teeny tiny closet that my husband and I share. Don't move. You might scare it.

Because I'm a barbarian, I don't really understand the floofy little additional pillows some people stack on their bed. But now that I'm actively trying to make our house feel like home (you know, like hanging pictures and stuff..) I may be tempted to sew some soon.

'Why sage green?', you're asking yourself. This room will have a theme. My first ever room with a theme! That theme will be.... drum roll goes here.... 'Naturalist!' And with that comes very subtle shades of green, grey blues, and pale lavenders and earthy browns. I think it'll be a very calm room. We'll see.

Ever since I've seen Ernst Haeckel's Tree of Life from the Evolution of Man, I've wanted to do something with it. I don't believe humans to be the pinnacle of life like he did, but rather varying shades of grey. But there is something optimistic and cheery about people who believe we are more than just primates, shuffling along our mortal paths. And toss it with a few botanist sketches of some of my favorite plants (I'm thinking perhaps some kind of oxalis and a trillium, maybe one of lavender?) to round out the room.


So I'm going to hang this above our bed. Framed in all of its glory, as a symbol to be more than what I think we are, to strive the be the brightest version of ourselves.

The next quest for me is to find additional storage. So I'll be trading out our box spring and replacing it with this Ikea's Sultan Alsarp Foundation:

Say hello to another 33 square feet of storage! $12 per square foot. Every little bit counts with our tiny home!

Big Moment.

On day 75, our new house officially had furniture in it. Both of these pieces are used but beautiful, and they are destined for long happy lives in our dining area.

A sweet little chair: And a settee. Look at those curvy, adorable legs.

Not only are we dealing with the fun of hunting for furniture (while woefully being ill-equiped to move it- it's been an interesting process), we are also in the middle of choosing paint colors. We would ideally like a fresh-faced house by the end of next week.

"I live in a blue house with blue windows... blue is the color I find that I wear.."

Sherwin William's Gray's Harbor or Benjamin Moore's Mineral Alloy:

Yes, we like blue. Why do you ask?

My House Will Look Like Alphonse Mucha Barfed in it.

We're at the final stage of our house renovation. We should be able to start moving stuff over within the next week or so. I'm not holding my breath, although I have been slowly packing up anything that isn't essential for everyday living.

And now we really need to get our heads together as to what we want our decor to be. I've never really been in a position to consider this, but since we're starting all over, I've had to come to some sort of decision as to what I want our interior to look like. And all I can really think of is "blue french cottage." It kind of sounds like a bad cheese, and probably isn't a real decorating term, but then again, I'm not really the fancy type, so there you go.

Instead of trying to articulate my lactose-like description, let me show you some photos:

Small dining area inspiration:

Photo from Decor Pad

I love the idea of using a little settee to add more seating in our dining area. I want to be prepared for friends to stop by at any given moment and to have a place for them to sit. This fulfills every requirement I have- it's adorable, light hearted, with a cottage-like feel to it. And it's the perfect place to have a spot of tea. So if any of you see a small settee that would work, let me know!

Bedroom Inspiration- again, we're in a very, very tiny room. I think the bed will have to be shoved against the wall. And because there's so little space, I'm going to want to draw the eyes upward. Here's what I'm thinking:

Photo Inspiration from Country Living

While I don't have the benefit of being under an a-frame ceiling, or against a window, I can imagine a beautifully framed photo or picture or painting working. And anytime I can put curtains around my bed, I will. It reminds me of building blanket forts as a kid. So that will have to happen, one way or another. I love grey (or is this taupe? ...Graupe??) with blue, and I can really see this working in our space.

Living Room:

So the husband is intent on putting a 90" projector screen (I don't understand it either- but here's the deal: Whatever he spends on his little home theater project, I get to spend on my chickens). I'm trying to figure out how to make this work, and so far, I kind of like the idea of doing a theater curtain to hide the screen.

For seating in the living area, I've considered using patio furniture. It's inexpensive, durable, cleans easily, and when we get tired of it, it can be booted outside. Here's the set I've been eyeballing:

Image from a review at Home Depot

I've also been considering used furniture- I really love old Victorian and French sofas, and this will probably end up being a better deal in the long run. Instead of spending $1300 for the set above, I can spend $500 and get something like this:

Found this on Craigslist. Here's the Listing.

Whatever I end up with, I want it to be elevated off the ground so that light reaches underneath the furniture. This will give our area a greater sense of space than a more traditional American style sofa. I will probably cry harder though if (when) my cat decides antiques make fantastic scratching surfaces.

And before I wrap up, here's a photo of the space I'm going to miss the most when I sell our condo. This is my closet office. I love this little nook. It's teeny, tiny, and filled with everything I love.
I call it my beehive. Goodbye, sweet little hive! You've served me well.

Day 2: Renovation

Guess what we found in our front yard last night?

Oh hey, it is (was) our leaky chimney!

Cinder blocks have been sealed from the inside for added moisture resistance. Take that, mold!

Today we met up with our contractor at 6:45am to discuss the framing. I was very tempted to stick around and watch the framing process, but given how small the space is and the large amounts of lumber coming in, I was a hazard being in the way. Can't wait to see the changes tonight!

Renovation Day - More Pics

Thought I'd share some more of these images. Perhaps this house is one that only her owners could love, but there's something beautiful about the light drifting through the bare beams.
Definitely a little piece of Seattle Heights Garden history:

What's that?? You'd prefer a video? Alright, here you go:

If a picture says a thousand words...

It Actually Feels Like Spring

I think we're all ready for a yard.

And we're going to have one. In two weeks or less.

Dreaming of a Garden

Over the weekend I had a chance to visit Molbak's in Woodinville, one of my most favorite places on earth. It's a garden center, a cafe, a forum. It's such a resource, I simply cannot sing its praises loud enough.

On Saturday, we had a chance to listen to a seminar about urban farming from author Lisa Taylor. She was a great lecturer, and the hubs and I walked away with a lot more gardening know-how than we walked in with, and now we are even more inspired to get a garden growing.

But we need land. And land is associated with that little house. And sadly, the house purchase has stalled. What seemed to be a normal lead based paint report has come up with some serious issues, and until we figure out what those issues are (we don't yet have the report in hand- it has nearly been 3 weeks!) and an idea of what the cost would be to fix it (let's hope it's less than $4k!), our hopes of having a home are frozen.

It's frustrating to think that one report could potentially kill all the work we've done thus far... All those hours of research and harassing people and trips to various suppliers and all of the time our agent has spent being our advocate... I'm trying to be positive, but at the same time realistic about the possibility of it all falling through.

100.

I thought about using the 100th post to announce something awesome. But I've decided that announcing something awesome could make that said something awesome no longer be awesome, so I've revoked that idea.

So here it is, the 100th post. I'm not using it to say anything important, except this:


Happy 100th, my sweet little blog. If you were a person, I'd buy you a vanilla cupcake with lavender frosting from Cupcake Royale. And I'd fix you a cup of earl grey tea.

The Day Has Arrived...

Today has every potential to be a Big Day for us. I have successfully orchestrated a 203k consultant, an inspector, and a contractor (who is well-versed in 203k renovation financing- a difficult find) to all show up at our potential home at 1pm today. I have also managed to revive the utilities (with the exception of gas) to our old house- and today we will see how big of a project this really is.

This could be a very good day for us, or a bit of a heartbreaker.

If the project is too small, the contractor may walk. If the project is too big, we will walk. We want the renovations to fall between $30k-$50k- it's almost like Price is Right- although arguably more exciting.

Is it really only Monday?

We dropped off a large packet of loan documents yesterday, and I couldn't help but sigh a giant sigh of relief. I'm trying not to be high strung about this whole adventure, but there's simply SO much paperwork and fine print and I feel like if I'm not scouring every single line of text I'm going to miss out on something that will make us lose this property. When we dropped off the paperwork I expected a day or two to be completely lazy.

Wrong.

So we got the approval to kick on the utilities, and now it's suddenly a flurry of activity again. Electricity is through Snohomish PUD, gas is through PSE, and water is through the city of Mountlake Terrace. Somehow we're supposed to get everything turned on, and have an inspector, 203k consultant, and contractor(s) to check out the property in the 48 hours that we're allowed to have the utilities on. Then we have to rewinter the property (even though it's officially Spring..).

So I could use a little luck- I'm a little overwhelmed suddenly, and I'm looking back at the relatively peaceful week I had last week and kicking myself for not foreseeing these next few steps.

Updates

So I'm being kinda crap with this updating thing. I've been meaning to, but good intentions simply aren't good enough!

The bank accepted our offer. Yay!

You want to know about this house? Okay, here it goes.

It is small. Under 700 square feet. It has two bedrooms, twice what we have now. It has a great yard, with lots of room for a garden. In fact, the previous owner had planter boxes full of strawberries, and strawberry plants are starting to come up. Giant rhodadendron out front, little purple crocuses, rose bushes, and a baby japanese maple- all in the fully fenced front yard. Perfect.

The house itself? Well, it needs some (a lot) of love. Somewhere between $30-$60k worth of love. And we're kind of in limbo until we know exactly how much. I'm scrambling to get contractors to give us estimates, and we need to get the power back on so we can see if any utilities work at all..

The loan will close in 30-60 days, at this point we're not certain even if it will. But we are moving full steam ahead- I'm not going to miss out on a great opportunity just because I'm afraid of it all falling through.

There is a long road ahead for us. But it might just be a road that leads us home.

I'm probably jinxing it.. but..

...we actually put an offer down on a house.

I Spy With My Little Eye...

Wait... could it be?? Is my office truly coming together? Someone pinch me- I think I might be dreaming!

Building the Beehive: Continued

Here's what we have so far. Most of it is in boxes. We should be up and running by next week!

Things I Need:

• File Folders
• Curtains
• Curtain Rods
• Book Ends
• File Holder
• Wallpaper Hanging Supplies

Things I Need to Decide:

• The Desk: Should I paint it the same color as the walls in the rest of the bedroom?
• The Curtains: Bright white? Off-white? A different shade of blue?
• The Files: Too many pretty designs to choose from. Loveliness overload!

Things I need to do:

• Find a home for the remaining clutter in the closet.
• Hang wallpaper (it'll be here Wednesday!)
• Set up smaller closet (custom drawers also arrive Wednesday!)

Building the Beehive

Welcome to my first post on this blog! First posts are always so awkward (kinda like first dates, huh?), I'm going to be a bit of a hussy and just dive on in.

So I'm in the process of converting our teeny, tiny, little bedroom into a finely tuned workhorse. I painted it a glorious shade of blue (Hello, Behr's Bleached Denim- where have you been all my life?), ordered a custom closet from Easy Closets, and have schemed and planned and made many many lists and made far too many sketches to be healthy.

And because I'm a firm believer in pictures, here's the approximate color of our room:

From Home Depot

And here's the amazing closet office that spurred this great project:

Discovered at Country Living

I had no idea that wallpaper could make such an impact. I never, ever would have considered using wallpaper in a smaller area like a closet- but I can see why they did it. It looks phenomenal! Therefore, I took it upon myself to try to find the perfect wallpaper. I wanted one that was a bit whimsical, a bit brighter than the base room color, and have a good variety of colors to pull from.

And I discovered this:

Norwall Wallcoverings

How could I not fall in love?