Living Room

I love my living room.  I love my slipcovered white couch.  I love my two red floral club chairs.  But something's not quite right.  I think putting new pillows on the couch would help tremendously and I'm thinking that two taller chairs are what the room needs.  The red chairs are great but their really low and small.  Maybe if they were slipcovered.  I love slipcovers by the way.  They solve so many problems.  Especially with dogs and children.  Wash 'em, dry 'em and put 'em back on - all in an hour.  Woohoo. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of living rooms I like:

 This is my favorite room.  I love the red fabrics and lots of differnt patterns/textures.  I love the boldness of the striped wing backs and the white couch.  Love it all and would like it in my house please.

 I do love white and wood - maybe once Stanley has passed I'll ponder doing all white.  It's clean and pretty - maybe after the kids are gone...

 White and wood again...I'm just drawn to it.

 Yellow walls, clean lines, pillows...likin' it.

 This could actually be my house - excpet it's a little frilly and I don't think Balin would like it.  It's a great place though for Perrin and I to have tea.

I love the indoor/outdoor look here.  Again neutral colors, wood and now lots of plants.  And check out the candle laterns on the floor.  That might be a fire hazard with the Yogi.  He gets a little excited and tip something over.

All these ideas run around my head and I yearn to make them happen.  I've decided that this year I am finishing my house and making it the way I want it.  Then perhaps I will take on another project - like another house as a rental.  But for now I've got to stay focused and get things done around here.  It's going to be beautiful.

Master Bedroom thoughts

Tomorrow I have a decorator from a interior design shop that I love coming.  I'm hoping to decorate my room and I need some help.  I'm a little nervous because this shop is delicious and expensive but I think I might be ready.  When I did my room in the Twin Oaks house I loved it.  I loved having it finished and put together.  So I'm hoping we can figure something out here without making a major dent in the bank account.  I'll keep you posted.

I'm seeing a trend here - light colors, wood and an overall feminine approach.  I have to admit I love the idea of having small chandeliers hanging from the ceiling as our bed side tables.  Yummy, yummy, yummy.  Can't wait to make it all come together.  

Let's Get 'Er Done

So Balin's office will be complete tomorrow when they install the concrete countertops.  The trellis needs a couple of more items added and the railing for the stairs and deck needs to be completed.  Then we can relandscape the muddy mess that is currently the back yard.  (Imagine dead grass, mud and 20 feet in and out of my house daily. It's a great motivator to get things done.)

So I've collected a couple of ideas for the back yard.  My goal is to create a space to do the following:

A living room with a fireplace to gather with friends and have apertifs. 

A dining room with ambient lighting (candle light?) for warm evening dining.

A place to grill and cook outside.

A "hidden" playspace for the kids to play in their treehouse and mini-house. (Hidden for both their and my benefit.)

Here's a few ideas:

Not sure this is possible in my yard, but I like the feeling of it.  The ambience is due largely to the uplighting and the color on the walls.

 This is probably closest to what I'm thinking the living room will look like.  I think the connecting trellis is hugely important as it gives scale and place to the fireplace.  Without it the fireplace would just be floating.  I also like the seating along the fireplace with a big hearth in front - which allows for a lot of seating.  Of course the softening of the hardscapes with flowers is probably what makes this space seem to inviting.  Gorgeous.

 This picture is probably taken in CA or the NW as it's really lush, but the idea of a space that is either sunken or elevated creates the space's intimacy in such a exposed space.  I love the chandelier hanging from the tree - which I think helps create the desired mood.

 I like the form of this fireplace, though the scale of the room is not very inviting - it's too open.  It doesn't draw you in to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee.  Clearly the point of the design was to capitalize on the great view - but how could you create intimacy and still be in awe of the view?

 Thinking something like this, minus the wood, would be great in an outdoor kitchen.  Put this against the fence and then put a shed roof over it with a rusted tin roof and it could be pretty cool.  Maybe ikea has something inexpensive we could use.

 This would be my other favorite living room.  I would do some sort of wrought iron trellis on it though to give it a "hug" sensation and create that intimacy.  I love the rug and the red accents and lots of pillows.

 Here's a great, simple outdoor kitchen.  The wall and the wood above creates a more personal space and gives great interest.  Most of the outdoor kitchens that I found lacked any sense of interest or quaintness. Sad.  It doesn't take much to create a space you want to be in and honestly - granite, tile and stucco do not make a kitchen. 

 The details of this space is amazing.  Chandelier, lamp, pots and the trellis make it truly yummy.  I rug would make it all the more inviting.  I love that the furniture is all in neutrals which allow the flowers pop.  I wonder what it looks like when nothing is blooming?

 Another great fireplace.  I like the scale and the side wood storage which makes it more intimate.  The lamps on the sides probably ruin the ambience I would replace them with candle lanterns. 

 I love the pavers in this space and the form of the fireplace.  There's no place to sit near the fireplace though - bummer.

 YUMMY!  I love the rock on the fireplace and the mantel!  So cool!  The trellis is perfect and makes this space really livable.  The umbrellas help too.  Gorgeous.

 What about doing something like this outside? 

 I love the trellis over this kitchen - it gives it a place to belong.  Notice though the lack of interest in the face of the counter - boring.  But the candle lantern hanging is a great addition.

 So, take these cabinets and put them in the above kitchen and POW! You have great intereste and texture and an amazing kitchen.

 Transitioning to Perrin's shed....I'm thinking that we'll put on window or two in the shed, which makes everything prettier.  Then we'll add a "loft" with a ladder to her sleeping quarters.  Paint everything soft yellow or cottage white - throw a rug in, a comfy chair, small table and we've created a great space.

This is basically what Perrin's shed is like - unfinished.  Gotta get that window in and shoot - we could put left over hardwood flooring down.  Maybe string some outdoor twinkle lights in there and man, it's going to be sweet.  You know that this will be my space when she tires of it so I'm happy to spend the extra time and money on it.  :)

Fall Decorating

 The above "vase" is a little find from one of my favorite haunts called Edelweiss in downtown Prescott.  They have beautiful things at really reasonable prices - just love it.  The table their sitting on is a recovered wine barrel that was turned into a lazy susan.  We picked it up as our momento from Healdsburg this summer as we went up the California coast.  Love it.

I thought I would post a couple of pictures of the fall decorations that I've started putting out today.  The mantel is a collection of past years purchases and I love it!  It consumed all my fall pieces so I must go on the hunt for a few more.  I just love fall as you get to decorate for Sept-November!  And I think the Park House wears fall and Christmas particularly well.

Oh What a Mess!

I look around me and what do I see....a mess.  I am practicing patience because there are a ton of things half done around this house and it's starting to drive me crazy.  But, there is hope.  Things have gotten done.  Things are in progress as the following pictures document. 

The front room of the house is sunken and a little odd.  We've debated what to do with it and decided to turn it into something of a game room.  Sam got a game table for his birthday, which is pretty cool.  He loves playing ping pong on it right now - and he's pretty good.  I found the two chairs at Habitat and had them slipcovered in this great blue cotton fabric.  They're a little loose fitting but they look fine.  I think it would have been more cost effective to just have them reupholstered, but whatever, it's done. 

I got home and found my little green table had come to the end of it's life.  Sad.  So I tore it apart today and decided the back porch sitting area is still cute.  It still needs a side table, some fall plants in the planters and a small coffee table.  Now to get out and have a cup of tea and read a book there.

This is the couch before I had it slip covered.  I had it closing off the living room as I thought it made it cosier.  It definitely did, but maybe a bit too cosy. 

When I got home from my trip this summer, I awoke early in the morning (thanks to jet lag) and started moving furniture.  The couch looks great under the window and it doesn't seem to get as dirty as it did before.  The leather chair will be soon moving out to Balin's office but I have two more options for chairs that I need to pick up.  They too are getting slipcovers and I'm sure they'll look great in this room.  I'm thinking that I'll replace the rug in this room with a natural fiber rug with a thick pad underneath.  But then again, Yogi is still in his chewing stage so maybe I'll wait on that.

                                  
Here's a picture of the garage from the back porch.  The brick layer has started but he's moving as slow as molasses on a cold winter day.  Honestly.  Once the brick goes up, the shingles can be added - then the trampoline can be moved behind the garage and the shed in the back can be moved to the other side of the back yard....and we can get some order to this chaos.

The back yard.  The kids love the trampoline and so I love the trampoline. I just don't think it's a design asset.  Against the far wall of the fence I imagine the little shed (reconstructed a little bit to make it a super cute house for Perrin) with a back "sleeping porch" for Sam.  Where the trampoline is currently we're thinking about a large swath of artificial grass.  I know, artificial grass?  But look closely at the real grass - see the brown spots?  Keeping grass looking good is an annoying past time for those with much more patience than I.  Speaking of which, all that green lovely grass is going, going, gone.  In it's place we will create a living room and dining room, complete with fireplace. 

Yes, construction is everywhere. It's a mess.

The missing sections in the fence panels actually have wire that you can't see.  I am going to espallier apple trees on the fence.  The section in the upper left hand side of the photo is where my vegetable garden is going to go.  I hope to have this area pretty heavily planted this spring.  But for now...I can only dream.

The before picture of the garage.  Hopefully it's getting painted on Tuesday...then the electrician can come...then we can put the garage door in...then storage...then my car will have a home.

Balin's front room/kitchen.  Wait till you see the door he has.  I found it at Habitat.  It wasn't exactly cheap and it needed to be repaired, but I think it was worth it.  It's gorgeous.  More pictures coming next week on the progress of Balin's office.  It's going to be gorgeous.

The deck going to Balin's office.  Yogi likes the view.

The front yard survived without my presence this summer.  I must be doing something right.  My hope is to not be able to see the ground in the very near future.  And notice, I do have grass.  Just enough.  And it looks nice and I don't have to do anything with it. It stays.

The hydrangeas I planted this spring didn't die.  They didn't grow much but at least they're not dead.  After traveling through cooler climates this summer and seeing all the lush hydrangeas, I'm a little disappointed at the little guys.  Maybe if I repeat kind and loving words to them all winter they'll grow twice as big by next year.