Plant Stuff

I got a head start on plant tinkering. I know it's the middle of winter and most my plants are in hibernation, blah blah...but the days are getting longer and I'm a glass-half-full kind of gal.  To start, I divided up my spiny aloe (above). The thing grows in crazy clumps and thought it would look really beautiful by its lonesome. Mission accomplished. 

 

 I found this Arabia metallic black pottery planter recently. I wish I could say the cactus (Cholla??) was not new, but it is.

I've been working at my Jade bonsai. This is probably my neatest, best-kept plant. For a long time, it was bushy with clumpy masses of leaves everywhere. After a serious pruning last summer and periodic plucking, it is looking quite beautiful.

 Instead of using my adorable metal snail votive holder for it's intended purpose, I stuck an air plant in him! In love.

My Etsy shop will be back up and running in the next week or so. Here's a teaser:

New Year, New Projects

 I've been terrible about keeping up with my blog--apologies and excuses. Anyway, as much as Matt and I have accomplished on our house (see past posts) there's more! Our priority has been getting the living areas livable and saving the upstairs master bedroom for this very moment. Exciting, I know. 

 We've broken the project down in 3 parts. 3 parts in 3 months. Sounds do-able. First is to paint. Call me crazy, but the pink is quite ugly. We've chosen a nice earth-tone which will be a welcome change to the all-white downstairs. 

Part 2 will be to remove the horrid ceiling tiles and replace them with some type of wood. We'll know when we see it, but I'm thinking some kind of salvaged hardwood. We're going for a very warm, architectural- modern feel. 

Finally, if all goes to plan, new flooring will go in. 2/3 of the large room will serve as sleeping and closet area while the front 1/3 will be a place for low book cases and a reading nook. We will delineate these spaces with a low-pile carpet in the bedroom area and a cork or hardwood in the lounge area. 

Last will be finishing touches like putting in baseboards, trim around the windows and something to separate the closet from the bedroom, like a Shoji screen or more bookcases. 

The area to the right of the chimney will serve as a spacious
walk-in closet.

I almost forgot the chimney. After painting and before doing the ceiling, we have plans to knock off the drywall covering the chimney to expose the brick underneath. Why cover real brick with fake, I will never understand. Depending on what it looks like, I'd like to paint the brick white. What? I love white. 

Overall, I expect the upstairs to be fairly easy compared to the rest of the house. We don't have floors to refinish, endless hours of paining, and disgusting messes to clean up. Just installing NEW stuff. 

Ok, that was a lot of ugly you had to look at. Here are some nice things to soothe your eyeballs.

This may be my favorite little corner of the house. I have two epiphitic cacti hanging
in a bright window over the kitchen table along with our perfect pendant lamp
and my beloved "yarn painting"

The kitchen cabinets look amazing with my DIY handles. 

Eames chair deserves its own nook

I've discovered that hanging a small textile on the sides of
our Ikea Expedit bookcases adds so much warmth and texture
to the whole thing. 

I found this hand-woven trivet at a thrift store (shocking, I know). It adds
nice visual interest above the sink.