Bruce

Click for a larger picture

Just a quick Bruce update. I didn't get a chance to take his monthly picture on January 1. So it's thrown off a month but he's still growing. He's at 11.5 pounds now (Lola stays consistent at 9lbs). They're both loving the new place. There are tons of windows to sit in and birds to watch.

I recreated the pics for this month the best I could. He's a monster!

House Tour-Ingrid

Name: Ingrid van Willenswaard
Location: Driewegen (a little village in the south west of the Netherlands)
Square footage: 225m2 (2,421sqft)
Years lived in: 2 years
Own or Rent: Own
My style: vintage, personal, handmade
Blog: www.ing-things.blogspot.com

What is your favorite found/ free item?
I love the vases from the seventies, which were made in West Germany. Not
completely for free, but when I find them in a secondhand shop, they
normally cost less than a euro, so thats almost for free.

What's your favorite purchased item?
The couch of Martin Visser (the BR 02.7), he designed it in the late
fifties. I wanted to buy the couch for over 20 years, but couldn't
because of a lack of space. It's a simple but beautiful design.
You can make a bed out of it if you want.

What has been your biggest obstacle in decorating/design?
The house is 10 rooms and is originally from 1698, it use to be the inn of the village, later it was a pub. It has very large windows and you can't place anything in front of them, that limits the possibilities.
On top of all, the house has a lot of space, and even though it shouldn't be
too full, I think its important that the house has a cozy and personal
feel to it.

Is your design style organic or planned?
Absolutely organic. I didn't have a plan when we moved here. At first I just used
the the furniture of our former house, and slowly I changed everything.
Most of the time, I just accidentally find something, from which I think
"thats exactly what I want." I regularly replace items because I feel
like a different mood or atmosphere.

What is your favorite spot in the house?
That must be the kitchen. It's a big kitchen, with a garden view.
This is the place where everything happens, cooking, drinking coffee, welcoming
people, etc...

How has your style changed in the past 5 years?
I am pretty sure I can say that I'm collector.
I love a lot of different things. Tableware, fabrics, special items. Our former house was pretty filled up, a lot of colours.
In the new house in Driewegen, its more empty, less color, just some little accents here en there. In the last two years I started replacing things with things from the sixties and seventies.

What is your favorite resource or store?
My favorite resource are the secondhand shops and flee markets. We live in
an area where you can find a lot of good vintage on the flea markets, most of the time the people who sell, have no clue about the value and that makes some very cheap shopping.
My favorite shop is Neef Louis in Amsterdam (vintage, industrial.)

What is your biggest decorating/design pet peeve?
We have two cats, so I keep finding white hairs everywhere. On top of that they like to sharpen their nails on the Martin Visser couch.

What has been your favorite design trend?
I like houses with a personal feel to them. A mixture of new stuff and beautiful design classics. You should be able to see that people really live in the house.
Not like the magazines like to tell us, but a house which tells the story of the owner.


What is the biggest influence on your design/decorating style?
I read magazines about design,and house decoration look at blogs about living and design.
Also the blogs of designers and crafters.
I also love DIY books from the seventies, I have a big collection.
It gives me ideas, but I always try to give it a personal twist, and do it myself.

What in your home dictates how you design/decorate?
The space itself, how is the feel of the space, what does the light do, what fits my character.

What is the simplest thing you have done that has made the biggest impact?
We painted the walls white, and we gave the floor a dark finish, which makes a good combination. What makes this house a home, are the personal and homemade items, which are simple and efficient.

all photos courtesy of homeowner. If you would like to have your home featured please send me an email or submit pictures of your home to the flickr group.

Handmade Friday.

This post is a testament to the importance of blogs and twitter. Since I discovered the Art-o-mat machines I've been following them on twitter. In September they tweeted a link to an artist who was working on some art for their machines.

I followed the link and was blown away. This amazingly talented artist, Deatra, was doing these incredible old Hollywood portraits in the miniature Art-o-mat format.

I immediately contacted her and commissioned my very own.

Amazing right? Marilyn was my very first girl crush and as I've grown up I realized that yes Marilyn was beautiful and a good actress (truly) but she was also incredibly flawed. One of my favorite quotes is from her : "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

 Deatra just captured a haunted look that Marilyn sometimes wore. I would love to get her to paint these in giant sizes someday.

Go take a look at her blog and her etsy shop (which is empty now but she's told me she's going to work on getting some stuff in there).

Things We Love-Christine's Pitcher

I found this cow milk pitcher at the thrift store a couple of years ago. It was made by Arabia of Finland and designed by Kaj Franck in the 60's. Though the cow looks kind of like it might be a bull, due to its pronounced horns, I'm pretty sure it's a female since it has an udder. It was the first piece of Arabia pottery I found at a thrift store and I was kind of shocked to find it there since I never find much Scandinavian pottery at the thrift stores near me. Once, at an estate sale, I found another smaller pitcher from the same line with a cat on it. But when I got it home and was washing all the years of grime off of it, I dropped in in the sink and it broke into a million pieces. Arabia also made chicken and butterfly versions of the pitchers, but the cows seem to be the most common.

I use my cow milk pitcher for water or juice when we have dinner parties. I've actually never used it for milk, but it would be super cute to use if we were having people over for brunch. The rest of the time it sits on top of our bookcases with the rest of my collection of mid-century pitchers and teapots.

-Christine

www.kraken.etsy.com/

http://krakencrafts.blogspot.com/

If you would like a treasured item featured on a "Things We Love" post. Email me or submit your photo to the flickr group.

First Project

We were without our stuff for four or five days. I can't really remember. This move has absolutely destroyed my brain. I mean there wasn't much to start with and this was just the last nail in the coffin.

So when we got here and Bob would go to work (he no longer works from home, first time in seven years) I would just sit here on the air bed and think about what was going to go where.

There is an open cabinet in the kitchen and I immediately wanted to paint it out. Our landlady, who is awesome, she loves Michael McDonald, The Isley Brothers and 50 Cent. She's into design and we have the exact same lamp. She paid $95 and I paid $7...anyway I asked her if I could paint it out, she said no but ok'd me putting fabric up. So with some spray glue and some fabric I completed my very first project in the new house.

You're going to be polite and ignore the fact it doesn't quite hit the bottom shelf and drapes a little on the top. Lovely no?

Check out the Skull Vodka. I saw that in Cecelia's Guest Post and had to get it. It's a "Luxury" (read expensive) vodka from Dan Akroyd and it's awesome. I mix it with Cranberry-Pomegranate juice and it's a yummy way to kill my remaining brain cells.

House Tour-Julochka

Name: julochka
Location: denmark
Square Footage: 200m2 (2,152sq ft)
Years Lived in: 9
Rent or own: own
Describe your style: colorful and eclectic - a combination of mid-century design classics and vintage finds
Blog/Website/Twitter: blog: moments of perfect clarity - julochka.blogspot.com and @julochka

What's your favorite free/found item?
a beautiful old husqvarna sewing machine


What's your favorite purchased item?
I'd have to say our Han J. Wegner wishbone chairs.

What has been your biggest obstacle in decorating/design?
everything takes longer than you expect when you're building an addition or remodeling your house - and I'd say that the waiting to get stuck in with choosing paints and fabrics is the hardest part.


Is your design style organic or planned?
VERY organic. My husband and I frequently throw out all of the ideas we thought we had about a project and rethink it completely. This drives our architect mad.

What is your favorite spot in the house?
My studio, hands down. It is the warmest, most inviting, more creative room in the house. There's something about it...possibly the color, that makes it perfectly conducive to creativity, laughter and good conversation.


How has your style changed in the past 5 years?
I think I've become more sure of myself and what I like and less influenced by magazines and what's "in." I'm more confident in my choices and I'd say they are increasingly colorful (hence the red Smeg refrigerator).

What is your favorite resource or store?
Flea markets, but will admit that we use Ikea for an awful lot of the basics.


What is your biggest decorating/design pet peeve?
Minimalism. I'm physically incapable of doing it.

What has been your favorite design trend?
The resurgence of mid-century modern pieces and mixing them with today's bright, contemporary fabrics.


What is the biggest influence on your design/decorating style?
The light in Scandinavia - summer light is amazing and winter light is elusive, so you find yourself thinking all the time about light.

What in your home dictates how you design/decorate?
The major pieces we have acquired over the years...dining table, Wegner chairs, the Smeg appliances in the kitchen. In our new home, we will design the new part of the house around an Aga. So, I tend to be influenced by the choice of one or two major pieces and everything else falls in around those.


What is the simplest thing you have done that has made the biggest impact?
Being bold with wall colors - daring to choose something different - a golden color in the kitchen, turquoise in the studio, red in the hallway. It has given our home a feel that seems uniquely ours.

Update

I've been lax in my blogging duties lately. Sorry about that. When the dust settles around here I'll get back on a regular schedule. Scout's honor.

In the meantime here's something to look at.

Bob found this awesome vintage Fleur light before we left Seattle (still in the original box. You can read about it here). Right next to it is an out of print Jonathan Adler vase that the movers broke and the Ikea PS cabinet that we lost they keys to in the move and they still haven't resurfaced.

Lucky for me the peeps over at Jonathan Adler had one vase left like mine in their SoHo store. Sadly for the movers they're paying retail for it.

Bridge of Glass

On the Saturday before we left Seattle Bob and I went to Tacoma and visited the Chihuly Bridge of Glass. If you're not familiar with Dale Chihuly you should check him out. He's an amazing glass artist from Tacoma, WA and he wears an eyepatch, awesome.

It was a gorgeous day and it gave me a chance to play with my new camera. It was freezing though, so cold it actually broke my phone. Can't say I'm going to miss that (both the phone and the weather).

The Bridge of Glass connects the train station, which has a large display of Chihuly's work and the Museum of Glass. Both were closed since it was New Year's Day but the bridge itself is worth going for. On the train station side is the Seaform Pavilion which is a large collection of glass pieces that imply sea creatures. They're all above you in a glass ceiling at the other end is the Venetian Wall which is a huge grid of vases and shapes all done by Chihuly.

We also saw a wedding party and the poor bride was in a sleeveless gown...no thanks.

The bridge has these two large "Crystal Towers" on them in shades of aqua. The Cone shaped building is the Museum of Glass.

The Seaform Pavilion

I took about a million pictures of the towers. I love the shades of aqua and at night they're lit up. They reminded me of those rock candies on stick.

The Venetian Wall

The Train Station

If you're in Seattle go see it. If you're visiting it might be worth the trip, you can also take the train there.

Finally, My New Home.

I've been looking everywhere for the camera usb cord and I just now found it!
Hurray!

Right now it's the little things making me happy. Moving is like boot
camp; it tears you down, breaks your spirit and rebuilds you into a stronger person. I've been all over emotionally and just now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and can't wait to return to a normal human being.


When we got here they were filming Law & Order LA right across the street. Skeet Ulrich was on our front lawn. Neat.

It's a gem of an apartment. Smaller than the Seattle House (sadly no basement or attic bedroom) but still no shared walls. This place has tons of character and charm.

So here it is empty (click on a picture to see it larger):

Living Room

Dining Room and Kitchen

 Bedroom

 Hall and Office

 Bathroom

It took four days for our stuff to catch up with us and when it did it was like an explosion of crap:

+

Before we left Seattle we did three or four Goodwill runs and right now I have three large boxes of donations and two for etsy/ebay. Bob made me a promise that next time we move I get to fly out and see the place so I can edit our belongings before we move. This is the fifth or six place we've rented by only seeing a handful of pictures. We've never had an issue doing it but it's a pain to not know what you need and what you can let go until you get there.

sigh...

I was hoping at this point I'd have it together enough to do a "Before" post of the new place.

Not so much.

The movers came today and it took me nine hours of unpacking to find the computer. It was in a box labeled "stereo and pictures" and was just kinda laying in there, no real wrapping or anything. I wish common sense was more common.


I do have some great pictures of the new place but lord knows where my camera cord is. As the week progresses I will try to keep the blog updated.


Thank you so much to all the guest bloggers! You guys did an awesome job.


Now back to my boxes...

Guest Post-Meg from Queenie Takes Manhattan

I live in a teeny, tiny studio, but I'm lucky enough to have something that many Manhattanites don't: a separate, eat-in kitchen. Of course, that kitchen is missing an essential thing: a window. The room is graced by nary a one, not even a sliver of glass looking out onto an airshaft. As a result, the space is cozy, but a bit dark. Having signed a lease renewal this week, I've decided it's time. Time to make the most of the space's small dimensions and dark coziness. I shall, I have determined, paint it navy blue.

 

This choice was inspired by several things, but first and foremost by Ruthie Sommers' similarly tiny kitchen. She painted it a dark grey and spiced things up with glossy white and teal accents. And if Ruthie can do it, so can I! I especially like that door, and am contemplating painting my kitchen cart a similar shade of turquoise.

I don't want to spend a ton of money on updating the space; after all, it's still a rental, and I'll still have to deal with a tiny stove and slightly-smaller-than-normal fridge. And so my plan is to paint the walls, keep most of the art (I love my vintage movie posters.), and update the rest with some cozy accessories. I'm lucky to have inherited a gorgeous but battered antique farmhouse table from my grandparents about five years ago, along with a set of classic, spindly black chairs. I think they'll look lovely against the navy, and the shot above convinced me that I can keep my antiques without seeming too old-fashioned. I also think the navy will actually make my dark-wood, super-'70s cabinets look just right, finally.

Ultimately, I'm hoping that the kitchen - in which I spend hours upon hours of my time baking, cooking and testing recipes - will become a place that makes me happy not just for what I do when I'm there, but because of how darn cute it is. I think I can do it over the course of a weekend or so - what say you? Want to join me for a painting party? I definitely need some tall folks to get above the cabinets...

-Meg

http://www.queenietakesmanhattan.blogspot.com/