living on love

treasures.

it seems like everytime ran & i come home from a walk we have little "treasures" in our pockets that we picked up along the way... some cool sticks, shells, rocks, sand, feathers, leaves.

sometimes they get put in a bowl or jar full of treasures from previous outings...

& other times they get used for various creative projects...

i love being able to walk through my house & see these little reminders of walks & adventures we have been on.

my favorite room.

i love my kitchen. not in a "i love to cook & bake" type way. its more of a "this feels cozy" love. its filled lots of vintage treasures, has three windows to let in lots of light, more than one person can fit in it (big improvement from our ny kitchen), & i usually spend a lot of time crafting at the bar.

one thing i discovered from our ny kitchen was that i like open storage. i was having a hard time adjusting to cupboards in this new kitchen so we picked up these organizing bars from ikea & now i have open storage right at my stove. it works out perfectly. it still totally complete yet though, we are going to add a magnetic board (also from ikea) in the spot right behind the stove to act as a back splash (& then i magnet cool things to it too).

theres kind of a little joke among us & some family about how we didnt bring our mattress with us when we moved, but we brought a fridge door. we still dont have a mattress & spend our nights on a blow up bed or the floor... im still happy with my choice. its one of my favorite vintage pieces.

you can see bits of my living room here.

jars.

this was the challenge for yesterday. lucky for me...it seemed like there was always a couple waiting for me to buy them at the thrift store when i lived in ny so i built up a little collection & vintage jars are one of my favorite ways to store various treasures & useful things.

my home: the living room.

as i finish "setting up house" in each room i really wanted to share photos of my favorite little bits. so far, only the living room is done although its always a creation in the process.

this metal sign is one of my all time favorite vintage finds, but i had never found it a home... now it hangs on my front screen & it makes me smile everytime i come home.

last fall i came across an amazing collection of vintage cameras... this is one of my favorites, an old film (as in movie film) camera that still has film in it. every once in a while we will "shoot" something with it & we dream of viewing it someday. i also love that small little ceramic shot glass that i picked up at at a little gallery one of rans former professors owns. i love the design & the colors.. sea foam green with a small amount orange.

we got the piece hanging on the wall, from the artists at nceca a few years ago. she was so friendly, super down to earth, & we loved her work. she made small vessels out of clay, then while the clay was still wet she put a couple of the vessels into a food saver bag & seal it up. it crushed the clay in all sorts of crazy ways as it vacuumed all the air out.  theres also a small collection of shells from la jolla & little jack troy cup.

this wall favorite part of the whole living room. we got the table for $5 at an estate sale in ny the first couple of months we lived there. on the table sits a cal style vintage ashtray, one of my favorites, a cute little lucky cat that waves its paw back & forth, & a collection of shells in a green vintage bowl that is sitting on a stack of vintage books including rip van winkle & aesops fables. on the wall i hung a large print of matisse's the beast of the sea & framed concert posters. sitting on the floor is an old school cello body, minus the neck.

clay drums. i love the colors & the design on them... & i like to listen to ran when he plays them.

on this very top shelf we put our collection of cool "science" glass, our large buddha (we have small ones in every room of our home), & print on a record i got at an art sale at su last spring.

new beds for the pets.

so ive seen pictures all over the internet of people turning vintage suitcases into pet beds & as soon as i saw the idea i knew thats what i wanted to do with my vintage yellow suitcases...

the ones i had seen on the internet had legs that had been attached to them & finally admitting to myself that putting legs on mine would never happen & that if i did pup would never sleep in it, i bypassed the legs & this is how they turned out...

i love how they turned out & it makes me laugh a little bit when i see them all snuggled in their suitcases. kitten little's bed is sitting on a vintage ottoman with a clear view of the front door so she can lay & watch the going-ons through the screen door. i put an old blanket that we never use anymore inside a vintage pillow case for the cushion, made a little pennant banner out of vintage fabric to hang across the top, & then pinned a couple cute pictures of her to the back. the pup's bed sits on the floor by a reupholstered vintage chair, i put her blanket in it, then added a little half circle garland & some clouds.

they were super easy to make & now our sweet animals can have a place of their own to nap in the main living area with out the look of a typical pet bed or just a blanket thown on the ground (thats what we used to have).

working hard for the money.

ran got a job at a brand new tapas sushi bar called the joint, that just opened up down on newport avenue which is the main street in ob. the owners are a couple of guys our same age, who he says are really cool & laid back... i guess anytime your schedule has an "ish" after your starting time you know your working for easy going people. he works in the back doing dishes, prepping food, & general cleaning. he says he loves it.

(doesnt he look so handsome? my favorite part is that little white tag by the pocket... it has a fork on it!)

the shift he has been working so far is 4-ish to midnight or so. when he gets off he calls me & then i grab the pup & start walking to meet him half way (he works less than a half mile from our house... so nice he doesnt have to drive!). the other night we were about to cross the street to our house & ran tells me stop & walking over in the street with him, i missed what he said & kept walking straight, so he tells me again to stop & come over in the street with him. i look up to see why he would tell me to stop & there is a little skunk sitting on the corner under the street light staring at us with his tail straight up in  the air... then the light turned off so we hurried & ran to the house before the little guy could travel to far. how horrible would it have been to run into him? i cant even imagine how smelly it would have been & then trying to get the smell of me & the dog?!? im so glad he was paying attention.

so now i have approximately 8 hours everyday to myself. im not gonna lie, i was a little excited to get a little "me time," but mostly im just pretty dang bored. it has been so long since i have been at home by myself (close to a year) that the first day he was gone i had no idea what to do with myself & ended up napping on the couch. now that ive had a few days to grow accustomed to all this free time ive found better things to do instead of napping (although i do love a good nap). ive been baking, trying new recipes, cleaning, crafting, & organizing. i finished the living room re-arranging that we started earlier this week, including hanging up curtains...

if you promise not to judge me ill tell you a little secret (please skip this part if you are judge-y)...

i got these curtains out of a dumpster. true story. at then end of the school year all the grads were cleaning out their studios & just putting everything they didnt want into bog 'ole garbage bags & tossing them into the dumpster. to make myself feel better, i want you to know i was not the only one looking through the bags... & there was really good stuff in there... hardly any garbage, just things people didnt want. the curtains still had their goodwill price tag on them too, so they were like new used-new... & i washed them before i put them up & look at how they match rans frank lloyd wright stained glass perfectly.

i have lots of other projects to share this coming week... more curtains, pet beds, some scrapbook layouts (gasp), dream catchers, & some others... im excited about them all!

p.s. ran came up with the title =)

a happy home: my home.

my new home is starting to come together so nicely. i love it! of course it will take months until it is all together... but we have a good start.

in the kitchen:

the studio wall of our bedroom:

the walls of the living room:

setting up house.

my stuff arrived from syracuse yesterday & im so so so happy to finally be able to start setting up house. this whole week & a half that we've been living in the house all i could think about was how i wanted to decorated it...

its still a huge chaotic mess with random things everywhere, but its starting to come together.

a happy home: curtains.

this is the ninth place we have lived in during our almost ten year marriage & the majority of those places were on the second floor... which in many cases eliminates the need for curtains. in our last place we only had curtains in the bedroom because it faced the street & we didnt want our neighbors across the street peeping in. ha! well since moving into our new place i am becoming obsessed with having curtains. we have blinds so its not like its a necessity, but i think it will make feel super cozy.

in my bedroom i want to use a big white sheet for the curtain so its really light, airy, & the sun can shine through. instead of a curtain rod i want to use drawer pulls like this...

image found on this delightful blog.

& i really want it to have big droopy drapes kind of like this, but even more extreme...

original source for imagine unknown

i have a walk in closet with no door on it. i was thinking about just putting a curtain across the whole thing, but i thought it would make the room look smaller so i was searching for another idea when i came across this idea...

image & tutorial found on this wonderful blog.

i am thinking of using thrift vintage sheets for the material & if i could find a vintage hanger like that it would awesome, but if not maybe one of those shorty curtain rods thats only like 12" long.

there is a backdoor in my kitchen with a little window in it that i want to make a tea towel curtain for & i am thinking about wax paper stenciling a yellow wood grain on it...

image found here.

ran & i are both pretty obsessed with this idea for the living room we just have to find the perfect branches...

image found here.

have you seen any cool ideas for window treatments? i want to see them!

a happy home: simple 60's

 

i am in l.o.v.e. with this home tour from apartment therapy. the first time i saw it i felt the same way i had felt when i toured a frank lloyd wright house. the style, the colors, the pieces, the textures. everything interacts so well together. it feels comfy, cozy, inviting, lived in, unique & happy... everything i want for my home.

if you head over to apartment therapy this is another home tour i really really like. especially the frame wall. oh just in case... if you have never been to aparment therapy, click on the home tour links i gave you in the post. it will take you to a little article about the house & then if you click on the "enter home tour" a little slide show will pop up with lots of pictures of the house (maybe its just me but for some reason i had a little trouble figuring that out. ha!)