Archive for July, 2011
Tea Time
I got into one of my weird rebellious moods (rebellious is a relative term for me) and decided to tea stain two pillow covers that we already have (originally from this cute Etsy shop). Oh yeah, I’m wild and ca-razy like that. I just figured it was an 100% free project and it would (fingers crossed) be an easy way to take two extremely stark-white (as opposed to warm white) pillow covers to a slightly creamier and off-white tone that would help them layer in more naturally with a slew of other off-white, cream, and even super light metallic bronze pillows that are currently living it up on Big Karl (our dark slipcovered sectional from Ikea).
I’m pretty keen on switching out pillows at the blink of an eye (so these guys could all end up in another room next month or even next week), but I figured it couldn’t hurt to make them all “compatible” – no matter where they’d end up living someday.
See how they stick out like sore thumbs overly-white squares o’ stuffing? In person they really made the others feel kinda dingy by comparison. Not a good look.
So I dipped them into a nice tea bath that I made thanks to three tea bags that I had on hand (one french vanilla and two regular old black tea bags) and some boiling hot water.
I just soaked the pillow covers with cool water first (a tip to keep the stain from absorbing unevenly) and then stirred them into my boiling hot tea cauldron. Bubble bubble toil & trouble, baby. I didn’t want them to get too yellowed and antique looking, so I just left them in there for about five minutes.
Then I gave them a quick run through the washing machine (with cold water to seal in the color and get rid of any excess tea)…
… and dried ‘em (tumble dry low) until they were almost 100% done (leaving them a little damp is a wrinkle relieving trick, since I’ve heard that allowing cushion covers to dry on the pillow instead of sitting in the dryer getting wrinkled can keep them looking better).
They weren’t 100% wrinkle free when they came out, but perfect is so 2010 anyway. Here they are now with their new creamy not-too-white undertones thanks to some free tea. They definitely still read as white, just not as blindingly white (think “normal person tooth colored” instead of “Ryan Seacrest tooth colored”). The whole shebang took me about ten minutes of actively paying attention and an hour or so to wash & dry them.
Now they “tuck” right in with the rest of their little pillow friends (they’re still some of the lightest tones, but they don’t make the other guys look dirty anymore). Hooray for tea.
Oh yeah, and see those two green zebra print pillow covers? The funny thing is that I’ve been sweating them (mom, that means crushing on them, which is the same thing as saying I really like them) since before we moved. I even stuck them into this just-dreaming mood board about our future living room last fall. So when they went on clearance for $19 (down from $34) with free shipping and an additional 15% off thanks to a coupon code (Take15) I couldn’t resist. Got ‘em both for half price ($17 a pop with tax). Not that I needed more pillow covers. Oops. Told you I have a pillow problem.
The irony of all of this pillow talk is that we spend 85% of our time on our cushy rug with the bean. Three cheers for something cozy underfoot. Or underbutt, as it were. But at night once Clara is asleep, we do sink into Karl, where we usually watch something weirdly morbid that we love (like Dexter, True Blood, or The Walking Dead – what’s wrong with us?) and all those pillows actually come in handy for things like: back support, reclining, keeping our laptops from burning our legs, tossing at each other when someone falls asleep, and squeezing during suspenseful/scary parts. Ah pillows, such useful items. Maybe I need more. Just kidding.
What have you guys dyed with tea? Any other West Elm shopping going on (pillow covers or otherwise)? Do you remember making fake tea-stained pirate maps with burned edges as a kid? Just me? Oh man, those were the days.
Psst- I’m a dork for dye. Check out how I dyed my wedding dress here and how I dyed some cheap-o slipcovers for our $25 craigslist chairs here.
Pssst- We announced this week’s random giveaway winner. Click here to see if it’s you.
It’s Already Time To Say Thanks Again?
**Psst- We know most Fridays we just post once, but today we’ll be back in a few hours with one of Sherry’s latest DIY undertakings. And it has to do with pillows. Nobody’s surprised, right?
July totally snuck up on us (where did June go?), which means that it’s once again time for our monthly thank you to our sponsors for keeping this ol’ blog up and running – and making our other 30-some posts possible. So picture us breaking out some leftover sparklers and writing “Thank You” in the air to everyone listed below (and to all of you at home who care to drop in on us too). As always, we’re sharing specific items that caught our eyes (and fulfilled our current craving for red, white, and blue). Not that we’ve been gifted anything (here’s our no-swag policy). And of course there are special discounts listed at the end of this post for all of you deal-loving mamma jammas. Happy Friday, y’all!
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- Curated lists of mom-errific summer fun (like table settings) on Dot Coms For Moms.
- The intriguing idea of “Wine Surfing” at Gourmet au Bay on the Sonoma Coast.
- Great wood toys from Franklin Goose, a local eco baby store that we’ve visited.
- An ocean grey glass subway tile backsplash from Design for Less. Yes please.
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- These Marsala pillows from Z Gallerie full color, pattern, and general swagger to spare.
- Basketweave tile with a cobalt twist found at The Tile Shop (Sherry just fainted).
- Classic striped rugs in six shades (including red, white, & blue) from Shades of Light.
- WallQuotes‘ Summer 2011 collection, including these fun chandelier decals.
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- Colorful and one of a kind greetings, stationery, and invites from Hoot Design Co.
- Custom 3D room designs from professional interior designers via My Design Guide.
- Heart & Stone Jewelry, who make their beautiful charms from recycled materials.
- The stylish and bright damask patterns available at Chic Shelf Paper (ooh la la).
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- Connecting with design experts like HGTV’s Tonya Williams over on Hometalk.
- Great vintage-inspired stuff from House 8810, like this Very Berry tablecloth.
- That CanvasRox goes beyond canvas with items like keepsake photo ornaments.
- This 1940′s American flag on Ruby Lane that only has 48 stars (Sorry HI and AK!).
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- Liberty Hardware, who reminds us that our hall bath could use some hanging storage.
- Celebrating the “rockets red glare” with this spacey creation from Cardboard Safari.
- Bright hues and subtle patterns found when searching FLOR‘s website by color.
- New recipe books from Freshline Illustration, available in custom color schemes.
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- Classic bedding options from P.C. Fallon (like this sharp looking argyle).
- Turning your kiddo into a mealtime superhero courtesy of Sarah + Abraham.
- Smock Paper‘s peacock design (it kinda makes us want to buy our 2012 calendar now).
- Royal Design Studio‘s stencil that found its way onto the latest cover of the BHG.
And now for the JUICY DISCOUNTS:
- Shades of Light: 10% off using code YHL0505
- WallQuotes.com: 15% off with the code YHL15
- The Tile Shop: 10% off when you use the code YHL10
- Freshline: 10% off any orders with the code YHL10
- Heart & Stone Jewelry: 10% off your purchase with the code YHL10
- My Design Guide: 10% off your purchase with the code YHL10
- Royal Design Studio: 10% off stencils with code YHL10
- CanvasRox: 10% off your order with code YHL10
- Hoot Design Co: 10% off custom orders with code YHL
- P.C. Fallon: $10 off orders over $75 with code YHL10
- Sarah + Abraham: 10% off orders with code YHL10
OBX Thrifting
For those not in the know (like me five years ago), OBX = The Outer Banks. Which is actually where John first took me for our one year anniversary of dating. Cue the collective aw. Anyway, now that we divulged some details of our recent Outer Banks trip this morning, we wanted to share all of the house-related stuff that we found while we were there. One of our favorite things to do when we travel is search for thrift stores, so I just did a quick hunt for “thrift” on my iPhone and it led us to Hotline Thrift (in Kitty Hawk – it’s a big pink store, you can’t miss it).
Which is where we found these two chunky pedestal bases for $40 (for both) along with a big tabletop. Not a bad deal if you grabbed them both and made two pedestal tables out of them (like we did way back when for our old sunroom). Of course you could paint them any color you’d like after adding one of those $40 ready-made 36″ tabletops from Lowe’s (like glossy white, moody gray, happy yellow, chippy turquoise, etc). Each table would probably factor out to around $65 when it’s all said and done (read more on a project like this here).
This cute desk lamp was just $4, and could totally look like something straight out of Pottery Barn if you spray painted it bright red, dark charcoal gray, or even something fun like lime green.
This Paris map was awesome. And we totally would have bought it if it wasn’t $200 (!!!). I guess the folks at this thrift store smartly googled it and learned it was worth a ton of money. It really was amazing.
Then I laid eyes on this relic from the past. Yes it is an Alf tray, and yes it was only $4. How did I ever leave the store without it – even if just as a gag gift for my brother. “Let’s do lunch! How about yours?” Oh Alf, you slay me.
Then there was this furry lamp. It looked like it was all stinky and musty… not that I leaned in to confirm. It’s so funny to realize that there was a moment in time that this was in fact considered stylish. Crazytown.
Then we found our way over to Hotline Thirft Too, which is basically their sister store in Nags Head, where we found this cute $4 fish tin (once again I can picture it spray painted for a fun modern take – maybe in bright turquoise or poppy orange and hung above the window of a kitchen sink). I think I have a spray paint problem. Sort of along the same lines as my pillow problem. Can’t. Stop.
Next we have the piece de resitance. An item so mystifying that you can’t help but scratch your head and giggle simultaneously. Ladies (and gentlemen?) I present to you, the oversized hairy nutcracker bear. He was literally over two feet tall. Have you ever seen anything like it? I just stood there transfixed – trying to make sense of the whole thing. In the end I couldn’t. What could this possibly mean?
While in Nag’s Head we also had some fun at Meme’s Antique Mall. The first thing to catch my eye were these awesome teal and red glasses (I’ve loved that color combo since the days of Domino magazine). They were $16 for the set (there were around 10 in the set) so definitely not bad.
Clara loved this cute $25 kissing giraffe art + frame (two words that she knows are “kiss” and “giraffe” – the latter of which cutely comes out as: “gee!”).
This industrial white stool was $29. Could be fun in a sleek bathroom pulled up to a clean-lined vanity for putting on the ol’ face every morning.
This old troll gal was $25, which made me want to drop to the floor holding my face. Why? I owned approximately 100 of them as a nine year old. And at $25 a pop, my collection would have earned me $2,500 if my mom hadn’t donated them over a decade ago. Who knew those would be worth something someday? Clearly not me.
This whale weathervane was a whopping $295, but it did make me wonder if someone could DIY one with an old piece of wood and a jigsaw (they could then attach it to a cheaper weather vane base).
This next store isn’t exactly a thrift store, but it was next door to one, so I ducked in. It was called Daniel’s Homeport in Kitty Hawk, and although nothing was as cheap as most thrift store finds (except for that $200 map!) there was some cool stuff.
Like this painterly flower guy ($62 with frame):
And this cool geometric picture frame ($40), which I definitely think could be DIYed with a stencil – or even freehanded if you’re fancy.
This honeycomb wine rack totally had me at hello (you know we have a thing for bees). At $40 we didn’t grab it, but I still remember it fondly.
This cool octagonal mirror was also something I thought could be homemade (hardware store wood and trim mitered and secured over a larger round mirror could recreate the look). So rustic and charming.
I know I’m weird, but I thought this octopus pillow ($37) was the bomb diggety. And yes, I’m cool enough to use that term, circa 1995.
I was also in love with these hook & loop pillows ($50 each) thanks to their bold designs and fun subjects. A little too spendy for a cheap girl like me though. Even with my pillow problem. But I could see them in someone’s hip LA crash pad- like, I dunno… Selena Gomez?
We also ducked into Kellogg Supply Company (right near our rental house) and spied this hilarious version of Monopoly. Burger was chuffed.
Amazingly enough, we left empty handed (well, we did grab a post card to send to ourselves, per our tradition). And my ten year old niece Olivia and I got $2 friendship bracelets. BFFs for life, yo.
Do you like to go house shopping on vacation? Is there ever room for anything in the car anyway (ours was pretty packed)? Did you also have dozens of troll dolls as a tween? Did you name them all and line them up in the window so their hair got faded on one side? Yeah, me neither.
Duckin’ Out To The Beach
What’s the perfect cure to a paint and primer hangover? A trip to the beach. And what’s the perfect way to spend your fourth wedding anniversary (yup, today’s the big day)? Why sharing those beach photos of course (since we’ve pretty much covered our wedding/anniversary stuff in the last three years of Wedding Week). Off we go…
In honor of the long holiday weekend, we said goodbye to our freshly grellow-ed kitchen and hello to sand and sun thanks to a little road trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We usually do the beach thing in Delaware at my parents’ place, but since my siblings, cousins, and I insist on having babies and expanding the family (the nerve) we’ve outgrown it a bit. So instead we all pitched in to rent a place in Duck, NC where all 21 of us – which included five kids under the age of two! – could clock some nice family R & R. Well, as much as you can clock with five babies around…
Even if rest was limited, fun certainly was not. Clara and the beach continue to become BFFs – she was equally happy in the sand and the surf, which made her water-lovin’ mom and dad very happy. We found a sandbar that kept the waves calm and the water shallow enough for lots of time in the water (most of which was spent “jumping” waves and laughing hysterically).
The house we rented also had its own private pool in the backyard (as did all of the homes on our street – which was really nice) so there was lots of calm water play going on away from the beach too. Clara has recently learned to say the word “ball” so she was thrilled when my aunt supplied a huge bag of them to hoard play with in the pool. They seriously are her new most favorite things in the world.
Except for some crazy humidity, the weather was generally great the whole time. And we used the only overcast day as an excuse to visit the Wright Brother’s Memorial in Kitty Hawk. It was surprisingly fascinating to walk around the grounds where the first flight actually took place (even for two non-aviation buffs like ourselves). There’s Sherry sitting on a stone to mark where the first flight ended after just 12 seconds and 120 feet (the stones behind it mark three other flights that day, the last and furthest being 852 feet and 59 seconds long).
Oh, and there I am standing in front of part of the monument that seemed, well, fitting. Just look at my smarty pants pose.
And did you notice the ball that Clara was holding in the pic above? Yeah, it’s a bit of a theme this trip. She extended her new found love of spherical objects to balloons as well. My sister Emily and my cousin’s daughter Elsa celebrated a shared birthday during our trip, so Clara broke out her party dress and went absolutely bonkers watching the balloons float around while grandparents and aunts and cousins looked on. We have about twelve more photos just like this.
If you’re still itching for more beach photos, we’ve got a bunch more on Flickr. And while we secretly hoped our beach house would be worthy of a House Crashing post (like these), it was sadly pretty generic. And understandably so (since not-too-precious rental decor seems to make the most sense – especially when 5 babies and 16 older kids/adults come flooding in and make themselves comfortable). But one design choice that did catch our eye was this fun shaker shingle treatment in the interior stairwell:
It mimicked the shaker shingles on the exterior of the house and served as sort of a beachy twist on wainscoting. Probably not a look that we could pull off in our own house, but it was right at home in this seaside setting:
And since our beach house didn’t fulfill our design cravings for the trip, we headed out to troll some local thrift stores and home furnishing places while we were there. Let’s just say there were lots of things that we wanted to bring home… and then there was a giant curly haired bear nutcracker (we’ll be back with a post about those finds a little later on). For now we’ll leave you with the first photo of all four of us that we’ve ever taken. As in since Clara was born. Shame, shame, shame.
Only took us 13.5 months to accomplish.
Anyway, has anyone else hightailed it out of town after a big slash tiring house project? Did you pick up any souvenirs for your home while you were gone? Did your kid develop a strange ball obsession while there? Did you finally take a family picture after waaay too long?
A Not So Quick Fix
Between patio building and kitchen makeover-ing, Sherry and I like to “treat” ourselves to a few quick and easy projects that keep the ol’ morale up and allow us to catch our breath (so we don’t burn out or throw things at each other). And one fast & easy job that we’ve had planned for a while was swapping out the fixture in our guest bathroom for something more us.
There was nothing particularly wrong with what was there, per se – but it was a bit more traditional than we’d pick ourselves (so we figured donating it to the Habitat For Humanity ReStore would give it a second life while we upgraded to something that felt more our style). At first we considered just replacing the shades for a quick mini makeover, but the big and chunky back plate (which was as wide as the fixture itself) wasn’t really doing it for us either.
Here’s a more straight on shot of it, which was impossible to take without getting my whole body in the mirror. On the other hand, if I had just removed my shirt I could have done my dead-ringer Jacob From Twilight impression (note: to those unfamiliar with my shirtless physique, this is a joke).
Anyway, back to our lighting situation. Here’s the new light that we picked up at Lowe’s a few weeks back. It’s one of those fixtures where you can choose from an assortment of covers to sort of “customize” the look. We’ve always been fans of seeded glass, so Sherry snagged these two covers (which are more seeded and textured than this photo really depicts). The total was around $25.
First I had to remove the old fixture. Which was clearly very tightly affixed to the wall. Not. After removing just one of the glass covers the entire thing tipped sideways from the weight of the remaining cover. Awesome.
Anyways, it came off smoothly and I was left with this beautiful site:
Did I mention I turned off the breaker to the entire house before I started? That’s how Captain Careful rolls.
Attaching the new fixture was nothing special – I just connected a few wires (I usually just mimic how the old fixture was connected, taking note as I remove it and duplicating the setup with the new one). Once the fixture was wired and screwed into the wall (about a five minute process), I eagerly readied the wall for its debut. I scrubbed off some of the marks from the old light…
… and screwed on our favorite part of the new light: the seeded glass bulb covers that Sherry picked out separately for a little flair (you could pick from frosted, clear, seeded, and even colored or fluted options).
But when we stepped back and looked at it, something was off. Do you see what we saw?
All we could focus on was how giant and incredibly conspicuous those plastic threads were above the bulb thanks to the choice of the seeded glass cover.
Some of you might think we’re crazy for fixating on that, but it was totally bothering us that the sleek brushed nickel fixture and charming seeded glass covers were interrupted by those big bands of plastic. To us, it made the whole thing look kinda cheap (even though it kinda was, we didn’t want it to look that way). So we were bummed because we otherwise liked how it looked (and briefly considered trying to paint them silver to match but decided that we didn’t want to settle).
Sure frosted covers could have solved the problem, but the whole draw of this fixture was that we could go with the seeded covers that we love (we had one hanging above our kitchen sink in the old house so I guess we were feeling sentimental). Not wanting to stop short of a fixture that we 100% loved, we darted back out to a few lighting places to find a replacement.
This time we had a new direction in mind (anyone else think of Glee when I said “new direction”?). Having been inspired by Lady Bower’s new bathroom fixtures and some of the exterior ones that we already have (seen here and here), we thought we’d go for something a bit more industrial slash retro. The guest bathroom already has that vibe going on with the vintage yellow tile and the old school floating sink anyway. So this is what we came home with, courtesy of the outdoor lighting section of Home Depot (for 29 beans):
With new light in hand, it was time for take two of our light fixture replacement adventure. Which, of course, started by undoing our first attempt and carefully repackaging it so we could return it. And getting a “take two” hand signal from the wife in the mirror.
At this point the scene outside of the bathroom was starting to look a bit like this:
Another 5-or-so minutes later, this puppy was up and the power was back on.
I know he looks a little funny since the rest of the room is so unfinished. But our new light actually gets us excited to let the industrial-ish vibe inspire some other choices in the bathroom (we still need some art, paint on the walls, and possibly a mirror tweak among a few other touches to make it all come together).
Plus, how’s this for a nice bonus? The glass cover is seeded glass. We didn’t even know that from looking at the display in the store or the picture on the box. Total bonus. Like it was meant to be or something.
Actually, speaking of the glass cover – the one thing we weren’t so sure about was the wire “cage” around it. We thought it was kinda cool, but maybe a bit too industrial for our comfort zone at the moment.
So we decided to take it off – just for the time being (since it easily snaps into place – or out of place if you want to remove it).
For now, we think we prefer it the cageless way, but who knows how we’ll feel down the line as we bring more art/paint/accessories into the room and it really starts to take shape. We’re definitely only about 2% done in here. More to come.
And thus ends the tale of our not-so-quick, quick fix. All in all I think it took us around three hours (driving included) so it wasn’t that bad. But we thought it was going to be one of those five minute things. Of course it probably would’ve been a little faster had I not been taking pictures of myself in the mirror every five seconds. Look, I put a filter on this one. You know, because everything looks more gangster with a filter on it.
And yes I am wearing my Dr. Pepper shirt. How you like me now?
Have you guys ever had projects that were supposed to be quick turn into a little something more? Don’t you hate climbing back into the car to grab something that you never anticipated needing? Does your grandma have a sugar bowl that reminds you of the original shades of the fixture that we replaced?
Mine and Sherry’s both totally do.
