Stuff We Bought
What Up, Succa?
Yes, that is a succulent pun. And no, I’m not proud of it.
I’m sort of on a greenery kick (both outdoors and apparently indoors as well), so this is the story of four cheap-o succulents that I impulse-bought from Home Depot and then decided to plant in kind of a weird way.
The two small ones were $2.98 and the two middle ones were $3.98 a pop. Oh and I used to have a red cactus for years throughout middle school and high school. Seriously, I couldn’t kill that thing if I tried. So that’s why he’s in the mix for nostalgia’s sake.
Then I hunted around or some planters or baskets or old boxes to plant them in (Anthrophologie had some great succulents planted in old wooden boxes with pebbles around them and they looked super cool). Then my entire idea sort of shifted when I came up empty on boxes (and didn’t happen to have any cool white pebbles around either) but laid eyes on these old vases just sitting around in my cabinet.
How weird would it be if I planted them in something see-through? Probably pretty weird, but I’m ok with weird. Heck, I embrace weird. I paused to worry for a second that they wouldn’t have any drainage in these glass containers, but I realized that the ceramic pot that my wouldn’t-die red cactus from high school didn’t have any drainage holes (nor do any of the white Ikea plant pots that we have around the house) so I went for it. But they clearly needed more dirt.
So I went outside with a spoon (yes, a spoon) and used it to scoop some more dirt into my transparent little vessels. The verdict: I think they look pretty cool!
I mean, people mulch their gardens for a cleaner look, right? I think the dark brown tone of the dirt looks so pretty against the green of the plants. Plus a lot of our surfaces are white (and nearly all of my plant pots are white) so maybe my eyes just appreciate the contrast (my eyes are such rebels).
As of now two of them are hanging out in the hall bathroom (on the white counter, which definitely makes them pop) and one of them is on the white fireplace mantel in the kitchen (my little red cactus, since he’s quickly becoming my favorite for sentimental reasons). I’ll have to snap a picture of them in their new homes for ya soon. Although plants and pillows tend to migrate a lot around here, so they might pop up somewhere else next week anyway.
Have you ever planted something in sort of an unorthodox way? Or owned a red cactus in high school that straight up refused to bite the big one, even when you forgot to water it for months?
The Big 3-0
A bunch of you have been asking how turning thirty was for me, so I’ll take a break from painting something (yes, there is paint going on a formerly untouched bathroom wall! wahoo!) to admit that Monday was a really nice day. So far thirty is all good. And I don’t feel a day over 29. Hah. My theory is that every birthday sort of feels like not much has changed since I wake up feeling the same way I did the morning before. By comparison, I always feel older when life events happen (graduating college, getting married, having a baby) but for some reason a birthday to me is just a fun day when I get to eat too much dessert. Which I most certainly did this time. So here’s the play by play.
I woke up to a kitchen that looked like a big ol’ present.
John had strung ribbons around it like the prettiest spider web I ever did see:
Is he a man or what? I love a guy who isn’t afraid to get his ribbon on in the name of birthday madness.
John also secretly picked up my favorite lunch ever: pastina (although it never says that on the box, so maybe that’s just what my Italian mom calls it). It’s basically tiny little pasta stars that you make and then add butter, milk, and salt. I used to eat it after school growing up and it always feels like a treat when John remembers that I love it and surprises me with some.
It was the first time Clara ever had it, and she LOVED it. That’s my girl.
We worked a normal day, except that we decided to unplug a few hours early (at 5:30!) and head over to Stonypoint, which is an outdoor walking mall here in Richmond. John said since we’re always too full to make it to dessert that he thought we should get dessert before dinner, to ensure that we had room. It was really cute and he told me to pick any restaurant I wanted and it actually became this tour of reading every dessert menu and picking the one that sounded the most amazing…
… which ended up being this trio of strawberry cheesecake, brownie, and gooey cookie topped with caramel from Champs. And yes, at the same moment John and I busted out laughing because we realized that the bowls looked like the chairs from The Voice. Yes, I might have even turned one around while singing “this is the voice.” And the waiter might have seen me. So you’ll be pleased to know that I’m not any more mature or less embarrassing in this new decade that I’ve entered.
Of course we ducked into Anthropologie, which I love to peruse just for all the creative ideas that they have going on with displays (check out the awesome burlap upholstery webbing that they used to create a woven wall behind Clara in the picture below).
But enough talk about the background. How cute is my kid in the foreground? Love that girl. She actually sang happy birthday to me about seventeen times, so it was extra sweet. I even got some encore presentations on Tuesday and Wednesday, which never failed to make me grin like a fool.
Along with a card full of sweet nothings from the hubby and cute scribbles from the bean, John got me this book called The Happiness Project that I’m already loving. The first chapter is all about paring down and I swear it made me want to drop the book and go all organization-crazy in my house. So beware, there might be some cleaning/organizing/basket-related madness going on along with the landscaping, bathroom, and deck-building plans that we have on the list.
He also got me this sweet ceramic elephant box (you know I can’t resist a sale, so I actually sent the link to John with a wink and a mumble about someone’s birthday…). John also surprised me with a gift card for a massage at my favorite place (he gets me one every Mother’s Day, and I must have raved about that annual tradition so much that it might have become a semi-annual thing – wahoo!). Momma’s still got some knots from laying a bunch of cork flooring, so it’ll definitely come in handy.
Then after we tucked Clara into bed, instead of DIYing something or flopping on the couch to size photos and write posts, John made me my favorite dinner: a chicken and leek stroganoff recipe from Jamie Oliver (I know it sounds gross but it’s the most delicious thing ever). We ate it outside on the patio with candles to the sound of the rustling wind and the baby monitor that we brought out there with us. Haha. It was great.
Over dinner, we got to talking about how much we love this house, and if we think we love it as much as our first house (our first love! our first baby! that house was our everything for a very long time). The verdict: yup…. but it’s a tie. We will always have a place in our heart for that first home of ours, where we got married in the backyard and brought Clara home. But I think it surprised us to realize how much our hearts swell when we think about this house too. Especially because it didn’t feel nearly as warm or cozy as our first house at first, but it definitely does now. It was a fun chat because the conversation also turned to us brainstorming things we can’t wait to do (as it tends to do at least once a week, haha). I guess we get love by giving love, so talking about all the ways that we want to show our house some love fills us with excitement and makes us love it even more.
All in all it was an amazing thirtieth birthday and I have so much to be thankful for. I love my hubs, my bean, and my pooch for making me feel so special along with all of you who sent such sweet birthday wishes my way. I know I get mushy on you guys a lot, but you really are the best. I’m so happy to share my house, my thirtieth birthday, and my random little DIY life with you.
Psst- You can check out John’s big 3-0 here, Clara’s first birthday here, my last birthday here, and Clara singing her unique rendition of happy birthday here.
For Our Viewing Pleasure
I’m not sure any of you have noticed, but we have a tiny TV. Well, some of you have definitely noticed because you keep laughing at us and commenting about how overdue we are for a bigger one. And as the resident man of the house, I have to say I agree. Our little 26-incher made sense in the old house, where our den was so narrow that I could practically change the channel with my toe…
But now that we have a bit more space in our current living room (we actually miss the cozy-ness of our first living room, but love having extra room for Clara to play/run around), the phrase “we really need a bigger TV” gets uttered anytime a subtitle pops up, a news ticker rolls across the screen, or we have anyone over to watch a movie with us. Yeah, we can’t read those things without standing up and walking halfway across the room. But a new TV is something we’ve just been putting off and putting off, which is surprising considering how much TV we watch.
But ever since we got the tip that February and March were the best times to buy a TV (supposedly these post-Christmas, post-Super-Bowl months are the television industry’s slow season, and when demand is low, prices can drop) we’ve been waiting for the right moment to seize the day and just upgrade already. And after a bit of research, a bit of chatting with my brother-in-law Martin (who went through a vigorous research process of his own a few months ago), and a bit of price checking – we narrowed it down to these two TVs – a Vizio and a Samsung, both sold at Target:
They’re both LCDs, both 1080p, and both in the neighborhood of 40″. They were also both eco models that only cost $17 a year to run, so they’re very low on the energy scale (the lowest we saw was $15 a year for a costs-double LED). The around 40″ size wasn’t any magic number that we calculated, it’s just what we arrived at after discussing that we wanted something big, but not crazy-big (and when we held up a tape measure at home, it felt right). Both had 4+ star reviews on Target, Amazon, Walmart and a few other sites that came up on our Google search. Any idea what we ended up choosing?
Naturally, we went for the $100 cheaper / 2″ larger Vizio. But that $449.99 wasn’t our final price. You know us and our coupons…
The reason we wanted to buy our TV at Target was:
- They were having a temporary price cut – taking it from $479 to $449
- We have a Target credit card, which gives us 5% off every purchase – knocking it down to $427
- Target randomly sent us an “additional 5% off all HDTVs on top of the 5% for using your card” coupon (I think coupons like these go out to Target cardholders) – shaving it down to $406
- We had a couple of leftover Christmas gift cards, which left our final out-of-pocket cost at $356
Which isn’t bad considering our much tinier TV was purchased for about that much five years ago (we think that old TV will either go into another room or get craigslisted). So after 15 months of staring at our too-small TV and saving up/stalking sales, we brought that baby home. And Burger couldn’t have been more excited to watch… the news? Seriously Vizio? You thought this lady was the most exciting graphic to show on your box? Can’t a guy get an exotic underwater scene with fish and coral in all colors of the rainbow? Or at least a charging bull or a running horse or something with a little speed/excitement?
Before we set it up, we wanted to try to capture exactly what sort of an upgrade we were making. So here’s a pic of our old TV:
Ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s a bit exaggerated because this is a small picture of a small TV, but you get the idea. So we broke out the new guy just for comparison’s sake. It’s starting to look a bit better, right? It’s also starting to look like we’re gonna need a bigger media console too (we’ve been planning to build something from scratch or retrofit something from the thrift store, so we’ll keep you posted).
Here’s that view from the couch with the new TV on. Hey look, now you can actually tell that we were watching Cougar Town now! As in, all of the letters are readable now (again, this isn’t a life sized photo, it’s a small picture of a TV across the room, so in person it’s a lot bigger and reading small things like the subtitle are now no sweat). Whew.
Oh and we tethered it to the wall with a wire that came with the TV along with a screw and heavy duty anchor (we may eventually mount it on the wall, once we figure out what’s going on under it so we can determine the height, etc). But for now this will at least keep it from tipping.
Hopefully this is just the beginning of updating that whole area of the living room. We definitely think it needs a bigger piece of furniture – preferably with more storage and a bit more height – to ground our big new TV friend. But until then, we’re just happy to give our squinting muscles a break… and of course we’re happy to have the Cul De Sac Crew back in our lives.
Is anyone else making any television upgrades lately? Or just watching some good TV? Now that the book shoots are done, maybe we’ll actually have time to watch the boob tube again! So much catching up to do. But you know we’re up to date on The Walking Dead so nobody spoils that for us. Haha.
Closet Affairs
Looks like I’ve once again been wrangled into one of Sherry’s schemes. This time it’s her “Dude, Get On That Already” challenge (apparently the “dude” applies to me also) where she’s trying to actually do something with some of the items that we’ve been collecting hoarding in our spare room. It’s a use it or lose it challenge if you will (well, more like a use it or donate/craigslist it challenge). This week’s victim: the light fixture that we rescued from a thrift store in Delaware nearly an entire year ago for a mere $19. That guy just sat on the floor of the playroom since then, and it was high time we actually allowed him to do the whole illumination thing again.
He’s made of some sort of resin and basically looks like a big glowing ball of clear spaghetti… but in a cool, kinda ’70s way. Update: we’ve learned form a savvy reader that it’s actually called a spaghetti lamp and it’s made out of spun lucite. Our plans back in Feb 2011 were to ORB the gold finish and hang it in our master bathroom nook. Fast-forward to now and the plan has shifted slightly. Instead, we’ve given him a new home in our closet.
The closet seemed to be the better choice because (1) the bathroom nook is visible from the bedroom and we figured this big round fixture might compete visually with the other big round fixture in the room. And (2) the bare bulb in the closet was Yawn City.
Ahh, much better:
We got on that! Oh happy day! Gotta love using what you have and upgrading a naked old ceiling bulb. We’ll dive into more light-related details in a second, but there were some other closet happenings that went on as well…
When you last saw our closet a few months after we moved in April, it was looking mighty clean and organized.
These days, well, let’s just say it had gotten a bit derailed thanks to a certain chihuahua we all know and love.
It’s actually unfair to place the blame solely on Burger. Sure moving his crate into our closet from the playroom closet meant our laundry basket got displaced from it’s nice little nook. But Clara was actually the main reason for the move. We too often found her playing with Burger’s food, water, and crate – much to Burger’s dismay – so we decided to tuck it away in our room where she doesn’t go that often. For some reason Burger enjoys small spaces, so he feels most comfortable with his crate and even his food/water tucked away in a closet or nook (it’s just dry food, so there’s not any odor and we thankfully don’t have any ants/pests that bother it). So after a year of nook deliberating we declared our closet: The Best Nook For The Job.
To make a long story long, even though this project started because of a light – we couldn’t ignore the other less-than-satisfactory situations going on in here too. And fortunately there was an easy answer. See how much spare room I’ve got on my side of the closet?
Unlike the lady wife, I don’t use my entire shoe rack left here by the previous owners. Yes, I know, I’m such a typical guy – I have one pair of brown shoes and one pair of black shoes and my flip flops and sneakers live in our shoe bins by the door. Meanwhile, on the other side of the closet, Sherry has enough shoes for the both of us. Not that I wear hers. I actually don’t think I could walk in any of them.
So after a bit of couple’s brainstorming (aka: Sherry encouraging me to allow Burger’s crate to pilfer some floor space from my side), I plucked out my shoe rack. And after completing the exhausting task of removing both pairs of shoes from it (sheesh, talk about backbreaking DIY) we got down to business.
Sherry pried it apart and I cut down the two long shelves by about 14 inches and…
…we nailed it back together, thereby creating a John-shoe-collection-sized rack.
And the smaller rack made space for Burger’s crate in the corner. So we’re glad we got on that. Why it took us 13 months of living here, I’m not sure.
But you know what, I really should let Burger give you the tour – since it’s kinda his domain. And yes, this means this post is about to be pretend narrated by a dog.
“Welcome to my bedroom people of the Internet!”
“Here you will find that my crate has been replaced by a clothing receptacle. Apparently my family finds it more important to have their dirty clothes closer to them than their beloved canine.”
“But that’s okay, because now I get more privacy back here in my master suite. Hello? Do you see me here in the back giving you the peeper?”
“Conveniently located next to my sleeping chambers are the dining facilities. Why thank you for asking – yes, I do live the life.”
“Speaking of my delicious cuisine, allow me to indulge myself for a moment.”
“Actually, I’d much prefer my culinary assistant to hand feed me right now. Oh tiny human! Come hither!”
Okay, tour’s over. It’s John again. That Burger’s feisty, isn’t he? Anyways, you can see above what we mean when we say that Clara likes to get into his food (don’t mind the sticker covered monkey/sock/floor). It’s not the worst thing that she likes to feed Burger his food piece by piece… if only she didn’t feel the need to swirl each piece around in his water dish first. She gets her strange-ness from her mother I think.
Anyways, this post was supposed to be about a light, right? Sidetracked much? Back to that…
Installation was pretty easy. We cut the plug/cord off and exposed the wires to make it hardwire-able. Then we picked up a kit at Home Depot that would allow us to attach the chain to a crossbar (though we had to hunt down a canopy at a specialty lighting store that would fit). We left everything gold because we figured since it was in the closet it didn’t have to match the other fixtures in the room, and we kinda dig the retro gold look for the closet. We can always paint it down the line if we get “the bug” but for now we like him just the way he is.
The room isn’t really this dark with the light on, I just turned down the exposure on the camera so you can see the texture of the light a bit better. And these pics don’t even do it justice. It’s super cool looking when it’s on. Sherry actually wants to make a video since she says it’s so much better in “real life” so you have that excitement to potentially look forward to…
One of the coolest parts are the little streaks of light it casts all over the wall and ceiling. Like little party streamers or something. We almost feel like we should have installed some mechanism to make it rotate like a disco ball. Okay, not really. But that could’ve been fun…
It’s kind of a shame that the light spent nearly 12 months in a pile in our playroom. But at least it’s hanging up in all of its glory now! Oh and as for how we figured out the right height for it, I just stood under it as Sherry hung it at different heights and we picked one that gave me a little room – so it hangs around 6’4″ from the floor (our ceilings are 8′ high).
Oh, and if you’re at all curious as to what happened to all of the excess chain that we didn’t use (it had like 8 feet for swagging) – you can see Clara get her Jersey on with it over at Young House Life today. And yes there’s a video. And fist pumping. Predictably, I’m mortified and Sherry’s elated.
So did any of you guys cross something off your “Dude, Get On That Already” list this week? Did you reorganize a closet or otherwise rope your husband into a challenge? How about ghost writing a blog post for a chihuahua? Just me?
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