Wednesday, December 14, 2011

"When snow falls, nature listens." -Antoinette van Kleeff


I got hit with snow again as soon as I had some days off. I won't be posting Window Wednesday or Thrift store Thursday this week. On top of two jobs and a very hurt shoulder, I have been taking a little time off to sleep and heal. I am hoping that next week I will be back it. I do have some heavy holiday work hours coming up though. I am sure as soon as the holidays pass I will have more time to be keeping up on my weekly blogging. Thank you so much for being patient and following along with me. 
I am at peace with my blogging and proud that I am doing it. I am a little discouraged by the work load and weather but am not stressing about it. I have plenty of time and plenty of motivation for my blogging future! 
Thanks again! See you next week. 


Monday, December 12, 2011

"Man, it could never be uptown. It's bound to be downtown." - Frank Sinatra 'This Town'

Movie Monday!!!



Today's movie is Matchstick Men (2003) directed by Ridley Scott. AWESOME MOVIE! I picked this one because I had remembered that a lot of the movie was shot in Nicholas Cage's house, which was in Los Angeles, CA. And watching it again proved I was right!

The best scenes I could find of Nicholas Cage's house was in this YouTube clip. It focuses on his OCD disorder, but there are great shots of the house. He has a cleaning issue which I find to be, not quite funny... but I have a little empathy with it I guess. I tend to be an over-cleaner and organizer I think. I am not diagnosed OCD but I do annoy my boyfriend with how much things I move around and all the sweeping and mopping I ask him to do, poor guy. 




I love the architecture and the interior design of the house. The house, located at 3508 Meier St., was built in 1948. It is one floor with four bedrooms. It was last sold in 2005 for $1.2 million.



Just because this house was built in the 40's doesn't mean that it doesn't have fabulous architectual aspects. In the movie, the furnishings are a little 1970's and retro, but they are amazing and now feel modern. There is the brick wall, the lamps, shelving, the carpet, and so on that add such great quality to the feel of the exterior and interior of this LA home. A funny thing I noticed was how OCD Cage was about carpeting. He made sure it was SPOTLESS, discussed it in his therepy, and then ended up working in a carpet store in the end of the movie. I love that he was so passionate about keeping that carpeting clean. 

The next few pictures are just examples to shop around with for some updated furnishings that are similiar to the ones in this house. Another thing that you could look into if you love this look is the architect and artist couple Charles and Ray Eames. They are the ones who helped invent the more modern look of homes and furniture from the 1950's to the 70's. They had a HUGE impact on society during those years.  The lounge chair is one of theirs and it's running for $3,200! Way to be succesful!










Hope you have enjoyed this movie of the week! I really loved the space in this California house, as well as the heavy Frank Sinatra soundrack.

See you next week. 




Friday, December 9, 2011

"I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love. " - Linus

DIY Friday!!!

The supplies from last week:



My 2011 Christmas tree:






I was working on this and I got so excited. I know it's not a real tree, but I was thinking that was exactly what I had wanted to be doing. I have always wanted to decorate my own tree with my own style. And right now that's all on a few buck$ of wood, and I am completely content with it. 



I decided to kick the clothes pins that I painted to the curb, along with the magazine clippings of ornaments. I had a coworker give me some of her old ones. There just so happened to be little gold ornaments in the box she gave me...perfect! I also went and picked up a $5 bag of rafia. I knew I would want to hang my pinecones and other things with it. I like rafia in this case because it is a little closer to 'natural' looking then anything else. I was also thinking hemp could be a good replacer of the rafia. The rafia came into play a little more when I realized I got too short of nails for the arms of my tree. They barely go through to the post, and I was not in the mood to go to Home Depot for a third time on this project. I tied the rafia around the posts in a way that keeps them in place. VOILA.

My second trip to Home Depot was because I took back one colored lights box and exchanged it with white. I wasn't feeling the multi colors on my mostly nature friendly tree. I think the white ones were a good choice.


1. Spray paint: dark brown and let it dry (in the snow.) I sanded them to make them feel rustic. This worked in my favor because I could sand down my "messed up" parts. 
2. Posts and "tree limbs": mounted the arms with the nails and rafia. 
3. Pinecones: put them in a cardboard box and painted them all with the dark brown, making sure they still looked like they had color and so that they all match, then did one quick sweep with gold. 
4. Top peice: the star was from my co-worker and it was red, so I just spray painted it gold to match everything else. I basically took three pinecones and wrapped them around the top with the rafia, adding the pine needles and then the star. 
5. Lights: stringing them on the actual arms didn't work so I placed them just on the center post, which works out with a nice glow showing the other ornaments. And I think it keeps it fresh and clean. 
6. Ornaments: I just tied rafia around the top part of the pinecones, stuck the pine needles in the knot, and made another knot at the top to have them hang from. I also picked up the letters from Hobby Lobby for $2 each and spray painted them gold and tied them up with rafia. Letters and numbers are in these days, so I figured it couldn't hurt and added another element. 


That's it! Done! 

She's little and simple and hardly takes up any space in my little room, and she's perfect.


Thursday, December 8, 2011

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task." -William James

Thrift Store Thursday!!!



Sadly, I can not post my chairs being done for this week's Thrift Store Thursday. My excuse is the snow that we got and not having a work space to sand or spraypaint them. As much as I wanted to just do it inside, my boyfriend convinced me that breathing in old paint and then new paint wouldn't be the best thing for our health. 

But this addresses a good problem some of us have. Right now in Santa Fe, we don't have a garage or shed or even another room to do my projects in. We are in a studio in a little cottage in the mountains. I don't have the perfect space for all my projects, not all of us do. 

I for see this becoming a problem for my future projects, and I am learning not to be distraught about it. It is what it is and that's all I can do about it. Se la vi! So let's not get discouraged if we ever don't meet a deadline when working on projects for our wonderful spaces. This just means more TIME to think about and work on our things!!!! No problemo. 

Hopefully next week I can get these chairs sanded, painted, and upholstered! 

Here's to seeing you all next week...


Wednesday, December 7, 2011

"Renew Your Life" - ACC

Window Wednesday!!!


Today's window dispay comes from the Antiques & Home Furnishings store, ACC, located right in the plaza in Santa Fe. 
This cozy, cabin-style home furnishing store has been on my mind since I moved here. Of course. It is to die for inside. It is only appropriate that they would have an amzing window display. There are only two days of the year that this place is closed. Christmas Day. And the day they set up all their Christmas decorating and window displays. 


Go ahead and tell me you don't want your house to look like this around the holidays. Imagine being all bundled up, your hunny on your side, sipping on a hot chocolate from the Haagen-Dazs bakery, walking by these windows and there is a warm and cozy feeling coming from deep inside of you.

I imagine that would have been my goal if I were the one putting up these beautiful displays. 

Also note the deer print chairs in the 'white' windows (pictures 2 & 5) are also on their website in a beautiful display in the forest. 


Thanks ACC for allowing me to use your holiday window display in my decorating blog. I can only hope that I will see you again soon!!! 



Monday, December 5, 2011

"Help each other. Love everyone. Every leaf. Every ray of light. Forgive." -The Tree of Life

Movie Monday!!!


I watched "The Tree of Life" directed by Terrence Malick, yesterday. I don't know what to say about it really. There was so much to that movie. There was amazing acting, beautiful images of nature, huge spans of architecture, and a mind-boggling look at human nature over the years. I enjoyed the architecture of the buildings set in Houston and Austin, Texas during Sean Penn's part as well as the old house the boys grew up in when Brad Pitt was the father. 

Part of the love of interior decorating for me includes the architecture as well. It still seams like a whole different concept and I am excited to learn so much more about the design and break down of building structures. The outside is just as if not more important than the interior decorating. It's what first catches the eye. It's what gets you to walk in the first place. 

The architecture in "The Tree of Life" is flawless. Here are a few images from the movie that I liked. I do think that you will need to watch the movie FOR SURE in order to experience the wonderful camera angles and imagery of the buildings in Houston along with the soundtrack. Jack O'Brien (Sean Penn) plays a successful architect trying to repair his relationship with his father and analyzing his mother's love and the death of his brother. The imagery of Jack and his blue prints for a project while being surrounded by odd angles and huge windows only solidifies the difference the movie is showing between the beauty of man-made and nature.

Again, I don't have pictures that justify it, so please see the movie. 


Without the walls and windows and hallways and rooms, there is no space to create in. Space is an area found within a room, defining the boundries and limitsthat you work with. You'll need to consider the entire volume of the space when you are thinking about changing anything. You'll need to consider
1. The moods that can pull form the colors 
2. The lighting that does or does not come into the room 
3. How the sound travels in the space 
4. The structure of the building that the space is sitting in
                                                                                           ...For starters.

When looking at the outside or the inside of simple to intricate designs of buildings, whether as you are walking down the street, on vacation, or even through a movie, think about what you're opinion is of it. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Are you confused? Are you at peace? Are you fired up? Tons of emotions and moods can emerge because of aspects of design. Whatever your opinion is of design and color and buidling structure... know that it's yours. Love your space. 


Friday, December 2, 2011

"The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!" - Charles N. Barnard

DIY FRIDAY!!!

Buying or getting things that are already made for us is a time saver, no doubt! And sometimes, that's the best road to take. But SOMETIMES it's much more fun and hopefully $$ saving to Do-It-Yourself. Being a part of something that you see from scratch and then it comes to life is such a rewarding feeling. It's accomplishment within yourself that you are able to come up with something, or even copy an idea, get the peices of it, and build or create it to be used and enjoyed in your space.

This week, in honor of the fresh new month we are in, I am doing a Christmas tree!! 

I am so excited for it! I am not wanting to spend the money on a real or fake tree and the ornaments and the lights and such. Moving to a new place means that, sadly, I did not bring my holiday decorating with me. The place that I live in is much too small to be filled up with a tree anyways. BUT I do need a little bit of something reminding me of the tradition and heart-warming appearance of a beautiful tree in my home growing up. 



The origin of the Christmas tree origionaly was recorded back in the 15th and 16th centuries by Livonia and Germany. Of course, it came out of the church. The symbol of the tree around Christmas time was for the religious feast day for Adam and Eve, being December 24th. That's the day that they would decorate the tree with apples (signifying the forbidden fruit,) wafers (representing redemption,) and a star on top (symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem.) The evergreen tree was called the "Paradise tree." Once the tree became more popular in court yards and wealthier Protistant families, they would put candles on the trees, when candles were expensive and hard to come by. Growing in popularity the trees then began to be decorated with candy canes, tinsel, paper flowers, nuts, lights, etc. for the children. The decorated evergreen trees then progressed to department stores and then into homes. 

Here are a few images of some of the early Christmas trees and then some more modern ones. And then some great DIY trees for smaller spaces. 
                           


Now, here are the materials for the tree that I will be making over the next week:




What kind of ideas do I have floating around with all of this?! 

Either way, it all cost me $44 from the Home Depot!!!!

More to come next week for DIY Friday

See you next week