diy headboard

Last summer Jeremy and I headed out to Palm Springs for our friends 30th birthday bash. The Parker was taken over by the group of her friends that came out for a hot weekend in the desert.
From the moment we pulled up to the sky high, heavily shrubbed entrance with it's decorative block facade I knew I was going to fall in love a million times over and that was exactly what happened. I would live in that hotel in a heartbeat.
I took tons of pictures of the interior of our room in hopes of someday replicating it. The headboard was one of the most dominant features in the room, and what I thought may be the most fun to try to make. So after talking about it for 9 months I finally got around to giving it a try. The results, not perfect, but also not bad for my first try. I will need to redo some things on it, but I'll probably get around to that next year.



{the headboard at the Parker & jeremy}

Espen and I rounded up the upholstery and padding on Friday night. I had already order upholstery tack strips a few months ago (yes, I procrastinate, I know) so on Saturday morning we headed over to Home Depot to get some plywood and wall mounts.



{this kid loves home depot}



{this is what he calls 'taking a break'}



{please cut this to 62"x40" please}



{ear muffs}

After we crammed the plywood and a bear skin rug and espen's bike...into Big Fancy we were off to see Matt Hibbard of Hibbard Custom Cabinets. A very dear friend and such a talented cabinet maker. Seriously, check out his portfolio. Espen was super tired so after he snacked on his happy meal he pretty much crashed.


{nap time on the hibbard's front patio}

While Espen slept Matt and I worked on the cuts he's was going to make in the plywood. I knew I didn't want a rectangle but I wasn't sure exactly how to draw out the design. At first I had Matt make something that looked more like a butt than anything else. Luckily Matt knows his stuff and after a couple of tries we got the shape that I had envisioned.


{the butt}


{the wonderful Matt Hibbard}


{beginning to take shape}

Getting this huge piece of heavy plywood upstairs was a bit of a challenge, my arms are still paying for it 4 days later. (maybe my body's telling me to do a few more push ups here and there) Once upstairs though me and my little helper quickly began to work.


What you will need:
1. 3/4 inch plywood
2. talented cabinet maker to cut plywood
3. tacky glue
4. 2" foam pad
5. steak knife or other ultra fancy tool to cut foam
6. staple gun
7. upholstery
8. upholstery tack strips
9. cute child in underwear


I laid everything out in the bedroom which was a big mistake since our room is so tiny. I only got around to gluing and cutting the foam before I realized this was definitely a project for the living room. So I dragged everything out near the couch, set Espen up with some online games (Transformers and Star Wars are his new faves) and began to staple away at the material. This part sucked. I can watch a hundred DIY videos on how to upholster things and they make it look SO freakin' easy, it's not. I had the worst time trying to figure out how to pull the fabric around the part I had cut out. Somehow, it came together, but not as nicely as I'd like it.


{foam, cut to shape of the plywood}


{this is where I started to get nervous, looks a little plain jane}

Skip ahead an hour and one bleeding hand, the upholstery tacks were on. I used the kind that give the appearance that you nailed in 5 hundred tacks down when in fact you are only nailing down every 5th one. See, I thought it would be a great time saver, every 5th one would no doubt cut the process of nailing them down in half...what I didn't think about was that nailing them over 2" thick foam coupled with the fact that I was already having a hard time nailing some in to some parts of the plywood, would leave sections that didn't have a nail for about 1/2 a foot. It ended up making it look like it wasn't a straight line not to mention I kinda goofed up along one of the corners. I'm going to order a new strip of tacks that has only one or two fake tacks in between the actual tack. It may take longer but the end result will be ten times better.

I won't get into the fact that I think I am super woman and thought I would be able to drill into concrete correctly then lift this gigantic headboard two and a half feet off of the ground to hang it on two French cleats. Ya, it was a disaster that left 6 nice size holes in our wall. My back was breaking so I ended up propping it up on a plastic bin that was under our bed and smushed it between our bed and the wall.

In the end, I think it turned out, well, okay...actually, better than okay. Not perfect but really, not bad for not having a clue what I was doing.




{done & done, kind of}

our new old chair

While my parents were in the process of purchasing the cabin a couple of years ago my mom had emailed me a few pictures. The upstairs area was cluttered with all sorts of strange things but one item caught my eye. I called my mom and asked her if the seller's were willing to include said item with the home. The seller's agreed and hauled everything off except for the beat up, worn, tattered but totally fabulous Plycraft Lounge Chair.


My dad brought it down just a couple of days ago and I picked it up from my sister's house late last night, while Jeremy and Espen were finishing up foosball and sausages at a friends house I lugged the beastly chair upstairs and in to our bedroom.

I took the cushion off of the back yesterday and was amazed at how easy it was and also by how simple it looks to reupholster! The wood will need to be sanded and re-stained and the leather will need to be replaced so now we have to figure out what color leather to use. I’m not a big fan of the black leather version. The white is way to stark. Jeremy and I both thought cream would be a good fit for the chair and our home. I stumbled upon these two photos this morning while trying to get ideas.


{photo from Mandi’s blog}
Okay, this photo I didn’t just stumble upon. I’ve been following this blog for a while now. I've written about this girls home before and how much I just love it. I knew she had the same chair so I immediately went to her sight to look up a photo. Wouldn’t you know…I love the color. Not too creamy not to tan. Close to perfect for our place if you ask me. So, not only do I love the color of the chair in this photo but, (this is weird and internet nerdy of me, see if you can follow)DesignSponge ‘tweeted’ yesterday about a story she found on Rebranding Playboy, after reading the story (which was REALLY interesting, go read it) I started poking around the site, starting at Scott’s portfolio page. I clicked on his print work and stopped at the first image for about 10 minutes. Everything about it I loved from the colors to the dimensions to the way the blue in the background fades into the boys headphones. I was instantly transported to Baranca Elementary school sitting in front of those weird old computers. I googled for a good 15 minutes or so trying to find out anything about the computer to see if it was the one I remembered. I somehow got stuck on a site with a history of computers. If you follow me on twitter you may have seen a couple of tweets that were inspired from what I was reading in the timeline. Anyway, back to the poster…so I email a copy of the poster to Jeremy as well as a link to this site and told him I was in love. I had to stop myself from shelling out $65 right then and there for it. Did you notice the poster in the photo from Mandi’s website. It’s the freakin’ poster. Less than 24 hours later the poster came into my life and in one of my favorite bloggers home! Weird, right? The chair, you see the chair a lot…it’s a pretty popular style, but the little poster in the background. WEIRD.


{photo: here}
Now this photo I did just stumble upon. Again, similar color not to light or dark. I think this is the look we will go for. Not much else to say about this photo since I didn’t research bricks or cows yesterday, hardy har.

I put the chair in our room last night next to our new dresser…this morning when Jeremy was scrambling around trying to find a pair of jeans he asked me, ‘how am I supposed to open these drawers?’. Ha, looks like I put it next to our new dresser but right in front of our old one. It was late, I was tired, I guess I didn’t think the placement through. Now the huge chair is on the other side of the dresser right as you walk in, bam! I don’t care, I love it.

small spaces

...alright, here are a few more photos of rooms featured on AT home tours that I completely fell in love with.



Would it be weird to put up some molding around our living room, I know the building was built in the 60's in AZ, so what, wainscoting and molding wasn't used back then? I just love how the mantle and chair rail along the wall make little shelves for tiny treasures.



Who wouldn't be jealous of this warm wood dresser, ugh it's beautiful! And is that a freakin' fox figurine made with real animal fur, be still my heart. I have some buddies he could play with. The tall bevel edge mirror takes the look one step further, so lovely, timeless.

See more photos here.




I can't even get the words out clearly about this home. The woody chunk of a table, the light from the doors, the nook for the computer desk, the couch, oh the COUCH. How lucky are they to have been given that couch as a hand me down. Hmpf. My favorite item in the room has got to be the rug. The color, tone, the image. It's perfect...perfect for our living room, don't you think.



Now, I have already found online a futon similar to the one in this photo and have also informed Jeremy over lunch that we will need to replace our perfectly good couch with said found futon immediately. To which he shook his head no, but I pretended not to see. The print on the mattress cover is playful (if that makes sense) but I think I would get sick of the pattern way too quickly, I mean, I buy countless bed linens and comforters, I can never make up my mind on prints or patterns much like wallpaper.



Speaking of wallpaper, the tub and tile on the floor are obviously amazing, but what I love love love is the Julia Rothman wallpaper. In excess the wallpaper can be overkill, even the bright green can be too daring, but up against the grey in the design and playing off the black bottom of the tub and bright white tiles it works wonderfully.

See more photos here.



Speaking of Julia Rothman, how much fun are her designs and illustrations.

Here's a few more for you...enjoy.

love small spaces.

This is probably one of my favorite House Tours on Apartment Therapy, ever! How great are the little pops of color throughout, from the pillows on the couch to the stacked books and fresh flowers near the bed. I love it. Not only is it beautifully decorated, it is just a tiny bit bigger than our place and it looks HUGE. Although we don't have an open living/sleeping space, it is still incredible how large a tiny home can feel. Makes me want to run out and find a little table for our front window, just big enough for my laptop, a cup of coffee and of course a wonderful table lamp.

time for bed

Well, maybe not bed time but it's at least time to slowly complete the decorating in the bedroom.

A couple of people and places come to mind when I think about how I'd eventually like our bedroom to look. Of course, I immediately think of Jonathan Adler. How can I ever get sick of his vintage inspired and humorously crafted pieces. His combination of old and new, mixing up century old details with modern design screams out perfection to me. I think I snapped about 100 photos of our room at the Parker in Palm Springs over the summer. From the crazy wallpapered bathroom with ornate gold Chinese Dragon faucets to the glass topped round table with what could easily be your Grandma's old tablecloth, I was in love.

I'm also inspired by rooms that have a cozy, worn in vintage feel to them. Case in point, this fabulous home in Ohio. I don't think there is a single thing in this home that didn't fall for while viewing their home tour photos. Talk about inspiring. I'd love to see exterior shots.

Okay, back to our bedroom. At the moment it reminds me of a room that college kids would live in. You know, it has kind of all right Ikea furnishings accented by band posters that ended up on the wall with not a whole lot of thought behind them. At least we got ourselves a proper bed and are no longer sleeping on a mattress on the floor. The rest of our tiny home looks super cute (although I would love to redo that as well, I get so bored) our bedroom is in dire need of some design tlc.

This is what I have or would like to have in our room. I think once we frame a couple of our pieces of art, hang some curtains & get the Headboard completed we should be on our way.



1. Plycraft Lounge Chair-At parents cabin, needs some serious fix-up work
2. New pulls, White Ceramic with Gold detail, to replace circular pulls on Ikea Egan dresser
3. Green curtains-Going back and forth on making my own and what shade of green to go with, time will tell.
4. Need rails to hang ourMarimekko-Fabric to be used as 5x4 wall hanging
5. Need to find a wall or shelf for my Charmaine Olivia-Deer Wearing Gym Socks print-hilarious
6. Need to hit up Aaron Bros. to use my gift card and frame up our Wayne Pate screen print- Rising of the Setting Sun-I love this piece!
7. Our Egan dresser, with new pulls
8. I need to use another gift card at Home Depot and hit up JoAnns for fabric so I can recreate the headboard from the Parker, or make one like Urban Outfitters sells.
9. Not our lamp, but we have a funny yellow floor lamp that I had a friend in L.A. pick up from TINI
and haul out for us around Christmas time-Thanks Matt & Katy!
10. Need to get gold ring pulls for our yucky Ikea dresser...although I may need to just completely rip off this fantastic DIY from Aubrey & Lindsey! How incredibly cute is that dresser!

not so French -Onion Soup

On Saturday I made Pulled Pork with Beer in the Crock Pot. Seriously, add 3.5 lbs of Pork Shoulder, 2 golden onions sliced up (not too thin though, you want to be able to pull them out), 1.5 bottles of Stella Artois, celery seeds, salt and pepper in to a Crock Pot and you will make some super delicious pulled pork. Take the pork out of the Crock Pot, leave the onions and juice behind. Add BBQ sauce to the pork, shred it with a fork and see if you can even get it to a plate. I ate half of it from the bowl.

The best part about the pulled pork is that you get a whole other meal out of it. Yummy soup. I didn't have half of the ingredients that I needed to make French Onion soup from the recipes I found online so I just improvised.
Dump onions (skim off fat, way easy to do if you let it cool) and juice from from the crock pot into a saucepan. Add a couple of tablespoons of butter and olive oil. Add some sugar, salt and red wine to taste. Add 2 cups of water and a beef boullion cube and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for 30-45. Stir it here and there. Try some along the way and make any adjustments to the flavor. Mine was super salty, but that was becuase I think too much water evaporated. Needless to say, I ate ALL of it last night and man, it was good.

levi turns 4!

      

My nephew Levi turns 4 this weekend so last Saturday Jenny & Joshua threw a party for him. It was his birthday party so naturally he got gifts including the hilariously cool ride on toy tractor from the family. My mom never wanted my sister and I to feel left out on birthdays when we were younger and has decided to carry on this tradition with our kids. So, this year for Levi's birthday, Espen got a new Lego set. Espen was pretty excited, thrilled to get this new gift but if he only knew how excited I was! We got home from the party and pretty much immediately got to work on this 354 piece set. I think it's hilarious that Espen is 3.5 years old, I am 31 and the box says for ages 7-14. I told Jeremy that when I am 68 years old I am going to tell Espen, 'When I was your age I used to LOVE playing with Lego's'. Ha!

It took maybe an hour to get the whole Atlantis 'Gateway of the Squid' set put together and it took Espen about 2 minutes for him to take it all apart. Espen fell asleep on the couch watching Lost in Space (another wonderful gift from my mom) and left his Lego's ALL OVER our bedroom floor. At around midnight I decided it was time to go to bed so I grabbed a baggy and began to put Lego pieces away. That is until, I picked up a couple of pieces and snapped them together. The next thing you know, it's 1:30 in the morning, I am on the floor and Atlantis, once again was built!

I left the completed set up on our dresser and one of the first things Espen said to me in the morning was, 'See mom, you see what I put together all.by.my...self, you see?'. What a little scamp, I bet he was secretly weirded out that Atlantis magically put itself together.

Pasteis de Nata

A few days ago I received an email from J. Crew that featured information about their newest catalog, Spring Awakening, which was shot in Portugal. As always I was inspired by the clothes, but this time, the unbelievable backdrop of Portugal was the real scene stealer. One thing that really caught my eye were the Pasteis de Nata, a custard and pastry treat that has quite a history in Portugal. I found a recipe on Algarve Buzz and without ever really having had an interest in pastries or dessert making I decided to give it a try. Not only were the pastries out of this world delicious, but they were tons of fun to make.

Here they are just before they went in the oven.

And here's the finished product. They could be a bit puffier...and burnt. Jeremy made a few yesterday and brought them to me at lunch, his were burnt and were scrumptious.




**With the left over custard I made pancakes with custard filling. Kind of like a mix between an eclair and a half baked pancake. Jeremy thought it was a bit strange but ate his anyway. I thought it was a bit strange as well, but that just made me love it even more.

espen's new bed

Recently Espen has been in to falling asleep on the couch at bed time. I remember falling asleep in the living room when I was little, it was the strangest feeling. I felt special because it was as if I was staying up 'past my bedtime' and there's nothing like being little and sleepy and having your parents pick you up and tuck you into bed.

This night in particular he desperately wanted to make his bed on the living room floor on my yoga mat. He brought out a blanket, pillow and what bed wouldn't be complete without his favorite buddies, black bear & white bear. He was so excited and proud of his little bed and I felt awful because he did this on a night when Jeremy and I decided to watch Black Hawk Down, um, not kid friendly by any means.
I told him he could sleep on the yoga bed tomorrow night while we watch one of his movies, picked him up and tucked him into bed.

parent & child yoga

Once a month at Desert Song Yoga they have a Child/Parent Yoga class for children 18 months through 3 years old. This was our second time going and we will be making it a monthly outing till August. The class is hilarious. There were 5 other boys in this last class, Espen was the oldest. The topic was 'Baby Bears'. We did a funny exercise with little Rubber Duckies, which Espen thought was hilarious and then moved on to a brief discussion on hibernating. Espen impressed the class with his knowledge of subject. I chalked it up to Sid the Science Kid, Sesame Street or maybe that Espen is a child genius until I told Jeremy, who apparently had just discussed in depth with Espen what bears do during the winter. What were the chances of that?

The last half of the class is when we set up an obstacle course for the kiddos. This week we set up folding chairs, bolsters and blankets to make a cave where the little ones could 'hibernate' in between balancing across blocks, tumbling over bolster mountains and rolling over an exercise ball.

Class ended with a healthy snack of apples and water and of course big hugs and thanks to Mary from the kids. We ended the the morning by a not so healthy trip to McDonald's so that Espen could complete his Alvin and the Chipmunk talking (annoying screeching)toy collection.

This is definitely a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

it's an apple pancake kind of morning.

Before we head out for Child/Parent yoga I thought I would make an old favorite of mine, Apple Pancakes. The pancake mix we got is the 'Just add water' kind, but I like to doctor them up like Bisquick's Melt in your Mouth Pancakes. Add some baking powder, sugar & lemon juice to the mix and voila, THE best pancakes EVER.

hello 31.

Today is my 31st birthday. I woke up to my favorite breakfast. Scrambled eggs, Taco Sauce and bread to fold the eggs up into. So good. The boys treated me to a lovely version of 'Happy Birthday' and thus begins the anniversary of my birth.

Today I will do absolutely nothing until 5pm tonight when we head out to El Torito (I know, high school) for Mexican food with the entire family.

birthday eve

Tonight I received a few early birthday gifts from Jeremy & Espen. Wine, sugar & coffee, 3 things I cannot live without! I love my boys.

Each gift had a funny card, for the sugar they thanked me for being so sweet. For the coffee the told me they loved all of my energy and for the wine...well, see the picture.

Goodbye 30, it's been fun.

what does espen do while we make dinner?

He plays video games...with headphones.

I'm wondering if I should wait till tomorrow to write this. My last entry was the 6the of January 2009.


I just got off of the phone with Jeremy and we realized that for the past two years we have stayed in for my birthday. And I came to realize that my 30th birthday was probably my favorite one so far. My family was there, my best friends of 16 years were there and it was the official day that Jeremy and I packed up a U-Haul and moved into the Bon Vie.

We are half way, no, more than half way through with our move. We started bringing boxes over late Sunday...after I set up the first few pieces of my Mirro Medallion and Florence by Prolon collections it already started to feel like home. We have cooked two meals there now. Pizza last night and orange chicken tonight. we even hauled up our Plasma and a couch cushion so we could watch HR Puffinstuff while eating off of boxes. What more could you ask for...well, maybe the rest of our furniture which we will be bringing over on Friday!

Sell, sell, sell!

We sold all of Espen's furniture on craigslist this weekend...all but his little couch which should have a home by the end of the week. We are holding our yard sale this weekend. I hope we can get rid of EVERYTHING over the weekend. My goal is to only bring one box of items to the condo. Well, one box that does not have to be unpacked. We won't have room to store anything, so we NEED to clean house this weekend. Only 4 more weeks here, I still can't believe it.

Considerable Downsizing

As you all know, the economy has taken it's toll on just about everyone one way or the other. For us, it's been quite a rough ride, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. And although we will be 'losing' our home of six years, we have the opportunity to keep a roof over our heads, albeit the roof is only 600 square feet. We are diving head first into 'small space living' with a 2 year old in tow...and we are going to make the best of it!
Now comes the daunting task of cleaning house, de-junking, yard saleing and testing our skills at savvy space saving design. Between now and December, we have our work cut out for us.
Wish us luck!