Monday, March 26, 2012

Contemplating my Organizational Choices

Happy Monday! I am hoping that we are all past the worst of this darned cold. I was down most of last week, Miss H didn't feel all that well over the weekend and Miss K lost her marbles Friday morning. We aren't sure if she was fighting off getting sick or if she's just a little wad of stress rolled a little too tightly into a ball. Either way, it was a rough week. 

Saturday rolled into us helping at Miss K's high school to build the set for the choir's upcoming madrigal dinner nights. THAT was fun! (Where, oh where, is the sarcasm font?!) The gentleman that usually builds the castle is currently in Afghanistan. Thank you sir for your service to our country, but schematics for the huge pile of misc pieces would have been very nice. After 3 hours of discussing how it should go together, the only female in the room ended up being right, twice. Go figure!

Sunday, was Mr Shawn's 41st birthday. After the long week and longer Saturday, he decided he wanted to stay home and veg. So we did. He got to become acquainted with his new ipad, and found that a $5 app was all it would take to entertain him for hours. Who knew he was so easy to please? Yeah for Garage Band. My musician hubby was in heaven!

Now, I get to go clean up the carnage of a relaxing Sunday after a week of sick days and set build Saturday. I plan to take some of that cleaning to the next level and get going on that Spring cleaning schedule I have been oh so conveniently neglecting. Maybe its time to implement a few good ideas I've been pinning while I am at it?!




This idea...I have special plans for it!





Thursday, March 22, 2012

Vegetable Garden

Its almost that time of year. Certainly early enough for me to start seeds and get the planning moving forward. I am all about growing our own vegetables. 


The best meals come from your the soil that you til and tend. If we could have chickens and goats I would in a heart beat. Fresh eggs and goat cheese...being self sustaining appeals to me. But, like so much of modern America, we are hampered in our desires by our reality. I desire a large, beautiful, and bountiful garden.


I firmly believe any size garden can be beautiful, nit just functional. I think this space illustrates that well. For us space and short growing season are our biggest obstacles. This year I want what space we do have to work better for us. A little planning and a whole lot of labor are going to be in order as we head deeper into spring. Better use of our space isn't gonna matter one little bit if I can't get anything in the ground until the middle of June! So, part of the planning process (and sooner rather than later the building process as well) is to enlist the help of green house type spaces. 


We already have two raised beds like this built into the sunny side yard. Mr Shawn is going to be building me an arched system similar to the one above that will serve a number of purposes... First, it will create a greenhouse type environment. That means I can get my plants in the ground sooner without the worry of frost damage. on the same front, it will keep those pesky late season snow storms off of my precious garden. Under the plastic will be light weight netting to keep another pesky little problem we have here at Sagebrush Ridge at bay. Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits, every where. No matter how many my cat, Captain Jack, brings to me on a silver platter, I cannot keep them from destroying our vegetable garden. And flowers, and grass, and...well, never mind, different issue. Hopefully well secured netting will help.


Raised beds are the only way to go. From start to finish they are easier to prep, plant, water, tend and harvest. I'll take easy where ever I can.


The idea of a vertical garden is intriguing. Its in a raised bed, so soil temps are going to be warmer, that's good. I wonder if growing up would be enough to keep the rabbits out of the god stuff. Share what is growing at the bottom?


Speaking of vertical?! How fun would this be for herbs? I usually tuck my herbs in among my other plants, vegetables, flowers, ornamental shrubs, wherever...


Others are definitely being far more creative than myself.







Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Spring Fever

I have been struck with Spring Fever...the real kind, with body aches, headaches, sniffles and a sore throat to boot. Its not very often Mom gets sick enough to actually complain, but the last few days have worn me down. So I took a couple of sick days.  Unfortunately, the weather decided to look kind of nice. After the snow, rain and gloom the last week or two, it was nice to see the sunshine. Even if I didn't feel well enough to go outside and enjoy it. Boo.


But, my time loafing around the house feeling sorry for myself wasn't a complete waste of time. I did manage to catch the more favorable Spring Fever and do a little surfing looking for images to inspire our outdoor spaces this year. Our back patio is built somewhat like this...minus the french doors and overhead shade. I can live with my big slider with its huge full length side windows, but we NEED the shade. Finding an inexpensive DIY version for shade may be our biggest challenge, especially since it has to hold up to our winds. Living here, we know the meaning of a zephyr.


If old man winter decides he is done with us, we could start working outside as early as this weekend. Do you know how happy that would make me? Sigh. I would love to have Easter outdoors this year. Especially if I could host brunch on my back patio with our deep seating cushions redone and drapes catching the breeze like the ones pictured above. Notice I said breeze, not gale force winds. A girl can hope, right? I'm thinking of reupholstering the cushions and making grommet drapes out of painters drop cloths. Cheap, relatively easy and durable. 


Add splashes of color with throw pillows. Soft greens, blues, and tans, maybe a little apricot thrown in to warm it a bit. Need to find a solution for a coffee table. The one that came with my deep seating conversation set is cheezy. I would love to find a Craigslist piece like the one above, or something I could make look similar.


I'm thinking I need to add a swing like one of these back there too. I know that won't happen before Easter, heck, none of it will probably happen... But, a swing back there on lazy afternoons with a good book and a cool glass of something would be absolutely divine.


Speaking of things that won't happen until later in the summer...
We need to partition a portion of the yard off for the dogs. Our back yard runs the length of the house, plus some on each side, but its shallow. It ends rather abruptly about 10, maybe 15 feet from the house where our master bedroom protrudes. Its a 10 foot drop into a gully full of sagebrush, with nothing more than a rock wall capped with a split rail fence.  Hence, Sagebrush Ridge...


Any way... we will be putting in an electronic fence (our only option) and redoing that section of narrow yard. Its currently in a state of ick. Yes, its a technical term. Grass that won't grow, a weird slope to a drain and honeysuckle that was never properly supported equal ick. I'm dreaming of a small hidden patio tucked in the corner among water savvy plants, connected to the lawn that we will keep by


a casual decomposed granite path. The dogs will love having a path to sniff along when they head out to do their business. Much better than the mainly concrete courtyard they get to go to now.


Our courtyard looks nothing like this. Its much smaller and doesn't have a fireplace. It does have two japanese maples flanking the front entry, and plenty of narrow flower beds that are crying for mediterranean plantings and lights like these overhead. Our copper firepit and a few chairs will round out the space nicely.

Tomorrow, I will show you what I have in mind for my vegetable gardens. And maybe then I will have kicked this cold to the curb and can show you what I have been up to indoors.









Friday, March 16, 2012

I am White Wall Phobic

Okay, I admit it! Are you happy now?!


I have this thing with white walls. Cannot stand them. Don't get me wrong. They are beautiful in other people's homes, just not mine. I think it has to do with the fact that when I was growing up my Daddy would only allow white on the walls. I loved my Daddy, but he was color phobic. The artist in me just screams for color. 


BUT, its a big but...


I like big butts , and I cannot lie...


Never mind me.


But, in an effort to let this house speak its mind, I have decided that lighter is better. Especially for that whole of a room that is supposed to be a dining room. The one the builder/architect decided could be plopped in the middle of the house without. a. single. window. Sigh


So, armed with a gallon of oops paint from the ol' Home Depot. I have waged a battle in that room.
Here are the pics from my phone to prove it!


We finally found a sofa on Craigslist for under a hundred smackaroos, and decided to take the big flat screen out of hubby's office and mount it in here. The armoire holds the wireless printer that the family utilizes as well as a smorgasbord of school and art supplies. 


My goal is to have everything cleaned up and put back together to resemble a real, working room by the time the kids get home this afternoon. 


See the leaded glass panel on the couch? They are from my china cabinet that is getting a makeover a la Williams Sonoma. I have a cool re purposing project in mind. So stay tuned for that too.

Mostly finished room up tonight! 
Maybe I'll even take the time to edit them...thought you might appreciate the natural state of things in my home at the moment though. Small reality check. It always looks worse before it gets better, right?

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Indecision

Am I the only one that can't make up their mind? That doesn't know exactly what she wants to do with her home?

You would think after living here for more than five years, that the house would have made its sense of style obvious. That each room would have screamed at me what needed to be done to make it perfect. I can't say a single room has done that for me. I think I have an idea of what I want to do and about the time I get around to implementing it, I change my mind...

Please tell me I am not the only one to suffer from this!

Here is what I do know...(not much)

That I want to lighten up my color schemes. I'm tired of red and dark brown and gold. So I've been subtracting. I've replaced it with more cream, spring green and tan. 

I also know that I want to keep my leather couch and big comfy chairs and the heavy World Market tables. I also know that I won't be replacing any of our other furniture any time soon. Its all less than ten years old and I have two gentle giants and two teens. The boys (the Bernese Mountain Dog and the Landseer Newfoundland) and the girls (Miss K and Miss H) aren't exactly easy on furniture. Replacing later makes much more sense. KWIM?

What is the point of all my rambling?!

What I'm trying to say is that I have been taking the time since we finished Willy Wonka to attempt to reach some decisions. Changes are coming. That is a guarantee. What exactly will be changing? Not so sure. 

To help my decision making process, I thought I would post what is inspiring me out there and explain my thought process of integrating the looks with what I already have. 

Sounds like I might be doing a short series over the next couple of weeks.

And then, I want to show you how I actually do it. But I have to make up my mind what to do first. 

Oh bother!

Stick with me guys...

Here are a couple of pin boards I found out there that I have liked the overall feel of. Jumping pints maybe?

I like the dark woods with the grays and tans for the master bedroom.

But I like the fabric swatch in this one better. The chandy too.


Here, its the world traveled feel in the living room I like. But I'd want to brighten this up. Take out the animal theme.

Add in some rustic elements and word art and maybe a fab fabric like this:


The question remains....would it all work together?









Wednesday, March 7, 2012

I'm Back from Wonka's Factory

Sorry for my little disappearing act. I joined Willy Wonka's Oompa Loompas and helped create a factory right here in Reno, NV. My girls both love musical theatre. Any theatre really, but musicals are so much fun. Since one of my core beliefs is supporting them in their endeavors, I offer up my talents every year to the middle school that my youngest is now a part of. Miss K did a couple of productions here and Miss H is following in her footsteps. This year's production was Willy Wonka Jr. Miss H had the honor of being selected to be Violet Beauregard, an unfortunate young lady that is so obsessed with her gum chewing that she fails to see the truly marvelous world that is being presented to her. Haley created a southern belle accent that was to "dye" for.


Here she is turning into a blueberry, a la a moo moo style dress with an inflatable pumpkin suit beneath all the layers of fabric.


Before the chewing gum dye took its full effect. I wish I had a good photo of her blue and fat, but alas I do not. Our photographer didn't capture it. BTW, the action shots are not my photography. One of our semi retired teachers did all of the pics for us. If you are interested you can see more here.

I did all of the set design, most of the painting and small detail work, as well as the light design and then actually ran the lights for all 8 shows. Hubby was in charge of all of the other technical stuff, including managing the students doing the spots, and the special effects. I was putting in 14 hour days there for a while. I'm happy to report I haven't really cleaned my house in the last few weeks and certainly haven't done anything remotely creative for the home. But, I can show you what I was up to... Join me on a tour of the factory and its surroundings, will you? 


The Bucket Shack


The candy store front. Below is the Candy Man with the cart I designed and built for him.



I did the factory front and gates behind them too. Isn't our Charlie the cutest little thing? He has the voice of an angel. He's only a sixth grader. I can't wait to see him as he gets older and his voice changes.


A generic outside wall.



The Shrinking Room. The effect of this little tunnel was stunning from the audience perspective. I had intended to add detailing on the ceiling and along the walls, but ran out of time. In the end simple really was better, it worked a great backdrop for the Fizzy Lifting Room Scene too. Too bad I can't find a single photo of that scene. Boo.


The chocolate smelter. The chocolate fabric is pulled out and Augustus fell into it and disappeared off the front of the stage.


We changed the blocking for this a little by the time we ran the public performances. There's that generic wall under the factory lighting scheme.



The Pink Candy Boat for the nightmare scene. We rigged the boat with an internal fog machine so that by the end of the scene fog was rolling off the stage and into the crowd. It looked so cool with the strobe and blue led lights!


The Inventing Room. The chalk board has different chemical formulas for blue dye. A slightly nerdy addition on my part. Why is there a bbq in this room? Well, we needed something for the three course dinner to go into and the gum ball to come out of...and ran out of time to make it into the glorified gumball machine I had envisioned. A short production run time was not in my favor.


The Nut hopper that Miss Veruca Salt finds herself falling into.


Good bye Veruca, hope the incinerator isn't lit today. Aren't the squirrels cute?


Mike Tevee's Choco Vision Room. We utilized fog from behind the gauge and strobe and a light chase to create the entire scene before lowering a mini Mike on the other side of the stage. For a scene that didn't get a whole lot of our attention early on, it turned out quite well.


Wonka with the mini Mike. I loved the Oompa Loompa costumes. 


Needed a wide angle lens to get the entire cast during bows. Oh well... I cannot begin to describe how much work this was. BUT. I also cannot begin to describe what an amazing experience these productions are every year. I know 90% of the 65 member student cast by first name. I will see them around school, around town and later in life and we will remember each other. That includes the principal's daughter and the superintendent's son. Priceless.

Now, back to cleaning my house, freshening up a bit for spring and completing a neglected project or twenty. I missed you guys!