New rug and vintage sofa in the living room

10.25.2021

New rug and vintage sofa in the living room

Living rooms are tricky. I’ve said it before. There are so many options for what you could do in them so there’s no easy formula like there is with a dining room. It’s not even a sure thing that you want a standard size sofa! What about a sectional, or two face sofas facing each other? With most living rooms there are multiple options so it takes a while of living in them and playing around to find what works best.

More than 3 years into living in our home, we are still figuring ours out. We recently upsized our rug (again) to a 10' x14', which really made a big difference, and got a bold statement vintage sofa that is helping me hone in on some more décor I can bring in here.

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EASY contrast trim pleated lampshade tutorial (no-sew, minimal cuts)

10.18.2021

EASY contrast trim pleated lampshade tutorial (no-sew, minimal cuts)

I’ve seen pleated lampshades around a lot lately, even shared a guest tutorial for a beautiful method here! I hadn’t made one yet myself. When I did… I always like to try something new, so I combined the methods I’d seen on DIY tutorials on blogs and some tips I was able to gather from the pros, and came up with this no-sew pleated lampshade tutorial that will work on large or small lampshades, drum or empire shape!

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Staining our historic wood front door

10.13.2021

Staining our historic wood front door

I am working on improving our front porch and curb appeal lately, and there was one project I really wanted to finish this summer. I almost 100% did!

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Losing the baby weight (the second time around)

10.06.2021

Losing the baby weight (the second time around)

I haven’t posted about baby/postpartum things in a while, and I’ve been hoping to write this post over the past year or so, but it’s taking me a long time to feel like I was done with my journey and ready to share an update. (Hm, that sounds dramatic.) I get really weird but I write these posts because body image is a huge issue and everyone’s pregnancy and postpartum experiences are so different, not to mention all the years leading up to that of being a woman in our society. I think I just have to leave a lot of my background out of this but remind you that we all are different and I don’t mean for anything that I say to be a judgment of anyone else. I will just share my experience.

OK, all that aside, the point of this post is how I (sort of) "lost the baby weight" after baby #2.

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Sisal vs. seagrass vs. jute: Banded natural fiber rug comparison, and what's best for little kids!

9.30.2021

Sisal vs. seagrass vs. jute: Banded natural fiber rug comparison, and what's best for little kids!

I have an exciting experiment to share with you! I’ve been wanting to use a natural fiber banded rug in our living room for a while now, but I couldn’t choose between the options for different fibers and wasn’t sure which would be softest and best for our family (with little kids crawling around). I love the traditional, dressed up look these have while still being so natural and adding great texture, plus I have a goal to only use natural fiber (wool, jute, etc.) rugs in my home moving forward. (See my post on my favorite vintage rug source here.) Patterned rugs like vintage aren't for everywhere, but classic natural fiber rugs are so affordable and come in a lot of different sizes. But it’s hard to choose! So I’m breaking it down: I compared six different weaves and fibers of natural fiber banded rugs, and I’m sharing each with you!

These rugs were all provided for me for this comparison from Rugs USA, though this post was not sponsored.

We may also layer a vintage rug over ours, but I wanted a comfortable base for the edges and in case we choose not to!

Jute vs. sisal vs. seagrass: Rug comparison

OK, onto the rugs! These are all available from Rugs USA in a variety of sizes. Most of these are the smallest available, 2‘ x 3‘, which would also be great for a small entryway.

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Harvest time ends! How to start a vegetable garden: what worked, what didn't

9.20.2021

Harvest time ends! How to start a vegetable garden: what worked, what didn't

After the success of our first big garden last year, I wanted to share more about ours this year. I’ve been posting updates throughout the spring and summer (garden plans, starting veggies from seed, planting the starts). But, things are different this year and we’ve had less time to put into it, and it has not been successful! But we’re at my favorite time of year for the garden, tomato season/late summer harvest. It’ll be wrapping up pretty soon so I figured I would share kind of a final update.

End of season harvest

I also love the zucchini and cucumbers that we’ve had, still have a few of those coming up. We only have one plant of each and they have both been super productive and giving us plenty of good ones! I could eat zucchini like every day so actually maybe we should do two plants of those next year, and not much else! It is a really easy one to grow and harvest.

Zucchini plant in the center, bolted lettuce and kale to the left

Something that did not go well: We did not harvest any of our lettuce because we just didn’t have our act together in time early summer (even though it's so easy), so we let it go to seed and might gather those and plant next year. But given our record with garden maintenance this year, I’m not sure that will happen. We did harvest some kale and then it grew some more, which we still haven’t harvested. We also didn't harvest the peas, which just dried up. What a waste.

The middle part of the garden is bare, this was the second year for these strawberries and I guess they just dry up after the second time.

We also grew several tomatillo plants because we have made some delicious tomatillo salsa and frozen some of it the past couple years. Takes all day, roasting them and then cooking and then preserving, but it’s amazing. But this year, combination of the intense heat that we had a couple times, and probably not consistent enough watering… They basically aren’t good. They’re dropping off the plants before turning green and they smelled bad.

Something that went well: We planted several cherry tomatoes and a couple heirloom tomato plants. They are all producing a ton! I think we need bigger tomato cages next year, though. We do have one big cherry tomato in a big pot and it’s done even better. Got taller, and had a taller cage. And it’s easier to harvest them in a raised planter like that. All of them taste SO GOOD. Storebought tomatoes are a disgrace in comparison! 

Picking heirloom tomatoes in a Target sand bucket. Why not

I heard a podcast the other day on tips for quieting your mind and busy-ness of being a parent of young kids, and one was to give yourself permission not to do everything right now. The host's example was vegetable gardening. She loves the idea, but she doesn't have the time to water and harvest in this time of life, and it's okay to not do something all the time/every year. That spoke to me. Tempted to garden less next year, unfortunately. 

We’re considering turning the L-shaped garden by the fence into lawn for next year and then getting some really large planters or raised beds on the chip area by the back of the fence, it gets plenty of sun. Just shrinking the garden area. And will still do the tomatoes in the sunny spot by the garage.

So that's the update. If you're interested in vegetable gardening, do check out my posts for how we got to this point (garden plans, starting veggies from seed, planting the starts) and I wish you luck!

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My #1 tip for making hard parenting days easier

9.15.2021

My #1 tip for making hard parenting days easier

I’ve been balancing gratitude and just exhaustion lately. Our kids are so wonderful but take so much out of me these days. Wanted to share something that has been hugely helpful for me in the past year having Lucy, and since Jason started working (first part of this year). I work from home, he works late, blah blah blah… I don’t feel like I have a lot of time to myself and most of my time is while I’m supposed to be watching the kids, or on the weekends when we’re supposed to be enjoying family time. I’ve been doing this one tip I got from a friend a long time ago and I've realized what a game changer it is!

Me with the kids on my birthday

The #1 tip for making days of watching kids easier

This one of my friends has several little ones and her husband travels a lot for work. One of her tips for handling those times when he was gone was, get up before your kids. Yes. An alarm. Early. When you’re low on sleep this is the last thing you want to do, and most kids get up pretty early themselves, but if you can manage it, it makes such a difference. I get up at 6:30 every day have time to myself to just get dressed, feed the cat, eat a little breakfast, check my email… alone. All by myself. It is sometimes the only time in the day (except right before bed when I should be getting off my phone and going to sleep!) that I have to do that. I get Lucy up at 7:00 so it’s not a lot of time, but it sets up my whole day not feeling frazzled and spread too thin.

Now, Jason does not do this. He waits until the last minute when Otto comes to get him or when he has to get up for work, and he never has that quiet time to himself to drink his coffee before he starts a day of parenting and working! It’s really hard for him. Sometimes you feel like that extra 30 minutes of sleep is more important… But as long as you’re not majorly/chronically sleep deprived, for me anyway, 30 minutes of alone time really feels like something. 30 minutes less sleep in the morning? It sucks, but sometimes that sleep isn’t that great anyway (when I can hear kids stirring or the cat meowing or whatever). I do want more sleep, but I know I just need to go to bed earlier!

So anyway. If you are struggling with feeling like you don’t have any time to yourself… It’s worth trying!

Art update from this post

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How to print and frame free museum download art prints (the fastest and cheapest way)

9.07.2021

How to print and frame free museum download art prints (the fastest and cheapest way)

I am a big fan of museum art downloads for unique art in my home, but it can be tricky to navigate getting them from the screen to the frame. I’ve tried several different methods and while my favorite is definitely custom framing (I use Art to Frames), if you’re trying to fill a cool vintage or thrifted frame or want to do it really low-budget, you can definitely print yourself, too. I recently made over several thrifted frames for some very pretty vintage art from open sources, and really updated some spaces in my home!

How to print and frame free art downloads - quickly and affordably

I'd love to share how I do this to make it easy for you! First you'll need the art--I have a couple of round-ups and I always link to the pieces I've used; check out my art downloads posts. But I also highly recommend the free print shop by fellow blogger A Home Is Announced. She's put together a bunch of collections (portraits, botanicals, etc.) of art and linked them all back to the original museum sources. 

Once you've picked out a few pieces you like, some things to consider:

• One challenge with older art prints is they are not usually standard sizes. Sometimes you can get creative and either crop the edges of the art without losing any of the star of the piece (like I did with the horses print in my breakfast nook), or use a mat that hides some of it and trim some of the outer part of the print. But unless you go custom, you'll have to stick with pretty standard sizes when you’re ordering prints. See my tip below about resizing.
• My favorite place to order these prints made is Mpix because you can do the giclée print which has an option for super matte. If you order a matte photo or poster from Walgreens, even the matte option looks like a photograph, not a sketch or watercolor. However the quickest option, which works pretty well, is ordering heavyweight prints from FedEx. You can pick up same-day and they have an 80 pound cardstock option that makes a pretty high-quality print. It’s still a little bit shiny and I would prefer super matte giclée, but these are like $2 each and really fast.
• If you're printing oil paintings, you can remove the glass to get a more authentic look. In that case I definitely recommend ordering on matte giclée with matboard backing (an option at Mpix). That's what I did for this piece and the two oil painting downloads for this project. You can even add brush strokes with Mod Podge to get the oil painting texture!, though I haven't tried that yet.

So here are my steps for printing and framing museum downloads, the cheap way (that is, not the custom route).

1. Select options that look like roughly the right size and proportion for your frame. If you have an 8 x 10 frame, you can pick from a lot of different museum pieces that may have originally been 10 x 14 or something else not standard, but not too far off. Don’t pick something that was a tiny hand sketch and blow it up, and it probably won’t look very authentic to choose some thing like a huge detailed impressionist portrait or still life and shrink a really small. Also, if you want to do something really tall and skinny like this tree download I did, I really recommend going custom. You can just upload the image to Art to Frames, pick your height or width, crop if you want, and pick the frame and mat to the exact right size.
2. Download the highest quality version of the image and use simple software to resize it. You could probably even do this in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, but I used Bluebeam PDF tool and I’ve also used my free photo editor, Google Picasa. Obviously something like Photoshop is probably better if you know how to use it. But anything where you can change the page size to the standard page sizes at FedEx will let you see how your print will fit. But note: if you have an 11" opening, you probably won’t be able to fill it with an 11" wide piece of paper and will need to do it sideways on an 11 x 14, because the outer 1/4" or so gets cut off in printing.
3. Clean and refresh frames and mats. They are often beyond dusty. Take everything apart and clean both sides of the glass with rubbing alcohol or window cleaner. On several of these I've done, I've spray painted dated colored mats with matte white spray paint. It actually looks really good. I did that on all four of the ones in these photos! 

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Tiling our fireplace surround: 2-day project, huge living room update!

9.03.2021

Tiling our fireplace surround: 2-day project, huge living room update!

I’ve been working on little changes to our living room for the past three years, trying to get it to a place we really love. Living rooms are tricky because there are so many options both in style and function, and you have to play around with both. We’ve moved furniture around, added furniture, moved and mounted the TV, changed art, changed window coverings, changed the massive rug… And I have done some small updates to the original brick fireplace with 1980s brass screen.

Well, I finally gave the fireplace the update it really needed: I added some really beautiful handmade tile. I am in love with it!

Thanks to Pratt + Larson for working with me on this project.

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