Roaring Corgi

More decoration to the master bedroom - Beatles!

I heart the Beatles SO. MUCH. I named a dog after one of their songs.

If I have a kid (<--hahahahaha!) I will probably name it after them as well.

That's right, my future child will be named Nowhere Pennylane Submarine.

^I guess you can tell what era I like as well. (Interesting)

DIGRESSION.

I wanted to put some kind of art above our bed to fill those gray walls. Even though I love those gray walls. How I love them. (licks wall)

I found these painted Beatles canvases on Etsy. The artist is in the UK, which means I had to wait forEVER. And I am really patient.

They look fabulous! (say that like Oprah would)

I get to sleep under John, my fave. Whee!

Another angle:

I feel like it's still a little stark and it might need a color block behind it or something like this.

Thoughts?

I used this new tool from Home Depot that is supposed to help you line stuff up on the wall easier. It was marginally easier.  Here it is:

I would say it's worth the $14 for it. I don't have one of those fancy laser levels so this was instead of buying one of those. It pushes holes into the wall after you line it up. It's a bit trickier than the instructions say though. Whatever. It's better than guessing, which si my normal m.o.

Next project is to finally to the little path through the planter that will connect our front walk to the driveway to make a little shortcut.  I need muscle for that. So... basically Jason will be doing and I will be photographing it.

Update on the Yard!

I have a hatred for hedges. Look, if I wanted to live in an office park, I just would. 

So I have been methodically murdering all of ours from the front yard, much to my partner's horror. 

I have only one row of them left and they are against a stone wall, so for now they will stay.

Here is the newest planter I did today:

 Those are grasses and then a Salvia on the left and Sea Lavender on the right, plus some annuals (Marigold) to add some color, even though I don't believe in planting annuals in general. 

Here is the top planter (Halloween decor and all):

 There are Papyrus plants flanking the archway, and I love these because they are all prehistoric looking. And then there are some grasses and succulents to add some color. And the pumpkin face. I have solar uplighting on the Papyrus so at night they get to be all show-offy.

And here is the whole thing:

I am liking it! The colors work well I think. Hopefully I can keep it all alive. God bless sprinklers. 

The Complete Guest Bedroom

I completed the guest bedroom, albeit without hard flooring. But that is because I took a new job, which is AMAZING (and I not just saying that because my boss linked to my blog in his own blog), but it also means I don't have the same budget as before. No worries. We don't need laminate or hard wood floors to live. For now. 

Here is the post I wrote about that shows my initial pieces that inspired me. 

I painted the walls gray, though actually they look like a slate blue, which I am not entirely happy about, but since the color is pretty anyway, and I don't want to repaint it, it will stay as is.

My partner helped:

 
Oh. And so did Roxy:

In fact, she basically feels the need to be next to me at all times, so she needed to lay on the drop cloth every where I moved it. Which, needless to say, did not help my painting AT ALL.

And without further ado, here is the end result for now (I may do some more tweaking but we will see). (Also, the really dark pillow is actually just purple but it doesn't register well in the photo.).

Bed (and those hot pink vintage candleabras):

The hat rack with vintage hats and my scarf from Paris:

 The little nightstand I repainted, plus a hot pink lamp and vintage books (oh, and an appearance by the inspiration item of the teacup pin cushion. and the knob came from Anthropologie):

And the vanity/craft dresser that is originally from my bed set as a kid (mercury glass knobs from Anthropologie):

And a close-up of the items on that wall:

Whew! Now I have no excuse to not be starting the painting in the master bedroom. I am dreading it because it's a larger room and has vaulted ceilings. (crying)

The Yards. For Now.

We have been working on the yard in bits and pieces. My goal is to get it to be a bit more drought tolerant in general. And also prettier. Well, maybe more tame is what I mean. Or at least more to my taste. 

I keep ripping out bushes and my partner not only hates that I am throwing away "perfectly good plants," but he also rolls his eyes at me and scowls when I say, "I want to take out that bush/plant/tree." Because really? It means he has to get out there and dig it up and hack at huge roots with an axe and sweat until it comes out of the ground. And a lot of these have been in the ground for like 15 years. 

I don't care.

Want to know why?

THEY ARE UGLY.

We started in the back, near the new BBQ patio, and went ahead and ripped out all the bushes (Hedges. They are hedges and I hate them with extra hate sauce) and planted some more sub tropical-slash-summery-slash-flowering-slash-citrus-y plants. 

So that included a Mexican Lime tree that our realtors bought us a year ago, and has only produced ONE lime. ONE. It is NOT earning it's cost in water yet, let me tell you. And next to it I replanted some geraniums and some random orange flower I thought looked kind of neat and prehistoric. <--Good reasons to buy a plant, if you ask me. 

And in this other area, I replanted some kind of Bird of Paradise (I think, though it hasn't produced a single flower. It and the lime tree can go suck it) and some more geraniums. I am not a major huge fan of geraniums, but I already had them in pots and if there is something my partner hates ALMOST as much as digging up perfectly healthy plants, it is potted plants. I think he thinks it looks clutter-y. Whatever. This is the same guy who has asked me more than once if he can wear black shoes and a brown belt. TOGETHER. IN THE SAME OUTFIT. He would never refer to it as an outfit either. 

After that I started in on the front yard. I had this vision of doing something California-like and drought tolerant as well. But it's the front yard and there are a few things I need to consider when picking plants and digging up others:

1. People will actually see it. 
2. The sun hits that area from like 11am to night time. So it will be easy to kill stuff. The plants need to be labeled "will survive Mars."
3. My neighbor across the street allegedly spends her entire day examining my front yard and telling her husband--who then tells us--what we are doing wrong and what part of it is ugly. 

So. With all that in mind I am only doing parts of the yard. Mainly #3 freaks me out. This is the same neighbor who walked over when we were pulling out a certain bush, said "this one looks dead," and proceeded to pull it out himself. (It wasn't one I was going to rip out)

So I started small, and stuck to succulents because I think those are harder to kill? I hope? The guy at Armstrong said so?

Plus they are seriously bitchin' looking. I like things that look prehistoric, weird, or confusing. Succulents have all these things!

BBQ Patio

I couldn't think of a more exciting title. 

And I still haven't written about Europe. Say it with me: I suck. Except you just said said that YOU suck. 

I win!

For Memorial Day Weekend, my family threw me a surprise party. And I was honest to god surprised. It was fantastic. They decorated my house with My Little Pony everything and I am so grateful for the thought. It was a very special party. Thank you to all.

So then today, my partner went ahead and finished the BBQ patio - which I thought he was doing Sunday except he was really prepping for the surprise party so I guess he gets an excuse. The patio results are great. 

Previously we had the grill on the main patio, which took up so much space - we live in Orange County, it's not like space is easy to come by.

So after sweating it out all day, he was able to accomplish it!

Previously, it looked like this below (look by the chimney on the left and you can see a million bushes. I made him rip those all out so he could move the grill there. sorry i didn't take an actual before photo. But I notated this one. Click on it to see notes.):

Here are some "in progress" shots:

Okay so that last one is the trash can patio, chronicled here, but Jason had to fix it after the terrible guys that did our fenced effed it up.

And yay! done!

And the whole time Crazy Dog was in the way. Because he's an ass that way.

Guest Bedroom Inspiration. And Scary Horse Heads.

After the two bathrooms I have slowed in my decorating. I plan to tackle the guest bedroom next and need to just get on with it already.

The wall color is called Sleek Gray and it is a cool, silvery gray. Not too dark, definitely not taupe-y, and very modern. I love it.

Recently my partner and I stayed in the Palms in Las Vegas and he mentioned he loved the wood floors there and would be okay with them in our upstairs if they were dark like that. They were a deep chocolate in color.

I AM ON A HARD FLOOR MISSION PEOPLE.

Problem is, I can't find anything affordable in that dark color. There is real wood offered that dark but I want it scuff proof and cheap, which kills the wood idea pretty swiftly. So I looked at laminates today but nothing is that dark. My partner just sighed and said, "do whatever you want," but I don't really believe him. It sounded resigned. I will still probably do whatever I want.

So aside from the floor problem, I am trying to finish getting furniture figured out for the guest room. I got a daybed from craigslist today. This one.

And then I went shopping at Z Gallerie. OMFG I could seriously go broke in that store.

Here is the image of inspiration:

 

Horse head is from Z and I had to have it and it was 50% off. Partner looked at me with wide eyes when I showed him. Bird cage thing also from Z. The silver plate is something I got from my mom and the ceramic mug is from my granny. The candelabra will be painted something like hot pink probably. <-- Another reason for partner to hate me.  The wood piece is the darkest laminate I could find.

Oh.

And the horse head was SUPER SCARY:

The other bathroom. On it's way to complete. Also I need your opinion on designy stuff.

We did the small master bath, which is really part of a larger project that involves painting the entire master bath and bedroom, but I am all painted out for a while. Plus our bed weighs 900 pounds so really I plan to paint AROUND it.

Also there are vaulted ceilings in there. Oyvey. I am already tired.

So I knocked out the guest bathroom.

Warning - this is a looooong post, but mostly because of pictures.

Here is a before (once I pulled out the medicine cabinet and the lighting fixture. ALL. BY. MYSELF.):

Notice that the light switches were even wallpapered. <smacks head>I decided the medicine cabinet would not go back in and that hole would instead become a niche. Granted, a poorly designed use for a hole in the wall that well, looks like a medicine cabinet, but I had the perfect art piece for it. We'll get to that.

But hark! Lo, do you see the horrid wallpaper of death and star babies? It's putrid and gross and for 4-year-old kiddies. It had to go. This bathroom had one of those monstrous mirrors that takes up a whole wall, which in general I am not opposed to, but I felt I could do more with the space without it.

Here is after the wallpaper was torn out and the new texture was applied (I hired someone for that):

by the way here is a close up of the <shudder> chicken soup stars. And the old lighting fixture:

I cut off part of the bathroom counter that ran above the toilet for some unknown reason. It was on a whim one morning. I posted it here real time.

Aaaaaaannnnnd, here is the new color. <Sigh> I can't take a picture of it without it looking like sea foam green, but it's not. Not exactly. It's more like a toned down Tiffany box blue than mint ice cream. Promise. The color is even called "Tranquility" so it's hardly a candy color. Ugh, anyway.


There! This picture is a better representation of the color. And this light fixture replaced the ones I call "burned out Hollywood starlet dressing room." I LOVE this fixture. $79 at Lowe's. (Wait, here is the starlet dressing room lamp that was there before. Vomit.)

And because I love this fixture so much, you can see it twice! Yay! Let there be light!

Isn't it positively French looking? SAY YES.

So then I added the mirror (beveled 30" oval mirror - $49 at Lowe's):

I added a little sign above a door that I got that looked Parisian, but also is special to me because of one of my heroes, John Lennon:

and finally, the art piece that helped inspire the color and the poorly disguised niche:

So now I need a towel rack that looks vintage and a shelf over the toilet, since I have all that space where the dumb monster mirror used to be.

I found this shelf - I need opinions. What do you think?

New Master Bathroom

I was asked for pictures of the new bathroom and this might be underwhelming let me just tell you.

First, the only before picture I have (because I didn't prepare and get gnarly "before" shots, though this does give you a peek at the graph paper wallpaper someone thought was a good idea <--that person should be shot):

Do you feel the overwhelming need to do quadratic equations?

I DO.

The same people who CHOSE the graph paper also applied it directly to drywall. Being a good, god-fearing person, I knew it was best to pay someone else to remove it from that drywall.

Also, removing wallpaper is terrible.

I had the walls re-textured and then used a Valspar paint called "Dove's Cry" and installed some new towel racks, a new toilet paper holder and some art. What you can't see is the new black framed mirror I just got that I'll hang above the towels.

Pics:

Picture the new framed mirror in that one right above here.

Simple change, but it is so much more peaceful. And so much less of a reminder of math class. <shudder>

The holidays around here.

I like to decorate. Partner? I think he enjoys seeing it done, but would rather not partake, if only because then he can see all the crap we have in order to do the decorating. It's better he doesn't participate actually. Or half of it would end up in the trash. He is not a "stuff" lover. That's a completely different post.

So I thought I would share some pics with you.

this one is from a few year's ago, but it's retarded cute, so totally worth posting:

I love lamp.

We did another project. One my partner and I both agree was the devil and we would prefer to never do it again, though I for one feel a sense of accomplishment over this particular task.

We got a new dining table, but no, that's not the incredible feat. We needed a new chandelier to go above it because 1) I like buying things, and; 2) the one we had was a monstrosity of epic proportions. (As evidenced in first photo)

It's a behemoth of a light fixture. A gigantic, massive metal mega-ton lamp.

Plus.

It has crystals hanging from it. Much like organized religion, I am not going to tell you that you can't have them, but I myself am not a fan. But go. Have those crystals.

I posted it on CL and someone contacted me quicker than I expected. So then we had to actually take the thing down. Ugh.

I already had a cute replacement ($56 at Lowes sucka. Nice).

So we turned off breakers, stripped wires, cursed at the wires, bent chain loops, cursed at the chain loops, and managed to stay married.

And now the old one is in a box ready for it's new owner and the new one is up! We survived! I had this horrible thought that we would never be able to get it up without killing, maiming, setting fire to, or otherwise drastically wounding ourselves and/or the dogs. (The dogs were mostly excited about the flashlights we used since it was 11pm when we attempted this.)

A good Friday night I'd say.