We’re playing rug roulette over here at our house

Yesterday, a friend and I hit up a few yard sales in the suburbs and I was lucky enough to score a gorgeous 9×14 Persian rug from a doctor and his wife that are down-sizing from their suburban mansion to a Center City condo.  It was one of those classic moments at a yard sale, when you look at the price tag and think “Are they serious?!”  I wondered that because the price tag read $100, and that is seriously CHEAP for a real wool Persian rug!  (Meanwhile, I still bargained them to $90 for it.  I know…I feel a little bad, but I’m a firm believer in always bargaining in these situations even when the price is ridiculous.  Take this as a lesson for the next time you’re at a flea market, yard sale or thrift store.)

At any rate, I bought it for our master bedroom because I wanted something in the burgandy-red color family to warm it up.  (Our current rug is a solid pale grey.  No fuss.  No excitement.)  However, it didn’t work out because it turned out to be too large.  Gah!! (I really should remember to ALWAYS keep a tape measure in my purse.)  So, the fact that the rug didn’t fit in our master bedroom started a domino effect of rug switcheroo throughout the house.  We put the new rug in the guest room, the old guest room rug in the living room, and the living room rug in the dining room.

Here’s how it all ended up:

This is the new rug that we got.  It’s going all the way to the wall here because we ended up having to push it as far away from the door as possible so that it would open without having to shave the bottom of the door down.  I just couldn’t bear to start another project this evening, so forgive my laziness.

The living room looks SO much better with this rug in it that I can barely stand it.  I love this rug so much that it only felt right to have it downstairs where I could enjoy it all the time.  Wheeeee!

And now the dining room has the old living room rug.  (This last photo is terrible.  I was rushing there at the end…So sorry!!)  At any rate, getting three new looks for the price of [less-than] one was so much FUN!!  As Layla at The Lettered Cottage says, “Always shop your house first!” In this case, it didn’t exactly come first, but it did come.  And that’s what counts!

My [newest] dream house

As mentioned in the past, I have a fascination with old craftsman style houses.  The other day I ran across a site called Antique Home.org that has scans of tons of old home catalogs from the early 1900’s through the 1960’s.  (Talk about a way to waste a couple of hours on a hot Saturday sitting indoors in the air conditioning trying not to melt away…but I digress.)  These old images and plans made me long for building my own dream home and modifying it just for lil ole us.  Not that that will be happening anytime in the near future, but it was fun to dream.  Anyways, out of all the ones I looked at…the one I thought was just about perfect (with some slilght interior wall re-configuration) was this simple craftsman style.

It’s a 1920’s craftsman called the “Avon” built by Bennett “Better-built” Homes.  It’s straightforward in it’s design, and probably not what you thought I’d say was my dream home, right?!  Look through the Antique Home website, and tell me if you have any dream home’s of your own!

Loving Bow ties!

They’ve been featured on every blog recently, but I couldn’t help but post about the new bow tie that I just bought my sweet hubby!  He’s going to look so handsome in it!

My friend Shauna and her dapper husband Stephen created this new line of bow ties called “Forage.”  Curiosity Shoppe in SF is currently selling them both in-store and online.  (I was at first very sad to know they were only being sold in SF when I live here in Philly…however I was very pleased to discover that they were on the Curiosity Shoppe website today.  However, note they are sold out in many colors / styles.  So get them while they’re hot!)

As a side note, no…I’m not forcing him to wear bow ties.  It turns out that he likes them himself.  It was me that actually took some convincing…at first.  (He’s a very fashion forward kinda guy.)  Here’s a pic of him wearing a bow tie at our friend’s wedding this summer.  I definitely approved (and encouraged) the pattern combo though. He likes new styles and I like mixing prints.  Haha!

Oooh, hello Wisteria sale section! I see you have some gems for me.

Wisteria sent me a lovely little email today telling me to check out their sale section.  And they have a few things that I would love to have, but certainly don’t need.  (Especially since we just committed to a visit to Wyoming to stay with friends.)  Therefore, I feel like I absolutely must share these with you.  Hopefully you’ll benefit from my inability to purchase these goodies for myself.

Lord knows that I’m a sucker for kitschy dishtowels.  You can buy these HERE.

I have some vintage French linen sacks already, but this is a good reminder to myself to remember to sew them into pillow covers, stat.  You can buy these HERE.

These military insignia pillows are adorable.  (Although personally, I would NEVER suggest styling with all four of them at once.  Remember that editing is key.  Mix one with the french linen pillows above, and this pillow from West Elm…and that would be a sofa makeover that I could live with!)

Happy sale shopping!

Crafty Flea Market-find Upholstery

I’m intrigued.  I’ll admit it.  The jury is out on whether or not I’d actually style my own home with any of these though.  I’ve got to hand it to the people at REcreate, they’ve taken crafty furniture to the next level though.  See all their upholstery here.

Getting rid of an old growth Forsythia bush

As promised, here is the story of us ripping out our old Forsythia bush.  First, let me preface this story by saying that I’m not normally a fan of getting rid of old-growth plant life.  However sometimes shrubbery, if left un-tended, can grow so large as to hide your best asset – the curb appeal of your house!  Well, this Forsythia bush was doing just that very thing.

In this photo, I’d actually already begun trimming by the time Nick came by and remembered to snap a “before” photo.  So this isn’t quite as large as it originally was…but you get the idea.  We’d read some articles online about how difficult it could be to get one out of the ground…and even though it was an all day job, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it’d be.

First, we trimmed the exterior growth as much as we could with electric hedgetrimmers.  Then, we used a Corona Steel handled lopper from Lowes to cut all the branches.  We purchased a lopper that could cut limbs up to 3″ thick.  We DEFINITELY needed one of that size.  It also came in handy later when we were trying to snip big pieces of root.  (The 3″ version doesn’t appear to be available on Lowe’s website, but was available in store.)

Once we’d cut away almost all of the branches, leaving just enough sticking out of the ground to use as leverage to rock the base of the bush, we began to run the water hose slowly over each root base to soak the ground (without making it muddy).  Definitely don’t flood the ground too fast, or you’ll just make a huge mess and end up with a ton of mud everywhere.  (NOTE:  Forsythia bushes send out runner roots fairly close to the surface….and tend to have multiple root clusters.  Ours had about 6 root clusters with two big main ones.)

After really soaking the ground, we were able to dig up the roots using two different types of pick-axe, a hatchet, and the aforementioned loppers.  After several hours of digging, ripping, tearing, rocking the root base, and clipping bits here and there…we were finally able to free all the pieces.

After all that work, we were ready for a beer to cool down!

And don’t worry…we’re not planning on leaving a huge hole.  We’re actually going to most likely plant a Crape Myrtle tree in it’s place.  We like the idea of having something there…just not something that takes up so much visual space and hides the house.  I’ll update with what we put in it’s place.

I’m not gonna lie. I kinda like these kitschy plates.

This Etsy seller (BeatUpCreations) takes antique china and serveware and updates them from Granny to modern-day hipster wall art.  This would make a cute (and inexpensive) wall decor statement.  Fun for a small bathroom, hallway, or adding to a larger collection of art for a bit of humor.  My favorite is this one of R2-D2.

See more whimsical pieces (including a zombie family portrait) at her Etsy shop HERE.

For the love of Deyrolle

About 5 years ago I had the joy of visiting Paris.  On that very brief visit, I was told that I MUST stop in to see Deyrolle while I was there.  For those of you that have never visited, it’s a natural science “Cabinet of Curiosities” shop started in 1831 that is filled to the brim with taxidermy, etymological specimens, shells and coral, beautiful instructional charts, classrooms, etc…and all displayed with a nod to whimsy.  (This is evident from the first moment you look in the window and see an antelope dressed in gardening clothes.)  Unfortunately, I had other appointments to attend to while I was there, but I literally could have stayed in Deyrolle for the entire day.  It left me feeling sad to leave because I wanted to explore every nook and cranny of this incredible place, and felt as if I’d only scratched the surface.

Fast forward a few years, and I heard that Deyrolle had experienced a terrible fire and most of it had burned.  Thankfully the owners and volunteers were able to save a great number of specimens…and today the shop has been rebuilt.

In 2009 Assouline Publishing released a book of photographs by Laurent Bochet called 1000 degrees Celsius that captured the remains of what happened after the fire.  It’s a captivating book that I would recommend to anyone who loves animals and the spirit of survival.  The portraits section at the end is my favorite part for it’s vitality against the blackened walls of the shop.  It features volunteers posing with specimens that survived the fire from Deyrolle.  My favorite quote from that section is, “Amid all this carbon, they [the specimens] had never looked as much like survivors.  We gathered them together so that they could rub each other, nuzzle each other – a kiss.”

See more photos from Laurent Bochet’s 1000 degrees Celsius after the jump.

Bedding Outfits

Today I spent some time at work discussing the art and process of dressing the bed.  Personally, I’m a big fan of mixing and matching sheets, quilts, bedkirts, shams, etc.  My own bed [currently] is wearing a wide variety of pieces from various retailers.  None of which were part of the same set.  In my opinion, making the bed can be just as interesting a process as putting together an outfit for your body.  There is no rule that it must be part of a “set” or a matchy-matchy color combination.

That being said, I put together five bedding outfits for my day job that went up on online this week.  Each look utilizes the same basic bedding program…but mixed up in 5 different variations with varying sheet, rug & pillow combinations.  The goal was to create 5 distinct looks.  I was pretty happy with the way it turned out, especially because I’m a big fan of mixing and matching colors & patterns myself.  So I thought I’d re-post the images at House Obsession.  (You can see the bedding interactive live and purchase all the items here.)

How many of you like to mix it up when it comes to your bed linens?  Or do you prefer to have everything match exactly?  (Personally, I’m slightly obsessed with patterned sheets in particular.)

Okay fine, so you like vampires…

I’ll admit it.  I have a thing for the True Blood series / Sookie Stackhouse novels.  (They’re a guilty pleasure and Alexander Skarsgard is cute.)   And in the same vein, I switched on my inner adolescent girl and read all of the Twilight novels.  (I’m seriously ashamed to admit this.)  Well tonight, my gal pals and I went out to suffer through Eclipse.  (You’d think that with the amount of money they’re making on those films, they could cough up some money for decent hair and makeup…at LEAST!)  At any rate, all of this hoopla over the Twilight “saga” got me to thinking about Etsy.  Specifically, I began to wonder if those crafty sellers there had begun to make Twilight-themed home decor.  Why did I even bother to ask?  Of COURSE they did…

Hip, modern bedroom?  Check.  Wall mural of a vampire / werewolf confrontation? Check.

I do like his hair in this image in spite of myself.  But sleeping on this pillow is not something I could ever do.

How very…threesome of you?

I hope the owner of this room would never actually put other people’s faces on their wall.  It’s altogether weird.

“Hey Grandma, can you hook me a heart rug that is ‘inspired’ by Edward and Bella’s love?”

Does anyone else think it’s weird to have the switch in the middle of his chest?  Oh, and the release date of the movie?  So strange…

I don’t think I’ll be able to look at houndstooth the same way again…

The title of this listing includes “Boudoir chic.”  ‘Nuff said.

This looks like a Manhattan loft.  With Twilight quote emblazoned in plastic over the chic, tufted headboard.  I’d say a study in highbrow meets lowbrow, no?

Wow.  A bedazzled Twilight fan.  Perfect for the heatwave going on in Philadelphia at the moment…I wonder if little bits of glitter would get blown into your face?

The chunky painted fingers on this glass are my favorite part.  The idea of drinking wine out of this glass is not my favorite part however…

Okay, so if any of you or someone you know are creating a room around the movie Twilight (or vampires/werewolves in general), then you absolutely MUST send me a picture.  I just must see this decorating style “in the wild.”