Author Archives: CT

Embarrassing admission ahead . . .

Posted on February 10, 2012 | 6 comments

I bought the Jonathan Adler “Respect the Roll” toilet paper covers.  Not one but two.  I logged on to their ridiculous website, paid $2.99 per thing-a-ma-jig, waited 2-4 weeks for delivery and came home from work one day to this:

Things “respectfully” designed by Jonathan Adler.  I must be a media-marketing sucker.  I bought into the Target/Missoni craze.  Now I’m buying toilet paper covers?  And they didn’t even come with rolls of toilet paper in them, FYI.

Images from Cottonelle's marketing campaign

But I just love the pattern.  Green and blue.  And trefoils?  Yes please.

Since they have not yet touched toilet paper, I’m thinking they might live in the kitchen to hold dog treats for the spoiled-ass dogs.  Because even my dogs love designer things.

Is anyone else as big a sucker as I am?  Probably not, but now that I’m aware of my weakness for random cheap designer items made for the masses I can get help.  Have a great weekend everyone.  I’ll be at my therapist’s office.  (aka Target.)

6 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Design Diversions

Spray Paint is a Girl’s (New) Best Friend . . . or maybe Value Village

Posted on February 8, 2012 | 2 comments

Forget all that talk of diamond’s being a girl’s best friend.  (And really forget those open heart diamond necklaces, gag!).  What a girl really needs is a good thrift store and a can of spray paint.  In my case, Value Village and my new can of Valspar Deep Sea Diving.

When Paul had his coming out party yesterday, I didn’t mention his new accessory — the lamp.

Paul McCobb secretary desk as a bar

Paul came home with us on Friday night and I had done a quick scramble around trying to find just his right accessories.  I tried out the Ikea “globe/blob” lamp on him but it was too bright.  The other lamps in the house were too tall.  I knew I wanted some big artwork there as well so I hit a few area thrift stores to see if there were any large frames or canvases I could McGuyver into something better.  No luck. 

But I did find this naked little white ceramic lamp base for $2.52 and a very sad country-style lampshade for $1.21 in two different aisles at Value Village.

One visit to the backyard “spray booth” later . . . .

And things are much happier.  All for $3.73 and a can of spray paint I had already used on another project. 

The artwork next to it was something we had picked up on a family trip to Memphis a few years back.  It’s an old flyer for a concert or something. . . As a happy accident, it contained the blue color that is now starting to pop up all around the house.  I propped it up on a little Ikea (!) easel.  I still have some ideas in mind for the big “statement piece” that will go behind there, but whenever that is ready, it will have a little light to light it up.

2 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Miscellaneous Diversions, Thrifting

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Meet Mr. McCobb . . . I mean Paul

Posted on February 7, 2012 | 7 comments

I have been agonizing for a few short weeks now about what piece of furniture to replace the buffet that I moved into the kitchen.  It all came to its fruition on Friday when JT and I took the magic furniture-hauling Saturn for a visit to Vandeventer Vintage.  After seeing it featured on Mister Modtomic’s blog and knowing it was dangerously close to our house, I felt compelled to stop by.

I went there with an ulterior motive.  I went there to meet Paul.

Hi Paul.

Or would you prefer to be called Mr. McCobb?

No?  Paul’s okay?

Well, Paul, I think you were meant to be a desk of some sort, but you don’t mind being a bar do you?

You display bottles so well and can hide them away when our friends come over.

You have handy little drawers for all our accessories and an unopened bottle of wine fits perfect into the cubby holes that used to be meant for office supplies.  That’s not a coincedence, right?

And you have so much space for all our wine glasses below . . .

Welcome to our house Paul.  We hope you like living here.

 

So, that’s our big furniture news.  After plotting and planning about glass shelves and hutches and tall cabinets, we ended up with this.  I guess the joke’s on me.  I took down the artwork that was hanging on that wall but have yet to finalize things there . . . now I’m looking for a large statement piece to finish up that piece of wall.   Paul’s already doing a pretty good job and we couldn’t be happier with him.  Check out Vandeventer Vintage’s Flickr photostream for more items in their store . . . . I may be headed back for the marble coffee table so leave that one for me please.  Thanks!

7 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Furniture

Sophie and Shenanigan, famous on the inter-webs

Posted on February 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

Guys, I have achieved a life long dream. 

Sophie and Shenanigan (and JT a little bit too) were included in Desire to Inspire’s weekly “Pets on Furniture”.  See the post here.

Kim and Jo of Desire to Inspire cull the interwebs and pull together great inspirational images but my favorite part is definitely every Monday when they do “Pets on Furniture”.  As an animal lover AND a furniture lover, it doesn’t get much better.

Speaking of furniture, we have news . . . .

Leave a comment

Posted in Dogs, Furniture

Help, my husband has a guitar addiction . . .

Posted on February 3, 2012 | 3 comments

So this will be JT’s third eBay auction in three weeks.  Crazytown.  This week we have the Vintage G Holiday Electric Guitar.

Due to work-craziness, I’m going to give you my side of these guitar buys & fixes.  Since the Holiday required no fixing, it’ll be a little easier.

Here’s how it begins — JT scours craigslist and is constantly analyzing things he sees on there for its eBay-ness.  Since he is good at fixing things up, that is usually how he gets the best deals.  For the Holiday, he contacted some dude and we met at this cool building in Soulard to close the deal. (I usually go along for company but stay in the car so as not to impede negotiations. )

We headed home and JT inspected the guitar.  No work needed.  It was Sunday, which is a nice time to post to eBay because it means the auction will also end on a Sunday, when people have time to be at home on their computers. (We failed to comprehend that it was also Super Bowl Sunday since we’re not big sports fans, but anyone bidding on a guitar will also hopefully be in the non-sports-fan boat like us.)

Next was a mad scramble to photograph the d**n thing.  It has a really nice detail at the bottom, but it also meant that it won’t sit on any of the stands JT normally uses. 

We remembered an old-school pipe thingy that JT had stashed down in the basement.  Out it came and then we tried three (THREE!) different set-ups in two different rooms trying to get the photographs taken. 

Here’s some outtakes from the living room session.  The guitar didn’t show well against the wall so we abandoned these shots.  It was total chaos and we almost completely destroyed the whole house moving things around and plugging our little work lights into various outlets and clamping them onto various things.

But alas, pictures did get taken and to eBay it did go.  I take and edit all the photos (thanks photoshop) and JT writes the descriptions (he is the guitar expert).  You can see the listing here.  There’s also a cool YouTube video that JT did to show how all the electrics work here. 

There is a new inhabitant to the music room as well, a 1966 (?) Gibson acoustic that we drove to the end of the earth for on Wednesday night.  It needs some work so JT will be around to post on that one soon.  I opened the music room door this morning and it was resting in its case with a sheepskin “blanket” on it.  The guitars in this house get just as spoiled as the dogs.

AND — we’re going to Vandeventer Vintage tonight.  There may be furniture news in the near future. . . . . .  Have a great weekend everyone!

3 Comments

Posted in Guitars

Tagged , , ,

Confession

Posted on February 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

I have a confession to make folks. 

Brace yourselves.

When I got out of bed last Saturday morning and made my way to the kitchen, my (one and only 8′-6″ span of) counter looked something like this:

Messy kitchen counter

Shocking.  Bad. 

A quick empty and reload of the dishwasher later, it wasn’t looking so bad (aside from the red toaster that doesn’t match and the patches of green wall let over from taking down the wine racks and the painter’s tape because I’m getting ready to paint again and . . . and . . . )

I think it’s about to get a lot worse before it gets better.  (It gets better, I promise). 

But JT is going to pick up our new tile this week so there will be demolition work soon.  (It might get loud.)Crossville EcoCycle Wetlands

We’re installing Crossville EcoCycle tile in color “Wetland”.  It is a more commercial based tile, so super heavy-duty and the extra bonus is that it has over 40% recycled content in it.  The brochure picture doesn’t do it justice, it’s a nice warm grey color with hints of tan — another chameleon like our Sherwin Williams Amazing Gray walls in the living room.

So here we go everybody.  I’m holding my breath and jumping into the unknown.  First house, first kitchen (small) renovation.  Wish us luck!!

(PS — I should clarify that this is more of a teaser post.  As you may have noticed, we move at a snail’s pace around here.  I’m planning on completing all the kitchen stuff by the end of March.  Two months.  We’ll see.)

(PPS – JT is dragging me out to the middle-of-nowhere-Missouri tonight to look at some other Craigslist guitar he’s considering for his eBay store.   Keep us in your thoughts so we don’t get mauled by ax murderers.)

Leave a comment

Posted in Around the house, Guitars, Kitchen

Tagged , ,

Working for the Weekend

Posted on January 30, 2012 | 2 comments

Most of you guys know, but both JT and I are full-time workers.  Really most people are full-time workers but there are a lot of bloggers out there who are not 8-to-5 office types so I thought I would say it.  We’re 8-to-5 office types.  And lately for both of us the office stuff has been a little hectic.  So after an 8-to-5 or 7-to-5 or 7-to-7, neither of us really want to come home and do a lot of little stuff around the house.  So we don’t 

But when the weekend rolls around, there’s so many free hours to work on all those little (and big) projects that go unnoticed during the week.  And small steps keep getting made.  I’m sorry if these little things are a little boring or tedious, but for us, it’s all we got right now.  At some point, I’d like to have some amazing *ta-da* before and after pictures.  But right now we’re kind of in the middle of everything and just taking baby steps to get on through.

So here’s this last weekend’s progress.

Wait, that doesn’t look like progress, that looks like laziness.  We actually took the dogs to Francis Park (a gem in South City) and ran them around so they were pretty bushed.  It wore us down too but when there’s nice weather and some sunshine, you gotta get out. (And projects gotta wait.  Them’s the breaks).  But for those of you with very discerning eyes, you may notice that I did paint the vent cover on the back wall that was driving me bananas.  Small thing, but it helps it blend away more now that it matches the wall color.  (It would be even more hidden but I took down the peperonia plant to water it and left it on the windowsill to get a little sun for the day.)

The other little thing I did was some spray paint fun.  We have had this nice large ice bucket for some time. (I think I got it as a college graduation present from my aunt and uncle?  Like I said, long time.)  In our first apartment, the baby blue made sense.  Now I wanted to make in our more sapphire/teal blue to give the kitchen a little color (and a little more storage.)

That before picture of the kitchen make me shudder and that was only a few weeks ago.  It feels so much different in there now!  I started out with the same spray paint I used on my “T” collection a little bit ago here.  But it ran out and a spray paint hunt ensued.  I visited Home Depot AND Lowe’s and neither had an exact match.  So I ended up having to start over with a Valspar can I got at Lowe’s.  The color had more blue and a little less green than the previous can, so I had to re-coat and re-coat.  And my little Rustoleum attachment spray handle didn’t work on the Valspar can either.  Boo.  I ended up Smurfing myself a little by getting some blue back-spray on my hand.  But it was worth it (although this next picture is a little underwhelming – the color is so much nicer in real life . . . .)

Now we have a nice out-of-the-way place for all our oils and vinegars that we buy in bulk.  JT and I cook a lot and from scratch too so our kitchen gets pretty heavy use.  I’m thinking on the upcoming IKEA trip (how many times can I mention this trip before it happens?  I think I’m up to 6.) I will get a little plant stand on wheels to put under the bucket and make it a little more useful so it can just roll out from under the buffet.    I also did my “I hate cords” trick and taped the microwave cord and it’s extension cord to the back of the buffet.  Cords be-gone!

We also had a visitor who bought one of our Craigslist items.  One down, one to go.  Now we’re left with this . . .

Just a little microwave cart waiting for a new home.  I moved Little Walter (the tree) over to this spot — he’s sick!!!  I had purchased and photographed him a few weeks before I got around to posting about him and now he’s not doing so good!  I’m hoping by moving him away from the exterior wall, he will stay a little warmer and spruce back up. I also watered him a little more but I have anxiety about over-watering and thus drowning my plants.  I set him up on the milk crate for now because a) I kind of like the height and am using it as a placeholder and b) I’m kind of nervous Shenanigan will lift his little stubby leg on Little Walter so I wanted to get him used to having a big plant near his level. 

 Any other ideas on what to do for poor Little Walter?  I was holding off on re-potting him until after the IKEA trip (#7!!) but I may have to bite the bullet and do it now. 

Have a great week everyone — it’s 8:08 now and I have some office craziness to attend to!

2 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Design Diversions, Dogs, Furniture

Tagged , , , , , ,

A new family member . . . (Spoiler alert, it’s a tree, don’t freak out)

Posted on January 26, 2012 | 4 comments

JT would probably prefer that our newest family “member” be one of these Little Walters —

But it’s not, it’s this Little Walter —

We got an indoor tree!  Something I have always, always wanted, especially after seeing them in all the glossy spreads of fancy people’s homes.  At first I contemplated naming him Morrissey because he would be sort of solitary and asexual.  But Little Walter won out.  (I may be the only one who names my houseplants, but I’m okay with that.)  I’m a little frustrated with Home Depot because it doesn’t identify exactly what type of tree/bush/plant Little Walter is.  On the tag, he is labeled as “Living Accents – Foliage – Medium Light”.  Great.

I’ll probably be looking for a nice pot for Little Walter on our upcoming, much anticipated IKEA trip.  I didn’t want Zappa, the ZZ plant to get jealous though, so I’ve been making him a sisal rope “pot”.

I simply got a $13 sisal rope cone at Home Depot and I’ve been crocheting it ’round and ’round to create a decorative sheath to put over the black plastic pot it came in.  We’ll see how it turns out — it’s slow going for me with the sisal because it’s kind of rough on my hands and it leaves a big mess of flakes behind.

That’s the plant news for now — back to your regularly scheduled week!

4 Comments

Posted in Around the house

The Kitchen inches forward . . .

Posted on January 23, 2012 | 2 comments

Monday again.  Yoinks.  Last weekend didn’t seem nearly as productive as I wanted (but is it ever really . . .) but we did get a few little things done, mainly in the kitchen department.

A new microwave!  Retro style!  Thanks to an Amazon gift card and selling the old bulky black one on Craigslist (finally something sold!)  this one was a break-even change.  The new microwave is just a few inches smaller than the old one but it is so much “lighter” visually.  The white color and the smaller size really help it feel more at home on the buffet.  And I couldn’t resist the retro styling. Although it does have some new annoying beeps.  Oh well.

Also, you may notice in the photo above, JT installed a cafe curtain rod for me on the back door.  Fabric has been purchased for said cafe curtain rod . . . we’ll see how much I have to fight with my sewing machine before these curtains get produced.

Another item we tackled this weekend was the big cutting board sitting on the island cart.  It had gotten really junked up and we hadn’t used it for a while.  I took it down to JT’s basement lair where he power sanded it for me and then I treated it with 3 coats of Howard’s Butcher Block Conditioner.  It’s food-safe and gave a nice luster back to the ol’ cutting board (an IKEA grab.)

Peeking out from behind the teapot on the buffet you may just be able to see a 45 record.   It’s one of JT’s favorites, Carl Perkins and it’s got the Sun label on it.  JT received it as a gift from his brother and sister-in-law. (They give good gifts — remember the Eames rocker?) We had it in the music room for a while but the black vinyl record wasn’t quite “popping” against the black background.

One piece of white canvas and some painters tape later, it has moved into the kitchen as a cheery little rock n’ roll memento.  (We all went on a family trip to Memphis a few years ago and JT really enjoyed Sun Records.  In fact I think he almost had a stroke when the tour guide started playing the piano that Jerry Lee Lewis used and he could touch the guitar used by Scotty Moore.)  The nice thing is that this is a totally reversible operation — all I would have to do is remove the tape and fabric and we’re back to a black background.  The song featured is “Dixie Fried” which I thought had appropriate kitchen connotations.

The record actually does play and we have an MP3 recording of it from our vinyl ripper that JT did before it was framed up.  I’ll have to scout around and see if I can add it to this post.  I definitely will cue up some Carl and maybe a little of his friend Elvis to get me in the mood as I work on the new curtains.

Update: I found the “Dixie Fried” MP3 file from our vinyl above.  You can listen to it here: 02 Dixie Fried.  Enjoy!

2 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Kitchen, Music related

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Artwork – at last

Posted on January 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

So I’ve been delaying and delaying posting about my new artwork because I wanted to have it all framed and pretty and such.  With everything else we’ve been doing to the house, it just hasn’t happened yet. 

Without further ado, here’s the new additions to our (very modest) art collection:

They are both by my cousin, Susan Springer Anderson, who I posted about earlier here.  The collage item on the left is an original my mother got me for Christmas.  I’ve had it on my Etsy watch list for a while and then it disappeared, only to turn up under the tree!  The one on the right is an archival giclee print that JT and I added to our collection for our anniversary.  It seemed fitting to bring a bluebird of happiness into the house as an anniversary gift representing the happiness my husband brings to me.  Be sure to check out Susan’s Etsy shop Delicate Utility here and her blog here.  Good stuff!

I decided to go ahead and blog about my unframed, unhung artwork because I know it will be a while until I get frames — our next whirlwind IKEA trip is currently on the books for February!!!  (and frames are first thing on my list.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s my list . . . )

IKEA list #2 is now in the works on their website and besides picture frames it includes sheepskins and kitchen accessories.  I’m still deciding on the Strind coffee table I hemmed and hawed about the other day . . . . it might be a good placeholder until the perfect thing comes along.  Anything else I just have to have from IKEA?  I’m most definitely open to suggestions!!

Leave a comment

Posted in Art in Analog

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,