laundry, lamps, linen, and line drawings

First of all, thank you from the bottom of my hardwood-floor-loving heart for all of the helpful advice I received in the comments of this post! 

Option A (our current home) won the votes in a landslide, and I think we're actually going with the votes on this one. On Tuesday we measured all of our "must keep" furniture, like our sofa and our bed, then went to the house and marked out with tape how much actual space in the rooms our furniture would take up. We were willing to part with more than half of it, but even putting less than half of our furniture in there would still make for a VERY tight squeeze. Like, turn-sideways-and-shimmy-across-the-wall-to-get-into-bed tight. And hearing so many of you say what a frustration it is having to go to the laundry mat definitely got me re-thinking giving up having a washer and dryer at home. So, long story short, we're going to pass up on this little place and pray that something else equally charming, old, and hardwood-floored comes along. Only this time an extra bedroom and laundry would be nice:) I can't say I'm not a little sad to let go of the idea of moving into that place, though. It was just SO DARN CUTE!

In other news, I recently realized that I never posted about that lamp makeover I mentioned! Well, it didn't turn out that great anyway. I started with the turquoise and floral lamp you see above, which was already a makeover of the original lamp.

I painted the base white and re-covered the shade in ikat, but I'm sorry to say that my lampshade re-covering skills are um .... improvable. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I got it all finished and realized how horribly lopsided the fabric is. Why is it so much harder to recover a lampshade than anything else?

I'm lazy and I don't want to waste any more fabric, so it's staying as-is for now. Another little project I did recently is the art above the bookshelf.

All you need is scissors, a pencil, a marker, card stock, 8x10 matted frames, and a computer to look up Picasso line drawings to copy, and you too can have your own little Picasso art gallery:) I even forged his signature on them so they'd look extra official.

And one more thing before I go! I've been intending to blog about this forever ... check out this gorgeous mid-century chair my parents bought me when my family came out to visit for Easter! Isn't it fabulous? I can't wait to get it all fixed up.

I think I'm going to have it recovered in some sturdy white linen, to coordinate with our sofa. I just love the look of wood and white furniture, accessorized with colorful throw pillows or blankets.

The stain and finish are pretty worn, so I think I'll strip it and stain it to match my other mid-century chair.

I think that's all for today! Jemima says "hi"  :)

a penny for your opinion

When it comes to a home, which is more important to you: space, or aesthetics? Assuming everything else is the same (monthly rent/mortgage payments, proximity to work, safety of the neighborhood, quality of the schools, etc.) between two homes, which would you choose?

Space, AKA "option A"

(where we currently live)

pros: Twice the square footage of option B, has a dishwasher, laundry, two bedrooms, 1 & 1/2 bathrooms, plenty of storage space.


cons: wall-to-wall carpet instead of hardwood floors, no architectural details or charm, no yard or space to plant anything in the ground, ugly on the outside, 1 mile from the beach (option B is 1/2 mile from the beach)

You can click here to get a pretty thorough tour of option A, but here are a few pictures of it before it was furnished and decorated to make a better comparison between A and B.

Aesthetics AKA "option B"

(where we're thinking of moving)

pros: Built in the 1940's, original kitchen, original hardwood floors, a small yard surrounded by a picket fence, a large back patio (about 3x bigger than option A patio), lots of room for planting and gardening, lots of craftsman-style charm, only 1/2 mile from the beach.

cons: only 1 bedroom/1 bath, no dishwasher, no laundry, half the square footage of option A, very little closet space.

view of the living room from the front door:

view of the front door from the living room... look at the cute little mail slot!

 Teensy little dining area and doorway to the kitchen. And yes, that is a fold-out ironing board in the wall.

I would be re-upholstering it ASAP.

The kitchen. It has a back door that leads to the patio, and (surprisingly) even more cabinet/storage space than our current kitchen. I would hang pegboard above the oven for my pots and pans, just like Julia Child's kitchen:)

View of the kitchen from the back door:

The biggest con this house has ... the tiny little bedroom and closet:

But that little heater sure is cute.

And the bathroom has a floor-to-ceiling linen closet, so that's good!

Okay, I know the patio looks pretty rough here, but imagine it without all the rocks, dead plants, and broken concrete pieces (it's very loose and could be removed with no tools).

Now imagine it with outdoor rugs, flowery vines on the fence and my patio furniture. It could be cute, I promise!

I'm so torn on this one. Half of me says "It's the cutest little house EVER ... Move in TODAY!!!" and the other half of me says "WHERE is all of our STUFF gonna GO!?!" 

What would you do? Which would you choose?

pictures galore (as promised)

I'm back home in San Diego after a whirlwind week in the southland! I'm very happy to be reunited with my handsome hubby and my cuddly doggy, but I sure do miss my family! Here are a few random pictures I snapped over the past few days:

my brothers grilling out.

my brother Daniel hanging out on the back patio.

me and my mama:)

my little sister, Lizzie - we had a photo shoot!

she's so pretty:)

Lizzie's dog (and my nephew), Buddy.

As I mentioned before, I brought the "fancy" camera home for the wedding, and while I was home I took about a billion pictures of my home, sweet home in Mississippi:) I only had time to take pictures of the outside and downstairs, with the exception of a few pictures (like the one above) that I snapped of my bedroom. I'll be back with a pretty funny post about my bedroom later, but for now, get ready for an assault of pictures of my parent's house, including some from our wedding!

click here for the tour...

... then come back here for comments because there's no comment form on the tour page!

irish imaginings

This post probably would have been better suited for Saint Patrick's Day, but it's never too late to celebrate, right?

I'm sure I'm not the only one that has ever daydreamed about what it would be like to live in a little cottage somewhere in the European countryside. What would it be like to collect eggs in the morning for your breakfast? To take weekend trips into Dublin, Paris or London? To plant a proper English garden? To invite neighbors over for tea? Of course ... day-to-day life in the country probably isn't much like that, but it could be if I wanted it to be.

These cottages are all in the countryside of Ireland. I was blessed to be able to spend a summer in Dublin, and I got to do a good bit of traveling around the country and see lots of different counties while I was there. It is definitely something that stays in your heart and soul. We went back for our honeymoon and I can't wait to go back again.

Can you imagine calling this place "home", even if it was just for a year or two? So pretty.

this one's for the movie lovers

One of the best things about living in SoCal is being close to where all the magic of movie-making happens. I've devoted entire Saturdays to driving around looking at the sweet old houses of Jimmy Stewart, Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, etc., as well as lots of houses that were used in my favorite films.

When I stumbled on this guy's flickr page, it was like hitting the jackpot. He has page after page of these photos! Here are some of my favorites:) 

I was smitten with this house the minute I saw it on You, Me and Dupree. I can't resist a cute craftsman! Here's a still from the movie (on top), and on the bottom is a picture of the actual house in an LA neighborhood.

The Orpheum Theater on Broadway in LA. They didn't have to change much to get it looking like a 1960's street for the movie That Thing You Do!

This adorable street from That Thing You Do is in Orange, CA ... in fact, it's just around the corner from where we attend church! There's some great places to eat around there, so this street is very, very familiar to me;)

It's hard to recognize this beautiful, green neighborhood in LA as the desert-like "Bailey Park" from It's a Wonderful Life, but it is! Here's a fun fact for you that I learned from the It's a Wonderful Life DVD special features: the entire movie was filmed in LA, in the summer, during an intense heat wave! In the iconic scene where Jimmy Stewart is running down the streets yelling "HELLO BEDFORD FALLS!" as the snow falls, he was actually in LA in the sweltering heat!

This little house has come a long way from it's bare, dusty beginnings when it was used as a house in "Bailey Park" in It's a Wonderful Life.

In I Love You, Man, Sidney was a laid-back guy who didn't worry too much about landscaping. It looks like the real owners in Venice Beach, CA try a little harder.

If you've ever been to the Griffith Observatory in LA, you know that they're very proud that the observatory was practically a main character in Rebel Without a Cause. Here's a still from one of the many scenes that takes place there. I can't believe you used to be able to drive right up to it. That must have been nice. Now you have to park half a mile down the mountain and hike up!

Pasadena is full of charming old homes and streets just like this one, and I've driven by this house a few times to show it to visitors from out of town! It's just as cute in person as it is in the movie, though it looks a little smaller in person. It's the home from Father of the Bride:)

How adorable is this little LA house from Nightmare on Elm Street? I want it! Should I buy this one first, or the one from You, Me and Dupree? Decisions, decisions.

By now you've probably caught on to how obsessed I am with the city of San Diego. This gorgeous hotel is the Hotel Del Coronado, and it's beautiful inside and out. I was just there with my buddy Jillian! It was featured in the movie Some Like it Hot.

In fact, here we are in virtually the same spot as Tony Curtis was!

Hope you enjoyed your house tour through Hollywoodland:)