I finished the wall art I mentioned in this post! The frame I built for it is a bit wacky looking, I need to make a better one, this time with wood instead of cardboard and kraft paper. Other than that, though, I really like it:)

Next I want to make one made out of Martha Stewart paint chips, this time with a white frame.

Two of our friends are getting married this weekend, and I am the wedding coordinator! I'm having sooooo much fun doing it. Currently our house has been taken over with everything from arches (which my husband and our friend Sean built!) ...

to 52 coffee filter flowers ...

To little bride and groom paper dolls that I made myself:)

Aren't they sweet? I can't WAIT to share pictures of all the decor!

PS Jemima says hello:)

the latest changes

I realized yesterday that it's been a while since I showed some of the changes I've made in the master and guest bedroom. With the constant flow of furniture going in and out of this house, things change weekly, if not daily! Our sea victory painting is now over the bed, I hung a vintage lamp from the ceiling, and those "end tables" are really just old cabinet doors on top of TV tables. Ha! We're building brand new end tables this weekend:)

My office/studio has really evolved into something useful for me, that works well for my needs. This week I put up a floating shelf above the desk, to serve as a place to put all my visual inspiration. My small inspiration cork board just wasn't cutting it anymore!

Doesn't the bullfighter look happy in his new home?

The wall above the bed is currently empty, so I'm working on creating some sort of wall art out of all these counter samples. They're from the 70's, and I can't help but love all the tacky burnt orange and moss green!

As I predicted, I never was really able to give up my habit of using the couch and the kitchen counter as a "desk", so this desk never gets used for office-related things. Lately it's just been used as a sort of work bench, which is working out pretty well. Look at all these awesome furniture pieces I found while I was in Tennessee!

I've been experimenting a lot lately with upholstering furniture in custom-dyed/painted fabric, so I also hung up a little clothesline for my samples, so I can keep track of what I've created:)

PS I've been having sooo much fun pinning with you guys! If you're on Pinterest and we aren't following each other yet, add me!

PPS I've updated my house tour.

I'm pinterested in following you

It took me forever to jump on the bandwagon, but now that I've been on it for a while, I have to say: I HEART PINTEREST!!! And no, not a cent was paid to me to sing Pinterest's praises. I just really, really heart it. Here are a few of my favorite pins:

I got this pin from my buddy Niki over world in a paper cup.

This is a vintage food mill turned into a planter.

I love everything Karla wears, but this outfit is just perfect.

DIY watering can - so smart!

how cute are these DIY poms?

line drawing of William Faulkner by my one of my current favorite artists, Jason Polan.

Love everything about this room, especially the random rope!

Are any of you on Pinterest? Leave me a comment or send me an email so I can follow you! Happy pinning:)

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 tale of two shelves

These shelves were two of the very first things we put on our walls upon moving in here. They started out pretty sparse, as you can see:

Then they got a little more crowded.

And even more crowded ...

And here we have the crowded-ing-est.:

Over the weekend I took everything off of them and stained the boards a using a few coats of a light, natural stain.

I practically had to do a headstand to get this "after" shot of how they turned out!

Then I had fun filling the shelves back up:)

I added some new items and took some old items away. They're probably still a bit too busy-looking, but they're full of things we love, and I do like how much more colorful they are now.

Coming up this week at white waxflower: An OOtD, a lamp make-over, and more!

out with the old, in with the new-ish

I don't know what it is about spring-time that makes me want to shed all the extra layers, clean out, throw away, give away, and simplify, but I love it. This time every year I find myself full of energy and inspiration to organize, garden, eat better, and clean! Here are a few projects I've been working on lately.

Composting! I confess: I've never done this before. I read that before you go out and buy the supplies to make a large compost pile, you should start with "container composting" to see if you'll actually keep up with it. I sort of followed these directions, then piled in some not-so-fresh bread, fruits, veggies from the fridge. So, (bonus!) beginning composting also prompted a much-needed fridge clean out session. So far all I can say about composting is this: it's gross, but it's gross in a fun way ... like the green slime from the old school Nickelodeon game shows.

I've also been stripping away layer after layer of paint and rust off of this old trunk my friend Becca found out on the street, awaiting the garbage man.

I know this might sound crazy, but I actually asked her if I could re-furbish it for her. It's just so old and awesome and has so much history, I wanted to get my hands on it and fix it up as well as I could, for the trunk's sake:) It's made entirely of metal and wood, no laminate or plastic to be found. I felt a bit like an archeologist as I started working on it.

I know it's hard to tell from the picture, but underneath all that white paint, the inside was once lined with this adorable pin-wheel pattern art deco wallpaper. Under that was cheesecloth, I guess to even out the lines between the wood.

And underneath the turquoise paint on top were green and yellow stickers. I tried so hard to remove the paint without scraping off the stickers, but it was nearly impossible. All I could make out was an R, L and a P (I think) on the top row, an A, L, and L on the middle row, and F, S on the bottom.

Here's the trunk in it's current state.

Not exactly picture-perfect, but it's coming along nicely and I'm having fun doing it!

You may recall that just last week I was blogging about my love for art, well, I have two new additions to my collection! This awesome line drawing (I just adore line drawings) of Greta Garbo came courtesy of one of my favorite stores in San Diego, the Newport Avenue Antique Center.

She didn't look like much to write home about in that cheap, ill-fitting gold frame, but it's amazing how much better she looks now that I've found her a new home in a nicely matted black and white frame:)

I'm also pleased to introduce a new addition to my 20th Century Portrait collection!

Isn't he handsome?

He needs a name, and suggestions are welcome! I couldn't have been more impressed with all of your excellent suggestions for this gentlemen, who ultimately ended up being named Colonel Milton Edgar Randolph III (AKA "Milt"), which was a compilation of as many of your suggestions as I could fit into one man's name!

But back to the original point of this post, I wish I could say that my back patio always looks like this, but that would be a lie. It currently looks like this:

The first thing on my spring cleaning list is the back patio. It's been neglected over the winter, and the fence and furniture need to be scrubbed, the seat covers and pillows need to be washed, and the floor needs to be thoroughly vacuumed. Another patio problem has already been addressed: I pruned back the palm, the impatiens, and I replaced some other dead and dying potted plants.

But that's just the beginning of my spring cleaning list! What's on yours? If you're having trouble getting started, check out this list my mother emailed me recently. It's handy!