Shine on!!

OMG.  New light love.  I found this while wandering on Design*Sponge.  Of course, I had to go to the website and check it out.  Not available for sale until August?!  DANG!!!!!  It's okay.  I'm a patient woman - especially when I have to be.  No price posted either.  Hmmm.  I hope that's not a bad sign...

I'm about 99% positive I'm getting this puppy in yellow.  I think it'll look great against my gray walls and the blue accent wall.  Follow the link to the Chen Karlsson website to see what it looks like filled.

Unusual sleeping quarters

How fun is this crib??  I'm feeling domesticated (baking bread again!!), so my mind naturally shifts toward baby or baby-involved things.  :)  I like how this is just a neat-looking, mod crib.  I would be afraid, though, that I would give my kids some kind of fear of closed-in spaces since it's probably not incredibly open.

I can't remember where this picture is from - I started this post more than two months ago!!

Dang

I'm in a rut.  A total rut.  I just...feel like I'm totally and completely out of ideas.  I don't know what the dilli-o is.  I think I'm just kind of "meh" with house design thing.  I really haven't so much been getting anywhere with my own house stuff, and I think that's kind of showing through to my desire to go through blog after blog and site after site, and find fabulous and wonderful design ideas when I don't feel like I'll ever get to use them.

Man.  What a boo-hoo post.

But, that's where I am right now.

Long time, no blog...

Apparently, I'm turning into Lauer.  Blogging once a month.  Yikes!  :)

So, here it is.

I've been distracted by a little website called Young House Love.  Like, really distracted.  SO distracted that I'm going to get BHG's DIY magazine.  Because they have a column in it.  A whole magazine for a column.  I'm smitten.

Here are some neat things that I've found on their site.

One of the things Sherry and John (we're on first-name basis.  It's cool.) make a point of doing is working within a budget that people have.  For example, the slipper chair in the beautiful room above is from Target.  TARGET.  When they create a mood board for you (which they do for a mere $250!!!), they'll work with whatever you need.  They actually did a mood board for someone that had a seriously TRANSFORMATIVE make over on only $187!  Impressive.  Since they're DIYers, they seem to have a pretty good grasp on frugality.  I like it.

They also do this great thing where they kind of ambush people, and check out their homes (with permission, of course!), and post the beautiful photos.  This set of stairs is just great.  I'm a fan of all the light, and the neat little landing in the middle there.  It's the kind of feature that I'll totally be looking for in the Peavs household v2.0.

Cabin chic?

I think these are ADORABLE.  Mr. Peavs, however, isn't sold.

They're home-made twig pushpins and knobs!  So cute.   I'm thinking of putting something like this on the shelves in our dining room.  Above the dresser-turned-buffet, with cups and plates and other knick-knacks.

I even think the grass heart is ridiculously adorable.  Photos - some old, some new, B&W and color, postcards, buttons, coasters, concert tickets...oh, man.  I also really like the board - an old frame with a muslin or linen-covered board (cork?).  I like the neutral look of the thing.  Perfect for the black and white and blue and gray of my dining room.

Lastly, here's a close-up.  TOO CUTE.

Thanks, Design*Sponge!!

However...

THIS loft set up I could handle.  It's interesting and fun.  Plus, it would be a GREAT way to have a ton of storage.  I'm filing this one away into the "if/when I ever have a great refurbed warehouse space in which to live."  It would definitely be out of place in the split entry.  :)

Not for everyone...

This picture makes my tummy hurt.  It makes me worry about falling.  I'm really good at falling.  I can see myself taking a tumble trying to get up to my bed.  Like, every time I went to bed.  Not awesome.

Aesthetically cool, but not practical.  Especially with the baby I infer is there - based on the crib on the right.

backyard!

It's that time again, kids.  It's getting warm and beautiful.  The grass is green, the trees are blooming, and one of my hastas is already leafed out.  It's time to think about The Backyard.

This is what our backyard currently looks like:

and

Obviously, our yard ends where hubby is standing.  These are pics from late summer '08 - our lawn is now as nice and green and lovely as our neighbors' lawn.

This winter, the patio shifted and messed with our deck.  SO, the patio needs to be busted up and re-done to prevent that crap from happening again.  Either with more cement or some other medium.  We would like to turn the underside of our deck into a nice little screen porch.  Complete with a tin roof, a couple of doors to the outside world, and maybe even a hammock or two.  I'm envisioning it as a great place to leave the cats and be comfortable with them out there by themselves.  A place to read a good book on a lazy Sunday or have a nice glass of wine with friends and keep out the bugs.

And that's just one of the things that we need to do around Casa del Peavey outside.

Oh, here is a Legos rendering of the ideal backyard.

You'll note that The Backyard is a happy place - one where pirates can get along with knights and spacement.  It's practically Utopia.  This is seriously is a lot like what we want The Backyard to look like:  an expanse of green on the right, a big 'ol patio with a fire pit and built-in chairs on the left, connected to a deck that extends a bit out over the pond in the back.  Trees, flowers, and  a lovely fence to keep the furry kids inside...  I'm planning on getting started on this puppy started in the next couple of weekends.  Out comes the weed garden right outside the back door.  Out come all the rocks around the house - to later be replaced in roughly the same places...  :)  The Backyard is something that I have a huge passion about because I just want to have a lovely backyard.  We've got a few years in the current Casa del Peavey though, so we've got a couple of summers to get this baby up to par.

Southern love

Current favorite house:

It is the home of designer Ty Larkins in Louisiana.  House Beautiful did an article on getting a new twist on Traditional design.  I think I loved every picture featured in the article.  Someday, when I win the lottery (tomorrow?  I did buy the tickets!!), I'm going to own a gorgeous traditional house like this in Minneapolis (as a matter of fact, I already have the house picked out...), and hire Larkins to come and design it.  I really appreciate the fact that he's working with the history of his home, but updating it so that it reflects the new ideas of wealth and comfort and home.  For example, there is this picture of his kitchen:

In the article, he said that he designed this kitchen to be simple, like the staff kitchens of early-20th-century Southern mansions; "generous in size, but always very simple."  That's a perfect description of this room, and I really appreciated the fact that he didn't want to make it into the kind of sleek, modern kitchen that you see in a lot of the older mansions that someone updated.  He worked with what the room and the history of the place had to offer, but he made it updated.

This is probably my favorite room in the house:

I love the masculine feel of this library.  It is exactly how I think a library or study should look in an older home.  With one exception - I would have figured out a way to add in heavy velvet drapes to give the room that smoky, manly feel.  It's the kind of place that makes you long for a rainy Saturday alone, so that you can just sink into the couch and sit with your nose in a book all day.

I'm going to be printing out this whole article, and pasting it into my "WANT" book.

Franciscan

New thing to collect:  Franciscan Starburst ceramics.

tlynn first pointed this out to me, so I fully blame her for my obsession.  Within a day or two of realizing my everlasting love, I jumped on Ebay and ordered myself up a gravy boat.  The fact that it's in a bit of rough shape meant that I got it for $14 shipped.  :)  I'm down with that.  This is my "everyday use" piece.  What I think I like most about it is the mod-deco look of the pattern.  It just feels very cool.  I can see this being the pattern the hip young people got.  It looks like it could very much fit both into the Jetsons' house and the Drapers.  The base color of the ceramics is this cream color with darker flecks.  It kind of looks like GOOD vanilla ice cream.  I've found myself liking blues and greens more and more in the last couple of years, and the colors of the dots definitely keep going with the cool flow.  I think these pieces will look great up near my blue dining room wall.

I think I've decided that I'm really only interested in the serving pieces, not the plates and mugs.  The canisters and casserole dishes and serving pieces are what I'm most interested in.  And another gravy boat.