house stuff

Posted on 26. Sep, 2009 by admin.

Another thing I really love about living in a place like Omaha is the cheap real estate. Whenever I visit the coasts or take trips to larger cities, I always have fun but I’m just reminded of how lucky I am to live in an area with a low cost of living. It’s nice to have a yard (though I hate mowing it). It’s nice to have some quiet at night. And it’s really nice to not have to spend thousands of dollars a month on rent.

A few weeks ago we found a cute little house in our neighborhood. It’s on a double lot with a *huge* yard, a big front porch, hardwood floors, and a cute little sunny kitchen. It has a finished attic with a bonus room (destined to be our bedroom + my walk-in closet!) and a finished walkout basement with tons of natural sunlight. I never wanted to be a “basement crafter,” relegated to the dingy part of the house that wasn’t totally overcome by my family’s crap, but I will enjoy working out of this bright, sunny basement with a walkout to a cute little porch! There will be such awesome photos once we finish setting everything up, and I will have about three times as much space to work as I do now.

We live in Dundee, one of the busier parts of the city, and sometimes our nights are quiet, and sometimes there are fights that spill out of the bars in our neighborhood business district, and sometimes there are loud cars speeding by on the busy street a few blocks from our house. Sometimes I see schoolchildren walking single-file down the street toward the library or movie theater, all holding tight to a long rope.

Sometimes people rip on Omaha as a flyover city, or they assume we have no cultural assets like a thriving arts community or good schools or a fun nightlife, or they think that we never travel or know anything about the rest of the world. But those people are wrong, and I’m glad I don’t have to spend 3500/month on an apartment so I can afford to live my life and get out and see the world! Small cities are the bomb dot com.

These are a few of my inspirational photos for how we’re going to do the interior design of the house. I have a surprising amount of anxiety about decorating because it’s such a blank canvas and I really don’t want to mess it up!!

What is your number one tip for a first-time homeowner?

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colors in our lives

Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by admin.

I hope you’re all having a nice long weekend! This little quiz was published in the back of House Beautiful last month, and I found it on one of my favorite blogs, Elements of Style.

1) What’s the first color you see in the morning?
The light blue-grey of my bedroom walls. I’m not sure what color it is because it was painted by our old roommate before we moved in.

2) What color are your eyes?
Green.

3) What color do you wear the most?
It’s hard to say because I usually wear dresses in many different colors. This fall I will wear a lot of plum, yellow, and gray.

4) What color do you never wear?
I’m not a big fan of blue.

5) What color do you wear when you want to feel sexy?
I love myself in red.

6) What color gets you the most compliments?
I have no idea. Maybe plum?

7) What color is your lipstick?
I normally only wear Softlips vanilla chapstick, but when I do wear lipstick it’s a pretty red Neutrogena Lipsheers in Peach Sorbet.

What color was your living room growing up?
One of my living rooms was wallpapered, but my parents built their dream house when I was 14 and that living room was beige.

9) What color was your room growing up?
Brown and pink with teddy bears

10) What color are your sheets?
I don’t match my sheets, they are all different…I have a bunny-print set from Ikea, lots of polka dot sheets from Target, and a corduroy duvet from Laura Ashley I think? And many more…I just switch them out whenever.

11) What color was your favorite crayon as a child?
Cerulean! It was just a little nub.

12) What color is your car?
Red.

13)What color was your prom dress?
Ugh, prom was gross….One year I wore a green dress given to me by Miss Nebraska (I was over the moon) and another year I wore a black dress with a big pink bow.

14)What is your favorite gemstone?
Not big into gems…

15) What is your favorite flower?
Ranunculus

16) What color makes you happiest?
Yellow plus gray

17) What color depresses you?
Cranberry

18) What color calms you?
Gray

19) What color makes you grind your teeth?
Too-bright yellow

20) What color would you like to try but are scared to?
I’d love to some wallpaper with a silver print, or silver shoes…I’m just always worried it will be too loud and garish.

I got a really nasty cold a few days ago and now I’m back for a bright, colorful workday.

Any secret colors in your arsenal we should all know about? If so, share!

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rainy morning photo dump

Posted on 03. Sep, 2009 by admin.

Maybe it’s not raining where you are.
It’s pouring here. It’s so gray outside.

From Design*Sponge

I really like waking up on mornings like this.
I like to open a window and hear and smell the rain. Surrounded by buildings and trees, our midtown home feels like it’s wrapped up in clouds.

From Elements of Style

We are in the market for a bigger house of our own. Princess Lasertron has taken over four rooms of our house. I have toyed with buying a separate workshop space, but I love being at home. I think that if we find the right place, it will be enough room for us to work and live.

From A Little Sussy

From Tatielle

From SF Girl by Bay

From Oh Happy Day

From Tatielle

From Mary Ruffle

From Mary Ruffle

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karl lagerfeld quotes

Posted on 23. Aug, 2009 by admin.

Haaaaaaaaay. I just got done with a wedding and two parties today so I am beat. The good news is, I have some awesome pictures to share with you all in the morning! Before I head to bed, I want to share some quotes from Karl Lagerfeld. I was reading them the other day and saved my favorites…

“Yesterday I had a problem. I said, ‘I’m sorry, you’ve got to tell this woman that she needs to be taken away. Her smell is not possible.’”

“Please, your question is childish…” (to a reporter)

“If you throw money out of the window, throw it out with joy. Don’t say ‘one shouldn’t do that’ – that is bourgeois.”

“When I was four, I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday.”

“The iPod is genius. I have 300.”

“The dresses from far away, you think that it is a little T-shirt. And then you get nearer, and you are scared by the craftsmanship put into that dress.”

“I wanted to look, as a child, like my father because I thought he was chic because he was an older man. Not like those stupid young parents other children had.”

“Imagine a world with no competition. You would fall asleep. There’s not even a reason to get up anymore in the morning.”

“It all starts with paper. I sketch. I design. It becomes a dress. I photograph it and it’s printed on paper again…my favorite material in life is paper.”

“…It’s not that I’m too bossy, but as far as I’m concerned, I see it one way and not in another way.”

See you tomorrow.
xo

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new fall looks from kate spade

Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by admin.

I don’t normally post about new designer collections, but when I saw the new fall looks from Kate Spade, I gasped, almost fell out of my chair, forwarded the URL to everyone I knew, and called my bank to check how much money I have in savings to buy this ENTIRE collection. House? Baby? Workshop space? Ummmm, no, I’d trade all that for these clothes.

I think that really says something about what a terrible monster I fundamentally am.

But, a well-dressed monster.

Click here to view the entire collection.

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