Category: Filing Cabinet

What We’re Reading Right Now
This post is sponsored by Oyster.

Our family likes books, you might say. I started working in an independent bookstore in 1998, and met Brandon when he was hired a year later (and we both stayed on until 2004 — the same year we were married). The kids have tons of books in their rooms, and we installed floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to hold (most of) our collection in the front parlor of our Victorian after having made a library of our second floor landing in our first house. Yeah, we kinda like reading.

Brandon switched over to digital books a few years before I did, and now we both read like a mix of traditional and e-books. I use an iPad or sometimes my iPhone, and Brandon reads a Kindle. We were recently introduced to Oyster, which has been described as “Netflix for books,” and it’s pretty awesome. It works on both of our operating systems (and Android, too), and there are several display settings to choose from, letting you customize the look. You get unlimited access to over half a million books for $9.95 a month, and they have everything from classics to new releases (with new titles being added all the time). The best part is that the app makes it easy to find new books through their collections by genre, and it even learns what you like and makes recommendations based on your tastes and activity.

Oyster is offering a 30-day free trial right now and you can browse their popular titles to find some good new books, but I thought it would be fun to put together a reading list with picks from both Brandon and me. Summer’s winding down, but I’m still sort of in that light and fun frame of mind when choosing what to read right now, so my list reflects that. I’m guessing by Brandon’s list that he’s in the ‘end of the world apocalypse’ frame of mind, but you know, to each their own.

Summer Reads

If you’re still looking for something quick and easy to pick up, these are some good options.
Guilty Pleasures

I re-read a couple of these recently, and oh man. They are ridiculous, in the best way.
My To-Read List

We all have that list of books that we’ve been meaning to get to, right? These are a few of mine.
Brandon’s Picks

Brandon assures me that A Confederacy of Dunces comes together in the end, but I only made it halfway before I gave up on it in favor of something else. (I’m sure I’m wrong and in the minority here, seeing as it’s a Pullitzer Prize winner and all.)
Oyster is offering a free 30-day trial for my readers, so you can try it out for yourself. I have a bunch of other titles that I’m eager to read (I narrowed it down to just three here!), but I’d love a few suggestions too. I’ll add them to my reading list!
August 7, 2014
Three Easy Wallpaper Projects

This post is sponsored by Lowe’s.

I flew out to New York a couple of weeks ago to film a segment at the Meredith studio for Better TV. (I went to six cities over the course of a month while in my third trimester, so I’m glad to be done with traveling for a while!) I shared a few wallpaper project ideas for the video below — ways to use it besides on your walls — using the allen + roth line from Lowe’s.

Decoupaged Letters

We spelled out “LOVE” to give the basic idea in the video above, but I think it’s the kind of project that would be great for personalizing a nursery or kid’s room (either with their name spelled out in full, or just their first initial).

Materials Needed: metallic brocade wallpaper • water and a small brush (to activate paste) • scissors • craft letters

Instructions: Place a letter face down on your wallpaper, trace the shape, cut it out, and set aside. Next, begin covering the sides of your letter — a little water will activate the glue on the paper’s backing. (If using paper that isn’t prepasted, Mod Podge works well for this project.) Long strips of paper are fine for straight sides, but smaller pieces work well for curves. After all of the sides have been covered, affix the top piece and smooth into place.

Drawer Liners

Lined drawers are always a nice touch, right? You could use adhesive paper made for drawers of course, but wallpaper comes in so many more colors and patterns. Lined shelves, in a closet or otherwise, are another opportunity for customization. And if the wallpaper has a nonwoven backing like the allen + roth line does, it’s easy to remove if you ever want to change the style.

Materials Needed: striped wallpaper • water and a small brush (to activate paste) • scissors and/or razor blade • metal ruler or other straight edge • drawers or shelves

Instructions: (Pretty sure you can figure this one out without instructions, but here goes!) Cut a piece of wallpaper to the size of your drawer or shelf. Activate the paste on the back of your wallpaper by applying water with a brush, and place the paper in your drawer. Smooth, then trim edges with a razor.

Bookcase Update

We used grasscloth to add texture and change the color of the back of a bookcase, but obviously you can use any style you like, depending on the look you’re going for. And that bookshelf? Truly a quick and easy project. We had actually started with a white bookshelf on set and the grasscloth looked great on the back of it, but it wasn’t reading well on camera. In a very quick, very last minute switcheroo, we swapped out the white bookshelf for a black one instead. I think it took all of 15 minutes from start to finish!

Materials Needed: grasscloth wallpaper • wallpaper paste • razor blade • metal ruler or other straight edge • bookcase

Instructions: Remove the backing from your bookcase if possible. Trace it onto your wallpaper and cut out. If the back of your bookcase can not be removed, measure and cut a piece of wallpaper to size. Activate the paste on your wallpaper by applying water with a brush, and place the paper on the back of your bookcase. Smooth, then trim edges with a razor.

Come Say Hello

Remember, I’ll be at my local Lowe’s this Saturday, offering one-on-one design consultations and doing another fun project with wallpaper that you can make and take with you! RSVP to PublicRelations@Lowes.com to make sure you’ve got a spot.

July 31, 2014
The 30 Best Flush Mount Lighting Fixtures
Opening up the hallway in our renovation meant that the two lights on one end don’t go with the newly exposed third light from the back side of the house. It’s not the worst thing in the world but the mismatched fixtures irk me, so I’d rather not put them off. Of course, this means I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at flush mount fixtures lately. So many of them are so ugly! There are some great ones out there too though, and I’ve narrowed down the assortment out there to the 30 best — presented here for your illumination (and mine).
1. Bell Flush Mount Lamp, CB2
  Sometimes modern design like this comes with a big price tag, but these little guys are affordable and available in white and brass, or black and steel.
2. Oxnard 2-Light Ceiling Brushed Nickel Flush Mount, Home Depot
  A sleek and simple light without a lot of fuss for a great price.
3. Alabax Medium, Schoolhouse Electric
  Adorable! Choose your porcelain color from marigold yellow, gray, white, or black.
4. Vanadin, IKEA
  A faceted fixture that looks like collectible milk glass.
5. Nantucket Ceiling Light, Shades of Light
  The antique copper finish lends some antique charm, but you can also choose matte black or brushed stainless.
6. Allen + Roth Harpwell Oil-Rubbed Bronze Ceiling Flush Mount, Lowe’s
  The clean lines and oil-rubbed bronze make this a simple but handsome fixture.
(more…)
July 30, 2014
Further Plans for the Bathroom

As opposed to the guess I made a couple of months ago. I got so excited when I heard about the Rifle Paper Co. wallpaper collaboration with Hygge & West that it inspired a design plan for the bathroom, but I’ve tweaked it a bit since then and am happier with the new direction it’s heading in.

Before the complete collection launched, only one design was shown: Rosa, in yellow.. After everything became available last week, I ordered samples of some of my favorites and was somewhat surprised when I liked the Rosa pattern in persimmon best. The color is vivid, but it looks great in the room. The plan on the left is the original, and the one on the right is mostly the same, but with a pink bathtub to complement the blooms in the wallpaper.

Super cute, but that was the problem. A little too cute. I feel like it would have been a great fit in our first house, but here I feel myself pulled in a different design direction. While at the Merchandise Mart yesterday to pick up a gallon of paint, I stopped in several showrooms to look at wallpaper. After trying out some new pattern samples, here’s where I’m at with the design now.

Sources: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11

The paper is Summer Lily in black, white, and bronze from Cole & Son. I had the brass stool from the last house, and I’ve already added the trash can, bathmat, art, and two of those striped hand towels to this bathroom. The hooks were added semi-recently too, so the only things I would still need to change are the color of the bathtub, the light, and the wallpaper.

I painted the pedestal tub in the last house dark grey, and here I think black will be fantastic. The Hicks pendant may wait a bit because I’m going to give the old light from Eleanor’s room a try first. It isn’t bad, and it’s free. The biggest expense will be from the wallpaper, and even that will only be a few hundred dollars since we can hang it ourselves. The cost is worth it for such a big impact.

The bathroom could have waited (truly, it didn’t bother me much), but I feel like this is a good area to take on right now because the finish line is easily within sight. Timing though, may get tricky. The wallpaper has to be ordered, and then I’m leaving soon on a trip. When I get back, I’ll be about six months pregnant and while I hung wallpaper at five months along before, that was back when I was a spry young whippersnapper and I’m not sure if I’ll be physically up to it a month from now. Hopefully, but I only started feeling better recently and it may be a short window.

Anyway, I’m curious about how you like the wallpaper. Do you? It’s got that ugly/pretty thing going on that I tend to like, but I have a feeling a lot of you would prefer the cute Rosa pattern (or something else)!

June 5, 2014
Fornasetti’s Chiavi Segrete Wallpaper

This may be the new choice for the dining room. If I’m not going with clouds coming in, or a grayscale forest etching, why not hedges full of keys?

Cole & Son

Design Crisis

Cole & Son

The wallpaper design is Fornasetti II Chiavi Segrete, from Cole & Son. It’s lush, mysterious, and just a bit sinister. Perfect for the Victorian, yes?

It solves a few of the problems that I had with the other options. It’s meant to be a repeating pattern, not a mural, so the application will be seamless. And it’s pricey, but less expensive than grisaille wallpapers I wanted. I have high hopes for this one! Samples are on the way.

June 2, 2014
Grisaille Wallpaper

I know what I want to do in the dining room. Problem is, I probably can’t.

Barnaba Fornasetti, Elle Decor

Sasha Bikoff, Domaine Home

The first design above is Fornasetti’s Nuvole mural, from Cole & Sons. The second features a hand-painted wallpaper design by de Gournay. There’s a reason you tend to see this style in high-end shelter magazines, and not, say, in the homes of bloggers. Grisaille wallpaper tends to be ridiculously, prohibitively expensive. The only relatively affordable version I’m aware of is the Etched Arcadia mural from Anthropologie, which I’ve wanted for a good two years now.

Anthropologie

Kristin Perers, House & Garden

I’ve thought a lot about the flow from room to room downstairs and determining where I’d like to go bold with color, where I want to be more restrained, and where I want to add pattern. I love the black walls in the second parlor, and an amazing wallpaper to play off of that in the dining room would be perfect.

I’d go for the Etched Arcadia Mural, but it’s only 9’x12′ and the ends don’t match up to form a repeating pattern. The design’s 9′ height would work in the dining room because the baseboards and ceiling beams shorten the 10′ vertical wall space by just enough, but the problem comes in from the 12′ length. Even the two shortest walls are a couple of inches too long, and the longer walls would definitely have a visible seam somewhere. I like the look of a framed out mural, but the room is chopped up with doorways and windows, so there isn’t a good blank wall for it.

I’ve been looking around the house, wondering if there’s an alternative spot that would work. Maybe the bathroom design goes in this direction instead of floral? That’s still a bit up in the air. As for the dining room though, I think it’s back to looking at more wallpaper options.

May 27, 2014