B & A- the ultimate decor boner

a before and after photo will never cease to excite me. although i tend to be less excited by one of those mega millions makeovers. primarily b/c the budgets on those are so far out of my reach that i can't even wrap my head around it. nope, i like the small makeovers. the ones where you salvage what you have with a little sanding and paint only replacing what is terribly ugly and non working. saving the bulk of your makeover budget for the appliances. well, for me anyway, b/c i love to cook. so i would much rather have a viking, dacor, wolf or aga range and cheaper counter tops. or sanding and painting a wood floor instead of refinishing so that i can have a pretty colored smeg fridge. now don't get me wrong i love ANY makeover- even the ones i can't afford. but i am less inspired by them. my husband and are are finally buying our first home. so all of this is on my mind. i am going to need to be VERY inventive in the renovation department here soon. and unfortunately i am going to have to live with a lot of ugly in the beginning. but with the help of all my awesome blogger friends i am sure to be inspired daily. which is pretty cool and exciting. so, keep the renovation/makeover posts coming all you bloggers. i need 'em.
here are a few to grease your pole...
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

monday color combo

good monday to you my loyal MFaMB readers! glad to see you! i hope you had an enjoyable weekend. it was too hot (once again) here in atlanta to do anything outside other than swim. despite that i had a lovely weekend. saw 3 movies!! what??? yep! sure did. 2 of them were from the comfort of my own living room but that still counts. what were they? well friday i watched inkheart...i know! it's a kids movie but i am a sucker for kids adventure movies with larger than life characters. this one was not so great but if you have kids between the ages of 6 and 12 i am sure they would love it. paul bettany is wonderful. yesterday the husband and i saw the hangover. i laughed my ass off. and i THINK that was the point- so...SUCCESS! and last night we watched quarantine. holy mother of ass!! one of the most stressfully frightening movies i've ever seen. what does this have to do with monday's color combo? nothing.
so without further adieu...i give you bl'urple. blue and purple are almost too close to be considered a combo. but in reality they contrast just enough to be enjoyable. so enjoy!

images via elle decor, lavender fields, southern living, apartment therapy, boligmagasine, englishmuse, house and home, house beautiful, country living, porterhouse designs, flickr.

'it's only a chicken danner'....

THAT my friends is a roast chicken! look at those drippins'! mr. mashed potato is going to enjoy those. carved. juicy and tender. soaking up it's own delicious love sauce.

oh! hello there. you must be butter, cream, salt and pepper waiting patiently for the red potato party steaming away on the stove.

miss ricer...meet mr. mashed potato. you guys know what to do.

my most favorite meal of all time. even when it's 4 million degrees outside i still crave it at least once every week or so.

random thoughts going into the hottest weekend in for like ever

ok, first of all why in the name of all that is holy did this hairstyle ever happen? i mean seriously...who? what? where? when? and for fucksake WHY?!?! there is a crimped veil cascading around her fiznace from a ufo? a donut? secondly, why is it that i have vivid dreams when i am pre-menstral? i dreamt last night that i took the 2 inspiration pics for my pending haircut to the stylist and she just started cutting away...mainly focusing on the shorter style and when she was done it was shorter than the short style i had picked and i started freaking out! my hair...what did you do?!?! all that...of course it looked terrible. so i woke up second guessing this hair cut thing, which makes me mad b/c before i went to bed last night i was really looking forward to it. damn you hormones!!!


ok, the third thing on my mind is this stuff....

it ROCKS!!!!!!!! go get it. it's like the beach on your face (or body). in a good way. go get it. really. it's awesome.

and lastly...this is the four seasons in bali.. and that's "me" frolicking in the pool up there. look at that place. holy crap. i need this pool today. i need it. it's 387482984hundred degrees here in atlanta.

blogging around..

*faryl*

so it is nothing new to see bloggers blogging on other's blogs. "guest blogging", the kids are calling it. well faryl millet (how cool is THAT name?) from the blog city lady country girl has asked me to take part in her FRIDAY FAVES series. my specific assignment was to come up with my favorite interiors of 2009. not an easy task i tell you. i managed to find a lot so she turned my faves into a 2 parter. go and have a look see at a few of my faves. they are most likely yours too.

*did u happen to notice that ivy covered building in the background up there? new york is cool.

black is beautiful..

in honor of m jackson i thought i would post some pictures of the black in my house. well that and someone asked to see more. while my kitchen is painted black, most of the wall space is tile. so only the tops of the walls above the cabinets and a little near the sink can be seen. BUT! my bathroom that kind of adjoins around the corner from the kitchen/slash hall is painted the same color. which is benjamin moore almost black. things to keep in mind while looking...we are renters, which is why there are some seriously ugly fixtures about. trust that i would change them if i could. ok, so below is the ceiling in my kitchen, fabulous isn't it? (track lighting-ugly fixture #1) from the kitchen thru to the dining room (note ugly fixture #2)-
here is the master bath...the yellow poster looks fresh in here...
greenery from my porch plants, fern and creeping jenny (holla!). and it's not easy cutting black paint against white glossy molding.

more from the bath. again with the shitty paint job. it looks much less noticeable in person i promise! oh and yes i DID use a semi gloss in the bathroom.view of one of the sinks in the bath. there is actually a vanity sink around the corner there, wierd layout for some reason. here is another dark paint...this is ralph lauren's forde abbey. this room is kind of non descript really. it's sort of in the middle of the house. its technically a large entry room or receiving room. our house has a circular layout. you walk in to this room and if you go through to the right you are in the dining room, keep moving right and you go through the kitchen, then turning left through the small hall into the master bedroom through to the main hall into the family/living room and right back into the entry room. its GREAT for feng shui and the flow of the house. no walls to stop anything. the fireplace is in the middle of the house, directly on the other side of this wall is the other side of the fireplace that is in our bedroom. anyway we use this room as sort of sitting room, play room, dance hall. the christmas tree is housed in here. and with 12 foot ceilings we have some pretty grand christmas trees!!

my dad built those shelves for me based on this pic here...they weigh a ton.

it. is. time.

to chop the shizzy out of my hizzy.
so here is where i am.
ok. if this......... met this.........

and did a dance with this....

you would have????

stay tuned...

damn you french people!!!

how do they do it so well? how do they combine function and style effortlessly? i'll bet you could hand them a steaming pile of crap and they would fashion it into a scarf or a painting. i'm not saying i love all of the spaces below, i don't. but come on!! style..meet practicality. and does it seem to you that they probably scoff at the idea of an interior decorator? instead knowing in their innately arrogant way that they simply don't need one.

"ladies and gentleman i would like shooshing..."

backstory here: high spirits with shirley ghostman

what i learned from this movie

1. bradley cooper is effing retarded hot. seriously with those eyes?? there is a scene at a pool with scarlet johansson that made me a little nervous. worth the price of admission right there. (or on demand rental, as it were)

2. justin "mac guy" long has about as much leading man charisma as my granfather's old, saggy balls.

3. jennifer connelly really CAN act afterall. in fact she was lovely to watch in this. i believed her pain.

4. jennifer anniston is as boring and uninspired as ever. i mean, sheesh...get a little fire behind those eyes woman! this was such a great character and she sucked all the life out of her. it was a whole lot of the same, really. every role=always the same.
5. why do you work?

that is all.

"let me tell you something...

me and these rooms are as thick as thieves....."

i want to poke every interior designer in the eye for how effortless this room looks...

laugh it up, blue ceiling...shut up with your gray and blue country charm...

suck it you beautiful, red wallpapered bathroom....(you too little red laquered stool..i see you..)

up yours house beautiful!

how fabulous is

this nook?

envisage...

wearing this:

a better flower arrangement:

a moss covered table:

green dining room chairs:

vintage suzani as the pretty that distracts from the ugly:

a pretty picnic:

a weekend here with edward cullen:

a gigantic piece of furniture painted pink:

can u see it?

alwayschasingblog, scarlet and violet, house beautiful, marie claire maison, me, flickr, skona hem, ???

when life gives you basil..

make basil butter. first pick basil from garden... wash and pull leaves off stalks, throw in a couple cloves of garlic...

put your mom to use and have her chiffonade that shit up (turquoise wristed in best)...

throw it in a bowl with some softened butter and a little maldon sea salt and you have something WAY better than plain butter. we slathered ours on some grilled hangar steaks last night for father's day. this morning i slathered a pan with it and cooked my scrambled eggs in it. fuck yeah!!!!!!!!!

monday color combo

what's wrong? too christmas-y? too frog in a blender? maybe so, but red and green are complimentary and these pictures prove it. every one knows the power of red in a room (in small doses please) and when it's paired with green it becomes a bit less scary, more grounded and a great balance of fire and earth. hot and cold. it becomes more friendly.

images via la maison boheme, kathryn ireland-jubella, charlotte moss-all the best, flickr, country living, decor8-domino, etsy, H and G, katy elliot-living etc, marie claire maison, nick olsen

happy father's day to my baby daddy

i love you despite the fact that you think it's cool to shave your own head and spray paint your shoes to suit your mood.

listen up house beautiful...

you'd better get your gallery back up and working for i need to see this house immediately. and yes, i DO have the magazine but all my jizz is making the pages stick together. in the mean time enjoy THIS pinkness....

my daughter's bath last night. a lush bath bomb.

images via hidden in france, marie claire maison, domino, elle decor??, me

a camera really can make a difference-self indulgent blog post number 3473874837

pardon me while i post yet again "experimental" photos.

you see my dad lent me this camera....and while it is WORLDS better than the shitty cannon i was using i am still figuring out all the gadgets with this one.
like flash and no flash. i am trying to use JUST natural light but it's not always available. also resolution. in these pictures the camera was set at a really high rez (that's photographer speak for resolution) hence the blur factor in most of these.

that's fiona and her pal foofa in the background.

my bedroom has very little natural light in the morning..better in the afternoon.

the light is getting better. and no, i don't always keep my euros on top of my standards.

this next one is cool bc of the racked focus on fiona and the flowers (dead).

here it is with the flash. do you have a preference between this one and the last one?

these flowers had a full life. they lasted a long time and they smelled amazing and they faded into the prettiest pale pink.

this was a delicious pork chop, smoky collard greens and a beet and walnut salad with fresh mint from my herb garden.

this is nicolas bb (again a flash) i don't mind the flash so much here. he looks like a teddy bear and i can tell by looking at him that hims nose is juicy.

he's telling us all about it. whats hims problem??
that's my pink kitchen aid that is like family to me. and those are my black (almost black by ben moore) walls that are slightly shiny and i love them.

so, has a camera improved things or not?

in my next place i will..

wallpaper. any of these will do...

skona hem, living etc., marie claire maison, ABT, AT, elle decor, domino, flickr

if u live in atlanta and have 98949344858milliondollars

the jonathan adler collection has arrived at pieces.

mom's house

i spent a few hours today with my mum. let me tell you..that woman has a BIG green thumb. i think plants would grow out of her armpit if she planted a seed there. what you see below are lemons, violets, and bush beans..there is more but as my camera phone isn't great at letting me save images i only got away with a few... dad let me borrow his snazzy sony camera with a ginormous lens. (he also let me keep it at my house so i can take rad pictures and post them for you) those green bushes in front there are gardenias. they were FULL but have past their first bloom. that tree in the foreground is a ginko. lovely leaves.

this is a wreath that mom stuffs bird feathers in as she finds them.

mom also is a very good cook. she recently had a kitchen re-do and dad got her an AGA. it is beautiful and performs beautifully too.


here is her old kitchen..not so much, eh?

thanks mom for letting me post your house without your consent. next time i will get a shot of your gorgeous bed.

this morning got me thinking...

i eat eggs every day. i love them. between my daughter and myself we eat 3 a day. my husband is always on me (as well he should be) about spending too much money on food. i DO try to keep it down but when you shop at whole foods only that is very VERY hard to do. it's not the pantry staples and fridge basics that get me...but the meats and veggies. you see we decided 10 years ago that we were going to be an organic family. never again would meat raised inhumanely and inorganically go into our mouths. never again would pesticide laden strawberries reach our gullet. and they haven't. subsequently i learned how to cook very well (toot toot) and we became foodies. so while i am learning the ropes of gardening so that i can grow my own veg, here in the drought ridden south with temps already in the mid 90's that is not an easy feat. i am superjealous of you california gardeners. you really do have it a lot easier than the rest of us folks. and i am not so sure i WANT to raise cows and pigs for their deliciousness but i DO think that i could raise chickens. how awesome would it be to have these beauties roaming around your yard....so i did a little research...first starting with some basic math...(no easy feat let me tell you)

at 3 eggs a day that's 1,095 eggs consumed a year (more on the weekend when husband is home to eat breakfast with us-and i have not included the miscellaneous eggs used for baking and cooking but i'll factor that in later) so that means roughly 91 cartons a year and at $4.00 per carton that's roughly $364.00 a year in egg consumption. now while these chickens above are gorgeous i have no idea about their egg laying capability. from my understanding live chickens are pretty cheap. as little as 5 cents and up to somewhere in the hundreds. the average chicken for producing eggs is around 5 to 20 dollars. it apparently depends on what you want the chicken to do. and here is another fun little fact...YOU DON'T NEED A ROOSTER FOR A HEN TO LAY AN EGG!!!! i just assumed it was sex between the two and then some babies were made. silly (naive? retarded?) me. i mean...if the average chicken is producing 1-5 eggs a day...that's a lot of chicken pounding. poor chickens. lucky roosters. but that's not the case. crazy isn't it? the rooster is only needed to fertilize the eggs...for the egg to actually hatch into a chicken. otherwise it's just an egg. so now any vegetarians out there who thought that eating an egg was taking part in the massacre of a poor baby chick can now eat said egg with reckless abandon. now if..IF i do this i will most definitely do lots of research (as is my nerdy way) starting with all 3 of these books....

then i will have to get me one of these...it's called an eglu . it costs $515.00 and that includes 2 chickens. remember that i spend around $400.00 a year on eggs. so this will pay for itself very quickly. the company that makes it-omlet usa offers a pretty cool service too:

Omlet USA can deliver the eglu cube, chickens and feed direct to your door. To be able to do this we have developed a special service with the best hatcheries in the country. During their journey your chickens are kept warm and comfortable in a straw lined box and they have a delicious melon to eat so that they arrive well fed!

Your eglu cube will be delivered to you before your chickens are sent.
Your chickens are shipped around the 15th of each month. You can also order a 50lb bag of organic chicken feed from Omlet or you can pick some up locally. When you place your order we will be able to arrange a convenient delivery date for your chickens.

who wouldn't want to pick these up every morning?? what'dya think?

things

i could look at other people's things (vignettes) all day long.

domino, desire to inspire, design sponge, thegotogirl via flickr, flickr, drew, rita, me.

is it fall yet?

you did it again anthropologie...you did it again. damn you.

can we discuss?

three rooms i have never seen before? can u believe it? never seen these rooms...
this first one is just about the most awesomest room for a tween/teen girl i've ever seen. shit i'd even say early 20's could pull this off. love the bed-obvi! it is the focal point after all. and focus it will make you do. love the dresser/side table. love the art. love the ceiling with its subtle blue inbetween the beams. love the mixed throw rugs all higledy-pigledy (yep. i said it) over the big one. how pretty is this one? all purpley and lovely. that blue lamp in this room is gorgeous. this room is a brave choice on many levels but it works. actually i think i may have seen this one before-that bar cart is ringing a bell, either way it makes me want to paint something lavender.
isn't this a gorgeous entry? it says upstate new york gigantrous country house. first off you can tell the house is old simply due to the odd shape of the room. love the wallpaper. love the table and it's modern twist on the traditional skirt. love the huge mirror. i want to stay here on a long weekend with my big crazy family (that i don't actually have) and play games on the lawn and bake pies and shit.

ok so this next one i have seen. it's atlanta bartlet's house. but it is sooo awesome that i had to show it on the off chance that one of my readers had never seen it. what does it for me in this picture is that table with the baskets underneath and the mirror with all the fairy lights. love. it.



pretty sure all these images are from house beautiful. except the last one.

i won!!!

this baby!! i feel so blessed! i already have a kid and all but another one that i don't actually have to push out seems so cool! ok, not really...but i DID win the rug that the little bug is laying on. thanks to simply grove for having the contest. i am VERY happy and grateful. i am pretty sure it will be the soft spot for which my feet will land every morning upon waking.

*note to husband...i WON this item...did not BUY this item. so when you see this on the floor please do not get your saggy drawers all in a wad and jump all up in my shiz for having "something ELSE for the house?!?!"

black eyes and fat lips

if i ever meet you in person loveology that's what you're gonna get. a beat down american style!

damn you CUTENEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

monday color combo

what can i say about today's combo? i mean is there another duo of prettiness that can be all at once coastal beachy, country cottage, hamptons compound, english manor, sweden's finest, upper east side regal modern and downtown traditional? i think not people. (well probably, i'm not curing cancer here-its just pretty colors). the REALLY cool thing about blue and white together is they kinda work as a neutral base. perfect on their own or as a base for another colorful moment to punch it up like yellow, brown, gold, pink, green or red! so happy monday and enjoy the soothing beauty of blue and white.

images via coastal living, country living, living etc, house beautuful, skona hem, chanel, flickr, etsy, houzz, marie claire maison, domino.

sunday rose

these are the roses i bought yesterday and put all around the house. they smell like heaven. and while i am no photographer this was the room with the best light this morning and it's also taken via blackberry. the color is a bit off. in reality there is the slightest hint of neon coral in the pink.

have a wonderful rest of your weekend. come back for monday's color combo-it promises to be big and beautiful!

xo jenny

a lovely blog award

my sincerest thanks and a tongue kiss to sarah of la maison boheme
(she recognized MFaMB as ONE LOVEY BLOG)

The guidelines for accepting the award are:

1) Add the logo to your blog

2) Link to the person from whom you received this award

3) Nominate 7 or more blogs (F that!! i picked 4!)

4) Leave a message on their blog – letting them know that they are ‘One Lovely Blog’

ok then. first off let me just say that i read LOTS of blogs so it was hard enough to choose, but choose i must.

1. desire to inspire. seriously WHERE do they find the spaces they find? gorgeous!! and big. big, gorgeous photos that give me a major deco-boner. well done you aussie and cannuck.

2. i suwannee. jamie is like the cool girl that you would do just about anything to be friends with.

i might even sit through a bonaroo concert for her. she makes me want to be funnier. the highest honor in my book.

3. my little happy place. alison is very cool and very good at painting things turquoise. seriously, mad painting skills. and she's sweet as pie. she lives in brazil and probably dances topless in a banana skirt but i won't hold it against her. you'd better not either.

4. a townhouse lady's life. the townhouse lady and i have quite a repor with one another. she and i seem to be similar in many ways. least of all her love of cats (tabby's in particular) and good music. and she's funny and has great taste in shoes.

so while i realize it says pick 7- i picked 4. the truth is i could pick 100, but i chose to pick the peeps that nourish my inner blogger.

blog envy

when i got into blogging it was because i wanted to have a creative outlet to express and document all the things i loved and wanted. as i blogged more i realized that those things tended to be geared toward the home sometimes throwing in girly products i used or wanted to use, food that i wanted to eat and celebrities that i wanted to dry hump. i then found all of your blogs (or at least all the blogs listed to the right of this here blog) and it made me want to be better. write better, find the pictures you, my peers had not seen, bring you even more of myself. i think i have gotten better since my first post. maybe more focused. more evloved. then kristina happened. well, first joslyn over at simple lovely happened. she's the one who posted on kristina yesterday and if you read her blog well then you already know about kristina's blog, lovely morning. kristina's blog makes me look like a blogging fraud. a bl'aud. yep. a blaud. see these beets? her recipe. her photo.
her hens...her eggs...her perfect poaching skills...her potting bench/AWESOME AREA!!!her apparent gardening skills and photographing skills...

seriously kristen? stop it already!!! you are making us bloggers who steal other people's photos and blog about other people's talent look like BLAUDS!!!!
in my book you are queen of all time. you make me want to be a better blogger.

so, umm..thanks?

oh yeeeahhh and did i mention she was gorgeous???

all images via lovely morning...DUH!!

coffee table queries

what's your coffee table doin'? if it's doin' what mine's doin' it holding a lot of books and a few pretty little things like some west elm marble tear drop candles and a black and gold bowl from target that i love and only cost me about 2 dollars b/c it was on clearance. i am always drawn to coffee tablescapes. i think it may have something to do with the way i am also drawn to open shelving and seeing stacks of pretty dishes piled on top of each other...it's a rainman sensibility. it might be the need to have things organized and neat. i mean if i walked in to your house and your coffee table was in disarray or just out of whack design wise my inner rainman would more than likely organize it for you without really knowing i was doing it. so. what IS your coffee table doin'?
is it like these and mine, lots of books and pretty things?
orbs are nice maybe you like your books elsewhere to free up your table for little thingsmaybe you like NO tableare you a side tabler? i'm ok with it. plus this was probably in front of the sofa but the stylist said eff that, i like it on the side better.perhaps you like the idea of 2? 2 poufs?2 tables?or a pouf AND a table?small with a few things?
a few choices?

big with a few well placed things?

sparse?

lots of candles? are you having your coven's weekly potluck around it?

well? what's YOUR coffee table doin'? i'd love to know. post some pics if ya wanna.

for dinner tonight

nigella's seared salmon with singapore noodles.

I know the list of ingredients is long, but a lot of this is stuff that will help you generally if it’s part of your cupboard stash. If you don’t want to go in for specialty shopping at all (I love it, and now can indulge myself online, too) then replace the tiny dried shrimp with about ½ cup of small frozen (though thaw them first) shrimp. Sherry could be used instead of the Chinese cooking wine, though I should tell you that I get this very straight-forwardly from my local supermarket.

Ingredients
2 teaspoons medium Madras curry powder
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon table salt
4 approx. 6–8-oz salmon fillets
1 tablespoon garlic-infused oil
8 oz vermicelli rice noodles
½ cup dried shrimp
½ cup Chinese cooking wine
1 tablespoon garlic-infused oil
2 cups finely sliced napa cabbage
1 cup baby whole corn, sliced into thin rounds
2 scallions, finely sliced
2 teaspoons medium Madras curry powder
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 cup chicken stock (from concentrate or bouillon cubes)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cups bean sprouts
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions
Mix the curry powder, sugar, and salt in a wide, shallow dish and dredge the salmon in this, turning the pieces all over in the rub.
Heat a pan with the oil and cook the fillets on high heat for about 2–3 minutes a side, searing the sides of the fillets too if they are very thick.
Put the rice noodles into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave them to soak for 4 minutes and then drain them.
Soak the dried shrimp in the wine, then heat the oil in a wok and fry the lettuce, baby corn, and scallions for a few minutes.
Add the curry powder and minced ginger to the wok, and then the stock and soy. Pour in the shrimp with their wine and the drained, soaked noodles, tossing and shaking everything all together in the wok.
Finally stir in the bean sprouts and give a final toss before turning out into a bowl and sprinkling the cilantro over.

this is from the book FEAST of which i have had for quite sometime but this will be the first time making this delicious looking dish.

BTW did you know that joslyn at simple lovely has a new food blog? check it out eaters!

remember these??

well now there are these...

and these...

and these...

bell'occhio of course.

damn you anthropologie!!!!

damn you straight to the fiery pits of mount doom.

ikat rug perfection...

close up of ikat rug perfection... i mean can we talk about the cat vomit and skid marks (cat, not me) that this rug would hide?? not to mention red wine spills.... but at 500.00 i oughtta smack the shit out of you RUG!!!

this vase is actually affordable at 28.00, and oh sooo lovely.

love these towels. love them to pieces.


these knobs on my vintage white vanity. or yours?

curse you and all of your stupid perfection!!!!

ya know what'cha know..

and what i unequivocally know is that i LOVE neutrals with bright moments (sorry- i am just so over the term "pops of color"). this house (a rental...holla!) is the temporary home of HGTV's design on a dime star kristan cunningham. she went in and made it her own. love the painted ceiling, that dark charcoal gray. i would have assumed a dark ceiling would shrink the room, not so!! the true white helps and i love how she separated the openness of the room with several different rugs and a long cane chaise. (i recommend clicking the pictures for a close up)
i think i am drawn to a more masculine aesthetic. she balances the masculine and the feminine beautifully. love the large and in charge painting. i want a big ass ocean themed painting too, maybe this one..

some bright blue moments...

this makes me love the horns again..

she added strips of mitered wood to the fronts of all the cabinets and drawers then painted the uppers a creamy white, the lowers a charcoal gray and the pantry storage and wall oven cabinetry a french gray. i think the window casings got the french gray too. i LOVE it. it makes me want to punch someone. she also got all the hardware on the cheap. you just know she has a major black book of places with the best deals. hate.

she replaced the upper cabinets on this wall in favor of these open shelves.

she removed the doors under the stove and hung cheap tea towels as a curtain to break up the wood.

go here to read her budget breakdown.

whaaaaat?!?!?!?!?

THAT is a meatball grilling basket. yeah, you heard me right. a MEATBALL EFFING GRILLING BASKET!! oh william sonoma, you get me.

love

the shelves in this kitchen....in this kitchen!

a sink full of peonies is pretty great too.

road hard tired and i look it too

the call back went great. the director was very nice and offered plenty of feedback which as an actor i LOVE. i mean, ultimately you can't possibly know what every director wants and most often i doubt they even know. but he did. and it was great for me b/c i THINK (i HOPE) i gave it to him. at this point it is out of my hands and i wait, hopefully forgetting about it and moving on to the next audition.

but i will say that new orleans was very cool. the garden district is ridick! so pretty. i thought of you (vampy val) if you're reading this. my husband and i made the trip together which was nice to BE together as husband and wife for a change and not mommy and daddy. we have friends who live there and we met up with them to have dinner. we ate at luke at the hilton. not bad. the chef is apparently one of the new top chef masters, chefs.

i would love to go back when we had more time. certainly not in the summer, yikes it was hotter than hell and looooooooooads of people.

so, sorry for no monday color combo this monday...am far too important and semi-famous this week.

no...not really, just didn't have the time to gather my images. sillies!!!

thanks for all my well wishing friends who commented and to those who well wished internally. i thank you too.

me and kevin spacey are gonna be like THIS!

so i gotta call back for the newest kevin spacey movie called "father of invention". it shoots in new orleans so the casting people want me in new orleans on sunday to meet with the director and producer. sounds a LOT fancier than it really is.

here is the part in a nutshell...

mother: (that's me) "billy!! billy!!"

kevin spacey: (that's my new BFF) "is everything ok?"

mother: "i've lost my son"

kevin spacey: "is he human?"

(see the joke here is, i am holding a leash)

mother: "he's a little boy"

kevin spacey: "is that him?"

mother: "BILLY!!! you gave me a heart attack!!!" (as i put leash back on my son)

and...sceeeene.

wish me luck peeps..i sure could use a job.

and why shouldn't my ironing board wear a cute outfit?

1, 2 & 3-cath kidston

last image-bombarock

95 degree heat makes me wanna do this...

to my hair..

my husband right now is holding onto his penis saying...."NOOOOOOO!!!!!"

and more than likely i will NOT do this to my hair bc as i get older and my hair gets longer i get more chicken shit. but MAN they're cute aren't they?????

a slight improvement?

and i do mean slight. seems opening some windows and blaring the nasty rental overhead helped to warm up the photo a tad. the camera is still a piece and it needs to be destroyed. look how nothing is crisp and the lines are all blurry.

many of you awesome people left comments on my last attempt at photographing my house and while every single thing that was said is 100 percent accurate...i still think my skillz would improve vastly with the click of one of these....

who's buyin'?

adult swim twilight bumper

will it ever stop?!?!?!?!

quirky and cool in france

this is the home of wall decal dude fabien barral.

here.

the fruits (or vegetables as it were) of my labor...

my first zucchini. glorious. image via my garden and blackberry

is it ME or my camera??!

so last week when i cleaned the hizzy out of my house i decided to take some pics to share with all my decorator-y and designer-y blogger friends. to say, hey...i got some skillz too!! but apparently i don't. at least not in the lighting and photography department. or the styling...i mean look at the damn wrinkles on my new sofa!! it made me think...do stylists do this kind of thing before a photo shoot. iron the sofa?!? if it looked like mine they sure would have.
i mean these pics were so bad i had to stop after just a few rooms. the blinds are half open half closed..what kind of proud picture taking decor blogger doesn't make the windows look cohesive? or turn on a light???

here's one with the flash...no better is it? nice spot light in my brain picture. and the couch looks terrible again...all yellow-y and wrinkly and lopsided.

no flash...

the corner looks all washed out. which in reality it isn't.

my daughter's bathroom and her artwork from when she was 2 lines the back of the sink. this is a little better in terms of photography, at least i think it is. i guess peonies make anything look better.

more bathroom...

so...before i go and do this again, do i need a better camera? a lesson in decorating and styling? a lesson in photography and lighting? or...or....what?? if the answer is camera, please let me know what you use or one you would like to use if you could. i think i may actually buy a camera in the next couple of months. b/c mine (2) SUCK ASS!!!

*disclaimer ...i live in a rental so i cannot change the dreadful blinds. too expensive! these windows are huge and the ceilings are 12 feet. and the rooms are impossibly small so i feel they need to be minimally dressed anyway.

vignettes..

where i'd like to sit and have a chat with a friend who lives far away..

where i'd like to blog every morning while on vacation...(yes i blog on vacation...cuz i ENJOY it!!)

where i'd like to "summer"...

images via delikatissen & ed ross

hmmm...

pretty wallpaper or bearded clam?

via urban grace interiors

bringin' it an' ching chingin' it..

i think i've watched it 15 times.

monday color combo

in my research for this combo (which was a request from vicky dar over at room service decorating 101), i learned that it's some kind of taboo to use these colors together. in great britain in any case. something about " blue and green, never be seen", or "blue and green, only on the queen". poppycock, i say!! i wasn't a fan of this combo before i did this post. not b/c i thought it was heinous...i just didn't really have an opinion of it. a take it or leave it kind of thing. not so anymore, i found myself wanting more! as you can tell by the amount of blue and green i found. i just couldn't stop. it's so pretty. so calming. so fresh and happy. like a fresh cut grass and blue summer sky. it seems to work best for me in a country style setting. but that's not to say that the vibrant miami house of doug meyer doesn't turn it out either...so anyway...happy monday!!!

images via domino archives, living etc, met home, country living, houzz, flickr, daisypinkcupcake, d*, anthropologie