Category Archives: Tour
State of the House 2012
2011 was the year I fell in love with YouTube. Not just cat videos or crazy stunts, but vlogs and video tutorials. It got me thinking about adding videos back into my chronicles. There’s a lot of moments I’d like to record of my life right now. Video just gives another layer that writing and photographs just can’t capture.
So my first video project is my take on the annual State of the Union (or the Governor of California’s State of the State). This is my State of the House.
I am breaking it into two parts. Part one is a video snapshot of what the house and our life looks like right now. Part two will be what an outline of projects and events we plan on tackling this year. I hope to do this every January to show how our home organically changes with time.
So here’s Part one. (Note – I didn’t edit this at all. That’s something I will work on for future videos.)
Our House Today – a visual report
Back to basics: Concrete house construction
Today starts a series of posts on concrete. We start off with a proper introduction to our concrete house that I never had a chance to do at the beginning. It’s a little different than a wood framed structure.
We live in a concrete house that was built in 1952.
Our home was built on a concrete slab.
The walls are made of concrete blocks.
The roof is flat.
Inside the floors are polished concrete.
Our walls are painted concrete blocks.
Our ceiling is made of wood paneling.
Water pipes run across the roof and along the sides of the house.
Electrical cables run above the ceiling panels and in the walls through the hollow of the blocks.
To heat the house we use two gas heaters.
To cool the house down, we open windows and doors. We also have one AC unit if it gets really warm.
We knew little about concrete block homes before we purchased, but have learned more with every project we work on. So next up, I’ll go over the nuances of concrete houses and how we have worked with them.
Our Master Bedroom NOW
Since Bath Crashers, we have made a few changes to our Master Bedroom. I thought I should take a moment to go through the updates we have made.
First off, the whole master suite got a new coat of paint. Yes, this is the third time in a year we have repainted it! (See the first time.)
Although, the gray wall color picked by Bath Crashers was a nice contrast to the concrete floor and bamboo, we just wanted to brighten the room up a bit. The final color is just a little more blue and lighter than the original.
On the bed, I replaced our duvet cover with a neutral gray one from IKEA. I finished off the bedding with Amy Butler Bucharest shams and a turquoise quilt folded at the foot of the bed. I still want to add one more pillow in a red or yellow to tie in the gallery of artwork, but haven’t found the right one yet.
Besides the new linens, the bed remained pretty much the same pre-Bath Crashers. Without a proper bed frame (maybe someday…), we really like having my painting above the bed. I purchased the side tables with their nifty wicker baskets at Target a few years ago and the Alang table lamps are still available at IKEA.
On our long wall to the left of the bed, we decided to bring in some personality and hung up a collection of art from around the house. I like the shot of color from the various pieces including the oh so popular Stay Calm and Carry On. On the practical side, the collection does a great job of camouflaging our air conditioner cover (first frame on the left) as another piece of artwork.
I picked up this volcano print in Hawaii at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet about ten years ago. I love tropical paradises and like to have the daily reminder such a place exists. The T-Rex Dinosaur print from Berkeley Illustration was a gift of Nate’s. He got it as his groomsman’s gift for a friend’s wedding and I think it’s probably the coolest groomsman/bridesmaid’s gift I have ever seen.
I thrifted this eagle woodcut/painting when I was in college. If you notice the artist used the wood grain to make the feathers of the eagle. I love that. I recently bought the Antique Squiggly Blue Octopus print from Black Baroque on Etsy. Cephalopods are one of my (many) animal loves.
These two prints were the least expensive of the bunch. The leaf print comes from one of those packs of five cards you can get from the frame department of any IKEA and we received the smiling Buddha as a greeting card when we moved in.
On the concrete floor, we added some warmth around the bed with a Flokati rug from PB Teen. It’s such a nice contrast to the concrete floor. The cats really like to attack it, so its a winner for the whole family.
We left the window coverings that Bath Crashers installed up.
The safari print is fun. I really like them, but am wondering if they are too busy for the room. Until I decide, they are staying up. I am really torn about them.
Above the bed, we updated our ceiling globe with a little more rub ‘n buff. I really do love that stuff.
So there you have it, just a few simple changes to the room that make a huge difference to the bedroom. It’s so nice to have it done. Eventually we will be expanding the room so we can have a walk-in closet, but that won’t happen for awhile. Luckily the other to bedrooms provide ample storage for the time being.
Our Front Living Room, February Edition
Ideally, I would have posted this yesterday, but I was having some technical difficulties with my SD card. So instead of calling this my Valentine’s Reveal, I am just calling it a good old February Update.
Our front living room now gets a ton of light from our new picture window so I closed the curtains to try and get a good shot.
For a seasonal spin, I created a very simple collage under the glass of my coffee table.
I cut some pink and turquoise paper hearts out of cover stock I had on hand. Then I laid gold curling ribbon down in a diamond pattern and placed the hearts before laying down the glass.
I love the look. It makes me smile when I arrive home from work every day.
Using some glass heirloom vases and punch cups, I arranged a few blooms from the backyard.
I am really enjoying the added punch of pinks, reds and purples to the room.
I may have to add something a little more permanent like some fuchsia throw pillows, perhaps?
The gnome and I will have to ponder this a bit.
Halloween 2010
Nate gets this look on his face when I start to talk about decorating for the holidays. Its not that he doesn’t like the decoration – he just hates the mess I make putting them up and taking them down. I don’t blame him – my creative process for these kind of projects is not very organized.
Last year I was so overjoyed with the possibilities and I went a little crazy.
… and unfortunately it turned out to look more like a rave party than Halloween.
This year, I decided to keep things simple.
Orange twinkle lights hung above our new picture window with a black and purple pom-pom garland my mother gave me. I set the lights on a timer so that when I got home from work, the lights were already on.
I was at Micheals about a week before Halloween and they already had a bunch of decorations on clearance. I picked up two Martha Stewart window decals. The skeleton one went up into the picture window. I absolutely love it. It looked so cool with the lights at night. I plan on using this next year.
I also put out my crazy cat face I got at Target last year, plus my fake pumpkins I picked up at Michaels. My parents gave me three Cinderella pumpkins from their garden than I plan on roasting, but until then I set them on my porch for decoration.
Inside, I just added little Halloween touches to the current decor.
I poured last year’s candy corn into a square vase and added a tall pillar candle. I also bought a simple and inexpensive berry branch from Michaels that I stuck into a blue vase I thrifted years ago.
Finally, I put out a Slatkin & Co. Leaves Candle. It has a nice aroma apple, cinnamon, mulled cider and berry. Plus it burns forever. I love it.
I am a major candle lover, but I am trying to move to away from cheap candles towards healthier options. The Slatkin ones are a compromise until I find quality soy candles that burn clean.
On Halloween night, we only had ONE trick-or-treater and he was about 17 years old, but I was still glad that my place was decorated. Driving up to the house every night, made me smile and really that’s what it is all about!
Great Room Reveal
Here’s a more detailed first look at the great room.
We still need some key items like a rug, but just haven’t found the right one yet.
At our two days before Christmas IKEA trip, we bought two pieces for the great room. The Besta Burs TV Stand and the Malm Dressing Table (pictures forthcoming).
We have a few headaches with each.
The Besta TV unit stand takes TIME to put together.
Nate worked uninterrupted on it for six hours or so. Let me just say the hours were full of expletives and throwing screwdrivers so please be forewarned. BUT, and I say but in bold uppercase letters for a reason people, the piece is beautiful.
We bought the Malm Dressing Table to put along the back of the sofa. Unfortunately, the back of the table is exposed particle board so it didn’t work behind the sofa. We instead put it along the back wall between the cabinets and sliding glass doors. Luckily it fit. It does annoy me that the back isn’t finished, but we didn’t have enought time to take it back before the holidays so it stayed.
Beach-a-riff-ic
Yep. That’s our front room.
Beach-a-riff-ic.
Beachy.
Beach-a-boom-boom.
Something like that.
We started with a room (20′ 5″ x13′ 4″) that expands into a long dining area (11′ 5″ x 33′).
We had creepy wallpaper and old carpet to deal with, but once they were gone we had a blank slate.
I knew that we would move the white linen couch and chair into the front room so I decided to go super organic and beachy through the space.
IKEA became my #1 contributor with a new coffee table and rug.
Accessories ranged from thrift store finds, travel goodies and etsy finds.
