The Year of Ugly Money

If 2012 was the Year of the Exterior (which, in actuality, will really span several years), then 2013 must be the Year of Ugly Money. It started back in February, when we had an unchecked slab leak. In March, the slab leak turned into upgrades to our floor duct and insulation situations – unseen but still very important. During that process, our air conditioning unit was checked and it was brought to our attention that it may not last through the summer.

Great.

Our A/C in this house has never worked properly, and every summer there has been something to address with it. We didn’t know why until a couple weeks ago when… you guessed it… the A/C went out again. Turns out, most air conditioners need to be replaced every 10 years or so. Our air conditioner was installed in the 80s.

So more ugly money spent, but hopefully we will be reaping the rewards by having a more efficient system that will lower the electricity bills.

Have you spent any ugly money lately? Or did you spend it a while back and are now seeing the benefits? Tell me about it below!

Troublesome

My troublesome master bedroom was requiring some ‘Frasier’ inspiration. I had furniture I loved and pretty bedding to go with it, but it still wasn’t working for me. After much deliberation, I realized my biggest problem was how I was treating the lines of the headboard. With the overall height of the headboard at only 26″, it was even more difficult to accessorize.

So I took a cue from Emily Henderson on how to style my nightstands. The most important step? Lighting. I had originally considered the usual table lamp, but with an only 11″ tall headboard and no great way of corralling electrical cords, I decided against them. Instead, I installed sconces centered above the headboard for easy reach.

.

.

The sconces functioned well, but having them centered just above the headboard really disrupted its low, elegant, albeit challenging, line. And don’t get me started on the Euro shams. If my goal is keep that continuous line, I was majorly failing. So I started entertaining other options for nightstand lighting.

I really loved the idea of hanging pendants centered above the nightstand, a la The Brick House:

.

image courtesy of the brick house

.

I bought vintage pendants that were originally a mono-point hardwired fixture and rewired them to be two separate plug-in swag pendants.

.

.

But when I test hung them in our bedroom for placement, I decided they were totally off. The combination of the teak bed with the brass birds and the swag pendants was far too Bohemian for my taste. Much more like Frasier’s free-spirited one-time girlfriend, Caitlin, than Frasier himself.

Finally, I put my Frasier hat on. What would Frasier do? I obviously couldn’t do table lamps, sconces, or pendants. The only thing left was a floor lamp, which would need to be able to reach at least Rob’s side of the bed, considering he used the wall sconces the most. So, I started looking for a classically shaped floor lamp and found this beauty at a local vintage shop for a great price.

.

.

It may not be the Arco floor lamp, but it very well may be as close as I will get to one. So here it is in my space.

.

.

.

.

And here’s my sort-of-styled nightstand.

.

.

.

Where do you draw inspiration from? Do you have a troublesome room that has taken some time to complete?

What Would Frasier Do?

I am often full of ideas and easily inspired, but there are times when I can get hung up on a space. In those times, I will often think, ‘What would Frasier do?’

I have always been a big fan of the show ‘Frasier’. The televised combination of witty puns, a drizzly climate, and thoughtful interiors is right up my alley. I remember watching syndicated episodes on TV right before bedtime when I was in high school. High school. And here I am, over 10 years later,  wrapping up our bedtime viewing of the series ‘Cheers’ on DVD with plans to continue with its spinoff, ‘Frasier’, on DVD for the third time.

In other words, I like ‘Frasier’… a lot. I also like Frasier’s apartment. I see it as a wonderful combination of classic, eclectic, and contemporary. For those unfamiliar, here’s a floor plan and interior rendering.

image courtesy of Nils Gleissenberger

(I can’t attest to the accuracy of the floor plan considering many story lines included Daphne making trips to a community laundry room.)

So some of you may be thinking, ‘What would Frasier do?? But your interiors look nothing like Frasiers…’. True. I’m inspired by the essence of Frasier’s apartment. Clean lines, neutral colors warmed with wood tones, and a touch of tribal motif. Whenever I need inspiration for creating a warm, classic, masculine space. I think of Frasier.

Stay tuned to read about how I applied this inspiration to a troublesome room of mine.

The Garden

I’m a little obsessed with it. I stare at pictures while I’m at work. I peek outside at every opportunity. I love my garden. And now I’m going to obsessively write about it.

Earlier this month, I shared the new garden bed in this post, but I didn’t give you the details on what I planted in it. I did include this colorful, yet cryptic landscape plan to better illustrate my plan for the garden.

Before elaborating on where we are now, though, I’ll have to walk you through how we got here. Last year we dug out the shrubs that blocked the view from the dining room window and planted Miscanthus Adagio (‘A’) ornamental grass and Red Yucca (‘Y’) in their place. That summer, the Adagio grass grew nice and full and the Yucca each gave me a stalk of flowers. It got me so excited that I began thinking about what I wanted to do with my remaining front yard. Knowing full sun, low maintenance, and drought tolerant plants did well for me in this spot, I contemplated forms and colors to incorporate into the design.

I adore ornamental grasses because they are very low maintenance, provide wonderful movement on breezy days, and winter interest in an otherwise forgotten landscape. I had to have more. I chose to add at least one more Miscanthus Adagio and Miscanthus Gracillimus (‘G’), which can reach heights of 5 feet, to anchor the bed.

My favorite color for flowers in the garden is purple. There is just something about the green and purple color combination in a garden that feels both lush and modern to me. I chose my two favorite purple flowering plants, Walker’s Low (‘W’) and Lavender (‘L’), to fill in the garden. Last, but certainly not least, I chose to include Echinacea ‘Julia’ (‘C’ for its nickname of Coneflower) for both its bright orange flowers and the beautiful winter interest it provides when left upright until spring. Next year, I plan on adding a third ornamental grass,  more Walker’s Low, Coneflower, and Red Yucca to the garden.

But enough talk, here are some pretty pictures of my young garden.

To the right of this picture is my now year old Miscanthus Adagio and Red Yucca. Both have grown like crazy on very little water and lots of sun. In the lower left corner of the picture, you can see the new and still tiny Walker’s Low and ‘Julia’ Coneflower. Both will grow wide enough to almost reach the sidewalk.

.

.

This is a bit of a better image of the Red Yucca. I love how they lean so gracefully towards the sidewalk.

.

.

Red Yucca Flower Stalks

.

.

This is the Miscanthus Gracillimus that is only 2 feet tall yet and in a bit of curly-bladed transfer shock. Because of this, it may not get as big as it could this year.

.

.

Lavender and its blue foliage.

.

.

The Walker’s Low has grown the most of the new plants.

.

.

And this Coneflower gives me such a thrill with its vibrant orange petals.

Fiddle Leaf Fig

Did I ever post about my Fiddle Leaf Fig? No? It was probably because I thought even looking in its general direction would kill it.

Rob let me cart it home as a Valentine’s Day gift and I have loved it ever since. It made an informal debut in this post about my newly upholstered living room chairs.

And there is actual visual evidence of why I hesitated to share my new love – a yellow leaf. I had three of those yellow leaves. Not long after they turn yellow, they fall off completely. Talk about devastation. After doing some online research, I came to the conclusion that I was either under-watering or over-watering. Since I have only known myself to successfully grow succulents, which require very little water, I figured it was likely the former. So, at the advice of an online forum, I planted live moss on top of the existing soil to help retain moisture and doubled my watering efforts. And guess what?!

New growth!

April Showers…

… Only seem to bring more May showers. Supposedly, it’s springtime. But 34 degrees and raining doesn’t really feel like spring. So my week old plants are covered for protection against the freezing wind…

What’s that? A new garden bed? OK, let’s take a few steps back. You may remember this landscape plan that I drew up for my front yard.

 

I created this plan almost a year ago after ripping out the shrubs in front of our picture window. My main objective with this change was to remove the overgrown grass that was impossible to cut and choking out pretty daylilies. Oh, and, ya know, to look nice.

But once I started really thinking about it, I realized I wanted to go BIGGER. And I came up with this plan.

Yeah. And I wasn’t scared AT ALL. So two weeks and two freezes ago, I started building a new garden in my front yard. The first day I spent laying out the shape of the bed, which took all of 15 minutes, and digging out 5 square feet of grass, which took 2 hours. It was not happening and I was in over my head. Luckily, there are things called Home Depots and they let you rent large pieces of equipment like sod cutters to help in times like these.

Here I am with the sod cutter whipping around my front yard for another pass at ripping out some grass. I look swift, don’t I? I was not, not at all, swift. I am walking at a speed of about .000000025 miles per hour in this picture. This sod cutter was a beast. The next day, and for 3 days after that, I felt like I had been rowing myself around the Atlantic Ocean. But the majority of the grass was out.

That’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears right there. But the fun part was coming…

Plants!

There was so much fun to be had that Rob even got into the spirit of things.

He rigged up a time lapse session to document the less labor intensive bit of this whole project.

Enjoy!

Insta Decor

If you’ve been paying attention to my instagrams (I’ve magically included a feed at the sidebar), you’ll have noticed some new master bedding. Our bedroom is nowhere near finished, but the improvement is definitely worth noting.

I purchased the euro shams during my first ever Home Goods visit in California. The fur throw was also from an inaugural visit to World Market (both stores, by the way, are everything everyone says they are). Once home, I found the duvet cover at Target. I love it all.

 

 

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

With all the commotion over the slab leak, I completely forgot to share the result of my yellow chair redo. Here’s a reminder of the Before.

I bought the chairs back in 2010 from Craigslist. The yellow upholstery was existing, but the frame was some strange faux wood finish. You can read about that initial transformation here.

The repaint got me by for a good time, but I ultimately wanted something that would blend a bit more with its surroundings. I decided to paint the frame a dark brown, Sherwin Williams Black Bean. The chairs had already been claimed by Jin as a scratching post and I knew that wasn’t going to change once they were remade pretty. The texture of the yellow fabric hid the scratches well, so I stuck with a velvet and found a raw linen colored fabric to reupholster with.

You may be asking why I’ve put a ginormous pillow on my newly made-over chairs. Well. Something about the seat back didn’t quite do it for me. These pillows may be oversized, but I think they look pretty neat as they are.

To top it off, I had the very back of the chairs upholstered with an accent fabric.

I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Ugly Money

All over the blog-o-sphere, including The House on Penny Lane, the consensus is that pretty money is the best kind of money. Whether it is spent on paint, furniture, or landscaping, pretty money is fun to spend. Ugly money… not so fun. But sometimes, spending ugly money is necessary.

With the slab leak, we’re having to spend a lot of ugly money. It’s so ugly, you won’t even see it.

Last month, a water supply line in our concrete slab broke and leaked for 2 weeks. When we finally realized we had a slab leak, our floor ducts, which had numerous compromised joints, began filling with sand, and more noticeably, water. Instead of tearing up the floors and jack hammering the slab to find the leak, the plumbers re-routed the lines through the attic.

The leak was fixed, but our plumbing was exposed to the untempered air in the attic. So we took the initiative and called out some insulation guys. We had fresh insulation blown in and batts laid over our new plumbing lines.

Next up, our ducts. Once the leak was fixed, the water receded from the ducts, but the sand stuck around. We would occasionally see sand on the floor (and the furniture and the counters and any other horizontal surface within 5 feet) around the floor vent. We could also smell sand when the heater kicked on. We thought all the ducts needed was a good, old fashioned cleaning. Too bad there wasn’t enough sand for us to bury our heads. We had our ducts scoped and were told they were in such bad shape that cleaning would only damage them more. We needed to seal those suckers blowers.

And that’s not cheap. It includes removing the furnace coil, hand patching the larger gaps, sealing the entire system, and replacing the furnace coil. In the end we will have sparkling, white ducts. Really.

Now it’s time to look on the bright side. Even though you’ll never see the ugly money, we likely will. New insulation in our attic should help keep warm air in during the winter and cool air in during the summer. Repairing the ducts should also repair any air leaks we never knew we had. And maybe, just maybe, that means Rob’s office could be temperature controlled. How novel. Best of all, we could see our utility bills drop and we could get a tax refund on the work.

Making Waves

I always said I wanted a beach vacation. I should have specified that the waves should be in the ocean, not in my air ducts.

This past week has been a doozy. But let me start off by saying, it could have been a lot worse. Long story short, we unknowingly had a slab leak for an extended period of time. The point at which we realized we had a slab leak? The water meter was spinning out of control and our floor ducts began filling with water. Let’s just say it was a little unsettling.

Thankfully, we had a reliable plumber on speed dial who put up with my panicking. Instead of tearing up my floors and jack hammering my slab to find the leak, they re-routed the lines through the attic. We still need to get our ducts cleaned, get some walls patched from accessing the plumbing and add insulation to our attic to ensure no frozen pipes.

Here’s a video of the unwelcome sloshing. For best results, turn your volume up.