{create} pelmet boxes, take two

We're moving along slowly, but surely, on our office/craft room makeover. It's been awhile since I've shown you anything, so I thought today would a great day for an update.

As a reminder, here's what we started with:

 Ew. That's all.

And then we tore out the nasty carpet, covered the phlegm-toned paint with a nice greige neutral and had a completely blank canvas with which to play. (You can read all about that project here.)

Here's the mood board I created for the room. I've already shown you the painted file cabinet, the orange light, and the inspiration board I made with the orange stripey fabric. 

So, today we're going to talk about the lovely floral fabric in terms of pelmet boxes!

The brown woven blinds have hung in the room's two windows since Chris was a bachelor. Not a bad choice, husband :). But there was a weird space at the top that just looked ... amateur. My initial thought was to hang full length curtains around each window. But there were two problem with this. First, it didn't solve the weird space at the top issue. Second, there is a LOT of furniture in this TINY room. I was really worried that curtains, although beautiful, would completely overwhelm the space. That's when I came up with the pelmet box idea. I've been really happy with the box we created for our kitchen window. It add a nice dose of color, texture and interest, which is exactly what I was looking for in this room.

 Here's a glimpse of my craft space. I think the fabric adds a lovely dose of color to the neutral walls.

 And, I really like the fabric paired with the dark woven blinds.

I have one more fun project to share with you in the next couple weeks and then I'll show you the entire room. I love how this room is shaping up, and I'm super excited to share the rest with you!

But first, I'm curious. What's your go-to window treatment when curtains just WON'T work?

ps. If you want to create your own pelmet box, check out the kitchen project here.

{guest post} incorporating orange

Good morning friends! I have a special treat for you today. I'm posting over at Room Rx! Cathy Wall is an interior designer blog friend of mine and her site has such great info and ideas, including colors of the week, fabrics of the week, projects that she's currently working on, and killer mood boards. For my guest post, I'm taking over her color of the week feature :).

I'm featuring the color orange and how to incorporate this fun color into your home: both subtly and not-so-subtly.

Please come over and say hi! And, once you're there, take a look around and check out all the goodness Cathy's site has to offer. Have you ever used orange in your house? How do you like to use it?

{summer of fun} Dog Mountain

Happy Monday friends! Did you all have a great weekend?! I surprised myself and finished a LOT of house projects. Look for details of those coming up soon.

Today I have my next installment of my summer of fun series. If you haven't heard, I'm placing an emphasis this summer on activities away from my house. For the last couple summers we've focused completely on the house. You can read a full explanation of this idea here. And for those of you wondering? This really has been an amazing summer :).

A couple weeks ago, I headed out into the depths of the Columbia River Gorge to hike Dog Mountain. This is a notoriously difficult hike, and I've been wanting to do it for a couple years. So I gathered up some friends and hit the trail this year.

The hike is a mere 6.9 miles, but it is STRAIGHT uphill. As in 2800 feet elevation gain in those 6.9 miles.  This picture illustrates this well. This was at the first *look out point*/resting stop. We still had to go to the very top of the hill, which is at those furthest up trees..

Besides being difficult, the trail is also known for its wildflowers. Sadly, we were a little too late for the most showy displays, but there were still some colorful flowers hanging on.

The views on this trail are remarkable. Above is Mt. St. Helens. You know, the volcano that exploded in the 80s. I'm happy to say that I'm too young to actively remember that. But, there was ash in the NW for YEARS after. I do remember that.

And this is looking east. It's actually looking at the trip I took earlier this summer. You can read about the gorgeous eastern gorge here.

I also tried out a new pair of shoes for the trip: the Merrell Pace Gloves. They're *barefoot*, of sorts. OMG, friends, so comfortable! And, no, I'm not getting paid to say that. After getting my feet torn up last summer with hiking shoes, I was really wary of buying new ones. After reading Born to Run, I wanted to try something different. I highly recommend these.

I hope you all have a fantastic Monday!

{For more on my summer of fun, check out my adventures to the Rogue River, the Oregon coast, Eastern Washington, and Hood River.}