{inspired} driftwood: styled

Happy Monday friends! I wanted to update you on that gorgeous piece of driftwood I snagged on my Salmon River trip this summer. When I threw out the question - what on earth do I do with this?? - the majority of you agreed that it should either go on the wall or as part of a table setting. I love both these ideas! But if I'm being honest, getting things on the wall in our house is a multiple-month process. So, while I'm sure it'll end up on a wall someday, let's take a look at is in it's current state - as a centerpiece on our back porch farm table.

First, I brought in an airplant to add a little life. Second, I set it atop a cute piece of fabric. Simple and cute centerpiece.

See? The air plant fits perfectly in this little hole!

I love the shape and texture of the airplant. It's a airplant Xerographica Tillandsia and it came from The Fallen Tree. Now, let's see if I can keep it alive -- I'm not sure there's enough light in the back porch. Fingers crossed ;).

This weekend I also created a small table setting to see how it would look as part of an evening of entertaining. I pulled together a couple of nature-inspired melamine plates, topped with our everyday white dishes, grey napkins, and a leafy sprig from our yard. 

But quickly switched to a pink napkin, which adds a nice pop of color. 

All in all, I'm really excited about the addition of this piece of driftwood to our back porch :)

{renovate} backporch lighting

When I posted our backporch makeover last week the most commented on feature was our lights! So, let's take a closer look at them, shall we?

{That mess in the background? Welcome to life during a remodel ;)}

Let me preface this by saying - lights for the backporch weren't even on my radar. My plan a for lighting in the space was twinkle lights. But when we went to Astoria last summer for our birthdays, we came across the most charming architectural salvage store, Astoria Vintage Hardware, which also sells amazing upholstery fabrics and some other new items. And, that's where I found the lights. I totally had a gut feeling about them, and we brought them home with us without having a place to put them. Friends, for us, this is living on the edge. As a general rule, we don't make home purchases without a specific use or place in mind for the item. But I knew they were worth the risk.

On the drive home, I was imagining them in the kitchen. But as it turns out, they were destined for the back porch, because they are perfect for that space.

Here's what they looked like at first. But, we thought they needed something a little sturdier to make them seem more like a fixture.

So Chris built this awesome wood fixture that the lights hang through.  I love this in ways I can't even begin to explain. It ties the lights together, it's dark stain is an awesome feature in the very white room, it compliments the farm table, it hides all the cords (functional!) and my awesome husband built it, so you know, I'm biased :).

As you can see, we have pretty small bulbs in there. This actually creates the perfect evening lighting situation. Not too dark, not too bright. Perfect for the dinner parties we like to throw in the space.

So, if I were writing this up last month, this would be the end. The only place I'd ever seen these lights were these two, in that one little store, in that one little tiny town on the Oregon coast. 

Randomly though, I ran across them online the other day (!). So, if you love them, you can find them here. 

Friends, I'm curious to hear. What's something that you purchased without having a "spot" in mind -- you just knew you loved it??

{inspired} Mood Board Monday

Happy Monday friends!

I'm so bummed I couldn't post on friday -- especially after I was trying to hard to get back into the swing of things. But a food poisoning + downed Internet combo did me in at the end of the week. BUT, food poisoning is GONE (thank goodness!) and the Internet is fixed, so I'm back with one of my favorite -- Mood Board Monday! 

Do you guys know why I love this link party so much? It always, always, pushes me out of my comfort zone, design-wise. This month our lovely host, Sarah, chose a few pairs of John Robshaw fabrics to design a room around. I think John Robshaw fabrics are beautiful, but they aren't fabrics/patterns I've ever thought of using in my own home. It was fun - and hard! - to complete this challenge, but as always, I'm so glad I did!

I've been dreaming of outdoor rooms lately. While I LOVE our backporch and the way we're choosing to use it, I really want to create a space to lounge outside. It's hard to lounge at a dining room table :). So for this Mood Board Monday, I created an outdoor living room space.

1. First, I started with a large sectional sofa. Don't those thick cushions look so comfy?! I also love the black wicker. It is a nice background to the fun bright cushion colors.

2. I would also add into two big cozy chairs to complete a seating arrangement.

3. To add a little color - and block the sun - I've added a huge umbrella. Custom-made with John Robshaw Jajam Brinjal fabric.

4. Pillows! They add so much life to this space! There's a John Robshaw Jajam Brinjal (to complement the umbrella) and Algiers Lotus fabrics. There's a black and white fabric, to add a graphic punch, and a lovely dot pillow as well.

5. The coffee table in the space doubles as an outdoor fireplace! This might be my favorite part -- you can turn it on when the weather cools and it creates light, ambiance and heat. Plus, you can roast s'mores! :)

6. Potted plants really help bridge the connection between the yard and the outdoor space.

7. A small side table is great for drinks, plant and candles.

8. A large basket holds a number of blankets to cuddle up in. Here I've chosen a purple, grey striped and cream throw.

9. Lastly, what outdoor space is complete without twinkle lights? :)

{renovate} the never ending-back porch-story

Friends! Hi! Happy Monday! 

While Chris worked on the kitchen this weekend (trim + concrete board!), I worked a little on our back porch, which I haven't talked a lot about -- just a sneak peek here and there. See, my original intention for the back porch was to finish it, have a super dramatic before and after, and then fill you in the details.

Well, nearly three summers after we started the project, we still aren't finished! It takes a back seat to all other projects. And, I realized that my original intentions were silly. Very few spaces in our house are actually done and part of the fun is bringing you guys along for the journey. So I'm going to back up and fill you on where we're at so far. {And please excuse the mess that is the back porch right now -- it's getting cleaner, but it's the staging area for the kitchen!}

For those of you who haven't been reading for the last couple years, the back porch is a screened in addition off the back of our house. Three sides are wall, and one side is screened windows. It's a completely amazing space, but it's needed A LOT of work. The photo above is where the back porch began. Full of crap, dark, dark, dark wood, and unfinished/missing pieces of wall.

My husband, in a move of genius and brilliant forethought, saved the old siding from when he renovated our garage, because it matched the existing siding in the back porch perfectly. So first we set about filling in the missing walls. The green boards are the old garage boards. You can see the texture of the paint in this photo. What you can't see is that the dark boards above were also treated with kind of lacquer that also gave them a lot of texture.We talked through so many options about how to treat the wall. Do we sand it all down? What look are we going for?

In the end we decided to paint the entire thing -- walls + ceiling -- white. This keeps the room, casual, bright and cohesive. And, you can still see the texture, but it doesn't look bad under the coat of white paint. The painting itself was, um ... labor intensive. Because of the grooves between the siding boards, paired with the unevenness and nails in the ceiling, we had to paint the whole room with a BRUSH. Two coats of oil primer + one coat of paint. When I say it took forever, that is an understatement. BUT, white paint was exactly what this space needed and instantly brightened it up. Painting the back porch is by far our most dramatic makeover to date. Seriously. It's even more dramatic than tearing out the wall between our kitchen and living room. {ps, we don't have a dog! We were puppy sitting at the time :)}

You can see in this photo that we also painted the foundation a dark grey to match the rest of the foundation. It also helps really ground the white. We also painted the floor, but I'll talk more about that later.

Here is the other side of the space. Again, missing siding boards, nasty old house door and jail-like and rusty screen door. Actually, if you look at the top left of the house door, you can see a space because the door didn't even fit. Our energy bills LOVED that in the winter ;).

New boards + new doors + paint make a huge difference. You can read about my painting the doors here. And, you can read more about the work that went into this wall here. We had to tear out the whole wall : |.

Clearly the porch was a late addition, because that window goes to a bedroom. Obviously ;). You can see it's broken and very poorly painted.

Aah. Much better. New window glass, new paint and messy paint scraped off and cleaned up.

Walls + ceiling + new lights.

A view of the ceiling. You can see the nails from the roof poking through. It adds ... texture.

So that is our backporch. Friends, we use this space ALL THE TIME. We LOVE it. I'm so glad we've turned it into a space we love and use :).

Why was I out there this weekend? Well a bunch of the caulk between the siding boards cracked and left huge gaping holes. Ugh. So I re-caulked and touched up the paint. It's looking awesome again :). 

From this point on, I'll make sure to keep you filled in on back porch updates. There are still a couple bigger projects up our sleeves back there and I'm excited to bring you guys along for the journey!

{renovate} back entry

Happy Monday and Happy Valentine's Day! I'm not a big Valentine's Day gal. Most years I try to do something I a little special and out of the ordinary (cute card, breakfast in bed, etc.), but I totally forgot this year. Um, yeah. Wife of the year much?? :)

We actually have a pretty big project happening in our house right now, though. So in honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd preview the *love* we've been showing our house lately.

This is our back entry. A mud room of sorts. While Chris and I are the only two people, really, who walk through that door, the area opens up to our kitchen. So you're looking directly into the back entry when you walk from the living room into the kitchen. And friends, it ain't purdy. This is what it looked like when I moved in. Yes, that's a fridge on the left. And yes, that was the second fridge in a 10-foot space (there was already one in the kitchen). If you look close, you can see how poorly the door fit. Like, not at all. That space at the top right let in a LOT of air.

We immediately got rid of the second fridge. And last summer we got a new door. That's where the fun stopped. This is what the entry has looked like for the past 8 months. (Insert, in your mind, a cute black bench next to the locker.)

Oh, and these are the stairs that somewhere a long the way we ripped carpet off. We decided after the first of the year we need to just get this done so we can move on. It's a super small space, we've just been intimidated by the not straight, or flat, walls. So we came up with a plan of attack that doesn't involve hanging dry wall (yah!) and have been working on it for the past couple weekends.

First we demoed. Don't I look thrilled?! ;)  Under the linoleum was 80 year old tile (hence the mask)!

All done!

Chris' best friend is a general contractor, and this weekend he came over and helped so, so much. The main thing we accomplished? Tearing apart the rickety stairs, tightening them and putting them all back together. Not so glamorous, but very essential to our home's well being.

There will be more updates to come! I'm excited to show you paint colors, curtain fabric and wall finishes. You know, all the fun stuff!

{renovate} rustic garden cabinet

Happy Friday friends! Are any of you as ready for the weekend as I am? It's been quite the week! Today I'm going to share another before and after with you. This is for my *rustic* gardening cabinet. 

Late last spring, Chris came home with this cabinet. A friend of ours was throwing it away, so Chris, knowing oh so well how I love abandoned furniture, brought it home. It was a too rustic in all the wrong ways when it arrived.

But really it did have a lot of potential. It was filthy dirty, and structurally needed repair though. As you can see in the picture above, besides being gross dirty, it was missing trim pieces. We sat on it for months debating the extend we wanted to update it. Finally, one weekend I decided to paint it gray, just in the meantime. I was sick of the gross white paint. (Note: I am the most impatient person when it comes to *talking* about what I should be doing. I'd much rather just start a project already!) I even mixed my own gray out of paint I already had because I didn't want to spent money!

So I went to work with the gray. And when I finished painting the gray, I went with a complete whim and taped out and painted chevron. (Note to self: take pictures during projects, EVEN if you don't think it's going to work!) I didn't use a stencil. I didn't even measure it out. I just taped a simple chevron  pattern and painted. I really liked the result, but it was just too .... clean. I know, right? How does a piece go from too dirty to too clean? 

Do you guys read Design Sponge's Before and After basics? Barb Blair does an incredibly great column about furniture painting and finishing techniques. Around the time I was painting this, she had posted about wax finishing and I, loving the look, had bought a can of dark wax. So I used a sander to distress the entire piece and then went over it with dark wax.

The end result was LOVE.

As you can see, I really took a sander to it. It is way more distressed than I usually like my stuff, but it just fits so well with the character of the already old and imperfect cabinet.

I love how the wax muted the bright grays and really gave it the weathered, antiqued look I wanted.

At some point we still might upgrade the structure, but for now, I LOVE that I have rustic gardening cabinet. It holds all my tools and pots perfectly and it will coordinate really well in the finished back porch. If we ever get there, that is. :)

Have a great weekend!

{renovate} back porch peek

I've been talking about our back screened-porch all summer. This wonderful, quirky addition to our home that is in desperate need of a makeover. I've posted inspiration and even created a mood board for the space. Unfortunately before I could work on designing the space, some major work was in order. After a partial wall was completed (see below) we needed to paint. The existing wood walls were finished in a crazy dark varnish of sorts. I don't know how else to describe the look and texture.

But paint is what I couldn't bring myself to do. All. Summer. Long. I actually don't mind painting. I've painted almost all the other walls in our house -- the majority by myself. But the thought of painting this space had me wracking my brain for any other projects I could work on instead. Maybe it was that the vast majority of the space, including the ceiling, would need to be hand painted. That's right friends, with a brush. You can really see the texture of the wood in the below picture. The vertical lines in the wood are on all three walls and can't be rolled. Awesome. 

Last weekend, I told myself that it really wouldn't be as bad as I'd been imagining. I'd just built it all up in my head. Oh and Chris agreed to help. I think he was tired of hearing my lame excuses :). You guys, it was actually worse than I expected! It took two of us three days, two coats of oil primer and two coats of paint, but I'm happy to report that we are loving it so far.

Here's a little peek. It's so light and bright. Which is exactly what a screened porch should be, right? And with that giant task of my to-do list, I know the rest of the room will come together so much quicker.

So, tell me. What projects do you all just dread doing?

{create} back porch mood board

I found a new {virtual} toy. And, oh, the fun I'll have with it, I'm sure. It's called Olio Board, and it let's you create mood boards from thousands of products linked to their site. Like I said, so fun. And daaannngerous, in a time wasting sort of way.

Today, I created a mood board for our back porch. Can you tell it's on my mind? I've gathered tons of inspiration and I want to start painting. Now. Oregon picked a great year to have it's wettest, coldest spring yet. 

Here's the board I put together for my porch:

I know this is the point, but it really helped me pull my thoughts together. Lots of white, yellow, texture, plants and most of all an inviting comfy space.

Have fun! I'd love to hear {and see!} if you create something. And, if you'd like to find me on Olio Board, I'm ahomeinthemaking.

{inspired} back porch

I've been thinking a lot about our back porch. We've done a lot to the space --construction and update-wise -- but it has been raining record amounts in Oregon for the past three months. And that means ... no painting. Yet. So while I'm still dreaming of the space's potential I've been looking around at other porches, which, with summer drawing near, seem to be a popular topic these days.

{Design*Sponge}

{Simply Seleta}

Both of these rooms could have come straight out of my imagination. They completely capture how I want our back porch to feel. Open. Airy. Light. Casual. Inviting.

I'm itching to begin, and I just hope it turns out remotely close to as beautiful as these two rooms.

hmm...

I know things are supposed to get worse before they get better.

But, what have I gotten myself into?!

Hope you all have a great weekend! Mine should be ... interesting.

outdoor dining room

First of all, hello to everyone visiting from High-Heeled Foot in the Door and It's All About the Mochaface! Thank you for stopping by!

I'm so excited to be starting our first big home project of the year: our screen in back porch. I've never shown you pictures, because, well, it's bad friends. Very bad. Don't worry, there will be pictures. Just not yet. I'm working up to it. But see, my problem is that I'm sort of obsessing about this project. I'm so excited and want it to be perfect and can't stop thinking about it!

So, today I'm going to share with you some of my inspiration thus far. We're really in the beginning stages -- as in, there's actual construction that needs to be done -- but thinking about the final product gets me through the more tedious stuff. Like, replacing the back door. But I'm hoping this inspiration dump will help me move on to actual planning. And actually replacing that door!

 

I want this room to be white. It's actually a pretty dark space and goal  number 1 is a  light, airy and relaxing room. Like the room above.

 

Or, like this room. I love the pops of blue and green. That is goal number 2: bring the outdoors in so it appears to be more of an outdoor room, rather than a screened porch. This will happen through both pops of color + actual plants.

Probably, not surprising, I love the pop of yellow here. And also, all the lovely green leaves.

  

Goal number 3 is that this will be a comfortable *dining room* for us, friends and family during the warm summer months.

 

I could sit here for hours.

  

And, lastly, goal number 4 is a finished room that will have more of a romantic edge. Lots of candle light and twinkle lights and laid-back atmosphere.

Thanks for listening to my idea/inspiration dump! Make sure you check back in -- I'll be updating as we go along.

** beautiful images via Desire to Inspire and House Beautiful**