We are online only for the time being
We are online only for the time being
Thanks and praise go out to my friend Sam. Because of him I've been inspired to start a new blog series. I'm calling it Rose and Thorn.
It's a pretty simple concept, but let me explain. Rose and thorn could be used to describe the best and worst parts of anything really. Example: What were your rose (best) and thorn (worst) memories from the past week? From your day at work? Rose and thorn of the new person you're dating? And so on. It's fun, I promise, and everyone can join in.
In an effort to stay focused my Rose and Thorn posts are going to be strictly about things that are going on with our house. Ryan and I work on the house non-stop. It's as much of a job as our actual job. I think it'll be good for me to vent (and swoon) over the things we work on and accomplish each week.
Owning a home is hard work and I want sympathy and encouragement, dammit!
Here it goes.
ROSE AND THORN 01
ROSE:
Most of the beautiful furniture we buy goes directly to the shop because I need to share. the. wealth. But, this time I got to keep the cool new thing that we bought and I feel so great about it.
We found this vintage tufted leather settee online in early March.
It was originally from an old mansion in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Of course it was, look at it. The problem was this beautiful settee was currently residing at a horse ranch in Spokane. While obviously closer than Jackson Hole, Spokane is about a five hour drive from Seattle and in my opinion a five hour drive calls for an overnighter. We knew we wouldn't be able to pick this guy up for weeks but that wasn't going to stop me from trying. Luckily after putting down a deposit the owner was willing to hold onto it for us.
After almost four months we were able to schedule a trip to get this beauty. The trip ended up being one of our first big buying trips and one of our most memorable trips together. Spokane is a pretty nice place and the settee was as perfect as expected.
In an effort to keep this stunner I offered up the sofa in the tv room (I guess it's more of a tv nook) as a trade. It's an amazing sofa and it has been a loyal companion for years, but you can't stop true love, and true love is how I feel about this tufted leather settee.
The tv nook before.
Getting to the point.
This week's ROSE was learning that the settee would in fact fit up our tiny staircase and then staging the room around it. I love how this space turned out and my life is upgraded because I finally have side tables. Side tables are now something I would consider a necessity not a luxury for this space. I also feel great about getting rid of over half of the interior design books that I never ever look at.
The tv nook after.
I can't wait to finish watching Boardwalk Empire in here.
Time to be a downer.
This week's THORN:
One word. WEEDS. Weeds weeds weeds. I hate you. Landscaping has always been a job outside of my comfort zone so I never really noticed when it didn't look good or if it needed work until it got really bad. For some reason this is the year of noticing. For better and for worse.
I'm trying to be reasonable and not overwhelm myself. I've decided to take one small section of the yard and just focus on that until it's looking its best and is as low maintenance as possible.
Here's our side yard after a week of weeding and maintenance. We'd like to add a few more plants and a layer of topsoil. The tall plants are jasmine, we're training them to wrap around the fence. They're still babies but eventually they should cover the entire thing.
I figure that slowly, after a lot of hard work, the entire yard will somehow become manageable and low maintenance.
One day.
Until then my parking strips look like abandoned weed gardens.
What were your home related rose and thorn this week?
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dominique
July 24, 2013
THAT SETTEE. it makes me weak in the knees, for sure.