Moving on

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to let you know that there won’t be much blogging going on here anymore.  We’ve decided not to focus on the design business at this time.

I’ve really enjoyed “meeting” some new people through this blog, so I’ve decided that I’m going to continue a personal blog at www.kfrer.blogspot.com. I’m still going to talk about design, but I’m excited to throw in a smattering of more random topics as well!  I’ll have a review of my new LED Christmas lights, a follow up on my desk chair, a massive siding and insulation project, and of course, my Everest, re-upholstering my chair!  (Side note – fabric has been ORDERED!!)  So anyway, I’m sad to leave, but I hope you’ll come visit my new home and leave me a comment!!

Old lights, new home

I opted not to use my old colored lights at home this year, but it seemed to me like a lot of wasted holiday spirit to just put them back in the basement.  Then I had a thought – where do I spend most of my waking hours?  WORK!  Sure, it may not be the most sophisticated space in the world, but it makes me happy.  And a little happiness at a place that doesn’t always make me happy is always a good thing.  Plus it makes the fact that it gets dark depressingly early a little easier to take, since darkness makes the lights prettier!

My husband and I each had mini trees from our childhood, so since he didn’t seem interested in brightening up his desk, I shared with my cube-mate!

Take that, guys on the other side of the office!  We’re WAY more festive!

Speaking of my cube-mate – how cute is she??  She actually made us little tree skirts last night!

So, do you decorate at the office?

zzzz and brrrr

I had to venture out into the freezing tundra to drop my husband off at the airport at 4:30 this morning, so I’m not feeling very bloggity.  I would, however, very much enjoy occupying and napping in one of these spaces, both from Country Living.

All those soft pillows and cozy throws……

Light up my life

Last year, my old colored light strands finally bit it.  Enough individual lights had burnt out that I’d gone through all the replacement bulbs, and I was ready for a change to white lights for this year’s tree.  If I was buying new lights, I wanted to buy LED for the energy efficiency and the promise of long bulb life.  However.  I can’t stand that blue hue of white LED lights.

Luckily, the fine makers of LED Christmas lights have finally (maybe this isn’t really new news, but it is to me!) come out with warm white lights!  AND – they have some that don’t have those goofy looking facets that the early LED lights had!  They now have a shape that looks like traditional white lights, but I opted for these smooth spheres.

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Hooray!  Now I just need to locate another spool so that my tree doesn’t look naked.  Also, I need to get a tree.  Might be a task for this weekend!

Decision Time

Here goes – the final 6 choices for my chair project.  I have a front runner in mind, but I thought I’d put the options out there for the masses….er, well, the 4 of you actually reading this.

Option 1:

Option 2:

These first two were the winners from my first round of samples.  For reference, the other side of my room looks like this, hence the love for brown:

(The chair is just on the other side of the green wall, where the striped rug is in the foreground.)

Option 3:

Options 4 and 5:

These two are essentially the same, but one has a more traditional fleur de lis pattern, while the other has a more botanical theme.

Option 6:

Sorry for the blurriness here – this one feels like sort of a combination between 5 and 6, but on a more natural canvas/ burlap colored background.

So there you go – the final 6.  I’m done looking at options for fear of adding another 6 options, so I’m definitely going with one of these.  Tell me your vote in the comments!

(Edit: Sorry about the wacky formatting!  I think I fixed it!)

Darn

I had a post planned for today…and I forgot my images at home.

In the meantime, how cute is this wreath from Liz Owen’s blog?  I love holiday decorations that don’t SCREAM Christmas, or lead you to believe that Santa might have actually moved in.

The Office Chair

Remember how I was considering one of these?

They live at Pottery Barn, and go for about $400.  Yeah….not happening.

And then the Craigslist gods smiled on me, and I snagged this for $25!

It’s from Sheboygan Chair Company, which is extra cool for me as that was a local company in Wisconsin until it was sold in 1952.  Which means my chair is really old, and I get an extra little thrill of it not being completely off the shelf from a chain retailer.  There’s nothing wrong with that, as I’ve made the case for it before, but I do like having a mix of old and new.

I think my plan will be a very, very dark stain and probably a chair pad and lumbar pillow to help wean my husband off the old executive chair and to give me a place to start accessorizing and adding new colors and pattern!

Office Ideas

I’m just browsing House and Home for some ideas about what to do on the walls of my home office.

I like the pinboard on the far wall, though I think I’d like something larger, and off the desk surface itself.

I definitely want storage above the desk.  I like the look of floating shelves, but I’m concerned that I wouldn’t actually be able to put much real weight on them without them coming right off the wall even if they’re anchored to the studs.  Perhaps open cabinets might fit the bill…

Here, well, who wouldn’t love that much storage??

Project List

I’ve been making slow home improvements over the past few months, and I feel as though I’ve got all these ideas rattling around in my head for the future, and it helps me to put it all down on “paper.”

Office:

• new desk Yay!!
• new chair
• floor covering
• above the desk plan….shelves?  Tackboard?  Other?

Living Room:

• round shaggy rug Yay!!
• upholster chair – yes, I HAVE narrowed down those many fabric choices!
• end table
• overhead lamp
• wall shelving

Master Bedroom:

• new bed linens Yay!!
  
• accent pillows and/or blanket
• window treatments
• bedside table
• bedside lighting
• end of bed linen storage bench
• low profile ceiling fan with light

Guest Room:

(apparently I have no photos of this room…)

• low profile ceiling fan with light
• window treatments

Stairs:

(use your imagination here as well…)

• re-hang newly stained handrail
• figure out method to make stairs less slippery
• window treatment
• wall decor

Kitchen:

• non-broken faucet

Whew….long list, and I think the most boring item is going to win the race.  Yep, our kitchen faucet is broken.  Again.  How does this happen?  The faucet that came with our house when we purchased it about 2.5 years ago immediately developed a pinhole that sprayed water from the side.  We performed a very classy fix involving duct tape until we replaced our cast iron sink with a used stainless model that came with a faucet.  A faucet which now does not fully turn off without great force and precision on the handle.  Sigh.  So this time, we’re not messing around.  The next as yet un-purchased faucet will be top of the line – isn’t this sort of thing supposed to go out of style before it wears out?

Office Progress

I’ve been talking about this room…well, a little bit.  Like here, here, here and here, lol.  And finally, I’ve made a move!  I’ve been stalking Craigslist somewhat obsessively for about a month, but I’ve been thinking about doing something, anything in this room since we moved in.  I’ve mentioned how disorganized and inefficient and claustrophobic this room has made me feel.  I’ve never shown it to you.  Because it looks awful.  But for the sake of progress, here is how it looked yesterday.

Shudder.  What a hodge podge.  Now, the corner desk itself is not bad.  If you aren’t us – people who like and need to spread. things. out.  I was constantly driven crazy by feeling like I couldn’t set anything next to me while I was typing.  And all that crap, er…important paperwork on the white drafting table?  That’s my husband’s “filing system.”  It’s next to the full paper tray I bought him specifically for filing lol.  Also, please make note of the wall calendar on the left.  Yep, that’s a Twilight calendar, and my husband received it for Christmas last year from Santa.  Haha.  He highly dislikes it, and is very lucky that I didn’t make him hang it at his work office!

Aaaanyway, like I said, I’ve been looking for the perfect Craigslist table to refinish, and it was so not working.  Everything was too small, too big, too expensive, sold out from under me, etc.  I considered getting something built, but by this point I was consumed and didn’t think I could handle the waiting, not to mention the potential high cost of construction.  So I was visiting a friend last weekend in Chicago, and we found ourselves at the blue behemoth, Ikea.  And lo and behold, I came full circle back to an inspiration from my first post about this saga, the Melltorp table.

The price, $70 for the biggest one, was right on, as I really didn’t want to spend more than $100.  The color is unobtrusive, the style is simple, and it miraculously fit into a VW Jetta after a bit of coaxing, so it came home with me and went up IMMEDIATELY.  If I couldn’t stand the clutter in the office, I couldn’t handle the clutter plus boxes.

And here we are today!

It’s so very unfinished, but I feel better already!  Our crappy plastic drawers even feel a little better as they sort of blend into the legs.  I wonder if it’s worth it to try spray painting the also crappy filing drawers, as I doubt they’re up for replacement in the near future.  Items whose future is less certain…That lovely chair, complete with 3 year old hole in the back (moving incident – we even have a patch kit, but the hole remains!) and the rug, which came with the husband and I’ve never liked.  Also up for design, the vertical space.  I’d love to have almost nothing living on the desk aside from a little light and the laptop!  Therefore, some sort of shelving will happen up there, and I’m considering a large pinboard for some visual interest.  Time will tell!

As far as the chair, I need to decide on a direction.  I’ve always loved these bankers chairs.  (Note to my parents – I’ll take yours any time you decide you don’t want it anymore!)

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source I think something like this upholstered chair would be fun and a little different, while still being comfy.

source I’ve thought these chairs are really cute and fun for a long time, but I don’t know how my very tall husband would feel about such a low backed chair, especially keeping in mind the type of chair he’s used to.

What do you think?  Tell me in the comments!