8 South

handmade: fabric letters and a blanket for mia

2011-04-11T14:55:00.004-06:00

Alice June shares the same initials as my grandma, so I wanted them to show up somewhere in her nursery.

I'd planned to buy something but then I realized I could just make my own. These were super easy, fast and addictive to make. I drew my own letters (but you could easily print any font) and printed them out, cut the fabric, topstitched, and then stuffed them. I had some left over tape measure printed trim that I used to make hanging loops. Easy and cute.

Then I made a blanket for a friend's baby girl, Mia. I wanted something a little girly, but not overly so. A pretty Anna Maria Horner print flannel that mixes sweet pink with blues and greens, a white minky back, and dark pink rick rack trim.

manly cupcakes

2011-02-21T22:36:00.004-07:00

This year for Josh's birthday I wanted to make manly cupcakes. The manliest of cupcakes. These are Guinness cake with Irish cream frosting. With plain silver cups that look downright stainless. Cue the Tool Time grunting.

The best thing about marrying someone a few years older than you is that they are always, from then on, older than you. If you ever get a little down about how quickly you're aging, just turn your head a little to the right, and just like that: someone even older than you.

Happy Birthday Josh.

{ anatomy of a bathroom } tile

2011-02-09T13:49:00.006-07:00

We're tiling the floor of our upstairs bathroom. The bathroom I had *hoped* would be done while I was still pregnant so I didn't have to run downstairs in the middle of the night. Now Alice is 5 months old and being up in the middle of the night is old hat.

I like tiling. It's actually one of my favorite projects. There's a natural rhythm to work. Scrape out the mortar, lay some tiles, space them out, check occasionally to make sure the grid is still straight. Place a bunch of whole tiles at once, then some cut work, then back to whole tiles. It's satisfying. And at the end of the day there's a lot to look at, a big plus.

I usually gravitate toward neutrals so that I don't feel locked into a color palette, but this green was just too pretty. It is called Mr. Green Jeans, a medium leafy green with a lot of yellow in it and I love it.

{ anatomy of a nursery } handmade

2010-12-22T22:55:00.011-07:00

While I was pregnant I got it in my head that I simply must learn to sew. I think it's natural to look down at your growing belly and start daydreaming about what kind of mom you might be, or might like to be. I wanted to be the kind of mom that knew how to make things.

My first sewing project outside of junior high home-ec class was this baby chew toy. It's wonky and full of silly colors and a perfect first project. Alice loves these kinds of toys right now because they don't require much coordination to get them from hand to mouth.

Next up was a swaddling wrap with super soft fleece inside. I went all-out girly on this one. Alice grew out of it approximately 45 seconds after I turned off the sewing machine.

Lastly I made these little monster bookends so that I can rotate out a few books from her collection and display them on top of her dresser. I deviated from the pattern and added (my first!) zippers to the bottoms of these for easier washing. This resulted in only minor cussing.

All of these patterns are from "Simple Sewing for Baby" by Lotta Jansdotter, which is not only full of great pictures and patterns but also illicited the response 'I could actually make that' which I wasn't finding in other books.

100 days

2010-12-22T22:14:00.005-07:00

Alice and her friend Dagny were born on the same day in the same hospital, just two hours apart, over three months ago now. Saturday they both turned 100 days old.

We all pitched in and made homemade potstickers (jiaozi) mostly giggling at our poor handiwork, while Dagny's mom Jing made perfect specimens and a whole spread of stir-fried dishes for our celebratory feast.

May both of our girls live for 100 years!

{ anatomy of a nursery } alice's room

2010-11-21T13:51:00.017-07:00

Let's take a little tour, shall we?

Awesome Alice in Wonderland print was a gift from Brooke.

We managed to fit both a crib and a twin-sized bed into her tiny room. I wanted to furnish the nursery with pieces she could grow into. The bed serves as a cozy corner for playing and nursing.

The dresser is vintage danish modern. That it matches the hand-me-down crib is a happy accident. The rug is Flor tiles, cut in half to make narrower stripes.

The closet had to be a work-horse to fit everything we needed into the room. It serves not only as typical storage, but also as changing station, cloth diaper storage, and library. I love her book collection made up of gifts from friends, garage sale finds, and books from my own nursery.

Close-up of the Studio Violet poster that started the color scheme. "You are loved" wall decal by Shanna Murray. I normally find wall decals sort of cheesy or juvenile but her's are so sweet. Red and white quilt made by grandma for my own nursery.

Otomi textiles from our trip to Mexico, a purchase I had to take home with me even though I had no idea where I would use them. I realized the happy colors and animals would be perfect for a baby's room, and matted them with pin-dotted yellow paper to pick up on the polka-dots throughout the room. Pillows, headboard, and bedspread made by me.

The sweet mobile was a gift from a friend, the ikea pendant lamp is purely aesthetic, as it doesn't actually work. I need a functional lamp in here! I'm pretty happy with how the room turned out. I think its pretty close to the inspiration board below, don't you?

9/9/10 was a big day.

2010-11-04T12:45:00.008-06:00

Our baby girl was born that day.

One day you're innocently walking around in a gigantic clown dress and the very next you're holding a baby. Nine months of contemplating this still cannot possibly prepare you for it.

We are very happy and healthy and a little tired.

{ anatomy of a nursery } inspiration board

2010-08-12T20:51:00.006-06:00

I pulled this inspiration board together before we knew if our little one was a boy or a girl. Either way I wanted lots of white, primary colors, and animals. I also hoped to squeeze a little daybed or twin bed into our tiny nursery so that there would be a place where we could all be together. I hate the idea of just having one rocking chair in a nursery and no place for dad to sit. Once we found out we were having a girl I thought I could "femme" this scheme up with lots of red, wood, and polka-dots.

I'm due in just 6 weeks, let's see if I can pull this together before little Sayer comes!

one thing leads to another.

2010-08-07T18:39:00.006-06:00

So. Much time has passed, and some progress has been made.

While I continue to gather up a few more things for the new nursery (!),

let's divert our attention to the guest room. And grandma Berry's stunning wedding quilt, which has been waiting for a place to shine for years now.

The rooms upstairs are small, so we've left the walls and trim a stark white and added in layers of bright color. The oak floors are the same as what we put in our bedroom, and most all the furnishings we repurposed from other places around the house. The light in this room is wonderful and I sometimes like to take naps in here. As do the cats.

We use the closet area as our equipment storage. At some point I'd like to either hang a curtain over the doorway or, better yet, move the whole storage rack to the basement. Still, this is much improvement from the 1,000 sf of construction space we had last year.

Big things are happening downstairs, too.....

holiday checklist

2009-12-20T19:20:00.002-07:00

The perfect tree's been found and trimmed.

The gifts have been wrapped.

It's almost time to go home.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

how could it be nearly 2010?

2009-11-14T11:49:00.009-07:00

Have you been to Etsy yet? It is your portal to a marketplace packed full of homemade goodness. Now that you know, you will never need a generic bookstore calendar again.

I've narrowed my 2010 choices down to two contenders:

Simple and colorful letterpress from a long time favorite, Linda and Harriet could be fun and I just love those snowshoes. The images are meant to be cut off at the end of the month and used as a postcard.

I hang my calendar from the side of the fridge. Maybe some wholesome veggie sketches from Claudia Pearson could inspire a year's worth of weeknight dinners:

Last year I went with a clean and colorful kitchen theme from Smack of Jellyfish:

A little better than Twilight pin-ups, don't you think?

right now

2009-10-10T12:13:00.010-06:00

Looking at this:

And dreaming of this:

Maybe some hiking

mystic lake

woodbine falls

A dip into a cold, refreshing mountain spring

half moon, in the crazy mountains

Maybe a little fishing

bighorn river

A float with a view:

yellowstone river

We had a busy summer, but I think we managed to enjoy it.

portland.

2009-07-20T22:47:00.009-06:00

Oh, Portland. I was so charmed by you.

Accomodations by the Ace Hotel. Whether I found it tragically hip or just a cool slice of the Portland scene, well I never quite decided. But I know for sure that mural was nice.

We continued to eat ourselves across the Pacific Northwest. Mmm donuts.

Travel by train came highly recommended. So much more enjoyable than flying, and the luxury of sitting back of enjoying the scenery gets missed when your fighting traffic on the interstate.

I was enchanted by the mix of sleek and grunge in this town.

New and old. Staid and seedy.
Perfect weather made everything shimmer, belying the city's more notorious weather patterns.

Lemongrass tofu from a food cart? When can I move here? Thanks for taking me along, Jo.

seattle.

2009-07-20T22:18:00.008-06:00

So, my sister Jo and I decided to go on a trip. Or, rather, I kept egging on Jo to take a trip with me. And then she called my bluff. Boy am I glad she did.

We walked something close to a thousand miles (a day.) We ate. A lot. It's not a bad day when your most difficult decision is what - and how much - to eat.

Did I mention we ate a lot? All of my pictures seem to be of food.

We revisited familiar landmarks, explored some new ones, and caught up with old friends.

It was Jo's first trip to Seattle. She loved the bay, the piers, the gulls. It's from growing up in Michigan. We all love water.

My favorite part of Seattle is the lush green landscaping.

Oh, and the coffee.

stillwater

2009-07-20T22:09:00.007-06:00

You might be wondering where we've been.

Well, we've been busy.

Really, really busy.

(hello, summer.)

before and afters, nightstand

2009-03-19T21:58:00.005-06:00

I had a tiny budget to finish out our bedroom. Luckily I found these little guys at the thrift store. They met all of my requirements: they had to have drawers, a small footprint, simple mid-century lines, and mostly be dirt cheap. I thought the walnut veneer was pretty, put there was too much damage so we had to paint. After settling on a pale, pale blue, I prepped and sanded and then Josh sprayed them at the shop. I even got all Martha on us and lined them with some silver faux-boix wrapping paper (by Ms. Stewart, of course.)

Also, a sneak peek on our closet-in-progress:

another kind of stimulus plan

2009-03-11T15:57:00.007-06:00

"Miss B" ,who writes at Blah,Blah,Blahg, noticed the collective blues we all seem to be sharing due to the unending stream of bad news lately, and decided to try and do something about it.

She created the Bright Side Project,a daily giveaway showcasing etsy and other handmade goodness. The prizes follow a loose theme, last month it was all artwork and this month it is all accessories. A winner is chosen based on their answer to questions meant to be thought-provoking and uplifting.
Part of the fun is throwing your hat in the ring to win a great prize, and part is to read all of the other participants answers. Play along here and see if it doesn't put a smile on your face.

Bedroom!

2009-02-17T15:08:00.009-07:00

Well, here it is. I haven't had a bedroom in over two years. I define a bedroom as having four walls, a ceiling, a floor, a door and one working light fixture. I've learned you have to be specific in these things. Libby got a new bed too, which you can see at the foot of ours.

I haven't bought a bedskirt yet because I don't know if we are going to get a new bed frame right away or not. The pillows and throw are all christmas presents, except for the hot pink one which is vintage. The lights are from IKEA and the rug I bought a couple of years ago deeply clearanced. The nightstands are temporary stand-ins. I'll show before-and-afters of some vintage nightsands I bought once we have refinished them.

A vintage record player table we got from my brother-in-law Curtis which will store linens for the upstairs. On top is a Julia Rothman print Josh gave me for Chrismas last year.

Plus a little vase we bought from a ceramics studio in Red Lodge on our anniversary. All of my decorations, art, pictures, etc. are in storage so I jumped at the chance to dig out a few for display here.

We are reusing all the old doors upstairs, and putting them in shiny new frames. They're all in Easter egg colors and I am tempted to keep them all like this until the whole upstairs is done and then paint them all white at once. That way just for a little while we can have silly pink, mint, and aqua. This door is pink with an aqua blue door handle.

The closet still needs another coat of paint and the actual closet fixtures. I'm happy with our decision to have a large open closet / dressing room and a modestly sized bedroom. It lets the whole space feel more open because there is still light poring in from three differents sides of the house. And, hopefully, it means we can contain any clutter to the closet and keep the bedroom clean and sparse, the way I like it.

reality check

2009-02-07T10:28:00.008-07:00

Let's just cut to the chase, shall we?
This is what I really would like my bedroom to look like:

Or maybe something like this:

If I get gutsy with color, nothing really beats this:

Unfortunately, my bedroom actually looks more like this:

top two photos from emmas designblogg via apartment therapy, third is from now defunct domino

the progression

2009-02-05T19:25:00.010-07:00

I don't have a true before of our bedroom, this picture is taken standing at the bedroom doorway and pointing in the opposite direction, but it pretty much says it all. Unfinished, easter egg colors.

Then we had a demolition party and knocked all the walls down (thanks Larry and Terry).

Pulled up and salvaged the old flooring which will be refinished and used downstairs. All new electrical, mechanical, and insulation, new walls, new ceiling, new flooring, new doors, new trim.

We are getting close.

new year, new bedroom (almost)

2009-01-04T12:04:00.008-07:00

Images from the new bedroom - old lights, new floor. After searching the internet high and low, I realized the vintage gold-stardust lights originally in our living room are better than anything I could buy. We bought new $5 fixtures (the part that actually connects to the electrical in the ceiling), attached the old shades and called it good.

Josh the electrician / plumber / drywaller / taper / painter. What can I say? He's extraordinary and he's all mine. Without him, this remodel would have been impossible. Hmmm, I'm not so sure thats a compliment.

A few months back, this was a completely unfinished space - no heat, no insulation, no electricity, no walls. When you're putting down finished floor that means you're getting close, right?

I was really, really hoping to have a bedroom for christmas. Now I'm hoping for a bedroom by February. At some point you'd think I would catch on to this remodel stuff - everything takes more time and more money than you estimate. Still need to sand and finish floors, trim out the space, hang a door, and figure out what we're going to do with the exterior door. Oh, and buy a bed and design / install a closet system, all those things that make a space livable.

Hope everyone had a restful holiday. Hoping for good things to come from 2009!

little pink houses

2008-10-04T18:43:00.003-06:00

Josh and I entered a local Habitat for Humanity design competition. They had a reception at the Yellowstone Art Musuem Friday night coinciding with art walk. We won a "Merit" award. Which is sort of like not winning. Except not not winning. Either way, it was fun and a good learning experience. Our concept was to create a set of criteria that Habitat could use to make every house they design be green, fit into the neighborhood, and better empower the homeowners.
If you're in town its worth a visit to the museum to check out all of the entries.

update

2008-10-04T16:30:00.005-06:00

Well, summer's officially over. We did manage to sneak out for one weekend on our anniversary, to Yellowstone Park. I had forgotten about those buffalo traffic jams. Good thing this guy was around to remind us.

We have also managed to make a fair amount of progress on the house, mostly on the second floor. We have not managed, however, to accomplish anything vaguely photogenic.

A list will have to suffice:

We finished tearing out all of the wood flooring upstairs, layed down new sub-flooring, and Josh sealed up the perimeter so construction dust wouldn't seep down to the main floor. We have pulled nails and cleaned up a big pile of the salvaged wood floor we are going to reuse (see the photo above.) The still-to-do pile is much larger though, it pratically fills our backyard shed.

We tore every last wall and ceiling down on the second floor, with the help of one extremely kind Kyle. It was a job Josh and I had been dreading, involving mountains of mineral wool insulation, an angry skin rash, dust, dirt, abandoned bee hives, and quite a bit of sweat. Also, an upstairs only accessible by ladder and an air mattress on the floor in the living room. There is basically nothing left of the original floor plan, and best of all, no more demolition parties.

Once the ceiling was opened up we discovered pretty extensive damage to the exterior brick up in the attic. Moisture problems had been eating away at them, and some entire bricks had turned to dust. After consulting with a local mason, Josh tore out the remaining damaged areas and replaced them with new.

We have air conditioning - we had the coil put in when we had our new furnace installed a couple of years ago, but have finally bitten the bullet and bought the unit since the model we needed was going to be discontinued. We used it about two times before fall came.

We have a new roof and for the first time ever - Insulation! We've gone upscale in these parts.

Now we are framing up the walls for three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small library area at the top of the stairs. And rehashing and re-scheming floor plan detail we designed more than two years ago, including the library and bathroom layouts.

We'll be adding a new "first" around here in the coming weeks: heat on the second floor. Maybe this winter I won't have to put a hat and scarf on before I go to bed.

Up next will be electrical and then sheet rock. I'm looking forward to some finished spaces around here.

creamsicle

2008-06-15T13:30:00.003-06:00

I don't think I've shown you the dining room in a while. We had a very crooked orange light for a few months before I got around to returning it and getting this less crooked one.
p.s. that is an outdoor table set. We got rid of our old dining set because we were so tired of moving it. That happens around here. I'm hoping someday we actually use it outside and get a real table indoors. One without a hole for an umbrella stand.

kitchen pictures! finally kitchen pictures!

2008-06-15T13:19:00.003-06:00

If you've been impatient for these pictures, just imagine how I feel.
Yesterday my hardworking husband installed a pot rack, a coat rack, a door, and got the kitchen sink up and running. It's amazing how the little things make it seem like an actual home.
There is still quite a bit of work to do here, finish the island, the upper shelves, tile, flooring, etc. but we've come a long, long ways. Having a functional kitchen is so alien to us, we keep going to the living room looking for pans, and to the pantry to find a sink.

before and afters

2008-06-15T13:14:00.004-06:00

Actually these are more like the "during and during" shots, as the befores are from after we moved in, and because we are not completely finished with the kitchen. Upper shelves still to come..

teaser

2008-06-15T13:12:00.002-06:00

Just another one of those Before shots.

proof

2008-06-07T11:08:00.004-06:00

Further evidence it doesn't take any expertise whatsoever to grow a garden. I can't wait until we can focus on the outside of our house. I'm going to completely tear up this flower bed and start over.

last weekend

2008-06-07T10:45:00.004-06:00

The one in which Sam tried to eat a perfectly adorable duckling. Don't worry, Josh retrieved it from the clutches of one bloodthirsty cat and released it back into the wild, or at least the nearest ditch of water.

how I spent Memorial Day

2008-06-07T10:37:00.004-06:00

It's hard to explain just how much we appreciate taking a morning off to do nothing but drink coffee other than to say I think the last time we did was Christmas.

how to build a kitchen

2008-05-17T10:35:00.002-06:00

First we built the soffit the kitchen cabinets sit in and furred out the exterior walls so we could get just a bit of insulation into our house. The cabinets will not always be a pile of boxes sitting in the middle of the living room. You can see our temporary kitchen-on-wheels setup in the first picture. This has been very convenient during construction, but very confusing when cooking and I can't remember if my pots and pans are in the living or the dining room!

this past month

2008-05-17T10:27:00.005-06:00

Let me catch you up on the happenings around here. For my birthday, Josh brought me a JoJo! Then he proceeded to make us all sick. Jo and I went to Butte, but there were too many vampires (and so much digging!) so we had to leave. Then I had jury duty. Then Josh and I went to Missoula to see Wilco and Greg. Which was as awesome as you might expect.
Oh, that, and we put in the kitchen.

Josh used to look like this

2008-05-17T10:12:00.003-06:00

Josh wanted me to snap a couple of pictures before he cut all of his hair off, just so he could remember how pretty it was.

and then installs lights

2008-03-20T21:03:00.003-06:00

Having lights is nice.

josh paints

2008-03-20T21:00:00.003-06:00

This was not a fun weekend.

new pantry

2008-03-17T21:30:00.003-06:00

Here's the new pantry, aka the old bathroom. We inherited the cabinet from a friend who recently remodeled and painted it candy-apple-red, then searched forever for a white countertop, and eventually ordered a taupe one. This will be a temporary kitchen sink setup for a while untile the new one shows up. It's also a welcome storage space, since our kitchen is soon becoming a major construction zone. I still need to get some pull for the cabinet doors and a little hook for a towel, as you can see above.

goodbye, old wall

2008-03-17T21:18:00.003-06:00

This was the very last piece of old wall in our kitchen. The last remnant of the old floor plan. Now nothing is left of the two bedroom apartment we first moved into. This is where our old much maligned trough sink used to reside. For some silly reason I felt a little sad to let it go, and even tried to talk Josh into reusing it in our new pantry. It now rests in our shed until I can think of a good use for it.

once

2008-02-18T21:41:00.002-07:00

This has happened exactly once. Normally these two are alternating between stalking each other and fighting. They're so in love!

it's been a while

2008-02-18T21:32:00.004-07:00

Hey, there. It's been a while. We're still working away. It's just not very fun (or photogenic) things, like new bathrooms. The new kitchen will happen, I'm told, and Josh is plugging away at all the unglamorous work to get it ready. See the beginnings of a new pantry, above. This was our old bathroom, in a previous post. And, assuming we do indeed find the "simple white" countertop I thought would be so easy to buy (silly me), we will get to do the very last demo work of the main floor - a skinny little piece of a wall in the kitchen holding up our favorite sink. I can't wait.

dance hall, dance hall, everyday

2008-01-16T21:58:00.001-07:00

One day in December we had moved all of our bedroom furniture out of the way to do some brick work, then quit and went to a Christmas party, and then at midnight came home to a huge mess and contemplated getting a hotel room (or an apartment). Instead we hauled our mattress upstairs. Although a bit cold, it's actually kind of nice to be up and out of the way of the main work going on downstairs. So we decided to move the whole bedroom.
The added benefit is the extra space in the living area means its easier to shove the couch and coffee table out of our way when we get to work. In the meantime, we have a lovely dance hall. Libby loves to square dance, although I'm partial to the running man.

making it worse before it's better

2008-01-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

Adios old bathroom! Can't say I'll miss you. This will at some point be a new pantry. In the meantime we've unearthed some pretty cool looking linoleum patterns.

back to work

2008-01-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year! We enjoyed a long break of doing absolutely nothing, and now we are back to the grind - trying to make progress and still have a place to live at the end of the day.

The next big project will be the kitchen. Before we can start installing new cabinets we need to:
- knock plaster off all the walls where we will be exposing brick
- clean and seal said exposed brick walls
- prepare and paint the ceiling
- finish demo'ing the old bathroom/ build and finish walls for new pantry
- plumb in/ install new utility sink so I have something to wash dishes in until the new sink's in
- rip up all wood flooring on the main floor and lay down new OSB
- make 1,000 decisions about cabinetry and countertops - we have the main cabinets nailed down ( white shaker-style base cabinets with open wood shelves above) but haven't picked the countertops yet (choices: boring laminate or super expensive)

I'm sure this list is missing some things, but you get the picture.

Bathroom's Done! (ish.)

2007-12-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

We're all enjoying the new shower. Well, maybe Libby misses the bathtub. Which is sitting out in the backyard. Anyone need a vintage clawfoot tub?

The bathroom is as done as we can do for now. Eventually we will order a glass door for the shower, frame up a nicer mirror, and get the towel bar that is still on back-order.

Also, we had a bit of a wallpaper fiasco. Our bathroom is way too grown-up-and-serious-looking for us as it is, so I bought some crazy black and white wallpaper with big pine trees on it, but the black trees just rubbed off and smeared all over the background when our trusty installer Dan put it up. It looked amazing from three feet away though, so we can't decide if we should try again. I'm craving something oversized and graphic to put on the wall, but I have no idea what to do now. It may have to wait until Josh and I move upstairs.

still tilin'

2007-11-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

Well, Josh finished putting the tile up; and we grouted the whole shower, a messy and difficult job in comparison to the floor tile. What exactly is left to make the plumbing actually work I'm not entirely sure of, but I know it's not totally done. And, we still need to install the door. As I learned a few months ago I do not handle bathrooms well when they don't have doors - some things just should not be shared!

tile guy

2007-11-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

Josh loves him some tiling! Just one wall left. We may indeed have a new bathroom someday.

lazy sunday

2007-11-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

Like our new chair? Libby does. We're toying with recovering it in some crazy print. Umm, someday.

kittens are creepy

2007-11-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

Meet Olive. And some rather Dramatic Lighting.

mmm.....dusty

2007-11-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

Larry, Malachi, and dust

later he will protect us

2007-11-06T18:36:00.000-07:00

Terry's big muscles = one big mess

Demo-Day 2007

2007-11-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

We had a first and hopefully last annual demo-day here Saturday and succeeded in completely tearing apart the upstairs. Now we can lay the sub-flooring down and not worry about dust/plaster chunks falling down to the main level. In keeping with our typical mode of operation around here, after two long days the house looks even worse than before. Thanks guys for all of your help!

meet my dog

2007-10-31T18:30:00.001-06:00

Libby usually likes to help. But sometimes it's all just too much for her, and she tries to find a way to end it all. So sad.

the sink that Josh built

2007-10-31T18:22:00.000-06:00

Want us to design and build You a custom steel vanity of your very own? It'll only take about four months longer than you hoped and cost twice as much as your budget, I promise. I like the built in tp holder - they're so fashionable these days!

Wood stoves are messy

2007-10-31T18:02:00.000-06:00

See our new wood stove? See how it's slightly off center between the window and the door?

Sometimes when you make a decision because you think it will be simpler ( like reusing the wall to your bedroom upstairs ) it just makes other things more complicated ( like forcing the stove off center and adding another $100 triple-wall-elbow to avoid stupid aforementioned wall upstairs.) At least, that's what I've learned.

"Nice little fixer upper"

2007-10-23T22:33:00.000-06:00

Well, here she is, back when we bought her.

For all the background info, "before" pictures, floor plans you could ask for, visit our website http://thesayerhouse.googlepages.com/

I'll try to keep this better updated.

My first blog post

2007-10-23T21:05:00.000-06:00

My husband Josh and I are currently in the midst of a major remodel of our first home, a two-story brick number built in 1907. After finding inspiration in other design and home blogs, I thought it might be fun to share our stories, show off our (slow) progress, and quite possibly let you laugh at the constant decline of my sanity.

Please enjoy.