Cozy Fall Weekend Ahead

My mom is about to make some upgrades to her kitchen and asked for my help. The room as it is now is beloved to her, but she recognizes that new cabinets offer much needed organization opportunities and storage space. Of course this leads to all sorts of questions of layout, new appliances, and new materials, and then next thing you know you have a project on a scale much larger than what you had envisioned. I think she is bringing me in for reinforcement, so she doesn't just retreat from the whole thing.


The first thing I do when approaching a home project is accumulate a lot of inspiration by looking through magazines and design blogs. It propels me into action. When the project gets underway and I start to feel a little lost, I always go back to it as a reminder of what's on the other side of all the discomfort, second-guessing, anxiety, mess, and bills. (I hate an inbetween stage.) So my first move was to send Mom images of good kitchens I have on file. I went through all the jpegs in my dropbox (Do you have one for your home and work computers? Life changing!!!), and in the process came across some images from a tiny 1840s farmhouse in upstate New York that I die for. It has nothing to do with my mom's project but I had to share. 

It is the epitome of this time of year in the Northeast.  This morning on my way out the door Mr. SevPrez told me I looked nice, "very Northeast," (plaid shirt and cropped corduroy peacoat) to which I replied, "Well, that's where we are!" But he begged to differ. He thinks we are just tristate. Can't we be both? Or do I really have to give it up and just move six hours north? Please advise.

Love the wall color, the map, the globe, the beat up table, etc. 

Amazing hand-papered wall treatment with blank antique paper. I have always loved this look, but this is the first time I've ever seen it done with blank paper. Lots of great bathrooms in restaurants in New York have done it with old books or newspapers. I would love to do this in a bathroom but I think maybe it's only worth doing in our "adult house." This is what my sister-in-law calls the house you see your kids growing up in. I'm not there yet, but hope our next house will be the one. We'll keep saving our pennies.